This Week in Startups - WeCrashed & Severance finales w/ Lon Harris + Twitter follower changes w/ The Verge's Corin Faife | E1446

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

First up, Lon Harris joins to break down the finales of WeCrashed (1:52) and Severance (34:50), then The Verge's Corin Faife joins to discuss his research on the sharp changes in Twitter follower counts for right-leaning and left-leaning accounts. (1:07:39) 0:00 Jason & Molly intro today’s show with some Don Julio 1942 1:52 Jason and Molly catch up with Lon Harris 5:10 Toasting to the WeCrashed finale 10:03 OpenPhone - Get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://openphone.com/twist 11:23 Jason’s Jim Brooks wine story 16:50 “If you’re successful be generous” 20:00 LinkedIn Marketing - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at https://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups 21:26 Was the WeCrashed ending satisfying? 32:46 iTrust - Visit https://itrust.capital/twist to create your Crypto IRA today 33:48 Final thoughts on WeCrashed’s pacing 34:50 Breaking down Severance 42:54 Similarities between Severance and WeCrashed, general thoughts on their social commentary 1:05:42 Wrapping up with Lon 1:07:39 Twitter confirmed organic fluctuations in follower counts after the Elon Musk deal was announced, and Corin Faife joins to break down the numbers 1:32:22 Jason and Molly’s thoughts on Twitter follower fluctuations FOLLOW Lon: https://twitter.com/lons FOLLOW Corin: https://twitter.com/corintxt FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood

All right, everybody, it is a very special Tequila Thursday on this week in startups. That's right. That's right. In honor of Adam Newman and we crash, Molly and I pop some Don Julio in 1942 with Lon Harris. Yeah, yeah, we do. And then Lon joins in to wrap up the last five episodes, six episodes of severance. We get super deep on that spoiler alert galore. And then we have The Verges core in Fife joining us to talk about his break.

down. He did a little math of who actually lost followers and who gained followers. And maybe we speculate a little bit as to why after the Elon must takeover bid was accepted. Yeah, a little tequila-fueled data science like you do on every good podcast. It is going to be the episode of the year, I think. So crack open on Don Julio in 1942, whatever your bag is. And stick with us. This week in startups is brought to you by OpenFone. 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. OpenFone 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. LinkedIn Marketing To redeem a free $100 LinkedIn ad credit and launch your first campaign, go to LinkedIn.com slash this week in startups and ITrust Capital. Did you know that you can invest in crypto through your retirement account and still get the same tax advantages as a traditional IRA? Visititit.competal slash twist to start investing today. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Thursday, Thursday. Your favorite day of the week? for this week in startups with the exception of Sunday school,

boomer on Friday, five for five Fridays, Tuesday we live in the publics, other than the other days of the week here. We know Thursday's your favorite day because Lon Harris, L-O-N-S on Twitter, is here. Lonz is here.

I made it. And we have started, Lonz is here. Lon Harris, of course, people famously know my failed startup Mahalo, which then pivoted to my very successful startup inside, which I extended Lon's options on. So hopefully I can get along his options, make good on his options there.

Inside's doing good way. I mean, after we crashed, I'm a little, little nervous. I'm going to hold off on buying that new Birken bag for now. By the Berkin. Never get off the bus without a transfer, Lon. Yes, exactly. I don't know what that means exactly, but I used to always take the transfer. Paper in your hand before you make a move.

Yeah. Got it. I love that. Is that like an Ari Gold? That feels like Ari Gold on entourage. I mean, I got it from my boyfriend, but I love it. I think it's a sales thing. You know, it's a sales.

You don't get off the bus without a transfer. It means don't leave one opportunity unless you have a second opportunity secured. And for people who don't know, on the public transit system, back in the day, they would give you the second bus ride free if you had to take a transfer. So you get on the bus in Brooklyn and, you know, take you west. Now, if you need to go north, you could get a transfer. They would pull a little sheet of paper. and they'd hand it.

That was your transfer. Yeah. So you don't have to pay a second time. Yeah. That exists out here too? Yeah. I think there were the, I mean,

it's an antiquated thing now, but I believe the bus transfer was a nationwide concept in its day. Yeah. And if you get off without a transfer, then you have to pay again. Right.

It applies to, obviously, don't leave one opportunity for another until you have the paper in hand, but also don't make big moves until you're locked. Locked. Okay. Here we go.

We are doing our this week in streaming segment. Molly, what do we have teed up for this week? I think it's like the fifth week we've done this. There'll be some lights. There'll be some light spoilers here. You can hear this stuff and then go back and watch the show and not have it ruined in some cases. But if not, you can just fast forward, you know, 20 minutes into the show. If you are still watching Crash or Severance.

Then you probably want to skip ahead. Yes, because it is a puzzle walk show. Yeah. All the way through. The other shows are like kind of based on a true story. It sort of doesn't matter, you know, ultimately what happened to Theranos or We Were. Right.

You're not going to want to know what happens to Lumen. That's, that's, full spoiler warning for that one. So today we're going to discuss the we crashed finale, episode eight, the one with all the money, very friends, titling.

And then we're going through five episodes of Severance, episodes four through nine. And I may or may not have watched episode nine at 730 this morning. I did. That's how... Confession out on the tram. To the fricking wire. On your bike? I was going to watch it on the bike and then I was like, I can't...

I noticed the wet hair. I noticed the wet hair. Yeah. And then I was like, you're racing to the racing... You're doing electrical. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. Okay. So I think we start with. We crashed.

Yes. Because it's one. And so... And we have props. While you cue up the episode, I will have a ceremonial Don Julio. We're going to pour one out for the new ones. We all got our Don Julio.

We all have our Don Julio. The good stuff. The good stuff. You take the bottle. Lon, take the bottle. Yeah, you keep that. You keep that. You keep that.

No, no, no, you sip. You sip. You sip, Lon. We're just, by the way, this is where we do need to tell everyone who's listening. It's 1022 a.m. Pacific. It's true. Yeah, we are pouring ourselves a fine. Oh, do you get to smell off that?

Hold on a second. Wow. What am I getting here? I'm getting a little vanilla. Mm-hmm. I'm so, I feel like people just make those up, don't they? I went, I, uh, an ex-an ex-girlfriend got me a, a year's membership to a whiskey tasting society when I was living in downtown L.A.

And this was what the whole thing was. They would just pour everybody a little bit of whiskey and people would sniff it and they would make up the most ludicrous. They'd be like, I'm getting a little hint of sawdust. I get old tire. Maybe, maybe gunpowder. I mean, people are just making up crazy things that nobody smells. I'm getting $100 bill.

Some red ripe tomatoes. Like, you're not getting red ripe tomato. It's butter, scotch, and caramel. That's what you smell in whiskey. I'm getting some early childhood trauma. Oh, not bad. People asking, is this 1942? It is.

Jason sprung on the top of the line. I don't know if this will come up on my microphone. Did you get that? Beautiful. Such good, fully work. I think I got a mess of Pop of the pork It's Adam Newman

ASMR So good morning everyone Good stuff You do okay bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye That's Adam Newman ASMR That's also my favorite Oh Will it be terrible if I like pour this in my coffee after I?

No I'm not doing that Don't be ridiculous Oh so degenerate Don't be ridiculous Chickory coffee Exactly So we're double fisting Coffee

So I guess Look at that color Yours is like A bourbon I think a toast is in order here So here's to Lon Harris Joining us For an amazing season

Of We crashed To Jared Leto To Anne Hathaway Incredible performances Incredible And to the Newman's For securing the bag And from Masi Yoshi

Son Buying the house I'm in right now With my Uber shares at Alex Newman's G650. We love you, Masa. If our companies can't IPO, they can Masa P.O. To Masa. To Masa.

To the crazy man. Oh, my God. So smooth. It's incredibly smooth. Oh, my Lord. Oh, my Lord. Hold on a second. Adam Newman's a genius.

Oh, my Lord. Are you fucking me? It barely even tastes like you're drinking alcohol. I've never really had anything like it. This tastes like the best iced tea I've had in my life. I don't, I'm not. regretting having this for breakfast. It's just so... Yeah, no, this is...

Wow. You know, I usually like a rye whiskey that's kind of usually my drink of choice and that, it's almost purposeful, a little spicy. Handy, yeah. This is the opposite end of the spectrum. This is no joke. It's like a caramel. This is amazing, but there's a, and then you get the burn later.

You get a little bit of heat to really, but it's like in the best, it's like a hug. Is it a burn or is it more like sitting next to a nice, toasty hamfire? No, it's just a little bit of heat. It's not a burn at all. A little bit of heat, no. I feel like Mexican chocolate or something. You know when you are sitting by the fire and you're just close enough to feel that warmth,

maybe it's a little too hot when you put that extra log on? That's what I'm feeling on the after-takes. I mean, I don't have a fire. Maza has yet to buy me a home, so I don't have a fireplace yet, but one day, one day. Well, I have six years, so you can far too. So in case you missed it in an earlier episode, the reason that we're splurging on the Don Julio 1942 for the end of watching We Crash is because that is the huge,

tall bottle of tequila that they're constantly popping open and splurging from. And it is one of the many things that the bankers come in and question when we were tries to go public because it is not an inexpensive bottle of tequila. And they were passing them around like Coca-Cola. They were basically like for them, Don Hulie, 1942 was their version. version of like, what is the sparkling water called? I was just going to say La Croy.

It was their Lucreux. It was their Lucreux. Listen, lots of founders are Lucy Goosey with their personal phone numbers. They put them on company documents. They use them for sales calls. And that's terrible because it makes everything so messy. You don't know who's calling. Is it a sales prospect?

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$2 for $2.20 I think What are these bottles cost? I love that It does It takes on My son looked it up I think it was like

It's like 150 to 200 I think depending on where you where you shop Where you shop around I looked it up I looked at it up I found out You did look at

You're that guy Are you that guy You get a gift You want to know How much you're loved I understand I want to know how much I want to get

That when Chimoth sent me a 50th birthday gift, he sent me like a case of my favorite Italian dessert wine, which he introduced me to, which is not cheap. You know, it's like probably 400 bucks, 500 bucks a bottle. But it's not outrageous. And then he sent me like a collection of six bottles all from 1970 that his Somoyet did. Wow. And when I say like these bottles are worth thousands of dollars, there were thousands of dollars each.

Yeah. And I'm sitting there with these five bottles. And I'm just like, I've never opened a bottle of wine over a thousand dollars. I mean, not even over $500. Now I've got I had a Latash a friend of mine from Hollywood gave me

Jim Brooks and that was very nice of him gave me a Latash and I was like Jim this bottle of Latash is you know Jim Brooks he created the Simpsons We all know Jim Brooks

Yeah we got it Did we not? A lot of terms of endearment Did we not like What's not doing this segment I'll tell you the story We didn't drop the mic enough So this is the story.

What? Wow. So I'm at dinner. I'm Jim Brooks and have dinner with our ladies and we're in. I'm in Nantucket. And he's like, oh, you're in Nantucket. I'm in the vineyard. Let's have dinner.

We have dinner. Beautiful. It turns out in, I guess, Massachusetts, where these islands reside, you can't bring your own bottle of wine to the restaurant. He had brought this beautiful bottle of Latash. And I said, oh, my God, how did you? acquire those. He said, oh, it's a good story. Like in the 80s, you know, I made a little bit of money doing some shows or whatever, and I really got into wine, and this was one of my favorites. And I just

happened to have bought like 10 cases of it. And, you know, it didn't cost anything in the 80s. And then I happened to hit it. You know, like, he's a hitmaker, so he knows how hits work. And he just happened to have bought low and just happened to be sitting on all these bottles Latosh. Wow. So the Somelier comes and, oh, you're Mr. Brooks, you know, they know who he is, yada yada and they won't cork for being this oh you know in in massachusetts we're not allowed to do this so jim goes i understand we would be you know absolutely that we can put it on ice uh we can put it in the refrigerator for you to maintain it of course we understand this is like a fine bottle wine there's no bottle of wine here that matches us in the restaurant which apologize but we have

some other bottles that might be to your liking and it's like yeah no i know but you know we don't have the bottle at the table you could bring us four glasses of your best house wine yeah you know like because he's been through this before and he's like, don't worry about it. They'll just open it in the back and put him in the decanter. And he says like you could

you know, maybe you could put in the decanter and we could decant one of your other bottles and you could charge me for something similar on the menu. Yeah, he's working in like because we want to open his bottle. And, you know, the manager comes out.

He's like, let's say, Mr. Brooks. I'm very apologizing. We would love to do that for you, but we could lose our license and that we cannot do that. He's like, I understand. I'll take great care of you. You know, fine.

And he's like in shock. And he goes like, can't believe it. This has happened to me, you know, because the manager really means it before. And they always just take it in the back. They do this and then you're good. Well, what do they think James Brooks works for the Massachusetts liquor board? Precisely. He's there to bust them. And so, uh, I took, I took a few days off from producing the most popular TV shows last three minutes. To shut this joint down. Yeah. Jim Brooks says to me, Jake Howe, here, you take it. At the end of dinner, we order another bottle of wine.

Yeah, sure. Because Jake out, you enjoy this. But he's, and I don't know why. And he says, I totally know, you know, this is a very special bottle wine like use it for your anniversary or something you know i brought it for us to share we had had some you know nice business wins together and um i get home because i had a like rented a like an Airbnb for two weeks and my my parents were there my dad is uh you know a somaille he was a bartender who became a somalette and it's like a big deal for him my success you know and uh you know i always feel very gracious uh for my dad you know and he you know especially my mom more than my dad, but my dad's still a great guy. And my mom did most of the work, but putting that aside, I come back to my dad, and I said,

oh, look, Jim Brooks gave me a bottle of wine. The dad goes, let me see it. puts on his glasses, old man glasses. Uh, uh, uh, arguably the best bottle of wine on the planet. What? Um, can't get these. This is arguably best bottle of wine you could buy in 2018. But it's the best.

I'm like, really? He's like, we should open it. I said, I said, oh, dad. Good job, dad. I got my computer. It's a $5,000. Why?

I'm like, oh, yeah. He said, he told me he paid like $150 a bottle. Nobody wanted the tach in the 80s. It wasn't a thing. Yeah. He paid like $100 a bottle. A guy keeps winning.

It was hilarious. So that's my, my Jim Brooks story. Hopefully I'm not speaking out of, but I mean, Jim Brooks is incredibly generous guy. And I, you know, I think if you're a success would be generous. That's why I sent you guys to bottle of Don Julio. And if they have those, by the way, just in the spirit of generosity, if they have those little aeroplane bottles of Don Julio, can we send one of those each to our producers,

one to each to our producers of those airplane. I'm joking producers. You're doing a great job. You have to deal with me. Producer Nick, come on air for a second. Do me a favorite producer, Nick. He's not even producing. Not even producer or any other producer. He's producing a thousand things. I'll tell. I'll tell. He's like, does any of the producer come on air?

Okay. There we are. There we all are. Yay. I feel like a man. Now I feel like a true, uh, horrible human being because I got everybody on air,

uh, Don Julien, and certainly the on air talent is more important than the producers. But the producer's still very important. Nick's like a mouth. It's a joke. It's a joke. Nick,

to be fair. Can you send one of these to each of our producers, okay? Including yourself. Yes, please. Yay. What's anything about Nick? Nick needs to, you know, come on.

I'll read his TPS report. Are they all? I'll put that on my dimby. 21 and over. I'm looking at some of these faces. Well, you know, me. I always like to invest in young talent like you were one day. Is this legally drinking legal drinking age, everybody?

I'm pretty, I trust me, as Nick's uncle, I know he's of age. Justin with the mustache and Rachel, I'm not so sure. But it's close. Honestly, once you get to 40, you guys will see this. Everybody between 15 and 65 looks the same age. I'm so mad at this now. I'm so mad at this. You just can't tell.

I'm definitely drunk. I had two sims for this. We had two tips. I know exactly. But can we send a, can we send a Don Julio in 1940 to everybody? Get yourself. Get yourself.

Treat yourself. You kids are going to enjoy this. The good stuff for the producers. It really is. It's not a joke. I mean, not even a lie. It's delightful. It's really good.

And it is, it is like you, you could drink this in the morning. I don't mean to suggest everybody. We could. We are. I mean, it's an easy. It's an easy drinking. morning beverage for sure. Really?

You really could put it in your coffee. I've never drink in alcohol before noon. It's a first time of my life. I don't think I have either. One time for Marketplace and it was a similar kind of like a stunt thing. Ever. Well, brunch. Yeah, exactly.

And in the show, Adam Newman gets shown. Getting drunk at 1030. On Brunch is totally different. And just a little note for those of you paying attention, you know, during this golden age of television, in episode two, Adam Newman gets shown the 1942. from Rebecca Newman's dad. Right. Yep.

And that is part of him starting to live the good life. The dad, of course, who might stop going to jail for being a fraud, which was a great moment. I mean, that feels like a lifetime ago.

I felt like I've lived with these characters for 10 years. I know, seriously. Well, so, okay, so speaking of which, let's talk about the finale because this is really, we crash.

We have taken this journey. We all knew it was coming. And yet, how did we all feel watching them have it all seemingly, nearly ripped away. Hey, Tom Eschbacher is here with us again. He's a senior sales manager at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. And we're talking about their amazing report today in startup marketing,

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and the team at LinkedIn. Go get that report and get the Hyundai. Lon, did you feel sorry for them or were you like, oh, thank God. I felt like they were playing a very interesting game. I felt it felt like they knew that they needed these characters to have a comeuppets. Like, we all know in the real world. Like, you can act like Adam Newman.

You may lose your company. Not everything may go your way. But you're not out on the street. Like, there was no way this story was ending with a completely ruined Adam Newman who will never have a company or drink Don Julio ever again. So you've got to like let your viewer feel that sense of there was some justice. This story has an ending that I feel satisfied by.

These characters have on some level they get their just desserts. But while acknowledging the reality that they're going to be fine. They'll start another company. They're already, you know, they were already well off or financially comfortable. They'll be fine in perpetuity. So I thought they handled that about as well as you could. You ended on this embarrassing moment where they're in the Red Sea. Oh, the salt.

And they've just found out that they're not going to get their huge payout like they thought they were. Because Masa decides. He's going to decide. The high point is COVID happens. And Masa, they didn't explain that. But Masa agreed to the payout. And then Masa says, you know what? Things aren't what they seem.

And the world has changed. I'm going to hold the payout. But the punchline to that, if you watch the Andrew Roar Sorkin, bookend, the great interview he did with Adam Newman after we work went public, is that, in fact, the company did go public. Adam Newman had owned 30%. And, you know, he winds up, you know, with over a billion dollars and is a board observer. So he negotiated the ability to stay an observer and remains friends with Masa.

Yeah. Yeah. And that is a very interesting, unique, I think, bookend. to this, which is when we contrast with Elizabeth Holmes, who was committing an actual fraud and is going to jail and is guilty. When we look at Adam Newman, I think he's guilty of losing his mind, thinking he was a god, being insane, but being a crazy entrepreneur who actually did nine build $9 billion in actual value and the company is actually paradoxically or perhaps ironically.

I'm not sure which word applies here perfectly. The company is perfect for a post-pandemic world and hybrid work. So his vision of the weak community actually is even more reinforced in a post-pandemic world, which I thought was a fascinating, like I said, you know, closure. Some people were not happy with the ending that they got. paid. Well, I mean, I feel like the show is very much trying to have it both ways on some level. It's doing what you're saying. It is showing that like, look, Adam Newman, personality flaws, lots of them, lots of insight into why these decisions were wrong, all these things he got away with

doing the culture he created that was not really healthy. And they gave OT Fogbenle, Cameron Lautner, that great speech about like, we're not here to reinvent human consciousness. We're here. here to build a office sharing startup that's going to own a real estate. A reasonable price. And it's a job and it's a company and it's a business. And I want to work hard with all of you on building that business. And so they get to have that moment where they're like, look, all of this new age. The reset.

All of this was really just kind of rhetoric and it was all kind of talk and it was really just a way to kind of manipulate people in this situation. But at the same time, it doesn't, you're right, that the show is not depicting Adam Newman as a Elizabeth Holmes level, this was just all pure fabrication. It is showing that at heart, there was something to this concept. There was something that this company was building. Where do you land, Molly, on the fraud visionary spectrum here, out of control, narcissist to fraud spectrum?

I mean, I think that the finale does a good job of, I'm glad that sort of toward the and they brought in these employees to sort of make them the avatar of the people who got screwed by this. Like, I think there was real value in showing that. And it takes the, even the moments when you are tempted to sort of feel bad for Adam Newman losing this company in such spectacular fashion and being forced out. You don't feel that bad because they're still sort of awful. And people who put a decade into this. And I know that there's the version of this that's like, you took. to work there, right? You chose to work there and you never know and startups fail and blah, blah,

I don't care. They put in 10 years of their lives. They took less pay. They thought they were going to share in the success and they didn't. And so like, I thought that was pretty valuable in terms of a lesson. But yeah, I agree with you. It falls a little flat to have them sort of, it's nice to have them embarrassed in the Dead Sea with salt in their eyes. And actually, real Adam Newman did confirm in that deal book interview that there was a moment when they sincerely thought they were going to walk away with nothing. Like he did say that that he claims he didn't watch it, but he also sort of confirmed that scene where she's like, it doesn't matter if we

lose everything. We go to mom and dad's house. We go to mom and dance house. So he does say that there was a moment when they thought they were going to lose everything. I don't, it's still a little bit of comfort because they didn't at all. I don't really. Like I never thought, even I was following this story in real time. And even me, I was never like, oh, Adam Newman could end up with nothing. Like, obviously.

obviously that's not going to happen. He'll have his golden parachute in some way or another. They always do. But I did think, but you know what? Like dramatically, it is satisfying. They play that scene really well. You do feel like, well, at least these two for a moment realize how ridiculous they are. And we reveal their hypocrisy that they're saying, oh, it doesn't matter.

And it's just money. And our love is what matters. But they would be absolutely devastated to lose this money, obviously. And, Sherry Sterner, Pulps, I forget their name. This was directed, I thought, really well, the finale by the same duo that did American Splendor. You guys remember that movie? Oh, yes, of course. American Splendor Flann.

American Splendor is fantastic. Yeah, Robert Polsini and Sherry Springer Berman were the duo that directed the finale. They also did the movie American Splendor. They did one for Netflix last year called Think Certainty. I saw that at Sundance. That was Paul Giamatti's. Right. Was that his breakout role?

I mean, he'd already been pig vomit in private parts. He had a few other big roles. Yeah, but that was like him starring in it. It's a great movie. It's about Harvey Pekar who wrote those classic indie novels. Yeah, I mean, I think we can all agree. Like a pretty satisfying end, great performances all around, good series. I think this might be my favorite Jared Leto thing.

He's not a guy I usually look out for, but I thought he was really good at this. I saw Morbius and I kept seeing Adam Newman in Morbius. I actually enjoyed Morbius. I know. I can't wait to see that. I actually enjoyed it because it's like our movie. Yes, please. He, you know, his performance in it is good.

And I just thought it was like an interesting, you know, non-traditional MCU film because it didn't have like the wisecracky, you know, banter kind of thing. Right. It was a little more dark and somber. Yeah. I kind of felt like there are buildings. something interesting in that Spider-Man. They're definitely trying. We've got Madam Webb coming.

Bad Bunny just got cast in Elm Whartow. There's a lot of going on. They're doing the Sinister 6, I guess, is going to be the... They're trying. They're throwing everything at the wallet. So they need some hits. They got Ghostbusters. They got Jumanji.

They need some franchise. Don't ever give up that Spider-Man. Yeah. Seriously. And it was all based on the Wondery podcast. So congratulations to them for making great. Great IP. great IP for all of this.

Well done. But one more before we move off, I just, I do want to shout out, Campbell Scott as Jamie Diamond in this was so good. I love that guy. He was so good. He was so good.

He was so good. Never, like, shows an emotion. When he gives him the ultimatum in that scene, he's like, sure. Yeah. You can say the CEO,

let me tell you what's going to happen. That supreme confidence of like a guy who literally owns the world. Yes. Totally. can't, you can't, unflappable, no emotion, nothing has an impact on him. I thought he really, he really nailed. Well, and you actually can see who has the real power in the world. Exactly. When he gives the 600, when he's like looking for the margin loan and he just offers him

600 million. And he's like, 600 million, you know, against his stock. And what you realize is like, there are people playing a game above the game. And I can tell you, and I can tell you, like I have experienced in my own life. Every time you think you've mastered the game, you're like, oh, there's another level? You know, and like, oh, and then there's a sovereign wealth fund. And, oh, there's a person who has all this money, who has the connection to that.

And oh, yeah, they're playing something totally different. We're pawns in their game. Yeah. So as much as it feels like the employees are pawns, then you start realizing the CEO is a pawn. And then you start realizing the venture cap. capitalist are pawns. And it's like, who is actually, you know, set up this chessboard and it's some finance guy or.

And they, I thought they capture that very well. Like, as you move up these levels, the people get more confident. The people get more unshakable. They're not hustling anymore. The hustle is over for them. Yeah. You're hustling for their benefit. You really do realize that Jamie Diamond is the only person in the entire saga with nothing to lose, that he's

spins out debt as a trap. Yeah. That he can, can 100% sit there in that room. Even Masa, at the time that we're seeing him in this show, is in trouble. Yeah. He's going to the Saudis. We can't do it. They won't accept it.

And there's no, nobody's ever coming into Jamie Diamond's office. Like, we can't do it. No. He doesn't have that guy. It is, there is just such a masterfully done show. So kudos to the people who wrote it. Obviously, the performances are easy. to love, but I think the writing, I guess pacing is for me, I don't know exactly what this term

means in Hollywood, I can guess, but for me, the fact that I never wanted to look at my phone during the story means to me good pacing. In today's age, you know, you're in a movie theater, the movie's dragging. If it was a streaming show, you'd stop and like, you start seeing people take out their phones. That to me is like, hmm, pacing issue. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably already have some exposure to crypto. Well, did you know you can now invest in crypto through your retirement account? That's right. With I Trust Capital, you can buy and sell digital assets from a crypto IRA. This means you'll get the same tax advantages of a traditional IRA. I Trust Capital has over two dozen of the most

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Was this well-paced? I think the, I think this was really, this was a show that earned its length and, like, had the right amount of episodes. And I think a lot of the time with streaming shows, I end up feeling like, ah, they probably could have made this work with two fewer. We probably could have gotten out of this a little quicker. And this one, I felt like, no, they really pay it well and knew where they were going and it felt like the right amount. I think I think too often we mix up pacing and length. Like people complain like, oh my God, the Batman is three hours. I don't want to watch all that.

But it's, you know, I don't mean to bring up the Batman. But like it's really less about how long is it? And more about, yes, is it pace in a way that is sort of slow moving and gradual and deliberate or is it like things keep moving? I was just going to say that. Severins did drag for me at many times, and it did feel artistic and slow and methodical and confusing.

So let's tee up, if you will, on the second half. We did the first. Yeah, we have the first three, and now we're going to do the last six, I believe, because there's nine total. So whip us through maybe with a little preamble on pacing and maybe juxtapose, you know, how this story was paced and unfolded.

If you jump to the final two episodes, I'll talk about the whole thing. But if you jump to the final two episodes of Severance, they're all unfolding. Like one event is happening. And it gives you what in screenwriting terms is known as a ticking clock. A ticking clock would be at the beginning of the movie, the guy is like, this bomb is going to explode in 90 minutes unless we figure out of way. And then the whole movie, the viewer knows, I'm working against the clock here. They're going to run out of time. And it's like, you know, those movies where you would cut back to the digital readout as it counts.

down the minutes until the explosion. And the last two episodes of Severance do such an amazing job of giving us a, here's this mission this character's on, he's got to do this thing. It's this limited amount of time. And we're going to watch it unfold basically minute to minute. Like the movie speed or back to the future. Right.

Exactly. Speed is a great example where it's like, you know there's, the gimmick is right there. If the bus slows down, it blows up. And so you as a viewer are constantly like, that's what creates that.

intensity of like, all they have to do is show that odometer or the speedometer. And if it's getting near 50, I'm in because it might explode. And I thought Severance really uses that incredible, in the last two episodes especially. I'm only cracking up because all I ever think about then is the Simpsons where he's trying to remember the name of that. The bus that couldn't slow down. So episodes four through nine are where we really start to see the whole picture unfold a little more in terms of what

Lumen is doing why various employees might be there and what happens when the walls start to come down when the the thick wall between the two experiences of these severed employees starts to come down and it gets

pretty dark it really does. A dark yeah is probably an understanding. I mean a character tries to hang herself. It's brutal. It's brutal. It's brutal. Well, you think it's What is the torture, the sheer unimaginable cruelty of what these people are going through?

This real existential nightmare in terms of what the innings experience. You know, like, so we've got outies. They're the ones who live their lives in our world, the normal world, and then go to work, and they just don't remember what happens while they're at work. And it's the inies whose entire life is just the work day. Endless, endless work days after another. And yeah, they don't even know who am I on the outside. And yeah, I think the show really does dig into what an existential nightmare that would be and like the contours of it and what it would feel like.

And I think you're invited to imagine yourself in that scenario and how awful it would be. You know, the only interaction you have would be corporate communication or a stolen moment of chatting with a colleague during a break time. You don't have a like, you know. I have a lot of feelings about the corporate architecture here. Yes, that I would like to share. I think that this is, is the word treaty, tristy? What are the other words? Treaties.

Treaties is like a, like a statement, right? Yeah, like a manifesto kind of. Like a manifesto. I feel like this is a manifesto on the worst of capitalism and corporate culture, because they are being indoctrinated to a culture. And the culture is told by these weird

historical figures in the company and they're in a hall and they are praised and lauded. It's a blend between what we think of as a corporate history or the corporate way of talking about the company and religion. Like it's a cult.

It's a cult. And I think what they're saying is, you know, hey, look, When you go work at a company, you're giving up your life. And you're giving up your life. And the way they get you to give up your life is through this culture and through this, you know, ceremony. And it is modern day religion. In fact, corporate culture borrowed a lot from religion.

Hey, what is our mission here? Mission statement. What are our values? When we use those things in startup land, and I encourage people to use those in startup land. I worked on our mission statements, you know, at companies, at companies we've invested in companies I've created. We Back Builders is our new credo here at launch as an investment firm. And I worked on that.

Like, what are we really about here? And can I get it down to its essence? And can I get people to give up their lives to then come on this mission? And that's a commerce decision on one level. People are getting paid for time. But they are also giving up a significant. portion of their waking hours, right? And the show shows that when they are outies, it's always nighttime, it's always dark.

They've given up the best hours of their lives. So I think what whoever wrote this might be signaling or their acts to grind. And I don't know who wrote this or what their acts to grind is. It's a relative newcomer named Dan Erickson. Okay. I need to meet this guy. Yeah. I'd love to meet Danors.

Because somebody gets it. Because I think what he's saying is like, be careful who you decide to give your waking hours to. Yeah. And they would rather, the ideal capitalist society would be for you to not even question or think about this. And it's manifested, I think, brilliantly in the inter-corporate or the inter-department, rather, relationships. Yes. You are not

allowed to know one another. Don't know it and nobody's allowed to know what we do in a way. So you know what you do but then there's Christopher Walkins group and what they do

nobody's allowed to know and then when they meet each other they're breaking. Yeah, they're breaking all kinds of rules here. And I immediately thought about the disparity between an Amazon warehouse worker

and an Amazon corporate worker in Seattle and Apple store worker. and an Apple corporate worker, a postmates, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash driver, and the corporate executives who are making the software. And they're not allowed to talk to each other. They're two different classes of employees. They're in different buildings. They don't fraternize.

And it's part of a control culture because if the people incorporate, right, the Apple employees at the Space Station who are getting paid hundreds of, of thousands of dollars probably on average and who have perks that are absurd. There was a huge disparity. They used to pay McDonald-level wages from what I understand. Like, you know, $9, $10, $11 at Apple until they were shamed into hitting

14, 15, 16. And a lot of it has to do with people who work at Apple going to the Apple stores and saying, is this right? Right. Well, and imagine them going to Foxcon. Right. And then Foxcon is another level.

The people who are in the Apple store would be looking at those folks and saying, well, we get paid now $25, 30 bucks an hour, whatever, as we get health care benefits, those people are jumping off buildings. Yeah, and I mean, I think, I'll stop there with what the guilt slash realization. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. I started to have watching the show. So whoever wrote it, mission accomplished, I'm a rapid capitalist, and it made me think,

what are we actually creating here? Well, and if you think, actually, if you draw the parallel between those workers and the we workers, right, the people at WeWork who give up their lives and their sanity, nice, who had to drink after that. Give up their lives and their. And who don't leave, right?

They don't leave because they are trapped by this idea that eventually there will be a higher purpose. In the WeWork case, it's the payout. In the case of severance, it's the Waffle party, which we will get to in a moment. Got to talk Waffle Party. Or finger puzzles or, you know,

these kind of bland perks. It is a absolutely brilliant commentary on what. And even just this idea, like sure, there's the selfhood concept, but this idea that if you leave Lumen, if you get fired, you die. You effectively die. The NIE ceases to exist. Right. When you have your retirement party as your Eni, your version of your life is going to

disappear forever. Your NIE never comes back. Your Audi would just be your new self. So it is, it is weirdly like a. death. I mean, I think I control what you were talking about. Jason. To me, that's the key theme of the whole thing. It's about all of the different ways that Lumen, aside from just the severance concept itself, is in complete control of these people's lives. And by controlling their memories and what they know about themselves, that's so much the key to the whole thing. We were talking last time,

too, about mood and how so many of the experiments and so many of the things that they're doing are about controlling how they feel or how we can make them feel. You know, their sessions in the break room are designed to break them down. There's sessions with, you know, I forget, I'm blanking on her. Miss Casey are designed to, like, improve their mood

and make them feel well. Their dance experience. What is the story with Ms. Casey? Yeah. And side note, that actress was also in Dollhouse. Remember? Like, she has more than once played a character who's basically memory

has been wiped and she's effectively at all. We don't totally understand this. There's a level below the severed floor in Lumen where people go who never leave the basement. So these are people who don't have outies. We don't

necessarily understand. There's that long dark hallway. There's an elevator that goes down. And we even heard Dylan in one of the early episodes say he's heard rumors that there's a level of Lumen where it's just inies who never leave. So a lot, like, if you go on Reddit where people are losing their minds over the show and there's fan theories everywhere, a lot of people, and I'm inclined to agree, think on some level the answer is Lumen is trying to create its own workers.

Like, they don't have to go find a person in the real world, hire them, convince them to come work there and give them the severed implant. They're trying to just make their own people somehow. Because I think Irving, the John Turturo character, is the clue to the whole thing. Right. Because he's clearly been reset a bunch of times. He's like the rest of them where he goes to work. He goes home. He's got a home life.

But obviously there's something screwy going on with his brain because he spends his entire home life. I think I know what it is. Making paintings of this elevator. The blackness. Which is the one that Miss Casey walks down when they're like, take her back to the testing floor. He's aware of whatever, whatever is happening to Miss Casey. I think we can presume at one point also happened to Irving.

But he's now in the real world. So I think the theory would be Lumen is doing something maybe to people who have died? Like, because Ms. Casey, we know that she was Mark's wife, Gemma, in another version of her. So she's dead and they're bringing her back to life and reanimating her. Or they both agreed to this messed up experiment for some reason, right? Because we know that he used to work at the university where the doctor who is doing the reintegration is held hold up. I mean, you can do a whole like long lost. There's also strong implication that Mark.

feels guilt over whatever happened that he's tormenting himself. He killed her in a car accident, right? Maybe he was driving the car and they had the accident. Yes, of course. Like something, I feel like there's an element there too. Or maybe he said, hey, let's have a couple of Don Julio, 1942s. And he encouraged that, or maybe she was going to drive and he had too much to drink. And one person, not yet.

One person, it's so smooth, it could wind up being the perfect. I don't know. I finished my Don't know. I don't know. Did you guys finish up? Oh, yeah. Are we doing a second Don Julio? Is that?

I mean, now it's 11 a.m. Which is what I mean, it's 5 o'clock in London, I think, by now, right? All right. Here we go. I'm back and I'm rolling. All right. One more, one more Don Hooleau. Here we got, one more Don Hooleger.

The good stuff. Why did I put it all the way over here? I did some, I might be a folly guy. Now that I think about it. Now I got that. I am going to say, as long as we're having a little. It is a little insured. If we're going second,

followed. It's very smooth. You pour, that's a, that's a generous pour there, boss. I'm a generous boss. That I'm not going to lie. During the last episode,

I was actually legitimately irritated. Okay. By the pace. Wow. Like, too frenetic. No, it's too fucking slow.

It's the opposite of frenetic. I was like, yeah. Really? I had the opposite. I felt like that was the fastest-paced episode. I was annoyed in the middle. Yeah.

I mean, maybe it's because I was like rushing to get it down. but the last three episodes to me, I was like, this could have been one episode. Maybe I'm just too much. I totally disagree. Get after it.

And there's no way that he could actually be stretched out that long. And for God's sake, you people don't have time for this. Like, just wrap it off. In the face of modern pacing, I do agree in my love of cinema, cinematography, imagery, which I always really did love in films. I did appreciate this in an artistic way. But I, yes, if I'm being honest, it did drag at times to me the series.

And I did see that a lot of people were engaging with Ben Stiller saying, you know, like, get to the point here. Seven episodes, not nine. Oh, all right. A lot of things are saying about artistic stuff, you know, like, I'm like a TikToker. They should make different edits of these movies now. I mean, I know this sounds like crazy. But, you know, we have the extended show for the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings,

which is the only one I'll watch. But I do understand and appreciate that for some people with short attention span, we might want to make, I don't know why they don't do this except for pissing off artists, but if there was a seven-episode version and then there was a nine-version version, then a person could watch the seven fall in love with and say, what did I miss and then want to watch it a second time? I mean, Lon, come on. You're telling me that the length of time that Heli spent staring at things looking in the mirror.

Oh, so beautiful. When she's looking at the Apple store photos of herself as the- I honestly, I thought the final episode of season one was, I think that's the best thing Ben Stiller's ever directed personally. I think that's the high point of his entire filmmaking career. I like a lot of his stuff. I'm a big cable guy fan from way back. Tropic thunder. I like Trump and Dunders.

It's great. But I really feel like it all put together. And the way that they, it's so relentlessly, cutting from, we're just switching between these perspectives. And Hally and like, no break. They're all in the, and I mean, I think the heli thing. I mean,

the unlocks are beautiful. They're beautiful. Yeah. And the reveals are amazing. But I literally, when I was like, if you say all the words of the Atonement prayer, I'm just going to,

oh, you were going to say all the words of that. You know, I get it. And I thought it might be that you were a little bit of cramming for your final term paper. I mean, I will acknowledge that that was,

this morning. I was like, I would really, I need to walk the dogs. Like, can we just. I thought, the fact that his almost dialogue-free, we're just following him on this journey of realization as he arrives at Bert's child, Christopher Walken's house and sees through the window. It's heartbreaking.

I mean, it's really, it's really elegant, I thought. Well, and he's in there with someone else. And so you realize that your wish, your secret dream that Burving was together in real life, they're not. Right. Yeah, but that's been some mother husband. But that's also, they've really created this. And it is like lost in some. ways, how loss created that dynamic of the flashbacks, the flashbacks, the flash forwards,

and that became our way of learning about these people. And it was such a great format for like twists and turns that you could jump back and, oh, you thought this was a flashback, but this is actually a flash forward. And I think Severance is doing that too. They figured out a way to use this gimmick of we see these people's lives out here and their lives in here and everything is a secret from their other version. So it's also a secret from us. And a little, It was a secret from each other. Right. But you met the person on the island.

You didn't know their backstory. Right. We don't know. So when Jack says, Kate, we have to go back. You're like, wait, back. That means the island stuff already happened. Like a little line of dialogue can be a huge revelation. And so in something like this, when you see Irving squeeze out that black paint and you go,

oh, that's why he's been seeing inky black paint everywhere. Oh, and you know, and they now, they can do that so easily now. They built up so much of the lore. Also, the going to the machine room and like twisting the two dials was very reminiscent of Lost as well. So I think we have to ask Dan when he's on the show, The Writer. How much did Lost in this puzzle box kind of impact his? He obviously loves the genre. And I felt that was a little bit of homage.

I can't remember Lost exactly, but there was this concept of the control room. The Hatch. It's very reminiscent of the Hatch where you remember there was that one episode where we first go inside. Locke has found the outside of the Hatch. and they're trying to blow it up and how do I get into this hatch? And then you have an episode where you just cut inside

and you see Desmond waking up and doing his morning routine in the hatch and that was where you first learned what was going on in there. Really, really brilliant stuff. And then Zach has two more kids. He's a very interesting character.

Tritoros, Irving. And I just, you know, I don't know if this is like some sort of Easter egg, but Patricia Arcade has Harmony. Yeah, amazing. Her name is Harmony. Harmony, Cobel.

Harmony Cobel. She's trying to keep all of this chaos together. Together, yeah. And her name is Harmony. And so did you notice that the town they're in is also called Keir, Pennsylvania? Yes, it is. And Keir is the founder of the founder. The grandfather that Egan is the creator of the whole thing.

And then the Caligula Orgy as corporate reward? Like what went off the rails there? Think about a waffle party, though. Like, let's break it down. Everything that is Wallaporty might end up like that. Listen, don't Google that.

Everything that you receive in your waffle party, a waffle party is all the things in any would never get to experience. You're eating breakfast food, which you never have breakfast. It's served like a dinner. You never have dinner. You only have lunch. You're in a model house.

They don't have a house. You're in a bedroom. They don't ever go to sleep. And then it's sexual. And then there's sex. They never have sex. So it's a waffle party is the, reward because it's like here's everything that you miss by never leaving the office but all at once in

there is a nursery school thing going on here as well where like everything to me in their party genre putting aside the orgy waffle stuff the waffle stuff itself the melon the dance party the lights it felt like they're infant uh infantilized infantilizing definitely thank you my 100% yeah because they are in fact babies that they're learning everything again like they understand certain things like how to use a keyboard but they don't understand other things like what happened in their life so they come in and they understand how to do work so it's almost like some set of skills translates when you're your your basic body functions translate you know how to put a suit on you know how to use the bathroom you know how to eat melon wow right you're right

And every food, every perk, as dumb as they seem, like the little puzzles and the this and that is new. Well, it's also something you have never experienced because, like, Ms. Casey says, I've only, my life is 107 hours long. And that's what I think was so amazing about Trammellman's performance. He's Seth Milichick, the sort of their supervisor. He's amazing. But he finds this perfect balance between like an unctuous middle management. supervisor we've all had it like our first job. And yeah, like a nanny, like a nursery school teacher where he is kind of talking

down. Okay. We're going to stay here for 10 minutes because there we got. You know, he does have that patronizing. Tillman is, yeah, terrifying. Yeah. Terrifying. Like the greatest TV villain in a long time.

And then it's really confusing that he's so hot too. It's just a, for some of us. Well, no, he's so nice. He'd be like a great best friend. He'd be a great part of your squad to go. And in the beginning, you trust him more than Patricia Arquette. Patricia Arquette seems like the bad guy and he's like the one that's kind of more on their side. And then as the season goes, they sort of flip.

No, he's like, he's like Gerbils or some SS officer. Like there's some darkness there. Like, and this whole thing has very sadistic, insane pain and suffering and like prison, dare I say, Gerbill's like experimentation on people like human experimentation. They're definitely experimenting on them in some way trying to perfect this severance procedure, whatever it is. To what end? We don't, yeah.

I mean, that's the big, to bring people back to life to create humanity. It seems like to roll out for the whole world. They want everyone. We know that we know that Lumen wants everybody to be severed and like, God damn it. I try. Honestly, like, I think I may become a socialist. He's shocked.

I'm just like, give everybody health care and UBI. This is not, I mean, if they were determined, finally, let's go UBI. Just, let's go, let's go. That's what school games was about, too. I'm just saying at some point,

they all just start playing with us. Yeah, it's definitely got some of that, like, warning signals. And like, if you're, just understand your options in we work, the end game in Squid game or, you know, extreme capitalism may not work out. Yeah, never has before.

Never has before. Always leads to revolution. Just saying it's history. It's so fascinating. Helly is really just such an interesting character where it's even to themselves. They're even treating, they're even treating themselves as pawns. Like this other part of me that I can't connect to mentally, ah, whatever happens to them is fine. You're not a person.

Yeah. I am a person. Like, oh. Yes. Amazing. And if you ever cut your fingers or something, I'll just end you. Like, I don't need you. No, I'll keep you alive forever in pain.

Like they know exactly what they're doing. They're all baby goats. And she's the boss's daughter? Dude, what a real. She's a vegan, yeah. What? That was a great. She wants to quit, but she's the inherent.

There was a fascinating. Inherited. We see a very quick clip. We see a very quick clip of Heli, her Audi, about to film that video. And she's with Milchick. And he's saying, this is like episode three. for me. And he's saying, it's so great that you're doing this. We're so lucky to have you here. And so they inserted this idea of like, she's someone, she's not just some random hire.

They are, they're important. And she is very determined to be like, not just deter. You know, she is like, keeps on forcing the any back. I've got to make this work. Right. I've got to make this work. And also some, one of the reviewers and Vulture pointed out too, because, you know, I read the recaps of every episode that whenever Milchick is in there taking photos at one of these perk parties, it's always of her. It's like primarily taking pictures of her. Right. Which was a good note also. Well, she's the brand. She's the brand. She's a face of the brand. They're very cleverly like Steve Jobs's daughter or something. If there was like going to be a secession kind of situation here, she's the, it really is interesting how capitalism bringing up secession, uh, billions,

this show, squid game. We're really as a society at Lon, I think, struggling with wealth, wealth creation, corporate power, and globalization in our role in all of this and how we exist in this new world order, which, you know, was previously the state and religion would have this, you know, oversized impact on our lives. Maybe you could speak to like some graduate school bull-h-h-about what this all represents better than I can. I feel like a big theme in, certainly in severance, probably in all the shows that we watch, is the helplessness that a lot of people feel when faced with these kinds of incredibly powerful systems of control. I know you see it a lot in the climate change discussion. I think like don't look up. I think was very much playing

into this same same feeling that if you're an everyday person, you look at corporate power, the financial industry in Wall Street politics. And you say like, well, how could, even if I vote, even if I organize, even if I join a cause and do activism, how can I push back against this? This is power and control. And I think the climate change debate to me really drives this home more than maybe any other discussion that we have that like, I can recycle. I can drive a Tesla or a hybrid. I can do all those. I can walk instead of driving. I can do all. I can do all. all those little things that we say. But the power of me to do something versus the power of Amazon to make a change or the power

of the U.S. government or China or Starbucks. Like, it's, I'm a drop in the bucket compared to the airline industry. But maybe a lot of drops in the buckets could create a tsunami of change. That's what I actually like is that they threaten her. She's like, if we all do it, we can. But I completely agree with you. I think like there. And also the learned helplessness, the forced helplessness, right?

We have been told that we can't all come together to make this change. We have been told and that's like the key to keeping the departments apart. If you keep them separate. I mean, it's very non-suttle when you think about it. It's like, oh, if you keep these groups apart, they'll never organize and rebel against the overarching power. Blanking your employees' memories when they leave the office. All of these are various systems of control. We don't want them to remember.

We don't want them to know these and conquer. Divide and conquer. We want them to only know the things that we've laid out for them. the thing. And I mean, the added thing of having Cobell live next door to Mark as Selvig, she's monitoring both versions of his life. It is all about control on one level and narrowing that perspective. I totally agree with what you're saying, Molly. I'm not here to say, you can't make a difference. Oh, no, no. I'm just saying they made that point very well, right? They made that point that it's the key is to make everybody feel powerless. And then they will never rise up.

I think it's a feeling that's out there a lot of people feeling defeated, of people, of people feeling hopelessness. I mean, Trump made people feel that way. If you elect this sociopath, who did, who said McCain is, and not to make a political, but you're saying McCain is not a hero and that you can assault women and there's no repercussions. No accountability. No accountability.

And that, you know, whatever percent of people were on board with that, it is, I think, what makes a lot of people feel like I cannot affect change. But of course, that is not true. You can affect change. And if you compare this to the great 60s 70s movement, those films, the Easy Rider era, was about fighting a different not corporate interest in that case. What you were fighting there was government, right? So you have three days of the Condor, seven days in May, maturing candidate. Like, who is, who are we going up against there?

The government, the secret agencies, the power of government. A lot of those 70s movies were about the moment when people started that it was kind of the beginning. of what we're now seeing the end of. That was the moment where, you know, they say America lost its innocence, where we started to realize, like, all of these organizations are corrupt.

Every power that we've counted on is corrupt. The CIA is corrupt. The U.S. government's corrupt. The military is corrupt. Vietnam War. All these systems, Wall Street,

financial, all these corporations. And that's where you get, yeah, you get stuff like taxi driver, where it's like, we've been abandoned by everybody that we counted on.

Nobody's looking out for us. Nothing matters. Right. We're all lost and spinning out the spiritual ancestor of falling down, you know, then you start to get this idea of the individual rebellion and freak out. God, I love Thursdays.

Can I just say that's not the Don Julio talking? Thursdays are the best. As a not the Thursdays. You guys, really? I love you guys. One needs to have more pictures. Do we go out after this? We should get some waffles.

I wish to put the Don't Julio on the waffles. Now, we can never say waffles ever again. Did you notice that the waffles? Did you notice that the waffle, There's so many. Go to the Reddit. Reddit.com. I'm spending all day in the Reddit. Are you kidding?

That's where the ball is. The Waffle Party, one of those paintings that optics and design had, you know, they had those like Renaissance Rembrandt style paintings. One of the paintings. Two departments finding each other famously, yeah. The Waffle Party recreates exactly one, like, you know, the, when they're all in the masks and they're doing their, the four theories. They're recreating one of those paintings exactly visually.

Which painting? Yeah. There's a painting of like a goat and a woman and they're doing the same poses as the people are recreating during Dylan's Mopold Party. It's the one that Bert and Irving meet over. Like they meet in the hallway and they're both looking at it outside of the, I know. I'm so in love with their love. That was like the best love story. I've seen it.

Oh my God. I mean, that's just Turturro and walking. You get Turturo and walking and they're both just all in on it. I kind of want a series, Ben Stiller, if you're listening. They're all in. Can we get? Yeah. Because there's some backstory there.

with them in the war and I maybe Titoro's got PTSD or something. There's a whole PTSD thing happening here too. We're definitely going to get more or maybe the severance. I think the severance like was probably originally conceived as for people with PTSD because you have.

It is a trauma treatment. It's a trauma treatment. Are you sure you haven't been in the Reddit? This is exact. This is all this is all ripped from the red. All right. Speaking of. All right.

Live you're the greatest. Enjoy your sheets. You're the greatest. He can't. I'll learn that bed, my friend. Just no, I want those sheets by next Thursday. It's more at work. What are we going to watch for next Thursday?

Lon, what are we do next? Because now we've finished our tech. Oh, my gosh. 60% is left. I don't think there are a startup. Unless you guys want to finish Super Pump, I think we're done with the startup shows right now.

Give us something that's sci-fi, futuristic. That is, that relates to capital. So here's what the show is about. Capitalism, startups. We could do a movie. We could just give us something to Shereen between that and now. I mean, I love the movie The Founder as one which Michael Keaton's in. We could read the book slash.

God, that is so good. Do the file. We could do that. The Ray Kroc movie. Oh, phenomenal. I think it's a great movie. I really like that Michael Keaton, that Michael Keaton movie. I think it's a Michael Keaton like top three performances.

And this is a big statement because his performances are, man. All right. Well, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. What else is on the top screen? Give me your top three. I mean, my immediate thoughts are...

Entrepreneurship. We can go any era. You go to the 60s, 80s. We trust your judgment. Have you watched... This is going to seem like an out-of-left-field suggestion, but I promise it's not. The HBO Mac series, Julia. It's about Julia Child and the creation of her show, the French show.

But it's very much a... It's exactly what we were talking about before. We were talking about confidence porn, that idea of watching a show that's just about professional people who are very skilled. doing something, taking on a project. So this is, what have you got a bunch of very smart people in the room? And they all know cooking or TV. And you say, make up what a cooking show is. Go.

Invent the cooking show. I love it. Product Market Fit. All right, Lon, thanks for coming in. And we have another guest coming up. All right. Thanks, Lon. See you next week.

Let's tee up the next story. Go ahead, Molly. Do your thing, Molly. All right. What is happening here? Professionalism. I apologize for our guest for making so later. We are coming back to the Twitter and Elon story.

Back to reality. Oh, okay, great. With a hard thump. Twitter has confirmed fluctuations in followers that came after the Elon Musk deal announcement. I have my own theories. And has confirmed that, in fact, they were organic. They did not necessarily appear to be a big old box situation. What was my theory?

What was my theory, Molly? I know. So we brought on someone today who actually fact-checked this and did a breakdown. The verge of the study. We're joined by the study's author, Corinne Fife, who is extremely patient. Corrin, thanks so much for coming on. Sorry about that. We're geeking out to serenance.

We're going to send you some tequila. I think that's the only way to remedy this situation. Do you drink? Do you like a beverage? No problem. I will accept tequila in reward. However, you have spoiled the show severance that I haven't yet seen. Sorry about that.

Well, can we send a Don Julio in 1942? No, we really know. You need a Don Julio. Corrin, your bono a few days. I believe you are what they would call a data reporter. Explain maybe your background there? Yeah, sure. So I'm a data reporter.

Well, in fact, currently I'm at the verge. I mostly cover cybersecurity and privacy news. Previously, I was at a publication called The Markup, which is really specializing in data journalism, investigative journalism, yes. Yes, exactly. And so I've done a lot of research previously into social media, social media algorithms, and how they impact the way that we see information. who sees how it's received,

that kind of thing. All right. So we saw these crazy jumps happen. Everybody, like I saw Jim Jordan was like, oh, Elon Musk has changed the rules, and therefore we now get followers. And I was like, okay, Jim Jordan's dope. He doesn't understand that Elon's offer isn't even accepted.

He has no functional role at Twitter. He could affect no change. I mean, he can talk about Twitter, but he's not, he doesn't own the company yet. That's going to be three, six, three to six months from now. But I did see in my podcast feed that Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan,

and every other podcast in the world is covering this. And if Ben Shapiro is covering this and he's the number one one of the top podcasters in the world, I'm not sure where he sits, it would follow that if podcast advertising

drives online behavior, Ben Shapiro talking every day about liberal tears. I saw the headline was like, liberal tears. just A-Lan must drank them all. That's the kind of that activates the right. So now the right's going to come in.

Am I right? Am I guess? That it was the podcast pump. Corinne, what did you find? What did you do? Yeah. So I was going to say there's a lot to unpack. So I think we're kind of jumping ahead if we go straight into why did it happen.

Yeah, yeah. So let's start with exactly. What did you find and report? I'm excited. I hope that it isn't a spoiler for too many people, but I can't really say exactly why it happened. But what we can say looking at the data is we can talk more conclusively about what has happened and what evidence there is for it. So, yeah, of course, as you say, Elon Musk, the acquisition of Twitter, there was a really long buildup, a lot of hype around it leading up to this announcement. April 25th is when the deal was finally closed and announced.

We've done a lot of coverage of that at the verge. And a funny thing happened where very shortly after that announcement was made, as you said, Jason, a lot of these conservative accounts were suddenly saying, wow, we've got a really big boost in followers. And simultaneously, a lot of other large accounts seemed to be losing followers. So there was a piece first in NBC News. Ben Collins wrote that one where he was talking about some of these really high-profile accounts that had lost followers. Barack Obama, I think, lost a few hundred thousand. There were quite a few other examples of that. So there was initial thought about, exactly, there we go.

Mark Hamill again has lost a lot of followers. Right. So you have this thing where a lot of people, and he's quoting, quote, tweeting someone else from liberal Twitter saying that she's lost a lot of followers. And then we had a similar thing in a kind of more conservative right-wing Twitter of people quoting each other saying, wow, I've suddenly gained a lot. Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a screenshot of his follow account, having grown 80,000 in a single day. And he was speculating, as I think you mentioned, okay, or has some kind of change been taken?

Has Elon already, you know, he's taken the brakes off this whatever was stifling conservative follower growth? So there was a lot of kind of anecdotal evidence that something was happening. There are signals of something happening. And so then you were like, let's do some stuff. science. And exactly. I mean, I think I would stop short of science because people who are really, people who are really data scientists would jump in. And I've got to say, let's do some investigating. Investigating. I'm happy to call it that. Yes. So, you know, it was somewhere in between the anecdotes and the science, something I think people sometimes

call anecdote. I like that. So we, so we, with some, to help of some colleagues at the verge, We put together a list of 50 influential conservative accounts, 50 influential liberal accounts. How'd you pick them? I mean, this was a fairly unscientific process. It was kind of based on we started off with a few accounts that we knew saw changes, looked at some of their follower lists. We really just said the cutoff is that minimum 100,000 followers and accounts that have a clear political ideology attached. Perfect. But yes, if it was going to be a.

social science study, there would have to be a more concrete methodology than that. So we then used a service called Social Blade. It has an API that lets you pull historical data about Twitter followers. So we could see how they've changed over time. So for each of those 100 accounts total, we had. Right, exactly. That's what you see. If you look on the Social Blade site, you will see something like this.

It's just the date, follow account, plus or minus change. And so we had 30 days worth of that data for 100 of these accounts in the data set. And so can we pull that back up a little bit for people who are not watching and we'll describe it? That was, for example, the follow account for Governor Ron DeSantis, his website. And you see that like on Saturday, April 16th, he gained 5,674 followers. That number keeps going up. And then we have April 26th, which I think is the day that the deal was announced. He gains 141,000 followers.

and then 64,000 the day after, 80,000 the day after that. So that's a pretty obvious trend. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. And what we wanted to answer is, is there a consistence in this trend across the ideological groups? Or is it something that's kind of random? And having put together this list of the 100 different Twitter accounts, we ran the numbers.

And usually with data science, things can be kind of messy. You don't normally get a very clear signal on this kind of thing. But immediately it was possible to see from the conservative accounts in our list, 48 out of the 50 had disproportionate gains from the 25th to the 26th of April. So that was after the acquisition. And 50 of the 50 liberal accounts, every single one of them, had lost followers over that period,

which is unusual because the trend really for all of these large accounts is that they just steadily grow in followers, you know? As you can see, we charted the data and what you will see is that over most of the month, the rate of change is fairly consistent. Every now and again, something that will happen to give the liberal accounts a bump or a conservative account, a bump, but there's a very slow, gradual change. And then the moment this Twitter acquisition deal goes through, there's a very clear and pronounced spite in follow growth of conservative accounts.

and then that is matched by a decrease in liberal followers of liberal accounts, whereas previously those accounts have also seen a steady growth. Yep. Fascinating. So you did this analysis. Okay. And it sounds like you don't necessarily want to speculate on what might be driving this, but it seems like there are a lot of potential.

Speculates. Is it speculate time? Yeah, let's speculate. We can speculate to some extent. So if we're going to look at the data, the thing that we can say confidently based on that is that there is a significant change and it seems to be consistent across the ideological groups.

So that's a really interesting finding on its own. People who are speculating that maybe something has changed in the internal mechanics of Twitter, based on what we know about these companies, it seems unlikely that the change would happen that quickly. It seems unlikely. That's not to say that it is impossible, but it seems unlikely that the day Elon takes over immediately he says,

we've got to change this algorithm in a way that boosts conservative follower accounts. Right. So it's very unlikely to have been an algorithm change. Is there any way to tell whether it's bots? There's an easy way to tell. But Corin, go ahead. Yeah. So I think that with the data we collected at the verge,

I don't think we can really talk about that. For someone else, for researchers with access to more data, they might be able to. But one of the things that we know is just that there was huge attention to this deal. And it is something that when this acquisition happened, there's a kind of a polarization in the response. I think a lot of people who are more on the right, on the conservative side, saw it as a very good thing and have felt for a long time that Twitter has stifled liberal viewpoints. a lot of people more on the left thought that it is bad to have this billionaire suddenly in charge of the platform. And it really is possible that a lot of more liberal thinking people deactivated their accounts.

And a lot of more conservative people were convinced to try a platform that they'd otherwise dismissed. Had written off maybe, right. Well, and we should be clear that even if some or many of these accounts that followed and unfollowed were bots, that still suggests a shift in what people perceive to be the value of the bots. Right? Like, if you created a bunch of conservative bots, there was a reason for that too. Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that.

And I think that what will happen now is that we're slowly going to move into getting clearer and clearer data about it. So we started off with the anecdotes. At The Verge, we've now done a very preliminary data analysis. this. And over the coming months, I'm sure we will have people from more of the social science research side of things doing very kind of tightly peer-reviewed studies. Yeah. It might be the Don Julio speaking, but I figured it out. Because I'm Colombo, you know, like I'm like a dopey detective, Corrin. You know who Colombo is, Corrin? I do. I do. You're aware of it. I don't know, you seem like you're like 30 years old,

so I don't know if you know Colombo. By the way, just to be clear, this is about to get. I'm speaking. This is about to get amazing. Space all right. It's one more thing there, ma'am. You said you had the chicken plumage on Sunday. That's not special on Monday.

So I just, my wife says I'm a nudge. That's my, Peter Flock impersonation. Heaven help us. If you go to the followers and you look at the actual followers of conservatives and you pull them up

and then you scroll down, you will see in the followers, I believe, are presented in reverse chronological order of followers. And then you start looking, you will see on this list that none of them have changed their photo. Right? They're all the default Twitter photo. That is a tell that it's a new account and possibly a bot account because the bot accounts don't take the time to put photos up because that can also be a tell to get them banned.

But anyway, if you actually look at the date in which a lot of those and you just start opening them up randomly, some of them are accounts that were created last year. but many of them were created in April of 2022. But I mean, that's just, for one thing, that validates the data. But second, it also does continue to raise this question of why create bots that specifically follow conservative accounts now versus deactivate bots that follow liberal accounts. Even if it's all, even if it's mostly bots, it still is a clear signal about what people I can explain it. Think is going to happen. It's the signals that are being sent. There's multiple things going on concurrent.

is what my belief is. One thing that's going on is the conservative podcasting media coverage bump. Media drives online behavior. That's why online, you know, Casper Mattress Ait Slee, buy ads on radio, terrestrial, and on TV, and certainly on podcast. If you hear something, if you see something, you then take out your phone and you do an online behavior. We all know this.

It's established. You need only look at marketers. embracing podcasts or network television as the reason. So you put that on as you have Ben Shapiro, Tucker talking about this for two weeks to Corrin's point, this thing took over the media cycle. Whenever anything takes up the media cycle, I saw this with Uber, you know, this is private discussions amongst people who were investors in Uber. Every time a scandal happened in Uber, you know what happened? We moved up the rankings in the app store.

The number of downloads went up. People didn't make a judgment. They just said, what's Uber? I think what's happening is a lot of conservatives are saying, what exactly Twitter? I've heard about that. I should go check it out. Oh, yeah, there's some controversy over here.

I'm for free speech. Oh, the libs are triggered? I'm in, right? That's their benchmark. Ben Shapiro's listeners benchmark is, are libs triggered? And they literally Ben Shapiro sells with his subscriptions to his $100 million a year service, what I understand his revenue is.

He sells a tumbler that says liberal tears on it so you can drink liberal tears and pretend your coffee's liberal cheats. So that's what's driving the bump. Then this is my next two theories. Okay, ma'am? Should we the Don Julio speaking? I know. Should we let Corin go for the analysis part?

I don't want to put him in an uncomfortable position as a reporter. 15 seconds. I'll give him why I think the liberals are losing. Or the bots are, I think people at Twitter, just a theory, who are in the security and teams, are saying, Elon's criticizing us about bots. Let's show the new boss or people who want to embarrass him or whatever, or just the public. Hey, we're getting criticized. We can't solve the bot problem.

Let's solve the bot problem right now. So that means everybody's losing a little bit on the bots. But net net, the conservatives are getting the media bump. Go ahead. So, Corin, from a data perspective, what are you going to look at next? Yeah. What do you think? What do you think about this series?

So I think there's an interesting question there about the net effects of it, right? There is an interesting question because Twitter for a long time has struggled with increasing a user base that's been very slow compared to some other platforms. Like the bigger social platforms are now hitting this problem. Facebook, similarly, you know, there's only so long that you can keep it. expanding when you've already got billions of people on the platform. You know, newer platforms, TikTok has come along and had such explosive growth. You know, that's kind of the now that the gold standard for a new social media company. Twitter, much as it is very significant for the public discourse, the growth in user base has

been slow. Now that Musk has taken over, there's going to be a lot of questions about what will happen to the company. And if he can attract more users and a lot of new users to it, that's going to be a very significant thing. And that's going to be well regarded in terms of his leadership, even if it might turn out that more of those users come from one side of the ideological spectrum. That might change the nature of what Twitter is as a platform and how we experience it at the same time. If this is an influx of real people and the number of people coming in outweighs the number of people. people who are potentially leaving, which is also one of the things that we see in the data,

in terms of new followers, they do seem to outbalance the number of deactivated accounts and lost followers. There's one way of looking at it that says, that's very healthy. That bodes well for the platform. Of course, there's another way of looking at it that says if all of these people have conservative values, if all of these people believe that you should not moderate speech and you should be allowed to insult one another freely on a social media platform, it can change the way that we interact with each other for the worse. So it's hard to say, but I think there are a lot of

interesting questions. Yeah. I mean, so what do you intend to look at next? Like as you sort of continue to examine this and see whether it does actually represent a C change, because like we do know, actually. I think Pew Research did some analysis back in 2019 and found that, that without a doubt, Twitter skews more democratic than the rest of the social networks and even the country.

The users are younger, more likely to be democratic. And so as you look at what might be a shift in usership, what will you examine? Yeah. I mean, I think having done this first study very quickly, we're interested in looking to see whether the trends hold over the long term.

Will we continue to see growth for conservative accounts, or is there a point where it will balance out where maybe all of the new people have joined who are going to join and then things stabilize? Beyond that, I think the honest answer is we don't know. Things have moved very quickly with the Twitter deal, and we're all kind of, we all have whiplash, I think, to some extent trying to figure out where it's going to go next. So I'll keep you updated on that one. Corian, can't you tell, is it public data deactivated accounts?

Because when somebody deactivates their account, that would cause somebody to lose a follower. So if the theory is, we've got this mass exodus of left-leaning liberals, you know, however you want to frame it. Or their liberal bots. Anti-free speech, whatever you want to frame it, I'm not going to get into that. But people on the left, I think would be a way to describe it. If they are en masse turning off their accounts, it would have to be if Mark, I'm sorry, Mark, is it Mark Hamilton? Yeah. So he's certainly left leaning.

I follow him. I love Luke Skywalker. If he's losing 8,000 and other people are losing 10,000, it's either bots or it's people actually deactivating their accounts. So that means there's at least 8,000 or more that have deactivated their accounts. If you deactivate your account, you see that. You go to the page and it's turned off. So in order for him to lose the follower, it would need to be deactivated.

therefore, deactivated is something that's scrapeable. So have you discovered, or anybody listening to me email producers at this week in startups and certainly DM Corrin, I wonder if developers could just give us a list and I just tweeted it. And somebody just make a list of how many people deactivated their accounts. In other words, in the last 30 days, what accounts were turned off? Give us that list. And then compare it to how many people deactivated in the 30 days before it, we'd actually

know what the average month of deactivations is. There must be some baseline. And we'd see if the baseline went up. And then you can look at the delta of that baseline and say, let's actually just do a random sampling. Maybe some number of them are libs or not. Twitter certainly has that data. They may or may not decide to release it. Otherwise, that kind of data is accessible through the Twitter API, but the full unfiltered data set they only make available to researchers because the volume of data is so vast and potentially sensitive that you have to demonstrate that you can handle it.

in a meaningful way. But that data is out there, and I'm sure that it will emerge. And it's interesting. Our producers were noting that it looks like about in your small subset of data, three conservative gains for one liberal loss. So if you were looking at an impurely mercenary way, you would say, okay, well, that's growth, right? Like, you gained more than you lost, so the platform is growing.

So success. Conservatives have left Twitter, right? That was kind of the theory. We're going to go to Truth and parlor and go find Trump and go find Alex Jones and go find all their whack jobs. That's me saying that, not you, Corrin. I know you're a poor to keep everything straight down the middle. But, yeah, I think they want to go find the wacky folks. I also think there's chaos agents.

That's another thing. We're not, there are trolly, 4chani developer types who create these bot networks. And Twitter has made it so easy to create bots that they could just be effing with people. and they could be just yanking our chains so you could have multiple levels you could have Twitter employees taking bots more seriously because they know that's what the new boss wants you have this bump of media

conservative media suddenly like oh we can trigger the libs over here are this guy's on our side let's go trigger the libs you could have some number of liberal people saying you know what I'm out I don't want to be part of this anymore I was preferring the trend they were going towards with more safety and you know less full contact

let's be generous but yeah Corrin super interesting research we really appreciate you coming on yeah please come back you have a voice for radio it's amazing do more do more come back every day every week absolutely I would love to

well thanks a lot for highlighting the research on the show and follow Corrin TXT yeah we love the numbers yeah Capollo at Corrin TXT on Twitter you can you got a book in you Corin I feel like you got a book in you you write a book yet Jason wants to be your agent Not yet

Not yet Yes Hey some book agent here By the numbers By Corinne How do you pronounce your last name? Is it Feefe? Five

Five. Oh five Okay By the numbers Corrin Yeah Well if you are an agent What's the reality?

Yes I'd love to talk What's really happening In social media By the numbers By the numbers By the number I just got a good ring to it

By the numbers All right Corrin, we hope you will come back. That's a good reference too, like a dot txt file. I like it. Because you're a data sign. Are you a data scientist by trade or are you just play one at the verge? I'm a data journalist.

So again, so that people don't shout on me at Twitter about this, you know, I'm a kind of, I'm data savvy compared to maybe the full range of journalists. But in terms of data scientists, I would be a very sloppy one. Got it, got it. So you got Nate Silver away over here and then. But I think it's important for all journalists to learn some data, right? Because there's a lot of opinions. Everybody wants to talk about opinions, myself included.

But man, the data is really how you learn stuff. So I appreciate your work and appreciate you coming on. Sorry, we were late. Don Julio on the way. No problem. Yeah, pleasure to be here. On the way. It's on the way.

Good luck with that book deal. Hey, book agents, let's go. Let's go. Slide into Corian's DM. He's got a book in this kid. I like it. Be cool, Corey. All right.

Amazing. Well done. He's like, do I go? Can I go? I was like, I just, people don't know, but I was like, hey, Molly, Don Julio's hitting. He's like, help, help me. Get this back on track. She's like, I got your boss.

I'm feeling like I don't know who can handle their liquor a little bit more. Once he gets to Don Julio, I know, I know you're still chilling, Corrin. I mean, this is going to be fascinating to watch. What do you think, Molly? This is going to be fascinating to watch. We don't have to hit these, like, journalists and standards. We can have opinions. What do you think's really going on?

I think you're 100% right about the coverage bump. Like, I think there's no doubt about that, right? that it's just like, however, there are also very clear signals, I think, to this audience, that this is going to be a friendlier location. And if Elon wanted to clear up those signals, he could any minute, right? But he is definitely... Is that wrong, that's friendlier? Well, I mean, there, I think the same Pew research that said that Twitter skews more liberal has also found over and over that, like, right-wing accounts are responsible for massive amounts of disinformation, right? Trump, I think at one point, there was a study that said that

specifically the Trump Twitter account was responsible for spreading like 80% of the disinformation on the web. That seems direction. Just that one account, right? I mean, if he's like, and that's just empirical. So do you want a place where people actually interact and everybody uses it? Sure. You know, yeah, you do. But I would also say, like, I cannot, as a, even a former journalist, pretend that those signals are not coming from Elon Musk himself. And that's why people are like, this is going to be great.

He said both sides are going to be. He said both sides, but the one he's encouraging is the right. I don't know. I think it's good for business that everybody be on the platform is probably the best. And on a freedom speech basis, it's good that people have a place to debate stuff.

And it's bad that there's misinformation. I think you take out the bots, You take out the brigading, and people can debate it on its merits. As long as people don't get personal attacks, I don't know. I kind of feel like one of the problems here is that- I think we keep acting like free speeches like people yelling at each other, but in fact it's like mobilizing to, you know, kill ethnic minorities in Burma. Like there are so many real-

That is a whole different level. But it is a whole different level and it's naive for him to say that free speech is about like, oh, no, someone you disagree with might disagree with you. that's not what content moderation actually is about. So content moderation is exactly where it's going. I think it's a good turn for us to make because there's a lot at stake here, obviously. There's a lot at stake here. There's a lot at stake.

So we all agree on there's a lot at stake. Then we agree there needs to be content moderation. It can't be a free-for-all. Okay, so agreement, agreement. Nobody disagrees. And then I think where we disagree or we will see disagreements, I'm not saying you and I, where people start to disagree or opinions diverge is in how to implement. implement moderation. And I think what we should do on this show, Molly, you and I, since we are so

smart and pragmatic and insightful and we've been around the block, is, truth. Let's just focus on the moderation piece. What should world-class moderation be? Because what we have now, I'm sure everybody's got great intent, but it's not clear what's going on. And there's a lot a mistrust going on. On both sides, I think people are like, why wasn't Trump taken off earlier? People are like, why is Trump taken off? Right. So putting aside whatever political party you're in, more transparency, whether it's on Instagram, TikTok, or here, I think is going to set us at least on a path to have an intelligent discussion. So I've been thinking about the New York Post banning a lot. And I have my feelings about it. It's hard to separate.

how I personally feel about it because I do think Trump was inciting people insanely who are from authoritarian countries to hack Americans. It's like the most treasonous thing you could do in my mind. It's sociopathic.

Yeah. To ask Putin or to lobby the Ukraine. Or North Korea. Or North Korea to hack shit. Like, this is treason. How anybody could support this is bonkers. But I'll put that aside. Because then people are going to say,

oh, Jake, let's go Trump's derangement syndrome. No. I have treason syndrome. Okay? I don't believe that we should support. I've been very consistent. It might be the Don Julio speaking that do not get in bed with dictators. Right.

Because they're dictators. These are authoritarian. If you want to keep political power, win elections. Yeah. Let's not enable dictators and encourage them to f*** with the system. That's the best system ever created by humanity. Yes. Period.

Full stop. Boom. So how should this work is something I want to dialogue with? So I think we should set a show and we should talk about maybe me and you or maybe me, you and one or two people who actually know from the belly of the beast how moderation works. And we should get really specific. Instead of the general, the emotion, I propose we do an episode next week, maybe Wednesday or something, give the producers a couple of days.

And we just take the hardest cases and then say, what would be ways to do this better? Because when they ban Trump, when they ban Trump, Jack was like, I wasn't involved. I was in Hawaii or something, right? Remember that? Yeah. And then they were. Bless. Okay, yeah.

I think we need to get this weekend startups Kauai House up and running. No, I just mean bless. Like, I wasn't involved in that. I was in Hawaii. I was the CEO, but, you know, okay. I wonder if I was trying to boot you. Leader of the free world's band and I didn't have anything to do with it. Okay.

But I mean, listen, I think that was like, I understand. I also do appreciate. It's been crazy times too. a neutral third party or trying to have a neutral board do it like Zuck did, right? Like this idea of the, what do they call that board? Yeah, the advisory board. The advisory board, whatever that advisory board. I thought that was actually kind of had some merit.

And he was kind of trying to do. You're not a terrible idea. He paid, you know, there were like too many disincentives for them. But yes, I agree. Like figure out. They're paid by Zuck. Yeah, I mean, they were paid by. I know somebody who turned down one of those operas because she was like,

there is no universe in which that's independent. Like that's not at all. I mean, a super well-respected lawyer. Like, they were really courting her hard and trying to get her on that board. And she was like, that is not independent. Which is probably why their eventual handicapping of the situation with specifically to Trump was like, you guys should make a better decision. It was like, what the fuck is happening?

It's just right back. That's what you for. The board was like, by the way, this potato is really hot. You take it. I don't want it. I don't like this potato. It kind of paid you to break open the potato, put some sour cream in there, mix it up and make it taste better.

I would love, like, I don't know if you've been watching Yishon Wong's tweets about this. He was formerly the CEO of Reddit. Yeah, bring Yasha on. Bring Yashon on. Everybody in the Noddy gang. Plus, he's doing climate tech now, which is awesome. But like, there is no other, there's nothing harder to moderate than Reddit. Yeah.

And they. Right? And he was like, people. And it's been very, I think, measured because he's like, you think this is going to happen. And then this happens. And it just is really a very. very measured look at how moderation gets out of hand. All right.

For next Wednesday show, here's what I want. Give me the top seven producers, and Nodies can help by emailing producers at this thing. Serbs. The top seven actual real world banning, censorings, however you want to phrase it, but let's call it, moderation actions that have occurred on Twitter or Facebook. Fair enough? That were like controversially mean. They were like notable.

Hardest. Notest. Biggest change. Yeah, yeah, totally. Like the ones that are challenging, the most controversial. the hardest, the biggest, all of those apply. It's seven, so some of them could be the biggest. Trump comes to mind.

Some of them could be the most controversial New York Post comes to mind. I don't know what the other ones are, Alex Jones. Yeah. Let's just get seven of them. And let's walk through seven minutes each how you would frame that, how Molly would think about it, how J-Cal would think about it. I'm talking myself in the third person because I had two Ciccan Holyos. That's way above my limit.

I just got to drive and pick up my kids for school. I'll be all right, Pat. No, J-CAL. Don't do that. I think this would be like a better way to do this. I'm tired of the emotional back and forth. I want facts. I want specific cases.

Judge Molly, Judge J-Cal, we're just going to go through and give our verdicts. And we can do it like the Supreme Court. You give your statement. I give my statement. I give my verdict. You give your verdict and then we have a vote.

Maybe Yashir will play along. And then we'll have three votes and we'll just see if we hit two out of three, three out of three. Maybe this isn't as complicated as people are making it out of it. I think it might be, but I'm also game to try. Let's try. Let's do specific. Why not?

Are we done with this show? Smart. I think we are. I think we've given everybody a two and a half hour episode. Sorry. Of Don Julio time. I love it. A little Don Julio time.

I mean, the second one hits different. It really does. 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. over to the syndicate.com slash SaaS SAAAS to apply to raise from the Sass Syndicate. And you can join Jason's

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