Welcome. Hey it's Eric newcomer with dead
cat. I'm here with Tom and Katie.
We are going to talk about Brian Armstrong, the coinbase CEO.
He loves to communicate in tweet store but He wrote one.
I think, you know, a year ago, basically talking about politics
and companies sort of right after the black lives matter
protest, trying to Stamp Out, you know, employee Revolution
inside of coinbase. We're going to talk about that
one. Which I think he recently took a
Victory lap on sort of saying that he looks prescient.
And then there's another one from October where he complains
about see Is getting criticized. Tom, do you have it up?
You have a better reading voice and I do or I can read them if
semi some of the link I can do my best priority and then we'll
back our way into the politics ones.
This is from October 5th at Brian underscore Armstrong won.
I do worry that as companies get to be more successful.
The number of attacks from the Press politicians and trolls on
CEOs and rounds of congressional testimony.
Make the job not fun and they leave.
And they leave from burnout Gates page, Bezos dot dot dot.
To America, could be losing some of its best talent from this
America and it has some parallels to what has happened
to successful CEOs in China. You.
Oh my God. Okay, I'll keep going through
this. You didn't.
I didn't read the second one, how could you?
I'm sorry. How could you compare?
What is happening to the CI Master?
Is he talking about like, Jack Ma and, you know?
Yes, yes, he is to set the content.
Like, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of
myself. You don't get moved to how he's
lays it out. You don't get moved to house
arrest in the u.s. No you don't you do not but it
is. I'm not gonna laugh but it is
our own version of it being something that gets me
successful. Yeah, it's American house arrest
is getting a tweet. Putting something that gets to
successful in its place 3 parentheses, which doesn't seem
very American. By the way, for real life course
I'm going to finish this. I swear of course.
Company deserves to have scrutiny and should take an
honest look at what it's doing well, and not well, but the
market solves, a lot of this for us, people vote with their
wallet, choosing what to buy. And the best way to keep flawed
companies in check is to have new startups, come disrupt them.
So how do you build a company today?
That is resistant to demoralizing attacks from
trolls, the more successful it becomes, I'm not sure.
But here here are a few ideas. First, hire employees, and build
a board of independent thinkers who are insulated from bias,
third-party script in their minds and knock you Late your
supply chain. Second, give customers not just
employees, a sense of ownership crypto is pioneered this?
I think I can stop. Yeah, right.
I mean, we don't, we don't know three simply the enemy
descriptions. Yeah.
I mean Facebook would be facing
a lot. Less hate if all their unique
users owned a piece of the network, if people felt like
everyone was growing together, there would be a greater sense
of unity. I just think the last visit,
this is actually not an oncoming why everybody's attacking
Facebook. So I mean Facebook is Clearly a
big subtext of this. I mean, we as the users we need
to do on a piece of the network and we can choose to not use it
anymore. Like so many people have what?
I mean, I guess I just feel like welcome to being the CEO of.
No, no, Jay P Morgan or Walmart or a Starbucks or any other
company that's based real criticism by politicians
reporters and consumers. I'm not really sure what his
point is and it's not like the people, he chose base.
Listen Paige had these like have these really tiny short-lived
careers of their companies, because right, if they couldn't
and besos owns the Washington Post, so it he's he's tweeted
before that where said before, you know, CEOs need to have a
tough skin. I mean, yeah, it does.
If this seems like a very San Francisco complaint, you know,
just like, oh, criticism sucks or at least people that still
live in San Francisco. I complain.
I just think I'm playing it. Was somebody who hasn't really
He looked at any other industry before any other large impactful
industry, I mean it's almost too easy to attack the logic behind
the first one in that thread about you know, the the not
making it fun anymore. So I almost don't want to spend
any time on it because it's, you know, we're now like a week
almost from that tweet and everyone is just destroyed it.
But the idea of, you know, there being some sort of Market
solution that is opposed to cancel culture was his effective
what he's talking about. Is pretty hysterical because
that's the same thing. I mean the point of cancelled
culture as a concern. No one's forcing it like it's
coming. It's a Grassroots movement.
So if your point is like people can vote with their wallets as a
way to correct, the mistakes that companies or people are
making dude, that's canceled culture.
I don't know how else to describe it is.
You're actually out of a Kind by social media, the very industry
and very, you know, if he's defending Facebook, I know that
Facebook that allows cancel culture to List there would be
no cancel culture if there weren't social media.
Yeah, he wants to make it about the Press clearly and he says
press politicians and trolls trolls.
Trolls is a big area, stroll scape word because I feel like
really it's the public, you know that to some degree, I think the
Press is more Pro. These companies then at least
the average Twitter user, which is I think the world he's
communicating he's with Yeah, I mean again this this is like
just drawing everything back to Twitter.
I think even journalists will be more critical about companies on
Twitter. It when you actually look at
their work tends to be fairly even-handed if not pro company,
a lot of the time. So there's a lot of
extrapolation made unlike what, you know, the public is and
what, you know sentiment is based on their unhappiness on
Twitter, which, you know, dude, just get off Twitter.
It's, it'll say, it sounds like if that's a huge part of your
problem, you can solve that one. Pretty easy.
It is. It seems like his Twitter
specific problem. Like the New York Times is not
writing about coinbase that much like they did a big
investigation into it, but what's keeping it in the
headlines or what's keeping him? Brian Armstrong's mind.
Presumably is just people at tweeting.
I'm right. I saw that.
Brian chesky is going to be interviewed on axios this
evening. We're recording this on a Sunday
in which the snippet that I saw said, you know, they're like
what are the biggest threats? Facing US tech companies.
This these days and his response was something like the fact that
the public hates it right now. And I've also seen, you know,
it's an ex Facebook executive out there talking about how in
San Francisco, you know, the public or politicians or
whatever it is, is doing their best to destroy the network
effects of the city because they hate these companies so much.
And to me, it's just hard to look at any of these complaints
and not see a, I'm sorry, use the word, but like a wine Enos
on the fact that they're just not.
Universally agile, aided by the public that there isn't like a
complete sense of agreement with everything they stand for and
everything they're literally just being treated like every
other industry. Yeah.
And people like to like tech companies, right?
I mean, just I mean, the data is just like a little more people
like thanks Amazon's one of the most trusted organizations in
the world. I was just remarking to my
girlfriend, you know, we were traveling internationally and
you're dealing with like, terrible, passport
infrastructure and governments and you're like, Oh this the
government doesn't work that well, I mean, even as like a
super cynical Tech reporter, this is gonna get me booed, I
think, but if I had to trust any organization to move me around
the world, I think it would be Amazon.
You know, like that? That is my genuine.
Sincere you a box here but we especially the packaging is
quite waste. There are few, not
understanding, why, or how she's like Amazon.
Like, who do you really trust? You, they need to, like, do some
sort of logistical feat. Yeah, and still, you know, I
think we should spend most of our time as press scrutinizing
Amazon, because that's sort of the basis sumption.
That Amazon's huge is what we all rely on it.
It's it's a big part of our society kudos to you.
You know. I do we really need to say that
all the time like that Simplicity.
Well reason they get criticism is because they're so big.
We think because they have power influence, Fluent right?
Do they need a pat on the back to?
It's like you got it. Like, you get the money, you
know? You never say.
Thank you. That's what the money is for.
Yeah. But with also, the most
concerning parts of Amazon, or the part that gets criticized,
the most, by the press or whatever, by critics are things
that usually happen behind the scenes, right?
That their actions taking place in their warehouses or, you
know, maybe the internal mechanisms of their lobbying
efforts or, you know, hq2 and things like that.
I mean, the reason Facebook probably is the most hated of
all of these. Companies right now is because
it's all laid out there in for public view like we as the
public or participating in it. But also, you know, the
unhappiness that we see politically socially right now.
And then the part of it that we have attributed to Facebook is
just so available. It's in this kind of like public
view that we can find our anger in it placed.
Very viscerally. Yeah, we were part of it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Where is like, you know, Amazon is probably the least of all of
them. Right there are these cameras on
just faces the same? Criticism that Starbucks or
Walmart faces, Amazon faces, the criticism of any large employer
that employs you know a lot of people with varying degrees of
benefits, you know. So it's no it's really no
different than the way that Walmart was criticized a couple
of decades ago. Right.
Let's start by right criticized. Well, Marty Trio for its for how
its scheduled part-time employees.
Basically destroying their lives in order to maximize, like a
scintilla of profit for Starbucks, like there was The
good that came out of that reporting, is that Starbucks
decided that it was worth it, for whatever reason.
I'm not going to get in their heads but it was worth it to
change that system and ultimately it was a benefit to
employees. I think the Amazon is actually
criticized just like any other large corporate employer.
Facebook is different. Facebook is very different.
Yeah because you know better. Well yeah, I think that's a
great distillation of it that Part of the issue with Facebook
and why why it can feel like everybody has an opinion.
Because so much of what they're doing wrong is self-evident.
Like obviously there's a lot of good reporting on the internal
workings and we learned some of that and that's all important
and I don't want to under play that but it does feel like a lot
of the problems with Facebook you can just consume it because
that Saucy well the problems with face, right?
Right. Yeah, I do wish like in the in
the media critiques. Like this is talking about the
Press first, the the Brian Armstrong thing they were
pivoting around here II do? I wish we would just sort of
like distinguish between like press reporters Gathering new
information, like the stories, you're outlining on Amazon,
where it's like stuff. We don't see where there
actually were people are doing reporting but so much of this
stuff they hate in the Press is just like yeah, how they
manifest. At how the reporters behave on
Twitter, op-ed columns, like I feel like we almost
strategically as the media should get want to get to a
point where we collapse, op-ed columns into just like that's
just a person, you know, it's just like those should just be
treated as people and not distinguished as press because
like they're just mad. They'll like the public members
of the public disagree. With what with what they're
doing, you know, it's not real but largely yeah, yeah, no.
And this all just seems to be boomeranging from the collapse
of the mythology that a lot of tech Executives and Venture
capitalists and people in the industry created over the last
decade which is that we're going to do big industry, but we're
going to do it different. We're going to find a way to
inspire people. Not just to make a lot of money
by building huge businesses that take over smaller businesses and
all aspects of Our Lives. Lives.
We're going to do it with the mission and we're going to do it
in a way that is inspiring. The people that not only work at
the companies but the people that use it and when it comes
down to it, we're now like you know a decade two decades into
that movement. We've seen that everything just
kind of falls back into place of what you know the trajectory of
big business and you may think you've done it differently and
think you've built a completely new infrastructure like like
social infrastructure around it, but it's it just ends up being
the same thing and you're just going through You know, like
Haiti can probably talk more to this than any of us about like
what kind of happened with the banking industry in 2008.
And obviously it hasn't destroyed, you know, the economy
in the way that that did. But people just lost faith in
you know, the positive aspects of this business and sort of see
it as a an industry. That enriches a lot of people
and that's because it is so embedded in our lives, we can't
write, we can't walk away from JP Morgan or Citibank.
We have to use them. And similarly, You can argue
that social media has also been embedded in our lives.
Like, we don't have to be on Twitter, but again, I've said
this a million times. If you live in a rural part of
the country, almost all of your services are on Facebook.
So your city, Hall's website is a Facebook page.
Your kids Elementary School website is a Facebook page.
If you want to know what's going on at your church, it's a
Facebook page. So there is a way in which it's
really hard to walk away from a service like Facebook to.
So it's more like how do we change the company because we're
in many ways stuck. Stop with the company.
We aren't the three of us. We can walk away from Facebook
and Instagram but I just wonder where addicts, right?
That's it. And when we when we all quit her
job but it's funny even you don't
have to be on Twitter for it to affect your lives, right?
I mean in our now, trash cans Code, that was recording on
Friday. You know, I always bring up my
mom as like the perfect example of, like my mrs.
Duck tongue. Yeah, as like the American who
is incredibly influenced by the news that she consumes large you
through CNN and I don't know, the chronicle and whatever else
she is. Never been on Twitter.
I think she briefly joined it during the 2016 election because
there was so much talk of it. She's like, what's this about?
And she main account, she got on and she's like, oh no, this is
impossible to use in. This is scary but the opinion.
That get discussed on Twitter, obviously influence.
A lot of the mainstream news and it's almost like Twitter is the
AWS of opinion making like you don't Nest, you don't know that
it's there but it exists as this fundamental infrastructure layer
to the way, the broader World works that opinions are being
workshopped on it all the time to find most basically the most
outrageous opinions, the stickiest ones.
And then you have the ones that then breakthrough and land on
Fox or on you know, MSNBC or whatever, right?
It's like Don Lemon reads Twitter or his producers reach
Twitter and then they help him. Formulate, the talking points
that are going to eat a really stimulate the particular
audience that still watches CNN and and yeah, I think like again
it gets back to the idea that people are unhappy in a lot of
ways right now. And Tech is behind so much of it
just because of the tools and systems that they built, and
these CEOs are going to have to just reckon with that.
Like you can't just blame the press and say Were, you know,
independently writing mean things about them.
And if we just stopped doing it, everyone would feel better.
Well, I think there is actually a good bridge between these
tweet storms in what you guys have been saying.
Because I mean we basically have the tech companies, particularly
Google and Facebook setting themselves up as he's like
world-changing companies and there's nothing that the Press
loves more than when you set high standards for yourself over
the breast and the public, you know, because you'll be measured
against the standards. You Publicly articulate, so then
you're not, you know, it's a backhoe company.
Your this world-changing company you get held by heart high
standards. And then we have Armstrong
coming in and saying, actually, we're a company with a specific
Mission. We shouldn't have politics that
our company and so we're going to we're going to stick to the
mission. We're not everything and
anything. And so then you get this sort of
tweet storm that is definitely maligned by the Press.
I'm sure. I mean, I was super - about I
still have some issues with it that we can expand on, but then,
in a sort of Victory lap, September 30th.
You know, he says, what was amazing was the contrast between
the news, following my post and the reaction from employees.
And people who spoke to me in private while the media reports
were mostly negative and it even spawned some retaliatory and
intellectually dishonest hit pieces, the reaction both from
employees and people I spoke to in private, was overwhelmingly
positive. In fact.
Good. This is, of course, every single
employee, who bothered to say, something to you said something
positive. Yeah, it's amazing how people
during their performance reviews were so complimentary about
these lipids I put in place and I just think like, dude, if
everyone is so complimentary about your policies behind the
scenes, then why do you need the feel the need to in public
defend them, just ignore it, clearly doesn't matter, it's not
reflective of reality. So the fact that he Is taking
this quote-unquote Victory lap. And and I would just like to see
the data behind the positive, because there are ways to
measure these sort of things, right?
Attrition rates to, those go down after you implemented.
These policies, to employee morale, surveys, which I know
we're not the perfect measure, but at least it's something.
Like, if you had pointed to those things I write, I mean, he
says we meeting grown our headcount about 110 percent.
While our diversity numbers have remained the same or even
improved on some metrics, I mean, that's super thin.
Well, that's actually kind of shitty, like, if you It doubled
your employee size and only barely budged on right person.
And that's especially when people are to say that's a big
victory. I just, you know, I I don't
disagree with the, I don't disagree with the idea that it's
good to focus more on were than on.
You know what people are angry about on Twitter, vis-à-vis
politics. I don't think that's a bad
message to an employee base, which is let's spend our
husband, our work hours, working on work, but Why do you why do
you think the Press with? So - at the time and now we're
all just unhappy. I mean it was a say with such a,
you know, tumultuous time I was going to say, it was an
extraordinary time. It wasn't, it wasn't if if we
could rewind and go back to sort of a pre covid moment and if a
CEO, I said I really just think that we're all talking about
politics too much. It's a distraction.
I don't think it would have felt.
I don't think people would have paid much attention.
It just happened to come In this moment, we were dealing with a
global pandemic, sort of this like bizarre.
You know, the sort of like bizarre moment where the
government was had forced us all to stay in our homes which I
think most people could not have conceived of the United States
until that minute. And then like really important
conversations about race that were sparked by one of the most
horrifying viral videos of a person being killed by another
human being that any of us have ever seen in a really long time.
So in that moment to say, I'm just really think that is weird
to talk about politics. Felt weird in that moment we
needed outlets, right? And and yeah, that was one of
the first kind of communal things that had happened since
the beginning of the pandemic. I remember as the protests were
going, it was like that, in Tiger King, right?
We're yeah, exactly. Two, two sides of the same but
but you know what I mean? It was like, no, I'm not being
sarcastic. Things revealed, dark aspects of
our country. Think there's a degree to which
Armstrong never makes the politics tweet storm.
We're still getting to the same place.
Like there's just a nature that movement sort of burn really
hot, and then it's not like he convinced people.
I think that, I mean, obviously, you know, there are some CEOs
who, you know, set policies and cultural norms, that sort of
discouraged employee Revolution. But I do think there's a degree
to which these things just sort of play out and sort of The heat
the heat was going to when I was going to go right down, generate
taking credit for it or not is sort of outside of his control.
I am very empathetic to if it is true that at coinbase and
another company's there were intense and ongoing political
discussions talking about larger, social issues,
International politics, or whatever happening on slack that
actually does sound hellish, that sounds completely
destabilizing for a company and awful venue to do it and we can
maybe explain eighties live with that.
Well, I was going to say, I think I think The Daily Beast is
extensively reported on how happened at the New York Times,
so I can talk about it because it's public, but it was.
No fun is the distraction. Yeah, I'm not.
I'm not weighing in on the veracity of the arguments being
made. I'm not and the legitimacy of
them. I'm not criticize.
My criticizing my colleagues for having strong opinions and
sharing them in slack. I'm just saying that as it
became as I move from slack out into To the public sphere,
through the very dogged reporting of other reporters.
Like Max. Hey, why?
Haven't we hired, Max stuff. Anyway, so that happened, you
were times Ombudsman. It's at Michael Pittman.
It's really hard to argue that. That wasn't a distraction.
I mean, it's impossible to say that it wasn't a distraction.
Yeah. To the tech company.
Specifically part of this is also just inevitable and a
relation to this focus on Mission that we keep coming back
to Is the way that these companies were pitch to.
A lot of people is you can be a part of the change for good in
the world. And if you believe that you're
going to think that everything the company stands for has to be
reflection of all of your social values.
And if you've subsumed yourself to the company's Mission and
your personal mission, then when things are going on in the
world, that's your outlet to express it, like you've now
created like your soul communal, you know spot where these things
can be hashed out. And if you don't have anything
else then like of course it's going to explode on slack
because you've given up all other aspects of your Social
expression technique scented of media companies and Mission
driven company. You know, there's actually a
strong and valid comparison between what's happening in some
Silicon Valley companies, or some startups that were that
consider this themselves mission-driven in some respect,
and it was happening in some media companies.
I'll just keep General. Yeah, because if the companies
Have pitched themselves to their employees as a business.
That also does something for the greater good.
If you're sitting at home thinking a lot about, you know,
protests that are happening around the country in the wake
of George Floyd. We're thinking a lot about the
fact that we are even home trapped in our houses, because
of a global pandemic that we can't understand.
But people have very do varying opinions on whether or not
politicians are able to handle it.
That does speak to a sense of you know outrage and it also
speaks to a sense of what are we doing about it to some level?
I want a company to mission-driven right?
I should be cheering for. If companies want to take on
maybe as a shareholder, I wouldn't but as sort of a member
of the public it's good for companies to take on positive
missions. It's just probably clarify and
everybody involved if it's a narrow enough mission that
people can understand it otherwise you're spending a ton
of time soul-searching about it, all right.
Don't know how was your articulate, like, shouldn't we
as reporters be. Glad that Google at once said,
you know, do no evil because then you can hold them to that.
And that's better than a tobacco company that just says, like,
fuck you or whatever, I don't know.
The, I don't do disagree, or you're like so much on the level
like, oh, the world would just be better if like, profit
revamped. I just got distracted by, like,
the nuclear submarine issue, Espionage issue.
So, I just need to send like to emails really quick.
All right, okay, I can, I Deal with that question?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Google has been slammed
for y'all. Now, we're at a low low quality
Harvard Business School, like is Mission.
I mean, it may be out of our depth, but that's why I was
trying to frame it or normatively just like, isn't it
good for the public at least if they hold themselves to that and
then we can hold hold them to some level of benevolence.
Yeah, I mean, at some point, everything is just a reflection
of are you happy with the products that you're
participating in and buying let's put like this.
I think it's It's a cheap shot at times for The Press to
anytime something happens that is, you know, moderate to
extremely evil in terms of Google's, you know, actions that
you say home that doesn't sound like, don't be evil.
Like I don't think it's a particularly intelligent way to
cover a company. And I don't know, I mean Eric
you wrote about boober through its most tumultuous period the
cause of some of its tumult. I don't know what the company.
Yeah, there. I don't think it was actually
talks. There's an issue with you.
Their points that we're going to be very big and very good at
what we do, right? Yeah.
I know. I don't think that was a case
where the company sort of oversold, how good it was and
then people were disappointed. I think, you know, just became
so untenable but you know, right as public Revolt.
Yeah. But missions are interesting
because I just think that you can say what you want to be
perceived as all you want, but the actions that you take and
just the industry that you're You're part of and the larger
capitalistic system that you participate in are going to
ultimately take contrived. I don't know.
I mean, like Nike like all these Brands like how what they tell
us about who they are is much? I mean, people aren't like, oh,
Nike is like a brand that manufacture, you know, it is
very much like how they articulate themselves and adds
like, I'm surprised, this is II. Don't think this is your real
view here because what they say about themselves is what people
tend to believe. I think people either like the
products or they don't, you know, I mean people like Amazon
because it gets them their stuff very quickly.
Right? What seems like a reasonable
price Facebook when they like it.
It's because they can communicate with their friends.
Google is like a very good tool to find the stuff that you want.
And with YouTube, you know, an entertainment platform and then
you know, we can go on down the list.
So yeah, I agree. I mean products terribly because
yeah, yeah, and I don't think that necessarily needs to be oh
Apple, we didn't mention mean, apple is like they make stuff.
You'd like, like it's as physical.
Good of any of these things and people think they work well and
they look nice. And I don't think it necessarily
like the fact that these things are are not connected to a
larger Mission necessary needs to be evil.
And and I and and like a sign of hypocrisy.
I just think like for a reporter.
Anytime you're covering a company, you have to, you just
have to move outside of that particular frame pretty quickly
because it's just not that until in intelligent.
Like, when you're talking to sources and, you know, So if
you're covering ghoul, you're like mmm.
That sounds like, that could be kind of easier.
Yeah. Just just isn't isn't that
useful? But I do think that, you know,
like we were mentioning earlier episode, we're just at a period
now where these companies their influence their power is never
at a greater Point than has ever been and the implications of
that are vast, which ties it back to Brian Armstrong's main
problem, being he has to listen to General people on Twitter,
right? I mean, if he was just talking
to his customers, they would have different complaints, then
sort of them, whatever. He's probably feeling when he
opens up his Twitter feed and so then it makes his CEOs get too
much criticism stuff is just like, don't read it.
If you don't want, you don't want to see it, pay somebody to
read it and tell you what, what actually matters, you know.
I it's amazing that our media diets.
I guess shape our brain so much and he even the CEO of, you
know, this huge company is subject to that.
So you know, we're recording this on a Sunday and the VP of
communications at Facebook Look, Nick Clegg, former lib Dem prime
minister. What was he?
He was like a high-ranking, British officials embarrassing
that I don't know the specific name, but, you know, he's making
the rounds and getting kind of browbeaten by anchors at all the
major cable networks over the Facebook whistleblowers,
testimony, that happened last week, and I'm seeing a lot of
complaints by reporters some reporters.
I mean, I can mention, Kara Swisher, specifically, she has
so many followers is very angry that he didn't.
Speak to her. And, you know, the interviews
that Facebook is doing right now are not with the beat reporters
when I say Facebook. I mean, like, you know, zoc and
or Nick Clegg. And people at that Echelon are
not with the beat reporters. It's with these National cable
news figures. I mean, do you think that's a
valid criticism? Do you think it's important and
why they're doing it? I'm sorry, I'm back.
Sorry sorry. I've no, I understand why
they're why they're doing it because they need to make their
appeal to the General Public. Because they're not afraid of
Regulation per se. They're afraid of people like,
you and me no longer using their products.
They're afraid of everybody deleting WhatsApp.
So their appeal needs to go to the world of WhatsApp users.
It doesn't need to go to, you know, the people who read
business process to read Tech, press, they, whether if you're
the I'm not saying I like the strategy and I'm not saying that
I think the strategy is good. I'm just saying I really
understand the logic behind it there.
They need to appeal to your mom too.
Who hates Mark Zuckerberg right now.
Right. And then areas non-defined
reasons so they need to go on. Good Morning America and make
that argument for why you don't have to hate Mark Zuckerberg.
And why the products aren't driving teenagers to kill
themselves and making that argument to like the business
pages of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal is your
mom reading that know, right. Exactly.
Right. But it's beat reporter or like
as Savvy instead of reporters. I do think it makes sense to
cheer for Facebook to get Give interviews to the most
sophisticated reporters and and yes, they're tactically going to
try to give it to sort of simplistic TV, reporters.
And I don't make sense for a care of.
This is what the rough sea report.
I don't think it's because the teeth, they think, the TV
reporters, don't know what they're doing.
I think they're thinking about the audience sure.
Either way. It's Kara were to do the
interview on Good Morning, America.
I think they would do the interview with Cara if Cara work
to the interview. And you know, like a widely
watch platform on 60 Minutes. I think they would do it with
her, right. But TV is a different kind of
way I can print like print the wind, you still sort of have to
convince her report earlier saying something smart since
it's passing through them. Well II don't think that all TV
is stupid. I don't I just don't agree with
that argument. You're really think it's
audience. I think if you want Tom's mom to
not delete her Instagram account, you're not going to
reach her in the business pages of the New York.
Times you were you were going to reach her on 60 Minutes or
you'll reach her on wherever the hell they've been talking.
You know, if it's a thing, it's more audience and of course, you
know, we saw this, we said a politician.
So funny, because I think your take on this is really different
when politicians to the Eric but we've seen politicians do it as
well. In ways that infuriated me.
Anyway, no, I always said it's good.
I said it was good for them to do ferns but he won't sit for
the Washington Post. It's like what's Or problem
Obama, that sucks. But like I do understand that, I
understand why even if I deeply disagree with it.
Well, I'm politics. I'm were skeptical of a lot of
the beat reporters than on. Well, I remember getting into an
argument about that earlier. Oh, no, sorry, yes, softball
interview. I don't know.
Yeah, is Ashley Parker. You think I'm doing no.
Is it a is? It Tony ROM, you think would
throw those softballs they need to do you, are you telling me
that Tech reporters have a better reputation for not being
softball reporters? And political reporters are
watching in post. I just think, you know, in a
presidential campaign reporters want to frame the story around
the storylines that they're like, breaking news on.
I mean, if you saw enjoy way better student, Do this.
Right. I mean they do but you know I
just believe in some of the criticisms of Facebook more than
I do. Sort of the angles played
against. That's right.
Because you hate it. When people critique Obama has
he worked on his campaign as an intern?
Yeah. But I certainly I believe in
Obama. Like yeah, I'm down here.
Next weekend. We can give Eric work.
Evil. I want be true.
Is to get thoughtful interviews, occasionally.
I think that's good in politics and Tech.
I believe that's important. And I think it's important that
the institutions, whether it's a campaign or the apparatus of a
company respond and engage with reporters, I couldn't believe in
that more strongly, but you're just saying that it's really
unlikely that a political reporter will get anything out.
I just think reporting with them.
Whereas you think that orders? Where's he think a tech reporter
will actually get something out of Mark Zuckerberg sitting with
them? But you don't think that a
political reporter will get something out of, you know, a
politician sitting with them. I agree with.
I think in both cases with Zuckerberg and with a
presidential candidate there, they end up going for like your
get trying to get bad quotes. It's very similar to TV.
I think, what's actually more substantive in a lot of these
cases is that like to press secretary or that the actual
company apparatus is engaging with like the factual responses
and it's not so much. I like a single interview that's
like the most important as as opposed to sort of like good
faith sort of engagement on on the factual reporting.
I don't know you disagree with that.
I just think that that undermines the argument you just
made but I do agree with. I just do.
I think that you're sort of the way that you distinguish me in
the tech press in the political process.
Doesn't really make any sense to me.
I think that anytime you're covering a beat, there are
questions about how you're going to approach.
Tough Quest tough lines of inquiry but I just, I guess I
just don't understand This distinction we make between, you
know, this ability for a tech reporter to really get a lot out
of an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, but that you just
don't think of political reporter could get a lot out of
my Canada but I can, I can I interject here just to ask like
what is get a lot out of in these circumstances and
demeaning because you know, these people are incredibly
coach, the best you could get from them is a slip-up is is a
Mark Zuckerberg actually on Cara's podcast a couple years
back, making a truly awful. Comparison about Lala fala good.
I think, was on purpose. I mean, I write that was right.
Wasn't even a slip-up that was just.
It sounds to me, like, what is that?
Political reporters will get played and that Tech reporters?
No, no. I we're both getting played and
that political reporters, just go for like this sort of like
crass, gotcha, but Tech reporters would never do that.
Oh no, I think they both go for the crash.
Gotcha. I think it's I don't think
there's a huge amount of value. And you know, whether it's a
national news reporter or whatever, you know, like a TV
anchor or morning news anchor or a tech reporter doing the
interview with Mark Zuckerberg. I don't think there's going to
be a lot gain from it other than whatever their coaching allows
for if they're well trained. They will say things that are
kind of meaningless and deflect from the quote, unquote hard
questions. And if they're not well trained,
they'll say something stupid. That makes maybe the new cycle
lasts for a couple days longer but I I just don't like the
great reporting that is come out, that has held Facebook and
all these other tech companies feet to the fire have come not
through these sort of exactly wasn't a woman.
Run interview with Mark Zuckerberg.
Exactly what I see people like care who I respect.
You know and other reporters saying oh they're not giving me
the interview I just think, okay, that's their choice
because they're running a press campaign right now.
Exactly, exactly. And it's so much more from
getting people leaking to you and and, and getting them all
messed up that way. Then like Bitching and moaning
on Twitter about the fact that you didn't get the interview.
I don't care. I don't know if I'd call it
bitching and moaning but I mean because I understand the
frustration when it comes to campaign, reporters are much
more skeptical. It's because a lot of with the
reporters are doing there is saying which stories matter and
that fundamentally the Democratic process is there's no
like super sophisticated version of it.
There's like there's what the elites thinks is important.
There's what regular people think is important to
participating with beat reporters on when reporting
you're giving it up to a certain set of people to say, oh, we're
obsessed with Hillary Clinton's emails or whatever when that's
just their view on what storylines matter the most.
So I'm just much less deferential to campaign
reporters about what stories matter that I am on something
like the justice department or Facebook, where there's a level
of like understanding an organization.
The technicalities where I really do, respect the be
reporters for really having a sophisticated View.
And so I would like to support them and having more.
Information to continue to develop that and I believe in
that sort of elitism, that's my full View.
The elitism of reporters who are very knowledgeable about their
beats, that are not covering specific interest, like an
academic to be but like, I can't paint.
I just don't think you can have that.
Like, sure, if it's like the factual matter of what's
happening on a campaign, do I trust the campaign?
We're, there's more to know on a personal level, but do I trust
them more to decide that the Personnel level stuff of a
campaign, is what we should care about most.
Like should we have written Jimmy, Carter off more as much
as he was because they were sort of.
Of incompetent, or should we have cared more about sort of
the general moral Vector of what he stood for relative to his
opponents? Like the media is great at
getting us to focus on weird competence stuff over the actual
moral character of political campaigns.
And that's why I'm super - on campaign report.
Yes, I think we are still torn up about the 1980.
Carter re-election campaign I didn't see the podcast go in
this direction, you but you were not born.
But Nikki is the only one I think was around to that cat is.
Yeah. Yeah, no morning in America,
with hard to hard to overcome. I think we can all agree.
We can agree with that. Anyway.
So we've really, really, well, I really was put on a back right
there and I needed to sort of come up with my full full view.
Well, I was worried that Katie when she was gonna come back
from her, call was going to tell us like we have 10 minutes
before the nuclear subs ballistic.
Missiles. So I hate to cut the episode off
early but your bunker is there? No, just some spies, I don't
know where we go from there. A back to the reading text
reporters other than if you're working at a tech company and
you reach out to a reporter and say I would like to thank you.
Yeah. Very different reception.
Yeah. Well we're you know, like we
said last week or two weeks ago now it's like we're in the age
of whistleblowers, you know. There was like a handbook that
came out last week led by I think the Pinterest
whistleblower that are trying to encourage employees, you know,
or instruct them on the right way to become a whistleblower,
you too can become a whistleblower Madam.
And I, I I'm interested to see where that's going to go,
because it all to me, like, rolls back into this topic that
we've been hitting on over and over again.
The last couple of weeks, which is like whistleblowers are or
leakers, whatever want to call them, are the results of a
section of a Workforce that is not happy with the way the
company is run and do not Leave internally that it can be fixed.
That there are the infrastructure in place for
these things to be repaired. And some of them may be just
want fame, you know, we can debate that, but it seems like
the upsides of that are much less than the downside of.
Because once you get everything, what unquote like you don't want
to work again. So your Snowden and Russia like
it's manner or Chelsea Manning in prison.
That's not great. I mean, I wanted to make another
Point quickly. I mean, the just Just sort of
how this latest Brian Armstrong tweet about, you know, the
whining. One could come off well, in the
future. I mean, I think like, in the few
know, we could look back on it as just sort of Things are too -
they're sort of Relentless, like, sort of whining about tech
companies and it's like not doing anyone any good, which I,
I mean, with the Facebook stuff. It's like, I'm personally
exhausted of the stories I, but the problem is that, just like
Facebook is not Democratic and so that the only way to really
change Facebook is for such a heavy-handed Relentless Focus.
Ice on it that then something happens.
And it's like not enjoyable. Like to me the solution, I mean,
I don't necessarily want companies to be Democratic.
I don't know what the solution is.
But the problem just in terms of like the TV show on Twitter is
that these things take so long, you have to like be so
heavy-handed about trying to change them even though like
everybody who's in the know is like tired of hearing about
Facebook or I don't know what your parents have a question for
you? I mean, do you, do you think
that given what's happening on Facebook?
You know, venture capitalist and Boards in the future.
It might be less willing to give the CEO 100% control and I could
to how many, how many of these problems would have gone away
already? When you say what happens, if a
foot? Is something wrong.
I mean, my right reason and your until we get way more back.
Like I think the know some of the other people on the board,
you know? But if they were the true, truly
in control, there would be much more sort of effort, I think to
get them personally. Accountable, if there's
anything, we've learned from the Facebook trajectory these days,
is that venture capitalist can invest in a company, give total
control to the founder. The founder can become and make
them insanely wealthy, and then you can spend the rest of your
time complaining on Twitter about how no one likes.
You don't. And what went wrong in the
process, you're like sounds like it's a pretty good trade off for
movies, what their personal incentives are.
I mean, that does, of course, bring us out here, okay, that
does bring us to that very fateful board meeting between.
Yeah, the meeting is the moment. Post credit scene.
What was it? Five years ago?
The core unsealed these messages between Mark Zuckerberg and then
board member Mark, andreasen. Whereas, Zuckerberg was trying
to negotiate, basically, a class of stock that would allow him to
do both sell and make a lot of money, but retain control.
And I think that these text messages are so so present
because this is what allowed Zuckerberg to maintain control.
And And if Eric is correct and the lesson to be taken from,
this is as a board member, you no longer have to have any
responsibilities, and you can make a lot of money by creating
like a complete dictatorship within a company with no board
oversight. That's horrifying.
Marc, Andreessen is supposed to be looking out for shareholders
and extracting. Anything from Mark Zuckerberg in
terms of negotiations over his voting control but from the
text, it does feel like to me That and reason is clearly just
trying to help Zuckerberg and Coach him through it.
So, from from Business Insider, when the special committee
approved the stock reclassification in mid-april
Andreessen, cryptically texted Zuckerberg quote, the cat's in
the bag and the bags in the river Zuckerberg then out, is
that mean that cat's dead and dries and wrote mission
accomplished and thus, the First Amendment and democracy were
destroyed. That's what the name is created.
So it's dead cat, right? Which is easier to say.
Alright, I'm hearing literal would be chopped up and I think
I've really overstayed my babysitting time of the Kelso.
I'm probably have to lie. Sounds good.
All right. Right.
Thanks everyone. Goodbye.
So work on Sally, goodbye. Goodbye.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye.