This Week in Startups - $AMZN acquiring One Medical, The Snyder Cut bot army, + maybe some Jay Trading | E1514

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

First up, Jason and Molly break down Amazon acquiring One Medical for $3.9B — what is the long-term strategy here (2:44)? And you know it’s Thursday, so you know we had to have Lon Harris on the show (16:36). We break down the Snyder Cut bot craziness (24:38), and Netflix’s path forward (37:25). There might even be a Jay Trade involved! (0:00) Jason and Molly tee up the show! (2:44) Amazon acquired One Medical for $3.9B (14:20) Prometheus - Go to Prometheusalts.com or download it on the App Store and use the access code TWIST to sign up (16:36) Lon Harris joins for This Week in Streaming: “Cryptoqueen” pilot (22:31) Intercom - Get advanced Intercom features and Early Stage Academy at a 95% discount bit.ly/earlystage22 (24:38) Rolling Stone reported The Snyder Cut was fueled by a bot army (32:43) Microsoft for Startups Hub - Apply in 5 minutes, no funding required, sign up at http://aka.ms/thisweekinstartups (34:49) Thoughts on Amazon’s streaming service (37:25) Jay Trading? Thoughts on Netflix’s path forward (46:30) Wrapping up and picking a new show (50:30) Outro

All right, everybody, welcome to this week in startups and this week in streaming. We have an awesome Thursday show for you. All right. Yeah, first up, Amazon has bought One Medical and this is a really interesting trade. We're trying to understand in this M&A, why did Amazon buy One Medical? Was it for their employees? Was it for something else? Was it for you and me?

And then, you know, it is Thursday. So we had to have Law and Harris on the show. We're still trying to pick a show. So let us know in the This Weekend Startups community on Twitter what you think we should watch. We think we have some ideas. But we're going to kick around some Zach Snyder bot craziness, lawn's thoughts on Netflix's path forward. And I make a lawn an offer he cannot refuse to write the pilot episode and the show Bible of the first Jason Calacanis narrative production. You know I've produced a number of podcasts, blogs, magazines, books in my career events.

but now the J-Cal Media Empire, the master of media, is going to do a narrative television show, and I make one an offer, serious cash offer to write a pilot of a new series that I want to see on streaming. It's going to be a great show. Stick with us. Please. This week in startups is brought to you by Prometheus. Prometheus solves the problem of visibility and access to alternative funds in a way that benefits investors, fund managers, and wealth advisors. Lower investment minimums means that millions of investors can get involved in alternatives and let professional investors do what they do best.

Go to Prometheusaltz.com or download it on the app store and use the access code twist to sign up. Intercom. If you're an early stage high-growth startup, you can get access to Intercom's early-stage Academy today at a 95% discount. Join the program today at bit.ly slash early stage 22 or email them at startups at intercom.io and Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub. For the challenges you face as a startup founder, Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub is here to help. The platform provides founders with free resources like Azure credits, development tools like GitHub, mentorship resources, productivity

software, training, and so much more. The program is open to all and takes five minutes to apply with no funding required. Learn more and sign up at a.k.a.m.m.s.m.m.m.m.m. All right, Molly, what's in the news? I saw some big Amazon news go across the wire. Some big Amazon news and big kind of like, I don't know, health startup news. Amazon has acquired the concierge network of in-person clinics and telehealth, one medical for $3.9 billion. So everybody knew it was like going to be shopping season, I think?

You've been saying that for a while. We talked about Peloton. We talked about BuzzFeed. We didn't talk about one medical, but it was another stock that had been crushed, right? Absolutely crushed, which is so surprising because like telehealth became such a big thing, but they also had the in-person clinics. They've just been maybe kind of struggling to, you know, keep people paying and coming in. One medical said is the largest independent practice in the U.S. direct-to-consumer medical model with 8,000 business clients. It offers its own services to its employees.

And Amazon, as we know, has actually been talking for a while about trying to get into the health game. And specifically about trying to like offer. health services to its own employees. I doubt they spent $4 billion just to give this to their own employees, but maybe. No, no. What this really is about is about drugs, because you've now interviewed two of the online drug companies. Amazon has a pharmacy, I believe, and this is an important business. And again, remember I said Jeff Bezos wants to run for president.

And they talked about Mark Cuban maybe wanting to run for president. If you could solve the drug problem, that's a pretty great chip in, in, you know, a checkbox for Americans to get votes. Yeah. Because Americans are suffering and we suck at buying medicine, it seems, and there seems to be some kind of racket going on here. So again, Jeff Bezos is running for president.

I'm 100% sure of it. This would be a nice little checkbox here. And if they gave the best health care in the world to their employees, all those factory workers, if they got one medical, now all of a sudden the Bernie Sanders critique, right? And the Elizabeth Warren critique, oh, my God, oligarchs, whatever, you know, platocracy. it's like, well, our boys have the best health care

and you couldn't get it done in government. So we figured out a free market solution to health care. That'll definitely make the oligarchy conversation go away. Well, anyway, yeah, I don't know why you call people oligarchs from building businesses in a democracy. Oligarchs are a different thing, Molly, but okay, fine. I don't know what's going on in Oakland with everybody out there. Maybe that's what happens.

I'm excited for a friend of mine that wants to start a podcast called American oligarchs. I'm like, that is a great show. American oligarchs, that's what I'm going to call my new, that's going to be a new series coming from Jason Caliqana's Productions. That's a great name for a streaming series. It definitely is. American oligarchs. American oligarchs. Sorry, Lyndon.

But anyway, so what this is about. But yes, I mean, is this an add-on to Amazon Prime? Like what? Yes. You nailed it, Molly. You get Amazon Prime. You nailed it. Imagine you have Amazon Prime and they say, hey, Amazon Prime includes the ability to do a consultation with a doctor for you.

this group of medicines, just like Hems, hers, Roman, you know, Wisp, which we're investors in, all of these online services, you're going to be able to, with Amazon, through one medical, do a consultation if you're an Amazon Prime member, and get yourself, you know, Viagra, you know, any of the medicines that people don't want to go to the pharmacy for it because they're embarrassing.

UTI medicines, that's what Wisp does. Maybe this is where you get your... morning after pill or your abortion medication. Hepatitis, medicine, all those things that people felt, you know, maybe a little embarrassed

to go talk to a doctor about. Now that's all going to be telemedicine or in, what do you call it? Like chat, chat sessions. And so that's how all those services work. And in fact, didn't we talk about in the program

that somebody was giving out beta blockers or other, there was some controversy, right? Yeah, what was it? It was that company that, They were doing the medicines that you probably shouldn't do like at all.

Cerebral. Cerebral. Thank you for having that. So anyway, you nailed it. Now Amazon Prime. You're going to get your Lord of the Rings series. You get the boys, whatever. You get two-day delivery down to two-hour delivery, yada, yada.

I think they give you some storage and some music stuff or whatever, but who cares? And now you're going to get telemedicine. And they'll probably have an upsell. Amazon Prime Health, where I wouldn't be surprised. if Amazon goes directly at solving, you know, the HMO kind of service. So just pick like, I don't know, urging care or whatever. And they're understanding retail. So this is also about Amazon trying to understand retail.

These are retail clinics, right? So now if they were branded Amazon, you know, Amazon doesn't fear the real world, do they? Who fears the real world? Google, Facebook, sorry, meta, and Apple. They don't want anything to do with the real world. real world. They don't do real world stuff. They're scared of it.

Well, Apple has stores, but yeah. Barely. But it's not like they're doing delivery of food. They're like the DMV. Right. They're not like, they're not a giant logistics platform, which is what Apple,

which is what Amazon is and which ultimately is what health care is, right? It is a logistics issue fundamentally. Yeah. I mean, this is, you know, producer Nick asked the question, like, is Amazon building the super app in plain sight? And the super app is Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime has always been the driver. I know people have worked at Amazon. They say when you make a decision inside of Amazon, the Amazon Prime team will get the veto on it. So you want to do something fun or whatever. It's like, how is this going to affect Prime subscribers? Is it going to increase Prime subscribers, decrease Prime subscribers?

Every acquisition has looked through the lens of Amazon Prime, I'm told, from Insiders. Yeah. So when they bought Whole Foods, the whole discussion was how many Whole Foods customers are Amazon Prime customers? how do we get people to sign up for Amazon Prime in the stores? I understand, I haven't experienced it because I don't shop for myself anymore.

You know, we do online ordering. But Whole Foods, when you go to the store, I understand they sign you up for Prime, and Prime has something to do with the experience. And when I search for food items, it directs me to Whole Foods on the Amazon interface. So anyway, it's all about Prime. And then what about Apple?

They're doing all this work on the Apple Watch. They care about health care all this much. Supposed they're going to, you know, they've been trying to think about glucose monitors, you know, or temperature monitoring, your body temperature, sleep. Where are they? You know, like this would be the perfect experience for them. Yep.

You know, blood testing, telemedicine, but they're not bold enough. So they're not going to do it. They're just not. I know. I mean, I keep, you know, it's like getting a little boring talking about what Apple could do with its giant pile of cash because the fact is Apple doesn't seem to be inclined to do anything except for, you know, sell more iPhones. iPhone 14, new AirPods, whatever.

Yeah. So I am enamored. I mean, like I was with Whole Foods with this acquisition. If Amazon started charging me $500 a year instead of $130 and it included one medical, which I used to have and I freaking loved. Loved. What did you love about it as a customer? What was what you loved about?

It could have been a good J train. I love that it is, it was just like a beautiful office. You would just, they all have parking. You make an appointment on the app. You could always get an appointment like pretty quickly. They give you enough time when you're there. It's like an hour long appointment, which I almost never used. And everybody I ever met with was.

super competent. Like, I don't have an ongoing health issue. It would just be like, I need to go in because like, I busted my toe or like there's some whatever. You need a Z-Pack. You got the flu. Whatever. Right. And so it was just like, oh, yeah, here you go. And here's a lovely experience. A doctor who has enough time with you. A beautiful office. A place to park. The end.

See, in other words, they were catering to the customer. Yeah. As opposed to catering to the insurance company. Totally. This is the key. Amazon is relentlessly focused on your consumer experience. One click two-day delivery.

Do you want everything in one box and you'll get it two days later? Or do you want to get three boxes but get it a couple days earlier and you've got to like deal with three boxes? Like that's the level that they're thinking about the customer experiences. Like which is better for you, Molly? Open one box and get it on Thursday or open two boxes and get it on Wednesday, Thursday. Like what business gives you that level of choice?

Right. It's insane. Now, if they bring that to healthcare and medicine, it could change everything in the United States. And I am for a free market solution. I think we should in the United States go one of two ways. We give everybody in the country the most kick-ass best health benefits in the world. You walk into any clinic and it's better than Canada.

It's better than any other country. We're number one at health. And then companies have nothing to do with it. I don't have to provide health benefits anymore. None of the starters we invest in have to. We just pay a little more taxes and the government makes it like a really core competency and we hold them to a high standard. Or it should be a free market.

solution. Right now I have a lovely combination of neither. Exactly. Now we have the worst parts of neither. If you're rich, you get the best. If you're poor, you get screwed. If you work for a company, they have the thumb over you where like, oh, if you leave your kids don't have the health care, you got to get new doctors.

It's just stupid. It's like a worker you die. It's a work or you die system. It's just amazing. So Amazon makes it, you know. Which I kind of like in a way. Like you should be, you should go to work. I mean, I don't know if you should work or die.

That's a little dramatic. But I do like the idea that you go to work, everybody. Real it in there, VP. Listen, I'm not sad. I didn't take any red pills with sacks before the show. But there's like six or seven million people in the country. If they got back to work, it would be accretive to our productivity. Okay.

I just meeting young people who are 25 years old and their parents are still subsidizing them. Message to the parents of America. Stop subsidizing your goddamn kids. sink or swim. Message to the companies of America. Rages haven't gone up in 40 years. Oh, they have. Oh, they have not.

Wages have not kept up with inflation for 40 years. Okay. Well, now you're bringing up inflation. Okay. Amazon pays much more than the minimum wage. If Bernie Sanders and was more than the minimum wage, go on. There's not a single, you can give $15 an hour is still, like, if you do the math, that's still property level yearly salary.

It's now 18 to 25, by the way. And for an entry level job, that's pretty good. I'm not saying that's good for somebody who's been in the workforce for 10 years, but for your first job, pretty good, I think. And people who work there love it. For your first job, sure. But for the jobs that are available in America right now, like, and you have to get an apartment

and there's not a single state in the country where you can afford an apartment on minimum wage and adding that $6 a month or an hour or whatever is not. I'm just saying there's a reason that people are like, that job should be one of the three incomes in the household, right? That's the other thing is everybody wants to live in their own apartment. You know, for people who are on the entry level, you usually have two or three,

you should have two or three, four incomes per household. and then you're splitting that cost, right? So if there's two entry-level people, one with a medium kind of job, and then one with an upper job, then all of a sudden it blends. And that's the other piece of this. But anyway, let's not argue.

Anyway, all right. Everything's getting better. America's awesome. America's... I love Amazon. As of this point in time in the podcast episode, I'm not a shareholder in Amazon.

At this point in time in the episode, I'm not saying there could be a J-Trade later in the episode. But at this moment of time, While you're listening to the episode, there's no J-Trade here. But Lon Harris is coming on next. I'm going to keep talking about Amazon. All right.

Let's kick it over to Lon. All right. Lon, get on here. Hey, everybody. I'm really excited to tell you about Prometheus. This is a new platform. It's like a version of Twitter, but it's focused on markets, venture capital, and more. And if you love Twist, you're into that stuff.

I know that. You've got to sign up for Prometheus right now. I've been in there. I've been interacting with the community, and as a capital allocator and somebody who invest in startups, it's awesome. Here's the secret sauce. Prometheus has a bunch of fund managers, like myself, and potential LPs, limited partners who invest in funds, like myself, on the platform.

This is the social network I have been waiting for. And if you're going to raise capital, you can do it right in the app. But imagine you're an accredited investor, right? Like myself. Well, Prometheus is going to help you find new fund managers to back. Every year I back one. or two new fund managers. So now I went in there and there's a tab. Like imagine the explore tab. Well, for me, I go in there and I found all these new managers I can back. This is stuff that was

previously spread through word of mouth, right? Like just people emailing people or meeting them at conferences. Well, now you can find all these new fund managers that you want to back on Prometheus. And if you're a fund manager like myself, they're going to give me access to potential LPs so I can fill up my fund and meet more people to join the party and invest alongside me in startups. I couldn't believe it. My mind was blown when I saw Prometheus. And if you're a civilian and you just want to learn, well, Prometheus can help you learn from all these awesome fund managers. I was posting some of my J-trades on there and getting great feedback. Prometheus solves the problems of visibility and access to alternative funds. That means a bunch of investors can get involved in alternative funds and let fund managers do what they do best. Invest. So go sign up for Prometheusaltz.com. Let me spell that for you. B-R-O-M-E-T-H-E-U-S-A-L-T-S.com. Prometheus-A-L-S dot com. And right now, I want you to stop what you're doing.

Go to the App Store and search for Prometheus and install it. In order to get in, they're going to ask you for a code. You want to guess the code? It's Twist. T-W-I-S-T and follow your boy J-C-C-C-C-C-L-E-S-M-E-S-E-R-E-T-RAT. You'll see me posting my J-T-T-T-Rates there. It's a really cool, well-designed product. Congrats to the team over there.

Really blown away. And I can't wait to, interact more with the community on Prometheus. Hey, everybody, it's Thursday, and we're here for a little this week in startups and this week in streaming episode. Lon Harris is here and Molly Wood, of course. Hey, Lon. Hey, Molly.

How is everybody doing? Pretty good. Welcome back, Lon. Thanks. Great to be here. We have lots of news to talk about in the streaming world. Lots of news. I did want to, at the top of the show, just let people know there's a J-Trade coming

based on Lon Harris's feedback. I may place a 2550K bank. based on Lon Harris's advice here. Oh, my gosh. And second. Don't panic, Lon. It's just, you know,

I'm just asking you to pick a number at the roulette wheel for me. But, Lon, did you hear that there is a Bitcoin queen on the FBI's top 10 list? Yes. I believe I have heard. Yes, I think I have heard about this. All right.

I've had aspirations to do a short film or maybe a series, right? James and Calacanus production, if you will. Yeah, yeah. It does feel the, the landscape feels right for some of these crazy Bitcoin, crypto stories to start becoming shows and films, I think. Got it. And so just to make it easier, should we, I want to commission you to write a script, like either a first episode or a commission you to write a short,

but I think a first episode, like a pilot? Usually I feel like you'd have a pilot and a show Bible. So like here's the pilot script and then here's what we think would happen for the rest of season one. Here's an outline of, so you hear the five or six. main character is like that kind of stuff. Here's the tone. Here's the other shows we're thinking about that would inspire the look.

This takes, this would take what, 50 hours, 100 hours? I mean, if I'm writing a full pilot, like it's an hour-long drama pilot script, that's, yeah, that's some time. That's a few weeks. A couple weeks. That's, yeah, that's three or four weeks of my time. And then, you know, like another week or two for the show Bible. Got it.

Okay. We'll just take a month. We could figure something. Yeah, yeah. I would say five or six weeks all. in for the whole thing. Got it. Okay. In Jason's world, that's a month.

Well, yeah. People tell me it takes six weeks. I'm like, great. I'll talk to you. It's a lot of, it's good. It's a lot of pilot itself. The dialogue is like, that's where it, like a show Bible I could knock out for you. Got it. So my question to you is, now that I know the scope here, do you think it should be as accurate as possible to her story? Or do you think we should be inspired by her story? So we have more room to.

I mean, I would have to do. I would have to dig in a little and see how, like, how juicy is the story? Do I feel like we need to ramp this up to make it TV worthy or is it already? But my inclination is you always want to cue as close to reality as you can. Like, I feel like people have that little radar for like, ah, this feels like an invention as opposed to. Because I think, Molly, I think the premise of the matriarch who ran a crazy big. Bitcoin scam and got away with it. As a jumping off point, you have, how did that, how did she get to it to get onto the FBI's

list? And then you have, how did she go on the lamb and get away from the FBI? Yeah, totally. So you've got three different time periods, Molly. Yeah, you got chapters built in. You got chapters here. And they're all fascinating to me. Like, who is this person and how do they wind up being on the FBI's most wanted list?

What's the backstory? Yeah. And also, it's a great opportunity to do that score. Or Sasey, like, take this one person's case and this one person's story, but give you the inside, like, if you're just a regular person, like, here's how these crypto scams sort of function, like, give the bird's eye view of like, this is what's going on. All right. Yeah.

So this is funny, too, because we were talking right before the show started and before you got on, Jason, about portrayal of typing and hackers and things like that in movies and how hard that is to pull off. And so, yeah, you've got to have this, like, really glamorous crypto queen. and her typing's got to be like, like I've got this way too long manicure right now. Nothing can happen on the screen is the basic point.

Nothing happens on a computer screen that's interesting. And, you know, in hackers, they're running with a skateboard, you know, on roller blades with a, with a 3.5 inch floppy. That stuff is nonsense.

We just want this to be about who introduced her crypto and all the personalities that helped to pull up the scam. This is the, I mean, I feel like this is the format is the Scorsese stuff. The like,

it's a criminal. empire, it just happens to be crypto instead of, you know, blow or whatever in the other movies. But it's just the rise and fall of the cartel story. Correct. So, you know, obviously Breaking Bad, Sicario, Goodfellas. I mean, Ozark. Yeah. Ozark.

There's a lot of like ideas around here. But I think also having it be a little bit funny could be interesting. Yeah. And like a Mr. Robot angle as well, where I think you're digging into the personality of this person and you're getting into the psychology of it too. Mr. Robot, that's a good, that's a good starting point. If I offer you five, five dimes to do this, would that be acceptable? I think we're off to the races with that.

All right, great. All right. So somebody ship one of my people ship a lawn $5,000 to do this. It's the writing credit, whatever he needs. All right. And I'm going to send you half the money up front so that you're on the hook. You agree to do this. And then when you come on for this big and streaming, just give us a little update.

We're like questions or thoughts. All right. to go along. I'll start this weekend on the research, because I'm going to have to take a few days to figure out, you know, read the story and figure out my sort of take. Because I got all these connections in the streaming world

that want to work with reality stuff. So I could just, once we have this package and the audience here kind of digs it, and then I'm just going to bring it to somebody and say, hey, I'll find some producing partner. I love it. I'll start breaking down an outline this weekend, sure. Folks who listen to me know I'm crazy.

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Startups at intercom.com. You don't create an email. Startups at interCOM.com. If you don't want to talk to startups, they love startups over there. And I got my friend Des Trainer. He's been on the show 10 times, one of our great guests of all time. He's the guy, he's kind of the genius behind all this, along with his team. And they just do a great job. So go ahead and check. it out. And thanks again to Intercom for supporting the show over many years and most importantly for supporting all my startups I invest in with this great early stage academy. All right. First up, though, we've got to talk about what's happening in streaming. Zach Snyder made the filmmaker of the Justice League, right? Of the Justice League, which I like the Snyder cut,

if I'm being honest, more than the original. I'll level with you. I did too. I've been very down on this whole thing all along, but look, it's a much better version of that movie than the one that they released in theaters years ago. Okay, so what's going on here, Molly? Can you take this up to the news? And honestly, this is not news to us at all because the lawn already told us straight up this headline. And then Rolling Stone just got around to it earlier this week, reporting that the hashtag release the Snyder cut movement might, might have been fueled by people on the internet who were not real people. What?

That it was bots all along. And actually, this is where it gets kind of dissey, though, is that some insiders think Zach Snyder himself was behind it, which frankly also doesn't even sound that surprising. Yeah, two caveats. It's fueled by bot like not, people were mistaking it as like all the people tweeting about the Snyder cut were bots. That's not true. I think there's a really, that's never the case.

Like 13% of the tweets were coming from bots. It was just a, there were obviously nefarious force. is egging this on and artificially prolonging it, not that there weren't a lot of genuine fans who really did want to see the Snyder cut. That's first. The other thing is, I think there's a lot of evidence that Zach Snyder took advantage of the existence of this,

was using it as leverage. Like, if somebody was like, no, I don't think we can work with you on this, you'd be like, well, be an awful shame if the internet were to hear about this. I don't know. Some angry fans might let you know about it. And like that kind of, you know, mafia tactics. I think there's less evidence that he organized it personally.

Like, I don't, there's, the Rolling Stone doesn't have a lot of like, Zach Snyder personally went on TaskRabbit and hired a bunch of people to build him a bot army. I think it's probably easier to believe that he discovered this existed and then was like, oh, okay. Well, I can, I can take advantage of this to get. people to do what I want. Yeah. Which is gross.

And there's a lot of quotes in that article of people saying, yeah, he threatened me like this. And that's kind of gross. Well, and so do we think he did? I mean, I guess there are sort of like a lot of pieces of the actual Zach Snyder story in this Rolling Stone piece, right? There's the like, did he coordinate this? Did he benefit from it? But then also did he apply all this kind of like, icky bullying pressure?

It's like there's technology. And then there's like, how much does this guy sort of suck? it's kind of hard to make the case that he's not knowingly doing it on some extent. I mean, yesterday he went on Vero, which is his, it's like the Twitter competitor that he prefers. So he posts up to Vero and then people screenshot it and posted to Twitter. But he posted on Vero this like very like a picture of a Justice League shield like on the field of battle. And it was like, if I fall, avenge me. If I advance, follow me.

And it's like, he knows what he's doing. he's not an idiot. Which you referred to as very cool and normal stuff. Yeah. And I say this and I don't mean he's as bad. I'm not making this comparison in an overall holistic way. But it's Trumpy behavior. It's like we all know what that is when a guy knows that he's got this very powerful,

very aggressive group of followers that he can sort of direct at will against his enemies. Like we've seen that before. Yeah. But he did this to get the money to finish the film. That was what he needed was more money. And were they committed to doing it? I don't understand why Warner Brothers wouldn't want to do this. Depending on who you had,

there's a million different versions of this narrative out there. But no, Warner Brothers initially, neither, you know, none of these movies were doing that well. They were all doing good enough and they had an interest in competing with Marvel. So they kept making them. But Batman v. Superman was a disappointment. Justice League was a relative. disappointment. They were no longer in the active, let's keep this Zach Snyder franchise going,

and they were having bigger hits with other properties, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, you know, obviously Joker. So I think that he was coming in and he had a small but very vocal group of people who really loved these movies and wanted this version of the story going. And he found a way to leverage that into eventually getting the studio to free up 40, 60 million more for him to finish his cut and put it out there on HBO Max. And that was always the goal. And, you know, I think that it was being pitched to people. It was being pitched to people as this like strike a blow for artistic freedom.

And I deserve to have my voice heard. It's like it was never, none of us are ever arguing like Warner Brothers doesn't have the right to final cut of a Justice League movie. Like, of course they do. You know that going in when you direct Justice League movies. So on an insider basis, it's a little insincense. sear. It's about capitalism. It's not about censorship or anything like that. But people did letter writing campaigns, right? Like, so if somebody got a show was off the air, sometimes the actors on the show, whoever, would try to get a letter writing campaign to go back in the day.

Sure. Yeah. And so that seems fair. It doesn't feel particular. I mean, this doesn't even feel particularly unusual in terms of the way that individuals who want to accomplish something, but also businesses. I mean, everybody, like, as far back as internet forums are voting, right? It would be like, tell all the employees to go and vote or everybody create an account and do this, right? Like, the coordinated activity and hashtag promotion is literally, you can hire PR firms to do this for you. Sure.

And I mean, we see it all the time with canceled TV shows. There was just that NBC show Manifest that was a big hit. It was a sci-fi series like lost that had clip hanger endings. And then after three seasons, NBC was just like, ah, we're done with it. Fans were like, no, we got to find out what happened. Some Netflix eventually after this heated fan campaign, save men. manifest and the hashtag Netflix agreed to step in and save it and give it a four season. That's not unusual.

It was the aggressiveness of this campaign. It was the every tweet Warner Brothers sent for years. Every tweet that was about any Warner Brothers project would get spammed and inundated. And these people who are the Snyder fans were very aggressive and would get hostile. If somebody was like, you know, tweeted, I don't think we really need to see the Snyder. But who cares? They would pile on and bully them. And that was where this isn't really a story about using social media as a marketing tool,

I don't think. It's another story about social media bullying and abuse. And I think that's what when people are like, it's creepy for Zach Snyder to do that. It's not creepy for Zach Snyder to promote his movie on Twitter. It's creepy for Zach Snyder to back this movement that had this angle to it. And it was abusing people and harassing people online. Yeah, for years. Yeah, including me.

They were harassing you. They were getting in their own set. Of course, right. I would, because I was one of those people that would tweet things, not in an angry political way, not in an I hate Zach Snyder on a science. I like a lot of Zach Snyder movies. In a, I don't really care about a director's cut of Justice League. Do we really need that original zombie film?

He did the remake of Dawn of the Dead. That's fantastic. I just watched that with my daughter. She loves zombie films. Yes, I really like that movie. James Gunwrecked. wrote that movie, too. That was a key movie. Fantastic. Yeah. I mean, also, can I ask you, when is 28 months later coming? Are they ever going to make that? Well, they did, wait, 28.

28 days, 28 weeks. And then they did 28 weeks. Oh, Danny Boyle's so busy. I don't know. He's so busy and this is such a good. Hillion Murphy, Danny Boyle, they got a lot of stuff going on. They got many irons in the fire right now. By some estimates over 90% of startups will go out of business in year one. And listen, it's a downturn right now. So it's even harder. And that's why Microsoft created the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub. This program is amazing. They provide founders at any stage with up to six figures in resources. That's like 100,000 or more.

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slash this week in startups. Thank you to Microsoft. I just got a new amazing alienware computer, and I have to say Windows is so tight. It's so perfect now. It's so stable that I am loving my new Windows laptop. I've got to tell you, it's super powerful. I'm really impressed.

All right, everybody, you know what to do. Let me ask you this. Amazon streaming service. Yes. Are they fully committed and all in on this? Because I watched the boys. That seemed like a winner to me. I enjoyed it.

I love it. This third season I thought was very good. They kind of made this whole like Trump versus Hillary kind of, you know, MAGA kind of disturbing theme. They're very good at that sort of like satirizing how people use the media and social media and these marketing campaigns and like propaganda. Yeah. like how how the public and perceptions are manipulated.

It's one of the best shows about that maybe ever. Yes. But it also pushes the boundaries on sex and violence pretty hard. Yeah, it's gross. I mean, it's pretty gross. Yeah, that's kind of the part of it. And then they have this. All of his stuff is sort of.

Then they're doing the Lord of the Rings. Mm-hmm. And they bought James Bond. So are they teeing themselves up to become like a bigger player here? because I feel like, you know, I'm excited. I was shockingly enjoyed the boys. I didn't think I would. And I'm kind of stoked for the Lord of the Rings.

I saw that new trailer, Bezos, tweeted. That looks actually pretty good. I mean, he went to the team and was like, pounding fists on the table, like, I want a Game of Thrones. Make me a Game of Thrones. Get me a Game of Thrones. That's your mission. And, I mean, I think it's pretty clear.

That's what they're trying. to do. I mean, this is as clear a let's make our own Game of Thrones play as I've ever seen. And like, if anything is going to work, I mean, it's hard to catch lightning in a bottle like that. Game of Thrones does feel like kind of maybe HBO's biggest hit ever,

but like, Lord of the Rings would be the property. The name brand recognition is there. Did you see the trailer and what are your thoughts? I'm excited. It looks just like the original series. It's beautiful. The trailer is beautiful. I like the way it looks definitely. I'm like, Galadryal. Yeah. I really

like that it's the second age. So it's a time in Middle Earth, like it's thousands of years before the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings stories we know. It's this kind of relatively unexplored era and setting. We still get to see like, you know, Galadriel

pops up. Elrond is in there. I don't think they've announced if Gandalf is in the show, but he's alive at this time in Middle Earth history. But I like that. It's going to be like a fresh take sort of necessarily because this is so far. back.

I am very excited for it. I got very excited about the trailer. I'm also wondering where you're going with this one. In the J-Trade department? Well, so here's what I'm thinking. Is that what's happening here? Yeah, there's a little bit of a J-Trade occurring here. I am really excited about the Lord of the Rings and the James Bond moves.

I have been giving Netflix a hard time. Yeah. Because Netflix seems lost in a drift. They are losing subscribers. We all know the content is janky. They seem like they're confused as to what the actual mission of the company is now. They want to have advertising.

It used to be about storytelling. It seems like the bean counters are running it. And then I look at Amazon and they bought one medical today. And then I look at the Amazon Prime moves. Then I look at them getting rid of Amazon basics because they see that as a vector for antitrust. In other words, I think this new CEO is kicking ass. Making some moves, yeah.

Making moves. I am excited. So what do we, maybe you could run through the Netflix. numbers and get Lahn's thoughts on Netflix versus Amazon. I mean, it's interesting. Other players. Everyone else, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Amazon's definitely a different take because it's less, it's more induced,

like we want one big thing every now and again to get you to keep your prime subscription going as opposed to the Netflix like constant fire hose of nonsense. So it's a little hard to do just like a straight up apples to apples comparison. having said that Netflix I think has a not just a content problem but an identity problem

which is they've spent so long now trying to literally be everything for everyone and I don't know how they back out of that I don't I don't know how they focus in without disappointing vast swathes of the people that they've won over but they're producing so much content

like how do they keep this up forever and you know you got to wear like Crown is ending, Stranger Things is ending, Bridgeton already on season three. And is there a new generation behind them that's getting people that excited? I don't know. The shows kind of get canceled very quickly. And then I look at stuff like The Grey Man opening tomorrow, which they put in theaters. And like, are people hype for the Grey Man the way they were for like a Top Gun Maverick?

I don't know if they are. For whatever reason, it seems like Netflix movies, they're spending the money. they spent $200 million on it. Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling, you know, Anaday Arma's huge action. They've been promoting this train sequence. They spent 40 million bucks on, but they're not getting their bang for their buck on these big movies.

Red Notice was another one and six underground that Michael Bay one. So I think unless they figure out how to thread that needle and make the original films more of a must-see event and get a bunch more squid game, Stranger Things type shows that people are like, I have to keep my Netflix subscription so I can watch this. I think they're in trouble. They're in trouble.

So they're a loss. And then Molly, what do you think? You and I cover Amazon here every week. It comes up. You saw they bought one medical today. That was like a $3 billion purchase. They're obviously going to make telemedicine and prescription drugs like very easy on Amazon.

So part of your Amazon Prime is going to be like, hey, I need my whatever drug. I have Amazon Prime. So I get a doctor consultation with that. And I can also order my own. Whole Foods and, you know, it just feels like why would I ever cancel Prime if I have one medical somehow looped into that my Amazon Prime delivery service, then I have Amazon Prime Video. I think it kind of, yeah, I mean, so it comes down to, well, there's this, there's the question

about Amazon eating the world and how successful it's going to be in doing that. And I think you, you know, you're absolutely right. Like I hadn't really put it so specifically to Andy Jassy, but it's been one year. And this guy is. making bold moves. Now, if you're looking at Amazon as a streaming buy, then I think you have to sort of ask this question of like focus. Like how committed is Amazon going to be for anything? Here's what I think. So this is a very good point, Molly. Yeah. If streaming is their seventh most important business,

and I'm more excited about them than Netflix, which is their sole purpose for existing, if you can't beat somebody with this is the seven. So I just think there's an operational excellence to Amazon. where they always seem to do the right thing. I'm not saying right thing morally. I'm talking right thing for the shareholders and the share price. Yep. And if they do wind up getting broken up, I think it's going to be worth twice as much.

Right, because any of those businesses is going to be worth a ton. And then I want to throw in this wrinkle about Disney because yesterday, Jason bought Disney in a J-trade, we're all in on Disney Plus, no question. But I do wonder if Disney isn't headed into a little bit of a leadership issue, because there have been all these rumblings about Bob Chappek. He did keep his job. You know, the board was like, no problem.

You have your three-year contract. But literally, yesterday, Bob Iger, former CEO, was out here trashing Chappec and saying that hiring him and putting him in that CEO role was one of the worst decisions he ever made. And there seems there's clearly some faction of Disney employees who hate this guy and keep leaking to the, you know, Hollywood press about it. How big a deal is this? Do you think, Lon? Is it like, and at one point, what point?

compared to Andy Jassy, kick an ass over here. At what point does this like Chapak drip, drip, drip of negativity become an issue? Yeah. I mean, already, if you speak to Disney Parks fans, already there is. I rarely have seen a business side CEO generate this level of hate this quickly. Like the feeling among, I'm going to Orlando to visit my mom in a few months and I pulled my Twitter following, where should I go? Is there a theme park I should go to for a day while I'm there?

And the overwhelming consensus was Universal now beats Disney in Florida. That Disney stuff is overpriced. The new stuff is kind of flopping the like interactive hotels. Overpriced stuff. I feel like there's a sentiment out there that they're kind of losing their lead, losing steam in terms of the parks versus some of those competitors. And that's a big part of that business. But on the streaming side, I feel like Disney's actually pretty strong.

I feel like Hulu also has been ascendant recently. Who will have the most subscribers 10 years from now? Netflix or Disney Plus Hulu plus ESPN? Who's going to have the most subscribers? I mean, HBO Max is the big concern. Okay, more so tell me those three. Who's going to have the most? And HBO Max is soon to get all of the Discovery Plus cut.

Like at some point, that's going to happen. And that's a chuggernaut. Like that's, then you've got a little something for everybody. But in do it all companies, like Amazon is not, has no, shows no sign of slowing down, I think. And I do actually think that there are stumbles on Disney's horizon. I really do. Leadership matters. I mean, literally we're seeing that on Amazon right this second.

Interesting. So anyway, I'll just announce to J-Trade. I just bought 400 shares of Amazon. I'm not that surprised. at a hundred and twenty-five apiece. I just dropped 40 times. Wow. So there,

or 40, whatever, yeah, 50 grand. Wow. It's my biggest J-trade yet, but I've always wanted to be an Amazon shareholder. I haven't been.

And I think, you know, please let the company be broken up, uh, into three parts or two parts. And that'll make this go up 50%. Uh, and please let Netflix keep stumbling and shooting themselves in the foot.

That's the beginning and end of it for me. Now, who owns HBO Max? And is that a publicly traded company? Because that's the, Our Discovery Channel. WB Discovery AT&T.

Yeah, so that's the problem. AT&T owns all that? Yeah. I own 220 shares of Amazon. Ooh, look at you, girl. John Stanky today, ATT CEO is saying they're going to probably start giving HBO Max away free to unlimited wireless

AT&T subscribers. So look out for that soon. Oh, so that's, see, here's the great bundling. It's the great re-bundling. The great re-bundling is going to put Netflix in a tough spot. It is. They're going to really need to have more things bundled with Netflix.

Well, also, on the Disney side, you've got that. They keep raising the price of the individual services. So Disney Plus might go up. Hulu goes up. ESPN Plus just announced a big price. But if you get that Disney bundle, they keep it more stable. That's what they want you to do. It's like make us your bundle.

Yeah. You got to get that Disney Plus Hulu ESPN plus bundle. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Amazon, goodbye. I'm saying it's a goodbye. Whether it's, I did get that 20.

I mean, Amazon also has free-vis. They have a pretty solid ad-supported play, which Netflix is now currently trying to build their own version of with Microsoft. Amazon's is already up and running. You can watch Bosch legacy on there right now. Oh, yeah. My brother's watching Bosch. Should I be watching Bosch?

Let's wrap up here. We have to pick a show. Speaking of which, yes, we got to wrap up with picking a show. I just started watching Winning Time. This feels like an amazing entrepreneurial journey. I was going to say winning time. Winning time or The Bear are the two shows most recently. I finished the Bear.

I also love the Bar. I also love the Bar. Running businesses that I thought were the most impressive. So if we could take the angle of the key business lessons from each episode and relate them, that would be the big win for me, producer Nick. So. Love that. Winning Time has a lot.

So this is what I'm thinking is, and I like The Bear. I finished it. That was only eight episodes. Yeah, it's quick. Eight half hour episodes. They flew up. It is very fast. and it does give you some insight into just another world, right?

Did you watch the bear yet, Molly? I have not watched the bear yet, but I love a half-hour episode. That is my jam. It's going to clean up at the Emmys, I predict. It's amazing. And it's just, yeah, it's set behind the scenes at this Chicago Italian beef sandwich restaurant, but the guy who's running it used to be a fine dining chef, and now he's taking over for his late brother running this sandwich place.

And that's all you. previously worked at Noma. And they get to use Noma. And I think the French Laundry, too, they mentioned. And I think, so they somehow got them to be okay with saying he worked at Noma and the French laundry. And supposedly the, the chef is based off of Alina, which we had the co-founder of Alina on here. Nick, uh, Nick, is that right? Nick O'Cohars?

Producer Nick. Maybe he's not here. Um, so anyway. Is that editing all in? Rachel says, no. He's editing all in, maybe. Uh, so anyway, it's really good. Uh, I have to say, the bear is really good.

But I think winning time is probably the one thing. There is one more I would mention is there is the HBO financial banking drama series industry returns on August 1st. So we could jump into that too, which is about young people working at a London investment bank. Really? That sounds kind of fun. Season one was last year. Season two is coming out.

It's called industry. Industry. And it's a mix of young eight Brits and Americans who have gone over there. Let me. I'll sample the first season. See where I'm now. Take a look. And we got a couple weeks to get through winning time.

You know, we could get through winning time and then start that if we think we... All right, let's go with winning time. We'll do the first. How many episodes is winning time? Does anybody know off the top of their head? Is it nine or something? It's eight. Yeah.

So whatever it is, I think breaking into three groups feels good. So maybe we'll come up with like watch the first three episodes and then three and then two. Yeah. Perfect. So three, three, two. I'm going to watch them all. I'm going to watch them. Well, let's see if we,

If you guys go through the recaps and can think of business lessons. Oh, sure. Yeah. And, you know, like, how would you extrapolate this lesson, right? Being delusional, you know, whatever, fake it to you make it. Like, a lot of things come to mind after just a couple of episodes, taking bold moves, negotiations. When he's negotiating with Red Arbock, played by Michael, uh, Chickles. Chickles, amazing.

He stole the show when Chickles came in. Yeah, he's fantastic. Which I, you know, Michael Chickles and I are social media friends. We're social media friends. Really? sliding to each other's DMs once in a while. I was a huge fan of his old show, The Commish. Remember that?

I loved the Comish originally, and somebody used to call me the commish when I was a young adult because I related to somehow my ability to work with people. And then I liked The Shield. The Shield was like that first FX, really aggressive, crazy show. Early, early Peak TV sort of proto Peak TV show, The Shield. All right. Well, we'll let Lon go now. Lon just, I'll give you 24 hours to think about this five-dime exploratory

fee. The deliverable is a great pilot script and then a show Bible. Show Bible, five dimes. And whatever I make on the show, you make. So you got my word there. If I make a million, you make a million. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out. Because you're all the credits and anything.

We'll see if Molly gets her beak wet as well here. She got something put on it as well. I get an executive producer. Everywhere here. Yeah. I'm happy. All right. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. All right. Thanks for listening to The Big Thursday show. Everybody, make sure to tune in tomorrow. for an even bigger show, an awesome conversation.

It's just, that's how we like to structure the week. It's just like with a finale. For Sunday. Yeah. On Sunday. Ben Narison of Tenacity VC. Make sure to tune in tomorrow Friday for an even bigger show because we like to be like fireworks.

We end with a big finale. We've got an awesome conversation with Ben Narerson of Tenacity VC. He's going to join us to talk about how he raised his latest $50 million VC fund in a down market. Something. we're going to need to learn about because we're going to be raising Watch Fund 4 in a down market in the fall. Nothing like real tactical advice. Well, yeah, I mean, this is one of the great things about having a podcast with some listeners.

Again, we get to learn. We have these open dialogues and we share it with the audience and everybody shares information and we all get better at what we do. Speaking of getting better at what you do, follow at Molly Wood, follow at TWA startups and follow, of course, me at Jason. If you want to write a review and give us some feedback, that's it. always helpful. Make sure you go to YouTube.com slash this weekend, hit the subscribe button and then hit the bell. And when I'm, I'm going to start randomly

going live, by the way, Molly. This is my new thing. I might do like some microj trades. And so you better have your alerts on too. Because I might, I have the login. I have the restream log and I got the YouTube login. I might just be on the back porch and turn on a video and make a trade randomly. I just press the bell right freaking now. Yeah, make sure you get the bell pressed out.

But yeah, we'll be giving away more of these beautiful ember this week in startup's mugs that we got from swag.com slash twist and we'll be giving those away. And, you know, if I see a great review, who knows, maybe I'll DM you. All right, everybody, we'll see you tomorrow on Friday. And then, of course, Sunday,

tune in for VC Sunday School and this weekend climate.