Big tech streaming M&A + NYT’s Taylor Lorenz on creators, Clubhouse & Jake Paul’s VC fund | E1217

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This week, and they'll let you know within a couple of days. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of This Week in Startups. Wanted to start with a couple of quick news hits about Amazon in talks to acquire MGM, AT&T spinning off Warner Media and merging it with Discovery. As well as an interview I did with, wait for it, yes, hell has frozen over, Taylor Lorenz of The New York Times joins us today on the podcast.

To get started, looking at Amazon is in talks to acquire MGM. MGM is a movie studio that has reportedly been on the market for seven to ten billion dollars. And their IP isn't Disney-level, it's not Marvel-level, it's certainly not Star Wars, but it's not bad. They own the James Bond franchise. That's kind of the big piece here. And the James Bond franchise, you could see me being worth, you know, half of this price in my mind. If Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar are all worth, you know, billions of dollars, why wouldn't James Bond? You could see James Bond over the next 50 years producing a movie every two years, 25 movies, doing a billion dollars each, that's 25 billion dollars in box office. Completely possible.

They also own The Handmaid's Tale, which is doing fantastic on Hulu. They own the Rocky franchise, which has been rebooted. I'm not sure that's got huge legs. Stargate, very much beloved multi-franchise TV show. Robocop, Legally Blonde, Shark Tank, and Survivor. Now, the MGM film library includes over 4,000 titles. Those are movies, and 17,000 television episodes. If you split the price, you know, and you made it, uh, half and half, you know, maybe, uh, they're paying, um, four thousand titles, four billion dollars, a million dollars per movie. That seems pretty reasonable. Some of those movies will never make a million, some will make many more than a million. So they've got a huge catalog of films. They also have a number of production distribution companies, and they have the content network Epix. This would give Amazon access to just a huge library that they could make part of Amazon Prime Video, and they could license it to other people. And it starts to give them an IP catalog that is nowhere near Disney Plus, but it's kind of puts them on Netflix level, doesn't it?

So this is a major move. I can't believe that, uh, you know, somebody like Netflix didn't make it, given their market cap. Really strange, but looks like Amazon's gonna win it. You never know, somebody could come in and buy it. I don't know if Disney is going to be allowed to keep buying every single movie studio without triggering some kind of antitrust. But this is, uh, a big part of Amazon's real push into video. If you don't know, in the Q1 2020 earnings report that just came out, Prime Video is now 10 years old, and over 175 million Prime members have streamed shows and movies in the past year. I'm quoting, and streaming hours are up more than 70% year over year. Obviously, the pandemic played a part there. And they received a record 12 Academy Award nominations and two wins. There are now over 200 million Prime members worldwide, and 175 million of them have used Amazon Prime. So that's really interesting. If you're a Prime member, you know this, because they keep upselling you on it and they keep telling you about it.

Netflix, of course, has 208 million subscribers. So these things are not analogous. I don't think 175 million people who used Amazon Prime Video would have paid for it. Maybe 10% would have. But it does mean, uh, that there is something here worth pursuing. Netflix is $14 a month for the standard. They have like a $9.18 option. But Disney Plus is the real story here. Disney is at 103 million members, paying $80 a year, $8 a month, including myself. So, uh, Amazon is, uh, really competitive on Netflix and Disney Plus because it's part of a bundle, right? And the bundling is what we're seeing occur more and more often. You may have noticed Apple is now bundling Apple News, iCloud, Apple Arcade, Apple Music in the sort of Apple Prime, as I called it on CNBC about five years ago. So this basically means if you're a subscription service, man, you've got to compete with the Amazon Prime offering, which is more than just movies. The Apple Prime, which is cloud, games, news, and videos and music. So this is, uh, a super big win. And, uh, Ben Thompson from Stratechery says, "Amazon has to work to win and retain customers on a continual basis, ideally to its Prime subscription service. And bundling differentiated content is a great way to do that." So stating the obvious there, Ben, but it is true. This is a way to differentiate. If they own James Bond, that's a nice catalog, and, and some of the other ones are as well. And I think these mega bundles are really going to challenge Netflix. And Netflix now, if you force people to pick Amazon Prime, Netflix, or Disney, and they could only pick two, which two would you pick? I actually think, oh, and Hulu, I put into that. If I had to pick, if I had to drop only one, I might actually drop Netflix at this point. I'm in love with Hulu, the interface, the live stuff. My kids are not gonna let us get rid of Disney Plus, and I have no way I'm getting rid of Amazon Prime. So if you put those four together, Netflix is in fourth place for me. And that says something.

In related news, AT&T is spinning off Warner Media and merging it with Discovery, and offloading about $40 billion in debt. This was first reported in Bloomberg, and AT&T confirmed it's going to spin out its Warner Media business and merge it into Discovery. This is going to create an entertainment company that owns HBO, HBO Max, I'm not sure exactly what the difference is. They are CNN, and all the Discovery channels, Discovery HD Theater, and Animal Planet. A lot of those channels do really good business because if you do a nature series on orcas, that plays around the world. Everybody is interested in killer whales, sharks, dolphins, whatever it is. It's one of the great things about their content. You don't have to localize it. You need only change the language. It's not like we do MTV's The Real World in the United States, and that's going to be very different when you license it to Japan or Australia, and you got to make a totally new show. So obviously Discovery is going to combine HBO Max with Discovery Plus and create another streaming product to compete with Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, Apple TV, Peacock, Paramount, and all the other things that are out there. We're all going to wind up subscribing to four or five of these. And, uh, this deal comes just three years after AT&T acquired Time Warner and subsequently rebranded it, rebranded it Warner Media. So why now, just three years after purchasing Time Warner? Most people seem to think it's the debt. Just, you know, AT&T is carrying $169 billion in debt and needs to invest in its wireless business. They obviously have competition coming from Starlink. You obviously have competition, uh, in the 5G space from any number of competitors. And it's just too hard to run, you know, a carrier and content. We saw the same thing happen recently. Verizon is selling off their content business. In that case, it's an online business, not a movie business. But this idea that you're gonna own the plumbing and you're gonna own the content seems to be too much for one management team or Wall Street to be able to digest. Obviously, Google got rid of Google Fiber. They couldn't be in the search and the online business and figure out how to make, uh, a business around plumbing and pipes work as well. So, uh, AT&T is going to give $40 billion of that debt to Discovery. And here's the quote from David Zaslav, who has been running Discovery from 2007 and just renewed his contract into 2027. "It's not just that we're better together in the media side, but we're probably the best media company in the world with the greatest IP, the most iconic IP. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Sex and the City, Entourage, Game of Thrones." And this idea of a full global IP company. It's not true, but it's, uh, you know, maybe he's in the top four. I would definitely not say that this combination is better than what Disney owns, not by a long shot. So definitely in the top three, but definitely not number one. Nice try.

Finally, a quick, uh, legal story. Dapper Labs is facing a class-action lawsuit. Although I'd say this isn't a substantial one, but it's an interesting one. This was reported by CoinDesk. The CEO, uh, Roham Gharegozlou, who was on episode 1197 back in April, he runs Dapper Labs. That's the company that made the Flow blockchain, and they do NBA Top Shot, which has been sued by a plaintiff. A plaintiff being somebody who bought NFTs from Top Shot. And the legal work is being done by The Rosen Law Firm. They're also currently working on, uh, lawsuits, class-action lawsuits against Peloton and Volkswagen. And they've got 17 one-star reviews on Google. I'm not sure if that's relevant or not. But they're a class-action lawsuit, and I think they tend to make money by settling these lawsuits.

The suit alleges that the NBA Top Shot moments meet the definition of a security and should be registered as such. Does it? Are the people buying NBA Top Shots buying it because they want to own the LeBron James dunk, or are they buying it because they wanted to appreciate like Amazon stock? Interesting question. You would have to ask each of the individuals, what they're doing. The suit references the SEC's framework for investment contract analysis of digital assets, which was published following the ICO wave. Now, in the ICO wave, the ICOs were white papers, there was no product there. So this seems very different to me. If somebody makes a white paper and you buy tokens, and it's some future token, and the token isn't actually being used in the real world for some purpose, well, then maybe it does feel like it is a, uh, security being sold in advance of an offering. Now, if there's utility to the token and it's being used in some way, and NFTs are being used because people seem to love to own them for the collector's sake, and there's precedent to this. People buy baseball cards. But there's also the precedent that baseball cards can be resold for more. And obviously, people are not paying a million dollars for a Superman comic book or a million dollars for a little LeBron James rookie card because they think they just want to look at it. If they just wanted to look at it, they could make, you know, a million copies for $10,000 and place them everywhere and give them out to every person they ever been in the rest of their life. So it's both. It's clearly both. People are getting both types of values, some appreciation and some enjoyment, just like a classic car. You could drive a million-dollar classic car that might be a little risky. But certainly, you could drive a $100,000 old, you know, 1965 Corvette and get some value out of driving, and it takes you from point A to B, but it also is worth $100,000. So the main thesis is, and this is quoting, "NBA moments are securities because they constitute an investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be delivered from the efforts of others." Hmm. Really debatable. Interesting.

In the Dapper terms of service, terms of use, Dapper requires its users to agree that they, in quotes, "are using NFTs primarily as objects of play and not for investment or speculative purposes." That is also nonsense. Obviously, these things are being bought because people believe they're going to go up. Two things can be true at the same time, and what this means is our laws are antiquated, and they need to change. Dapper also included a binding arbitration clause, so this shouldn't be settled in court, according to them. This probably, um, all arose because there is a big money target on their back. Dapper just had a $7.5 billion valuation, raised $400 million, and Top Shot has had $585 million in transactions. So whenever you're successful, the lawyers come out. They look for an angle to sue. The angle here is this is unclear, and as I just described, it, two things can be true. This could be, and the people could be buying NFTs because they want them to appreciate. That's fairly obvious, even if, even if Dapper says they're not. And it could be that people are buying them because they enjoy owning them and they get some value from it, just like classic cars. And so, you know, in terms of advice, there is nothing like success to bring out lawsuits. If you become a billion-dollar, 10-billion, or 100-billion-dollar company, the number of lawsuits will directly correlate with the valuation and the amount of money you raise, because you are, in fact, a target.

Okay, let's get to my interview with Taylor Lorenz. Enjoy.

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All right, everybody, next up on the program is Taylor Lorenz, the queen of meme, the social media reporter at The New York Times. It's, uh, great to meet you, Taylor. And, um, you've been writing for The New York Times for, I think, three years now, 2018, 2019? Oh, that's it? All right. Well, you've made a lot of noise in a year and a half. 33 articles already. And got so much to talk about. I thought I'd talk, I'd start with, um, Instagram for kids, and what your thoughts are on, um, should this is this a horrible idea? And would you trust? I, I don't know if you have kids or not. But do you have kids? No. Okay. So do you think parents should put kids under 13 on Instagram, knowing what you know about social media, seeing, you know, the wreckage that it causes politically, people's personal lives, eating disorders, people being groomed and targeted? What is your position on this?

So I wrote an article actually when I was at The Atlantic a few years ago about what it's like for children the first time they realize they have an internet presence. And I interviewed a bunch of children under 10, basically, about the first time that they Googled themselves. And it was really interesting. I talked to dozens of kids, and a lot of them, I mean, the experience that most of them had is that they were very frustrated that their parents had basically been posting about them throughout their whole lives. Right? And so, you know, they get on Instagram at 13, and one of them's talking about, "Oh, I realize there's a hashtag for my name that my mom and family members had shared." Basically baby photos. Like, you know, there's a lot of, of kids' lives that are already being put on the internet, um, classrooms, camps, you know, they'll put photos up for sports teams, like things like this. So I think there's an increasing amount of, like, digital footprint for kids online. And 13 does seem like kind of an arbitrary age. Um, I think, I guess it's determined by, like, you know, it's legal, like COPPA stuff, like, um, and I'm a little bit torn. I mean, obviously, it's horrible, right? Like the predatory nature of that. Like, you would think, why would you put kids on? But then at the same time, I kind of think of YouTube Kids, which I know has had its problems, but it's like, actually, it's a safer experience, right? It's more closed experience. So I think if Instagram can build an app that allows children to kind of like use, you know, follow what they like or consume children's content, and it's a safer experience, that could be good. As I saw yesterday, Casey Newton wrote up this report saying like, 40% of kids under the age of 12 reported being on Facebook already, um, and Instagram. So I think kids are using these apps for adults already. Um, but I know, I know there's this notion of like, get kids offline, don't let them on these apps. And I get that. But, you know, I can't, you know, I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is. Like I said, I don't have kids. And I understand that. I understand wanting to protect them. It's a horrible. I mean, there's a lot of horrible stuff about Instagram, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's when you have kids and you just see what impact YouTube has on them versus just Kids YouTube. It really is. Once a whitelisted service where they cannot communicate. There are no comments. There is no social network. You know, for me, you know, being a dad of three daughters, I would really, really be scared if there were comments on YouTube Kids or, yeah, you know, you could like people. I mean, it's just a recipe for kids being groomed and all kinds of gnarly stuff. So it's, it's a hard no for me. Messaging like, you should not be letting like eight-year-olds message people on the internet. Like that's a horrible idea. What my feeling is, like maybe 15 or 16 is the right age for a phone when you're going to communicate with people. And all the parents I've talked to, and my kids have iPads, but it's always in the room with a parent or with a caregiver, you know, at the kitchen table, using it with specific apps. Like I think the App Store has something called Arcade, Apple, and it's like no ads, no monetization, no like targeting kids or gamifying them. It just makes it just a little bit less, uh, gnarly.

Jake Paul. I, you know, I don't, I don't know all these influencers. So I need to like get educated on them. Jake Paul is starting a venture firm. He seems like, again, he seems like a complete, to me, and his brother as well. What are your, what's your take on these two? And like, should anybody be engaging with them? I mean, we, this overlaps in both of our disciplines, me as an investor and, and you as a, a commentator on this. The, these folks specifically are horrible humans from what I can tell. Let's leave Logan out of it because I think Logan has kind of like had a little bit of a redemption. Like I think he's done some stupid stuff, but like overall, I think like, you know, I'm a little bit more forgiving of him because he seems to have really like taken responsibility for the way that he screwed up by, you know, filming a dead. So I think he's sure he filmed, um, in a Japanese forest where people go to commit suicide, he filmed a dead, a person who had committed suicide. Is incredibly callous, classless, yeah, disturbing. It was horrible. I, you know, he apologized, he did, you know, I think he's tried to make amends and like, I think the past few years he's kind of just been doing his thing. He has his podcast. Like, I'm not like concerned about him, I guess. Like he doesn't come up as much for me. Jake has kind of taken the opposite approach. For like, he's leaned into controversy and he's done a lot of like, really screwed up, um, things. I mean, he's been accused of multiple, by multiple women, of sexual assault. You know, I recently did a story about this house that he started, which kind of became the blueprint for a lot of these clubhouses, where he had kids as young as 14 living there, and he was basically exploiting them for profit in various ways. Yeah. So like, and by the way, Jake has tried a lot of different things. Like Jake, I mean, Jake famously had this like app that he tried to launch, a social network called Locker Room, where like men and women were separate. And he's, this is his, you know, he's tried venture firms before. He had TZG Capital, his former VC fund. None of it's ever worked out. As somebody said, like, Jake Paul is most successful at promoting Jake Paul. Like, he's one of those people that's just like controversial. He lives for the controversy, but in like a really toxic way. So I was really, I was really interested to see like big name investors backing his latest rolling fund, only because none of his previous ventures have been successful. Yeah, I mean, there is an argument, I think, that these influencers have very large audiences, and perhaps that could act as distribution for, you know, what the fund invested in. The same way that when I have people on this podcast, it, you know, gets 10,000 people or a thousand people to try an app. So, you know, that is reasonable. Of course, I just think like, you know, there's millions of influencers out there, and there's tons of people way more relevant than Jake Paul. Yeah. And why are you kind of choosing this guy? Like, I do think it sends a message, especially to other creators, especially women creators, you know? So what is that message? I think the message is that like, this is the person that we're gonna stand behind, right? Like, this is the type, you know, for these investors that are trying to rebrand themselves as these like stewards of the creator economy, who, which creators they align themselves with, I think says a message about how they envision that world. And Jake is very emblematic of this, um, you know, exploitative era of the creator economy, where there were no protections, where these kids were being taken advantage of. Jake famously had, you know, his talent sign these contracts where he was entitled to like 20% of their income for years, even if they quit his group. Yeah. It's such a, it's so radioactive that I think that, you know, these, there seem to be a, a number of these really big YouTubers specifically seem to be pretty dopey and they do stupid things. And adding stupid to capital markets and to companies where people work, this is really dumb because the people who work at that company then get judged on the stupidest thing, you know, some dopey kid like Jake Paul does. And we don't even have to, this is no longer a hypothetical because I, I found out about this David Dobrik character because I saw him driving like a Model X Tesla and like getting air on the streets. I don't know if you saw that video. And I immediately said, um, this is unbelievably dangerous. Like, what if they spun out of control and went into those, you know, that row of houses there, and somebody's in the front porch or somebody walks out their door? You could kill somebody. I mean, young people do stupid stuff, but they're doing it on YouTube to make money. And that to me seems to be, that makes YouTube culpable. Am I, do you agree with me on that? Like, they're culpable if they're monetizing Dobrik's content? They are his partner and they're endorsing him and they're promoting him, therefore they are responsible for his behavior on the platform. I think, yeah, I think if they're in their premium partnership, you know, like, which is like the main thing that YouTube has over these big creators is like giving them access to the premium ads. And so the big punishment that a lot of them have gotten when they do something bad is like, oh, you're kicked out of our Google, you know, preferred network. So yeah, I do think it's on YouTube. But at the same time, David Dobrik is so much bigger than YouTube. I mean, he's huge on so many platforms. And I think it's up to investors to do the due diligence. I mean, there were other people that passed on that round because they looked at some of his videos and were like, okay, this is a liability.

Speaking specifically of Dispo, which is this invite-only photo-sharing app. I downloaded and I guess I downloaded the public one, not the TestFlight. What, why was this app so hot? Is it good? Well, it is an interesting product. It's kind of like mimicking the the experience of using a disposable camera. So you kind of take photos and it develops the next day. The main reason people wanted to kind of be like, people downloaded it because David was involved in it. It was David's project. And when you have a fan base of 30 million people that are captive, they will download your app. Like you said, it's distribution. But obviously, if you get into controversy, you get canceled, or whatever, suddenly, like you said, all of these hard-working people that are in product and engineering and everything that did a lot of work on this app are tied to that. It's like a celebrity, I mean, right? Like, same thing if you work for a celebrity startup, right? And it was just a controversy that he may have actually stole the artwork for it, which I'm not sure if that actually came out. But my friend Alexis Ohanian backed it, and Dave has left the company now. And, you know, just what a crazy disaster for everybody. But I mean, Dobrik's problems are now just absolutely insane. He has, um, done stunts. That one of the stunts, the swinging thing, explained to me like he said his friend Jeff off a backhoe. It's hard to describe because it's, it's weird. They were in Lake Tahoe, I believe it was, where they had this backhoe, where they were like swinging off of it, like the arm of it for fun, around in a lake. And David was being crazy, as David always does, push and push and push for the views. You have to be crazier. And he basically swung in a way that his friends smashed into the side of the backhoe and, you know, fractured his whole face. Yeah, and that was covered up. And I mean, what a disaster. The, these stunt YouTubers, I, I remember talking to Susan Wojcicki about it, and I called her out on Twitter. I was like, you should not allow people doing these stunts on YouTube. Their accounts should be instantly turned off if they do a stunt that's dangerous because people were hanging off buildings, and a number of them fell off. It's so gnarly that it just, I mean, I hate to be cynical, but I don't think YouTube cares all that much about this. I mean, I think if they cared, they would have not like rewarded these people with millions and millions of followers. Unfortunately, we're in agreement on that. Yeah, yeah. It's like the nature of the internet. People will always be more and more outrageous for for views. But it's up to YouTube to say, look, even if you're allowing them to continue on the platform, don't put them in your preferred ad network. Don't do marketing for them, right? Like, don't put them in your ad campaign. And in your end-of-year Rewind video, like maybe those shouldn't be the people that you should highlight.

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Let's move over to Clubhouse, our favorite platform. It's one of the most mind-blowing valuations I've ever seen in my career. I've been a journalist, editor, CEO, and now investor, so I've been at this since the '90s. And I have never seen something become worth this much money, uh, so quickly, all from the same venture firm, three investments in a row from $100 million to $4 billion in, I don't know, 18 months. And now it's dying, it seems. What are your thoughts on the absolute collapse in the number of downloads, and do you think it recovers?

Well, I think Clubhouse is a, is a groundbreaking format, the way that Stories was a groundbreaking format for Snapchat. And I think the hard thing, and I think investors learned this after Snapchat, right, is like, you, even if you, if even if you pioneer this new format, the second that all of these other big players come and clone it and, and it kind of gets more widely adopted, you're going to lose that competitive edge. And you have to maintain some sort of, like, you've got a really strong community, or you have to have something. I, I don't think it's just like Twitter launching Spaces that's made Clubhouse downloads drop. I think also it was perfectly positioned during the pandemic, and obviously people are going back outside now, they don't want to sit on these rooms. I think also the discovery in the app is just bad. Like, you, you know, like TikTok is a case in point, right? Like, part of the reason TikTok is so successful is they just nailed discovery. Like, you know, you're gonna see something entertaining when you open the app. Clubhouse, I mean, I think their recommendations, case in point, their suggested follower recommendations. I was with a bunch of like teenage, 17 to 19-year-old kids in Atlanta recently at these influencers. They were all joking about these random men that they followed on Clubhouse, and they're like, "Yeah, you have to follow these people to get on the app. It's so funny, haha. Who are these people?" And I was like, "Oh, show me." And it's just like a bunch of Andreessen Horowitz partners. And it's like, that's a, that's a bad user experience. Like, you should have more dynamic recommendations. You should surface more interesting rooms. Otherwise, I think people are gonna not see the benefit of it. Obviously, they have moderation issues. I've spoken a ton about that too. But I don't, I don't think that's why they're dying. I think they're dying because people are getting outside more. But, but I don't think it's going away. I don't know. People are like, "Oh, it's going to be dead." And then I, I don't know. I think it can't die if they have, you know, whatever, two or three hundred million dollars in the bank. They can, yeah, they can, they could take a ten-year view of building this. I do think there's, and I'm curious your thoughts on this, you know, obviously you and I were early adopters there, and I just was getting a thousand people, 1500 people pretty regularly. And, you know, I'm good at audio, so I was like, okay, this is interesting. But then I was just at some point, I was like, "Wait a second, my podcast makes millions of dollars a year. Why am I on this platform giving away my content for free?" And I just decided, this is dumb. I'm just gonna do more podcasts. If I'm gonna absolutely do more time, there's no monetization here. And then the, the amount that the, I actually took offense to the fact that they put all of these Andreessen Horowitz people on the suggested user list. It basically, I think it's the worst strategic decision I've ever seen by a founder. You gave one group of investors this massive edge. And so when they, you know, join, when anybody else joins Clubhouse, you're like, "Oh, well, they have millions of followers. There's no way for me to compete on this platform for attention." So I'm out. Which was kind of the decision I made. Yeah, those people are not using the platform well. Like those people, like, no offense to these investors, truly. I know I have so much beef with them. But like, it's, it's, I have people with A16Z too. So you and I can go on a whole tirade. This is where you and I might have common ground. It's, I don't know. It's whatever. It's like, but I think that like, you really need, I mean, this is like how I've always felt with creators. And this was a mistake, by the way, that the founders of Vine, same mistake they made, like Dom and them, and Russ, like they really wanted it to be this like, they had a vision of the creators that they wanted. They wanted these, these certain types of users. They didn't want these comedy people. But it's like, everyone wanted to engage with those comedy people. And they, they kind of resisted promoting them for so long that it hurt them. The thing is, you want to embrace those power users early. They embraced like the most, they embraced like their investors. It's like, why are you, no one wants to listen, no offense, no one wants to listen to investors. They want to listen to weird, crazy. There's some people do, but five million people who do, or 10 million who really want to, but not 100 million, right? Like, it's not the wider audience. No. And maybe like one or two. But I think it's about like identifying the native talent, like who is the, who is creating the most engaging rooms? And also making those, those suggestions more dynamic, not just having this set list that everyone follows. Like, yeah, getting into the weeds here, but yeah.

Um, how they handled blocking people, I think was very interesting. And you, uh, I think got caught up in it pretty, pretty deeply. Explain how the blocking system works there, and why you, um, objected to it so fervently.

Well, I just thought it was poorly, poorly thought out. I mean, I think like having an effective block, I love blocking. Like, all block, you know, blocking is an essential tool for moderating your own experience. I think the problem with the way that blocking was was implemented with Clubhouse is it effect, it allows you to dictate other people's experiences on the app. So you had, especially somebody like power users, right? Like Mark Andreessen loves blocking people. More power to him. That's his thing. That's crazy. I've been blocked and unblocked and followed by Mark, no less than a hundred times in the last five years. I don't know. I can't get any rhyme or reason to it. I'm like, Mark, which is it? I know it's whatever. But I mean, I think, look, like users should be able to do that. Like that's fine. That should dictate your experience. But blocking should not dictate somebody else's experience of the app. So I think like the problem with the way that Clubhouse implemented it is it allowed people that had big audiences. If you block somebody and they are go on stage in a room, you're kicked out. Like you can't be in that room anymore. And so if you're blocked by big influential people, and I'm not just talking about the investors, but like big celebrities, Tiffany Haddish, for instance, like you're suddenly cut off from a huge portion of the app. And that's just a bad user experience. Like, is there a better experience? Yeah, I mean, I think that there's ways to implement blocking in audio. I, I think that like maybe like allowing you to know if somebody that you've blocked is joining the room, like muting them, maybe you don't hear their audio. Like, I, I mean, I'm not a designer, but there are many product designers that did like teardowns and interesting things. They also made this weird checkmark where they were exposing this data of like, if a lot of people blocked you, you get this like badge on your profile. Yes, that was specifically for the people I went after, which were these multi-level marketing coaches who I just absolutely demolished. They all threatened to sue me. No letters showed up. So I'll go figure. I was glad you're going. I mean, it's like, I think any time you have a social app that MLM people will be on it. They're like, like cockroaches of the inner, like they're just, you can't get rid of them. But guacamole for sure. Yeah. Um, I would say though, like exposing, like it's useful to know, right? Like as a company, you want to know who's blocking and who's getting a lot of blocks. That that should inform maybe their distribution in the hallway or something. But that's not data that you want to expose to the users because it's, it's sort of a default negative thing. And you probably saw the MLM, I mean, Jason, you had a check mark too, like when I looked. Yeah, I'm sure the MLM folks came after me. Yeah. So it just means you have a mob that can go after another person, basically. Basically.

So let's talk about Substack for a second because it relates to Clubhouse. There is an, uh, explicit strategy at Andreessen Horowitz to take on, uh, mainstream media. You have been targeted specifically by them, as, as The New York Times. They have a lot of gripes. But putting that aside, what do you think about this, giving writers ginormous advances to move to Substack or off to regularly contribute content and basically buying the rights to, you know, some of the bigger names? Do you think this is a vindictive strategy? What do you hear on the back channel from other journalists? Do they feel like this is great for them because they can double their, triple their salary and become independent and set their own schedule, or do they think it's kind of nefarious that Andreessen is using their billions of dollars to fund companies to then gut media companies and compete with them?

So I can't speak for other journalists, but I mean, I'll sort of share my thoughts. I'm just saying like, on the back channel, like certainly you've been involved. I get it. Yeah, yeah, that's what you guys say. I stay on you, Taylor. Whatever. Yeah, no, I mean, so here's the thing. I, I think that it's a very good thing. I mean, if you, if you think about the last year, right? Like 16,000 reporters have lost their job recently. That is a huge amount of talent and writing and, and people. And not to mention all of the people that never have reporting jobs, right? That are fascinating, interesting people, and and want to build, you know, new their own newsletters. I think it's great. And I think that Substack offering these advances up front is a great way to basically, like, help these people have a little bit of security where they can make the leap to go full-time. I think if, if media companies are losing people to Substack, that's on the media companies. Like, media companies are losing those people to Substack because they're not providing a good financial reward for staying there, right? Like, if you can make 10 times more money on Substack, why wouldn't you do that? That's a positive thing. That should encourage media companies to, um, I don't know, maybe value top writers more, or pay them, or give them more of a split, right? If they do an in-house newsletter, cut them in on the deal. We saw this with podcasts, where like a lot of journalists were starting their own podcasts. And so media companies, some of them, not The New York Times, but some. Well, I don't know. The New York Times did. I mean, you had, uh, Wesley and, uh, oh, and Jenna and Jana on Still Processing, which I love that podcast because for me, that's just like, you know, white guy in Silicon Valley, just automatically levels up in terms of black culture. Talk about like, just absolutely getting caught up on stuff like, like Atlanta and, you know, Issa Rae. Like, I just, these things were on the periphery of discussions, but they just really helped me highlight it. And, uh, Wesley, I think he was working on the Ringer network, so I guess they they brought him home. And now The New York Times is actually, according to reports from journalists, in The New York Times, which is getting kind of meta here, got a little freaked out about this. And then they put, uh, the former Gawker editor, Corey, he's now running The New York Times version of Substack or newsletters, whatever it will be. Yeah, I mean, look, I think that the thing that's funny with these media organizations is I think that they keep taking this lesson of like, "Oh, people are leaving for Substack, that means they want to do newsletters." It's like, no, the reason people are leaving is for financial independence and because of all of this stuff that you get with that. It's the freedom. It's, it's not about the format as much. And I think, um, I, I think that's a good. I mean, I think what Substack has done in terms of giving people a platform is like, it's competition, right? So you're a capitalist. I believe, where are your socialists? Where are you? Where do you stand on the screen? You talk about politics. You're not allowed to talk about politics. I mean, that's a weird thing as a, I mean, talk about like, you mentioned freedom. You know, you're not allowed to talk on this podcast about your politics when it's fairly obvious to me from your Twitter what your politics are. You're certainly saying Jason, who used to say, I think, I mean, you say on your Twitter, I don't tweet about Trump. The only time I tweeted about Trump was when he was banning TikTok in the context of Ben. I, I, Trump Twitter is like, I've muted that word a long time. So great that he's not on social media anymore, just for being able to talk about other topics. Yeah, it definitely gives like air to breathe. Like I was thinking with it, I was kind of wondering why that GameStop story, bro, like blew up so much. And I think it was just like, one of the

First, like 100 percent, it was there was oxygen in the room. If he saw that, he would have said something crazy that day. He would have, like, tried to shut down Robin Hood or something. Like, he would have just made it about himself. And so, yeah, terrible platform. Okay, shut it down.

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All right, thanks. Signing Capital. Let's get back to this amazing episode. Let's go into the TikTok thing because I think that's also very interesting. You and I had, I think, divergent opinions of this. I am. Yeah, I think we did. But we'll find out right now because I, you know, think that it's insane that America allows a Chinese company to track Americans and operate in our market when Twitter, Substack, The New York Times, Facebook, Instagram are not allowed in their country. And for good reason, because if it was allowed in their country, they would use it to jail journalists, torture Uyghurs, and whatnot. So what's your argument? I know you're a big fan of the platform itself, but do you have any concerns about a Chinese company operating here in the United States when we don't get to operate there?

I mean, of course, I think like any reasonable person would. My feeling is that, um, I don't think it was applied consistently. Like, let's look at some of the other, you know, influences of Chinese money and Chinese stuff. I, I think that like, if you're going to look, yeah, I mean, Kevin Roose, my colleague, wrote a good piece on this that kind of like broke down all of these other investments, especially around gaming and just like other ways that China has its hands in our tech market. Clearly, they have a huge influence in Silicon Valley in a big way. I think if you're going to look at getting their, like, you know, limiting their power in terms of tech, it's not just banning TikTok. It's truly limiting their power in terms of tech. Like, let's stop taking all these Chinese investments. Let's, like, you know, I don't know. I mean, Huawei's not allowed here. I think when something hits scale, it's a lot different than when something's sort of bubbling up on the fringes. And that's true for China as well. When something bubbles up on the fringes, there, they don't ban it until it starts hitting some critical mass. But India kicked them out. And I mean, you are correct. Um, I mean, I think India, they banned like 60 of them. Uh, yeah, yeah. There's a whole separate ecosystem. I mean, they're smart. I mean, why would you even allow a communist country to operate in your borders? And then the influence they could have.

Are you concerned at all with, I mean, TikTok, obviously, I think you're a huge fan of it, it's safe to say. And the creativity behind it. I think. Well, I wouldn't say a fan of any. I, well, I'm a fan. I guess I'm, I'm a fan of like most social technology platforms. I, I like, I like seeing how they kind of affect, especially like the creator world. So I like seeing. I, I do think, you know, there was this idea that like consumer tech was kind of dead, like the social, no one was really interested in the social space. And I do think it like put all of these people on notice and like encouraged a lot of innovation, um, which has been so interesting, especially as a journalist to cover. So, yeah, I mean, it's also a well-designed app. Let's be honest. Amazing products, really well. It's crisp, et cetera.

Are you concerned about the algorithm in that it seems to, and I think you may have actually reported on this, it seems to favor, let's just say, white women who are young, who are wearing less clothes. And, you know, maybe the, the fairness of that, or also the impact that might have on young women? Oh, yeah. In terms of, the most cynical take on it I heard was that the Chinese were actually trying to devolve our society. I mean, I think that's really. I think there's a lot of other ways to devolve our society as well. You change the end of our movies, right? I mean, basically, you can change the end of superhero. You can't have a Chinese villain anymore in a movie, you know, since they banned a number of actors from, you know, having their movies. I think, um, I didn't know that. That's interesting though. Yeah, like a lot of outside influence on entertainment, basically, if you want their money. I think Harrison Ford, uh, Richard Gere, um, and there's one other actor. And because he did, uh, Seven Years in Tibet, basically, they just banned actors and their movies. And, you know, it used to be. Brad Pitt's banned. Yeah. Um, you, you used to be able to have a Chinese villain in a movie. And then, you know, which was the subject of one of the James Bond films. And not since they started funding our films have we been able to. So they're literally the most woke group of people. Hollywood. I wouldn't probably would. Woke. I mean, people are crazy. Well, I mean, they certainly virtue signal a lot. I don't know if in their actions, if they're woke, because they will sell out to anybody for money. Yeah. That's like, I feel like Hollywood. I mean, I don't work in Hollywood, but my impression of Hollywood has always been like, money above all else. Theoretically woke, and they will do anything for money is my take on it.

Speaking of money, you're well paid. Uh, yeah. Probably not as long paid as people think. I always tell people like, your position, media, 100 to 150 a year, which is, which is very well paid. But there was a report, Substack offered you 300,000. Putting aside whether you want to confirm that or not, did you consider it? Because you were talking before about, you know, hey, it's a free market, and it's a lot of freedom. And let's face it, you built up quite an audience. I think you would thrive. So, um, is the, what was your thinking on it?

Let me, yeah, let me share my thinking on that. And I, again, cannot definitely cannot confirm like salary stuff or anything. But, um, you know, I, I've gotten a lot of offers, um, over the years for for different things, and especially to go independent. I tried to launch a whole media company in 2015 on my own. Most of my career has been spent on the business side and in strategy. Um, and I think having that experience has made me like, not, I mean, I was full-time. I, I started my own consulting company kind of for a year and a half. And like, um, I, I wouldn't do it again only because I, I kind of sacrificed a lot to become a writer. And I know I kind of like emotionally accepted that I'm gonna make a significant amount less than I would in other things because I feel like it's what I love to do. And I think long term, it'll pay off. Um, I guess my feeling with going independent is covering the creator economy and having a lot of friends who are YouTubers, you know, independent media people, like it's so much work. It's so much work. It's so much work. And my job now, it's work, but it's not like running your own business work, you know? It's not like staring at the ceiling at 3 AM work, wondering if you're to make payroll. Exactly. You file, and you can then go have a drink or go do Pilates or Netflix and chill or whatever you want to do without grinding your teeth to your gums. You have the security. I mean, you have the security. And I, I don't know if I'm entrepreneurial enough. Um, but I respect everyone that does it. I, I just, like, I feel like I'm also learning. Um, like Jason, I have not. I've been a full-time reporter for not as long as you. You're definitely learning on the job, that's for sure. To be charitable. Yeah. But like, I, I value it. A couple of times. Yeah. I value that experience. Like, I value that. And I don't know that I would get the same stuff. Um, but okay, so under what circumstance would you, would it just be a matter of they didn't make you a big enough offer, or is it that Jason Horowitz connection is just too toxic for you?

No, no, no. Um, it's, I mean, look, um, you know, when you think about this at the offers, right? It's only for a year. So they're giving you upfront money for a year. Even if that's hundreds of thousands dollars, I, I'm a reporter. So I'm a news reporter. I travel a lot. There's a lot of reporting costs, especially legal. I mean, everyone wants to sue everyone on what I covered. So I feel like for me, ultimately, I have to pay an outside editor, paying an outside editor, covering all of my own travel expenses, reporting expenses, like taxes, having it's just a lot that ends up not being like totally worth it, especially because it's only for a year, you know, then you're on your own. And and I've been on my own. I've had to chase people down here. But I mean, what is Matthew, um, what's his last name? Uh, but his name is, yeah, his terms came out. And man, I mean, but he, I know he, the thing is like, people on Twitter, I think my journal, like my writing is much more like reporting than it is like opinion. Like somebody like Charlie Warzel, of course, it makes sense for him to do that. Um, for me, like I love breaking news, like I love getting scoops, I love, you know, I love that part of it. And, um, so I, yeah, I think if I was gonna leave, like if I was like, look, I'm just gonna sell out, I'm just gonna do whatever makes me the most money, I would go back to working in advertising.

Did you enjoy that advertising? Uh, I did. I liked the creativity of it. Um, I did. But, you know, working on brand stuff is never as interesting as as reporting. I love journalism. And I've, this beat is a beat that I've worked to make a beat. Um, so I wouldn't give that up.

Let's talk a little bit about, uh, doxing and just the full contact nature of Twitter, which both you and I experience on a regular basis. You're a woman, so it's slightly different. You're going to get it 10 times harder than I would. But you've been very vocal on Twitter and, you know, sometimes you, you might make a mistake, I might make a mistake, but you've been outright harassed. And, uh, you, you seem to mix it up continually. Have you thought about changing up your Twitter strategy, or have you?

I don't have a Twitter strategy. I'm myself. I mean, Jason, I got into this world because I had an audience online. That's what got me into media was being popular online. So I think like, I have always been myself online. I'm definitely a lot more careful than I think people realize. Like, there's things that I don't talk about. Anything to do with niche politics. Like, you'll never see me tweeting about the mayoral race in New York or whether kids should go back to school. Like, there's just stuff that I'm like, I'm not weighing in on that. That's crazy. If it's on my beat, I'll tweet about it. Um, I think what people, you'll call people out and you'll, yeah, you know, name names. So you're, you're, you're like, yeah, you'll throw a couple of elbows.

Look, I, I definitely, that's coming from me, so respect. I mean, I think it's Twitter. Like, I, I definitely try to be careful and I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Um, I will say that that something, it's, there's something about the New York Times that people don't, because I've always been me on Twitter. I've never known. I, I will say that, you know, which you're very much part of, like, you know, I never knew this, like Tech Twitter. Like, I was kind of, I thought I was in Tech Twitter, but I wasn't. I was in like YouTube or Twitter. And there's this like cohort of like Silicon Valley people that I think like suddenly like found me last year. And that's been like annoying to deal with. And I'm, I'm trying.

Well, you're pretty quick to be like, VCs, white Twitter, blah, blah, these VCs stole besties because you guys are saying it. But you guys are saying it in a tongue-in-cheek way. Clearly. I was just joking around. I take it as a joke. I take it as a joke. You are super vocal. What are the, your New York Times contemporaries think about? I had Kara Metz on the program, and he's kind of old school. You know, two generations above you. I, I'm taking it, you're a millennial. Yeah. He's like, uh, he's closer to Boomer than Gen X, I would think. How does, what's the vibe in terms of this new generation that I'll just say is outspoken, woke, you know, maybe, you know, has a strong belief system versus kind of old school that kind of maybe doesn't even want to engage on Twitter? What's, what's, are they annoyed by you? Are they inspired by you? Did you get into it with them? I'm curious because the New York Times seems to be going through a big change for people who are subscribers to it and felt it was more centrist and now it's more on the left.

Yeah, it's so funny to hear people's, um, perceptions of the New York Times because I think it totally depends. Like, also what industry you're talking about. Um, I, I mean, I came there because I love their culture coverage. And I think when you talk about, like, I do too. Culture, it's great. I mean, like John Caramanica is. I always love the style section. And yeah, which voiceover. I write for the style section for a reason. Um, and, you know, I, I would say like, I, I don't, I, I don't like that kind of like woke thing. Like, I don't really like, like fighting over those designations, especially on Twitter. Like, I just feel like Twitter is not a good place to have conversations. I really like following and engaging, um, with people that I, I don't agree with because I like to kind of like get their thoughts on things. Um, but, um, but I, I don't know. I, I wouldn't say that there's like a generational difference because I think older school journalists definitely are extremely opinionated. I don't think they're like less opinionated than y'all.

Well, what I'll say is just having grown up a New Yorker and, you know, known and and hung out with the New York Times writers in the '90s, the Saul Hansell's of the world, even met Jason Blair when he first started working there. Men, in his first week, because I was doing Silicon Alley reporter, his first beat was Silicon Alley. That was a whole other story. Yeah, I remember he called me. He's like, I'm gonna get you great coverage in the New York Times if you get me exclusives. I was like, that's not how journalism works, Jason Blair. It was really weird. Um, he was pretty cool. This was a different landscape. I will say, I love hearing stories about it. Like, I love hearing stories, especially early tech '90s too. Like, I feel like it was incredible. Yeah, incredible. I was on the cover of the business section in '96, '97 when I was 25, 26. And, you know, the nice part about it back then was all tech coverage. I think this is why there's like a, a little bit of this sort of late stage journalism versus, you know, tech scaled tech. Is that back then we were underdogs in tech and everything we made was kind of cool and subversive and underground. I had a zine, we were making websites, and there really was no money in the game. You were kind of like, there was, there was really wasn't a financial incentive until maybe the late '90s. And it was more like New York underground. So my first gig was writing for Paper Magazine, and I, I was writing about CD-ROMs and online services, like dial-up services. Yeah, and just culture, like yourself, in that sort of area. And then as it evolved, you know, now, I think Zuckerberg was the key tipping point because Zuckerberg was just such a marauding capitalist who didn't care where the chips fell, didn't care where, you know, he just cared about growth and, you know, move fast, break, who cares? And once that happened, I think the press just was like, you know what, we have to hold these people accountable. So we went from a very, when I was a journalist, I was friends with all the subjects, and we all just hung out together. And, yeah, you know, sometimes they didn't like the coverage, but generally, it was this feeling that there was a really cool revolution going on. And now it feels so adversarial that when I pick up the New York Times or a New York Times journalist calls me, um, I'm just like, okay, this is a negative spin. Like, almost all the coverage is negative. And it's just, I would say like, I don't like being included in those narratives because, Jason, you know what I cover? I cover tech from the user side. I write about creators. You know, I, I admire the work that my colleagues do, but I also, um, I kind of feel like a lot of people drag me into narratives because I work at the New York Times. And I feel like, actually, they, they don't read my coverage. Like, even when Biola was like in Clubhouse last year and asked to name one story he had a problem with, he couldn't. Like, it's kind of like, I feel like the vibe is like, they don't like me for whatever reason. And I'm this avatar of something they don't like. And instead of just going after my colleagues, which not to say that they should, but it's like, they kind of, it's like I'm this like, I'm a more visible person than a lot of them. So it's like, you're out there mixing it up, whereas other journalists are just like, you know, they, they don't even post their own stories. Like, they wait for somebody else to post a story, maybe they like it.

I think what you're experiencing is probably a level of disappointment from the tech industry, and they feel the coverage is unfair. And I talked to Kara about this on the program, just, you know, treat us more fairly. And I stopped talking to journalists on the phone because I was like, well, I have more listeners than you have readers. Therefore, why wouldn't I just put it on All In, podcasts, or this podcast? Jason, this is something that I know better than anyone because I cover YouTubers. And as any YouTuber will tell you, they're not giving, why would they give you a quote for anything? They'll put it on their YouTube channel and monetize it. Exactly. Like, I mean, totally. That is the world that I operate in. I don't expect anyone to like, I've been in that world for over a decade. So like, I, I just think like this whole, like, I just don't like being like caught up into these like narratives about like the Silicon Valley stuff. Although I have done it to myself a little bit because I do like to get into drama with those people. But like, I, drama equals ratings. I mean, I kind of am getting tired of it. Like, I kind of have cooled off on it only because I'm like, these people are ultimately like, not that relevant to my beat. And I don't think they like actually care about the stuff that I care about. I love technology. The reason I write about this stuff is because I'm so obsessed with it. I, you know, the creator stuff is something that like, I have been a believer in since the beginning. Like that industry, I'm so fascinated with that whole shift and shift in media. I wanted to be a media reporter.

Yeah, I mean, that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the pod. And I was like, you know, I feel like it's gotten so, um, I feel like, you know, especially with the Andreessen and Horowitz targeting media companies, the whole thing has become so toxic. And there's probably 60, 70 percent we agree on. And to be able to talk about that is actually kind of interesting, right? Like to be able to talk to you about 20 subjects like we did today. It's actually kind of interesting and good content. And like everybody's like, oh, well, if you have on the podcast, you got to talk about the seven times you disagree. And I'm like, well, honestly, don't actually remember them. And I think when I blame a lot of this, you know, I feel like the Zuckerberg and then the Trump presidency put everybody on tilt. Yeah, Zuckerberg made our industry look like marauding people who just don't care. Then you add to it the Trump presidency, which made a lot of us feel, you know, like disempowered that we could make any change. And that, you know, there's just this maniac running the country. So then everybody's just fighting with everybody. Yeah, it's really toxic. I will say also, just like, and I don't like to talk about injuries at all because like, whatever. I really don't have beef with. I mean, I have very close friends that work there who I love. Um, oh, really? Yeah. That's fascinating. I didn't expect that. Yeah, I didn't. Supposed to be on their podcast before. Yeah, okay. Um, you know, I, I will say like, and see with Substack, you know, I, I know that Substack has gotten themselves into controversy because of some of those people they gave to advances to. I, I mean, right-wing people. They've given us like, I don't know what he is anymore, but people that are controversial. No, yeah, Glenn is weird. He's not super far left. Gay guy. He's laughed by. He's like on Tucker every day. I, I don't know. I cannot understand his politics. I think it's libertarian. I think it's like super liberal libertarian. Don't like. He wants less government. The libertarian people. The libertarian people are like, I think they're actually pretty morally consistent. Like those libertarian people, at least that I know. And I have a lot of good friends at work for a reason. Um, you know, they have, they have a moral consistency. And whether or not you agree with it, I think certain libertarians, especially on Twitter, are actually consistent. I have no idea what Glenn is on about. Like, he, he's very confusing. But, um, so I, I don't know. But I just, I, I know it does seem like Substack did get, who was the New York Times columnist also gang conservative? Andrew Sullivan. Oh, Andrew's at New York Mag. No, he left for Substack. He, he was, yeah, he made people feel unsafe at New York Magazine, and they, they wrote him out. There's the same thing with Bari Weiss. So it does seem like Substack, those people quit. I mean, which I don't blame them for quitting if I was an opinion columnist. Hello. Of course, you can make more money if you have a good audience doing it. If they felt like they were being targeted inside their own publications. Um, Andrew specifically said like, people did not want him at New York Magazine or lobbying to get him out. Same thing with Bari Weiss. But, you know, listen, it's inside baseball. And I mean, I, I think like if you feel that way, then then start your own thing. Right? Like, I think like it would just be nice if the New York Times opinion page or, you know, back in the day, you know, just predates you and being a journalist, but there was this kind of a concept that Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, straight people, gay people, whatever. And it was really like a New York thing when I grew up in New York and spent my first 32 years there, where you kind of engaged with people who you fervently disagreed with, had a great debate, great conversation, had beers, had a burger, went down to Pastis, you know, or whatever, you know, or the Odeon. And you just had a good time chopping it up. And now it's kind of like, I can't be friends with you. We can't be in the same building. I feel unsafe.

Do you think people are just being a little too snowflakey? No, in your generation? No, I think that. I feel like you guys are all snowflakes. Everyone likes to say that about millennials. I, I mean, I, I would say what, what for me marked a big change was kind of the rise of this Trump-like mindset where it is very like antagonistic. And like having, I mean, I covered the 2016 election and I worked in, you know, running social for political news site for two years. And like, I just saw that that transformation and hostility that they came. Um, and owning the libs became like a relentless pursuit. Yeah, and it's just really. And it's also like making a lot of bad faith arguments. Like I said, I think like, I'm perfectly happy to hear libertarian arguments for things, whether or not I agree with them. But I think like there's certain people that just make a lot of like bad faith attacks. And so that's, that's, I think the unfortunate thing. Um, and and of course, Twitter rewards that. So, you know, we do live in a bad sort of communication system too.

Did Ellen get canceled today or yesterday, or do you think she just was tired of dealing with this nonsense? I was trying to figure it out and I was like, if, if they, if they canceled Ellen, that feels like cancel inception. Well, she kind of like, it's funny because I, I totally didn't even realize she was still on. Whenever somebody did that thread on, on bad like workplace management or whatever, like, I, I think like she's so rich and successful, like she doesn't have to deal with any of this anymore if she wants to not do it. Like, I, I don't really know what happened. Um, I do think people like were making it clear that like her behavior was unacceptable, but I think she was just, she delegated, right? Anymore. Yeah, I felt like also she delegated. Like, it doesn't seem like she was on top of what was happening in the office. She just came in and did the comedy. Yeah, I, I don't know. I think it's like with those situations and I don't know a ton about shows, but I was reading a lot of stuff about like Scott Rudin and stuff too. It's like, also there's a shift in what's acceptable and what's socially acceptable. I think definitely like when I was starting out, you know, I had bosses yell at me, at a boss throw something at me. And that actually didn't even seem crazy, whereas now I could tweet that out and that that's unacceptable.

I made people cry in the '90s when I was an editor, but I didn't do it on purpose. But I, I would make people read their copy out loud in the editorial meeting. Only if they would be like, oh, you should read your column out loud. Some room for 20 people. And they would read it out loud. And it'd be spelling errors. Oh god. I mean, I like a lot of spelling errors, but I mean, back then it would get in the magazine. And then, or if they did something, I'd be like, look, you know, they put facts in there that are wrong. I'm like, these are wrong facts. Like, did you check this? Where'd you get this from? They'd be like, ah, uh, and I'd be like, get out, just kick them out. But there's an account. I mean, that's, I think different than like probably what like Ellen was doing. I think there's a level of accountability. And also just saying like, these, these work environments have been really racist and sexist. And like, it's kind of, yeah, that's gnarly. I think Scott Rudin seemed like cool, truly deranged. He like threw things at people. Yeah, there's a really good movie, uh, which I knew the kid who was in, Kevin Wailing. I used to play basketball with him. I think it's Kevin Wailing, um, called Swimming with Sharks. You have to see this movie, Swimming with Sharks. It's basically paradoxically, ironically, Kevin Spacey. Kevin Wailing, this kid, Kevin comes in, and he's an assistant. And in Hollywood, the assistants are known for being absolutely demolished, degraded, having things thrown at them. And this movie became a Frank Whaley. Yeah, um, really nice kid who I used to play basketball with. I mean, you want to talk about like the cool '90s that you missed. He used to play basketball at the Chelsea Piers with Diddy, DJ Clue, Queen Latifah, Leonardo DiCaprio, the kid who owned Butter. Like, this was like the '90s hip-hop culture, celebrities, artists, writers, and magazines were like the whole. And tech, that was like David Mays from The Source. Like, that was like the, the nature of it. And it was just kind of cool. But Swimming with Sharks is, I gotta watch. Pretty epic. Dark. It's really dark.

All right, what did we miss? Did we miss anything today? We didn't discuss Elon. Oh, he did a great job. I know. I, I was, it was really interesting to watch. There was so much discussion about it. I had to watch it on some like bootleg Dogecoin stream that was like losing my mind. Well, uh, yeah, I was there. So I didn't get to watch the Twitter following because when you're in the, yeah, they don't let you take it. But I was in the green room for a lot of it. So I did get to see the, the early stuff. What were your thoughts? I heard, I had heard from friends that worked on SNL that there was a VC with Elon. And I was like, who's the VC? And I was like, you got to find out who it is. I got to put this person on blast. Yeah, then I saw that you tweeted the picture. I was like, oh, yeah. I think it was Jason. I mean, Elon and I are very close friends. And he asked me to come with him. And I, I'm a writer, obviously. And I, arguably, yeah, I mean, I spent the whole week there. So I think that they were, but, you know, Elon was busy. He needed some help, just, you know, evaluating the scripts or what he wanted to do. But I, I thought it was great. I, I basically wrote the, um, Asperger's joke. Where I came up with the Asperger's idea. And then Colin, I think, wrote the joke. And the first part of the joke. And I wrote the second part, which was, there won't be a lot of eye contact. And it's not that I'm looking at the cue cards. So I was pretty happy about that. I think it touched a lot of people. There were people who literally, Taylor, were crying after the show. You know, people who had sons. And, um, because, you know, it seems like it's one out of 20 boys and one out of 200 or 300 girls, uh, have it. And, um, literally somebody came back and gave me a hug and gave Elon a hug. And she was crying. And one of that, I think she worked in, well, I wouldn't say where she worked, but one of the folks who just had a son who had been bullied for having Asperger's. Oh, wow. It was like super meaningful to her that Elon admitted it. Like, I was just like, is this a news flash that he's got Asperger's? But okay. Yeah. Well, I don't know if you talked about it before, but yeah, I never talked about it publicly. But like, yeah, half my friends have it. I mean, like Sachs is kind of on the spectrum. Free Books is kind of on the spectrum. Zuck is clearly on the spectrum. But they're kind of cruel to Zuck on on the show, you know, in terms of his Asperger's. I thought like, you know, making him into a robotic person. But I guess he, yeah, he's a public figure. He is kind of crazy when he gets up there and he's like, yes, Congresswoman, thank you for the question, Congressman. That's a great question. Yeah. Wow. He's just super robotic. Um, all right, well, listen, it's great to have you on the pod. Continued success. I'll see you online. Great chat.

Yeah, it was great chatting. Actually, I hope hopefully we can do it again. Maybe you and I will do a Clubhouse room together and we'll just melt the servers over there. I am going on Josh Constant. I'll go on for Josh and stuff. I haven't been on Clubhouse. I opened the app up the other night and it was just like so bad now. The content is so gnarly. And then like you go into, I did like Shoot Your Shot. I thought that was hilarious. Yeah, the NYU girl, Shoot Your Shot. That to me is just got unlimited upside. Like that's got to be a TV show, right? It's that's yeah. Well, they signed with WME. Sure. It's gotta be. Yeah. But it's like, those are the people that should be on the suggested users. Of course, like who wants to like follow Mark Andreessen? Like this. I also think it's kind of weak sauce that like the, the venture capital firm has to prop up the platform. And so after that happened, I literally had a startup go, well, think about letting you into the round, but we want you to do, show us five things you can do to promote our product before we let you on the cap table. And I was like, yeah, I'm Jason Calacanis. It's no, bye. Like, are you crazy? Like, I'm going to start promoting your product and like help it. I'm not even on the cap table. Like I got 250 companies I got to help. Like I'm not going to jump through hoops. No, but it's like now started this whole thing of like, who can bring the reason and threesome won was the deal was because they brought more celebrities than I know. I know, which is super. I think it's so stupid. I mean, dumb strategy. It's just a bad strategy. But I mean, there's, there's people like, I mean, I would say like, some stack is like, yes, they took Andreessen money, but they're not like making it their whole brand. You know, like not at all. It's like, none of them. That's fine. It's like, yeah, the Clubhouse like took that money and then like made that their brand. And it's like, okay, I mean, I don't know if that's necessarily a winning strategy. But it's not because you really don't want to. I mean, it's fine to do it like once in a while. But the fact that they started doing like a show every night about tech. And then, you know, I was like, well, what happens when they get bored with that? And then the whole platform collapses. And you, you like, you're saying, who's the next king batch? My production, like I met King Bach to talk about how crazy Twitter screwed up Vine. I met King Bach at Art Basel many years ago. And he was the number one guy on, um, Vine. And I said, who do you know at Twitter? Um, like, you know, how they working with you? It's like, I've never met anybody who worked for Twitter. Yeah, that was the straight state of the creator economy 7, 8 years ago. That was the state of the creator economy two years ago. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Instagram doesn't share money either. I think this is what Twitter is going to really do. Like, rock. I don't know how you feel about Twitter's recent innovations. But I mean, it's so great. Oh my god, they're totally like back on a roll. First of all, they're finally allowing people to monetize. That's been the whole thing with Twitter for so long. It's amazing. I love Esther, the, um, Per, you know, the product person at night. She was, she started Squad. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Avon is also helping. The fact that like, I opened it up the other day and they're like, accept tips. I was like, sure, I'll donate tips to charity. Whatever. And I shut my Patreon down because I was like, well, Apple and Spotify are going to let me do an ad-free version. And what, what do I get to maintain? And my whole other presence over at, you know, Patreon. And then it's just so much easier to do it all on Twitter. And they bought that review. So I think it's going to be pretty neat. Yeah, I think it's really cool. And I can't wait to see kind of like also who's able to really effectively monetize. Obviously, also that they allow nudes and like a lot of sex workers make money on Twitter. So I think that is weird too. Like sometimes in my feed, you know, like you search for something and it's like has nothing to do with adult content. And you're like, oh, okay. Whoa. You're like scrolling past it really fast. I'm like, okay, that used to happen on Tumblr too.

How about you? I will say something though, like kind of just on that topic of like VCs and and media and stuff like, I do think it's a good thing. Like, I really do. Andreessen's content. Like, I do think it's a good thing that more of these media companies are like posting their own content. Um, because I think it's really one interesting, probably for people to read. And also, like, that's the journalism space has been so contracted. And like, you know, there's a lot of startups that reach out and they like want somebody to cover their funding round. It, I'm like, like, sorry, I can't cover it. Like, I don't, and I don't know who to send you to. Maybe TechCrunch or something. But it's like, but should they write their own blog post? Of course, like that's an interesting story. And you want to have it out there. So I think it's great. You know, and I, you know, the Andreessen podcast is interesting. And like, it's great for people to create content like that. I, I, I don't think it's like coming for media. I think this is like episode 1200 of this podcast or so. And it's like, I've been doing this for 11 years. So it makes millions of dollars a year. I have six or seven people on it. And I just stopped talking to journalists. Like Business Insider is doing this big profile on me. And I was like, you can email me questions, I'll answer them. But they're like, no, we need to talk to the phone. I was like, just listen to all the 32 episodes of All In, 1200 episodes of This Week. This is what every YouTuber tells me. I'm like, what, what didn't I say? You know, like, just, I mean, or like, and why would I, why would I participate if you're gonna like, put a link baiting headline on it?

Well, I don't know if it's not participating. I mean, people interpret participated off participate. I just think it's like, it, it, it's helpful. And then there's not as much media resources. And for the promotional stuff, honestly, it's better that a journalist isn't telling that you should tell your own story, right? Like 100 percent. Get out there. And especially if you're a startup or you have a fundraising rat, like do a podcast. I don't, I don't think it's like disturbing. Like you said, you've had this podcast for so long. That doesn't mean that it's people wouldn't subscribe to another tech podcast. Like I think people have a lot of, always new ones coming out. And I feel like podcasting is just getting started. You don't do podcasting. I had a podcast. Right. It's rated one star in iTunes. I had a podcast for a while on, uh, YouTube creators, but it was like four years ago. It was, or it was too early. Yeah, yeah. I could see you doing it. Well, if you had a good collaborator to bounce off of. So you had somebody reading the news and then you commenting, like, you know, where you could bounce off of a straight news reader and then give your opinion. But that's the problem with being a New York Times reporter. It's like, every time I interview a New York Times reporter, as opposed to an editorial page person, like if I interview Kara Swisher, she can have opinions. Oh, Kara has a lot of opinions. But you can't, you gotta keep it. Uh, Dan Pramack is a reporter. And I think his podcast is, I mean, it's more of a news podcast, though. But yeah, it's just hard to, you know, for people to reconcile. But, you know, people have the choice. I think the editorial page and the news reporting at the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, they should really figure out a way to educate the public who doesn't understand that these are two different things. A lot of people read the editorial page and they think, well, that's reporting. And the therefore, you know, whatever their right wing, their left wing, they gotta just put it in a different font in a totally different space. And just make it very clear. These are opinions. Like a giant contributor. Jason, what about all the, those guys? I can't take them. A fortune. Fortune Under 30. It's like, uh, it was written by like a recruiter who's trying to get, or a PR person wrote it. I'm just, that's why we don't take any PR pitches. We don't do any practice. I don't write anything based off a pitch. I've never witnessed. I will never write a story. Like, I just think there's bad stories. Like by definition, if you're with, by definition, like the PR person is telling you the founder had to get the PR person because their story was so weak and uninteresting that the PR person is trying to pump it up. And it's like, that's a really bad idea. That's like somebody with bad pizza like giving you pieces on the street. Like, here, try this pizza. So much more respect for a founder that puts out their own blog post. Say you hire, like, write a blog post and it's on your site. Then somebody's sending me a bad written Forbes contributor post about them. It's like, that's so embarrassing for you. So embarrassing. Just write it on your own. I would love to read it. Maybe I'll take a look. But like, I'm not gonna take a stand.

Hey, what this is a good thing to close on. What did you think of of the Basecamp implosion, slash, you know, like the most woke company having like this civil war internally?

Well, first of all, I think any time you lose a third of your staff is bad management. Like, that's bad management. Um, I think that it's like, I mean, I've worked in a lot of places and like, I've worked a lot of, um, you know, food service jobs, retail jobs, where you work with people that you certainly don't align with or have crazy. And you're just like, okay, I have to work. You know, this is work. Like, I, you know, I work in a newsroom, so of course we discuss like controversial issues. But I do think that there's something to the fact of like, you don't necessarily want your employees to spend a huge amount of time on the company Slack debating things one or not directly related to work, right? Like the problem is like, why would you, why would you communicate that in such a politicized way? Like the way that they communicated it was so politicized. And it was trying to like, go. I just, it's like, this is something that you should just manage and slowly change the culture. Be like, guys, like, I mean, New York Times had this where we had this crazy Slack channel. There was like 2,000 people. And eventually got shut down. But it's like, this was an unproductive way to communicate. Is having like, and nobody was like.

Oh guys, we're cancelling conversation or something, or like, we're banning this. Anytime you tell people that you're banning something, yeah, it's causing drama. Yeah, it's that drama. I tell people like, "Go how if you want to talk about politics?" And there's three people who want to do that with you. There's a lunch hour. Go, go have lunch. Or you guys could start a Zoom chat and talk about whatever book club you want.

Or whatever. The cynic in me, I think they wanted to reduce the headcount after all this and clean house. Well, no, I'll tell you why. Giving six months of severance in a pandemic to people who already are getting paid a fortune, like they're a very well-paying company because they're so profitable. So to offer somebody, imagine you were getting paid 50% more than the average person for your job, then they offer you six months. It's kind of like getting nine months. You're coming out of the pandemic, you've been working there for six years. It's just like, I mean, everyone wants to YOLO their job, it seems like. Exactly. So now it's like, "Okay, yeah, I got nine months. I'm easily employable." And so I'm out.

I just think like you could, I just think like, yeah, I just think like it's like two, it's like Coinbase too. It's like, "Guys, just calm down. Just manage your staff well and like set a tone." Like we've all worked in different workplaces where it's very clear that like the vibe of it. Like I just think it's like you want to, I also think there's tension. You want to lower the tension. You can't do electronic communications because all empathy is removed and it becomes just the worst, most cynical interpretation of the words. Yeah. And then if there's 2,000 or 200 people, like, "Okay, six are going to be offended." Now you got three of them decide to reply and now it's chaos. Yeah. Little emoji reaction. It's, it's just like you gotta like, I just, I'm managing is hard. But I was like, "Oh god, what is this wrong?"

I love that Casey Newton got some like, he had like all this drama like he was finding out about the company. So I did read those. Well, it was like such a stupid thing too. It was like there were some dopey people who were making a list of funny names. They weren't targeted at any one particular group of people. It was like the Simpsons joke where they call the, you know, Moe the bartender and they're like saying somebody's funny name. It's juvenile and stupid and they should have just used it as a learning experience for whatever dopey people did this. Like, "Okay, this was stupid. Don't do this. Let's all move on and get back to work." Yeah.

I mean, I think having lists of funny names is problematic, obviously. And it's like, but that's how problematic is it? Like, you want those two people to lose their jobs and be canceled forever? I don't know what it was. I think that your job as a manager though, is to kind of like de-escalate and to kind of make it, set boundaries, set it, make things clear what's acceptable and not acceptable and and de-escalate situations, not inflame situations by like making some progression proclamation and having a whole thing. It's like, "No." And then allowing everyone on Twitter to litigate it. What? That's so why are you doing that?

No, I mean, they, I mean, I've had David and and Jason Fried on this podcast multiple times and they're super interesting guys who I don't agree with on everything, but they were super right about a lot. They were right about work from home and, you know, employee perks and, you know, freedom and responsibility and, you know, they did have some, some right ideas. But the cynic of me thinks they wanted to downsize. They were tired of this. And maybe, you know, there are some people who live, you know how it is, there are people who live for this kind of drama. And I think they just like, "What's the maximum amount we can offer to get the people who are not into working here anymore out of the building?" Yeah. And just let's and I think Coinbase did a similar thing. Like if you really want to talk about this at work, go start your own Coinbase or Basecamp. Yeah.

Coinbase just seemed like toxic. I don't know anything about Coinbase. Like this is so out of my realm. I only know this from like reading a couple articles. But my feeling is just like all of this stuff. It's like, just, you ever meet a crypto person? Like they have a certain worldview. Like their worldview is like, you know, very, very libertarian, extreme, whatever. You know, sometimes chaotic, sometimes anarchist. Like they're just, yeah, they're a unique breed. And then you put a crypto person with a woke crowd. Like this is the most explosive combination of individuals like since Gen X and or and Boomers versus Millennials. Like don't put them in the same way.

I, I got a little bit like, "Crypto killed" because I was like, I wrote this story about NFT horses and I talked to these people and I was like, "Actually, this is so interesting." I know nothing about crypto. And, um, I will say like, obviously the energy stuff is a huge problem. And I thought it was hilarious what Elon did yesterday. Oh god, he broke their hearts. Everyone was so upset. Broke their hearts. That was funny. But it is like, I mean, I do think like clearly like we are moving towards this decentralized system and that's exciting and cool and interesting. Um, but it does seem to attract like the most. I love NFTs. I thought that was the most interesting, um, part of crypto. Like I think owning digital assets that are one-of-one and trading them, like if you get great joy from it, I kind of think that's cool. Yeah. I think that's kind of fun and like unique and interesting. Like it feels kind of Blade Runner. Um, I think the gaming, I mean, I think like, I mean, what I wrote about with these like horses and stuff, which is this like kind of horse racing game, but it's like having ownership. I play a lot of Fortnite. Like if there was some kind of like NFT integration or like you're, you're you have this kind of like, I think I think like if you have a stake in the game that you're playing, that's kind of interesting.

Oh my god, if you became a Twitch, uh, game. I haven't. I have a Twitch. Do you play games online on video stream? Yeah. Oh my lord. Is it like under like a secret account or something? Do you get like 10,000 people there? No, I'm watching you playing random group. I have a, I have a couple friends that are like big streamers, so I'll play with them sometimes, but they have huge audiences. Usually like me going on there, but I stream off my channel. I know, uh, a friend of mine's, uh, girlfriend is a streamer and she makes a large amount of money playing video games and she's got all these like stans who just love her and they're like, "Are you on OnlyFans?" And she's like, "No, I'm on Twitch. I'm not OnlyFans." But yeah, I think you can watch me play games. That level. I feel like I, I would do a Twitch. I might start streaming more often of like talking, like kind of like a podcast thing where you're just like talking about stuff because there's just chatting. I don't know if you followed the rise of "Just Chatting" during the pandemic. But that sector of Twitch is nothing has grown faster than than that.

What is the sector? "Just Chatting" is basically like people like Hassan, um, or Ludwig, like these people that like kind of just go on and like talk. They'll usually bring up the news. They'll bring up articles. It's very much like what you do, Jason. Yeah. Um, you know, and you can talk about the news of the day and answer, you know, just chat and they have interesting people on and kind of debate stuff. And yeah, they've been, uh, courting us to put the besties and all in on there. And I was just like, yeah, I just don't want to build your platform. Like if you could bring something to the table, maybe. But we already have a podcast. I think it's better for like more interactive stuff. But yeah, I'll try it.

All right. Listen, great to have you on the pod. I'll let you get back to work. I'm sure you got to file and, uh, hopefully, uh, we'll get to meet in person someday. And when I'm in New York, come to L.A. I live in L.A. Oh, you live in L.A.? I didn't realize that. Yeah. Okay. All right. Here, we used to live there. Yeah. We'll, we'll definitely catch up when I'm in L.A. Talk to you soon. All right. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.