This Week in Startups - Disney’s ambitious streaming goals with Lon Harris + Dressd Founder Capri Wheaton | E1481

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Today, Lon Harris joins for This Week in Streaming and we talk about Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 4 (1:49), then we cover some Disney news as they fire their head of General Entertainment Content, Peter Ric...e (43:05), and enter a bidding war to keep their rights to Indian Cricket (48:30). We wrap with a segment of OK Boomer: this week Producer Rachel sits down with Capri Wheaton, founder, and CEO of Dressd, a peer-to-peer clothing rental service (1:06:37). (0:00) Jason and Molly tee up today’s show! (1:49) This Week in Streaming with Lon Harris: “Obi-Wan Kenobi” ep. 4 (SPOILERS) (13:06) Intercom - Get advanced Intercom features and Early Stage Academy at a 95% discount https://www.intercom.com/early-stage (14:22) Predicting where “Obi-Wan Kenobi” is headed (20:35) Gun.io - Get $250 off your first developer hire at https://Gun.io/twist! (21:51) More predictions for “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (34:33) Embroker - Get an extra 10% off insurance for your business at https://Embroker.com/twist (35:48) What’s working with “Obi-Wan Kenobi”, what isn’t working? (43:05) Disney has fired Peter Rice, who was Chairman of Disney’s General Entertainment Content (basically the head of Disney’s TV division) (48:30) Disney is about to enter a bidding war to keep its rights to Indian cricket, which is HUGE for its Disney Plus subscriber count (1:01:50) Toss to OK Boomer with Producer Rachel and Capri Wheaton (1:06:37) OKB: Capri Wheaton, founder + CEO of Dressd (peer-to-peer clothing rental)

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everybody. Happy Friday. Bri-Ye. Yeah, it's Friday. We made it to the end of the week. Crazy news continues in the eye of the storm. My Lord. But we've got an awesome show for you today. We'll go a little off-duty and we'll talk about Obi-Wan Part 4.
Starting point is 00:00:17 Really great, great series that I'm enjoying immensely with my three daughters. And we have more news coming out of Disney, coincidentally. We do. We're going to go super deep. Again, we want to reiterate. This is a Friday show. We are ignoring the rest of the world. And we are going to talk about Disney Plus streaming numbers and how Indian cricket might be the key to global streaming domination.
Starting point is 00:00:40 And this is the break you need. Trust me. And then finally, we have another great edition of OK Boomer from producer Rachel. It's going to be a great show. Stick with us. This week in Startups is brought to you by Intercom. If you're an early stage high growth startup, you can get access to Intercom's Early Stage Academy today. at a 95% discount.
Starting point is 00:01:02 Join the program today at intercom.com slash early dash stage or email them at startups at intercom. dot I.O. Gun.io, the simplest way for anyone to hire world-class developers, expertly vetted for you by senior engineers. Get $250 off your first hire at gun.io slash twist. And imbroker. And broker's startup insurance program helps startup secure the most important types of insurance at a lower cost and with less hassle.
Starting point is 00:01:38 Save up to 20% off of traditional insurance today at imbroker.com slash twist. While you're there, get an extra 10% off using offer code twist. All right, everybody, it is Friday. Usually we do this week in streaming on Thursdays, but we got so busy this week. But we're just super happy to have our pal Lon Harris with us. He's a writer at Screen Junkies, and he does the Inside streaming newsletter, and also Community Now Inside.com slash streaming. And he's the podcast host to binge boys.
Starting point is 00:02:09 Welcome back to the program, Lon. Thanks. Thanks for having. All right, let's get right to it. It's kind of nice to do this on a Friday. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No mess around.
Starting point is 00:02:17 Obie 1. Obi-1 can I be part four. Right into it. Right into it. So directed by Deborah Chow. The whole show. The whole show is Deborah Chow. Barbara Chow.
Starting point is 00:02:26 And now, and written by Job, Harold and Hannah Friedman. What do we take from, you know, this group of people so far on the show, Lon? Because I'm enjoying it immensely. I don't know what the feedback has been out there from Star Wars fans, new and old. But this to me has been absolutely delightful. Star Wars fans new and old can't agree on much. So it's a very divisive show out there in the world so far.
Starting point is 00:02:53 A lot of people really enjoying it. A lot of people enjoying the Leia Obi-Wan Connect. I think there are a lot of people at this point now who grew up with the prequels. They're a generation behind me. And those were their Star Wars movies when they were kids. And so going back, being nostalgic about the prequels, fleshing out those storylines, that's very satisfying for a lot of Star Wars fans. But of course, there's a lot of haters too who think it looks cheap and it's unsatisfying,
Starting point is 00:03:25 especially last week's lightsaber battle had a lot of critics who felt. like it was insufficiently epic scale and cinematic. So, you know, there's always that sort of push and pull within the Star Wars community. My God. People are worse. Well, there's a lot of people who just like the band base ever. Yeah. There's a lot of people who just, they want that, they want the action.
Starting point is 00:03:46 They want, show me the characters I love being the ultimate badass. So you had that moment from Mandalorian where Luke is just wrecking house and killing all the droids. And like, there are a lot of Star Wars fans where whatever it's not that, they're disappointed. They're like, why isn't Obi-Wan out there using the force just destroying everybody in his path? Because he's been in the desert alone hiding, not using his force powers.
Starting point is 00:04:10 It's damaged. And after getting his ass handed to him by the most badass Darth Vader we ever saw in episode three, he is now coming back to form. They actually anticipated it. And there was a lot of action in this one from Obi-Wan himself. The lightsaber comes out.
Starting point is 00:04:27 He's using the force. There's this great scene when he's on his way to the Inquisitor's castle where you can see he's like testing his force powers. And of course, you know, as the action starts to unfold, you start to realize he's figuring out the force again. Right. Which I thought was a great arc. Yeah. And I mean, you remember too, in The Last Jedi, that's part of Luke's art that he shut himself off from the force and then has to like reestablish that connection. And I think, you know, we're getting a mirror of that with Obi-Wat story this time.
Starting point is 00:04:58 So take us through the overview of the story, Molly. And then we'll get Lon's comments here. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Turn this off if you have not watched episode four. Just fast forward through it. Yet. Just skip it.
Starting point is 00:05:11 All right. So Obi-Wan, we see him in the Bacta tank, which is getting a lot of usage per from Boba Fett. Boba Fett. Also, 11 on this season of Stranger Thing, spending a lot of time in her own version of a Bacta Tank. It's becoming a real, a bunch of season for a Stranger Thing says, 11 has to go into an isolation chamber where she has her own memories about her past.
Starting point is 00:05:33 When are we going to have a back to tank? I mean, this is going to become a we live in the future segment here. Right, I know. You know a back to tank is coming to the real world. I keep thinking that too. So he's in the back to tank and it's sort of it almost feels. And so is Darth Vader in his own back to tank. It almost feels like they're psychically communing a little bit.
Starting point is 00:05:48 He's like reliving the battles. And then appears to all of a sudden realize Leah is not there. She has in fact been taking captive and is being interrogated by Riva. for details on this kind of Jedi underground, the path, which I thought, I got to say, for as much as I have not seen as much as I wanted from Riva, the character or the actress, that was a great scene.
Starting point is 00:06:10 It was so tense. It was so lovely. She's so small. Leah, so tiny. Anyway, Obi-1 convinces Tala to infiltrate the Inquisitor's palace on the ocean moon Neur in the Mustapar system. During the break-in,
Starting point is 00:06:23 he discovers this unbelievably morbid situation of vault full of preserved Jedi that the empire has apparently captured and killed, including like a kid, you know, a little one. Obi-Wan uses his lightsaber, uses the force for real. He's like fighting off the bullets with the lightsaber.
Starting point is 00:06:45 Tala and Obi-Wan free Leah, but Tala's cover is blown. Beta gets furious because they get away, almost kills Riva, and then she reveals that she attached a tracker to Leah's droid Lola. classic great action-filled, you know, Star Wars episode
Starting point is 00:07:02 where you have to go rescue somebody. This happens in almost every Star Wars. You've got to do a rescue mission. And this one was incredibly satisfying to me. And I'll just tell you, like, watching Obi-Wan go from being, you know, completely unable to use his lightsaber properly, to all of a sudden you saw the Obi-Wan lightsaber form
Starting point is 00:07:24 coming back with the spinning and how he was holding it and how effortlessly he started deflecting blasters. And at one point he deflects a blaster shot to then lock a door. You know, that's like a classic Clone Wars level Jedi move. And the Jedi and the Clone Wars are peak Jedi. They're going super fenced. In the main, you know, New Hope Empire and Return of the Jedi, these are old Jedi going really slow.
Starting point is 00:07:51 So what we're seeing is Obi-Wan getting back his speed. and he's got a face peak Darth Vader so this to me was incredibly satisfying especially when the glass in this underwater building starts cracking he's able to hold back not only hold back this is all very subtle force stuff but he's not only holding back one window
Starting point is 00:08:11 I don't know if you notice this lawn but then when the stormtroopers come in he's defending with the other hand his lightsaber and then he decides I'll just use the force to break all the windows on there so he is back I think to close to full strength here if he can do that with the force
Starting point is 00:08:25 Did you notice that detail on? I did. They have to get him back to close to full strength because there is a cartoon series set after this called Rebels. And they have established Obi-Wan, and that is still a badass version of Obi-Wan. So we have to kind of bridge that gap and get him back to his.
Starting point is 00:08:44 There's a lot of Easter egg stuff in this episode, by the way, just generally. We go through that. A lot of shoutouts to the game Fallen Order. I don't know if you guys ever played Jedi Fallen Order. But I saw a whole thing that was like, this is a shot for shot. This whole water, moon, nor that moon that they're on is a key location from the game. So putting that in there explicitly is definitely meant to let you know that that's all canonical.
Starting point is 00:09:11 What you're saying, Jason, I think about the mirrors of a new hope specifically, I think we're definitely on their minds. I mean, obviously we're recreating a whole bit from a new hope where they have to go rescue Princess Leia in the, Imperial, you know, like they got to invade the base or whatever. Yeah. There's even a moment where Obi-Wan takes out a stormtrooper and I thought, is he going to put on that would Zuluke move from, you know, like where they dress up like storm troopers. Right. I kind of thought they were going to have that moment, but then he keeps his ropes on.
Starting point is 00:09:42 They also have in terms of the parallelism here. And good shout out there. Molly with the, you know, Darth Vader and Obi-Wan both going through this parallel experience of healing their wounds. There's the parallel experience with Princess Leia in a new hope having a probe droid come to torture her. In this case, Riva decides, well, you know what, I'm going to put you in a chair, kind of similar to the Empire Strikes Back when they tortured Han Solo. And I'm going to torture you and I'm going to try to read your mind. Now, I don't know if people caught this, but Darth Vader was not able to read Princess Leia's mind in a new hope, right? He got very frustrated by this, like, inability to crack Princess Leia.
Starting point is 00:10:26 Because Princess Leia all this time was a force user, but her power seems to be in her brain, her charisma, her ability to interact with people as a senator. Riva has the ability to read minds. Remember, she did it to what's the actor's name from, I think, Silicon Valley? Yeah. Yeah. So she tried, she very easily read his mind, no problem. She's been reading every his mind. she couldn't read a eight-year-old Princess Leia's mind.
Starting point is 00:10:53 That's because, my theory, Princess Leia is so strong in her brain with the force that she unknowingly, she doesn't know she has the force, but she can just block people from another Jedi or another force-sensitive creature, an inquisitor from reading her mind. Am I correct? Yes. And that's what was happening? I think that's the implication. They've been really setting up this idea that the young Leah, she doesn't have what we would think
Starting point is 00:11:16 of as traditional force. She's not flipping around and grabbing things with her with her mind. But she's, yeah, she's got these. And just the ability to read people to. It goes beyond being precocious to. She always knows what everybody, what's going on with everybody. She sees into your soul. They're talking to her, right.
Starting point is 00:11:35 If anything, that scene actually freaked me out a little bit because I was having all those same thoughts. I was like, she's not reading her mind. She's not reading her mind because Leah is in fact strong in the force with this sort of like psychic vibe and ability. And then I was like, is Riva, I don't know if it's a little bit of a miss on the show's part that Riva doesn't immediately go like, hey, you seem kind of force sensitive. Or if she does. But Leah doesn't know she's force-savored, but I did think about that too.
Starting point is 00:12:03 How come nobody can sense Leah is strong in the force? Yeah. Or are they just not even considering it? I mean, if they're like rooting out people, you know, there's that kind of throwaway line too. They're rooting out. They're finding anybody who is more sensitive. I mean, I'm not disagree with the. point you're making, but there is, I think, this idea that even the Jedi, even people who've
Starting point is 00:12:22 been around a lot of force users, this is a rare thing. Like, the idea that you could be very powerful with the force, but it doesn't demonstrate itself like it does with Grogu, where you could just like throw things around, where it's this more intuitive. I think people they're not looking out for it because even the Jedi don't ever put this together. Leah grows up and is an adult and they've never been like, hey, you have the force. You should train or something. Like, nobody ever says that to her. It's kind of a loss.
Starting point is 00:12:51 She doesn't ever get to access that because they're not on the lookout for it. I think it might be part of the thematic idea of like, the Jedi aren't necessarily as great as we thought. They have a lot of internal biases and prejudices to keep them from really seeing the whole truth. You might not realize it, but you've probably used intercom before. You know, when you visit a website and that little chat bubble pops up and they help you with any question you have, well, that's Intercom.
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Starting point is 00:13:49 So, if you're an early stage, high-growth startup, you can get access to Intercom's Early Stage Academy today at a 95% discount. Join the program today at Intercom. slash early-dash stage. Or email them. That's how cool they are at Intercom. They'll just email them. Startups at Intercom.com.
Starting point is 00:14:09 How easy is that? By the way, you can register for Intercom's next customer experience for growth webinar on May 18th. by clicking on the link in our YouTube description or the episode page. Great job, Intercom. Here's a question for you. These Jedi who were down in the catacombs, I'll call them the catacombs underwater areas, they're not in carbonite. They're in what looks like ember of some type.
Starting point is 00:14:34 It's, yeah, some sort of preserving formaldehyde-type fluid or whatever. Are they dead or are they preserved? Because I didn't see blasters, I didn't see arms chopped off. I mean, and then, if you. Why are they here? I think they're there because they're going to try to connect this to Snoke Palpatine and like getting or Grogu or pulling the force and doing biological clone experiments on them. This is like Camino.
Starting point is 00:15:03 Remember Camino where they made the clone troopers? That's exactly what they do. I mean, when we know Dave Faloni who did Mandalorian and Clone Wars, this is what he does. He loves to go into these movies and then find the little connections and threads between them. And then like, that's where I'm going to live. I'm going to expand on this and make these connections stronger between these threads that are already in the movie. So I think that's clearly what they're doing is they're taking that throwaway line in Rise of Skywalker, dark science, cloning, secrets only the Sith new.
Starting point is 00:15:33 You know, Dominic Monahan from Lord of the Rings says that. And I think they started in Mandalorian a little bit where you've got who's that scientist who's working with Grove, who we need his blood, we're developing. We don't know what he was working on. Now they're preserving all these Jedi. I think it's obvious. They're trying to figure out the secret of Middiclorians, the secret of how to replicate force, powerful users down the road.
Starting point is 00:15:57 And it is all going to culminate in, well, this is how they cloned Palpatine. This is how they made snow. So does this mean, Molly? What are the chances that the emperor shows up in Obi-1 episode six? What are the chances the emperor shows up, Molly? I don't trying not to give it away he's like
Starting point is 00:16:16 I don't think Emperor in this one Down the road maybe So they save him Well he I mean at this At this moment He's just the big man in charge
Starting point is 00:16:30 He's running the galaxy Yeah I don't really know I mean I guess you could If it's just the like At this point At this point Do we know
Starting point is 00:16:38 How much the emperor is aware I mean the emperor Saved Anakin And turned him into Vader Yeah, he's their apprentice, yeah. And we've had enough little, I don't, I mean, I would say that that's a 50-50. Like, I wouldn't, I'm not given that one a hard no. I think, like, you might want to save it, but at the same time, why wouldn't?
Starting point is 00:16:56 There's definitely going to be an Obi-Won 2. So why not save it, right? Yes, but why wouldn't the emperor be very, very interested in Obi-1-Kanobi? He's driving this, yeah. He would be super interested in this. I think they love these, they're love treating these shows as like little hubs. They're storytelling hubs, and it's like, why, you know, like introduce a lot of threads that we can ping off of that.
Starting point is 00:17:16 So I think, I don't think the dark science cloning, we've got these Jedi in jars. I don't know if that's going to come up in Obi-Wan necessarily. That might be a thread they're laying out there and then. Yes. Andor or in another show or next year we'll pick that thread up. Like, I don't even necessarily know if they know what the plan is. They're just like tease this stuff out over time. They're like landmines.
Starting point is 00:17:42 These are plot threads that are just plod. planted like landmark. You can step on them in the future. And that's how, I mean, we're seeing, you know, sort of Kevin Feigy would be like the mastermind. Like, he's the guy that started doing this at Marvel and has sort of taught everybody how to do it. But now everybody, every franchise is doing that.
Starting point is 00:17:58 Now, we saw Ghostbusters just the other hand. Hardly the thing you'd think of as a lore-heavy franchise. But Jason Reitman just announced they're doing the next one, and it picks up right from the end of afterlife where they're driving the Ecto 1 back into New York. So every franchise now is thinking. about this? Like, how do we tell a story, but also drip enough secret stuff in there that we can pick up in the next story? Because there will never be original IP again. There will only ever be
Starting point is 00:18:25 we're tired of it. I have another hot take, but Molly, you have any hot takes? No, I will say an Easter egg department, though, I really did like the moment where they're in the kind of the path underground and he refers to like every kid out there moving a rock with his mind or whatever. Like, they were just, like, nice. I feel like the thing that's so satisfying about Obi-1, probably for people our age, is that it's just like, this is the, this is the Star Wars we grew up with a little bit.
Starting point is 00:18:52 Yeah. And it, that's just really, it's nice. I'm like, I feel like, I know this. I get this. Well, and this is what could have happened with the sequels. I know what I don't want to get in there. But this is bridging the prequels and the main, what do you call the non-sequel prequels?
Starting point is 00:19:08 You call it the original trilogy. The original trilogy. The original trilogy. There's the prequels, the original trilogy, and then the sequel trilogy. So the O.T is being bridged perfectly to the prequels right now, I feel. Because you get a little Leia, you get a little Luke, you got Owen, you got Obi-Wan, you got Darth Fader. It's just bridging it perfectly, just like Rogue One did. And so that connective tissue feels really good, as you were saying, Lon.
Starting point is 00:19:34 Here's, Lon, any other hot takes for you before I give my hot-takes? Well, I'm just excited. I mean, I think this is really setting up Andor. in a way. I was not, I like Rogue One, but I was not super pumped for Andor just because like Diego Luna as Cassie and Andor, not a character that stood out to me. But the idea of now this, because that's going to be a 24 episode show. They're really devoting some time. Yeah, two 12 episode and or seasons. And it really is less the Cassie and Andor show and more the birth of the Rebel Alliance show. We even saw in the trailer you had a little bit of young Mon Mothma. So the idea is there's all these cells. There's all these. Like the path is a great example of a rebellious cell, but it's not a rebel alliance. It's just one group of people doing one thing. Yeah. And so Andor is really going to be this journey from all these little pockets of rebellion all
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Starting point is 00:21:54 I really excited for that. Whitaker in Andor, right? Well, Sauguerreira, we know from the cartoons, is very active in that world at this time. So presumably there would be room for that, yeah. Here's my hot take. This Darth Vader and this, episode, combined with the previous one, to me, is very, I think, aware of the fact that the middle
Starting point is 00:22:23 episode of the original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, is every fan's favorite because it's the most dark. It was done by that French director. It had so much gravitas in it, right? Luke loses a hand, he finds out Darth Vader's his dad, Hans Solo gets tortured, he's incarbonite, he's been sold. I mean, it's just dark all over the place. Right. In this episode, my daughters, who are loving this, through the covers over their head, jumped on me, my two six-year-olds, daddy, protect us. I don't want to watch it. And I said, well, and it was during the Princess Leia potential torture scene. And I said, she's not going to get tortured. It's going to be okay. I guarantee you, but they were really scared. And then
Starting point is 00:23:07 that scene where they escape and all of a sudden, Darth Vader comes charging, like he's walking in a very angry, fast-paced, everybody on the couch jump. And then he comes in and he's got Riva and he's about to snap her neck and he's choking her out and he's just toying with her like a, you know, a fish like that he's about to cut up for sushi and you're just like, my lord they're really leaning into how sadistic and insane Darth Vader is and how terrifying is
Starting point is 00:23:43 just that marching when they have the close-up of his head I'm curious if that's Hayden Christensen in there we know that's it's another actor it's him in the back to tank I don't know if it's him in the actual Vader costume he got to meet a guy in the back to tank yeah he got to put that they definitely put all the scars on well this is the thing that's a little I mean Star Wars has always been dark and it's not but it's like a little, you know, I mean, when you think about that just like the sheer number of lives lost. Yeah. It's like two extinction level events, right?
Starting point is 00:24:14 An entire freaking planet and the Death Star, which presumably has hundreds of thousands of people on it, if not more. Like, it's a messed up. Yeah. The wars. The premises. They really bring it home when they are about to legit torture a 10-year-old girl. Yeah. Crazy.
Starting point is 00:24:33 Who, by the way, is this tiny, like her little freak. hand in Obi-W, I can't get over how small this human is even as a child. Here are two giant needles. Here's two giant needles we're going to stick into her eyes. It's like, oh my my god, my butter. I have six-year-olds. They were a little scared by it.
Starting point is 00:24:50 All right. But see, what they should have done, though, this is what everybody's confused about. We all thought there would be flashbacks of hating Christensen as Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan. There has been no flashback on No.
Starting point is 00:25:06 We saw that one shot of like, Obi-Wan was imagining what he would look like in the present day. And so there was like, he saw a vision of Attican staring at him in the desert. I think in episode one or two. And that's it. That's so far the only shot we've got clearly of Hayden Christensen's face. So wait a second.
Starting point is 00:25:25 That means they're saving because they have not used him yet. James Earl Jones voice. You were just asking if that's him in the suit. It's not. There's another person playing the suit character. There's a guy in the suit. Yeah. Yeah. So what is the point of having Hayden Christensen here?
Starting point is 00:25:38 Just to be like in a bunch of FX makeup in the back to tank? No. I have to feel like there's something in episode six. Episode five, I think, or six, is going to be a flashback to the Clone Wars. And it's going to be the moments at which Obi-Wan and Anakin were really at their peak friendship. and then they're going to show Anakin kill the Padawan. This is my theory.
Starting point is 00:26:12 So Anakin is coming back for two purposes. Some crazy flashback of the Clone Wars where they're like really bonding and or they're going to show him kill those younglings. You know the scene where they're like, oh, Master Skywako, what should we do? There's a little quick shot of it in Revenge of the SIF. Very quick shot, revenge of the SIF. We don't hang out for much.
Starting point is 00:26:30 We don't hang out. It's just like he just opens his lightsaber. I think they're going to show him, because they showed a little bit of Warrior 66 in the last one, I think they're going to show the actual slaughter. Presumably, that's a Riva flashback, that she was there, and that's why she feels so betrayed by the, by the Jeddah. I mean, it's certainly, listen, and anything is possible. It's all on the table.
Starting point is 00:26:48 And with their love of this de-aging technology, it would be pretty straightforward. They could very easily make a scene where we, it looks like it's old Hayden. And they have their faces in the computer. Maybe we're talking about 20 years. But you could easily, like, they already have a computer look of what young Obi-Wan looks like. They made three movies with young Obi-Wan. So, you know, I feel like it's doable technically. My only thought is I feel like they're, they've established this.
Starting point is 00:27:19 In Last Jedi, they establish what, you know, like for Skype that Adam, Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley can sort of communicate through the force as if they were, it's basically for Skype. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that gives us a way that in their respective back to tanks or whatever, Obi-Wan and Anakin could meet in the ethereal, in the ancestor plane from Black Panther or whatever. And they can have a conversation as themselves. And I feel like that's why you'd introduce that shot of Hayden present day in his robes. Like what would Anakin Skywalker look like today? Because that's the Anakin Skywalker we will see interact. And I like thematically, I think that's kind of neat too.
Starting point is 00:28:01 that like, because we know from the very end of this story, Return of the Jedi, that there, Anakin Skywalker is still in there. He's not totally gone. Oh, big time. And so the idea that he could summon this version of himself and project it through the force, like, this is the part of me that is still Anakin Skywalker. I think thematically there's something really promising there too. Molly, the promise of the show was that we would see.
Starting point is 00:28:24 And Anakin and Darth Vader slash Obi-Wan, Lightsaber Battle. We did. We did. But it wasn't that good. So my question to the rest of the class, two questions here. Will we see? Was that the penultimate for this series? And when we see the ultimate lightsaber battle now that Obi-Wan has his force powers back in?
Starting point is 00:28:48 And what will happen in that? And then two, he was supposed to commune with Queeagan Jin. It hasn't happened yet. Will he commune with his original master of Quee-Gon-Gin? He tried to. Yeah. But he went for Skype, nobody picked up. So two questions.
Starting point is 00:29:03 Will we see another one who wins? What happens? Yeah, it's just making that sound. Yeah. Boop boop boop. I do think so. I think like it's a, you know, it's almost a little bit clunky and on the nose that what we're seeing is he is evolving back into his powers. He's understice starting to, I think see.
Starting point is 00:29:22 I think the point of the path is again, a very literal metaphor for like, this is the path that Obi-1 is on. He's never going to come on. He's a Jedi for life. Like the Jedi will continue and have to continue. And I think the point at which he, it's like any coming of age movie or something, the point at which he gets clarity where he is actualized back into his old self. And the self that he can then be, right, as a future leader of not just Luke Skywalker, but maybe even more Jedi, I think is definitely the point where we will see the Skype call get picked up. Do I think there's going to be another lightsaber battle?
Starting point is 00:30:02 Yeah, right? Because they sort of have to get to know each other well enough for us to see the eventual battle where he kills Vader. Like it's just this kind of they understand each other. And nobody dies in that battle. So what happens in that battle? I don't know. A little more damage to Darth. But can I go back to one other thing?
Starting point is 00:30:20 No, you just had it, Molly. A little more damage to Darth Vader. I think they haven't explained all the scars on Darth Vader when we take the helmet off and return of the Jedi. You know how there's a big, deep scar on his head? Yeah. I'm going to make another crazy. You look at you. You've just been like waiting for me to get there.
Starting point is 00:30:37 He's like, come on. I was waiting for you to get there. And he hits him in the head. Here's what I think happens. I think Riva dies during this. I think it becomes like a three or four person battle where Obi-Wan or Darth Vader kills Riva. I mean, who knows? They both hate her.
Starting point is 00:30:52 And then somehow Obi-Wan bests Darth Vader. Darth Vader's besting him the whole time. and he cracks his, you know, beautiful helmet, which is perfect at this point, and puts that scar on his head that eventually Luke Skywalker sees. And that's how that scar is not coming up
Starting point is 00:31:09 in the back of the tank. I looked for it. Yeah, he's got that. It's almost like an indent in his... An indent in his head. Look at this. Here it is.
Starting point is 00:31:17 Oh, there is. Yeah, yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's going to be... This is if I was writing it. Bless him. Did he just go and find the picture
Starting point is 00:31:24 and circle. I don't know what's going on with a scar on his face, but I think that top one is going to be an... Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan slashed to his head. The scar of the face could be the fires of Mustafa. I think that could be explained. It's just burned.
Starting point is 00:31:36 Yeah. But you're right that we don't see a pronounced wound on the top of his scalp, which could definitely come up. I think you're definitely right about that this is going to be a not just not just Obi-Wan versus Vader. Riva's got to be in the mix. And if the history of, you know, Freddie versus Jason, Godzilla versus Kong movies teaches us anything,
Starting point is 00:31:58 It's that these two warriors are going to end up as allies. And I think Obi-Wan and Riva do have a common enemy. If our guess is correct, and Riva is upset about Order 66, the Jedi being wiped out, well, she's angry at the same person as Obi-Wan. Maybe she doesn't realize everything that happened yet. And this is the point I was about to make about Riva, actually, which is that I think some really interesting therapy occurred when Reva was questioning, you know, just like
Starting point is 00:32:32 Black Widow does it. When they question her, she's questioning them. So Reva is questioning Leah, Leah, but the whole time she is dropping these giant, I mean, almost like, like, please ask me about why I'm so screwed up, right? She keeps saying, I had a droid once. Yeah. I had
Starting point is 00:32:48 a droid once, but they took it like they took everything, aka the Jedi who make you leave your family, right? Like Obi-1 referred to that. They will abandon you. These are the people who will abandon you. Like, she clearly believes that the Jedi left her to die when Order 66 was given, which is like, because there's still so much raw pain there that she keeps telegram.
Starting point is 00:33:07 I like was literally waiting for Leah to stop being interrogated and be like, do you want to talk about it? Like what? Tell me more. Yeah. Tell me more. Like, just turn. I can put some tea on.
Starting point is 00:33:19 I can. Exactly. Celebrate the moments of our lives. I just get a blankie. Like, wait a second. Now, Lon. I like in this theory here. But that's how they get her is they convince her that no,
Starting point is 00:33:28 It was all along the empire that betrayed her and not the Jedi. And she's so isolated in the empire. I mean, we've seen Fifth Brother, you know, from Fast and Furious son Kang there. He also is an enemy of hers. You guys got that, right? That's Han from Fast and Furious. Yeah, no, no, we got it. So anyway, I feel like she doesn't have any, any allies in this entire show.
Starting point is 00:33:52 Yeah. Okay. Which I think sets it up for her to become Obi-Won's ally in the end. Yeah, producers think fifth brother is a twerk. He is my theory. I love that hat. I love that actor, but come on. The hat's terrible.
Starting point is 00:34:04 The hat's ridiculous. You'd be so. The spinning and the spinning. It's ridiculous. I mean, I get what they're doing. They're going for that Japanese thing and, you know, it's an homage thing to Kurosawa. But it says. Well, they are also tied that the inquisitors were introduced in previous cartoons.
Starting point is 00:34:19 So they've got a look that they've got a kind of model. Thank God. None of them, none of the spinning lightsabers are helping them fly. In the cartoons, they can put their spinning. light saber up and it will help them fly. Yeah. It was like that or like levitate a little bit. It was kind of ridiculous. I'm going to quickly explain one crucial type of insurance that all startups need. It's D&O insurance. You've heard of this before. You might not know what it is. This is directors and officers insurance and it helps if somebody does something dumb and you get sued. I don't know how to
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Starting point is 00:35:28 So to instantly buy custom-built insurance for startups, go to imbroker.com slash twist. While you're there, you're going to get an extra 10% off by using the code twist. Easy to remember this weekend startups, T-W-I-S-T. Go to Inbroker, E-M-B-R-O-K-E-R.com slash twist and use that offer code, T-W-I-S-T. Here's a theory. Okay, there's a battle going on. Obie wants being bested. And then he convinces Riva to flip somehow, just like,
Starting point is 00:35:58 Darth Vader flipped against the emperor. So they mirror that. Remember that moment where Darth Vader then, you know, Skywarkers getting the lightning. And then Darth Vader picks up the emperor, throws him down. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:10 What if that's happening? Obi-Wan is getting essentially the lightning, but he's getting hammered by Darth Vader. He says to Riva, I can sense the good in you, and Riva's the one who smashes Obi-Wan over the head and creates that scar. And then Darth Vader kills her.
Starting point is 00:36:26 While he's killing her, Obi-Wan is able to escape. scene. Yeah. I mean, I think it's going to be, it's going to be something along a long. That's a great show.
Starting point is 00:36:34 I cannot wait to watch that episode. Yeah, I think we're, we're getting, we're circling it, whatever. We're circling what's going to happen here. What a great series.
Starting point is 00:36:42 Some people didn't like a couple of scenes. What broke, if anything, the episode for you, any moments that broke the episode? I mean, I don't think there was a moment that broke the episode. I think that there are,
Starting point is 00:36:54 we're starting to see, you know, these shows are made with this really revolutionary, technology where it's like these LED green screens and they're shooting it. And I think that obviously it gives them incredible choices and post and all of that they can put the actors anywhere, drop them in and it looks good and they're in all these different environments. But I do think sometimes it can be, there must be some kind of limitation
Starting point is 00:37:19 because it does feel claustrophobic sometimes. The way that the show is shot, it feels like they are real-time virtual production, as they say in the chat room. That's what they call it. I think it must limit what you could do with lighting, where you can place the camera, and it gives them fewer options because there are occasional times where the editing will be a little clunky, a sequence will be put together in a way that's not totally clear where everybody is. There's some odd visual choices, and I don't think it's just bad directing or whatever. I think that it's probably coming from in some way the limitations of shooting in this production environment that then you
Starting point is 00:37:57 gives you so many options once the once it's in the computer and you're just dropping things in. It still looks beautiful to me Molly. Anything that stood out to you that broke you out of the suspension of disbelief and or that you found just ridiculous in the show because that's what
Starting point is 00:38:13 there's a lot of fans like really nitpicking on this. Any nitpicking stuff you probably heard some of them. I don't care at all although I did definitely laugh out loud when Obi-Wan was hiding lay under his coat. That was a little ridiculous
Starting point is 00:38:29 I was like yeah I'm buying that Like everybody else is so buttoned up and tight Like those uniforms are just like You know They don't get away with it I don't really care They don't get away with it I'll tell you a thing that really bumped screen junkies fans
Starting point is 00:38:41 That they didn't like Was Adiravarma as Tala She talks her way into the imperial base That was what I was about to say She's like who are you I am your superior officer You don't know who I am And I'm gonna talk to your grand
Starting point is 00:38:56 an inquisitor about this. I love that, though, because that is such like imperial culture. Imperial culture is all about bullying someone else. And also being like, I'm going to rat you out to Darth Vader. Like, I'm like, that's her happened 10 times in every single Star Wars movie ever. I love that. I was like, that's on brand. You and I are on the same page, probably.
Starting point is 00:39:16 That's exactly what I said yesterday. But it's a critique of the way the empire rules through fear. It's all a hierarchy. It's all dog-eat-out. your co-worker and you move up, you know, Admiral Moti gets choked and now you're the admirable, you're the admiral. And this is the downside of that
Starting point is 00:39:34 is that, well, everybody's in each other's throats and you can manipulate people through this system. It's really a toxic culture. Let's face it. It's a toxic workplace. It's very toxic workplace with a lot of shrunk. And then the only other one for me, I already mentioned, which is that I was like, okay, Reva, we get it.
Starting point is 00:39:49 We get, okay, okay, you're upset. Okay, peanut. Do you want to sit down? You want to talk? Yeah. You want to snobole? She definitely needs some therapy. She needs some therapy.
Starting point is 00:39:56 She needs to do some serious ketamine therapy. I just couldn't get a heartbroken about Wade. I mean, we saw Wade for like 33 seconds. RIP Wade. RIP Wade. I like any guy in the Star Wars universe who has an Earth name. I always like that. It's like a Wade and a Sully in the Star Wars universe.
Starting point is 00:40:15 Yeah. The other one was the woman who is part of the path that we just talked about. I forgot her name. Tala. Tala. I love that. Indira Varma's character. Yes. The Game of Thrones. I'm just so glad she did not get killed.
Starting point is 00:40:33 Like, I just keep waiting for her to get killed and every time she doesn't. I'm so happy. She's going to be. She's dead by the end of the series. No way she's making it out. Every episode that she doesn't die. You think she's making it to Andor? Is she in Ender?
Starting point is 00:40:42 I'm just saying you got you. I'm not saying specifically about this character, but you do need to leave some of these people alive if you're going to do the rebel alliance coming together. Somebody. Maybe she makes it to add to that. Somebody. Okay. But did you notice.
Starting point is 00:40:55 that when the stormtroopers are taking her after Riva says like, you know, take her away and the stormtroopers are there. I thought her interaction with the Riva was actually pretty good when she's like, I'm a liar. That was a great scene. It was like a, that was another empire kind of scene. But when the two stormtroopers take her away,
Starting point is 00:41:12 and you'll definitely find this image on the internet, she smacks one of the stormtroopers. And then she grabs the other one by his helmet. Withella. And like pulls the helmet up or down and kind of just slaps her. You know, like with a blanks slap. Well, to be fair, stormtroopers are like legendarily wimpy.
Starting point is 00:41:32 Like, they always go down with one shot. Somebody's going to find this image. She's a terrifying force in the universe. She opened-hand smacked a stormtrooper. She will smithed him. She will smithed him. Took a surprise. All right.
Starting point is 00:41:45 I like the grab of the helmet, though. I thought that was like a nice action movie touch. Like, you just grab a minute as like a... Maybe she punched him in the throat. You're making his chain with it? I'm not going to watch it again. happened in Star Wars, you grab the bottom of the helmet and just yank them and smack them. It was a good whack.
Starting point is 00:42:01 I mean, one of the producers is probably going to find this, because I'm sure there's a bunch of Star Wars nerds who have screen grabbed this and have like an 18 slap, you know, debate going on here of Stormtroopers being slapped in history. All right, let's move on. There were some other stuff that happened in streaming news. By the way, we're going to finish this one, and we're going to also talk about maybe next week Star Trek episode 3, 4, 5, 6, or some number of them. I'm up to episode 4.
Starting point is 00:42:23 I'm loving Star Trek. Strange New World. Strange New World. Strange New World is, I'm in episode four. I love it. I mean, they're really doing a great job. I like that. Each one's an encapsulated story, but there are some themes going across them. It's so true. It's so true. It feels very much like a Star Trek series again. After all the like attempts to sort of meld Star Trek and peak TV, they're back to just let's just do a Star Trek. They just do watch these episodes out of order and be equally happy. Each one is like a standalone, sci-fi adventure with its own little ideas and plot and then you move on. It's perfect. Wonderful.
Starting point is 00:43:01 So we'll talk more about that next week. But today, as long as we have lawn, we want to talk about a little bit of a business story and how Disney seems to be turning into its own version of the empire. Like, I'm just imagining everybody at Disney being the kind of people who walk around and like, do you know, I'm sorry, do you know who I will rat you straight out. Yeah. Straight out. So Disney has fired Peter Rice. who was chairman of Disney's general entertainment content, basically the head of the TV division.
Starting point is 00:43:28 He will be replaced by Dana Walden, who spent 25 years at 21st Century Fox, previously reported to Rice. So basically she cut his head off and took his job. Just sticking with the theme here. According to Deadline, this was reportedly out of the blue and was a shock to Rice, Walden,
Starting point is 00:43:46 and their team members, and this is the even spicier part. Via deadline, the speculation is that Rice was fired for, quote, being high in the rumor mill as a potential replacement for Disney CEO Bob Chappek, whose rocky go of things since succeeding Bob Eiger has left questions of whether he would be re-upped with a contract next February. Did they just kill the competition? How Empire is this? Yeah, it's a crazy story. I mean, basically, Rice and Walden both came over to Disney from Fox,
Starting point is 00:44:18 but they've been like a unit that whole time. And he's been, Rice is the guy that every everything TV comes through. So if you're working on a Hulu show, you're working on an ABC show, you're working on a Disney Plus show. Doesn't matter. FX. John Langraf at FX comes through him. Everybody comes through him. So to get rid of that guy and not have a plan in place with all the teams, it's a pretty big move.
Starting point is 00:44:41 I mean, it's a huge transition moment to make without any warning at all or preparation for it, you would think there would be some kind of caught. Hearing that it was without cause, it was just like, well, that guy's coming for my job is like very unexpected. Is that where we are now? Bob Eager is like, what have I done? You're right.
Starting point is 00:44:59 I should have stayed on. No wonder I meddled for so many years. Yeah. This is big news. Yeah. It's a pretty wild story. It's just, you know,
Starting point is 00:45:09 this kind of thing happens where there's a personality class or it's a bad cultural fit or whatever. Somebody goes to leave. But they always, it's like you give the person a few months to like find their next gig and like prep the team is behind the scenes for the transition. They get a production deal for two years. Right. It's like, yeah, exactly. Some sort of golden parachute on the way out, some golden parade
Starting point is 00:45:30 out the door. It makes it feel super personal to have it just be like one day it drops with no explanation. And I think the other thing is it makes they had to purposefully go out of the way to be like, it's not misconduct. Like in 2022, if you are a powerful man and you get fired suddenly, unexpectedly, they have to then come. So it does add this sort of like, it feels weirdly personal, like to not give him a soft landing and then just make it like one day it's gone. I want to know what that Bill Murray thing is about. I saw that go by where Bill Murray made a joke
Starting point is 00:46:00 that, because I saw he kind of made an apology for it. Yeah, it's hard to know exactly what went down. But there was a full investigation and then they shut the movie down. So it must have been, it must have been serious. Big enough for them to shut the movie down. Also, as he's unsari was directing,
Starting point is 00:46:17 who's had his own background with semi-cancelation. Me Too, so he might have been an extra sensitive to it. That whole thing, he was... It's mostly blown over. It was a, without getting too deeply into it. A woman wrote a blog, a woman wrote
Starting point is 00:46:33 a blog post accusing him of going on a very bad date with her in which he sort of pressured her, but it wasn't an accusation of anything we would consider. It wasn't a Me Too date with his criminal or, you know. It was just like he's like a creepy predatory jerk. Well, more like casting him as a predatory
Starting point is 00:46:50 joke. It's how she wrote it. Yeah, yeah. That's how she wrote it. Yeah, exactly. Also, I'm trying to find that other story about Bob Chapic because remember there was some, so the board, we should say, he abruptly fires this guy. It's, you know, sources insider like, we can't believe this happened. Apparently took seven minutes to boot him. And I mean, in Hollywood, this guy was a very well-established, respected.
Starting point is 00:47:09 Yeah. But there was something else recently. We also did another story about Disney and Bob Chapich that made it seem like he is really prickly. Was it like he was a micromanager? The board expressed there. support for him after this firing. But I feel like there was some other story. Maybe the notice producers can help not that long ago
Starting point is 00:47:28 that really made it sound like he, like I was, I remember reading it and being like, it sounds like that guy is kind of not a great manager. He consolidated the, the way that Iger set up the structure of Disney. He like consolidated everything under his power and reported to someone named Kareem, I think is the next, his like number two guy below him. And then also him and Iger like haven't spoke.
Starting point is 00:47:53 Like they're like not on speaking terms. And apparently he's like really. Iger was like said he was going to help him through the transition. Yeah. He says like, you know, Iger's very good with the press. Right. So he gave all these quotes to the press like,
Starting point is 00:48:03 listen if Bob ever needs help, I'm here. You know, I, you know, whatever. I'm on his side. And Chappick took that as like, don't you ever talk about Disney behind my back. Like I'm the CEO now. It's what it seemed like the press was playing it up as. Because he's a little bit more prick.
Starting point is 00:48:16 He's pricklier than Iager. Like that that story also noted like Iger. like Iger just he was known for his unbelievable relationships with all their top tier talent. And like as soon as Chappah goes in, like they get in a lawsuit with Scarlett Johansson. And everyone's like, oh my God, dude, what are you doing? Like literally six months after he took over, they're like in a lawsuit with one of their biggest. Let's move on to the Disney. Prickley.
Starting point is 00:48:37 Plus. Disney Plus got stalled at some point or maybe it wasn't growing as fast. Well, it's they've set this very ambitious goal. I think it's 240 to 260 million. global subscribers. And to hit that number, they basically, a lot of it's going to depend on India. I think India is about 30% of their global subscriber base right now. Because it's a huge country, a lot of streaming.
Starting point is 00:49:05 A lot of people, a lot of them have streaming devices. So the Indian market, super, super vital for Disney moving forward. They have to really be expanding there if they're going to hit these global goals. We've seen with Netflix what happens, even if you have a. pretty decent explanation for why you didn't hit your global goal. It doesn't matter. Wall Street, very unforgiving if you don't hit that goal.
Starting point is 00:49:28 And what is coming up, Disney inherited with 21st century Fox's assets when they acquired Fox, they acquired the rights to the Indian Premier League cricket matches for five years. That was 2017.
Starting point is 00:49:44 So this is the last year. So now there is a bidding war for the rights to these Indian cricket matches, which in this country does not seem like, oh, it's make or break if you get the rights to stream cricket. But in India, very, very popular sport. So if they don't, and there are lots of other bidders up against Disney, Viacom has an interest there locally.
Starting point is 00:50:06 I think Amazon is also in the mix. Companies with Deep Pockets who could theoretically compete with them on this. And if they lose Indian Premier League cricket this year, that's going to cause a loss of a lot of subscribers in India. just at the time they need to be really adding all of those subscribers. So in this weird way, a lot of Disney's future global streaming plans now comes down to Indian Premier League cricket, which is not a high profile sport in the U.S. really.
Starting point is 00:50:37 The starting price for these rights is evidently $4.4 billion. Some estimates have the ultimate sale price at over $6 billion. dollars. Apparently, some Wall Street analysts are actually hoping Disney opts out of overpaying for these Indian cricket rights because it's so much but at the same time, Disney will not, it sounds like, will not hit those
Starting point is 00:50:59 audience goals without. Yeah. And I mean, this is what's fascinating to be, because a lot of those investors are pointing out too that the average Indian subscriber to Disney Plus is worth a lot less than, and I don't mean as it. What is it? Like a dollar a month or $2 a dollar a month? It's just their subscription fee is a lot lower so you
Starting point is 00:51:15 earn more from a European or an American subscriber. So focusing so much energy. I thought about this too. Netflix canceled that babysitters club show. And it was a big, talked about thing because it was very critically acclaimed and popular in the U.S. And the showrunner came out and said,
Starting point is 00:51:33 it has nothing to do with that. They're trying to grow in India and Southeast Asia and Africa and the Middle East and all these emerging markets where people have never heard of the babysitters club. It's not an IP that has value there. So I think that that's another thing that we're, looking at is like it's not just making content that the whole world is going to like it's like where do you foot where is the most of i do you do you worry about scraping that last 50,000 american subscribers you can maybe attract or do you worry about the 400,000 people you haven't reached yet in Malaysia you know like it's these very complicated i mean we're already seeing it in movies somehow sometimes like the overt love letters to china that are built into every big action movie right now like what's it's Moonfall, that one had a crazy one. Moonfall, that's absurd.
Starting point is 00:52:20 Moonfall has a whole Opaire character who's Chinese, and she's teaching her young charge Mandarin throughout the movie. It's just for China. Just a love letter. There could be some Chinese in the movie. What does it going to feel like? CCP fan service? What's it going to feel like for us here in the United States
Starting point is 00:52:37 when we are no longer the entertainment center of the universe? We will no longer be the sun. No, we will be. We just have to sell our souls when we go to China. 76 a month is. the average revenue per user from Disney Hot Star. Not Waystar. 76 cents. 76 cents.
Starting point is 00:52:52 Yeah. 76 cents for a month. It's like Waystar. Hot Star. It's a little bit like Way Star. Yeah. Way Star Royco. When's that coming back?
Starting point is 00:52:59 When's that coming back? I believe it's next year. I think Succession in 2020. By the way, where I listened to his autobiography, it was great. Putting a rabbit into the hat. Oh, Brian Cox. Brian Cox. Listen to Brian Cox's autobiography.
Starting point is 00:53:13 Putting a rabbit, putting the rabbit into the hat. It's just like the background. on how he got where he is and it's like all about theater and the 60, 50, 60s and 70s and 70s in England and it's just madness and his own personal story
Starting point is 00:53:27 and it's like deranged mom and craziness. It's pretty amazing. But back of the envelope on subscriber growth to hit this 260 million global subscribers or more conservatively 230. Disney wants to hit the more conservative goal
Starting point is 00:53:42 by the end of 2024. They have 10 quarters left to do since they just reported the fiscal Q2 of 2022 this year, they would have to grow paid subs by 67% over 10 quarters, seems possible, or an average compound average growth rate of 5.26 per quarter. Also seems somewhat reasonable. The more aggressive goal,
Starting point is 00:54:06 they got to hit like 6.5%. So it's possible. They grew their paid subs by 6% quarter over quarter in the most recent earnings, from 129.8 million to 130,000. and if your management there, the thing about live sports is like, that's a must have for people.
Starting point is 00:54:24 You know, that's why people overpay for it. So if you lost money on it, let's say you actually lost money on it, how many of the people, then you're doing calculation, how many people unsubscribe, you know,
Starting point is 00:54:34 take the time to do it, uh, or not captivated by the other parts of the offering. And that's why people will overpay for the stuff. I don't know if you saw, uh, the golf stuff. It's a whole other story.
Starting point is 00:54:44 Oh, yeah. I've been following this one to the, LIV golf is there a thing because I have
Starting point is 00:54:50 been wanting to ask somebody about this golf thing. You know, I just watch the things.
Starting point is 00:54:54 I've been very critical of the kingdom. Yeah, so they're going to I believe we're coming up on there's going
Starting point is 00:54:59 to be another one of these huge auctions for the LIV golf streaming. I think that's coming up in a few weeks.
Starting point is 00:55:05 Yeah. So they're going to do a bunch of golf folks just took the bag. They were like, here's a huge bag. We're going to
Starting point is 00:55:12 spend $2 billion. They said Tiger Woods had a high nine figure deal and passed on it. That's, I mean, the other folks seem to have gotten $50,000 million. We should say, the reason that he passed on, the reason this has been so controversial,
Starting point is 00:55:24 is that it's all funded by the Saudi investment fund. And so there have been a number. In fact, I think it's Phil Mickelson who took the bag, but only after he had to apologize for basically saying, like, these Saudis are crazy mother efforts who chop up people and put them in bags. And, but you don't want to not do business with them, right? So those comments leak, he has to apologize. Then he's like, no, I love this, the LIV tournament.
Starting point is 00:55:49 I'm playing. And then the PGA tour is kicking out all the golfers who signed up to be on the LIV tour. Pretty amazing when you think about it as a negotiating strategy. You're like, let me say the worst possible thing about Saudi. We know they're trying to sports wash. I think they call it sports washing, like greenwashing. We know they want a sports wash. So if Phil Mick is a Phil Mickelson who said this stuff, if Phil says this stuff,
Starting point is 00:56:12 and they are in fact trying to sports wash, if they get. him to flip, he was the biggest critic. If you flip the biggest critic, you succeeded in Washington. So this could have been the ultimate negging of the Saudis to secure the bag on a negotiating basis. You think he like Tala was pretending to be a double agent? There you go. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:56:35 Good good callback. It's insane. I mean, this thing is crazy because they're going to pay like five times or 10 times the amount that, you know, you make in the PGA, and they're giving these, you know, people who are, you know, like, these are not the top golfers currently. These are kind of like getting all-sars at the end of the career. It would be like signing LeBron James at 37 or something. Right. You can still play basketball, but, you know, he's no honest.
Starting point is 00:57:01 It's up-and-coming people who would otherwise, according to producer Nick points out, otherwise would have to pay, they have to pay for their travel on the PGA. So if you're not making those big purses and you have to pay to go to every. PGA tournament and then here the Saudis come and they're like, we'll fly you to this party, probably first class. We almost certainly will not chop you up. Like, let's go. Let's party. Nobody's getting chopped up. Yeah, no, they're on the payroll.
Starting point is 00:57:26 Just don't be critical anymore. And it's ending, my understanding is ending at Trump's Florida golf course, Dorado or LD. So of course, you know, Charry Kushner's $2 billion Saudi venture firm with the most ridiculous pitches.
Starting point is 00:57:42 I mean, the Saudis are good at this. Sometimes you get like, sometimes you really just get the peak all the way behind the curtain, right? Like sometimes the corruption does not even bother with the thinnest of face masks. Nope. And you're just like, yeah, I give up. The press conference was next level. Did you guys see the press conference clips? No, I missed that way.
Starting point is 00:57:59 Oh, God. You just have to type in like live press, live gone. They're going to stream it on YouTube to start. The first, the first one of these invitational is just going to be for free on YouTube and Facebook. This English is like, so, Phil Mickelson, is, is there any place? you wouldn't consider getting paid to golf. For example, like, would you golf for Putin in Russia? And given that you've made $76 million in your career,
Starting point is 00:58:24 is this incremental amount of money worth it to sell your soul? Your comment, please, Mr. Milcos, and they literally, the press laid into these guys. And then the guy was like, I love the international media. Our media is not doing that. Our media is just like, how are you doing about your stroke? Well, then this other person was like,
Starting point is 00:58:42 he's like, well, you know, listen, I made the best decision for my family and I, you know, PGA, I don't have guaranteed earnings and I don't get to see my family. In this case, I get to see my family. So, you know, I did what was best for me and my family. Some PR person was like, just keep talking about your family. And, you know, like, you did the right thing for your family. It doesn't matter who you're in business with. Also announcing the new anchor of the launch fund for a Saudi investment truck. will be angry it has. Oh no. It's a $500 million fund. Just here we go. Welcome our next guest. It's a $500 million fund.
Starting point is 00:59:16 NBS is here. Take the mask off. Just take it out. Just take it out. And we just, you know, listen. Listen, I'm critical of the Saudis, but everybody's got a price. Mine happens to be a PJ and buying the next.
Starting point is 00:59:28 So, welcome to the Saudi investment fund for joining Lodge Fund for. It's not happening. It's pretty funny. Oh, my God. How come nobody's trying to pay me off? Super critical. Stay tuned. Mohamed's been solving.
Starting point is 00:59:41 Coming up right in this spot next. Stay tuned to the next hour. Oh, my God. Dustin Johnson's initial LIV contract will exceed Tiger Woods career earnings on the PGA tour. That courtesy of Charlie Kennedy. My scotch. My God. PGA is very established.
Starting point is 00:59:59 If you want to take them out, you got to come big. Imagine they did this with NBA players? What if they did this with the NBA? And they came up with the live basketball association. Yeah. And they just put up $10 billion. Oh, my God. I mean, if it works.
Starting point is 01:00:11 Who could they get? Who could they get? Like, if they went to somebody and said, listen, LeBron, you're making 40. Well, LeBron's already a billionaire, but you know, take Carmelo Anthony or take Russell Westbrook. You go to the second tier. You go to the guys who are well established, but not the superstars. Nobody is giving them away. Well, nobody's giving Westbrook another contract.
Starting point is 01:00:32 He's making $44 million this year. And nobody's giving James Hardin one or whatever. because injuries, whatever. So what if they gave those folks like 100 million a year, like basically what the salary cap is here in the United States? Why are you giving them these ideas?
Starting point is 01:00:48 Yeah, don't stop. Oh my God. He's got his excited face on too. He's just like, I'm iterating on this genius startup idea. I'm making it even better. It's a hot take, but it's a dark take. It's a dark tank. You need to find like a chill nation with a huge sovereign wealth fund
Starting point is 01:01:03 and then we need to go to business with them. Norway have a big story. sovereign wealth fund. The largest in the world. The largest in the world. Norway turns out. If they rip the oil out of the ground. Big time, it's all from oil and a big time weapons exporter, Norway.
Starting point is 01:01:18 You wouldn't know. You wouldn't think. You wouldn't think. Business is, I mean, there's a lot of countries that need to defend themselves suddenly. There's a lot of danger in the world. Holly? Fair enough. It's a dangerous world out there.
Starting point is 01:01:30 It'd be a shame if something's out there at full strength right now. It'd be a shame if something happened to your little country there close to the Big countries. All right, listen, thanks for joining us, Lon. You're amazing.
Starting point is 01:01:40 As always, everybody follow at Lonz. And we'll see you next time. And get to watch on Star Trek. Yeah, next week. Next week. And episode five.
Starting point is 01:01:48 Yeah. Bye bye. All right. See you guys. Thanks to Lon, as always. And let's bring on Rachel for OK Boomer. All right,
Starting point is 01:01:54 everybody, it is Friday. And we have, I mean, legitimately, I know we say this every week, everybody's favorite segment, but it is.
Starting point is 01:02:01 We got OK Boomer this week with Capri Wheaton, or is it like the fancy island Capri. No, you got it. It was Capri. It's Capri. Yeah, you got it.
Starting point is 01:02:11 All right. Rachel, I don't, the hair looks great today. Thank you. I feel fantastic. I had to open up my window because I don't have AC yet. So you guys are seeing a lot of light coming in right now.
Starting point is 01:02:20 We got like the Beyonce breeze for those watching. Okay, but this is off topic. Capri Wheaton, a UC Berkeley dropout love building dressed, a peer-to-peer rental marketplace like Airbnb for clothes. Tell me more because you know how I love my rent the runway. I freaking love this.
Starting point is 01:02:36 idea. I actually saw it on Twitter and I didn't realize that she was the founder, but she was tweeting about this company dress that she founded. And it kind of reminded me of you actually, Molly, where you're obviously a huge fan of Rent the Runway. For Rent the Runway for me, it doesn't really make too much sense. It's really expensive. I'm not going anywhere really fancy, but it would be nice to be able to rent clothes for things like formals, for concerts and things like that. And that's the problem that dressed is solving and it's peer to peer. So I recently just put up a dress that I wore to my sister's graduation. Obviously, we work from home, so I'm not wearing dresses too often. I'm excited to see who's going to rent out my dress. The shipping is all included in it as well, so it takes away
Starting point is 01:03:15 that little issue. But they're currently, I believe, in beta right now. How much you're renting your dress for? I bought it for 60, and I'm renting it out for, I believe, like, $15. And the reason I'm going so low is the shipping I saw was also $15. You're going up to 30 at that point, but that's still like 50% off the dress. So I thought, I thought that was a good idea. It's kind of like Turo. Like you could buy,
Starting point is 01:03:40 exactly, you could buy Tours just for this purpose, which apparently people do in Miami all the time I learned when I was in Miami. They buy like, yeah, they buy like the G-Wagon Mercedes just so they can rent it to people who are coming to town and want to look cool. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:03:53 Oh, wow, that's fantastic. Oh, so like the Turo is the peer-to-peer. It's like, get around and stuff like that. Right. But it's individual cars and this is like that for clothes. I love this. So that means,
Starting point is 01:04:04 if you were to rent this dress five times, you would have made money. Yes, exactly. And ladies, how long would a $60 dress last before you probably would be a little worn out? Can it get $10?20? My big thing isn't it getting worn out.
Starting point is 01:04:18 It's me not wearing it enough. So my big problem is I still have my prom dresses and things. My sister just graduated high school, and unfortunately she's not the same size as me, and I saved all those prom dresses for six years now. They're really expensive, and I'm really short, really small. So if somebody else can get another wear out of them, that's awesome. But it's not necessarily something that I'm ready to poshmark out yet.
Starting point is 01:04:39 Like, I don't want to sell it. Like, I still want to keep it. But it's really silly to have something that expensive that's not getting worn year around. Yeah. It's great for the environment too. Yeah, definitely. Because, you know, here's the thing.
Starting point is 01:04:52 You would think the shipping would cost money, but the shipping routes are already set. So, and those trucks are not at 100% capacity. So it's one of the things I learned about shipping is like, the Amazon truck, the UPS truck that's coming through your neighborhood anyway, whether they drop something off at you or not. So it's, wow, what a great idea. And it's peer to peer. So they just take a percentage. They take 10, 20%
Starting point is 01:05:13 of whatever you get. Yes, exactly. So it's very similar to you, Poshmark, on the runway, how they go. That's how they make money. I said, it's still in beta, but you can definitely check it out. The bare bones of the product is live right now. And Capri and I got to talk a lot, too, about how her startup was impacted by their TikTok presence. And the reason
Starting point is 01:05:32 And then it's out and super bare bones right now. It's because they kept promoting it, kept marketing it. And finally, people are really like, when are you coming out with this? Like, we're ready for it to come out. So that's why it's really bare bones right now. Oh, good strategy. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:05:43 Super good. So we were able to talk about that strategy. You know what you should do is you're going to make a business out of this is if you if you did the full outfit where you said, hey, here are the sunglasses, the dress, the shoes and the accessories, I'm going to make a full outfit. And instead of charging you 15, I'm going to charge you 75, but you get the full outfit. So she is doing that for festival outfits.
Starting point is 01:06:06 Yeah. So you can do the whole festival. Right. Yeah. That's amazing. Exactly. Oh my God. You could eventually create a tier where you were like you had power users who just had great style like deep up.
Starting point is 01:06:15 You know? Like on depop you actually have like people that you follow quite specifically and you have people with great style to dress you. That's exactly what she said. We talked about the power user, power users on depop and how they'll be able to do that. But big fan excited to see to see what comes of it. I love this. Up next. Can't wait.
Starting point is 01:06:33 Boomer. Let's go. Thanks, guys. OK, Boomer. I understood the assignment. Thank you so much, Capri, for joining me on a segment of OK, Boomer. Capri Wheaton, you are a UC Berkeley dropout building Dressed. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:47 I found you on Twitter and I was freaked out because I actually didn't realize that you were the founder. I thought you were just reading about this startup and I actually died because I wish this existed in college. So dressed is a pure to pure rental marketplace. and the first thing I thought about was back in college. All my sorority sisters and I lived in our senior year in a apartment, right? And there was four of us when we exchanged our formal dresses and things like that. And Greek life at Penn State is sororities have different floors of like dorms. And normally the clothing sharing normally exists like only on that floor.
Starting point is 01:07:22 And I kept thinking like, oh my gosh, if we could just tap into like the other floors of the sorority or like other apartments or other girlfriend groups, like we would have such a network of formal dress. and I would never have to buy another formal dress again. And that is what Dressed is doing. I am obsessed with this idea. I love the idea of Rent the Runway, but I don't really have. First off, it's very expensive. Second off, like I'm not doing anything very nice. So Dressed, I am somebody who would use it.
Starting point is 01:07:46 Great idea. Super duper pumped to have you on. Thank you so much for having me. And I really appreciate that. That's sort of like what inspired this idea was my time and a sorority as well. So, yeah, that's awesome to hear. So is there any part of Dressed that I missed there? Is there any other aspect of it that you'd like to share?
Starting point is 01:08:02 That's pretty much it. Yeah. Although we're going to be experimenting with festival wear coming up pretty soon for the summer. So that will be really, really exciting. I know myself and my friend spend so much money on festival outfits. So now you'll be able to rent them for cheap. So I'm very cool. I love that.
Starting point is 01:08:20 So I actually uploaded this morning my first dress up there for other people. So I got this dress from Zara that was like really popular on TikTok. It's silk because a little underwear. but it's a silk purple maxi dress because my sister for graduation she wanted everyone to wear purple. I don't wear purple a lot, but I really wanted this dress and I really like it. So I'm extremely sentimental and I'm like, I can't just like sell this dress. And like myself, you're also a avid thrifter. I love poshmark, but I just couldn't poshmark this dress.
Starting point is 01:08:49 So this is a really cool use case for me, honestly, right now. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about what people right now are using dressed. Yeah, yeah. So we're still super early on. We've seen the most success actually with prom season, which we just sort of got out of. And so our TikTok kind of accidentally blew up and we kind of launched our MVP, sort of very unprepared, which is like the most basic version of our product that could physically function and get people to ship things. So, yeah, we had a dress that went viral with over a million views.
Starting point is 01:09:26 And then we had like Instagram DMs flooding, you know, with people. wanting to rent that dress. And then we did our first pilot launch with our first several rentals and everything went really smoothly. And so now we're sort of thinking about which events to target through the summer and through the fall because it's very heavily event-based. We have to be kind of very strategic in how we do our marketing because people are typically, as you mentioned, renting dresses for things like events or festivals, you know, really where
Starting point is 01:09:56 their only option is to either buy something super expensive or. to rent it. So that's kind of what we're thinking about right now. So totally makes sense that this blew up on TikTok. We've seen the rise of things especially Deepop, which was already in its own sense, you know, a really successful platform. The founder of Nasty Gal, I know, started off like her entire journey as somebody who was a like resold thrifted clothing and was really good at curating. So this isn't anything novel necessarily in the space, but the idea of swapping, I'm really surprised. nobody has honed in on, like I'm surprised this isn't a feature yet on Poshmark or on DIPP, which are, to the best of my knowledge, like the two biggest thrifting websites for people around
Starting point is 01:10:40 our age. Why don't you think this was something that existed within those platforms yet? Yeah, so it's really interesting. Actually, Deepop did, they didn't have this as a feature, but they did a, like, collaborate partnership with this purely pure clothing rental company in the UK. I want to say it's called. her collective, but don't quote me on that. But yeah, it was a really cool partnership and I was sort of following a lot of
Starting point is 01:11:07 Reddit threads and essentially what people were saying was it was really confusing in the Depop interface to sort of determine what was for rental and what was for purchase with that partnership. So people really wanted their own designated platform to do peer-to-peer rental. And so that collaboration ended up not being
Starting point is 01:11:25 as successful as Deepop probably hoped thought. But that peer-to-peer platform was, you know, ended up being pretty successful in the UK. So I figured, you know, there's nothing, you know, there's no peer-to-peer clothing rental company at scale. I think this would really take off within sororities. So, yeah, why don't I just launch that here? So, yeah. That's awesome. So I know, like the, I know exactly what you're talking about because I was really interested in re-commerce and like reverse logistics. A really expensive thing that happens with companies is the return process. The actual shipping is really expensive. So I've always been really fascinated also by, there's this one preface in Poshmark
Starting point is 01:12:05 in particular, where I swapped clothing with a lot of people. So you can bid on certain clothing or ask to swap it. I don't know if this is the feature anymore, but it was when I was younger. And it was really interesting. Do you guys ever think that you were going to branch out from the rental service into kind of kind of tap into that depot market or Posh smart market or right now or all your focuses on this rental space. Yeah, totally. So a lot of people have asked us about like a potential rent-to-buy model, which is something we initially thought.
Starting point is 01:12:35 Yeah, exactly. We initially thought that'd be something that we would actually launch with. But after sort of seeing the customer behavior and because peer-to-peer rental hasn't existed at scale yet, we want to keep it just, you know, to rental at first just so we can really hammer home that behavior and like get people to realize they can actually make way more money over time off the same items by renting them out. Because we've had a ton of demand for people to like want to buy things off of our platform. And we're just trying to hold out because I'm also myself a user of dress.
Starting point is 01:13:06 And I've seen like how beneficial it can be. So, but I think like any time you're doing something that hasn't really been done before in the market, you've got to kind of like wait a little bit for the consumer behavior to really sort of like catch on. Yeah. Yeah, no, I totally get that. So I guess I want to back up a little bit for pricing. Is this going to be like a fixed price like with Poshmark or is this dependent on where the person is based? Yeah. So we, the rentals are for now standard pricing. So there's a set rental price that the person renting out their item sets. And then you get to keep the item for about two weeks and then you have to ship it back. But right now you're paying shipping on top of the rental price. So that is something to be factored into the cost of renting an item.
Starting point is 01:13:56 But they're all pretty affordable. A lot of the dresses on our platform are renting out anywhere from like 15 to 70-ish dollars tends to be like the typical range. But a lot of those dresses retail for significantly more. So yeah, and then we're launching like a pickup model in the near future. So that will be really cool. Like as you're saying, girls on the same campus can just walk to another sorority house or drive to another
Starting point is 01:14:21 campus and pick up an item to save significantly on the shipping costs. That's awesome. So is that what I check out the dress and I see like that $15 and whatever it is with shipping, does that include the return process as well? Or is that just getting shipped to me? Yeah. So when you see the $15 on the site, you have to add shipping to that as well. Yeah. And then that will be the total cost for both ways of shipping essentially. And when you when you get the address, you get the return label. Usually in the pack. package, otherwise you'll get it on your email. Awesome.
Starting point is 01:14:54 Okay. So similar to Poshmark in that sense, but they give you the shipping. That's so much easier. My only problem, I really want Poshmark, which Rent the Runway has done this, and I'm not sure if any other place would be great at this, but I loved in, I worked at Goldman Sachs for like a summer, but they had a drop off for rent the runway clothing that people were done with.
Starting point is 01:15:15 And I'm like, it would be so cool, for example, like on a college campus for there to be a space. maybe it's like a box or something like that, where you can just drop off like all the clothes. And then there's people that are hired, I don't know, it's like hourly workers that can go through and like sort it out and say,
Starting point is 01:15:29 hey, your clothes have been dropped off. Like you can pick it up at a certain time for like the return process. Because something that I am like really not a fan of is every time I have to get a shipping label, I have to go to FedEx, which is like the bane of my existence. I feel like I have to give up my firstborn child
Starting point is 01:15:45 every time I want to freaking print something in the city. Yeah. So being able to like, I would rather. walk to the Whole Foods down the street from me, which is a little further away to return something to Amazon, then print out a label and have them pick it up from my house. So it's just the return stuff is mind-boggling. I'm so interested by the space. And I'm really interested to see how you guys, how you said your TikTok blew up. Who is making your TikToks? And then also, how did you know
Starting point is 01:16:15 that TikTok was like the correct platform for you guys to start marketing on? So I think it really, really, at first I was really inspired by Emily Weiss from Glacier and how she's sort of launched the Into the Gloss blog before she launched her product. And so for me, when I was back in like January 2020, when I was just sort of like, you know, coming up with this idea, we were also, we also just decided to launch on TikTok because I figured it was sort of the best platform to really quickly gain traction and really quickly gain interest. And also because, you, we're dealing with dresses and it's pretty visual. I just thought there was a really great fit for the platform.
Starting point is 01:16:55 So yeah, I mean, it was really just like, how can we sort of like get the word out, like start building our initial wait list before the product even launches. And I just felt, you know, TikTok was is the platform right now where you can grow the quickest.
Starting point is 01:17:09 So yeah, what was, sorry, what was the other question? I totally forgot. I think that was like a great answer. Honestly, very all encompassing.
Starting point is 01:17:15 And I think that brings up a great point that, um, you see a lot in, especially in like the CPG group of things where people say like or people don't say people do this. They build a community and then they saw that product into community. One person that is incredibly good at doing this is Marty Bell from Pool Suite who now sells sunscreen or something. I have no idea.
Starting point is 01:17:36 I mean it was Cool Sweet is sick. It's a community. It's really aesthetic. I think they started off as like an online radio channel that played good music. But the website's just really cool. Now there's a bunch of people that really like Cool Sweet. aesthetic website, aesthetic photos up on all their social media accounts, gives very, like, summary vibes.
Starting point is 01:17:53 And now there's a product that has come off of it, and I believe there was sunglasses before that. And I think it's really interesting the whole premise of, like, building a community before having the product. Like, you mentioned that you guys launched, like, really bare bones. Were you ever nervous about trying to build this community without having the product yet? Yeah, yeah. I was really nervous, especially because we were sort of, like,
Starting point is 01:18:15 we had some technical difficulties getting the app up. So for context, I previously had a technical co-founder, and we were going through the transition where he was leaving, and I was trying to figure out who was even going to build the app. Meanwhile, we had this TikTok community, and we were talking about the app on our TikTok, and people were commenting, like, are you ever going to launch the app? Like, what's happening? When's the website going to be out?
Starting point is 01:18:36 You know, like, people were kind of like aggressively pushing, like, when is this going to come? But, I mean, I think for us, that was just like a positive sign of validation. and I was like, okay, well, at least the good side is people are interested and people care when the app's going to come out. And we were sort of funneling people to a wait list. And then we used that waitlist to run like an initial closed beta test on test flight before we even did our like first pilot launch. So I think having that community was really able to validate a lot of the questions early on. Because I think I've tried to launch just like sort of bare bones before where like the product is out and then you try. to build the community after that.
Starting point is 01:19:16 And it's just, I think you lose 100% of the hype when you do that. It's like, what's the incentive for people to follow you? You know, they're not like looking forward to something, you know? So do you yourself have a presence at all on social media? So actually, my personal TikTok actually just got its first video with over a million views. Just the other day, I started it a few months ago doing like fashion commentary and talking about my outfits and I think I have like 5.7K, which is not that much, but it's been going pretty quickly. And it's been a lot of fun to sort of be building my own personal audience at this time as well.
Starting point is 01:19:53 So you mentioned Emily Wysse, who I think has kept a really good profile low. She doesn't do, she didn't do a lot of media or a lot of press. Yet Glossier was like very, very good at obviously. So make up they're phenomenal even. Maybe they're not doing super hot right now. but I'm a big fan of their cloud paint. I really like Emily Weiss on every podcast interview that I have listened to her of, and they're not that many.
Starting point is 01:20:18 I think she sounds like a really cool founder. What benefits do you see as being a founder with a social media presence or a presence in the public eye versus a founder that's more like Emily and not as public? Yeah, I think it's a really, really difficult decision, especially because I've always kept a very low profile on social media. like if you look on my Instagram, it's just like I post like very sparsely. Like I've only really started posting somewhat recently. And I had a TikTok for like a couple of years, but I didn't post a single video until
Starting point is 01:20:52 somewhat recently as well. I don't know though. I think I was just like thinking about like why I had never posted. And I think for me, the answer was I was just really, really scared about what people would think when they saw me posting. and I always just had such a big fear. I mean, especially on Twitter too. Every time I post, it's so scary for me just because it's so unfamiliar.
Starting point is 01:21:16 Yeah. So I think also, like, it was about like a personal journey for me of like feeling like it's okay to feel seen and like something bad is not going to happen if I post a TikTok. And then I think that coupled with seeing other founders having really huge success on their personal page and their business page as well. So I think the founder of August, it's like a period company. Yeah, I'm sure you've seen that. Totally.
Starting point is 01:21:42 Yeah, her personal pages is super inspiring. And you just see people like, you know, wanting to support their company because they love her as a person. And she's so open and she's so vulnerable. And so I think my goal would eventually, you know, get to that place where I'm like more vulnerable with my audience about like what I'm struggling with. And I think also as a female founder, like, we have to show what it's. it's like for us and talk about what it's like for us because there's just not that much representation. And I want people to know, like, you can launch a business. Like, you can launch an app. Like, you know, here's how you do it or here's how I did it. And I think that's the kind
Starting point is 01:22:20 of content I would have wanted to see as well. Very cool. I like that. I think it's difficult for people to share their journey as a founder no matter who you are. But I think it's an important space for people to be public about because one of my favorite books that I've read recently was burn rate. And the founder came on our podcast. He, the author is Andy Dunn, the founder of, I think it's pronounced bonobos, but it might be bonobos. I think it's bonobos, though. And he spoke about his battle with having bipolar as a founder and how it impacted his journey. And this was something like completely unaware. And I'm like, this is so great that he created this space, right, for people, especially people that have mental illnesses to understand like this is
Starting point is 01:23:05 something I can become a founder. This isn't going to hold me back. And I really hope that there's another founder out there that is going through this process now that is documenting it because I think it's so impactful to also have these experiences written out in real time. And we are incredibly privileged to be in this space where not only are you working out a product where you are the user, just like the August founder. She uses feminine hygiene projects.
Starting point is 01:23:29 And a lot of her content revolves around that. And that's cool, but you'd use dressed as well. Like that's such a privilege. like we have TikTok, all these different forms of ways to express yourself. It's like take as much advantage of that as you possibly can because this isn't a, this isn't a company where you can use the product or is it a company where like it's B2B SaaS where it maybe wouldn't perform very well. Do you see founders ever that focus too much on the brand building side of things than they
Starting point is 01:23:59 are the product building side of things? And if you've ever met somebody like that, how would you recommend like flipping that switch? I would say it's honestly the opposite where I don't think founders focus on it enough. And I think for me, like at first I was really struggling with the idea of posting TikToks because I was like, am I seriously going to spend an hour or two hours of my day? Like, you know, sometimes posting this content. Like it feels like, you know, maybe it's not the most productive use of my time sometimes. And I feel really guilty for that.
Starting point is 01:24:32 But the more I sort of started meeting people who are like genuinely building their company on social media, the more I realized like that's such an antiquated view. And as founders, we have to get on it. We have to go out there and build that brand. Like especially for me, like I have to go out there and, you know, hustle to get the customers. They're not going to come to me. You know, with the market we're, you know, trying to build for, which is Gen Z. Like it's not like they're really going to respond to paid ads. right? So, like, TikTok is the best way to reach that community. And if I can, you know, build
Starting point is 01:25:09 a personal, you know, brand for myself on TikTok as well, that's just even more beneficial because people are getting to know the story behind the company. People are seeing my fashion sense. People are learning more about, like, how to use the product. So, yeah, I think that mindset shift has been really helpful for me. That's awesome. Yeah, getting like a little bit of an inside scoop too. So I'd like to go back to like your your inception of all this. You kind of mentioned that you had a technical co-founder. And when I looked into that, I noticed that when you did drop out of UC Berkeley, you started a different company called Thrift, which was also phenomenal idea. And your co-founder was Sam Yang, who seems very, very awesome. And basically, users were able to turn their Instagram pages into custom shopable websites. Such a good idea. What constituted this pivot? Yeah, yeah. I think it was really, we kind of got to the point where we were uninspired to work on the idea because we, at first we were growing really quickly and everything was looking great.
Starting point is 01:26:15 And then our growth sort of started plateauing. We essentially, because our business model was like a SaaS model, we had different like tiers of subscriptions. And one of the key insights I realized is like when you're building for like the secondhand reseller space, you kind of need a business model that can, you know, capture the power users, but also the more casual users as well. And so we weren't really able to effectively monetize a lot of the users that we had. And so that was sort of a core insight for me, where I was like, I, it's just getting to this point where like, I know we could run this
Starting point is 01:26:50 as a lifestyle business, but is this going to become a multi-billion dollar company? You know, I really didn't have high conviction on that. And then when I came up with the idea for dressed. It really was just sort of like combining the model of like two very successful companies like Poshmark and Rent the Runway. It's basically a collab between the two. And I just had such high conviction. I was like, if we can pull this off, this can really exist at scale.
Starting point is 01:27:14 And I was just so much more excited about that vision and just, you know, the hope and the dream of building something that's really big that has a ton of people using it. You used to good term in that to super users, which, so for example, on depop, a lot of depop super users are these girls that just have, or and guys, but most of the people that are super users on depop are these girls who are insane at just curating the best clothing that's thrifted. And their accounts basically dictate like a huge part of the platform and a lot of their profiles are the ones featured. And I'm not for how many people use depop, but there are definitely like these massive super users that run the platform.
Starting point is 01:27:59 Like I said before, I'm not sure if that nasty gal founder started on Deepop, but she would be a great example of somebody that probably would have absolutely destroyed the space if she did. What does a super user look like on your platform? Yeah. So I think it's the same type of person who would be really successful as a super user on Deepop or Poshmark. So, you know, typically younger, like, you know, anywhere from 16 to 25. They're typically female. They're typically doing this as either they're part.
Starting point is 01:28:29 job in addition to high school or college or their full-time job. On Deepop and Poshwark, though, as you said, it's more about kind of like hyper-curating these like really interesting thrifted pieces. But for us, it's going to be more about curating these like specialty pieces at higher price points that people want to rent out. So things like, you know, festival outfits, you know, semi-formal and formal dresses. So that's really where we're sort of trying to change. the user behavior is like the real vision behind this is eventually people are going to be buying dresses um you know to for the sole purpose of renting them out um on our platform which is really
Starting point is 01:29:11 exciting um and i've sort of seen that myself um where i like bought a dress and like instantly made more money off of it that i even bought it for so um the process is working so i think that's a super exciting prospect i mean it's i was talking to um the founder of get a around. And it's just crazy how people will literally buy fleets of cars to rent out on get around in Turro. And as soon as I heard that, that just absolutely blew my mind. It was like, if people are buying full cars to rent out, like they can definitely buy a dress and make a profit off that too. It's such a simple thing. Think about it. Like Airbnb is done phenomenally. Why not, you know, kill it at the peer to peer space when it comes to clothing. Like, we've already
Starting point is 01:29:55 done houses and that's done incredibly well. We see cars incredibly well. We see cars incredibly well. well. I had a stint in like the reselling world pretty heavily in college, which I was just, I love shopping and you make some pretty good money reselling, especially if you're reselling to people, how I would cut the cost is I would resell to a lot of people in state college. So I wouldn't have to ship out the products to another place. And shipping is really expensive, like I keep saying. It's gotten a lot better, but shipping is still really expensive. So I used to do a lot of reselling in there. And it would be even better if I could continue that on and get those products back to resell like that. It's just this model is something I really like.
Starting point is 01:30:33 But what happens if like you see this worst case scenario where somebody like accidentally ruins one of the prom dresses? What would happen in that case? Yeah. So we're, um, this is actually an idea we got from one of our users in our initial beta test. But, uh, basically we're building a feature where when you upload your item for rental, um, you'll set like a fee that's called like the lost fee. Um, and that's the fee that we will automatically charge the user's credit card if anything happens to the item. Like, it's improperly returned. It's damaged. It's lost, et cetera. And the reason why we're sort of having the person, you know, who's uploading their dress set the fee is because we realize that, you know,
Starting point is 01:31:16 dresses are very non-fundable, you know, like people have different levels of sentimental attachment to their dresses. And it's a different level of risk for each person. So we want someone to be able to say, like, this dress to me is worth this amount, not just like the retail value because we're dealing with people's closet. So by the time we do our official launch, that feature will be out, which is super exciting. And when will your official launch happen? Aiming for end of June at this point, but it really depends on when the last couple of features will be done. So we're launching that feature I just mentioned and then a DM feature to where people can ask the sellers more information because people were sort of damming us.
Starting point is 01:31:56 to ask information about the dresses, but because we don't have them, like, we don't have any information on the dresses or their measurements. So people need to communicate directly to them. Yeah, I love, like, how you can have, like, that little description part in Poshmark and also the comments, like, I love reading through.
Starting point is 01:32:11 Some of the comments get, like, crazy. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Yeah, they're like, that's part of my favorite, but it'll be like, people will ask questions and the drama that happens in the Poshmark comments is pretty good. I'm not going to lie. Well, this seems like a freaking,
Starting point is 01:32:25 I'm so excited for your eyes to launch. Like I said, I already, I guess I'm using your eyes as beta or something at this point because I uploaded a dress. Really excited. If anybody's looking for that Zara silk dress, I got it. I was able to get my hands on it. I'm dressing it out. It's going to be cool.
Starting point is 01:32:40 I can see dressed becoming like a verb, like how I say like posh marting something. Like I'm going to start dressing something. Dressing something. I think that sounds right. But like I said, I think this is going to kill it. This is really cool. I'm excited to see a peer-to-pure version of rent the runway that's like within a price point that younger people can see I'd be a user of
Starting point is 01:33:00 this even now. Another thing that I'd like to see on this actually now that I think about it, that's kind of new is because I work from home, I don't really own like any business clothes anymore. Like I recently we went to a summit that my team worked and I literally wore the same dress pants for like three days in a row because I just don't own any dress clothing, nor did I really want to buy it. And I could, I would totally buy like interview like things if it was interview season, but you're interviewing for a job in person, but the job itself might be remote. Like, I would 100% use this.
Starting point is 01:33:32 So really excited to see what you guys use. I'm going to keep thinking of use cases and just hunt them down and excited to see if anybody rents out my dress. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'm super excited about it.
Starting point is 01:33:44 And where can people find you? Um, so they can find us on TikTok at shop dressed. Um, that's H-H-O-P-D-R-S-S-D on Instagram. at shop.dressed. Or they can find me on TikTok at capri. dot, L-Y-N-N. Yeah, or on Twitter at Capri underscore Lynn with, I think, three ends.
Starting point is 01:34:08 Awesome. Thank you so much. This was super cool and excited to see what happens. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

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