Morning Brew Daily - Special Episode: The Real Story Behind Neal and Toby

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Episode 220: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Morning Brew Daily team! On today's show, Neal and Toby are running it back with a special episode. Neal interviews Toby, and then Toby interviews Neal about their Morning Brew origin stories, where they went to college, their special interests, and more. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, we are digging into the archives. You're going to hear a get-to-know Toby and Neil episode originally recorded back in May. It's Monday, December 25th. Merry Christmas. And let's ride.

This episode first aired back on Memorial Day of this year, which feels like a lifetime ago. Yeah, a lot of things have changed since then. First of all, you used to have bleach blonde hair. And secondly, I feel like our energy was so much tamer. Now we bring the heat. Hey, that's what 150 plus episodes will do to you. Also, just want to say, Merry Christmas to everyone out there. Hope you all got the presents you wanted and are having a wonderful time with your loved ones.

Before we jump into our show, a quick word from our sponsor, Yahoo! Christmas is the season of giving, and no one has given more to this show this year than Yahoo Finance. They are the friend that is always there for us, whether through sponsorship dollars or for actually helping us do our job. It's just the best place on the internet to get historical market data, real-time news updates, and anything else you need to achieve prosperity, one decision at a time. So take a moment this Christmas to head to Yahoo.finance.com or download the Yahoo Finance mobile app to get it directly on your phone. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot.

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Now, enjoy this episode from the archives. To start it off, just tell the people how you ended up in the co-host chair next to me at Morning Brewed Day. podcast. And I know this could be a long story. So maybe start in Portland, Maine in 2019. 2019, 2020. Yeah. So I graduated college in 2019. Classic college story. I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I moved to Portland, Maine, of all places, to work at this small sports marketing startup. And while I was there, that's when I started reading The Morning Brew. And actually,

one of my friends said, like, Toby, like, you got to, you got to check us out. Like, this sounds exactly like you got to start reading it. And I did. I became obsessed with it and started trying to figure out, all right, this is where I want to be. This is where I want to work. How do I start working there? And so I actually cold emailed Austin and Alex, who founded the Morning Brew. I pitched you guys on a sports newsletter at first, which was, I thought Morning Brew should have a sports newsletter. Basically, you guys said, we don't really want a sports newsletter, but feel free to come in and audition or apply for the writer's role. And so I did that. I wrote a couple of newsletters, actually, like fake newsletters, sent them to you, Neil. And then I hopped on a bus from Portland,

Maine, to New York, and interviewed for the job. And a few days later, I guess I passed the test and was hired as a writer. So Neil actually hired me in my first role at Morning Brew as a writer for the newsletter. Yeah, I remember reading your pitches, your newsletters. I think I was like pretty buzzed on the on the subway riding and I was reading them I was like man this is really good and I remember emailing Austin being like we got to hire this guy let's go thank you whatever whatever you're drinking that night I appreciate that but then yeah I actually left morning brew for a little bit and then came back Austin who is the CEO of morning brew is like hey we're starting this podcast like you want to come audition like Neil's doing it and it sounded really fun actually

So just one day I came in, we did a test run actually in this very room, and one thing led to another and the podcast launched. Was there ever a moment in the back of your head where even before this happened where you, you know, you were like, I want to be a podcast host? Literally not even for a single second because we were both like writers. We were both use of being behind the keyboard, behind the screen. I truly thought I was not a very compelling person on air or on video or anything like that. It just felt like one of those skills that just wasn't going to achieve. But then once the opportunity came, I was like, oh, what an awesome chance to actually hone this skill. If I don't think I'm great at public speaking, what a great way to improve upon that.

So it became this really exciting thing, exciting tool to add kind of to the toolkit. So looking back, I'm super grateful for the opportunity, but I had no idea. or inkling whatsoever that I'd be a podcast host. Do you feel like you've improved as a speaker from doing 60, 70 pods? I mean, I would imagine it's hard not to. If you do something every day for 60 or 70 times in a row, you're going to get better. So maybe off the top of my head, I can't think that of a specific thing. But honestly, certain things like getting information across in a clear and coherent way, I think I've improved that.

I think it's made me a better writer to you. I don't know if you felt that as well because you just can really, when you have to speak about something, you truly have to understand it versus writing. We've talked about this. You can kind of get away with not fully understanding it. So I think it's just made me a better kind of distiller of information in general. All right. So I want to get away from the podcast a little bit and go back to your college days.

So you were the captain of the Brown soccer team, which is a Division I soccer team during college. how did that shape your college experience? Like, did you ever wish for a more normal college life? No, honestly. I mean, when you played sports growing up, and I mean, I played sports kind of all the way into college, it was just so a part of my life that it wasn't the sort of thing where I felt jealous that other people were having more fun.

Like, it was just literally an integral part of my life. And then also, yeah, we still had fun. The one thing that sports did through college, college that I think hindered me is when you go to college and you are on a sports team, you have a preset group of friends just waiting there. Like you'll have 20 to 25 guys that you know are going to be your friends no matter what. So what it does, it makes you less inclined to like go out of your way and socialize with other people.

So I think I only really figured that out like my last couple of semesters that like there's this whole wide world beyond just like the world of athletes. And I feel like I miss that a little bit. So, yeah, I have zero regrets. It was, like, awesome. I wish I could keep playing to this day. But my one regret was, like, I should have been a little better about, you know, meeting other people.

Was there ever a time where you thought you could go pro? Yeah. I thought pretty much up until my last semester senior year of college that there was potentially a chance. Like, I had a decent junior year. I knew I could probably play at a very fringe, fringe, like, MLS level. There was a very outside shot of that, but I probably could have played at one level beneath the MLS, so like USL championship.

And then my senior year, my body kind of started breaking down, like the injuries caught up, and it quickly became apparent that that was not going to happen. And I made peace with it very quickly. but literally until that senior year started, there was a small part of me. It was like if the opportunity's there, I'd love to do it, but it seems like it came and went.

Yeah, well, besides soccer, you run a marathon, you run triathons, you played high-level sports. I'm just trying to figure out what motivates you. You have such a competitive gene in you that I think most people don't. You literally ran two Yankee Stadium

from the East Village for a game when the rest of us took a subway. So, like, what is it about you that makes you so competitive? I kind of think it's very fun to be good at everything. And so I've often wrestled with this in myself. To me, it's competence versus, like, depth of understanding of things. Like, some people, they devote their entire lives to one thing. They became, they become incredibly good at it.

I've always thought it was very cool to step into a room, step into any situation, and just be, like, pretty dang competent at it. And so, like, for the marathon thing, surely the thing that motivated me was I want to step up to a 5K, like the Fourth of July 5K or a turkey trot and, like, have a chance of winning it. I just think that's cool to have like that fitness in the back pocket. So it's this weird thing. I know it's, I don't know why, but I just think it's fun to be able to like pick up a Rubik's Q and be able to do it. Like have a New York Times cross. We're going to be able to do that.

Like there's all these things that I think are such cool skills. And I've just been kind of accumulating them over time. Again, this is why podcasting is cool. Being able to speak well. That's ironic that I stumbled over that. But I just think it's very cool to accumulate different skills and different things and just be able to be competitive, be good at lots of stuff is something that has always kind of drove me. So you have two siblings, right? Yes.

To what extent does competition with your siblings drive your success? So my sister was an incredible runner growing up, like really, really, really. really fast and she's two or three years older than me. And obviously she, I took like a while to grow into my body a little bit. So she remained faster than me for a long time. And I definitely there was a moment where I went on a run where I finally realized that like, oh, wow, it was faster than her. So that drove me for a lot. And then of course, when you have a younger brother, that's someone just pushing you from behind. He quickly became faster than me. Like also played soccer. They both played soccer. So I was being pulled by my sister and pushed by my brother. So obviously

there's some competitive juices there. I mean, it's always been very, like, love. Like, we never truly, truly went at it. But those are two massive forces on the competitive. Was it like a Grankowski household? Yeah, not as much body mass, but as much competitiveness for sure. So there might be people out here listening to this being like, I'm listening, I'm hearing Toby and he's running marathons, he's solving's Rubik's Cube. So what would you, what's like one piece of advice you would give to someone who maybe runs three miles, um, exercises three days a week, but they look at something like a marathon or even a half marathon and they get super intimidated. You know, what from someone who does not get intimidated by that, like what would you tell them? Oh, I'm going to give really

counterintuitive advice because typically the advice would be like go at your own pace, like just do what you can do on a daily basis and which obviously that's great advice. But I'm, I actually think set an incredibly outlandish goal for yourself where this was my first marathon. I tried to break three hours in it. I didn't know if I could. Like that's pretty hard. It's six 50s per mile. And I think by setting that goal, you just end up rising to that.

And so I think if your goal is to just get off the couch a little more, set like a crazy 5K time or a race time and use that as like the carrot in front of you. because I just swear once you frame the goal in your mind, you frame the mentality that I'm going to achieve this, your training will like, you'll just pull yourself along. Yeah, which is not the advice that you'd probably hear. Most people say, like, if you run one mile, then run two miles and then three miles.

But that will take care of itself once you have like the goal in place, I think. All right. I've got some rapid fire questions to end our little segment here. So we talked about you becoming, you know, pretty adept at a lot of different things. What is one thing that you, if you could become elite at instantaneously, but you suck at right now, what would it be? Oh, I think it would be being able to step into a kitchen environment and open a fridge and just know how the ingredients were together, just like throw a dish together. I think that is so cool to just understand just like the science behind it, like how flakey. How you versus interact, how to layer flavors.

And I've watched a lot of cooking videos. I've done a lot of cooking. And I'm going to, spoiler, I'm going to ask you about cooking coming in the next half of the show. But the ability to step into a scenario, open a fridge and just whip something up, I think would be the coolest thing to have in the back pocket. All right. What is the worst investment decision you've ever made? Okay. So I accidentally bought so many shares of Sherman Williams.

This was back in college where I read something about how like home improvement. booming or something like that. And Sherwin Williams is well positioned to actually... The paint company. Yeah, the paint company. And so I tried to buy like 10 shares of it. I accidentally bought $40,000 worth of Sherwin Williams stock. I bought it on the margin because, like, clearly I didn't have that on my account.

I was in college. And so I get margin called, basically. And so I quickly have to like sell it off, like, blah, blah, blah. Luckily it went up like the next day. But here's... That actually wasn't the worst investment decision. Sherwin Williams has absolutely crushed it. The pandemic happened and like paint became this huge industry because home improvement.

If I had just not, if I had held the bag, if I had like paid the margin, like interest on it, it would have been worth like five times what it was. And instead I like panic sold it all back. So it was too bad investment decisions in the span of 24 hours. And all my friends constantly, whenever they see is Sherwin Williams story. Oh really like Sherman Williams, Toby. All right, that's, for our listeners, you've got to tease Toby about Sherwood Williams. All right, two more. Is there a piece of art, whether it's a book, song, painting that has stuck with you or is

especially important to you? It's probably book. I really, I grew up like reading tons of, tons of books. The one that's most recently stuck with me is probably this science fiction book foundation. And it's one of those things I often joke about this where like sometimes you, you read something and you're like there's no way that person has the same brain that I have. Because like how can they piece together something so incredibly complex? How does this just emerge out of them?

I guess that's another skill that I'd love to have just like that ability to create these incredibly intricate stories. So probably, yeah, like Foundation or Dune, some of those like OG, OG science fiction books, just really, I don't know, make me romantic about like the ability to tell stories. All right. Final question. You have a kid, okay, in the future, and you put in front of them a tennis racket, a soccer ball, a golf club, a baseball bat, a basketball, a football, or a hockey stick. Which one do you hope they pick up first?

I think it's got to be golf, honestly. Just because, like, what a great thing to share with your child. Like, I think golfing, you and I both love golf so much. It's obviously just, like, the worst mental sport out of all those. But even more so than soccer, like, the fact that you can share golf. with like your kid for so many years. I think actually it's just a really beautiful thing, so I hope they pick up the golf club.

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Hilton, for this day. All right, Neil, it is my turn. You are a fantastic interviewer, but I now want to learn about you and your story. So we kind of started with me about how I ended up at the brew. I would love to hear about your brew origin story because yours truly goes back to the beginning. And I'm just going to add a little bit of context,

but you actually weren't Alex and Austin's first choice, were you? No, I'll get to that. Just like you, I graduated college, University of Maryland in 2013, had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was like, I like reading and writing, but I don't think I'm that good at it. So I taught for a year in North Carolina, and then I went to Temple University for masters in geography and urban planning, because that is a passion of mine. I just love walking around cities and learning about spatial features and looking at maps and geography. And I was like, all right, maybe I'll pursue that as a profession. So I did that for one year. And I just saw a LinkedIn post by Alex Lieberman saying they were looking for not a writer, but a content creator. That was the words. And for their newsletter, which was called Morning Brew. And I had heard of Morning Brew through some mutual friends. I did not know anything about business.

I did not know what an IPO was. I did not know who Warren Buffett was or why he was famous. I kind of hated all of the business school students who were my friends because they didn't have class on Friday. And I was like, you guys don't learn anything. You know, what are you doing? Doing business. You know, you can just kind of learn that on your own. And I just didn't really have any intellectual interest in it.

But I read the newsletter. And I just thought to myself, like, I could do this a little bit better than it is now. I grew up watching Colbertapour and, you know, people making the news interesting and fun for people. And that just kind of synced up with what I thought I was kind of good at and what I really love doing. So I just emailed Alex and said, you know, I think I could do this. I'm going to apply. And I went through the application process.

And I did not get it initially. I did not get it. They went with another guy. And I just remember getting that email feeling pretty deflated. And I just emailed Alex back. Super nice note. I guess this is a lesson to just be kind of cordial, even in rejection, and just said, yep, I'll be around, you know, get in contact if you want.

And then apparently they couldn't reach a deal with the other guy. And so they called me up. And then I got to work with my friend who was writing the newsletter at the time, Mike Schwartz. And we started cranking out newsletters for the next six years. It's crazy. Yeah. Wait. So this was 2017.

Summer of 2017. It's wild. Neil has been at the Morning Brew since, like, almost the very beginning. Kind of crazy. That is just an incredible story. I can't imagine how different your life would be. And then also how different Morning Brew would be because your fingerprints are all over this company, basically. Maybe.

I guess. It is crazy. I just feel like it's a dream job and I can't imagine doing anything else. And it just if I hadn't seen that LinkedIn post, you know, it's just so crazy. Like you can't, I guess it's a good lesson and just kind of, things won't come to you. You know, you have to go out and get them. And I never would have worked here and my life would have been probably way worse than it has been. If I just hadn't, you know, took and taken a little initiative and, you know, followed up with Alex. in that particular way. So it's just been a huge gift. Yeah. Awesome story. But let's remove a little bit from the Brew universe, talk about you and your personality a little bit. So two things that some people might not know about you is one,

you love classical music and then two, you also love cooking. And so these are two, I love these two interests because they're very... You can cook while listening to classical music. It's great, but I do actually want you to talk about like, where does that come from? Because, like, you actually are a person who has many interests, like, similar to me.

And so where do kind of like these more intense hobbies or interests come from? Classical music has been a big part of my life since I was a young person. Three years old, my mom signed me up for piano, classical piano. And our town, Long Meadow High School and Long Meadow, Massachusetts, had a really good orchestra with a very good conductor. And my mom was like, you need to play an instrument to eventually be in this orchestra. So my mom was like really adamant that I play an orchestra instrument. So she signed me up for cello in addition to piano. And I would hate it. Like I would cry. I would sit in the car and just cry not going into, you know, early early cello lessons. And she would just be like, you'll thank me later. You'll thank me later. You'll thank me later. You'll thank me later. And then eventually got to the point where I started practicing because I enjoyed it, not practicing because my teacher would hate me. And so when I got to, you to high school. I mean, I should say, I am not good at, I'm very mediocre at piano and I am not particularly good at cello. But being in the orchestra, I have all my friends were in orchestra.

We played at Carnegie Hall. We played at Boston Symphony Hall. And so I kind of just fell in love with the music while playing in the orchestra. And, you know, all of my good friends are, we, we, I shouldn't admit this, but we ate in the band room in high school and lunch. Because you just like hanging out. Yeah, we were just like hanging out. Yeah. I love that. And we were just all, yeah, you go on the computer there.

That was a big thing. Yeah. But then what about the cooking aspect too? I don't know. I don't also, I should say, I'm not, I don't think for how much I cook. You're a pretty good cook. I'm okay. You do a lot of different dishes, which is more than I can say.

For me, cooking and food is like an aperture in two other cultures. And that's the part that's so interesting to me. When I travel, I drag people along to really weird places. where I can eat really weird food. I don't think there's any food that I wouldn't eat. Like I eat, you know, brains, testicles, worms, you know, whatever it is. I, for some reason, I'm just kind of gravitated to that. And a big inspiration for me was Andrew Zimmern on bizarre foods. And so he goes out of his way to eat really weird foods. And he uses it as a way of saying, look, we have all these things in common between cultures. And so I, you know, I love going to

markets whenever I'm in a city to like really hole in the wall places. So I, you know, I really love traveling. And I think food is just kind of a vehicle for that. It's kind of famous around the brew how much you do work because you are now running this daily podcast. You've been at the helm of the newsletter for the last five or six years. You do, you have very long nights. You do not take a lot of days off. Do you kind of take a step back and realize like how much you're working? And then what kind of drives you and kind of propels you to do as much work as you do? Yeah, I think if I reflected on it, it would freak me out. Right.

It would freak me out. So I try not to do that. I think a big reason for it is, look, I'm single. I don't have kids. I don't have like responsibilities other than myself. And I think if I had all of those, you know, a family in my life, I would, I think I would absolutely work less or find ways to work less. But for the past six years, I've just kind of devoted myself to this. this work and I think a large reason for that is I really enjoy it.

Like maybe in my spare time, even in my spare time, I was reading the news and writing, you know, and now I get paid for it. And now I get paid to talk about it. So these are all things that I was kind of doing on my free time anyway. And now I'm getting paid for it. And it's not as romantic as it sounds. But so I think the type of work kind of leads itself to working really hard. And just the family I come from.

I don't want to call out my parents, but like they worked a lot of hours. and they still do. Like my mom is like, you should stop working. And I'm just like, you're still working. You're working. Like, what are you doing? What are you telling me not to? So I come from a family of mostly workaholics where we were just kind of like grinding,

doing stuff we liked for many hours over the course of the day. And so it just feels natural for me. And when I have an evening where I'm just like, you know, or a day where there's not, you know, I don't have work. It kind of feels a little weird to me. Yeah. That's extremely unhealthy. No, but it honestly, it is inspiring.

And I think it's one of the reasons why you've been like a leader at Morning Brew for so long is that it's very easy to look at you and say like Neil is putting in the hours. Neil is putting in the hours, but also producing a great product. So it's always been something that like motivates me as like your partner in crime, just your work ethic. But then a follow up to that is you are knee deep in the news cycle every day for the last, yes, six years. how have you kind of combated burnout and then also do you ever feel like it weighs on you a little bit? Because a lot of people associate news with negativity and there's just like so much heavy stuff that you kind of have to parse through. You navigated an entire pandemic. You've navigated like election cycles.

Do you ever feel like that's weighing on you or do you just kind of power through it? I don't feel burnout. I get excited every morning to wake up and do the news. letter talk about on the pod because every day something's different. And that's what I love about the news is you wake up and you're like, who knows what's going to happen today? Apple reports earnings, but who the heck knows what they're going to say? Who knows what bank is going to fail? Who knows what Jerome Powell is going to say? Who knows what's going to happen across the world? There's like so many interesting things happening all at once. So it never feels repetitive.

There's always people writing interesting things that you can draw on. There's always arguments being had that are really interesting to draw it. So it never gets boring for me. I think it's the nature of the job is that you report on the news and the news is new. So everything's interesting. When there are times where it gets really intense, like I'm thinking January 6th, the beginning of the pandemic, various mass shootings have happened. You know, fortunately for Morning Brew, it is a business newsletter and we are not, our mandate is not necessarily to cover all this intense breaking news all the time. And I think that's helped me my mental health, not having to, like, you know, I'm not a journalist going out to these places. And I can imagine how that would

have a huge toll on people's mental health or burnout or anything. So I'm, you know, our position is very fortunate. I think it's kind of like you just go, you know, when, when something like January 6 happened or something happens really late at night, like there was the Trump indictment, you just kind of, yeah, you don't, I don't know if I would call it powering through, but you're just like work gear comes in. And I don't want to compare myself to a doctor in any way because what they're doing is like infinitely crazier than what I'm doing. But, you know, it's just like, okay, I'm assessing the problem and I know I have to deliver this product. So that part of your brain kind of kicks in and you just kind of write whatever you have to do. Even if it's 11 p.m., 4 a.m., whatever it is, you just, that part of your brain kicks in. Yeah. And you've had more reps than anyone. That's for dang sure. I've seen you navigate these scenarios and it is impressive. Okay, final question before we get into a couple of rapid fire questions as well. If you didn't end up at the brew, I know this is hard to speculate, but chart another life path for me, if you will. Like, no, brew never existed. Where do you think Neil Fryman would be sitting right now?

It's really, I don't know, man. I don't know. Like, I was on Jeopardy at age 10. That is, find that clip because it is so good. Neil was on Kid Jeopardy, had some buzzer issues, but you are. right in it yeah but what I the reason I bring that up is Alex asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said a teacher yeah and I think in I don't know if I would be a professor and academic because when I was doing my masters I just looked at what you had to do to get a PhD and go into academia

and you had to really focus on one minutia one such a specific problem and that's not the way my brain works which is why we're both doing this is because we like talking about everything from like you know spaced uh banking failure to health, whatever it is. So that just did not seem like it comported with me. But in another life, I could see myself as a, you know, a high school teacher. It's a similar skill set. I love interacting with kids.

And I was a camp counselor for many years. And that brought me a lot of joy and satisfaction. And I still have those relationships today. So that is not an unreasonable thing, I think, for me. Yeah. In a way, you are a teacher in a way. Like, it sounds a little cheesy to say, but like, you are truly. educating people, more people than you ever would as a teacher, both on air and in the

newsletter now. So I do think it's weird how life kind of charts a different course, but it takes you in a place that you might recognize. Okay, a couple of rapid fire questions. You could have four houses anywhere in the world. Tell me where they would be and then what like type of house they would be as well. All right. This is my dream. This is what I want. Talk to me. This is I want four houses and different. So I don't have specific regions or places in mind, but I would approach it very strategically. I would want a beach house. I would want a mountain

slash lake house. I would want a farmhouse and then I would want a city house. So like I want to spread my wings there. So maybe you can't get a better city than New York. So maybe like a penthouse in Soho or East Village or something like that.

I would do maybe like a farm house in Italy. Oh. I'm thinking like Abroad. Yeah, like, call me by your name. That, like that homestead right there, I would want that. Beach, I mean. Florida?

No. I don't know. There's so many good beaches in the world. Maybe like a Goa India. Wow. I'm just assuming that I can board a PJ and get on these all the time. Absolutely. Money is of no objects.

So I'm thinking, yeah, a beach, maybe, oh, maybe a Southeast Asia, like a Fiji or a place over there. And then what was the other one? A Lake Mountain House. It's tough to be like, you know, Colorado or Wyoming or Western Canada. Good for training. Or the Alps or like rural Tokyo or like rural Japan sounds unbelievable. Man, we got to make this happen for me. Yeah, we need about a million more listeners, but we can make this happen for sure.

So everyone share our friends and Neil can live out his dream. Okay, Neil, I know you watch a couple of shows. You're a big succession guy. is there one TV show that you wish you could have been in the writer's room or been a showrunner for or like influence the direction I went in anyway? Like what's your ideal writer's room that you want you would have love to sit in? Seinfeld. Oh, easy. Easy.

Easy. Yeah, I don't know. That's kind of my humor. I'm the neurotic Jewish New York guy. So I, you know, my friends and I actually like spend time like creating Seinfeld and my dad too. We all spend time thinking of Seinfeld plots anyway. So, you know, I think I did one during the pen. You did one?

It was really good, actually. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I was driving and thinking of a Seinfeld script. And I don't think I'm particularly good at it, but I would love to have, I just think it's super genius and the writing and the way these, they all come together and the way they observe, you know, every A interaction. That's something I love, you know, thinking about. And what else was I going to say about Seinfeld?

Yeah, the way their plots interweave and come together and, and their innuendo, right? Like they, a lot of other shows kind of talk about sex and use swears all the time. And the way that Seinfeld delicately goes around like really, you know, sensitive subjects. I'm thinking like the contest and faking it, things like that. The way they, you know, kind of go indirectly into it, but you kind of get it. And by their insinuations, I thought was particularly genius. You would have thrived in that writing room for sure. Okay, final question, because we're coming up on time here.

But I'm going to just bookend this nicely with talking about the podcast again. and what is one thing that our listeners who aren't behind the scenes would be surprised to know about the way Morning Brew Daily works, how the operation runs? Like, give us, give them one last tidbit to walk away with. Yeah, I mean, I guess a lot of work and research goes into just the 20 minutes that you're hearing, right? For sure. Is that what you're thinking? I mean, yeah, we spend two hours each morning reading the newsletter or reading the news and prepping points.

that we maybe just spend five seconds talking about. And we have an amazing team behind us that is putting together graphics and queuing up all this social content that, you know, takes what we do and then puts it out on social media on Instagram and TikTok after. And that is how so many people discover us. I've heard people say, I saw you on Instagram or I saw you on TikTok. And that's how I know you even have a podcast in the first place. So it's all of these things that go into this one little 20 minute segment.

So it's kind of like that, you know, tip of the iceberg kind of thing. For sure, yeah. That's what I was going to say is our control room is unbelievable. And just shout out to everyone back there. There's so many TVs back there. There's so many knobs that we don't know what's going on. So I think that's the coolest behind the scenes. We have this awesome control room.

Yes, we have a great team behind us. Yep. All right. And that team is also telling us we are running out of time. So this was a very fun episode. Neil, we spend a lot of time together, but it is always good to sit down and get to know each other, even a little better.

I'm so glad to not talk about myself for the next year. We're doing our next Memorial Day interview. There you go. Neil, what a trip down memory lane that was. Hope you all are enjoying the holiday today. And you can send your thoughts on the show or say Merry Christmas at our email address Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits.

Emily Milliron is our editor and producer. Samantha Velas and Raymond Lou are associate producers. Yuchenoa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup was on the naughty list this year. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil.

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