One of the many joys of going independent and writing on Substack is that I work at the eye of a trend piece. There’s a storm circling around me with fights about Substack’s politics and its promise as a media disruptor. But at the center of that vortex, I’m far more focused on my own business than the broader maelstrom around me. I’m very fortunate to say that my paid subscriber count has now grown beyond 1,500 and more than 22,000 people now receive my free emails. I’ve been enjoying a steeper growth curve lately.
This week on the Dead Cat podcast, Katie Benner, Tom Dotan, and I talk to technology Substack writer Casey Newton. On the podcast, I reminisce about how I phoned Newton during the depths of the pandemic to tell him that I was going to leave Bloomberg to start a Substack only to learn he was about to launch one as well. Newton founded Platformer, a go-to destination for news and analysis about what’s happening in the technology industry — especially at social media companies. Newton and I are part of a group of writers that formed the Discord community Sidechannel together. (Paying Newcomer subscribers get access to the community, though I’ll confess that my channels are fairly dormant.)
Our discussion was sparked by a news story about what’s not happening. Substack apparently isn’t raising a new round of financing, according to the New York Times. Unlike fellow Andreessen Horowitz portfolio company Clubhouse, which raised at a $4 billion valuation in April 2021, Substack hasn’t earned a unicorn valuation. Substack reportedly generated about $9 million in revenue in 2021. Given the turbulent financial markets, Substack abandoned its fundraising effort, according to the report.
Newton celebrated Substack’s failure to fundraise in his newsletter:
One, it reduces the pressure on Substack to financialize every facet of its newsletter, podcast and app ecosystem. In March, when the company introduced an app, I noted here that Substack shut off emails from your subscribed publications by default — a worrying step, I thought, toward building a centralized platform that the company could monetize more aggressively. To its credit, Substack changed the default to preserve email subscriptions within 24 hours. But giving up more equity to VCs will bring more “suggestions” from the company’s board to move in this direction. The more Substack can rely on its own cash flow, the more easily it can chart its own future.
Two, having less cash on hand can enforce a useful kind of discipline on a company. Having giant piles of cash on hand can be great for making splashy acquisitions or experimenting with new products. But Substack is still figuring out just how many people can sustainably enter this line of work — solo creators, operating mostly without a safety net, selling media for a monthly fee.
(On the podcast, we also talk about Elon Musk’s Twitter bid and Snap’s tumbling stock price.)
Give it a listen.
Read the automated transcript.
The State of Newcomer
Given that we’re already talking about Substack — and since I’ve gained a bunch of new readers lately — I wanted to give a brief tour of the Newcomer newsletter to help you all navigate what I’m publishing and get a sense for the rhythms around here.
Dead Cat
I publish Dead Cat — the podcast with my friends and fellow reporters Tom Dotan and Katie Benner — toward the end of the workday every Tuesday. (We usually record on Fridays.)
The podcast is free and is meant to be a little looser than the newsletter. Dead Cat, while still pretty fixated on Silicon Valley inside baseball, is more oriented toward the culture of tech and less focused on money than my newsletter articles.
Dotan is a reporter for Insider. He writes about the gig economy after spending years covering companies like Snap and Disney. Benner writes about the U.S. Justice Department for the New York Times after many years writing about Wall Street and Silicon Valley. The three of us worked together as reporters at The Information, where I was the first employee. We’ve been close friends for many years.
You can listen to the podcast on Substack’s app or on Apple or Spotify. I’ve started including an automated transcript of our conversation in each podcast post.
We’re averaging more than 1,800 listeners for each episode, according to Substack’s analytics. If you’re not interested in Dead Cat or don’t need an email to remind you to listen, you can opt out of receiving the emails on your account page. (I’ve been trying to put more meat on the bone of podcast posts so that even if you just read them, you’re receiving an email that will interest you — like my interview with the Uber driver who leaked the video of Travis Kalanick that arrived beneath a Dead Cat episode.)
The podcast’s name is a reference to a text conversation between Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg. Though if you prefer to associate it with a dead cat bounce, I won’t hold it against you.
Newcomer Newsletter
As regular readers know, I publish newsletter articles somewhat chaotically. Variety is the spice of life and I enjoy chasing different types of stories that take varying amounts of time to complete.
I almost always publish a standalone newsletter article each week (usually toward the end of the week). Most weeks, I try to save something for paying subscribers. That can mean putting a paywall halfway down an article — like saving exclusive financial information for paying subscribers — or putting entire pieces behind the paywall.
Types of Newcomer Posts
* In-depth profiles of Silicon Valley main characters based on a probing interview. Think: Elad Gil Wants You To Live Longer or General Catalyst's Secret CEO or Above the Crowd.
* Sweeping, deeply-reported narratives about a venture capital firm. Probably my most iconic piece remains, The Unauthorized Story of Andreessen Horowitz. And Andreessen Horowitz has been perhaps the main character of this newsletter with pieces like When Will a16z Become a Public Market Investor? I’d put my profile of Bessemer Venture Partners — The Anti-Portfolio — in this bucket. I’ve also been covering Y Combinator closely with my interview of YC President Geoff Ralston YC = Growth, What Insiders Think About YC's New Deal Terms, and Ali Partovi Wants to Beat the Old YC.
* Stories about top investment firms based on their private fundraising materials. Recently, I published a look at Tiger Global with some of the firm’s private fundraising decks. (I added a few more slides after publishing the article by the way if you haven’t returned to it since.) Fans of that piece should also check out my article Inside 3 Crypto Funds' Investor Decks. I’ve gotten my hands on another pitch deck so I should have another similar piece out in the coming days.
* Market trend pieces. Recent examples: Here’s What Investors Think the Treacherous Public Markets Mean for Private Startups or Good Times in The Great Revaluation. These pieces rely on my building up a depth of information about a particular sector before dropping it in a single post.
* Story of a Cap Table articles. These are fun and instructive venture capital case studies. They’re always popular. An example from late last year: The Story of a Cap Table: GitLab. The challenge with these pieces is that they require interesting companies to file to go public — and cooperative sources at a regulatorily-paranoid time in a company’s lifetime. Given the slow IPO pipeline, there’s been a slowdown in cap table stories.
* Weekend reading posts. It’s a fun way to concisely hit a bunch of different topics at once. But, truth be told, I’m always ambivalent about them. If you know me, then you know I feel guilty whenever I’m not breaking news or bringing exclusive access to a piece. But I think the reality is that I spend a unhealthy amount of time reading tech news and many readers are happy to get a rundown of what I think matters. I’m always trying to think of new ways to level these pieces up.
* Scoops. I’m addicted to scoops. I live for the adrenaline. Definitely, my scoop on OpenSea’s funding round was important for the newsletter. I made that piece a broader look at Katie Haun and Andreessen Horowitz. If it’s getting toward the end of the week and I haven’t published anything yet, I’m probably scrambling for a scoop. It’s a great time to send me a tip.
* There are other long-form pieces that don’t fit neatly into these categories. I wrote a case against Rivian. I’m still really proud of my investigation into Palantir’s SPAC investments. I should write a follow-up piece on how many of those investments have gone terribly.
Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe
00:00:06
Welcome, silicon Sally. All right, we're here with dead
00:00:14
cat. This is Eric newcomer, Tom and
00:00:17
Katie are here, and we have fellow sub, stacker Casey Newton
00:00:21
of platformer. We're gonna sort of just fun
00:00:25
episode talk about a couple different things.
00:00:28
Interesting piece in the new At times about sub stack failing to
00:00:32
raise funding, which Casey is written about snaps stock is
00:00:36
down, 45%, in the last month, another interesting happening in
00:00:41
the sort of social world. And then I feels like we haven't
00:00:45
talked about Elon Musk on this podcast.
00:00:49
Another nice, you know, we thought about other things, even
00:00:54
though that is the dominant story and rating, some dips,
00:00:57
their PCS also got right. You got to do Ilan again.
00:01:01
Casey welcome, thanks. Thanks for coming, on to the
00:01:04
show. Thanks for having me gang.
00:01:06
How are all things that? How are things in platformer
00:01:08
World these days since we're going right into sub stack?
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What's, what's the latest from the platformer?
00:01:12
Which I don't read, by the way. Thank you.
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But my understanding is that it's like some sort of French
00:01:17
language newsletter. That covers like Algerian
00:01:21
startups doesn't basically it you guys broke the big news
00:01:24
about flanking cajuste. Okay yeah if you want all the
00:01:28
latest on sort of The Tick-Tock behind the Flint.
00:01:31
Could you deal go to platformer dot news and subscribe things
00:01:35
are going really well. Platformer like I truly do wish
00:01:39
I could go back and talk to the version of myself that was
00:01:42
thinking about leaving my job and starting a sub stack and
00:01:45
just explaining like here's everything that's going to
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happen after you do this and it would have made the decision, a
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lot easier. So very happy to be doing this
00:01:54
independent thing. Well, I can't remember talking
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to that version of you is I called I forget if I You know,
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we got no phone Casey out because you had your newsletter
00:02:04
The Verge and I, you know, I was a Bloomberg and so I got on the
00:02:09
phone with Casey and honestly I had no idea.
00:02:11
He was about to start platformer though, it made sense.
00:02:14
And I was like, oh yeah, I think I'm gonna quit my job in like,
00:02:17
start a sub stack. Like, do you think that's crazy
00:02:19
in case? He's like Icy Hot.
00:02:21
I'm sure. I feel like they're pretty
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different both, right? About tech broadly, but I'm very
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money-oriented, you're very platform oriented we have sort
00:02:34
of are different enough spins that we don't feel like
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competition. But we also have names worth,
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ER, yes. Casey, do you feel competitive
00:02:45
with Eric? Like tell us that she's dumb.
00:02:47
Yeah. And so the whole reason I came
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on this podcast is, I want people to hear my voice.
00:02:59
Products. This is doing the upright, need
00:03:02
to run the disinviting competition on.
00:03:04
We need your in the sort of New York Times style daily.
00:03:07
Add, you know, the daily is free.
00:03:10
But what really pays for this is if you subscribe, so subscribe
00:03:14
to newcomer and then if you're already a subscriber newcomer
00:03:18
you can subscribe to platformer. Yeah.
00:03:21
So Katie and I are collecting nothing from this.
00:03:22
I thought that out there now it is I mean, just like be a little
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bit serious about this. Yeah, I grew up reading the LA
00:03:29
Times had a lot of really great columnist there and I just
00:03:32
basically lucked out that I lived in an area that the LA
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Times Like delivery trucks reached.
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And as a result I got access to these great columnist.
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They're all these people. Now the you know, particularly
00:03:42
now that the newspaper industry is going through such a hard
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time, the don't have access to those people but we have the
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internet and so you can just find the columnist that is right
00:03:51
for you and you pay them what I think is a pretty reasonable Low
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monthly rate and you keep a columnist that you love and
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business. So like I just love that that
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model of the world that we're living in, and then the people
00:04:04
who are really good at it, are like able to live lives beyond
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their wildest dreams now, does it sad and you though that this
00:04:10
might be gutting? Your beloved LA Times it?
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Yes. I know I'm very sad about, you
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know, what's happening to newspapers.
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I also as somebody who worked in newspapers for the first 10
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years of my career was Frustrated by how slowly they
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were evolving, right? Even though the writing was on
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the wall, you know, some Publications.
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Like the New York Times in particular, I would say, Adam
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incredible job of remaking themselves and, you know, more
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recently Publications like the Washington Post, I think have
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really kind of risen to the challenge.
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So I think you can do it but it's a lot easier for the big
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national International Publications to do it than the
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local pubs about. And is it really zero-sum?
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Like Katie? I feel like that's sort of the
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media old newspaper sort of framed you You see this?
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Like do you think really like a dollar going to a sub?
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Sack writer is a dollar loss to to a newspaper.
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Something that's how I would formulated.
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I was just saying that the idea of people getting news from
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places other than traditional media, right?
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And at large siphons away, well on the local newspaper, look at
00:05:13
everything that the thing that sustained them for the longest
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time was the sports section, right?
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Like that was, you know, people had a relationship to the beat
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writer for the teams that they followed and the columnist
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there. And then there was that awful
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period. For the athletic, when they were
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on their way up and the CEO. Alex Mather said, fairy
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inelegantly to the New York Times, you know, our goal is to
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bleed all of the local sports, you know like all the local
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papers from their Sports sections, right.
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At least he's like believes will go like they're trying the New
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York Times about the athletic. Yeah.
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How did nobody like make that connection when that whole deal
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was going down? It was hysterical.
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I mean and I like Alex a lot but like it was like this bull
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moment of like, well I guess you didn't believe the right
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personality to frame the news. Which is really a, not news
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story, The New York Times, Ben Mullen reported that, you know,
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subset had been out trying to defend Muslims and already
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making waves of the times they're media reporter.
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Yeah. And the you know they've been
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trying to get valued at 750 million to a billion and the
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round and come together that they had Revenue about 9 million
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in 2021. And you know, I think important
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contacts for this is increase in Horowitz as Invest in both sub s
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clubhouse, right? And Clubhouse which has like no
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Revenue, raised it, a four billion dollar valuation was
00:06:33
extremely Buzzy and sub stack is sort of been sort of I don't
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know. Ugly stepchild I'm sure they'd
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hate that but you know just isn't as glamorous hasn't got
00:06:43
the attention but I mean subjects producing revenue and
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has seems to have more staying power than Clubhouse.
00:06:50
Anyway so Casey is written about this.
00:06:52
He is relieved. Maybe that Sack didn't didn't
00:06:56
get the money. So Casey what sort of your
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argument there? Yeah.
00:07:00
I mean you know, we've all read the stories about startups that
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raise too much money and investors hopes got too high and
00:07:08
then the investors started to metal and gave them a bunch of
00:07:10
horrible ideas for what they should do next.
00:07:12
And that almost always comes at the expense of the the user
00:07:15
base, right? And you know earlier this year
00:07:18
sub stack released an app by default that app turned off
00:07:21
email notifications. So like if you downloaded the
00:07:24
sub stack app, you would know Her got platformer in your
00:07:26
inbox. The whole reason I wanted to do
00:07:28
this line of work, was I had this direct connection with my
00:07:31
audience. You could already see that
00:07:33
potentially going away after, you know, I and others wrote
00:07:36
about this sub stack. Wound up walking that back, they
00:07:39
just a match. Stripe people who got the out
00:07:42
from email, which was insane. Like, I agree, but they reverse
00:07:46
course, but you can imagine. You can imagine a world where
00:07:50
they were suddenly, you know, they had an extra hundred
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million dollars of venture capital and two years go by and
00:07:55
their investors are getting really nervous and they say, you
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know what, actually I think it's time for us to take 20% of your
00:08:02
revenues or like whatever. It's so I think that like,
00:08:05
they're still in this and all of a sudden then platformer is
00:08:08
writing on another platform, you know, instead of an email that
00:08:11
that's the risk, right? You know, I'm actually think
00:08:14
that over the years subjects had percent cut has come to look
00:08:18
more and more reasonable compared to what other people
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take wishing is maybe something we could talk about.
00:08:22
But, you know, basically, I'm relieved that they Raise this
00:08:26
money because I think they have sought some basic structural
00:08:28
questions to ask themselves about what they're doing to get
00:08:32
the combat kind of core model working, and I don't think you
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need another hundred million dollars to do it, right.
00:08:38
Like, they need to figure out how to live within their means
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and, and really figure out how to grow that base of users and
00:08:44
get themselves to like sustainability.
00:08:46
I strenuously disagree with, you know, I mean, it feels like for
00:08:50
once the media business had a chance to have blitzscaling at
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its back and then we don't even Even, we don't get the money.
00:08:57
I mean, I mean, what how, what would they do to blitzscale?
00:08:59
They would just go out and pay like 5 more people.
00:09:02
A hundred thousand dollars to see if they would turn into,
00:09:04
right? Well, let me see, did she was in
00:09:05
the? I didn't read the full story but
00:09:07
what was the as is my signature on this show?
00:09:09
But what was the plan with the money?
00:09:11
I mean, what did they sort of see as the value?
00:09:13
And I don't know that that was reported.
00:09:15
I do I think a key point is that sub stack has said that they're
00:09:20
toning down their sub stack Pro program.
00:09:23
Their VP of comms was on a Twitter spaces with me.
00:09:26
And she, she said that, and I think that's interesting because
00:09:30
I was really, I mean, I didn't I didn't get money from them, they
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offered me like a weird small loan.
00:09:36
That was definitely not like a sign of strong, belief and
00:09:39
newcomer. But, you know, I think it's sort
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of incentivizes, you know, sub Stacks that don't have sort of
00:09:47
business front center to start and then potentially not
00:09:51
succeed. But but to answer the question
00:09:53
of how I'd like money to be spent to, To build ways for them
00:09:56
to drive audience, which is the thing that they haven't haven't
00:09:59
done really. Yeah.
00:10:00
So you know you can work out a couple interesting numbers based
00:10:03
on what we know about sub stack so they just passed a million
00:10:07
paid subscribers in November, I believe.
00:10:11
And we now know, according to Ben and Ben's reporting that
00:10:15
they had about nine million dollars in Revenue.
00:10:18
So 9 million in Revenue, I mean just back-of-the-envelope that
00:10:22
assuming 5 million of that is coming from Barry Weiss.
00:10:26
Maybe two million is coming from, like the bundle of
00:10:28
newcomer platformer Glenn Greenwald a Matt Taibbi.
00:10:33
The rest is probably Alex Berenson is that mostly the
00:10:36
revenue breakdown. They have they have more
00:10:39
Publications make making more money than I that I think people
00:10:43
like Ken and your own evening Barry White's.
00:10:45
Barry Weiss is number 6. I just don't want to unfairly
00:10:48
compliment her because letters from an American Kevin and
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Heather Cox Richardson is one on politics.
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The dispatches to Matt Taibbi, these three the bulwarks for
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Glenn greenwald's five and she's six.
00:11:00
Anyway, just fact check there. But if you look at the numbers,
00:11:04
what that means is that most people who subscribe to a public
00:11:08
subset publication or only subscribing to 1, right?
00:11:10
Because most of these things are somewhere in the like 70 to 100
00:11:13
bucks a year range. But you know, it's subsets whole
00:11:16
eating. One of their big promises is you
00:11:19
come be a part of this network and we're going to make it so
00:11:21
easy for you to get customers because they will likely already
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be a customer of another sub stack.
00:11:25
From there, it's just a couple of TAPS and all of a sudden, you
00:11:28
know, we charge their credit card for yours as well, you
00:11:31
know, and they even will show you like a graph of where your
00:11:33
people come from and, you know, to hear sub-sect elat.
00:11:35
There's suddenly a lot of like, existing subset customers but
00:11:38
wait a minute, by the way, maybe they are, you know, like, I'm
00:11:40
not saying that I doubt them, but it doesn't seem like most
00:11:42
people are having that experience and they do think
00:11:44
it's like a long-term risk to them.
00:11:46
Hmm. What I mean, we've sort of seen
00:11:49
this particular game play out so many times in the media of
00:11:52
building up a subscriber base. And everyone's looking for the
00:11:54
next wave Going to help you grow the business.
00:11:57
And the obvious one is just bundling, right?
00:12:00
It's all the same Playbook and I'm assuming you're talking
00:12:03
about growing audience growing subscriber base, that's clearly
00:12:05
going to be on the table. They're going to try to bundle
00:12:08
you guys with with other people of similar topics or maybe even
00:12:11
have like a diverse bundle. So you skeptical, I don't think
00:12:14
it's a great idea to be honest. I think it's a way to juice
00:12:17
numbers without juicing Revenue. A key.
00:12:20
A key feature that they've rolled out is recommendations
00:12:23
where instead of Sort of viral algorithm writers can recommend
00:12:28
other writers and that's been driving a bunch of subscribers
00:12:32
to people including myself as a great, great organic feature
00:12:37
where Riders can decide what they want to do.
00:12:40
That's like sort of more like on the right hand side of the page.
00:12:43
I have the blog's I think too long which was kind of like the
00:12:49
pre it's sort of like it's Preparing People psychologically
00:12:53
for bundling Well, yeah, because think about how this has played
00:12:58
out with cable right there was cable.
00:13:00
Everybody hated it. Like, why do I have to have all
00:13:02
this garbage just to get you some pain?
00:13:04
And then there was like Netflix and Paramount plus and Amazon
00:13:08
video and then people woke up one day and they're like, I'm
00:13:10
paying, wow, hundreds of dollars a month for all these individual
00:13:15
stripping networks, and that has to come to an end at some point.
00:13:18
And so how that comes to an end, and how it shakes out is still
00:13:21
being worked out. And I think that for direct to
00:13:24
consumer News. It's sort of a similar idea.
00:13:28
So if I'm paying $150 for newcomer and Casey whatever case
00:13:32
he's charging me $100, it's an insane bargain I probably giving
00:13:36
anything away, it's 33 percent off the newcomer price and so I
00:13:41
haven't I'm helping people so you got money like I am
00:13:44
publishing decks from billion dollars that's $250, just
00:13:49
between the two of you, it's $250 that's my retirement
00:13:53
account and every company case he writes about And say that I
00:13:56
also want to pay Heather Cox Richardson and I also want to
00:13:59
pay you know, Matt Taibbi suddenly I'm like why am I
00:14:02
paying a thousand dollars a year for news but like Casey said,
00:14:07
most I not could I not just pay less money and subscribe to the
00:14:11
Wall Street Journal? I mean, so that's sort of where
00:14:14
you cut what you come to which is why bundling feels like the
00:14:17
natural certainly comes from the New York Times Reporter.
00:14:20
It's where it's gonna, I mean, it's coming guys.
00:14:22
There's there's zero chance to my mind that that sub-sector.
00:14:25
I think what you're under it under estimating, is the idea
00:14:28
that like Niche audiences, like, how would I can make more money
00:14:32
off that like I have a sustainable business now, making
00:14:34
more than I make it Bloomberg, I feel like sure.
00:14:37
You guys are my friend media people.
00:14:38
Subscribe to a lot of newsletters because you need to
00:14:41
be stay up on media, but I think you guys are the sort of outlier
00:14:44
cases and subscription Behavior. Most of the people subscribing
00:14:47
to newcomer, you know. Yeah.
00:14:50
I published some exclusive financial information that they
00:14:52
want to read and they sign up to see that.
00:14:55
Like they're very they're there in sort of the VC world, you
00:14:59
know they're interested in. So I just I don't think they're
00:15:02
like subscribing a newcomer because they're like these
00:15:04
general consumers who want want some very sophisticated VC sake
00:15:09
that I think that you that it's probably a good idea and you and
00:15:13
Casey obviously know this better than I do to think about the
00:15:16
financial fortunes of the folks were writing for sub stack
00:15:20
versus the financial fortunes of sub stack as a company.
00:15:23
Sure. So it's true that you two might
00:15:25
be Quite well, but how a sub stack doing overall?
00:15:28
And I think that that's where the decision-making around
00:15:30
something like, bundling comes into play less.
00:15:33
So than how you work, a Seer personally doing, and the
00:15:36
bundling aspect might not be for you, but if there are say, you
00:15:41
could guess hundreds of people on sub stack writing about their
00:15:45
Grandma's favorite recipes, wouldn't it make sense to put
00:15:48
all those grandmas together with all their delicious recipes?
00:15:51
Yes. So, I actually made the example
00:15:54
that we were talking about this. In my Discord server this
00:15:56
morning and food writers was the example that I use.
00:16:00
So what I like to see subset consider is to offer,
00:16:04
essentially optional bundling tools, so that if you are a
00:16:08
recipe writer, a food, writer with a relatively small
00:16:10
following you want to go in with 9 or 10 or 12 other people that
00:16:13
are doing the same thing, help each other grow.
00:16:16
You might actually, sort of come out ahead and all of that.
00:16:20
And at the very least, I like if I were sub-sect, that's where I
00:16:23
would start because, right, because if they come out,
00:16:25
Tomorrow, and they say, we're introducing a Netflix model, and
00:16:27
it's like all you can eat for ten bucks a month.
00:16:29
You know, people like me and Eric Garner going to run
00:16:31
screaming from that would destroy our business.
00:16:33
Yeah, right. And remember Apple tried that
00:16:35
with their news? Bundle with Apple news and they
00:16:38
couldn't get almost any Publications to sign on board
00:16:40
with that. I think just the LA Times And
00:16:43
The Wall Street Journal, but it was a fiasco.
00:16:44
They couldn't get the other big-name pubs that they would
00:16:46
have wanted. But the interesting thing about,
00:16:48
you know, this bundle of Niche products is that in television,
00:16:53
it doesn't work. I mean like the bundle Model
00:16:55
only works because ESPN is the most popular cable channel in
00:16:59
the country, and it charges significantly more than any
00:17:02
other network to the cable Distributors, and they kind of
00:17:06
keep the whole business of float, right?
00:17:08
It's like you want ESPN and we're going to bundle everything
00:17:10
else in there and it's part of the kind of hard-ass
00:17:13
negotiations that the media companies have.
00:17:15
And, you know, with the like different skinny bundles which
00:17:17
was a whole failed model there were attempts to make you known
00:17:21
on ESPN bundles. There is this company still out
00:17:23
there called Philo It was, you know, they would pejoratively
00:17:28
refer to it as the loser bundle because it just had a MC.
00:17:31
And, you know, HGTV and all the discovery.
00:17:34
Other networks viewers were losers or the comp.
00:17:37
Well, I'm not, I'm not casting judgment myself as to who was
00:17:40
the real issue for him but but, yeah.
00:17:43
And so, I mean, it's one of those rare things where
00:17:45
everybody knows is, that's yeah, that happens.
00:17:47
So often in media. But but yeah, I mean, I think
00:17:51
the trouble with the idea, I love the idea of what you're
00:17:54
proposing, Casey and it obviously.
00:17:55
You see is like, you know, helping to Rising tide lifting
00:17:58
the weaker boats. I don't know.
00:18:00
And kind of like a much more organic way to do customer
00:18:03
acquisition. Yeah, but it's just there's no
00:18:05
history of it working and that's enough.
00:18:08
I will say though, slightly related, if somebody offered me
00:18:11
a channel and don't care how it came to me, streaming whatnot,
00:18:15
that was only like murder shows. I'd be very excited.
00:18:19
True Crime shows, if I could get NCIS Law and Order like CSI,
00:18:23
Etc. All in one Panel how much, how
00:18:27
much money do I have? I think all those shows are on
00:18:29
CBS the ultimate, but what about like that shudder?
00:18:35
Like, I mean, shutter is a streaming service?
00:18:38
That's just horror movies, right?
00:18:39
It's probably not like a massive success but I don't know it's a
00:18:42
business. Yeah, it's okay.
00:18:43
It's part of AMC, but but I say, I guess, the reason I bring it
00:18:46
up to you guys is that like it would be a little bit strange to
00:18:50
bundle newcomer with Grandma cooking blogs or or you know
00:18:53
platformer with Auto blogs or something, but they kind of need
00:18:58
those anchor Publications in there to kind of prove larger
00:19:02
value and I think that's where the negotiation happens maybe
00:19:06
eventually they will go to like the very biggest sub stacks and
00:19:09
just offer them a great deal and say, you know, you're making a
00:19:12
million will pay you a million and a half.
00:19:14
If you're part of this bundle, you know, because we know you
00:19:16
probably wouldn't make that as part of the bundle just by the
00:19:19
basic math. But, you know, we want to
00:19:21
incentivize more people subscribing, like, I could see
00:19:23
them doing that. But, you know, We've been
00:19:25
talking about this from the subset perspective, which is
00:19:27
good and fine, but you think about it from The Writer's
00:19:30
perspective. It's like they also just have a
00:19:32
bunch of writers on their platform now who could leave and
00:19:35
just do this sustainably forever and it's not clear that you
00:19:38
actually need a sub stack to keep the business going right?
00:19:41
Like you know journalists are so cynical and pessimistic about
00:19:45
every business model that I think they a memory of under a
00:19:49
now. I see it that I'm gonna just Tom
00:19:52
just uh they underestimate what a great.
00:19:55
Job, this can be right. You think about how big the
00:19:57
internet is? If you can find two thousand
00:20:00
people to pay you a hundred bucks a year, you're making more
00:20:02
money than almost any Media Company would pay you for any
00:20:04
reason. There's a lot of groups of two
00:20:06
thousand people on the internet. So, like to me the really
00:20:10
exciting thing here is, you know, I hope substract is, it
00:20:12
has a long successful run, you know, I have no plans to leave
00:20:15
it. It would be inconvenient to do
00:20:17
so. But like, also, I'm not
00:20:18
terrified about them going out of business because to me the
00:20:21
model works, like I found my few thousand people and I can just
00:20:25
do As long as I want to and we have a direct relationship with
00:20:27
stripe. I mean, part of the reason sub
00:20:29
stack has been able to recruit. Everyone has been the fact that
00:20:32
you can leave II. Don't think they would do a
00:20:34
bundle that would infuriate writers.
00:20:37
I think they would have to do it in a sort of additive way and I
00:20:41
want to talk about other things, but I do think the long tail
00:20:43
issue is going to be a problem for sub stack.
00:20:46
If I had to make my business case against them, I think you
00:20:49
know in anything you know, influencer economy, sort of
00:20:53
celebrities win and That's the top sort of get sort of really,
00:20:59
really rich and everybody else is sort of screwed.
00:21:02
I mean I feel like I'm sort of I mean we're you can analyze like
00:21:05
the sub stack lists and sort of see and I do think there's a
00:21:09
sharp drop off you know from 1 2 3 4 5 and then by 10 it's
00:21:16
probably much lower and so if they can't get the long tail to
00:21:20
make good money then they'll have less fewer sort of new sub
00:21:24
sex coming in. The shot at being sort of the
00:21:26
celebrity writer or I don't know, Casey, what's your view on
00:21:29
that small. So let's talk about the long
00:21:30
tail. The number one sub stack.
00:21:32
Publication is a guy that writes about how to manage your career
00:21:36
as an engineer. Basically, if you pitch is that
00:21:39
Homer one overall. Yeah.
00:21:41
I'll technology contact. Yeah.
00:21:43
And so if you were to pitch that column to any mainstream,
00:21:46
publication that said that's way too nitzsche get out of here.
00:21:49
Our readers would hate it and this guy's this guy's easily
00:21:51
pragmatic engine 450, 500 thousand bucks a year, right?
00:21:55
So if there are more niches like that, then I think the long tail
00:22:00
is actually going to be really successful.
00:22:02
Now you know we could talk about the characteristics that these
00:22:04
really successful businesses. Have they write for rich people,
00:22:07
continuing education for rich people.
00:22:10
They tend to be something that you can expense, right?
00:22:13
They tend to be something that helps you make more money.
00:22:16
So look not, you know if you're if you want to write a poetry
00:22:18
diary it's probably not going to succeed to the same degree but I
00:22:22
think it's much more productive to think about this in terms of
00:22:25
like What sorts of Publications could work and who, you know,
00:22:28
who is the person that could write the publication?
00:22:30
And at that, I think you'd have a bunch more people.
00:22:32
Make him half a million bucks. Here, I one thing that I really
00:22:34
liked about this part of the conversation is that it shows
00:22:38
that you can be really successful in an online platform
00:22:41
where you have a broad audience for anybody can access you
00:22:45
without being sensationalist and insane person fighting with
00:22:49
people and just being generally wretched.
00:22:51
Aka the Twitter model. Where is he instead?
00:22:55
It's like, use, if you just want to nerd out with a bunch of
00:22:57
people who have your general nerdy interest, that's great.
00:23:00
And actually, I don't know that a poetry version wouldn't be
00:23:03
successful because there's a part of me that's like, well, if
00:23:06
it were Edna st. Vincent Millay.
00:23:07
Maybe I would give them a little bit of money, but that's so
00:23:10
great. That makes me so happy.
00:23:12
And one of the biggest viral hits on sub stack of the year
00:23:15
has been someone who's just sending out chapters of Dracula?
00:23:20
Like, I don't know, if it's want, like, a couple times a
00:23:22
week or every day, but it's become a huge Tumblr meme,
00:23:25
because First Dracula was, or I believe, it's an epistolary
00:23:28
novel, you know. And so, you know, people are on
00:23:30
Tumblr because, you know, because they know what's going
00:23:33
to eventually happen to the narrator are just sort of like,
00:23:35
don't tell me are having and we won't spoil it here on the
00:23:38
podcast, but people are having a lot of fun, just sort of in the
00:23:42
in the lead-up to this met again, you know, that's just
00:23:44
like a public domain work that some ways that record-breaking
00:23:47
bunch of money and I don't know if they're monetizing it or not.
00:23:50
I mean you know it's a public doing work but they still could
00:23:54
be up, you know, people are Being creative with it.
00:23:56
And I appreciate Katie bringing up the fact that like, you know,
00:23:59
we as journalists who live on Twitter all day, you can come to
00:24:03
believe that Twitter is the only way that you could ever do media
00:24:06
and that every single story has to have the elements of Scandal
00:24:10
and outrage, dialed up, as far as they can, possibly go to have
00:24:13
any chance at all of getting attention and like meanwhile
00:24:16
like I don't know, just like go look at the headlines on the
00:24:19
stories that Eric and I right there like beautifully boring,
00:24:21
like they never over promise anything, I try to make them
00:24:24
more board. It's just I don't have a very
00:24:28
yeah I'm not no salacious no I don't like that.
00:24:31
You're most Reds by the way. Just out of curiosity.
00:24:34
Every time there's a battle or is the battle its signal, or
00:24:38
like the war over. What was that?
00:24:41
Other the company you covered so well base camp.
00:24:43
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:24:45
I mean, look, I, you know, and I've written the, the stories, I
00:24:49
would argue that the material in there justifies the headline.
00:24:52
Yeah. But I think like the trick is
00:24:54
just Not to constantly over rotate.
00:24:56
Like I think we could all name Publications.
00:24:58
That just always sort of put the most absurd headline on
00:25:02
everything and it and it just shows their deep insecurity that
00:25:05
there's actually enough material and there to get anyone to
00:25:08
justify cooking. Also works for yeah.
00:25:10
Listen. Sometimes we have to A/B test
00:25:13
those headlines to find out which is the most absurd but we
00:25:16
know when we've hit it I will say something you know just to
00:25:20
both of you guys and generally where the industry is gone over
00:25:23
the last few years. That I also find very hard Thing
00:25:25
is the rise of the reported column.
00:25:28
I think is very much attached to the sub stack model.
00:25:31
And, you know, we saw people at like, Ben Smith at the New York
00:25:33
Times, do a great job at this, but I actually think it's a
00:25:36
great direction for journalism to go because I don't think
00:25:40
there's any turning back the clock on people's opinions being
00:25:43
out there as journalists. I mean, Twitter is fundamentally
00:25:46
broken that and it for for most reporters, I think.
00:25:50
But what I like so much about, you know, newcomer and case a
00:25:54
murder when you Started, I think before it was called platform or
00:25:57
when you started your newsletter and you basically laid out like
00:26:00
here's the way, the Kira here are my views on the world of the
00:26:03
internet and like I believe that Facebook has caused a huge
00:26:06
amount of harm. I think Fox News has caused
00:26:08
more, you probably have other tenants in your, you know, you
00:26:11
know, your Hadith that explains it more in depth but I think
00:26:15
that's an important thing that has come out of this whole
00:26:19
Trend, which is, you know, you can still allow yourself with a
00:26:23
political or social world view. But also get like, you know,
00:26:26
General General Nutrition from it, that is valuable to at least
00:26:30
like supporting your worldview and like maybe giving you
00:26:33
opportunities to think about things.
00:26:34
So there's my, there's Michael absolutely can thank you, thank
00:26:38
you for saying that. But by the way, that idea of
00:26:39
sort of, like, laying out, Here's Where I Come From.
00:26:41
That's an idea that I stole from Jay Rosen and why you Professor
00:26:45
anyone can do it. I highly encourage journalists
00:26:47
to think about doing it. It's, you know, it's enormously
00:26:50
clarified to just like look it up blank Google doc until like
00:26:52
what do I actually think about the world?
00:26:54
Just try to write it. Down and once you have I think
00:26:57
it just it brings real Integrity to your work.
00:26:59
You know, I get so frustrated by all these really talented
00:27:02
reporters that I follow on Twitter, who's like, whole mode
00:27:05
of engaging. With the world is just like,
00:27:07
basically, quote tweeting stuff with LOL and LMAO like, that's
00:27:12
that's their only. If you're a reader of those
00:27:14
Publications and that's all you see those reporters doing.
00:27:17
It's really hard to believe that they're there to do anything,
00:27:21
you know, about the world. But laugh at it.
00:27:23
And I think that that actually Mine's The credibility of
00:27:26
Journalism. So I appreciate what you said
00:27:28
Tom And yeah, I'm a huge fan of the reporter column, like Ben
00:27:31
Smith is basically my North Star.
00:27:32
Every time I pick up the phone. Whoa, same band, but I think he
00:27:39
would love to hear that. I told him the other day and for
00:27:44
me I mean Casey a little further along in his career but for me
00:27:48
like, you know, I don't know if I would have been able to get a
00:27:51
reported column job and so this was a way to sort of Force the
00:27:55
issue. And thankfully you know I got
00:27:57
enough subscribers to justify it but it allowed, you know, that's
00:28:01
a job that's part of in some ways not the case with been but
00:28:04
for a lot of reporters given to reporters once.
00:28:06
They're tired of reporting a little bit but happy to have it
00:28:09
sort of a little earlier in my career that I might have been
00:28:12
able to a traditional media Outlet also you know beyond just
00:28:16
the reported column. We also support the just very
00:28:19
good and informative column which maybe could transition us
00:28:22
to heal on time and and Matt Gene's continuing domination the
00:28:26
most so good, analyses of whatever bullshit Elon is
00:28:31
throwing out us on a weekly basis.
00:28:33
It comes in armed with facts. That's what makes me not really
00:28:36
different from Ela. Will you trust him?
00:28:39
And I like more than the financial system or report, you
00:28:42
know, it's like oh that's guys the decider of what how the
00:28:45
world works and I read it anyway, what should we say about
00:28:48
Elon? Should we, should we go into it?
00:28:49
Should we save it for the end, I sort of jump to it but you know,
00:28:52
we let's do that. I mean, I think it's maybe like
00:28:54
the Or C, Elon thing has been the biggest recent development.
00:28:59
I mean, Casey has a close Watcher of Twitter, like what
00:29:03
the, what's wrong with Jack Dorsey?
00:29:05
I mean, he like, I mean, he's basically betraying the guy he
00:29:09
put in as CEO. It's like, Prague has been CEO
00:29:13
for. I don't, I don't know of the guy
00:29:15
maybe is bad but like he's been in it for like a couple months
00:29:18
and now Jack's. Like I'm glad that were none of
00:29:20
us can. Remember prague's name, we have
00:29:22
a yeah. Jack dorsey's position is
00:29:27
ideally. Twitter would be controlled by
00:29:28
no one and it should be this utopian and artistic world.
00:29:33
But since we can't have that, let's have fascism of Elon Musk
00:29:37
on Twitter instead and Only the strongest Among Us can rule,
00:29:41
like, what if the guy has the most in coherent worldview?
00:29:45
Why? I feel like that was so
00:29:46
crystallized. When after the Elan deal was
00:29:48
finally announced and Jack posts, a link to radiohead's
00:29:52
everything in its right place as like some sort of Arrival point
00:29:55
for this whole deal and is like, do you read the lyrics to that
00:29:58
song? Have you ever listened to that
00:30:00
song before and didn't just look up?
00:30:02
You know, a song name that has the right in it because I would
00:30:05
not call that the, like the utopian ideal of, like, any
00:30:08
situation, why? Yeah, it's, this is makeup
00:30:13
sucking on a lemon. I mean, it's like radiohead's,
00:30:17
just stop it, you know, kid a record.
00:30:20
Nothing is positive that would be referenced in that song or
00:30:23
album, but go. Off check.
00:30:26
There's like also this beautiful Symmetry and just like Jack and
00:30:29
Elon using their companies to just like by things that please
00:30:34
them whether it's Elon using Tesla to buy Solar City or Jack
00:30:39
having Square by title. Like to stick like using these,
00:30:42
like public companies is piggy banks.
00:30:44
But you know, as far as like what is Jack thinking?
00:30:47
You know, I talked a lot of people about this the best
00:30:49
theory that I've heard is basically Jack was all but
00:30:54
forced out of the company, right?
00:30:55
These activist shareholders came on, they said you're not hitting
00:30:58
any of these targets. And so last November, he's
00:31:01
basically told, like you, it's time for you to go, you're not
00:31:05
even trying to do any of the things that you promised to do.
00:31:08
And so he leaves and tells the world that I do, you know, it's
00:31:10
my choice. I'm stepping down and he did get
00:31:13
to Pam pick a successor. And so he picked parag who had
00:31:16
played a big role in this blue sky project, which is, you know,
00:31:19
try to turn Twitter and to some kind of decentralized protocol.
00:31:22
So at the time it seems like Jack thought parag was the Spat
00:31:25
to create the Twitter of his dreams, but then a few months
00:31:29
later, he hears that Elon is acquiring stock and his interest
00:31:32
in the company. And of course, they've been
00:31:33
friends for a while. And so, you know, Elaine starts
00:31:37
Gathering, you know, a position of the company.
00:31:39
And then, if you look at the proxy statement, like the day
00:31:42
after they reach a standstill agreement for Ilan, to stop,
00:31:45
buying shares, and Twitter, Jack goes to heaven is like, why
00:31:48
don't you just buy it? And so like Jack according to
00:31:51
the regulatory filings is the person that upset The apple cart
00:31:55
and and triggered this whole thing.
00:31:58
And it's because he really wants to get this thing off the public
00:32:01
market. And I think that's because he
00:32:04
has all this scar tissue from the fact that he was forced out
00:32:06
of his own company twice. And so it's like if he can't run
00:32:09
it, that no one can. And so it is this very emotional
00:32:13
reaction. Wonderful, there does seem like
00:32:16
this view from Jack through his tweets that like he was the CEO
00:32:22
but he couldn't really do what he wanted.
00:32:23
Because ultimately Sort of there are there are obviously moves
00:32:27
you have to make if you're doing things for the public markets
00:32:30
and so you do those and like you just can't be as crazy as he
00:32:34
would have one. I mean that sort of capitalism
00:32:37
you know but like is he still going to be under capitalism as
00:32:40
a private company? Or I don't know, I guess the
00:32:43
question here is, how much do you let jack off the hook for
00:32:46
the idea that he wasn't able to do what you truly wanted to CEO?
00:32:51
Because he had to be sort of a good Steward of the company as a
00:32:54
public, Company's CEO, right? But I mean that it's such
00:32:57
nonsense, you know. Know it had more of an
00:32:59
opportunity that Jack Dorsey to shape the future of Twitter.
00:33:01
You know, he co-founded it. He was CEO of it twice.
00:33:05
You know, most recently for six years, he was also chairman of
00:33:08
the board. So for this guy to come out
00:33:09
after all of that and just be like yeah, like what about you
00:33:12
know, Twitter never became what it should have.
00:33:14
Its like that is literally or well that could not be more your
00:33:17
fault. Right.
00:33:18
Right. It would be kind of like, if
00:33:19
Dean baquet were like God, well, I was running this show.
00:33:23
We really never did what we should.
00:33:25
Crazy sounding that would sound insane.
00:33:28
Completely. Unlike Jack just gets a past
00:33:30
even though he's, you know, he was he was at halftime CEO which
00:33:32
was also his choice, right? Like that was that's what makes
00:33:35
me even more galling. Why does he get a pass?
00:33:37
It fascinates me so much more than any other executive of any
00:33:42
industry I've ever covered. He gets a pass every time.
00:33:46
Well, I mean, so Elon also gets this pass, right?
00:33:48
That's true. Another thing that they have in
00:33:49
common but this is a big reason. Why the activist investors came
00:33:54
on in T20 to begin with, was that they were sick of it.
00:33:58
And it was clear that Twitter was underperforming in part
00:34:00
because they had a terrible CEO who was barely paying attention
00:34:03
to the company. So it did actually wind up.
00:34:05
There was a consequence for him which was that he lost his job,
00:34:09
but he can't stop meddling with it.
00:34:11
And, you know, now the the Twist and The Saga this week is that
00:34:14
he's apparently going to roll his Equity over into the new
00:34:17
Elon company, you know, and that'll probably be a big
00:34:19
position and he may be able to actually, you know, continue to
00:34:22
exert control on the future footer.
00:34:24
Everything you just ABS is in so many ways, like very vindicating
00:34:28
of the Nick Bilton book on Twitter where he describes Jack.
00:34:31
Dorsey is basically like a scheming moron and it's what I
00:34:36
remember when that book came out.
00:34:37
People are like, that's so mean Jack.
00:34:39
Such a good guy like, but I don't know.
00:34:42
Like, I would say that that book is not looking so terrible.
00:34:46
And I wonder what was it about Jack Dorsey that for that huge
00:34:51
chunk of time people, so wanted to defend him and Text him.
00:34:55
I did. I kind of don't get it.
00:34:57
I mean, why don't you know when you tell Nick, Bilton, who you
00:34:59
are believe them. The first time there.
00:35:03
Look, there there is a tradition in of founder worship and in
00:35:08
Silicon Valley. And if you go back to 2013, 2014
00:35:11
Jack really did look like this transformational figure who had
00:35:15
two incredibly powerful ideas, right?
00:35:17
Twitter and square. And, you know, till very
00:35:20
recently like square look like an even more amazing company
00:35:23
than Twitter and it basically, every way, Right?
00:35:25
So there's this idea that once you're lucky twice, you're good
00:35:28
and by that standard, how could Jack Dorsey be anything but
00:35:31
good, but I think the past five years or so, I've really taken a
00:35:35
lot of Shine off of that because he's become so disconnected.
00:35:39
You know, he's remotely managing these companies in between
00:35:42
meditation Retreats, it is just not.
00:35:45
He just doesn't seem to be as serious as a person as he didn't
00:35:49
like 2013 2014. But that point of view is why
00:35:52
it's probably so convenient for him to have this removed.
00:35:55
Move from Twitter as you know, the CEO and kind of say why is
00:35:58
it not achieving its full potential?
00:36:00
What is going on here? It's like well you first of all
00:36:02
are distant from the company physically for a time when he
00:36:05
decided he was going to move to Africa.
00:36:07
But also it's just so it's such a perfect microcosm of this era
00:36:10
that people are refusing to take any responsibility for their
00:36:13
actions. And instead speaking very, you
00:36:16
know, for like an illusory way of how they are, you know what
00:36:20
is the sphere of influence that they have on things and who is
00:36:23
responsible for the largest? Sequences of the world.
00:36:26
I mean, it's perfect. He is a man of our time.
00:36:28
This deal is still not happening, or do you have a bet
00:36:33
Casey. I mean, the stock market is
00:36:35
clearly not certain it's happening but sort of the the
00:36:38
odds seem like they went out this way.
00:36:40
I mean it's a really weird thing about this week as last week was
00:36:43
the week of chaos and Eli making it seem like the deal was never
00:36:46
in happened this week. He got rid of the margin loan
00:36:50
that he was going to take out against his Tesla shares
00:36:52
suggesting. He was going to leave her light
00:36:54
up more. People to take equity in the
00:36:56
company. So, I mean, this week, it was
00:36:58
like a completely different Elon Musk.
00:37:00
He stopped, you know, tweeting, weird stuff about the company
00:37:02
for the most part, and started tweeting about Elden ring
00:37:04
instead. So, you know, if you want to
00:37:07
have like a musket M, that's like, How likely is this dude is
00:37:10
like this week, you know, it's sort of swung over to the end.
00:37:13
Maybe it goes through side of things.
00:37:15
Do you think? Is it?
00:37:16
He can get outside money. Yeah, I mean, he's already lined
00:37:19
up. You know, billions of equity
00:37:21
been a lot of reasons is right. What's up?
00:37:24
Yes. A lot of the deal was supposed
00:37:27
to be done. Yeah, I think I'm a
00:37:28
accommodation I've done Equity but like, I would like Andre
00:37:31
some. I think was going to take
00:37:32
everybody. Yeah, yeah.
00:37:33
And Sequoia, but they weren't that big.
00:37:35
And if you are an employee at Twitter right now, how do you
00:37:41
what exactly is your commitment to this company?
00:37:43
And to whatever Mission, you think you are attached to you
00:37:46
right now. I just it blows my mind.
00:37:48
It's one thing to sort of see the circus playing out on TV or
00:37:51
wherever, but to decide that you are part of Something greater
00:37:55
that there is still, you know, beyond just like clock in and
00:37:58
out and, you know, pushing code like actually feeling like there
00:38:01
is a light here. That's going to result in like
00:38:03
the greater, good of the company and maybe even the world like,
00:38:06
what, what where is your brain at?
00:38:09
Well, I mean, you know Twitter is, is very important product.
00:38:11
It's important every day. I mean, you know, all the
00:38:13
horrible things that happened this week and how essential
00:38:16
Twitter has been to understanding those events in
00:38:18
real-time. So I'm sure plenty of people who
00:38:19
work at the company are just happy to continue doing that at
00:38:23
the same time. I also know a lot of Our people
00:38:25
are looking for other jobs right now.
00:38:27
A lot of other Executives have quit in the past few weeks.
00:38:30
We're going to see a lot more of that in the weeks to come.
00:38:32
You know, keep in mind probably had what three months running
00:38:35
this company before this whole catastrophe started to unfold.
00:38:37
So he didn't really have much time to rally the troops.
00:38:40
And as soon as he did start talking to his troops on a
00:38:42
regular basis, it was, you know, trying to manage their feelings.
00:38:45
Around this guy with a kindergarten level understanding
00:38:48
of content. Moderation saying he was going
00:38:50
to come in and blow up the company, right?
00:38:52
So Prague has not been popular among the rank and file.
00:38:55
I'll just a very difficult situation, so Prague is not
00:38:59
popular either. I mean he was, it was well-liked
00:39:04
when he was named Twitter CEO, he's a known quantity, there
00:39:07
he's been there for over a decade.
00:39:09
People did respect him but he has not been able to do much
00:39:13
since he got to the company in terms of improving it and making
00:39:17
people feel better about their jobs.
00:39:19
He's been firing a lot of people.
00:39:21
We got any that's or your do you know what?
00:39:24
That's cute. Always mean, I think it's fairly
00:39:27
standard like new CEO comes in and cleans house a little bit
00:39:30
and wants to pick their own deputies and lieutenants, who
00:39:34
are more loyal to them. Great timing.
00:39:36
Yeah, I mean it couldn't wait until after the deal went
00:39:38
through to start accessing favored top-down univ.'s.
00:39:42
That would make sense to me. I mean, you know, he eventually
00:39:44
came forward and said, I have to be prepared for any eventuality
00:39:48
and you know, and I think the subtext there was if this deal
00:39:51
falls through. Like, do I want to squander
00:39:53
three or six months while I I have these people who I don't
00:39:56
really trust in these positions of high Authority.
00:39:59
I don't know what give to me the most optimistic outcome.
00:40:03
Like if you were to say everything, you know every Lon
00:40:06
cleans up his act, the deal goes through.
00:40:08
What does the ideal version of Twitter?
00:40:10
Look like six to eight months from now.
00:40:13
I mean I think like the best case scenario is that as Elon is
00:40:18
confronted with the everyday realities of running Twitter.
00:40:22
He sort of speed runs the past Decade of all of us learning
00:40:26
about why content. Moderation is good for business
00:40:29
and whines up not changing that much of the core product, right?
00:40:34
Like when you look at what you'll want to do with Twitter
00:40:38
aside from what he said about Free Speech, there are not a lot
00:40:40
of big changes that he is proposed.
00:40:43
So there's a world in which he runs the company and it doesn't
00:40:46
change all that much. I think that's about as good as
00:40:50
you can hope for like, I don't think he's going to be a
00:40:51
transformational leader. You know, Twitter was working
00:40:54
fine for him. He's the, you know, number one
00:40:56
user on the platform is businesses or helped
00:40:58
tremendously by the fact that, you know, he can promote them
00:41:01
there. So why would he change it that
00:41:03
much? Yeah, as a side note, that is
00:41:05
why it killed me that there was like a Spate of op-ed saying,
00:41:08
like, what we're seeing here is billionaires, controlling the
00:41:10
media. And, you know, Elon Musk is
00:41:13
going to turn Twitter. And do a megaphone is like 80
00:41:16
million followers. What more megaphone does he
00:41:18
need? Like, how does that pass as like
00:41:21
smart analysis? Twitter has already a megaphone?
00:41:24
Yeah, I do not. And the liberal worry about Elon
00:41:26
Musk taking over Twitter at all. Like I just don't see what he
00:41:31
does. It's so bad and I would love,
00:41:33
I've said this a billion times already, but I'd love for Ilan
00:41:36
to be culpable for every bad thing that happens on Twitter,
00:41:39
like especially if he's burning himself, is like a Republican.
00:41:42
And so, you can say, oh, this is for once, like conservative has
00:41:47
to actually govern something people care about and can be, I
00:41:50
even like all the Kangas and and shoots a school full of children
00:41:53
and post all the photos and videos.
00:41:54
Is on Twitter or something like that?
00:41:56
Maybe maybe who knows be there or I don't know what's the?
00:42:00
But you're saying like if he's going to loosen things up and
00:42:03
let the puppies, are thinking about what they post on your
00:42:05
rate and not sensor and a bunch of crazy-ass, shit shows up like
00:42:09
people being beheaded over. So you always had the red, it
00:42:15
cou Shawn, you know, had that whole tweet storm that was very
00:42:18
popular, which basically had the idea that ultimately, you know,
00:42:22
people are forced to Satisfy the consensus of the mob, right?
00:42:27
Is that how you would characterize it Casey or I mean
00:42:30
basically like there's just a level of public pressure that
00:42:33
even the most like True Believer conservative wouldn't be able to
00:42:36
stomach. Like you're saying Katie and
00:42:38
therefore they would make the same decisions that the good
00:42:40
Liberals are making giant. People don't want to believe
00:42:44
that there is consumer demand for Content moderation.
00:42:47
But there is a promise you like, consumers, love contact,
00:42:50
moderation. I don't want to open a social
00:42:53
media app and see. Something, insanely Dreadful.
00:42:56
I don't want that in the most moderate consumers like that,
00:43:00
that they're the ones who want content moderation, because they
00:43:03
don't want to be annoyed by the insane extreme behavior of the
00:43:06
fringes. That's what never made sense
00:43:08
about Iran's you. It's The moderates Who on
00:43:11
content moderation, not the far left or the far-right like this
00:43:14
is all, we all know, like, just hurtling towards a scenario,
00:43:18
where Tucker Carlson is, you know, arguing Lee arguing
00:43:21
vehemently towards the need to see beheading videos on Twitter.
00:43:24
Right. It's just going to be him
00:43:26
saying, like the big media companies.
00:43:27
Tell you, you don't want to see people's heads being chopped
00:43:30
off, but actually you really actually want, you didn't want
00:43:33
to see it. My family wants to see it and
00:43:35
your family wants to see it too. Yeah.
00:43:38
When the families of those who have been beheaded, they also
00:43:41
want to see that again. We're thinking when I should be.
00:43:43
So yeah, yeah, Casey I mean, this is like the Tom's getting
00:43:48
at. I mean and you touched on this
00:43:50
earlier that like you think that in your mission statement that
00:43:53
fox Was worse than Facebook. And it's like, I think a lot
00:43:57
about, I mean, I don't know, like, but yet, there's so much
00:44:01
more interest in, like, understanding how social media
00:44:04
companies behave than yeah, like fox or, I don't know, how is
00:44:08
your thinking on that sort of grow?
00:44:09
Well, in on this is like, in this, it is, so, we like, Fox is
00:44:12
very straightforward. Like, you just have a bunch of,
00:44:14
you know, people going on and like, saying horrible things and
00:44:16
it's not anything other than what it pretends to be.
00:44:19
You know, Facebook is not that it presents itself as a sort of
00:44:23
being this neutral forum for Todd, their these algorithms,
00:44:26
that rank things that are extremely difficult to
00:44:29
understand people assume the worst about them.
00:44:31
They're collecting a lot of data about as personally, they're
00:44:34
using it to Target ads. So those are like very different
00:44:37
things and it's, it should not surprise us that like Facebook
00:44:40
has drawn so much more scrutiny. It's also much bigger.
00:44:42
Right? Facebook's audiences like
00:44:44
workers of magnitude bigger than Fox News.
00:44:46
Same time, you do a study of like, what actually shifts the
00:44:49
politics in a country and it seems like it's much more Fox
00:44:52
News than a Facebook, you know by itself.
00:44:54
Elf. So, you know, I like everything
00:44:58
multiple things can be true. Facebook is a very important
00:45:00
subject for study. I write about all the time, but
00:45:04
I'm very leery of people that want to find very simple
00:45:08
solutions, to systemic problems and like, over the past year, I
00:45:13
just feel like we've seen in so many ways that our problems are
00:45:16
so much bigger than freaking Facebook, like, you could unplug
00:45:19
that thing tomorrow, and you would still have the majority of
00:45:22
the Republican Party who's turned against democracy.
00:45:24
Like you cannot solve that problem at the level of like
00:45:27
putting the algorithm on GitHub, but a lot of people still tweet
00:45:31
about that as if that's the case and if you want more space I
00:45:34
mean sorry if you unplugged Fox News, it does feel like, I mean,
00:45:37
I think we definitely want to try it.
00:45:38
Yeah, we should try it. Yeah.
00:45:41
Katie and I are no comments on that.
00:45:42
Yeah I just I see that I'm like the worst thing in the world to
00:45:49
say I'm no commenting because I actually I had somebody who Who
00:45:54
watches probably a lot more Fox News than you do Eric.
00:45:57
Well, I watch a lot of Tucker Clips or only, but yeah, that's
00:46:00
not the same. You're defending Fox News from
00:46:02
first print from your actual point of view.
00:46:05
Yeah. As somebody who has to watch it
00:46:07
all the time, who works with Fox news, reporters in The Newsroom
00:46:11
at the justice department, who sees what they report, who reads
00:46:14
their stories? I think that the blanket
00:46:17
statement, let's try shutting down.
00:46:19
Fox News is not something that I would actually agree with.
00:46:23
Wow, now it's shocking me. There's something deeply wrong
00:46:26
with what's going on on Tucker Carlson show.
00:46:29
Let me point you to the 20 words that my colleague just
00:46:33
wrote about this very issue where he talks about how Tucker
00:46:36
Carlson is mainstreaming. Seen the most virulent and ugly,
00:46:39
white supremacist and homophobic ideas into mainstream America.
00:46:44
All happy, we should also say, like the quote-unquote news
00:46:47
division of fox has done so much to mainstream ideas about, you
00:46:51
know, grooming and CRT and all of these frickin boogeymen Like,
00:46:55
that is not contained a Tucker Carlson, right?
00:46:57
The entire news division, the entire news division is oriented
00:47:01
around finding grievance bait to feed to conservatives and poison
00:47:04
their minds into thinking that Democrats are, you know, trying
00:47:07
to destroy civilization. I would, I would argue that.
00:47:10
That's first of all, not unique to only Fox.
00:47:13
But I would also say that I think that there is a difference
00:47:16
between what's going on in the sort of op-ed hours the The
00:47:21
Primetime hours and what's happening during the day.
00:47:23
I'll only issue I take is Eric wants to say that the reason I
00:47:26
don't support. His blanket statement is simply
00:47:28
because I'm too afraid to say that I agree with him which is
00:47:32
not true. Okay.
00:47:33
I it's shocking to me. I have to meet you for it to me.
00:47:36
Fox News is clearly the worst thing in American culture at the
00:47:40
moment in would certainly be. The first thing I would want to
00:47:44
pull the plug on with with little ambiguity and I'm
00:47:47
struggling to respond to the argument style that I just need
00:47:51
to watch more of. No, I'm not.
00:47:55
I'm not saying to make tibia, but I'm not even saying you're
00:47:59
wrong. I'm just saying I disagree with
00:48:00
you but for not for the reason, you're going to say yes, one
00:48:03
talk about snap to close it out. I can talk about snow Erik
00:48:07
Alma's, not to say that. I refuse to say hate
00:48:09
Republicans, because I'm too afraid to what Eric doesn't
00:48:12
understand is that most of my family's Republican and I have a
00:48:17
lot of friends who are Republicans, which is why I will
00:48:19
not say out of hand. Hate all Republicans.
00:48:23
I grossest thing. So I think they're diluted like
00:48:27
I've spent tons of time with them like and I'm not and I'm
00:48:29
just saying it, like, I guess my preference that you don't say
00:48:32
something is because it's your beat makes me more comfortable
00:48:36
with than the fact that I have a friend who's fine.
00:48:40
Just sort of with terrible people.
00:48:42
So yeah, it is a set out of a place of trying to protect you
00:48:47
from saying the things that are going to make me.
00:48:49
I'm spending all Memorial Day with I'm about to I'm about to
00:48:55
get into a car tomorrow and go spend my whole weekend.
00:48:58
It house with Republican, we Republicans can be nice to have
00:49:03
his company as yeah as someone who like commits.
00:49:07
Very strongly to The Fringe view that the Channel that I would
00:49:10
unplug the first to CNN that is based entirely know that is
00:49:14
based entirely on my having to go visit my parents all the time
00:49:17
and seeing their obsessive watching.
00:49:19
CNN my mom, it's not an Aussie anyway nauseating.
00:49:22
It was Great talking to you. Unfortunately have to run to
00:49:25
this other call but Casey was good to see you enjoyed it to
00:49:28
see you Katie. Why do you want to just finish
00:49:31
up like five minutes with SNAP? So we can end the episode in a
00:49:34
normal Place. Casey, you're a cipher, I don't
00:49:38
know what your thoughts are at the.
00:49:40
No. I mean I'm ready to go.
00:49:42
They got reamed after Evan Spiegel, put out an internal
00:49:46
note and filed with the SEC that they are likely to fall below
00:49:50
their projections in terms of Revenue next.
00:49:53
Citing economic headwinds and the massive downturn.
00:49:57
And look, I don't cover this company anymore.
00:50:00
It's been a long time since I've talked to sources there.
00:50:02
I have nothing new to Surly. Say about the current state of
00:50:05
affairs, this seems like an insane over reaction.
00:50:08
Yeah. It in my mind, I mean, snap is
00:50:10
still a growing app, although I still don't fully understand its
00:50:15
ad promise. And, and that side of the
00:50:17
business is still kind of confuses me.
00:50:19
It makes us at least 80% as much sense as any other digital
00:50:23
media. Accompany.
00:50:24
So this is kind of a crazy time where the market is really
00:50:28
severely overcorrected against this company, but I don't know
00:50:33
how long it'll take for stuff to normalize again.
00:50:36
Yeah, I don't know that either. I'm like, you know, I have
00:50:40
nothing smart to say about like why investors do this thing and
00:50:43
don't do that thing. You know, like reporters
00:50:45
famously, do not play the stock market.
00:50:48
So we're like insulated from this and but, you know, if he
00:50:52
thought that Snapchat was Like a valuable app and snap was
00:50:55
valuable company. Six months ago, I don't know why
00:50:57
you'd be applying a 40% discount to that today, you know, I guess
00:51:00
the only argument is that like multiples of been so inflated
00:51:04
for so long that it's like time for them to come back to earth
00:51:06
and that, you know, maybe you're going to sort of like over
00:51:09
correct. Just a little bit but yeah, I
00:51:12
think I think snap is probably going to be just fine for the
00:51:15
next three or five years. Yeah, there's nothing
00:51:16
fundamental that changed about its business or its stickiness
00:51:20
with users. I guess.
00:51:22
Maybe my One criticism is like its growth is a little bit
00:51:26
eyebrow-raising not like in a suspicious way but it's probably
00:51:29
coming from less valuable users. That maybe don't denote that
00:51:33
they're going to be able to hugely monetize them.
00:51:34
But again this is like the Playbook that social media
00:51:37
companies have run for the last decade so there's nothing new
00:51:40
here. Yeah well I mean I will also say
00:51:42
that the like Snap has been really bad at predicting its
00:51:44
revenue for the past couple years, right?
00:51:46
And I think that investors might just be saying the hell with
00:51:48
this because they they've been so flight far from their
00:51:51
guidance so many times. Are they you know first they're
00:51:54
like app tracking transparency. Blake is isn't going to affect
00:51:58
us but like that, affected them but like then they bounce back
00:52:01
but like then they issued a, you know, corrected guidance.
00:52:04
And so may just be that investors are saying, we have no
00:52:06
idea what's gonna happen with this company?
00:52:07
Yeah, justjust hold for a bit. You guys are much closer to it
00:52:11
than I am but it does, it feels like a company, you know, that
00:52:15
never wanted to run ads and never got comfortable with the
00:52:20
fact that it's business is running ads.
00:52:22
I don't know it like Like, yeah, I don't know, it's always going
00:52:26
to be an ads business, right? Or there's no escaping this sort
00:52:28
of AD situation that they've got themselves in.
00:52:31
I mean, there they made a big bet on e-commerce.
00:52:34
You know, like they want to make everything shoppable within the
00:52:37
app and they're recording creators, which you can monetize
00:52:41
in ways that go beyond ads. So, I think there's like, you
00:52:45
can imagine some different businesses for them but ads are
00:52:50
the heart of it, right? As I've said on this show before
00:52:52
and I stand No one wants to run ads ad stink as Ur ads, make
00:52:58
everything that you've ever liked worse.
00:53:00
And so I had complete, you know, I related as much as I ever
00:53:05
could to heaven when he believed very strongly that he didn't
00:53:09
want to have ads on the platform, but at some point, you
00:53:12
just have to give in to the business and every media
00:53:14
business in the world consumers are cheap, you know, Netflix is
00:53:18
going to do ads. Yeah, it'll be worse for it and
00:53:21
we're worst world because we live in that eventuality.
00:53:26
But yeah, I don't think they're going to dump as anytime soon.
00:53:29
And I guess my final line here is just by now is the time to
00:53:32
buy snacks full endorsement. That's my that's my my analyst
00:53:37
rating. Cool.
00:53:39
Casey thanks. Thanks so much for coming on.
00:53:41
Everybody should subscribe to platformer.
00:53:44
Yeah, nice. Nice to hear from you.
00:53:47
Yes, thanks for having me on those fun the tussling with you
00:53:50
all. Thanks, Casey
00:54:04
goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye.
00:54:06
Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye.