If you’ve resolved that this Thanksgiving you won’t yield the conversation about tech entirely to your NFT-happy, crypto-pushing younger cousin, this is your moment to refresh yourself on the latest from the FTX saga.
Give Dead Cat a listen. We catch you up on former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s latest messages with a reporter and on Elon Musk’s crusade to reform Twitter.
In this hosts-only episode, Tom Dotan, Katie Benner, and I mourn my inability to get tickets to see Taylor Swift and we come up with some better strategies for making sure tickets only get in the hands of the Swifties with truest of hearts.
Give it a listen
Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe
00:00:05
Welcome. Hey, everybody.
00:00:13
Welcome to Dead cat. It's Tom.
00:00:15
I'm here with Katie and Eric, the whole family is back here
00:00:18
together for Thanksgiving. So exciting.
00:00:21
I feel like Katie like shows up, you know, like MTV's Daria and
00:00:24
Eric's like arguing with like various cousins over like who
00:00:28
can beat who in chess. I have a chessboard laid out on
00:00:32
my carpet right now with a book. Yeah.
00:00:34
It's like it's like the people who only go to church on
00:00:37
holidays. That's me.
00:00:38
I'm just showing up for the podcast on.
00:00:40
Yeah, yeah. And I'm, I don't know, starting
00:00:42
various contrarian arguments with different people at the
00:00:45
table, all at once, but we've got an exciting episode today.
00:00:49
So many scandals happening in Tech.
00:00:51
So many things go unpack. So many people to blame and try
00:00:54
to understand. But basically, as I see, we have
00:00:57
two giant stories. Right now in one, we've got This
00:01:01
cascading series of scandals in a sector that is Rife with scams
00:01:07
begging, for regulatory involvement and maybe even
00:01:09
criminal involvement and the other is ft x.
00:01:13
So tiny, you're going to set it up that way.
00:01:16
Yeah, so the first thing we've got here.
00:01:19
What are things going good? Yeah, so what the fuck is going
00:01:22
on with Taylor? Swift concert?
00:01:26
Well, just got an alert for New York Times that the doj is
00:01:28
investigating Ticketmaster, and Live Nation.
00:01:31
This is something I don't really understand.
00:01:33
I I actually listen to the new album because I knew that Eric
00:01:36
wood and so I wanted what I wanted to have that experience
00:01:38
with him. Yeah.
00:01:40
What percentage of your Millennial cultural effect items
00:01:43
are just like studying but anyway, yeah, I know Eric looks
00:01:47
G like the millennial cultural, you know, immersion program for
00:01:51
Katie without Eric. I'd still be listening to Lou
00:01:53
Reed. Eric you probably were trying to
00:01:54
buy tickets, right? So you've had oh my God, my
00:01:56
stance is like devastated. I mean we both were working
00:02:00
really. Hard to try to get tickets and
00:02:02
like, yeah, I mean it's sour Enos lately on Taylor Swift,
00:02:06
though she put out something on her Instagram today.
00:02:10
I mean, it's it's pretty brutal. I mean it's this solution to.
00:02:14
It isn't clear. I'm much more in the, you know,
00:02:17
free marketer. Like oh, let these things be
00:02:19
sold in the secondary for like a 10, Mark.
00:02:22
Oh, no. Don't don't create this
00:02:24
situation where they're so cheap on the, you know, from the
00:02:27
primary seller that they're all these people.
00:02:30
Are basically incentivized to flip them.
00:02:32
I mean I think it should just be a pool of ones that are
00:02:35
dedicated to fans and they need to do a much better job of
00:02:37
making sure those get to fans and then a pool of tickets that
00:02:40
are truly happy to Mark himself and isn't that whole issue,
00:02:46
right? Right right.
00:02:47
That's why I'm like when you say fans, you mean humans?
00:02:50
Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:50
They should hook it up to like Spotify.
00:02:53
They should be like, how many fucking Taylor records have you
00:02:57
bought, you know? Like, I mean, they should and
00:02:59
they should only make People should only be able to get like
00:03:01
one, you know, one, you know, one for each person.
00:03:05
So I think they just need to do a much better job of, you know,
00:03:08
human identification. Here are some sort of a quiz.
00:03:12
Like in the way they do like a captcha to understand dryer, you
00:03:14
may also feel like a fan captcha.
00:03:16
Be like you know like which of these lines did not appear in
00:03:20
ever more those or some songs is about which boyfriend.
00:03:24
Well, that's good. Right.
00:03:25
Oh my God. Yes, Harry Styles.
00:03:28
Yeah. Match the line.
00:03:30
To the boyfriend who fuck the patriarchy is.
00:03:33
You know, you know, five paragraph essay on why Jake
00:03:38
Gyllenhaal's like the worst of these are great ideas.
00:03:44
I would say much more effective than like doj involvement.
00:03:47
I think we can stop. We we already solved it right
00:03:49
here. If the answers Tom Hiddleston,
00:03:52
you know, it's not a real person, right?
00:03:54
We had like Taylor Lautner boyfriend or not boyfriend was
00:03:58
people I think I think boy, By the way, I think boyfriend.
00:04:02
Yeah, thanks. Twilight era.
00:04:03
Okay. I was I was getting a coffee
00:04:07
with somebody who knows, Josh Kushner, and it took everything
00:04:10
in my being not to be like, do you think Karlie Kloss did date
00:04:14
Taylor Swift? You're aware of daylor Swift.
00:04:18
This is actually something I've been supposed to ask you even
00:04:21
I'm aware. I wasn't until roses like
00:04:24
co-workers who is gay and was explaining at length.
00:04:27
The Gaylor Swift conspiracy. Have you listen to the question?
00:04:30
Like I do think she probably dated Karlie Kloss.
00:04:33
Like I think that's more likely than but did she date Lena
00:04:35
Dunham. I'm scared when they're
00:04:38
photographed kissing each other? You know what I mean?
00:04:40
Like that means. No.
00:04:41
I mean yeah you heard of it was the squad Donna and but I think
00:04:46
that whether or not it happened, the way that it has fueled fan
00:04:51
speculation and I think, can we draw a direct line between
00:04:54
something the question. The open question of whether or
00:04:57
not Taylor Swift dated Karlie Kloss to this insane.
00:05:00
In collapse of the Ticketmaster Ticket system.
00:05:02
Maybe, I mean, it's that kind of intrigued that fuels this kind
00:05:06
of fan base, right? You mean, do row her?
00:05:08
Just being able to like play her fans.
00:05:10
Like a fucking violin. Absolutely absolute build up
00:05:14
even more intrigued. So like, oh, maybe she'll have
00:05:16
is a special guest like one of her Gaylor Swift.
00:05:19
You know, conspirators. That would be amazing.
00:05:21
Yeah. Well the thing is I mean, I have
00:05:24
no emotional attachment to her as an artist or as a human being
00:05:28
but I don't think she does either really.
00:05:29
She seems like A purely capitalistic marketing product
00:05:32
to answer. Yes, no.
00:05:33
She's connected to her fans. What are you talking?
00:05:35
Well, in a way, that it benefits, or I'm not even saying
00:05:37
this is a criticism. She is like a pure distillation
00:05:39
of like late capitalism, you know, in like the marketing of
00:05:43
a, you know, very talented artist.
00:05:44
Bailey, I mean, the Pinnacle of that just to give you a little
00:05:48
data is that, you know, like, she somehow got her fans, invest
00:05:51
in her re-recording the album's just so she could make money or
00:05:55
Masters and not so well because he understood that she was a
00:05:57
victim of Scooter, Braun. And so we have We were forced,
00:06:01
we were forced to band together to fight life's all about
00:06:05
cheering for your favorite rich person.
00:06:06
I mean that's exactly it wasn't exactly to the conversation of.
00:06:10
Yeah. It wasn't like, oh, we're gonna
00:06:11
get great new music from Taylor. It's like we're gonna get the
00:06:13
same old music that's going to make you richer.
00:06:16
Exactly. And that's my investments.
00:06:18
Are we need her to be our billionaire?
00:06:20
You know, in a world where that's all the matters, you
00:06:22
know. Well, we're down one musician.
00:06:24
Billionaire with, with ye so I feel like Taylor should more
00:06:28
effectively fill that spot. But yeah.
00:06:30
You know who would have thought that the Kanye Taylor fight
00:06:33
would have ended here. Oh, I assume she's like, that
00:06:37
was what rocket fueled her into becoming even more successful in
00:06:39
the same way that like Donald Trump ran for president, because
00:06:42
Obama made fun of him. And that one White House
00:06:44
Correspondents Dinner. I assume Taylor was like, I'm
00:06:47
going to dominate the music industry because I was
00:06:49
embarrassed once at an award show, by a drunk Kanye.
00:06:53
I mean, they're worse, reasons? Sure.
00:06:55
All right, so here's what we got on today's episode.
00:06:58
It's time that we do a Recapping of where things are with FTX.
00:07:02
And I've spent a lot of time in the last week reading.
00:07:05
All the stories I even read the entire milky eggs, post what
00:07:10
you're talking about? No, there's some blog called
00:07:13
milky eggs in which there's like a 10 word unwinding and
00:07:17
speculation on where all the money went over.
00:07:19
These like things will probably not be relevant the you guys
00:07:22
didn't see that. Anyway yeah, all these things
00:07:24
will probably be irrelevant once, you know the full order
00:07:26
of, you know, the internal mechanisms or put forward in the
00:07:30
The courts. But for the time, you know,
00:07:31
there's been a lot of speculation.
00:07:32
Anyway, I read all of that. Yeah, it'll be good for you to
00:07:35
explain because I mean, obviously, we joke on this
00:07:37
podcast sometimes about not bringing people along, but I
00:07:39
think even sort of the most hardcore sort of tech readers
00:07:45
Among Us would benefit from a little bit of a, sort of
00:07:48
summation, of, of the Scandal. So follow, this is the nation.
00:07:51
This beautiful stay one, but no, okay.
00:07:54
Well, basically where we are right now, is that the FTX
00:07:58
unwinding since, you know, the Finance selling of the ftt
00:08:02
tokens revealed that FTX was highly over leveraged, its main
00:08:06
token collapsed and value. There is a huge run on the FTX
00:08:11
Bank, essentially by all of its depositors.
00:08:14
And that revealed that the company had basically and Sam
00:08:17
bakeman freed had taken all of the assets that were in there
00:08:20
and tried to cover up. All the losses, that his related
00:08:23
hedge fund Alameda, had been using to cover all of their
00:08:27
losses because they had been taking incredibly risky.
00:08:30
A bets, not just to cover their losses but to trade, to fund the
00:08:32
entire trading arm. Yeah.
00:08:34
Because they had so many losses, right?
00:08:36
I mean, I assumed they were only dipping into the FTX piggy bank
00:08:39
because they were down so much in all of their investment.
00:08:42
That was something it was unclear to me.
00:08:44
Whether it was something they did out of desperation or just
00:08:46
something that they did to feel that to feel the trading
00:08:49
platform and success of it. Well, I think Matt Levine made
00:08:52
this point. But like, what's funny looking
00:08:54
back on this is that I think while Sam SBF was sort of In his
00:09:00
prime and like everybody worshipped him.
00:09:02
The Assumption was that he was sort of improperly using
00:09:06
information from FTX to become a really good Trader at Alameda
00:09:11
and that's why he was so rich. Like, he had this sort of inside
00:09:14
information but in fact, he was just using customer accounts
00:09:18
from ft x and he wasn't like a great trainer at all, and he was
00:09:21
just siphoning all the money to blow it on Alameda on failed
00:09:25
trading strategies. It's the very fine line between
00:09:27
like a high-frequency Trader and A Ponzi scheme, right?
00:09:32
Right, right. So that's you know, a very quick
00:09:35
and dirty explanation of why FTX Unwound and then what happened
00:09:39
since then is they broaden a, what's the term?
00:09:42
I mean, like an interim. CEO, a ward, a cleanup guy.
00:09:47
A cleanup guy in a cleanup guy. Yeah.
00:09:49
They brought in like the adults in the room who basically, you
00:09:51
can imagine the picture here. You know, they fly in the sky
00:09:54
into the Bahamas. I imagine he's like walking up
00:09:56
into like the F16 and of like the Pelican Brief.
00:09:59
Yeah. Exactly.
00:10:00
He walks into the office. He like takes out his briefcase.
00:10:03
He tells his right-hand man like schmidty.
00:10:05
You know how this goes? I need two gallons of coffee.
00:10:08
I need, I need protein, I need carbs, every 45 minutes.
00:10:12
Let's dig into this thing, and then he liked it and goes, holy
00:10:15
shit. Yeah, he opens up the file.
00:10:17
Not like a zombie. He throws up.
00:10:19
I mean this guy dealt with Enron.
00:10:20
This guy always the cleanup great for Enron.
00:10:23
Yeah. And then Tom do you have in
00:10:25
front of you, eat like a statement?
00:10:26
Well, it's out of savings in the chapter 11 bankruptcy filing
00:10:29
which these Things. I don't know, Katie.
00:10:31
If you've read these before, when you were covering the 08
00:10:33
collapse, but these are pretty dry documents typically.
00:10:35
Yes, very lawyer. The, there's no color in a
00:10:38
chapter 11, filing, there's no killer quotes that come out of
00:10:43
it, but this was one of the lines is pointing directly from
00:10:45
the chapter 11 filing in Delaware.
00:10:47
Once again, Delaware is one of the most interesting states
00:10:50
because of a scandal, I have over 40 years of legal and
00:10:54
restructuring experience, I have been the chief restructuring
00:10:57
officer or chief executive officer and several of Largest
00:11:00
corporate failures in history. I have supervised situations
00:11:03
involving allegations of criminal, activity, and
00:11:05
malfeasance in parentheses N, Run.
00:11:08
I have supervised situations involving novel.
00:11:10
Financial structure is parentheses Enron and
00:11:12
residential capital and cross-border acid recovery, and
00:11:15
maximization, Nortel and overseas ship holding.
00:11:18
I don't know those, but they were bad too.
00:11:21
Really every situation in which I have been involved.
00:11:23
Has been characterized by defects of some sort and
00:11:25
internal controls Regulatory Compliance, human resources and
00:11:29
systems. Items Integrity.
00:11:31
Next paragraph, never in my career.
00:11:34
Have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls
00:11:37
and such a complete absence of trustworthy, financial
00:11:39
information as occurred here, from compromised systems
00:11:42
integrity, and faulty regulatory oversight abroad to the
00:11:45
concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of
00:11:48
inexperience, unsophisticated, and potentially compromised
00:11:52
individuals. This situation is unprecedented,
00:11:55
he doesn't say they're all fucking each other or like,
00:11:58
well, you know, that wasn't in the books.
00:12:02
Vlog that now. Yeah.
00:12:04
He's like also, they were kind of was no HR department, right?
00:12:07
Yeah. Like also these beanbags smell
00:12:09
but I'm not going to guess what? Yeah, this is basically like the
00:12:14
cleanup specialist like the garbageman comes in there and
00:12:16
it's like, what the fuck is that smell?
00:12:19
And I mean, as I read through the bankruptcy filing, which I
00:12:22
actually did read through most of it because it is pretty great
00:12:24
reading. One of the biggest takeaways
00:12:26
from it and I think maybe the most shocking that I saw a lot
00:12:29
of, you know, analyst Reporters pick up on.
00:12:31
It doesn't seem like they have any idea where the money went
00:12:35
and more. So they don't even know how much
00:12:37
money they had. They have no records of the
00:12:39
liabilities in there. So when it gets to a point,
00:12:42
where the people who had their money stored in FTX will
00:12:46
reasonably ask, hey, where did my money go?
00:12:48
There doesn't seem to be any accounting for that.
00:12:51
No, so this is always gonna like, yes, just imagine being
00:12:55
the type of person they can just be out and about with the
00:12:59
knowledge that This is all gonna come crashing down someday.
00:13:03
Like I there. I mean, maybe I don't want to
00:13:06
jump ahead, but like I've seen speculation we all made of 5,
00:13:10
right? This is where I think that that
00:13:14
sort of like Bernie Madoff, feel really takes hold.
00:13:18
No one has any idea. What's going on?
00:13:19
Nobody knows where the money is. It's really just all been a hope
00:13:22
and a prayer and like kind of preying on people who have who
00:13:28
are other crypto Believers. There's just It's a lot.
00:13:31
We don't slay, star codex, Scott, Alexander.
00:13:33
Yeah, yeah, he had a piece basically like analyzing the
00:13:38
medicine, the drugs that SPF is taking and just sort of
00:13:43
wondering whether perhaps like a side effect of these drugs was
00:13:46
like a gambling Iraq. These it is it's a new argument
00:13:50
against Adderall. Is that like it's not Adderall?
00:13:53
It's some weird. You know.
00:13:54
I thought that was it. It was not even that we do.
00:13:56
It's like some rule is some patch, we can look it up well
00:13:59
because he failed. Miss Lee s BF.
00:14:00
This is was famously only sleeping like four hours a night
00:14:04
because when he was not the psychopharmacology of the FTX
00:14:08
crash. Yeah, yeah.
00:14:10
So there was just all kinda know is that he was designer
00:14:13
laterals, it's called Sela Jolene, em Sam.
00:14:18
I mean I'm I don't take any stimulants, I people have come
00:14:22
up to me, people come up to me and they're like, oh yeah, I
00:14:25
just I take, you know, the way to do a cross-country flight is
00:14:29
like taking An Ambien and then take an Adderall and their side.
00:14:32
I'm like I'm not living that life.
00:14:34
I'm not, I'm not living that gambian lifestyle.
00:15:00
It's about you. Even if you might be like
00:15:01
marginally happier, like, I don't want like, I don't know,
00:15:04
well my few times taking Adderall, my experience at
00:15:07
typically been that I just felt like my brain was functioning
00:15:10
differently. Like I wasn't thinking in the
00:15:11
same way. I was definitely awake friendly.
00:15:14
Yeah, but it's like my thought processes were not like the
00:15:17
train wasn't going down the track in the way that I was
00:15:20
comfortable with. And I was definitely alert and
00:15:23
very awake, there was no denying that but I never really thought
00:15:26
like boy, if I had access to like a trading terminal, I could
00:15:29
the billions right now. Write what, you know, I already
00:15:33
think every idea that I have is like gold.
00:15:36
So imagine on cocaine, you know, just sort of like the right.
00:15:40
That's like, let's just pull it through and let's go like me.
00:15:44
I have a lot to have a lot to say right now.
00:15:46
Like we could barely keep you on track during the podcast.
00:15:49
Be taking notes on this. It's like that Billy crudup from
00:15:53
America from almost famous scene, where he screams, I'm a
00:15:55
golden god, that's Eric, just unkind.
00:15:59
That's just Generally. Yeah.
00:16:01
That's before the Ambien. Exactly.
00:16:03
I that's just me on a scoop like get a scoop.
00:16:06
I'm like all right just yeah. It what were most reporters are
00:16:09
like you know scoop coming Eric's is like I'm a golden god.
00:16:15
Anyway, so yeah, he's not sleeping.
00:16:19
Yeah, it's not sleeping when he feels guilty clearly but
00:16:22
continue. Well, I want to get to that in a
00:16:24
second, but yes, what. So when he's not sleeping he's,
00:16:27
you know, he's on the he's on the grind and apparently he's
00:16:30
really shitty at League of Legends which is my favorite of
00:16:33
all the twists and all of this. Because there is this kind of
00:16:36
like ongoing theme that he was like playing League of Legends
00:16:38
in the background while speaking to reporters and his investors
00:16:42
and shit like that. And then you know I think it was
00:16:44
the Ft or something. Has revealed that his ranking on
00:16:46
League of Legends is actually extremely mediocre.
00:16:48
He's a bronze something or other.
00:16:50
Yeah yeah. So this like the fraud goes
00:16:53
incredibly deep with this guy's but apparently he had taken out
00:16:58
a 1 billion dollar loan on some of the assets here.
00:17:02
It's not really clear where he spent the money on, although FTX
00:17:05
had bought houses for some of the people at the company.
00:17:08
But what's clearly going to be happening over the next couple
00:17:11
weeks is trying to answer the question of like, where the
00:17:14
money went Oh, that's also interesting because in that
00:17:16
report that you referred to, there's also indications that he
00:17:20
was taking the money even as he knew, his firm is collapsing and
00:17:22
safing it out through different entities in the Bahamas.
00:17:27
So nobody knows if he was taking things on his way, out the door
00:17:31
either. Yeah, right.
00:17:32
I do think people, I mean, I think we're going to get into
00:17:35
the interview with Vox, but there is a little bit of It's
00:17:40
like, he probably took the money, you know, he's like he's
00:17:44
not admitting special people, even though this guy is like
00:17:48
clearly lied every, which way there's still sort of a desire
00:17:52
to assume, he's telling the truth in any given interview.
00:17:55
Even though it's like at this point, how can you trust a word?
00:17:58
This guy says, right? And so at this point, aside from
00:18:02
these apparent, tweet threads, that he's been putting together
00:18:06
in which the first one was, just the spelling out of the word.
00:18:09
What? And right, and then followed by
00:18:13
some sort of a thread that maybe tried to give some explanation
00:18:16
as to what went down. He first gives an interview to
00:18:20
the New York Times, David yaffe, Bella knee, who's like the
00:18:24
crypto reporter over at the Times.
00:18:26
David got a lot of shit for this story because people felt that
00:18:31
they were not pressing him hard enough.
00:18:32
And there was kind of a quote in there, in which they were like,
00:18:35
how are you sleeping? Well, these days I don't know
00:18:38
how you guys feel about that story gets Katie, you know, you
00:18:40
know, David so you know, I do want to put you too much on the
00:18:42
spot here, but I thought the story was fine.
00:18:45
I thought he came off like a psychopath with was my
00:18:48
interpretation of it. It's like I don't know how much
00:18:50
more the fraud and malfeasance is so evident here.
00:18:54
I don't know how much browbeating right.
00:18:55
Like journals begins to do like a certain type of person who is
00:18:59
so mad at Maggie Haberman, because they just wanted to put
00:19:02
after every line. She reports.
00:19:04
And that is very bad. You know, it's sort of like
00:19:07
Can't the reader read it and be like, oh, this see, I mean I do
00:19:11
think the New York Times could have been a little more - and I
00:19:14
think that sometimes you can get lost in like, well, we've got we
00:19:17
put out a body of work. There's several different
00:19:19
stories is one story, doesn't sum everything up but like
00:19:23
overall I do think it's like yeah obviously, you're supposed
00:19:27
to read this interview, me like this guy is like fucking yeah,
00:19:30
he gave him enough rope to hang himself.
00:19:31
I don't know how else to say like right, you know, it starts
00:19:34
off with like, you know, Sam you just lost people.
00:19:37
Nine billion dollars I'm actually sleeping better than I
00:19:40
ever have before dated the lamb. Stop crying, David more
00:19:48
billions, I lose the better. I sleep David like it's all
00:19:52
right there, right? Like you don't need like a body
00:19:54
language expert to come and analyze the person who confessed
00:19:57
to a murder like, right? It's bizarre.
00:20:01
I mean people just want to eat. I mean obviously you know the
00:20:04
people should on the New York Times wrote like the Kraken CEO
00:20:07
and the coin. A CEO who both had negative
00:20:10
coverage from the times and I guess to the extent, I would
00:20:13
defend them. You know, it's just like people
00:20:16
get almost like more mortally Angry in some ways about, you
00:20:20
know, coinbase not doing enough to include sort of minority
00:20:23
employees then, you know, maybe SBF, sort of defrauding people
00:20:27
of billions of dollars. And so I think it's just sort of
00:20:30
the tenor and tone of different types of stories and sort of how
00:20:35
Twitter can react. But obviously, So, my point is
00:20:38
just, these are two CEOs who were covered negatively by the
00:20:41
New York Times and they're happy to look for an excuse right to
00:20:43
dunk on the New York Times. There is certainly a huge media
00:20:47
aspect to the SBF story and a failing on the part of the media
00:20:51
in the way that he was covered over the last couple of years.
00:20:54
This is not a good example of it.
00:20:56
There is a Feeding Frenzy right now on this guy, every single
00:20:59
aspect of this person's life is going to be mind into content,
00:21:03
right? Because it's an incredible
00:21:05
story. If I don't know, they were
00:21:06
scandals of our time. Crypto, people want to play it.
00:21:08
Like the media is not going to willing to go after him but
00:21:12
really it's like no, it's like the media is happy to go after
00:21:14
one of their own if there is a case, it's right for a great
00:21:17
story, it's a great story, but anyway.
00:21:20
Yeah. So so that was that was the
00:21:22
first interview that he gave and then I guess the real coup de
00:21:25
gras was he had an interview with Kelsey Piper who is a ruse
00:21:31
herself like an effective altruist person and right
00:21:33
Porter, there is so this was, he slid into her DMs. And had an
00:21:39
hour-long conversation with Kelsey Piper in which and it
00:21:43
seems like they were friends in some way or they had a reporter.
00:21:46
I certainly had a rapport trusted her enough to have this
00:21:50
totally insane back and forth. I mean yeah.
00:21:52
Truly one of the most self-destructive things I've
00:21:55
seen on Terry what do you mean Katie if you still billions of
00:21:59
dollars? And I check in on how you're
00:22:02
doing? Asked what's going on?
00:22:03
You need to at least say we're off the Record.
00:22:05
All right. Look, I feel like call me.
00:22:07
I don't care how good of friends, we are really a billion
00:22:11
dollar like I hear you. Should at least like be like,
00:22:13
Eric, I just want to be clear where this is not report, you
00:22:17
know, it's just like there's, there's got to be a threshold.
00:22:19
I don't care how not, I wouldn't, you know, I don't
00:22:22
know. There's some limit of just like,
00:22:24
if you become a criminal, you know, like, I don't know how
00:22:26
much really to return your call Eric, right?
00:22:29
Exactly. You might be hearing from my
00:22:32
lawyer and right. Yeah, I encourage readers to go
00:22:36
and read the article because there was a kind of funny back
00:22:38
and forth between them in, which he has like a very casual style.
00:22:42
So when she's DME him being like like what was going on, I'm not
00:22:46
calling her out for saying, like I'm just saying that this is the
00:22:48
kind of smart as usual strategy. Yeah, it was a very yeah, I
00:22:51
guess he was, she was really luring him out but he also
00:22:53
seemed like he was desperate to talk, right?
00:22:56
You know, the idea that he was, you know, had his confidence
00:22:58
completely. You know, subverted by this
00:23:01
reporter here just doesn't really align with the fact that
00:23:04
this guy's desperate to this. What kind of crazy people do is
00:23:07
they want their, you know, Tales of derring-do, a manipulation to
00:23:10
be out there for people to admire We've lost Katie Because
00:23:14
by the time this episode comes out, you will understand.
00:23:16
The reason why just I guess I'm maybe pointed a special counsel
00:23:19
because they're chickens but or whatever Katie thinks they have
00:23:23
a good reason but she has to go report on that.
00:23:25
Yeah, so we've lost K throughout the episode, Happy Thanksgiving
00:23:28
Katie will. So, you know, effective altruism
00:23:31
obviously, is this philosophical movement, based in
00:23:34
utilitarianism, where and largely funded by Sam Bateman
00:23:38
freed, that was sort of donating with an eye.
00:23:42
Towards sort of the future worrying, about pandemics
00:23:45
worrying about things that cause the most human suffering.
00:23:48
So that's that's effective. Altruism and in this exchange,
00:23:54
he's sort of plays it off like you is never a True Believer.
00:23:58
And that it was all just sort of a PR stunt.
00:24:00
He disappears people of the notion that he believed in any
00:24:03
of the things that he had been saying.
00:24:04
And I mean the one that includes his belief in regulation of
00:24:07
crypto. And then also that just general
00:24:09
philosophy of effective altruism both of Is he kind of says, for
00:24:13
PR stunts, but yeah, on the matter of, you know, regulation
00:24:17
he texts the reporter, it was all just PR, fuck Regulators,
00:24:21
they make everything worse and then actually I didn't pull out
00:24:26
the specifics around effective altruism but I guess his point
00:24:30
was that the idea like you're saying, the argument effective
00:24:33
altruism is that in a situation in which there is a good usage
00:24:37
of money and a bad usage of money.
00:24:39
I guess all things considered you should be spending that
00:24:42
money on people who know how to spend it on good things, right.
00:24:45
There's so much more to it than that.
00:24:47
I mean effective. Altruism has one key component
00:24:52
of it. Is that while like a lot of sort
00:24:55
of charitable mindsets might say you should like you as much of
00:24:58
your money as quickly as you can effective.
00:25:01
Altruism can allow for the idea that you should try to make a
00:25:05
lot of money so that you can then give it away.
00:25:08
Anyway, I SP have sort of disavows.
00:25:12
It's um, and I think they're going to be all these questions
00:25:14
around and we're going to get way too in our heads about it,
00:25:18
whether he's trying to protect effective altruism by sort of
00:25:23
slowly distancing himself from it.
00:25:25
So this doesn't become the sort of case study that ruins
00:25:29
effective altruism or if he was never sincere.
00:25:33
And then, I mean, there are ways to read, you know, I think we
00:25:36
talked about this on, with a little bit in the episode with
00:25:39
Teddy. You know, going for broke or
00:25:42
like trying to get, you know, flip keep flipping coins, right?
00:25:47
And gambling. Everything that there are some
00:25:49
people in the EA world, who thinks you should just keep
00:25:52
flipping because, you know, the world really requires huge sum
00:25:55
of money to save it. So then you just like go For
00:25:59
Broke and try to get as much money as you can.
00:26:01
So there's a certain lens in which effective.
00:26:03
Altruism itself is the motivation for sort of Gambler,
00:26:07
what he did, right? Because anything below that
00:26:09
level of money is Is ineffective, right?
00:26:11
And you're not going to be able to achieve the results that are
00:26:14
necessary to improve. You're not willing to you know,
00:26:17
like we've talked about before you know these moral intuitions
00:26:20
are sometimes about biting the bullet and saying like no, like
00:26:23
it's not about like sort of, you know human beings want to
00:26:26
minimize risk, right? It's just sort of in our
00:26:28
evolutionary psychology. It's well you know, you don't
00:26:31
you want to, you don't want the downside to be too bad, even if
00:26:35
the upside would be revolutionary.
00:26:37
And so some of effective altruism is saying, No, I look
00:26:41
at the world, clearly I'm doing the calculus clearly and clearly
00:26:44
the risk is worth the reward. And so I'm going to do it.
00:26:47
And so there's this, there's a sort of view of the whole SPF
00:26:50
Saga as him sort of. And now, the guy clearly, I
00:26:55
mean, once everything fails, we start viewing him much more
00:26:59
psychologically and less is a rational actor.
00:27:01
And so I think now the lens is going to be much more like like
00:27:04
we are referencing sort of drug use like how koujun was he blah
00:27:08
blah blah rather than This is the ultimate rationalists who,
00:27:12
you know, pursued sort of a great strategy.
00:27:15
I mean, if he was he would have at least on his accounting
00:27:17
right, you know, right at there's no excuse for that.
00:27:20
You can say it's important to take big risks, because that's
00:27:23
the only way to achieve the results.
00:27:25
Required to make substantial agenda book should be clean and
00:27:28
it should be like well on this day I like put it all upside to
00:27:31
the risk of having shitty book, right, right.
00:27:34
That's just careless. And I think that's kind of what,
00:27:36
you know, the the new CEO and arbiter of FTL.
00:27:40
Is trying to deal with here. But look, I think there's a part
00:27:44
of his entire unraveling that is a pure distillation of the
00:27:49
utilitarian mindset, right? It's like better for me to have
00:27:53
had this money and try to funnel it towards good.
00:27:55
Then the people that had this money that would have known what
00:27:57
to do with it, right? I mean I don't know how cynical
00:28:00
all the people that movement really are but it's within like
00:28:03
the spectrum of their belief system that this type of action
00:28:06
was like within the bounds right.
00:28:08
I mean it's like it's And owned by a kind of utilitarian set and
00:28:13
you know, they're you know, somebody who is writing to me
00:28:16
and reminding me of my own old like philosophy classes.
00:28:19
I mean there is you know like rule utilitarianism this sort of
00:28:23
belief that you can't just abandon ethical precepts because
00:28:29
fundamentally adhering to those moral rules, will create the
00:28:35
best good. And that, if you totally abandon
00:28:37
any sort of like, oh, you should be honest you Steal from your
00:28:41
customers in, you know, chasing some great outcome that
00:28:46
maximizes for utilitarianism. That is sort of the thinking of,
00:28:49
you know, a fraudster where you're like right, you know, I
00:28:52
alone can sort of see the great outcome and therefore I should
00:28:56
break all these rules in favor of the outcoming and clearly
00:29:00
human beings just aren't really equipped.
00:29:02
So, I'm much more of a rule, utilitarian, just a maximizer.
00:29:05
Which, by the way, is a side point to all of this is why it
00:29:08
is pretty hysterical. That it's possible that Kelsey
00:29:10
Piper the reporter at vaux betrayed or had like a breach of
00:29:13
trust with right. BF.
00:29:14
Exact, because that was a purely utilitarian, like, look,
00:29:17
alright? Given this information Capital,
00:29:19
right? Right.
00:29:19
The best amount of good I could do with that is to disseminate
00:29:22
widely because I believe that what you've done is wrong.
00:29:24
So no I don't think she'd live by the sword die by clear to be
00:29:27
clear that it's funny what you're saying but there's no
00:29:29
allegation that Sam said it was off the Record so it's just did
00:29:33
he betray a friend? So that's basically where we're
00:29:36
at with SPF. There's going to be, you know,
00:29:40
like I said, Feeding Frenzy of reporters examining every aspect
00:29:43
of how this company was run. Saw there was a profile in
00:29:46
Forbes of the CEO of Alameda who's an interesting character
00:29:50
and all of this potentially his girlfriend, you know, as more
00:29:54
filings come forward will finally start to learn more of
00:29:57
like where all the money went which hasn't been fully
00:29:59
disclosed. I really want to hear from his
00:30:01
parents. I mean that's his parents are
00:30:03
like legal experts. Their law professors at Stanford
00:30:07
and they did help him set some of this up, right.
00:30:10
Why should we care if they come up in the filings actually?
00:30:12
So no, you're not too far. You're not going too far with
00:30:15
that one. I know that as things began to
00:30:18
unwind. He did consult his father that's
00:30:21
a that's a tough call to make to tell you right, I really fucked
00:30:24
up. I got nine billion in
00:30:26
liabilities that I can't really account for but yeah I know his
00:30:29
dad is going to be for sure called into you know, whatever,
00:30:33
whatever Iram aching, the TV show.
00:30:35
I mean that would be the central conflict.
00:30:37
I mean on the one hand, I don't know anything about his parents
00:30:39
so I can imagine them. I mean, very sort of
00:30:42
establishment or I mean there's Stanford people and I am
00:30:45
skeptical like it if you like Stanford is an Institutional
00:30:48
like Stanford exactly. You're talking about is that the
00:30:50
Peter teal Stanford is right. Exactly.
00:30:52
Stanford or is a School founded by a robber barons?
00:30:56
You know, it's like it, there's a reason Silicon Valley is much
00:30:59
more aligned with Stanford than sort of the ivy league, which is
00:31:02
more sort of institution. Maintaining state does have an
00:31:05
incredible history, they have a real, you know, ghouls list of
00:31:09
alumni that That I mean, SBF dropped out of Stanford, right?
00:31:12
So I guess they can disown him. As far as that with us, there's
00:31:15
nothing more Stamford. You could be than a Dropout.
00:31:18
Yeah, especially if you're in the Peter.
00:31:19
Teal mold. Oh, speaking of the Peter teal
00:31:22
world. What aspect of this and this
00:31:23
goes a little bit back to effective.
00:31:24
Altruism is I saw that, you know, one of the people trying
00:31:27
to make a real hey, out of this whole Scandal are David Sachs
00:31:32
and people in his orbit and I did pull a few wants to talk
00:31:35
about everything but the midterms right now, but, but the
00:31:38
midterms. Yeah.
00:31:39
But, but yeah, Tweet that I contacted me.
00:31:42
Which was that the biggest con man, since Madoff, just
00:31:44
admitted, that woke is virtue signaling game quote, where we
00:31:47
say all the right shibboleths. And so Everyone likes us.
00:31:50
How stupid does the New York Times feel now?
00:31:53
I understand that everything through this guy's worldview of
00:31:55
Saxon talking about is about woke and and it's the only, it's
00:31:59
like the laziest term. But he just assumes that
00:32:01
everything that is like altruistic is woke.
00:32:04
I really don't refer. I wouldn't refer to effective
00:32:06
altruism as being woke right there like barely.
00:32:09
It's I woke. Yeah, a lot of the woke people
00:32:11
hate it because they're like I let everybody now die.
00:32:13
Because people's lives. You know, we have to worry about
00:32:16
all lives and future lives would be saved by deferring the money
00:32:20
to do it. You know, there are lots of what
00:32:22
people hate it, a lot of ways also, So yeah no Wolk thing is a
00:32:24
scam you know like they're barely any woke people anymore.
00:32:29
I'm also like after the midterms in which like people that ran
00:32:31
explicitly on the anti woke agenda just got like creamed
00:32:35
right. I don't know how much I would
00:32:36
like spend. I don't know yet just in that
00:32:38
stuff. David Sachs is out there acting
00:32:40
like the fact that the Biden in administration wants to resolve
00:32:44
the Ukrainian Russia war is like some victory to him.
00:32:48
Like I used, tried to set it up, I don't know.
00:32:51
I don't want to go down this whole rabbit hole but Just want
00:32:53
to put it on the record that I think it's absolutely absurd.
00:32:56
That David Sachs thinks he should get credit for any sort
00:33:00
of like, you know, like like what they were just going to
00:33:04
blow rush off the map. Like obviously it's some level
00:33:07
like there would be a negotiated settlement and that that might
00:33:11
not include Crimea, anyway. Sorry this is this doesn't drive
00:33:15
you insane. I did.
00:33:16
He's so disingenuous about what he gets credit for you.
00:33:19
Don't think the defense department is listening to all
00:33:21
land and his fucking at his tweets.
00:33:23
And like deciding, you know, with all the like Chiefs of
00:33:25
Staff, try to stab whether or not liking how can you finally
00:33:28
arms to Ukraine are not. So you didn't persuade them.
00:33:31
So it's more, just like he's annoyed that he basically he
00:33:35
wanted to voice it earlier whereas other people were a
00:33:38
little more deferential to the US state department to just
00:33:42
figure it out as this was a live situation, I everything now
00:33:45
especially if you'd through Twitter like the people that
00:33:47
respond to your Tweet is a battle between you and your
00:33:50
haters right time. So I'm assuming I don't follow
00:33:52
him but I'm a You mean that every time he tweets out, you
00:33:55
know, that there should be like a truce negotiated between the
00:33:58
Ukraine and Russia, he has like an army of people in his replies
00:34:02
just like shitting on him for it.
00:34:03
And certainly, I mean, the great thing about Twitter is you can
00:34:06
bait, people who hate you into over, extending their own
00:34:10
position by sort of articulating, a repetition that
00:34:13
people want to share that, like his replies is the discourse
00:34:16
like he really thinks that is the national conversation he's
00:34:19
just a disingenuous, are you are an well in Fury, okay?
00:34:22
So all of this This then is actually a perfect transition
00:34:25
into the other thing we're going to talk about on this podcast,
00:34:27
which is Twitter. Oh, yeah.
00:34:29
Because everything devolves to a conversation, about your Twitter
00:34:33
thinking that the people that are in your replies, is the
00:34:37
world. And that is like, how business
00:34:39
works. That is how politics works.
00:34:41
That is how like the economy Works seems to have been the
00:34:44
main miscalculation that Elon Musk had any but sweater.
00:34:48
So let's just give a quick recap on where things are right now
00:34:51
because it is fairly and I want to read the Fresh off the
00:34:54
presses. He tweeted this 30 minutes ago
00:34:58
this is Elon Musk. Okay.
00:34:59
Yeah. Elon Musk.
00:35:01
New Twitter policy is freedom of speech but not freedom of reach
00:35:05
- hate. Tweets will be maxed he boosted
00:35:08
and demonetized so no ads are other Revenue to Twitter.
00:35:12
You won't find the Tweet unless you specifically seek it out
00:35:15
which is no different from the rest of the internet.
00:35:17
So basically he's ended up to where things already were but
00:35:20
like well the ultimate question is just what our - hate tweets.
00:35:23
It's and it's just but he said it's not going to be boosted,
00:35:26
right? Isn't that the exact complain
00:35:28
about Matt O'Bannon? He boosted.
00:35:30
Yeah, so it's not even Shadow been.
00:35:31
He's basically saying we're going to be shouted Banning.
00:35:33
Yeah, exactly. Congratulations you right?
00:35:36
You ended up is to wear Twitter was before you bought the
00:35:37
company the thing, right? Forced you to buy the company is
00:35:40
where you've ended up. Okay, let's see him.
00:35:44
You stated Babylon be okay. His work here is done.
00:35:49
Okay. So here is my understanding of
00:35:52
where things are at Twitter over the last week or so.
00:35:54
And this is clearly a, you know, a quickly moving story earlier
00:35:58
this week, which is going to be last week by the time people
00:36:00
listen to this episode, he laid off half of the company.
00:36:04
So 50% or so. The a 7 people that worked
00:36:07
at Twitter were given notice marching orders.
00:36:11
And honestly, I mean, Without elon's price, still gonna lay
00:36:14
off like 30%. Yeah, that's economy with meta
00:36:17
and Amazon, and everyone, everyone, but Google.
00:36:20
And apple laying people off. Yes, there were probably layoffs
00:36:22
to come but he laid off 50%, which is pretty dramatic.
00:36:25
Now when it's good, it is good to do it all once.
00:36:27
I think there's good, it's good to have a sense of realism.
00:36:31
Anyway, idea, I don't want to just and people are experiencing
00:36:34
that people were expecting that there was a complete debacle
00:36:37
with Twitter blue, which was a subscription service that he was
00:36:41
going to make. I even want to go into Twitter
00:36:43
blue. It's kind of old news now but
00:36:45
that, that didn't work out. Well, reporters are salty,
00:36:48
right? And then, and then, so, the most
00:36:50
recent, at the time of recording, this podcast,
00:36:53
controversy has been, he basically gave an ultimatum to
00:36:56
the remaining employees saying, you're either in or out.
00:36:59
He gave them like the Jerry Maguire.
00:37:00
You have to you have to testify the you're willing to be
00:37:04
extremely hard core otherwise we'll give you three months
00:37:07
Severance and you can go on your way and turns out three months
00:37:11
Severance sounds great. Like I know.
00:37:14
Yeah. It's just like yeah better than
00:37:16
most of the way. Alright companies doing.
00:37:19
Yeah and so hundreds of people took him up in the three months
00:37:22
offer it was way more than he was expecting there.
00:37:25
Sounded like there were emergency desperate meetings to
00:37:27
keep some of the essential, you know, top Engineers, top product
00:37:31
people, I don't know, some, some marketing, people keep them on
00:37:34
board. It's unclear how that played out
00:37:37
there is like this cascading series of like salute emojis
00:37:40
inside the Twitter slack, I love you.
00:37:42
Yeah, people were signing off and this was not a guess what
00:37:45
you I was expecting. I want to say, I want to have
00:37:48
according to the line New York Times, right?
00:37:50
Well, but I do want to say, and I said this probably still in my
00:37:54
tweets somewhere when it was coming out that you, I was
00:37:56
buying a company, I put out a poll and I said, what percentage
00:37:59
of Twitter employees? Do you think you're going to
00:38:01
quit the company? And it was like a ten percent
00:38:03
when I was in for free? The lowest responding answer was
00:38:07
50% plus and I guess you could debate, you know, lay off versus
00:38:11
like people. Her leaving, but like there was
00:38:14
a huge fucking issue with people.
00:38:16
Not wanted to work at the Iran, must go and Twitter.
00:38:18
And I don't see why more people weren't willing to expect that.
00:38:22
I don't know. I don't, yeah, it just like it
00:38:24
seems. So clearly obvious that anyone
00:38:26
who is going to come in and buy this company strictly for
00:38:29
ideological reasons was going to run into this problem.
00:38:32
Well, there is a great tweet Storm from of recently departed
00:38:35
Twitter employee. There was just like Elon didn't
00:38:40
articulate sort of a Grand Vision.
00:38:42
You know, it is not. Tesla and SpaceX, right?
00:38:47
You know, so it's like, what are you fighting for?
00:38:50
What am I going to be hardcore for, right?
00:38:52
And, you know, it's there is sort of like, which political
00:38:56
Vector is Elon really aligned with and like, what are the
00:38:59
goals of Twitter? And like, what does it stand
00:39:02
for? I mean, his this is where his,
00:39:04
like, incoherency about free speech.
00:39:07
And like his mind, moderation policies.
00:39:10
And whether he's trying to satisfy the middle or sort of
00:39:12
The Joe Rogan class or what What what exact constituency does he
00:39:17
believe with believe in an aligned with, besides his own
00:39:20
off-the-cuff control. It's hard to get people to Rally
00:39:24
around you who want to believe in a cause, you know, and his
00:39:27
inability articulate, this has actually been a major major
00:39:31
problem with, with his ability, to get allies.
00:39:35
Yeah, because he wasn't able to answer it.
00:39:36
The central question that people had, which is why are you buying
00:39:39
this company? Because there were two
00:39:40
arguments, one, is that it was an underwhelming underperforming
00:39:43
business. That is totally true.
00:39:46
Twitter has been like an absolute mediocrity as a
00:39:49
business for as long as it's been around.
00:39:51
And then there's the like this is an essential part of free
00:39:53
speech and it's shirking. Its duties by Shadow Banning cat
00:39:57
turd, or whatever, and these two visions are potentially in
00:40:02
Conflict. Like I think he and the
00:40:05
billionaires and non billionaires in his, you know,
00:40:07
text threads truly believe that this was an entire company made
00:40:11
up of like Tucker Carlson's. And of Taylor Lorenz, right?
00:40:16
He was just a bunch of like, weepy woke snowflakes just
00:40:20
seeing, you know, - tweets crying about it and banning
00:40:23
people. And and that was the entire
00:40:25
company. It wasn't full of Engineers or
00:40:27
product people or people trying to keep the business running.
00:40:30
It was just, you know, woke idiots.
00:40:32
And I just he he one that's not a great reason to buy a company
00:40:36
anyway, but also clearly he was wrong.
00:40:38
And once he realized that people didn't want to work there
00:40:41
anymore, he realize that they actually did have a central
00:40:43
value, right? So I mean, I will say we kind of
00:40:46
touched on this a bit with the teddy episode, but I'm dying to
00:40:50
know the other side of the story here because in one sense this
00:40:54
is a reporter's dream, right? It's incredibly dramatic.
00:40:57
We have this character and Elon Musk who reporters don't like,
00:41:00
you know, just generally politically, they're not aligned
00:41:02
with him. And so it's, you know, it's like
00:41:05
a fucking keep using the term, like, Feeding Frenzy,
00:41:08
especially, with sources that are dying to offload.
00:41:10
All the bullshit that's going on, inside you two coming, but
00:41:13
Elon doesn't have any PR Beretta surround him, right?
00:41:16
From what I read the New York Times story.
00:41:17
They do not have a comms Department right now, so there
00:41:19
is no contrasting narrative to what's going on right now.
00:41:22
So that's sort of the reality that's going to get out there
00:41:25
because no one is able to push back on it.
00:41:28
Well yeah, it's all right. It's so negative about Eli on
00:41:31
Twitter right now, right? There's a mood on Twitter as if
00:41:34
there's going to be sort of a fail, whale this evening and
00:41:37
that's what I'm going to be the end of it.
00:41:39
And so, I think empirically I am interested in How likely We is
00:41:44
Twitter really to crash without sort of the Staffing.
00:41:48
I think there is an argument that the left is being a little
00:41:52
history Raonic on that history on it and like maybe it doesn't
00:41:56
crash and it keeps operating and I mean if the worst that happens
00:42:01
is Twitter is slow to, you know, improve that will be just like
00:42:07
the old Twitter. You know, I was thinking back to
00:42:09
Barbarians at the gate and the whole era of leveraged buyouts
00:42:13
is essentially This is right. It's, you know we make it into
00:42:16
something kind of mysterious and and whatever evil.
00:42:21
But in fact, this is kind of a standard right in process, like
00:42:24
a leveraged buyout. But during a leveraged buyout,
00:42:26
the new owner of the property who let you know, lay it up with
00:42:31
debt and all that stuff. They typically work with
00:42:33
Management in order to kind of keep some semblance of
00:42:36
transition Before ice goats, you know, start going through and
00:42:39
like ripping out all the, you know, drywall and shit.
00:42:42
But that wasn't the case here. Right?
00:42:44
He comes in day one and fires. The CEO fire is the CFO like a
00:42:48
popular head of legal. All the kinds of people that you
00:42:50
probably would have needed to have like an orderly transition,
00:42:53
right? Our because he wanted to be, you
00:42:55
know, like a new page and dramatic new ownership.
00:42:58
And that that's just not how these things are typically done.
00:43:01
Like there is a Playbook of leveraged buyouts, and he just
00:43:04
decided to abandon it in favor of what he thought Twitter
00:43:07
needed, which was like dramatic action, right?
00:43:09
And it just fucking blew up. I mean, I don't know, there's no
00:43:12
other way to really see it, right?
00:43:13
And I think, Is an argument that elon's management style works
00:43:18
for SpaceX and Tesla because people are True Believers.
00:43:22
You can sell them on the mission.
00:43:24
They know what it's for, you know, become sort of a kalt
00:43:28
whereas, you know, Twitter, Twitter exists.
00:43:32
So you need to really give people a vision of what, what
00:43:35
they're building for sort of different than today.
00:43:38
So, a lot of White Collar jobs, right?
00:43:40
Like these people have skill sets, right?
00:43:41
Pretty easily. Transferable to other companies.
00:43:44
And they have more money so they're not as desperate to
00:43:46
stick with the job because they don't, you know, they don't need
00:43:48
it as much. And you know, I've seen the
00:43:51
argument made out there that the people that are staying or
00:43:53
staying because they have to pay bills, you know, like they don't
00:43:55
have that much money, right? Well, in the worst case they
00:43:59
have visas. And so they're sort of, I mean,
00:44:01
this this speaks to some of the problems with the VISA program
00:44:05
that, you know, people can't walk with their feet, which is a
00:44:08
key part of capitalism. Like, you should be allowed to
00:44:11
leave your job and go to another one when you don't like
00:44:13
management, There's something abusive about employees who are
00:44:17
on visas being trapped that a particular company and it goes
00:44:20
against right? Sort of the freedom that's part
00:44:23
of capitalism, right. So I guess I can closing out
00:44:26
this episode and it's an impossible question to answer
00:44:30
but it's really the only question asked which is like
00:44:32
where does this go at this point?
00:44:35
What happens because because I see like a couple of paths I
00:44:39
mean one possibility is that he just unloads this thing he just,
00:44:42
you know, somehow, you know who well, I don't know, some sort of
00:44:46
private Equity Firm that probably should have been
00:44:48
responsible for the elbow in the first movie, such a loss.
00:44:50
Like I almost think the opposite that he is tanking the
00:44:54
reputation he gets the debt down the like 40% or something.
00:44:59
Then he buys you been more of it and he owns it and then on a on
00:45:03
the cost basis of the his new ownership he could actually sort
00:45:07
of I'm out. Okay sure.
00:45:09
If you manage to make it a purely profitable company, I
00:45:12
mean the typical way a leveraged buyout works is that you slash a
00:45:15
ton of costs. You lay up with it with a ton of
00:45:17
debt and then you re listed as a public company and like this new
00:45:21
leaner, meaner version of the company is more profitable and
00:45:24
maybe you can make it you know up all you know right Public
00:45:27
Market evaluation hit has just been so bad it's such a terrible
00:45:30
time. Well I suppose you're surprised
00:45:32
that he paid for it but I can see like idiot logically where
00:45:35
he's going here which is that he had a great plan.
00:45:38
All of the woke, Twitter employees ruined it for him.
00:45:41
I want to read a tweet that I think is emblematic of the, I
00:45:45
don't know. Certainly the mark in but this
00:45:48
guy is citing a book. Mark injuries and loves at the
00:45:50
moment, so that's why I'm connecting to him.
00:45:51
But Antonio Garcia Martinez, the author of chaos monkeys and I'll
00:45:56
sort of a July Ally of the no dark and light Mentor.
00:46:02
I don't know if you would agree with that, whatever he's on
00:46:04
often on the right though. He's been aligned with the left
00:46:07
on Ukraine. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
00:46:08
He's one of them. He says what Elon is doing is a
00:46:12
Revolt by the entrepreneurial Capital against the professional
00:46:16
managerial class regime that otherwise everywhere dominates
00:46:20
including an especially large tech companies and that same
00:46:24
PMC, professional managerial class, which includes the media
00:46:27
is treating it. As an act of last matches.
00:46:30
Stay Majesty less Majesty in Burnham's formulation, this is
00:46:34
James Burnham. The author of The managerial
00:46:36
Revolution and Burnham's formulation New managerial class
00:46:40
would supplant the former business owning Bourgeois, and
00:46:43
even Capital itself. As the elite ruling class, most
00:46:46
woke, labor scandals and Tech aren't entitled middle
00:46:48
management class at odds with Founders.
00:46:50
I think that's very true. You know, most woke, labor
00:46:54
scandals and Tack are an entitled middle management class
00:46:56
at odds with Founders. I mean, the media is basically
00:46:59
talking to employees and parenting them now.
00:47:02
Partly because Founders have decided to talk to the media
00:47:05
less. But yeah, I mean this is sort of
00:47:08
what's Opening or what do you make of these tweets?
00:47:10
I but I would buy that argument as true but also entirely
00:47:16
avoidable, because if these guys are so tapped into the mindset
00:47:20
of the PMC and their woke agenda, they could have
00:47:23
anticipated all of this. They could have had a honeymoon
00:47:26
period coming into the company in which they, you know, yes,
00:47:29
lured them into. Yeah, it wouldn't have been that
00:47:32
fucking hard. Regulate them, aren't you
00:47:33
supposed to be the winners? Yeah, because like, this is the
00:47:36
fucking free market that you're defending here.
00:47:38
It's like, if There is a great business beneath all of it than
00:47:40
it should be able to withstand all of these you know, woke
00:47:43
pmc's. Alright.
00:47:44
If the problem that Twitter had was that there were too many
00:47:47
people at the helm that were thinking about, you know, the
00:47:51
emotions rather than like the cold hard facts of what a great
00:47:54
business is. Then this shouldn't matter.
00:47:56
You should be able to Route these people out and bring in a
00:47:58
new group of, you know, based Engineers, who can bring Twitter
00:48:02
to where it should have been, but you also shouldn't have even
00:48:05
gotten there. You could have eased these
00:48:07
people out of the company with A three-week honeymoon period that
00:48:10
would have gotten rid of a lot of these or that would have done
00:48:13
away with a lot of these issues. So no II totally reject that
00:48:15
argument because one I just don't think it withstands any
00:48:21
sort of economic test because if there's a great business model
00:48:24
here, I don't see it yet and it just doesn't seem like there was
00:48:27
a plan but yeah, sure, I do agree that like woke scandals or
00:48:31
the results of, you know, middle-management stirring shit
00:48:34
up. But like a scandal is not the
00:48:35
same thing as a business problem.
00:48:37
And right now he has a business Problem.
00:48:39
Right? I mean like he's actively
00:48:42
alienating advertisers right? Well, that sure the argument
00:48:46
would be advertisers are in cahoots, cat.
00:48:49
I mean, they're trying to sell their products to as many people
00:48:51
as possible. I my objection to our.
00:48:53
First of all, it's just setting up a case where we're supposed
00:48:56
to some out route for like the capitalist class.
00:48:59
You know, it's like, oh, we called him entrepreneurial
00:49:01
Capital, you know, it just like Founders, whatever, you know,
00:49:05
they do represent their the ultimate Elites who Trying to
00:49:09
pretend like they're not, I don't know.
00:49:12
We should bring him on. I'm happy to have my lunch.
00:49:14
Yeah. That bgm on here.
00:49:16
And argue this case, he likes directly, maybe, maybe I'm
00:49:19
surprised you haven't asked him yet.
00:49:20
Honestly, he he might be the one, you know, non coward among
00:49:24
them. Well, I'm dying to hear more
00:49:25
people defending Ilan because I certainly sympathize with any
00:49:29
perspective that is like, boy. This is a very one-sided story
00:49:32
right now? Yes.
00:49:33
I mean, but I, the media was desperate, like, I'm sure they
00:49:36
would interview Elin. That's, that's the one thing I'm
00:49:39
I get that the media would probably interview them under
00:49:42
their frame but people are hungry to still to hear from
00:49:46
these CEOs, and but if you listen to these people,
00:49:49
especially ones that are on the all in podcast, they argued that
00:49:51
talking to the media, isn't it is of itself like an act of
00:49:54
treachery it's pointless to do. And so it's just not very, it's
00:49:58
not fair, if you're like, well, the media is dominated by
00:50:01
workers. It's like, well, if workers are
00:50:02
the ones talking to Media, then, that makes sense.
00:50:06
You know, this is a topic that we may be revisiting.
00:50:08
In future episodes because whether it's a GM or other
00:50:11
people that are in that orbit, I'd love to hear.
00:50:13
I'd love to hear from them because I personally, as a
00:50:17
reader of these stories, I'm not done any sort of reporting.
00:50:19
I do feel like it is incredibly one-sided but unfortunate that's
00:50:22
the one side that's talking right?
00:50:24
And I don't know what else a reporter can do.
00:50:26
And there are way more of them and an employee's believe, all
00:50:29
sorts of different things. I just think reducing it's
00:50:31
convenient to reduce workers to a class because then he'll on
00:50:37
who is one. In is on equal footing with, you
00:50:41
know, the thousands of angry employees, you know?
00:50:45
And and hundreds are more of angry.
00:50:47
Advertisers, you know, it is like they're your these masses
00:50:50
of and then there's also the public right?
00:50:52
That has its points of view and somehow given the Elan embodies
00:50:56
the single class. He's supposed to count, you
00:50:59
know, for so much. If he merits his placement in
00:51:02
that class, you should show it by being an effective manager.
00:51:06
Like if you deserve all of the The Privileges that come with
00:51:09
being in the entrepreneurial class, show it, show me how
00:51:13
you've managed to will navigate this controversy in a way that
00:51:18
proves your point. Because right now, it doesn't
00:51:20
seem like there was a fucking plan.
00:51:22
Like, I'm not sure that's the same big winfried ideology that
00:51:25
comes through in the DMS. It's like, people are chill with
00:51:28
by Nance now because he's a winner and I'm a loser and
00:51:30
ultimately people like winners and they don't like losers and
00:51:33
like morality is almost like subservient to that.
00:51:36
It's like you can say Shibboleth the people want but ultimately
00:51:41
you know you need to, you need to win.
00:51:43
Yeah. I mean I don't know that I think
00:51:45
by Nance is going to continue to win.
00:51:47
I think people have been a little too probe Finance lately,
00:51:50
but anyways, I mean being like the last person standing in a
00:51:53
crumbling field, doesn't mean you're in a great position.
00:51:56
No, I look, I actually think in in so many respects, I know.
00:51:59
Like as the, the Twitter you'll on Twitter thing was closing in
00:52:02
on taking place, your argument had been like, let's put the
00:52:06
right ideas to the test. Yes, Let them rule, let's see it
00:52:10
like right, especially on Twitter where it's like, okay we
00:52:12
can give that up. It's not like all of America,
00:52:14
you know. I'm not saying let the right
00:52:16
rule the United States but I am saying, fuck, give them Twitter
00:52:19
and let's see it. Let's run it, run it, you know,
00:52:22
like and so I'm actually willing to like, let's let this
00:52:25
experiment run a little bit longer.
00:52:26
I think people that are talking about the death of Twitter right
00:52:28
now, are probably jumping the gun.
00:52:30
They're seen by the enough money questions on this is the
00:52:33
question for the right if Twitter dies because like the
00:52:36
left abandons and everybody, Using like the managerial class
00:52:40
doesn't do the work. Whose fault is it?
00:52:43
Like, I feel like, they somehow believe that it's still the left
00:52:47
fault, even though they're in charge of it, they had to pull
00:52:49
the levers to make it work. If basically they lose because
00:52:54
the left like mounts, a resistance does the right and
00:52:58
Ilan sort of get off scot-free because right is going to blame
00:53:02
the left. I think I'm saying that's what
00:53:04
they're clearly starting to coalesce around that argument
00:53:06
which is absurd right? Okay now Now, yeah, I mean,
00:53:09
ultimately, you're in charge you, you're supposed to be Savvy
00:53:12
enough to know the psychology of the left and manipulate it and
00:53:15
get your ends. Like, you can't just whine and
00:53:17
say, oh, these people are irrational like that.
00:53:20
All you humans are rational, you know, you have to navigate that
00:53:23
that's part of part of leadership.
00:53:26
Yeah. Because the prevailing sentiment
00:53:28
ality and posture that people want to take these days is the
00:53:31
victim, doesn't matter what position you are in class and
00:53:34
you know, in your business and your class you want to be the
00:53:37
victim. It's the it's the Fault, Place,
00:53:39
repeat, nobody wants to be the elite.
00:53:41
You are literally running the company.
00:53:43
You were signing the checks and yet you were the victim of a
00:53:46
system that you have just now, declared or prior to now,
00:53:49
declared as being anti Capital as an anti market.
00:53:53
And I don't know what to tell you, buddy.
00:53:55
You just bought the store, right?
00:53:56
It's your problem. Yeah.
00:53:58
Figure it out. Stop whining.
00:54:00
You know, like, pull yourself up by your fucking bootstraps.
00:54:03
Yeah. So let's just let this play out
00:54:06
a little bit longer. You know, if Twitter Goes down,
00:54:09
it would, I guess, prove someone's point, right?
00:54:11
But, you know, I guess my my perspective is that Twitter will
00:54:17
probably be around for another couple of weeks, you know, the
00:54:22
worst of the bloodline that will pass.
00:54:24
I think people's expectations for the implosion or too big.
00:54:28
Especially the people who are leaving because they probably
00:54:30
want to think man and masses of people around me, it's like,
00:54:33
people should on the United States and then they go to Paris
00:54:35
and it's like it's dirty and they only have one Cuisine, you
00:54:38
know. It's like New York's great.
00:54:40
Like Twitter is better than the alternative unfortunately.
00:54:43
Like that's the reality in the world in which you have to
00:54:45
participate in these things, right?
00:54:47
Well, don't go live in fucking Macon, Georgia.
00:54:49
You know, I don't even know where to leave this one other
00:54:52
than. I think this topic we extend an
00:54:54
open invite to anyone who wants to explain elon's managerial
00:54:58
style. I know, we like to fight I you
00:55:01
think the cowardice from some on on the right is z reached out to
00:55:07
not a small number of people. For this episode and we'll
00:55:09
continue to going forward because I do believe it is a
00:55:12
one-sided story. Being told right now, I'd love
00:55:14
to hear the the pro Elon side. We maybe have some guests coming
00:55:17
up, that can help a little bit on that perspective, but to all
00:55:20
listening out there, if you have some people that, you know, that
00:55:23
can speak positively and with personal anecdote on elon's
00:55:29
leadership style, and why? It's great that we're open.
00:55:32
Please email us. You know, DM won't, you can DM
00:55:34
Eric, you can message me dead cat.
00:55:37
Show at gmail.com. We want to hear from you.
00:55:40
Great. All right.
00:55:41
This is fun. Thanks a bunch.
00:55:42
Thanks, before we go, we do want to give credits to the people
00:55:45
that make the show possible because we do not do it enough.
00:55:47
But engineering, the show is our great new sound engineer, Tommy
00:55:51
Heron, who is making this thing sound very professional.
00:55:54
And then we've gotten can continue to get a lot of
00:55:56
positive feedback on the theme song for the show.
00:55:59
I agree with you. It is awesome.
00:56:00
It is the work of young Chomsky who is a producer and audio
00:56:04
composer. He is the producer of the
00:56:07
excellent podcast. True.
00:56:08
And on which I do listen to, and I don't want to get cancelled
00:56:12
for that because I know they end up being controversial times.
00:56:15
I think it's great. But anyway, young Chomsky has
00:56:17
the awesome theme song for this and we think both he and Tommy
00:56:20
for making the show. Great, goodbye.
00:56:34
Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye.
00:56:37
Goodbye, goodbye.