SPEAKER_00: all right everybody it is a very special tequila thursday on this week in startups that's right

SPEAKER_01: that's right in honor of adam newman and we crash molly and i pop some don julio 1942 with lon harris

SPEAKER_05: yeah yeah we do and then lon joins in to wrap up the last five episodes six episodes of severance

SPEAKER_09: we get super deep on that spoiler alert galore uh and then we have the verge's core in fife joining us to talk about his breakdown he did a little math of who actually lost followers

SPEAKER_13: and who gained followers and maybe we speculate a little bit as to why uh after the elon must take

SPEAKER_16: over bid was accepted yeah a little tequila fueled data science like you do on every good podcast it

SPEAKER_19: is going to be uh the episode of the year i think so um crack open on don julio 1942 whatever your bag

SPEAKER_20: is and stick with us this week in startups is brought to you by open phone as a startup founder a lot of mistakes are easy to roll back but using your personal cell phone number as your company number isn't one of them open phone makes it easy to get business phone numbers for you and your team right on top of your existing devices visit open phone dot co slash twist to get 20 off your first six months linkedin marketing to redeem a free 100 linkedin ad credit and launch your first campaign go to linkedin.com slash this week in startups and i trust capital did you know that you can invest in crypto through your retirement account and still get the same tax advantages as a traditional ira visit itrust dot capital slash twist to start investing today hey everybody welcome to thursday

SPEAKER_14: thursday your favorite day of the week for this week in startups with the exception of sunday school boomer on friday five for five fridays tuesday we live in the public's other than the other days of the week here we know thursday's your favorite day because lon harris l-o-n-s on twitter is here lon's is here i made it and we have started lon's is here lon harris of course uh people famously

SPEAKER_23: know my uh failed startup mahalo which then pivoted to my very successful startup inside which i extended lon's options on so hopefully i can get a lot of his options um make good on his options there uh inside is doing good i mean after after we crashed i'm uh a little little little nervous

SPEAKER_27: i'm gonna hold off on buying that new birkin bag for now by the version never get off the bus without

SPEAKER_29: a transfer line yes exactly i don't know what that means exactly but it just means to always take the transfer paper in your hand before you make a move yeah got it i love that is that like an ari gold

SPEAKER_35: that feels like ari gold on i don't know i mean i got it from my boyfriend but i love it i think it's a sales thing like it's you know it's a sales you don't get off the bus don't leave one

SPEAKER_37: opportunity unless you have the second opportunity secured and for people who don't know on the public transit system in the back in the day they would give you the second bus ride free if you had to take a transfer so you get on the bus in brooklyn and you know take you west now if you need to go north you could get a transfer they would pull a little sheet of paper and they'd hand it that's

SPEAKER_39: your transfer yeah so you don't have to pay a second time yeah that exists out here too yeah i think

SPEAKER_40: there were i mean it's an antiquated thing now but yeah i believe the bus transfer was a nationwide

SPEAKER_10: concept in its day yeah and if you get off without a transfer then you have to pay again and it applies

SPEAKER_05: to obviously don't leave one opportunity for another until you have the paper in hand but also

SPEAKER_14: don't make big moves until you're locked locked okay here we go we are uh doing our this week in streaming segment molly what do we have teed up for this week i think it's like the fifth week we've

SPEAKER_23: done this there'll be some lights there'll be some light spoilers here you can hear this stuff and then go back and watch the show and not have it ruined uh in some cases but if not you can just fast forward you know 20 minutes into the show if you are still watching we crash or severance then

SPEAKER_00: you probably want to skip ahead yes because we're going show yeah the other shows are like kind of

SPEAKER_52: based on a true story it sort of doesn't matter you know ultimately what happened to theranos or we

SPEAKER_53: work right you're not going to want to know what happens to lumen that's that's uh yes full spoiler

Jason Calacanis: warning for that one so today we're going to discuss the we crashed finale episode eight the one

SPEAKER_56: with all the money very friends uh titling and then we're going through five episodes of severance episodes right through nine and i may or may not have watched episode nine at 7 30 this morning i

SPEAKER_57: did that's how it goes through to the freaking wire on your bike i was gonna watch it on the bike and then i was like i can't i it's i noticed the wet hair i noticed the wet hair yeah and then i was

SPEAKER_60: like i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready okay so i think we start with we crashed yes uh because

SPEAKER_64: it's one uh and so and while you queue up the episode i will have a ceremonial don julio we're

SPEAKER_65: gonna pour one out for the new ones we all got our don julio the good stuff the good stuff you take

SPEAKER_70: the bottle lon take the yeah you keep that you keep that you keep that no no no you sip you sip

SPEAKER_10: you sip lan we're just we're by the way this is where we do need to tell uh everyone who's listening

SPEAKER_74: it's 10 22 a.m pacific it's true yeah we are pouring ourselves uh a fine smell off that hold on a second

SPEAKER_77: yeah wow what am i getting here i'm getting a little vanilla mm-hmm i'm so i i feel like people

SPEAKER_81: just make those up don't they i i went i uh an ex an ex-girlfriend got me a a year's membership to

SPEAKER_83: a whiskey tasting society when i was living in downtown l.a and this was what the whole thing was they would just pour everybody a little bit of whiskey and people would sniff it and they would make up the most ludicrous they'd be like i'm getting a little hint of sawdust i get old tire maybe maybe gunpowder i mean crazy things that nobody smells i'm getting hundred dollar bill some red ripe tomatoes like you're not getting red ripe tomato it's butterscotch caramel that's what you smell in whiskey i'm getting some early childhood trauma people are asking is this 1942 it is jason

SPEAKER_93: sprung on the the top of the line i don't know if this will come up on my mic 42. did you get that

SPEAKER_106: beautiful such good fully work i think i got a nice little pop of the car julio it's adam newman asmr so good morning everyone good stuff okay bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

SPEAKER_110: that's also that's also my favorite

SPEAKER_56: will it be terrible if i like pour this in my coffee after i know i'm not doing that don't

SPEAKER_122: be ridiculous so degenerate don't be ridiculous chicory coffee exactly so we're double fisting

SPEAKER_123: coffee and so um i guess that color yours is like a bourbon i think it's a toast is in order here so

SPEAKER_23: um here's to lon harris joining us and for an amazing season of we crashed to jared leto uh to anne hathaway incredible performances incredible and to the newmans for securing the bag and for masa yoshi-san buying the house i'm in right now with my uber shares and alex newman's g650 we love you

SPEAKER_127: if our companies can't ipo they can masa pio to masa to masa to masa to the crazy man oh my god so

SPEAKER_131: it's so smooth it's incredibly smooth oh my lord hold on a second adam newman's a genius oh my lord

SPEAKER_132: it barely even tastes like you're drinking alcohol i've never really had anything like the best iced

SPEAKER_29: tea i've had in my life i don't i'm not regretting having this for breakfast it's just so yeah no

SPEAKER_81: this is it it wow you know i usually like a like a rye whiskey that's kind of usually my drink of choice and that it's almost purposefully a little like spicy and this is yeah this is the opposite end

SPEAKER_142: of the spectrum this is no joke it's like a caramel this is amazing but there's a and then you get the burn later a little bit of heat to really but it's like in the best it's like a hug is it a burn

SPEAKER_145: or is it more like sitting next to a nice toasty no it's a little it's just a little bit of heat

SPEAKER_147: it's not a burn a little bit of heat no it's more like like mexican chocolate or something you know

SPEAKER_145: when you are uh sitting by the fire and you you're just a you're just close enough to feel that warmth

SPEAKER_125: maybe it's a little too hot when you put that extra log on that's what i'm feeling on the aftertaste

SPEAKER_151: i mean i don't have a fire masa has yet to buy me a home so i don't have a fireplace yet but one day

SPEAKER_05: um so in case you missed it in an earlier episode the reason that we're splurging on the don julio 1942 for the uh end of watching we crash is because that is the huge tall bottle of tequila that they're

SPEAKER_158: constantly popping open and splurging from and it is one of the many things that the bankers come in and question when we work tries to go public because it is not an inexpensive bottle of tequila and they

SPEAKER_12: were passing them around like coca-cola they were basically like for them don hilly 1942 was their version

SPEAKER_161: of like what is the sparkling water called i was gonna say la croix it was there listen lots of

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SPEAKER_173: hand water is like two for a dollar and don julio is one for 220 dollars i think what do these bottles

SPEAKER_176: cost i love it it does about 250 my son looked it up i think it was like it's like 150 to 200 i think depending on where you where you shop where you shop around i looked it up i looked it up when i found

SPEAKER_180: you didn't look at it you're that guy are you that guy you get a gift you want to know how much

SPEAKER_23: you're loved i want to know how much i want to know what i did that when chamath sent me a 50th birthday gift he sent me like a case of my favorite italian dessert wine uh which he introduced

SPEAKER_185: me to and which is not cheap you know it's like probably 400 bucks 500 bucks a bottle yeah but it's

SPEAKER_37: not outrageous and then he sent me like a collection of six bottles all from 1970 that his sommelier did wow and when i say like these bottles are worth thousands of dollars there were thousands of

SPEAKER_23: dollars each yeah and i'm sitting there with these five bottles and i'm just like i i've never opened a bottle of wine over a thousand dollars i mean not even over five hundred dollars now i've got

SPEAKER_64: i had a latash a friend of mine from hollywood gave me um jim brooks uh and that was very nice of him uh gave me a latash and i was like jim this bottle of latash is you know jim brooks he created the simpsons we all know jim brooks yeah yeah we we got so we got it did we not the terms of endearment

SPEAKER_200: yeah this is this is the story wow so i'm at dinner i i i i'm i'm uh jim brooks and have dinner

SPEAKER_64: uh with our ladies and uh we're in i'm in nantucket uh and he's like oh you're in nantucket i'm i'm in the vineyard let's have dinner we have dinner beautiful it turns out in i guess massachusetts

SPEAKER_185: where these islands reside you you can't bring your own bottle of wine to the restaurant he had brought this beautiful bottle of latash and i said oh my god how did you acquire those he said oh it's a good story like in the 80s you know i made a little bit of money doing some shows or whatever and i really got into wine and this was one of my favorites and i just happened to have bought like 10 cases of it and um you know it didn't cost anything in the 80s and then it i happened to hit it you know like he's a hit maker so he he knows how hits work and he just happened to have bought low and just happened to be sitting on all these bottles of latash wow so the sommelier comes and oh you're mr brooks you

SPEAKER_204: know they know who he is yada yada and they won't cork for being this oh you know in in massachusetts

SPEAKER_205: we're not allowed to do this so jim goes i understand we would be you know absolutely we can put it on ice uh we can put it in the refrigerator for you to maintain it of course we understand this is like a fine bottle of wine there's no bottle of wine here that matches us

SPEAKER_185: in the restaurant which i apologize but we have some other bottles that might be to your liking

SPEAKER_212: and he's like yeah no i know but you know we don't have to have the bottle at the table you could bring us four glasses of your best house wine yeah you know like because he's been through this

SPEAKER_215: before and sure he's like don't worry about it they'll just open it in the back you know i see and

SPEAKER_205: he says like you could you know maybe you could put in the decanter and we could decant one of your other bottles of wine you could charge me for something similar on the menu yeah he's working

SPEAKER_37: it like because we want to open this bottle and um the manager comes out he's like listen mr brooks i'm very apologizing we would love to do that for you but we could lose our license and we cannot do that he's like i understand i'll take great care of you you know i'm fine and he's like in shock and he goes i can't believe it this has happened to me you know because the manager really means it before and they always just take it in the back they do this and then you're you're good

SPEAKER_217: well what do they think james brooks works for the massachusetts liquor board precisely he's there to

SPEAKER_219: bust them and so uh i took i took a few days off from producing the most jim brooks to shut this

SPEAKER_64: joint down yeah jim brooks says to me jake how here you take it at the end of dinner we order another bottle of wine yeah because jake out you enjoy this but he and i don't know why and he says i just want to

SPEAKER_23: you know this is a very special bottle of wine like for use it for your anniversary or something

SPEAKER_185: you know i brought it for us to share we have had some you know nice uh business wins together and um i get home because i had a like a rented a like an airbnb for two weeks and my parents were there my dad is uh you know a sommelier he was a bartender who became a sommelier and it's like a big deal for him my success you know and uh you know i always feel very gracious uh for my dad you know and he you know

SPEAKER_205: mom more than my dad but my dad's still a great guy uh and my mom did most of the work but putting that aside i come back to my dad and i said oh the jim brooks gave me a bottle of wine my dad goes let me see it puts on his glasses old man glasses uh uh arguably the best bottle of wine on the planet

SPEAKER_227: next year um can't get these this is rblb best bottle of wine you could buy in uh 2018. it's not that this is the best i'm like really he's like we should open it

SPEAKER_233: i said no dad good job dad good job it's a five thousand dollar

SPEAKER_235: he told me he paid like 150 a bottle nobody wanted the trash in the 80s it wasn't a thing yeah he paid like a hundred dollars a bottle the guy keeps winning it was hilarious so that's my my

SPEAKER_185: jim brooks story hopefully i'm not speaking out of um but i mean jim brooks incredibly generous guy and i you know i i think if your success would be generous that's why i sent you guys the bottle of don julio um and if they have those by the way just in the spirit of generosity if um they have those little airplane bottles of um don julio can we send one of those each to our producers one to each

SPEAKER_239: to our producers of those airplane i'm joking producers you're doing a great job you have to

SPEAKER_241: deal with me uh producer nick come on here for a second do me a favor producer nick he's not even

SPEAKER_242: not even not even producer or any other producer he's producing a thousand things i'll tell i'll tell

SPEAKER_247: it he's like what do you want producer come on air okay there he is i feel like i'm now now i feel like a true uh horrible human being because i got everybody on air uh don julian certainly the on

SPEAKER_37: air talent is more important than the producers but the producers are still very important it's a joke it's a joke nick to be fair can you send one of these to each of our producers okay look at including yourself yes please anything about nick nick needs to you know come on i'll read

SPEAKER_255: his tps report i'll put that on my 21 and over it says i'm looking at some of these faces i always like to invest in young talent like you were one day legally drinking uh legal drinking age everybody

SPEAKER_259: i'm pretty i i trust me as uh nick's uncle i know he's of age uh justin with the mustache and rachel

SPEAKER_152: i'm not so sure uh but he just said in the chat yeah honestly once you get to 40 you guys will see this everybody between 15 and 65 looks the same age now i'm so let's uh i'm definitely drunk i had

SPEAKER_265: two steps i know exactly but can we send a can we send a don julio 1942 to everybody get yourself

SPEAKER_270: the good stuff for that for the producers it really is it's not a joke i mean not even a

SPEAKER_143: lie it's delightful it's really good and it is it is like you you could drink this in the morning i

SPEAKER_219: i don't mean to suggest everybody be coming out we are it's an easy drinking morning beverage for

SPEAKER_277: sure like really you really could put it in your drink in alcohol before noon it's the first time

SPEAKER_10: i don't think i have either one time for marketplace and it was a similar kind of like a stunt thing

SPEAKER_280: ever well brunch yeah exactly and in the show adam that doesn't count getting drunk at 10 30

SPEAKER_64: just and just a little note for those of you paying attention you know during this golden age of television in episode two adam newman gets shown the 1942 from rebecca newman's dad

SPEAKER_125: right yep and that is part of him starting to live the good life the dad of course i'm going to jail for being a fraud which was a great moment i mean that feels

SPEAKER_35: like a lifetime ago i felt like i've lived with these characters for 10 years i know seriously well okay so speaking of which let's talk about the finale because this is really we crash we have

SPEAKER_10: we have taken this journey we all knew it was coming and yet how did we all feel watching them

SPEAKER_289: have it all seemingly nearly ripped away hey tom eschbacher is here with us again he's a senior

SPEAKER_167: sales manager at linkedin marketing solutions and we're talking about their amazing report today in

SPEAKER_294: startup marketing as well as how to use linkedin to grow your startup what are some tactical things not big picture strategy i'm talking tactics that founders can do today to figure out product market

SPEAKER_295: for one of the big tactics we see here is amplifying organic posting with paid advertising you consider a startup that raises a seed round they post a news on their linkedin page and see a bunch of likes clicks and follows come in they follow that then with some updates about product and they see continued traction with for instance hr benefit managers at tech companies that have fewer than 500 employees that's a signal and it becomes important to then get a larger sample and to increase confidence we've made it super easy to identify which audiences are engaging with your organic content your linkedin company page your website and then extend reach into those segments with our best-in-class b2b ad targeted so for early stage startups who amplify organic with paid we see a 13x lift in unique reach and those are meaningful insights to help inform product and go-to-market strategies such a great

SPEAKER_294: strategy head to linkedin.com session this week in startups and get the report now so you have an edge on your competitors and as a little pot sweetener hundred dollars off your first marketing campaign thanks to tom and the team at linkedin go get that report and get the hundy lon did you feel sorry for

SPEAKER_176: them or were you like oh thank god i felt like they were playing a very interesting game i felt it felt

SPEAKER_83: like they knew that they needed these characters to have a comeuppance like we all know in the real world like you can act like adam newman you may lose your company not everything may go your way but you're not out on the street like it there was no way this story was ending with a completely ruined adam newman who will never have a company or drink uh don julio ever again right so you gotta like let your viewer feel that sense of there was some justice this story has an ending that i feel satisfied by these characters have on some level they get their just desserts but while acknowledging the reality

SPEAKER_303: that they're gonna be fine they're they'll start another company they'll have a billion dollars

SPEAKER_81: basically they're already they you know they were already well off or financially comfortable

SPEAKER_83: they'll they'll be fine in perpetuity uh so i thought i thought they handled that about as well as you could you ended on this embarrassing moment where they're in the red sea oh the salt and

SPEAKER_303: they they've just found out that they're not going to get their huge payout like they thought they

SPEAKER_281: were because masa decides he's going to point is correct covet happens and masa they didn't explain

SPEAKER_23: that but masa agreed to the payout and then masa says you know what things aren't what they seem and the world has changed i'm going to hold the payout but the punchline to that if you watch the andrew ross sorkin bookend the great interview he did um with adam newman after we worked went public is that in fact the company did go public adam newman had owned 30 percent and you know he winds up you know with over a billion dollars and is a board observer so he negotiated the ability to stay

SPEAKER_12: an observer and remains friends with masa yeah yeah and that is a very interesting unique um i think

SPEAKER_23: bookend to this which is when we contrast with elizabeth holmes who was committing an actual fraud right and is going to jail and is guilty when we look at adam newman i think he's guilty of

SPEAKER_12: uh losing his mind thinking he was a god uh being insane but being a crazy entrepreneur who actually did nine build nine billion dollars in actual value and the company is actually paradoxically or perhaps ironically i'm not sure which word applies here perfectly uh the company is perfect for a post pandemic world and hybrid work yeah people so his vision of the we community actually is even more reinforced in a post pandemic world which i thought was a fascinating uh like i said you know

SPEAKER_310: closure um some people were not happy with the ending that they got paid well i i mean i feel like the

SPEAKER_83: show is very much trying to have it both ways on some level it was it's doing what you're saying it is showing that like look adam newman personality flaws lots of them lots of insight into why these decisions were wrong all these things he got away with doing the culture he created that was not really healthy and they gave ot fuck ben lay uh cameron lautner that great speech about like we're not here to reinvent human consciousness we're here to build a office sharing startup that's going to have a reasonable price and it's a job and it's a company and it's a business and i want to work hard with all of you on building that business and so they get to have that moment where they're like look all of

SPEAKER_315: this you know new ground the reset all this was really just kind of rhetoric and it was all kind of talk and it was really just a way to kind of manipulate people in this situation but at the same

SPEAKER_83: time it doesn't you're right that the show is not depicting adam newman as a elizabeth holmes level this was just all pure fabrication it is showing that at heart there was something to this concept

SPEAKER_317: there was something that this company was building molly on the fraud visionary spectrum here uh out

SPEAKER_154: of control narcissist to fraud spectrum i mean i i think that the finale does a good job of i'm glad

SPEAKER_05: that sort of toward the end they brought in these employees to sort of make them the avatar of the people who got screwed by this like i think there was real value in showing that and it it takes the even the moments when you are tempted to sort of feel bad for adam newman losing this company in such spectacular fashion and being forced out you don't feel that bad because they're still sort of awful and people who put a decade into this and and i know that there's the the version of this that's like you chose to work there right you chose to work there and you never know and startups fail and blah blah blah i don't care they put in 10 years of their lives they took less pay they thought they were going to share in the success and they didn't and so like i thought that was pretty valuable in terms of a lesson but yeah i agree with you it falls a little flat to have them sort of it's nice to have them embarrassed in the dead sea with salt in their eyes and and it's funny actually real adam newman did confirm in that deal book interview that there was a moment when they sincerely thought they were going to walk away with nothing like he did say that that he sort of he claims he didn't watch it but he also sort of confirmed that scene where she's like it doesn't matter if we lose everything we still have each other family we go to mom and dad's house

SPEAKER_158: so he does say that there was a moment when they thought they were going to lose everything i don't it's still a little bit just like because they didn't at all i don't really like i never

SPEAKER_303: thought even i was following this story in real time and even me i was never like oh adam newman could end up with nothing like obviously that's not gonna happen he'll he'll have his golden parachute in some way or another they always do uh but i did i think you know what like dramatically it is satisfying they play that scene really well you do feel like well at least these two for a moment

SPEAKER_83: realize how ridiculous they are and we reveal their hypocrisy that they're saying oh it doesn't matter

SPEAKER_53: and it's just money and our love is what matters but they would be absolutely devastated to lose this money obviously um and uh uh sherry sterner pulps i forget their name this was directed i thought

SPEAKER_315: really well the finale by the same duo that did american splendor you guys remember that movie oh

SPEAKER_27: yes of course i'm gonna look them up uh american splendors fantastic robert pulsini and sherry springer berman were the duo that directed the finale they also did the movie american splendor they did one for netflix last year called things i saw that at sundance that was paul giamatti's right was that

SPEAKER_83: his car yeah i mean he'd already been pig vomit in private parts he had a few other big roles yes yeah

SPEAKER_338: but that was like him starring in it it's a great movie it's about uh harvey p car who wrote those

SPEAKER_343: classic uh indie novels yeah yeah i mean i think we can all agree like a pretty satisfying and great performances all around good series i think this might be my favorite jared leto

SPEAKER_346: thing yeah like i he's not a guy i usually look out for but i thought he was really good at that i'm

SPEAKER_49: like morbius and i kept seeing adam newman in morbius i actually enjoyed morbius i know i can't wait

SPEAKER_350: to see that i actually enjoyed it because it's like a very yes please it's he you know his performance

SPEAKER_23: in it is good and um i i just thought it was like an interesting you know non-traditional mcu film because it didn't have like the wisecracky you know banter kind of thing more it was a little more dark and somber and yeah i kind of felt like they are building something interesting in that spider-man

SPEAKER_352: they're definitely trying we got madam webb coming bad bunny you just got uh cast in elmwerto there's

SPEAKER_353: a lot going on well they're doing the sinister six i guess is going to be the oh they're they're trying

SPEAKER_52: they're throwing everything at the wallet so yeah they need they need some hits they got ghostbusters they got jumanji they need some more they need some franchises don't ever give up that spider-man

SPEAKER_215: yeah seriously and it was all based on the uh wondery podcast so congratulations to them for making great great great ip uh yeah for all of this well but one more before we before we move

SPEAKER_315: off i just i do want to shout out campbell scott as jamie diamond in this was so good i love that guy

SPEAKER_16: he was never raises his voice never like shows an emotion when he gives him the ultimatum in that

SPEAKER_143: scene he's like sure yeah you can say the ceo let me tell you what's gonna happen that that supreme

SPEAKER_83: confidence of like a guy who literally owns the world totally can't you can't unflappable no emotion

SPEAKER_27: nothing has an impact on him i thought he really he really nailed it well and you actually can see

SPEAKER_344: who has the real power in the world exactly when he gives the 600 when he's like looking for the margin

SPEAKER_23: loan and he just offers him 600 million and he's like 600 million you know against his stock and you what you realize is like there are people playing a game above the game and i can tell you like i have

SPEAKER_12: experienced in my own life like every time you think you've mastered the game you're like oh there's another level you know and like oh and then there's a sovereign wealth fund and oh there's a person who has all this money who has the connection to that and oh yeah they're playing something totally different we're pawns in their game yeah so as much as it feels like the employees are pawns

SPEAKER_215: then you start realizing the ceo is a pawn and then you start realizing the venture capitalists are

SPEAKER_369: pawns yeah and it's like who is actually you know set up this chess board and it's some finance guy or

SPEAKER_303: and they i thought they captured that very well like as you move up these levels the people get more confident the people get more uh yeah unshakable they're they're not hustling anymore the hustle

SPEAKER_373: is over for them yeah you're like you realize for their benefit you really do realize that jamie

SPEAKER_343: diamond is the only person in the entire saga with nothing to lose that he spins out debt as a trap

SPEAKER_158: yeah that he can can 100 sit there in that room even masa at the time that we're seeing him in this show

SPEAKER_53: is in trouble yeah we can't do it like they won't accept it and there's no nobody's ever coming into

SPEAKER_212: jamie diamond's office like we can't do it no yeah he doesn't have that guy yeah is there is just such a masterfully done show so kudos to the people who wrote it obviously the performances are easy to love

SPEAKER_37: but i think the writing the i guess pacing is for me i don't know exactly what this term means in hollywood i can guess but for me the fact that i never wanted to look at my phone during the story means to me good pacing in today's age you know you're in a movie theater the movie's dragging if it was a streaming show you'd stop and like you start seeing people take out their phones that to me is

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SPEAKER_303: about pacing and how to understand this is well paced i think the i think this was really this was a show that earned its length and like had the right amount of episodes and i think a lot of the time with

SPEAKER_396: streaming shows i end up feeling like ah they probably could have made this work with two fewer

SPEAKER_27: we probably could have gotten out of this a little quicker yeah and this one i felt like no i they they they really paced it well and and knew where they were going and it felt like the right

SPEAKER_303: amount i think i think too often we mix up pacing and length like people complain like oh my god the

SPEAKER_53: batman is three hours i don't want to watch all that but it's yeah well i don't mean to bring up the batman but like it's really less about how long is it and more about yes is it paced in a way that is sort of

SPEAKER_303: slow moving and gradual and deliberate or is it like well i think that's a good segue because

SPEAKER_402: severance didn't did drag for me at many times and it did feel artistic and slow and methodical and

SPEAKER_23: confusing so let's tee up if you will on these the second half we did the first yeah we have the first

SPEAKER_53: three and now we're going to do the last six i believe okay so whip us through uh maybe with a

SPEAKER_23: little preamble on pacing and and maybe juxtapose you know how this story was paced and unfolded if

SPEAKER_303: you jump to the final two episode i'll talk about the whole thing but if you jump to the final two episodes of severance they're all unfolding like one event is happening and it gives you what in

SPEAKER_53: screenwriting terms is known as a ticking clock a ticking clock would be at the beginning of the movie the guy's like this bomb is going to explode in 90 minutes unless we figure out a way and then the

SPEAKER_83: whole movie the viewer knows i'm working against the clock here they're going to run out of time and it's like you know those movies where you would cut back to the the digital readout as it counts down the minutes until the explosion right and the last two episodes of severance do such an

SPEAKER_53: amazing job of giving us a here's this mission this character's on he's got to do this thing it's this limited amount of time and we're going to watch it unfold basically minute to minute movie

SPEAKER_27: speed or like the movies back to the future right exactly speed is a great example where it's like

SPEAKER_53: you know there's the gimmick is right there if the bus slows down it blows up and so you as a viewer

SPEAKER_303: are constantly like you're that's what creates that intensity of like i know all they have to do is show that odometer or the speedometer and if it's getting near 50 i'm in because it might explode and i thought severance really uses that incredible in the last two episodes especially i'm only cracking

Jason Calacanis: up because all i ever think about then is the simpsons where he's trying to remember the name

SPEAKER_412: of that the bus that couldn't slow down couldn't slow down so episodes four through nine are where

SPEAKER_05: we really start to see the whole picture unfold a little more in terms of what lumen is doing yeah um what why various employees might be there and what happens when the walls start to come down when the the the thick wall between the two experiences of these severed employees starts to come down

SPEAKER_416: and it gets pretty dark it really does a dark yeah is probably an understatement it's a character tries to hang herself it's brutal it's brutal it's brutal well you think you realize the

SPEAKER_420: torture the sheer unimaginable cruelty of what these people are going through this this real

SPEAKER_398: existential nightmare in terms of what the innies experience uh you know like so we you've got outis they're the ones who live their lives in our world the normal world and then go to work and

SPEAKER_83: they just don't remember what happens while they're at work and it's the innies whose entire life is just the work day and wondering work days after another and yeah they don't even know who am i on the outside and uh yeah i think the show really does dig into what an existential nightmare that would be and like the contours of it and what it would feel like and i think it's you're invited to imagine yourself in that scenario and how awful it would be you know the only interaction you have would be corporate communication or a stolen moment of chatting with a colleague you know during a break time you don't have a life you know i have a lot of feelings about the corporate

SPEAKER_215: architecture here yes that i would like to share i think that this is uh is the word trist treat

SPEAKER_433: treaty tristy what are they oh three words treaties treaties is like a like a statement right yeah like

SPEAKER_436: a manifesto kind of manifesto i feel like this is a manifesto

SPEAKER_437: uh on uh the worst of capitalism and corporate culture because they are being indoctrinated

SPEAKER_438: uh to a culture and the culture is told by these weird um you know historical figures in the company

SPEAKER_27: and they're in a hall and they are praised and lauded it's a blend between areas what we think of as a corporate history or the corporate way of talking about the company and religion like it's it's a cult

SPEAKER_444: it is it dip it and and i think what they're saying is you know hey look you're when you go work

SPEAKER_438: at a company you're giving up your life and you're giving up your life and the way they get you to give

SPEAKER_205: up your life is through this culture and through this you know ceremony and it is modern day religion in fact corporate culture borrowed a lot from religion hey what is our mission here mission statement what are our values when we use those things in startup land and i encourage people to use those in startup land i worked on our mission statements you know at companies at companies we've invested in companies i've created we back builders is our new credo here at launch as an investment firm and i worked on that like what are we really about here and can i get it down to its essence and can i get people to give up their lives to then come on this mission and um that's a commerce decision on one level people are getting paid for time but they're they are also giving up a significant portion

SPEAKER_437: of their waking hours right and the show shows that when they are outies it's always nighttime it's always dark they've given up the best hours of their lives so i think what whoever wrote this might be

SPEAKER_431: signaling or their axe to grind and i don't know who wrote this or what their axe to grind is it's a relative newcomer named dan erickson okay yeah i need to meet this guy yeah i'd love to meet

SPEAKER_437: because somebody who knows it because i think what he's saying is like be careful who you decide to give your waking hours to yeah and they would rather the ideal capitalist society would be for you to not even question or think about this and it's manifested i think brilliantly in the intercorporate

SPEAKER_448: or the interdepartment rather right relationships yes where they're not even supposed to know one

SPEAKER_437: another yeah don't know and nobody's allowed to know what we do in a way so you know what you do but then there's christopher walken's group and what they do nobody's allowed to know and then when they meet each other they're great yeah they're breaking all kinds of rules here and i immediately

SPEAKER_205: thought about the disparity between an amazon warehouse worker and an amazon corporate worker in seattle an apple store worker and an apple uh corporate worker a postmates uber lyft doordash driver and the corporate executives who are making the software and they're not allowed to talk to each

SPEAKER_437: other they're two different classes of employees they're not they're in different buildings they

SPEAKER_190: don't fraternize and it's part of a control culture because if the people incorporate right the apple

SPEAKER_437: employees at the space station who are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars probably on

SPEAKER_205: average and who have perks that are absurd there was a huge disparity they used to pay mcdonald level wages from what i understand like you know 9 10 11 dollars at apple until they were shamed into hitting 14 15 16 and a lot of it has to do with people who work at apple going to the apple stores and saying

SPEAKER_12: is this right right well and imagine them going to foxconn right and then foxconn's another level the people who are in the apple store would be looking at those folks and saying well we get paid now 25 30 bucks an hour whatever as we get healthcare benefits those people are jumping off buildings

SPEAKER_438: yeah i mean i think all right i'll stop there with what the guilt slash realization without a doubt without i started to have watching the show so to whoever wrote it mission accomplished i'm a

SPEAKER_463: rabid capitalist and it made me think what are we actually creating here well and if you think

SPEAKER_05: actually if you draw the parallel between those workers and the wee workers right the people at we work who not who give up their lives and their sanity nice who um had to drink after that who don't leave right they don't leave because they are trapped by this idea that eventually there will be a higher purpose in the in the we work case it's the payout in the case of severance it's the waffle party which we will get to in a moment gotta talk about um or finger puzzles or you know these these kind of bland perks like it is a absolutely brilliant commentary on what and and even just this idea like sure there's the selfhood concept but that this idea that if you leave lumen if you get

SPEAKER_219: fired you die you effectively die the any ceases to exist right when you have your retirement party as your any your version of your life is going to disappear forever your any never comes back your

SPEAKER_303: audi would just be your new self so it is it is weirdly like a death i mean i think i think control what you were talking about jason like to me that's the key theme of the whole thing it's about all of the different ways that lumen aside from just the severance concept itself is in complete

SPEAKER_83: control of these people's lives and by controlling their memories and what they know about themselves that's so so much the key to the whole thing we were talking last time too about mood and how so many of the experiments and so many of the things that they're doing are about controlling how they feel or how we can make them feel uh you know their sessions in the break room are designed to break them down their their sessions with uh you know uh i forget i'm blanking on her miss casey are designed

SPEAKER_359: to like improve their mood and make them feel well their their dance experience casey yeah and side note

SPEAKER_10: that actress was also in dollhouse like she has more than once played a character who's basically memory

Jason Calacanis: has been wiped and she's effectively yeah we don't we don't totally understand this there's there's a

SPEAKER_303: level below the severed floor in lumen where people go who never leave the the basement so these are

SPEAKER_83: people who don't have outis we don't we don't necessarily understand there's that long dark hallway there's an elevator that goes down and we even heard dylan in one of the early episodes say he's heard rumors that there's a level of lumen where it's just innies who never leave so a lot like if

SPEAKER_303: you go on reddit where people are losing their minds over the show and there's fan theories everywhere a lot of people and i'm inclined to agree i think on some level the the answer is

SPEAKER_83: luminous trying to create its own workers like they don't have to go find a person in the real world hire them convince them to come work there and give them the severed implant they're trying to just

SPEAKER_303: make their own people somehow because i think irving the john torturo character is the clue to the whole thing right because yes he's clearly been reset a bunch of times he's like the rest of them where he goes to work he goes home he's got a home life but obviously there's something screwy going

SPEAKER_83: on with his brain because he spends his entire home life i think i know what it is making paintings of this elevator and the blackness which is the one that miss casey walks down when they're like take her back to the testing floor he's aware of whatever whatever is happening to miss casey i think we can presume at one point also happened to irving but he's now in the real world so i think the theory would be lumen is doing something maybe to people who have died like because miss casey we know that

SPEAKER_487: she was mark's wife gemma in another version of her and they're bringing her back to life and

SPEAKER_05: reanimating her and then they both agreed to this messed up experiment for some reason right because we know that he used to work at the university where the doctor who is doing the reintegration is held

SPEAKER_492: hold up i mean you can do a whole like long there's also a strong implication that mark feels guilt over whatever happened that he's tormenting himself he killed her in a car accident maybe well maybe he was driving the car when they had the accident yes of course like something i feel like there's an element

SPEAKER_23: there too or maybe he said hey let's have a couple of don julio 1942s and he encouraged that or maybe

SPEAKER_12: she was going to drive and he had too much to drink by the way and one person not yet um one person it's so smooth it could wind up being the perfect yeah by the way i finished

SPEAKER_496: my don julio i don't know i don't know did you guys finish up oh yeah are we doing a second don julio

SPEAKER_504: how are we doing now it's 11 a.m which is the rest of my day it's five o'clock in london i think by now

SPEAKER_507: right all right here we go all right i'm back and i'm rolling all right one more one more done here we

SPEAKER_510: go one more down the good stuff why did i put it all the way over here i did some i might be a folly

SPEAKER_10: guy now that i think about it i got that i am gonna say as long as we're having a little interlude if we're going second father it's very smooth you poor that's a that's a generous pour there boss um

SPEAKER_05: i'm a generous boss that i'm not gonna lie during the last episode i was actually legitimately irritated

SPEAKER_517: okay by the pace wow like like frenetic it's no it's too slow it's the opposite of frenetic i was

SPEAKER_520: like really moving the opposite i felt like that was the fastest paced episode i was annoyed in the

SPEAKER_120: middle yeah i mean maybe it's because i was like rushing to get it done but the last three episodes to me i was like this could have been one episode oh my god i totally disagree and there's no way

SPEAKER_59: that he could actually be stretched out that long and for god's sake you people don't have time for

SPEAKER_310: this like just in the face of modern pacing i do agree in my love of cinema cinematography imagery which i always really did love in films um i i did appreciate this in an artistic way but i yes i if

SPEAKER_23: i'm being honest it did drag at times for me the series and i did see that a lot of people were

SPEAKER_35: engaging with ben stiller saying you know like get to the point here seven episodes not nine well all

SPEAKER_23: right you know like like a tick tocker they should make different edits of these movies now i mean i know this sounds like crazy but you know we have the extended show for the extended edition of the lord of the rings which is the only one i'll watch but i do understand and appreciate that for some people with shorter attention span we might want to make i don't know why they don't do this except

SPEAKER_205: for pissing off artists but if there was a severance seven episode version and then there was a nine version version then a person could watch the seven fall in love with it and say what did i miss and

SPEAKER_154: then want to watch it a second time i mean come on you're telling me that the length of time that

SPEAKER_539: heli spent staring at things looking in the mirror when she's looking at the apple store photos of

SPEAKER_303: herself i honestly i thought the the final episode of season one was i think that's the best thing ben stiller's ever directed personally i think that's the the high point of his entire filmmaking career

SPEAKER_543: i like a lot of his stuff i'm a big cable guy fan from way back but under i like it's great but uh

SPEAKER_83: i i really feel like all it all put together and the way that they it's so relentless the cutting from we're just switching between these perspectives and heli and yeah and like no no break they're all

SPEAKER_05: in the irving dylan i mean the unlocks are beautiful they're beautiful yeah and the the reveals are amazing but i literally when i was like if you say all the words of the atonement prayer i'm just gonna

SPEAKER_10: oh you were going to say all the words of that you know i get it and i thought you were a little bit

SPEAKER_402: of cramming for your final term i mean i will acknowledge that this morning i was like i would

SPEAKER_301: really i need to walk the dogs like can we just turtle the fact that his his almost almost dialogue

SPEAKER_81: free we're just following him on this journey of realization as he arrives at uh bert's christopher walken's house and sees through the window and it's heartbreaking i mean it's it's really it's really

SPEAKER_16: elegant i thought well and he's in there with someone else and so you realize that your your wish

SPEAKER_05: your secret dream that birving was together in real life they're not right yeah but that's a

SPEAKER_83: mother husband but that's also they've really created this and it is like lost in some ways how lost created that dynamic of the flashbacks the flashbacks the flash forwards and that became our way of of learning about these people and and it was such a great format for like twists and turns that you could jump back and oh you thought this was a flashback but this is actually a flash forward and i think severance is doing that too they figured out a way to use this gimmick of we see these people's lives out here and their lives in here and everything is a secret from

SPEAKER_219: their other version so it's also a secret from us and a little reveals a secret from each other

SPEAKER_318: right but you met the person on the island you didn't know their backstory right you we don't we don't know so when jack says kate we have to go back you're like wait back that means the

SPEAKER_83: island stuff already happened like a little a little line of dialogue can be a huge revelation and so in something like this when you see irving squeeze out that black paint and you go oh that's why he's been seeing black paint everywhere oh and you you know and and they they now they can do that so

SPEAKER_317: easily now they've built up so much of the lore going to the machine room and like twisting the two dials was very reminiscent of lost as well so i think sure we have to ask dan when he's on the show

SPEAKER_212: the writer how much did lost in this puzzle box kind of impact his he obviously loves the genre and i

SPEAKER_205: felt that was a little bit of homage i can't remember lost exactly but there was this concept of the control room control room underground it's very reminiscent of the hatch where absolutely

SPEAKER_301: remember there was that one episode where we first go inside lock has found the outside of the hatch they're trying to blow it up and how do i get into this hatch and then you have an episode

SPEAKER_83: where you just cut inside and you see desmond yes waking up and doing his morning routine in the hatch and that was where you first learned what was going on in there really really brilliant stuff and then

SPEAKER_200: zach has two more kids he's a very interesting character tratoros irving and i just you know i

SPEAKER_572: don't know if this is like some sort of easter egg but patricia arquette has harmony yeah amazing

SPEAKER_575: her name is harmony cobell harmony trying to keep all of this chaos together together yeah and

SPEAKER_578: her name is harmony and so did you notice that the town they're in is also called keir pennsylvania

SPEAKER_583: yes it is here is the f here's the founder the grandfather the egan egan is the creator of the

SPEAKER_585: whole thing and then the caligula orgy as re as corporate war reward like what think about think

SPEAKER_587: about a waffle party though like let's break it down everything that you get as well listen

SPEAKER_398: everything that you receive a waffle party is all the things in any would never get to experience

SPEAKER_83: you're eating breakfast food which you you never have breakfast you're it's it's served like a dinner you never have dinner you only have lunch you're in a model house they don't have a house

SPEAKER_301: you're in a bedroom they don't ever go to sleep and then it's it's sexual and there's sex they never have sex so it's it's it's a waffle party is the reward because it's like here's everything that you miss by never leaving the office but all at once in there is a nursery school thing going on

SPEAKER_12: here as well where like everything to me in their party genre putting aside the orgy waffle stuff the waffle stuff itself the melon the dance party the lights it felt like they're infant uh infantilizing

SPEAKER_598: infantilizing thank you 100 yeah because they are in fact babies that they have they're learning

SPEAKER_12: everything again like they understand certain things like how to use a keyboard but they don't understand other things like what happened in their life so they come in and they understand how

SPEAKER_205: to do work so it's almost like some set of skills translates when you're you your basic body functions

SPEAKER_23: translate you know how to put a suit on you know how to use the bathroom you know how to eat melon

SPEAKER_158: wow right you're right now every food every perk as dumb as they seem like the little puzzles and

SPEAKER_343: this is something you'd have a new it's also something you have never experienced because like miss casey says i'm only in my life is 107 hours long and that's what i think was so

SPEAKER_83: amazing about trammell tillman's performance he's set millichick the the sort of their supervisor he's amazing but he finds this perfect balance between like an unctuous middle management supervisor we've all had it like our first job and yeah like a nanny like a nursery school teacher where he is kind of talking down okay we're gonna stay here for 10 minutes because then we got you know he does have

SPEAKER_610: that patronizing tillman is yeah terrifying yeah terrifying like the greatest tv villain in a long

SPEAKER_612: time confusing that he's so hot too it's just for some of us he'd be like a great best friend he'd be a

SPEAKER_303: great part of your squad to go right he'd be a great teacher yeah like you trust him more than patricia arquette patricia arquette seems like the bad guy and he's like the one that's kind of more

SPEAKER_52: on their side and then as the season goes they sort of know he's like he's like goebbels or some ss

SPEAKER_317: officer like there's some darkness there like and this whole thing has very sadistic um insane

SPEAKER_310: pain and suffering and like prison dare i say goebbels like experimentation on people like human experimentation they're definitely experimenting on them in some way trying to perfect this

SPEAKER_619: severance procedure whatever it is to what end we don't yeah i mean that's to bring people back to

SPEAKER_623: life humanity it seems like to roll out for the whole world they they want everyone we know that

SPEAKER_27: we know this is capitalism we know that lumen wants everybody to be severed and like god damn it

SPEAKER_624: i honestly like i think i may become a socialist i'm just like give everybody health care and ubi

SPEAKER_628: this is not i mean if they want to terrorize my work here is done just let's go you be rich let's go

SPEAKER_632: that's what games was about too i'm just saying at some point they all just start playing with us

SPEAKER_200: yeah it's uh it's it's definitely got some of that like warning signals and like if you're just

SPEAKER_215: understand your options and we work the end game in squid game or you know extreme capitalism may not

SPEAKER_636: work out yeah never have you never have you before always leads to revolution just saying it's history

SPEAKER_492: it's so fascinating heli is really just such an interesting character where it's even to themselves

SPEAKER_81: reveal they're even treating they're even treating themselves as pawns like this other part of me that i can't connect to mentally ah whatever happens to you are not a person yeah i am a person like

SPEAKER_639: yes amazing if you ever cut your fingers or something i'll just end you like no i'll keep you

SPEAKER_29: alive forever in pain like they know exactly what they're doing they're all baby goats the boss's daughter dude what a reveal again yeah what that was a great she wants to quit but she's the

SPEAKER_578: inherent she's there was a fascinating it first yeah we see a we see a very quick clip we see a very

SPEAKER_83: quick clip of heli uh her audi about to film that video and she's with milchik and he's saying it's this is like episode three or four of me and he's saying it's so great that you're doing this we're so

SPEAKER_301: lucky to have you here and so they they inserted this idea of like she's someone she's not just some

SPEAKER_343: random they are they're important and she is very determined to be like not just you know she is like keeps on forcing that i've got to make this work right i've got to make this work and also some one

SPEAKER_05: of the reviewers and vulture pointed out too because you know i read the recaps of every episode that whenever milchik is in there taking photos at one of these perk parties it's always of her it's like primarily taking pictures of her right which was a good note also because she's the brand

SPEAKER_317: steve jobs's daughter or something if there was like gonna be a secession kind of situation here

SPEAKER_200: she's the it really is interesting how capitalism bringing up secession uh billions this show squid game we're really as a society at lawn i think struggling with wealth wealth creation corporate power um and globalization in and and our role in all of this and how we exist in this new world order

SPEAKER_23: which you know was previously the state and religion would have this you know oversized impact on our lives and maybe you could speak to like some graduate school about what this all represents

SPEAKER_53: i feel like i feel like a big theme in uh certainly in in severance uh probably in all the shows that

SPEAKER_303: we watch is the the helplessness that a lot of people feel when faced with these kinds of incredibly powerful systems of control i know you see it a lot in the the climate change discussion i think like

SPEAKER_83: don't look up i think was was very much playing into this same same feeling that that if you're an everyday person you look at corporate power the financial industry and wall street politics and you

SPEAKER_303: say like well how could how even if i vote even if i organize even if i join a cause and do activism how can i push back against this this machine power and control the climate change debate to me really drives this home more than maybe any other discussion that we have that like i can recycle i can drive a tesla or a hybrid i can do all those i can walk instead of driving i i can do all those little

SPEAKER_27: things that we say but but the power of me to do something versus the power of amazon to make a change

SPEAKER_217: or the power of the u.s government starbucks china or starbucks like it's i'm a drop in the bucket

SPEAKER_664: compared to the airline industry is maybe a lot of drops in the buckets could create a tsunami exactly that's what i actually like is that they threaten her and she's like if we all do it we can

SPEAKER_05: but i completely agree with you i think like there and also the learned helplessness the forced helplessness right right we have been told these are these are that we can't all come together to make this change we have been told and as long and that's like the key to keeping the departments apart if you keep them separate i mean it's very like non-subtle when you think about it right it's

SPEAKER_325: like oh if you keep these groups apart they'll never organize and rebel against your employees

SPEAKER_217: memories when they leave the office all of these are various systems of control we don't want them to remember we don't want them to know these things conquer we want them to only know the things that

SPEAKER_83: we've laid out for them or that they and and i mean don't think of having kobe live next door to mark as selving she's monitoring both versions of his life yeah it is all about control on one level and narrowing that perspective and i totally agree with what you're saying molly i'm not here to say

SPEAKER_673: you can't make a difference oh no no i'm just saying they they made that point very well right

SPEAKER_491: they made that point that it's the key is to make everybody feel powerless and then they will never

SPEAKER_301: rise up i think it's a feeling that's out there a lot of people feeling defeated of people feeling

SPEAKER_182: hopeless i mean trump made people feel that way if you're gonna if you if you elect this sociopath what who did we said mccain is and not to make it political but you're saying mccain is a

SPEAKER_23: not a hero and that you can assault women and there's no replica repercussions no accountability

SPEAKER_438: no accountability and that you know whatever percent of people were on board with that it is

SPEAKER_23: i think what makes a lot of people feel like i cannot affect change and but of course that is not true you can affect change and if you compare this to the great 60s 70s movement those films the

SPEAKER_205: easy rider era was about fighting a different um not corporate interest in that case what you were fighting there was government right so you have uh three days of the condor seven days in may uh maturing candidate like who is who are we going up against there the government the secret

SPEAKER_83: agencies the power of government i mean a lot of those 70s movies were about the moment when people started that it was kind of the beginning of what we're now seeing the end of that was the

SPEAKER_303: moment where you know they say america lost its innocence where we started to realize like

SPEAKER_583: all of these organizations are corrupt every power that we've counted on is corrupt the cia is corrupt the u.s government's corrupt the military is correct vietnam war all these systems wall street financial all these corporations and that's where you get yeah you get stuff like taxi driver

SPEAKER_27: where it's like right we've been abandoned by everybody that we counted on nobody's looking out for us nothing we're all right we're all lost spinning out in the spiritual ancestor of falling down

SPEAKER_05: you know then you start to get this idea of the individual rebellion and freak out god i love thursdays can i just say that's not the don julio talking thursdays are the best

SPEAKER_692: i love you guys i love you guys one needs to have more pictures of waffles should we go out after this we should get some waffles and we should put the don julio on the waffles now we can never say

SPEAKER_625: waffles ever again syrup syrup did you notice that the waffle there's so many go to the reddit

SPEAKER_303: reddit.com so i'm spending all day in the reddit are you kidding that's where they pointed out the waffle party one of those paintings that optics and design had you know they had those like renaissance rembrandt style paintings one of the departments fighting each other famously yeah the waffle party

SPEAKER_27: recreates exactly one like you know the when they're all in the masks and they're doing all the

SPEAKER_217: four furies they're recreating one of those paintings exactly visually which painting yeah there's a painting of like a goat and a woman and they're doing the same poses as the people are

SPEAKER_343: recreating during dylan's waffle party and irving meet over like they meet in the hallway and they're both looking at it outside of the i'm so in love with their love that was like the best love story

SPEAKER_709: i've seen it oh my god i mean that's just torturo and walking you get torturo and walking and they're

SPEAKER_711: both just all in on it and it's beautiful series ben stiller if you're listening they're all in can we

SPEAKER_291: get yeah because there's some backstory there with them in the war and i maybe tutorial's got ptsd or something yeah there's a whole ptsd thing happening here too i think the severance like

SPEAKER_491: was probably originally conceived as for people with ptsd because you have trauma it is a trauma

SPEAKER_719: it's about trauma oh my god are you sure you haven't been in the reddit this is exact this is

SPEAKER_722: all this is all right all right speaking of uh uh enjoy your sheets you're the greatest

SPEAKER_444: blur that bed my friend just no i want those sheets by next thursday what are we what are we going to listen watch for next thursday we're not trying to be oh my gosh but lon what do we do next because

SPEAKER_483: now we finished our tech oh my gosh i don't think there are start unless you guys want to finish

SPEAKER_176: super pumped i think we're done with the startup shows right now give us something that's sci-fi

SPEAKER_317: futuristic oh that is that would it relates to capital i guess so here's what the show's about

SPEAKER_205: capitalism startups we could do a movie we could just give us something to shereen between then and now i i mean i love the movie the founder as one uh which uh michael keaton's in we could read the book

SPEAKER_733: slash god that is so good we could do that the ray crock movie oh phenomenal i think it's a great it's a great movie i really like that michael keaton that michael keaton movie i think it's a michael

SPEAKER_383: keaton like top three performances and that's a big statement because his performances are man all right well we'll figure something out we'll figure it out there's i've got a few ideas what else is on the

SPEAKER_431: top three give me a give me your top three my i mean my my immediate thoughts are entrepreneurship we can go we can go any era but i'm you go to the 60s 80s we treasured have you watched this is going

SPEAKER_217: to seem like an out of left field suggestion but i promise it's not the hbo max series julia it's

SPEAKER_301: about julia child and the creation of her show okay friendship but it's very much a it's exactly what we were talking about before we were talking about confidence porn that idea of okay why don't you

SPEAKER_83: can show this just about professional people who are very skilled doing something taking on a project so this is what if you got a bunch of very smart people in the room and they all know

SPEAKER_217: cooking or tv and you say make up what a cooking show is go invent the cooking i love it i love

SPEAKER_64: product market fit all right lon thanks for coming in and we have another guest coming up

SPEAKER_14: all right thanks lon we'll see you next week with us notice next week let's tee up the next story go ahead molly do your thing molly all right what is happening here professionalism i

SPEAKER_05: apologize we are coming back to the twitter and elon story back to reality oh okay great with a with a hard thump twitter has confirmed fluctuations in followers that came after the elon musk deal announcement and has confirmed that in fact they were organic they did not necessarily appear to be a big old box that was my theory what was my theory i know so we brought on someone today who actually fact checked this and did a breakdown the verge to the study we're joined by the studies author corin fife who is extremely patient corin thanks so much for coming on sorry about that

SPEAKER_685: we're geeking out just we're gonna have to send you some tequila i think that's the only way to

SPEAKER_747: remedy this situation do you like a better problem i will i will accept tequila in reward however you

SPEAKER_751: have spoiled the show severance that i haven't yet seen sorry about that well can we send a don julio

SPEAKER_12: corin um your your bona fides i believe you are a uh what they would call a data reporter explain

SPEAKER_747: maybe your background there uh yeah sure so i'm a data reporter uh well in fact currently i'm at the verge i mostly cover cyber security and privacy news uh previously i was at a publication called the markup uh which is really specializing in data journalism investigative journalism around around data journalism yes uh yes exactly and so i've done a lot of research previously into social media uh social media algorithms and how they impact the way that we see information who sees what how it's

SPEAKER_758: received um that kind of thing all right so we saw these crazy jumps happen everybody like i saw jim

SPEAKER_23: jordan was like oh elon musk has changed the rules and therefore we now get followers and i was like

SPEAKER_205: okay jim jordan's dope um he doesn't understand that elon's offer isn't even accepted he has no functional uh role at twitter he could in fact no change i mean he can talk about twitter but he's not he doesn't own the company yet that's gonna be three six three to six months from now but i did see in my podcast feed that ben shapiro joe rogan and every other podcast in the world is covering this and if ben shapiro is covering this and he's the number one pod one of the top podcasters in the world i'm not sure where he sits it would follow that if podcast advertising drives online behavior ben shapiro talking every day about liberal tears i saw the headline was like liberal tears alan musk drank them all that's the kind of that activates the right so now the right's going to come in am i right am i guess that it was the

SPEAKER_747: podcast pump core and what did you find what did you do so i was going to say there's there's a lot to unpack so i think we're kind of jumping ahead if we go straight into why did it happen yeah yeah so let's start with exactly what did you find and i'm excited i hope that it isn't a spoiler for too many people but i can't really say exactly why it happened but what we can what we can say looking at the data is we can talk more conclusively about what has happened and what evidence there is for it so so yeah of course um as you say elon musk uh the acquisition of twitter there was a really long a long build-up a lot of hype around it um leading up to this this announcement um april 25th is when the the deal was finally closed and announced we've done a lot of coverage of that at at the verge and uh a funny thing happened where very shortly after that announcement was was made um as you said jason a lot of these conservative accounts were suddenly saying wow we've got a really big boost in followers um and simultaneously a lot of other large accounts seem to be losing followers um so there was a a a piece first in nbc news um ben collins wrote that one where he was talking about some of these really high profile accounts that had lost followers um barack obama i think lost a few hundred thousand um there are there were quite a few other examples of of that so there is

SPEAKER_766: initial thought about exactly there we go mark hamill again has has lost a lot of a lot of followers

SPEAKER_747: right so you have this thing where a lot of people and he's quoting quote tweeting someone else from you know from liberal twitter saying that she's lost a lot of followers and then we had a similar thing in a kind of more conservative right-wing twitter of people quoting each other saying wow i've suddenly gained a lot um donald trump jr tweeted a screenshot of his follow account having grown 80 000 in a single day um and he was speculating as i think you mentioned okay or has some kind of change been taken has elon already uh you know he's taken the brakes off this whatever was stifling conservative follower growth so there was a lot of kind of anecdotal evidence that something was

SPEAKER_770: happening there's signals of something happening got it and so then you were like let's do some

SPEAKER_771: science and it exactly i mean i think i would stop short of of science because people who are really

SPEAKER_747: people who are really data scientists investigating you were like let's do some investigating investigating i'm i'm happy to call it that yes so you know it was somewhere in between the anecdotes and the and the science um something i think people sometimes call anic anic data um so we uh so we with some to help with some colleagues at the verge we put together a list of 50 uh influential conservative accounts 50 influential uh liberal accounts how'd you pick them um i mean that this was a fairly unscientific process okay it was kind of based on we started off with a few accounts that we knew saw changes um looked at some of their follower lists we really just said the cutoff is that minimum 100 000 followers um and accounts that have a clear political ideology attached perfect um but yes if it was going to be a social science study there would have to be a more concrete methodology than that so uh we then used a service called social blade it has an api that lets you pull historical data about twitter followers so we could see how they've changed over time so for each of those um 100 accounts total we had uh right exactly that's what you see if you if

SPEAKER_781: you look on the social blade uh site you will see something like this it's just the the date uh follow

SPEAKER_747: account uh plus or minus change um and so we had 30 days worth of that data for 100 of these accounts in

Jason Calacanis: the data set and so can we pull that back up a little bit for people who are not watching and will describe it that was for example the follower count for governor ron desantis uh his website and you see

SPEAKER_05: that like on saturday april 16th he gained 5 674 followers that number uh keeps going up and then we have april 26th which i think is the day that the deal was announced he gains 141 000 followers um and then 64 000 the day after 80 000 the day after that so it's a pretty like that's a pretty obvious

SPEAKER_747: trend yeah absolutely right and what we wanted to answer is is there a consistence in this trend across the ideological groups or is it something that's kind of random and uh having put together this list of the 100 different twitter accounts uh we ran the numbers and usually with data science things can be kind of messy you don't normally get a very clear signal on this kind of thing but immediately it was possible to see from the conservative accounts in our list 48 out of the 50 had disproportionate gains from the 25th to the 26th of april so that was after the acquisition and 50 of the 50 liberal accounts every single one of them had lost followers over that period which is unusual because the trend really for all of these large accounts is that they just steadily grow in followers you know um as you can see we we charted the data and what you will see is that over most of the month the the rate of change is fairly consistent every now and again something that will happen to give the liberal accounts a bump or a conservative account a bump but there's a very slow gradual change and in the moment this uh twitter acquisition deal goes through there's a very clear and pronounced spike in follower growth conservative accounts um and then that is matched by a decrease in liberal uh the followers of liberal accounts whereas previously those accounts have also seen a steady growth yep so fascinating so it was just so you did this analysis um

SPEAKER_56: okay and it sounds like you don't necessarily want to speculate on

SPEAKER_10: what might be driving this um but it seems like there are a lot of potential speculating part of

SPEAKER_747: this is it speculate time yeah let's speculate i i we can speculate to some extent so if we're going to look at the data the thing that we can say confidently based on that is that there is a significant change and it seems to be consistent across the ideal ideological groups so that's a really interesting finding on its own um people who were speculating that maybe something has changed in the internal mechanics of twitter based on what we know about these companies it seems unlikely that the change would happen that quickly it seems unlikely um that's not to say that it is impossible but it seems unlikely that the day elon takes over immediately he says we've got to change this

SPEAKER_800: algorithm in a in a way that boosts conservative follower accounts right so it's very unlikely to have

Jason Calacanis: been an algorithm change is there any way to tell whether it's bots there's an easy way to tell but

SPEAKER_747: corin go ahead yeah so i think that with the with the data we collected at the verge i don't think we can really talk about that um for someone else the researchers with access to more data uh they might be able to but one of the things that we know is is just that there was huge attention to this deal and it is something that when this acquisition happened there's a kind of a polarization in the

SPEAKER_781: response i think a lot of people who are more on the on the right on the conservative side saw it as a very good thing and have felt for a long time that twitter has stifled liberal viewpoints uh a lot of people more on the left thought that it is bad to have this billionaire suddenly in charge of the platform um and it really is possible that a lot of more liberal

SPEAKER_747: thinking people deactivated their accounts and a lot of more conservative people were convinced to try a platform that they'd otherwise dismissed had written off maybe right well and we should be clear

SPEAKER_05: that even if even if some or many of these accounts that followed and unfollowed were bots that still suggests a shift in what people perceive to be the value of the bots right like if you created

SPEAKER_56: a bunch of conservative bots there was a reason for that too yeah i i would agree with that i would

SPEAKER_747: agree with that and i think that what will happen now is that we're we're slowly going to move into getting uh clearer and clearer data about it so we started anecdotes um at the verge we've now done a very preliminary data analysis and over the coming months i'm sure we will have people from more of

SPEAKER_779: the social science research side of things doing very kind of uh tightly peer-reviewed studies yeah

David Friedberg: it might be the don julio speaking but i figured it out because i'm colombo you know like i'm like a dopey detective corn you know who colombo is corn i i do i do you're aware of it i don't know you seem

SPEAKER_810: like you're like 30 years old so i don't know awesome by the way just to be clear it could be

SPEAKER_13: it's one more thing there ma'am you said you had the chicken parmesan on sunday that's not special on monday so i just my wife says i'm a nudge that's my uh peter flock impersonation heaven help us if you

SPEAKER_205: go to the followers and you look at the actual followers of conservatives and you pull them up and then you scroll down uh you will see in the the followers i believe are presented in reverse chronological order of followers and then you start looking you will see uh on this list that none of them have changed their photo right they're all the default twitter photo that is a tell that it's a new account and possibly a bot account because the bot accounts don't take the time to put photos up because that can also be a towel to get them banned but anyway if you actually look at the date in which a lot of those and you just start opening them up randomly some of them

SPEAKER_44: are accounts that were created last year but many of them were created in april of 2022. but i mean

SPEAKER_685: that just for one thing that validates the data but second it also does continue to raise this question

SPEAKER_05: of why create bots that specifically follow conservative accounts now versus deactivate bots that follow liberal accounts even if it's all even if it's mostly bots it still is a clear signal about

SPEAKER_152: what people i can explain it think is going to happen it's there's signals that are being sent there's

SPEAKER_200: multiple things going on concurrently is what my belief is one thing that's going on is the um conservative

SPEAKER_14: podcasting media coverage bump media drives online behavior that's why online you know casper mattress eight sleep buy ads on radio terrestrial and on tv and certainly on podcast if you hear something if you see something you then take out your phone and you do an online behavior we all know this it's established you need only look at marketers embracing podcasts or network television as the reason so you

SPEAKER_23: put that on as you know you're you're you you you have ben shapiro tucker talking about this for two

SPEAKER_205: weeks to uh corin's point this thing took over the media cycle whenever anything takes up the media cycle i saw this with uber you know this is private discussions amongst people who were investors in uber every time a scandal happened in uber you know what happened we moved up the rankings in the app store the number of downloads went up people didn't make an judgment they just said what's uber i think what's happening is a lot of conservatives are saying what what exactly twitter i've heard about that i should go check it out oh yeah there's some controversy over here i'm for free speech oh the libs are triggered it i'm in right that's that's their benchmark ben shapiro's listeners benchmark is our libs trip triggered and they literally ben shapiro sells with his subscriptions to his hundred million dollar a year service what i understand his revenue is they he sells a tumbler that says liberal tears on it so you can drink liberal tears and pretend your coffee's over to us so that's what's driving the bump then this is my next two theories okay ma'am could be the don julio

SPEAKER_819: speaking i'm doing should we should we let corin go for the analysis part i don't want to put him

SPEAKER_205: in an uncomfortable position as a reporter yeah 15 seconds i'll give him why i think the liberals are losing or the bots are i think people at twitter just a theory who are in the security and teams are saying elon's criticizing us about bots let's show the new boss or people who want to embarrass him or whatever or just the public hey we're getting criticized we can't solve the bot problem let's solve the bot problem right now so that means everybody's losing a little bit on the box but net net the conservatives are getting the media bump go ahead so corn from a data perspective what are you

SPEAKER_147: going to look at next yeah what do you think what do you think about this theory yeah so i think there's

SPEAKER_747: an interesting question there about the um the net effects of it right there is a um an interesting question because twitter for a long time has struggled with um increasing a user base that's been very slow compared to some other platforms like the the bigger social platforms are now hitting this problem facebook similarly you know there's only so long that you can keep expanding when you've already got billions of people on on the platform you know newer platforms tiktok has come along and had such explosive growth uh you know that's kind of the now that the gold standard for a new social media company twitter much as it is uh very significant for the public discourse the growth in user base has has been slow now that musk has taken over there's going to be a lot of questions about what will happen to the the company and if he can attract more users and a lot of new users to it that's going to be a very significant thing and that's going to be well regarded in terms of his leadership even if it might turn out that more of those users come from one side of the ideological spectrum that might change the nature of what twitter is as a platform and how we experience it at the same time if this is an influx of real people um and the the number of people coming in outweighs the number of people who are potentially leaving which is also one of the things that we see in the in the data in terms of new followers they do seem to out balance the number of uh deactivated accounts and lost followers um there's one way of looking at it that says that's very that's very healthy that bodes well for the platform um of course there's another way of looking at it that says if all of these people have conservative values if all of these people believe that you should not moderate speech and you should be allowed to insult one another freely on a social media platform it can change the way that we um we we interact with each other for the worse um so it's hard to say but i think there are a lot of interesting questions yeah i mean

SPEAKER_05: it what so what do you intend to look at next like as you sort of continue to examine this and see whether it does actually represent a sea change because like we do know actually i think pew research did some um analysis back in 2019 and found that that without a doubt twitter skews more democratic than

SPEAKER_56: the rest of the social networks and and even the country like the users are younger more likely to be democratic and so as you look at what might be a shift in usership what do you what will you examine

SPEAKER_747: yeah um i mean i think having done this first study very quickly uh we're interested in looking to see whether the trends hold over the long term um you know will it will it will we continue to see growth for conservative accounts or is there a point where it will balance out where maybe all of

SPEAKER_781: the new people have have joined who are going to join and then uh things stabilize um beyond that

SPEAKER_747: uh i think the honest answer is is we don't know things have moved very quickly with the twitter deal

SPEAKER_781: and you know we're all kind of we all have whiplash i think to some extent trying to figure out where it's going to go next so yeah um i'll keep you updated on that one corin can't you tell

Chamath Palihapitiya: how is it public data um deactivated accounts because when somebody deactivates their account

SPEAKER_23: that would cause somebody to lose a follower so if the theory is we've got this mass exodus of left-leaning liberals you know however you want to frame or their liberal anti-free speech whatever

SPEAKER_200: however you want to frame it i'm not going to get into that but people on the left i think would be a

SPEAKER_14: way to describe it um if they are en masse turning off their accounts it would have to be if mark i'm sorry mark the mark handle yeah so he's certainly left-leaning i follow him i love luke skywalker if he's losing 8 000 and other people are losing 10 000 it's either bots or it's people actually deactivate their accounts so that means there's at least 8 000 or more that have deactivated accounts if you deactivate your account you see that you go to the page and it's turned off so in order for him to

SPEAKER_12: lose the follower it would need to be deactivated therefore right deactivated is something that's

SPEAKER_14: scrapable so have you discovered or anybody listening to me email producers at this week and startups and certainly dm corin i wonder if developers could just give us a list and i just tweeted it and somebody just make a list of how many people deactivated their accounts in other words in the last 30 days what accounts were turned off give us that list and then compare it to how many people deactivated in the 30 days before it we'd actually know what the average month of deactivations is there must be some baseline and we'd see if the baseline went up and then you can look at the delta of that baseline and say let's actually just do a random sampling maybe some number

SPEAKER_747: of them are libs uh or not twitter twitter certainly has that data they may or may not decide to release it um otherwise that kind of data is accessible through the the twitter api but they're the full

SPEAKER_781: unfiltered data set they only make available to researchers because the volume of data is so vast and potentially sensitive that you have to demonstrate that that you can handle it um in a in a meaningful

SPEAKER_843: way um but that that data is out there um and i'm sure that it will emerge and it's interesting our

SPEAKER_10: producers were noting that it looks like about in in your small subset of data three conservative

SPEAKER_142: gains for one liberal loss so so if you were looking at it in a purely mercenary way you would say okay well that's growth right like you you gained more than you lost so the platform is growing so

SPEAKER_200: success conservatives have left uh twitter right that was kind of the theory they were going to go to truth and parlor and go find trump and go find alex jones and go find all their whack jobs that's me saying that not you corn i know you're reporting keep everything straight down the middle but you know that yeah i think they want to go find the wacky folks i also think there's chaos agents

SPEAKER_205: that's another thing we're not there are uh trolley four channy developer types who create these bot networks and twitter has made it so easy to create bots that they could just be effing with people and they could be just yanking our chains so you could have multiple levels you could have twitter employees taking bots more seriously because they know that's what the new boss wants you have this bump of media conservative media suddenly like oh we can trigger the libs over here our this guy's on our side let's go trigger the libs you could have some number of liberal people saying you know what i'm

SPEAKER_845: out i don't want to be part of this anymore i was preferring the trend they were going towards with more safety and and you know less full contact let's be generous but yeah corin super interesting

SPEAKER_846: research we really appreciate you coming on yeah please come back you have a voice for radio it's

SPEAKER_747: amazing do more do more come back every day every week absolutely i i would love to well thanks a lot for highlighting the research on the show um and and uh yeah we love the numbers yeah

SPEAKER_851: on you got a book in you kid you got a book in you corin i feel like you got a book in you you write a book yet jason wants to be your agent not yet not yet yes come on some book hey some book agent here by the numbers by corin how do you pronounce your last name is it five five five yeah oh five

SPEAKER_817: okay by the numbers corn yeah well if you are an agent what's the reality yes what's really

SPEAKER_855: happening in social media by the numbers by corin i just got a good ring to it by the numbers

SPEAKER_63: all right that's a good reference too like a .txt file i like it because you're a data

David Friedberg: sign are you a data scientist by trade or are you just play one at the verge i'm a i'm a i'm a data

SPEAKER_747: journalist so again so that people don't shout on me at twitter about this you know i i'm i'm a kind of uh i'm data savvy compared to maybe the full range of journalists but in terms of data scientists

SPEAKER_14: i would be a very a very sloppy one got it got it so we got you got nate silver way over here and then but i think it's important for all journalists to learn some data right because there's a lot of

SPEAKER_200: opinions everybody wants to talk about opinions myself included but man the data is is really how you learn stuff so i appreciate your work and appreciate you coming on sorry we were late

SPEAKER_856: don julio on the way no problem yeah pleasure to be here on the way it's on the way good luck with that

SPEAKER_06: book deal hey book agents let's go let's go slide into corin's dm she's got a book in him this kid i

SPEAKER_805: like it be cool core all right amazing well done he's like do i go can i go i was like people don't

SPEAKER_860: know but i was like hey molly don julio is hitting he's like help help get this back on track she's

SPEAKER_862: like i got your boss i'm corin's like who can handle their liquor once he gets to don julio i

SPEAKER_05: know i know you're you're still chilling corn i mean this is going to be fascinating what do you

SPEAKER_272: think molly what's your can we're not we're not we don't have to hit these like journalists we can have opinions what do you think is really going on i think you're 100 right about the coverage

SPEAKER_05: bump like i think there's no doubt about that right that it's just like however there are also very clear signals i think to this audience that this is going to be a friendlier location and if elon wanted to clear up those signals he could any minute right but he is definitely uh well i mean they're i think the same pew research that said that twitter skews more liberal has also found over and over that like right-wing accounts are responsible for massive amounts of disinformation right trump i think at one point there was a study that said that the specifically the trump twitter account was responsible for spreading like 80 of the

SPEAKER_152: disinformation on the web that seems direction just that one account right i mean if he's like

SPEAKER_05: so do you want a place where people actually interact and everybody uses it sure you know yeah you do but i would also say like i cannot as a even a former journalist pretend that those signals are not coming from elon musk himself and that that's why people are like

SPEAKER_758: said this is going to be great he said both sides are going to be uh he said both sides but the one

SPEAKER_200: he's encouraging is the right uh i don't know i i think it's good for business that everybody be on the platform is probably the best and on a freedom speech basis it's good that people have a place to debate stuff and it's bad that there's misinformation i think you take out the bots you take out the

SPEAKER_64: brigading and people can debate it on its merits as long as people don't get personal attacks i don't know i kind of feel like one of the problems here i think we keep acting like free speech is like

SPEAKER_05: people yelling at each other but in fact it's like mobilizing to you know kill ethnic minorities in

SPEAKER_878: burma like there are so many real it's a whole different level but i'm talking about a whole different

SPEAKER_05: level and it's naive for him to say that free speech is about like oh no someone you disagree with

Jason Calacanis: might disagree with you that's not what content moderation actually is about so that's so content

SPEAKER_200: moderation is exactly where it's going i think it's a good turn for us to make because there's a lot at stake here obviously there's a lot at stake here there's a lot at stake so we all agree on there's

SPEAKER_14: a lot at stake yeah then we agree there needs to be content moderation it can't be a free-for-all okay so agreement agreement nobody disagrees and then i think where we disagree or where we'll see disagreements i'm not saying you and i where people start to disagree or opinions diverge is in how to implement moderation and i think what we should do on this show molly you and i since we are so smart and pragmatic and insightful and we've been around the block is true let's just focus on the moderation piece what should world-class moderation be because what we have now i'm sure

SPEAKER_12: everybody's got great intent but it's not clear what's going on and there's a lot of mistrust going on and on both sides i think people are like why wasn't trump taken off earlier people are like why is trying to take it off right so putting aside whatever political party you're in more transparency

SPEAKER_205: whether it's on instagram tick tock or here i think is going to set us at least on a path to have an intelligent discussion so i've been thinking about the new york post banning a lot and i have my feelings about it it's hard to separate how i personally feel about it because i do think trump was inciting people insanely who are from authoritarian countries to hack americans it's like the most

SPEAKER_436: treasonous thing you could do in my mind it's sociopathic yeah to ask putin or to lobby the ukraine north korea or north korea to hack like yeah this is treason yeah how anybody could support this is bonkers but i'll put that aside because then people gonna say oh jake else go trump derangement derangement syndrome no i have treason syndrome okay i don't believe that we should support i've been very consistent it might be the don julio speaking that do not get in bed with dictators right

SPEAKER_44: because they're dictators these are authoritarians if you want to keep political power win elections

SPEAKER_12: yeah let's let's not enable dictators and encourage them to with the system that's the best

SPEAKER_14: system ever created by humanity yes period full stop boom so how should this work is something i want to dialogue with so i think we should do is we should set a show and we should talk about maybe me and you or maybe me you and one or two people who actually know like from the belly of the beast how moderation works and we should get really specific instead of the general the emotion i propose we do an episode next week maybe wednesday or something give the producers a couple days and we just take the hardest cases and then say what would be ways to do this better because when they banned trump when they banned trump jack was like i wasn't involved i was in hawaii or something right remember that

SPEAKER_200: yeah and then which they were blessed okay yeah i think we need to get the this weekend startups kawai

SPEAKER_893: house up and running no i just mean blessed like i wasn't involved in that i was in hawaii i was the ceo but you know no wonder i was trying to boot you leader of the free worlds band and i didn't have

David Friedberg: anything to do with it okay but i mean listen i think that was like i understand i also do appreciate

SPEAKER_12: it's been crazy time a neutral third party or trying to have a neutral board do it like zuck did right like this idea of the what do they call that yeah the advisory board the advisory board whatever that

SPEAKER_272: advisory boards i thought that was actually kind of had some merit and he was kind of not a terrible

SPEAKER_05: idea he paid you know there were like too many disincentives for them but yes i agree like yeah

SPEAKER_56: figure out paid by zuck yeah i mean they were paid by i know somebody who turned down one of those offers because she was like there is no universe in which that's independent like that's not at all

Jason Calacanis: i mean our super well-respected lawyer like they were really courting her hard and trying to get her on that board and she was like that is not

SPEAKER_200: uh which is probably why the which is probably why their eventual handicapping of the situation with specifically regards to trump was like you guys should make a better decision and was like

SPEAKER_905: what the right it was just like this potato is really hot you take it i don't want it i don't

SPEAKER_908: like this potato paid you to break open the potato put some sour cream in there mix it up and make

SPEAKER_56: it taste better i would love like i don't know if you've been watching you sean wong's tweets about

SPEAKER_05: this he is was formerly the ceo of reddit yeah bring you sean on everybody in the nodi gang plus he's doing climate tech now which is awesome but like there is no other there's nothing harder to moderate than reddit yeah and they right and he was like people and it's been very i think measured because he's like you think this is gonna happen and then this happens and it's just is really a very

SPEAKER_14: measured look at how moderation gets out of hand all right for next wednesday show here's what i want uh give me the top seven producers and nodies can help by emailing producers at this thing serves

SPEAKER_205: the top seven actual real world banning censoring however you want to phrase it but let's call it moderation actions that have occurred on twitter or facebook fair enough that we're like controversially

Jason Calacanis: mean they're like notable hardest notable changes change yeah yeah totally like the ones that are

SPEAKER_436: challenging the most controversial the hardest the biggest all of those apply it's seven so some of them

SPEAKER_205: could be the biggest trump comes to mind some of them could be the most controversial new york post comes to mind i don't know what the other ones are alex jones yeah let's just get seven of them and let's walk through seven minutes each how you would frame that how molly would think about

SPEAKER_851: how jacow would think about it i'm talking myself in the third person because i had to holyos that's way above my limit i just gotta drive and pick up my kids for school i'll be all right

SPEAKER_438: pop no jacow don't do that i think this would be like a better way to do this i'm tired of the

SPEAKER_205: emotional back and forth i want facts i want specific cases judge molly judge jacow we're just going to go through and give our verdicts and then we can do it uh like the supreme court you give your statement i give my statement i give my verdict you have your verdict and then we have a vote maybe

SPEAKER_436: you share we'll play along and then we'll have three votes and we'll just see if we hit two out of three three out of three maybe this isn't as complicated as people are making it after i think

SPEAKER_152: it might be but i'm also game to try let's try let's do specific why not all right are we done with this show because smart i think we are i think uh we've given everybody a two and a half hour

SPEAKER_572: episode um sorry i love it a little don julio time i mean the second one hits different it really does

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