On last week’s Dead Cat episode with ex-Facebook security chief Alex Stamos, we spent a lot of time trying to steel man the free speech moderation crowd’s argument — even though none of us seemed to hold it ourselves. The other week, we had Jason Calacanis on the show but he didn’t want to talk about Elon Musk.
This week, finally we have someone on the podcast who is a defender of the so-called free speech regime and is also willing to talk to skeptical journalists about it on air. Antonio García Martínez, the author of Chaos Monkeys and startup CEO, came on the show. On his Substack The Pull Request, he defended the free speech argument in April — before Musk acquired Twitter. (I’ve written that no one, Musk included, was plausibly going to govern social media under a free speech standard so invoking free speech is a pure marketing ploy. I think that position has been vindicated by Musk’s recent actions.)
More broadly, García Martínez, or AGM as he is widely known, is someone who has pushed back against the tech media and leftwing employees. With Dead Cat co-host Tom Dotan, we set out to make sense of the culture war between tech “builders” and reporters.
Give it a listen
Read the automated transcript
Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe
00:00:05
Welcome silicon salad. Hey it's Eric, welcome to dead
00:00:14
cat. I'm here with Tom dote on and
00:00:16
we've got a great guest, super excited.
00:00:19
Antonio Garcia Martinez, author of chaos monkeys, you have a
00:00:24
crypto startup Facebook, exactly one point and very aware.
00:00:30
Where is exact overstating things?
00:00:32
I think title inflation is pretty standard Tetra knows him.
00:00:36
So by all means, but we're going to talk about the managerial
00:00:40
class so you know you have to be in management there reporter
00:00:43
trick you call somebody exact if you want to sound like you're
00:00:46
sourcing is higher level, that's exactly why they do it.
00:00:49
That's okay. And that can anything be from
00:00:51
like product manager to director to any anything that isn't like
00:00:55
I was hired yesterday is like oh an exact just told me that this
00:00:58
is the strategy. That's right.
00:01:00
So if you resource for anyone, you were definitely an exact.
00:01:02
Okay, well, alright, I'll take it.
00:01:05
If you like our goal with this show is just to sort of
00:01:08
understand what's going on on Twitter and like the cultural
00:01:13
War, you know like, yeah. I feel like in classic sort of
00:01:16
fiefdom division. It's like literally we had, you
00:01:19
know, Alex Stamos on last week and it's sort of like he's
00:01:23
basically on our side of this whole like free speech internet,
00:01:26
moderation war and we're asking him like Like what's the best
00:01:31
version of the other side? Like that's as close as we can
00:01:33
get to sort of direct engagement with the other side in your
00:01:37
game, like you. And I sort of had it out, I
00:01:40
think, on Free Speech a little while ago.
00:01:43
And so I, my first question is such a big one.
00:01:45
I feel bad throwing to you but like, what is going on or like
00:01:49
how would you articulate this sort of reporter versus musk
00:01:52
sort of thing or like based versus whatever like explain to
00:01:56
the audience? Like what is this conflict?
00:01:59
That's happening. I wouldn't presume to speak for
00:02:01
Ilan or know what's going on said, obviously.
00:02:03
But I have commented, I think a lot in the past on the tech
00:02:06
media divide to some degree because I think I'm one of the
00:02:08
few people who spend it to some degree.
00:02:10
I was one of the few people kind of dumb enough to actually write
00:02:13
a book about my time in scitech and then like, I actually did
00:02:16
fact-check reporting for Wired shortly after that and was kind
00:02:19
of a journalist, I figure. Yeah.
00:02:21
And you wanna sub stack and add a sub?
00:02:23
NS F stack as well. And I had my own podcast and
00:02:25
whatnot. So I've played a little bit on
00:02:26
the media side of things, which again is pretty unusual for tech
00:02:29
people and then, Then definitely very unusual for media.
00:02:31
People is actually building things in Tech.
00:02:34
So I've seen both sides of it. I do think there's like a two
00:02:36
cultures thing going on in which they have just morally
00:02:39
foundational, different views of the world.
00:02:41
And then there's also a lot of like them in going on by them
00:02:43
being. I mean, the other side seems
00:02:45
like this monolithic other that is acting in some dark
00:02:48
Confederacy against what is true and good in the world which I
00:02:51
think is just a natural state that humans think about like the
00:02:53
other tribe. And I just think it's wrong very
00:02:56
often and there's an acknowledgement of power on both
00:02:59
sides, right? Like The reporters, look at the
00:03:01
tech entrepreneurial class and see them, you know, exorbitantly
00:03:05
wealthy or at least they have access to Capital.
00:03:07
And then on the other side, I imagine they're looking at us
00:03:10
and saying, you know, we have some sort of magical control
00:03:13
over the narrative and what's the game live?
00:03:15
The purer? The elite know, you're the like,
00:03:17
the one thing you don't want to be right?
00:03:19
Now is an elite. Your I am not an elite either.
00:03:22
Just everyone knows my arm. Not too late.
00:03:24
I'm I want has ever admitted to being an elite team or I'm like
00:03:26
give it up. Like what how can I be like you?
00:03:29
You know it's just like You get to.
00:03:31
I feel like if you get to write but not be blamed for being a
00:03:34
journalist, that's sort of the best situation to be in at the
00:03:37
moment. If you can have an entire
00:03:38
podcast of millionaires and billionaires railing against the
00:03:41
elite, then there literally is no such thing as a bully.
00:03:44
So, here I would disagree and this gets back to the comment
00:03:46
about the manager elite elite obviously means different
00:03:49
things, right? But in the context of like
00:03:51
America, right now, almost 20 23, I made a reference to
00:03:55
Burnham and Burnham was actually a collaborative Trotsky start as
00:03:58
a communist actually and ended up on the right.
00:04:00
Cited a lot in the writing is very formative for like sort of
00:04:02
mid-century conservative thought his book is called the
00:04:04
managerial Elite, which I think is kind of a classic Marc
00:04:07
Andreessen has been a big booster.
00:04:08
This book recently to lots of. Yeah, it's big topic of
00:04:12
conversation. Yeah, I think it was in the book
00:04:13
list that he tweeted the key thing to understand.
00:04:16
And I this is why I think Elites an overloaded term to use a tech
00:04:18
term. The elite that James Burnham was
00:04:21
referring to was not sort of the WASP Elite that ran.
00:04:23
The US for however many decades or was not the sort of Bourgeois
00:04:27
capitalist elite that marks railed against, for example.
00:04:30
Oil or that Burnham used to rail against in his in his marks.
00:04:32
His face, the idea was that there'd be this sort of middle
00:04:35
tier technocratic side to society, that would form its own
00:04:39
interest group, right? Traditional capitalist, right?
00:04:42
Like the original robber, barons of, you know, Vanderbilt and
00:04:45
Carnegie and whatnot. They were the elite, they were
00:04:48
the founder, they were the management team.
00:04:49
They were the capital, they were everything, right?
00:04:52
And the dynamic that you see today, in which you often have a
00:04:54
middle management layer, that is politically of one mindset, and
00:04:58
the founding class, that is another Like a lot of these blow
00:05:01
up. You saw it.
00:05:01
I mean for God's sake at the Washington Post that they're all
00:05:04
hands that devolved into a screaming match or whatever.
00:05:06
Right. There's a Delta, a cat and I
00:05:07
think it's partially generational, as well, by the
00:05:09
way, just to add more complexity to this early muddled thinking,
00:05:12
but there's a Delta there between someone who went to an
00:05:15
elite school, like an Ivy League school, or Stanford or whatever,
00:05:18
and then takes their place in the firmament as a middle
00:05:21
management person at a large company.
00:05:22
And then there's the founding class employee who often didn't
00:05:25
have that background or rebelled against that background.
00:05:28
They didn't go to Goldman and Mackenzie when they got out of
00:05:29
school, Cool. Right?
00:05:30
They did some weird little thing that grew into this massive
00:05:33
thing and now they're responsible for this.
00:05:35
This is sort of how you have a situation where Ilan seems to
00:05:40
not be blaming Jack Dorsey for what happened to Twitter, but
00:05:43
blaming the Twitter employees, maybe disagree, right.
00:05:46
I mean it's or maybe that's just incoherent, but it's hard to
00:05:49
understand how you could not blame the CEO of a company.
00:05:52
But have this idea that basically the employees went off
00:05:56
and did whatever they want, or your sir, rolling, your eyes at
00:05:58
that, so, Look I admire your attempt to try to put some like
00:06:02
ideological coherence behind what's going on here because it
00:06:05
does seem to be fairly reactive and arbitrary to the moment of
00:06:09
who feels like they're attacked. But I think it's interesting to
00:06:12
put it in like Marxist terms because what we're talking about
00:06:16
essentially is a internecine war between, you know, middle class
00:06:20
or professional managerial class and management.
00:06:23
So there really isn't almost any blue collar worker to speak of
00:06:26
here, which is why this is so, you know, it's based on so many.
00:06:30
Also makes it easy and the stakes seems so incredibly low
00:06:33
right, you know, no one's livelihood is really at stake
00:06:35
here. The cultural divide between, I
00:06:38
don't know, sort of the market injury since David sacks of the
00:06:42
world and the reporter class like, is this just going to keep
00:06:46
accelerating, are like what Bridges?
00:06:48
What Bridges, this again, you're citing specific individuals,
00:06:52
some of whom I know and so I don't want to speak for them and
00:06:55
I think the Divide goes deeper like it's not just a few, they
00:06:58
might be lighter about it, but I think Is a divide between the
00:07:01
way Builders think about the world, on the way that media
00:07:04
people think about the world is just different.
00:07:06
Is this shape rotators? Whoa.
00:07:08
No, no, no, no. I mean, I've never want to talk
00:07:10
about that again, but why don't you, why don't you lay out to
00:07:13
me, as a builder as a Founder? What is, what is, what is the
00:07:16
view of the world? I mean, that is so distinct from
00:07:18
at the very least journalists. But maybe the broader public.
00:07:21
So I had lunch with a tech reporter that I think all of us
00:07:24
here probably knows and I won't call them out by name.
00:07:26
It's a guy that I kind of know personally and have known before
00:07:29
I went before. This whole war or whatever you
00:07:31
want to call it started, but it still seems as if we're talking
00:07:33
past each other, and I think here's how I see it.
00:07:38
Builders they can come across as potentially naive, or insincere,
00:07:44
or to Ernest. And I think particularly,
00:07:46
because a lot of reporters had to come from the East Coast,
00:07:47
just to make a regional this, the mega a big Regional
00:07:50
generalization Earnest proclamations of like the
00:07:53
excitement of building come off as like naive and dumb and
00:07:56
childish and I think there's a number of inputs that Silicon
00:07:59
Valley. And by this, I mean more, the
00:08:00
mentality, Silicon Valley, it's no longer a place, it's really
00:08:03
an attitude. A lot of the inputs, you need to
00:08:05
make a Silicon Valley work, some of them are a little weird, and
00:08:08
they're not the inputs, you have, and other powerful
00:08:10
Industries. So a childish sense of wonder,
00:08:13
this sort of reflects his desire to sort of disrupt everything,
00:08:16
no matter what, I'll sort of engineering solution is mm that
00:08:19
everything seems to have an engineering solution, many of
00:08:21
these, which by the way I think are legitimate critiques of the
00:08:23
culture. I think some of these things are
00:08:24
a little bit like I understand why they need to exist but it
00:08:27
also means that the view of the world's a little bit incomplete.
00:08:30
Eat right? Yes.
00:08:31
Okay. Now to create the conflict, I
00:08:33
mean, as clearly a member of the media class.
00:08:37
Yeah, I feel like the media classes, much more optimistic
00:08:40
about the builders. Like there's no, why not?
00:08:43
There's no denying we're searching for positive Tech
00:08:46
things like there was falling. That's what I heard.
00:08:48
The run is not true. That is mr.
00:08:50
Doyle splint are Eric. No, don't leave me wrong.
00:08:56
I mean, there are but like there's a total acceptance.
00:09:00
That sort of Cs type. The Mark Zuckerberg type is like
00:09:05
going to build sort of tech companies.
00:09:08
I think there is no respect that.
00:09:10
There is any sort of expertise in policy or like this, where
00:09:15
the content moderation fight breaks down.
00:09:18
So much musk declares were just gonna follow the law, this is
00:09:22
the framework. They're going to follow the law,
00:09:24
he says it over and over again, every expert, whether its media
00:09:28
people have focused on it or people.
00:09:30
People at Stanford or whatever, says this is ridiculous.
00:09:33
And my sentiment was always as soon as Ilan has to literally
00:09:36
engage with this and think about it.
00:09:38
There's no way he's going to just follow the law which is
00:09:41
literally what we're seeing to happen now.
00:09:42
But why does the whole world have to suffer through his
00:09:45
naivete on this? Just being so arrogant.
00:09:48
What why is it naive? I in terms of and I'm not
00:09:51
following the law like right now.
00:09:53
Mmm, he's falling, he's following the American free
00:09:56
standard which is a Brandenburg, the Ohio, you know, imminent
00:09:59
Lawless action team. Third, which is what typically
00:10:01
rules. Free Speech cases in this
00:10:02
country, he has fallen Below in America.
00:10:04
You're allowed to have the swastika, right?
00:10:07
He banned. Kanye over the swastika in
00:10:10
America, it is legal, like, the jet tracking is put out by the
00:10:14
government, I believe, like, and he's Banning that from Twitter,
00:10:18
right? I think doc.
00:10:19
I think doxing is dangerous. Actually, I didn't get to get,
00:10:23
it's not against the law, okay? Let me just lay out my view.
00:10:25
I don't wanna be a reactive feelings because I don't claim
00:10:27
to have inside and see those view.
00:10:28
Well, Im questions whether they're Following freedom of
00:10:30
speech. One thing I've been very
00:10:32
consistent in this. In fact, I have a wired piece in
00:10:33
2017. I forget the exact title, but
00:10:36
basically saying this is when the whole content moderation,
00:10:38
regime was kind of spinning up. And I have to say, like I don't
00:10:41
often do this, but like I was right two things, one.
00:10:44
It's going to be impossible to implement is going to be
00:10:46
impossible to actually fairly Implement at scale.
00:10:49
Any sort of Oracle of truth, whatever you call it.
00:10:51
Disinformation misinformation basically, trying to make things
00:10:54
right. In an editorial way online is
00:10:56
just not going to be technically and operationally possible one
00:10:59
which it hasn't been Then two, if you give that much power and
00:11:02
again, I kind of come from that world.
00:11:04
I've worked at a company like Facebook, if you give basically
00:11:07
like the effective de facto Supreme Court of free speech, is
00:11:10
inside a closed or a conference room at Twitter or at Facebook
00:11:13
or wherever that is not a good development, you don't want
00:11:16
Facebook, the necessarily have that power.
00:11:18
And if they do have that power that will be either captured by
00:11:22
politics or Joe and by politics, I mean either the left versus
00:11:25
right or just internal politics. This guy is politically Ascend
00:11:28
it inside Facebook and he has a certain policy and This other
00:11:30
guy has a different view or girl, or whatever.
00:11:32
And then due to the internal politics, one side wins out of
00:11:34
the other and it's just going to be unsustainable going forward.
00:11:37
And in my opinion, that's what's happened.
00:11:38
Like ask yourself. This are we safer now are, is
00:11:41
there more truth online than before?
00:11:42
Thanks to this whole concept. Mother has it worked?
00:11:44
No, no. The answer is, of course not.
00:11:46
And and I mean to the Facebook side, specifically, I mean, I
00:11:49
think one of the biggest failings of the media and just a
00:11:51
general multi-year, embarrassment on the part of the
00:11:53
media, was the way that we covered Facebook in the wake of
00:11:56
the 2016 election. I thought it was story after
00:11:59
Story. Didn't hold up.
00:12:00
That, remember, we said there was a moral Pinconning and and
00:12:03
yeah, it was absolutely moral panic and I think that actually
00:12:05
gets a maybe a little bit more to the specific mindset
00:12:08
differences between entrepreneurs and journalists or
00:12:11
the meteor. Whatever is the assignation of
00:12:13
moral intent and who is like, on the side of what is morally.
00:12:16
Correct. Is it moral to like Advanced
00:12:18
humanity and create new things or is more moral to like, bring
00:12:22
down the Bad actors that they view as responsible for any of
00:12:26
society's ills. And I actually think if you view
00:12:29
things through those Those two lenses.
00:12:31
It's not completely incompatible.
00:12:33
You just need to decide like who is haunting site has, you know
00:12:36
it? Whether it's better to try to
00:12:37
push things forward at all costs, or to kind of like sit
00:12:40
there and ruminate over things and criticize, people may be on
00:12:43
Good Grounds and I don't know. It's a tough one.
00:12:47
I mean, it's definitely the case that there's a certain
00:12:49
acceleration isn't inside the tech world that by default
00:12:51
Stomps on the gas. Like unless there's a good
00:12:53
reason faster. Right.
00:12:54
And I think most people don't look at.
00:12:55
I can that's one of the unique inputs for the tech side.
00:12:58
One thing I do want to clarify just to finish up with Terms of
00:13:00
my views on content moderation because I the incident like
00:13:02
people have argued with including Stamos, by the way and
00:13:04
other people in this organization around this whole
00:13:06
issue of net. And Renee, for example, I've had
00:13:08
a whole bunch of screaming arguments over, is that like do
00:13:11
so you're a free speech absolutist?
00:13:13
Absolutely. No, I'm not, I'm not at all for
00:13:16
starters there, again. There's the American free fee
00:13:18
standard in, which if you invoke violence or cause violence or
00:13:20
have doxing out you go instantly and then, secondly, when I would
00:13:24
call sort of Common Sense, decorum like no porn, no
00:13:28
hyper-violent video. Obviously going after child
00:13:30
Predators, right? There's lots of content that you
00:13:33
would go after and that I'm in fact, there's a whole chapter in
00:13:35
chaos monkeys, which is basically a love song to the
00:13:38
teams that we do you. These are exactly that huge
00:13:40
categories. You're going to be like, hate
00:13:41
speech. I mean, that is one of the key
00:13:43
ones people are fighting over. I mean, the swastika thing
00:13:46
doxing like these are all that Elon is by facing all the things
00:13:50
that people wanted moderated. And that Free Speech would
00:13:53
allow. And so just invoking free speech
00:13:56
over and over again and then saying, well, of course, you
00:13:58
would want to moderate that. Makes it, I just feel like the
00:14:01
arguments have been disingenuous.
00:14:03
Why wrap yourself in American law?
00:14:07
If you're not actually going to use that as the reference point
00:14:10
like nobody is Connie's not going to jail for anything.
00:14:13
He said like, nobody's going to jail like right now you can go
00:14:16
online and follow the Elan jet tracker.
00:14:18
Things off Twitter. There are legal.
00:14:20
Yeah, but in his case and again I really don't want to speak for
00:14:22
him because I'm not like I'm his lawyer.
00:14:24
There was a case of from what I understand.
00:14:26
Obviously I'm concerned of myself and actual in person
00:14:28
harassment of his child and they come after you Family.
00:14:30
It's a whole different story, right?
00:14:31
I've got children. If the character my family, it
00:14:33
would be a different story, and that that speaks to the level
00:14:37
that we have. On the one hand, the Facebook
00:14:39
side is sort of the bureaucracy, right?
00:14:42
Which journalists myself included.
00:14:44
You know, we're born to criticize bureaucracy, that sort
00:14:46
of the funny thing. Normally, I feel like that's
00:14:49
sort of big, you know. Anyway, but there's the
00:14:52
bureaucracy. But at Sycamore, they're just
00:14:54
sort of individual action of musk.
00:14:56
Oh, okay, but just a quick one thing there.
00:14:58
Eric, I mean, and again, this is I think one thing Distinguishes
00:15:00
because earlier saying oh you know media is a cheerleader for
00:15:03
Tech. I think that hasn't been true in
00:15:05
like 10 years since you know, David Pogue was reviewing
00:15:07
gadgets and most tech reporting was like at reviews Tech is
00:15:11
definitely - now, I don't want to miss my report when there's
00:15:14
interesting building and Builders are doing it, like I'm
00:15:19
hyping up generative aii right now.
00:15:20
People want a positive tearing it down.
00:15:22
Everyone should read my latest period want BT. 49 be like the
00:15:25
media would love things to Hype up.
00:15:28
Look at it this way. This And it's a conversation.
00:15:30
I think the nature of Journalism capital J.
00:15:32
Journalism is actually changing in a big way and that's what's
00:15:34
really going on. And we're just talking about the
00:15:36
specific like symptoms that we see of it, but I think this
00:15:39
business of accountability journalism.
00:15:41
Speaking truth to power whatever, the man can quote, the
00:15:44
Cara likes all the time, whatever it is, comforting The
00:15:46
Afflicted and afflict the comfortable here.
00:15:48
I don't know that, that sort of like look at crypto.
00:15:50
For example, the sort of media Borg has tried to find hostile
00:15:54
stories about crypto specifically about, for example
00:15:56
coinbase an American company. That's about the squeakiest and
00:15:58
cleanest cryptic. Um, You can name and the
00:16:01
generational villain the Madoff level Scandal was like hiding in
00:16:04
plain sight. And in fact got invited to New
00:16:06
York Times called for in total, right?
00:16:08
How amazing is by the New York Times conference.
00:16:09
You're talking about the recent conversation.
00:16:11
Yeah. Yes they did a good job Aaron
00:16:13
Ross Sorkin. Yes.
00:16:15
Well I mean that was supposed to be like an opportunity I mean it
00:16:18
was it was an embarrassing moment for him.
00:16:20
He he looked like a criminal spilling water on himself and
00:16:24
lying you know, and to a point that it was part of his
00:16:26
indictment. I mean, coin desk was I mean the
00:16:28
media embarrass itself. And was blind FTX oh yeah said
00:16:31
yeah, there's no I agree with you 100% about Bitcoin desk
00:16:34
helped flag it you know the yeah the media is imperfect.
00:16:38
It's like an organ is it's it's just like the queen desk is an
00:16:42
industry rag, right? Like they broke the story,
00:16:44
right? Whether they're medial and I
00:16:46
mean there's a specialist. Okay?
00:16:50
I don't do look. We don't get any credit for
00:16:51
that. I mean it's just sort of it's
00:16:54
not the Democracy dies in darkness people, right?
00:16:55
It's a different set of people, right?
00:16:57
Yeah. Here's what I think is really
00:16:58
going on. Okay, I think.
00:17:00
LJ journalism and I've published pieces about this and I'm not
00:17:02
the only one who's observe this, but I think capital J
00:17:04
journalism, the eighth, call it, but I guess not almost a century
00:17:06
of Journalism ad-supported which everyone thinks is evil.
00:17:09
It's actually good in many ways in which you have relatively
00:17:11
objective, both sides journalism, right?
00:17:13
The sort of, you know, Woodward and Bernstein, you know,
00:17:17
Watergate style stuff that was a product of a business model,
00:17:20
Macy's needed the widest. Most nonpartisan, you know,
00:17:23
audience to actually advertise with a little bit of a logical
00:17:25
stuff there as well. If you go back to 19th century
00:17:27
journalism, of course it was very different.
00:17:28
It was more like it is now it Sub Stacks, right?
00:17:30
It's pamphleteers it's you know, an openly political press
00:17:34
download on which was, right? And that model was both better
00:17:37
and worse. In some senses, it was better in
00:17:40
the sense that, well, there's no pretending to be objective,
00:17:42
which I don't think you actually can't be as hard as you try or
00:17:44
on the flip side. The political culture was way
00:17:46
more volatile and violent than it was today, right?
00:17:49
There wasn't this comment. I mean, he'll there was a civil
00:17:50
war in the middle of 19th century.
00:17:52
Great. And so I think it's politically
00:17:54
very volatile and dangerous to go down that road as well.
00:17:56
Not that there's anything. I think we can do about it.
00:17:57
I think the old journalism is basically dead and As you are
00:18:00
pretending like, it's still exist, right?
00:18:02
I mean, I don't think the New York Times even pretend anymore,
00:18:04
they themselves have said they're basically a collection
00:18:06
of Juicy narratives, which is fine, that's perfectly, fine.
00:18:08
And that's really what most people would actually pay for.
00:18:10
Most people actually don't pay for truth, unless your
00:18:12
livelihood depends on Truth, which is why the Wall Street
00:18:14
Journal Bloomberg ft, or doing. Okay, because business people,
00:18:18
me goes between the New York Times and I were to Bloomberg.
00:18:21
I interned, at the New York Times, no law school, both?
00:18:24
I just think the tech people for this narrative, want them to be
00:18:27
so far apart, they're not so far apart.
00:18:29
I mean, A Bloomberg. People successful ones, go to
00:18:32
the New York Times like they're very the pipeline New York Times
00:18:35
is through the wall. Well, there I would say they're
00:18:37
probably there's something different in their journalists
00:18:40
abilities. Yeah, you know, editorial
00:18:42
Direction. You know, I do think there is
00:18:44
some sort of influence that are broader newspaper has and it
00:18:47
inculcate within the reporters to a degree that informs the
00:18:51
narratives that they look for. I am sympathetic to that.
00:18:53
Yeah. What did you say?
00:18:54
Matt Levine's coverage of tech is rather different than Mike
00:18:56
Isaac's, for example, sure? I mean, they're, they're totally
00:18:59
ready. Job.
00:19:00
Yeah, very different reporters different coverage things.
00:19:02
I mean, look, here's, here's the interesting thing, I'm glad that
00:19:04
you picked up in the idea of Juicy narrative, because I do
00:19:07
think that, that is a huge part of what drives reporters to
00:19:09
cover a story. And it's one of the reasons I
00:19:11
find it completely insane that people like David Sachs and
00:19:14
other people on the island podcast have this idea in their
00:19:16
head that it is a reporter's best interest to write nice and
00:19:20
flattering and ask covering stories about SBF at this point
00:19:23
because, you know, reporters are politically aligned with him
00:19:26
because he's, you know, a mainstream Democratic voter.
00:19:29
We are Us if they're if towards anything towards a juicy
00:19:31
narrative and a Bernie Madoff, level downfall of someone who is
00:19:35
clearly a character is going to attract any reporter, no matter
00:19:38
what. I just don't buy this idea that
00:19:40
reporters are looking to soft-pedal anything to do with
00:19:43
sandbank manfried because it suits their kind of political
00:19:47
interests. I mean, he's a great story.
00:19:49
There will be incredible pieces written about him by all the
00:19:52
outlets that I'm sure the entrepreneurial class hates
00:19:54
because that's the bias. The bias is towards a great
00:19:57
story so I don't, I don't know. I'll bet it.
00:20:00
But he mentioned made off, because I think one of the
00:20:01
things I got published is actually coverage of the Madoff
00:20:03
Scandal, specifically Madoff also made political donations,
00:20:06
right? And the media actually pushed
00:20:08
the politicians of the donated to, which were both Democrats
00:20:10
and Republicans to give it back. And somehow, there hasn't been
00:20:12
the same push in the SPF case, although he's sprinkling money,
00:20:15
made our card charge very like as soon as it was public he was
00:20:18
being charged, right? If I remember correctly and I
00:20:20
think part of the issue with SPF has just been These things
00:20:25
evolve over time, people were defending Elizabeth Holmes, like
00:20:28
tech people were defending Elizabeth Holmes post the Wall
00:20:31
Street Journal story and then it took a long time for that
00:20:35
narrative to really turn. And I just think like there is
00:20:39
just smart positioning from people who want to be.
00:20:41
Very critical of the media who accurately said, the media
00:20:44
hasn't gone sour enough fast enough but it's just like it is
00:20:48
going. Now, the media is just not going
00:20:50
to get credit for accurately recalibrating when they're
00:20:52
actual charges, which is Of how Humanity works.
00:20:55
You process information and the mood of Olives.
00:20:58
Here's a question Eric I'm going to turn the tables.
00:21:00
I'm the I'm the podcast, Captain asseline ideas, the Captain
00:21:03
Phillips thing. You know, it's funny.
00:21:05
I all said I don't try not to get embroiled in these cultural
00:21:07
or things as a like they stress me out and I find them kind of
00:21:10
pointless but I do think they reflect underlying phenomenon
00:21:12
right? Like in machine learning there's
00:21:14
this notion of What's called the other statistics of a latent
00:21:15
variable. So like you're measuring like
00:21:17
these categories but actually there's like another category
00:21:20
that is really what you should be looking at this actually
00:21:22
driving the phenomenon. The variables you're looking at
00:21:25
are only weakly reflecting that and it like you're kind of wrong
00:21:27
if you're not looking at the underlying thing total.
00:21:29
So one of the weird like binary latent variables that I find and
00:21:32
it applies equally both the tech and media people.
00:21:34
By the way, is I think I called it.
00:21:37
And what am I a subset footnotes institutionalist versus anti
00:21:40
institutionalists? And the idea here is that there
00:21:42
are those who don't think there actually is a viable political
00:21:46
Senate like small L liberal political Center and that
00:21:50
institutions are not worth rescuing.
00:21:51
And, you know, it's either all About political war in the ruins
00:21:55
of whatever, political life is left.
00:21:57
And then by the way, let's just create fundamentally new
00:21:59
institutions. And then there are those who,
00:22:01
although they might be on the right of the left, they still
00:22:02
believe in those fundamental institutions.
00:22:04
And I had that thought was somewhat, I won't name her
00:22:06
because I don't want to drag you into this, but a noted
00:22:08
journalist who is in our mix, right?
00:22:11
And I realized I thought she was kind of in my camp and then I
00:22:14
realized that actually they were an institutionalist they believe
00:22:17
in the institutions even if they publicly have it out with us
00:22:20
institutions. And I'm a less a believer in
00:22:22
that in that the There's a sort of viable Center
00:22:25
institutionalism and it's where do you find yourself?
00:22:27
Do you think there is a center with saving that there that the
00:22:29
institutions are actually worse in spring or know my college
00:22:32
application? Essay was about how this is the
00:22:36
most embarrassing thing I could reveal but you know it's
00:22:39
embarrassing and same what college you went to Macon,
00:22:41
Georgia. You know around Republicans and
00:22:44
so when John Kerry was running for president.
00:22:45
I held up, you know, a sign like friends don't let friends vote
00:22:48
Republican and then by the time, you know the Obama campaign was
00:22:52
working. I'd like cut off my ponytail.
00:22:54
Dale and I was volunteering for the Obama campaign and you know
00:22:57
is high school state coordinator for him and in Georgia.
00:23:00
And so it was sort of the evolution in sort of my personal
00:23:04
psychology into more of institutionalists and I just
00:23:08
don't see how anything is achieved if not through
00:23:11
institutions. I think media is meant to Chris,
00:23:15
you know, I feel like the classic media story that the
00:23:17
iconic media story obviously still is springing down Nixon
00:23:21
with Watergate which is sort of like the Your of Institutions,
00:23:25
but fundamentally Humanity needs to be organized and I feel like
00:23:30
the only viable alternative to the institutional thesis is this
00:23:33
crypto sort of imagination game that you're going to answer with
00:23:38
and like it's not here, they're it.
00:23:40
What, what is the non institution answer?
00:23:42
Like, should we be critical of Institutions?
00:23:44
Absolutely, but institutions are the only game in town, you know.
00:23:47
Maybe it's good. That you start the Watergate
00:23:49
thing cuz I've often like throwing that in journalist
00:23:51
faces like you're all trying to be Woodward and Bernstein.
00:23:52
I got Tony's, I still It is the platonic abstract.
00:23:55
It's the Aaron Sorkin movie, Lion of like institutions are
00:23:58
corrupt but ultimately there's a happy ending and they come
00:24:00
through in the end. The reformed and rise in
00:24:02
American flag, right? And the crypto thing you're
00:24:04
referring to just for reference. I assume is like Balaji.
00:24:06
He's Network State type thing, the idea sort of.
00:24:08
Yeah, so I did a review of his book.
00:24:11
I know biology personally as well, I'm a bit of a theme of
00:24:15
this will be the named and unnamed people that your
00:24:17
clothes. Yeah.
00:24:18
Well, it's weird, but whatever. I, it's I'm trying to be
00:24:21
sensitive because I know these people and, you know, I don't
00:24:23
like trashy people. I like the Network's a, I think
00:24:25
it's interesting idea and you might be throwing shade on it,
00:24:28
but I'll tell you this, I imagine there was a Balaji and
00:24:31
network state that encompassed like the three neighborhoods in
00:24:33
San Francisco that everyone in Tech lives in and the two
00:24:36
neighborhoods in Miami and whatever five neighborhoods in
00:24:39
New York and like the urban archipelago of this network.
00:24:42
Say, imagine that actually existed.
00:24:43
And there was like, borders, and passports.
00:24:45
And checkpoints, would you even notice?
00:24:47
Or would you not notice because you've never left it, right?
00:24:50
And I noticed that in my life, I'm a little bit weird in that
00:24:52
I've often had some weird rural red, A place to hide out in.
00:24:54
So I would cross the border occasionally but most of I think
00:24:57
our cohort wouldn't even notice it exists because they'd never
00:25:00
cross its borders. And so sure it's easier to throw
00:25:02
shade on the network State, not existing, but functionally, it's
00:25:04
already here, right in the sense that very few of your friends
00:25:07
are our friends live in the flyover and have very different
00:25:10
political views than we do or very different backgrounds than
00:25:12
we do. And so that fragmentation is
00:25:13
already here. And I think what Balaji is
00:25:16
highlighting and Balaji is right about a lot of things.
00:25:18
And hyperbolic about other things, is that we've decoupled,
00:25:22
like how information I said this in more than one.
00:25:24
Yes, how information moves around, and how we physically
00:25:26
move around, and the political structures that govern our lives
00:25:28
are. Now totally decoupled.
00:25:30
Write like, this is a prism through which, I reflect
00:25:32
reality. And this has nothing to do with
00:25:33
the fact that I'm in San Francisco, California, Nine
00:25:35
States of America, right? Okay.
00:25:36
I'm gonna make a very high-level point that I want.
00:25:39
You sure to it? Sure.
00:25:40
Okay, I'm glad Balaji exists like definitely fundamentally.
00:25:45
I think people Elites are way too boring, conservative.
00:25:50
They don't say anything interesting.
00:25:51
The McKinsey of vacation of the world is Terrible.
00:25:54
Like I'm against it all, I'm glad Balaji exist but the
00:25:57
problem that I see with tech is that then it goes from okay,
00:26:02
Balaji only needs to be right five percent of the time, 10%
00:26:06
the time to be interesting. But all of a sudden these people
00:26:08
are literally governing Elon is in charge.
00:26:11
We're not applying the startup model.
00:26:13
They want to apply the startup model to actual government.
00:26:17
They want to apply it to the actual control of platforms and
00:26:20
they're, they're sort of, oh, we'll be right 10 percent of the
00:26:23
time but I'll be really Saying doesn't work anymore and they're
00:26:26
criticizing the people who are trying to be right 90% of the
00:26:29
time and therefore are more conservative, you know,
00:26:33
conservative. Even though they're all
00:26:34
Democrats in that, they're trying to protect institutions
00:26:37
and can't blow everything up every time.
00:26:39
Maybe, but I mean, this is my sound.
00:26:40
Like what about is in? But how is what he loves doing a
00:26:43
Twitter and he different than what the Salzburg is have been
00:26:44
doing for the New York Times for five generations.
00:26:46
The New York Times is one of the best institutions in America.
00:26:49
I'll say that. That's well, I mean, we could
00:26:51
argue that, that's where we disagree.
00:26:52
And some people think it should be Bring to the ground.
00:26:55
Is it is holding? It is holding truth together
00:26:58
here. Oh, is it now?
00:27:00
Imagine that Mark Zuckerberg actually picked like his
00:27:02
smartest seeming Sun as the next CEO of Facebook and did that
00:27:05
for, you know, what is it five or six generation?
00:27:07
Yeah, would you be such a fan of that sort of dynastic and
00:27:10
savagery, and timing nepotism rules all over the world.
00:27:13
So but they just accept it. You're fine with it.
00:27:15
Do you think that a New York Times employee can criticize
00:27:17
ourselves burgers in their internal slack?
00:27:19
And the same way that you could do it inside a tech company.
00:27:21
For example, Bloomberg definitely did not allow
00:27:24
Internal criticism. And I think some of the internal
00:27:26
criticism doesn't really make sense.
00:27:28
I mean, their hierarchical institutions like edited like
00:27:31
part of the value is the, you have an editor-in-chief we sort
00:27:33
of makes the calls. So I'm not advocating for open
00:27:36
to send. And I think there are plenty of
00:27:38
reporters who are annoyed by the people who tried to hijack,
00:27:41
these organizations from the bottom up.
00:27:42
I don't, I guess I'm less concerned about the ownership of
00:27:45
the New York Times, then the world view that it is
00:27:50
comforting, and the lack of ability.
00:27:54
To challenge broader structure is beyond kind of, the most
00:27:58
obvious institutions that it will write about.
00:28:00
I mean, I think Facebook has been the most egregious example
00:28:03
of that, bring it all back to their coverage of Facebook.
00:28:06
You know, with 2016 election. The Fallout of that the New York
00:28:09
Times basically did two things one, they sent a bunch of
00:28:11
reporters to diners across the middle America, to have them
00:28:14
interview random people and have them try to explain.
00:28:17
You know why? They did such a horrible thing,
00:28:18
which is voting for Trump, and then they wrote a bunch of
00:28:20
stories about how Facebook is also responsible for Trump
00:28:22
because they allowed a All number of Russian Affiliated
00:28:26
actors to, you know, advertise on the platform.
00:28:28
None of these are actually dealing with the broader rot
00:28:30
that is happening in America. That would cause people to take
00:28:32
a drastic action. Like electing a completely
00:28:35
unqualified person who had no interest in actually running the
00:28:37
country, but the New York Times wouldn't deal with that.
00:28:40
And so, like, this gets back to like institution.
00:28:42
I don't think the New York Times like that, maybe it's some
00:28:44
result of it being a multi, generationally owned fam.
00:28:47
You know, family business, that is a East Coast elitist, view of
00:28:51
what is and isn't acceptable speech.
00:28:53
Or it's The nature of the subscribers and the readers of
00:28:56
the play. I like, I am somewhat
00:28:57
sympathetic to this world view that, that, you know, the
00:29:00
entrepreneurial class talks about with the New York Times,
00:29:02
but I guess like, I find it. So unfulfilling as an American
00:29:05
to hear the solution to our problems is, let's write a bunch
00:29:10
of stories about obvious things rather than dealing with broader
00:29:13
challenges. And it seems like there's very
00:29:15
little interest in dealing with broader kind of social material
00:29:18
challenges that are happening right now.
00:29:20
I rest my case Tom you said it better than I could but I would
00:29:22
go further and say that If the New York Times grappled with,
00:29:25
from the way did is it? Perhaps, because it could do
00:29:27
nothing, but look down its noses and contempt at those who
00:29:29
actually voted for Trump for whatever reason and that's why
00:29:32
they couldn't ask the real questions of.
00:29:33
Why that why that happened? And they'd rather blame hundred
00:29:35
thousand dollars in Russian Facebook spend which would never
00:29:38
win any election anyway, right. But to be clear I don't think
00:29:41
there were a bunch of other you know, institutions in America
00:29:44
that were doing that either, right?
00:29:45
I mean I certainly don't think elon's Twitter and this kind of
00:29:48
half-cocked idea of free speech and you know, really just
00:29:51
railing against journalists and And I don't know, you know,
00:29:55
Taylor Lorenz or something is any sort of actual response to
00:29:58
it. It's just kind of like
00:29:59
participating in a similar type of culture War, but in like a
00:30:03
uh, Nidia logically coherent way.
00:30:05
Yeah. I mean, a lot of this such I
00:30:08
think certain unlock to American culture is actually what used to
00:30:10
be called WWF when I was a kid or now, WWE, right?
00:30:13
Like this is all kayfabe, right every, and every tribe that on
00:30:16
this podcast, and every tribe has its heel.
00:30:18
Right? And, and I often, that's also
00:30:19
part. Why didn't participate?
00:30:20
You can always find a tweet of some idiot.
00:30:22
On the other side is doing some The thing and that doesn't
00:30:25
really represent a trend or anything real in the world, but
00:30:27
one side not to our side, desperately wants to talk to
00:30:32
your site and your sides and they will strategy is not
00:30:35
engagement acknowledge that like Balaji is telling people not to
00:30:39
engage, we are invite. I email, Mark and is why we're
00:30:42
engaged. I had second thoughts about this
00:30:44
podcast. I almost did come out.
00:30:45
I was in writing this money thing.
00:30:46
Sorry. It's all we don't you think we
00:30:47
have a productive discussion like or at least like look how
00:30:50
many times we'd agreed Antonio, we all know we have the all The
00:30:54
same reference points. We see, we see a lot of like, I
00:30:56
feel like we should have taken a survey before like what's your
00:30:59
true or false, this true, or false, this just to see where we
00:31:02
were before. We came in I mean look I'm not
00:31:04
I'm not besides just about most things and I'm definitely not
00:31:07
like, you know, don't talk to any tech journalist ever.
00:31:09
I you know, my mother was a librarian.
00:31:11
I myself wrote a book, you know, I think recording history and
00:31:14
some drafter and others important.
00:31:16
And it may not be within the rubric of like capital J
00:31:18
journalism as it exists today but I think we need to record
00:31:20
history. Tech is interesting.
00:31:22
There's weird ass shit that goes on in And I think what I would
00:31:25
encourage people do it. This point rather than talk to
00:31:27
reporters is tell their own story.
00:31:29
Like, I think more tech people should write books or have blogs
00:31:32
or address directly Their audience and it may not be seen
00:31:35
through the rubric of the framing of what media has.
00:31:38
But if we take away journalism, as the thing, as it exists,
00:31:41
today, chronicling reality, and having interesting viewpoints I
00:31:44
think is worth having. And so, I just think this model
00:31:46
where everybody is just self disclosing most people do not
00:31:51
give honest portraits about themselves, like Like, would you
00:31:54
want to consume that world? Like I would love a good
00:31:58
conservative media. Like actual like fact-based
00:32:00
reported Scoopy. Like I love a conservative
00:32:04
outlet that delivers Scoops, just to show that they're
00:32:06
actually trying to get information but that doesn't
00:32:09
exist and I just don't. But with my question here is, do
00:32:12
you really think you could get a good picture of the world?
00:32:14
If you weren't a super Insider who already knew people
00:32:17
personally and Samaria get information from just people's
00:32:21
self published work? I think it would be different.
00:32:24
Write a memoir, right? Citing my own books, it is which
00:32:27
is slightly douchey, but you know, it was fact in the sense
00:32:30
that I reconstructed it from emails and texts and I tried to
00:32:32
get the timing as correctly as possible.
00:32:33
It was not some like lived experience piece of creative.
00:32:36
You know fiction that said it was one view, right?
00:32:39
And writes. A proverbial elephant think so.
00:32:41
I think they need to be combined.
00:32:42
I mean, look, when I need your, they need to be synthesized by
00:32:44
someone look, when any tech journalist reaches out and says,
00:32:47
look, I know, you know, about ads and attribution and track it
00:32:50
all this stuff. And like, I'm just going to
00:32:51
forget the story. Like, I don't understand it.
00:32:53
Can you just walk me? Through like, what's the most
00:32:55
recent Apple? Privacy thing?
00:32:56
You know what I got on the phone and in good faith.
00:32:59
Try to explain it to the person, I still do it, like I forget the
00:33:01
financial times, Brian Mcgee or whatever, he covers her apple
00:33:04
stuff. I've been a source on background
00:33:06
or quoted or whatever more than once and it's precisely because
00:33:09
yes I or Steven Levy for example I've been interviewing so you
00:33:12
believe in journalism to now I say for fun on Twitter.
00:33:16
No no I don't enjoy journalism as it exists today.
00:33:19
I do not I think chronicling you what these are worth.
00:33:23
No I I don't want to fight Eric. I've often said it, I'm not
00:33:27
really a narcissist. I just play one on the internet.
00:33:29
This is why I have that, will that 100% a group, not that
00:33:32
aspect, but filtering. All this through Twitter is such
00:33:35
a perverted way of viewing anyone's personality.
00:33:37
What I earnestly believe on Twitter, but people I am so
00:33:41
that's what scares us Eric. Yeah, but I agree, I don't know.
00:33:47
Like, I think social media like I retweeted balls you today,
00:33:49
right? He said one of these classic
00:33:51
Balaji isms social networks to show Socially filtered tribes or
00:33:55
something, right? And what I think what you mean?
00:33:56
I don't know. I'm trying to interpret Balaji
00:33:58
here, but I think what he means by that is like, the weird
00:34:00
private groups that were all in. That is a closer approximation
00:34:03
to healthy social media, right in that there's a, there's an
00:34:06
admin. We all kind of know each other.
00:34:08
It's below dunbar's number of 140, which is like the number of
00:34:10
people you can keep in your head.
00:34:12
It's like it's like a saint or way of doing social media.
00:34:14
Then I think Twitter, which is like a union of worsts.
00:34:17
It is like the worst part of like, you know, improvisational
00:34:20
oral culture and the worst parts of searchable text Will culture
00:34:23
and Sprocket to everybody, it's just hard with with the
00:34:26
engagement mechanism sprinkled in there so that you can feel
00:34:28
rewarded for for outrageous Viewpoint.
00:34:31
Ketamine just quickly on your book front because you did, you
00:34:34
know, you written a book. Everyone knows you for having
00:34:36
read that book. It's very entertaining.
00:34:37
But it also like later on, you know, was used against you,
00:34:40
right? I mean, this was a situation
00:34:42
where I don't know how often you've talked about this before,
00:34:45
but you were hired to go to Apple.
00:34:47
And there was essentially, you know, a slack lead Uprising
00:34:52
against the fact that you were joining, That's company.
00:34:54
And it was filtered through the media and the way that maybe
00:34:57
inform some of your viewpoints on, you know, the ACT.
00:35:00
Yeah, that's what the other guy said last week and that's
00:35:02
totally not sure. I've been fighting with the
00:35:03
media web. Right?
00:35:04
Waiver that happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:35:07
And I'm not saying this is some sort of, you know, damage in
00:35:11
your purse, that anything like that.
00:35:12
Anything I found I found that whole episode to be rather
00:35:15
frustrating on on your part. I thought it was journalistic
00:35:17
malpractice or at the very least, it was, it was one of the
00:35:20
elements of bad acting in journalism, which is Simply
00:35:24
taking any sort of internal information and creating a story
00:35:27
around that and not every single thing that is leaked to you as a
00:35:30
reporter needs to be made into a piece.
00:35:32
And I well, that's that's what that's one of the problems with
00:35:35
what I'll call the journalistic epistemology.
00:35:37
Like, how do they figure out truth?
00:35:38
They necessarily have to talk to people who want to talk to them.
00:35:41
Right and who is that person? It's typically disgruntled
00:35:43
people to rank every bite. It's right.
00:35:45
It's a crank or it's an internal person who has some political
00:35:47
battle and they want to co-op the media to try to advance
00:35:50
their internal thing right? Like dude I worked at companies
00:35:52
and talk to journalists. I know I know The score.
00:35:54
I know how the square worker and you're not really, but that's
00:35:56
why the non-cooperation is so infuriating because then it's
00:35:59
like, well, you're making the medium or biased against you,
00:36:02
right? Obviously.
00:36:04
Like I said, I think journalists who actually try to like, help
00:36:06
me understand how this actually works.
00:36:09
I'm happy to talk with and I think those were trying to find
00:36:12
a villain to cast in their little movie.
00:36:14
I agree. They should be totally and
00:36:17
utterly shut. You don't think things.
00:36:19
You don't think character-driven like you wrote A Memoir like
00:36:23
People are going to understand history through people.
00:36:25
I think this idea and this is part of the Builder versus
00:36:28
writer divide, is it? They almost don't want it to be
00:36:32
about people. They wanted to be about, but
00:36:33
because it's not about people, didn't care about people care
00:36:36
about, I know, I know, I know and I understand it and that's
00:36:39
why the book is a little bit over written on the sort of
00:36:41
saltiness front in the sense that like, you know, you have to
00:36:43
make it be this personal, like Hunter as Thompson as thing.
00:36:46
When really 99% of the book in this, what pissed me off about
00:36:50
some of the coaches, a book 99% of the book is trying to explain
00:36:52
how like the media markets were Right?
00:36:54
He's like the nerdiest book that hopefully, an entertaining way
00:36:56
try to understand. Like how does a company like
00:36:57
Facebook decide to make money can I it's not, it's not easy
00:36:59
but any good. Yep.
00:37:01
Well, it just because I, you know, do you consider yourself a
00:37:03
Republican or how much do you speak for though?
00:37:05
I know I don't talk. I don't address.
00:37:06
Well, 6-foot head all whatsoever at all.
00:37:08
No I mean well then you can dodge this one or I don't know
00:37:12
but I mean part of the challenge.
00:37:14
I feel like we faced with the sort of conservative Tech Elite.
00:37:18
Is that they're playing? Now, there's a conservative Tech
00:37:21
Elite okay. Are there not We were you don't
00:37:25
know named individual people. So I was trying to, you know,
00:37:27
I'm gonna just saying sacks and Marc Andreessen whatever,
00:37:29
whoever that represents. I think we trick ourselves into
00:37:32
thinking of thing exists. When we assign a name to it,
00:37:34
that's what I think. What do you mean?
00:37:35
You've just declared her to be his thing, right?
00:37:38
And now there's this thing that we're talking about.
00:37:39
What are you get polling? It's, I'm not sure.
00:37:41
I'm not sure it even exists present like a view.
00:37:43
I mean, look, the political donations inside fan companies
00:37:46
is public record. You can look at it, does it seem
00:37:48
to you that there's some sort of conservative faculty?
00:37:50
So, is the takeaway that we're sort of being the media's been
00:37:52
hoodwinked by, like, Paying too much attention to, at least we
00:37:55
employ sorta. Like, but my point was just the
00:37:58
conflict between like the profess populism, whereas, like
00:38:02
the actual sort of policy interest seems to be sort of low
00:38:06
government intervention, low taxes.
00:38:08
I mean, you think there is genuine.
00:38:10
Here's one thing I will comment and again in a very distant
00:38:13
abstract descriptive rather than normative way.
00:38:16
One thing that I find this interesting on the right is and
00:38:18
I think you're you put your finger on it.
00:38:19
The traditional sort of GOP Republican was like, you know,
00:38:22
small government low This is like the Reagan Republican and I
00:38:25
think you're seeing the creation of a capital and capital r mu,
00:38:28
right? That doesn't perceive itself
00:38:30
that way, that is more comfortable with using
00:38:32
government authority to implement some agenda and yeah,
00:38:35
broadly speaking sees itself, it's weird because yeah it sees
00:38:39
itself in revolt against some sort of elite that it doesn't
00:38:41
feel. It's a part of Rick.
00:38:43
And yeah, that definitely is novel, right?
00:38:45
That's definitely not the, you know, I was raised in the 80s in
00:38:47
Miami and everyone loved Reagan and this is not that it clearly
00:38:51
something has changed on the right.
00:38:53
And yeah, I don't Don't know where this is going.
00:38:54
I don't have an answer but I think you're right.
00:38:56
That there is a big, there's a big difference.
00:38:57
I wanted to ask you a question about advertising because that
00:38:59
is a space that you professionally spent a lot of
00:39:02
time in and I covered advertising for a while.
00:39:05
I think there's an interesting thing going on right now, in
00:39:08
terms of advertisers and where they play a role in the internet
00:39:12
culture wars. Because you're seeing, I mean,
00:39:14
this is all just about Elon and Twitter but you know,
00:39:18
advertisers pulling off of the platform because they view it as
00:39:20
not brand safe and it's an interesting.
00:39:23
Upon reading about the way Republicans or conservatives,
00:39:27
you advertisers in the in the 70s and the culture wars then,
00:39:31
which is basically like they're on our side right there.
00:39:34
Going to stop us you know the left from being too Progressive
00:39:36
because they're trying to sell the most number of products and
00:39:39
you know the Democrats or whatever you know the left is
00:39:43
culture. Warriors then we're pushing
00:39:45
things too far from what mainstream America wanted.
00:39:48
What do you think about? You know the the internet
00:39:51
advertising's role in like being a Creating force on either side.
00:39:56
I think it's to use Tyler Cowen language.
00:39:59
It's an underrated point in the sense that I think people don't
00:40:01
bring it up. I think advertising catches a
00:40:03
lot of heat, some of it Justified for sketchy data
00:40:05
practices, but broadly speaking, the thought that, you know,
00:40:09
media has gone to the shitter because of advertising is like
00:40:12
not only wrong. It's like the exact opposite of
00:40:14
the truth like advertising is again.
00:40:17
I think we addressed this earlier in the podcast is the
00:40:20
thing that maintain the sort of objective both sides.
00:40:23
Let them in which, you know, sure newspapers had certain
00:40:27
Slants to them. But whether you were the New
00:40:28
York Times or the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Chicago
00:40:31
Sun-Times you can CO2 off the rails because Macy's or pick
00:40:35
your Normie Advertiser. Just wouldn't want to co appear
00:40:38
with like some radical opinion. And so I think advertising has
00:40:41
been a moderating force. I think people again, who
00:40:44
Advocate. Oh, subscription driven
00:40:45
journalism is better. I encourage you to go read about
00:40:48
the history of nineteenth-century, American
00:40:49
journalism, and see or, you know, even further back that,
00:40:53
you know, 18th century, American journalism.
00:40:55
Ben Franklin was basically in a non account shitpost, who wrote
00:40:57
Under at least 20 different aliases, the whole Hamilton
00:41:00
Burr, wonder what he wrote in Federalist Papers, your
00:41:03
Federalist Papers words. He was a very pugnacious time,
00:41:06
right? And at the end of the day, the
00:41:08
customer gets what they want. And in the case of advertising
00:41:10
driven journalism that means fairly non-inflammatory
00:41:14
even-keeled coverage which is what the advertiser wants and
00:41:17
the case subscribers they want their worldviews echoed back at
00:41:21
them and more articulate form but nothing To fuel the culture
00:41:24
War. It wasn't the media that was
00:41:26
saying clickbait journalism was the problem.
00:41:30
Yeah, I'm not I'm not finger-pointing here but no, but
00:41:33
there, but there is like a discourse that's like
00:41:35
advertising. It's bad and its influence on
00:41:36
the media's been bad. And I'm the other side of that.
00:41:39
Oh, I was just making a petit Petit, point that clickbait.
00:41:43
Yeah, I know, I think there's no accountability.
00:41:45
Like, we just get yelled at about clickbait journalism.
00:41:47
Like, you know, this is how internet fights start.
00:41:50
It's like reporters experience, just getting yelled.
00:41:53
Old at constantly accused of Click bait when I'm working.
00:41:56
I don't Loom Berg. Yeah.
00:41:57
And then it's like, it just makes you very hostile.
00:42:01
It increases the hostility towards the text.
00:42:03
That when you're like, I mean, you're to really broaden this.
00:42:07
And I think what Tom is talking about is sort of like the
00:42:09
business model incentives of behavior.
00:42:12
And I think often, you know, tech people want to talk about
00:42:17
like the business model b instead of behavior of their own
00:42:19
businesses. But then media criticism isn't A
00:42:23
judge through the same lens of business model.
00:42:27
Well look, I mean to put on my media had I guess, for one like,
00:42:30
you know, Split Second. Yeah.
00:42:32
I mean a lot of people don't understand how media works,
00:42:34
right? Like the clickbait thing again,
00:42:35
Bloomberg is ridiculous. When people write whatever it
00:42:37
is, two thousand dollars, a pop. Just just use a Bloomberg
00:42:40
terminal. It's not about the clickbait.
00:42:41
Yeah, right think that's just not what, it's not what it is.
00:42:44
Yeah, I agree. I mean yeah no, but I've
00:42:46
actually my point was less about journalism here and more about
00:42:49
social media because you know, we've seen advertisers play A
00:42:53
Part occasionally, as a response to Media outcries against
00:42:57
platforms, right? I mean, you saw the ad pocalypse
00:42:59
with YouTube, you saw, you know, whatever movement against
00:43:02
Facebook and in the wake of, I don't even remember which
00:43:05
controversy that caused big advertisers to claim they were
00:43:08
advertising on Facebook and now we're seeing the same thing
00:43:10
happening. Not so for the same reasons, but
00:43:12
with Twitter and a ton of advertisers are just pulling off
00:43:16
of the platform and I'm interested in your your take on
00:43:19
whether because I don't believe advertisers or moral actors.
00:43:22
I don't think for the most part, they are trying to advance some
00:43:26
sort of moral, cause I think they want to see where they
00:43:28
believe the direction of the country is at, and make sure
00:43:31
that they are aligning their products with the most safe,
00:43:35
place for them to be which, you know, from, you know, from a
00:43:38
broader cultural standpoint now appears to be a little bit more
00:43:42
liberal or or towards you know like a broader Embrace of
00:43:45
genders and identities and things like that which I know a
00:43:48
lot of conservatives are the people that are backing Elon
00:43:51
feel is, you know, is woke and it It's this idea of what
00:43:54
capitalism and you know, as you're seeing advertisers
00:43:58
pulling off of Twitter right now in response to this, you know,
00:44:03
content moderation, Free Speech, a absolutism whatever that his
00:44:06
group is pushing, what do you see?
00:44:09
As I don't know, what is the role that advertising is
00:44:11
playing? Is it a factor that you think
00:44:13
that side should be listening more to, or are they just in
00:44:16
thrall of like the woke leftists?
00:44:18
I mean, it's a good question. I think to advertisers represent
00:44:22
popular will are they trying to As the reach or do they express,
00:44:25
the will of a relatively small Elite Class that has certain
00:44:28
values that may not be. Let me not being happy
00:44:32
representative, I'm not sure. Yeah, I mean brand advertising
00:44:36
is a whole different Beast than like the performance advertising
00:44:38
the dice typically works on, right?
00:44:39
You're trying you're trying to convey and for those who don't
00:44:42
know what that means, like Performance Marketing is like by
00:44:44
this thing, right? It's like the direct to Consumer
00:44:46
as you see in our Instagram feed and then brand advertising is
00:44:49
some like snazzy BMW or Burberry.
00:44:52
Add that tries to convince you not necessarily by that thing
00:44:55
right now. But when you're in a financial
00:44:56
position to flaunt your wealth you'll think to buy a BMW 5
00:45:01
Series. It's or whatever great and it's
00:45:02
a very different. It's like Vibes versus click on
00:45:05
this thing and a lot of brand marketing is always been a
00:45:07
little bit, you know, not exactly a person of the people
00:45:11
sort of thing, right? Because you're trying to events
00:45:14
Elite values. I don't know.
00:45:16
I again, I hate them in things right from any side.
00:45:20
Like oh this monolithic them, but it does seem like there's a
00:45:23
certain set of values that again, you see incorporation
00:45:26
Academia and media that have a lot more in common than they
00:45:29
have a part. And it's You used to have like
00:45:33
to Eric's point about, why isn't there a better conservative
00:45:34
media used to have kind of right-of-center newspapers that
00:45:37
were like respectable, and not intellectually brain-dead?
00:45:40
And you could and, you know, a liberal could read and
00:45:42
appreciate, right? Like, who's left the Wall Street
00:45:44
Journal, but I mean, most reporters at the Wall Street
00:45:47
Journal are liberal and, and like The Economist is clearly,
00:45:51
pretty definitely. Liberal by American Standards.
00:45:55
I don't know if I would say, the economist is probably like
00:45:59
institutionalists and like scary Biden.
00:46:01
It's very aligned with the B like a my part.
00:46:03
I wouldn't say it's like, okay well what a rag, but a
00:46:05
neoliberal shills cancer term the yeah, I'm almost like fight
00:46:15
with this more. I mean, one observation, I think
00:46:17
from this conversation is that I do, wonder, how much of our
00:46:21
problems are specific to where they happen, right?
00:46:25
Like a lot of my frustration with the arguments they have is
00:46:29
that they come in Twitter. Matt and that people basically
00:46:34
take advantage of the fact that they can be withholding, right?
00:46:38
If I'm a powerful person, I can put out one tweet and my fans
00:46:42
don't expect me to engage with every like reasonable argument
00:46:45
and so then I really no obligation to go back and forth.
00:46:50
And so then we have these sort of just like spot.
00:46:53
We have these statements with no real discourse and I feel like
00:46:57
it just fuels a lot of anger. I don't know how much do you
00:47:00
think it's a Twitter? A problem rather than a cultural
00:47:03
problem. Like I don't feel so far apart
00:47:06
in view with you. Like, or at least convince me
00:47:08
where besides the New York Times, which feels fairly
00:47:11
trivial to me. I've yet to be convinced that
00:47:14
were actually ideologically so far apart.
00:47:17
Yeah, I know the truism and startup culture that most
00:47:20
startups problems are not really technical problems.
00:47:22
Although, the founders tend to think that's what it is.
00:47:24
It's usually human problems, right?
00:47:25
There's a management problem. There's a product problem.
00:47:27
Something else I do think, I do think social media cannot be
00:47:31
Next, which is why I'm very skeptical of content, moderation
00:47:33
and do. The algorithm will fix things
00:47:35
will guess what? WhatsApp doesn't have an
00:47:36
algorithm and if there's been all sorts of fucked up, shit,
00:47:38
thanks to fit to Whatsapp, right?
00:47:39
There's no algorithm there. So I don't think there's fixing
00:47:42
it. That said, I do think there's
00:47:45
forms of social media that are more kind of Humane and normal
00:47:47
for the average use case, then other ones.
00:47:49
So like again like who thrives on Twitter, you have to be like
00:47:52
a total narcissist or the most disagreeable human on the
00:47:55
history of the makes me angry, right?
00:47:57
It makes you angry and you have to like being angry or you have
00:47:59
to be so disassociated that you don't get angry.
00:48:01
But like right, you know, like I've had conversations with
00:48:03
people like Barry Weiss to a lesser extent, metaclass.
00:48:06
He has Matt Taibbi and they're very good at what they do,
00:48:09
right? Like they're, they're like, born
00:48:10
to be on Twitter and drive engagement.
00:48:12
I don't mean that in a bad way, right?
00:48:14
But it's like, man, I cannot do what you do.
00:48:16
I cannot just get up in the morning, say a thing and then
00:48:19
get kicked in the face by 10 people there though.
00:48:22
I mean, I don't know how much you try to mix it up and just
00:48:25
throw bombs into the crowd, but you're pretty good at it.
00:48:27
Like I would say among the class of people in Tech who you Or in
00:48:32
certain ways spokesperson of the mindset feel like you're out
00:48:35
there, you know, you're you got a lot of Miami stuff.
00:48:38
I feel ya to me the perfect you know the perfect way to me is
00:48:41
it's a tweet that both pleases or pisses off both camps.
00:48:45
Equally that to me is the perfect tweet.
00:48:48
You can read it in both directions and everyone gets
00:48:49
pissed off. I don't quote tweet and like
00:48:52
dunk on people that much. I mean, very rarely.
00:48:54
Yeah. I just I don't like playing the
00:48:55
game. I think it's bad.
00:48:56
I think it's - Mojo. Yeah, I agree.
00:48:58
I don't know. I mean, I don't know what comes
00:49:00
after it though. And it seems like the
00:49:03
alternative that we're moving towards which is just smaller
00:49:06
and smaller networks is just going to eventually push itself
00:49:09
towards even more insular thinking, right.
00:49:12
I mean, maybe it won't be as angry, which is some sort of
00:49:14
benefit. But if the at least there was
00:49:17
some sort of exchange of ideas, I've seen a lot of Facebook
00:49:19
people arguing this, that like you actually are more exposed to
00:49:23
other viewpoints. Yeah, you're on social media,
00:49:24
then you would have been yes prior to it.
00:49:27
I think that's true. There's a number of studies.
00:49:28
You can say and these studies can prove almost anything I
00:49:31
don't think filter bubbles are real and the sense that I think
00:49:34
the problem is that you're actually exposed to view points
00:49:37
that are diametrically opposed to yours all the time, right and
00:49:40
presented in the most like outrage producing way.
00:49:43
I mean again the reality I think I mentioned this earlier like
00:49:45
disconnecting what we see and think and talk with from the
00:49:49
sort of bubble of community and the little border on the map
00:49:52
that would typically have defined your linguistic and
00:49:55
cultural and political boundaries.
00:49:56
That's a real problem right? Like the u.s. used to be a lot
00:49:58
more Regional, right? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
00:50:01
Could have its little editorial policy that flies in Atlanta and
00:50:04
the guy in l.a. never had to get pissed off about it, right?
00:50:07
And there wasn't some way to like, oh, look at this stupid.
00:50:09
Align the Journal-Constitution. Yeah.
00:50:10
Yeah. And then there's a whole
00:50:12
cancellation order stockpiling, whatever, like it was just hard
00:50:14
to do like I do you know? I mean, we're all probably
00:50:16
roughly. The same age.
00:50:17
I'm were being raised in the 80s.
00:50:18
If you wanted to read the New York Times, like you have to
00:50:20
find a copy was hard. Like it didn't matter.
00:50:22
What the fuck happened in New York?
00:50:23
You didn't care. There's no way to create that.
00:50:24
You were just defined by your little world.
00:50:26
And we've strayed from that, and I think I have a very aggressive
00:50:29
block policy. I think Erica probably had you
00:50:31
blocked. Point.
00:50:31
Sure, actually blocking I don't block like newsmakers but I
00:50:35
block their sycophants all the time, right?
00:50:38
I do it all the time, like I hear block trigger and by the
00:50:40
way, I've had people ask me like, hey, like we had a
00:50:42
misunderstanding. Can you unblock me?
00:50:44
I'm like, sure, bro, like this, just get over it.
00:50:45
This move on, I do it all. If I, what I wish there was was
00:50:48
like, a seven-day block button like timeout.
00:50:51
So I just don't have to see your seven days, but then, it's okay,
00:50:53
we're back, right? I think we have to recreate the
00:50:55
walls. It's the only way to live in
00:50:57
society. Like, I don't want to sit here
00:50:58
and argue the moral Foundation Society every day, with all the
00:51:01
entire inner, like, I just can't do this exhausting, it's
00:51:04
exhausting? Yeah, I actually find by the
00:51:06
way, the most of the people that I've locked over time or people
00:51:08
that I like it personally. And when I see them acting a
00:51:12
certain way on Twitter, and I start feeling negatively about
00:51:14
them, I'm like, well, that's not how I actually feel about them.
00:51:17
Can I ask you, though, because you are certain friends with
00:51:19
certain people that do, you know, quite publicly attack
00:51:22
media and journalists talk to them in person?
00:51:25
Are they ranting about us? I mean do they really truly
00:51:27
spend their time offline being like these fucking guys?
00:51:30
I can't. Vols confidences.
00:51:33
I'm not even naming names. I'm just saying, like, is that
00:51:35
even a topic of conversation? I mean less than the other side,
00:51:38
probably thinks, but definitely more than 0.
00:51:42
Do you think, like, do you think both sides are debating in good
00:51:46
faith? I think they think they are.
00:51:48
What's your assessment of good faith?
00:51:50
The failures and success like when it's genuine and not
00:51:54
perceived to be and when it when it's not like, I mean, I'll
00:51:57
refer to again something I said earlier, which I think that the
00:51:59
latent variable we see in society E is between
00:52:01
institutionalist and anti institutionalist.
00:52:03
And when you say good faith, what you mean is you?
00:52:05
And I, even though you might be one point in the political
00:52:08
Spectrum, another, we can find some common ground that we can
00:52:10
discuss the thing. And I think the difference is
00:52:12
some people think that can happen.
00:52:13
And some people think it can't happen and I think that's the
00:52:15
Delta and I think if you're feeling increasing
00:52:18
radicalization or like a hardening, in the tone from the
00:52:20
tech side is because more and more people are giving up and
00:52:22
never having that Common Ground. Yes!
00:52:24
Okay, that's the most reassuring thing ever.
00:52:27
But I guess as somebody who isn't You won't let us talk
00:52:32
about specific people, but if you're a techno Optimist,
00:52:36
shouldn't you believe that Society can be fixed.
00:52:38
Therefore, these gaps can be bridged.
00:52:41
Therefore, in speech, there should be an attempt, to bridge
00:52:44
them. Like, that's the ideology.
00:52:46
I can't connect. It's like you're a techno
00:52:48
Optimist but you are, you believe, in sort of Doom and
00:52:51
Gloom about sort of human, sort of us, being able to be
00:52:55
reconciled what? But maybe nuking the journalist
00:52:57
is the fix, right? If you're looking from their
00:52:59
point of view, right? That That's the that's the fix.
00:53:03
Yeah. Do you believe that or like we?
00:53:05
Yeah. Wait is like, let's just get
00:53:08
what? I don't want to walk away from
00:53:10
this. I feel like where we didn't
00:53:13
wear, you didn't really say your strong truly held position like
00:53:18
engage with the actual journalist in front of you.
00:53:20
Like, what is the, what would the solution be able to get rid
00:53:23
of just like, shut down? All the papers, or like what?
00:53:26
And what is the policy vehicle to get there?
00:53:28
Or what's the way? What do you even expect?
00:53:31
T', look, I don't think anyone. Well, that's not true.
00:53:33
Some people probably say that I don't think anyone would.
00:53:35
Seriously entertain like literally you know, killing the
00:53:37
journalism industry to as it exists.
00:53:39
I think what all she talks like that and yes well okay you know,
00:53:42
policy has his views. I think, I mean the nature of
00:53:45
Journalism is changing, like we talked about it, the Woodward
00:53:47
and Bernstein model, I think it still can exist.
00:53:49
Like I see I see pieces even coming out of the New York Times
00:53:51
or the Wall Street Journal, but are still pretty good.
00:53:53
Like I read it's like okay like you know yeah.
00:53:55
If I was a Layman this is a pretty good sort of summary of,
00:53:57
like, kind of what happened. I think it's rare, but it does
00:53:59
happen. But I think The juicy narrative
00:54:01
thing is what's happening. People are just want juicy
00:54:03
narratives and I think I would be satisfied if like and you
00:54:08
hear this a little bit in the Elan rhetoric, at least from
00:54:10
what I've read that like he wants everyone on an equal
00:54:13
footing, like, being a journalist doesn't, just let you
00:54:16
dock people and show up on their door.
00:54:18
It's like, I don't like, where is this special?
00:54:20
Like I was again like a factor journalist who got paid by like
00:54:23
respected Conde Nast Publications, where's my little
00:54:25
special magic journalist card like license to Doc's thing.
00:54:29
I am 007 license, the dock Yeah. Yeah, I can show up on your
00:54:31
doorstep and nobody else. Can anyone else does it?
00:54:34
Oh, and it's a threat to safety. But I do hear sure defending
00:54:36
democracy like what the hell, why?
00:54:39
Right? We you don't Well, I mean
00:54:45
interesting place, right? Because I'm not a news
00:54:47
organization, right? So what gives me sort of this
00:54:50
journalistic principle is whatever sort of ethical sort of
00:54:55
class status that exists in journalism and only that.
00:54:59
And I feel like showing up at someone's door to ask them.
00:55:03
A question is like a great example here, we're totally if
00:55:06
you just had some I mean, if you had somebody show up, you're at
00:55:09
your door. I mean I think there's actually
00:55:11
easy now. They Better for one second.
00:55:13
If someone shows up at your door and they're not trying to
00:55:15
publish a piece, they're clearly showing up as a threat.
00:55:19
Right? Like what is you need a reason.
00:55:21
Whereas, if you're a journalist showing up at the door, I think
00:55:24
people see it as a threat because they see the power of
00:55:27
Journalism, but obviously, it is actual sincere attempt to get
00:55:32
comment in a belief in good. Faith, like this is where the
00:55:36
not believing that. There's a real possible Bridge
00:55:40
makes journalism so hard because there is Is like Bloomberg runs
00:55:44
and almost to my frustration would run statements from the
00:55:49
subject that I thought were like so flatly like false that it we
00:55:52
should even like give them are. But I do think media companies
00:55:56
are bending over backwards to represent what these people
00:56:00
believe by going to their door and trying to get comment when
00:56:03
they won't respond. Okay, dude.
00:56:04
But you know, a lot of that salt, a lot of that falls into
00:56:07
the so sir. When did you stop beating your
00:56:10
wife category? It's like you can frame
00:56:12
question. Certain way and you frame the
00:56:13
sorts of certain way and that's where the journalistic bias
00:56:15
comes in. I mean again, but you have to
00:56:18
accept that journalists have some sort of crown like, oh, I
00:56:20
am on a fact-finding mission. Anyone else shows up on your
00:56:23
door is a threat and I think that's a hard dichotomy to
00:56:26
maintain when you have a media that's perceived as being
00:56:28
extraordinarily placed. Yeah, well I use sort of said in
00:56:32
the beginning of this conversation and this is where I
00:56:35
can't quite Square the circle that like part of the value of
00:56:39
add base sort of shared media, is that we Created sort of this
00:56:43
Collective narrative and, you know, if you have that model,
00:56:47
then you have people who are sort of empowered by Society.
00:56:50
This is literally the first amendment I had to look it up
00:56:52
the other day, just to reassure myself mentions the Press
00:56:55
specifically. Like it is part of the Bedrock
00:56:59
of America. You talked about all the
00:57:00
founding fathers being writers, like if there is press that sort
00:57:04
of is a unifying force that allows people to see the culture
00:57:08
through a shared lens like you just don't believe in that
00:57:11
anymore note. True.
00:57:13
But you realize this key you, I mean not that I'm a
00:57:15
constitutional originalist but the press as it existed in Ben
00:57:18
Franklin or George Washington's time.
00:57:19
Sure. Very different than the
00:57:21
Bloomberg of today. That's the difference, right?
00:57:23
And again, many would argue that the press that the founding
00:57:26
fathers were thinking about is more encapsulated with what
00:57:28
perhaps you're doing right now, with this podcast, journalists
00:57:30
are more supportive of me than your Tech Builders like let me
00:57:34
tell you, I have not had the door open to Tech Builders by
00:57:38
being independent. It's exactly.
00:57:39
Did what do they gain talking to you?
00:57:41
They're gonna get screwed. Dude, these they don't believe
00:57:43
they're not gonna get screwed. Honestly like, are you getting
00:57:46
screwed? Like I'm are you getting
00:57:48
screwed? Like oh but I you know I you're
00:57:51
not doing a story on me. Write it like this is like more.
00:57:54
I'm trying to interrogate your views, that's what I do.
00:57:56
Professionally like, yes, I'm happy to are the recording of
00:57:59
Marc Andreessen if he wants to do the interview but like it's
00:58:02
cowardice and disingenuous. And like I respond, like I'm
00:58:07
begging. You, I have an argument.
00:58:08
That's what we're here for again.
00:58:10
Why would they do it? Because I see everything through
00:58:13
strategic a strategic lens and not through as you've imposed
00:58:18
that because I every CEO and this like talk to any CEO and
00:58:22
they will have the story of when they got burned by whatever Wall
00:58:26
Street Journal. Wopo.
00:58:27
New York Times. They'll have the, I got fucked
00:58:29
by the reporter story and that's what sets the tone.
00:58:32
That's why you're seeing it with her upside if they want to
00:58:34
address Their audience or they, you know, as a CEO, there's two
00:58:37
reasons to talk to the media. One is obviously brand building
00:58:40
of some sort establish a certain tone I meant etcetera, you can
00:58:43
message us channels directly. Now, why would you need the
00:58:47
journalist is in the gatekeeper anymore.
00:58:48
Is the reality? Sure.
00:58:49
Yeah. Audience.
00:58:50
Their strategic lens and then there's this earn it.
00:58:53
I it's the earnest tea that I'm looking for, on the right.
00:58:56
That's why I feel like, I'm in a strong position on this.
00:58:58
Like, yeah, this strategic lens I've been all over the pro go
00:59:02
direct. You know, I wrote the story
00:59:04
about Andreessen Horowitz, going direct like I totally understand
00:59:07
that, but if people on the other side, have sincere reviews
00:59:11
having them out. Like you're doing here is part
00:59:14
of it. Okay, well I you know, Bradley
00:59:16
one thing that I think is interesting is that this whole
00:59:18
notion of like building and doing in public like what Elon
00:59:20
is doing with Twitter, the fact that he's kind of live tweeting
00:59:23
this complete reboot, like, whatever you think of it.
00:59:25
The fact that he's actually like, tweeting, what's happening
00:59:27
as it's happening, is something that would never have happened
00:59:29
in the corporate culture of 10 or 15 years ago.
00:59:31
And for those who are fans of it and he does have many fans.
00:59:35
If you look at the replies, I think that level of directness
00:59:39
that freshness comes off as authentic and real and not Not
00:59:42
fake and not stay calm. Sure.
00:59:45
But he know, I mean, I think it's predictions about what
00:59:47
happens in the future are extremely inaccurate.
00:59:51
Well Pete, but you know, journalists have gone to the
00:59:53
extreme against Elon. Now I think yes, they are
00:59:55
because because Twitter is such an open-air debacle in in so
01:00:00
many, I think unassailably true ways, or, you know what I mean,
01:00:02
like, it's unassailably true that it is a mess right now,
01:00:06
but, you know, is it though? But it, but it's but there di a
01:00:08
user through the roof and it's the greatest, Showdown them.
01:00:11
I mean, he's he claims that they are No, I haven't seen it either
01:00:13
but he leaked the deck slides and and Casey Newton would have
01:00:16
reported on the real numbers. And suddenly from the Twitter
01:00:18
growth guy, had been faked like, 'oh, then I miss, I missed that.
01:00:22
I mean, we Casey report on the numbers.
01:00:23
No, no. I'm saying Ilan posted slides
01:00:26
from what looked like a growth chart and if they were
01:00:29
fraudulent which is what you were you know, perhaps floating
01:00:31
then the real numbers would have looked instantly because there's
01:00:34
a level of scrutiny being applied as well.
01:00:35
Look, I missed that I certainly think like setting a car on fire
01:00:38
is also going to get a lot of people gawking at it.
01:00:40
And if you're also the revenue sir, Only downright are you
01:00:43
questioning that like I don't know.
01:00:45
I mean so probably I was I was actually gonna give Elon some
01:00:48
credit here. I do think that because there is
01:00:49
such an extreme view on journalists part that he is
01:00:52
doing such a certain job when running Twitter.
01:00:56
There's this desire to throw everything that he's done to
01:00:58
this point. You know, it throw it in the
01:01:00
same light and I think there are reasonable people can make cases
01:01:03
on the value that Tesla has given to the society broadly.
01:01:06
And I actually think space accent specifically starlink are
01:01:09
like great great offerings and I can you say that Personal
01:01:12
reasons. So like journals aren't willing
01:01:14
to accept that now because it's a great story to throw along
01:01:17
under the bus. But right, I mean Ilan has been
01:01:20
just a fanboy for one second. I mean, the most Transformer
01:01:23
individual of our time in the long range view of history,
01:01:25
between space, exploration and electric vehicles, full
01:01:29
disclosure. I own a Tesla 3, I like the car
01:01:31
lot. That's been a transformative
01:01:34
thing. And if anything right, like I
01:01:36
think I once joked that the Fermi Paradox which is a
01:01:39
paradox, like why don't we see more human life in the universe?
01:01:41
Is that We planted evolved to the point where the most
01:01:44
ambitious smartest person buys their version of Twitter and
01:01:47
then the whole society falls apart.
01:01:48
And then they and they never actually get to Mars because
01:01:51
they get so distracted with Twitter flame Wars.
01:01:53
And I hope that's not what happens with you on because I
01:01:55
would like wish Marcel. I wish there were more people
01:01:56
making that argument honestly and saying Ilan, you're trying
01:01:59
to get us to Mars. Why are you fighting with?
01:02:01
There are ones with her and not as many not as many as it should
01:02:03
be like because things have gotten so tribalist and
01:02:06
defensive in in the interactions there that I would feel like
01:02:09
people that truly believe he is the greatest entrepreneurial
01:02:11
timer. Said saying he is the only free
01:02:14
speech warrior in the world. You know?
01:02:17
They're saying that instead of like Elon, you should be
01:02:19
focusing on Mars right now, what are you doing?
01:02:21
I mean, I'm going to say say extremely sanctimonious, which
01:02:24
I'm sure you're think most of what I've said is been
01:02:26
sanctimonious. But I mean, journalists are
01:02:28
super biased towards honesty, right?
01:02:30
I mean, they what? Oh, come on.
01:02:32
Yes. The problem with you, on his
01:02:35
head, he's in inveterate liar. He lies all the time.
01:02:38
Oh, yeah. And a journalist.
01:02:40
It's just utter. God's Own truth, do they?
01:02:41
That's The go, like, you know what you think or know if I'm
01:02:47
not, if I don't know if I'm with you on that one.
01:02:49
All right, I think that a lot of the hate is the spin around,
01:02:52
journalists have the manipulator.
01:02:54
So do many times over the gas of decades, but you like any any,
01:02:58
any like objective observation on this character would have
01:03:01
been, like boy. Elizabeth Holmes does not seem
01:03:03
like she's an honest actor. Up until this point journalists
01:03:06
are incredibly gullible. We are called.
01:03:08
Call me. Your fucking weapon on Angeles.
01:03:12
Isn't that a line with like believing and caring about
01:03:15
honesty? Because you're taking someone at
01:03:18
their work. That's quite the rhetorical her
01:03:20
shoe, by the way. This reminds me where that NPR
01:03:22
show left, right and Center, where they had like three
01:03:23
different people. Yeah, it's like, we've got this
01:03:25
weird. Cryptic going on, one thing you
01:03:27
could do and I know it's unrealistic but you could get
01:03:29
jobs in tech for starters, right?
01:03:32
Like one thing I note that I think is the missing Bridge.
01:03:34
It's like it's easy to opinionated about a terrific
01:03:37
eight about tech and I hate Sports analogies in general but
01:03:40
when you're sitting in the stands versus Standing on the
01:03:43
field. Anything a lot of journalists
01:03:44
won't name names, think that they're kind of players on the
01:03:47
field and really, they're just loudest guy in the stands and I
01:03:50
think if they were ever in the position that anybody who's
01:03:52
worked at any level of authority and Tech like you're sitting at
01:03:55
a little standing desk. Like this one, you've got some
01:03:57
dashboard and you're tasked with making that number go up into
01:04:00
the right. And that number is some like
01:04:02
complex thing around user engagement, monetization
01:04:04
content, moderation, whatever it is.
01:04:06
It's some weird multi-factor thing in a very real business
01:04:09
and Technical and political environment, and you have to
01:04:11
Grapple with that reality. I think if a lot more
01:04:13
journalists and just the commentary at because, you know,
01:04:15
at this point, there's academics, there's sub stack,
01:04:17
whatever it is. I think those people would
01:04:19
benefit from being in that position and understanding the
01:04:23
difficulty of what that means to build something to ship it, to
01:04:26
monetize it to scale it and all the problems does imply.
01:04:29
And I think, I wish we had more journalists, who would do that.
01:04:32
I mean, to make a broad point on this.
01:04:34
I think it's very insightful Point you're making, but it's a
01:04:38
problem that has existed throughout culture, right?
01:04:41
I mean to think, About Ratatouille, or I just saw the
01:04:44
movie The Menu, right? The restaurant industry.
01:04:47
Bristling at critics who really don't know how to cook aren't
01:04:51
experts in. Their field is something that
01:04:53
has existed throughout like art and culture where the creative
01:04:58
class bristles at critics, but the public find the critic fight
01:05:03
has at least in the past found the critics necessary as sort of
01:05:07
a vehicle to differentiating or learning about.
01:05:10
And so, attack, I think one thing, To say and I'll let you
01:05:13
say it is the tech, maybe doesn't need the critics
01:05:16
anymore. No, but to the I feel like just
01:05:21
is so powerful that they're bristling at the critics is
01:05:24
actually much more impactful to society in a way that a chef can
01:05:29
sort of be angry about it. But then still still accepts
01:05:33
this as part of life, see how my response was not gonna be the
01:05:35
critics don't exist or that Texas Beyond criticism.
01:05:38
I mean even if you recast monkeys, there's a bunch of
01:05:39
criticisms of tech and Tech culture, kind of implicitly.
01:05:42
Professional critics. Yeah.
01:05:44
Well, yeah. And people have made this
01:05:46
argument to be for online when I've when I've criticized media.
01:05:49
I think the fault in your analogy is that the analog the
01:05:52
journalistic analog of the restaurant critic, that
01:05:54
restaurant critic is taking the users side, or the eater side.
01:05:57
And yeah, the restaurant and they're having the same
01:05:59
experience that the consumer would have in saying, you know,
01:06:01
I have a distinguished palette, I've sampled 100 restaurants,
01:06:04
here's my take on it because I'm an informed consumer, the analog
01:06:06
to that is not Tech accountability journalism.
01:06:09
It's what tech journalism used to be, which is mostly gadgetry.
01:06:13
And kind of being, I'm a professional consumer of tech,
01:06:16
like, what thing do I buy or what do I use?
01:06:18
And that's a very different flavor of criticism.
01:06:20
Well, I think a lot of the fights are over.
01:06:23
I'm a professional consumer of content moderation.
01:06:26
Especially since these user, the Twitter, the reporters are the
01:06:29
ones getting harassed, and so they're like, oh, I've thought
01:06:32
about this a lot. This is how this company handles
01:06:34
it. This is how this one does, you
01:06:36
know? I mean, those are a lot of the
01:06:37
fights about content moderation right now, and they are sort of
01:06:41
professional. Consumers of content moderation.
01:06:44
Well, but I think including and especially in content,
01:06:46
moderation, the experience of being behind a dashboard and
01:06:49
that trying to do content moderation, that scale would, I
01:06:51
think be very educational to those critics.
01:06:53
And if there's one thing that you notice among them with the
01:06:56
exception of Stamos, I think was a guest before, who has been
01:06:58
kind of in that seat, almost nobody in that class of
01:07:00
commentary, it has ever done it. And as a result, by the way,
01:07:03
Stamos, I think is one of the most reasonable voices within
01:07:05
that class. Yeah.
01:07:06
But I mean the problem in life and you know I think there will
01:07:09
be more cross-pollination. I mean, the top Tech Right now,
01:07:12
who I adore this guy, gergely rice, pragmatic engineer, was
01:07:16
it? Who brr?
01:07:16
Yeah, he gets all these Scoops. The drive-in he's very - out.
01:07:19
He lied to me. He's actually very culturally
01:07:21
aligned, I think with the journalist class, but you know,
01:07:23
he was in industry and he gets him.
01:07:25
Lots of Scoops from developers and I think it's great.
01:07:28
So I want to see more than the of that.
01:07:30
I don't think it'll solve any of the problems that you think.
01:07:33
And I think the reality is that specialization just like in Tech
01:07:37
is very valuable in reporting. I was an anchor on my Elementary
01:07:41
School news. Just like there is such
01:07:43
disrespect for how hard it is. Like journalism jobs were dying.
01:07:48
Like, you know, how many people from like the Crimson are like,
01:07:51
oh my God, you actually went into journalism.
01:07:53
I feel like the just crass like condescension towards
01:07:57
journalism, when it is actually top journalism, jobs are
01:08:00
extremely rare. And so I think the idea that
01:08:03
it's just like, oh yeah, like go have a totally different career
01:08:06
and then figure out journalism, just ignores, all the
01:08:10
specialization that exists in Many industry, no.
01:08:13
But if I could actually argue a little bit of Antonio's Point
01:08:16
here, I do think maybe what you're describing is not
01:08:18
necessarily having a different career but having like at least
01:08:21
an ounce of empathy of the people that are writing about
01:08:24
know what? Because, you know what, listen
01:08:25
to me. I think one of the most
01:08:26
formative things for me as a journalist was the fact that
01:08:28
most of my time was spent at a journalism startup at the
01:08:31
information which was not always a very functional company.
01:08:35
Frankly. You know, I don't mind saying
01:08:36
this on the podcast, it was really tough early on and I've,
01:08:40
as I've read stories that have come out about Oops and just
01:08:42
saying oh this is a total catastrophe.
01:08:44
I've actually been like look, I've been at a company that was
01:08:46
tough that had like a lot of problems early on.
01:08:49
I've seen that you can get through it.
01:08:50
I've seen that the feeling in the moment isn't the
01:08:53
encapsulation of everything that the person who's leading it is
01:08:56
and what the company stands for and journalists tend to forget
01:08:59
that they you know they they get the - you get you get the
01:09:03
critical sourcing from people at the company who frankly have an
01:09:07
agenda, don't know what they're saying is wrong, doesn't mean
01:09:10
that what they're saying isn't some element of the truth.
01:09:12
But if you have an experience, at least, in some way, what it
01:09:15
could be like inside the company, and that there could be
01:09:17
multiple perspectives, not even just the CEO, but other
01:09:19
employees there that feel slightly differently about it.
01:09:23
You if you don't understand that, you're not going to be a
01:09:25
very good reporter. And I think what we're what, I
01:09:28
totally agree. I mean, part of the problem is
01:09:30
it's like, yeah, I mean, it's terrifying.
01:09:32
That is a twenty-year-old, you know, with like no experience in
01:09:36
life. You're given a lot of power over
01:09:38
powerful people as a journalist. So I accept that there's sort of
01:09:42
But some of that is just the feel like if journalism was like
01:09:45
a, very lucrative industry, maybe we would just write.
01:09:48
Yeah. Recruit away like the former
01:09:51
ctOS, you know, like some of it is like an economical on there
01:09:54
is important but he, but here's the one thing I would push back
01:09:57
on that. And what I think, maybe Founders
01:09:59
can understand better from journalists is that I've
01:10:02
discovered over time. I don't think at least founder
01:10:06
CEOs people to high-level their companies.
01:10:08
Really always know everything that's going on.
01:10:10
I think they are often. Extremely Focused on the
01:10:13
business that they're, you know, the money they're trying to make
01:10:15
the up into the right looking at the looking at the dashboard,
01:10:17
all the things that you need to run a successful company and
01:10:21
they often have very little insight into anything outside of
01:10:24
that. And so what comes off as like
01:10:26
journalists attacking them can would be legitimate criticisms
01:10:30
by employees at their company that because their company is so
01:10:33
not functional in a lot of different ways, they have no
01:10:35
outlet with which to express it and they take what I consider in
01:10:39
Katie's talk about this in a previous episode The Fairly
01:10:41
nuclear Option, which is talking to a person.
01:10:44
They don't really know in order to make some sort of changes.
01:10:47
Now, that's the most generous interpretation of someone
01:10:50
leaking, but I do think it is the case.
01:10:52
I do think it is the case more often than Founders are willing
01:10:54
to recognize. And and I think it is a myopia
01:10:57
on the part of Executives, not really knowing what's going on
01:11:01
in their company and rather than assuming that there is something
01:11:04
that they could change in address.
01:11:05
They sort of push it off on the journalists and in many respects
01:11:09
we are just a mouthpiece for people inside companies that are
01:11:12
That are, you know, airing Grievances.
01:11:14
And I think that's missed a little bit in a dialogue on the
01:11:16
other side. Maybe you don't see that?
01:11:20
I was, that was my most generous.
01:11:21
Wait, no, I snitches get stitches.
01:11:25
No, don't talk to the journalists who work at the
01:11:27
company, but he's you. I do think the media criticism
01:11:32
to just point out, like, doesn't acknowledge the reporters are
01:11:36
talking to sources, right? I mean sources.
01:11:39
Yeah. You don't believe it.
01:11:40
Like, do you believe that? There's no, no, it's not alive,
01:11:43
but it's, it's some guy who just got canned or just suffered
01:11:48
Internally and they're going in blabbing to a mouthpiece and
01:11:50
you're presenting it as if that's fact.
01:11:52
And it just isn't it isn't the entire picture?
01:11:54
And I look and I must post modernism next guy and I realize
01:11:56
there's no capital-t truth in human literature here but you're
01:12:00
no, we're just getting, you're just getting well, you're just
01:12:03
getting a hyper skewed view of what's going on and and and and
01:12:08
you know how you throw it like fact-checking has value to be
01:12:11
clear again, I've written fact-checked pieces before it
01:12:14
does have some value, but the way to cheat and journalism is
01:12:17
not Like lie and make things up. That's like that's too easy to
01:12:20
catch into dumb. It's the framing of the story is
01:12:23
who you choose to quote who choose not to quote you know
01:12:25
there's all these various tricks.
01:12:26
You can play to give fact-check truth, a certain slant and that
01:12:31
appears in the world as truth. And the average Layman has no
01:12:33
way to cross check that. Because they're not Insider.
01:12:35
It's right. I agree.
01:12:36
On a percent with what you just said.
01:12:37
Yeah, that said, I just think that cynically the anti-media
01:12:42
crowd is intentionally making the media worse by depriving
01:12:45
their own voices. To the media.
01:12:48
And that's only pushing them closer to employee source and
01:12:52
not budget of the reason that the public likes these stories
01:12:55
is because there's clearly more appetite to understand counter
01:12:58
narratives of what's going on, like you think so, actually, I
01:13:00
disagree. I think the whole negative 2 in
01:13:02
shorts Tech actually, sours people and they would, rather,
01:13:05
they'd rather hear, I don't know, the occasional positive
01:13:08
story about it, there's a reason Twitter.
01:13:10
So - I mean, that's what travels like, if it bleeds it leads but
01:13:13
you're supposed to elevate, the discourse here, mr.
01:13:15
Journalist. I am trying but I can't I And I
01:13:18
honestly can do. I feel like, yes, I that's where
01:13:21
a subsection Advantage. But really, it's just like
01:13:24
Having excess profits. I mean, that's why media was
01:13:27
great in some ways before because they were so profitable
01:13:30
that they could put values above profits.
01:13:33
Yeah. Now go.
01:13:33
Now, here's squeezed. Yeah.
01:13:35
People forget newspapers, actually, you to make a lot of
01:13:36
money. All right.
01:13:38
Look at the Phantom's of newspapers up to like the 80s
01:13:40
and 90s because of the news stories though it was because of
01:13:42
course out. Yeah.
01:13:43
It was like, you know, the bullshit story is in the back of
01:13:45
the paper so I will let you go. But now this one let me connect
01:13:48
to make one confessional. Can we go into confession
01:13:50
ammonia for a second? Something not that many of you
01:13:53
probably know about me. You know what?
01:13:54
My first job was in high school in high school, like my first
01:13:56
W2, like, actual paycheck. I got.
01:13:59
Did you throw on newspapers or something?
01:14:00
Right, you have someone you for that.
01:14:03
I worked. I worked on a city desk, a
01:14:04
newspaper. I was, I was my first actual
01:14:07
paint job was a journalist. I was at the sun-sentinel, as a
01:14:09
news, intern on the city desk and I'd go around and Report
01:14:13
stories on the ground back. When you had police reporters,
01:14:15
listen to the police scanner and they'd hear about the shooting
01:14:17
go race. Off back before the internet and
01:14:19
then the job after that was Miami, Herald actually
01:14:21
throughout the senior year of high school and then I
01:14:24
originally picked my college based on journalism programs and
01:14:26
the whole plan was coming at journalisted.
01:14:28
There's a whole sequence of events how we ended up in the
01:14:29
stem side instead. But that was my first, actual
01:14:32
paying job there. Now you know, my secret are and
01:14:34
now you're full of resentment against.
01:14:36
That's right. I was yeah.
01:14:38
What's your what's your like grows?
01:14:40
But I know that no one was actually.
01:14:43
So I was like what's your? What's your moment that that
01:14:45
turned you against journalism? Like was there like a Crusty
01:14:47
reporter like in the Miami Herald.
01:14:49
He was just no, you're never going to make it kid.
01:14:51
Oh no. That experience actually
01:14:53
surprised. I think one thing I think Tech
01:14:56
doesn't realize like back in the Golden Age of Journalism, like a
01:14:59
newsroom. I'm sure you've had this
01:15:00
experience. Probably worked out of
01:15:01
Bloomberg. My worked if the sun, sun, all
01:15:03
one point. How did you really?
01:15:04
Yeah injured. Yeah.
01:15:05
And like The Newsroom used to be an exciting place to be right,
01:15:09
because again, there was no internet, right?
01:15:10
Like shit happen, right? And the people who knew about it
01:15:13
were sitting right there next to write.
01:15:14
Some guy would literally run out to report on a thing and and
01:15:17
there was this feeling of you were in the center, it almost
01:15:20
like a trading floor. It.
01:15:21
We felt like this Buzzy Center of action and you were part of
01:15:24
recording, the realities of life and it was kind of very
01:15:26
exciting. And that's, that's kind of not
01:15:29
journalism anymore. Well, I guess in New York Times
01:15:31
is probably that way if you're actually sitting inside a
01:15:32
newsroom but but things have changed a lot.
01:15:34
Now it's now it's tweets and subjects.
01:15:37
Yeah. I feel like in the world There's
01:15:40
a lot we don't know. Like do you feel like there's a
01:15:42
lot that needs to be uncovered or you think fundamentally.
01:15:46
We're uncovering. Most of it.
01:15:47
Who's we? The journey is just the world.
01:15:49
Like, do you think the world is sufficiently surfacing?
01:15:52
Secret facts? No, fortunately, this desirable
01:15:55
and that's why I broke ass monkeys because I felt Tech was
01:15:57
so interesting. It was being so badly.
01:15:58
Reported someone needed to write the book but like a hundred
01:16:01
years from now. If you were going to ask like
01:16:02
what happened when humans like ported their brains online like
01:16:05
what was it like and I felt in a you know and obviously the
01:16:08
completely narcissistic way that writers are Great.
01:16:10
But okay. I'm going to go right at least
01:16:11
one of your only a narcissist on Twitter.
01:16:14
Yeah. I feel like you're not being
01:16:15
very consistent. Well the the artist temperament
01:16:19
is a difficult. One artists are terrible people
01:16:21
by artist. Probably know my narcissism
01:16:23
contains multitudes. Well thank you so much for
01:16:27
coming. I feel like that's a great place
01:16:29
to end it as long as unless there's a last word you really I
01:16:32
feel like I pushed you a little so if you you're free to say
01:16:36
anything you want. No no.
01:16:37
Thank you Eric. Thank you.
01:16:38
Tom thanks. Thanks.
01:16:39
Antonio, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,
01:16:55
goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye.