#67 - A Very Random Episode
Okay, we got a friend of the show, Jordan Harbinger's here. Jordan, how you doing, man?
Thanks for having me on, man. I'm just chilling, self-isolating, you know, the usual.
We are all isolating, but I appreciate you dropping in on the show, just parachuting in just for a couple minutes. It's always fun to have you. You know, this is a crazy time. 2020 has been a crazy year. We got coronavirus, and we also had, you know, the sad, tragic passing of Kobe Bryant, who was a guest on your show. How did that happen? How do you get Kobe?
Yeah, you know what was funny is I was pitching a publicity team for a different guest that I can't even remember now, 'cause he was about 1% as famous as Kobe Bryant. And they booked it, and it was like some comedian, which I, of course, was really excited about. They booked it, and they canceled it, and I got really annoyed. And they said, "Well, would you consider interviewing Kobe Bryant instead?" And I said, "Yeah, of course I would consider that. Let's do that." So we set it up, and I flew down to Kobe's office and went over there and hung out for a while and did the interview right there. And it was incredible. It was a really interesting experience. Experience to be there with his team as well for that day. Honestly, it was probably September of 2019, so the timing was interesting. You know me, I asked him all kinds of questions that had nothing to do with basketball, including about creativity, business, hiring and firing, because you wonder how a guy like Kobe Bryant decides who to hire and how he lets people go. I don't know if I'd want to be on the wrong side of him. I did end up asking him about his life and what he's gonna do for his second act. And if he ever— creepily, I asked him if he ever thinks about what he's gonna do if he were gone, because he has kids. And he was really, really honest in the interview. He was really, really straightforward, and I admire that. It was a really good interview, in my opinion.
Yeah, that is intense, high-stakes interviewing, to say the least. And was he like an idol of yours before you did the interview?
No, man, honestly, I— look, who doesn't love watching basketball? But I wasn't even— I'm just not a fanboy of athletes in general. So it was a great, unique opportunity, but I wasn't nervous because of that. I was more nervous because you just never know if your audio equipment's going to screw up. So I was more nervous, like, make sure it's recording, than I was nervous to be sitting in front of Kobe Bryant. Honestly, he's so— he was so friendly and unassuming and not very loud. In fact, we even had audio issues recording it because we're like, hey, we got to turn him up really high. And I said, I was like, you're really quiet. And he goes, yeah, I'm just not a loud guy, man. And I was like, oh my God, can you be loud for like the next 45 minutes? So it was, it was a really unique experience. I'll, I'll be thankful for that for a long time to come.
That is amazing. You know, when we started this show, we were doing the interview style thing and I made a bucket list, a wishlist of all the guests that I would want. Uh, you know, Kobe was on there. And, uh, when I look at your show and I've been going, I've been plowing through the archive of episodes that you've got. You've had a bunch of them. So you've had Tony Hawk, you've had Kobe Bryant. Who are some of the other awesome episodes that people should check out if they, if they do binge your show like I'm doing?
Sure. Yeah. Howie Mandel was really good. The comedian, he, he was very open about things like mental illness and how he doesn't shake people's hands. I've had Dennis Rodman, Malcolm Gladwell, and I also had Frank Abagnale, which a lot of people haven't heard about or from.
But he's at the Catch Me If You Can.
He is the Catch Me If You Can guy. So he's the real guy that was played by Leo DiCaprio. And we talked about the psychology behind how he was able to trick so many people. And now he teaches, of course, FBI and intelligence agencies how that's done as well.
That is amazing. So if you're one of the listeners to the, to the show who misses when we used to do the interviews and bring in guests, well, this is, this is my recommendation for you. You should go check out the Jordan Harbinger Show. He's got tons of interviews from guests that we were, you know, hoping to one day have on our show. He's already had them on. Check them out on iTunes, on Spotify, wherever you can find it. Jordan, appreciate you as always dropping in the show.
Yeah, thanks for having me on, guys.
We're on, we're back. What's up? Uh, me and Sam are here. Sam, you wrote something at the top of this. I want to hear what you have to say, which is people's reply about what we talked about last time. Thrasya, let's jump in with that.
All right, you want to— I'm going to read just word for word. I have it pulled up. On my Twitter. Okay, you ready? I'm not going to read the guy's name. He goes, "I'm a modest size mid-seven-figure Amazon seller in a network of guys that range from $1 to $2 million to probably $50 million plus. We have a few guys in our network that actually sold their company to Thrasio." How do you call it? Thrasio? Thrasio? Thrasio. "Happy to chat about Amazon e-commerce sometime." Okay, so I'm going to read his replies. Now, for those of you listening, the background is that On Tuesday, Sean and I talked about Thrasio. It's a company that raised money. They raised, uh, $100, $200 million at a $750 valuation. I don't remember.
Yeah, close to $100 million at a $750 valuation.
Big company. You can, um, they're only 2 years old. They're— and what they're doing is buying Amazon fulfillment, Fulfilled by Amazon company, Fulfilled by Amazon companies, and they are making the brands better and just owning them. They're doing a bunch of stuff. And so I had a guy reach out to me and he's— I go, that's great. Tell me, what's the— I asked him, what's the cash flow situation like? For most guys sub $10 million, they're probably working with 0 to a handful of US employees still actively involved in the day-to-day, large team in the Philippines and in cheap locations and are probably netting between 10 to 20% a year. Um, and, and so the typical size for $3 to $5 million, uh, the typical size is $3 to $5 million in revenue and they're probably pulling in $500,000 to $1 million a year for themselves. But the problem is, is that, uh, it's getting harder and harder. In 2013, you could sell almost anything and scale a 7-figure business. Now there are a lot more dominant, more sophisticated players, and it's incredibly hard to enter in the business. The Amazon algorithm is much smarter and it makes ranking incredibly expensive and difficult. Also, Amazon treats their sellers like trash. So it's kind of a mixed bag. I could take a month and do nothing and let my team run it and it can go perfect. Or I can get an email tomorrow saying my account has been suspended or killed and I need a lawyer to reinstate everything or I'm just crushed. So anyway, Sean, I wanted to, fill you in on this because I thought it was cool insight. I didn't know about that.
That's a good insight. So a couple thoughts on that. So the first is, I think he's right. You know, back 2013, 2014, it was a lot easier to do it than it is today. That seems consistent with what I've heard. In fact, it seems like the formula is build a successful Amazon business in 2013, '14, '15, then start teaching other people how to do it because it's too hard to do anymore. And so now you start giving away the sort of secrets and you become a teacher for the next 3 years. So I think that's the career path right now. The other thing that comes to mind, we were talking— I was talking to Andrew Wilkinson about this, and he was saying— he used the— I think it's a Charlie Munger quote, which is— oh no, it's a Nassim Taleb quote, which is, it's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. So, you know, there's a high probability you can make a little bit of money, you know, consistently, every single time you reach down, you pick it up. And then there's, you know, low probability of complete death. And that's what he's talking about when he says you can get a letter tomorrow that says your account is suspended, goodbye, and that's it. Or Amazon cuts the rates of your category. Like, I have a friend who was doing millions of dollars of book sales as a third-party bookseller on Amazon, and then Amazon was like, you know what, now our take rate on books has, you know, not 10%, we're gonna do 25%, thanks. And that like killed the whole—
that happened to me. That happened to me the other day. So in our— we are in the Trends group. Someone was like, just so you know, Amazon changed the fee. So basically I have various blogs like my personal blog or something like that, and it makes just like small amounts of money, like $3,000 to $5,000 a month off Amazon affiliates. And I don't even check it. It just runs because I've just written a lot of content over the years. They changed their rate and someone told me in the group, I think that I forget what I was earning. I don't even check it. I think I was earning 6% to 9% for affiliate revenue and then they changed it to— they like halved it. So that money just halved and it's no big deal because it wasn't a— it wasn't like a big income stream for me. But if you're Wirecutter or if you're BuzzFeed and you made $100 million from this, it's a huge deal, right?
Yeah, that 20% cut makes a really big difference. Okay, so—
No, no, no, no, no, it wasn't a 20% cut. It was way bigger than that.
Okay.
It was like half.
They halved. Ouch. And what category are your links mostly in? Is it electronics? Is it one category or is it just across the board?
They lowered it across categories, but across the board it's close to half. My categories were probably personal care and electronics. I mean, just anyone who— Yeah, or books, a lot of books.
Right. Okay. I want to know another topic. So we good on Thrasyo? You want to add anything else?
No. Do you not want to?
No, I think it's consistent with what we thought. You know, I like when people fill in the gaps with information that we don't have, right? I'm not an FBA seller. I don't know the ins and outs of that market. I just think it's interesting. We talk a little bit about it and then people fill in the gaps and the next episode we come back a little smarter. That's a nice little formula we have going. So I appreciate that. If we ever talk about stuff you know, tell us, tell us more about what you know that we don't.
Before we go deep into serious stuff, um, do you want to talk about, I want to give you feedback that I got from, from listeners. Sean, you ready?
Am I prepared for this? Is this harsh critical feedback?
Do I need to?
It's good. Oh, okay, great.
No. Okay. So, What I'm noticing with this podcast is we have a similar amount of views each week, and I think it's the same people over and over. I think we're like part of people's routine, which is cool. And the— I think one of the secrets to growing a podcast is you have to have guests. So when we had Andrew, he shared it. So all of the people who like him came and listened, and I hope we've got them hooked and they're going to listen from now on. And so the way that we're going to do this is we're just going to get more guests. But here's what people keep telling me, and this— they weren't saying this about Andrew, but they like it when it's just you and I riffing it and just making shit up on the fly.
Yeah, yeah, I've felt that. And I think it's even more on these Zoom calls because the Zoom call pace is a little slower. When we're in person, it's a little bit better, I think, to have that third guest on the seat. And it definitely depends. The third guest got to bring the— bring the energy. You can't just be successful and smart. That is not enough. You have to bring energy. You got to know what people want to hear about and get to the point. And so, you know, that's the rubric for guests, which is hard when you're also trying to find famous guests because they help the show grow.
And just for the record, Sean and I have recorded with— I think we've done it a bunch of times. I personally have done it a bunch of times and it was wonderful people who I like and it just turned out to be bad and we just don't publish.
Yeah, we throw it away and we don't even tell the guest.
We just throw it away. Yeah. And I've done it a couple of times, but like for throughout the years for whatever, I don't even remember what I was recording stuff for. I've interviewed I interviewed someone who was like an amazing operator and the content was whack and I'm like, nope, trash. Yeah, exactly. And so anyway, the feedback that we're getting, Sean, is that people like us because they say that I'm more optimist and you are more like down to earth and that we riff and they love that and that they can't get that anywhere. But you and I are like, let's go get more guests. People don't like the guests, but unfortunately that helps us grow.
Yeah, well, we'll keep mixing it in. Dude, I had a call yesterday that I was like, if I had just recorded this, this would have been like one of the dopest podcasts ever. It was just me and Furkan. We have a call every once a week now that's just called Cool Shit, and he lives in like the edge of like technology. He's like in the dark web basically, not in an illegal way, but sort of like he's on the forefront of what's interesting going on.
It's just like a He's just a nerd. He's just like a very typical Silicon Valley engineer. Yeah, and but he knows, he knows, but he's a reality in a good way.
He knows me well enough, and also he loves money enough where he knows how to take that stuff and bubble up the bits that are interesting, the bits that are relevant, and not just get lost in the weeds of technology. So that combo was amazing, but unfortunately didn't record. The other thing I was gonna say about the guests is being guests on other people's podcasts is the other way to grow. So I had Eshaan let yesterday reach out to like 50 podcasts and just be like, hey, I'll go on and talk about it, right? Like, I'll go on, I just sold my company, I can go on and talk about that. Hey, we built a podcast that did a million downloads in the first 6 months, we could talk about how we did that. And so I think guesting on other people's podcasts might be a good way. You did this with Gary Vee, with Pomp, so maybe we could do that.
Yeah, I've probably, so there's a caveat there. I've probably been a guest 100 times. And there was a period like over the trailing 6 months, I have it set on my calendar from 3:00 to 5:00. That's only guessing on podcasts. And I would do it and some of the small ones just drove nothing, right? Like it was total hit or miss. And so I would spend like 3 weeks doing it and it's almost like— and you probably like this— it's like being a comedian. You just say the same shit over and over and you kind of figure out what hits. And it's fun. It's almost like therapy. You just talk about yourself. It's cool. But, uh, it definitely gets a little repetitive and it— the results are not always there, but they are sometimes.
Yeah. And you know, the thing you said at the beginning, which is, um, for podcasting, you get this base and it's the sticky, sticky base of people who want to— who, who listen to it all the time. It becomes a part of their routine. They start to really love you, that sort of thing. It's very different than other products I've built where I'm like, all right, I want to get millions of users to just visit this page or like just use this once a week or subscribe to this and kind of forget about it. Like that's been a lot of the products I built. This is the opposite. It's like an army of 100,000 people who will like go to war for you. I think there's people in this group that would, if I said, hey, I need you to beat this person up, they would go beat that person up. Like there's people who really have your back. And, um, when I started this, I remember I was talking to Suli, who was the very first guest on the pod. And he was like, you know, what are you thinking next? You just sold the company. And I was like, you know, I really like this podcast thing. He goes, okay, like, is that a business? Like, in some ways it's a step down, right? It's like, I'm gonna make way less doing this than I did my last business or any other business I wanna do. And I was like, look, I want to just be in like a million people's earballs every morning. If I did that, I just know that that's a good thing. And I don't know how to get there, but I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna have to get into a million people's earballs. Every morning on their way to work, on the way to work. I think that's powerful.
Yeah. I mean, it may or may not be a business, but it definitely will lead to way more opportunity. I've had, I've had a lot of, I mean, I've been doing the content thing a little bit like before the podcast, so I kind of understand it, but the podcast definitely is different. I remember I went to New York, Sean, and I just tweeted. I was like, we're going to be over here. I'm going to be over here because I was there for a hustle advertising crap. And I just tweeted, I was like, yeah, we're gonna be here. I had 200 people want to come, and so we only let maybe 20 come. And because we're in people's ears, dude, like these people— this kid Ryan said something to me and he's like, yeah, you know, because you said how much you like this thing. And I was like, I don't remember what you're talking about. And like, they think they know you, right?
And it's funny. And you know, the other thing I like is that people are— the people who listen, it's actually pretty— they're really smart and successful, you know. I think a lot of podcasts that are about business, they cater to kind of lowest common denominator. So it's like, oh, the wantrepreneur is their core market. And you know, in our Facebook group for this podcast, I posted something saying, hey, I'm doing something cool for people who have a business that does over $1 million a year. And there's like 100+ replies just in that Facebook group of people who have businesses doing over $1 million a year, right? So these are not like kind of like the wantrepreneur who's, you know, at their 9 to 5 job or, a college kid or something like that. Like, of course there are people like that, but the audience also is mixed with a lot of interesting, successful people. There's a bunch of VCs that listen to this. It's crazy. So anyways, enough about the podcast. Let's give people some, some other topics or ideas.
Let's talk one more thing about the podcast, which is my house looks like it's crazy right now. I had to go and buy this mic. I've had to like set this all up. Dude, it's been so hard to set up like like a Zoom thing and it's hard. I hate this shit.
I know you want that business to exist, which is push a button and give me like a dope podcast, like turnkey.
Yes. Oh, and for anyone who's listening, this is podcast related a little bit. I promise I'll finish up with this, but this is awesome. So my friend Neville Badoura, he sponsored last podcast, copywritingcourse.com, I'll plug him. He, I did like a happy hour with him. I mean, I don't know, a dinner where we just, we're just shooting the shit because we haven't been able to see each other because of this stuff. He used a DSLR as his webcam and it was awesome. It was so cool. It looks amazing. It made him look like a Greek god. It looks like he's like, it's all like, it's like, does that— I don't know about cameras where it does like you're blurry in the background.
It's called like bokeh or something like that. So, so I saw on YouTube, uh, there's this guy Gary Tan. He's an investor in Silicon Valley. He's like, um, you know, one of the Y Combinator partners. And he did this YouTube video that was like, how to look like fucking amazing on Zoom. And I was like, dude, this makes sense. This is the new— like, this is the equivalent of wearing a suit to work now, right? Like, is sitting on Zoom and not looking like shit with your room looking like shit. And so this video only had 1,500 views, but he's like, look, this is the camera I use, this is the mount, this is the lens, here's how you get the— that blurred background look. And like, he looks amazing. And then when I saw that photo, you— the screenshot you had of Neville, I was like, I bet you he watched that video. And there was only 1,500 views, but I was like, anybody who's watching this, and the other guy who did it was Neev Dror, who's the founder of, he was at Product Hunt, now he has Shrug Capital, and he does it too, and it really does look amazing. And when I saw that, I was like, I should do this, I should invest in it.
So I'm gonna do it. I didn't know about this video, so last night I bought $700 worth of stuff. I bought, so I already have these Philips Hue light bulbs, you know what those are?
Yep.
Where you just say, Alexa, turn the lights on. Like smart. Watch, it's gonna turn the lights on. So I bought those, but you see back here behind the couch, I'm gonna put them there, and so it's gonna like shoot up, right? And it's gonna— I hope it's so like— I, we have like our room. Oh, I forgot I'm not using the camera. We have a room clean. Anyway, you'll see it. So I'm into— I'm in on this. I like—
so this guy reached out from Twitter who— he's done a couple of e-commerce things that are kind of interesting. And so I was talking to him and that's his new thing. So he's basically— he initially was targeting Twitch streamers because he's like, look, um, when you're a streamer, you're basically broadcasting from your bedroom and streamers invest in all this like artwork, cool lights, wall panels, smart speakers, all this stuff, um, to make the room look good. And he's like, I'm gonna make an e-com store that's like just gonna do that. Uh, it's gonna be—
what's it called?
Uh, I'll find the name of it. I don't know if he wants me to kind of out him, so we may have to bleep this if, uh if he's not into it, but I'll say it right here. It's called Visual Candy. And, uh, this guy's smart. I like this guy a lot. And so, um, so anyways, but now with the, you know, work from home, I think this extends a lot past where his initial market was, which is YouTubers and Twitch stars. And now it's, you know, any professional who's going to spend some amount of time in a home office. And just think about the amount of home offices that are being built out right now. Because people are needed infrastructure for this, but that's gonna stick around once COVID goes away.
Yeah, I have loved— I'm really into it. I've like gone to Amazon and I've tried buying like all the stuff, and it's kind of complicated because I didn't know which batteries do this. I was like, how do I just— I was like, where does the camera need to be? So I'm doing this. There's another thing called a Cam Link. I just looked this up.
Elgato makes it.
Elgato. Yeah, and it— I went and looked at it and it was— they built this entire thing for streaming for gamers. Yep. And it looks awesome. I'm gonna— I definitely am gonna start buying this stuff. I'm probably gonna drop 2 grand on all this crap. I think we'll turn our bed— we have another bedroom. I'll turn that into an office. So I'm— I like all this crap, dude.
I love buying shit. When you bought— and when I just get on a buy streak and I'm like, yeah, you know what? I deserve this, I need that, and like, you know, what's the problem here? And, and actually buying stuff is not, um, I don't know, there's something like cathartic about it. Like just the act of buying it feels fucking great and I love it.
Yeah, but for me, I've been having to call 1-800-GOT-JUNK and having to spend— like if I buy like a new desk, the boxes are so big I got to pay $100 to get rid of the box.
It's insane, especially here in San Francisco. The box problem is insane.
I fucking hate it. I hate it. It's one of the reasons why I moved. I live in a house now. I used to live in a building, and one of the reasons was, is because I didn't have to worry about the trash, right?
Well, no matter how much space I have, because I thought, oh, I got this new house, I was like, now I have a garage, I got this like tradesman alley, I got this extra closet. But it's that same principle. I think it's, I forgot, like the Parkinson's Law or whatever, which is, uh, time will work, will expand to fill the time you give it. So let's say you have a week to do the project Guess what? It's gonna take you a week. If you had a day to do that same project, it would have only taken you a day. And in the same way, like, junk, your shit, will expand to fill the space you have. And that's—
so here, let me— let— I've thought about this a lot. Let me get wise here, okay? I'm an amateur beekeeper, so I have bees. Do you know this? You know, that's your house right now. I don't have the right now, so they actually went away, but since 2013 I've kept bees. So I've always, for the most part, so listen, I'll tell you all about this. For the most part in my life, or in my San Francisco life for 10 years, I've lived in Glen Park. It's a nice neighborhood in San Francisco. It's like residential though, and I've always had a backyard. And I wanted a hobby that was not expensive, and I didn't want it to turn into a business. And I just wanted something fun that I could be outside. And I made a list of hobbies that I could pick.
You just picked the lamest one.
And no, beekeeping came up on top because it doesn't cost a lot of money to start. If you want to, you can just leave it alone and not do anything, or if you wanted to, you could poke around with it and like be active with it. Low maintenance. Um, low maintenance. It does— it only costs $300 to $500 to get into the hobby. You don't have to buy a bunch of shit to keep up with it. Um, and it was— allowed me to be outside. And so I, I became a beekeeper in 2013, I think.
How long do bees live? Like, do you still got a bee that's around from then?
No, no, no, no. They, uh, they, I think they might only live for like a few months. They cycle through. And so I bought about 10,000 bees and I get honey from them and I just give it away. And I, uh, I call it Southern Sam's Sticky Icky. And, uh, and, uh, so I've had bees for years. Um, and when I lived in SoMa, I only lived in SoMa for a year and then I went back to Glen Park and I just kept it on the roof at my office. So you can have bees. I would have 10,000 bees just on the roof of our office and no one would know. They stay to themselves mostly and they go out and get honey or get pollen and they turn it to nectar and it turns into honey. And anyway, here's the interesting thing that I learned. See, this has been like, this is where the wisdom comes. Like, here's the interesting things that I've learned with bees is bees fill the space that they are given with honey. So if you give them a lot of space, they will always fill it. If you don't give them a lot of space, then they just won't make it. Right.
And so the rule of the sticky icky.
And so I've learned this through bees that humans are the same way. If you give them a lot of space, then they will fill it with a ton of stuff. If you give them not a lot of space, they just won't buy stuff. You just won't, you won't, you just won't get stuff. And so that's the important thing. So when you think of like, I'm gonna get this huge house, so I'll have a ton of room and I'll have more space, you're gonna fill it to the brim with crap. And you will no longer have space. It always works.
Okay, that's amazing. I love that story. Didn't know you were a beekeeper. I've known you for like 6 years, had no idea. By the way, we both studied abroad in Sydney, and I took a class because when you study abroad, you're trying to have a good time, you're not trying to learn. And so I took the easiest class I could find, which was a bee, a bee class. And so I learned all this shit about bees, and bees have some crazy things. Like, just 2 quick bee facts, um, if I remember correctly from 10 years ago, I learned that when a— when the queen bee goes to mate, she leaves on an expedition and she will mate with as many male bees as she can along the way. And she basically has sex with them and then kills them right afterwards. Yeah, it's their back and they die. And then she, she sort of gets impregnated by all these bees. And then there's this other thing which is really interesting that, that people have learned from bees, which is like a big evolutionary learning, which was in a beehive Many of the bees could be fertile, but they choose to be sterile, and they choose to just take care of the queen bee's kids because they're all related by like some 25— they're all like quarter sisters or something like that. They're all like 25% related. And, uh, it turns out like in a Darwinian sense, you are better— your genes are better off surviving if you just tend to these half-sisters and quarter-sisters that you have rather than trying to have your own kids and survive. And so that's the crazy thing about bees.
Bees are awesome, man. It's a great hobby. You can get into it for $250. All you gotta do is go to Amazon and you type in beekeeping kit and someone will send you the kit. And then you go on your local Craigslist. You might even be able to buy them online, but that might take like a few weeks. But if you go on your local Craigslist, you type in bees, there's a farmer nearby who you can pay $100 and they'll give you 10,000 bees and they'll set it up for you. It's so— it's super easy to get into. And it is so fun. Bees, uh, uh, you could eat— I get— fuck, I mean, I'll get like, I gotta think about this, like probably 5 to 8 gallon milk jugs. Like what's the— how big is a, uh, is that a gallon of milk? Like that, that worth of honey, maybe 5 to 8 a year.
They're producing. Okay, cool. I want some honey. Yeah. Um, also related to this idea of like people buy stuff. And people love stuff and people will fill their space with stuff and bees will fill their space with stuff. If you want a good 5 minutes, go on YouTube and type Chris D'Elia Girls Love Things and you will have a great time for 5 minutes. Okay, and now that brings me to a random startup idea. So I don't think this would work, so let me start with that. But there's something interesting here where— so Netflix recently, Netflix in the last few years started going heavy into comedy. So comedy used to be like, HBO kind of owned the space, uh, where they would do, you know, HBO specials. Um, and then that kind of dried up. And comics are like cockroaches, they'll always survive. It's like, okay, we'll go play in the dingiest room, we'll go on stage, we'll get a Netflix special, we'll get an HBO special. Okay, we're back to the dark room again. Like, they won't quit because they're like degenerates. And now podcasting has been a huge boom for them. Um, so Chris D'Elia, who also just had a Netflix special come out, um, these guys make tons of money, right? So Netflix started cutting like $10-20 million checks, I believe, to these comedians because they know that comedians have these like rabid followings and, uh, the content is good. It's unique, sort of proprietary content. But I think that there's a product out there, sort of like a Crunchy— what Crunchyroll did for anime, I think somebody could do for the mid-tier comedians. I think you could make a sort of $5 a month, $7 a month subscription to, uh, the, the comedians that are not going to get Netflix specials, right? So not Chris Rock and not Seinfeld and Chappelle and, and all those guys, but like the next tier down, like, uh, even, you know, one level below like the Whitney Cummings of the world, right? Because they are still getting Netflix specials. And I think you could add them up, and it doesn't even have to be the hour-long special. It could be like a 10-minute set or 20-minute set or something like that. And I think you could get— I think each of them have a few thousand fans that would pay to be able to access that exclusive comedy content. And, um, and so you would— if you just aggregate all the comedians, then it's a sort of all-you-can-eat pass where, uh, as a viewer, I can discover other comedians too. So anyways, I think that there's a business potentially for a mid-level Netflix for comedians where you aggregate them. What do you think?
Great. I'm looking up information so I can— I, I'm— my brain's rolling and I'm gonna— let me, let me tell you what I think. So, uh, first of all, Quibi, I imagine, is trying to do something like that. So Quibi, um, is that even fucking how you say it? It's pretty stupid. Uh, I mean, look, I think with Quibi, um, it actually can be great because the people who are running it are like super smart, but it, it does not look like a good bet now, but it still might be. Anyway, they're trying to do something like that. Second, I think that that is a great idea, and I think the way that I would find out how to do it is I would look up Quello. Q-E-L-L-O. Have you heard of Quello?
Never heard of it.
Okay, Quello's cool. So what Quello is, is it's a— it's— I think it was started way before its time. It's an app on Apple TV, and all they have is live concerts. And so it was started in 2010, And, um, it's available on, it's like an, it's an app for your phone, but I think it's best on Apple TV and you could download it and you pay $10,000 or, um, is it maybe $10 a month?
Sometimes $10,000 a month.
Uh, I think it's $10 a month and you just get access to a library of live concerts. Have you ever wanted to do that? Or is that just me?
Uh, I kind of do this on YouTube, but YouTube like has enough free, like I listened to a bunch of like Red Rocks concerts, right? Cause there's a concert venue called Red Rocks, which is awesome. And like anytime a musician goes there, they film it in like epic, with epic cameras and sound, and they're just like available on YouTube for free. But this is cool. I like this.
It's awesome. And the, it's, it's, it's better than YouTube, but YouTube is great. And the reason it's better is because like if you buy like a concert DVD, the camera works a little bit better and the sound is a lot better. And I love live music. And so I am a big fan of this. And they have 70,000 paying subscribers. They were recently acquired by Stingray Communications, which is a publicly traded company in Canada. It's a cable company. So if I were you, Sean, and I wanted to launch this, or if I was a listener and wanted to launch this, I would look up Stingray Communications and I would go and read the, the filing for that company and I would figure out exactly what Quello does. That's what I would do. Um, and I would learn about how they did it because it's a relatively niche thing. They only have 70,000, um, subscribers. It's not huge and they've been at it for 10 years, so it's not a big number. And I think it is an incredibly viable business and I think it's great. Another thing, another thing that I would do is I would look up Discovery Channel and then National Geographic. Are you familiar? You're familiar with National Geographic, obviously, right? Okay. National Geographic is still a huge company. It— Disney recently bought into it at a billion-dollar valuation and they still make— they still make hundreds of thousands or hundreds of millions of dollars a year from their magazine subscription. Is that crazy?
That's insane.
Uh, and so I would figure, and, but they, but here National Geographic was a nonprofit and, uh, and so the good thing about nonprofits is you can go and see all their numbers. And so what I would go and look at, I would look at Discovery and I would look at National Geographic and I would look at Kwelo and I would see what they're doing because those are relatively niche, um, subscription companies that crush. Right. So long story short, great idea.
Yeah, so, um, I am a user of Carta. I, I think the product's only okay. It's still quite frustrating to use, but Carta laid off a bunch of people the other day.
167 people.
Yeah, and they raised money, um, and their CEO Henry wrote this message that he made public, uh, and he said something like, it was not your mana manager's fault for laying you off. It was 100% my fault. In fact, it was the opposite. Your managers tried to help you, and I'm the one who reviewed every list and I said, we're going to fire this person. So blame me. And I think that was great. I thought it was a great message.
So high level, he was basically saying, hey, we laid a bunch of people off and I'm going to, um, publish the announcement I made to the company so that, you know, presumably other CEOs and other companies can kind of learn from this, use this, or take solace in the fact that I did this too. I don't know, whatever.
Purpose was. Yeah, content marketing. And he published this, and I typically fall into the category of all press is good press, go ahead and do it. I thought this was kind of lame. Did you agree? And I tweeted at Henry, and I want him to come here and I'll say this to his face. I think he seems like a cool guy. This move, I think, was kind of lame, right?
I would agree. I've kind of followed this guy for a little while, like I've read some of his other stuff or seen some interviews. Seems like a good guy, seems like a smart guy, and I think Carter is a good product. And I like some of the other stuff they've done, like they have a Next Chapter program basically to help people who want to— people want to leave the company, they don't make it this like awkward exit, they like celebrate it and whatever, you know, in theory. So I thought this was lame mostly because I thought two things. I thought it was tone deaf, and secondly, I didn't think the actual statement was very good. So I thought just the premise of what he was trying to do, like What is the upside and what is the downside? It, to me, it looked like he was trying to pat himself on the back, and I know he would never— he would say that's not what I was trying to do, blah blah blah. I think he was trying to pat himself on the back and also like, you know, give a little bit of sort of, you know, put Carter's name out there again. Like, just by— it's kind of like the buffer way of like publish everything and the good, the bad, the ugly, and you get attention. But I just thought it was tone-deaf. And also it seemed like what he wanted people's reaction to be was like, wow, great leadership, way to take responsibility, great CEO-ship.
And, uh, and he got that.
And both not from me. When I read this, I was like, this was a pretty horrible way to do the announcement. Uh, and I'll tell you why. He started— okay, so here's like, I'm just gonna bullet point the, the, the summary. So he goes, um, over the last few weeks we're talking about recession planning. I said layoffs were likely and today is the day. I can't delay it any longer. Okay, weird start, but all right. Then he says, I'm sorry if I apologize, uh, if I sound robotic, I'm reading off a script because I don't know if I can get through this without something to lean on. Okay, you're not the victim. Don't say that.
That's also kind of, yeah, that's, that's pretty lame.
Yeah, lame as fuck. Uh, then he says, okay, let me start with the details. We're going to lay off 161 employees. That's 16% of our company. It's going to be different across the company. All right, whatever. This was weird. I thought it was just like, if you are one of those affected, you'll receive an invitation from your manager. Uh, if you do not receive a meeting invitation, you are safe. And I was like, okay, Hunger Games, a little odd way to do it. But you know, in a Zoom world, I don't know if there is a better way to really like kind of mass do this where you can't have the information come out until it needs to come out. But I just thought like, it's anxiety. That's a very like anxious feeling thing. And also you gotta know if you're the CEO and you say that, people's minds just start racing in that direction. They're just imagining what the next hour of their life is going to be. They're not even going to hear the next 3 paragraphs you say. Like, their mind is gone. They checked out. It's thinking about themselves. And so whatever the next 3 paragraphs are, ignore it. So then he goes, all right, um, the moral conflict. This is the part I thought was whack. So he's like, in a couple of town halls ago, I said there was 2 perspectives around layoffs. The first is the shareholder perspective— we're reducing costs. And protecting cash are what matters. The second is the employee perspective, where nothing matters more than saving jobs and helping employees in a, you know, in a time where it's like unemployment at levels of the Great Depression. So each of these are clear, they're unambiguous, and they're correct from their perspective, but they are diametrically opposed. This creates a conundrum for CEOs. CEOs sit between shareholders and employees and wish that they could do both. For every CEO, they have to deal with this conflict. I chose to manage this conflict by taking the shareholder perspective in deciding who should leave and taking the employee's perspective on how to help. To me, I was like, what is this paragraph?
Like, dude, yeah, what the fuck, dude? It's all the same. Like, you're just trying to build a company that makes profit and does— it works with good people. That's the same thing.
Yeah. And like, think about— you have to think about your audience. Do you think your audience gives a shit about the shareholder perspective and the dilemma you have as a CEO and how you've chose to to straddle this as a CEO. It's not even about you. So I just thought this was the part that was really odd to me, that like, see, it seemed like he— I don't know, I wouldn't have included this in the statement. And I thought that this made it look quite bad. And I would not want other CEOs emulating this part of the statement. Because what matters is your audience, is your employees, and you need to know, hey, this is really hard for us. We, we tried to analyze every situation, cut every other dollar we could before we cut anyone's jobs. And we did that, but this is the path we have to go. You know, this is— I'm terribly sorry, like, I did not manage the company in a way where we had enough buffer. This is a failing on my part. This is the worst, you know, the worst day in my time as a company, and it is for all of us. And so, like, here's what this means for you. And like, all you have to say is like, this sucks. We tried everything we could do. This was the last resort. And, you know, here's how we're gonna make it right by you. And not like this theory about how shareholder value matters and the CEO has to like straddle these things. It's like nobody cares.
Yeah, I, I think that, and I think that that's not only does nobody care, I think that that is just a silly way to look at it, which is when you're building a company, like step one is, uh, create something that people want. Yes. And get it in and get it into the hands, get it into their hands in a profitable way. Okay, that's step one. Like that is just the— that's the basics of a company, which is you make something that someone wants to give you money or you make something and you make a profit off of it. Right. And if I was—
I don't think that's step one, but that is the fundamental premise of the company.
That's the fundamental— that's a fundamental premise is what I mean. And so if I was him, I'd be like, look, here's the deal. Like, we expect— we expect it to grow a lot faster and we are investing in this and the plan would have worked.. But this thing slowed everything down. And so we just have to cut things that are not profitable. Right. And that sucks. And I'm sorry that that sucks, but that's what's going to happen. And I think that if you just say that in a more straightforward way instead of all this shareholder value shit, like people already know, people already know, like they're all adults in the room.
They understand this fucking crazy virus is happening and companies across the board are having trouble. Some companies have no revenue now. Like people get that, that that's happening.. And it's just like, okay, so what's gonna happen at our company? Oh, at our company, we've, they tried everything they could. They're making the, the sort of, this is what he needed to say was this was our last resort. Um, we did this in a way where we're not gonna have another round of layoffs because that creates, you know, a ton of uncertainty.
I wouldn't say that. I would, I would say we are gonna try not to.
Yeah. Like, you know, that is our goal and how we did this. But even then that's speaking to the people who are staying. You know, really at this point you just have to speak to the total group and just say, some of you are going to be affected. Here's how it works. Here's how we're doing our best to, to make it right, to do right by everybody who's done right by us. This is no fault of your own. This is a fault of ours in running a company that was not, um, did not have the margin of error, uh, to deal with something.
Yeah. I think that like what I would just say if I had to do this, which I hope I never have to, but I probably will have to one day, not like I'm saying our company, but I'm not implying anything. I'm just saying one day if I have a, if I have a long career, which I will, that you got to say, look, I have 100% of the flock that I have to manage and take care of. And sometimes that might mean that I have to fire 30% of the flock in order to take care of the other 60%. And that is just how life works and this just sucks, right? And I'm trying to make this happen in such a way that the 40% are not completely hung out to dry, but this is just what I have to do and I'm sorry that this is the situation. And if you want to blame someone, blame me, right? And that's that, right? And that's pretty much all you have to say.
Yeah, exactly. Like, you don't need the epic speech. And you know, right now we're kind of like, look, I I think we're clear that, hey, personally for us, this didn't like come across great and we weren't like, oh wow, that was epic. Um, on the other side, uh, you know, we're just kind of off the cuff coming up with what a, what a better speech might be. But the reality is that in this case, like you basically have a speechwriter, you have a multi-billion, you have a billion dollar company and you have time to think about this. And this is the, what, what we're reading is his output after thinking about it. And so that's the part that I thought was a little.
Also, I wouldn't have published it. I wouldn't have published this because it's like, do you take this fucking— take this on the chin? Like, and by the way, I know I'm criticizing this guy. I don't know him. He— and I will tell you, I'll say this to his face, and I'm sure he's actually a good dude. This is just a big miss. But I would say like, dude, you got to take this one on the chin and just like, this is a loss. And, and say, be a man and say what you want to say to your people, which that it's your fault. That's wonderful. I wouldn't publish this.
I didn't understand that. And also, I'm not— I'm not sure what the— what the sort of upside of was— of that was. Now, on the other hand, I think they did some things great, right? So like the actual actions that they were taking for people that were great, they're like, look, we're going to extend the COBRA health insurance till the end of the year because health insurance is super important, especially right now. And so they didn't have to do that, but they did. They removed people's cliff and they vested their shares. They didn't have to do that, but they did. You know, they, they give them, I think, a bit of severance. Didn't have to do that, but they did. And then they have this sort of alumni network where they're trying to help people get jobs. Cool. I like all of that. Like, I liked all of that action. I just didn't like the preamble, and I didn't like the sort of pat on the back. Seemed a little bit like, pat me on the back, please. Can I show you my leadership during this adverse time so you could like tell me I did a good job? And that's the part I didn't like. I liked a lot of the action. And of course, and like you, I don't know this guy, so, you know, this is not no, no personal thing against him.
I've, I've, I have friends who work with them and I've heard a lot of positive stuff. Um, I just think that like, and I, I, I value, I applaud Carta for raising this money and going big and trying to make something happen. And I applaud them from over, for over-hiring in hopes of like it working. Like I, I applaud the risk-taking and I want people who are listening that just because Sean and I are criticizing this guy, you got to take risks still and you got to try this big shit and it's not going to work all the time. Good. I mean, not good, but like, whatever. That's just— you got to— it comes with the territory. And I just wish he would have took it on the chin a little bit more.
Right. Okay. I got another— I got one more topic that's on a more positive note. Okay. So I got to wash. I feel like I got to— I've had some haterade spilled on me there. I got to wash that off. Um, so this is—
yeah, and by the way, John, you and I typically aren't— I'm rarely a hater.
Exactly.
So we're rarely haters.
Feels very—
so I, and I— yeah, so I want to add this by saying I hope these guys crush it. I hope they do wonderful. I believe and think they actually will. Um, I just think that this one move was a stupid move in a probably a very long and positive journey, right?
Um, and, and look, you know, there's a big difference of, of criticizing a person versus criticizing an action or criticizing, you know, something that was done. And this is definitely like, just didn't like the message, not the— don't know, don't even know the messenger.
Um, can we just say, by the way, that a lot of people, um, in media, like, in who have these podcasts and newsletters, and they're all fucking haters of the people they're covering, right? Is that not the craziest thing ever?
Yeah, well, I think it's like, um, It's like a fair trade. Uh, so, so, so there's this guy, uh, Eric Weinstein. Have you heard this guy's podcast? It's called The Portal. Smart guy. I don't know too much about him. He runs like Peter Thiel's, uh, fund. And so he's been talking about this concept lately that's called kayfabe. Have you heard him talk about this?
No.
Okay, so he's like, hey, there's this wrestling term called kayfabe, K-A-Y-F-A-B-E, and he's like Okay, what kayfabe is, is like, you know, in wrestling, it's basically— wrestling is a fake fight, right? WWE, it's like a prearranged sort of agreed-upon fake fight where I'm the hero and you're the heel, or I'm the good and you're the bad, whatever. And, um, and it, it's like the dialogue is sort of an agreed fight, um, for, for both of our betterment. Like, the more we feud, the more, uh, popular we both become. And, um, the fight itself, like, okay, we agree, we sort of agree to do this, And so he talks about how this happens in the real world too. Like right now I see this whenever Trump goes and does his briefing, and then there's that one guy from CNN, Jim Acosta I think is his name, and yeah, always there. And he— Trump's like, okay, yeah, you're next. And then he asks his question and Trump like rips him, and then that becomes like the 7-minute YouTube clip and CNN talks about it all day. And, um, like, you know, on one hand it's like, why doesn't Trump just kick this guy out? Or like you know, remove— revoke his press, you know, credentials here? On the other hand, why doesn't this other guy, you know, either, you know, fight back or start, uh, or like take some other action? Every day the same sort of thing plays out. And I think in reality it serves them both extremely well, where CNN gets awesome content that people want to watch because it's juicy to see the president fight with somebody. And Trump also loves the attention on the left, on the right, good and bad. And then he drums it up as, dude, those liberals are always trying to say this, and then the right supports him more because he has an enemy that's attacking him, right? And so there's like this dance that they're doing.
So I get that intentionally, I get that. But here's what I don't get. So I'll give you a very specific example. This pissed me off so much. There's this woman named Natasha T— I forget what her— Natasha I don't know how to pronounce her last name. I forget it though. It's like Tuz. Anyway, she was a blogger for Valleywag, which Valleywag was pretty funny and all, but they took it too far. All they did was make fun of Silicon Valley. And then she worked at BuzzFeed and then Wired magazine, and now she's at Washington Post. And she had this article that says Silicon Valley now deems luxury housing an essential an essential good or whatever. Good. And so people are still building multimillion-dollar condos. And in the first fucking line of the article, it says the mayor has deemed luxury housing as well as all other types of housing, including, including housing projects and this other stuff, as essential. And it was in the technology section of The Washington Post. Yeah, here it is. Natasha Tikku. Tikku, T-I-K-U. And I've met her before, and, and I was like, what the fuck? That's like saying, like, I'm gonna write an article in TechCrunch and be like, can you believe this? Billionaires are able to buy $1 million cars. And then in the article and be like, but also anyone can buy any car, including a $1,000 Mazda, including a $20,000 Honda Civic, including a $50,000 Mercedes. It's like, what? And then why is it in the tech section of Washington Post? Oh my God, this pisses me off. And so I looked this woman up and she's very educated. She went to NYU and then like Columbia Journalism or like just like Ivy League, just really smart woman. And I'm like, why would you study for 8 years or however long it took and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars when You're just going to do this. Hey, you're just going to hate the people who you write about, right? I don't understand it. Why not just go and write about something that, like, who you want to sell?
Of course, they'll say we don't hate them. We're just, you know, we're reporting on that. We're reporting the stories. We don't, we don't hate them. So there was a really interesting thing that happened recently where before coronavirus, there's this guy Balaji who's on Twitter, pretty popular guy. He was at Andreessen Horowitz and a bunch of stuff. He was at Coinbase and things like that. So he's kind of one of those like on the forefront of things guys. So back in January, he showed up at a crypto meetup and he was wearing gloves and a mask. And this was January when nobody in the US was really worried about this and everyone was kind of laughing like, what are you doing? He's like, well, you know, I think that there's a, you know, you know, maybe small probability, but that this coronavirus thing that's happening in Wuhan is going to be like a major, you know, global pandemic. And people are like, okay, apology, all right, thanks. And so this writer came out and wrote us— do a Vox, uh, the Vox— a Recode writer. Yeah, so Recode writer.
The Recode— oh my God, this infuriating.
So the quick story here is the Recode writer reaches out to Apology and says like, hey, uh, I want to get your comment on a story we're doing about, you know, Silicon Valley's, uh, reaction to the coronavirus. This was again early on, and he was like 'Yeah, I'm not interested. Why don't you report on— like, who cares about Silicon Valley's— what the Silicon Valley elite think about coronavirus? Like, you should report on the state of testing, the state of the, the, you know, the spread of the virus, and all these other, like, kind of, like, important facts that should be reported on.' And he tweeted out that he— that, that he screenshotted her DM and tweeted it. And then all the journalists were like, 'Dude, she was just asking for comment. Why are you putting on blast This is why people hate Silicon Valley. And he was like, no, no, no, no, I know this game. And he— so he talked about this. He's like, uh, this is a strategy called befriend and betray, where the journalist comes to you and says, hey, Balaji, you're an expert, I would love to get your take on this thing. And all they're trying to do is write the story. And what the headline of the story came out was something along the lines of like, you know, why Silicon Valley is not doing handshakes anymore. And it was like laughing at Silicon Valley sort of for overreacting to the coronavirus. This is early on. Before all the lockdown and stuff.
And he said, he goes, I promise you the headline's gonna be, right, Silicon Valley nerds refuse to shake hands.
And that's pretty much what it was. Now the body of the article, I went back and read it, was actually, you know, somewhat fair. It was just reporting what was going on, how, you know, whatever. But he was right about the headline. And headlines often written not by the journalist but by the editor, because editor needs to drive clicks, blah blah blah. Anyway, so this is a pretty interesting feud. If you want to hear more, Jason Calacanis did a podcast with Balaji that I thought was pretty awesome.
So I can't, I can't stand that, particularly given like me, like people always like, oh, you're a tech bro. And that like a lot of some journalists will say that. I'm like, you work at Vox. If I'm tech, so are you, right? Like, what does that mean? Tech? Like, like I had a journalist from the New York Times come and interview me. She's like, so what do you and your like tech bro friends—
Yeah, I was gonna ask you to do this. So tell the story, your New York Times story. This is an amazing story you've told me before.
Yeah. So first of all, like I, I made sure I recorded it and I had, because I knew, so I knew that this person was going to take me out.
Uh, so what was the context? You went to New York or how did it go down?
No, she came here. She goes, hey, you seem like an insider. I want to come and learn all the things that people are going to, are talking about. And yeah. And I go, okay, fine. Come. I know what you're doing. Come on. And, uh, but maybe it could be positive. Like maybe we'll become like, we can exchange cool information. Maybe you'll write something positive about me. Maybe I'll just, whatever. Maybe it'll turn out good. And she comes, she goes, "Can I record this?" I go, "Yeah, I'm gonna record it too." And because I didn't want anything to be taken out of context. And she goes, "So like, you're like a tech bro, like what do you and your tech friends talk about and your bro friends?" And I was like, first of all, why are you calling me a bro? Like, what do you and your tech chick friends talk? Like, why would you ever say that to me? You don't know me. And that's just rude to say. To say anyway. And I, and she, I go, well, I don't know. You, I go, you're in tech, you tell me. She goes, no, I work at New York Times. I was like, you guys just announced that most of your revenue comes from digital. Like you're at, why am I tech and you're not tech? Like you are tech. And she goes, well, it's just different. I was like, well, you tell me, what do you, you, you and your tech friends talk about? And she goes, well, we're not, whatever. She like tried to dismiss it. I was, I was like, and anyway, I go, Well, we talk about just like, you know, sports. And I was like, I don't know, we just talk about normal stuff, like cool diets or like cool food and like all types of weird stuff. And it was just so odd. She was just so trying to like— it was so much like an other, like I am an other from you. And I'm like, I don't understand this dichotomy here. Like, we are actually in the same industry. I work in publishing. So do you. Uh, we both make most of our money from the internet. Uh, like, why are you calling me this tech bro? I— you don't even know me. And she's like, what, you don't listen to Joe Rogan, do you? I'm like, well, yeah, I do. I listen to a lot of cool stuff. I, uh, I, I read— and this is true— every morning I go to CNN, and then I go to Fox News, and then I go to HuffPo, and then I go to Breitbart, because those are all like the, uh, the kind of the opposites. I read all types of stuff. I like Joe Rogan, I like Oprah. I do all types of stuff. Why are you trying to, like, set me up for this gotcha moment? Right. And it was horrible. I hated it.
Yeah.
And so to sum this up, the headline, by the way, we have it: multimillion-dollar mansions, high-rise waterfront condos, and a stately Victorian, all deemed, quote, essential under public health orders in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. That was the headline, right?. And then in the first paragraph it said, it said, it restated the headline and then it added, as well as housing projects and low-income housing, all deemed essential.
Right. Uh, it's crazy.
Oh my God. I can't stand it. I'm like, why would you?
I remember we bought, uh, when we bought Bebo back. So we had bought Bebo for $1 million out of an auction and, um, we were going to relaunch it as something. And so nobody knew that we had bought it back. It was like done in a courtroom. It was like kind of on the low. And, um, there was— I knew a reporter, and, you know, we were kind of friendly, I guess. We had friends of friends that were mutual. And so I was like, okay, hey, um, you know, I want to give you a scoop, and, you know, on the embargo, and like come do an interview and whatever. So she was like, great, comes over, does an interview, explained the whole thing. We talk about what we're doing, blah blah blah. Next day, uh, the article comes out, and this is the person we gave the scoop to. It could have given it to anyone. Next day, article comes out. Headline was, remember Bebo? Yeah, that Bebo. It was like, it was something like, um, you know, uh, remember Bebo? Yeah, it's dead. But maybe, you know, it was like something like, Bebo is dead, remember Bebo? Literally, it was like, LOL, was like in the headline. It was like making fun of it. And then the whole article was our conversation we talked about. It was like legit. And so I text her, I was like, what the fuck? Like, uh, what is this headline? And she was like, I'm sorry, like, I don't get to do the headlines. My editor does the headlines and he just like, you know, he's gonna do what's gonna drive the most clicks. And like, he decided the thing that would drive the most clicks is, um, talking shit about the buyback. And like, yeah, right, like, it's like buying MySpace back and trying to relaunch it. And so I was like, you know, that's, that's fair, but, um, wow, what a shitty move to pull when you're sort of given an embargo. You, and you have all these other elements of the story that you could have, like, used as the lead.
Sean, I— but I don't blame— I don't blame her or him because, like, um, I think that if you— just because you gave her an embargo, like, she should be— still say the truth. Sure. And say her opinion, like, and she shouldn't hold back. If she thinks you're stupid and what you're doing is stupid, she— just because you gave her that, she should say—
that's true. The two things that I thought were weird were, uh, number one, the headline and the story were so disconnected. The story was what she actually thought and the content of our interview, right? Which was positive. That's frustrating. And then the headline was just something completely different that was written by a completely different person and just shows kind of like the way the inside of those organizations work. The second thing I thought was just kind of whack was like, no heads up. Like there's a sort of a human connection to this too, right? Like if I've done you a favor by giving you an exclusive piece of news, even if you're going to write something that, you know, I'm not going to like when you're like, LOL, this thing is dead. Yeah, right. It's not gonna come back. Then, you know, to surprise the person, I think, is an unnecessary extra slap versus like, oh, I just—
I so disagree with you. I totally agree with your first point, but I don't agree with your second point, which is if I'm gonna say something negative about you, I'm not gonna give you a heads up. I'm just gonna say it.
But that's dumb, dumb business, right? You cut yourself out then going forward, right? Like, we had a bunch of other stories that came out in the coming years And guess who, like, never got a word? Right. Her. She just cut herself out for no reason.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's a— it's definitely— it's a hard thing to balance. And this is why some people, like, for example, if someone says that they're a conservative news site, well, the reason— one of the reasons why they probably could keep giving conservative people a good look is so they can get positive. They can. Yeah. So it's definitely hard. Right. But me personally, if you— if like if someone comes on this podcast and they go like, I'm like, will you make me look good? I'm like, No, I'm not going to make you look good. I'm not going to make you look bad. Like, we'll talk. And if I think you say something dumb, I'm just going to tell you it's stupid, right? Like, I'm not— so I think that, I think that if I agree with that game, I've got to suffer both the positive and the negative consequences. And the positive consequences is maybe they're going to think I'm great and they'll tell the truth. And also as a, quote, journalist, or I don't know what you want to call me, or both of us, we're going to like find the truth. But also, if someone thinks that about us and it's negative, we got to live by that.
Yeah, I don't mind getting negative press. I did mind the sort of dissonance. And also, uh, I don't know, like, I just think, like, it's again bad business for that person because you burn your own bridge. Whereas if you're like, hey, look, um, like, just want to let you know, like, the article is going to talk about this and it's going to mention this, right? It's going to be— there's going to be some negative parts which we're skeptical about, and there's these Cool, could have kept that relationship, didn't, lost the relationship. That like, maybe it affected them.
Maybe telling you ahead of time is gonna be negative is not bad. But like, if I think that what you say is bullshit, I'm gonna say it no matter what.
Yeah, that— no, but nobody wants the other side, right? Otherwise nobody will read the shit if you're not telling it like it is. If you're not telling your actual opinion, then the, you know, the whole ecosystem doesn't work. But all right, anyways, I think— have any other ones we want to talk about?
You have one?
I know.
Well, I was gonna say, didn't someone come on the show and I was like, I'm gonna tell this person I think there's that, that, that what they're doing is really stupid. And, uh, it's definitely awkward. When did that happen?
Do you remember that? Um, I don't remember that. No.
Oh, I know what it was. It was the, the woman from Everlywell. I think she came on with the, the tests and—
Oh, I know. I was like, I think nutritional testing is bullshit.
Right. And you said it straight to her face. And then she kind of answered you.
I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. I'm trying to say like, literally, I don't even remember. Like, did we call her out?
No, no, you literally said it to her. I kind of facilitated, I kind of stirred the pot.
I was like, Sam, oh yeah, you tell her what you think about this.
So then you're like, yeah, like, dude, tell her what you were saying.
Like, you know, yeah, just go ahead and say it.
Yeah, definitely set it up.
Uh, but it's definitely awkward, like, before and after. You're like, I'm being nice to you, but like, I'm definitely gonna roast you right now. It's super awkward, but I think if you do it a certain way, it's not that bad. It's like, because, and they should understand.
Okay. One last thing, dude.
We totally went off the rails here.
Go ahead. One last thing. But yeah, we did go off the rails. This podcast was about like beekeeping and like all kinds of other shit, but whatever. Uh, so I'm going to take my hat off. And so I clearly need a haircut. Um, my friend Greg, uh, launched this company or not, it's not a company. He just created a website called youprobablyneedahaircut.com. And basically surfing quickly off the quarantine stuff where people are locked at home, everyone's hair is growing out, nobody can go get a haircut. You shaved a mohawk. What he's doing is these barbers who are also out of work, they're at home, they can do a Zoom consultation and basically help you cut your own hair. And so that's awesome. If you need a haircut, go to You Probably Need a Haircut.
Your hair looks good.
Did you cut it? No, I'm gonna cut it. Dude, it's awful. It's— yeah, it looks good right now. I agree, actually. Actually, it does look good right now, but I looked at it before this hat was on it and it looked awful. So I'm gonna go cut my hair.
So I've, I've been cutting my own hair for 10 years now. I have, I've had the clippers. I can tell you all about— I know how to do a fade. The other day I did shave it completely bald because how do you do the back? My, um, Sarah, my wife, will help me, but for years I would do it on my own. And admittedly, it probably didn't look great, but I watched videos on how to like give a fade, right? And I— it's, it's not that hard. But I've been doing it for years just because for a long time I was poor and I didn't want to pay money. But now I do it because I'm like, oh, I don't want to like drive there.
I don't want to go. And plus they always make me take my headphones out and I'm like, well, now I'm bored. Like, you don't understand, I constantly have information going in through my eyes or my ears and now you're making me just sit here. Like, this sucks.
Yeah. And also I just don't want to talk to them. I don't want to— like, so what I do is I close my eyes and that's like the sign for not not talk. But I, but I wish that there was like an app, like, for at a certain barbers where it's like click, like, do not talk to me or talk to me. Because like, for weird, like, people like me, I'm like, I'm just super— I don't like the confrontation. I just don't want to— I don't want to talk. Just leave me alone. I'm like that, dude. I'm like that at fucking grocery stores. You know, Jack, Jack Smith, he, he— we're like the same way. We go to grocery stores and I'm like, if I don't see what I don't want If I don't see what I want to buy, even though they probably have it but a different section, I just won't fucking buy it. I just won't buy it instead of ask. Or if I'm with Sarah, I'll be like, Sarah, will you go ask for this? I like, I don't even want to talk to anyone. Right.
Yeah.
It's all, I think a lot of people are like that.
Yeah. I think, did they add this into Uber where you could get in and be like, yo, let's not, let's not do that thing where we talk?
Yes. Yes. Uh, and it's awesome. I just don't, I'm just like uncomfortable and I don't want to fucking do it. But more Barbados. You know, the last thing they know what they need at barbers is they just need like 6 different haircuts for men and you just feel like, give me the 4.
But they do have that.
I feel like a lot of, a lot don't. And you say the same thing, like short on the side, a little bit off the top. Like everyone says the same thing. It's like, it's like, dude, just like show me a picture of like 5 people and I'll just point. Right. A lot of barbers don't have that.
Or dude, it could be unspoken because everybody just wants short on the side, a little less short on top. But shorter than it is currently. And you should only have to say anything if you want some other shit, like, oh, I'm going for this other look, I want to do a look. Okay, then that's on me to tell you about the look. But if not, I just want to sit down, no words, just do the short on the sides, a little short on top.
Same. Just like, give me like 3 options, like completely bald, uh, like just whatever the 3 are, and I'll just point at one of them. And by the way, just don't talk to me unless I initiate conversation.
And do my eyebrows because they're getting a little long. I got long eyebrows. Everyone knows that. Don't make me act.
Well, that's the number.
Don't make me act. That's the number.
That's the number 4. And also they say like, do you want your, you want the back of your neck rounded or squared? I'm like, I don't know. I don't care. Like, I don't see it. You, you be the judge.
Exactly. And I've, I've, at one time I asked him, I was like, what's the deal with this question? Because I don't know. And like, is there a difference? What's the deal? And then someone told me, actually one of the barbers actually taught me, they were like, look, if you do square, when it starts to grow back out, it's going to look shitty. So it looks good initially, but then it'll look, it'll look obviously not square after it starts to grow out. He's like, do the round because then even as it grows back, it's, uh, like blends in. It's not so bad.
That's all. Dude, this sounds like a Larry David episode. Like a, like So what's the round and square? What's the difference? Like, I mean, we try, we try. Um, so, um, this one went off the rails. I, I, I think people, this is going to hit with some people. So tweet at me and Sean and let us know if this like—
yeah, just tweet like, yo, stick to the script, uh, if you want us to not go off the rails as much, or just say go off the rails if you want us to go off the rails.
Well, the good, the good news is, Sean, is we don't have to do that much work to research for next Tuesday because I actually had some stuff to go over. All our topics are showing up. But because we got stuck on journalists and beekeeping and a bunch of stupid bullshit.
Yeah, I'm mad again about that article from 10 years ago now. I'm like still pissed.
Me too. I got mad. I'm friends with the woman who I talked about. I'm friends with her on Facebook and I like called her out and it never fucking wins when I argue with people online.
Yeah, I'm gonna go decompress.
I end up looking like an asshole and it just doesn't work and I do it all the time.
All right, man. I'll talk to you later.