The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Supply Chain Woes, Self-Driving Vehicles, and Rebuilding Relationships — with Bryan Salesky

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

Bryan Salesky, the founder and CEO of Argo AI, joins Scott to discuss the state of play in the self-driving vehicle space. Bryan tells us about the miles his company is automating, as well as what the industry’s barriers and opportunities are.  Scott opens with his thoughts on why having a robust and efficient supply chain is key to increasing shareholder value.  Algebra of Happiness: Rebuilding a strained relationship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Episode 121. Jack Dorsey resigned. That's's right the dog gets his bone all i need is tesla at 100 bucks a share for apple to acquire peloton and then people will love me they will love me go go go go welcome to the 121st episode of The Prop G-Pod. I'm reminiscing a little bit. I remember episode one, I was in Mexico.

I packed my go bag. As you can imagine, I'm a little bit neurotic and a little bit data-driven. And when the novel coronavirus first was reported, potentially in New York, I called a friend of mine who's an epidemiologist, and I said, what's going on here? And he said, Scott, this is worse than anyone says it is. And I told everyone at our firm to go home. And I immediately started doing all these crazy spreadsheets around a region that was low density, low density resort, comfortable, 30 minute drive from a good hospital, hour flight from a world-class teaching hospital.

You know, this is how you think when you're old and you have a health scare. And we ended up in the Mayakoba in Mexico. And of course, that's when we were launching the Prop G pod. And I literally did my episode one. When was that? Almost two years ago. You're in three quarters. Anyways, good with data, bad with the calendar. And my first guest, or our first guest, was Aswad Damodaran, and I did it from the bathroom where they had towels for sound absorption of the place we were staying in. Anyways, Bill walked down memory lane, the lane of memories, walked with the dog, grabbed my paw, and head down this majestic journey. In today's episode, we speak with Brian Selesky, the founder and CEO of Argo AI.

Argo AI is an autonomous vehicle company that builds a software hardware, maps, and cloud support infrastructure for self-driving vehicles. We discuss with Brian the state of play regarding the space, including the various business opportunities and the barriers. Okay, what's happening? Let's talk a little bit about supply chain. Oh my God, I've been saying for a while that it's the boring shit that creates shareholder value. Well, guess what? It's also the boring shit that can really trip you

up. And specifically, I believe that supply chain innovation has been responsible for the greatest increases in shareholder value, whether it's Apple forward integrating into stores when everyone was getting out of it, or whether it's Amazon making huge, staggering, unthinkable investments in supply chains such that they could get you everything within 48 hours free of charge. Who would have known that would build the most valuable retailer in history? So, okay, you've heard all the woes about the supply chain shortages being at historic levels. Companies are scrambling. Retailers are facing long delays. And America is running out of everything. It's interesting, though. It's

really interesting because I spoke to, I have some friends who are in real estate and they said it's getting worse, which kind of shocked me. I thought that there'd be so much economic incentive to kind of get the gunk out, but it's led to a lot of things. It's led to, it's kind of the, what is that? It's the supply side of inflation, right? Inflation is more money chasing fewer goods and there's fewer goods because a lot of our goods are just taking a lot longer to get here. So just as an example, the way the supply chain – one basic way the supply chain has changed is in the 1990s when my firm, Red Envelope, was trying to find a way to get people gifts, tasteful gifts, tasteful gifts, to people's homes after they clicked buy on their computer screen, we would just try and find the lowest cost provider. That's what it was all about. And we'd find some warehouse on the Kentucky, Ohio border near a runway that could get to the majority of homes either, you know, in three days

via air or a week with ground transportation. And it was riddled with errors. It wasn't that efficient. There wasn't a ton of innovation. And then kind of Amazon came in and just changed everything. So with this pursuit of the lowest cost provider, things got more complex geographically. And that is, I was on the board of a retail company and we woke up one day and found out, oh, 90% of our tops are produced in a 20-mile square radius. But unfortunately, that region is in Shenzhen, China. And when that entire region gets shut down because of COVID protocols, all of a sudden we have a retailer with 550 stores that has no tops, and that is difficult to operate. So this has led to a lot of companies saying, all right, clean sheet design, this supply chain interruption is deep enough that it's giving companies the opportunity to pause and think about reshoring and also think about automation.

And essentially what you have is in such a strong economy, supply chain is no longer about the lowest common or the low cost provider, but who is the highest value provider. And also as companies, successful companies get more access to cheaper capital, it's how do you supply chain as a point of differentiation, meaning you need to own it. If Red Envelope was reinvented today and we had more capital, I wouldn't be surprised if we would build our own warehouse and our own automation to try and develop competitive advantage against the other dozen companies who are also leasing a portion of that warehouse for their own fulfillment. So let's talk a little bit about what sparked this thinking. The Wall Street Journal reported that Samsung is building a $17 billion chip factory in Taylor, Texas, a small town outside of Austin. Not going to be that

small anymore, $17 billion. So this isn't Samsung's first chip factory in Texas, nor is this unique to the company. Intel, for example, announced earlier this year that it's spending $20 billion to build two new chip plants in Arizona. Neither of these are really radical changes, but they're important developments for a category that warrants additional attention, especially if you're a business person or investor thinking about what really moves the needle. U.S. companies account for 48%. Yeah, that's right, about half of the world's chip sales, yet produces 12% of them. That's down from 40% during the 90s. This actually has kind of geopolitical ramifications. So basically the shoe lobby has figured out a way to talk Congress into thinking we need to have tariffs on imports of shoes because we need to maintain our domestic shoe production capability in case there's a war and we need to put boots on the ground or need to put boots on feet for boots on the ground, which is probably total bullshit.

I can't imagine it's that hard to fire up a factory building shoes. But then again, I don't know the complexity of a shoe. But it's definitely true with chips. Chips are sort of the new oil. And my thesis is that the next war is going to be not fought over oil as they were in the 70s and 80s. It's going to be fought over chips, specifically probably something to do with China and Taiwan, or maybe South Korea gets involved. Who knows? By the way, Ian Bremmer said he didn't think that was true. I told him I thought Taiwan was a hotspot in the world. And he said that he thought that headline risk was overestimated. Anyway, Samsung's announcement comes on the heels as the Biden administration is making

strong pushes towards domestic semiconductor production. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, for example, is urging Congress to pass the CHIPS Act. Something to do with Eric Estrada, pretty sure. Or it would provide $52 billion in subsidies for U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing and research. Eric Estrada, deeply misunderstood artist. Anyway, that aid will help the U.S. compete with countries including China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore, where it's cheaper to manufacture chips, largely due to government subsidies. Right now, East Asia accounts for three quarters of the world's chip manufacturing, and China is estimated to have the world's largest production share

by 2030 due to an estimated $100 billion in government subsidies. So China, who has a tendency, I don't know, to think long-term, unlike the U.S., has said that this is of strategic importance and they're putting their money where their mouth is. These industries aren't just profitable, they're essential to national security. In World War II, the U.S. was able to become the arsenal of democracy. Why? Because we had shipyards and auto plants. No president wants to be dependent on trans-Pacific shipping for the semiconductors that power a modern economy. It's one thing when your sub-zero refrigerator's delayed, it's another thing when you can't put a tank on the battlefield

because the chips aren't available. A modern military is increasingly dependent upon these very sophisticated chips. So rebuilding the U.S. supply chain will not be cheap or easy and will likely cost companies up front, you know, see above investments. Hence, companies rely on foreign supplies in the first place. An analysis by Harvard Business Review noted that group purchasing organizations for medical goods control roughly 80% of U.S. generics purchased, and they've been able to drive prices down due to consolidation.

In order to keep prices down, the offshore manufacturers in countries that either have lower cost positions or benefit from government subsidies see above China. Now, again, nothing's for free. It's great to use other people's capital. It's great to find the lowest cost provider, but you lose that verticalization competitive advantage benefit. The other point to make is that regardless of companies can create a robust supply chain in the U.S., we're going to see more and more of theirs,

at least out of China. And who I think is a big winner here, let's talk a little bit about winners. I think Mexico is going to be a big winner here. Remember in the 80s, you're probably not old enough, but in the 80s, Mexico had a minute. And that was the maquidoras, kind of these industrial centers. And Mexico basically said, all right, we're close to you. We don't have these pesky things called unions driving up costs.

There's a lot of people who are very excited to make $10 an hour versus $30 an hour. We have great technology universities in Monterey. We have an educated populace. We don't have any of the geopolitical bullshit risk overhang of Sino-American relationships. You know, Mexico is an ally and we can get you stuff within 48 hours as opposed to two weeks on a ship. So in sum, I think Mexico, I think Mexico is going to be a big winner. As a matter of fact, another prediction, I think Mexico City is going to be one of that. I think Mexico City is going to be the new Austin or Miami, if you will. There's going to be a lot of interesting startups and a lot of young people moving to Mexico. Great city, great art, great food.

I'm actually thinking about going to Mexico City or spending more time there. I absolutely love it there. Why do we love the gangster cocktail that Mexico offers? It possesses the lower regulation that people like about China. But however, it's also got a huge proximity advantage. It's close to the US and doesn't have the geopolitical implications that we mentioned or that we previously mentioned that the CCP imposes on us. It imposes on us. Turkey could be another key player. It could be the Mexico of Europe because of proximity in Middle Eastern and North African countries. IKEA, for example, remember them? IKEA is doing exactly that. The company's CFO explained to Reuters that the cost of a container from East Asia had skyrocketed to $12,000 from 2000 before the 2020 pandemic and said it's more

rational to have them manufactured closer to where they are sold. I'm going through this right now. Another consumer company I was on the board of got all of its product out of a small region, again, in China. Supply chain interruption hits, and we've decided with clean sheet thinking that we're going to reshore, and that is build a factory. I think it's going to be in North Carolina with much more automation. And we found that while it'd be a little bit more expensive, over time it will scale and we'll be able to get the product to the end retailer much quicker. So yeah, pay a little bit more, but more higher NPS, higher satisfaction, and over the long run, probably less expensive given we won't have as many stockouts. So what does this all mean? Chips aside, there's more to consider regarding a supply chain or proximity.

The geography matters. I was on the board of Urban Outfitters during the pandemic and, again, realized that flexible or heterogeneous supply chain is really important. There's so much innovation. I'm on the board of Panera. I'm signaling a lot of my importance. I'm on the board here. I'm on the board there. Why do I do this?

Because I'm desperately fucking insecure. Anyways, but I'm leaning of my importance. I'm on the board here. I'm on the board there. Why do I do this? Because I'm desperately fucking insecure. Anyways, but I'm leaning into my insecurity. Panera will literally drop a Panera, a temporary Panera in an area where it sees high density, whether it's a construction, an area with a lot of growth, it's figuring out ways, it's modeling all its cafes with a smaller footprint, but more drive-through or pickup capability. Again, everything we think about is sort of, you know, or is not mostly, not everything, but most of the real innovation here, I think is coming through supply chain. How do you get shit to people quickly, efficiently, and with sort of surprise and delight them? So we're going to see a boom in what I call the last, last mile. Things like Joker and Gorilla or companies like Joker and Gorilla in cities including New York and bigger cities in Europe,

their ghost kitchens are freakishly close to the consumer, meaning consumers get the order within 15 minutes. That's right. The dog wants to eat. He doesn't want to wait 16 minutes, 15 minutes, bitch, or less. The founder and CEO of Joker told the New York Times that the company has seen demand rise 15% to 20% every week to several thousand orders a day. Remember Cosmo? Remember Urban Fetch? Remember the Concorde? All three of those things made a ton of sense.

They were just several decades too early. So you're going to see boom technologies going off script here. Love the company. Think time has come for supersonic. But also that last mile, super quick, probably 90% of our consumer expenditures are across 10% of SKUs. So what if you took those 10% of SKUs, distributed them or decentralized them? Maybe we use the term DAO to make it cool and essentially get people the 90% of their demand or suit 90% of the demand with 10% of SKUs, which can be distributed out to sort of mini hubs. And then with a flexible

supply chain, be it a person on an electric bike or a scooter and get your shit in 10 to 15 minutes and then make a really elegant UI, which is also a part of supply chain. I think the new tech is actually UI. I think Airbnb wasn't built on technology. I think it was built on UI, UX and effectively disrupt the last, last mile. I think Uber's valuation might actually be more a function moving forward of its role in the supply chain. And that is, does Uber or Uber Eats effectively become sort of a competitor to Amazon or a competitor to the supply chain of Amazon where it doesn't have expensive warehouses? It has kind of a warehouse or a storage facility called a trunk and with some sort of cold storage and can just get you shit really quickly. Anyways, mind blown, mind blown. What can we take away from this? One, it's a really good exercise in any business you're in.

What is the supply chain? If you're a consultant, what is the flow of information and thought leadership from your team to you to some sort of product, be it a research report, a PowerPoint presentation, a podcast? And then how does that reach the end consumer? And let's go through every component and ask ourselves, one, how has technology changed it? Two, are there components that can either be removed, massively invested in to increase their speed or their robust?

Look at your supply chain. It is absolutely being reshaped. And this is an opportunity to reshape it as consumer expectations are not only going up, they're being morphed or changed or people that are becoming saying, okay, maybe I can't get everything I want, but if I can get it in 10 or 15 minutes, I'll take this version. I'll take the eight ounce can of Dr. Pepper versus the 12 ounce can. Bad example, but you get my meaning. Also, I think this has huge geopolitical overtones. I think that perhaps America is a big winner here because proximity and geography matter again, or matter more, I should say. And the supply chain in China is really gunked up. Why? Because they are cursed with moving stuff. They move atoms. And unless we figure out a way to suspend the natural order or come up with a teleportation machine, there's just going to be a certain level of friction from getting a

physical item from point A to point B. Whereas the supply chain in the US as a services economy is distinctly more zeros and ones. And guess what? The supply chain for Netflix and McKinsey and PayPal is running uninterrupted. They are shipping that shit out like there's no tomorrow. You are not seeing interruptions in the supply chain around AWS, around Netflix, around Goldman Sachs, around Public, the investing app. They are able to deliver the service of zeros and ones totally, totally unhampered. So could we see a ceding back of geopolitical and economic power from China to the US.S. Why? Why? Because the U.S.'s supply chain from a demand standpoint is all fucked up and too bad you can't get your Sonos or you can't get your Sub-Zero refrigerator as fast as you like. But guess what? The way you make money, the way you

make money so that you can afford that Sub-Zero refrigerator is largely, largely unaffected most likely because we're in a services economy. Look at your supply chain. Think about it as a clean sheet opportunity to redesign it and reshape it. And also, also, go USA. I think we're going to come out of this stronger relative to China. Stay with us.

We'll be right back for our conversation with Brian Selesky. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO, Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates 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. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence.

We're answering all your questions. What should you you use it for what tools are right for you and what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for and to help us out we are joined by kylie robison the senior ai reporter for the verge to give you a primer on how to integrate ai into your life so tune into ai basics how and when to use ai special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Brian Selesky, the founder and CEO of Argo AI. Brian, let's bust right into it. First off, where does this podcast find you? I'm coming in from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh. Are you associated or affiliated with Carnegie Mellon?

I worked there for eight years or so. Because they were kind of the gangsters or didn't the entire self, didn't the entire like automation department get lifted out of Carnegie Mellon and go to Uber? It's like kind of the, is it the capital of the autonomous driving sector, so to speak? It really is. I was lucky enough to work with a lot of the great ones who have now gone on and started companies. And I left a couple of years prior to Uber coming in and yeah, they lifted a number of good people, but it still continues on today. There's still a number of great people that are at CMU and huge robotics institute, still a ton of research coming out that's relevant today.

Yeah, it's a great school. So tell us about Argo and the services that your firm offers. Sure. So Argo, we started in 2016. We set out to build self-driving technology. So the hardware software that gets equipped onto cars and vehicles to, you know, move packages, move people, get things from A to B. We're partnered with Ford and also Volkswagen. And we've got a pretty long range plan with both of them to build out a number of types of self-driving vehicles over the next many years. And so you're kind of in this before it was cool,

your efforts in self-driving date back to 2006. Walk us through how the space has evolved over the last 15 years in terms of what people think of autonomous driving, what are the technological breakthroughs been? What have been the shifts since you've been involved in the space? Sure, yeah. I mean, I actually started at Carnegie Mellon in 2004 on some very early autonomous vehicle projects. And, you know, at the time, like even back to 2004, there wasn't a ton of money. I mean, most of the money came from government research grants and, you know, they were still trying to figure out what could it do. And, but that's where a lot of the core technology actually got developed was with, you know, for DARPA. And you've heard of the robot

races, the grand challenges, the urban challenge. I was the software lead on the urban challenge, which was the third sequence of races where DARPA basically pit a bunch of teams against one another to see who could, you know, vie on an urban course and complete in the fastest time, but to also do it safely and follow the road rules. But if you go back to 2004, we were really just figuring out the basics. There wasn't really enough computation and storage and there wasn't any, you know, major cloud services that you could go to. And if you fast forward, you know, a decade later, we're now able to kind of hoover in significant amounts of information, process it super quickly and efficiently in the cloud. We have both CPUs and GPUs that lets us process this information.

And we can build really specialized and powerful algorithms now that back then was thought as just computationally infeasible. And so when you look at things like neural networks, which are not new concepts, these are concepts that predate me by a long shot. But the idea that you can now build these really deeply nested neural networks or deep nets and accelerate that computation on a modern GPU, what was previously unthinkable just because it was computationally infeasible, is now feasible. And that's honestly what has propelled the industry from a concept, a thought, to now something that we can build a real business around. And what is the real business? Is it autonomous taxis? Is it autonomous driving mode for people who want to just take their own cars? Is it commercial, autonomous trucks? Where do you think the sweet spot is commercially? Well, I think eventually it's all of the above. If we look at the number of miles driven in the U.S. alone, it's about 3 trillion.

If you divide that up, those miles, you can assign them to different use cases. Some of it's trucking, some of it's passenger car miles, some of it is urban transit. And I think what we have to look at is all the different businesses that are in this space. It's easy to lump them in as all AV companies, but they really aren't. Everybody's going after something slightly different when you tease it apart. So as an example, people will say, well, I have an autonomous vehicle today. I have a Tesla. And I say, well, it's not really the type of autonomous vehicle we're building, which is one that doesn't require a human to pay attention at all and that can operate

totally driverless. A Tesla, you have to, at least you should be, paying attention, prepared to take over if it can't solve or perform well in a given situation. That's more driver assistance. It still has extremely powerful technology behind it, but it's a driver assist feature. And I think what happens is you kind of move up the staircase from driver assistance level features that maybe give you better efficiency, better safety, you know, less driver fatigue, and then you get to fully autonomous vehicles. And to me, that's where the true game changer is. It has far-reaching effects. If you look at trucking as a use case, we have a huge driver shortage today. The supply chain is a bit of a mess. I think the pandemic has shown us where a lot of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities are.

And I think autonomy has an opportunity to really get more trucks on the road and get what we need from A to B. I think if you look at it from a passenger car perspective, those types of miles, we don't want to prevent you from taking the classic, iconic, quintessential road trip and do that, drive, enjoy it, right? Spend time with your family. In fact, the matter though is a lot of us are stuck in a car and don't want to be in the middle of traffic, don't want to be driving, have our mind on other things. Those are the types of miles that at Argo we want to automate and make it so that you don't have to drive if you don't want to. It just feels, I mean, I always believe that we have a tendency to focus on B2C and it gets overinvested in terms of attention and capital. But the opportunity, I always find the greatest ROI is in B2B.

And it just strikes me that autonomous trucks driving in the dead of night when the roads aren't crowded and, quite frankly, a sensor failure doesn't have as much downside. And the fact that we have to pay these individuals to drive worse whereas I think a lot of Americans actually get utility out of driving. Either they enjoy it or they like the sense of control. It just seems like the commercial applications around moving things across roads, you know, and off hours, it seems like that is just the no-brainer, that that's where this should begin. I mean, anyways, that's more of a statement than a comment, more of a comment than a question. We've been talking about autonomous vehicles for a while.

And my sense is the future isn't happening as fast as we'd hoped, whether it was, and I realize you don't have any control over what Elon Musk says, but he predicted, I think, two or three years ago, there'd be a million autonomous Tesla taxis on the road within 12 months. Business Insider made projections. And it seems to me that there's clearly some friction here because you just don't see them on the road. It's just the future does not appear to be happening at the pace. What is getting in the way? What are the barriers? Why isn't autonomous already here? I think that it's a progression.

I think a lot of business people who didn't necessarily understand the technology made a lot of projections because they're spending a lot of capital. Let's face it, a lot of capital is going into the development of this technology. They want to put milestones out there, right? Whether they've been met or not, to me, is less important. What's more important is that you stay true to the principles around what you're building it for. If you're building a more efficient way to get around, a safer way to get around, and you put those principles first, then it delivers when it delivers. And that's what I tell people is say, look,

I'm all about signing up our team to deliver against some milestones. But at the end of the day, if it isn't ready, we're going to keep working on it until it is. The data is going to tell us when it's ready, Scott. And I think that there were people making projections that maybe weren't as informed about the state of things or how difficult it would be to get the miles, get the testing, run through all of the things required to make sure you have a solid software release and a solid hardware base to work from. I think that that's becoming known now. I think you'll see a lot of people, a lot of folks that were making those projections are no longer making projections and they're giving it the time it takes for this tech to get developed. Let's face

it, this is a pretty hard thing that we're doing. Oh, no doubt. So I'm going to ask you to make some projections, recognizing nobody really knows. So I'm imagining a day when I call an Uber or a taxi or I decide to go to the airport and call as a part of my Apple subscription or because I own a VW, I open my app and I say PBI and a car rolls either out of my garage or into my driveway and I get in the backseat and via autonomous

driving, it drops me off at PBI. Give us a range of realistically when you think that is a realistic happening. I think we're only a couple of years away from that realistically being able to happen. Now, the question that I think doesn't get asked and should be, though, is when does that scale out where that service is available to everybody? To me, that is many years down the road, and I hesitate to give a projection. And the reason is because the way the technology is fundamentally developed today is very much a street by street, block by block thing. We test to the data and the situations that are in front of us. And, you know, we're creating a playbook that we think is one of the best in the industry on how to go from, go city to city. But at the end of the day, it's still going city to city and it's going to take time to roll it out everywhere.

And what are the friction points here? Is it processing power? Is it the mapping? Is it capital? Is it regulation? Is it partnerships with manufacturers to begin integrating the technology and the assembly line? For Argo, for lack of a better term, what keeps you up at night? Yeah, there are a couple of things. So certainly the supply chain and access to some of the more advanced processors. Lead times have just gone to crazy levels. Even basic things now is taking way longer than they should. And we really need to get to the bottom of that.

We have to invest in that. And we need to consider that as part of what I would call infrastructure. To me, it is basic infrastructure for this country to run and to be able to innovate. The other big thing is regulation. So, you know, the U.S. has currently in place a deployment cap where you cannot, any one manufacturer or developer cannot deploy more than 2,500 vehicles. It's an artificial cap that was put in place for, to give regulators time to create policy. You know, the time is now to get something passed. We've been working on this for the better part of a decade now. The European Union has already put forth and is going to adopt a

uniform set of regulations. Member states are now passing and paving the way. Germany is one of the first to really pave the way for the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. We're really at risk of falling behind here in the U.S. and we need to get it done. Brian Selesky is the founder and CEO of Argo AI, an autonomous driving technology company building the software, hardware, and infrastructure that powers self-driving cars. He is also the host of the No Parking podcast, a show that cuts through the hype of AI and autonomous vehicles. He joins us from his home in the autonomous capital of the world, Pittsburgh, PA. Brian, thanks for your time and stay safe.

Thank you. We'll be right back. Indeed is a matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo.

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Specifically, I just can't get over how awful these people are and how awful they are to each other. And I can't imagine, or I'd like to think the majority of siblings are just nicer to each other than they are on Succession. Not that that's any indication of how the world works, although I do think it's a very interesting drama. And I think there's an unlock here. I've always been struck by the sibling relationship. I'm very fortunate in the sense that I have a great relationship with my sister, and it was sort of a gift for me. And that is technically, Ashley is my half sister. She's the daughter of my father

and his third wife. By the way, he divorced his fourth wife about two years ago. But anyways, that's another talk show. Hold me. Anyways, but we saw each other when I would go spend Christmases and summers with my father and always got along, but we kind of got to know each other. She's about eight years younger than me. So never really, I mean, we connected and we always got along, but never really had a typical sibling relationship because we didn't live in the same household and we weren't very close in age. And just, we both sort of woke up as adults and realized we had siblings and that we got along really well. And it's been an incredible gift. And we try and get our kids together. And it's been an incredible gift and we try and get our kids together. And it's been just something that's been not only a wonderful surprise,

but has been kind of a pillar of my life is my family, which is essentially my sister. Anyways, I think there's an enormous unlock. And what I would ask you to think about is I've never had to experience this, but I am shocked in how many good people I know independently of each other that happen to be brothers and sisters, and they're both good, generous people, and they don't get along. And there's real kind of stuff or issues between them

that has really inhibited their relationship. It just shocks me. I can know two really good people who happen to be brothers or brother and sister, and they don't speak because something went down, something ugly went down in childhood and families are complicated. And I think a lot of that dysfunction can explode or things aren't handled well and they scar and people just can't get past it. I think the unlock, if you will, and I think this goes for all relationships, but especially for siblings, is to use this crisis or this pandemic as an opportunity to discover and unlock through forgiveness and generosity. And that is, if you have the opportunity and you see the pandemic and what we've been through as an opportunity to sort of forgive or not sort of to forgive and reach out to a sibling.

I don't know if it's suggesting you hit the restart button or I don't want to say forgive them because they may not take to that very well. Maybe it's you should be that for you that should be forgiven. Maybe a form of forgiveness is to that you apologize or just, I don't know, just make an effort to re-engage. I can't imagine the majority of siblings out there aren't open to some combination of forgiveness and grace and generosity. But is that an unlock that you should be thinking about? Do you have the relationship with your sibling that you want? If you'd been one of these people that had been forced to say goodbye over FaceTime to a sibling that was in the ICU that was sick, is your relationship where you want it to be? Are you both good people? Are you both good people

and bullshit has gotten in the way or dysfunction, which is endemic to almost every family has gotten in the way? And is there an opportunity here to kind of shake the etch a sketch that is the bullshit that's come between you? And for both of you to agree that you're just going to be siblings and you're going to unlock what is one of the most rewarding relationships you can have as an adult. And that is to have a loving, generous relationship with your brother or your sister. That's the unlock. Our producers are Caroline Chagrin and Drew Burrows. Claire Miller is our assistant producer. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you next week on Monday and Thursday. Thank you. significant or extremely high positive impact on revenue growth. In Alex Partners' 2024 Digital

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