SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God, so much to talk about. Let's go.

Jason Calacanis: This show is so great. Okay, first up, we have a tale of two companies big time a tale of two pandemic darlings with two very

SPEAKER_02: different quarterly outcomes.

David Friedberg: Peloton is basically on the precipice of Yeah, just being incinerated. And then snowflake is firing on all cylinders. Our

SPEAKER_05: guy Slootman. It's just an absolute beast. Yeah, he's the

SPEAKER_09: flamethrower right now a beast. He's like the Hulk of sass.

SPEAKER_12: Hulk smash. That's his new nickname. Really? I want a t shirt with Slootman as the Hulk. I think I might buy my J trade some snow.

SPEAKER_15: Oh, it's amazing. I don't think that's a terrible idea. But

Jason Calacanis: don't trade on emotion. Take a deep breath. My best trades count to 10. Then we're gonna have Lon and speaking of more drama, we got our guy Lon Harris back on the show for this weekend streaming. And there's a lot to talk about there too.

SPEAKER_17: Yes, House of Dragon is out and it's set a massive record.

SPEAKER_20: Additionally, we play stump Lon Harris where Molly and I tell him our favorite shows because we're both into the sci fi fantasy kind of thing. He tells us what to what to watch next. And

SPEAKER_21: Molly and I are cues. Run it over stick with us. It's gonna be a great show. This week in startups is brought to you by Odoo is a

SPEAKER_22: fully customizable and fully integrated suite of business apps that lets you build and scale your stack as you build and scale your business. Your first app is free forever. And right now Odoo is offering $1,000 off your first implementation pack at odoo.com slash twist. That's odoo.com slash twist. 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.com slash twist to get 20% off your first six months and lemon.io need to speed up your product development without draining your budget. Hire vetted engineers from Europe at lemon.io go to lemon.io slash twist to get 15% off for the

SPEAKER_25: first four weeks. Alright, Molly, it's Thursday. That means we'll have this week in streaming with our friend Lon Harris, he gets so many great suggestions we're gonna talk about the dragons HBO generals as love or as I call him General Zod, like from super Superman fans to the best Superman film best

SPEAKER_27: metaphor like that is perfect and all I will ever see in my head

SPEAKER_30: video. But I think I love that Neil before thought. But we've

SPEAKER_32: been wondering what's gonna happen. Yeah, with Pally pal my

SPEAKER_05: Pally pal, not Pellegrino. Peloton. Yeah, I love my Peloton. I

SPEAKER_36: would like to invest in that company, but I never have what's happened. It's looking grim. Well, kiddo, you're not gonna

Jason Calacanis: know. Let me tell you Peloton reported earnings for its fiscal q4. The results were not good stock was down over 20% on Thursday right after the earnings report Pelotons market cap is now $3.7 billion. Here are some notable numbers q4 cash $1.2 billion q for inventories $1.1 billion, meaning that Peloton is currently sitting on one point over a billion dollars worth of unsold inventory. And I'm just gonna say, I know that when you're running out of money, you raise prices, that seems reasonable. But like I would have helped him out with that inventory problem. And then boom, price range. And I'm like, I can't do it. Come on, you're killing me q for accounts payable $797 million q for revenue $679 million. That was down 28% year over year and down 30% quarter over quarter q for subscription revenue $383 million. That's 56% of its total that at least is up 4% quarter

SPEAKER_43: over quarter and up 30% 10%. Yeah, so they raise the price of

Jason Calacanis: 10%. I mean, I think this is where like roll up that inventory and make it a subscription to do it tomorrow. Yeah, I know it doesn't bring in cash fast enough. Maybe I don't really

SPEAKER_31: know. q for paid subscribers about 3 million up 27% 27% year over year though. Yeah. So the first thing I'm more

SPEAKER_48: subscribing. Yeah, people are subscribing, which is great. That means they're buying their own hardware as well. And subscribe.

Jason Calacanis: I guess so. Or maybe resubscribing, you know, like maybe they I don't know, let it go. It's interesting, though. CEO Barry McCarthy is is in the words of producer neck fighting for his life here. He told the story in his letter to shareholders. He wrote quote, in high school, I spent three summer months working on a cargo ship. After midnight on my second voyage, I was asleep when the alarm for general quarters woke me. My reporting station was on the bridge. Fear is a great motivator. I dressed while I ran. The 720 foot ship was doing 27 knots and the helm was hard Ali. This is a shareholder letter, by the way.

SPEAKER_18: Is this from Masayoshi-san or is this from Peloton? Right? Like you're holy shit. Can you can you pull up

SPEAKER_55: Where's this story going? I mean, do they wind up in the do they wind up in the water with 1000 sharks?

Jason Calacanis: Stay with me. The ship was healing sharply to starboard and the steel hull was shuttering. The captain was trying to turn the ship around. But a ship that big going that fast takes miles and miles to change direction. We saved two men's lives that night. They'd been lost at sea in the Mediterranean for several days a fortunate happy ending Peloton is like that cargo ship. We've sounded the alarm for general quarters. Everyone's at their station. We continue to add new inputs to evolve our go to

SPEAKER_45: market strategy to restore growth. When will the ship respond is the question. Our goal is fiscal year 2023.

SPEAKER_58: In a time when men control the open seas. I mean, this sounds

SPEAKER_09: like an action film at a time when people couldn't leave their homes and go to the gym. One hero created a bike with an iPad.

SPEAKER_64: They are. We didn't see that iceberg coming. Nor did we see the end of the pandemic. We didn't see it. I mean, Barry wasn't there then it's not Barry's the cleanup guy and he is

SPEAKER_21: like he's bad is this gonna get? Yeah. But I mean, I don't

SPEAKER_32: want to say this because it's gonna wind up being incredibly long bleep. But holy. Sorry for the long bleeps. But yeah, this is not good. They have. This is where remember I was thinking about buying the stock. I was gonna J trade this but then I was like maybe I should buy the bonds because the bonds are senior to the equity. So looking at this, you know, they're running out of cash fast. The inventory 1.1 billion in inventory. That's

SPEAKER_76: worth like 200 million. Discount that all the way down to 20%. Okay,

SPEAKER_77: so you got 200 million in inventory. Best case my estimation.

SPEAKER_20: They got accounts payable of 800 frickin million dollars. And they've only got 1.2 billion in cash. So if they were to pay down

SPEAKER_80: their accounts payable, they're sitting on 400 million in cash, but their free cash flow went negative 411 million in this

SPEAKER_81: quarter. Are they one quarter away from flipping the car? The boats gonna sink in a quarter or two? I mean, is that what this

SPEAKER_82: is saying? Where I feel like that's where they were the last time we talked about this and nothing was

Jason Calacanis: quarter away? Yeah, q4 net loss of $1.2 billion and q4 free cash flow negative $411 million.

David Friedberg: This is a disaster. I have to say like, this is not looking good. When we talk I've talked about this many times, having this is my third big war, you know, like I made it through World War One and World War Two of like, economic craziness, I don't want to have business like that.com and Great Recession. Okay, I don't know if this is Vietnam, the Korean War or World War Three that we're going through right now. In terms of the metaphor, sorry for the war metaphors. But it's, it's, you know, I'm a guy. And toxic masculinity, whatever. This is serious, like, in war, people die like boats sink. And this is a sinking boat like this is tragic.

SPEAKER_45: It's hard to Lee, if you will, in the words of Barry

SPEAKER_18: McCarthy. Yeah, I have to look up a Lee. I've never heard that phrase in my entire Lee, this guy dropping like maritime buzzwords

Jason Calacanis: on us. I mean, you really do hate to see it. And he was handed a bad hand, right? Like he or dealt a bad hand. This is a rough situation for him to have had to walk into. I don't know how you I'm I wonder why no one has acquired Peloton yet. But if not, this feels like the quarter to do it, except that maybe even they are like,

SPEAKER_101: you got to think they're talking to people, like, how do we get

David Friedberg: out of this? The easiest thing to get out of this mess, would be for somebody to buy the asset and, you know, put it into a stronger, you know, and they could probably get the asset, you know, for close to free, and you get 3 million subscribers,

SPEAKER_31: pretty great. This thing is you have subscribers, the brand has a ton of value, like, where's Amazon here? You know, well, you know,

David Friedberg: with this Lena Khan, you know, anti conglomerate thing, I think you

SPEAKER_25: take a lot of the big, and I'm not saying I'm against that, you're taking a lot of the big acquirers out of the mix. So, you know, Google, Apple, Amazon, or like, if we're gonna go to bat on buying something, maybe we shouldn't go to bat on Peloton. And this is where like, hack, I think they said that, you know, the general rubric here is companies with over $500 billion market caps, or like monopoly positions are the ones who are going to be the most stringent. So who does that leave? Okay, the $100, $200 billion, it's not a lot of people

SPEAKER_15: there. This is a challenge.

Jason Calacanis: They did just enter into an e commerce partnership to sell on Pelotons on Amazon.

SPEAKER_15: Well, duh, that's where the consumers are, right? Exactly.

David Friedberg: I mean, the idea that you could avoid Amazon, in today's day and age as a retailer, like this is a fantasy. Yeah, that people who were, you know, had tons of venture money, you know, kind of believe they could go direct and, you know, capture all that margin. And then it turns out, you know, sometimes you need distribution. So I like magic spoon, we had them on the pod, you know, that protein cereal, magic spoon is on Amazon. So you don't have to buy a subscription. They mean, it's a hell of a lot. I think it's 15 $16 a box. And then I noticed they have a competitor now. So this is what happens. Like you get forced to go on Amazon where the prime customers are. Yeah, but then what you'll see on magic spoon, if you look at related products, and so you know, I wanted to buy magic spoon, but I don't like opening another account and dealing with that. But then I saw them here. I was like, Oh, maybe I'll order some. And then when I looked at related products, you know, that people buy ads, you'll see in the is it related products or people search for this search for that

SPEAKER_122: people also buy if you scroll down even further, or if you just

SPEAKER_20: go here, look, right next to the second one, look at the second one up there, click on the one next to match protein and

SPEAKER_124: gluten free breakfast cereal by blah, blah, blah. So I don't

SPEAKER_20: know who this is, right wishes is now got a knockoff you get six

SPEAKER_25: boxes for the price of the other one. Look at the price per. What is the price per ounce on this? I can't read it a dollar

SPEAKER_126: 89 cents.

SPEAKER_25: They grab the entire branding. So anyway, now Nick, take a look at the cost per for the other one for magic spoon.

Jason Calacanis: A dollar to looks like we're depending on that. It's a you

SPEAKER_108: know, obviously varies by size, but that's that's what you're

SPEAKER_15: dealing with, right? None of it's 89 cents. Exactly. What is

Jason Calacanis: there? Would there have been a B2B play for Peloton? Like, could

SPEAKER_130: they have made a deal with Equinox? Like just by

SPEAKER_12: talked about that, right? Like what a great merger? Well, no,

SPEAKER_25: it's what I think I you know, we have like one of those, we talked about hotels, talked about hotels, there was, we have like a communal, you know, gym at the resort where I have a ski house, and they have two Pelotons there. And I was like, Oh, maybe I'll jump on a bike. I've never done it. I do the treadmill. And it was like, Oh, you have to log in and type your login in. And I was like, and I was like, why don't they have the QR code here? I was about to do it. But I got into the weights. But I think this would be the move. If I had a bunch of cash or a private equity, this is a free private equity play, go by

SPEAKER_32: tonal hydro and peloton. And then go find gyms that are going out of business or maybe a gym like 24 hour fitness, and put

SPEAKER_25: these assets together. Come up with a brand name. Peloton seems like the best one to use. So make it the Peloton hydro make it the

David Friedberg: Peloton tonal. And then just make it 24 hours a day. You come in anytime you want like 24 hour fitness. And these could be like a different footprint size, you know, and you could put them into apartment buildings or flow, whatever you want, colleges, and you get access to all this equipment. If you have a membership, and the membership allows you to go to any of those anywhere they are, it would be brilliant. Mm hmm. Be brilliant. That's like, recording everything is so much. It's such a game changer when you record all your workouts, and you can see them in one interface. So right now, at Apple health, lets me sync my Peloton workouts and my tonal workouts, my fit bod workouts. And then like, if I do an outdoor, you know, have an outdoor bike ride or walk, you know, that's built into Apple. So I kind of see everything in one place is kind of nice that they

SPEAKER_25: can import the Peloton stuff. So this is why Apple could have a series of gyms, or Amazon could have a series of gyms, like they're going into healthcare, and it's about prevention now. So if you put it under the health rubric, my Lord, what a great, imagine if they because Amazon's doing retail, imagine if Amazon, what do they call their quick service or their top

SPEAKER_139: stores, like with the top 100 items, maybe a five star or

SPEAKER_15: four star Amazon something like that. Yeah, those stores are awesome. Those stores are like, irresistible. Make that into a

Jason Calacanis: gym or or give the Apple branding, you know, Apple and Peloton is such a like natural sort of feeling brands tie up. But it's also super far afield for them. Like, yeah, they sell premium hardware, and they're good at making and selling premium hardware. But it feels like a stretch for Apple to like it's hard, you're right with with Amazon somewhat off the table. Because of antitrust, it's hard to think who would rescue them at this point, unless it's like Walmart, or, you know, we looked at hotel chains, and they all have like the same market gap as Peloton, they don't even have enough anymore. I'm gonna say this is

SPEAKER_12: crazy. Like, here's a crazy idea for you. Yeah, Amazon buys a mall. Amazon buys a strip mall, whatever. Amazon buys a mall,

SPEAKER_25: all you got your Amazon four star. You got an Amazon books, you got an Amazon go the quick serve, you got the Amazon fresh, you got a Whole Foods, and you have a Peloton store. Yeah. How great would that mall be? Or a strip mall? They should just do this as

David Friedberg: a pilot find a great strip mall in San Diego. You know, the Bay Area or Los Angeles, they're all over the place that you know, these strip malls, we have like, yeah, 100%. And they're all like 40 parking spots and five stores. And it's like a framing store and a dry cleaner. Buy one of those, you know, a

SPEAKER_150: two story one and put in four Amazon stores, it'd become a sick destination. I mean, honestly, I buy everything there. I'm so sad to say it, but I would.

David Friedberg: I mean, you know, this is the thing as consumers, you want convenience. And you want really great products. And Amazon is the most convenient of any product ever made for humans. Oh, aside from like, maybe Uber and them. Yeah, like those are the two most convenient.

SPEAKER_15: The chat has a funny idea, which is that flow could add Peloton to its houses.

SPEAKER_157: Rivka, let's go get on the let's do the tonal and then we do a shot and then we do Peloton. Okay, Rivka. Good stuff. Okay, we put the 1492 in the water cooler. Everybody loves the gym now.

SPEAKER_160: Genius. You want to go to the gym and do a shot? Let's go shots in the gym. Drunk Peloton class. Let's go flow.

SPEAKER_162: I just I'm here to make Molly laugh.

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Jason Calacanis: favorite generals, not Zod, the other one Slootman. This is a tale of two earnings reports that we have today. So if Peloton is almost is is kissing right up to default dead. Another pandemic pandemic darling is booming. After let me guess. Let me guess

SPEAKER_169: revenue up. Great growth company 20 to 30%. I don't know I don't

SPEAKER_171: know the answer here. But if it's general Slootman, my guy.

SPEAKER_166: Hmm. Slootman Zaslav. Yeah, I'm gonna guess Slootman is double is

SPEAKER_173: double high growth over quarter instead of 20 year over year instead of 20 to 30%. I think he's 40 to 60.

SPEAKER_131: This is Snowflake by the way that we're talking about cloud services provider Snowflake just for those of you at home who might be trying to keep up. What did he do?

SPEAKER_178: Q2 revenue 497 million dollars up 83% year over year. What? What?

SPEAKER_181: 80. What is that? That's good numbers for a series A company. Year over year.

SPEAKER_185: 18% crack or fentanyl.

SPEAKER_187: When you buy Snowflake do they give you fentanyl pills with it? Why is this thing so addicting to people?

SPEAKER_27: I mean, I don't know. I don't even 1 million% understand what they do, except for print money.

Jason Calacanis: Evidently, net revenue retention rate of 171%. So Snowflake grew revenue 71% from the customers

SPEAKER_131: it already had it was like, Hey, guys, you want to give us some more money? And they did.

SPEAKER_192: This guy's got more net retention than El Chapo.

SPEAKER_193: I mean, we need to send him a t shirt that says that more net retention than El Chapo. This guy is I mean,

SPEAKER_15: Oh, my God, it's incredible. Franks Lumen only the government can print money. The rest of us have to take it from somebody else.

SPEAKER_124: He wrote and amp it up. Thank you, producer Rachel. He's such a gangster.

SPEAKER_198: You know what? I'm making my own legion. I'm making my legion of

David Friedberg: super villain CEOs, like the almost hardcore. Mm hmm. And it's General Zod.

SPEAKER_25: Zaslav. I got Slootman. We're gonna have to do our hardcore CEO draft.

SPEAKER_201: You got we definitely are because I'm not sold on side yet. We'll see if he actually if this works.

SPEAKER_18: Okay, and then you put Adam Neumann in there.

SPEAKER_27: These are some hardcore people.

Jason Calacanis: Some hardcore supervillain CEOs jobs in there Bill Gates. I feel like Frank Slootman somewhere right now is like, excuse me, but I do not deserve this Adam Neumann pairing.

SPEAKER_198: Newman's got his own super. He's like the Lumen's like the Riddler. I mean, Slootman's Lex Luthor.

Jason Calacanis: Yeah, he definitely is product gross profit. This is a fun one. $334.7 million up 93% year over year.

SPEAKER_52: Okay, gross profit up 93%.

SPEAKER_20: So he grew the top line 83% and then he grew the bottom line an extra 10% on that.

SPEAKER_205: Mm hmm.

SPEAKER_20: I mean, so he basically told everybody I want to double revenue. But I want you to do it more profitably. Usually when you try to hit big numbers, you got to invest and spend money. Guy's a murderer. Yeah. I mean,

SPEAKER_02: full on. They did have interestingly a q2 net loss of $223 million. They did.

David Friedberg: Oh, you know what? This might be also like either investment losses or stock based comp, you know? Yeah, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_129: Probably a little stock based comp in there.

Jason Calacanis: Snowflake trades at the largest price to sales multiple of any public SaaS company.

SPEAKER_212: 29x.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_110: Well, you got the Slootman factor. I mean, this is like the Slootman factor is at work here. He sluted it. He sluted it.

SPEAKER_25: He sluted the whole company. I mean, this is what he did. He came in. He said, show me your. I want to meet every salesperson and I want to see your number. And then they brought him the numbers and they said, here's your number. Here's your new number. Double.

David Friedberg: And they said, okay, well, what's the other option? He said, there's the option. And he pointed to the door. That's it. You double your revenue or there's the door. I'll find somebody who can. And you know what? Crazy goal. I bet you that's the goal he said. I want double. Yeah. Or you can pick door number two, which by the way is door number one. So door number one is you double your book of business. Door number two is there's the door.

SPEAKER_221: I'm sorry to bleep it out. There's another bleep for your agent.

SPEAKER_222: That's it.

SPEAKER_221: Fired up. He sluted them.

SPEAKER_222: He sluted the sales team.

SPEAKER_224: Yeah. Salute the Slootman. You will see the Slootman.

Jason Calacanis: Earnings call. He said, Snowflake's next frontier of innovation is aimed at transforming how cloud applications are built, deployed, sold and transacted.

SPEAKER_15: And then he went on to say in the scariest threat to anybody else in this business you've ever heard in your entire life.

SPEAKER_02: We look forward to executing against this growth opportunity.

SPEAKER_228: Did he just describe AWS or GitHub? I mean, I think he just described cloud computing. I think he just described all sats.

Jason Calacanis: I think Salesforce, by the way, had like a down quarter. I think they like everybody. Slootman is coming for everybody. He's like, Oh, are you an awesome database? Are you cloud services? Are you the way that cloud services, cloud applications are built, deployed, sold and transacted?

SPEAKER_45: That would mean an app store. Well, no, it's an app.

SPEAKER_32: It's a business to business app store, which by the way, Salesforce has an app store. It does incredibly well. We have a couple of startups that sell in the Salesforce app store. So you have Salesforce as your CRM, but then you plug in other things you need in your company, right? Yep. This to me feels like he's going after that maybe.

SPEAKER_15: Well, let me say Salesforce reported earnings today and it was like, yeah, they trimmed full your expectations for earnings and revenue

SPEAKER_158: because they're getting sluted.

SPEAKER_243: Dude, is that tower coming down and a snowflakes going up in downtown San Francisco?

SPEAKER_81: No, man. He's like Dr. Freeze. He's going to come in there and he's going to just like manifest the first snowstorm in San Francisco history. He's going to come in here like global warming.

SPEAKER_247: There's a blizzard. He puts a blizzard on the Salesforce tower.

SPEAKER_248: This is like, this is like the action movie of earnings reports.

SPEAKER_25: I mean, can you imagine we're in this like greatest financial turmoil since 2008. It's 15 years after that.

SPEAKER_32: And then Slootman's like, you know what? I'm just going to put up numbers. You guys can all cry in your coffee. You want to do a riff? Okay, riff. You guys can cry in your coffee. Reset expectations. You know what we're going to do? We're going to beat expectations.

SPEAKER_251: Yeah.

SPEAKER_32: This is what I like.

SPEAKER_253: I don't care what the conditions are out there. Let's play the game on the field. Get it done. Get it done.

SPEAKER_02: We look forward. Don't you have a chill? We look forward to executing against this growth opportunity. Ooh.

SPEAKER_255: Peloton is like, people are jumping out the window.

David Friedberg: And then people at Snowflake are like literally taking the beach. You know, like they're just literally taking, invading other markets.

SPEAKER_257: Yeah.

SPEAKER_149: Just mountains of cash. Crazy growth. They're Panshees. All right.

SPEAKER_258: Now they've got TV, action movies. Sorry.

Jason Calacanis: And I'm so excited. I wish I was a shareholder. Exciting drama on the brain. It's time to toss to Lon Harris. We got J-Trade here. Our man, the Lonster, here to talk.

SPEAKER_38: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up. Not yet. Not yet. The glasses are coming on.

SPEAKER_263: Sorry. I got to open my Robin Hood app. The glasses are coming on.

SPEAKER_265: Put a bet on Slootman before the Fed makes a decision.

SPEAKER_149: God almighty. This just shows you great companies can be built in down markets. This guy's going to take over the world with this company.

SPEAKER_271: What if he starts buying other companies?

SPEAKER_272: I don't know, man. He can do anything.

SPEAKER_271: Here's Lon.

SPEAKER_21: All right, everybody. On the phone today is OpenPhones founder, Darina Kouya. Welcome to the program, Darina. Thanks, Jason.

SPEAKER_276: Great to be here. Now, what mistakes do most founders make with phone numbers in their startups?

SPEAKER_277: Great question. First one is they use their personal phone number for their business.

SPEAKER_278: And it's an easy mistake to make because you don't necessarily think about it much. You know, you incorporate your company, you put your phone number, there's all these forms you fill out. It very quickly goes from being your personal number to being the number for the company. And when that happens, there are all these data aggregators and all kinds of services that take your number and put it everywhere.

SPEAKER_280: Yeah.

SPEAKER_278: Suddenly now there is this uptick in spam text messages.

SPEAKER_280: It's the worst.

SPEAKER_278: Yeah. And people just wonder like, how are others getting my number? Well, let me tell you, you put it in different places and it kind of snowballed from there. So that's the first mistake. The second, which is initially as a founder, you're the salesperson, you're the only sales sales rep. And then you hire a first sales rep. And sometimes founders let that person use their personal phone number. Oh, no, that number, the data, everything that happens is just fully belongs to the sales rep.

SPEAKER_173: And if that person leaves, you lose the entire history with your customers. Yeah. And then what if that sales executive goes to a competitor?

SPEAKER_81: Exactly. Yep. Okay, everybody. Twist listeners can get 20% off any plan for their first six months at open phone. Just go to open phone.com slash twist. If you've got an existing number, they'll put it right over for free. Head to O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E dot com slash twist today for 20% off.

SPEAKER_288: Hey, everybody.

SPEAKER_25: Welcome to the highlight of the week for all this weekend startups listeners and Molly and myself. The amazing Lon Harris is here. He's at Lon's on the Twitter, twitter.com L-O-N-S.

SPEAKER_166: If you would like a great mixture of a classic coastal elite and a huge nerd who understands

SPEAKER_81: everything about film, this is the Twitter handle you've been waiting for.

SPEAKER_291: Does this look like the home of a coastal elite to you?

SPEAKER_81: It's a little bit of a joke. It's a little bit of a joke. This is not the coastal elite. I do like that you put some, I mean, what's going on with these pictures on the wall? You punched up your background.

SPEAKER_295: Oh, I put some art. Yeah. Well, these were all over my apartment, but now that I'm on zoom so often, I was like, I need a, I need a permanent sort of backdrop.

SPEAKER_80: And did my sheets ever come? Did they get you the sheets or no? I never, we never did the sheet.

SPEAKER_300: We did not do the sheets. Damn it. The nodies ask about those. Just that's it. I'm going fresh every week.

SPEAKER_301: It was, it was a research thing. I was supposed to look into what are the good. I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_32: I said, it's enough. It's enough. Fresh. I want you to send two sets of sheets, one brand, the number two brand up to a thousand dollars in sheets.

SPEAKER_36: But I want a duvet or something very nice. So when I'm talking to Lon on Thursdays, I got a nice view here. Okay. That's it.

SPEAKER_305: Fair enough. I believe this is a queen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_36: Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_32: All hail the queen. Uh, speaking of the queen, uh, house of dragons came out and all of us have PTSD. Yeah. What did you think?

SPEAKER_311: I liked it. I enjoyed it. I, it's enough to keep me coming back for more. Uh, and it does feel like they made it feel like more game of throw. Like it feels like a continuation of the original series enough that I feel like people are going to get back on board. And I think a lot of people almost wanted an excuse. Like they wanted to get back into game of thrones, but it ended on this kind of sour note. And they were just looking for, give me an excuse to get back into this. Give me something to hold on to. And I think it's good enough for that.

SPEAKER_313: So it's the rogue one. It's the rogue one of the star Wars universe and pull people back in after.

SPEAKER_311: I do feel like the scale, I was saying this tomorrow before we went live. I feel like the scale is a lot smaller in a weird way. Now, like we went from, this is a show about the politics of this whole world and all the different players and all the different houses. And this one feels a lot more like a personal story about a few of these characters. And I'm not sure how that's going to play over the course of multiple seasons. But for now, it feels like it's going to let them focus on, on a few characters and let them grow this sort of main storyline out more, which I like. Right.

David Friedberg: How did it do Molly? Um, like, do we have any metrics yet on how this did?

SPEAKER_15: The largest premiere in HBO's history, drawing almost 10 million viewers. There is some pent up demand for game of Thrones content. It appears. Really? Yeah. The largest

SPEAKER_317: platforms. If you add up, if you add up TV, HBO online and HBO max, almost 10 million viewers,

SPEAKER_311: which is the most for any first weekend of an HBO show.

SPEAKER_321: Yeah. Ever. That's a shh. Wait, 10 million people watched it? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_295: In like the first, like, I think four days, something like that. But they say, I mean, Game of Thrones, it's front loaded. So almost like 40% of your views come in on Sunday for Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_324: So it's appointment, would you say? Right.

SPEAKER_295: Yes.

SPEAKER_325: But, but 10 million is very good for, for an HBO show. And, uh, obviously they're, they, they sounded pleased.

Jason Calacanis: People liked it. They got an 83% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, uh, from 400 plus reviews. George RR Martin said to your point about the kind of smaller world that Game of Thrones was high fantasy and House of the Dragon is meant to be more of a Shakespearean tragedy. I thought that the responses were, I was surprised to see that 83% fresh, um, rating. Cause I thought the responses were kind of all over the place. I personally, like, I don't want to watch anymore. I mean, you all know me to have low emotional bandwidth and I don't like, you know, I don't like these shows were like, but certainly like, I just don't want to see a show where like a lady gets carved up, but I'm supposed to feel fine about ladies in this world because one gets to be the queen. Like, well, it's just yucky that, that very violent get worse.

SPEAKER_322: Yeah.

SPEAKER_295: That very, there's a very violent and disturbing birth surgery, sort of forced birth sequence in this, that a lot of, of, uh, people found sort of objectionable.

SPEAKER_311: It is very difficult to watch. I think they, the creators almost compounded the problem because in advance of this show, they made a whole big thing about, we're not going to do as much violence against women. And that was such a big game of Thrones thing. And it's not going to be what drives the plot this time. And this is a lot less of that kind of stuff. And it's more, and then the, the pilot, the very first episode.

SPEAKER_295: Is the red wedding part two. Really gruesome scene of violence against just a woman. Not, it's not like a.

SPEAKER_20: In the most vulnerable and, you know, feminine peak of, you know, making a baby. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_338: Like, I literally felt like it was an F you to all of that. Like, I was just like, oh, okay. That's interesting. Thanks for that.

SPEAKER_340: And I feel like if you had approached it in the, almost the exact 180 opposite way,

SPEAKER_311: if you had warned people, look, the inciting incident in this is extremely troubling, but we're trying, we're going to get away as the season progresses. We're going to get, whatever. If you didn't deny what you were doing. And so then it feels like you're jerking the rug out from under people. I think your reactions are going to be better. Well, and they also potted.

SPEAKER_344: Or just don't, it doesn't need to be so disturbing and visual. It really did not.

SPEAKER_346: You did not have to do that on screen. You could just show her die.

SPEAKER_253: You could just show it with a towel over, a sheet over her. Or the face or the, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_311: The actor playing the king, Patty Constantine, is an amazing actor. You could show him reacting. He's reacting. Yeah. And he would sell you on the gruesome horribleness of what's happening. And if she's about to, spoilers, the woman is about to die anyway. What matters in terms of the ongoing show is how this affects him. So why would you show just an objective bird's eye view of the horror instead of the face of

SPEAKER_351: the character reacting to it? And it also gets you out of having to show all of the blood.

SPEAKER_335: Well, and this wasn't the only like hyper violent aspect of the show. The golden guard goes out. Yes.

SPEAKER_32: And decides we're going to round up every criminal and judge dread them. You're guilty. Here's your punishment. We're going to castrate you or chop off a limb. Seemed to be the top two things. Yeah. And there were so many, they had to cart them off in a cart.

SPEAKER_358: In wheel barrels.

SPEAKER_32: And wheel barrels of appendages.

Jason Calacanis: People were just like, yay, Game of Thrones is back. And I was like, oh yeah, I remember why. So I did put in our faces. The first season of the first Game of Thrones. And then I read all the books. And then I was like, I'm not watching that.

SPEAKER_365: Because I knew what was coming. You knew the Red Wedding was coming. Yeah.

Jason Calacanis: I was like, nope, nope, nope. And then when they got past the point where there was book material and started inventing new material, then I started to read the recaps. Because I still was like, I don't think I want to watch it, but I'll read the recaps. And then I watched like the last half of the last season. But watching this first premiere did make me remember why.

SPEAKER_31: Like, I don't, that's not fun for me.

David Friedberg: Well, does it read less disturbing when you read about the Red Wedding? Was it less disturbing than seeing that episode? I guess.

SPEAKER_371: I never watched that episode. I just read the recap. I was like, hell no, I'm not watching that.

SPEAKER_374: And then they made it even worse.

SPEAKER_311: I think just the fact that you're reading it on the page is, it's not as visceral. Like it's still upsetting and disturbing and gross, but there's something about seeing it visually that massively compounds that. And they do. Well, that's right. I've read some of the books too. Uh, they do tend to up the graphic nature of the vibe. Martin might say, and he slashed him with his sword, splitting Sir Robert in two.

SPEAKER_295: But that's not that graphic. Whereas when you see it and there's guts filling out. And sound and. Yeah. And the sound.

SPEAKER_145: Remember the guy who wanted to flay everybody? Like there was one group of people in the original Game of Thrones who were into flaying, which was like cutting the skin off. Sure.

SPEAKER_383: I was like, dude. That's their sigil. I'm like, what is the flayed man? They're the flayed man. That's the Bolton house sigil.

SPEAKER_322: Yeah. I mean, literally I was like. A sigil is their signature. They're symbol. Like how the Starks are wolves. And the Targaryens are dragons. The picture on the flag. I mean. Or a man being hung with his skin flayed off.

SPEAKER_05: If that's your. Insignia for your house. You're a pretty sick group of individuals. Yeah. The Boltons are messed up. That was Bruce and Ramsey.

SPEAKER_325: It's pretty messed. All right.

SPEAKER_334: So let me ask this. So I just want to make it clear that I don't want to watch that show. For our. No, no. I'm just glad that it's back.

SPEAKER_396: Because now I get to tap all of this knowledge. I'm sitting here knowing who Bruce and Ramsey Bolton are. And getting nothing out of it. Nice work.

SPEAKER_398: So. This house of the dragons.

SPEAKER_25: Must be making Zaslav. General Zaslav.

SPEAKER_81: I refer to him as general because he is my Zod. Always my favorite villain was Zod. Kneel before Zod. And now the HBO. Employees must. Kneel before general Zaslav. And explain themselves. Where is the next house of the dragon? What's next? How does this impact the streaming wars? Do you think?

SPEAKER_402: Like.

SPEAKER_403: This is a big. This is the biggest bet they've ever made. And it's. Uh. I mean, it's up there. It's up there.

SPEAKER_311: The great news for HBO is they already have a bunch of other.

SPEAKER_295: Spinoffs in active development. So this is like a continue. You're on the right track. Green light. A few more of these. Okay.

SPEAKER_408: This is their Marvel. This is their Star Wars. This is the Lord of the Rings. Valerian.

SPEAKER_295: Who played. Played by actor Steve Toussaint. He was the. He's the. The black guy with the. The dreadlocks. Who was in house of the dragon.

SPEAKER_311: He's on the king's council.

SPEAKER_295: He's playing.

SPEAKER_311: A character named Valerian. They already have a spinoff. In development. About. Him before the action of this show. He was a. Pirate. He was like. So the sea snake is what they called him. So it's about his naval adventures would be another show. There's the adventures of Duncan egg. Which is about a knight and his squire around this time. There's a. There's the guy like. There's Princess Nymeria. Which is like. An ancient myth in the Game of Thrones world. They could go back and make. So. It's great news for them. Because they were already working on this. As if it was their big Marvel Star Wars type franchise. And now this is a big. Green light. Like yes. People are into it. Keep going. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_412: All I care about is the Starks. Like.

SPEAKER_311: Aria Stark. Is the. There. Well. The big. The big. The biggest spinoff they have currently in the works. Is they announced Kit Harington is signed on to come back. As Jon Snow. So. We're going to get a sequel series about. Whatever. You know. Remember. Game of Thrones ended with Jon Snow abdicating the throne. He goes back north of the wall. To go live. Presumably with the wildlings. So.

SPEAKER_415: All I care about is Sansa and Aura. Is Sansa dead?

SPEAKER_417: No. Sansa is the queen of the north. Yeah. So Sansa is running winter belt this time. Aria.

SPEAKER_418: Played by Maisie. My pal Maisie. We don't know. She's like. Adventuring. Yeah.

SPEAKER_301: She's like a. She's like a faceless man.

SPEAKER_419: Assassining. Mercenary assassin. That's all I care about. Make me the Aura Stark.

David Friedberg: Aura. Is it Aria? Aria Stark. Well, I want Aria Stark with a little Sansa on the side. That's all I care about.

SPEAKER_311: This Jon Snow show. They're playing it very cagey right now. But it would be. Obviously, he's not going to stay north of the wall the whole frigging time. That would be boring. I mean.

SPEAKER_243: I don't mean to bait and trigger you guys. But like, of course, the guy got a show. Like, we only care about Aria Stark.

SPEAKER_426: Of course. Jon Snow is so boring. All he does.

SPEAKER_20: Well, Obi-Wan was about Princess Leia. I mean, this is. Whenever you make it about one of the female characters. Do you see what happens?

SPEAKER_338: I think I canceled like Batgirl. No.

SPEAKER_429: Wow. Kneel before General Sazlop.

SPEAKER_344: I'm just spicy. I'm just spicy right now.

SPEAKER_311: You're a little spicy. Within the first episode or two, Jon's back south of the wall. He's back in Winterfell.

SPEAKER_322: He's reunited with at least Sansa. I feel like you'd be crazy not to bring. Kill him in the first season. I want him. I want him dead by the light.

SPEAKER_432: You'd be crazy not to bring surviving starts. And then just have it be about Sansa and Arya.

SPEAKER_343: And remember, Bran is in King's Landing.

SPEAKER_434: He's king.

SPEAKER_343: So, you know, you gotta bring them back into the mix at some point.

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SPEAKER_310: So Molly, what else is that?

Jason Calacanis: Zod's just going to be all in on Game of Thrones forever, right? It sounds like he's just kind of killing literally everything that's not that.

SPEAKER_131: He's pulling the golden cloaks right now for all of the other properties.

SPEAKER_322: Yeah. Well, at this point, I mean, I think the other thing that's pretty clear is he's very down on animation.

SPEAKER_311: He's not an animation guy. They've been really just routing the entire Cartoon Network Warner Brothers animation team. Even if you've survived, at this point, they're signaling to you, look, begin packing your bag.

SPEAKER_293: Why? I thought animation made money. Does animation not make money anymore? They must be seeing data that I'm not seeing because everybody else seems pretty bullish on that.

SPEAKER_311: Like a lot of other streamers are putting a lot of bets on animation. Sony's strategy is hugely centered around anime and animation. So I don't he must be looking at HBO Max numbers. I'm not seeing in like Disney animation views and Cartoon Network views are soft because these are all the shows he's cutting. He's cutting a lot of the team over there. And he's he's put the fear of God into every Cartoon Network creator that their shows are going to vaporize and disappear. We're out of that cage. Nobody wants to be, you know.

Chamath Palihapitiya: Let's lower the budgets and increase the production.

SPEAKER_311: Because he just they shut down Cape Crusader this week, which was a a follow up to Batman, the animated series and iconic beloved series. Bruce, Tim, the creator of the original Batman, was back and it was produced by Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams. And they just signed this week Matt Reeves to a long ongoing contract. They got him away from Netflix and signed him to WB Discovery. You're going to cancel a Batman animated series from like legendary creators.

SPEAKER_348: Even as you sign the Batman director to come. Like, it seems crazy.

Jason Calacanis: Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_348: I can't explain that one.

Jason Calacanis: He's postponing. And do we think this is for recuts or for marketing purposes to big budget DC superhero movies, including Aquaman 2 and Shazam 2.

SPEAKER_453: I am not too worried about Shazam 2, but I do want Aquaman 2 to come out.

SPEAKER_311: I mean, they'll both they'll both come out. There's a lot Aquaman 2 at this point. It's so hard to say because there's so many different conflicting story. There was the story Zazlav doesn't like the current cut. There's the Amber Heard question kind of hangs over that whole thing. There's also Shazam 2, Aquaman 2, and The Flash interact. There are segments in those movies that pay off in the other movie. So every time they move one around, they've got to adjust the other two. Like Michael Keaton pops up in some of these. There's multiverse stuff going on.

SPEAKER_416: Okay, so this is a Tetris that they're trying to fix.

SPEAKER_458: And every every time they pieces keep dropping.

SPEAKER_311: Every time they mix one of these movies up, it's ripple effect that is causing problems with the other movies.

SPEAKER_322: That's what happens when you with the multiverse. And you've got, you know, Aquaman 2's got the Amber Heard situation. Flash also has the Ezra Miller situation. Oh, right.

SPEAKER_25: So they have two soup two of their, you know, one of the top tier and one a second tier character.

SPEAKER_325: Are very troubled. Yeah, like there.

SPEAKER_36: What do you what do you do with a disaster like that, Molly? What's the right thing to do? Just separate the art from the individual?

Jason Calacanis: Or maybe I mean, I think probably do what you're he's doing, which is push them out until the news cycle moves on, right? Like, let people forget about it.

SPEAKER_201: Mm hmm.

SPEAKER_322: I mean, that's that's how similar delay they kept pushing the Ezra Miller decision back,

SPEAKER_311: push it back flat. And now they've come out and said, I'm going to go get help. I'm there. They're there. They've started the rehabilitation storyline. So hopefully by the time Flash is ready to come out, they've resuscitated their public image

SPEAKER_295: enough that we're all OK seeing an Ezra Miller movie. That's the that's the thinking.

SPEAKER_15: I'm not saying that would be my guess, too, is it's all like delay, delay, delay. And there will be another question.

SPEAKER_289: Is anybody not going to go see Aquaman because Aquaman 2 because Amber Heard's in it? Is anybody not going to see the flash because Ezra Miller was in it?

SPEAKER_19: Is am I crazy to think that it would have less than 10% impact right this second?

SPEAKER_39: You know, it might be a little bit of an impact, but I can't. What do you think, Lon?

SPEAKER_23: Is it a percentage less revenue tickets sold?

SPEAKER_20: Yeah, I'm taking a side like public outcry on Twitter or whatever. But in terms of brass tacks, I think that's what General Azad is about.

SPEAKER_311: I think it will matter. I think it does impact some people, but not maybe as many as you'd think from spending all day on social media. Like this is one of those Twitter is not reality. And like this may seem like the only thing that matters to people on social media in the real world. Even awareness of this story is going to be like surprisingly low, you know? Like, like a lot of people probably haven't even heard about Ezra Miller's run.

SPEAKER_471: I'm not up on that at all.

SPEAKER_322: Or even know the name Ezra Miller and associate it with the flash. So you always have to take all that stuff with a little bit of a grain of salt.

David Friedberg: Can I ask another stupid question? Don't these people have morality clauses when they're banking on them in this big way?

SPEAKER_20: Because if I remember correctly, like as but one example, Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. wasn't bankable. He wasn't bondable. I guess you couldn't get insurance from a film. And you know that to put all these clauses and listen, you better stay on the straight and narrow or else you don't get this part. And there were like significant financial repercussions if you if you screw up.

David Friedberg: Don't Amber Heard and Ezra Miller have those kind of clauses where it's like financially just brutal to them if they screw up.

SPEAKER_373: Yeah, I mean, we do those things.

SPEAKER_311: We saw this with Jackass forever. Bam Majera was in it and then he had a clause that he wasn't alive,

SPEAKER_295: that he had to take drug tests while they were making it. He failed the drug test. That's why he's not in in the movie. Interesting.

SPEAKER_311: So these these do still exist. The problem with both of these movies is they're already made.

SPEAKER_295: Like if you're a Warner Brothers, like, yeah, I guess they could sue. Maybe they could sue Ezra Miller. But at this point, we're not a movie. It's worth more as a movie than it is as a lawsuit. Right.

SPEAKER_417: Or like you want to release it as a movie.

Jason Calacanis: Get it out there. I'm speaking of movies and movies that we may or may not go to. Let's talk about the return of MoviePass, shall we?

SPEAKER_476: I love it. I love it.

Jason Calacanis: I love everything about this. For those of you who may have missed it, the MoviePass was the movie theater subscription service that everyone was like, wow, that makes no economic sense whatsoever. You could pay $10 a month and go and see as many movies as you want. And then not surprisingly, it shut down almost immediately back in 2018. But now MoviePass says a beta launch is coming on or around Labor Day weekend, including three pricing tiers that will, quote, generally be at $10, $20 or $30 a month and contain a certain number of credits for movies

SPEAKER_477: each month. Lon, are you long on this? Is this going to work?

SPEAKER_392: It's like TBD. We need a lot.

SPEAKER_311: We need a lot more info because the economics of MoviePass didn't work. Like it was people loved it. It was an amazing offer. Of course they did. It was not feasible economically. People were seeing way, way, way too many movies. Theaters were losing money on this deal. It was just not a good deal for anybody other than people who got to see a lot of free movies. It was a great deal for them. Did you do it?

SPEAKER_322: Yeah, I had MoviePass. Towards the end.

SPEAKER_301: I was one of the early people in because I was like, how could this possibly work? It seems like a scam.

SPEAKER_295: And then once I figured out, oh, no, it's just VCs are giving them money and then they're blowing it. Sure, I got on board eventually.

SPEAKER_484: How many movies did you see in your biggest month?

SPEAKER_311: I, you know, I, I was, I'm never that big of a theater, probably four. I mean, once a week at my most, but I knew people who were seeing 10, 12 movies a month,

SPEAKER_488: you know, going every night after work. It was so awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_20: Well, the thing was, you could also see movies that, this is the craziness, Molly. It was, I think it was 14 bucks a month.

David Friedberg: You could see movies anywhere. And if you saw a movie and it wasn't part of the MoviePass network, like, you would just send them the stub and they would pay you back in your account.

SPEAKER_348: It was the most bizarre system ever. And it was, it was getting people.

SPEAKER_311: I mean, I will say when it existed, it was amazing for just movie fandom in general, because people were, people would take a chance. They wouldn't go see anything because it was free. They were just like, I showed up at the theater and I just walked into this and it was amazing. And so the diversity and breadth of movies that were getting viewed in theaters skyrocketed overnight because of this offer, but it's not a feasible business model. So the new one, they're saying three different levels. And then you're basically entering like a raffle. Like you're, you're putting your name and do a hat or a hopper and they're picking whoever's first come first serve certain numbers of people get to see the movie. If you're, if you got in line early enough and the different levels, you get more, you know,

SPEAKER_348: like they'll wait it more somehow, but they're not, it's not specific yet. So we don't know what the offer really is yet.

Jason Calacanis: One thing we do know is that they are partnered with movie theaters this time. Like they, according to Business Insider, they said they have partnerships with 25% of the theaters in the U S like previously they weren't even partnering with theaters. So they weren't even getting any kind of a discount from theaters.

SPEAKER_340: They were just straight up buying theaters back, which is bonkers.

SPEAKER_295: The other, the other thing I'm, uh, one more thing before I, I, I, I, uh, there's one more thing that makes me very cautious about this, which is that the guy, one of the co-founders

SPEAKER_311: of movie pass who, who bought it back and who's relaunching it also, it has, uh, his hands in a web three company that is like eyeball tracking on ads. Like make sure someone watches a whole ad before they click away. And so obviously that's what this is going to be. It's like, oh, you want your free movie ticket?

SPEAKER_301: Watch these five ads and take your token and then use that to get it. It's like, no, I'm out. That's, that's, that's all, that's what it would take for me to not be interested.

Jason Calacanis: If you are watching this on video, you will see me waving my red flag right now, because that is a problem. Here's the thing.

SPEAKER_20: There's a, this, there is a business here. This could change the entire industry. If they priced it like the Epic or icon ski pass, it needs to cost 500 bucks a year.

SPEAKER_25: And for the 500, you should get 20 tickets, uh, or something to that effect. Like it's some number of tickets. So actually it would be 50 would be $10.

SPEAKER_20: You should get a hundred tickets for $500 a year, five bucks a ticket. And you should be able to use it for yourself or a companion. And you should have to pay it in advance.

David Friedberg: So, you know, these ski passes started, you know, if you get a local one in Tahoe, I think it's five, 600. If you get it across the country and world, like I do, it's like 800 or something. But once you, a ski pass now is 150, $250 a day. So once you hit the fourth or fifth day, you've kind of broken even. So it's a great deal.

SPEAKER_25: But what it did was it gave them the money in advance. And then they could float the entire business on it. So this would be incredible. And what you should do is it should be $500 and you get, you know, 20 popcorns and 20 sodas, whatever size you want. And that would be a really cool way for these movie theaters to like have some base of revenue and to get more people buzzing about stories and talking to them.

SPEAKER_32: And then they should say, if you come Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you know, the slowest days in the theater, or you come before 6pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, if you come before 6pm, your companion ticket is free. So now you're filling it when it's empty, and people are buying more popcorn, and then you get more buzz about this. It could just could totally change the whole nature of passion for films. It did for me, because when I got it, I bought it as an experiment. And I happened to be in LA on my own for a week ahead of my family coming out, because I had some business to do. And I was staying downtown LA next to the AMC and the AMC had like, I don't know how many theaters it has down there.

SPEAKER_500: It's a it's a Regal, I believe.

SPEAKER_25: A Regal. Right. How many theaters is that thing? 20?

SPEAKER_76: Eight, 10, 12, maybe?

SPEAKER_503: It's big. It's pretty big. Yeah, it was big.

SPEAKER_36: And I just went in there. And I watched, you know, all of these like independent films. I had all the major ones.

SPEAKER_76: I did five in a week, or maybe 10 days. It was great.

SPEAKER_503: That's that's what we were seeing.

SPEAKER_311: And that was great. I mean, the one other the one other downside now is that a lot of the theater chain stole their idea.

SPEAKER_295: So AMC saw MoviePass and now added AMC plus or A plus. I have it. Yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_508: 10 bucks a month. A-list it's called.

SPEAKER_432: I get 10 bucks a month and I get a free ticket every month. I get a ticket every month for 10 bucks.

Jason Calacanis: And you get a little bit of like higher level service, which MoviePass should also integrate skipping the lines. Yeah, they've got a few other brands.

SPEAKER_322: And Cinemark also has one now. And, you know, so those theaters are going to be more inclined to go with their own loyalty

SPEAKER_311: programs than sign on to the third party MoviePass one.

SPEAKER_295: So I don't know. Their train may have they have sailed. Poor MoviePass. It really all depends on the offer.

SPEAKER_311: It's got to be easy and it's still got to feel like cheap, like you're getting away with something.

David Friedberg: I want to go for the more high end VIP service. That's what they should be working on. I think it should be a big commitment up front and a great deal on the back end. But, Lon, as we wrap here, what should we be looking forward to in the next week or two? In the next week or two, what should we be looking forward to? And then, well, I mean, Molly's going to try to stump you with a recommendation.

SPEAKER_295: Oh, well, September 2nd, of course, which is a week from Friday. A week from tomorrow, we've got the first two episodes of Lord of the Rings. The Rings of Power on Amazon.

SPEAKER_311: That's a that's a huge debut. I am also really looking forward to there's next week on Hulu. There's an FX series called The Patient. This comes from the creators of The Americans, which I don't know. Oh, I love The Americans. My favorite. The Americans. So good. So the two guys who created The Americans, this is their new show. Steve Carell stars as a therapist who gets kidnapped by Donald Gleeson, who is a serial killer because the serial killer wants the therapist to like cure him. So he kidnaps. What a great premise. A therapist and forces him to give him therapy to like cure his homicidal impulses. That's funny. That starts on Thursday, a week from today on. What is that called? It's called The Patient.

SPEAKER_322: Oh my God. You can look up. There's a trailer out there right now.

SPEAKER_369: They bought that in the room. They heard that one sentence and they're like, Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_20: It's Silence of the Lambs meets Dr. Melfi. Right.

SPEAKER_500: But like a little quirky, a little, little dark comedy. Yeah.

David Friedberg: Yeah. So they're going to, so it's literally like if Hannibal Lecter, what was that in therapy one that Gabriel Byrne did? I think on HBO.

SPEAKER_526: In treatment. In treatment. So it's in treatment meets Silence of the Lambs is what you're telling us.

SPEAKER_295: Yeah. I mean, or I like Sopranos almost. It's a little bit like if you could imagine Tony, Dr. Melfi relationship. But yes, you know, like Dr. Melfi is in a basement to a wall.

SPEAKER_523: Been taken hostage. Yeah. But it's Steve Carell too. Okay, Molly.

SPEAKER_25: Describe a film or TV series that you like and you would like to see more of. This is where lawn shine. So pick two or three series you like. Or movies that you wish you could see something similar to. I'll give you an example.

SPEAKER_32: If I, I love the film dread. And I also loved prey and the predator series. So if I were to say to lawn. Hey, I enjoy dread. The Carl Urban 30 million dollar. Low finance. Garland. Yeah, incredible sci-fi film.

SPEAKER_28: But I also like the predator series. And you know, Prometheus. I like this kind of genre of intelligence. Sci-fi gritty.

SPEAKER_76: Dark Blade Runner is my favorite film. Well, what would another film for me to think about. Or series be.

SPEAKER_295: Uh, well, I would, I would recommend in terms of, uh, sci-fi, there's a, there's a great

SPEAKER_311: anime film called Bell that's now on HBO Max. It's almost like a ready player one kind of elements, but mixed with a beauty and the beast kind of thing, but with a, with a sort of a dark sci-fi sort of twist. Uh, wait, wait, how do you spell that? B-E-L-L-E. Just like Bell, like from Beauty and the Beast. Ah. Uh, it's basically about this very shy, reserved girl in real life. But then there is this virtual, you know, massive virtual online community that she goes in and there she's like a superstar singer and she begins investigating who's this, like there's a, there's a beastly terrorist everybody's afraid of. And she decides to find them and figure out what's going on. So it's like, it becomes a play on Beauty and the Beast. Uh, that one I thought was really good.

SPEAKER_295: Also, I think Day Shift on Netflix, which is Jamie Foxx's new vampire hunting comedy. Uh, I think it was a lot of fun and has kind of, kind of some, like some action,

SPEAKER_443: some martial arts, but also it's in this like fantasy vampire Los Angeles. Uh, so they, they, they, they.

SPEAKER_28: I watched, by the way, I watched Predator 2.

SPEAKER_540: To get the scene with the, with the, at the end.

David Friedberg: Right at the end with the gun, the revolver, yeah. The pirate's gun. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Uh, okay, Molly, now, so you understand how the game is played.

SPEAKER_15: I, I, I also just watched Prey and it was excellent. You liked Prey, right? I have been trying.

SPEAKER_311: Well, there's also, the one other one I was going to say, just in terms of action, there's a Korean film on Netflix right now called Carter. Uh, the same director who did The Villainess a few years ago, The Villainess, a landmark Korean action film that actually ended up inspiring John Wick 3. Villainess has this big scene where a bunch of guys are sword fighting on the backs of motorcycles and it was this very famous scene. And then John Wick 3. They basically like took that and were like, we're going to do that now too. So this guy's new film, uh, it's almost like a crank style thing. You're following a guy who's got like a bomb implanted in his neck and he's got 24 hours to do this like top secret covert mission. The action is ridiculously over the top. Incredible. Awesome.

SPEAKER_543: John Woo? No, no. It's a Korean.

SPEAKER_311: I'm blanking on the director's name.

SPEAKER_295: I'll look it up.

SPEAKER_242: I'm looking out here. Carter, 2020. Carter, 2022.

SPEAKER_295: Uh, watch this one and then go back and watch The Villainess. Jong Byung-gil. That's the guy's name.

Jason Calacanis: I'm in on that. Um, I have been for years, the only two series in my life that I wish I could replace are Buffy, the vampire series, uh, Vampire Slayer and Alias, I loved Alias. And then if I just the exact kind of movie that I want to watch right now, that is not like the opposite of Game of Thrones is like Battle Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_131: Just indulge my military fetish and blow up a lot of aliens.

SPEAKER_295: Uh, okay. Well, the first one, cause you said Buffy. I definitely feel like you need to see Paper Girls on Amazon, which is a graphic novel series

SPEAKER_311: adaptation about a group of, they're a bunch of Paper Girls in 1988, like literally newspaper delivery girls. And then they get sucked into a time vortex and end up getting, they end up getting like caught in the midst of a feud between groups of time travelers. But a lot of it ends up taking place in the present day. Cause they, they time traveled here from the eighties and meet their like adult selves.

SPEAKER_295: I remember this, you know, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_25: I remember this as a graphic novel because I went on Amazon. I did some searches for great graphic novels for teen girls or whatever. And this came up. And so what I did was for my daughters, I just bought like 20 of the best graphic novels for girls, put them on a shelf in the house and they never said anything, Molly. I just let them sit there.

SPEAKER_562: They just appeared.

SPEAKER_459: Every now and then I find one of my daughters reading one of them.

SPEAKER_340: This was written by Brian K Vaughn, who also did Why the Last Man, which was a fun series. Oh yeah, that's a great series.

SPEAKER_322: So this is a different one of his books that's now getting adapted. But they did. Amazon did a great job. It's really fun. The other one, I haven't gotten to watch this yet, but I really want to.

SPEAKER_311: There is a German action period action series called Cleo, K-L-E-O. And it is about a former East German spy. And it's right after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And she's basically let go for, she's been in prison and she's basically let go for prison because there is no more East Germany.

SPEAKER_322: And so she just goes on this path of revenge for everybody who wronged her during the Cold War. That sounds super fun.

SPEAKER_34: You really get me, Lon. I cannot wait to watch that. Wow, here is Cleo.

David Friedberg: This is why I am such good friends with Lon because I can use him for great suggestions.

SPEAKER_572: Cleo is awesome.

Jason Calacanis: You know what I wish somebody would remake actually on that note is Counterpart. Like I, if I could just have one campaign, it would be like, please pick up Counterpart.

SPEAKER_576: The creator follows me on Twitter now because we kept praising it on this show. Oh my God. Tweet him. It's so, it was so good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_19: So good. Thanks, Lon. We'll see you next time. Lon, you're the best. Everybody follow us at twitter.com slash Lons. See you guys. Thanks.

SPEAKER_76: All right, Molly. What an amazing week we've had thus far. Two days left.

David Friedberg: We got to get through. You got a big Friday show. Remember, okay, boom, we're coming. And then of course, Sunday, we'll have VC Sunday school and a great climate interview.

SPEAKER_131: Yeah. As always, it's going to be amazing. Stay tuned for that. And we've got, let's see, news, founder interviews. Okay, Boomer. And see you tomorrow.

SPEAKER_582: All right. And follow us on the Twitter, Lons, Molly Wood, Jason, TWI Startups.

SPEAKER_583: Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.