This Week in Startups - Oscars recap, FTX investors don't hold board seats, Apple working on hardware subscriptions | E1420

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

All news show. First, we recap the Oscars, including "The Slap" and Apple winning Best Picture (02:17).  Then, we discuss $32B crypto derivate exchange FTX not having investors on its Board of Directors (42:45), Apple's reported hardware subscription (01:02:12) and Jason's Hot Tub story (01:09:57). (00:00) Jason and Molly intro the show (02:17) Talking about the 2022 Oscars slap: initial thoughts, reactions, etc. (11:47) LinkedIn - Post your first job for free at https://linkedIn.com/twist (13:18) More thoughts on the 2022 Oscars slap (23:47) Rocket - Go to http://getrocket.com/twist and use promo code TWIST for 20% off your first placement. (24:58) “Coda” from Apple TV+ becomes first streaming movie to win best picture at Oscars (37:28) OpenPhone - Get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://openphone.com/twist (38:45) Toxic celebrity culture and how that ties into founders (42:45) FTX, one of the fastest growing crypto exchanges in the world is worth $32B and no investors have board seats (01:02:12) Bloomberg reported that Apple is working on a hardware subscription for iPhones and iPads (01:09:57) The Hot Tub story FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood

Hey, everybody, starting off the week strong with an all news show and it's a thick boy. Oh, it is. It is. It is. And how do we not talk about what happened at the Oscars last night, a streaming platform, a feature won best picture for the first time. It wasn't Netflix. But there was another story that just, you know what? Spoiler alert now. So you can prepare yourselves appropriately. There's another big story that we spent like 40 minutes on. And that's the slap. We did. Just. It happened. It happened. We went through every single permutation in relation to tech, social media, and celebrity, and media. And feelings. And our feelings on it. And we all have to process this together.

And we'll never going to talk about it again in 36 hours. And then, of course, we're going to talk about crypto continuing to boom. There is a exchange called FTX that's backed by major VCs. And apparently they have no investors on their board. and there worth $32 billion, what's the worst that could happen? And reportedly, Apple is working on a hardware subscription. We break down what it could look like in a world where you just pay Apple for everything. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. We're really liking the bundling that's going on.

It's going to be a great show. Stick with us. This week in startups is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. A business is only as strong as its people and every hire matters. host your first job for free at LinkedIn.com slash twist. Rocket. To hire in today's competitive market, you need outstanding recruiting. Rocket's expert recruiters, paired with machine learning candidate matching, sets them apart from the rest.

Get 20% off your first placement at getrocket.com slash twist. And open phone. As a startup founder, a lot of mistakes. are easy to roll back. But using your personal cell phone number as your company number isn't one of them. Open phone makes it easy to get business phone numbers for you and your team right on top of your existing devices. Visit openphone.com slash twist to get 20% off your first six months.

Hey everyone, happy Monday. We're going to do a new show today, as you might imagine, because frankly, we like to do that on Mondays. We've had a lot of days to watch headlines go by and just, like bite our tongues because we aren't allowed to talk about it other than constantly on Twitter. And there is quite a bit of news today. And I think you all know where we're going to have to start.

I think we can all agree that the big number one takeaway from the Oscars last night was a streaming movie winning Best Picture. Am I right? That's all we have to talk about. That was, yeah. That was sort of, I think, the number two, distant two. I don't know if you watched it last night. But I literally did a tweet where I was like,

the Oscars are bankrupt. I wouldn't watch this thing if you paid me. They don't know how to pick movies. The whole thing has become nonsense. It's not about cinema anymore. They've got all of these celebrities showing up, Kardashians. And then all of a sudden, I'm watching the Oscars, rewinding it, looking at clips.

I spent four hours on Oscar content last night. When I thought I was to spend zero, obviously we're referring to the fact. that there was an incident between Will Smith, Chris Rock, where Will Smith, uh, slapped? Slaps. You could, you could describe the slap anyway.

You like, an open hand clocking. Open hand slapped Chris Rock. And what an amount of emotion went through my mind. And as I tried to dissect this. Just so we can level set here for the four people watching who did not see it. Who did not see it.

Here's the Japanese version with Uncentered, get my wife's name out of your mouth. And so let's start with the joke heard round the world. He will spend

plans like, please. Lord. Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2. Can't wait to see it. All right? That was a nice one.

Okay. I'm out here Oh, Richard So what's happening now Obviously is Will Smith Coming on stage in There it is Wow

Okay So I think we can pause there Yeah I just want to start with I saw you and other people On Twitter I'm in the hot tub After a day of skiing

I'm a little appra to ski in the hot tub And I see my Twitter go off What just happened? What is that? Freep Bahara You Just everybody on the planet

Who would know normally maybe, you know, not be saying the same exact thing. Right. On Twitter is saying, what just happened? So were you not watching live? I was not watching live. So I get the signal on Twitter because I was tweeting. Yeah, it was a bad signal.

For sure. It's a bat signal moment, right? And so I watched the joke. Now, I want to start with the joke and ask you a simple question. Did you get the joke? Yeah. You got the joke as in, she, has a shaved head and G.I. Jane,

Demi Moore had a shaved head. Totally. Yeah. Okay. So I get the, I did not get the joke because when I saw them flashed to Jada Smith, I didn't know if that was her normal haircut because some women will wear hair very short or if her hair was pulled back. I just couldn't visually tell. It wasn't paying attention, right? So I don't exactly get the joke. And you hadn't seen the red carpet and right. I didn't see the red carpet. So I'm trying to put together what's going on here.

What is up? Yeah. So I didn't get the joke. Didn't land for me. And then I'm like, okay, G. I jane, it's a compliment joke because I saw your tweet about that. I was like, oh, babe. Is this a compliment or what the hell is going on here? Yeah. Because Demi Moore was, that was the performance of a lifetime, an amazing film. She was diesel, beautiful, amazing, powerful.

And I remember Jada Smith, because I don't know everything about their lives, but I do understand that they have a colorful life that there's some Facebook show, Red Table or something. I know enough about cop culture to know they have a very raw red table thing where they talk with their kids and other people about very details of their lives. So I'm trying to piece all this together in my mind. And I'm like, that's a compliment joke or a joke joke? It's not making sense to me. Yeah. By the way, everyone. I'm just in all of our listeners, I see our notice freaking out and jumping ahead.

We know we're going to get to all the contacts right now. We're reliving our live experience. Exactly. But I did see your tweet and I was like, ooh, honey. Did you know that she was suffering from ala pisha? I did not know that. You didn't know that. I did not. Evidently, she has been very open about that, but all I care about is like tech and business crap.

So I never read celebrity news. So I didn't know that. Evidently, she has been open about it. It was certainly a rude joke no matter what. Well, a rude joke to compare her to G.I.J. and if she had chosen the hairstyle would have been maybe playful but not playful and lazy

right it would have been like lazy but it wouldn't have been dated but it wouldn't have been like mean yes and so here's the thing once you know that she is suffering from hair loss and it's not male patterned ballness which men go through

it is rare for women to lose their hair it's an autoimmune disorder it's like really terrible yeah right so I'm like trying to figure all this out and I'm realizing, okay, does Chris Rock know this? Do you think, because this is the piece of information I don't have to make a judgment on what happened from Chris Rock's perspective. Because Chris Rock has been making jokes about the Smiths who are high profile, fair game, sure, making jokes about himself, making jokes about all kinds of celebrities. That's why you bring him there.

He's an insult comic. And it was an insult comic show, right? You have Amy Schumer, like, which we'll get to in a minute. I have a lot of thoughts about. Ricky Jervais, host of globes. Exactly. Like, it has become an insult comic show. Right.

And it is part of being a celebrity is that you get taken down a notch. A hundred percent new and evidently had made a joke to that effect previously, like had already made fun of this sort of alopecia situation. He had. Because I haven't seen that. So we're all trying to piece this together in real time. And I think that this is the interesting thing about this story in a media basis. Because think for a second, Molly, of what this story.

triggered. There is comedy, celebrity, marriage, defending your wife, defending your spouse, live television, Oscars being the worst program on the planet that's sort of disintegrated over time. Yeah. And maybe race a little bit. Oh, and then accountability. And accountability. Right. Yes. And cancel culture and should he be arrested. All this stuff is going through your mind. And I'm trying to figure out the joke. I'm still at the joke. And poor Jason's like, wait, I don't get it.

It seems like kind of old and then maybe it's okay. I'm trying to understand. And this is the thing about comedy. If it's funny, if it's really funny, that everybody goes, oh, that was hilarious. Let's move on. But if it's mean or a bad joke, well, now we're in a different territory. because here, what I need to know, the piece of information I don't have, did Chris Rock know she has alopecia or not?

That is the piece of evidence, I don't know. If he did know she has a disease, if she had had cancer and lost her hair, oh my Lord, you don't make that joke. And you certainly don't make that joke at the Oscars in front of the person. Like maybe in the comedy seller at 3 in the morning, like it's still distasteful, but maybe, I don't know, somebody tell me about comedy if you could get away with that, but you just don't go after people for their...

The Oscars is a highly scripted show, and there's no universe in which like Chris Rock or whoever wrote that joke, and I was talking to a friend today, and we were like the eternal mystery and the thing that we will never know for sure, because he will probably take it to his grave, is who wrote that joke and who approved it.

But a lot of people saw the script. It went into the teleprompter. So like, I have a long... great point. I didn't think about that. So everybody's complicit in the joke. Oh, everybody's complicit in the joke. Because they have turned the Oscars into a insult comedy show.

And I don't mean to be like the old lady mom in the room. But for years, I've been like, I don't really like this. Like, why is everybody so mean? Like, it's mean. There were me, you know, I mean. I love it. Certainly. And this is the thing about comedy.

People like different. Comedy, but it's not the thing about Oscars, right? Like, it's like, here. So in that context, you don't like it. I don't know. I don't, you know, me. You just generally don't like. I'm a general softy, right?

Like, I'm like, why does everyone have to be so mean? I don't like it. But. So you don't like the Comedy Central roast. You don't like Ricketts your face at the Globes. Okay. I don't. I think that, I mean, and I'm not even saying, like, some of it can be really funny.

And Amy Schumer had some great, you know, there was some funny moments. But it just, but, yeah, I don't understand the. And also, there's a time and place to do a roast and that's a roast. Correct. When you're in the roast, it's a safe space for roasting. And everybody opts into it. I'm just an old. mom. Listen, there's been a great reshuffling. Everybody is doing the great resignation. People are moving

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Yeah, but she is also a celebrity. They also do, here's the mitigating. I'm not saying this joke works, But if another joke about them, for what I understand, they have an open marriage or something, and they're incredibly public about this. And there was a joke earlier about it where one of the female comedians was kind of like, Hey, well, Jada, could I borrow Will kind of situation? Right. And they kind of left that off. That whole thing was also kind of yucky and weird, by the way.

That's also a little cringe. That whole thing of just making this wonderful, brilliant actress into just this like man-eater thing was also kind of gendered and strange and cringy. Yeah. However, when you get to the part where Will Smith walks up on stage and strikes a person on live television, strikes him, hits him in the face. Wow. And goes back to his seat. The cameras stay on him the whole time. Right.

Good job to the camera operators. Really? Or maybe you cut away from that. I mean, here's the thing. If you're the camera operators, your job is to stay focused on the people. I'm just talking about framing the shot here. Should the person who has their finger on the drop button and there's what, a 30 second delay on a show like that?

There's a 30 second minimum 15 second. We'll find this out in the thing. So this is what the time is on Twitter that it was 30s. Somebody has a button where they press if somebody curses. Because I think on the live, the American broadcast, you didn't hear. It was all bleeped. It was all bleeped. So there was a button.

So they bleeped the sound, but they didn't bleep the action. Right. They could have just come to commercial. And they stayed on Will Smith. And so at this point, by the way, I'm watching live with my son. Oh. I see this happen. Everything goes silent because they're bleeping the entire thing.

And I'm like scrambling for the remote. I'm starting to swear because I'm like, what just happened? Where the fuck is the remote? Like where is it? What is going on? A million Americans did the same way. What's happening? And texts come in.

And so, but then we look up. And even though it's silent, you can see Will Smith. And it's so, it couldn't have been more obvious what. he's saying, right? He's like, you keep my wife's name out your mouth. Like, yeah, it is clear as day. And I'm like, that is not a bit. It's not a bit. Oh, right. We've skipped over the whole part. Is this a bit? Tons of people like all the well into the night, tons of people were like, no, I still think it might be a bit. And I'm like, no, it's not a bit. Like, anyway, so all of that happens. We're trying to figure out if it's real or not. And then it just gets more.

and more surreal because the night just goes on. Poor Questlove wins a fucking phenomenal Oscar for Summer of Soul is so rattled, gives this like speech where he's just like, I'm a mess. It ruined the night for everybody. It's like a wedding where like some crazy uncle or ex lover, you know, crashes apart. He starts to fight and the leaves. And now it's ruined for everybody. Right.

And then it just gets weirder and weirder at one point like, who was it? they're standing there with a puppy during the memoriam segment and then being like, if you, the best thing you could do for Betty White is to adopt a rescue dog. I mean, it was like maximum surreality. And Will Smith is still just sitting there. There's no, it's clear that like from Twitter that people are talking to him, Denzel came over. Each of them had a publicist in their ear like br-bur-bur-bur-bur. We don't know if Chris Rock has come back.

We don't know if Will Smith. And so then my son is like, we should just turn this off. And I'm like, oh, no. He is very likely to win the Oscar. Right. And now we have to see what the hell is going to happen. This week in streaming, I start tweeting with him, who has done a great job the last couple of weeks. Thursdays this week and stream, we talk about super pumped.

We don't talk about super pumped anymore. We talk about the dropout. We don't talk about super pumped. We crashed. And I guess we're going to get into Severn soon. Anyway, so I'm talking to him. He's like, you realize he is going to win best actor in 10 minutes. And I'm like, oh, he is?

I didn't even know he was nominated. But then I'm like, oh, that's why he's in the front row. Because I did not pay attention to movies this year because COVID. It's like I don't. Yeah, most of us. I wasn't going to movies all that often. So this is like a surreal Oscars already because nobody's seen any of these films. Have you seen any of these films?

No. Right. Nobody's seen these because COVID, right? It's just like, and they're not, they decided most of them are not on streaming. And there were so much good stuff on streaming. these movies, if they're insisting we go to the movie theater, then how are we supposed to even see them because we have so many streaming options that are better, candidly.

Yeah. And even if they're streaming, it's sort of just like there's so much noise. I don't know. I mean, it is a weird. There's like a million. It's hard to sit for a two-hour film today. Yeah, it is. That's the other thing that's happening is like,

who can sit through a two-hour film today? Who has the attention span when you've got 40-minute, 50-minute, unbelievable streaming shows that are, you know, just a much easier meal to process. It's like going to fine dining. Going to a film is like going to fine dining. It's a three-hour experience, four-hour experience. We're parking.

You have to settle in and you're not distracted. Right. And it's all about the, it's all about the person making the movie. Like I sort of got to the point where it was just like, I don't need to sit here while you show off is the nicest way I can think to put it. Like, I don't need to sit here for your sort of three-hour masturbatory effort. Like, there's a moment when you go to a fine dining experience and it's not going great. If it's going great, it can be transcendent.

But there's a moment in hour two where you're on dish nine. And like, it's been hit or miss and you're just like, I don't want to get the hell out of here. And it's so self-indulgent. And the guy's like, oh, and then the waiter comes out. It's like, oh, here is, you know, a butternut squash souffle with air. And you're like, it's, you're giving us the ninth edition for 400. a person is butternut squash foam. He's like, oh, with a truffle, you know, emulsification.

And I'm like, you're serving us the foam off of boiling water. Like, yes, exactly. I'm like, all right, can I get a steak? You know, like like a rabbi? Please, can we move on here? It is kind of like that. That's such a good metaphor for what movies have become. It's just like it's all about you showing up.

Okay. So anyway, all that happens. Yes. And this is one of those. I mean, look, why are we talking about on our star? show because we all watched it. Because everybody was talking about it. There's no choice.

And because if you are very online, and I know that that is the case with our entire audience, pretty much, it quickly devolved into just a fast, like obviously memes, right? That was the simplest part. But it was so fascinating to see where people fell on this. It becomes a raw shock test, right?

It became a rush shock test, exactly. Right. Because there's a group of people who were then like, And this is where race came into it, gender came into it. Everything through identity politics, all of a sudden, starts happening on my feed. I don't know what your feed was doing. But I see a bunch of people are like, why is it Will Smith arrested? And then people are like, why are the white people saying, Will Smith be arrested?

I'm like, oh, my God, this is getting so dark. Yeah, that's about when I turned it off. I was like, okay. It was like, one o'clock of the morning. I'm like, I need to go to bed. I got a big show of Molly tomorrow. And people are now doing the identity politics thing, where they're just, replacing each character in the narrative with,

well, what if it was a white guy who smacked a black guy or a black guy who smacked a white guy? What if it was the rock instead of Chris Rock? I'm like, are you swapping out the rock because he's bigger because he has the same name? I'm just like, I can't keep up. I just can't keep up with you maniacs.

I mean, this is social media, right? Twitter is like a lot. Twitter is a lot. It's every emotion. When I was talking to Sam Harris one time, I was talking about we were having this like real existential thought. And Sam Harris and a friend of mine, we used to go out and have dinner every week or two in L.A. We go to Italian restaurant Poponais in Brentwood. When I lived there, a couple of my

friends live there, we just have this like existential discussions about AI and technology. I was talking to him about like, why do our minds go crazy and we can't slow them down? Like, and how that affects our lives. And he said, you know, when I was meditating with Ram Dass or something, he had named name drop somebody. He's like, explain it to me like this. There's a river. That's your mind. And all of the water going down are your thoughts. And your mind just flows like a river. It literally pops into your mind every permutation of every single thing. And it's up to you as a human to decide how much you pay attention to each little, you know, trickle of water going down the river. And you can then take a cup and pull one thought out and sip it, you know? Or you can dip your

toe into one thought, but you are not obligated to try to drink the entire river of thoughts or think that they all have meaning. But that's what Twitter is. It's just a river of every thought, unconscious, dark, beautiful, narcissistic, dystopian, and that's what we saw last night, was every permutation of it. And I did think to myself, I was very conflicted. Because if somebody said that to my wife, and I'm not saying this has happened before, but it not at the Oscars, if somebody said that to my wife, I would go down. I'm not saying I would hit the person,

but I'm not saying I wouldn't. I would definitely get in somebody's face if they came up to my wife and said something. And I'm not saying that's happened before, but people who have experiences, you know, would know if you're an East Coast guy, somebody says something to your wife. I feel like you are saying that's happened before.

I'm not saying, I don't know when the statute of limitation runs out in various scenarios. That being said, somebody's getting dropped. And if this was at a party and you came up to somebody's wife and you said some shit like that and you got dropped,

I don't think anybody is going to say to the, I mean, I'm not condoning violence, but I'm not saying anybody wouldn't give Will Smith the high five or a pat in the back and say, yeah, that guy was out of line. Yeah. Hiring well is one of the most important things a startup can do to increase the chances

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There is no risk with $0 required up front. That's getrocket.com slash twist, and use the code twist for 20% off. Whether you, you know, shoved them or smacked them, punched them, and that brings in another wrinkle that maybe only a guy would understand this nuance or had immediately gone to this. I immediately went to, well, he smacked him. He didn't punch him.

Right. He smacked them, which is what you're doing when you're telling somebody you're out of line, but we'll work this out later, but you're getting smacked now. what I think is so, so yes, and there are a couple. Did that in any way go into your mind as a woman, that it was a smack, not a punch? I'm just wondering, because you and I have these great discussions of gender

and differences, interpretation of things. Yeah, and I don't really know. Instant thing for me was, oh, he smacked him, it's no big deal. I was a little, really? Wow. Yeah, I mean, if he had punched him, I mean, he played biometer. Am I correct that Will Smith was in Muhammad?

Oh, no, he could have dropped him. Yes. What I actually, the conversation I actually had with the friend earlier about this was that he 100% could have dropped him. Yes. And he slapped him instead, which to me made it even more premeditated feeling. And that so on the way up, you knew he had made the decision. When he stood up, he had made the decision.

He had made the decision. Yes, 100%. And so that means there was maybe enough of a level of control to instead sit down. Or like, like here's how, here's how Will Smith comes out of this a hero. Look, if this happens at a party and Chris Rock gets punched, that's a whole different issue. This was a performance in a crappy insult comedy show that had already been going on for an hour and a half. And that, you know, some version of that had happened for like the past three or four years. He, that's a different scenario.

This is like a live broadcast and a billion people are going to see what you're about to do. If Will Smith goes up there, like here are a couple things that could happen. One, he leans over to Data Smith. He kisses her bald head. They both give Chris Rock the bird. Right. He's like, sure. That's a great one.

He's like, let me show you that I love and support you. And maybe he even yells, keep my wife's name out of your mouth. Sure. No violence. Just a warning. Or he goes up there and he puts his hand on Chris's shoulder and he, physically intimidates him because he's so much bigger. And he says,

that's not cool. Keep my wife's name out of your mouth. And then he goes and sits down. And then we're all like, could have pointed his face. Listen. Could have pointed his face. That's not acceptable.

Right? Like you're punching down. Then he goes and sits down. And then we all are literally like, God, what a fuck. I can't believe that joke. That's so discot.

You know, he shouldn't have said that. That's so cruel. And Will Smith comes out of hero. And it all comes down to self-control. But I will tell you the part that really took this over the edge for me, and that was the speech. So then Will Smith wins.

The speech was manic. The speech was actually terrifying and kind of psychopathic. And you could see all of these people on Twitter being totally triggered about the fact that, you know what abusers say to you? They tell you that love makes you do crazy things. Ooh. Interesting. I didn't have that interpretation. I just thought this person is unhinged.

Oh, that was like the first thing I thought. I was like that's terrifying. When you were saying, it is my love that makes me act this way. Yeah. Like, that is creepy. And he brings the Williams sisters into it and he tries to sort of make it seem like that he's like their father. And I'm protecting the people on the set. I'm like, that I didn't understand.

He's like, I'm protected me on the set. And I'm like, I'm sorry, the most privileged group of people in the world, celebrities. need to be protected on a set where they're catered to, like, queens and royalty where they will get you like whatever Starbucks you want and you can throw it at them if it comes out wrong and they'll bring you another one. Like, you're protecting them. I'm like, they don't really need protection celebrities. It was a great, being weird.

There was this reverse narrative, which was like, celebrities are going to stand up against this abuse. And I was like, that fell flat real quick. Yeah. And then the counter reaction was all these comedians who were like, that's not cool. now we're all going to get attacked at comedy shows. What did you think of that? Well, also true.

I did think that that had a little validity to it. And then you saw all of these people, I mean, you know, the dark threads when I finally was like, I got to put this down. We're like, wait, so Chris Rock deserves to get hit in the face on live television for what he said, but we should take Dave Chappelle comedically but not seriously. Like, what is the line here, right? What are we saying about comedy? What are we discussing?

I mean, it's pretty clear. Comedy's comedy. It's just words. You don't get to hit people for it. Well, and people, but here's the other thing, though, is like, people are people. Everybody's a mess right now. Everybody's super fragile. Coming out of COVID.

I think that, like, that family get some, like, and this is where I'm saying, a man who will hit someone on live television for insulting his wife is a man who will also hit his wife. Like, you're not that comfortable with that action. You don't go there first unless that's what you do. do on that red table thing. He admitted that like she said something to him like maybe mocked him in front of the family and he hit her with a newspaper. Like, oh, he said that. And then they kind of laughed about it and there's Willow there and there's the son tweeting, this is how we do it. Like there's a whole situation happening. There's a whole situation there with like, why would

you have a show where you talk about on Facebook about all your family's trauma? Yeah. And it's like, no, no, if you have trauma, go to therapy. individual, family, couples. That's why it exists. Right. And that's that the speech, I think, was the cringiest. I almost felt like the speech was more uncomfortable to watch than a smack. It was so upsetting.

It was really weird. But he's crying and then they're, why did they clap for him? I don't know. And then no one know what to do. And then they clap for him. And like they just, it was, oh, God, I don't know. All I know is it was terrible. Twitter was on fire.

That is, it was sad to say that the literal, I mean, I think I said it. I was like, first I rewound, and then I came to Twitter to be like, what the hell just happened? Let's all group process it. Let's all group process. So thank God for Twitter and also worse. And also, can we just stop telling jokes that try to push people to the breaking point? Like, maybe we don't need to do that. Maybe we don't need to do that.

I think a mentally ill person combined with a joke that, you know, I still don't know. I think Chris Rock needs to come out. and say, if he knew she had it and apologize and just contextualize this, very quickly. I don't know if he has or hasn't yet. I know he said he's not going to charge. He's not going to press charges. And then I think a bunch of people said he was kind of diffusing it and making jokes. But I felt like I really need to know if he knew she was suffering from, you know, this immune disease or she just decided to cut her hair short.

if she decided to cut her her short, I don't have as much of a problem with the joke because I thought it was complimentary. But I will say this in the simulation. I am guaranteeing right now that they make I chain two. Jada Pinkett Smith stars in it

because that's how Hollywood works. There's no way this inception in their minds that they're going to let this kind of marketing go away that she wins an Oscar for it and that she thanks Chris Rock. Thank you. It's a simulation. If that happens,

are in a simulation. And you tagged her? Oh, Lord. I guarantee she's going to play it. I guarantee it. I just know how Hollywood works. They would never let an opportunity like this go away. That is true.

She would be great as she's known for being like an incredibly tough, buff action hero. Is she not? Like, isn't that what she played in? What's the sci-fi film that she was in? Was she in The Matrix? She was in something that she played a really tough. Somebody pull up her. IMD Bay.

Must we? Can we talk about Kota now? It's been like 32 minutes on this. Has it hasn't been 32? So many minutes. I'm sorry we had to process this with you, but. We did have to process it with each other, though, honestly, because we were all on Twitter last night. Oh, she was on Gotham.

Oh, she was in the Matrix? Okay, great. She was? A lot of people are thinking she was on Gotham, and she was amazing. 100% she is going to play Jerry Jane. I've always loved her as an actress. I don't know why he was making fun of her as an actress. actress either because she's awesome.

I always love seeing her on screen. He's made fun of her a lot, apparently. I did see that going by on Twitter and one of the notes is saying the same thing. Yeah, the other bit he did at another Oscars or some people's choice of what or something was like, you know, her, she was like commenting on the Oscars and that would be like him commenting on being Rihanna's lover, like he was not invited. So he was kind of dismissing her as like a B-List celebrity, C-List celebrity before. Okay, so I was just informed that by my producers that the year he went after her was

the Oscar so white year. And he was presenting, but there were no black nominees, I believe, that year. And so it was like, what's going on here? The whole thing is just a mess. We can move on, I think. I think we've basically processed every possible angle. Is there any angle left unturned yet?

Well, if so, they'll all come up in our group chat later. It'll be in our group chat later and on Twitter trending. Somebody, Chris Rock, for the love of God, you know, make a formal apology. We have not heard the end of this story. There is going to be more coming out of this because the academy part of it alone, just sort of like, Oh my God, the woke academy.

Like not doing a single thing. Having a like, stop saying woke, having a like assault happened on live TV and not doing anything about it. Like, it's just. Well, I mean, the academy was historically very racist. I mean, and then they tried to flip that, right?

I mean, that is the history of it. Kind of. So Coda. streaming movie wins Best Picture and that is a big deal it's also a big deal because Apple beat Netflix there I want to see Cota so badly now

I had heard the buzz about it I have not seen it you haven't seen it either I take it I haven't seen it but I saw that the lead actor win best actor and I bawled like a child I knew it I was like Molly is crying right now Oh ugly cried I ugly cried over that It was so beautiful and the woman presenting the award like stopped and was like

and then just sort of, you know, and then signed his name. I mean, it was just stunning. It was stunning. The woman who wouldn't leave the stage, as you noticed, they were trying to pull her off the stage, like,

well, no, because she was like, I'll hold your award for you because you need to sign. I know, but you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to move off the stage. You give that person 100% of the moment.

I think they told her, though. I think they told it because he needed to sign. So she was like, I'll hold your award for you so you can have both hands free. But you still take a step back. So if you look at the tape, I was all in this investigation. And also she was like, you're great and I love you and I'm going to stay here.

She was fawning over him, and it was very endearing. It was adorable. Oh, my God. So it was so historic. It was so incredible. And he was, I think, the first deaf actor to win any kind of an Oscar. And then Apple TV plus. They said second.

Oh, that's right. Did Marley Matlin win? Maybe Marley Matlin did win one. Yeah. Maybe for best, maybe for best actor? Marley Maton did win best actress in 1987. Okay. For her role in Charleney Matlin.

Children of Lesser God. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Incredible performance. So second time. First deaf man? Anyway, either way. It was lovely.

Children of a lesser God, yes. First deaf man. Yes. Exactly. Okay. Phew. Good. I'm like,

there was a first something. And it makes Apple TV Plus the first streaming platform to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, which is. And then Netflix won Best Director with Jane Campion, and I believe becoming only the third woman to win a best director award for Power of the Dog. and you've got a thing that that Netflix was like, we spent so much money

on all these movies over the years and freaking Apple TV Plus comes along and wins best picture. Wait, wait. Power of the dog was Netflix? So they lost. But the fact is, it's still the year of the streamers again.

It's the year of the streamers again. Yeah. It's huge. Listen, lots of founders are Lucy Goosey with their personal numbers. We all know that. They put it on company documents, they use it for sales calls and more.

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I love this kid, Jesse Plemans. I tweeted, like, I don't remember his name, but when Jesse Plemons comes on the screen, I'm riveted. He is my new Philip Seymour Hoffman, like, or Benedict Cumberbatch. Like, when I see him, I'm just like, it's pure talent. And I'm going to see the power of the dog for him, first. Benedict Cumberbatch second and Paul Dano third. I love all three of those actors.

I like all of them, and I also have no interest in that movie. I don't know what it's about. I know it's a Western or, and I know that another person was like making fun of it, and the director made some reference to Venus and Serena at the People's Choice Award or something that was cringeworthy. I mean, why do we look for celebrities for any kind of? I mean, honestly, that is exactly. That is the maximum point here, which is like our celebrity culture is so toxic.

It has been for decades. It's not a new observation, but oh my God. Why do we care about what celebrities say? They're d-b-they literally put all their effort into being famous. They're fame balls, mostly. Yep. And they have no judgment. They have nothing interesting to say 95% of the time.

But we do the same thing with founders. It's true, too. It's a whole, you know. Why are looking for our founder? Celebrity VCs in order to get deal flow. Like, it's a whole. Whoa, whoa. Pump the brakes there.

We're doing it for a good reason. Listen to our opinions. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. We get the idea of glow anyway. In the words of Bob Dylan, trust yourself. Like, you do not need to trust a bunch of celebrities to mitigate your view of the world or VC celebrities or founders.

Trust yourself. Come to your own conclusions. Think first principles. Do your own research. And have some like moral compass as to like what is acceptable in life. Period. End of story. Enough with the celebrities.

Enough with the celebrity culture. Enough with the politicians. A love with the celebrities. Enough with the founders. the VCs, all this nonsense. Let's talk about the celebrity culture of the crypto world, am I right? Oh, God, here it comes. That was not a great segue.

We got to work on that segue. You perfectly got me off of woke. You admonished me for using the term woke. Everybody loved it in the chat room. People are going to start calling you Twist Karen. They're like, and people were already like, oh, I'm going back. So can we show one meme from the slap that is, perfectly, it's a perfect segue

to the show. I don't know if I want to go to the memes, but okay, we're going to do a quick meme. No, no, I'm fine with doing rapid fire memes. Everybody loves memes. Rapid Fire, because most of them are really bad. No, just one. We'll do one.

That's fine. Wait, wait, wait, now you told the audience that they're terrible. They want to see them. Give us one meme. Okay, Chris Rock and this meme plays decentralization. And Will Smith plays and Trison Horowitz.

VCs purchasing 90% of governance tokens, basically. It's an A16 Z joke, I think. Nah, I give it a seven. I get the joke. It's not bad. All right. Let's stop watching that man hit that other man, because frankly, it's not that fun.

Please, it's too violent. I do like the Knicks fans. This is a no joke. Only Knicks fans can like. Nix fans with Tibbs leaves the start as in through the entire third quarter. It's really funny that one because Will Smith is from Philly. Oh, God. Chris Rock is a diehard Knicks fan from New York.

Anyway, moving on. It has to stop. The meme, how long do these things last now? Is it 36 hours as the meantime to moving on? Meant time to MTTM. MTTM. MTTM. To moving on.

It's now 36 hours just happened last night at 8, tonight at 8, which means sometime in the morning on Tuesday, you're not going to hear anything about this. 36 hours is MTTM. That sounds great. And we are going to MTTM. Now, 36 minutes into this discussion. Nice. Nice.

That's one. Thank you. May linger, but we'll see. No, please, no callbacks. Despite my terrible attempt, a clunky segue. You are the queen of the transition, though. I will give you one. I mean, sometimes the awkward joke is a really funny joke.

They're so professional. I mean, you have brought a level of professionalism to this show that I, even I cannot drag down. Oh, I love you as my co-host. I just have to say, this is the missus. best part of my day. Other stories that we can't stop talking about, obviously, the banana pants crypto universe and the fact that these deals are now so hot and VCs are so desperate to get into these hot crypto startups that they're passing on board seats. I'm sorry. My monitor went out here in my ear. You said locking down a board seat. I think it came in as passing on board seats for a $32 billion

company. I think you meant assuring there was proper governance. Is that what you said? Right. Yeah. No. I said, yeah, they're just not going to have any. They're just not going to have any governance of these companies. No, no, please no. Double barrel. You can't see this right now, but red flags are waving our red flags. Quadrupa red flag everywhere. The case in point today is that FTX, one of the fastest growing crypto exchanges in the world, is worth $32 billion and evidently none, not at one of its investors, has a board seat. It's so ridiculous. Like, what is happening? Come on.

It only has three board members. It has three. Founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, FTC's executive Jonathan Cheesman, previously Goldman Sachs and Goldman Sachs in HSBC, and some attorney, based in Antingua and Barbuda where FTX is incorporated. TIGWA. And Antigua attorney, shout out to the 17 attorneys in Antigua. I'm just going to keep my red flag just as my hat today. It is so crazy.

It literally should just be. What is happening? What is happening is right? What is happening? It's so crazy because we just went through this where on All In, Brad Gersner and Schaumov and I were talking about companies going public at high valuations and the private market investors right before they go public, not putting into their deals a ratchet.

In other words, if the company is going to go out at 20 and then you bought shares, you put a, you know, a billion dollars in for a $20 billion valuation, you own 5%. If it does go out of 10, then instead of getting 5% of the shares, you know, you would get more shares to make up for the fall, right? And in the valuation, you get 10%. Anyway, this is crazy. LPs need to talk to their VCs and this is where they're. The LPs actually can have...

Actually, great point. This is where LPs can have a little bit of common sense and just say to... They don't... And see, LPs now are pissed or scared of pissing off the VCs. VCs are scared of pissing off the founders. And the founders are scared of getting ousted or taking advantage of a crazy moment in time. You know, and just... And all this is...

Oh, and by the way, just as a side note, just this... Just in the latest story about how there's a company called Casio, a Salinas, stable coin project that was hacked by some sort of like Robin Hood type who returned smaller amounts and donate the rest. And now this, you know, the back end is saying like, we can't compensate users. And I'm reading all this from Web3 is going just great, which is all about all of the scams, all of the hacks, all of the ways in which people are losing money at this. And then the idea that you wouldn't even have governance saying like, is it safe? How's your security? Like, do you have contingency plans in the case of one of these hacks so that you could return the money to users?

Like, none of that is just, I don't understand how we keep dealing ourselves these self-inflicted wounds as an industry that I have only recently joined. Yeah, exactly. So let me just say this. This does not mean all these red flags that the founder did not do the right thing in negotiating the best deal for them. And this does not mean that the business itself is not a fantastic business. But proper governance is something that protects all shareholders. It protects the employees, all stakeholders, the employees, the customers, the partners, the investors, the LPs of the funds, and ultimately the public. You want to have proper governance so that if somebody makes a bad decision, there's somebody there who says, you know what, I've seen this movie before.

And this is not in the best interest of all shareholders. And we should have a vote. Or we should have a discussion about this. And then if the discussion leads to, you know, people having a difference of opinion, you say, you know what, let's bring in some consultants. Let's bring in some outside people to give us their opinion on what we should do. Let's get some experts. Let's get some attorneys. Let's get some accountants. Let's get some HR people. Let's get some consulting group. And you have a very thoughtful, you know, debate over the merits of what you're doing. And then based on that, hopefully you can have a vote that then leads one way or the other. Well, if this was WeWork, And the founder got super voting shares, which eventually Adam Newman did get, then nobody could stop a founder who's out of control. And is spending the investor money and double dealing, which is what we worked in, right? You guys know the story of him selling the IP back to himself,

buying the buildings and selling them back to the company, all of this stuff, proper governance would protect against. And in fact, in that case, the press wound up being the governance as a bad stop. If the press is your backstop, governance has failed. Let me say it again. If the press is your backstop, governance has failed. If Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes, and Adam Newman had proper governance, it would have been John Kerry Rue and whoever broke the stories about the other companies.

That needed to be the backstop. This is where the press does a great job. This is where the press is necessary. This is where investigative journalism is brilliant and important. But we as capital allocators need to play our role to not just abdicated. Is that the word to the price? That's exactly the word. Which is stupid.

And I don't, you know, I see Nody's saying that this guy is such a great founder and this is a really good company. And here's the thing. Sure. Could be true. Maybe. But if he's the guy insisting on not having investors take board seats, if he's the guy who's essentially saying your investment, you know, I know you really wanted this deal. And the way that you're going to get in is with this contingency in place, I am skeptical. I think there is good reason to be skeptical of someone who doesn't want oversight.

That almost never is a good time. Precisely. It makes you better. You should want it. And I just want to also look at the funding history here. And this is not like a, I mean, if I had 20 red flags, I would be waving them. But I'm just going to pull out my red flags here. 2019, they raised $8 million.

We don't know what valuation. But you would assume for 10% of the company, 5% of the company, some in that range. So that would be eight times. 20, 160 million. I'm just taking a guess on that one. Educated guess. January 2020, they're at 1.2 billion. 18 months later, July of 2021, this is all during the pandemic, they're worth 18 billion. That is 15x. No business grows 15x in 18 months. But okay, maybe it was undervalued. I don't think so. But if we go back to 2019, two years earlier, it was probably worth 150. So now we're talking about 100x in 24 months. That's a major red flag. But the red flag

continues because from July of 2021 to October of 2021 August, September, October, three months later, the business were 25 billion. So they had $7 billion in market cap. They added a peloton in market cap. That doesn't make any sense. And then, Molly, we go from

October 21 to January of 2022. So November, 2021, December 2021, three months later, they're adding another $7 billion. So this company every three months, it had $7 billion in market cap. while crypto is going down in value during those last three bumps during those last three sure i mean it did go bonkers

we should acknowledge at least that crypto did go absolutely supernova during the pandemic however there were also players coming in every hour yeah and so it's it's hard to imagine that one company was able to snap up this much value and this much market share and grow this fast also i I mean, look, maybe it's fine, but FTX is incorporated in Antigua and Barbuba and Barbuda and moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to the Bahamas in 2021. I don't know. Like, there's just this whole, I don't know. Another red flag. I don't know why that seems like a red flag, but it does.

Like, why aren't you just incorporated like in Delaware like everybody else? It would be because of regulations. It's because of regulations. Moving out of Hong Kong would be to get out of the Chinese government, which could seize your business at any point in time like they've done and change the rules. So that makes sense. Then the next logical place to go would be America, I guess, or London, you know, two capitals of finance in the world. But we have a little clip.

Should we hear why? We apparently have a 38th. Well, even better. So here's the founder, Sam, explaining why. To need to move the company away from Hong Kong and how significant are those factors behind the decision in terms of hurting the future of crypto? Yeah. So I think the biggest things that we're thinking, we'd never had a single sort of formal

headquarters before. And we were really excited about establishing one in the Bahamas. I think the biggest things, first of all, they pass a really progressive, forward-looking bill regulating the crypto industry there. It's one of the only countries in the world that has a comprehensive licensing regime for crypto exchanges. That's really exciting. Frankly, the lack of quarantine to get into the country is really important. It means that we can get in and out, that we can have business meetings. Okay.

I kind of buy it. Those are some good reasons, I guess. I don't know, man. Very strange. This is one big red flag. So from FtX's website, another wrinkle here. FtX does not on board or provide services to corporate accounts of entities located and established in or residents of the United States of America? Why not?

Cuba, Crimea, Sevastopol, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, and North Korea. We understand the authoritarian, you know, blacklisted countries there. But why wouldn't they? But also the United States. But also, we're putting the United States with North Korea and Afghanistan and Syria and Iran, really? Something weird there. I think they don't want to be involved in any U.S. regulations. So, okay, I think looking at this business, it could be on the up and up.

It could be they just don't want to touch Americans because they don't want to get dragged into regulations, which is a bit of a red flag for our SEC, which is not defined clear rules. Yes. FTCS has a U.S. focused division, which is independently set up to comply with the U.S. laws and corporate structure requirements. And that business is worth $8 billion. Okay. So I guess they've separated out the businesses because they don't want one to touch the other. That actually makes sense. I do think the United States needs to be super clear on these. And I think the clarity should be, listen, if you're raising these things, their securities, unless people are actually using the

tokens in the ecosystem. It's very simple. I really want Gary Gensler to come on her show. I'm sorry. Go ahead. We should have, I mean, I think it's an open invite, but just as a concept here, if you buy a utility token, here's a easy test. And I know that crypto people are going to flood my replies here, but, you know, explain to me why I'm wrong. If it is a utility token and it's used and it's not for speculation, then there should be a requirement that you have that utility token and you use it as a utility within 24 months of buying it or the product or service being offered. In other words, if there are miles, if, If people were buying and selling airline miles, Molly, and never cashing them in for gift cards or flights, you would say that person is involved in them as a currency, would you not? They're speculating.

The same should be true of crypto. And so you have to prove that you've used your utility tokens and you're not sitting on them. So you have to use your utility token every two years. So it makes sense that you could stockpile miles for a year or two. but if you're stock buy a mile is for three or four or five years, that would be a very fair test. And then anybody else who buys them, they are buying a security,

therefore it's under securities law. So I'm not saying you can't buy them, but you would have to buy them under a different designation. So you're buying the coins to play the game, great. You have to put the quarters into the arcade machine. If you're buying them to do smart contracts, to buy NFTs, you have to actually buy NFTs,

but if you're buying them for speculation, a different rule, and then always, I think, under $10 million a year, I've been talking about this for a while, or maybe let's make it $100 million. You can raise up to $100 million for any project every year,

but no person can put more than $10,000 of their average two-year tax return into that project. Well, and so then as it relates to FTCS, if those rules were clear and this exchange knew that those were the rules under which they could operate, it would give them the regulatory clarity to know,

like to be able to operate the business as a whole in one place instead of have to segment it up the way it has been doing. We should point out that the U.S. business does have a board of directors. So in mind of good news, the U.S. derivatives business has a board of directors chaired by Larry E. Thompson, who was previously General Counsel of the Depository Trust

and Clearing Corporation. So it seems to be taking different approaches for different businesses in different locations, some of which maybe have more oversight than others. But this is a trend. And so Pitchbook, which is a great service, my friend John Gabbitt, started it. The Financial Times broke this down with pitchbook data. Over 400 cryptocurrency startups have raised a series A without raising another round of funding over the past few years, which could mean they went out of business or their zombie startups,

but it more likely means they've been raising through tokens and non-dilutive funding. Half of those had only one or two directors on their boards according to analysis by Pitchbook. So that is a big red flag. You know, when you, after you raise a series A, you should have a five-person board. Generally, one or two of the founders, one independent, one or two investors is how it would break down. You should have five. You shouldn't have three. You don't need to have seven or nine or twelve or whatever odd number, 11, 15.

That would be a public board area. So five is the right number. And so these have roughly half or 80% less. It could also be Pitchbook's data is not perfect because they can only go on what information is given to them. But yeah,

there's red flags all over this. And it's going to, I think we were talking about this on Thursday when we had Law &Rour for this week in streaming that we will see in five years a wave of cryptocurrency scams becoming made for TV movies. Absolutely.

And also that we may see another wave of that we've seen over the years like after the dot-com bus. there was, you know, every founder had to have a grown up in the room. Then a lot of power returned to founders. Now you're seeing a double whammy in crypto of it so hot and exciting that you have power return to founders and the governance contingencies effectively. Like I won't be, I won't give you a board seat so that you can take my money faster.

And that we're likely to see a pendulum shift as a result of that too, to like more public governance. You will also see a repricing of all of these projects. Just like we saw our repricing of all the growth stocks over the past, you know, six months in the public markets. So what we're seeing in public markets is being reflected now in private markets and we'll eventually make it to the crypto markets. This level of, as Brad Gersoner said on All In last week or over the weekend, this Red Bull High is not coming back for growth stocks. It's going to be a return to the five-year mean. And we'll see something similar in crypto.

And by the way, if you're in crypto and you have one of these overpriced projects, sell as many tokens as you can now. Just like people who were in some crazy dot-com company should have sold it or people who were in some crazy growth stock over the last 10 years should have taken some chips off the table. Take some chips off the table. It's my best advice if it was like a family member. I'm not giving financial advice, but that's my financial advice to a family member. Perfect disclaimer I can always give. this is what I would advise my brother. And just to be clear, FTCS is raising not in a token sale.

They're raising from venture capitalists. The most sophisticated investors on the planet who do not need protection are making this crazy bet of no governance. Period. Full stop. So you don't have to worry about them. They are making these decisions with eyes widely with people's retirements and endowments from giant universities. Or whoever put buddy into these as LPs. I mean, LPs wake up.

I mean, if I have an LP, I'm literally having an emergency meeting with all of my crypto-related funds that I'm L-Ping and saying, whoa, I was just watching Miss Weekend startups and Molly, J-Cal, we're talking about no governance. Can we do a governance review on every project? What is happening? Yeah. What is happening?

Proper governance people. Then we don't have to make TV shows. I'm sorry to Hollywood, because if proper governance comes back, It's going to be a lot less drama on these TV shows. It's going to kill streaming. We can't have proper governance because we need the IP. Well, I mean, imagine another another Marvel sequel. What do you guys want?

What do you want? Imagine Varanos had proper governance and they had told Balwani and Elizabeth Holmes, okay, you're going to be VP of product and you're going to be chief visionary officer and we're bringing in a proper CEO. The proper CEO would have been like, give everybody their money back. But they didn't. And that company did have proper governance. It just had poor governance.

Like they made a mistake, but they could have ousted her. And they didn't. Exactly. They were rolled. They got rolled by their CEO. Also for like a nanosecond, I thought you said, imagine if Thanos had proper governance. Absolutely. If Thanos had proper governance, he wouldn't want to kill half the people in the world.

Statistic maniac. He would have wanted like two of the Infinity Stones, not three. The Infinity Stones are the board members. You give all five Infinity Stones to one person. They snap their fingers. That's it. Somebody make me. Somebody make a meme.

A meme of literally, literally Zuckerberg collecting the infinity stones of everybody's voting shares. Peter Teals, and then have Zuckerberg snap his fingers. It's genius. I mean, that is freaking genius. I'm coming in hot today with the double coffee.

Coming in hot. All right. So we do this one last story about Apple and it's, I think it's arguably the most interesting one, and then I'll go to the Molly hot tub story. I think this is fascinating, and I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this idea that no one can afford anything,

and so every single thing needs to be broken up into payments, and yet it makes things pretty accessible. Okay, let me tell you what I'm talking about. Last week, Bloomberg reported that Apple's working on a hardware subscription for iPhones and iPads. Bloomberg's sources were people familiar with the matter and a spokesperson for Apple, not surprisingly declined to comment,

but this would make device ownership similar to, you know, paying a monthly fee. Now, I actually think this is something that Apple, well, isn't this what we already talked about, first of all, but this is something Apple's already doing. Like, people effectively buy an iPhone

has a subscription plan now anyway. And it seems like Apple's saying, let's just maybe if indeed these reports are true. Like when you go to buy, you check out, if you have an Apple card, they offer you monthly payments. Right. Or if you buy it through a carrier.

I mean, this is how most Americans get phones. Nobody buys a phone outright anymore. Everybody gets it on a monthly installment plan. That's installment plans, which is a designation. That's different. That's different. Got it. From subscription.

So in this case, I guess it would be like, it's a subscription. You just pay for it. And then every two years you trade it in, God helped the planet. Maybe Apple ends up making a little more over time. I don't really know because people would pay for this for two years instead of reselling that, but it would make device ownership similar to paying a monthly fee, which is also something that was afloated informally by the new Peloton CEO. Right. And we lauded the new CEO for that. It makes total sense. Because what a lot of people

are doing, myself included, is, and you just said you did this. Now, you said, why wouldn't I take the zero, it's like zero interest, right? Yeah, zero interest. So why wouldn't you take it? I didn't take it and I was like, oh, wow, Molly's right. I should do it. And I will do it in the future. And then when I go back, anytime the new phone comes out, I trade in because I'm in the tech business and it's a luxury I can afford to do as a tech person. It's a business expense. I need to do it. I want to be on the latest stuff so I can talk about it here on the pod. Yeah. So when I trade it in, I typically get 600 of my 1,400 back, 1,200 back. So I'm essentially rolling my own subscription. Yeah, exactly. This would be a formal rolling of a subscription,

which I would put in the $79 a month range, which would be $900 a year, maybe $1,800 over two years, so you pay a slight premium, or they could do it for the same price. It can make it $50 a month. It should be $600 to be $1,200. So it could just be straight $50 a month. And they just call out a subscription,

and at the end of the subscription, you go to the store, hand in your phone. If it's got any damage, you pay a difference in damage, but if it's in reasonable shape, they just hand you a new one. Or they just send you the box. because I did the box thing and that was delightful too.

Just put it back in the box and set it to them. That is awesome. What's interesting, too, is that Apple recently got me with they sent me a little notification. They were like, hey,

you're paying like $27 for some Apple subscriptions but not all. And if you want to save money, you can bundle them all together for $29. And now you're subscribed to everything that Apple makes, like the Apple cloud cloud bundle or whatever.

You get cloud. Oh, yeah. You get news. You get arcade. You get Apple Plus. You get fitness. And I think you get music. Maybe your books.

Oh, yeah, maybe iTunes. Music too. Yeah, I did that. I did it for my family. And I don't know what it costs, but I saw it. And I was like five family members, because I already do it for the I cloud. So everybody's devices are backed up on I cloud for one price. And we all have the same drive.

Because you know when you get two terabytes for the drive and you use 1.2, you're like, this is the whole family. Right. So one family member takes a lot of photos and video. because of the family videographer, they take up the bulk of it. It's great. So imagine if you have that bundle

and then all of a sudden they just toss some hardware in there. Genius. Yep. Genius. I talked about this years ago. I called it Apple Prime. Somebody pulled the CNBC clip

about Apple Prime and send it to me. But this would be great because what it does is it locks people in. You're never going to unsubscribe from Amazon Prime. I don't know anybody who's ever unsubscribe from Amazon Prime unless they get married

and then they move to account. That's the one thing that happens is like people go on a family plan. But this will be, you will never be able to leave the Apple ecosystem once they get this dialed in. And then this ensures that those hardware margins, which as we know is like all that Apple really cares about.

I mean, look, if this gets us to a point where our subscription to the hardware is subsidizing the innovation that we keep asking for in various ways, great, right? If you can guarantee that everybody's going to get the damn phone, then maybe you can use some of your spare time to do all these other cool things

like nail the podcasting all in one rig or the home video conferencing all in one rig that Jason was suggesting last week. Yeah, the podcasting rig. I did see Daring Fireball and a bunch of other folks were talking about the new monitor and they panned an MKBHD

or as I like to call him Marquez. Marquez. Marquez panned it this 5K1 and so did MKBHD oh right HD MD MD

Markis Brownie HD and the Dary Fireball Gruber he's got his own podcast John Gruber John Gruber's really

great and he panned it they were just like the things like $1,800 to you know with the shivel to make it go up

and down or whatever and they were like this is a complete waste of money I'm buying it anyway I did see an unboxing video for Mac Studio

and the guy was like, it's heavy. I was like, oh, I want it. It's like, it weighs more than my MacMedia. I want it. I don't really want. I'm with Nebraska SXHC in the Nodigang, though, who's saying, like, I kind of want to cut out all of these subscriptions at this point. Like, yes.

It is getting overwhelming. It's overwhelming, like all of these makes sense, sort of like the news universe, all these makes sense one at a time. Like, it makes sense that I pay a monthly mortgage and a monthly car. payment and a monthly subscription to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Financial Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, and HBO and Netflix, and, you know, when you start to sort of like add all these things up and then everybody's like, no, it's cool, you can totally get this as a monthly subscription.

Then pretty soon your monthly nut is just like, absurd. You're an indentured servant to- you're an indentured servant to all of these services. And I just want a freaking phone and I'm going to do whatever the hell I want with it. Imagine Apple does come out with a car. imagine Apple does come out with a television. They already have Apple TV with their content. Now imagine Apple decides they're going to make apartments and housing.

You literally would be spending 67% of your post-tax revenue on the car, house, and content and computers to Apple. I mean, that's actually the start of a dystopian script. Oh my God, let's make a short film where Apple does this. And then somebody winds up living on the Apple campus, driving. an Apple car and they get their pay stub and it says you made $10,000 this month. $6,700 to Apple for your car, your home, whatever, you're a net pay. $3,000 in taxes, your net pay $300. My God.

It's basically where it's going. Shiver. It's basically where it's, you know that's where it's going. It is. It absolutely is. Okay. My God. Horrible.

I think we did. I think we did. All this other stuff we have to just put it to mark. Is the hot tub story just for notice? No, I think the hot tub story can be for everybody. So I am at the community rec center in my ski chalet town. And the guy's in the hot tub, his wife, and the kids are playing with each other in the pool. And what do you do?

Oh, I sold the company to this company. What do you do? Oh, I have a podcast and I angel invest. And, oh, what's the podcast? That's like this week started. I never heard of it. I never heard of it. I was like, yeah, you know, we kind of talk about this stuff.

and we just brought in Molly Wood to be my co-host. Molly Wood for Marketplace? I was like, yes, Molly Wood from Marketplace. Oh, my God, she's so smart. She's brilliant. I was wondering where she went. She left and I've stopped listening to Marketplace. I was like, yeah, she's on my co-host on This Week in Starves.

I never heard of that. I was like, yeah, you mentioned you never heard of this. You're like, thanks, buddy, thanks. I was like, no, it was the wife. And she's like, oh, we listen to Molly all the time. She's so smart. She's eloquent. She's funny.

And they could not stop talking. about Molly Wood in the hot tub. I hope they're listening to the show right now. I did. Literally, I start trading tax and they're like, what's the name of your podcast with Molly Wood again? I was like, I've been doing this for 11 years, folks. You didn't hear a bit and you live in Palo Alto and you haven't heard of it. I mean, you have to admit National Public Radio is a totally other,

it's a whole other world that's all about hot tubs and ski shale. I am, well, no, these were like rich. elite liberal people who, well, they enjoy a little public writing. That's all. And they're a huge Mollywood fan. So I thought that would make you feel good. I love that. Everybody give Molly Wood her flowers for getting inducted into the Hall of Fame on Friday.

Just once again, congratulations. Everybody in the chat, just throw up your flower emojis for Molly. And it's been great. Mondays are always the best. Mondays are the best. Bud days with Bali, J. Cali. Tell me. Throw up your arms.

In the chat. Whop-a-p-p-p-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w. Hey, everyone. Producer Nick here. I want to tell you about the SaaS Syndicate. If you're a founder of a SaaS company with a product and market, our investment team wants to talk to you. Head over to the syndicate.com slash SaaS,

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