This Week in Startups - $DIS earnings, Disney vs Netflix & streaming strategies with Lon Harris + Ephemeral Tattoos | E1532

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Lon Harris joins the show for a full streaming industry breakdown, including $DIS earnings, $WBD drama, streaming strategies, and more! (1:59) Then, Molly interviews Ephemeral CEO Jeff Liu on building a high-quality temporary tattoo solution. (1:09:00) (0:00) Jason tees up today's segments! (1:59) Jason welcome Lon Harris to talk misaligned media incentives and Trump coverage (12:45) MicroAcquire - Sell your business with no fees at https://try.microacquire.com/twist (14:05) Hulu's new film Prey is its largest streaming debut to date (27:18) Vanta - Get $1,000 off automating your SOC 2 at https://vanta.com/twist (28:29 Why the Predator franchise is valuable IP for Disney, how streaming platforms should handle "auteurs" (35:41) OpenPhone - Get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://openphone.com/twist  (37:14) $DIS earnings, how Disney's streaming platforms overtook Netflix in terms of subscribers (46:52 Breaking down $WBD and how it should handle various IP, streaming residuals upheaval (51:25) Disney vs Netflix BOTE Math, Ezra Miller situation, strategies for Zaslav to take advantage of $WBD IP (1:09:00) Molly interviews Ephemeral CEO Jeff Liu

All right, everybody, it's Thursday. And you know what that means this week in streaming. My boy, Lon Harris, is here to break down Disney's Blowout Quarter. As you know, I made a J-Trade on Disney. I am very long Disney. And my lord, this was very confirming for me that I am going to be a great public market equities investor. We do a deep dive on all the studios and their streaming services to try and figure out

the box office versus day and date. And then we talk about the movie Prey, which is a predator story that is absolutely fantastic. That was released directly on Hulu. We then go into the DC film strategy, Ezra Miller, and the controversies there. And then how maybe WBD Warner Brothers Discovery should handle all the Musugina going on at DC. We have a lot of different ideas. It's a great conversation. And then Molly drops an interview with a company that makes a disappearing tattoo ink. It is going to be a great show. Stick with us. This week in startups is brought to you by Microacquire. The startup acquisition marketplace.

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a SOC2 report fast. Twist listeners can get $1,000 off at Vanta.com slash twist and open phone. As a startup founder, a lot of mistakes are easy to roll back, but using your personal cell phone number as your company number isn't one of them. Openphone makes it easy to get business phone numbers for you and your team right on top of your existing devices. Visit openphone.com slash twist to get 20% off your first six months. All right, everybody, it's Thursday, Thursday, and we're having a great week here, bringing in a bunch of heavy hitters to join me while Molly's enjoying her well-earned vacation.

It's Thursday, so of course we'd love to have Lon Harris with us. You know him as the podcast host of Binge Boys, and he's now writing for some more news. You can search for that on YouTube. It's kind of like the Daily Show, but maybe even for a younger generation. Welcome back to the program, Lon. Hey, everybody. Nice to see you, buddy. Always great to be here.

Always, always great to have you. Follow at Lons on the Twitter, L-O-N-S. He got there early too. We were having fun on Twitter in the early days. You came back from South by Southwest, I believe, and we're like, everybody's got to try this new thing. They were playing games at South by Southwest. Everybody's like meeting up, and it was like a scavenger hunt thing.

Yeah. And I was watching from afar like, this seems fun. I'd like to try that one day. And then they opened it up for everybody, and I jumped right in. It was one of the specific growth techniques for start. startups for a decade, which was South by Southwest coming. You'll have all these geeks, launch it, you know, the week before Southby, get the viral coefficient going that week, and then Foursquare did it. You know, a bunch of people tried to do it, but very rarely did it

work. Yeah, every year you'd go to South by Southwest tech and there would be like five apps trying to do the Twitter thing. I'm like, get everybody to use it here and then they'll go home and tell all their friends about it. And I don't know if it ever worked again. Yeah. So we've got a great docket today. Disney earnings came out, and that's great for us to talk about because you're so deep in the content side. I'm deep in the money side. And all that comes together on an earnings call. We have the prey movie coming out for Hulu, which you and I both saw and we both have strong feelings about, and a bunch of other scattered news. I am wondering what your thoughts are. I hate to bring up politics and our politics show. But in relation to media, it did seem like putting politics aside that Trump is the rating bonanza of all. all bonanzas in news media and also subscription revenue. And this goes for both sides, Fox and for MSNBC and everybody in between. When Trump does something or something happens to Trump is in this case, my Lord, does it take

over the media space? I have heard, I've never heard so many newscasters, journalists, pundits speak about so little actual information for so many hours. Yeah, everybody was doing that CNN, like, stay right here. We've got all the latest. They're like, there's nothing else. Nothing else is going to happen. There's literally nothing.

For days, maybe weeks. You know, the law does not move at the pace of cable news. It does not have the story arc required to keep people glued to the house. And I realized you can get basically every single dimension of this story with this seizure or raid or whatever we want to call it. we're literally have so little information that we've now come down to looking at semantics. Was it a raid? Was it a search? And like that has to be a 10 minute discussion.

Then we get to while Hillary's emails or this pedestal. I don't know. Whoever's, you know, had documents. There's another guy who was putting documents in his pants from the National Archive. Right. There's all kinds of stories. And it's like, there's like, you know, there's like, five stories about people stealing confidential information or classified documents.

All five of them wind up with people getting, you know, I wouldn't say a wrist slap, but essentially a wrist slap. Nobody's doing jail time, basically. But my lord, what does this say about the media? Is it just because it's August? Or am I just waking up to the fact that the media has literally nothing to say? It's not only that the media has nothing to say. I think it's that the incentive structure for news is not anything other than

zero in and obsess about these things that people are fixated on, whether or not that's the most interesting thing or compelling thing or there used to be, it was always a business. And I mean, you could go back to like the Edward Armorrow, Walter Cronkite days. And there were people looking at the numbers and trying to sell, you know, they had Philip Morris on the phone. Like we got to sell more smokes or whatever. But there was, it was a balance. It was, okay, here's what the news guys want to do that's important that the public needs to know. And then here's what. the money guys want and we find a way to like bring those worlds together. If you remember that movie Good Night and Good Luck, there's a whole segment where Edward Armarro has to do like the cheesy

Liberace interview because that pays for the hard hitting investigative stuff. Right. What we've done is we've lost the hard hitting investigative stuff and we're just doing 24-7 Liberace interviews like because the money guys took over and there are no more Edward Armouros who are looking out for the public right to know. And Trump, it always takes me back to, you remember private parts? One of the early scenes in private parts when Alice and Janney or whatever is like, why do we even pay this guy? Why? We just kick him out of the building. And they're like, he gets crazy ratings because the people who love him, love him, they listen every day. And the people who hate him listen even more than the people who love him because they're so fixated on how much they hate him. And as much

I hate Donald Trump personally. I have to admit that that's true. I hate him with a passion and I will listen to things about him in a way that I wouldn't for a Ron DeSantis or a Marco Rubio or a Ted Cruz. You can be intellectually honest enough to say that like there's an element of like, hey, yeah, we'd love to see this guy finally get his comeuppance for all the horrible stuff he's done. And he's a horrible man, but I think it's impossible to overlook the fact that he is a showman. He's a horrible man in a very compelling, entertaining way.

And he's funny. I mean, he's not always intentional. He could have been a comedian. He could have been a stand-up. I mean, when he does those rallies, it's one-liners. And I don't think people are writing that for him.

I think he just listens to the audience reactions. And when he says a keyword, if the volume goes up, he just says the same keyword three times. And it just, you know, oh, FBI. Okay. F-B.

F-B. and they're like, oh, don't we know what's going on with the deep state? Oh, he's been doing this for decades. He has a genuine skill at working a crowd, getting people going. He's got that comic timing like a showman does. And when you put him next to Joe Biden, like Joe Biden, a much better politician, a much more rational, sane individual, but like can't compete in terms of stage presence. Can't compete with that level of timing and shtick.

Reading the audience. No. Right. The interesting thing I think is the third circle which you bring up, which is, you know, you got the circle of the hard hitting news team that wants to, you know, do this for the right reasons. And then you got the advertising money machine, you know, the corporate interests. And then you also have the audience. It's another circle. You put those three circles over each other. You kind of get this little Venn diagram. You can start to understand what's going on. I really think people should opt out of watching any cable news. I mean, if you put it on for 10 minutes just to catch up, then turn it off. Because I think that this is such a major part of the problem today. And obviously social media is a nice dystopian dance partner for the cable news because they then whip each other into a frenzy. But there's no new information being gleaned here. And, you know, the justice system kind of works its stuff out.

But there are a contingent of people who I believe love this. Like this is, and we were talking before we got on air here a little bit about this. There are people who this week having Trump reemerge into the headlines where he kind of was dormant, right? Like they weren't covering his, they stopped covering his rallies. And remember they used to always be live with the rallies? Right. So I guess the left didn't want to cover them to give him promotion or there were too many of them. But also at the right, it seems like Fox stopped doing the live coverage of them too.

Yeah, I mean, I can't, I'm not an expert on this specific stuff and I don't spend that much time on the right wing web. But like there definitely seemed like there was this moment where, like after Twitter banned him and he was sort of not top of mind every day, even the Republican Party seemed like, maybe this is our opportunity to like grow some of these other people's profiles and maybe start to move on. And I think the base of the Republican Party has now made it absolutely clear that that's not where their heads are at. They're not interested in Ron DeSantis. They're not interested in these new guys. They love who they love. They want Trump back. They think he was. last time, they believe he will win again. And like, that's what they want. They're being very clear about what they want. I'm out. I'm out. It's just not good for mental health to like, you, you, this stuff all because it's the first time it's happening. Oh my God, it's the first raid ever on a president. We can't, the monumentous nature of this. Like, I was listening to Fox and Rachel Maddow. They even broke into his safe. They broke into his safe. I'm like, well,

that's kind of what happens. That's the first place they would go. Kind of, they work backwards from the safe, don't they? But Trump knows that, and he puts that in his statement. He's like, they even went it to my beautiful safe. You know, like, he front run it. He front ran it. He's like, I know what's going to get the most clicks here. The safe, right? So now you have like, I think they're all in cahoots, the media, social media companies, everybody, because you know what's happening next. People are going to be like, you know what, we got to let Trump back on. It's, got to be able to air his side of this. And, you know, all of a sudden, the Trump bands are going to lift, you know, two years later. And then the media side,

starts again. Well, that's the thing. I mean, they're totally incentivized. Even the people in the media who realize we're opening the door to some very dangerous ideas and political movements and we may not be able to put this back in Pandora's box. Even those people are like the lure of the eyeballs and the money from a return of Trump. It's just too sweet to pass up. He's a ratings bananza.

And we've always known it the whole time since before, since 2015, we've been having this conversation. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. They can't do a real credible job of reporting on him because they're so desperate for more of him. I'm opting out. I just, I have to opt out of it because it's just too all-encompassing. I mean, we're not supposed to watch news 24-7. It's, it's, it's, the old idea was right. Like the, the idea in like the 50s, like you wake up and you get the paper and you spend 30 minutes drinking your coffee, browsing through. And then you're, you're on with your day. That's the news. Now it's time to go to work. I think that, was probably the right idea. Microacquire is a startup acquisition marketplace. I've always wondered

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This, I thought, was an excellent movie. Prey is a predator prequel. and it's set in early 1700s, 18th century in, yeah, I guess somewhere in, you know,

it's like close enough to modern day Quebec that there are French trappers there. Right, but we had French trappers also in north, in what is the United States now,

right? Yeah, it's somewhere in the northern U.S. You know, you know. Now, I don't know what this film cost. But one of the best

sci-fi films I've seen in the last 10 years. I thought it was, great. Yeah. Rividing. Dantamberg directed, totally killed it. He did 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Dan Tractonberg. Dan Tractonberg did 10 Cloverfield Lane, which was really good. He's also directed, he directed that really good Wyatt Russell episode of Black Mirror, one of the early classic Black Mirrors. I remember, he was to do like, he was a YouTube guy, so I remember him from that day. He directed this really great portal fan film. Remember the game Portal? Sure.

He directed a fan film for Portal that looked super pro. And I remember when that came out, everybody was like, oh, this guy's going to become like a Hollywood guy. It really is a great path to becoming a director or an actor is just to start on YouTube, but make something high quality, but that's short, right? And it was in like a familiar went very viral because it was like, oh, somebody made a portal. I don't even think he had the rights. I think he just did it.

No, I mean, that's the great, you know, punk rock thing about this. Somebody had done actually Predator versus Batman, I remember in the early days. Yes. There was a Batman short where Joker lures him into the alley and then he's attacked by aliens and predators, I believe. Oh, is that it? It was aliens versus Batman. It was both. It was an alien first and then a predator or something?

I think they had both in there. I mean, all you need is a Sith Lord or a Jedi, and you've got the trifecta there of IP. So I guess, now, I wonder who owns the rights to the predator franchise. It was Fox. Which is bought by Disney. Disney got it from Fox when they bought Fox. I think that this is a sleeper IP. I think there needs to be a predator anthology series where they do predators in 90-minute, one-hour segments just going to different scenarios. It doesn't even have to be

movies because this showed how wonderfully interesting the predators are. They're for people who don't understand. I think what I really love about these characters is they are passionate about something. Fighting, hunting. They love hunting. They love hunting. They love hunting, yeah. They like the hunt. And they revel in being injured and getting their asses kicked. That's what they live for. They live to mix it up. And they're singular in that love and joy. And they respect things that are good at fighting. And they're not interested in anything that is not a threat. It's a very pure, great premise for me that this species exists in this, you know, framework. I love it. Yeah. The original predator, one of the great action movies of all time, and one of the great action movie concepts. It's just such a simple, clean, compelling story and idea about your following. And it would have been an interesting movie if the predator didn't show up. You already had this interesting group of guys, this action story that's ongoing. You don't even need the predator. It just takes it to the next level. And I think that's what Prey captures so well is it's also a very compelling story about Nauru and. her brother and her desire to be a warrior, even though the tribe's not interested in her journey. And I think it was already a cool movie before The Predator showed up, and that's what's so great. And that you could capture, I think, in an anthology or something.

The end of Predator 2. I don't know if you remember Predator 2 that well. Danny Glover. I do. That was when they were in downtown L.A., right? They're in like a dystopian L.A. in the midst of like a huge cartel war. And that's where the predator drops in. But the very last scene after Danny Glover has defeated the predator, a group of predators' lands, and they basically like salute him.

Like, we respect you. You're a warrior like we are. And he sees like relics. Like, and that the predators have a collection of weapons from human history that they've collected from all the people, including the revolver that we see in prey is a callback to Predator 2. They have that, that gun that she's using that she got from the French guys. Wow, that makes so much sense. So that's what, to me, the promise has always been out there of we're going to get a series of predators throughout history. That's where they acquired this whole collection of human weapons.

And we've never, we've never quite seen it. And I think now we're perfectly set up. Now, there was a predator movie that had the premise. It had a really good cast, too. It had Adrian Brody in it. Right. You're Predators. This was the 2010.

This was the 2010 one Robert Rodriguez produced. that is I really enjoyed that one as well Walter Gagins is in it yeah Wong Gagginz you got Adrian Brody you've got um Hope for Grace Right who else is a lot Danny Trejo's in there

A lot of good people That guy um What's his name And they've got it's a fun premise Where they've killed Masharalasa Ali I'm bitchering his name Mahershila

Mahershila Mahershula I love that actor too Like that film to me Had also a great premise Spoiler alert They drop you know warriors To a planet

Various human warriors from all sorts of different, you know, like you get a mercenary, you get a cartel guy, you get a serial killer. Yakuza. Yeah, you're a serial killer. You know, like a Navy SEAL kind of thing. And they're all like, why are we wrong here? Alice Braga is like a massad sniper. She's like an Israeli soldier. So great.

Yeah. I mean, that one is just so fantastic because they're like, let's make a dream team of American murderers. Or yeah, like, global, yeah, human killers. And then it's like a. A game preserve for predators. And Lawrence Fishburn is there too. They've got like he's the survivor who's been hiding out. Oh, yes.

I'm not going to say it's perfect, but what I liked about it is they had their own Disneyland. And that's, I have to figure out how they will take this and make it into an attraction at a Disney theme park. Now that they own this, a predator paintball game experience, like they're doing that thing with Star Wars

where you go stay on a, cruise ship. Yeah, the galactic cruiser or whatever. Now that I'm a shareholder, I have a lot, you understand, J. Trading, I have a lot of influence at Disney. My Disney trade trade is doing very well. Chapick on the phone. So, I got a call with Chapic

next week because I may increase my position here and I wanted to let him know what my thoughts were. You know, he talks to the big shareholders. So Chapic and our, what's I'm going to pitch him on? Is, hey, let's get a little bit of a more adult fare. You go to Disney, Epcot, whatever.

you get dropped into basically, you know, predator. And you have to fight your way out and you have to fight predators. And it's like full contact stuff, you know? Like you do one where it's like paintball. You do another one where it's like at mixed martial arts, whatever. It just becomes like a really cool concept. I think if you could figure out an immersive predator installation, people would be into. I mean, the conventional wisdom with this franchise, and I think the reason this went directly to streaming.

Okay, let's talk about the business of it. Yeah, start there. The, traditionally we haven't thought of Predator. It's a, it's a well-known franchise among action and sci-fi fans, but it's never been a blockbuster

franchise in the way Terminator is or Jurassic Park. It's not on that level. And so I think that's probably what held Disney back, but I personally feel like this movie would have played gangbusters in a theater.

I would have gone. Word of mouth, I think, would have been very strong. And I feel like we're in this weird time theatrically now where the pandemic, being out of theaters for many years, it's opened people up a little bit more

to seeing different kinds of stuff. And it's brought back this real desire for throwback, like non-ironic, like meat and potatoes, like Top Gun Maverick, Elvis-style movies. Give me like a nice tent pole. Give me a nice 1980s, like, you know, Raid Man for Top Gun. Like, let's just go with something simple,

storytelling, great performances, a great aesthetic, maybe some great dialogue, maybe some, you know, realistic action sequences that are not, you know, Transformers so blurry I can't understand them. And I don't need you to make it into a giant, you know, social justice. I don't need a big complicated message. I don't say the woke stuff. I'm just saying like the, I feel like like so many movies are aimed at, it's trying to, it's trying to serve everybody. It's like five quadrants at once.

It's a heist. It's a caper. it's a comedy, it's action, it's this, it's that. We've got The Rock is in it, and Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds, and we're packing, you know, and it's like every movie's trying to be Fast and Furious, and I like Fast and Furious. But I think that, like, we are starting to see people are turning back to more classic, conventional kind of movie fear that's not so tongue-in-cheek, that's not so self-aware and post, post, post-post, post-ironic.

And I think, pray. Or perhaps even cynical, you know. Right, exactly. Sinical is the right word for it. And I think, you know, that's what Top Gun Maverick hits. so well, which is why I think people are going back four or five times. And I want to see it again. I would literally, I was talking to Jeffrey Katzenberg to name drop.

And I said, Jeff, you know, like, every time I see him, I say, tell me about films, you know, because, like, he worked at Paramount with Bob Evans. Like, he was there, Gulf Western days. And so we're talking. And he's always like, wow, you really understand a lot of film. Like, why aren't you in the movie industry? I was like, I was always my, like, backup career. I said, you know, what do you like?

What do you like? He's like, I've seen Top Gun three times in theaters. I'm like, it's that good. He's like, it's a perfect film. And I was like, okay, so we were out some social friends. I was like, hey, after this, you want to go see TopConnor? I would. And I said, I can't, but I went to see it.

Amazing. Yeah, it's great. And I think the thing I've missed about filmmaking, and I, listen, I don't want to make this about the woke social justice stuff, but that keeps coming up. And I think one of the reasons it's coming up is, well, one, it's, I guess it's a great for clicks like we talked about. But I do think people were overthinking movies. I came from an era, you came from

where there was an orateur, whether it was Tarantino, whether it was Kubrick, whether it was Scorsese, who's the woman who did Hurt Locker, love her film, Strange, Catherine Bigelow. Like, Bigelow has a point of view.

She states her point of view. It's, you know it's her point of view. There's no doubt that's a Catherine Bigelow film, right? And you can identify it as such. And I think there's like some committee or overthinking, like you're saying,

appease this, audience or we have to hit this note or this is what's in the zeitgeist right now. And I just want to see a film that's free of that. I felt this film was free of that until I went on social media. Yeah. So there are definitely movies where like there's a movie that's on on peacock right now called They Slash Them that John Logan did who wrote Gladiator. He wrote and directed. Oh my favorite film. Yeah. Kevin Bacon is in it. He played Kevin Bacon plays a counselor at a gay conversion camp and it's a slasher movie. So all the counselors and start getting one by one, somebody's picking people off at this gay conversion camp in the woods. And that is a movie that feels very specifically like

they took these social issues and these things people are discussing a lot on Twitter about gender and, you know, like about, you know, acceptance and tolerance, all of these various topics. And they put it in the context of the horror movie. So that happens. But I think so often terms like woke or they're putting in social issues. It just means the star of this action movie happens to be a lady or happens to be an indigenous woman. And that's not woke or what. That's just a movie and the character in the movie is from a group of people. That's not woke.

That's just life. Exactly. I think people were stretching to make some connection here that wasn't there. We all know that if you were to make a list of the top 25 warriors, people you would not want to get in one-on-one combat with. Native American, you know, on a horse with bows and arrows, like, these were fierce warriors. Somebody pointed this out. I think it was an actual, like, a retired Marine I was talking to on social media.

They were pointing out, if you started your military training at age five or 10, and someone else started at 17, it doesn't, like a lot of other factors aren't going to matter. you're going to beat up that person. Like, you're going to just know a lot more and be a lot more skilled and have a lot more hours of practice. So somebody like Nauru, the star of prey,

who's been in the woods, her whole life, learning how to throw that axe. Dealing with bears and mountain lines. And every predator you can imagine. Schwarzenegger from the original predator and he probably grew up in the suburbs. He was playing, you know,

tea ball during that time. It's a pretty great observation. It's really important for founders to understand what Stock 2 compliance is, Basically, if you're a SaaS or services company that stores customer data in the cloud, you need to be sock-to-verified from a third party so you can close major customers. It's really simple. If you're not SOC-2 compliant, you can't close big deals.

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three to five months without Vanta. And they partner with over two dozen audit firms who have been trained to file SOC2 reports directly within Vanta. And congratulations to our friend Christina and the team over at Vanta for raising their $110 million series B. What an amazing company. I was able to put a little bet in there. I invested in the company myself. Here's the best part. Vanta's going to give you $1,000 off. Get $1,000 off at Vanta. com slash twist. That's vanta va-a-n-ta-com slash twist for $1,000 off your sock two. All right. And so we'll do a little spoiler alert here, but. I mean, it's a predator movie. You know what. It's a predator movie. So obviously there's going

to be a fight at the end. And as in all the other predator movies, the predator will be defeated by one human, but all the other humans in all likelihood are not going to fare as well. It's always a big group of humans and then they all get picked off and then there's one survivor in the end. The Dutch. Spoiler alert. for the slasher films, that's how those work too. There's always a final lone survivor and they're the hero. Sometimes too. I just rewatch Jaws.

Yeah, right. I literally rewatch Jaws and it's just that great scene. Brody and Hooper both get out of that one alive. Yeah. When he comes up from his scuba diving and he looks over and he sees the police commissioner or whatever and they laugh and... Brody. Yeah, Brody.

It's such a great film, by the way. Oh my God. One of the greatest of all time. I mean, if you have not seen Jaws, in the last 10 or 20 years. Like, there's no other film to watch. It is, I think it might be like, when we talk about an orateur, like Spielberg, like, did he do a better film than Jaws? I don't know.

It's up there. It's up there. It's so perfect. Like, close encounters, I think, Raiders of the Lost Dark. He was on, he was on an insane run in the late 70s. Pretty great run.

Like an insane, almost unprecedented. See, this is, I think, the opportunity that I'm going to talk to Chapic about is let Ortur's pursue their vision. We do the opposite right now. I mean, what's fascinating is what happens now is you get a Chloe Zhao who comes out

and blows people away with like two or three straight, incredible, very personal. She did the writer, that she did Nomadland, she's winning Oscars. And then what do we do? We throw her all this money to come make a Marvel movie. And she, I like Eternals.

She did a good job, I think. Of marrying her style with the house style of this studio she came into and this franchise. I should keep it too. But like, why are we doing that? Like, we should let the Chloe Zhao's of the world make Chloe Zhao films. Like, I mean, if they wanted to, like, I know Tarantino wants to do a Star Trek film. Right. Yeah. But Tarantino wants to do a Star Trek film, right? But I think what people have to learn. That's not going to happen. It doesn't look like,

but I was really hoping to see that. Well, here's the thing. This is what they have to realize. This audience of streamers is different. They are going to be more open-minded, and the threshold to go to a theater is different than the threshold to watch the first 10 minutes of something and you've already bought in. You've already paid your 10 buck ticket to get Hulu or whatever so they can take a little more chances. What do you think the budget was of Predator? Because

I'm sorry, pray, the Predator film. And then we'll get to... I mean, I would say, yeah, it was, you know, like 50 million or something like that? That was my guess. I was going to say 50. We'll look it up. 30, 40, 50. I mean, I don't think they've said publicly exactly what it is. So we're all guessing. But that's the idea. With a Predator

film. It's like if you could, that was the whole Rodriguez thing when they did Predators was, look, bring, come to Austin, we'll film it in Troublemaker Studios in my backyard with all my setups already in place. You know, it's where he made the Spy Kids films and the machete films and Sin City. And so, you know, it was, it was plug and play. Like, come here, we'll do it on my, you know, studio with my equipment. We could drop the actors into any environment here, you know, whatever. And so, yeah, if you can control the cost, that's how you can make money. on a predator film because they're not going to make a billion globally. It's not a huge franchise in China the way that, you know, Fast and Furious. This is my theory. They should be doing more of this. Let the orators have at it. And then, you know, like for the people who were complaining like this, a girl can't be a predator, you know, this is a movie. And there, yes, it might be a one and a hundred chance. But you have to also realize this is one thing I think people miss is the predators do not like to come out. and simply launch their rockets and just kill everybody.

They like to mix it up. They like to fight. So they actually let their guard down a bit. And I believe they will pick their weapons style based on the opponent. And so this is just a theory I have. Because they like to fight so much, they're not going to just walk into every situation and just drop their most explosive weapon. They have like really advanced weapons.

They're flying from other galaxies. Like they could just nuke the entire planet, which they do. I think when they're done with some of them. That's not the thrill for them. they will ratchet their approach to a competitor to their ability. And I think the predator in this, again, spoiler, let their guard down a bit and just wanted to have a little fun, you know. There's been some debate online about this predator and is he a young? Is this maybe like his first mission? Oh, that would be nice. Yes. Training. And I think, I think there's, the implication is

there that, and also a lot of the more hardcore fans than me have noticed that this predator doesn't have as many like notches or in his braids. Like a lot of them have a lot of decoration in their headdress. And this one does not indicating that would have been something good. A lack of trophies, a lack of experience. And so I think it's meant to mirror his opponent. Like the predator and Nauru are both rookies who are sort of getting a feel for what a hunt is all about.

They're both going through their trial. That's obviously what's happening. Yes. That's what I was trying to get at. Yes. Although I didn't say it's elegantly. So, because he fights a dog. Right, and he's working his way up to, or they.

He fights a dog. A predator fights a dog. He could have just used all the, you know, guns and lasers and everything else he had. But, you know, he literally fights the dog. So I think there's some sort of this ritual thing. But you don't have to overthink this, folks. The film is great. The aesthetic is great.

And all predator films are, it's never about a human being punches a predator to death. They're stronger than we are. It's always about the human has to use their wit. Like Arnold starts out. of all, he's Arnold. And he starts out with like this huge arsenal of weapons. And in the end, it's a log and mud and arrows. And it always becomes about your wit. It's a battle of wits, not strength. Yeah. Anyway, it's, it's a great film. I can't wait to watch it with my 12 year old. I do like that we have some films with, uh, you know, female leads that are strong and awesome.

Why wouldn't we? Uh, you know, so anybody who's different, you know, like we've, we've had so many young white dudes beat a predator. Well, this is like now the Professor X casting of Jean-Carlose with the Chicken King. What do they call him on better call so? He's Gus Fring from Los Polios Armanos. Yeah, the chicken king, because he owns Los Polio-Somis-Mond. I just love that.

What's like, Salamanca calls him the Chicken King or something, you know, casting him as Professor X. And I was like... Still rumor. We don't know for sure. He definitely has met. He says he's met with Vi-E and Marvel, but we don't know overall. I was like, that's the perfect casting.

I mean, if we can't get, obviously, what's his name to come back, yeah. Stuart has. I love Patrick Stewart, but he's got to have Patrick Stewart back. I mean, he's still alive. We've had the Stewart era. I'm ready for someone new. You're ready for something new?

Okay. All right. Yeah, I'm all for recasting. I love the old X-Men. Listen, no fault to Hugh Jackman, although they're great. But I'm ready for some new X-Men. You're ready for recasting the whole thing. Wow, interesting.

20 years. That's time. That's a generation. Let's do it. All right. Sounds good. All right, everybody on the phone today is, Open Phones founder, Durina Kuya. Welcome to the program, Durina. Thanks, Jason. Great to be here.

What about the situation where you have, you know, a phone number that's a common number. So customer support number, or maybe you wanted people to just be able to call you and generally talk to the sales team. How do you handle that when you have a group number, a shared number? That's actually one of the super unique things about the way we've built open phone is that we allow you to have a shared number for your team. First of all, when you call into that shared number, you can set round robin if that's applicable or by default everyone's phone would ring the first person to pick it up will be able to have a call. I like that for customer support. Wow. Exactly. Exactly. And also if I am on a call with a customer, I don't want to be interrupted. There are other people who can pick up new calls coming in. But I also

really think what's very cool is that this workflow works as well for text messages. And not only can you just like share responsibility for responding to text, but you can also use this as a true. training exercise because the way that it works is that if I am a customer support rep, there is a text message from a customer. I don't know how to answer. I can actually tag my teammates privately on that conversation and get help and say, hey, is this okay to say or how would you respond? Okay, everybody, Twist listeners can get 20% off any plan. For their first six months at OpenFone. Just go to openphone.com slash twist. If you got an existing number, they'll put it right over for free. Head to O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E.

dot com slash twist today for 20% off. All right. So let's just talk about Disney's blowout quarter. Sure. I'll just give you the results and then get your comments. So Q3 revenue, 21.5 billion. That's up 26% year over year. When you're in that 20, 30% growth year over year, that's high growth in the stock market.

And that's a great thing. Media and entertainment 14.1 billion. Parks experiences and products, 7.4 billion. I would rather see products taken out from that. I want to know what the merch actually does because I think that's a great way for them to add revenue. Disney direct-to-consumer streaming segment generated 5 billion of revenue with 1 billion of operational loss, no big deal. They're investing in a lot of content there,

but 5 billion is a big number. All those Star Wars and Marvel shows aren't cheap folks. Yeah, Q3 net income around 1.5 billion, 34% larger profits year over year. So they increase the profits. Q3 free cash flow was negative $317 million. Last year, they were cash flow positive, $46,000. Again, those numbers are so de minimis that I just look at them as rounding errors

given, you know, the big swings they're making right here and what's that play. They attribute its higher cost of cash flow to, quote, higher spending for film and television content, no surprise there. They got 13 billion in cash and equivalence. They got around 46 billion in debt. And you can assume they're probably using that intelligently to build their libraries and parks and stuff like that. So let's get into Disney streaming numbers.

That's where the party is. Disney Plus global subs, 152.1 million of 31% percent. What do we attribute that to? I mean, I think we've, you know, we've basically been saying, first of all, they're, they're aggressively expanding internationally. They're doing it quickly. They're breaking into all of these markets. And they, because of all of the stuff that they own, they have an easier time than a lot of other

companies. They can integrate with Star Plus in countries where they already have Star Plus and with other sort of systems that they already own. They've got Hulu in the U.S. So they're able to do that quickly and get in a lot of new markets right away. So that's definitely driving it. And also, if you are aware of the top five brands and entertainment, you're aware of Disney, you know?

Like there's not really much you can do. People want to see Star Wars shows. They want to see Marvel shows. They want to see Pixar. They want to see Disney animated musicals. And even if you don't care about all that stuff, it's a good chance you care about one or two of those things. And then if you added Hulu and stuff,

originals like Prey, originals like Hulu originals, And then the addition of FX and its library to Hulu had a huge impact, I think, on the overall. Hulu before was like, you know, you could take it or leave it kind of service. I feel like they had some good stuff. Obviously, like only murders in the building, a big hit for Hulu right now. But the addition of FX, so you get the Fargoes, the reservation dogs, the bear, all of this other very high quality, like premium content that they've been making. And the library. So you get the Americans and, you know, all those classic.

FX shows. That's a huge bump, I think. So here we go. I think this plays into my or tour concept. The bear. They took a chance on that, right? Uh, jopsy. Yeah, well, right. It's like, you know, this is a jaceless. And it's, it's Christopher Stor, the creator. I mean, he's written on some other shows, but not a marquee name, not a Shonda Rimes or a Tyler Perry or a Ryan Murphy level guy. And yeah, they just, you know, they, you know what this is? I think Netflix dropped their playbook and Disney picked it up. Because remember, we were talking like this. about Netflix a couple years ago, we're like, oh, this orange is in new black.

It's very, like, different and feels different. Well, Netflix in the early days did do a good job of coming up with these sort of reasonably scaled, compact sort of shows. Even the early Marvel Netflix shows, yes. Whole episodes that were very, like, street level, like a few actors in a few locations. And now everything is Sandman and Lock and Key and Rings of Power and these massive scale shows. There is something.

about, you know, taking some chances with some adult fare that could spread virally. I mean, the last thing I can remember on Netflix that I felt like, well, this feels like a Netflix show. This feels like, you know, something really bespoke or personal was, um, uh, Queens Gambit. And I was like, you know, that you would talk to about with other adults. Like other adults at a dinner party say, hey, did you see the bear? Oh, Ozark fits in there too for me. Yeah, I like, I like, I mean, there's good stuff. Like, the Sandman's really good. I've been really enjoying that. I feel like Netflix's problem is almost not even that they're not making good things people would like, but they're making so much.

And they're not really marketing stuff. Netflix marketing is when you show up to Netflix.com or you load up the Netflix app, we're going to put a thing in front of you that we think you're going to like. But it's not like, let's get the word out to the general public about this show. Like season three of Lock and Key, which is a big show, graphic novel adaptation, Joe Hill, Stephen King's son wrote it. People don't know idea the show exists. From Carlton Cues.

I literally have no idea what you're talking about. It's produced baseball hotel and Lost and Meredith and Everett. It's got a huge, it's got the Amelia Jones from Coda stars in it. All right. So we're back to the indigestion problem. And, you know, what does your brand stand for? Right. For me, and like, Hulu.

They're dropping millions on that show and nobody knows about it. I think the Hulu brand is a sleeper. I think Disney to me says, okay, kids, Hulu says to me, teenagers, adults. And so I know what to do. Like, if I want to watch something that is a little more adult in theme,

great, I fire up Hulu. And I'm now finding myself going to the Hulu Originals tab and saying, this is going to be as good as the bear and as good as the shield maybe or as good as doapsick. I'm like literally looking forward.

Are you watching reservation dogs? It's true. I haven't. Fantastic. Is it, you know, it's on Hulu. It's in season two. two now, you could catch up easily, 30-minute episodes. It's great. Yeah, I'll definitely jump into it. Tycoi-TV

creative. Hulu TV at 46.2 million up 8% year over a year. The only problem I have with Hulu is, you know, I have two homes now. And when I go from one home to the other, if I'm using an Apple TV, it says, would you like to reset your home? You can do this four times a year. If I use the phone or I use the iPad, they're like, well, we know you're going to be on the move so we don't track the IP. And I'm literally like, oh, God, do I reset this and when's my next trip? And then do I, So I have to get a second account, or can I just give you five bucks for the second home? So whoever's running Hulu with this, I understand you want to make sure. Can you set up a second profile?

I guess I have to maybe get a family plan or something, but I got the bundle. But I think you already, you already get up to like three or four. If you're paying for Hulu, I think you get a few profiles with it. So I got to maybe set up a second profile. So they really make it hard to understand. And then when you're at that place, it's not ideal because then your two profiles will be different. So that might not remember you watch the best. at that house, but you wouldn't have all these re-log-in problems.

First world problem. You know, when you get really upset that the streaming service forgets what episode you're on. Which of your homes you're in, yeah. Yeah, that's what you pitch yourself and say, like, okay, I'll deal with it. I'll read the synapsis and figure out what show I'm in. That's when you have reached peak television.

Like, you can't even remember if you watched it. Like, I started watching Better Call Saul again to catch up, and I realized, wait a second, I've already seen these episodes. I just don't remember them. I've done this before. It's very hard. What is that called when you were in a series? You got serious amnesia, season amnesia.

Yeah, I'm sure the Germans have a word for it. The Germans definitely have three words for it. Hulu, 46.2 million subs, 8% year over year. Hulu is the sleeper, I think. Total subs, 221 million. I left out ESPN. They acquired the NHL rights before last season. He had a ton of games on ESPN Plus.

Maybe that explains the fact that they had 53% year over year. They said ESPN plus and ESPN was a dog, 22.8 million. So you start putting all these together, 221 million. million Netflix, 220.6 paid subs last quarter. The flip has happened. Disney and all their assets with subs now has 500,000 more subs than Netflix. I told you what happened. And it's happened. So we don't actually know, or I don't know, Lon, if Disney is counting or like, I'm a Hulu bundle. Do I get counted as a Disney plus a Hulu? If you have a bundle, you're counted as one subscriber.

You don't get one person counted as three. But they are pooling all. of these services together in one metric, like the direct to consumer, DTC is the new number. Got it. Okay. All of your services together, but they're putting themselves up against Netflix, which only has, it's just Netflix. There's no, it's like also if you have Netflix Jr. or whatever, it's just Netflix.

I am now, but I think that's intellectually correct because as a business and an investor in businesses, you, all you care about is the bottom line, how many subs you got. Right. And the flip has happened. As of this quarter Three years I think most people thought it would take

more than three years for a company to surpassed it I knew it It was obvious to me Plain as Day Netflix's lead is gone 220.6 million paid subs last quarter for Netflix

Total subs for Disney's collection $221.1,500,000 more The gap will continue. Also, you got to remember too at this point I mean Netflix has launched in basically every country it can easily launch it.

There are a few big countries It's still, you know, no Netflix in China, but that's like that may never happen. They're starting to hit the net. All these other companies still have a ways to grow. Paramount plus still launching a bunch around the world. Peacock's still launching a bunch of other world. So we may see these numbers are still very much in flux, is what I'm trying to say. And I think Netflix has a natural audience, right?

It has a certain type of content. And Disney has a wider group of assets. And I think Warner Brothers Discovery also has a wider group of assets. We made that J-trade. It's been a disaster for me down 20% since I made the trade. But I'm in it for the long haul. Yeah. And we talked about all their different problems over there.

Well, they, you know, Zazlov cleans up this mess. But Zazlov also my guy, although I don't agree with some of the content things. I understand he's being a little cutthroat. They have 92.1 million subs between HBO, which is like your cable subscription. Yes, it's the HBO. Right, right. All that's bundled together. So Disney has passed Netflix and because they're considered across all of them.

And I mean, you know, like a lot. of them have that natural advantage over Netflix if they can fall back on these massive libraries. I mean, Zazlav has the option. He's cutting shows from HBO Max. He's like, vinyl, only ran one season. I don't want to pay the actors, their residuals. Just pull it.

I mean, imagine the luxury of having so much content, like archived. You could just pick and choose what you want to feature this month. And, you know, Netflix is not drawing on a preexisting catalog. If they want an old show, they got to license it. Otherwise, they got to make it themselves. So this is the challenge. Netflix does work for hire. They buy everything.

You get paid supposedly more money, but I think that has now come back to the mean. And they pay you, you get no back end. No back end at Netflix. Right. That's still the case here. So that's the challenge for Hollywood. All of this may change. There was that big arbitration case that the WGA brought against Netflix last month.

I don't know how closely you've been following this. I didn't tell me. The author of Birdbox claimed that Netflix had underprivile. paid him significantly on his residuals. And he disagreed with the entire way that Netflix has calculated how much it pays out to writers in residuals. The WGA filed, you know, this arbitration suit.

The judge sided with the WGA. So Netflix now on the hook for many tens of millions. It's like 40 million. It's like maybe 25 million or something like that. It back payments to hundreds of writers in who they had cheated out of some of what they were owed. Fantastic. Yeah. I like it. I mean, it's fine for them if they want to try to do the work for hard thing. But I can tell you, I just came up against this because I had done a reality

TV show pilot with NBC in a major production house. I don't know, five, six years ago, never made it on air. And I had all this back end. I had rights to the format in other countries. So if they did this reality TV format in Australia, I would be the executive producer. I get 15K per episode or 10K per episode. It was awesome. And they're like, yeah, if you hit, all of a sudden, you're in 20 countries. Yeah. Like, who wants to be. a millionaire or something or Project Runway. All of a sudden, you're getting like, whatever it is, you know, per season, you know, they do 20 episodes all of a sudden.

You got to check 20 times 15. You know, it's up, Lon. You're the Gordon Ramsey model. That's exactly it. Yeah. And so I just got contacted by another reality TV operation. Again, one of the top ones, I wouldn't say which. And I mean, negotiations with them right now and some other people have started, you know,

knocking on my door. I think a lot because of all in has become so popular. And so reality shows are, it's the perfect. It's what everybody wants because it's chief to produce. You grab people, everybody who watches one episode, watches the whole thing. And I bring an audience with me. I already have a built-in audience after decades of doing this stuff. And I have even more credibility than I did five years ago.

And I'm, you know, okay on air. You know, I'm getting better. So they were like, all these things you got in your last deal no longer exist. So like all of a sudden the, I was like, I want this, this, this. I just said, just give me, I told my attorney who did the last time. Just the same thing is fine with me. You know, like I think we negotiated a great deal. Just tell them we want them to match the last.

deal. They're like, that doesn't exist for us or for anybody. You don't get these rights like you're talking about. It's over. And so it's really interesting, like, with the talent. And then they're just like, well, what if the talent just negotiates their deal directly if it goes to a streamer with the streamer? So if they were to sell it to Netflix or Amazon, then my representation would say, okay, yeah, you got the production house. You have you deal with them. Here's your deal with J-Cal. So it's really interesting. There was a long read about this. You may want to look up about Chris Jenner and how Chris Jenner moved the Kardashians to Hulu, which was the same thing. There was, it was really two entities needed to move. There was Ryan Seacrest

productions, which made Keeping Up with the Kardashians for E and was now going to have to move their whole operation over to this Hulu show. But then there was the Kardashian-Gener family, which was a totally separate talent negotiation. Yeah, which makes sense to me. That makes totally sense. Right. I mean, that's, you know, they're the show, like the people who make the show, you need them to make the show. But we all know why people are tuning in. It's Courtney and Chloe. Kim. Yeah. So here's the back of the envelope map. This is where it gets super interesting. Disney Plus had 152 million paying an average of 435 per month last quarter. So cheap. This means Disney Plus revenue for the quarter was almost $2 billion by itself. If you divide Disney Plus quarterly

revenue by three, you get $661.6 million in MRR. Monthly reoccurring revenue, like we would talk about an internet company like Slack or something. So Disney Plus MRR last last quarter, $661 million. Keep that in mind, meaning Disney's ARR. last quarter was almost $8 billion, because you times that number times 12, obviously. For reference, Netflix had $2.6 billion in MRR last quarter and 31.8 billion of ARR. That's right. Netflix's MRR and their AAR is currently over four times larger than Disney. You have to ask, why is that?

Well, Netflix's subscribers base is only 31% larger than Disney Plus. Now, we're talking about Disney Plus, not the Hulu's and ESS cans. So how is all that possible? It's obvious. Netflix charges a lot more money. They keep raising prices. is Netflix global ARPU, average revenue per user, that's another fancy term from tech, was $12 last quarter, whereas Disney's ARPU was only $4.35.

So Netflix is charging 2.7 times more than Disney on average, and they have 70 million more subs. This is Disney Plus heads up against Netflix. Quick lesson for founders, if you have pricing power, you kind of want to use that. And Disney came out very cheap out of the gate. I think I paid $60 for the year or something. I don't know. Already, they announced yesterday that is now changing.

So the baseline Disney Plus price is going to remain the same, but you're going to get ads now. And if you want an ad-free experience, you don't have to pay $3 more per month. So they are starting. I mean, obviously, they were undercutting the cost to get as many people to sign up and get obsessed with their shows as possible. And they feel like now, if you're already, you've been in Disney Plus, for a few years. You ain't unsubscribing for Mandory after you watched Obi-Wan. You're enjoying your Marvel and your Star Wars shows. Your kids are focused on their,

they expect new Pixar and Disney movies every month. You're locked in. You're not going to get rid of it now. So they can start to raise the prices and serve you at. Disney's going to double the price. I'm telling you right now. I'm going to talk to Chapik next week as a, you know, putting that J-A trade on. I think he's going to be hardcore. He's going to double the price over time. And it'll be well worth it. It's definitely going to keep just like Netflix. I mean, they're all they're going to, as you get more and more into it and they feel like people are getting more addicted to the content, they can keep checking up the press. Yeah, and maybe you give people some backend residuals.

I was talking to one of the Star Wars people, I would say which one. And I was like, they need to give you, like, they need to give you equity. Like when your show's on, it's such a big show. Actually, I'll just say, I was talking to John Favro. And I was talking about the Mandalorian season one. I said, listen, if you come back for season two, whatever, so I'm taping it right now, let them going back to September. I said, your people need to negotiate that when your show lands, whatever,

the increase in subs is, you get the first month. Because you're the reason that people are subscribing. So they get 10 million new subs. Navro is like running the Star Wars universe at this point. They need to back up the break struck. Yeah. Like they, whatever they want. Here's what I'm doing. Here's what I'm doing. I'm Zazlov. I'm going right to Favro and I'm saying whatever your deal is with Disney. When it's over, I'll give you the DC universe. Here's the other IP we have, carte blanche. And we're going to give you kickers and backends that will make you a billionaire. We want to own Favreau, Inc.

That's what I would do if I'm Zazlov. I would shake. Favro free. I would not doubt John Favro. He launched the MCU. He's turning around Star Wars. It's a crazy track record. What would he do with DC?

I mean, come on. These DC characters are amazing. That's what Zazlev said. He said he's going to find a Figey, and they're going to do a Marvel with DC. He got them already. He made DC pretty mad.

There was just an article in Hollywood Reporter the other day about DC films did not appreciate having back girl canceled and being told there haven't been focused on quality. That didn't go down well.

That's why Zaslov is the guy you want to back. He's a wartime CEO. He's rattling the cage of HBO Max versus HBO production people. He's going to rattle there, shake the cage for the DC folks. Hey.

He should cancel this Ezra Miller Flashman. You think you should cancel the flesh because of his behavior? I don't think you want to... Did you see that article the other day that... Is he having an addiction problem? Is he mentally ill?

Like, this is a behavior pattern that's... I don't know what's going on with them. By the way, Ezra Miller, they, them. I don't know what's going on with them, but they're definitely unstable. It's an unstable pattern of behavior where crimes in different states with different children... Honestly, I think there's 10 actors you could swap out.

I think he's kind of like Spider-Man. I love Toby It's my favorite But I enjoyed the other two And I'll see the films equally Right I don't feel like they're I can drop

At this point Well the movie's done The movie The big news story the other day was During this Ezra Miller Crime Spring They apparently interrupted their crime spree To go to set and do reshoots on the Flash

Which is very perplexing If you're on this crime You're evading the authorities He's evading the authorities Is it making fun of them on his Instagram? I saw the headline. People are like looking for him and these children he's absconded with and he's, they're moving from state to state or whatever.

But, you know, so at this point, it's just like, you don't need the negative press associated with this crime spree. And we all want to see a flash movie with Michael Keaton's Batman, but it hardly feels worth it at this point. You know, I'm going to take the other side of the argument. I'm going to take the other side of the argument. I think that we can, in our minds, when something like this happens,

we can separate an artist losing their mind and going crazy and doing horrible vings from the art produced. I can at least when I watch a film. And I can too. I'm not saying this would ruin my enjoyment of a flash film. I'm saying if you're David Zazlav

and your HBO Max and you're looking or your Warner Brothers Discovery and you're looking at this purely from a pragmatic business, it's another year. That movie doesn't come out till June. It's another year of this kind of press unless you're just like, I wash my hands of it.

This would be the power of my prayer. I would say, after you've got all the reshoots done, you've got a locked up. Then I'm saying, for the sake of the rest of the cast and the crew that puts so much effort into this film, we're going to release it, but we are opening up casting for a new flash.

And this will be his final film. That's going to happen regardless, I think. But I think making that statement up front would be very powerful. Now, I do want to point out here, fair play. They're saying the back girl film isn't terrible, but it's not great. It's hard to know.

I'm sorry, was the back girl on a crime spree? in her real life? No, Leslie Grace, fine upstanding citizen. So now you're left to wonder. Now my mind wanders, right? And when your mind wanders, you fill it in sometimes with like,

you know, maybe, you know, something that's not true, but that is a little more cynical, dark interpretation of this, which is like, okay, is there a double standard here?

Like, why is that film being canceled? And this one not being canceled. You're not the first one to suggest this either. Because there was also a, a Latina-fronted Supergirl film that has been put in turn around.

And Zazlap has a history of some not so great semi-insensitive comment. His board is very white. So there are definitely a lot of suggestions on the internet. I'm not saying any of this is the reasoning behind any of these decisions, but you do want to be aware of how it looks and what you're presenting to the public. And backing this film with this apparent criminal, it does. It reflects negatively on every other. decision you make no matter what the reasoning is or the motive behind it.

Correct. And the fact that Michael Keating, I think, is in both for cameos. He filmed scenes for both Batgirl. So this is kind of a bummer because I kind of want to see that because Michael Keaton's my guy. Of course. We all want to see Michael Keaton back as Batman. They need to, I'm sticking with my prediction that he reverses the Batgirl decision. I think he's going to reverse it.

I think we'll see it in some form or another down the road. They'll do a Justice League thing with it. Snyder Cut thing or something. eventually get to see it on HBO Max or something. Here's the, there were the initial reports that it got disappointing test greetings or whatever. Like, I don't know if I buy it. It looks, every, every thing we've seen from it so far looks pretty good. Brendan Fraser is your bad guy.

The Bad Boys for Life Guys directing. It sounds like they had something worth releasing. All right. So any strategies for Zazlov besides mine for stealing Favro? If you're advising him, which would be a really great idea, who would you steal? Who would you, what would be your, you got somebody for the Flash? What would be your advice to Zazlaw, our guy? You've already got Casey Blois running HBO, who's amazing.

I don't think you need to do anything about him. I think you do need, I don't know if Walter Hamada, who's the guy running DC films. I don't know if he's your guy. I think some questionable, I don't always agree with his perspective. I feel like that's the job you want to give to someone new. I know that this is a crazy perspective. I kind of feel like Greg Berlanti would be an interesting guy to promote. He's the guy that produces all the Arrowverse shows for CW.

And look, I get that we don't all love all the Arrowverse shows for CW. But they are what they are because of the limitations, the budget constraints and who they're being made for, what they're being made for. they are beloved and they have an arc and they're thoughtful in how they put all these their universe creators over there, correct? Exactly. It's a franchise of shows that he created that all interact with one another with this big cast of people that he sold the public on and he turned many of them into celebrities. I mean, a lot of those people are sort of semi-famous now because of their CW superhero shows. And like, you know, you're Grant Gustin on the Flash. He's got Tyler Hoechland as his Superman.

And I think they've done a, you know, Robbie O'Mell as, or Stephen Amel as Arrow. I think they've done a really admirable job of launching with very limited resources over there. You know where they got in, they got in all the Green Lantern. I feel like Green Lantern. There is an HBO Max Green Lantern show that they're working on right now. Green Lantern and the Lantern Corpse is... And Berlantea, I believe, is working on it. I think he's one of the guys who's on there.

The Green Lantern is very underrated as a series. as a character. It's very nuanced. There's a lot of lanterns around the universe. It's got a lot of great themes in it. I think to me what makes it so appealing is you could procedural it.

Like you could do a Green Lantern cop show because they're basically space cops. Yeah, they're there to create law and order and to protect people. And I think a lot of other comic books shows they lend themselves to these long arcs and big complicated stories. And Green Lantern is the perfect episode of the week.

problem on this planet lanterns gotta go figure it out yeah that would be great that would be great I mean also the villain set in DC is unbelievable so and we barely scratched the surface Lex Luthor

incredible without Lex Luthor You got the Joker You got Lex Luthor Where's my brainiack you You got I mean the Legion of Doom Yeah we've really barely Where's a Legion of Dome

I mean they did If you can't nail the Legion of Doom We just barely scratched the surface. Mix-a-lix. Who is the, all those cartoons. Sinestro, we got to see Mark Strong as Sinestro in the Green Lancer movie, but it was just set up for a sequel that never happened where he'd become the villain's Sinestro. Yes.

Guerrilla Gras. Oh, yeah. And then who is the Frankenstein guy? Oh, Solomon Grundy. Solomon Grundy. Like, you got all these great villains. I can't believe there's ever been a Superman Brainiac story. Yeah, you have Black Manta in...

Yeah, Guy A Abdulmatine was a great black thing. That was great. I think they did pretty well with him, right? Black Manta was okay in that. Yeah, he'll be back. He's back in Aquaman too. Good villain. Great villain. Like, really good look. Good ascetics. Yeah, I like that they brought in the weird saucer helmet. The saucer helmet with the tubes in it. It's like really evocative of like some, you know, turn of the century and the lasers. I mean, it's really good. Like, if they got the Legion of Doom, the formation of the Legion, because they did kind of...

Well, that's what Snyder was going to do. Like, at the end of Justice League, you get that teaser where Deathstroke shows up on Lex Luthor's yacht. Yes. And they're like, well, we should form our own league. And like, well, that's obviously what they're setting up. But then they never forgot to keep going. The Joker and Lex Luthor, who fa. Who fa.

And that would be really interesting if they could figure out who their singular Joker is for this universe. Well, now we've got, yeah, Barry Keegan in the Patinson movies. but then Joaquin is coming back with Lady Gaga for Joker 2. I mean, if they could lock them in,

and then somehow weave the best of the Justice League and the best of the Todd Phillips universe. I mean, that's the thing is you could do, people act like

it's a complicated thing to bring all these characters together. The flimsyest of excuses. It's all you need. People don't really care. Like, oh,

it's a portal to a new universe. It's not like somebody to walk out of the film and be like, this doesn't have continuity. Like, I'm leaving. see their favorite characters together.

I don't think they're thinking about it. I mean, Joaquin' Phoenix. I don't know if that Joaquin Joker really meshes with the rest of the DC. No, the aesthetic's completely different. Totally different. But I'm willing to screen test it. That's what I'm saying. I'm willing to screen test it.

I would like to see him interact with Robert Patterson's Batman or Ben Afflex, whatever it is, Michael Keaton's. I mean, can you imagine Michael Keaton and Joaquin Phoenix in a scene together? I think that's what, there was a point where they were trying to set something. like this up, where they were going to have the flash open up this hole in the DC multiverse, and then you could bring in all these other legacy characters. And I think the pandemic and the Ezra Miller-Niss and a bunch of other stuff happened that just kind of interrupted that midstream. And now we're sort of dealing with the fallout. So you need an iron hand at the wheel who just says, this is what we're doing. Here's the five-year plan. I mean,

that's, you know, that's what they're doing at Marvel. It's like, here's the five-year plan. And it's on a spreadsheet and you can look at it. And it's on a chart. And that's than that, then that. And you know that Faggy's got the next phase already. I mean, Secret Wars, can you imagine if they pull that off? Like, I mean, how many hours long does Secret Wars need to be if you got Fantastic Four, X-Men and Avengers? No, X-Men and Defenders? We don't know what the plan is still. There's no, they've announced, we know Phase 6 starts with Fantastic Four, it ends with Secret Wars. And we know Kamala Khan, who they introduced in Ms. Marvel is a mutant. So there are mutants, but, and they're talking to

Giaccio, and Carlo Esposito about maybe be Professor Exo, all indications. But I don't, I mean, I personally think the smarter plan would be you don't open with an X-Men movie. You do a Gambit movie and you do a Wolverine movie.

Yes. You do a storm movie. And then you do an X-Men. You know, you do it like their, their own Avengers. Like they did with the Avengers. At Iron Man Hulk, Thor. Some people on them, they never did that in the old.

They always tried to do the whole team. And then you get like two scenes with Cyclops and a scene with Gene Gray and a scene with Beast. And it's like, no, no, no. I want a Cyclops and Gene Gray movie and then bring them into the Avengers. Well, when they did, they did do that with Wolverine. They understood that character was so strong.

But only after we'd already seen him in a bunch of team up movies, then they were like, okay, spin him off. But I'm like, no, no, you just open it. And it's about a guy in Canada named Logan. Yeah. At that time, the concept of there being a market for, you know, 10 superhero films a year didn't exist. They're like, we could do one of these every two years.

Yeah, they knew Spider-Man. and they knew Batman. I don't know if we can't release our X-Men the same year as a Spider-Man film. Like that's literally how they were thinking. Sony and Fox and Marvel are like, I don't know if we want to compete. Years after that, you know,

like Marvel had to go to Paramount hat in hand and be like, please help us make our Captain America movie. And Paramount was like, Captain America, who gives a crap? Get out of my office. All right,

listen, everybody, there's been another amazing this week in streaming on Thursdays here at this week in Starters, have Lon on great insights. As always, follow at lawns. That's it.

And if you have a question for what you should watch tonight, ask Lon. This is what I want you all to do, is you go on Twitter and you say, Lon, hey, at Lonz, what should I watch tonight? And just tell him three things you like.

He'll tell you two things you'll love. You tell him three things you like. He's going to tell you two things you love. Ask Lon at Lonz on Twitter. L-O-N-S. Start it up. Let's start barraging and invading his Twitter shit. Now you're screwed.

Now you're going to flood it. It's over. All right, everybody. Up next, Molly is going to interview the CEO of a startup called Ephemoral. The company is cool. Basically, they've developed an ink-like solution for temporary tattoos that are extremely high quality. Ah, but they fade away in about a year. That sounds like a great idea because how many people get a tattoo when they're on a vacation and maybe they've had a couple of cocktails.

Okay? Maybe you need ephemeral. Okay? Great interview. Stick with us. Jeff Leo is the CEO of Ephemeral. Previously was a VP at Casper and a senior manager at Teflare. And I bring that up primarily because Jeff, A, welcome to the show.

And B, what is it about those two experiences that led you to ephemeral tattoos? Well, thanks for having me. Thanks for the opportunity. It's funny you ask, you know, I come from this Chinese American family where everyone was an engineer or supposed to be a doctor. And I ended up being a car salesman, a mattress salesman and now tattoo salesman. And I know oftentimes it doesn't seem too obvious. But I think the through line for me is each of those brands prior to ephemeral and ad ephemeral, both all had visions that really transcended the products themselves.

Tesla on the surface is a car company, but really it's about sustainability. Casper is a mattress company, but really it's about wellness. And here at ephemeral, yes, it's tattoos, but what we're really trying to unlock is self-expression. Do you have any right now? I feel like I might have gotten a glimpse. Oh, yeah. So I have 18 ephemeral tattoos. Some are parts of my body.

I can't actually show you. I guess I could show you, but probably would be a little. inappropriate. But yeah, all ephemeral tattoos, not a single permanent tattoo. Wow. And so then, well, okay, we should back up. What does ephemeral do and like has this ever existed before? I mean, this is sort of like the idea of the Hennon tattoo taken to infinity. Yeah. So what we've created ephemeral is the world's first made-to-fade tattoo designed to last nine to 15 months naturally disappears at the end of that time frame. And it's applied like a real tattoo with a tattoo needle, tattoo machine, and a tattoo artist.

We are truly a first of our kind. It took us about seven years of research and development out of NYU to actually create what we have today in 50 formulations and hundreds of tattoo trials before we were able to actually bring a formal tattoo to market. it. Prior to us, there has been only painful and effective, expensive laser removal or temporary tattoo stickers that last maybe a couple days, maybe a couple weeks, and to exactly your point, Hena as well. Yeah. What is the cost? I mean, is it similar to, because it sounds like the process is exactly the same as getting a tattoo. Does it cost the same as getting a tattoo?

Yeah. So the other element of a femoral tattoo, in addition to creating this major, to fade proprietary ink is we've also decided to launch our own ephemeral tattoo studios. We hire traditional tattoo artists to work with us either full time or part time. And really, just like the rest of the industry, the price your tattoo, the price you're paying for your tattoo really is the service. It's really the artistry. It's really the craft in the time. Think a big distinction about ephemeral versus a traditional tattoo experience, though,

is the amount of investment we made in the actual experience. Anyone who has a permanent tattoo or tried to shop, tried to shop. or permanent tattoo. We'll talk about the inconsistencies in studio to studio, how intimidating they might be. Also, oftentimes, unfortunately, how artists may not be that customer-friendly or customer-centric. And we've really tried to flip all that on its head. And we felt it was really important to introduce our product through our own studios to continue making tattoo wearing more inviting and welcoming. Where do you have studios? Our first studio launched in 2021 in Brooklyn. And we have since launched three studios, second in LA, third in San Francisco, fourth in Atlanta. And we have

two more locations planned over the next three months in the U.S. So you raised, it looks like $20 million, almost a year ago today. And then this funding came after ephemeral blew up on TikTok. What is the pitch to investors in terms of the total, you know, potential here, the market? Yeah. And the, you know, I think on the outside looking in, especially for investors, tattoos seem kind of like a part of fringe culture, perhaps niche. My view and the team's view here is that tattoos are really a manifestation of something that's much deeper and universal, which is this desire to take control of your identity, really self-expressed. And when I think about it, you know, most of our decisions as consumers are just manifestations

of this. Your choice in glasses, peril. It's why sneakers, you know, it went from this high utility product to now having sneaker heads and people collecting hundreds of them. It's why sunglasses, we might have one that matches every look. And we really see tattoos as becoming the predominant form of self-expression competing with those other existing forms. And so when we think about the opportunity, it's automatically, dramatically expanding

the number of people who can wear a tattoo. Now, anyone and everyone can wear a one. And then dramatically increasing the frequency that you can wear a tattoo. So perhaps who you are when you're 18 will change when you're. you're 30 and might change again when you're 50. And, you know, really ephemeral is trying to unlock that for all audiences, both in the U.S. and globally. So how long do they last?

So they're designed to last nine to 15 months. That variance is just due to a lot of things that are out of our control, which is predominantly your body, your immune system, your skin physiology. So, for example, my tattoos tend to last a little bit longer than 15 months. My wife who has six ephemeral tattoos, she tends the last little bit between eight to 12 months. We joke it's probably because she's healthier than me, but it comes down to a lot of other variables as well. So why immune system? Like, does your body come and sort of attack this ink and try to get rid of it?

Yeah, it's a great question. So to explain how ephemeral ink works, it's probably useful for me to talk a bit about how permanent ink works and actually what makes permanent ink itself so unique. So whenever someone receives a permanent tattoo, the ink, has to be applied into the dermis, which is the layer of skin below the epidermis. The reason why that has to happen is because the epidermis actually will replace itself every couple of weeks, which is why a temporary tattoo can only last for such a short period of time. Once the ink actually is applied to the dermis, all those ink particles, they're hydrophobic. So they end up actually attracting to each other and aggregate into particle sizes

that are too large for your body's immune system to attack and remove. And so when we were setting out trying to create a femoral tattoo, we had to ask ourselves, how do we mimic that aggregation, but also ensure something can become effectively small enough to be removed by our immune system? And so we used a combination of dye and bio-absorable polymers to create that initial particle. They lump up together. But because the polymers all have these degradation rates, they basically start to just break down and shrink, letting the particles become small enough for your body to effectively remove. How long did it take?

It took a while, you said, right? like seven years to develop this technology? Yeah, so the founders on that NYU, two out of three are PhD chemical engineers. And they became really obsessed to this question of, you know, why hasn't anyone actually created a tattoo that could just naturally disappear? I want to interject here and ask you, did any of those people also have existing tattoos that they really regret? So the inspiration came from one of the founders, Dr. Brenno Pierre's student.

So Dr. Pierre was an adjunct professor. or a student who comes from a very similar background as my own where he got a tattoo and it couldn't and he his parents found out and forced him to go remove it and yeah multiple sessions later lost the money it still hadn't faded away and you know that's kind of where the question question was sparked um i knew regret had to be involved somewhere 100% and i'd also say you know for the founders you know it was personally important because you know they all come from first generation or immigrant households where, you know, kind of taking control of your identity or being individualistic wasn't really celebrated or appropriate. Um, you know, Dr. Pierre comes to the

Caribbean. Uh, Dr. Shaw comes from India. Uh, Joshua Sakai comes from a Jewish family out of Long Island. Uh, and all three just kind of felt tattoos were out of reach because they were effectively permanent. Um, and so, yes, it, the, the idea came in 2014. It took a few years to even really get started to testing because one of the first priorities for the brand was to really develop a safe product. So tattoos are actually not an FDA regulated product, but the team felt it was important to really kind of raise the bar on safety. So they spent the first two to three years researching ingredients and materials, I should say, that individually were FDA approved before they started to do actual testing, which began between 2017 and 2018. And again, it took 50, 50 formulations.

to get to a version of the ink we have today. Yeah. I can definitely see why it would be important to go that route. Because of course, the first question you think is, what your body is breaking this down and effectively ingesting it, could it make you sick? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, our view is if we are successful,

ultimately tattoo wearing will become ubiquitous. Everyone and anyone will be wearing a tattoo. And we knew that if we were going to become a household name, become a brand, become a product that was global, that we had to be leaders in terms of safety. And, you know, our view is eventually the FDA will probably start to regulate the tattoo industry. And we just wanted to be ahead of any potential pushes in that direction. What is the available product now?

It looks like all your tattoos are black. Is there, are there colors? Is it all black ink right now? Like, what's the, how complex can I get in terms of my full back dragon? So today, your full back dragon would be black. We focused on black because that's the most popular color. It's necessary for any tiny tattoo design with outlines. And we are also, it's easy to kind of assume getting to black is a pretty easy endeavor,

but we are constantly iterating on the vibrancy, how deep that black is, and we still feel like there's opportunities to make it even better. But we also have begun developing and testing colors. And we are focused on developing a red ink next because that is actually a, it's going to be necessary for your dragon. It's going to be necessary for a rose tattoo. It's the second most popular. The heart that says mom, right?

Exactly. I know. I got you. Yep. You know, as you're going to say, because you said that, it's a funny anecdote that I like to share. You know, earlier I mentioned my mom. Well, I forget if I did mention this.

My mom growing up always sending me if I got a tattoo, I'd never get a real job. My acts of rebellion again was becoming a car salesman. But, you know, funny enough, she actually came and got a rose tattoo with us last summer. You're kidding. Oh. And now she likes to show it off to everyone that she can. That is really heartwarming.

Okay. Now talk to me about the fading and the fading process. Like as it fades, does it look kind of faded? Yeah. So there's two things we think about when it comes to fade. One is consistency of the lines, the saturation of lines, and then also the change in vibrancy. When it comes to lines, right?

and the actual, put different, put more specifically, we want to make sure that as a tattoo fades, that the integrity of the design is consistent. So if it's a rose on day one, it still looks like a rose even as it fades. That comes down to our artists and their ability to apply a tattoo consistently with good saturation. And so that's why it's important for us to hire great artists. And we also do work with our artists on a daily basis to always improve on technique, you know, because a big part of the proposition we want to create in the industry is one of continuous improvement and development of tattoo best practices. So that's how we focus on that.

On the other side of vibrancy, that's where a lot of our ongoing iteration is. Our dream is to get to a tattoo that is vibrant for a majority of the fade time and then faded for a minority of that time. Today, it's more or less linear, although, you know, kind of the way it fades technically happens and kind of peaks, has steep slopes sometimes. But the best way to understand as a consumer is that it's a linear, linear fade. So equally vibrant as it is equally not vibrant. Yeah.

Gotcha. I want to go back to the safety question because I just got a note from a producer about how I guess the EU is going to ban colored ink tattoos. Like this safety question just gets more and more interesting and puts you in a position where if you can develop an FDA-approved, you know, way safer, colored tattoo ink, all of a sudden, you've leapfrogged the pack in a lot of different ways, it seems like. That's absolutely right.

And we've been keeping an eye on the EU developments, which actually started 10 years ago. There was legislation written in 10 years ago to start to study and understand the tattoo industry. And we really do see that as a leading indicator of what eventually will happen here in the U.S. and definitely is top of mind. And what the EU realizes is what we learned early on is that there are actually a lot of really unsafe materials used in permanent tattoo inks to achieve. to achieve the colors you see in permanent tattoo in in in inks,

sometimes you have to be using metal, metallic materials. Metallic materials that definitely your lymphatic system can't really absorb or expunge. So that's part of why we haven't launched colors yet as an example, because we have been mostly spending our time researching materials. And red as an example is actually the hardest color to create because most traditional inks use metals and reds. Fascinating. So you did become, like,

like a tiny bit of a doctor. I'm just saying. Exactly. That's why I tell my parents at the Thanksgiving table. Exactly. And then I guess the only other question I have for you is about paint. Like it's not, you know, getting a tattoo is not a comfortable process, obviously. And you're effectively asking people to go through that, not just one time, but like every year and a half or so. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think pain is definitely a consideration, especially if you're first time getting a tattoo. and I have to be honest, the first time I got into a tattooed chair, I was really, really nervous. And I guess it sounds a little bit odd to say, but there is, and a lot of tattoo wears will kind of highlight this.

But after you get multiple tattoos, there's something almost therapeutic about the act of the machine. And it almost kind of ends up becoming numbing, right, at a certain point. I will say my wife doesn't notice pain as much as me. So that says something about us. And what I would say is that almost everyone after their first tattoo kind of realizes the pain is perhaps less consequential than they originally anticipated. But it's another reason why we felt is important to own the experience, to own the tattoo studios, have artists because we want to be able to comfort clients. We want to be able to create more trust, help reduce that anxiety because we're very much empathetic of kind of what it is like to get a tattoo. And we think that's a big part of the ephemeral tattoo vision, strategy, and proposition.

Yep. It's super cool. I don't know if you're a William Gibson reader, but there's a, in his book, The Peripheral, there's a person who has, like, I'm hoping that you will expand into the nanotechnology tattoos in the future that will just, like, change and, you know, be alive in your skin. No, that sounds awesome. I haven't read William Gibson, but I definitely will be sure to check them out. Just for that. Just for the description of future tattoo art, the peripheral nails it. Amazing. All right, Jeff, this is super cool. Where can people punt?

Can, can, this is super cool. Where can people find ephemeral and you? So anyone who's interested in curious to learn more, go to effemoral dot tattoo. Also, our Instagram handle has a ton of content, educational content at ephemeral tattoo. And again, our four studios today are Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. And we look forward to being in new cities very soon. I mean, I'm in Oakland. I'm going to have to scamper.

I'm going to have to do this, I think. Yeah, we're all on Valencia. So that's a prime local. Of course you are. Love it. All right, I'll be back with my tattoo pretty soon. Can't wait to see it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Alex, our producer just said matching face tats. That should be a part of the job, right? Yeah. I mean, right? Like, this is my chance to get a neck tattoo. Oh, I guess the only other thing I didn't ask you is like, is there any scarring involved? I suppose that's probably skin dependent, but it could happen, right?

Yeah, there's always a potential chance of it. what I'd say, the things that you do to, the ways that you mitigate any risk of scarring are twofold. One, again, it's having great tattoo artists that don't essentially go too deep into the skin. The second really is in healing. And unlike the traditional industry, we invest a lot of money into providing, including aftercare products with every tattoo that comes through infirmal tattoo studio. That includes a hydrochloid patch, which basically goes on your skin, absorbs all the liquid out as it's healing. that goes on for about a week. We also give you a moisturizer and different sunskin protectants and anti-h creams.

Those are all things that will help mitigate those chances of really pigmentation, I should say. And of course, we always advise folks on how to put SBF on and protect your tattoo while in the sun. Where do you get the artists? I know I said I was done asking questions, but I've never done. Please keep the questions coming. Where do you recruit these tattoo artists from and how do they feel about, I mean, it must It must be like an interesting shift from being a traditional tattoo artist to being like, now I'm exploring this kind of new way of getting to maybe build a pretty long lasting relationship with the client as opposed to this like one in one out thing. Absolutely.

I'm glad you asked that because there's so much, you know, when I joined the team, you know, and I started to peel back the onion, I started to see an industry that just had a ton of other opportunities for us to make a positive impact on. And what I should say is that first and foremost, the existing tattoo industry is comprised of in the U.S., comprised of between 40 and 50. 50,000 independent artists. Unfortunately, the industry, because it started out of a very specific subculture, is actually notorious for being exclusive to people who look a little bit different than the majority. So if you're non-male, if you're gender fluid, if you're a person of color, it's actually very hard to break into apprenticeship. It's very hard to actually develop your own book of business because most chairs are

out available to you. And from day one, we really had a value of diversity and inclusion. And so we really went out and talked a lot about that. We talked a lot about trying to create a studio experience that was welcoming inclusive for artists, one that we would foster growth and development. And that really resonated. So our artists, if you were to look at them, they're they're a bit younger. They're in their 20s. They're very diverse. And they're really as a function of kind of being different in the industry, they're very open-minded to innovation. They're very much looking for the next thing, the next way to push the boundaries of tattoo artistry. And we predominantly kind of use social media to tell that story, to find artists.

And we also recruit artists with a different economic proposition. So a traditional tattoo artist is paid on a per tattoo basis. Our artists are offered fixed income up front. We offer for those who kind of work their way up, health care. We offer equity for all artists as well. well. We really are trying to build, enable real careers for our artists. So it's less about the access to the customer, but it's really about being in a home where they can grow and develop themselves as tattoo artists. Wow. That's, okay, that's very cool. I'm glad I asked

about that. Now I really am done, though. Awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, of course. This is awesome. Okay, everybody, thanks for tuning in to another awesome episode of this week in startups. Thanks for Lon for joining us. He's great. If you have guest suggestions, producers at This Week in startups, they're always willing to hear your feedback. If you're a PR company, we don't take pitches. So don't send your clients to us. But if you're a fan of the show and you have ideas, yeah, of course we'll listen to you. And tomorrow's going to be a great episode. Howard Linson is going to come on and insult me and talk about the craziness going on in the public markets and what's going on in private

markets. He's really smart. He's really funny. He's really cynical. He's really old. So he's got a lot of wisdom. So tune in to This could be, you know, Howard Linz is not going to be around for that much longer, so we really want to get him on the show while we can. Again, he's pretty old. And of course, producer Rachel will have another OK Boomer segment for you tomorrow. Have a great Thursday, everybody, and we'll see you tomorrow.