The Tim Ferriss Show - #308: Inside Out with Katie Couric

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Starting point is 00:02:23 subscribed to Five Bullet Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out, tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. Hello boys and girls, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show where it is my job to attempt to deconstruct world-class performers, whether they come from the

Starting point is 00:03:17 worlds of sports, business, entertainment, or otherwise, to distill the habits, routines, belief systems, life lessons, et cetera, that hopefully you can use or find impactful in some way. And this episode is one of those episodes that I was very, very nervous about. And that doesn't happen to me terribly often, but it was the case this time around because I was asking questions of someone who is no stranger to asking questions herself. Katie Couric, at Katie Couric, is an award-winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and co-founder of the nonprofit Stand Up to Cancer, which has raised more than $500 million to fund scientific research teams. She launched her production company, Katie Couric Media, in 2015,

Starting point is 00:04:06 and her podcast, the aptly named Katie Couric Podcast, features conversations with some of the biggest names in politics, media, and popular culture. Couric's documentaries include Gender Revolution, subtitled A Journey with Katie Couric, which was for National Geographic, Under the Gun, which aired on Epyx, and Fed Up, which can be found on Netflix. Couric's upcoming six-part National Geographic series, America Inside Out with Katie Couric, premieres on April 11th, and I recommend you check it out. We dig into the reasons why, but the subject matter is, in cases very very fascinating to me katie joined cbs as the first

Starting point is 00:04:46 woman at the helm of an evening newscast after a 15-year run as co-anchor of nbc's today show her awards include a dupont columbia peabody to edward r murrow's a walter cronkite award and multiple emmys she has spent a lot of time in the trenches. She has interviewed some incredibly, incredibly influential, powerful figures who have helped to shape the culture that we're currently a part of. And I was nervous coming into this one, which you can hear in the audio. You can see in the video on my YouTube, youtube.com forward slash Tim Ferriss. And for that, I apologize, but Hey, you know, we're all human. And I'm very impressed by what she's done. And hopefully, do that justice with digging into some of the areas that I attempted to dig into. So without further ado, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with the ever impressive Katie Couric. Katie, welcome to the show.

Starting point is 00:05:45 Thank you very much. This is fun, and I like the setup, and I like the view. The view of beautiful Austin, Texas. Yeah, it's really been fun, actually. This is my first South by Southwest. Welcome to the chaos. I know people call it South by. I'm going to make it even cooler and call it SB.

Starting point is 00:06:04 But it's been really fun to be here here and it's been really interesting for me. So thank you for having me on the show. Of course. I really appreciate you making the time and I'll be honest. I feel a little bit like that, that petulant Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars. Everyone's like, Oh,

Starting point is 00:06:20 come on when he's hanging out with Obi-Wan and just missing the point because I'm sitting here asking questions of someone who's asked more questions of more presidents and dignitaries than I'll ever even have a chance to meet. So I apologize in advance if I make any novice mistakes. You know what? I think that if you just are curious about people and your curiosity is genuine and you're truly interested in someone, I think that's really what makes a good interviewer. And so I think you have that in state. So I think you'll be fine. I want to jump into something that I found in the course of doing my homework

Starting point is 00:07:00 that led me to a number of different questions. And I said, if I would ever have the chance to ask, and I was like, wait a second, I do have a chance to ask. So this was something I found via NPR in an interview format. And they were asking you if there was any story that made your reputation or if there was a moment like that. And again, the internet sometimes misquotes things. So you can correct if need be. But I'll read a little bit, and then I want to ask follow-up questions. So I think I got noticed when I was doing a tour of the White House with Barbara Bush. I didn't think that President Bush was there, and suddenly I heard this Cocker Spaniel or Springer Spaniel, ultimately ends up, we arrive at Millie, that's Millie, coming into the room, and President Bush was following him. And suddenly I had to do an

Starting point is 00:07:41 interview with the President of the United States that I wasn't prepared to do. I was just getting a tour of the white house. So that was sort of where I found my career path before my eyes, but I was able to come up with enough questions to keep him there for something like 19 minutes and 20 seconds. So that last sentence was the part where I was like, okay, I have to ask you if you could just walk us through that and how on earth, like, what do you recall any of the questions? Do you recall how you kept the president on the hook, so to speak? Yeah, or just any recollections from that? Because it just conjures such an incredible image in my mind. Well, you can imagine when you've prepared for an interview

Starting point is 00:08:18 and something completely unexpected happens. So I had prepared endlessly to talk to Barbara Bush about the White House. It was the anniversary of the White House and she was giving me a tour and we were going to be talking about Dolly Madison's tea set. And we were going to talk about the ball and claw legs on some of the chairs and all kinds of things and paintings and desks and accoutrements that are part and parcel of the White House. And suddenly, as you've described, it was like, and I was like, oh, God, oh, God, what's going on? And I, for some reason, thought that President Bush was out of town or that he had an appointment and that he wasn't going to be around. And it's not often that you have

Starting point is 00:09:07 the president pop in to say hi, and you have no questions for him. So you just had to, that was where the rubber met the road. And I just had to pull all these questions, you know, pretty much out of my ass to ask the president, you know, the most powerful man in the free world. So I think I asked him about Iran-Contra. I asked him about, he was running against Bill Clinton, so I asked him about that campaign. I'd like to re-watch that, actually, to see how it plays out today and what I remember. But I just kept on firing away. And I remember his upper lip started kind of quivering because I think he too felt suddenly put on the spot. He wasn't prepared.

Starting point is 00:09:54 He wasn't prepared either, exactly. And we just had this very intense kind of rat-a-tat-tat back and forth. And finally, I remember Marlon Fitzwater came in and I said, oh my gosh, here's Marlon. And I think Mrs. Bush, everyone was basically saying, okay, that's enough. Enough is enough. And I remember saying to the audience at the time, the viewers, that Marlon Fitzwater was pulling out whatever was left of his hair because he was pretty bald at the time. And yeah, that was a very kind of intense situation for me. But it also showed that I could think on my feet. Now, in fairness, I also had my executive producer, Jeff Zucker, peppering me with questions behind the scenes through my IFB.

Starting point is 00:10:42 I think he was nervous. The IFB is the earpiece. Yeah, that if I had had a moment and suddenly had nothing to say, that he was going to leave. And of course, as somebody who really understands television and understands audiences, he wanted to keep the president on the hook

Starting point is 00:10:56 as long as he could. Keep him on the ropes. Yeah, so, but it was fun. And I remember afterwards thinking, oh my God. And it was well-received. I think Tom Shales, who's the TV critic for The Washington Post, wrote a very flattering article following that. But that was, I think, very important because, you know, when I did that job and I decided I would be the co-anchor of the Today Show, it was really important for me as a female in the business to be taken seriously and to not be relegated to the cooking and fashion

Starting point is 00:11:25 segments. In fact, when I got offered the job, I said to Michael Gartner, the then president of NBC News, I'll only do it if it's a 50-50 division of labor between me and Brian Gumbel. And I said, I had covered the Pentagon. I had worked very hard in local news. And I'd gotten some very good advice early in my career to not be typecast as the cute girl who does features. So it was important, and that was validation in a way that, yes, I could have a fun personality, but I could really get serious and ask serious questions, penetrating questions when I needed to, even if I wasn't prepared. I mean, I want to ask you about the chutzpah and where that comes from, but is that a trained skill? Is that something innate to you? How did you end up developing that level of, aggression is too strong a word, but that ability to capitalize on an opportunity like that? Chutzpah, I think, is a good word.

Starting point is 00:12:27 Or moxie. My dad used to say I had a lot of moxie, which I love that word. It's a good word. And, you know, I don't know. I think it's inherent in my personality. I think I have been pretty guileless, if that's kind of a synonym for moxie in a way. I mean, I think I've

Starting point is 00:12:42 always been pretty uninhibited and very open and very willing to go there wherever there might be. And I think I've always had a fair amount of confidence in myself, although it's wavered, you know, from time to time through the years. But yeah, I think having super supportive parents obviously probably fed into that.

Starting point is 00:13:07 But I also think it's a little bit in my DNA as well. A little hardwired. Yeah, I do. I actually do. And sort of always fairly fearless and not hesitant to be out front and running for vice president when I was in fifth grade and president of my elementary school when I was in sixth grade and always wanted to be a student leader and that kind of thing. Very Tracy Flick from Election. Would you like a piece of gum? Did you remember that movie? Did you see that with Reese Witherspoon?

Starting point is 00:13:38 Yes, actually, I have seen it. It's actually a very, very funny movie. It kills me. But I'm not too Tracy Flick-ish, but a little. And so I think I just have always had chutzpah. All right. So you have forgotten more interviews than I'll probably ever do. But even in my short stint doing a podcast, we're just around 300 right now. Wow. That's a lot.

Starting point is 00:14:04 It's a decent number. So do you do it every week? I publish on average six a month. Six a month? Six a month. And what is your publishing schedule? The publishing schedule is two weeks per month we'll have two episodes, and two per month we'll have a single episode.

Starting point is 00:14:20 I'm thinking of reducing that down to once per week. But I record them. I typically record them in batches and then schedule them out in advance, particularly if they're more complex involving video. So, um, do you find that sometimes they're not topical because you don't do them around the time they're published? Good question. So I deliberately avoid topical subjects and this is smart, I guess, so they can be evergreen. That's right. And there are trade-offs, though.

Starting point is 00:14:48 So there are people who I've watched very closely who are in my, let's call it peer group, in the podcasting world, who are very, very good at tracking the headlines, finding names, inviting those people on, and riding the wave of Google juice, effectively, the trend in traffic and search queries to drive traffic to their podcasts. That's very, very effective, but I don't want content. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow and I've been very, uh, I shouldn't say I've been unfortunate. I think it's part of life, but I've had a number of very close friends and also family members, uh, pass away in, say, 12 months. And it just reminds me that

Starting point is 00:15:27 I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and I don't want to have put out only subject matter that has an expiration date. I really want it to last. So whether it's a blog post or an interview, I'd love for there, at least, even if there are topical components, to be themes and lessons that transcend a certain period of time. And that actually leads me to my question, which is even in my relatively short stint. Nice segue, by the way. Thank you. No, it's true, though, because what I'm dying to ask you is related to nervousness. I've had a number of interviews and episodes where I've really been nervous for different reasons.

Starting point is 00:16:14 And that has led me to prepare in different ways and respond in different ways. Are there any interviews that come to mind over your career that you were particularly nervous about beforehand? Yeah. I mean, I think throughout my career, obviously, dignitaries, heads of state. I remember I interviewed Yasser Arafat. I was very nervous about that. Ross Perot was very pugnacious and kind of ornery, and you never knew what he was going to do. I think live interviews are really scary. Yeah, for sure. Because you can't edit things out, you can't ask a question over again in a more eloquent way,

Starting point is 00:16:54 and you're really on the spot. So I think live interviews would make me nervous. I remember I was supposed to interview with Tom Brokaw, O.J. Simpson, after he was acquitted. And I was a nervous wreck at the very thought of it because I thought, first of all, I'm not a prosecutor. My husband, who had passed away later, but who was alive and covering a lot of the OJ trial, knew everything. He was a criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense lawyer. And I just remember thinking that this is just a no-win situation. First of all, I can't retry the case, nor could I because I don't really have the talent or the skills to do that. And secondly, it was so divisive and polarizing,

Starting point is 00:17:47 that whole situation, and so racially charged. And I, at the time, and still do to a certain extent, just hated people attacking me. And I thought it was just a no-win situation. So when he bailed, I wanted to do a happy dance. I was so excited. So situations like that would make me extremely nervous. situation. So when he bailed, I wanted to do a happy dance. I was so excited. So, you know, situations like that would make me extremely nervous when I saw so much risk and so much downside and very little upside. But I think whenever I'm interviewing people who are

Starting point is 00:18:18 really smart and really knowledgeable about a certain area, and I don't know nearly as much as they do, that can be hard. And I think also when you're interviewing somebody about a wide range of public policy and you're not necessarily a policy wonk, that's challenging too. But to go to the White House and interview a president, either live or even on tape, is really stressful. Interviewing Sarah Palin when I interviewed her, because I thought it was so important to strike the right tone, ask the right questions. And it was a very critical time, I think, to understand her motivations and actually her abilities. So I still get nervous

Starting point is 00:19:07 when I have big interviews. In the case of, let's take Palin as an example, how did you prepare for that? Can you walk us through some of your preparation? Well, I think I worked with my friend, Brian Goldsmith, with whom I do a podcast. He's sort of my partner in crime on the podcast. He's a very, very smart person who really follows politics and public policy very closely. And we worked together at CBS. And when I found out she was going to do the interview, we just immediately started to read everything we possibly could about her, about Alaska, about everything that was germane to the presidential campaign, what was going on in the country. I called Madeleine Albright. I called Sam Nunn. I called Richard Haass, who's the head of the

Starting point is 00:20:00 Council on Foreign Relations. I called people and I said, hey, I'm interviewing Governor Palin. Of course, everyone knew was in tune with what was going on in the campaign. And I'd say to them, what do you think are some of the areas that you think are really important that the American people need to know about and hear her perspective on? So I would ask people, I think I asked a few other correspondents about it, read a lot, and you also have to make some very difficult choices because, as you know, there are probably a lot more questions than you have time for, than your guest has time for.

Starting point is 00:20:39 So then we had to winnow them down. But it was also really important for me to make sure my tone was right, that my approach was right, that I remember going in and saying I would have an almost Parkinsonian affect with very little facial expressions. I didn't want people to misinterpret that I was looking at her like, what? Or askance. And Madeline Albright offered me, I think, the best piece of advice. She said, just let her talk. And I think so often in conversations, I don't know if you find this

Starting point is 00:21:20 true in a podcast, because it may be different since things can be edited, but you try to fill the empty spaces. And people feel very uncomfortable with silence. And I know I do, because I want to make sure that I keep the conversation going. And then, of course, in live television, you can't have these dead air. But I really took that advice to heart, and I wouldn't jump in. I wouldn't jump in to rescue her if she was giving a convoluted answer. I wouldn't jump in if she felt awkward. I wouldn't jump in if she paused. I just let her talk, and I really resisted that temptation, which I have because I'm a pleaser and I want to make sure people feel comfortable. So we spent probably three solid days preparing for that interview. And I really

Starting point is 00:22:13 wanted to ask questions that required accumulated knowledge and critical thinking. So I wanted to talk about big issues. And, you know, honestly, I'd look at some of those questions and I'd say, I don't know how I would answer that. But I'm also not a public policy expert. Right. But I tried to ask questions that weren't gotcha questions, even though she insisted they were. But that people deserve to know, A, how much she knew about any given subject and how she would approach it and what her thinking was. And what became abundantly clear is she just wasn't ready to be put in this position. She wasn't ready for prime time.

Starting point is 00:22:55 And it had nothing to do an interview about substantive issues facing the country or the world. Letter Talk. I really love that. I have had the chance to become friends with someone named Cal Fussman, who is one of the senior writers who worked on the What I Learned column for Esquire for decades and has interviewed a million different people.

Starting point is 00:23:32 And I asked him for feedback when I was starting the podcast to read some of the transcripts and to see if he saw opportunities for improvement. And he said, such a nice guy, real sweetheart of a guy. And he said, let the silence do the work. Because I was trying to rescue people. If I asked a question and it started meandering or something like that, I would jump in and he goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to give them more space and give them time to follow up or to add to their answer. But it's, I think it's very unnatural. Even if you're not a pleaser as a human being in conversation, it's unnatural to leave a lot of space.

Starting point is 00:24:08 But as an interviewer, it seems really, really useful. You mentioned Ross Perot and him being pugnacious. Is there a toolkit or a more effective way to respond to someone in an interview if they are ornery or pugnacious combative um i don't know i think i think it depends on the situation uh i remember he was like katie katie katie you know sort of admonishing me like i was a misbehaving fifth grader or something. But I think, you know, that's a hard, I don't know. I think you just have to kind of stand your ground and not be intimidated. I think people like that want you to back down or want you, want to make you uncomfortable and make you at ill at ease and catch you off guard.

Starting point is 00:25:06 So I think you just have to really work at maintaining your composure and not be thrown by it. And that's very hard on national television to not be thrown by someone kind of scolding you. Right. Well, you mentioned the facial expressions and so on, which is something I haven't even considered because this is my very first few experiments in video. So now I'm like, oh my God, what have I been doing with my face? But if you're being scolded on national TV, it's not just what you say, it's also how you respond visually. So you really have to have trained a poker face or at least some self-awareness through the profession. That seems really hard. I would definitely get fired if my thought bubbles ever became public.

Starting point is 00:25:50 That's for damn sure. On the flip side, are there any interviews that come to mind? You've had so many, but where after you're done, you just in the moments finishing the interview, think to yourself, God, I hope the equipment was working. Like, I really hope we caught that because it was so good. Are there any that come to mind where you're like, oh, wow, that was really, that's one that I'm really proud of? Yeah, I mean, a lot. But I think one that's sort of, that I usually dust off when I'm asked this question

Starting point is 00:26:27 is one I did after the massacre at Columbine High School. And it was 4, maybe 4 a.m. Colorado time is how many hours behind New York? Two or three? Is it three? Mountain time? Two. Two.

Starting point is 00:26:45 Two. So it was 5 a.m., and it was April, and so the sky was pitch black, but it was snowing. So it was this very dramatic scene, and I interviewed Michael Scholz, who had lost his son Isaiah, and Craig Scott, who had lost his sister Rachel, and they were so broken, understandably broken, shattered, not even broken. They were shattered. And it had happened the day before.

Starting point is 00:27:17 And they came on the Today Show, which I think is always such an interesting thing. Why do people in this grief-stricken state come to talk about their loved ones? I've always been fascinated by that and thought it would be a really excellent thesis for a psychology student about grief and sort of the public acknowledgement of grief. Anyway, they came and it was just a heartbreaking interview. And to witness them kind of looking to each other for comfort. Michael Scholz was a big, burly black guy.

Starting point is 00:27:57 And Craig Scott was this sort of angelic, toe-headed teenager. And I've actually stayed in touch with Craig Scott. And they held hands during the interview. And it was just, it was sort of the personification of loss and sorrow in these two people and just holding on to each other for dear life. It was really profound. It was really, I was witnessing it less, I was witnessing it more than interviewing them, you know, because they were in this particular space and I was an observer, really. So I always think about that interview as being, after it was over, a really important interview for people to watch. thoughtful way that both respected them as human beings, but also guided them so they could express

Starting point is 00:29:10 themselves. You know, there are situations where you just really want people to, you really want to help them get through it. I mean, there are all kinds of situations, I'm sure, in all the interviews you've done, there's some cases where, you know, you want to afflict the comfortable. And there are other cases when you want to comfort the afflicted. And that was definitely the latter. And so just helping them through it. And that was a really, I don't want to say special, but significant experience for me as a person. So I want to explore this.

Starting point is 00:29:50 I'm writing down that line. There are times when you want to flick the comfortable. There are times when you want to comfortably flick it. Well, that's what they say is a journalist's job. Wow, I've never heard that before. No? No. But that's really useful, heuristic.

Starting point is 00:30:03 I want to talk about grief a bit. So I've lost a number of, like I mentioned, close friends and a mentor in the last 12 months. And you mentioned your husband who passed away earlier. And if I get any facts wrong, obviously, please correct me. But colorectal cancer, 42. I'm 40, which really caught my attention. And the first time I had an opportunity to go abroad, outside of the United States, was to Japan as an exchange student,

Starting point is 00:30:39 and I lived with a family, went to a Japanese high school, and I'm still close to that family 25 years later. And the father in that host family is my second father effectively. And I planned on bringing my American family to Japan later this year to meet them for the first time, my two families. And I just found out that my host father is in the hospital, late stage, very aggressive cancer, diagnosed as met as metastasized probably will pass away in the next two months. And what kind of cancer? Uh, it's, I would have to go back to the email because it was, it was very emotional and then cognitively difficult for me to translate because it was a lot, it's in Japanese and it was all specialized medical terminology. Uh, but it's in Japanese, and it was all specialized medical terminology.

Starting point is 00:31:28 But it's in the lung, it's in the liver. Lifelong smoke are very typical for Japanese of that age. I think it might be also esophageal. And I know that it's now also in the lymph nodes, so he's intubated in a hospital and only the mother and the brothers can visit. So this has had me thinking about grief and is there anything I should do in advance to prepare for that? And I'd just be very curious if you're willing to talk about it to describe your experience of grieving. And you could start at any point in time, but as it relates to your experience with, with your husband and certainly after that, we can get into it. But I mean, you've done

Starting point is 00:32:10 a tremendous job of, of highlighting the types of diagnostic tools and preventative tools that people can use, which we'll talk about, but I don't even know how to think about grief. I mean, I don't know if I've allowed myself to ever experience it before, but I know I'm going to be hit with a hammer. I thought, though, you had a couple of friends that are mentors. No, I did.

Starting point is 00:32:31 They have passed away, and it's been very recent that it hasn't been this close. These are friends, but they're not a second father to me. And I think, in a sense, the mentor who passed away did hit me pretty hard, but I've only in the last six to 12 months actually been allowing myself to feel more things. That's a much longer story, but I've had a lot of, you have a kind of a conflicted relationship with this person. I know I've had a lot of armor for decades that I've built up over time for a lot of different

Starting point is 00:33:03 reasons. And it's been very useful for some things for protecting me, but I've built up over time for a lot of different reasons. And, um, it's been very useful for some things, uh, for protecting me, but I've realized that it also keeps a lot in that is very ultimately corrosive. So I'm trying to develop more of an ability to feel and instead of looking at it as a liability. Um, I don't know. How do do you how do you describe grief um i mean i can i can talk a little bit about my personal experience you know i had a i was on top of the world had this great job had two beautiful children and of course a wonderful husband uh i have to say we were having challenges, some challenges in our marriage, because I think I had this just sort of out of the blue success and suddenly became a household name and had

Starting point is 00:33:53 all this attention, which I think can put a lot of pressure on a relationship, where suddenly it doesn't feel, the power dynamic doesn't feel as equal. Right. But, you know, we were really, you know, in love and enjoying our lives. And, you know, just out of the blue. Jay hadn't been feeling well. He had been tired. He'd been traveling. and we kept thinking oh yes

Starting point is 00:34:25 we have two little kids he's covering the OJ Simpson trial he was uh you know his schedule was crazy and then out of the blue he just was doubled over in pain and our nanny who was Irish at the time called and said Jay's doubled over in in pain and I don't know what to do. So he didn't have a doctor like so many young men, which is, you know, if anybody takes, there are many, I think, takeaways from our conversation, I hope. But one is that men, especially, I think because women go see gynecologists, honestly, that a lot of men don't go and get physicals or they don't even have a GP or an internist.

Starting point is 00:35:08 And Jay was one of those guys. He played lacrosse and football in college and was never smoked ever. I don't think he ever even tried a cigarette. I don't think he even tried pot ever. It's sort of crazy when you think about it. Drank moderately, took pretty good care of himself, I mean. And it just, boom, he had stage four metastatic colon cancer. So we went

Starting point is 00:35:36 from one day, just everything was great. We were buying a house in the country and, or had a house in the country and were really enjoying that. And Jay was riding horses in Central Park and doing his thing professionally. And I was at the Today Show and our girls were great. And, I mean, Cary was less than a year at the time or just had turned a year old when he was diagnosed on April 3rd, 1998, 1997. Sorry, he died nine months later in January. But, you know, it's just, it's so, it's so debilitating and shattering and destabilizing. And, you know, it's such a process. And I was in such denial. And he was one of these

Starting point is 00:36:27 very smart people, but he didn't want to know about his health. He didn't want to know the gory details. I don't know why, because he was so smart, intellectually curious and interested. And I don't know, maybe he knew. So I kept all this stuff from him, which I really regret. I would say, oh, there's only shadows on your liver. Don't worry, it's going to be okay. We're going to figure it out. I remember sending his scans to NIH, you know, because I had a lot of connections because of my job.

Starting point is 00:36:59 And I remember very prominent cancer scientists calling me and saying, oh, God, this is really bad. He, I arranged for him to get a hepatic artery pump, which pushed the chemo directly to his liver that was covered. I mean, the tumor burden on his liver was awful. And, uh, anyway, so i was i went into i think my my husband john says i'm very good in an emergency you know i get very focused and very proactive and driven and i went into i am going to try to fix this mode and uh so i was sort of doing that, I think, to avoid the grief because I had to do something. And it was just, I mean, what can I say? It's the worst thing in the world to see someone.

Starting point is 00:37:51 First of all, your life just changed in an instant. Then to see someone suffering. Then to try to figure out how can you help somebody. I mean, it's just, it's really overwhelming. And, you know, I think my grieving process began the day he was diagnosed. Because my doctor, who was the internist Jay went to see when he was in this pain, you know, he pulled me aside into one of those little patient rooms in the hospital and said, this is really bad. the prognosis is very bleak. So what do you do with that except for do everything you possibly can

Starting point is 00:38:32 to change the outcome, which you realize you probably can't change. Anyway, it's a very challenging thing to deal with, but maybe my regrets will help you with your situation in that I never really said to Jay, what are your hopes and dreams for your kids? Can you write the girls a letter? Can we videotape you talking to them to say everything I wanted to say to him? Because that was an acknowledgment that he was going to die, and I just couldn't do that. So maybe if things are so bleak for this person is so special to you, first of all, you need to tell him. Yeah. And you need to write him, maybe go see him,

Starting point is 00:39:30 and feel that you don't have any regrets. Thank you. Yeah. So the only segue I can possibly think of from that is very closely related. You can always go, what I used to do on the Today Show, on a lighter note. Well, this is, I mean, I suppose on a lighter note, although it's a shade of the same color. So there's a very interestingly titled paper in an academic journal, and the title is, quote, the impact of a celebrity promotional campaign on the use of colon cancer screening,

Starting point is 00:40:09 the Katie Couric effect. And it goes on to detail the increase in the number of colonoscopies because of your awareness campaign or campaigns. So, and I was looking at this, I've read a lot of studies and the p-values, so the likelihood that it could be attributed to chance is really, really, really low.

Starting point is 00:40:26 I mean, the data are really compelling looking at this. Can you tell us the story of how it happened? Well, that's a University of Michigan study, I think, that paper. And I think it was in the Annals of Internal Medicine, possibly, which I think in this case should be called the annals of internal medicine. But I basically really wanted to educate people because I didn't understand colon cancer. I'd never really heard of it.

Starting point is 00:40:57 I guess I had vaguely when President Reagan had a polyp. And I thought, gee, I have this opportunity. I have this bully pulpit. I have a platform to educate people. So again, Jeff Zucker, who at the time was my executive producer, he ironically had also been diagnosed with colon cancer in his 30s. And so he was a very receptive audience for my idea. And I said, can I get a colonoscopy on television? I don't, I'm too young to get one. You know, I was, wasn't 50 yet. I was only, uh, 41 when my husband died, but I said, we need to demystify this procedure. So that was my thinking to just educate people. And, um,

Starting point is 00:41:43 and it was sort of, this was before people were doing things like this and talking about it, but it just seemed a perfectly logical thing to do. And I think it was very helpful for me in a situation where I felt so powerless. And I don't know about you, but that's the worst feeling in the world, world to feel powerless. I don't like that feeling. No. And so here was an opportunity for me to use whatever power I did have to maybe help other people and possibly even save some lives. So that was really the thinking. And, uh, you know, that, that sort of started me on a journey to be a cancer advocate for all kinds of cancer and to continue emphasizing the importance of screening. I'm taking a very well-known person to get his first colonoscopy next week. And I really appreciate people's willingness to talk about this and to spread the word. And because it's so preventable, it has a 92% cure rate if it's detected early. And it's the second

Starting point is 00:42:51 leading cancer killer of men and women combined. So I feel like, you know, that will probably be the first line in my obituary. I hope it won't be journalists, but it will be sort of cancer advocate. And, uh, and it's something I'm really proud of that I was willing to do. Well, I would say even at this point, it could be the first line in us in, in certainly a number of measurable senses, right? So you're co-founder of stand up to cancer and that has raised more than 500 million at this point to fund scientific research team. That's a lot of money. That's a big chunk of change. It is a big chunk of change. Yeah. And that was started by nine women who together thought were frustrated with the pace of cancer research. I think stand up has really changed the paradigm of how cancer research is done. It's

Starting point is 00:43:43 really emphasizing collaboration rather than competition, getting these institutions and pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms to actually talk to each other to pool their resources and their brain power, really. And it's been adapted by people like Sean Parker and Joe Biden when it comes to the way they're approaching cancer. So it's been a phenomenal thing. I'm so proud of these women, so proud of these scientists, because at first they weren't too jiggy about collaborating. Well, that's a really complex, potentially complex problem to solve.

Starting point is 00:44:20 And sometimes it's worked better than others, quite candidly. But we've been able to get three drugs approved by the FDA and a lot of promising research done because these scientists are willing to work together. And it just makes all the sense in the world. But it's against our kind of very primal impulses to be credit mongering and not want to share the spotlight with people. So at times it's been challenging, but now it's been great. What are the ingredients or the strategies that your team has used to encourage these people who have not previously collaborated to collaborate?

Starting point is 00:45:01 I don't know. I don't give the organization any credits, their sheer decency and their, their desire to really help patients and to come up with better treatments for so many people who have suffered from this disease and lost the battle. So I think that, you know, it was just different, you know, people don't like change as you know. And it was just different. You know, people don't like change, as you know. Yeah. And it was just a different way of doing things. And as I said, I think in some cases, maybe it hasn't been as successful as it could have been.

Starting point is 00:45:34 In other cases, it's just been amazingly successful. So, you know, these are the real heroes, by the way. These cancer scientists, first of all, they are ridiculously intelligent and brilliant people. And these are the people who should be on the cover of celebrity magazines and we should be doing award ceremonies for them. They should be the real rock stars of our culture. Unfortunately, they don't get much attention. They don't get that much funding.

Starting point is 00:46:10 They just don't get what they deserve as far as I'm concerned. So they're amazing. And that's been another really gratifying part of this work is getting to know these scientists who are so selfless and so hardworking and so dedicated to helping people i'd love to ask you about how you choose projects because we just discussed as a seat it seems like a very natural consequence of your personal experience and then capitalizing on the platform and the assets that you have. So it was a very natural fit. I can only imagine that you get hundreds and thousands

Starting point is 00:46:51 of proposals that I'm sure other people help vet with basic criteria, but I don't really, you don't. So how do you select, you must have so much inbound and certainly throughout your career, I would imagine, I don't know't know i mean i don't really i've worked for companies you know i worked uh in local news and jumped around which you sort of had you know at the time you kind of had to do to get experience and become competent and you know reporting and doing on-air work and then i worked at companies like NBC for 15, maybe 20 years, if you count my time covering the Pentagon and working in local news, so probably 20 years, then went to CBS for five. Then I did a talk show for two. Then I worked at Yahoo for four. So I've really worked

Starting point is 00:47:41 for big companies, servicing them and doing what I needed to do to hopefully contribute to what, you know, their general mission was. And, and now I'm sort of, I don't know, I'm just kind of at a weird place. I do things that I believe will have impact that give me creative freedom. Sometimes I miss working for companies because I love working with people. I'm a super sociable person, and I really get energy from other people and the atmosphere I'm in. But now I'm just trying to figure it out, and it's hard because the landscape is so fragmented

Starting point is 00:48:25 and there's so few communal experiences. When I did the Today Show, I sort of felt like, oh, not everybody. I wasn't that egotistical. But I thought, oh, a lot of people are kind of watching this. And it felt kind of like a community. And now, I mean, a lot of people still watch the Today Show, but it just seems there's so many options

Starting point is 00:48:46 and so many things to do with our time and this attention economy that Tristan Harris talks about. Do you know Tristan Harris? Yeah, I know of him. We haven't spent any time together. You would love him. Oh, he's a fascinating guy. He's 33 years old.

Starting point is 00:49:01 He's an amazing person. I interviewed him for my Nat Geo series. But, you know, so I just try to do things that I'm going to enjoy that I think will somehow contribute to the conversation and that will get some attention. But that's hard, you know. So I think right now you just have to do things you really enjoy and like, you know, devoting your time to. What are you devoting your time to right now? And I'm thinking maybe that's the leading question, I suppose what I'm hoping to explore a little bit is America Inside Out. And if you could tell us what that is and why you chose to do it. Well, I decided to leave Yahoo when it was bought by Verizon.

Starting point is 00:49:50 No hard feelings. It was never really the right fit for me, and I've talked about that a little bit with Kara Swisher. You probably know Kara. Yeah, I've had Kara on the podcast. Yeah, she's great. I really like Kara. I just like her no BS.

Starting point is 00:50:06 Very no BS. She's great. Yeah. But I also think she's a very kind person. Probably not everyone who she's written about feels the same way. But I wanted to explore some of these issues that I thought were not getting attention. Biz Stone in this book I wrote about advice said, if you see a need, fill it, you know, in terms of what to do with your life or if you're entrepreneurial or if you want to,

Starting point is 00:50:34 if you want to be of service to people. And I think basically, don't we all want our work to matter? I think, I don't think making money is the be-all, end-all for people. Maybe it's easy to say that once you've made some money. But I wanted to explore these topics that I thought were getting short shrift in the media, that everything is so ephemeral now. You can't even remember partially because there's so much happening at once. You can't remember what Donald Trump did two days ago, or you can't remember. I mean, it's so much.

Starting point is 00:51:10 It's TMI, isn't it? Yeah. And I think you can't even digest it and think about it and contemplate it. I felt like everything's happening so fast. Can we think about things a little more? And what are some of the things that I believe we should be thinking about? And they were things that were happening before our eyes, but we weren't really giving them any consideration. So I had done a documentary for National Geographic called Gender Revolution about our changing notions of gender and how we're people

Starting point is 00:51:46 are not really binary as much as they used to be with very specific male female blue pink you know traits and you grow up and you're this way um and now i this whole notion of gender fluidity and kind of being non-binary and all this stuff, really they were relatively new concepts for me. And I had whiffed on an interview I did with Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera, less with Laverne but with Carmen, when I asked her an inappropriate question about her genitals, basically, her private parts. And I taped the interview,

Starting point is 00:52:27 and at the time I thought she was quite offended and told me why. And I said, when the producers asked, I said, keep that in because I want people to understand why that's an offensive question. If you don't mind me asking, what was the question? I said, what's the situation with your private parts, you know, about gender reassignment surgery. Right. And it's just grossly inappropriate, but I didn't really know that. And I was trying to do, believe it or not,

Starting point is 00:52:57 a public service by at least talking about transgender individuals and trying to help people understand it. So my motives were actually pure, but my question was really clumsy. And I kept it in the show, and it got just, I remember I was on a plane going to CES. It was my birthday. And I looked on Twitter, and oh, my God, I'm surprised there wasn't smoke coming out of my phone because it was just merciless.

Starting point is 00:53:26 I mean, the scathing criticism I got. And I, of course, regretted that I kept it in, but I kept it in for the right reasons, too. But I ended up, long story short, sorry, I'm going on and on about this, but I ended up saying, you know, I want to learn. I want to understand. I felt bad. I also felt, you know, I want to learn. I want to understand. I felt bad. I also felt, you know, defensive and upset. But ultimately, I said, I need to educate myself and I need to help other people understand this community. So I did a documentary called Gender Revolution

Starting point is 00:53:56 for National Geographic, and they were quite pleased with it. And I was happy that I was able to do it. And I learned a lot. Then they came back to me, and they said, would you like to do some more? I didn't have a job at the time. I think this is sort of the new way of working. You don't necessarily work for one company, right? You do it more project by project. For sure. I've really done pretty much every job in network news at this point in time.

Starting point is 00:54:26 So I said, sure, I'd love to. And I came up with six topics that I thought deserved a little more analysis or exploration. And that's the series. And it's really been interesting and really, really exhausting. What are some of the topics? So I'm doing the first one is called Rewriting History, but I'm spelling it R-I-G-H-T-I-N-G. And it's really about our memorial landscape and Confederate iconography, statues, monuments, that led me to Charlottesville right before and during that quote-unquote alt-right rally

Starting point is 00:55:05 that, by the way, is not Charlottesville, Virginia. People have now associated this kind of bigotry and disgusting white supremacy as being relating to Charlottesville. It has nothing to do with Charlottesville. They picked Charlottesville because I think it's a progressive town. And so it's really on how these Confederate statues are dividing us, that they're so important for some Southerners who see it as celebrating Southern heritage

Starting point is 00:55:39 and so offensive to black Americans who feel they are a real poke in the eye and supporting people who wanted to perpetuate the institution of slavery. So I just wanted to hear more about that, where the controversy started in Charlottesville. It was started by a 16-year-old African-American high school student who started a petition. And I went to see Mitch Landrieu in New Orleans. I talked to Julianne Moore, who did a petition to change the name of her high school in Northern Virginia.

Starting point is 00:56:14 And then I went and talked to Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, who is just one of my personal heroes, about his project, which he's doing. You would love him. A lynching project where he has collected soil from the lynching sites personal heroes about his project, which he's doing. You would love him. A lynching project where he has collected soil from the lynching sites, from 4,400 lynching sites throughout the South, because that's a chapter of our history that has literally been buried.

Starting point is 00:56:40 Well, not literally, but yes, literally and figuratively been buried. And he has taken the soil with the help of descendants of people who have been lynched and put the soil in mason jars with the name of the lynching victim on the jar. And he has a whole memorial that he's opening in Montgomery in April. He's a very deeply thoughtful person. Does a lot of work with mass incarceration and with sort of the long tale of slavery and how it's affected race and African Americans in this country long past the Civil War. So anyway, that's kind of like,

Starting point is 00:57:20 I mean, where can you really watch something like that on television? And is the, what would be success for you, not in terms of views or anything like that, but the impact of an episode that on, say, a viewer? Is it that they change their mind? Is it that they view an issue that before was just a soundbite or two headlines and they see the shades of gray in something that is actually very nuanced? What do you hope it will do to people?

Starting point is 00:57:47 I think number two would be really good, you know, a deeper understanding. I guess remembering what it feels like to have empathy from somebody's point of view, to have more context, to be able to talk about it in a more educated, intelligent way, to, I don't know, you just, there's so much surface stuff, you don't really know what's underneath, what lies beneath the story? And oftentimes I think if you do a little digging, then you just understand it more and you can talk about it in a less knee-jerk way,

Starting point is 00:58:37 in a more nuanced, less emotional, Empathetic. Empathetic way. These statues for a lot of people are deeply, deeply offensive. And I don't think they belong in public squares and public spaces, which are very important, you know, in terms of setting the tone for a community. That's why urban planners spend a lot of time thinking about these things. And it's, it's just thought provoking. And I don't think we think about these things enough

Starting point is 00:59:07 or have an opportunity to really talk about them. So that's just one. I'm doing one on what it's like to be a Muslim in America right now because there are so many prejudices and misconceptions about Islam, about Muslims, and 50% of Americans say they've never met a Muslim, and so I'm trying to introduce some of them to those people and 50% of Americans say they've never met a Muslim. And so I'm trying to introduce some of them to those people,

Starting point is 00:59:31 to Muslims virtually. And, you know, I don't know. I'm trying to just foster some kind of deeper understanding and connection for people with things that may seem foreign to them, with things that they may feel strongly about but don't necessarily know why. Maybe it's because their friends do. Yeah, or maybe their beliefs aren't actually their beliefs at all. They're just the beliefs of their parents or their coworkers or whatever it is that

Starting point is 00:59:58 they've absorbed. Yeah. They didn't arrive at it through thought. Right. Or it's what they've been fed from their news feeds. Sure. Through like-minded people who share their beliefs. And I don't know.

Starting point is 01:00:13 It's kind of ambitious to even want to do that. And, you know, I just have to keep trying because that's what I enjoy doing. And I do think that I possibly could be a helpful conduit for people, a proxy for the average Joe or Josephine who is curious about the world and wants to understand it better and wants to meet people and talk to people and see if they can, I don't know, try to make sense of it all. I don't know. I think that's a very noble all. I don't know. I think that's a very noble objective. I don't know. I think if you aim for that, even if you partially fail, you will still create a lot of positive change. Maybe.

Starting point is 01:00:58 I mean, that would be certainly what I would tell myself. Yeah, I think you've got to try. And I do think this younger generation is much more receptive to, you know, trying to change the world in a good way. You know, you see those kids in Parkland, Florida, and it's just so moving. And so, you know, I'm hoping that it will maybe, I don't know, get people to talk to their friends about it and maybe counter some of the stuff that they're seeing and say, actually, you know, white extremists have committed three times the violent acts that Muslim extremists have committed since 9-11 or in the last 15 years. But the media coverage leaves you with the perception that's not the case. And so we can all kind of just be more aware and more critical and not in a negative way, but critical thinkers about the kind of information that's incoming.

Starting point is 01:02:00 I know we only have a few minutes left. If you had a billboard, metaphorically speaking, and you could put a word, a phrase, a quote, any type of message or question to get out to millions or billions of people, what might you put on that billboard? I'm watching three billboards right now, so all I can think of is the billboards that Francis McDormand put up. There's so many important things, right?

Starting point is 01:02:30 I guess I would say something about voting. If you don't vote, you can't complain. There are a lot of ways to vote, too. I mean, I understand the literal use of it. I mean, I think for me, it's actually voting in elections. It's the all-out. Right. Because I think it's what 55% of Americans voted. It was the worst turnout since, I think, in 1994 or something.

Starting point is 01:02:58 And I just don't understand how people can be that apathetic. They have to care about the country and they have to educate themselves about the issues. And I just, it's just infuriating to me that people don't vote. And so, especially in the midterms, and they need to, they need to really hold our politicians accountable. And if they want to, you know to be the change they wish to see or whatever, they need to get involved in the political process. So I think that's what I would do. It infuriated me if people didn't vote in the last election or they threw away their vote by voting for someone that just would never be elected. Had no chance.

Starting point is 01:03:48 Right. Right. And I felt like saying to them, that's a vote for the other person. If you're comfortable with that, just so you know, that's helping elect someone you may not want to be president. And so I just hope people take that really, really seriously. And I, I don't know. I just hope they vote for people for the right reasons too. Yeah. And to focus on action instead of complaining. I think that you can simulate,

Starting point is 01:04:19 you can create the illusion of action by jumping on social media and complaining, but. Well, they call that slacktivism, right? Slacktivism. You need to actually get up off your ass and make things happen. And part of that is engaging in ways like that. Yeah. But I think, what would you put on a billboard? Damn fine question.

Starting point is 01:04:40 I would say I might put up, I've thought about this, of course, because I asked this question a fair amount. I would put up, I'll give two answers I'm going to cheat, but the one that I usually say is you are the average of the handful of people you spend the most time with. So pick those people very, very, very carefully. And the other, I am actually stealing from BJ Miller, who's a hospice care physician, also a triple amputee. He was a warning story when I attended Princeton because a few years before he had been climbing on this commuter train called the dinky and it was wearing a big watch and electricity arced and burned off three of his limbs. And he since became Princeton at Princeton.

Starting point is 01:05:30 And he sent, he, well after that point became an MD has helped a thousand plus people to die with terminal diagnoses in something called the Zen hospice center. But he's, he's since expanded beyond that. Where is that? San Francisco. And they have a very uncommon approach to death and, and shepherding people from a terminal diagnosis

Starting point is 01:05:56 to ultimately passing. And they do it in a really beautiful way that, that I think lends peace to a lot of people. And when I asked him this question, he also in turn, he said, got it from a bumper sticker. Who knows who ultimately said this? But he said, I would put on a billboard, don't believe everything that you think. And I thought that was really profound to contemplate. That's good for my series.

Starting point is 01:06:22 Yeah, don't believe everything that you think. So I revisit that a lot myself. And that can be your beliefs about other people, but also your beliefs about yourself, the stories, the narratives that you escape to that ultimately don't serve you. He sounds like a remarkable person. Has he gotten a lot of attention? Not enough. Not enough attention.

Starting point is 01:06:42 Because I think he's incredible. Of course, I immediately think this is a person I should do a story on. You would love this. You would love him. He's incredible. So does he have prosthesis? He does. He has prosthesis or prosthetics. Prostheses, yeah. Prosthetics, whatever. Whatever it is, he has those. And we actually talked on the podcast

Starting point is 01:07:05 At some point he mentioned it And I was like, well the other week when I was riding my motorcycle And then he kept going and I said, wait, hold on You're missing three limbs You have a motorcycle? And he told me about this process he went through With the help of many people to custom modify a motorcycle He wanted to be on a motorcycle

Starting point is 01:07:21 To feel the wind in his face And he rides a motorcycle He's a fascinating guy And hilarious BJ Miller He wanted to be on a motorcycle to feel the wind in his face, and he rides a motorcycle. Wow. He's a fascinating guy and hilarious. What's his name? B.J. Miller. Is he married?

Starting point is 01:07:33 I don't think so, but I'm unsure. Yeah? But you met him when he spoke at Princeton? No. Or this happened to him at Princeton? So I heard about him. I saw him initially in the, I believe it was the Princeton Alumni Weekly, the alumni magazine, and I tore out that page, and I said, one day I'm going to track this guy down, and I put it was the Princeton Alumni Weekly, the alumni magazine. And I tore out that page and I said, one day I'm going to track this guy down. I put it into a scrapbook

Starting point is 01:07:49 and that was before I ever started the podcast. And then at one point, I don't know how it happened exactly. It might've been an email from someone else who said, do you know who it was an email from someone else? It was from a scientist at UCSF. He said, well, dah, dah, dah, dah, something, something BJ Miller. I said, wait a second, that rings a bell. Google search. Oh my God. That's that guy years ago. I said, someday I'm going to meet. And I said, I'll do one better. I want to interview him. And that's how it came to be. And so have you become friends? I would say we're definitely on friendly terms. I still haven't met him in person. Oh my gosh. Well, you have to do that. And, um, he's, uh, he's an incredible, incredible man. You should do your podcast, you know, like on location sometimes.

Starting point is 01:08:29 I would like to do that. Because it really does lend a different feel to the podcast. You could go to his, actually it would be incredible. You should go to his hospice. Yeah. And you should talk to some of his patients. I would love to do that. That would be so profound. And then put together, I'm talking to your producers over there, and put together something that would be really beautiful. Because people, myself included, really still don't know how to talk about death. They are terrified of it. I am. And I think that you would be doing such a public

Starting point is 01:09:10 service to help people kind of get a different perspective on dying if that's possible. If my own thinking about the subject is any indication based on conversations with people like BJ and based on conversations with people like BJ and based on speaking with someone like you and asking about grief. This is why I'm asking, because I don't, I don't yet feel like I have a complete toolkit for thinking about it. Well, you should also read Sheryl Sandberg's book, Option B, which I thought was really brave of her to write with Adam Grant, who's also great. You should interview Adam Grant too. I think I should just be, you know, you must know Adam, right? interview Adam Grant, too. Adam's a good guy. You must know Adam, right?

Starting point is 01:09:46 We've traded email before. He's fantastic. Yeah, I need to get him on the podcast. Yeah. But you should read that book, because I think it might be very useful for you. Great. No, I'll take a look at it.

Starting point is 01:09:56 And I actually was at a group dinner with her then-husband just a few months before everything happened. You just never know. I mean, what if it before everything happened. You just never know. I mean, what if it's... Right, you just never know. I always think, wouldn't it be cool if people had a crystal ball and they would see what's coming? That's such a, you know, it's always such a mystery.

Starting point is 01:10:17 Like, what's around the corner? And, you know, if you could somehow have a glimpse into the future, it's just crazy to think. But, of course, you can't. But sometimes I think about that. I do have two friends. I believe Kevin Kelly is one who's a fascinating, fascinating guy we could talk about another time. Has an Amish beard. Spends time with the Amish.

Starting point is 01:10:45 But he's a technology futurist with an impeccable track record. Really? Lives in Silicon Valley. He's built his own house. And he spends time with the Amish? Yeah, because he's fascinated by how they choose to adopt technology or not. Oh. And in any case, he and another friend named Antonio

Starting point is 01:11:01 have Excel spreadsheets or clocks that they'd look at every morning that based on actuarial tables, tell them how many years, months, days, hours, and minutes they have left in their life, just as a reminder of their mortality. Intense. But that is intense. So we are at time and hopefully we can continue the conversation someday. I really enjoyed talking to you, and I would love to interview you at some point. That would be an incredible honor. I would love to do that. And in the meantime, people can see you at work and doing what you do best,

Starting point is 01:11:38 America Inside Out, which premieres on National Geographic, I believe, right? On National Geographic Channel, April 11th at 10 p.m., six-part docuseries. So I will link to that in the show notes as well as to everything that we've talked about already. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Of course, who listen and those of you who watch, tim.blog forward slash podcast

Starting point is 01:11:58 is where you can find links to everything on social media, at Katie Couric on all the socials. Yeah, you know, it's, gosh, everything on social media at Katie Couric on all the socials. Yeah. I, I, you know, it's, it's gosh,

Starting point is 01:12:07 it's such a full time job servicing all these social media platforms, isn't it? But it's also really fun. I mean, I have to say I'm really, I really enjoy using Instagram because it's a way to feel, I don't know, you do get a sense of community with Instagram.

Starting point is 01:12:25 It has the feel of a friendlier neighborhood, too. It does. Compared to some of the others. Yes. Compared to Twitter. Feel more like a neighborhood where you walk down the street whistling and people just throw potted plants at your head. Yeah, exactly. Which isn't always how you want to feel.

Starting point is 01:12:38 Exactly. If you want to be an insomniac, check your Twitter feed right before you go to bed. Oh, yeah. I had a very funny situation where I couldn't sleep one night, and I got on Twitter. I was using my device way too much. I did a whole hour on technology for this series as well. And suddenly I'm in a conversation with Chrissy Teigen,

Starting point is 01:12:59 Valerie Bertinelli, and one other person. I want to say Anna Gasteyer, were all talking about not being able to sleep on Twitter at like three in the morning. It was so insane. And I was like, okay, this is social media. Who to thunk it? Who to thunk it? You're competing against companies who put billions of dollars into R&D to throw everything scientifically vetted at your brain to distract.

Starting point is 01:13:30 So you're completely outgunned. You are outgunned. I know. And that's one of my hours. And that's what I talked to Tristan about, that they manipulate you to keep you addicted with absolutely no responsibility or understanding? And should they? I mean, do you think that tech companies need to be held accountable for that? I think tech companies, ultimately, if they're going to be as all-encompassing as they certainly appear to be, do have a moral obligation to think about the intermediate and long-term implications of some of these

Starting point is 01:14:06 technologies, even if they're just trying to protect their bottom line. So for instance, I mean, hopefully, I'll take another minute or two, but if you look at autonomous cars, all right, so self-driving cars, well... Three million jobs, right? So if you can look at the job shifting, but you can also look at, let's just say, the decision-making that will have to be embedded into the code itself. So if you have a car, let's say a car gets hit by a huge hailstone, which these things happen, whatever it might be, or a ball comes into the street and throws the car off course and has to choose between hitting, say, three school children on one side of the street or 10 elderly people, how does it make the decision? And it's going to have to make a game time decision. Or are there times when the car sacrifices the driver? Is that dependent on your insurance premium? Is that there are some really gnarly moral problems and ethical challenges that previously were relegated to thought

Starting point is 01:15:03 experiments, like the sort of trolley scenarios and things like that. So relegated to thought experiments like the sort of trolley scenarios and things like that. They will need to have ethicists and so on to help advise the programmers who are developing the code so that these machines can make decisions. So yeah, they have to think about it. It's crazy though. It sounds like Black Mirror,

Starting point is 01:15:19 doesn't it? I know. The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed. William Gibson, thank you for that and Katie Kirk, thank you so much. That would be a good is here. It's just not evenly distributed. William Gibson, thank you for that. And Katie Kirk, thank you so much. That would be a good billboard. It would be a good one.

Starting point is 01:15:30 And I would have to give dear Mr. Gibson a lot of credit for that, but everybody check it out. American side out and Katie, hopefully to be continued. Thank you. So nice meeting you. Likewise.

Starting point is 01:15:41 Thanks. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take Likewise. Thanks. Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week.

Starting point is 01:16:06 That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.com, all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by soothe.com, the world's largest on demand massage service.

Starting point is 01:16:57 I have been broken so many times over the years that I usually have body work done at least once a week. I have a very, very high bar for this type of thing. And I was very skeptical of soothe until I tested them not once, but I would say at least a dozen times around the country in different cities. I do not accept anything less than excellent for any type of soft tissue treatment and would not suggest that you accept anything less than excellent. So I can affirm personally that Soothe delivers a licensed, experienced, and above all effective, in my book, massage therapist in the comfort of your own home, hotel, or office in as little as an hour. So you can think of it as Uber for massages, available in 55 cities worldwide at this point, across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. So you can relax just about any time, anywhere. And I've tried many different types of massage that they offer, and the process is super, and Australia. So you can relax just about anytime, anywhere. And I've tried many

Starting point is 01:17:45 different types of massage that they offer. And the process is super, super simple. Download the Soothe app. That's S-O-O-T-H-E or go to soothe.com. Choose the kind of massage you want. You can select Swedish, sports, deep tissue, or even couples massage. I usually do deep tissue myself, or I'll do couples massage and then tell both of the therapists that I'm actually intending to get a four handed massage instead of having two people get two handed massages. That makes sense. Then you set the length of your massage, whether 60, 90 or 120 minutes. If you're looking to get fixed, I usually do 90 or ideally 120.

Starting point is 01:18:20 You select the gender of your therapist and then boom, you're done. And you will see who picks up the call. The service is available from 8am to midnight and Soothe brings everything that you need to create a spa experience in your home. And the therapist handles all of this, the massage table, linens, oils, music, the whole nine yards. So try it out. Download Soothe. And as a listener of this show, you'll get $25 off of your first massage when you enter the code TIM25. All caps T-I-M-2-5. Again, download the Soothe app and use the code TIM25 for your $25 discount. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. And I'd heard about Peloton over and over again, but I ended up getting a Peloton bike in the whole system after I saw my buddy Kevin Rose.

Starting point is 01:19:12 I've known him forever. Some of you know. And he showed up at my gate at my house a while back, and he looked fantastic. And I asked him, I said, dude, you look great. What the hell have you been up to? Because he's always doing a weird diet or another, but it only lasts like a week or two. So he always regresses to the mean after like 75 beers. And he said, I've been doing Peloton five days a week. Now that

Starting point is 01:19:35 caught my attention because Kevin does nothing five days a week. And you know, I love you, Kevin, but it really piqued my curiosity, ended up getting a system, and it's become an integral part of my week. I love it, and I really didn't expect to love it at all, because I find cycling really boring, usually. But Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right into your home. You don't have to worry about fitting classes in your schedule or making it to a studio with some type of commute, etc. New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite New York City instructors in your own living room. You can even livestream studio classes taught by the world's best instructors or find your own favorite class on demand.

Starting point is 01:20:17 And in fact, Kevin and I rarely do live classes, and you can compete with your friends, which is also fun. Kevin, I'm coming after you. But we usually just use classes on demand. I really like Matt Wilpers and his high intensity training sessions that are shorter, like 20 minutes. And I think Kevin's favorite is Alex, and everyone seems to have their favorite instructor, or you can select by music, duration, and so on. Each Peloton bike includes a 22-inch HD touchscreen, performance tracking metrics. I think that, along with the real-time leaderboard, are the main reasons that this caught my attention when cycling never had caught my attention before. It's really pretty stunning what they've done with the user interface to keep your

Starting point is 01:21:02 attention. The belt drive is quiet, and it's smaller than you would expect. So it can fit in a living room or an office. I actually have it in a large closet, believe it or not, and it fits with no problem. So Peloton is offering all of you guys, listeners of the Tim Ferriss Show, a special offer, and it is actually special. Visit OnePeloton, that's O-N-E-p-e-l-o-t-o-n one peloton.com and enter the code TIM all caps T-I-M at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your peloton

Starting point is 01:21:35 bike purchase now you might say man accessories wait I don't need fancy towels or whatever other supplemental bits and pieces no No, the shoes you need. You need the clip-in shoes, and those are in the accessory category. So this $100 off is a very legit $100 off. So if you want to get in your workouts, if you want a convenient and really entertaining way to do high-intensity interval training or anything else, or you just want to get a fantastic gift for someone, check out Peloton. OnePeloton.com and enter the code TIM. Again, that's O-N-E-P-E-L-O-T-O-N.com

Starting point is 01:22:14 and enter the code TIM at checkout to receive $100 off any accessories, including the shoes that you will want to get. Check it out. OnePeloton.com. Code Tim.

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #308: Inside Out with Katie Couric

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #308: Inside Out with Katie Couric

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