Sales Energy

Speaker A: How would I unpack for you? Why don't you keep going? This is gonna stop till I10.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Uh, just what the people want.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, we're both dealing with house guests.

Speaker A: We generally don't travel together like the actual getting from point A to point B. Strategically.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: The Wall Street Journal wrote about this. They called it, like, travel div. Welcome to People vs Algorithms, a show about, uh, detecting patterns in media, technology, and culture. Doing this live from Havar, Croatia.

Speaker B: It's been a tough couple of weeks. Let's.

Speaker A: It has been. It has been. You know, it turns out there's a reason that Jeff Bezos does not have a podcast.

Speaker B: A podcast?

Speaker A: I think he just doesn't have good enough. Too much wonky wi fi in his Mediterranean travels. But cry me a river. It's just me and you today, Troy,

Speaker B: because, well, we were late. We were late last week. We're late this week. You've, uh, been deeply, deeply apologetic, and we're here for you.

Speaker A: Well, I have been, and I mean it. I had a great time in Italy. I want to get into the show, but I just want to say I think the Italian people are one of my favorite people. They're quirky, they're great. They're, like, different. They've got different priorities. And I never. I don't think I've had, like, many, if any, negative experiences with Italians.

Speaker B: I think they're incredibly talent.

Speaker A: Shout out Italians.

Speaker B: Uh, they're incredibly tolerant of Americans. You know what I mean? Like the French secret. The. The French have a hard time hiding their.

Speaker A: Secretly. I don't think it's secret.

Speaker B: No, they don't. They don't like. They don't like you. They don't even like Canadians in France, I don't think. But the Italians are like, have a good time. Let's have a good time. They're great.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. They'd love the Dolce. Even the guy at no Legio Playa who rips me off every summer, I like him. Um, he shakes my hand, and then he rips me off. And then when he's done with me protesting being ripped off, he says, bye, bye. And then we just go our own ways, and then we repeat it the next summer. It's fun. Linda is really going off in field notes, and she's a little bit of a bullshitter. I think this is like an AI character flash law.

Speaker B: Ah. Uh, deeply. Yeah. I'm trying to. I'm trying to correct her, and I'm being kind about it, but, you know, when I ask Linda to go out and get context in an article or summarize an article or whatever. And she comes back and says she did it. And she just gives me a summary based on some superficial metadata and doesn't dig in. It's. It's frustrating. And I've. I've taken her aside and talked to her about it and it should be. Should be getting better.

Speaker A: It did get uncomfortable. You guys were going back and forth. You were a little. You're a little stern with her, but I find that.

Speaker B: Who is Linda, Bryan?

Speaker A: I figure everyone knows Linda. Linda is an AI who is in PVA field notes. That's@pvanotes.uh.com. she's just kind of a know it all. She's like the resident know it all because I don't provide context. And then you ask Linda to provide the context. Whatever. Whatever is being blathered about. Correct.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, Linda is sort of just the facts around. At least that's how I've asked her to be. I think she's doing a pretty good job. She helps people with onboarding. She summarizes podcasts for us. She goes out to X and Reddit and, you know, other places and brings back, you know, tidbits for us to process. So all in all, Linda is, I think, quite useful. But can she gets over her skis sometimes?

Speaker A: For sure, yeah. So I think Field Notes is. Is. It's a successful experiment. I have got some feedback.

Speaker B: Do you want me to read that? User feedback? I thought that was pretty.

Speaker A: Yeah, it sounded like it came from you, but go on, do read it.

Speaker B: You think I manufactured that? No, uh, it was. I was so, so sick of hearing Troy Bloviate on and on and on about his vibe coding adventure, but you finally broke me down. And I gotta say, Field Notes is pretty good. I just keep it open as a tab and periodically check it throughout the day. It's a great way to cut through the noise without having to dive into my currently 620 deep folder of unread newsletters. Problem? We're overwhelmed with newsletters. Or crawl back onto social media, which I've sworn off of for my sanity. Kudos, guys. Nice feedback. Thank you.

Speaker A: That's good. So everyone should check it out. Join. Join into the fun. Pvanotes.com it is. It's a water cooler, I guess.

Speaker B: You know what I try, uh, when I try things and I don't get enthusiastic feedback from you, I get sad. And I tried replicating connections. Connections is a game I usually. I play pretty much every day. I think it's for someone like me. It's the best game. On, uh, New York Times, I made connections, but I. With a twist where you have to pick the left, right and center of a Venn diagram. So I do a, uh, 3x3 9 choices and you have to pick three that are the left, right and center. You didn't seem to think it was good. I think.

Speaker A: No, I thought it was good. First of all, I encouraged it because I remembered moment of then, which was a great moment in content marketing. You created, you created great. I mean, it's a so so ad network, but you created some great content marketing.

Speaker B: Do you remember the. Do you remember that nice oversized maggot magazine I used to create?

Speaker A: Yeah. No, you did some good. I was, I had your little shaving kit for a long time.

Speaker B: Oh, right.

Speaker A: You know, I wasn't going to invest in the shaving kit anyway. Everyone should go to pvanotes.com. another couple of quick notes before we get into the meat of the programming spen. Spencer Pratt has found a new enemy in Scott Galloway. He went after him. Spencer Pratt is looking for a new enemy because he, he needed. He ran for mayor of LA and was squarely focused on Karen Bass for being responsible, according to him, for his house burning down. And so now he's just taking shots wherever because you gotta, you gotta have a second. And Scott, is, Is he taking shots?

Speaker B: Scott? Did Scott Galloway tell princer Spencer Pratt to go himself during the May, the mayoral campaign? So there's a bit of, there's a bit of history, right? Like he's been taunting him for a while.

Speaker A: Well, Scott just joined and I'm talking to him like ladies tennis players. I always hate that he just joined the California Board of Regents for, you know, for the, the, the higher education system in California.

Speaker B: Good for Scott. I mean, it's amazing what a, what a big check will get you, but good for him.

Speaker A: He, he has done an amazing job with his personal brand. Like, just shocking. I never would have believed this watching those goofy L2 videos. I remember him doing this goofy L2 videos. And I was like, this guy, does he. Doesn't he have anyone in his life who takes him aside and is like, you're, uh, a rapidly aging, middle aged bald guy. Nobody wants to see you on video.

Speaker B: And well, he got some plastic surgery this year to help with that a bit.

Speaker A: But like, good on him. I saw him m. He. I listened to his podcast with Ross Dou last night and Ross ufu. We're going to get into a little bit later is an interesting interviewer, and I like his style.

Speaker B: Who is Ross? Stuff Ross.

Speaker A: He is. He is the New York Times, the conservative. He has. He owns a conservative seat, uh, on in the New York Times editorial page. I guess Brett Stevens has one. But it's like, basically, they need someone like a David Brooks character that is like a.

Speaker B: He's like a. He's like a kind of likable Christian conservative, right, with six sort of moderate views. He moderates himself.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. They're not going to, like, invite Nick Fuentes onto the.

Speaker B: Like this.

Speaker A: The opposite page. It's just.

Speaker B: I don't know.

Speaker A: It has to be somewhat acceptable. No, we'll say they had him on. And this is my one knock against Scott and a lot of. Honestly, the vc.

Speaker B: He drives real smart people nuts, dude. The real smart people cannot stand this guy.

Speaker A: He's a. Some people think that he can only play. He can only score on set pieces. It's just set piece after set piece after set piece. And. And Ross was just getting super frustrated, which is his thing. He gets super frustrated with people, and

Speaker B: he's like the Real Housewives of Talking Heads. That's what he is.

Speaker A: Slices and dice. I. I highly recommend it. I don't know, but you know what I mean.

Speaker B: Somebody came after Scott and Cara. They're takedown machines. They. These guys have it coming. They constantly attack everybody. Everybody's an idiot to Cara Swisher. And then Scott just kind of agrees most of it. Well, you know, they had it coming.

Speaker A: Creators need a thick skin. And I think, you know, the example of bloggers is a real cautionary tale. My man Johnny McDermott just did a profile of AJ Delario, who used to run Deadspin. Original Gawker guy, he had, like, a dark life after that Hulk Hogan tape. He's the guy who made the just monumentally idiotic decision to publish that video. And nobody, by the way, attached to Gawker ever fully came to terms with how much they brought on their own demise. I'm not on the side of Peter Thiel at this, but they made some, like, major. Not just mistakes, but, like, gross stuff. Like the Kanze Nast CFO guy. Like, just gross. Anyway, creators. Creators are going to go down the same path, I believe, as bloggers. Perez Hilton just had some really scary mental health episode during a live stream. It's not for everyone. It really isn't. And I think that, like, when we hear a lot about the mental health challenges of a lot of creators, it's because they didn't really Think it through.

Speaker B: I don't know how these sort of debate king champs do it. Really. Guys like JD Vance or David Sacks, how they just, they love a fight. They love a fight. It doesn't seem to bother them. I don't know. I personally couldn't do it. I don't know how they do it.

Speaker A: Well, the problem when you get into that is like the algorithms and all the incentives are to have conflict and to find, ah, an enemy. The New York Times did a piece about the decline of the maga. Right. Media or MAGA media, and it has lost a lot of its potency, mostly because, you know, after, after they won, you know, you can't rail against the people in charge when you, your people are in charge. The tech, right, The MAGA media, they've been wrapped up in this $20 burrito debate lately. I don't know if you've seen this, but, you know, they're dividing themselves. If Iran wasn't.

Speaker B: They're kind of right about it. They're kind of right about it, right?

Speaker A: Uh, what are you, pro, $20 burrito or anti.

Speaker B: No, what I'm saying is all, wah, wah. You can't afford a gourmet burrito. Like, make it work, guys. You know, that's the point. But before you leave this Spencer Pratt thing, you know, I actually, you know, in, in the ring, I think I would bet against him over Galloway. He's a little, he's more vicious. And Scott's so full of contradictions. He's an, he's an easy target, right? So he can complain that a mayor put him on a public database of rich property owners and he's going to be taxed. He plays, he plays the socialist sympathizer and the ravenous capital or the ravenous rich guy at the same time. And so there's, there's a lot of room for someone to come out of.

Speaker A: Well, I will say this. Ross did. I'm going fully into just first names now. Ross did like, you know, perfectly get him on that because he said, you know, it sounds to me a lot like you just want to sort of market, you know, conservative type issues, but still keep a progressive card. Like, you know, I mean, he's basically, that's what he's doing with this, this young men as an interest group thing. And so it was a good interview. Did you see this Netflix executive got, he's suing Netflix because he got, he got fired after.

Speaker B: His name is Kevin, Kevin Bale, I think.

Speaker A: Brian Kevin Bale. He got fired after sharing a Little bit too much at an off site. I think he was set up for failure. You know, they, they said, you know, bring your full self and he just talked about using you ketamine therapy therapeutically.

Speaker B: Therapeutically.

Speaker A: I didn't even know. I mean, Alex is a third member of this podcast. I didn't even know this stuff was, was a problem these days. Thank God we don't have hr.

Speaker B: Well, there's something, there's something in the story that we don't know because like a guy drinking a, a, ah, beer upside down and talking about his vulnerability in ketamine therapy, to me doesn't seem like, oh, they told him not to drop the F bomb so much. Right. That he should do it, but not too frequently. I, it feels these are, I don't know if these are fireable offenses. Something else is going on and if there's not, he said he should, you know, extract as much money as he can from Netflix. He should sue them hard.

Speaker A: I mean, I heard some bad stories about sales off sites. I don't know if that still happens, but like, sales off sites were bad news, I think.

Speaker B: Well, it's kind of like, you know, it's like a, uh, kind of jockey frat house. Like that's. What do you expect? What do you want them to do? Play rummy? But as deals offset, what do you do after the close of the sessions at 6 o'? Clock, you know, you have an hour break, you have dinner, you get a little boozed up, then what, what happens?

Speaker A: Shots. I think sales people love shots. No, I just want to also just take a moment. I want to celebrate salespeople because, you, uh, know, I think sometimes people might get it the wrong way. I love salespeople. I love, I love people that go out there and sell because I, I, you know, who is, is the, the people who. I'm having less time for marketers because sellers are, they're, they put, they put their neck on the line, they put, they got a quota, they carry a bag and they're feral creatures. You know, they're not house cats. They're not sitting by the, by the refrigerator, at least the good ones waiting for a saucer of milk. They're going out to the lumberyard. And I think these days you need sales energy more than marketing energy. We went through this era where people thought they could just sit behind some dashboard and hit buttons and money would come in. You got to go out there.

Speaker B: Marketers need approval, man. Marketers like to be loved. That's the nature of the job. They want to put it out there and have people feel good. Sales is the opposite. I want to highlight on field notes you sent around a hacker news article or a list of simple sales rules. I want to highlight a couple, if you don't mind, please do.

Speaker A: And then I want to do my cat. Can I do my Catalan fishing thing before?

Speaker B: Sure. So number three. People buy four things and four things only ever. Those four things are time, money, sex, and approval. Peace of mind. If you try selling something other than those four things, you will fail. I like the next one. People buy aspirin always. They buy vitamins only occasionally and at unpredictable times, sell aspirin. There you go.

Speaker A: I like that. So my. My Catalan fishing saying, I had it on a T shirt, but it ended up withering. It said, if you want to get the fish, you got to get your ass wet. That's why I like salespeople. They get their ass wet. Marketing people.

Speaker B: Did you wear that T shirt?

Speaker A: I did, yeah. But it was in. It was in Catalan. Spanish. Catalan. I think catalog is different enough that it's a language. Don't come at me. I know they're. Are they still secessions?

Speaker B: I like that. Uh, I don't think it would fit me, but if it did, I would wear that. I like that T shirt.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great one. AI, let's talk about AI Corner. AI has a new main character, and I want to focus on the characters a little bit here. Alex is a lot about the metal, and you can get into that. But, like, personally, I'm a narrative guy, and that's where I feel most qualified, honestly, to talk about this AI story, because I think it is very narrative driven. And so you want to talk about rubbers?

Speaker B: Is that what you want to talk about?

Speaker A: No, no, no, no. I want to talk about Leopold Aschenbrenner.

Speaker B: Okay, well, you said. And we'll talk about the situation, the

Speaker A: song of the summer situational awareness hedge fund. That. That Leopold. Young Leopold popped up a couple years ago. He's like a character out of a Wes Anderson movie. So he's German born and in Germany, like you can. In your. When you're like, you know, that's the home of the wunderkind. And so he was a wunderkind. He was like in the Green Party. He was a firebrand in the Green party at age 15, railing against automation. And then he. And then he moves to America. His parents moved to America, and he goes to Columbia, graduates as a valedictorian. A valedictorian at 19 he's linked to effective Altruism, that weirdo cult that's driving anthropic and various other things out in Silicon Valley. He was part of ftx, the FTX Future fund. So he's at least linked to Sam Bankman. Fried. He was.

Speaker B: So he's a bit of a poster child for renewal. He's a renewal guy.

Speaker A: He's got it.

Speaker B: It's nice.

Speaker A: I mean, and this is. Yeah, uh, this is before he can like drink, he joins OpenAI Super Alignment Team, gets fired.

Speaker B: Okay, was that video of him laughing like this sort of autistic spasm, Was that real?

Speaker A: Unclear. That's the best part about this guy. He wrote 165 page viral essay that basically was complete AI maxi. But he said you got to focus on the energy and the compute as the bottlenecks. That's as simple. And he's a good writer because you know why? He writes like a guy who knows his secret and I. That's a great, that's a great writing style. He raises 225 million from Silicon Valley elite for this hedge fund, including the strike founders. They've plowed tons of money in there, they haven't even gone public and they have hundreds of millions of dollars that they just spray around all company man.

Speaker B: There's all kinds of opportunities for secondary. Anyway, what was the return? There was some crazy return because he leveraged the out of it, right? He was like, he was forex leverage.

Speaker A: He's, he's all like completely aggressive. Exposed them to the dip in the semiconductor and AI stocks. Had to sell most of his public equity holdings to Citadel with it, uh, headed by another great character, Ken Griffin, who loves to come in with these whipper snappers and box their ears and shove them in a locker. I love it. He did it on the GameStop thing too. He's great. Anyway, so his hedge fund is in collapse last week.

Speaker B: Well, but isn't there a happy ending? Isn't he still up more than the average bear?

Speaker A: He's still up. He's still up 80%. And Leo lives to fight another day.

Speaker B: Why did he have to dump the portfolio to Ken?

Speaker A: Because if you get margin called, then you gotta pony up the capital and he got margin called and so you gotta figure out the capital somewhere. At least that's how I think. And all this happens while he's getting married in Carmel, which is a great place for a wedding, my brother.

Speaker B: What's better is didn't he get married at an all in conference?

Speaker A: I don't think he Got fair at the all in conference. I just. That was a typo on my part, but he held. It was just. I don't know, it's a Freudian typo. I have no idea.

Speaker B: Made a better story.

Speaker A: I know, but I've typed it on my phone, like on fairies and stuff. And he holds panels and symposia during his wedding. It's just part of the wedding activities, which honestly opens up a new revenue line for me. So anyone out there who is thinking about having maybe some classy programmatic advertising panel like after they cut the cake, I'm your man.

Speaker B: Well, I think you maybe are pulling. I don't think what you should be doing is setting up like an ad tech hedge fund.

Speaker A: I don't know if trade desk is going to be on that. They're too exposed to the open web. They tried to push the CTV beam the. No open web, but that dog is not hunting. They're down 80% on the year.

Speaker B: Yikes.

Speaker A: So anyway, back to, back to Leo. I want to tie him in because I think he's a great character. And I root like many, like many people, I root for a comeback. Americans love a comeback story. What Americans do not like are, uh, prodigies. We like people because we believe that if we work hard enough, we can be one of the elites. Whereas in Europe they think the elites just were born that way and that, that, that they did something sketchy to get there. They cut corners, whatnot. We think we're just one of them, but we just haven't put it all together yet. But we hate prodigies because prodigies are always about, oh, supernova of talent and whatnot. That means that we can't, uh.

Speaker B: That just means you won a gen. A genetic lottery. You didn't hustle.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker B: That's no good.

Speaker A: That's why people, that's why, like, kids gravitate.

Speaker B: Were you a bit of a prodigy? What kind of kid were you, Brent?

Speaker A: I scored very high in math when I was. My mom says in first grade, I was testing at a fifth grade level in math. And then she follows it up, she leaves a beat and she says, and then in fifth grade, he was testing at a fifth grade level. So it was a short lived prodigy period. Because there's a controversy going on in academia.

Speaker B: Do you mind if I ask you, I don't want to plumb this too deep, but like, did you walk around the house as a, as a, as a little, a little child like with hot takes on everything like you do now?

Speaker A: No. I don't think so.

Speaker B: Did you. Did. Did your mom. Would you have takes? Like, you know, would your parents ask you questions that sort of demonstrated that you were wise beyond your years? Would they. Would they single you out at the dinner table to have a. An opinion on something?

Speaker A: We were a family of seven. I wasn't. That. That didn't happen. When you're the youngest child of a, uh, I guess what would be considered a large family now, you get a lot of time to sort of, like, work on your interiority and whatnot.

Speaker B: I mean, I was the youngest.

Speaker A: Things going on.

Speaker B: I know what that's like. I was six. There were six of us. I was the youngest, but I. But I would just do the sort of snide takes, like, I would just. That's where I learned my little. You know.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's what. That's. I have.

Speaker B: I have the old punch kiss, you

Speaker A: know, and in the worst possible ways. There's this guy, Jason Ardsley. I love academia. Fraud and academic, like, fights. Cambridge full Cambridge university professor at 37, which apparently is quite young to become a full professor. But I'm like, is it? But I'll take it. He also, you know, and so he. He's become a bit of, like, a symbol of a lot of this, like, academic fraud. It looked like he used AI to write his resignation. He apparently claimed to have done 35 marathons in 37 days, which is possible, depending on how slowly. No, but, like, it's. It is possible to do it. Like, I mean, you'd have to. You'd have to go slow. You'd have to do some walk, walk, run. But, you know, it's another situation where I feel like.

Speaker B: But that wasn't the lie that he got caught up in, was it? Wasn't it? That his. That there was somebody found that he had, you know, cribbed a bunch of other scholars.

Speaker A: Yeah, he fab. He fabricated. He fabricated. He apparently, allegedly, apparently fabricated a lot of his background. He fabricated a lot. His research was riddled with errors. He has a new book out. The Atlantic has the original proposal. Totally different than the book. You know, I mean, every. All signs, uh, I don't know for sure. All signs point to him being a, uh, fabulous, which, you know, we love. Fabulous. Remember Jason Blair? Like, these are great stories.

Speaker B: Do you think this happens in academia more often than it happens in the corporate world? Is there fewer checks and balances? Why do. Why do we see these stories? Is it easy to lie as an academic?

Speaker A: No, but there's no results as an academic, like, it's very dubious to show that you are effective at your job, like as an academic, particularly in certain fields. And, and those are around the social sciences. And I think the social sciences in general right now are getting a maybe proper amount of scrutiny. I mean, they've been pumping out a lot of kids with these dubious degrees that are mired in debt. And meanwhile you have these people who, one on one side, they'll say, hey, they're social justice people, activists and whatnot, who get to have the sort of the upside of the cosseted academic life. I have friends who are professors. The reality is most people in academia are absolutely not. They're not living life on easy mode. Exactly. They might have some time off during the summer, but like, I don't know, being like in your 50s and making like $65,000 a year is not like.

Speaker B: Well, they don't make 65, 65 anymore. They make a couple hundred. So don't feel too okay.

Speaker A: Maybe talk to me about Eastern Kentucky University. But okay, if you're talking about like Colombia and whatnot, we always think about universities and higher education as just like the Ivy Leagues and stuff like this. And it's, it's simply not. I think only 1% go to that. Where do the other 99% go?

Speaker B: You know, the reality is Kentucky University.

Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of people who, their first time going to. First people in their family to go to college. But I think that on prodigies, this is why people hate 30 under 30 that they love when a 30 under 30. And I do, I admit it because I've, I'm transparent about my dislike of, uh, prodigies. I don't trust them.

Speaker B: Well, I think there isn't. The 30 under 30 thing is that there's a remarkable amount of them that, you know, are shown to be, you know, flash in the pants or frauds or whatever, you know that.

Speaker A: But I think it's more.

Speaker B: That's an ominous, that's an ominous list to be on. Right.

Speaker A: I don't think. I mean, there's just so many of them that you're going to get some, some frauds. But again, it's the incentives. The incentives are to be a wunderkin, to be a supernova. Uh, and we just don't like that. We want people, we want people to sweat it out. But let's talk about AI and whether real.

Speaker B: Well, what you didn't mention is while America may like that Hustle story, Brian, they also love a takedown. They like a good takedown here in America, when you're too big for your britches, they'll, they'll take you down.

Speaker A: Yeah, but that's nothing compared to like the, what do they call it, Tall Poppy syndrome in like the uk. I mean, I think we have a broadly aa we celebrate.

Speaker B: Look how long it took him to take down Prince Andrew. Took a long time.

Speaker A: Well, that's the Royals. That's different. Tell me about rubbers.

Speaker B: Rubbers.

Speaker A: You've been, you've been focused on this. Phoenix. Phoenix Flex.

Speaker B: Well, isn't it a little bit of uh, a kind of case study in the discussion that we're going to have for a long time to come, which is, you know, the provenance of any creative product?

Speaker A: This is like the song of the summer.

Speaker B: Song of the summer. It's, you know, it has this kind of, I don't know, 80s, you know, vibe mixed with hip hop, kind of a little bit British indie, sounds a little bit like the Smiths, but kind of mashed together with, with American hip hop. And you know, it's a catchy song I guess. But if you listen to the verses, they sound like they're machine made. And people, you know, uh, on account of its success, people are obsessed with figuring out what the real, real story is underneath. The problem is, is the guy who did it, whose name is Phoenix Flexen, he's like a shitty rapper. You know, people don't believe that there's any kind of artistic integrity to it except that, you know, they can tap their foot to it. So. But it's part of the bigger uh, story which is like the music world, all these worlds are being kind of ravaged like we've witnessed in kind of media world where automation and creator communities and the power of platforms has really just one by one disrupt sort of every segment of creative production or the media world. And it's coming fast for music and a lot of people don't really, they want a little music in the background. They're not super fixated on the artist's story or being part of that tribe. And you know what? AI makes music effortlessly and some people just don't care. And so I think you're going to get a lot of, you know, kind of AI powered automation in the music industry and it's going to mess up the economics. And so he's, he's, you know, part of people challenging and questioning and trying to kind of come to terms with, with, with that bigger story. And you know, so everybody's talking about Rubbers. In fact, you know, the Channel 5 guy, what's his name?

Speaker A: Andrew Callahan.

Speaker B: Andrew Callahan interviewed him and like had him rapping on the video to kind of prove that he was, you know, legit. So it's a story that, that people are interested in. They, they want to know what's going on in music.

Speaker A: Did he hold up his hand to show that he didn't have six fingers or. I guess they solved the six finger problem already, right?

Speaker B: Does he have six fingers?

Speaker A: No, that was always the tell on AI. AI would always make people with six fingers.

Speaker B: Well, you know, I mean, I, I, you know, to extend this a little bit. I had an AI, uh, experience that I thought was absolutely incredible yesterday. Two days ago I had been. Do you mind if I tell this little story? I wrote it up, but I was in a cold.

Speaker A: Oh, you made a friend with a chatbot, right.

Speaker B: Well, I mean, it starts back a little further. I mean, the origin of the story is kind of cute, so we can, we can talk about it. But somehow I was invited to this charity cornhole thing on Shelter island and it was super fun. And I saw like more than two people that I see once, maybe twice a year and they were physically transformed and they were physically transformed on account of, you know, drugs. It was epic. Or one guy, trt, the pool guy was jacked and, and you know, last year he was like kind of a, like a chubby doofusy guy.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, wait, are they taking Wolverine? Do you know Wolverine?

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, well, that's, that's a peptide. Yeah, but that's a, what is that one? BPC 157 variant or something?

Speaker A: Are people in Shelter island all on that?

Speaker B: Everybody, man. Biohacking is, is becoming very commonplace. Only going to be more so. And so what's the bigger picture for me is, whoa, what's happening to like our identity? They're becoming more fungible, more editable, more like our digital identities, which we can kind of manufacture through how we take pictures and how we present ourselves in the context. And you taking a, in, you know, Croatia in this beautiful five star hotel and saying, look at my life. And so now, you know, everything is becoming editable, including our physical selves. So I was briefly interested in that idea of identity and how it's changing and how digital becomes physical. So I'm in the car driving to, to New York City and I open up ChatGPT and I start having camera conversation and there's a new, more fluid, more human, like chat experience on ChatGPT. And it is unbelievably, you know, Good. It's really, really good.

Speaker A: The fluid, it's back and forth. It's fluid.

Speaker B: You can talk over top of them. You, you know, there's. There's no pauses. It's kind of instant. What's more is, you know, in this particular conversation, I thought that the insights and level of expertise was, like, really good. Like, it was really good. It was like I had, you know, my friend, the professor in the car gave me a little background on identity. Who were the philosophers to talk about it? What are the, you know, what are the important arguments in the area? How should I be thinking about this? Why taste has become such an important part of, like, the popular dialogue? Because now it's all about the decisions we make. And taste is just like sort of deciding who we are and what we love. And, you know, part of what you talk about all the time, which is like, everything is narrative. Why is everything narrative? Is because we make up the worlds we're in, and increasingly we do it physically on and on and on. So that's my. That's how the rubbers thing ties it all together.

Speaker A: And I think that the question ends up being, as this stuff keeps improving, is whether. Whether real in quotes matters, you know, like as, uh, the quality is improving. And look, I. I can't stand most AI generated content of any kind. Like, I cannot stand AI writing. I just. I despise it. But at the same time, I recognize that it is continuing to improve, you know, AI conversation.

Speaker B: Brian, is better than AI, uh, writing. And I, I don't think that that's a subtle point. And I also think that that's the kind of genesis of this new much OpenAI hardware product, which apparently is going to be. It's going to be like a donut and have some kind of moving stuff on it. But it's going to be a, uh, voice product. And if you use, I mean, listen, if you use this ChatGPT voice thing five years ago, literally your head would explode. But, like, now you use it and you're like, wow, this could be a product. This is insanely useful. Why do I need a screen? There's a role in my life for something that just, you know, provides expertise, companionship, you know, answers to basic questions. And just around. I can see it happening now.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that's a delivery tool. That is a delivery tool of, uh, information intelligence. And I get that. I think I was just like, more focused on it as a creation tool, but as a delivery tool. I get this for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. Hey, listen, I. You should try It. I think it's probably better than you talking to me on the phone. You'll like it better.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: It's useful.

Speaker A: Good. I'll road test some ideas with it. I wish I had that as a child. Child in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. I could have just talked to my AI all day. That would have been great.

Speaker B: You might have done better in your fifth grade. Math. Math test.

Speaker A: I don't know what I did between, like, first and fifth grade. I just kind of coasted. I got the. I got the kudos.

Speaker B: Were you smoking a lot of weed or something? What happened?

Speaker A: I could have been. I don't remember. I don't remember. There was a nun who was locking kids in the closet. I think that threw me off for a little bit, but I saw that and I was just like, whoa, I'm not doing what Joey Ruzzi did.

Speaker B: That's what everybody likes, right? I mean, the Venn diagram is none. And nice nun. And in between, like, that's virtue, right?

Speaker A: There was a nun. There was a nun on the plane from. From Rome to. To Croatia. You don't see a lot of that in the public. I mean, in full habit, like, not in, like.

Speaker B: I like a fun. Like a funny nun is. Is a very good positioning.

Speaker A: It's just more reverend nuns. And maybe this is immature, but like, seeing. Seeing nuns, like, in full habit doing everyday things is also the same with, like, Tibetan monks and whatnot. Like, I once in a restaurant, I saw a Tibetan monk produce a credit, uh, card, which is like, not a remarkable thing, but I just never really thought about it.

Speaker B: I think it's weird when it used to be this way in Montreal, it's like this in parts of Williamsburg where all the Orthodox guys walk around and don't interact with other people. And they're like these costumes, themed NPCs that just kind of mill about in the world that you don't really pay a lot of attention to them.

Speaker A: Yeah, they. And the Italians are the last, like, phone talkers in the world. I love seeing Italians talking on the phone because they love the.

Speaker B: The Orthodox guys talk. Talk on flip phones. Yes.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, they love that. Like, they're the. The Orthodox and Italians are still very into the phones. The Italians are always going, ciao, ciao, certo, certo, Zatto. And then itself again, big fan of Italians. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, I think we can call it. I think they've hit escape velocity. There's a power law in publishing. And the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are on the right side of it. Do you have the statistics? I'm sorry, I was traveling. I don't have the statistics.

Speaker B: While you're looking, I, uh, will provide an anecdote. It's like I remember vividly the New York Times period of self reflection. What was that report called? You know. Yeah, they interviewed all media companies and they figured out, you know, what they needed to do to change more, more aggressively.

Speaker A: I'm, um, sorry. It now has 13.3 million subscribers in total.

Speaker B: Okay, so. And I remember the Wall Street Journal sort of spasming taking, which has five forms. And we all thought BuzzFeed News was on the rise. There was HuffPo, there was a bunch of conservative upstarts. And at the time it was like we're in the middle of what people refer to as the scale era and that old media was going to wither. What turned out, what ended up happening was the guys with reporting scale and the ability to use, uh, a big, big brand and sub base to stand up big newsrooms and bureaus crushed it. And they became the sort of source. Source Perrier of reporting and a reference point for all the creators in the world. And now are, I think, far more powerful than they were in the last chapter. They're so important. Yeah, businesses.

Speaker A: Digital subscription revenue grew 16%. I mean, even ad revenue in digital and just overall advertising.

Speaker B: This is New York Times or what?

Speaker A: At the New York Times, I mean they are, they're a monster. And like, they're going into local and like, I think they have a shot to be like a national, just news clearinghouse because Brian have the heft.

Speaker B: Meredith, the CEO of New York Times, was coming out of Forbes in that era. I courted her heavily, as did, uh, other colleagues of mine to join Hearst as the CRO. And she was having no part of it. She at the. She really, you know, had. Had had enough of, of that sales hustle and, and saw the New York Times as her path. And, you know, good honor because that was absolutely the right choice.

Speaker A: Also, kudos to Meredith, who has, you know, she is like a sales leader, CEO archetype who has, who has become a product, you know, like, uh, they didn't win. Uh, on. We've talked about this.

Speaker B: Well, I have a whole different archetype. I have a whole theory. It's about, you know, that, that illustration of like CRO Magnum, you know, ape to human.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And, and you know, sales leaders sit somewhere on that continuum. Many of them are not fully erect.

Speaker A: They're doing Shots, Yeah, they're doing shots.

Speaker B: And, and, and the real rare ones. People like Meredith, I would argue people Carey, that came out of the sales world but had like real kind of nuanced approaches and could see the gray and were, you know, really understood the media equation and the media product could kind of evolve into, into the leadership CEO roles. And I think Meredith has done that incredibly well. Good on Meredith.

Speaker A: Do you know, I remember, I always say this story about her, like many years ago, she. I remember inviting her to speak at a digiday event and she was still at Forbes. She wasn't like, as like prominent, like. And we used to always offer for speakers to come and do a run through and literally nobody did. All the dudes came and they were so hungover or whatever. She went the day before and did a full run through. Pro's. Pro. Good job. Wall Street Journal is also doing quite well. You know, Emma Tucker was a real. She was really what that brand needed. And some of it is in the numbers for over 5 million and stuff, but some of it is just. You can just tell this is a much more lively product. I'm finding, I'm constantly finding things from the Wall Street Journal that are not just like, needed or necessary that I have to, but that are really interesting. And a lot of this is. Don't overthink it. Like, when the, when the New York Times did its Innovation Report, basically it came out as like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to bet on journalism, we're going to bet on journalism, and we're going to sell that product to an audience and then we're going to surround it with a bunch of different lifestyle assets and they executed on it. Same way, you know, with the Wall Street Journal in that, they're just really. It's just interesting, like, and they're regularly producing interesting stories. So kudos. Don't overthink it.

Speaker B: I couldn't, uh, agree more. If anything brings me back, like, you know, everybody says to the, to the Times, it's, It's the games. But the feed at the Journal appeals to me more. And I took 10 screenshots of it yesterday just to, you know, because, uh, because I was just like, this stuff is. This is, this is a great feed. And it was like, the next Met Gala is already controversial. A mystery avenger escalates a war against Scotland's parking police. Right. Tennis is having a long, hot, brutal summer. Carlos, where are you? You know, like, I didn't realize I was addicted to my phone Until I went to prison. These are British headlines, by the way. These are not American headlines.

Speaker A: Got to bring in a Brit, you

Speaker B: know, like, like this. How the King of Soccer Went Rogue, Nearly Lost His FIFA Empire and Survived. You want to read it? You want to read it? It's good stuff.

Speaker A: I think the big question for both of these in different ways is how they handle this new pivot to video. I'm keeping tabs on this. You know, Merida talked about this in her prepared remarks that video is the next battleground, that they are not immune to these search declines, and they have to create sticky video that get people ultimately to subscribe. And that's, you know, video is tough for these organizations because, as Dylan and Julia have been harping on at Puck, is it is a talent business. And the kinds of talent deals that take place typically in talent business are not the kinds of deals that are done at the New York Times. They're not done at the Wall Street Journal. Again, Kara Swisher, no matter what you think about her personally, she was in the building at the Wall Street Journal, and they built a great franchise there around her and Walt Mossberg, and they lost both of them because they didn't cut the talent deal. Wall Street Journal also lost Joanna Stern. She was basically the successor to Walt Musburg. She went off on her own. Ross Douthat, who I mentioned earlier, he got poached by 60 minutes. They're all in the same business now.

Speaker B: Casey Newton and the other dude.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Kevin Roose, they bounce too. So that's going to be difficult for them to deal with.

Speaker B: Uh, you know, the, the brand, the money, the distribution insulates you from stuff like that in, in, in that world, I think, and you find the next talent. And you know what? I think that story's been, you know, going on since, you know, we had, you know, scaled media organizations. Maybe it's, it's, it's. There's more movement now because of the, you know, promise of the, you know, the, the creator ecosystem. But, you know, you always lose talent.

Speaker A: True. You know who I think is a rising talent and model is Jasmine's son. Do you know her?

Speaker B: She does great AI reporting field, field notes. But, you know, she's, she's, she's, she's bringing sharp perspective to the, to the A.I. uh, stuff. And it's, it's nice to see, to be honest.

Speaker A: I like her, but she's like, she's got like, one foot in, in the newsletter world with the substack. But she also writes for The Atlantic. She was just on Ezra Klein's podcast. I think she can do multimedia too. She was really good on that too.

Speaker B: Yeah, but that was the, the A.I. uh, populism thing on, on uh, with Ezra. That was good.

Speaker A: Yeah, because she went out to the Midwest and, and reported it out. Here's a crazy idea, like you can win in a lot of different ways. And I feel like a lot of we've overemphasized personality so much when it comes to the quote unquote creator world. And you know, you can be an expert too. And you can also just win by doing really great reporting. Like it's possible. I had this guy on, on the rebooting show who, he's an investigative reporter and he just, he just hung up his own shingle. He's like, I, I don't agree with these, these newsrooms. They're business models. I just don't, I don't agree with them. So he's selling coffee subscriptions in order to fund his investigative reporting. I think all kinds of crazy models are going to pop up and people are going to try different things. Most of it won't work, but I think it's actually exciting now again, because got to be scrappy or it's just going to be all Nepo babies. Lifestyle media is going to be all Nepo babies. Let's be real.

Speaker B: Well, in a related point, you saw this thing that one of the someone submitted on a field notes, which was how journalism and media people are concentrated in New York and Washington and you know, second secondary cities in the country have become kind of journalistic, you know, deserts. I thought that was an interesting story where, you know, it, it's, it's sort of connected to your, you know, the escape velocity point on, on Wall Street Journal, New York Times. Those are, you know, those are people that are employed in, in New York City.

Speaker A: Yeah, but this is like local news. Local news is the sickest patient in the hospice. You know, like, uh, that's just, that's, that's, yeah.

Speaker B: National journalism absorbed the remainder of the industry. Well, journalism industry shrank across the country, but remaining employment became more concentrated. Manhattan reportedly has 10 times its population share of newspaper employment. Washington remains disproportionately important. Philly, Chicago and other major cities have lost much of their work journalist workforce. What is that? I think changes things, doesn't it? How do you see that?

Speaker A: I mean, it changes things. It's unfortunate. It's the centralization because you need the wealth and the scale of Washington or New York to Make these markets work. I mean, I'm more disturbed by how there's like 10 PR people to every journalist. Like, that's a more. That's a more alarming fact to me.

Speaker B: Uh, you get very upset about that. Like when they say, we've talked about this on the pod before, but you sent one around this week, which was one of the AI pitches that you received to get some guest on your show.

Speaker A: Yeah, that was.

Speaker B: Drives you nuts.

Speaker A: I mean, it used to. I used to like, complain on Twitter about like, PR people, and then they would like, swarm me and invite me onto PR podcasts or like to do pr. And I was like, oh, my God, this is worse. I just think that, look, as. As this world fractures, there's a lot of people filling the void in news and basically using as a front to, you know, massage public opinion. Both Democrats and Republicans are setting up quote unquote, fake news, local news websites. There's this company, Courier newsroom. I mean, I like Tara McGowan who runs it, like, but I'm like, okay, like, you're setting up all of these kind of quote unquote newsrooms that are like, basically front operations for a, uh, political influence operation. And, you know, look, there are a lot of downsides to, to this fractured media ecosystem, and that is definitely one of them. There's. It is open season for the astroturfing. And look, the VCs saw this very early. They flooded into media because they saw that it was incredibly valuable and the monetization mechanisms were just broken. And so that there was an opening to muscle in there because they had a better model. You know, fluffing your. Fluffing your portfolio is a better model than like hawking display ads. No offense to display ads industry.

Speaker B: Well, and, and yeah, so media needs a bad. All that type of media needs a new business model. And it as an extension.

Speaker A: Your point about content marketing to me was very important.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, it's all content marketing. Everything is content marketing. You are a walking, talking content market machine.

Speaker A: Is this where I can talk about my TRV audience summit?

Speaker B: Well, we can at the end when we label it as. As branded content, but no, that's in advance of that. I, I would also make the point. And I think this is a bit of a non sequitur, but I think people misunderstand YouTube consumption and at their peril, actually. And there's an intentionality to YouTube, you know, even when I watch it on the television, which I often do, which makes it really different than the mode I'm in when I watch a streamer. So when I see sort of Disney or Netflix or others saying we want a little of that action, you know, bring creators and you know, bring hot ones to Netflix or you know, bring TikTok to Disney, I think it kind of misunderstands the sort of YouTube impetus from a viewer perspective, which is like it's an enthusiast channel and there's a, uh, there's an, there's a kind of real intentionality to, you know, how you use it. It requires a density and scale of creators to make it work at the level of granularity required to serve the, to serve the enthusiast. And it also requires, you know, obviously platform chops, you know, particularly in the algorithm to make it work and deliver you the kind of content that, that makes the experience satisfying. And I think as, as a result it's, it's kind of untouchable. But you know, to say give me a little of that, you know, you know, enthusiast action when you're really a streaming platform that serves a very kind of sit, the different sit back kind of leisure mode, I think, I think won't work.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, trying to, I remember back in the day like trying to out Google. Google was like the worst possible thing you could do. And people tried to, you know, do alternative search engines. It's like. No, it's just. And I think YouTube is the same way. Trying to out YouTube. YouTube, forget it. It's like over Peacock surrendered. They, they wave the white flag. They're going into the, the YouTube Premium bundle and that's the fate for a lot, I think of media they're not going to be able to pull off.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you can move from YouTube to that other mode, I think, but you can't move from that other mode into YouTube. I agree.

Speaker A: Well, I wanted to get your take on Disney selling its A and E steak to Hearst for about a billion dollars. And you know, a little bit about.

Speaker B: I know a little bit. Here's why I thought, uh, you know, Hearst, great company, great people and the, you know, every, every company needs to move from M1 hit to the next. And you know, obviously Hearst is, is a bit at scale, a bit of a poster child for that. Seeing that there was pressure on media, first in the newspaper business, then in the magazine business, in the local TV business, and now in cable and, and you know, making smart investments in health, tech and data businesses and automotive data businesses, in financial data businesses like Fitch Ratings. All really, really shrewd investments. Ah, that played out over a 15, 20 year horizon. But you know, we always marveled at both ESPN and A& E because they weren't operating positions that Hearst owned. In the case of A and E, they owned half of it. Disney owned the other half. And Disney really had the operational responsibility. In the case of ESPN, Hearthstone, 20% Disney on the rest, but they were like really lucrative. So each of them in their heyday produced about a billion dollars of cash back. So that's $2 billion collectively back to Hearsted.

Speaker A: A and E. Wait, wait, A E used to be called Arts and Entertainment? Arts and Entertainment used to be, yeah. Uh, like I remember early cable.

Speaker B: I mean, Hearst played a role in its, in its, in its creation. But, but the interesting point is, is a financial one and it's that a stream of income of a billion dollars a year, or in the case of the whole asset, $2 billion a year is worth, you know, depending on how it's growing. Call it $20 billion, maybe more, $30 billion. And just uh, as a reflection to where, you know, the, the, the, the cable industry has, you know, the hard fall from grace is they bought, they bought Disney's half of that for a billion too. So my back of the napkin on that would be that that half probably produces 2 to 300 million in EBITDA still, that the payback on it is probably four or five years. Maybe a little, uh, five years, four years. And Paul Buccieri, who's the leader of that, is very familiar to Hearst. And I think we'll kind of evolve it to be a set of brands and a production company and something that harvests the rest of the revenue out of, out, uh, of cable. And you know, Hurst will own the whole thing and it'll do really well with it. But you know, if you think about it, so it's a couple billion dollar asset. It was probably worth 30 or 40 billion before, you know, tough times in cable. But, but I think that Herstl, you know, landed as well as possibly as good as it possibly could be.

Speaker A: Okay, but what like, so an asset like that, what's its next life stage? It's moving down the private equity?

Speaker B: Well, no, I mean, I think, uh, you know, history's a nice brand and, and you know, Amy I think is a little tougher. And there's a couple other brands in there, cable brands. I think that you become more of a production business and you produce all kinds of, you know, ranging from sort of evergreen video content, documentaries, biography. They also own Biography, and you become a content supplier to the new generation of platforms as well, as, you know, trying to, you know, find a future in a direct to consumer world, either through your own platform or through, more likely, you know, other people's platforms as, you know, cable deteriorates and you probably have, you know, the next 10 years to fully, you know, wring the money out of cable.

Speaker A: Do you think we'll see more of these kind of deals?

Speaker B: Well, I mean, that's the same thing as Versant, right? They're, they're going to more aggressively shift that company as a public entity and they'll try to buy stuff like that, rounds out the revenue like they did in the golf space and. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There's always a way. There's a will, there's a way.

Speaker A: I know, I, I love capitalism for that. I was reminded of that Bending Spins bought airtable, uh, at a deep discount. I guess the deal basically valued them at like 2.3 billion. Airtable. For those who do not know, I still pay Airtable. I don't think I should. I need to cancel it. It's a, it's a database product. Another one of these SaaS companies. This is, this is. The ongoing Saga of the SaaS Apocalypse has not ended. Not with Airtable going at this, which, you know, look, multi billion dollar company, amazing job. It's a bearish sign for that entire sector though, because they're not being valued very highly. It's the way it goes.

Speaker B: I cannot tell you how much I enjoy ripe summertime heirloom tomato with a little salt and pepper on it, maybe a dash of olive oil. I just think there's nothing better, really. But that's not my choice, you know, a shout out. I guess I have to do this.

Speaker A: See, I don't do that thing like I need to come up. Go on. I gotta come up with. No, it's not that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's these two guys, I don't know them. Josh Clark, Charles Bryant. They have a podcast. I think it's popular. It's called Stuff youf Should Know. I was it. You know, I listened to it on rare occasion. Although today they did, or this week they did an episode on reggae, which I'm a big fan of. When you grew up with British radio and you know punk rock, you're a

Speaker A: big fan of reggae.

Speaker B: A huge fan. Massive fan, really. I maybe even made a pilgrimage to Kingston to go see the original studios. And you, uh, know I read the books and I love Lee Perry. I love, you know, I love dub. And yeah, I would say it's. It's among my favorite types of music. And I know that's maybe a bit incon Gru, so you can wrestle with that this week. But anyway, they did a show. You know, reggae really kind of came. Came about, you know, from, you know, Scott or Rocksteady to reggae and then variations of reggae and Dublin stuff after that. But it was in the late 60s, and it was really became popular music with Bob MARLEY in the 70s after the hippie thing kind of died down, and there was room for another idea now, you know, it's obviously a global phenomenon. You know, the source of all of it is. Is largely Kingston, Jamaica, and it's a great musical history. So they did an episode on that. These guys are, you know, they're just couple guys and, you know, they do their homework and they make a nice podcast. So I would make. I call that a good product this week.

Speaker A: All right, good. So my good product, it has to come from my travels, right? So one of the things that are.

Speaker B: You always get mad at me for, like, doing fruit and food and stuff, so I hope this isn't like a coffee beverage or something.

Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no, no. You know, one of the things I like about, you know, you get. You get experience at different cuisine. When you go to, like, when I spend time in Sicily, you start to realize that the direct descendant that Italian American cooking is from Sicilian cuisine. But there are some real differences. One is all the garlic in Italian American cooking does not exist. They barely use garlic. And if they do use garlic, they remove it. They don't chop it up and leave it in there. So that's an American invention. The other is there's just way more vegetables in a starring role in Sicilian cuisine than there is in, like, American. Italian American cooking. And just an overall less intensity. You know, there's. There's none of the boom of.

Speaker B: So what. Give me. What's. Give me, like, you know, let me. Let me drool here.

Speaker A: So you get like, an eggplant parmesan and, like, it is very light. The thing that I notice is, like, actual, like, Sicilian cooking is, like, very light compared to, like, the Italian American cuisine of, uh, America. Yeah, they also. One of the things I like about Italy is, like, each region has their own, like, pasta. Like, busiata is like the big pasta around Trapani, and you get busiata everywhere. And I like that. I like the idea of regional identity. But that's not my good product.

Speaker B: Troy.

Speaker A: I love it.

Speaker B: What do you got?

Speaker A: In fact, it is. It is a coffee drink. It is a Coffee drink? Yeah.

Speaker B: What do you got?

Speaker A: I do not like iced coffee. I think it is a crime against nature. I just don't think coffee is made to be on ice. I just. It's just dumb. I'll drink a hot coffee in Miami in August with one exception, and that is the shockerato. And the shockerado is an Italian. They basically take espresso, put it in a tumbler with ice, shake it up like the Tom Cruise and cocktail. Okay. Pour it into. I like it in a highball, personally. But sometimes they'll serve it up and it is a lovely drink. A lot of times they'll try to put Zuchero in there. I'm not really big into the. The sugar, but a little simple syrup. That can be pretty nice in the afternoon.

Speaker B: I think I would. I would spice.

Speaker A: As a foam.

Speaker B: I would spice. It sounds great. I would put a little vodka in there at lunchtime. I think day drinking is also a good product. Night drinking is completely overrated because that's how you feel bad in the morning, but drink in the daytime. That's it.

Speaker A: Yeah. The guy did try to upsell me. He did try to get me into the amaro in my shakarado.

Speaker B: Yeah, a little amaro and there be nice.

Speaker A: But I. I declined it. But the foam, that's the. The key is the foam. It has a nice.

Speaker B: Are you. Are you relaxing or are you still farting out newsletters and stuff? What are you doing?

Speaker A: Yeah, farting on. There's exactly what I'm doing. I'm planning an event, the TRB Audience Summit on September 17th. And that has required a lot of, uh, a lot of planning, a lot of programming. Nick Thompson has come in. We're going to do a little talk with Nick Thompson.

Speaker B: Listen, I want to say that just so people appreciate this, and I really would like to see people get behind this event. So, Brian, this connects to the whole dialogue we always have about sustainable media business models. And Brian broke off from the Borg created rebooting, largely newsletter driven, with aspirations to make it a subscription product. You know, kind of became branded Content man. You know, does all kinds of.

Speaker A: And now we have partnerships with aligned partners.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And now, like any good vertical content, branded. Branded content guy. And now he's creating his signature event which will be really important to the value of this company you've worked so hard at. And that is called the what? TRB audience summit.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: September 17th, very important event. Buy your tickets.

Speaker A: Thank you to. Right. This is good.

Speaker B: Buy tickets. It's going to be great. He's got really good C suite level people. And I might even go, uh, if I get a free ticket. If I get a free ticket. I'm not paying for this.

Speaker A: Okay, we'll talk about that. All right, let's leave it there.

Speaker B: That's it for this episode of People versus Algorithms, where each week we uncover pattern shaping media, culture and technology. Big thanks as always, to our producer, Vanya Arsenov. She always makes us a little clearer and more understandable, and we appreciate her very, very much. If you're enjoying these conversations, we'd love for you to leave us a review. It helps us get the word out and keeps our community growing. Remember, you can find People vs Algorithms on Apple, podcasts, on Spotify, and now on YouTube. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you again next week.

Speaker A: Outcome.