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I actually think if you talk to 
Nick Denton, Nick would say that

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he's actually very thankful that
this lawsuit happened because 

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the entire pure set of Gawker, 
Huffington, Pose, BuzzFeed, 

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etcetera are now basically 
worthless. 

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If you're a journalist at the 
New York Times, you'd probably 

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have more power than your 
average billionaire. 

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But with great power comes great
responsibility. 

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Man, Spider Man has changed our 
culture for Yeah. 

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I don't even know what a public 
service Pulitzer is. 

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It's the biggest one. 
It's. 

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Yeah, great. 
The answer is maybe start 

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building new religions. 
Do you agree with this premise 

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that there are important things 
that society would like to know 

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that don't just come online? 
It's 2924 year old Oxford law 

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student meets Peter Thiel on a 
campus tour and casually 

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suggests the idea that would 
eventually bring down Gawker. 

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Today on Newcomer we hear from 
the man who planted that seed, 

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Aaron D'souza. 
Now he's back with the PED 

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fuelled Enhanced Games and 
Objection AIA Peter Thiel back 

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platform that lets anyone 
challenge news article, 

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triggering a line by line 
investigation by former CIA and 

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FBI agents. 
I'm Eric Newcomer, author of the

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Newcomer Newsletter. 
Where I cover. 

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Startups and venture capital. 
Let's get into it. 

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So it was October 2009, I was a 
24 year old first year law 

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student at Oxford University. 
I had literally been on campus 

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for like 5 days. 
Remember this is about nearly 20

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years ago. 
A friend of mine was dating 

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Peter Thiel at the time. 
And he said to me, oh, me and my

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boyfriend are coming to campus. 
And you know, I knew a little 

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bit about Peter as PayPal Peter 
as we, we knew him then. 

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And he said, oh, can you like 
show us around campus? 

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So I was like, yeah, sure. 
So I gave them a tour around the

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the campus of Oxford and we were
just like walking around the 

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gardens. 
And Peter was the very first 

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billionaire I had ever met. 
And I said to him, oh, you're, 

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you're a billionaire, you must 
not have any problems. 

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And he said, Oh yeah, I've got 
lots of problems. 

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And I said, well, what is your, 
your greatest problem and what 

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can I do to help you solve it? 
And he said, it's there's this 

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gossip about lad Gawker. 
They're writing this horrible 

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stuff about me, and I don't know
what to do. 

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And I said, well, why don't you?
Why don't you sue them? 

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He said, well, if I sue them, 
he'll get more attention. 

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I said, well, what are you going
to do? 

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He said, well, you know, me and 
my friends are thinking about 

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buying them for $30 million. 
And I said, well, that's that's 

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terrible because you're going to
reward bad behavior. 

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And I said, well, aren't there 
lots of people who are in your 

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similar position who don't have 
the resources to sue Gawker who 

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aren't billionaires? 
And I said probably the most 

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important words of my life. 
I said maybe you can just fund 

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someone to sue Gawker on your 
behalf in sort of like a proxy 

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war. 
And Peter was like, oh, that's 

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really interesting. 
I said, oh, let me go write you 

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a paper about it. 
I'm not sure if it's legally 

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possible. 
Maybe that's why it. 

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Hasn't. 
What is students solution? 

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It's like I'm in school, what's 
the thing? 

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I will deliver a paper. 
So I will write, I will write 

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you a paper. 
Yeah. 

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So I, so I went back and I went 
back to my my little desk, my 

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little room, and I, I wrote a 
paper about whether or not this 

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would be legal. 
And I literally like, you know, 

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this is before ChatGPT or 
anything. 

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I went to the law library. 
I looked at the rules about 

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litigation financing. 
I think I talked to a couple of 

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professors and a couple weeks 
later Peter was back in Europe 

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and we met up and I presented 
him this idea. 

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I wasn't looking for a job or 
anything. 

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And he said, how much and how 
long would it take to destroy 

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Gawker, like bankrupt them? 
I and I had no clue. 

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So I said, oh, better, a big 
number and a lot of times at 

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five years and $10 million. 
And he's a great, I'll send you 

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the money, now let's get 
started. 

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And it took exactly 5 years and 
it took exactly $10 million. 

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And we approached it not like a 
legal case, but more like a 

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start up. 
And so we built a focus team. 

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How many people? 
At its peak, we were employing 

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20 people. 
Including people working for the

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law firm you brought on. 
Yeah. 

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We know we set up the law firm 
specifically for this. 

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Oh, really? 
Oh, OK. 

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Yeah. 
So you you go to find the lawyer

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before you found the case, is 
that right? 

86
00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:17,600
Yeah, so. 
So we knew that there were going

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to be cases because Gawker 
published so many articles. 

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So they would publish several 
hundred articles a day and their

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back corpus was like a million 
articles or something. 

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So we were. 
Like there must be a target. 

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There must be a target, right? 
I. 

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Mean that in some ways is the 
intellectual argument against 

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this that like somebody who 
produces that much stuff is, you

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know, everybody breaks the law 
in some way, you know? 

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Like, if you produce that much 
content that quickly with such 

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low editorial standards and 
compliance processes, you must 

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break the law at some point. 
And so if you were just, you 

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know, my thesis was, well, we 
can just consistently monitor 

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this every single day, 
taxonomize all the articles and 

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then reach out to the get the 
lawyers to reach out to the 

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subjects of the articles and 
say, hey, you know, we have a 

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philanthropist who does not like
Gawker. 

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Do you want to sue them? 
And that's literally what we 

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did. 
And then we knew we we, we hit 

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the jackpot the morning of the 
Hulk Hogan. 

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They literally posted 10 seconds
of people having sex which. 

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Yeah, which is unauthorized. 
And then Charles Harder, who is 

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our lead lawyer, was friends 
with Hulk Hogan's lawyer. 

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And so the minute that article 
got published, phone call David 

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Houston, who was Hulk's lawyer, 
said, yeah, we we're definitely 

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in. 
What can we do? 

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Let's let's Hulk smash them. 
And that began the journey. 

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What? 
So, you know, Gawker, owned by 

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Nick Denton and run by Nick 
Denton, had Valley WAG, which 

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was if you were in Silicon 
Valley. 

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I mean, it was a force to be 
reckoned with. 

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It was a key sort of publication
shaping the narrative. 

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I mean, not a lot of respect for
privacy. 

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Owen Thomas, the reporter, 
famously said Peter Thiel is 

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gay. 
Is that the exact headline? 

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I'm sure you know Peter. 
Thiel, what was the headline? 

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Yeah. 
Peter Thiel, This gay? 

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It was. 
Before my I think probably it 

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was. 2007. 
Yeah, yeah. 

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I don't even think I graduated 
high school yet. 

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Yeah, this is how long the saga 
went on for. 

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I mean, Owen Thomas says, oh, 
everybody knew. 

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And so it's just a matter of 
just like, putting online a 

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thing that, like, all the 
insiders knew. 

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So that happens also, you know, 
Valley Wag was obsessed. 

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You can respond to that. 
But I just want to give. 

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It was obsessed with, like, 
Clarium. 

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And then it was also just like, 
you know, you know, I know 

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people where they post pictures 
of them, like, in a hot tub, you

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know, just like everything, you 
know, it'd just be tracking to 

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the rich people. 
Yeah. 

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And So what? 
Was it the outing that made 

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Peter Thiel the angriest? 
It was, but we also have to 

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remember, you know, 2007 is 20 
years ago. 

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The attitude towards being gay 
has changed very rapidly and 

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Nick Denton is also gay. 
And Owen Thomas, who wrote this 

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story. 
And Thomas is gay. 

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And and so it was this, you 
know, very homophobic attack by 

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gay people themselves. 
Yeah. 

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And I always say that Nick 
Denton is wished wished he was 

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Peter Thiel, right? 
He's like an Oxford educated 

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philosopher who tried to be a 
tech entrepreneur and like 

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really failed and is gay too. 
And I, I think he was always 

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quite jealous of Peter and his 
success and, you know, coming 

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out as a very personal thing. 
And, you know, no one should be 

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outed against their against 
their will without their 

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consent. 
And I think we can all agree 

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upon that today. 
And it was something like very 

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wrong that they did. 
And it wasn't just that they 

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just attacked everyone in 
Silicon Valley. 

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They attacked everyone in in 
Hollywood without any 

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journalistic integrity. 
And like, you know, I talked to 

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a lot of journalists now and I 
use, you know, the Gawker 

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example and they say, Oh, well, 
Gawker wasn't journalists, you 

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know, they weren't at. 
The time people definitely 

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thought it was. 
Yeah, absolutely right. 

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You know, when, when, when we 
came out of, of the woodwork in 

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00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:13,440
20/15/2016 to disclose that we 
had funded the, the lawsuit, It 

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was, you know, the New York 
Times and, and, and you know, 

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the Combat Journalism review, 
all were saying that this was 

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the most terrible thing 
imaginable, this chilling effect

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on journalism. 
Well, I definitely, yeah. 

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And I, I oppose the lawsuit, to 
be clear, I mean probably less 

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stridently than I did at the 
time. 

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I mean, I do think there are you
a libertarian, very libertarian,

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right. 
I mean, isn't the best answer to

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like a Free Press problem, just 
like more more speech? 

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And just by saying, OK, you 
could get sued, you you create 

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fear among even sort of more 
sensible publications instead of

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just answering the problem with 
with more speech, like what's 

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what's your response to that 
argument? 

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00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:58,720
No, I I think that the courts 
are a very important process and

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and like the rule of law, is 
remarkably important. 

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As we'll get to with Objection 
AI, obviously. 

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00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:05,760
And, and you know, the the 
problem that I observed with 

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Hulk Hogan is saying Hulk Hogan 
is a, you know, a true 

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celebrity. 
He is very wealthy by, you know,

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the standards of an average 
American, and yet he could not 

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00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:17,280
acts afford access to justice. 
You know, to go through the 

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00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:19,360
entire court process cost $10 
million. 

186
00:09:19,800 --> 00:09:24,320
It took years. 
And, and, and I think we can all

187
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agree that is the the 
dysfunction of modern life. 

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00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:32,560
Like the rule of law is the 
backbone of a capitalist 

189
00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:35,480
economy. 
If you can't have rule of law, 

190
00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:37,680
you can't have capitalism. 
You can't enforce contracts. 

191
00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:43,640
And you know, the court system 
is so slow and so expensive, how

192
00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:46,800
do we have justice? 
In the Gawker case, Gawker would

193
00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:49,480
make a similar argument to what 
you just made, which is that 

194
00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:53,240
they might have prevailed if 
they weren't bankrupt, sort of 

195
00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:56,000
by the time, you know, because 
they had to what, pay the bond. 

196
00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:57,840
The bond made them unable to 
stay alive. 

197
00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:00,480
You don't buy that. 
No, I don't buy that. 

198
00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:04,320
And I actually think if you talk
to Nick Denton, Nick would say 

199
00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:06,680
that he's actually very thankful
that this lawsuit happened 

200
00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:09,920
because the entire pure set of 
Gawker, Huffington Pose, 

201
00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:13,280
BuzzFeed, etcetera, are now 
basically worthless. 

202
00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:17,200
And so he was able to you know, 
Ariana Huffington really like 

203
00:10:17,200 --> 00:10:19,320
she sold out at peak moment. 
He. 

204
00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:21,480
Just got out of a business that 
was never going to succeed 

205
00:10:21,480 --> 00:10:23,600
anyway. 
You're saying it's like it was a

206
00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:25,480
wake up call to like this isn't 
going to work. 

207
00:10:25,480 --> 00:10:27,200
Right. 
You know, Gawker was going to be

208
00:10:27,200 --> 00:10:31,440
destroyed by the changes, by the
changes to the algorithms on the

209
00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:34,360
platforms. 
You know, the advertising based 

210
00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:38,040
model would never have worked. 
You know, it was like kind of 

211
00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:42,080
profitable because it was like 
run as a very scrappy operation.

212
00:10:42,320 --> 00:10:44,400
They were never able to raise 
external capital. 

213
00:10:45,640 --> 00:10:47,760
But I'm just saying. 
But the four, but like the the 

214
00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:51,840
bankruptcy in 2016 actually help
Nick Denton get to an exit much 

215
00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:53,040
faster. 
And he, and he admitted this in 

216
00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:55,320
an article I think in Vanity 
Fair a few a few months ago. 

217
00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:57,160
Right. 
But in terms of like the legal 

218
00:10:57,160 --> 00:10:59,880
process playing out and getting 
justice, if you assume justice 

219
00:10:59,880 --> 00:11:03,600
is the actual, like all the 
appeals have been made, Gawker 

220
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:06,560
couldn't even afford to get to 
the end. 

221
00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:07,840
You know, it didn't even play 
out. 

222
00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:10,120
It played on a particular 
jurisdiction in Florida that 

223
00:11:10,120 --> 00:11:16,040
seems more hostile to the sort 
of San Francisco, New York media

224
00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:19,240
set, you know, then if you sued 
them in those. 

225
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States they were sued in in a 
court that like normal American 

226
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people appear in not not like 
but as new. 

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York elites are not normal 
Americans. 

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The the jury of the peers of 
Nick Denton is, you know, elites

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00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:35,560
of. 
Not what he got, you know. 

230
00:11:36,560 --> 00:11:39,080
It was actually quite a telling 
moment in court that in our 

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opening statements, we 
referenced the fact that Gawker 

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had just leased these are very 
expensive offices on 5th Ave. 

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And we and we use this as an 
example like, well, you know, 

234
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these fancy. 
The wealthy here the. 

235
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Wealthy elites in 5th Ave. and 
everyday Americans like in Hulk 

236
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Hogan, Terry Bollea, you know, 
he's like this hometown hero he 

237
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played, played baseball for 
like, you know, the, the 

238
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Pinellas. 
County obviously has no problem 

239
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with being wealthy. 
I mean, he celebrates. 

240
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Yeah. 
There's an argument made in 

241
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court to a jury. 
Who's the How did you pick the 

242
00:12:12,560 --> 00:12:15,600
lawyer? 
It's like Charles Harder. 

243
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Charles Harder, Yeah, who has 
become a now a very famous 

244
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defamation lawyer. 
He's counsel to Melania Trump, 

245
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among many others. 
You know, Charles is a very 

246
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special individual among lawyers
because he doesn't think like a 

247
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traditional lawyer. 
Most lawyers are like, how do I 

248
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bill more hours, right? 
That's all they think about. 

249
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How do I build more hours? 
How do I make this more calm 

250
00:12:37,320 --> 00:12:40,880
eluded because they're always 
acting in their own incentive. 

251
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Charles, you know, would be a 
sort of entrepreneur. 

252
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He thinks outside of the box. 
And because this wasn't just a 

253
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legal strategy, it was also PR. 
It was data, it was technology. 

254
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You know, it's a capital 
financing structuring tax and 

255
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there are so many dimensions to 
this which, you know, Charles 

256
00:13:01,160 --> 00:13:04,360
and I sort of Co founders of 
this project brought together 

257
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and you know, I've never found 
another lawyer like him. 

258
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The the, the idea that, as I do 
know for all conversations I 

259
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prepped with Claude, not even an
not an advertisement and it's 

260
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it's biggest concern with the 
Gawker suit wasn't the actual 

261
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like substance, but just the 
sort of financing issue or like 

262
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what, what is your view? 
Like if we lived in a culture 

263
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where people are sort of funding
all these lawsuits on other 

264
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people's behalf, like. 
But that is the culture today. 

265
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So you know if you slip and 
fall, you know at a podcast 

266
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studio you will get a no win no 
fee contingency lawyer. 

267
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The lawyers do it, you're 
saying? 

268
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Yeah. 
The lawyers are financed by 

269
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hedge funds. 
Gawker was financed by a sketchy

270
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:52,000
Russian oligarch named Viktor 
Vettlesburg, who's eventually 

271
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sanctioned after the Ukraine 
war. 

272
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And so ultimately, like, you 
know, financing is just a normal

273
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part of this equation. 
And like, should an individual 

274
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not be able to access like, 
philanthropic funding to pursue 

275
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justice, like, you know, you 
would say, can the ACLU and 

276
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other NGOs not bring lawsuits 
or, you know, support lawsuits, 

277
00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:17,320
right? 
I I I don't think so. 

278
00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:19,600
Do you like some of media? 
I mean, this is gonna be 

279
00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:21,040
relevant to later in our 
conversation. 

280
00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:22,800
Like what? 
What do you like about media? 

281
00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:28,000
I think media has a very 
important job to communicate 

282
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:29,960
facts, right? 
You know, it's the only 

283
00:14:29,960 --> 00:14:33,760
constitutionally enshrined 
private sector position in most 

284
00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:37,840
countries, right? 
You know, like doctors, lawyers,

285
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:42,800
engineers, and, you know, 
teachers are not enumerated with

286
00:14:42,800 --> 00:14:45,080
special powers in the United 
States Constitution, yet the 

287
00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:47,560
press is. 
And so I think the press does 

288
00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:49,440
have a very special role to 
play. 

289
00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:51,800
But with great power comes great
responsibility. 

290
00:14:53,040 --> 00:14:56,120
And, and Spider Man has changed 
our culture for the Yeah, is 

291
00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:57,600
there a right? 
Here in New York City, right, 

292
00:14:57,920 --> 00:15:03,040
You know? 
Is there a news outfit or 

293
00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:05,840
individual journalists that you 
think embodies like, you know, 

294
00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:09,320
that's good journalism? 
I think as a category, I think 

295
00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:12,960
podcasters are very interesting 
because they have to build an 

296
00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:17,360
emotional relationship with 
their listeners in a way. 

297
00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:18,720
That you're like, right here, 
We're doing it. 

298
00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:20,080
This is the best. 
Right now, yeah. 

299
00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:23,440
And, and, and I think, you know,
there's a higher degree of trust

300
00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:27,120
that podcasters have to have. 
There's something, there's an 

301
00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:29,760
emotional abstraction that 
happens with print journalism or

302
00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:33,680
written journalism that you 
don't feel that the the sort of 

303
00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:36,160
reader is interacting with a 
human being. 

304
00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:40,440
And I think podcasting has and 
the sort of content creation 

305
00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:44,680
community has shown that trust 
is actually the most valuable 

306
00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:46,880
commodity. 
Like Joe Rogan would not breach 

307
00:15:47,080 --> 00:15:51,920
trust with his listenership 
versus I think text based 

308
00:15:51,920 --> 00:15:54,720
publications are much more 
willing to break that trust in 

309
00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:56,480
in the goal of achieving. 
Clicks. 

310
00:15:56,480 --> 00:15:58,560
I mean, there's a way to frame 
what Gawker did. 

311
00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:03,120
Was it stripping the humanity of
sort of the rich people it's 

312
00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:05,720
focusing on, it's writing about 
them a way you would never want 

313
00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:08,960
to write about individuals sort 
of like shows them in sort of 

314
00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:11,920
like the they're nothing like 
you and just sort of the early 

315
00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:16,080
demonization of sort of the rich
in a way that the podcast is 

316
00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:18,440
sort of the opposite. 
You you have somebody on, you're

317
00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:20,120
like, oh, you're, you're a 
person. 

318
00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:21,240
You're. 
It's not like some. 

319
00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:23,560
Person and we're. 
Not talking about real people. 

320
00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:26,880
And you know you can't like 
selectively quote me. 

321
00:16:26,880 --> 00:16:29,520
You can't. 
It's much harder for you to 

322
00:16:29,520 --> 00:16:32,480
inject your opinion. 
I have a right of rebuttal right

323
00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:35,120
here. 
It's it, it's I think it's a 

324
00:16:35,120 --> 00:16:40,720
much better format than 
narrative construction text 

325
00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:43,080
based media. 
It just doesn't seem scalable 

326
00:16:43,080 --> 00:16:46,840
for you couldn't cover the Trump
administration through podcast 

327
00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:49,080
alone. 
I think you could, yeah. 

328
00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:49,960
Yeah. 
So have you have you seen the 

329
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:52,960
Epstein Files podcast? 
No, I no, I haven't. 

330
00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:55,200
So this is the number one 
podcast in the world right now 

331
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:58,320
and it's 100% agentic. 
So they downloaded the three and

332
00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:01,280
a half million Epstein files 
emails, dropped them into an LLM

333
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:04,119
and then used 11 labs to produce
all the other. 

334
00:17:04,119 --> 00:17:05,520
There's no humans involved in 
it. 

335
00:17:06,079 --> 00:17:09,560
And so you know my and we'll get
to this with objection. 

336
00:17:09,599 --> 00:17:16,560
It's like media does three 
things, research, synthesis and 

337
00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:19,800
distribution. 
Distribution got unbundled by 

338
00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:22,960
the social platforms. 
Synthesis is being unbundled 

339
00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:26,280
right now by AI. 
And then the final step is that 

340
00:17:26,560 --> 00:17:29,120
research is going to be 
unbundled from the traditional 

341
00:17:29,120 --> 00:17:33,320
media owners. 
And so I, I'm of the view that 

342
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:38,880
in 10 years time, all content 
will be individually and gently 

343
00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:42,280
generated for each, you know, 
consumer. 

344
00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:46,120
And so you can get your like, 
customized podcast exactly what 

345
00:17:46,120 --> 00:17:48,120
you want, right? 
Your daily dose of the Trump 

346
00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:50,480
administration if you wanted. 
But that, I mean, that makes it 

347
00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:52,920
very easy to live in sort of a 
fictionalized world, right? 

348
00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:57,240
If it's I hear what I want to 
hear, it's not rooted in what's 

349
00:17:57,240 --> 00:17:59,480
happening necessarily. 
You can hear what you want to 

350
00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:01,800
hear, but you could also 
identically dial up and dial 

351
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:03,840
down the bias, right? 
So you could actually say, you 

352
00:18:03,840 --> 00:18:06,840
know what I want to, you know, 
the, the, the Rush Limbaugh 

353
00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:10,920
version of the Trump 
administration today, or I want,

354
00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:13,800
you know, the economist version 
of it, right? 

355
00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:17,440
And I think that would be like 
a, a very powerful way to 

356
00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:19,520
continue to. 
And yes, it's going to come with

357
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:23,440
a lot of complications. 
It's going to disintermediate 

358
00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:25,560
like traditional power brokers 
in the media. 

359
00:18:25,560 --> 00:18:28,720
You know Rupert Murdoch, who was
probably arguably the most 

360
00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:30,640
powerful man in the world 20 
years ago. 

361
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:34,400
You know his empire will be 
practically worth that's I 

362
00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:36,160
would. 
Are you down on Rupert Murdoch 

363
00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:38,120
or? 
I well, you know. 

364
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,080
I know we have only like a. 
Yeah, yeah, No, as, as as an 

365
00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:46,320
Australian, you know, I see the 
power that the Murdoch empire 

366
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:48,640
has has wielded and like, you 
know, as an Australian who lives

367
00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:53,280
in the UK, two countries that 
for certainly several decades 

368
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:56,240
the Murdoch media empire 
controlled, right. 

369
00:18:56,240 --> 00:18:58,840
You know, the Prime Minister of 
Australia was effectively 

370
00:18:58,840 --> 00:19:06,040
appointed by Rupert Murdoch. 
Yet like News Corporation, which

371
00:19:06,040 --> 00:19:10,360
is the the greatest media 
empire, certain greatest 

372
00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:14,760
newspaper empire ever produced. 
That includes the Wall Street 

373
00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:17,920
Journal, the Times of London, 
all the papers in Australia. 

374
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:19,960
Do you know what its market 
capitalization is? 

375
00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:22,720
No, I'm sure it's something 
embarrassingly small. 

376
00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:25,920
Yeah, so like Tesla's like 
several trillion, Apple is 

377
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:28,040
several trillion. 
I'm. 

378
00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:29,600
Trying to guess what. 
You know. 

379
00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:31,360
You know it. 
Fresh or what? 

380
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:33,320
Is it 15 billion? 
OK, one, five. 

381
00:19:33,440 --> 00:19:35,680
Yeah, right. 
You know, Enhanced Games, which 

382
00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:38,840
is like, you know, a wonderful 
company that I do at the back of

383
00:19:38,840 --> 00:19:42,600
a cocktail napkin is worth $1.2 
billion on the NYSE today. 

384
00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:45,080
So let's get into enhanced games
and then I want to keep going to

385
00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:49,280
objection like so enhanced is it
it's steroids, right Or what 

386
00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:51,720
what the idea is to athletes can
take whatever they want. 

387
00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:53,800
No. 
Athletes can take whatever is 

388
00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:56,800
legal. 
Legal and medically prescribed. 

389
00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:01,640
OK. 
And so you know my my. 

390
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:04,200
Legal in their country in the 
United States. 

391
00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:06,400
Legal where they can they. 
Take it. 

392
00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:09,080
Fly over that, Yeah. 
Well, they've actually been in 

393
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:14,280
it in Abu Dhabi where we have a 
clinical trial being undertaken 

394
00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:18,040
with their equivalent to the FDA
and it's all medically 

395
00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:24,120
supervised, a doctor prescribed.
And so you know, where enhanced 

396
00:20:24,120 --> 00:20:27,760
games came from is that I, I 
learned that 47% of elite track 

397
00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:31,080
and field athletes admitted that
they are using band performance 

398
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:33,600
enhancing drugs, yet only 2% 
were getting caught. 

399
00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:37,040
And this is like peer reviewed 
scientific research that was 

400
00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:38,800
actually funded by the World 
Anti doping Agency. 

401
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,560
And I said, well, why should we 
be lying, right? 

402
00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:45,960
Shouldn't we be able to be the 
best versions of ourselves that 

403
00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:50,520
we can be? 
Like you know, and the media is 

404
00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:53,280
actually really amazing like 
social media is unbelievable. 

405
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:58,120
So I made a video, I dropped it 
on a 0 follower account on 

406
00:20:58,120 --> 00:21:02,280
Twitter and it got 9 million 
views in the 1st 24 hours. 

407
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:06,880
And like, within a day, 
investors started messaging me 

408
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:08,160
and saying, oh, this is really 
cool and. 

409
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:10,920
The funny thing about being a 
great photo of the media is the 

410
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:12,320
media loves it. 
Yeah, yeah. 

411
00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:13,640
The media wants to talk about 
itself. 

412
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:16,280
So if you're willing to argue 
with them as sort of this 

413
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:19,600
booking point pointing case, you
know, it's, we're happy to sort 

414
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:22,040
of hear it out and talk about it
and on your, all your websites. 

415
00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:23,840
It's like media contacts here, 
like, yeah. 

416
00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:25,920
No, no, because I'm super open 
about this. 

417
00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:27,800
It's like, yeah. 
If you're interested in having 

418
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:29,480
me on your podcast, you can 
e-mail me at 

419
00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:33,200
aaron@aarondesusa.com. 
Built to be consumed like to be 

420
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:35,480
exciting to be in a way that 
they want to talk about it and 

421
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:37,080
therefore. 
Get distribution and so the the 

422
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:40,400
most important conversation I've
ever had in my life was with the

423
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:44,480
Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria 
Russo, who who. 

424
00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:45,680
Peter's gonna be pissed about 
that. 

425
00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:52,280
No, I'm #2. 
Yeah, so but so Maria got the 

426
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:54,480
Nobel Peace Prize. 
She's a a Blogger in the 

427
00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:55,840
Philippines. 
Oh yeah, yeah. 

428
00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:58,680
Yeah, for fighting the dictator 
Robert Duterte. 

429
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:02,400
And she said to me, to 
understand the world, you have 

430
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:05,160
to understand just one thing, 
which is social media. 

431
00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:09,320
And to understand social media, 
you need to understand just one 

432
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:13,240
fact, which is that controversy 
travels 9 times faster than 

433
00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:15,520
truth. 
And you understand that. 

434
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:18,720
You understand why we we have 
crazy Donald Trump, not boring 

435
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,680
Jimmy Carter, Why we have wild 
Kim Kardashian, not boring 

436
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:26,000
Humphrey Bogart, right? 
And and I was like, wow, that, 

437
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:27,640
that, that makes a lot of sense.
And so when I was 

438
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,640
conceptualizing the idea of the 
enhanced games, I was like, oh, 

439
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:34,680
this is going to go so viral 
because everyone in the sports 

440
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,400
establishment, every journalist 
will want to talk about it. 

441
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:44,240
And the very first reply on that
tweet was from an Olympian named

442
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:48,360
Manson Henry. 
And he wrote please don't engage

443
00:22:48,360 --> 00:22:50,560
with this. 
If it gets attention, this will 

444
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:51,960
be very bad or. 
Something to that fact. 

445
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:53,040
It's like and there you are 
doing it. 

446
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:54,480
You can't help yourself. 
Yeah, right. 

447
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:57,480
It's like 200,000 followers. 
They were like, oh wow, like 

448
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:00,400
what is this thing we are? 
And then it was like, should we 

449
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:03,440
not engage with this question 
mark and then bang like a few 

450
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:08,760
big accounts retweeted it and. 
You know, are largely resisting 

451
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:09,960
it, right? 
I mean, you're gonna have your 

452
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,160
first games, but it's not clear 
that this is actually gonna 

453
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:19,560
succeed as a cultural product. 
Well, so the reason I was so 

454
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:24,200
confident in it is that it it is
very simple. 

455
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:26,640
As human beings we are only 
interested in seeing the very 

456
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:31,160
best of human performance. 
And so if at the end of the 

457
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:35,440
month in Las Vegas a lot of 
world records are broken, or if 

458
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:40,040
like the same Bolts 100m world 
record is broken, then we are 

459
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:41,320
the fastest sporting event in 
the world. 

460
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:46,120
And if you're a Nike, do you 
want to sponsor the fastest 

461
00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:48,600
natural athlete or just the 
fastest athlete, period. 

462
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:50,720
Right. 
And I think there's something 

463
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:52,520
very important about being the 
best. 

464
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:56,400
And as humans, we don't really 
care, you know, whether they're 

465
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:57,680
natural or enhanced. 
Yeah. 

466
00:23:57,680 --> 00:23:58,960
Why call it? 
Enhanced at all? 

467
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:00,600
I mean, in some ways what you're
saying is. 

468
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:03,000
It's the open games. 
Right, right. 

469
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,680
It's just everything. 
It's just like to be human is to

470
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:09,440
take advantage of any whatever. 
Well, so, so the Olympics used 

471
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:14,960
to be for, for from 1896 until 
1992, the Olympics were only for

472
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:17,160
amateur athletes. 
And it was viewed that 

473
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:20,280
professional compensation was 
somehow diluting the integrity 

474
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:21,800
of sport. 
It was cheating. 

475
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:25,800
And you know, if you were an 
athlete who ever accepted even 

476
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:28,400
$1.00 in professional 
compensation, you were banned 

477
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:29,840
from Olympic competition for 
life. 

478
00:24:30,360 --> 00:24:33,280
And now, like high school 
athletes are professionals and 

479
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:34,880
you know, like this whole NIL 
stuff. 

480
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,720
And so I think we're going in 
that similar direction both in 

481
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:41,120
terms of sport and in culture, 
right? 

482
00:24:41,120 --> 00:24:43,840
You know, I, I, I got up at 6:30
this morning and went to work 

483
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:45,880
out at Equinox and Hudson Yards.
I'm like, I look around there, 

484
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:48,960
I'm like, everyone is enhanced, 
like everyone is enhanced. 

485
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:52,880
And if you're not enhanced, you 
are are giving, you're giving up

486
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,720
an advantage, right? 
And we are in this now 

487
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,720
competition between humans and 
machines with AI. 

488
00:24:59,960 --> 00:25:01,640
And as human beings we need to 
become. 

489
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:03,600
We need every edge we can get. 
Absolutely. 

490
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:05,920
Yeah. 
I mean, it is sad, you know, 

491
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,400
with cycling that just like that
they were all that so many 

492
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:13,160
people were using drugs that it 
became a game of getting away 

493
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:15,080
with it. 
And there's so many that. 

494
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,880
Don't lie, just do it all out in
the open, right? 

495
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:21,240
And that's the same thing I, I 
feel with journalism, right? 

496
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:25,720
So it's like some journalists 
want to be objective and just 

497
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:29,320
produce facts and some want to 
be highly subjective and push 

498
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,400
their own narrative. 
It's like don't hide behind the 

499
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:38,000
veil of objectivity. 
I mean, you know, I was at 

500
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:42,040
Bloomberg for six years and so 
let's move into your new, new 

501
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:45,640
company. 
I mean, I, I just think, you 

502
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,400
know, I was at Bloomberg for six
years and, you know, is the view

503
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:52,160
from nowhere type reporting 
where you don't really say what 

504
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:54,880
the writer thinks, though 
obviously as you drift it, you 

505
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:57,280
know, if you write for business 
week, it has more of a tone 

506
00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:59,120
there, there. 
And then we would write new, you

507
00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:01,400
know, newsletters that almost 
had even more of a tone. 

508
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,760
And it just becomes I get the 
value. 

509
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:08,040
It's like for the AP and Reuters
in some parts of Bloomberg where

510
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:10,840
it's like, even if the reporter 
has a perspective, trying to 

511
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:13,880
have you from nowhere when you 
cover the Fed or something has a

512
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:15,760
lot of value. 
But for a lot of types of 

513
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:19,360
stories that are so complicated 
and there's so much perspective 

514
00:26:19,360 --> 00:26:21,400
involved. 
I think just admitting, as I do 

515
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,760
now with my sub stack, that I 
have a point of view. 

516
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,120
This comes from me. 
This is my perspective. 

517
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:27,840
And trying to say, what's your 
opinion on. 

518
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:29,400
Yeah. 
And they're willing to pay for 

519
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,520
that, right? 
And they're saying, you know, I 

520
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:36,200
like your point of view, right? 
I like the vision you bring to 

521
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:38,280
the world and I'm willing to 
subscribe for that. 

522
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:40,280
I and I think that is very 
powerful. 

523
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:44,960
But like when you're Fox News 
and your slogan is like fair and

524
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,920
balanced, right? 
Or the Washington Post or you 

525
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:51,040
know, the worse is the New York 
Times, right? 

526
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:53,560
So 20 years ago, the New York 
Times, according to you Gov was 

527
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:55,720
equally trusted by Democrats and
Republicans. 

528
00:26:56,120 --> 00:26:58,520
And now, effectively, it has 
zero trust among Republicans 

529
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:04,880
because what they discovered is 
that if they're willing to, you 

530
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,920
know, confirm the bias of their 
readers, they're more willing to

531
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:10,560
subscribe. 
And that's why they have such a,

532
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:14,840
you know, very healthy 
subscriber base right now is. 

533
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:18,360
I mean, Republicans largely 
consume their news on TV, right?

534
00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:23,520
I mean, they print, print news. 
Consumers are just Democrats by 

535
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:27,680
by and large. 
Well, yeah, it's like, but also 

536
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:30,680
like, you know, millennials 
trust TikTok as much as they 

537
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,840
trust The New York Times. 
Which is sort of incoherent. 

538
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:35,040
What does it mean to trust 
TikTok? 

539
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:36,800
It's like whatever's in your 
feed, you trust. 

540
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:39,120
Yeah, you, you, you. 
Trust what shows up. 

541
00:27:39,120 --> 00:27:41,880
Like I mean I like TikTok but I 
don't know what it means to 

542
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:43,440
trust it. 
But the New York Times has a 

543
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:45,400
feed too, right? 
It's just a feed of. 

544
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,120
I love Jamel Bowie's a TikTok 
feed. 

545
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:52,400
He's a New York Times columnist.
But anyway, let's it's objection

546
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,800
AI, right? 
Objection AI So yeah, explain 

547
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:58,960
the thesis behind the company. 
So the thesis is very new, 

548
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:00,760
right? 
Seed funding, Peter Teal is. 

549
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,280
Investor Balaji Srinivasan, the 
former CEO of Coin Base. 

550
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,120
Who's who of media haters? 
Yeah. 

551
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,160
Media skeptics. 
Yeah, I mean, they love it in 

552
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,960
certain ways. 
I mean, Balaji was just Bellagi.

553
00:28:12,120 --> 00:28:13,320
Is it Bellagi? 
Bellagi. 

554
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:17,040
Is that what he goes by the he 
was just on with Taylor Lorenz, 

555
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:20,040
one of the which I loved and and
obviously Peter Thiel like is 

556
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,760
obsessed with media in certain 
ways and tracks it very closely.

557
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:26,800
Everyone who is powerful has to 
understand the media. 

558
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:31,360
Like you cannot be powerful and 
not participate in in the in the

559
00:28:31,360 --> 00:28:36,360
media. 
And so the point of objection is

560
00:28:36,360 --> 00:28:39,520
that the Gawker lawsuit took 10 
year or five years and $10 

561
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,320
million, and that is not 
accessible to anyone. 

562
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,400
And we have created the first 
accountability system for 

563
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:50,440
journalists. 
So anyone, but particularly the 

564
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,360
subjects of media reporting, can
file an objection to a piece of 

565
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:56,440
content. 
Then a team of investigators who

566
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,800
are former CIA and FBI agents 
will get to work. 

567
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,760
They will investigate that 
article line by line, source by 

568
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:07,120
source, and try and basically 
replicate what the author has 

569
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,720
written and verify it. 
They will importantly put all 

570
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,400
that information into a public 
data room which the original 

571
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,720
author can rebut. 
And then AI looks at that data 

572
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,840
room and comes to an analysis 
about what is true. 

573
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:23,440
And I think this brings to an 
important point is that like 

574
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:29,680
journalists say that their job 
is to hold truth, truth to 

575
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:35,280
power, and that powerful actors,
whether they're politicians, 

576
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,240
billionaires or CE OS, should be
subject to high transparency. 

577
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:40,760
But if you're a journalist at 
the New York Times, you probably

578
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:42,480
have more power than your 
average billionaire. 

579
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:46,440
This this I think is a core 
conflict, right, that the media 

580
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,320
often says we have no power and 
the billionaires have unlimited 

581
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:51,720
power. 
And then the billionaires are 

582
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:54,120
like, listen, all the with all 
the money in the world, the 

583
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:55,800
thing I care most about is 
reputation. 

584
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:58,480
And the people who control it 
are these random reporters 

585
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:00,720
who've never even, you know, 
worked in the industry that I 

586
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:01,880
Right. 
Yeah. 

587
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,680
And so they both like, it's like
you're rich and you control 

588
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:07,080
reputation. 
But, and, and what journalists 

589
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:12,760
forget is that they are part of 
these media empires that, by and

590
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:13,840
large, are owned by 
billionaires. 

591
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,040
I just don't think there is 
command control like I I really 

592
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:17,680
do think 1. 
Come on. 

593
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:19,280
Come on. 
I, I just, I was a New York 

594
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,320
Times intern, like the 
Solsberger. 

595
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:24,920
There's a culture like 
journalism, you know, but I, I 

596
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:26,280
think it was sort of a good 
culture. 

597
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,880
It's like, you know, you check 
your sources, you give people a 

598
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:30,520
chance to respond. 
Like there are lots of things 

599
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,120
that like, I've joked before 
that there's like a priesthood 

600
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,480
of media, right? 
Like media's sort of like non 

601
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,680
economic in certain ways. 
They're all these like you win 

602
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:42,080
by, you know, getting awards, 
not necessarily by building the 

603
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,600
biggest business. 
So there are these cultural and 

604
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,600
sort of, you know, inbred sort 
of principles, but I, I just 

605
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,480
never really felt working at any
media organization. 

606
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:54,400
I think you're lying to. 
There's like, I think you're 

607
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,960
totally lying to. 
The most egregious, like I tried

608
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:00,800
to write an essay, so it was 
subjective in the opening 

609
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,520
remarks for Business Week, 
criticizing like billionaires 

610
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:07,520
sort of having too much control.
And it felt like that piece sort

611
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,200
of got killed for like I was 
basically saying it's not their 

612
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,040
money that's the problem. 
It's like if you control 

613
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:14,560
platforms anyway. 
So there there have been like, 

614
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,040
but they're they're they're sort
of the outlier, right? 

615
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,720
Like on random controversial, 
like the fall of Uber or 

616
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,000
whatever. 
It's not like Bloomberg was like

617
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,280
weighing in like I'm team 
benchmarker team Travis, right. 

618
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:28,320
For the most of these things. 
They don't give, they don't care

619
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:30,160
you. 
Know, but like, you know, go 

620
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,240
over go over to Rocketeer 
Center, 6th Ave., walk into the 

621
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:35,720
News Corporation building you 
feel the presence of. 

622
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,160
Rupert definitely on the sort of
key political. 

623
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:44,520
Absolutely every, every detail 
in that building, you can feel 

624
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:47,280
the presence of Rupert Murdoch. 
But of course, that's a sort of 

625
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:49,360
conservative outlet that many of
the New York Times, you know, 

626
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:51,680
the this side that I'm more 
aligned with would say, yes, 

627
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,640
that's deeply flawed. 
No, no, but but I, I think that 

628
00:31:55,000 --> 00:32:00,360
liberal journalists don't have 
the self-awareness to realize 

629
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,240
that like Sulzberger and the 
Sulzberger family, which have 

630
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:07,040
owned the New York Times for 
what a century now, have that 

631
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:09,920
same influence in building the 
culture of an organization. 

632
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:14,080
Maybe not in the day-to-day 
operations, but it's just the 

633
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,640
culture of the organization. 
So like you talk to any CEO of 

634
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,560
like an NYSE, this company, they
will always say that culture is 

635
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:23,400
the number one asset of any 
organization. 

636
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:25,680
The culture of Gawker was 
created by Nick Denton. 

637
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:28,800
The culture of a fox was created
by Murdoch. 

638
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,200
The culture of the New York 
Times was created by Salzburger,

639
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:35,280
right? 
And ultimately that is the core 

640
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:41,720
value of the organization and, 
and and there are now economic 

641
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,400
motivations, right? 
So like Nick Denton was very 

642
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:48,360
famous for being the very first 
media proprietor to have like a 

643
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:51,040
dashboard up on the wall showing
how many clicks articles we're 

644
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:54,280
getting, right? 
And this was like, and and like 

645
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:56,200
he would directly incentivize 
journalists based on how many 

646
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:57,720
clicks. 
So they would get bonuses every 

647
00:32:57,720 --> 00:32:59,120
day. 
And now that is. 

648
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,200
Perfectly normal. 
I mean, I I think the New York 

649
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:04,080
Times is one of the best 
institutions in America. 

650
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:06,600
So we are extremely far apart 
and we can debate it. 

651
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,120
I want to come back to it, but I
want to finish explaining what 

652
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:12,440
objection AI is before. 
And I agree that you create a 

653
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,400
culture and that decides sort of
what the publication is about. 

654
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,560
But aren't you're conservative 
or, I don't know, you believe in

655
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:20,400
culture, right? 
Like, isn't culture like 

656
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:22,120
important? 
Like you want companies with 

657
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:23,200
good cultures? 
So yeah. 

658
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,040
And the fact that there is a 
culture itself isn't a problem. 

659
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,520
No, no, no, absolutely not every
organization has a, has a 

660
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:31,520
culture, right? 
So it's, it's impossible to have

661
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,960
a cultureless organization. 
But let's, let's be frank and 

662
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,040
honest about what that culture 
is, right? 

663
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:41,120
So the New York Times is a 
Democratic paper now, but it's 

664
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:43,560
not a Republican paper. 
It is not a neutral paper, but 

665
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:46,280
it is not a neutral arbiter of 
truth, right? 

666
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,600
It is a political mass set. 
And that was, and it's, it's 

667
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:52,600
obvious that it is. 
That is a conscious business 

668
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:57,360
decision that has been very 
profitable for them over the 

669
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,480
last 10 years. 
In the in the OK, we're gonna 

670
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:01,720
talk about the New York Times a 
little bit. 

671
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,520
I mean, the they certainly could
be more to the left, right. 

672
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:08,080
I mean, there are like pretty, 
there are traditions of 

673
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,320
journalism where you would be 
more on a team like, you know, 

674
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,000
the Guardian or. 
The like in the UK. 

675
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:14,239
In the UK there's much more 
clearly like we're on this team,

676
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,760
we're on this team with this 
team in America, You know, I 

677
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:22,320
think the argument is that 
they're, you know, fundamentally

678
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:26,320
these newspapers are like pro 
democracy and there's sort of 

679
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:31,000
one party consolidating power. 
You know, like the just like if 

680
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:32,520
you look at that, we're going to
get into. 

681
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:36,120
Deep argument that like. 
Literally the House of 

682
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:40,199
Representatives is moving away. 
Like the percentage the 

683
00:34:40,199 --> 00:34:42,960
Democrats would have to win to 
win the House of Representatives

684
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:45,719
is going up by percentage. 
It's not like 4%. 

685
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:51,679
They'd need a 4% swing, yeah, to
to win, but like to to. 

686
00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:53,960
Suggest that one party doesn't 
believe in democracy. 

687
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:56,480
Yeah. 
Like, is that your interest? 

688
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,080
Trump Trump is literally 
flirting with whether he would 

689
00:34:59,240 --> 00:35:02,600
have another term regularly he 
gives out, I think hats that say

690
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:04,200
he would he would have another 
term. 

691
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:11,480
He he is a president that had 
his summoned his followers to 

692
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,240
put pressure on the House of 
Representatives by sort of 

693
00:35:14,240 --> 00:35:17,760
coming into it to to dispute an 
election result. 

694
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,600
But like a, a democratically 
elected president of the United 

695
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:25,400
States who won the popular vote,
right, and a democratically 

696
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:31,960
elected Congress, right, who 
fully in, in, in full compliance

697
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:35,400
with the Constitution of the 
United States has appointed the 

698
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:37,160
Supreme Court. 
But I don't see anything 

699
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:39,640
undemocratic. 
Well, there, right, The, the 

700
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:41,760
idea, you know, this idea, I 
think the Washington Post slogan

701
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:47,080
like democracy dies in darkness,
like, and when Basil's cut 30% 

702
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:52,520
of the Wapo's newsroom, like 
people felt like this was like 

703
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:56,120
the end of democracy, right? 
Like be honest with yourself, 

704
00:35:56,320 --> 00:36:01,000
right media, you are, you are 
generating clicks by writing 

705
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,360
articles for billionaires. 
You are not the guardians of 

706
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,320
democracy. 
The take the. 

707
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:11,960
Like, get off the New York. 
Times story on Cesar Chavez like

708
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:13,440
that. 
That's one, right? 

709
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:15,880
That story doesn't happen 
without the New York Times doing

710
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,200
reporting. 
It's on a leftist saying that 

711
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,040
he'd, you know, abuse some of 
his followers. 

712
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,400
I mean, they're the biggest. 
Like, I've been cancelled. 

713
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,040
I wasn't really cancelled, but 
people were screaming me on 

714
00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:31,280
Twitter was like, the New York 
Times had broken the story on 

715
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,320
George Santos. 
And there were a lot of people 

716
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,200
on the left attacking The New 
York Times for failing to do it 

717
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:40,960
before he'd been elected. 
And I guess from my experience 

718
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,320
as a journalist, there are lots 
of stories that just would never

719
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,560
be published, that people, once 
they're published, people assume

720
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:49,800
like, this is part of our 
culture, this we've learned this

721
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:51,840
thing. 
And so these outlets like The 

722
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,840
Washington Post, New York Times 
are the ones most frequently 

723
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,520
doing those types of novel 
stories that without them would 

724
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:01,040
never have been published. 
And so we lose that when those 

725
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:03,440
papers lose capacity. 
Now, I'm not saying every 

726
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:06,000
reporter at The Washington Post 
was delivering that kind of 

727
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:07,520
story. 
The New York Times is a multi 

728
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,040
billion dollar publicly traded 
company. 

729
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,480
Are they losing capacity? 
No, they're gaining capacity. 

730
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:16,280
They are doing well, but we 
were, it was the Washington Post

731
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,880
that I, I do think it's helpful 
to have multiple of these 

732
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,360
outlets that are doing sort of 
novel reporting. 

733
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,240
Well, it's like, do we really 
need like lots of local 

734
00:37:25,240 --> 00:37:27,120
newspapers and then. 
Do do you agree with this 

735
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:28,880
premise? 
I like to have lots of local 

736
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:30,440
newspapers. 
Do you agree with this premise 

737
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,960
that there are important things 
that society would like to know 

738
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:46,400
that don't just come online? 
But does that mean that we have 

739
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:48,960
to, like, create a special 
privilege position for The New 

740
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:52,840
York Times? 
So you, you agree, you just 

741
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:56,400
think that I'm just saying it's 
part of what gives the New York 

742
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:57,760
Times value. 
If you don't give them any 

743
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,720
credit for the fact that like 
the core thing they do is this 

744
00:38:00,720 --> 00:38:03,600
really hard thing that there are
sort of facts about the world 

745
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:06,160
that are not online, especially 
as we enter an AI world, this 

746
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:07,720
matters more and more. 
There's I feel like. 

747
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,560
But like, like what Sam Altman 
is doing or like what I'm doing 

748
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:12,760
is like, I think really 
important to our society, but we

749
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,400
we don't get a special 
constitutionally enshrined 

750
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:16,960
position in society. 
But you were defending the 

751
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,120
constitutionally enshrined 
position, right? 

752
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:21,640
No, no, I was noting that that 
it exists. 

753
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,160
You don't think there should be 
a constitutionally enshrined 

754
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,160
position or? 
Well, I think with great power 

755
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:29,160
comes great responsibility, 
right? 

756
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:33,960
If, if it is for the 
distribution of facts, right, 

757
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:38,320
then I believe that there should
be a constitutionally enshrined 

758
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:43,760
privilege. 
But then, you know, there should

759
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:48,080
be a very high liability for 
libel, for invasion of privacy, 

760
00:38:48,240 --> 00:38:49,760
you know, to the point where I 
think it actually should be 

761
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:55,720
criminal, criminalized, right, 
Because it it if you, it's the 

762
00:38:55,720 --> 00:38:59,120
same thing with politicians. 
If if you give politicians great

763
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:03,720
power, right, they're in the 
corollary, if they are corrupt, 

764
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:05,800
there should be huge 
consequences. 

765
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:07,560
This is what Lee Kuan Yew you 
did with Singapore. 

766
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:12,440
He said, yes, we're going to pay
our ministers extremely well and

767
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,480
they they wield almost 
dictatorial power and they were 

768
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:17,840
able to take a mosquito infested
swamp and make it the richest 

769
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,440
country in the world. 
He said if you're corrupt, 

770
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:23,120
straight to jail. 
It's straight to Changi prison, 

771
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:24,560
right? 
Brutal. 

772
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:30,480
And I don't believe that there 
has to be both sides of the 

773
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,840
coin. 
Sure, there's a lot to unpack 

774
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,200
there, but I want to. 
I want to go back to objection 

775
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:42,480
be, I guess first of all, from 
the sort of I've been maligned 

776
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,840
by media side. 
Why do they wanna come to you? 

777
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:48,400
Like don't If I'm paying 
someone, I've been maligned. 

778
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,360
I want the person I'm paying to 
deliver like the result I want, 

779
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,400
which is like, I'm the good guy,
whereas you're saying we're 

780
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:56,480
gonna deliver the sort of 
objective truth. 

781
00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:00,200
Yes, exactly. 
And so if you've been maligned 

782
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:04,280
by the media, you would say the 
media got the facts wrong, 

783
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:06,440
right? 
They strung a bunch of anonymous

784
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,840
sources together. 
They selectively quoted. 

785
00:40:11,240 --> 00:40:13,680
A bunch of people, right? 
So, you know, I think, you know,

786
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:16,800
the example I frequently use is 
the Ronan Farrow article about 

787
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:19,320
Sam Altman in The New Yorker a 
few weeks ago, right? 

788
00:40:19,720 --> 00:40:23,120
Ronan clearly went out and said,
I'm going to write an article 

789
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,680
about how bad Sam Altman is. 
He didn't say I'm going to go 

790
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:29,520
gather a bunch of facts and and 
then be an objective viewer of 

791
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:31,320
this. 
He, he clearly had a narrative 

792
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,960
and he found a lot of sources 
that will confirm that, some 

793
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:36,880
which were on the record and 
some were off the record. 

794
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,760
But he he admitted he spoke to 
150 people and he distilled that

795
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:44,320
down to deliver the narrative. 
He exactly wanted to deliver. 

796
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:46,160
And what was the consequence of 
that? 

797
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:49,360
Two days later, someone threw a 
Molotov cocktail at Sam's house.

798
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:52,760
So that story should never exist
because they're random crazy 

799
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:57,560
people. 
That number one, Ronan, should 

800
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,560
be held to an extremely high 
standard because he's wielding 

801
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:04,600
monopoly power greater than one 
of the wealthiest individuals. 

802
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:08,120
Wait, why is it monopoly power? 
Because he has an immense 

803
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,480
ability to distribute. 
Right in The New Yorker, Yeah, 

804
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:17,000
it's like a dying publication 
that's a laughable New Yorker 

805
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:19,960
has prestige, but it is 
certainly in no way a monopoly. 

806
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,560
It's like. 
Not not a financial monopoly, 

807
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,600
but it's a cultural monopoly. 
No, there's like there are other

808
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:29,480
publications you could run in 
like my my sub stack, like yeah.

809
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,880
But running, running, running a 
narrative like that, you're 

810
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:34,800
you're a sub stack versus the 
cover of the. 

811
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:36,920
New Yorker The New Yorker in no 
way has a monopoly. 

812
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:38,800
I don't know how. 
It's a powerful. 

813
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:40,640
It's a. 
Powerful cultural institution, 

814
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:44,560
but it isn't like Free Press 
culture in America. 

815
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:49,000
Like you don't even think it 
should be more speech like. 

816
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:51,720
No, it should be more 
accountability, right? 

817
00:41:51,720 --> 00:41:54,760
So every on the record source. 
Isn't this gonna ruin the 

818
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:57,080
Internet? 
Because the most sloppy people 

819
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:01,080
with their speech are random 
commoners online, right? 

820
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:06,160
Commenters. 
Commenters, we're not supposed 

821
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:09,880
to say that, but whatever. 
The same difference the the 

822
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:14,280
elite media. 
The elite media you know is far 

823
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:15,760
more intentional with what they 
say. 

824
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,080
They at least talk to lawyers. 
Random people like opining 

825
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:22,400
online are are much sloppier. 
Although, you know, the 

826
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:24,960
corollary to that is that, you 
know, you have a citizen 

827
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:29,360
journalist like Nick Shirley 
who's just like a kid with an 

828
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:33,040
iPhone that did better 
investigative reporting than 

829
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:35,360
anyone at The New York Times. 
That's definitely not true. 

830
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:41,040
I mean, it's it's not clear. 
It's very hard to assess what 

831
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,120
he's presenting. 
Well, and and but it's also very

832
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:46,640
hard to assess what Ronan Farrow
and The New Yorker is 

833
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:48,200
presenting. 
So like, how can we make 

834
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:50,120
journalism better? 
But I mean, Sam Altman is going 

835
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:52,760
to be a figure of like mini 
profiles. 

836
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:55,920
Like to me the answer on Sam 
Altman is definitely Ronan 

837
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:57,840
Farrow. 
Like has a narrative people. 

838
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,240
It is a we call it a story. 
Like people want a story to have

839
00:43:01,240 --> 00:43:02,800
some. 
He talks to a bunch of people. 

840
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:06,320
And even if you were arguing in 
court, opening arguments, 

841
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,800
closing arguments, they have a 
narrative you're presenting, but

842
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:10,880
you organize the facts. 
But you you need to present 

843
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:12,200
evidence well. 
You present evidence in the 

844
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:13,720
story. 
You're like, I talked to blah, 

845
00:43:13,720 --> 00:43:15,600
blah blah, no. 
Because this is. 

846
00:43:15,720 --> 00:43:17,280
What happened? 
I can get correct I. 

847
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,120
I go to court and I present my 
narrative. 

848
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,160
It's adversarial. 
It's adversarial, and the 

849
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:25,000
documentary evidence must be 
presented. 

850
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:27,600
So the average federal court 
case in the United States has a 

851
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:30,920
quarter of a million documents 
supporting it, right outcomes, 

852
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:35,080
A50 page judge judgment. 
So there's like a 99.99% 

853
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:39,080
compression ratio. 
The New York Times writes a big 

854
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:42,960
investigative piece might be 
like 2000 words long on average.

855
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:47,320
According to Chachi PT, they 
have 1010 on the record sources.

856
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,320
And if you assume they speak for
an hour, that's about 100,000 

857
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:55,320
words of information that is 
distilled down to like 2000. 

858
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:57,600
So you have like a 98% 
compression ratio. 

859
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:03,160
And So what I'm trying to do 
with objection is to fix the 

860
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,440
decline of media. 
So according to the Gallup poll 

861
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:09,280
in 19 seventy, 70% of Americans 
trusted the news media. 

862
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:12,640
That's down to 28% today and 8% 
among Republicans. 

863
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:15,760
And you know, I'm here in New 
York City today. 

864
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:17,800
I'm going to talk to some of the
biggest media proprietors in the

865
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,520
world. 
None of them are really focused 

866
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:24,000
on solving this trust dimension.
Like, you know, if you talk to 

867
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:26,000
journalists that say, well, why 
don't you just pay journalists 

868
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,920
more money, right? 
That doesn't actually solve the 

869
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,160
structural problem. 
So how can we actually fix the 

870
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:34,720
structural problem of the 
decline of journalism #1 

871
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,760
journalists need to show their 
work, right? 

872
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,720
So if you're gonna write a story
and it's backed up by sources, 

873
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:43,200
like just upload the source 
videos, right? 

874
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:47,400
Upload the source documents. 
I'm not against what you're 

875
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:52,120
saying necessarily, I just think
that like practically, my 

876
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,400
readers are not gonna go and 
spend the time to audit. 

877
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:57,160
No, no, no. 
But this helps. 

878
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:00,600
You like it helps another 
company, potentially mine my 

879
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:04,480
work, but my actual readers are 
sort of deciding, do I trust him

880
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,120
or not? 
No, no, no, I, I think that the 

881
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,080
trust will be higher if you 
presented all of your background

882
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,360
material right. 
So This is why podcasts are very

883
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:13,080
powerful. 
It's like, you know? 

884
00:45:13,720 --> 00:45:16,840
If they're consumed mostly 
through clips like people, it's 

885
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:19,760
like nice to have the whole 
thing, but like most people but 

886
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:22,600
it but in the core monetizable 
audience wants they want a. 

887
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:27,520
Clip, but the clip is the 
opening wedge to watching the 

888
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:31,320
full unredacted transcript. 
And so maybe only like a small 

889
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:33,640
percentage of your audience 
wants to go like really deep, 

890
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,800
but that's like very meaningful.
And in the era of AI, our 

891
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:43,640
capacity to read is unlimited, 
so having an open public data 

892
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:46,920
room attached to every story 
would actually substantially 

893
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:48,280
improve the quality of 
reporting. 

894
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:50,760
And I, I, I, I don't. 
I don't think you can doubt this

895
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:53,160
at all. 
I, I think it could be valuable 

896
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:56,880
and I agree I think journalism 
will be open to it if like the 

897
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:58,840
reader shows interest in this 
stuff. 

898
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:02,320
Like, I think if you can 
convince journalism, you know, 

899
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:06,840
companies that people will trust
them more because, you know, you

900
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:10,680
can have a nice way to show, 
like, the sort of archives of 

901
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:12,960
their reporting that that could 
be the case. 

902
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:15,720
I'm somewhat skeptical you'll 
succeed in getting enough 

903
00:46:15,720 --> 00:46:19,200
readers to like engage with it 
that it really changes their 

904
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,320
reputation. 
I, I, I actually, I don't think 

905
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:26,880
it's about readers engaging for 
generating monetization. 

906
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:30,720
It's actually for AI training, 
right? 

907
00:46:30,720 --> 00:46:35,360
So 20% of all the data that 
ChatGPT is trained on is news 

908
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:37,960
data. 
But as I said it, new SATA is 

909
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:41,320
like 99% compressed. 
And so if one had access to the,

910
00:46:41,720 --> 00:46:45,360
you know, unique first party 
recordings, this is a constantly

911
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:49,040
refreshing source of data that 
could be used to train the most 

912
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:51,000
advanced AI model that it's ever
existed. 

913
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:55,840
I wanna get back into like the 
pieces of what objection is 

914
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:59,640
because so one is sort of you've
been, you know, there's been a 

915
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,120
hit piece about you having have 
have a response independent 

916
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:06,440
investigation. 
There's another piece which is I

917
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,040
guess it maybe not a profit 
Center for you, but Sir, I don't

918
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:12,400
know if it's brand exercise or 
what, but like we'll create a 

919
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:14,840
contractual agreement for 
whenever you talk to a 

920
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:16,520
journalist, you should sign an 
advance. 

921
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:19,000
So so. 
One thing that's like really 

922
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:26,160
shocking about journalism is 
that Jesus, we. 

923
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,560
Can keep that in so you who's 
slick and who's not on the. 

924
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:35,240
Show Yeah, one thing that's 
really shocking about journalism

925
00:47:35,240 --> 00:47:40,680
is that we sign terms and 
conditions when we do everything

926
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:42,160
in life. 
You know, when I go to the 

927
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:44,680
physiotherapist, when I go to 
the swimming pool, when I check 

928
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:48,280
into a hotel. 
But when we do an on the record 

929
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,560
media interview, right, there's 
there's no paperwork, right? 

930
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,720
I came here to your studio 
today. 

931
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:54,880
I know I was gonna laugh about 
this. 

932
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:56,120
I didn't say anything. 
Yeah. 

933
00:47:56,680 --> 00:47:57,840
Right. 
And it and it. 

934
00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:58,920
But should I have sent? 
Why? 

935
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,400
I mean, for a podcast, why 
should we say anything? 

936
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:02,680
Well, what is? 
What are the usage? 

937
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:04,800
Rights of all this? 
I guess I cut it all down. 

938
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:06,240
Yeah. 
Like, are you gonna like, you 

939
00:48:06,240 --> 00:48:10,560
know, shouldn't it be better if 
I say OK, you you assure me that

940
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:13,600
you will not that like you will 
publish the full unredacted 

941
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:16,600
version of this, including you 
spilling the water on your shoe,

942
00:48:16,720 --> 00:48:18,320
right? 
It's like, I don't want that in 

943
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:21,360
there. 
If I spilled water on my shoe 

944
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:23,480
would definitely go in there. 
It would be like repeat no? 

945
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:26,760
Yeah, exactly right. 
So you have the full unredacted 

946
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:30,280
version of this publicly 
available on your YouTube 

947
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:31,840
channel, right? 
Yeah. 

948
00:48:32,240 --> 00:48:35,280
And like this should be I. 
Just think media is such a 

949
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,080
shitty business as it is. 
Like it's going to be hard, you 

950
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:42,880
know? 
Anymore like Burden, but. 

951
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:47,560
But I think this is actually 
what structurally needs to 

952
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:51,160
happen is that someone needs to 
come through and I, this is now 

953
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,480
my job to say, how are we going 
to restore trust in this very 

954
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:57,880
important institution, right? 
So subjects need to have 

955
00:48:57,880 --> 00:48:59,960
contractual relationships with 
reporters. 

956
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,480
Reporters need to show their 
work, right? 

957
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:08,360
They need to show it in, in the 
most comprehensive way possible.

958
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:13,200
Like, why do we trust courts? 
Why do we trust science so much 

959
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:16,320
more than we trust journalists, 
even though 50 years ago trust 

960
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:19,720
in these institutions was all 
about the same and journalists 

961
00:49:19,720 --> 00:49:23,160
have fallen off the Cliff? 
It's because in science you have

962
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,480
to show your work, right? 
It's peer review, right? 

963
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:28,720
So wouldn't it be better if the 
New York Times was going to 

964
00:49:28,720 --> 00:49:33,240
publish a massive investigative 
piece that it goes to like Fox 

965
00:49:33,240 --> 00:49:37,440
News first for an independent 
review to make sure that, you 

966
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:39,760
know, if they're using anonymous
sources, it had been, it's been 

967
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,000
correctly done that, you know, 
they've weighed both sides 

968
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,560
correctly, right? 
That, but that's that's what 

969
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,680
would happen in science, right? 
I, I want to dig in. 

970
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,440
I mean, a piece of this is you, 
you don't like anonymous 

971
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:53,840
sources. 
Is that fair? 

972
00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:56,200
I mean, you're coming around a 
little. 

973
00:49:56,200 --> 00:50:00,760
Bit anonymous sources are a 
massive power asymmetry and that

974
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:02,600
there is a technological 
solution to solving it. 

975
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:05,200
OK. 
Well that that might end. 

976
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:09,800
I mean, because like in tech 
reporting, like a lot of deals 

977
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:12,720
are just reported anonymously 
before they're announced. 

978
00:50:12,720 --> 00:50:14,760
Yeah. 
And, and, and, and as someone 

979
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:18,080
who is a, you know, a technology
venture capitalist and founder, 

980
00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:22,120
right, you know, the quality of 
this is just so sloppy. 

981
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:26,520
There's no more more often than 
not like if you report like the 

982
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:29,360
valuation terms like they're 
right and people want to know 

983
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,840
that information. 
And a lot of these like rounds 

984
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:35,680
are like widely known among like
lots of people who haven't even 

985
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:37,720
like signed contractual 
agreements. 

986
00:50:37,720 --> 00:50:41,080
No, no. 
But like, you know, I saw an 

987
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:44,280
article in the FTA couple days 
ago, it's like early open AI 

988
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:47,800
investors are criticizing Sam 
Ullman. 

989
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:50,120
And then it's like, well, you 
know, there were lots of people 

990
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:53,640
who are early investors. 
Are they people who invested in 

991
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,200
a triple wrapped SPV? 
I'm just trying to point out 

992
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:58,520
that there are a lot, there are 
plenty of genres of reporting 

993
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,640
whether it's like factual, like 
financial information, like 

994
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:06,560
where it's almost become part of
the process that like even the 

995
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:09,920
the people involved are leaking 
it sometimes people. 

996
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:14,200
Involved are leaking it, but 
like ultimately there should be 

997
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:18,640
external about verification of 
the use of any anonymous source.

998
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:23,480
Yeah, I think if you can figure 
out like verifying anonymous 

999
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:25,560
sources that come true, we were 
talking about this. 

1000
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,360
I think if you can verify that 
anonymous sources come true, 

1001
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:30,680
those people should get extra, 
extra credit. 

1002
00:51:30,720 --> 00:51:32,200
Yeah, it's like, because that's 
the hard. 

1003
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:34,600
That's good journalism. 
And so one thing that we'll 

1004
00:51:34,600 --> 00:51:36,800
we'll be releasing in a couple 
of weeks is the first ranking 

1005
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:37,640
system. 
I know. 

1006
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:39,760
I thought you were gonna have in
time for me to know where. 

1007
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:41,840
I stay where do you stand on on 
the list? 

1008
00:51:42,720 --> 00:51:48,160
And you know, journalists rank 
hospitals, restaurants, 

1009
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:54,120
universities, you know every. 
Yeah, I think bring it on. 

1010
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:56,200
Journalists will love it. 
I just think any fair list is 

1011
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,120
going to put like, Reuters and 
AP at the top and Reuters at the

1012
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:03,440
AP write stories that are 
generally and also far more 

1013
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:06,720
favorable to like Democrats than
most. 

1014
00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:08,960
You know, like Fox is not going 
to do well. 

1015
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:13,480
Like Fox got sued and settled 
for what a huge. 

1016
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:16,400
Sum of time or the the Dominion 
voting case? 

1017
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:18,080
Yeah, there are many there, 
right? 

1018
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:23,120
And I, you know, I my first real
job after as a New York Times 

1019
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,240
intern, I work for the 
Washington Examiner. 

1020
00:52:25,240 --> 00:52:27,880
But but but, the reason why the 
New York Times doesn't get sued 

1021
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:29,760
is because of New York Times V 
Sullivan. 

1022
00:52:30,720 --> 00:52:32,520
Because there's such a high 
standard for. 

1023
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:36,800
Such a crazy high standard that 
was lobbied in for by the media 

1024
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:38,960
industry. 
So I'm my point is just, I've 

1025
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:41,160
worked in conservative media. 
Like I was writing about like 

1026
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:42,840
local. 
There's the Washington Examiner 

1027
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:46,120
covering DC City Hall, which was
more even handed just a little 

1028
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:49,720
bit like we love cars and hate 
unbalanced budgets, you know, 

1029
00:52:50,720 --> 00:52:53,080
like is like, Oh my God, they're
going to, you know, kill, 

1030
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:57,200
they're going to create traffic.
But I just felt conservative 

1031
00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:01,000
media like pretty sloppy. 
Like I do think like print media

1032
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:05,280
is more buttoned up than TV 
journalism, like the New York 

1033
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:09,480
Times is more buttoned up than. 
I'm not sure that, OK, so the 

1034
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:11,640
New York Times is an outlier 
because they have an economic 

1035
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,600
model that actually works. 
Wapo doesn't have an economic 

1036
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:15,920
model. 
Right, they're they're not doing

1037
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:19,400
great right now, but WSJI mean 
the Washington Post's what just 

1038
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:23,320
one, I think the public service 
Pulitzer for covering Trump's 

1039
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:26,600
like administrative state like I
think those were good stories. 

1040
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:28,320
No one cares. 
No one cares about this stuff. 

1041
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:30,800
Like, I don't even know what a 
public service Pulitzer is. 

1042
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:33,240
It's the biggest one. 
It's yeah, great. 

1043
00:53:33,240 --> 00:53:35,600
But that's, I don't know what 
the argument embedded in that 

1044
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:37,560
is. 
I do think the news consumer 

1045
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:41,440
being sort of pretty low quality
is part of the problem, right? 

1046
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:44,360
We don't have a discerning you. 
Just consumer you stupid 

1047
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:46,440
Americans aren't smart enough to
read the newspaper. 

1048
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:48,120
It feels that way right now, I 
think. 

1049
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:50,280
That is such an elitist. 
An elitist. 

1050
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:53,080
Are you kidding me? 
Like I I admit that I'm an 

1051
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:54,960
elitist in my. 
Cuisine, but like, you know, I'm

1052
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:57,480
a capitalist. 
Like I don't I don't, you know, 

1053
00:53:57,800 --> 00:53:59,400
I don't apologize for this. 
I like I, I. 

1054
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:02,240
I don't, I don't apologize, just
in believing the elite, like, 

1055
00:54:02,240 --> 00:54:04,320
yeah, part of what makes The New
York Times work is those 

1056
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:05,800
reporters are very 
sophisticated. 

1057
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:09,520
No way but but then the their 
craft. 

1058
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:12,720
But but then the the problem is 
there that you know, it's this 

1059
00:54:12,720 --> 00:54:14,520
oppressive economic model, 
right? 

1060
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:16,760
The average journalist in the 
New York timer earns like 120 

1061
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:18,400
grand a year. 
You can't even afford like a a 

1062
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:21,520
walk up studio in the. 
West, I agree. 

1063
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:22,800
Let's figure out how to make 
them more money. 

1064
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:24,120
Or I don't know what your point 
is. 

1065
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:29,200
Is that that number one, the 
economic model doesn't stack up,

1066
00:54:29,720 --> 00:54:33,040
right? 
And, and you know, my concern 

1067
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:37,440
principally is that the media 
proprietors were caught off 

1068
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:40,760
guard by tech 20 years ago. 
So the first unbundling of 

1069
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:44,440
distribution, you know, people 
like Sulzberger and Murdoch did 

1070
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:47,680
not understand. 
Now they really understand that 

1071
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:53,160
this unbundling of synthesis is 
happening and they're petrified 

1072
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:58,040
by AI because ultimately the 
core task of journalism, which 

1073
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:01,400
is the the the synthesis of 
narrative, is going to be 

1074
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:03,080
completely unbundled. 
Yeah, I I don't know that they 

1075
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:03,960
actually get it yet. 
I. 

1076
00:55:04,240 --> 00:55:05,520
Don't think they get it because 
like I. 

1077
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:08,880
I I just had somebody, I can't 
even remember who it was, but 

1078
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:10,720
some journalists was like 
journalism. 

1079
00:55:10,720 --> 00:55:12,280
I mean, AI is never gonna get a 
scoop. 

1080
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:14,560
I'm like, they're all these 
public records online, Yeah, 

1081
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:17,840
where they just pull something 
out, like distill it in a like 

1082
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:19,600
scoop of idea, but also scoop of
fact. 

1083
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:22,520
And like public filings, like AI
is definitely gonna get scoops 

1084
00:55:23,080 --> 00:55:25,000
in those domains. 
So I definitely agree with you. 

1085
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:29,320
The AI is coming for not all of 
journalism, not in fact, the key

1086
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:32,880
thing it's not coming for is the
human anonymous source, you 

1087
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:35,120
know, the the thing that's not 
getting put online. 

1088
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:37,680
So a lot of the things you don't
like about media, that's what 

1089
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,960
media is gonna need to become 
even more in a world of AI. 

1090
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,880
But this is the, you know, I'm, 
I'm actually like here in New 

1091
00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:46,480
York, not to do podcasts, but to
meet with media owners. 

1092
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:50,840
Is that media owners understand 
that the second unbundling is 

1093
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:56,000
happening with AI and synthesis.
Now, what they don't understand 

1094
00:55:56,440 --> 00:56:01,160
is that the unbundling of 
research is going to happen and 

1095
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:05,440
that's going to be the, the, the
death knell in the coffin of, of

1096
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:08,240
traditional media, right? 
Because if the research 

1097
00:56:08,240 --> 00:56:10,800
component of news gathering, 
right? 

1098
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:15,600
That that empathy of sources and
that very humanized element, it 

1099
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:18,080
can become unbundled through 
technology, then the power of 

1100
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:20,880
the traditional media 
apparatuses to clients 

1101
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:22,920
completely. 
But what do you see? 

1102
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:26,040
You see this as like Teegis 
type, like this sort of 

1103
00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:29,800
research, like we're going to 
pay people to make calls, like 

1104
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:31,440
AI to make calls. 
No, no, no. 

1105
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:37,720
I I think it's a combination of 
AI and humans to to work as a 

1106
00:56:37,720 --> 00:56:39,880
sort of like an expert network 
or hive. 

1107
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:42,360
So are you familiar with GLG? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

1108
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:43,120
That's what I'm saying. 
Yeah. 

1109
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:46,640
That's a genre company. 
Like GLG, but you know, with a 

1110
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:49,760
strong technology platform for 
doing unique first party 

1111
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:51,520
research. 
So you say, OK, we want to 

1112
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:56,600
research the if equinox is 
underpaying its employees, 

1113
00:56:56,920 --> 00:56:58,800
right? 
So instead of 1 reporter going 

1114
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:02,880
there and like talking to every 
staff member about their pay 

1115
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:04,920
rates, what if there were like 
hundreds of people 

1116
00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:05,800
simultaneously? 
Work. 

1117
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:08,360
I know you confuse me because 
that's like extreme journalism. 

1118
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:10,000
It's like, I love it. 
Like we need more of that. 

1119
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:13,360
Stuff, this is what I'm, I'm not
anti journalism. 

1120
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:17,000
I'm, my goal is to increase the 
trust of journalism. 

1121
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:21,120
So like it's, it's just gone 
down for 50 years. 

1122
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:24,680
And so I will know if I'm 
successful, if in like 10 years 

1123
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,080
time we're like, oh wow, it's 
suddenly gone back to like north

1124
00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:30,400
of 50%. 
And I don't think anyone wakes 

1125
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:32,760
up every morning trying to fix 
this problem. 

1126
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:34,880
Like Rupert Murdoch doesn't, the
Salzburgers don't. 

1127
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,240
Well, they try to do it by 
practicing the journalism that 

1128
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:39,960
they believe in, but. 
No, they're trying to make 

1129
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:41,280
money, right? 
And I. 

1130
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:44,040
Do not think the Salzburgers are
like optimizing for when they 

1131
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:46,400
want to make money, and I'm glad
they figured out games, but 

1132
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:48,680
they're optimizing for all 
publications. 

1133
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:52,320
They, I mean, sorry, of all 
industries, media has tried to 

1134
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:55,440
hold on to some sort of 
principles even as it's hurt 

1135
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:56,160
their business. 
Model. 

1136
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:58,680
They're just trying to patch the
leaking ship, right? 

1137
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:00,840
Most of them, they're like, 
that's what they're trying to do

1138
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:03,240
right now. 
And you know, they're they're 

1139
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:06,360
not thinking about like this 
massive structural transition 

1140
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:09,360
that is going on. 
Like, you know, there's probably

1141
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:13,400
like one or two like very good 
thinkers in the top echelons of 

1142
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:16,640
these media companies who are 
thinking about AI and the 

1143
00:58:16,640 --> 00:58:19,160
synthesis unbundling. 
But I can assure you that no one

1144
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:20,640
is thinking about the research 
unbundling. 

1145
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:24,960
The actual accumulation. 
Yeah, the the, the, the how 

1146
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:31,240
information is acquired and, and
and and there's some elements of

1147
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:36,240
how human thought is used to 
adjudicate rank train tag that 

1148
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:39,000
information. 
But Balaji has expressed this 

1149
00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:42,200
point of view recently that sort
of like everything that should 

1150
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:45,320
be written about is sort of the 
stuff we put online like that 

1151
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:48,960
that is sort of like online is 
our self presentation and that 

1152
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:50,960
the stuff offline that's like 
private. 

1153
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:55,320
Do you agree with that? 
Because I find it, I feel like a

1154
00:58:55,320 --> 00:58:58,720
key part of understanding how 
society works is like, what's 

1155
00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:01,760
your life actually look like? 
Like to me, I feel like we don't

1156
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:05,080
have nearly enough visibility 
into all these people we hear 

1157
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:07,160
from all the time. 
Like, don't we need to know what

1158
00:59:07,160 --> 00:59:09,520
like? 
Do you need to know like? 

1159
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:10,960
I feel like we need more of a 
portrait. 

1160
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:13,920
We all become the part of what 
people like about podcasts is 

1161
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:15,520
that they get a little bit more 
of the humanity. 

1162
00:59:15,520 --> 00:59:17,640
But I want an even more extreme 
like. 

1163
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:20,800
Let's give a real sense of like.
But I think AI is actually like 

1164
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:24,480
very good at that. 
So it's like, you know, I was 

1165
00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:27,840
talking to a journalist and they
were like, oh, you know what 

1166
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:30,600
colour is like Peter Thiel's 
couch like, And they were like, 

1167
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:33,760
I want to write this like in 
depth personal piece. 

1168
00:59:34,360 --> 00:59:38,360
And I'm like, don't you know how
to use Google like you know you 

1169
00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:41,720
could like if you knew what you 
were looking for and AI can do 

1170
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:43,800
this very well. 
You would be able to figure out 

1171
00:59:44,160 --> 00:59:48,040
where his houses are, who his 
interior designer is, and you 

1172
00:59:48,040 --> 00:59:49,800
know what his taste in art and. 
Art. 

1173
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:51,840
Well, journalists don't want to 
be like, probably, right? 

1174
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:53,400
They want to know. 
They want somebody who's seen 

1175
00:59:53,400 --> 00:59:55,400
the couch. 
Not like, oh, it could be. 

1176
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:57,480
No, but like you could actually 
find all of this stuff. 

1177
00:59:57,480 --> 00:59:59,240
It's already all on all on the 
Internet. 

1178
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:03,120
I'll throw up the gauntlet find 
I don't think you can find Peter

1179
01:00:03,120 --> 01:00:06,560
Thiel's couch couch. 
You might see a picture that is 

1180
01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:09,720
of Peter Thiel, but it'd be sort
of hard to know that it's like. 

1181
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:11,320
No, but AI is actually very good
at that. 

1182
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:15,000
You you could, you know. 
Come back right in the comments.

1183
01:00:15,000 --> 01:00:17,520
Here's There's a picture of 
Peter Thiel's couch people. 

1184
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:19,240
Smart, smart engineers out 
there. 

1185
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:21,480
Can you can you figure out what 
what kind of couch Peter Thiel 

1186
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:25,120
has? 
Specifically the whole like 

1187
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:28,880
Antichrist sort of thing. 
I mean, you made a point earlier

1188
01:00:28,880 --> 01:00:32,120
in this discussion that the this
stuff that gets people's 

1189
01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:34,200
attention is, you know, sort of 
controversial. 

1190
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:36,640
Like do you think this the 
Antichrist thing is like a an 

1191
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:38,800
attention seeking? 
Strategy. 

1192
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:43,520
I I think you know. 
This is Peter Thiel giving a 

1193
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:45,040
bunch of essays about the 
Antichrist. 

1194
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:47,240
So and it potentially being like
Greta. 

1195
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:49,760
Yeah, yeah. 
So no, I think what's more 

1196
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:54,120
important is to think about the 
place of of God in our society. 

1197
01:00:55,240 --> 01:00:59,320
And so all great businesses are 
cults. 

1198
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:00,240
Yeah. 
Right. 

1199
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:03,320
And like we know this one, like 
Apple and like AI is kind of 

1200
01:01:03,320 --> 01:01:05,440
this cult dimension to it. 
The New York Times is a cult. 

1201
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:08,120
Media elite. 
Media circles are definitely a 

1202
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:11,640
cult. 
It's amazing leaving a company 

1203
01:01:11,640 --> 01:01:13,600
and you're like, Oh my God, I 
cared about all these like 

1204
01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:15,400
weird, weird things, weird 
things. 

1205
01:01:15,400 --> 01:01:16,920
And then you're out of it. 
You're like, I don't care about 

1206
01:01:16,920 --> 01:01:18,800
that at all anymore. 
Yeah, so I definitely agree with

1207
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:19,960
you. 
I mean, but but they're called 

1208
01:01:19,960 --> 01:01:22,680
in a non negative way to sort of
that's how humans work. 

1209
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:25,640
Yeah, it's how humans work. 
And so why do we work that way? 

1210
01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:31,120
And so Jean Paul's Sartre had 
this thesis is that human being 

1211
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:35,840
that on an evolutionary biology 
level, species that cooperate 

1212
01:01:36,160 --> 01:01:39,040
will will out compete those that
do not cooperate. 

1213
01:01:40,440 --> 01:01:44,080
And the manifestation of this in
humans is religion. 

1214
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:47,800
It's like this like social glue 
that pulls us together and in 

1215
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:51,880
the in every civilization for 
the entire history of the world 

1216
01:01:52,400 --> 01:01:56,360
up until the fall of the atomic 
bomb, we were religious. 

1217
01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:00,680
And then after the atomic bomb, 
we have become an atheistic 

1218
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:03,960
society. 
And Satra called this the God 

1219
01:02:03,960 --> 01:02:07,960
shaped hole. 
And so we now fill this God 

1220
01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:12,520
shaped hole with things like the
cult of, of, of carbon, right? 

1221
01:02:12,920 --> 01:02:16,080
Greta Thunberg is like this. 
You know, it's almost like 

1222
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:18,320
praying to the weather gods. 
Oh, please, you know, if we 

1223
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:21,920
sacrifice enough of ourselves, 
sacrifice our young, sacrifice 

1224
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:24,960
our old, we'll, we, we will 
appeal, appease the weather 

1225
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:29,000
gods. 
And, and, and you know, Taylor 

1226
01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:32,800
Swift is a goddess, right? 
And there's a sort of cult. 

1227
01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:36,120
Innocuous one. 
Well, maybe just you know, the 

1228
01:02:36,120 --> 01:02:39,120
cult of Athena was fairly 
innocuous. 

1229
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:43,040
So but so the point about Peter 
is that and the Antichrist 

1230
01:02:43,040 --> 01:02:49,240
essays is that I think that the 
the the God shaped whole the The

1231
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:53,440
lack of religion in our society 
is deeply under theorized and 

1232
01:02:53,600 --> 01:02:58,000
helps explain why Taylor Swift 
has become a goddess because we 

1233
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:01,520
lack goddesses in our society. 
But I don't think the answer is 

1234
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:05,440
just then start believing in 
religion again because. 

1235
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:09,000
I mean the answer is the answer 
is maybe is start building new 

1236
01:03:09,000 --> 01:03:11,960
religions. 
An AI, an AI God, or what do you

1237
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:14,680
think it's going to be? 
Like the rise of AI is, 

1238
01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:19,400
according to presser, Peter 
Francopan from Oxford has a 

1239
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:21,880
historic analogy of the rise of 
organized religion. 

1240
01:03:22,280 --> 01:03:26,200
Right there is this, you know, 
priesthood that understands the 

1241
01:03:26,200 --> 01:03:28,440
sacred text and that no one else
does. 

1242
01:03:28,440 --> 01:03:30,840
Like, do you actually know how 
an LLM works? 

1243
01:03:31,080 --> 01:03:33,920
Somewhat, but certainly level of
a, yeah. 

1244
01:03:34,080 --> 01:03:35,560
Exactly. 
General purpose transformer. 

1245
01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:39,320
So there's there's this now 
priestly cast who has special 

1246
01:03:39,320 --> 01:03:43,920
access to the divine. 
And that you know, normal humans

1247
01:03:44,680 --> 01:03:50,200
must prostate themselves too to 
have access to the divine. 

1248
01:03:51,120 --> 01:03:53,520
Why focus on I know you didn't 
write the essays, but you're, 

1249
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:55,960
you're maybe as closest. 
Maybe you'll help me get Peter 

1250
01:03:55,960 --> 01:03:59,000
Thiel on here someday if I he 
can watch this and decide for 

1251
01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:01,200
himself. 
But I mean, why focus on the 

1252
01:04:01,200 --> 01:04:02,920
negative instead of the 
positive? 

1253
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:05,240
Like, I I just feel like the 
Antichrist. 

1254
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:08,200
Yeah, it's the darkest thing in 
the world. 

1255
01:04:08,200 --> 01:04:10,440
Like what we need is positive 
value. 

1256
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:13,680
Like what should we be 
worshipping, right? 

1257
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:17,520
Yes, and I, I well, but you 
know, to understand what we 

1258
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:19,880
should be worshipping, we must 
understand what we shouldn't be.

1259
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:21,880
No, I think it's easier. 
It's much easier. 

1260
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:24,240
Like humans love to like, hate 
the other. 

1261
01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:26,200
It's easy to like come up with 
like, hate them. 

1262
01:04:26,200 --> 01:04:28,560
Like, you know, that's sort of 
the problem the challenging 1 is

1263
01:04:28,560 --> 01:04:30,360
to come up with. 
Like who should we worship, you 

1264
01:04:30,360 --> 01:04:31,320
know? 
But if there's anything to 

1265
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:34,640
admire about Jesus Christ is 
that he built the greatest 

1266
01:04:34,640 --> 01:04:37,640
narrative in the history of the 
world, right? 

1267
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:39,880
You know a So it's. 
Ronan Pharaoh He's he's a 

1268
01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:42,080
monopolist level narrative 
speaker. 

1269
01:04:42,080 --> 01:04:45,680
He's a, he's our new God. 
I mean, I, I, I want to end on 

1270
01:04:45,680 --> 01:04:48,280
that one. 
I mean, I just think like, my 

1271
01:04:48,280 --> 01:04:51,560
view of the culture is that 
like, Sam Altman is going to be 

1272
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:56,120
profiled endlessly, that Ronan 
has built a reputation with 

1273
01:04:56,120 --> 01:04:59,040
story after story that people 
can assess for itself. 

1274
01:04:59,440 --> 01:05:02,480
Like sure, maybe if there was a 
lot of like skepticism, he could

1275
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:06,320
release more more information, 
but but I just think the answer 

1276
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:10,360
is more journalism, whereas your
answer is scare Ronan out of 

1277
01:05:10,360 --> 01:05:12,560
doing that term like legal 
process. 

1278
01:05:12,560 --> 01:05:15,800
No, my my answer is better 
structured journalism. 

1279
01:05:16,680 --> 01:05:19,480
Just how you, I mean, one 
interesting idea you have is 

1280
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:23,800
like have it have like the 
anonymous sources in some sort 

1281
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:27,320
of like, Yeah, exactly. 
So cryptographic hashes, data 

1282
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:30,520
rooms, show your work, peer 
review like. 

1283
01:05:30,520 --> 01:05:34,600
I think these are all tools that
can be combined to raise the 

1284
01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:37,320
quality of journalism. 
And I can I can see it. 

1285
01:05:37,320 --> 01:05:40,680
I don't making up anonymous 
sources. 

1286
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:42,520
I just don't know that it's like
I don't think that's Ronan 

1287
01:05:42,520 --> 01:05:44,760
Farrow's like problem. 
I think your issue with Ronan 

1288
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:48,280
Farrow is much more likely to be
just like a selection of which 

1289
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:50,520
how to present the narrative. 
Exactly. 

1290
01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:55,800
And so if we now have the tools 
to judge the presentation of 

1291
01:05:55,800 --> 01:05:59,080
narrative. 
I mean, this is, I mean, you're 

1292
01:05:59,080 --> 01:06:02,320
the guy who like brought down 
Gawker, which. 

1293
01:06:02,520 --> 01:06:03,480
I'm the guy who's done many 
things. 

1294
01:06:03,480 --> 01:06:06,040
Yeah, you've done many things, 
but I'm just saying part you're 

1295
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:10,400
now building a company that sort
of needs equally the people who 

1296
01:06:10,400 --> 01:06:12,360
hate the media and the media to 
like them. 

1297
01:06:12,360 --> 01:06:15,720
Like, what is your message for 
journalists when one of the 

1298
01:06:15,720 --> 01:06:18,600
things you're most known for is 
sort of what many journalists 

1299
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:20,560
see as like a hostile act? 
Like how are you gonna get 

1300
01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:24,240
journalists to the table? 
But your but your own owners are

1301
01:06:24,240 --> 01:06:26,080
very hostile. 
Hostile to. 

1302
01:06:26,480 --> 01:06:30,720
Journalism, like Rupert Murdoch 
and the and the clickbait 

1303
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:33,160
incentive structure of 
journalism today is very hostile

1304
01:06:33,160 --> 01:06:36,160
to the to the art of journalism 
that, you know, you go to 

1305
01:06:36,160 --> 01:06:38,520
journalism school for. 
Yeah, well, I mean, clickbait's 

1306
01:06:38,520 --> 01:06:40,680
sort of on the way. 
That problem was a sort of 

1307
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:46,720
Facebook specific and some of 
the clickbait stuff, yeah, it 

1308
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:49,440
was more media reacting to the 
pressures of social media than 

1309
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:52,160
something they necessarily 
wanted to do. 

1310
01:06:52,680 --> 01:06:54,880
The thing is that media is not 
in the driver's seat anymore, 

1311
01:06:55,240 --> 01:06:56,800
right? 
And, and it's because, you know,

1312
01:06:57,000 --> 01:06:59,640
people like Rupert Murdoch and 
the Salzburgers 20 years ago 

1313
01:06:59,640 --> 01:07:02,560
didn't understand the unbundling
of technology. 

1314
01:07:02,920 --> 01:07:06,840
And now that is, you know, it's 
ever present in their and, and 

1315
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:10,080
they still don't understand it. 
Like, it's so painful to watch 

1316
01:07:10,080 --> 01:07:12,600
these legacy media owners. 
Like, you know, years ago I was 

1317
01:07:12,600 --> 01:07:15,600
talking to them about AI and 
they had no clue what was going 

1318
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:17,840
on. 
And, you know, they did these 

1319
01:07:17,840 --> 01:07:21,040
sort of cash licensing deals 
with people like Open AI, but 

1320
01:07:21,040 --> 01:07:23,240
they should have done equity 
deals, but they didn't. 

1321
01:07:24,920 --> 01:07:28,720
I mean, my, my worry with you is
just the sort of, you know, if 

1322
01:07:29,120 --> 01:07:31,200
I, I think a lot of what you're 
doing is like very interesting. 

1323
01:07:31,200 --> 01:07:34,680
I support and I and I like this 
idea of like having to actually 

1324
01:07:34,680 --> 01:07:38,240
like rank reporters and like 
assess them over time and trying

1325
01:07:38,240 --> 01:07:40,280
to sort of figure out the 
objective truth online. 

1326
01:07:40,280 --> 01:07:43,240
And we're gonna have all these 
problems like with AI, like 

1327
01:07:43,560 --> 01:07:46,720
right now, they depend on the 
media in some ways to adjudicate

1328
01:07:46,720 --> 01:07:48,520
like prediction markets and 
stuff like that. 

1329
01:07:49,080 --> 01:07:51,480
But I, I do worry that a lot of 
it, like what you're actually 

1330
01:07:51,480 --> 01:07:54,440
doing in the beginning is sort 
of just the like go after 

1331
01:07:54,440 --> 01:07:58,280
stories and sort of for hire. 
Like we're gonna, you know, 

1332
01:07:59,000 --> 01:08:01,440
figure out all the information 
we can to undermine, like this 

1333
01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:03,480
story. 
Yes, absolutely we should. 

1334
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:04,640
Figure out. 
But you want to undermine 

1335
01:08:04,640 --> 01:08:06,680
fairly, right? 
It's like undermine. 

1336
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:10,000
No, no, it's a true process. 
It's like undermine, you know, 

1337
01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:12,640
find all the information that 
could undermine the story. 

1338
01:08:12,640 --> 01:08:15,880
Because if I'm, you know, 
assigned peer review, a 

1339
01:08:15,880 --> 01:08:18,279
scientific publication that's 
going to go in like the journal 

1340
01:08:18,279 --> 01:08:22,000
Nature, I should do absolutely 
everything I can to find any 

1341
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:25,600
flaws in the argument. 
Because if a major publication 

1342
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:28,760
like the New England Journal of 
Medicine or The Lancet publishes

1343
01:08:29,439 --> 01:08:32,120
even a modicum of false 
information, that can have 

1344
01:08:32,120 --> 01:08:34,720
disastrous consequences. 
And I in particular, I point to 

1345
01:08:34,720 --> 01:08:43,920
the MMR causing autism scandal 
right where The Lancet published

1346
01:08:43,920 --> 01:08:46,520
that article. 
And, you know, in retrospect, 

1347
01:08:46,560 --> 01:08:48,439
they should have done a lot more
peer review. 

1348
01:08:48,720 --> 01:08:51,319
And to this day, you know, I 
think if you talk to your 

1349
01:08:51,319 --> 01:08:53,479
average American, they would 
think that the MMR vaccine 

1350
01:08:53,479 --> 01:08:57,200
causes autism, right? 
And as someone who who got 

1351
01:08:58,560 --> 01:09:03,279
measles or sorry, mumps when I 
was in college, because there's 

1352
01:09:03,279 --> 01:09:05,520
not enough herd immunity, I 
think that very seriously, 

1353
01:09:05,520 --> 01:09:07,319
right? 
And so you think about what 

1354
01:09:07,319 --> 01:09:10,800
damage has been done because 
journalists are not subject to 

1355
01:09:10,800 --> 01:09:13,240
that same level of peer review 
and scrutiny. 

1356
01:09:13,640 --> 01:09:15,359
Right. 
And I, I agree with you. 

1357
01:09:15,359 --> 01:09:17,920
I mean I think sometimes and 
I'll wrap up soon. 

1358
01:09:17,920 --> 01:09:22,680
I know I'm sure you have to go 
like the, you know, reporters 

1359
01:09:22,680 --> 01:09:25,680
sometimes because their 
employees are at a disadvantage 

1360
01:09:25,680 --> 01:09:27,600
on these like online, like 
talking about their stories. 

1361
01:09:27,600 --> 01:09:30,960
Like I feel like one thing that 
I've really had as an advantage 

1362
01:09:30,960 --> 01:09:32,520
is just like being self 
published. 

1363
01:09:32,520 --> 01:09:34,680
Yeah, this is the subject. 
Then I can actually, like 

1364
01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:36,600
respond. 
Whereas The New York Times is 

1365
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:38,800
sort of like, we want to publish
the story and let that speak for

1366
01:09:38,800 --> 01:09:40,319
itself. 
That's our editorial process. 

1367
01:09:40,680 --> 01:09:43,120
And so then you don't have this 
like ink dialogue. 

1368
01:09:43,680 --> 01:09:46,160
Whereas like, for me, it's like 
I need the dialogue. 

1369
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:47,560
I want more engagement. 
I want. 

1370
01:09:47,680 --> 01:09:49,840
Yeah, exactly. 
So I support a lot of these 

1371
01:09:49,840 --> 01:09:51,279
things. 
And I think some of it is just 

1372
01:09:51,279 --> 01:09:55,120
like the media industry shifting
still to this online world where

1373
01:09:55,120 --> 01:09:58,200
you have to be sort of like open
to discussion and feedback. 

1374
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:03,480
The legacy institutions, yeah, 
they're adjusting now to the to 

1375
01:10:03,480 --> 01:10:07,480
the first unbundling of 
distribution, but there's they. 

1376
01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:10,840
There's more comment. 
There's so much more coming and 

1377
01:10:10,840 --> 01:10:13,880
it's going to hit them like a 
tsunami and they haven't even 

1378
01:10:13,880 --> 01:10:16,680
properly like thought about it. 
Aaron, thanks so much for coming

1379
01:10:16,680 --> 01:10:18,000
on the show. 
Hopefully the first of many. 

1380
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:19,200
I really enjoyed it. 
Yeah, absolutely. 

1381
01:10:19,200 --> 01:10:20,040
Thanks for having me. 
Thanks. 

1382
01:10:20,200 --> 01:10:21,960
That's the Newcomer podcast. 
Thanks for listening. 

1383
01:10:21,960 --> 01:10:24,840
Please like, comment, subscribe,
check out my other show, this 

1384
01:10:24,840 --> 01:10:27,440
Ruble Valley show, also on 
YouTube. 

1385
01:10:27,440 --> 01:10:31,320
Go to thesubstacknewcomer.co and
read our coverage of starps and 

1386
01:10:31,320 --> 01:10:33,760
venture capital. 
I'm Eric Newcomer, a long time 

1387
01:10:33,760 --> 01:10:36,000
journalist. 
Now I say I'm an influencer who 

1388
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:39,000
exceeds expectations. 
I ask hard questions about the 

1389
01:10:39,000 --> 01:10:40,800
startup and venture capital 
industry. 

1390
01:10:40,800 --> 01:10:44,160
Follow along wherever, watching,
reading, and even coming to our 

1391
01:10:44,160 --> 01:10:45,760
events. 
I host the Struble Valley AI 

1392
01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:47,160
Summit. 
Thanks for all your support. 

1393
01:10:47,280 --> 01:10:49,360
I love the comments. 
I love the likes. 

1394
01:10:49,400 --> 01:10:51,160
Please keep them coming. 
Thanks so much. 

1395
01:10:51,480 --> 01:10:52,280
I'll see you next week.