Pivot - Lessons from Afghanistan, the California Recall, and this week’s Friend of Pivot is Nathan Allebach aka The Steak-umm Twitter Guy

Episode Date: August 31, 2021

Guest host Katie Couric joins Kara to discuss the withdrawal from Afghanistan and lessons learned, possible outcomes of the California recall, and of course, Jeopardy! Plus, Friend of Pivot Nathan Allebach joins to talk about how he turned Steak-umm’s Twitter account into a truth bomb machine. Check out the latest from Katie Couric at katiecouric.com, or on social media at @katiecouric. You can also subscribe to her daily newsletter, Wake-Up Call, here. AND you can pre-order her book, Going There, here. Nathan Allebach covers internet culture, advertising, and media literacy discourse at nathanallebach.medium.com and on social at @nathanallebach. And of course, check out some of his best-known work on Twitter at @steak_umm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure.

I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott Galloway is somewhere watching Anderson Cooper. So I'm joined by journalist, author of the daily newsletter, Wake Up Call, and founder of Katie Couric Media, Katie Couric herself, who is also a badass. Hi, Katie. Hi, Cara. How are you? Good. I'm most excited to have you, I have to say. Oh, that's so sweet of you. I've had a lot of dudes lately, and it's just, this is really nice, because you and I have a lovely rapport, and you have lots to say about lots of things. So. Well, I don't know if I really do, but I'm happy to be here, Cara. Big fan, Cara. Yeah, I'm also testing out co-hosts, so, you know, if I have to kill Scott at some point,

which is obviously inevitable. Oh, don't kill Scott. No, I won't, but you understand. He's going to cancel himself at one moment in his life, so therefore— I think he already has a million times, but somehow he's able to live to do another podcast, right? It's true. I don't understand it, but nonetheless, I have to be prepared.

You know, I have to be prepared. That's true. You have to have a succession plan for you too, Kara. Yes, exactly. I'm not going anywhere. I'm speed dating essentially and co-hosting essentially. Excellent, excellent. Must be fun.

Have you been having fun with all these new people? Yes, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I did have my brother this last week, which was great. We talked a lot about COVID. He's a doctor, as you know, in emergency rooms in San Francisco. So in fact, I'm in San Francisco this week.

And I've noticed Alphabet's autonomous vehicle from the company Waymo has launched a robo-taxi service. It's everywhere. You see Waymo things driving around San Francisco, which is kind of interesting. It's kind of nice to be here back. This is two years I haven't been in San Francisco.

I know. I read that you were back for the first time in a long time. I don't know. I read like 12,000 newsletters, Cara, and somebody mentioned the fact that you were back in San Francisco for the first time. So are you saying that these taxi cabs are running around the city driverless? Driverless, yes.

Robo taxi services. And have you gotten in one? No, I've driven behind them and they seem fine. I consider hitting them sometimes to see what happens, but then I think, no, it's a rental car. I should probably do that. And there's someone in there, Kara. Yes, I know that.

I understand that. But just a light tap, just a light tap to see, you know, the Elon Musk of it all, essentially. I have no desire to be in one of those. But I did see, I don't know if you went to CES a couple of years ago, they were fascinating kind of choppers, air taxis that would fly around, you know, these urban areas. And I don't think they were autonomous. They might have been. No, they're going to be. Those are called vertical lift and takeoff vehicles, VELOs. It was like something out of the Jetsons.

And that to me looked fascinating and terrifying all at the same time. No, that's going to happen. That's how it's going to go in cities like New York. You take off atop of one building in this sort of weird helicopter-like thing, and then you're going to land on another one, and then you're going to, you know, land on another one, and you're going down an elevator, and then you're there in two minutes versus 30 minutes or whatever. Now, when is this going to happen, do you think, Kara?

We'll be dead, Katie. Really? Yes. But not for— See, that's why we need a succession plane, Kara. Yeah, your children's and my many children's will be riding them. But you wouldn't ride a robo-taxi. You wouldn't get in without a driver, right?

I don't think right now. I think probably in a year or so after I see more data and hear about the accident rate, I might be willing to do it. But no, I'm not a big, you know, funny, Kara, I'm kind of a risk taker in some ways. But when it comes to my personal safety and the thought of dying, I'm really not. Right. Well, that's so many people are like that. Not everybody in this country, unfortunately. We'll talk about that in a minute. Like I wouldn't want to go with Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.

Really? If he asked you in his little ship, you wouldn't want to do that? Yeah. Yeah. First of all, I don't know if I'd want to be in close proximity to either of those guys, but I'm not sure I'd want to even go up in space. I don't know. Let me just be fair. Elon does not do those stunt rides. He has not done any of those guys, but I'm not sure I'd want to even go up in space. I don't know. Let me just be fair.

Elon does not do those stunt rides. He hasn't done, he has not done any of those. It's Richard Branson. That's right, Richard Branson, true. Because he thinks they're stupid. He just wants to go to Mars and not come back. That's his plan. So really, yeah, that's it.

That's his whole, that's his whole plan. Would you go with any of those guys? No, I don't want to go to Mars. I don't want to go. No, you can't come back. You have to stay there for the rest of your life. And you get, I interviewed an astrophysicist who is an astrobiologist, actually. And he said, you just get, unless you're hundreds of feet underground with dirt all over you, you get shorter because your bones start to contract because of the gravity. And then you get dumber because of

the radiation. So you essentially turn into a troglodyte under the Earth. Well, I don't need either of those things. No, we don't need to be shorter. I don't need to be shorter or dumber. But you know what? I think because, Kara, I remember in fourth grade, I had a diary entry when the Apollo crew blew up on the launch pad and the three astronauts were killed and then of course

i covered challenger and columbia and i don't know for for those reasons those are so indelibly etched in my consciousness the idea of kind of putting myself in that kind of danger just isn't all that appealing to me yeah yeah i know i just i don't either i'm not that kind of adventure speaking of uh indelibly stuck in our minds, January 6th insurrection, the House Select Committee is still investigating. Now it's demanding the records of 15 social media companies,

the companies including Facebook, Google, Parler, Snapchat, and Reddit. So two weeks to hand over the records related to the attack. They were quite heavily used, especially Facebook, Messenger, and other things. So they're looking at information connected to the spread of misinformation, the efforts to overturn the 2020 election to prevent

certification results, domestic violent extremism, and foreign influence. What do you make of where this committee is going and the role social media companies, obviously, it starts and stops with Trump, but where do you imagine this going? Well, I think it's incredibly important to get access to those records. I guess these companies have two weeks to respond. But it seems like transparency for most of these companies has not been their big calling card. No, you're being very nice. I guess they can be compelled to release this kind of information and be transparent. But I think it's really important.

I think it was a shame that there wasn't a bipartisan commission to investigate January 6, and that now it has got to be politicized and with, you know, both sides kind of putting their, you know, flags down about privacy, etc., etc. But I think it's critically important to really understand how this thing came together. And also, I'm really interested in, you know, I know that people have been saying, oh, it's congressional overreach, blah, blah, blah. But I'm interested in hearing about the phone calls that went on between Jim Jordan and Donald Trump and Goetz and Trump and, you know, and Mark Meadows. And, you know, was there some kind of planning prior to the rally in front of the White House to kind of incite this crowd? And, you know,

I think that's critically important. What was going on behind the scenes? Well, you can see a lot in social media. There's texts and there's a lot of technology that actually does chronicle when the timelines of these things. It's very hard to fake a timeline when you've been using digital devices. One of the things that's interesting, you did a really, I would say, devastating interview with Sheryl Sandberg a while back. I don't remember when that was, but were you surprised? 2019. So when you look at what happened here, when you think about that interview,

where you really gave her a hard time and she tries to sort of sail out of these things. Did I really, though? I mean, I think I just asked her. I think, honestly, I would not characterize it as giving Sheryl Sandberg a hard time. Oh, okay. You're right. I think I asked her some very legitimate questions. She put herself in a position.

She's, you know, really famous for kind of trying to personalize and deflect hard questions. And I thought it was really important at that moment in time when the heat was really starting to be on Facebook and the way it was conducting itself with hate speech and political ads and that speech that Mark Zuckerberg had given in front of Georgetown. You know, I think she had- I was there. I was at that speech. Okay. Well, she had some hard, you know, hard questions that she needed to ask. So, you know, I think it was interesting because I'm reading An Ugly Truth right now. And she expected it to be a friendly environment.

But, you know, you can't really have all those things going on around you and not anticipate really tough questions. Yeah. I thought that was a great interview with Cheryl because I think you showed that her attempt to deflect. I think deflect was the exact word is that she's quite good at it and you didn't allow her to do so. And actually, if you look at it again, I urge people to look at it again, it really does, you sort of start to see their strategies today as they try to deflect what happened

on January 6th and their role in it. I wouldn't say their primary role, but they're certainly critically important. Speaking of controversies, Katie, since we have you here, you were asked, we have to ask you about the Jeopardy situation since you guest hosted early this year. And now, here is the guest host of Jeopardy, Katie Curry. Thank you, Johnny Gilbert. Welcome to Jeopardy, everyone. It is such a thrill to be here guest hosting a show. MyBioLic is filling in as regular host when they restart the search process. Do you have a chance again? Or what do you think? What did you think about that?

I was happy to do it for two weeks. You know, I really have tremendous respect for Alex Trebek. I mean, who doesn't? Find me one person who really doesn't. But did you want to be host? Did you want to? No, I did not. I did not. I mean, listen, I was flattered that I was a guest host and I was the first woman right on to fill in.

But at the same time, no, that's not a job that would necessarily appeal to me, even though I think it would be really fun for a lot of people. And I can't believe Sony didn't do a better job of vetting Mike and that you had to have a reporter from The Ringer go through all those podcasts. But look at all the people who have said dumb things in the past. But those were pretty dumb. Those are real dumb.

Oh, yeah, not dumb. Those are real dumb. They were really dumb. They were beyond dumb. They were beyond dumb. They were offensive. Yeah, I'm not sure there's going to find a Katie Couric thing talking about boobs and ass. No, I doubt it. But I'm just saying that, you know, you've seen Alexi, the woman who was going to be the editor of Teen Vogue, who said some inappropriate things.

the editor of Teen Vogue, who said some inappropriate things. And I think it's just a really important reminder for all you young people listening that your digital footprint lasts forever. And, you know, be mindful if you're trying to be provocative or funny or even, you know, off color, you've got to remember that it probably will come out. Well, nobody's safe. I have no idea. What do you think? I think my biologist needs to get it. That's what I think.

Or Ken Jennings. I mean, obviously, he's a fan favorite, but it seems like she's the one that should. Well, no, LeVar Burton is the fan favorite. Oh, the fan favorite. You're right. He is. That's right. That's right.

But I think she should get it. That's who I'm going for. Yeah, but now I guess she's being put under the microscope for some of the things that she has said about vaccines and something about scheduling or her kids' vaccines. And she also wrote a piece, I guess, in The Times during Me Too. She did. Seeming to kind of blame the victim a little bit and talking about the way she comports herself, which got a lot of backlash as well. But anyway. We have to get to the big story.

Today is the ostensible deadline for the United States to pull out of Afghanistan. Yes, what a shit show. I know. How the U.S. and 97 other countries, including the U.K., France, Germany, released a statement agreeing to continue to help those fleeing Afghanistan. The statement said, we've received assurances from the Taliban that all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries

will be allowed to proceed in a safe and orderly manner to points of departure and travel outside the country. There's all the risks involved, including bombings. The country has also stated it will continue to issue travel documentation for designated Afghans. So you just said shitshow. Let's break down shitshow from your point of view. You know, you've covered a lot of these things. Yeah, I covered it from the beginning. And I went to Afghanistan a couple of times. And it's just

heartbreaking, because it seems like, you know, it's deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would say. I mean, here it was, the, what do they call it, the graveyard of empires. And the Taliban was in control from 1996 to 2001. They're back in control. And of course, the big question, Kara, as you well know, is can the Taliban, and what is the Taliban, by the way, is it a monolithic organization? Is it a ragtag army full of disgruntled 19-year-olds? I mean, can the Taliban be trusted? I think is the big question, right? What do you make of their insistence?

You've heard the new and improved Taliban 2.0. Yeah, I know. It's like Taliban 2.0 and the nicer, kinder, gentler Taliban. I don't buy it. I feel like we're being pretty naive to put so much power in the Taliban. And, you know, I was reading a New York Times article that said, you know, Afghan citizens have to obtain passports from the Afghan Interior Ministry, then secure visas and approve travel documents from foreign governments before they can leave, which could take months, even years, the reporter pointed out. And it might provide information that will allow the Taliban to exact retribution on people who want to leave the country. So I don't know, Cara, it sounds pretty iffy.

And then you've got ISIS-K, you know, doing these terrorist attacks. And then they're trying to take credit for making the U.S. leave Afghanistan. the U.S. leave Afghanistan. So is there going to be some kind of tit for tat and internal sort of competition between the Taliban and ISIS-K with the more radical elements of the Taliban? I don't know. It sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, Kara. How would you cover it as a report? You know, you've been there, you've covered it, and obviously you've covered it from lots of angles, including being an anchor. How do you cover something like this? Some people, someone was just complaining about the media. I was somewhere, I forget where I was.

They were saying it was overwrought in terms of how they're covering it. How do you assess it? Like when you're looking at, you know, people in the wheels of airplanes, chaos at the airport. I've seen those criticisms too, but I think it's pretty hard if you're on the ground. People are dying in stampedes. People are climbing on C-17s to escape the country. They're throwing their babies into the arms of U.S. military personnel. I think it's pretty hard not to get overwrought.

I challenge those people who are critical of the media to go on the ground in Afghanistan and do a completely unemotive report. So, you know, listen, there's so many different ways. And there's so much smart writing that's being done on it. You know, there's how do you cover it from a policy perspective? How do you cover it from like, what lessons have we learned? It seems the US does this over and over and over again. Can we, in fact, quote, unquote, nation build? Can we change a country into a vision of what we think it should be? On the other hand, how does 9-11 change everything? I remember interviewing George Bush, George W. Bush, who campaigned against nation building, the idea of committing troops and, you know, blood and treasure to military conflicts or to conflicts overseas. And he said, September 11th changed everything for me. So what I really appreciate and try to do

when I cover these things is look at the long arc of history and, you know, over a 20-year period, what has been achieved? Why did we pull back funds from the State Department to develop infrastructure? Why did we spend so much money on the military? You know, Jeffrey Sachs had a good article about that. Two trillion dollars, so little of it went to rebuilding infrastructure and systems within Afghanistan that could have, I think, won hearts and minds over, you know, the military. Well, you know, not just 9-11 has changed it, but the reductiveness of, you know, people, it happens that in vaccines, everyone's either Dr. Google or experts on Afghanistan, and it sort of muddies understanding of it in a, everyone feels, it feels very reactive, everything, every move

feels very reactive, and even more so because of the, so because of the non-Dulcet influence of social media. And our policymakers are affected by that, it seems like. And then the groupthink that I think results from social media, right? The piling on, you know, the provocative tweet or then I think that gets more attention. It gets more conversation going. So I think you're right, everything is geared toward sort of pithy, reactive, and not necessarily deep thinking perspective on some of these big, huge events. But, you know, I just try to read as much as I can and look at many different perspectives. I interviewed my friend Kevin Baring because he was in Afghanistan with me. He's a reporter for Defense One. Just because it was interesting, we followed Bob Gates around Afghanistan and went on this international trip

together. So it was really interesting to talk to him. And then I reached out to General Petraeus because I covered both Iraq and Afghanistan with him. And, you know, people forget, like, Afghanistan was called the Forgotten War for so long because so much of our attention was diverted to Iraq. You know, for what? Right? And then we know how that turned out. Last question. I don't know.

So, I don't know. Last question. When you see Trump and Biden sort of duking it out, even though both are on the same side kind of, you know, in terms of intent, again, it's being used. Well, it's a blame game, Kara. I mean, look it. Trump is the one that negotiated with the Taliban. He set the May 1st guideline. He kept the Afghan government out of the negotiations, right? Which, and then Biden, you know, what's interesting to me, I think obviously he

was jonesing to get out of there and has been for a decade. But why he didn't consider, and was it PR reasons to have it before September 11th? I don't know. Why he didn't really consider or wasn't better served by the State Department and his military folks surrounding him. You know, he could have changed that date. He could have made sure that things were put in place. And I don't know exactly what happened, but I think we're learning more and more about conversations that have been going on in the Pentagon and the White House. And I think it's a big disappointment. And I think it's a big disappointment. And I think it's going to have a really huge impact on the midterms

and perhaps the rest of the Biden presidency. Who knows? I guess a lot of it depends on what happens in the next weeks and months. See, I think people forget this stuff. Everyone wanted Afghanistan, the regular people, and don't care. They don't care about the Afghanis, honestly. Even though people sort of give lip service to it, I think in general, in this sort of twitchy environment we're in, news environment. Yeah, maybe you're right.

What's next? I'm not sure. What's going on with TikTok or whatever? All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll discuss California's recall election, speaking of which, and we'll talk to a friend of Pivot, Nathan Olaback. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Katie, we're back with our second big story. California's Republican-led recall election to remove Gavin Newsom as the state's governor is underway as ballots have made their way to

register voters. What's at stake in the September 14th recall? It's a matter of life and death. Why are Californians uniting to vote yes to recall Gavin Newsom? We've lost jobs and businesses are leaving. It's really fascinating. He may lose. He may get it back again, but he may lose. California has gone through the recall process 179 times since the amendment was voted into play in 1911. Just one of those attempts is removed a governor from office. And that was 2003 when Arnold Schwarzenegger came into office. Although California is a deeply democratic state, Newsom might lose to a seat to a right wing talk show host, Larry Elder, because it's determined by a majority, it's crazy, a majority vote. So if he doesn't get 50%, yeah, if more than 50% say yes on the recall, Newsom has to step down and he'll be replaced by whichever opponent gets the most

votes on the ballot, even if it's 15%. And there's a lot of people in the system. So tell me, people think that he's going to lose, actually. People think he's going to get recalled? Yes. That's here in California. Interesting. If that's the scuttlebutt in California, I mean, I did read some articles in preparation for our podcast, Gara.

And it sounds to me that he is not going to get recalled. I guess the big concern is voter turnout. Yes, that's it. Or people mailing in their recall ballots that are mailed home. Even my daughter, Ellie, said a lot of people really aren't paying attention to it. They aren't. And so this hardcore anti-Newson Republican faction is super motivated. It's not unlike the primary process.

By the way, funded by some internet people. There's a bunch of internet people funding. And on the other side, Reed Hastings is supporting Newsom. And his name is quite prominent. Meanwhile, it's costing $200 million, which seems like a ridiculous waste of money to me. I guess Gavin Newsom, I think people are really frustrated by the way COVID was handled and all the businesses were closed. And of course, going to the French Laundry. Although California's got a surplus and the economy's doing well. And, you know, it's funny, you know, and it has the lowest rates among many states. So what do you think is behind it?

I think these internet guys have really, they've decided they want to replace him. Then there's some other internet guys that don't want to. I think there's a very strong anti-vax group of people here. I was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday to go visit my brother in Marin, and it was lined with anti-vax people with all kinds of signs, which was interesting. I think there's a very- Yeah, they've had a number of protests out there, and some have turned violent, I read. Yeah, they weren't getting a lot of beeps. They were getting a lot of fingers from people, actually, which was interesting. But the question is, were the people with their fingers up going to vote? That's really what it is. They could win by inertia.

And then you'll have Larry Elder for a year. I don't think he'll stay in office. Not like Schwarzenegger. Well, Larry Elder sounds pretty, pretty, pretty crazy to me. And the thing is, I think that when Gray Davis was recalled, they had Arnold Schwarzenegger on the ballot. And a lot of things that I've read say, because there's nobody with the name recognition, you know, in the what, how many peopleom is urging people to vote no and not even, you know, write anything on the second question. But, you know, it sounds like Gavin Newsom has made some pretty serious sort of faux pas going to the French Laundry and being hypocritical. This is a restaurant he went to where he ate semi-indoors, and it looked ridiculous and elite.

You know, there's a lot of pictures of Nancy Pelosi in an outdoor event, too. There's all these photos. At the very same time, people who are unvaccinated are literally just falling over dead. Right. But I think this anti-elitism is really hurting Gavin Newsom. You know, his kids going to private school and saying he relates to families who have their kids on Zoom. And, you know, I think that's sort of the way of the world. It's class warfare. And I think he is the recipient of a lot of class resentment. And, you know, conservatives in the

state of California, and as you said, this sort of cabal of internet people, which I didn't really know about. Who are they? There's a whole bunch of them. There's a whole, there's, there's PACSIM who've been funding these ads and sort of pushing it. Someone like Chamath Palihapitiya, usually a very reasonable person, sort of on the, Jason Calacanis, there's, there's a bunch, there's bunches of them. What I read is they're not very well financed, the anti-Newson contingent. They aren't. Reed Hastings has really stepped in on the other side of the Netflix founder and has actually put his name out there. He has done a lot of various things, including anti-Newson things in the past, I think. And he has put his actual name, you know, it says Reed Hastings and the Democratic, this and that, which I think

is interesting. And isn't Larry Elder in trouble for not disclosing something, a business, some kind of business deal? Yes, yes. Oh, no, he's like, he's really quite unqualified. It's just that someone with 15% of the electorate can win over someone who was duly elected governor. can win over someone who was duly elected governor. California is such a screwed up electoral system. It feels always like there's some wacky thing on the ballot or that people are voting for. And this is the case, that they can do these kind of things. Well, it's interesting.

Like you said, it was started in 1911 by progressives who didn't want concentration of power. And now it's cutting both ways, right? Yeah, absolutely. I don't know, concentration of power. And, you know, it's now it's cutting both ways, right? I don't know. It seems like, I don't know, I wouldn't want to be and Gavin Newsom's running for reelection in the fall. So what's the point? $200 million for what? Think of what that money could have gone to in California. It's the chaos of all our politics, right? You know, like, it's all over this country. And you were talking about the midterms, which people, you know, usually the party out of office wins, but nobody knows right now.

I was talking to someone who was like, oh, the Democrats are going to win the Senate. And I was like, what? Like, huh? Like, it's a very different time from when you were. It seemed, you know, it almost seems quaint. It was a devastating interview with Sarah Palin, which you're so famous for. quaint. You did such a, it was a devastating interview with Sarah Palin, which you're so famous for. But, you know, it seems quaint that you sort of put that, you know, you showed exactly what was happening there. Now it seems completely normal. She seems almost normal compared to a lot

of the people. Right, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. What would you do in that interview, Katie? Oh, my God. I don't know if I'd even want to give that woman airtime, Kara. Yeah, well, she's down Sarah Palin Avenue. You know what I mean? She's way down. Like Sarah Palin, you know, times 27. I mean, I think Sarah Palin, you know, was incompetent. And I think, honestly, in fairness to her, her speech pattern and the way she expressed herself, some of the things she had to say were not that out of the mainstream. I think it's just that the way she expressed them was so sort of confusing and kind of a, you know, jabberwocky. But I don't know. Some of these people are truly, truly terrifying, saying if someone comes to your door encouraging you to get a vaccine that, you know, we're going to show our Second Amendment rights. And I mean, it's really scary shit. And it's emboldening and enabling and encouraging

a lot of really scary, violent behavior, as we saw in the Pittsburgh synagogue. I mean, these words have consequences, you know, and these words are going to continue to have consequences. And I think it's really, really terrifying. Yeah, the fact that Larry Elder might be governor of 15, but they just like, and he's wacky, you know. John, my husband always says people get the president they deserve. Yeah.

But I hope that's not true. No, you know, he's saying that, you know, if people are ill-informed and not using their head when making their decisions. But, you know, I try to have more faith in the majority than that. I don't know how you would. I don't know how you would do that same job today. Honestly, I have to say, like, it would be very difficult. You know, I brought on Jason Miller on Sway on my podcast and people lost their minds. He's, you know, I just was like, and it was a tough interview, but it was, it's just really

interesting what people are hearing. People didn't want you to talk to him at all. And he has the platform Trump's probably going to emerge on. So I thought that was worth talking. And he's got tremendous influence in how decisions are made. I mean, I think that's a bad reaction. I think you want to understand

what people are thinking and what motivates him. I bet today, if you were doing Sarah Palin, you'd get incredible pushback for having done an interview with her. It's really, I mean, you got celebrated for it, and it was a great interview. Well, she was a vice presidential candidate. I know, but even then.

Because people actually wrote me, let's give Trump no attention often. Let's not give him attention. The problem is you're giving him attention. I'm like, he's running the Republican Party. Like, I'm sorry. Is that attention? Okay. It's fine by me.

Yeah. I mean, this is the thing. Social media has given everybody a megaphone. So every person you hear from, you've got to kind of shut them out and go with your own guts and not be influenced by them. But it's hard sometimes. You know, sometimes I write back people on Instagram like, why aren't you supporting our troops? And I'm just like, what? I just did a whole

tribute to all the fallen service members in Afghanistan. What's that have to do with, what are you talking about? Yeah, yeah. Don't respond to them, Katie. Call me when you want to do it. Once in a while I do, because they just bug me. Yeah. Well, speaking of social media, we're going to bring in our friend of Pivot, on social media. We're going to bring in our friend of Pivot. Nathan Alabach, creative director of Alabach Communications. Nathan is a writer covering internet

culture, advertising, and conspiracy theories, as well as the Twitter personality known for causing the Stakeham account to go viral. I love this guy, Cara. I love this guy. Hi, Nathan. Hi, Katie. Hi, Cara. Thanks so much for having me. Good.

So let's listen to some vintage advertising from the Steak'Em brand. Got a minute? Then you've got time for a hot steak sandwich. Keep Steak'Em frozen till you're ready to eat. Then stick them in the frying pan. 60 seconds later, take them off the heat and fix them up any way you can.

Try Steak'Em on a roll with cheese. Top it any way you please. Steak'Em sandwich steaks. They're 100% pure beef and nothing else. Fast forward to Steak'Em branding on Nathan's wash. I'm going to read one of his tweets. Quote, we are just a frozen meat brand tweeting into the void, hoping to provoke thought, inspire unity, and relay useful information.

Really not the same kind of tone. thought, inspire unity, and relay useful information. Really not the same kind of tone. So, Katie, take it away. Well, Nathan, first of all, congratulations on your success. You have how many Twitter followers at this point? It's somewhere over 200,000, I think, yeah. Well, I've been fascinated reading about you this morning. I did my homework for this podcast because Kara terrifies me. But, you know, I think what you're doing is so fascinating. And tell us how you kind of found your voice on Twitter because it's very distinctive. I know you go for authenticity and I would say it's observational humor and insight. But why don't you tell everybody why you started doing this and how

you found that voice? Yeah, sure. So I started through our agency running the Twitter account in mid-2017, and there was little to no oversight in the beginning because the account had about 1,000 inactive followers. The client didn't take it that seriously in comparison to like Facebook and Instagram and the rest. So there was a lot of room to kind of experiment with the voice and figure out what was working, what wasn't working. And it was just a few months of me and our team just kind of working through, you know, what are some bits that people are connecting with, you know, what are other brands doing? Because I honestly wasn't super familiar with like Wendy's doing like their sassy clapbacks. Like I wasn't super familiar with like what other brands doing because I honestly wasn't super familiar with like Wendy's doing like their sassy clapbacks like I wasn't super familiar with like what other brands were even

doing on Twitter so um it was it was a lot of just figuring out you know what the landscape looked like and what people um were open to hearing and like you you kind of alluded to there I think because I had such a little oversight from the beginning I was able to kind of be more myself like be a little bit more human in interacting with people. So people felt it was a lot more personal off the bat, which again, at the time, I was just kind of messing around, figuring this out. There wasn't a whole lot of strategy behind it.

Research. So you didn't have like all that research that they always say you have to say this. I mean, that's why I think it works so well, Nathan. It was very sort of spontaneous. It was very you. They're incredibly sort of world-weary, right? I mean, talk about what you, they're sort of world-weary and like, oh, it's just a frozen steak.

Well, it's funny because I feel like if you weren't, if it wasn't a brand saying the things that we were saying, I think the tone would almost sound condescending to a lot of people. And I think it does still sound condescending to people as the brand. It's kind of like, why is this meat brand lecturing us about, but you know, uh, you know, critical thinking or media literacy or whatever. So I think, um, but we try to use neutral language and we try to moderate the language. We try to make it sound, you know, as safe as we can, but also in a way that's touching on things you know that people are thinking about and things that people care about because as everybody here knows and people listening twitter is a super toxic platform uh it's a 24-hour news kind of machine and people

are always looking for the latest hot takes and the latest thing to get mad about so i think um the fact that we took that kind of moderate approach to trying just to figure out like let's pump the brakes let's depolarize you know here's how we can we took that kind of moderate approach to trying just to figure out, like, let's pump the brakes, let's depolarize. You know, here's how we can think about this kind of surface level concept in a way that inspires thinking versus like us. But you're not particularly friendly, but you're not particularly like you talk about. I agree with you. You're funny in a way that is not like necessarily eat some steaks, eat some steakums, right? Like, what's the goal? and why do you think it works?

Go ahead, Katie. I'll go ahead, Katie. I wanted to ask you about that, to follow up on Kara, like, does this really sell steakums? To me, it's, you're delivering truth bombs. You're helping people connect the dots. And what does it really have to do with selling your product? And what has it done have to do with selling your product and what has it done for sales? Yeah. So we do have data from the past couple of years over various spikes,

I would say, because we basically, especially in the beginning, around 2018, we started to pick up on this. We weren't running other advertising anywhere. So we kind of correlate, you know, a lot easier. Okay. We see this clear spike in sales here. And this is right when we had this massive viral moment that hit national headlines, et cetera. So we can correlate to a certain degree. It's a little harder now because obviously the pandemic, um, especially frozen foods are like flying off the shelves. So it's, it's, it's not as one-to-one I would say. Um, but I think overall, I mean like the PR net benefit of like of earned media that the brand's gotten

has been pretty unprecedented. So there's that element of it. And then there's also- Also young people, right? Young people think it's cool. Exactly. So that's what I was going to say. I mean, the product's been around since the 70s.

So I think it has this kind of legacy impact where a lot of people, maybe Gen X end up, have a memory when they were growing up eating it. But a lot of millennials. College. Yeah, yeah, in college. But a lot of millennials and Zoomers aren't familiar at all with it. So, you know, this is kind of their introduction to it in a lot of ways, which I think the style of Twitter has helped reach them. And in fact, you did this because you wanted to connect with younger consumers, right? I mean, you wanted the brand to be more relevant.

So it sounds to me like even sort of brand recognition, having these bone moats, so to speak, come from the Steakums account. I mean, it's so random and sort of very much kind of fits in with sort of the Twitter ethos, right? Yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of people talking about the Steakums. Did you go to other social, did you think about Facebook or TikTok or, you know, or Snapchat? Why Twitter? Well,

we've tried TikTok and like we've had varying success there. And we've been using other platforms on and off over the years. But especially with organic reach, I mean, organic reach is almost dead for Facebook. And it's more and more difficult for Instagram. With Twitter, it's such an easy platform to just get heard. You know, like you could have no following, you could have no paid budget, and you can put a tweet out there into the ether, and suddenly it blows up if it's like the right reply

to the right person at the right time. So I think it was just an opportunity to explore and to kind of figure out what worked for the brand. And then we've been able to like extrapolate a lot of the voice and a lot of the things that have worked on Twitter to other platforms then. You know, what's really interesting, Cara, I think that from everything I've read,

this works because of Nathan and not to blow smoke, Nathan, but people say you're incredibly well-read, you're clever, you're really smart. And I can attest from reading some of your Medium posts about conspiracy theories, which honestly sounded like a doctorate. Oh, geez. You know, first of all, they're very long, Nathan. Can you kind of maybe get a better editor there?

But no, like, Cara, they are so well-researched. I don't know if you read some of Nathan's stuff. Like, Kara, they are so well-researched. I don't know if you read some of Nathan's stuff. Well, I have, because one of the things that's interesting is the Twitter feed reads, like, someone who is, like, unloading their college education on us. Like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, yeah, that. I remember that.

And I think it works really well because it's super smart and it doesn't hide from smart, right? That's one of the things. And then the juxtaposition of it being a steak brand, like a frozen meat brand, is sort of funny. But when you're doing the conspiracy theory stuff, what made you do that? Because then I understood why the Steak'Em tweets are the way they are once I read those. So talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I think the conspiracy theory and the misinformation bits just kind of naturally arose last year in the height of COVID in the beginning, just because there was so much of it. the height of COVID in the beginning, just because there was so much of it. It felt very unprecedented online where obviously we've all seen misinformation over the years, but it felt like a boiling point almost. And it felt like a lot of people were talking about how, you know, oh, those stupid

people over there and, you know, how absurd this one conspiracy theory is and a lot of hot tape commentary like that. But there wasn't a lot of good, what I would consider like long form analysis, kind of breaking down why some of these things were happening. So like you alluded to, there was some of the work that I've done just in my free time. That's where I kind of started to pull from being like, you know, I've done a little bit of research on like the sort of psychology of conspiracy theories and the history of why some of this stuff has come to be. And I thought it'd be interesting just to kind of take the bits of that that are the most depolarized, the most kind of easy to grasp and just break them down into these like, you know, short spurts through the state of Macau and see what connected. And I guess just again, with the timing of it, with the pandemic, then I think it really, it hit a lot of people. So it

worked at the time. I was, I was gonna ask you, Nathan, why do you think it resonated so much, it worked at the time. I was going to ask you, Nathan, why do you think it resonated so much, particularly during the pandemic? And I love the way that you kind of read and listen to podcasts and kind of write notes. But you talked about, especially young people, feeling just so disconnected and so miserable that sort of the tenor of what you were doing seemed to really resonate. Can you expand on that a little bit? Yeah, I think a big part of why the Stakeham content is connected with younger people specifically is the fact that we don't shy away from the fact that we are a brand and what we're doing is advertising.

There's sort of like a meta self-awareness to it that puts, it puts some people at ease. It puts other people, you know, more on edge, you know, the people that are already kind of cynical and critical to advertising and manufacturing consent and just the whole, the whole ecosystem of how media and marketing kind of interact. I think those people look at like it's malicious and it's kind of dystopian that what we're doing. But I think generally a lot of young people who just maybe spend time scrolling through Twitter or TikTok every day, and they're getting kind of mundane and run down from the sort of attention economy of all of it.

I think seeing a brand kind of break these ideas down that they've been thinking or hearing about in other spaces in a really self-aware way is kind of like a, oh, whoa, I'm not used to seeing that on my timeline. It kind of takes them out of the sort of the, I'm using a lot of buzzwords, but the kind of like doom scrolling nature, you know, you get caught in that cycle and then you see something that snaps you out of it and you're like, oh, wait. And then you take a second, you get to the end of it and

you're like, oh, I just was advertised to. And that kind of creates a weird distance there as well. And I think I'll have a lovely steak. But when you think about the conspiracy theories, Katie and I were just talking about them, you know, she's done a lot of interviews that today would have gotten twisted over, you know, if you think about any of the big interviews. I would love to have seen the reaction of, say, the panel interview today in the Twitter space, which she would have done and different things like that. But this sort of age of conspiracy theories and mistrust, which is not new and fresh, it's been around. It's just been more accelerated. So how do you look at the platforms?

Because you often talk about them with the Stakehams brand. What can the platforms do to catch it earlier rather than damage? Damage control is all they do, is damage control. And that's the big thing. I talk to friends about this all the time.

Everything that they're doing is reactive instead of proactive. And it feels like the sort of distrust is so heavily built in to the platforms at this point from both like far left, I'd say politically and far right. And kind of people in between have gotten cynical to the whole, to all of them as well.

I think creating more transparent messaging, it's like, it's a cliche at this point because everybody says something like that. But I think something along the lines of, you know, being open about their processes and how they're analyzing what constitutes misinformation and what are the gradients of that? Because obviously it's like it's a spectrum, right? It's not this like, oh, this thing is fake news and this thing is not. Sometimes it's that simple, but oftentimes it's more complex. I think that's where the distrust builds.

The distrust doesn't really build over. Oh, so andso got this fact wrong and now they've been suspended or whatever. It builds from the more gray areas that aren't then coherently explained by the platforms. And then they just make these decisions kind of on a whim. Which Zuckerberg alluded to just recently. He's like, so it's confusing. I'm like, okay. Yeah, super helpful. Thanks. And yet. Well, you know, Kara, you know, I'm on this, and Nathan, I'm taking part in this Aspen Institute Commission on Disinformation. And I think you're so right.

I think transparency is job number one, because if we don't know how the systems work, we don't know how things are being channeled to people, how they're rating content, how they're correcting content. It's really hard. And if researchers can't really have access to it, it's really hard to come up with things that are more proactive and less reactive. And I noticed at the end of one of your posts, you put a lot of things about media literacy, you know, which puts so much onus, which is, I think, critically important, but it puts so much onus on the consumer. And I think, obviously, we're going to have to go from both channels. And, you know, it'll be interesting when we come up with some of our recommendations if they're going to fall on deaf ears. Or, I mean, what do you guys think, Kara, particularly Facebook? Do you think Facebook is going to change?

No. No. No, it's been reactive from day one on every topic, whether it's privacy, whether it's misinformation. So you think it's going to take government intervention? Never done better financially. There's no incentive for them to do it, and they don't think they're wrong.

I mean, one of the things, what's interesting that you're releasing this disinformation, what Nathan's writing about, is that there's a lot of people saying, so what if there's disinformation? There's disinformation police. If you've seen a number of pretty prominent internet pundits talk about that, don't be, you know, mommy state, don't do this, don't do that. And I think they don't understand the insidious nature of propaganda and how it works, you know, in any era. You know, it sounds crazy, but, you know, Hitler didn't need Twitter, right, to do what he did. Neither Mussolini didn't need

Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. Or Stalin didn't need, you know, whatever, TikTok. Although that idea is kind of crazy to think about. But one of the things, Nathan, I'd love you to, when you think about that, because you are in the brand space, you are in the advertising space, but it does veer right over into propaganda really quickly. This particular medium is quite good for it. How do you do better? Is the media sort of chasing it? Is it that people aren't media literate? Is that people will fall for anything? What do you, where do you see an out on this? Because you talk a lot of, the Stakeham, I've learned a lot of things from the Stake brand for some reason that I'd forgotten. I think you both just touched on, I mean, I think there has to be more of an institutional push to get some of this stuff in legislation because individually, it seems like what the state,

what Stakeham is doing in a sort of weird advertising way and what a lot of other, you know, smaller public institutions and even some private institutions are doing is trying to empower the individual. It's like, hey, you know, the internet's a crazy place. You put on your critical thinking cap, learn how to be media literate. And that's great. Like you said, Katie, we should continue to do that. But I think on a mass media level, it is just so discouraging to see this stuff happen because, you know, you know, it's like with the vaccine hesitancy. it's like, OK, we all know you have the power individually to maybe convince your mom or your sister or someone that's super close to you. But you as

an individual don't have much power at all over your community at large, over your state, over your you know, it's just it dissipates the broader these problems get. So I think there has to be some public pressure mounted to push for legislation, whether like you alluded to before, whether it's reform on the platforms themselves, or it's some kind of new policy that does push, like maybe reinvigorates media literacy within the public institutions. But I think even that that's a long term fix. I mean, to kind of get it through the education system versus something at a top level, that's kind of like, let's curb this, you know, before.

Well, I'll let Katie ask the last question, but I'll note that it's actually companies that are doing this, like whether it's Stakehams, whether it's Patagonia, which is essentially, fuck you, Tucker Carlson, you know, I don't know if you saw their recent, they're doing a lot of edgy stuff. Or, you know, Disney pushing back on Ron De't know if you saw their recent, they're doing a lot of edgy stuff. Or Disney pushing back on Ron DeSantis. That's a big deal when they did that. So it is interesting that companies are, some companies are leading the way into this.

People aren't paying as much attention to the Disney DeSantis thing, but boy, that's not good for him. Because they run for it. They are the governor of Florida. Yeah, just real quick. I mean, I definitely think we're at a time, especially in the post kind of the pandemic world that we're in, especially since the BLM movement last year kind of took off. We're in this position where I think

a lot of brands are forced or being pressured to position themselves in causal ways. You know, it's like, what's something that we can stand behind, whether it's a social justice cause, whether it's an issue of the day, something that's gonna differentiate them in this kind of space where everybody's trying to be everything all the time and nobody's really taking heart. You saw a lot of brands during BLM say,

we stand, Black Lives Matter, whatever, and then they did one post and then have never talked about it again versus the sort of Ben and Jerry's model, which is like, let's make this part of our actual brand identity. So I think you're seeing more and more of that. Patagonia is one of them. And in fact, not to do a shameless plug for Katie Couric Media, but that's really the

whole foundation for our company. We're taking, quote unquote, purpose-driven brands, companies that need to take positions and really explore important issues, whether it's climate change or gender equality or social justice or racial justice. And trying to do storytelling with a very, very light touch because it's, quote unquote, brand supported, not branded content. Because you look at the Edelman Trust Barometer, you look at the Business Roundtable, these companies, in order to retain employees the government and financial institutions has declined, you know, people are looking to corporate leaders. You know, that's why, you know, Ken Chenault and Ken Frazier, you know, are speaking out on voting rights in Georgia. And that's where I think the vacuum is being filled in many ways. And so we saw this as a big opening, Cara. Democracy is up to stake them.

Do you understand this? We understand the task. Anyway, Nathan, thank you so much. Nathan, you can watch him on stage. Where do you reach your medium posts? I'm just at Nathan Alibach everywhere. So you search my name, I'll pop up. At Nathan Alibach.

And are you sporting a munt? He's not just a state guy. Are you sporting a munt? Because I was looking forward to seeing your long hair. Oh, yeah. I've got up. Okay, at Nathan Alibach. And are you sporting a mun? He's not just a steak guy. Are you sporting a mun? Because I was looking forward to seeing your long hair. Oh, yeah, I've got the mun, yes. All right. What's a mun?

What is a mun? It's a man bun. It took me a second there, too. But next time, I'll wear it down for you, Katie. Thank you, Nathan. Okay, all right. Okay, Nathan, thank you so much.

Okay, bye, Nathan. All right, Katie, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform

that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees, and it takes forever to build a campaign?

Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing and makes writing blogs, creating videos and posting on social a breeze. So now it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. So wins and fails, Katie. Come on, wins and fails. I have just one win today, if you'd like me to start. Yeah, you start. Do you know Jojo Siwa? Yes. She's a dancing fiend. She'll become the first contendant on Dancing with the Stars to compete with Zame Sex Partner during the show's 30th season.

She is an absurd figure. My two-year-old daughter loves her and thinks she's the best. I think she's crazy looking. But nonetheless, she's highly entertaining and she's come out as a lesbian. Yes. And she is going to dance with the stars with a lady. I think it's great. Go JoJo. That is awesome. And I have no with a lady. I think it's great. Go JoJo.

That is awesome. And I have no idea what this whole segment's about, Cara, so you're going to help me because I didn't see it. So wins and fails. Give me a win this week and a fail this week. Something that you think worked really well and something that failed. I think what failed was all these conservative talk show hosts

who are having these deathbed conversions and saying they wish they had gotten vaccinated. And I guess some people see that as a win. People say, you know, Darwin take the wheel or natural selection, but I see it as, you know, a failure to respect and appreciate science. And so that really, that's really, really troubling every time I see that happen. And then they're 30-year-old guy. And I don't like the dunking, I have to say. A 30-year-old guy with three kids and a child on the way, his wife got the vaccine, and they joked about being on different sides. And he's 30 years old, he dies of COVID.

You know, I just- I have a family situation like that. They just got the vaccine, thank God. They did. A couple. What put them over the top and made them do it? I'm going to say who it is. It's someone very close to me.

The wife got the vaccine, was very pro. Everyone in the family has gotten the vaccine, obviously. I think hearing people complain to them, I don't think it was for good reasons. It was everybody needs to shut up and leave me alone kind of thing. Well, not because people, anti-vaxxers are dying. Not to protect people, no. Actually, one reaction was, well, you got to die of something.

I said, why don't you just go drive into that wall there? Then what the hell? It was weird. It was weird. But nonetheless, vaccinated. So whatever. It was a win, I guess. Very strange.

Nathan writes a lot about that, about sort of the reasons people are vaccine hesitant. And people dig their heels in more when they're criticized or they feel like smug know-it-alls or telling them what to do. It's really interesting from a psychological point of view. So I think if you can somehow compassionately explain and help people understand, but that's pretty hard to do in big numbers, isn't it? Well, it is. It is. It's hard to do in small numbers. It's hard to get people off of certain things. It's also just tribalism.

As you know, I talk about my mom a lot and Vox News, like watching, she was with me for a few days and I could see how it twisted her. Like she had these ideas and I'm like, factually, this is correct. No, no, no. You know, and it took at least an hour to show things before I could convince, you know,

and that's like iterates itself all over the place. So it's a really, it's a bad media environment. I'm excited. Of course, I've invited you to code to talk about this and you're not coming, but nonetheless, we would like to have you there to discuss this report you're doing. So very quickly, Katie, that's the show, but talk about, so you're doing this report with the Aspen Institute. You're working on that. And this is a disinformation. You've got an amazing group, Chris Krebs, you got Rashad, as you mentioned yourself, it's a great group of people working on this report for Aspen.

You also have your media company, which you've mentioned, and your newsletter. But your book is coming out. How do you feel about it? How do you feel about it? It's quite good. It's scary because it's a memoir. You went there on a couple of things. I was very pleased to see.

Yes. You know, my husband, John, kept saying, you know, if you're not going to be honest, don't write a book. Yes. So it's very honest. I think it's probably going to ruffle a few feathers out there. But, you know, it's from my perspective and, you know, what I experienced. And, you know, I think when you're a public figure, if I guess I was for many years, people write about you and you really don't have a chance to kind of try to reflect or express what it was like being in that position. So, it felt really good and liberating to kind of say, hey, this is what happened. This is

my experience. And, you know, hopefully it'll be illuminating to people and interesting. I think a lot of women will. You definitely are someone who people have ideas of that are not like what people think you're like. It's very interesting. People will be very, this will be a really interesting book, even though you did not give it the title that I wanted. But that's okay. Anchor Monster. Anchor Monster.

That's what I want you to call it. Because I wanted you to go there. Yeah, because a network executive described me as such. To me and wanted me to print it and I declined to do so. What a dick. And he wanted you.

I know, that's what I thought. And off the record. And he didn't want to say who he was. He just wanted you to say that, which I think is sort of kind of very illustrative of the endemic sexism and the kind of double standard,

which I get sort of tired of that term, but it's true that women certainly of my era in TV news had to deal with on a constant basis. It's interesting. What is it called? So people will buy. It's called Going There. I wanted to call it Moxie, but nobody else liked that. Moxie, no. Well, Moxie, my dad used to say, Katie, you've got Moxie. It means spirit of determination. You do got Moxie, Katie Couric.

But nonetheless. And I also like the way the word looks with an X right in the middle. I think that would have looked graphically interesting. But also it resonated with my life story, but nobody liked it. So, we did Going There because it sort of has many different meanings. I go there and I really tell the truth, but I had to go there at different points in my career and take chances and do things. Yeah, you have a fascinating career. People should read this. You know, Katie has done a lot of different things, including going to Yahoo, doing all this independent stuff.

And so it's a really interesting journey. It's a very interesting, and there's obviously things that you're going to want to read about that got more attention than other things recently, around Matt Lauer and things like that. Yeah, I talk a lot about Me Too and Matt and what that was like, really how I processed that whole thing. I talk a lot about losing my husband to colon cancer when he was 42 Me too. You do. And Matt and what that was like. Really how I processed that whole thing.

I talk a lot about losing my husband to colon cancer when he was 42. And our daughters were six and two. And I was 41. And my sister a few years later. So I would say it's incredibly candid and raw. Yeah. And I talk about. I thought it was very. You did the Catherine Graham thing.

I mean, of all things. And that was another. I think it'll be surprising to people. And you went you did the Catherine Graham thing I mean the ball thing and that was another I think it'll be surprising to people and people will like it quite a bit I guess do you think people

people do kind of pigeonhole people and caricature them don't you think let me just give you some advice what the fuck do you care you're Katie Couric

okay that would have been a good title for my book here I'm fucking Katie Couric. I'm fucking Katie. Drop the mic. Drop the mic. All right, Katie. I had so many good titles for your show. Anyway, that's the show. You can find the link to subscribe to Katie's newsletter, Wake Up Call, in the Pivot Shed Inspire book, which is on sale when? Oh, October 26th, but pre-order now because it all counts for the first week, right?

All right. Okay. Always selling, Katie. Okay. We because it all counts for the first week, right? All right. Okay. Always selling, Katie. Okay. We'll be back Friday for more. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions for the Pivot podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Caroline Shagrin, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Anderdot engineered this episode. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. If you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week with George Hahn, actually, for another breakdown of all things tech and business. And then Scott Galloway shall be back after Labor Day. Katie, thank you so much. Kara, so fun being with you.

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