Welcome back to Dead Cat this week.
Oh wait, no, it's the newcomer podcast.
You know, when you say dead cat, it's very triggering for me
because that's peak pandemic. This was our only socializing
basically. If people remember a lot of I'm
assuming newcomer subscribers are too young to remember the
pandemic, but this was the only way that people knew how to
socialize was via podcasts. These were the clubhouse days we
had. We had a beautiful, you know,
dead cat or, you know, it's a cartoon cat.
You got you got a guy from fiber to draw that for us.
Exactly. The on demand economy was
thriving of people making podcast logos.
And and it was a reference to private text messages between
Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg using some spy craft, not to
dead cat bounce as many people believe.
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A big theme of that show was like analyzing going direct and
sort of the media tech hostility in some ways.
I don't know, Tom, how would you describe our position?
We were less pro media than media but also still reporter
dismissive of some of the tech complaints.
Or what was our posture back then?
I think we had a mission statement that we read out on
the first episode, which was that we believe in media in this
house, We believe in media. We also believe that the media
is fallible at times and by and large probably has more of an
anti tech bias than a lot of people in the media are willing
to accept. That was the strong stance that
we took. You know, you got to remember
basically all people were doing on Twitter, at least our version
of Twitter was just bitching about the media, right?
It was just every VC saying, you know, Balaji was like, never
talk to these people. These people are your enemy.
They have no, they, they're barely worth your time, like in
the real world, let alone, you know, as a business person.
And there were all these fights, right?
Like they were just just constant back and forth.
Well, that's also always like, so rich just because, like, Marc
Andreessen famously is Kara Swisher's source back in the
day. So like, it was such a flip.
But of course, that was the posture back then.
So anyway, yeah, this is exactly what we agonized with.
We beat the cat dead. We were like, we talked about it
exhaustively and then we moved on with our life.
Newcomer became sort of for a while more of a interview show.
Now we're on the news, though. We we have the freedom to have
interviews. And now Tom's here and so we are
about to opine on media, but it's in the news.
The main story, of course, we're referring to Andreessen
Horowitz, is hiring Eric Torenberg's Turpentine.
Yeah. So Eric Torenberg, you know,
early employee at product time, Co founder of village global on
deck and then he had this company turpentine.
It was in some ways running, you know, Lenny Rojski, he has this
product newsletter and I think Eric in some ways was like, man,
we should do a category newsletter for everything and
all in is pretty successful. I should have an all in style
podcast and like, in some ways, just like, OK, let's let's see
if we can be mercenaries about building a tech media company.
I think it was he hasn't disclosed the financials, unlike
the this company here. So I don't know exactly how it
did it. And you know, I think sure,
they're bringing in the turpentine stuff and I think
that gives them a running start. But I think the key here is that
Eric's becoming a general partner at the firm and is going
to sort of help them continue to have sort of their media
ambitions. That's happening in the context
of the Sons of Founders Fund have just completely blown up
with our competitor podcast, TPPN Technology Brothers.
We're talking about TBPN, the three hour Daily Show.
Co hosted by uh, Jordy Hayes and John Coogan.
John Coogan was founders fund entrepreneur in residence for a
really long time. So they're, you know, connected
to founders fund. I mean, but they're not like
officially run out of founders fund, but they have all these
ties, right? So it's kind of like
illustrative of how Founders Fund approaches media, right?
I know I I guess my first just just to sort of take one step
away from the facts before we give our hot, hot takes.
I think founders Fund had knows that it's a little cooler not to
be so corpo. You know, it's like pirate wires
and TBPN. They're not really founders fund
things. Obviously having founders fund
people out and about, you know, Mike Solana, who runs pirate
wires is the chief marketing officer of founders funds.
So obviously there is marketing, but he's not going to do
something that's so terrible here to founders fund.
Founders funds an investor, but the these shows sort of stand on
their own. And I think they're also sort of
spicier than the Andreessen Horowitz portfolio outside of
Marc Andreessen, the man who of course is spicy.
But I, I am not convinced that the rest of Andreessen Horowitz
has been able to be spicy. So you've got sort of founders
fun succeeding without plastering their brand on it.
Andreessen Horowitz, you know, Marc Andreessen was on Joe
Rogan. Like you can't argue with that.
And certainly they have top podcasts.
I'm sure they have way, way, way more distribution than us on
their podcasts. And like they have, you know
what, hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers.
So they, they definitely have a media presence, but they failed
to build future their media company.
And it seems like they've never really satisfied the ambitions
of being a true a true media company.
Why do you think that is? That you can have a successful
podcast or whatever, get a decent audience for it that
justifies it, it's existence. But every time you try to build
some sort of media vertical like future or whatever, that never
takes off. Like why?
Why is a podcast something that gets people, but text tends to
just be very limited? I don't have an answer for that.
I just think it's funny. I think it's more that
Andreessen is flowing from the ambition to influence.
Like they're seeing, oh man, like powerful people influenced
through the media and like we should build our own, hire
people go figure it out. Whereas I think like Mike Solana
at Higher Wires who strenuously disagree with on some things,
he's like got a writer's spirit. He has things to say.
He's too angry and he needs to get it out in print somewhere.
You know, he, I feel like he has things to say.
And I think the TBPN guys, they're funny and like they have
a sort of point of view. And so I do think it's the it's
the humanities person in all of us.
It's like you got to start with like the desire to really have
something to say in a new format and a style.
And so I think they've found people for the podcast and some
of their partners are great communicators.
But then I think future and some of these other ambitions start
with we need to be a media company without like the sort of
fire behind it. Yeah, I guess you don't really
have an audience built into it. It's just sort of an expectation
that if you start writing the articles with the bent that you
think people want, they'll just show up, which is anyone who's
run a media company would know. It's not really the way it
happens. I always talk about newcomer.
It's like, I don't know, we chase the stories that are fun
to us. Like, you know, I don't, I don't
know some of the you can be too intentional with media in my
point of view. Part of what makes the TBBN part
fun is that it is it feels a little bit disconnected and it
has cool vibes. They're reclaiming tech bro,
right? And they're like fun,
interesting guys to watch and engage with.
So in your conception of all of this, like is like the narrative
control and the ability to like talk about things in a fun, cool
way without it seeming like VC media, like the business
reporter in me is like, does that actually help your fund?
I assume it doesn't like a soft power way, but like, where's the
play here other than just being like, you know, getting the
attention out, being interesting?
Like seems like does it really, you know, come back to help
founders fund it seems like Andreessen.
It's kind of not really doing anything other than, you know,
Mark sweater presence. Yeah, I think just being out
there in people's minds is like good for founders fund because
they have to find the next founder and being legitimately
sort of cool, as reluctant as I am to say it helps them sort of
get deal flow and like is useful.
I do think the TBPN guys are smart in that, like they're
trying to build a show. I think it's sort of like they
could get bought by CNBC. I talked to John Coogan this
week, and it's not like he's like, yeah, we're building a
platform. It's like, no, we're building a
good media show, he jokes. But it's sincere that it's
corporate media. It's like they have a bunch of
ads plastered all over the thing.
They're like for them. I think one of the strengths and
maybe what could be lasting for like ATPBN is they're not
explicitly political. Like all of this story you're
talking, we're talking about like posturing and that kind of
thing. They don't really do that.
They have their sort of like bro Y outward aesthetic, but much
less so than pirate wires. Are they, like, jumping into the
political foray? They're talking about business,
yeah. The only political thing is just
that it's sort of this like the bro that you couldn't be
anymore. But besides that, besides the
stylings, I agree it's very like down to business talking about
companies. Well, of course, like a big
theme of the whole dead cat era of your of your fame was that
like tech could go direct and cut out the media and and
address their audience in a way that like.
Right. I was terrified.
I I went on a clubhouse. I was like, Marc Andreessen
needs to answer questions about his Trump support in front of
the New York Times. Yeah, it was it was an
interesting moment, Tom. I'll you take it first.
Where are we on Go Direct? It's not happening.
It's it's your your take is that they have not failed to to Yeah.
They clearly, they clearly failed and I know this because
when I announced that I was working for for newcomer now and
I had an e-mail address, my in blocks got flooded with with
with PR people. They're reaching out to me,
which in a world of going direct, I understand you're
you're not legacy. So maybe that was partly the
reason why they're that. Yeah, exactly.
Read the market. It's like, it's like they want
the people to the media to do the work and people who know how
to write to produce it, but they just want a new.
They want new just start again like new brands.
I, I never understood the Go direct thing.
Like it, It always confused me because ultimately, what did it
mean? Did it mean you don't want to
announce your, your, your next fundraise in TechCrunch or or
the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg?
OK, three of those publications wouldn't write about it anyway.
Now, did it? Did it mean like, if your
company had a controversy and reporters were writing about it,
that you shouldn't ever deal with the media?
You should never answer questions to them?
OK, fine, you don't have to do it.
But that also assumes that like, if you don't talk to people,
they won't. If you don't talk to the media,
the article won't exist, which obviously it will.
Like, you know, you need to have like fucking object permanence
to recognize that like people exist outside of your wanting to
talk to them. And so I never understood what
the end state of it was. Was it?
Was it about killing the New York Times altogether?
All. Right here here's here's my
view, which I think touches on what you're saying.
Godirect was framed as a binary. Either you're talking to the
media or you're talking to tech. Obviously in the real world,
that's not how it plays out. Things are a spectrum of and we
could imagine a spectrum of unfriendly detect to friendly
detect. And part of what happened within
the media is the friendly detect sort of disappeared, right?
The, I don't know, Fast Company ink style.
Oh my God, you're an amazing company.
Those people all suddenly became the like Facebook's the devil.
And so the friendliest people became the most hostile.
And so the media was out of whack.
I think we acknowledged that back in the dead cat days.
And so tech started creating these go direct things, many of
them far, far too positive ever to build or sustain an audience
because at the end of the day, media is dependent on what
consumers want. And so now what was the go
direct period have become much more sophisticated and are are
delivering a range of content. You've got pyro wires who has
its enemies, right, which the traditional like PR go direct
set couldn't deliver right. The you needed some sort of foil
and antagonist, which pyro wires has you guys TVPN, which is like
literally sort of embracing the aesthetics of like CNBC and TV
news. And so I think that spectrum is
going to totally reemerge, and the distinction will soon be
meaningless. I think on the Go Direct side,
you have all these people who are still, you know, I think
John said it to me this week. They're like, I'm not a
journalist. And I'm like, I don't know what
that means. Like, obviously journalists
themselves have a range of expectations for what you have
to do. And I think the Go Direct crowd
still wants, like, none of the ethical burden of journalism
while, you know, delivering it. And I think what's really going
to happen is it's we're going to go back to a period where we're
all judged against the expectations and brand that we
built for ourselves. There isn't going to be this
like, binary switch of, like, journalists.
People can shit on me for not doing enough diligence.
And like, I'm just an influencer and I can be as like, lazy as I
want to. I don't know, Joe Rogan, you
have a huge audience and you're driving the culture.
You interviewed the president, like what you say matters, and
we're seeing that emerge. And so I think on the media
side, you're not going to get this special treatment anymore.
And then on the go direct side, you're not going to be able to
be like, who me? I'm just like an idiot.
Like you're like, you have an audience.
And that's that's what makes you morally culpable for what you
say. Also, the bigger you get, the
more people are going to view you in the same sphere as the
bigger media companies. Like I had a source of mine the
other day was telling me that he wanted to, he was trying to get
me to help him like an editorial that he had.
And he was like, I, you know, I was going to run it in pirate
wires. But they had, I guess they had
some sort of executive leave or someone and, and they're not
able to publish as much as they were able to.
He's like, oh, can you help me get this into the Wall Street
Journal, the Washington Post? And, and it's like, and like
one, No, like I can't, it's really hard to, you know, I
never dealt with the editorial side, but it's like the fact
that you consider it like one or the other means that like the,
the lines are already blurred. So like the, the, the, the in,
in its success supposedly of go direct.
You've basically become to a degree, the thing that you
hated. And we're rebelling.
Against exactly. And they're learning all the
problems. You talk to them, you're like,
Oh yeah, like media is really hard.
These tech people don't get it. You have to like you're only as
good as your last story. Like it's something we've been
yelling out for years. Like tech's all about
solutionism. It's like do the thing, realize
what the trade-offs are and why people are doing what they're
doing and like stop, stop whining, you know, do it.
So I'm happy that. Why do you think we're such like
negative pieces of shit? It's because our jobs are bad
and and we have to deal with all this stuff like you.
You think you're happy now because you're going direct.
You're just going to become like us.
There's, there's, there's going to be no.
Distinction and journalists are part of the problem in that they
hold on to the distinction, right?
In some ways they're enabling the go direct crowd to act
differently by saying journalists, we behave this way,
you behave that way. And I, I think I've been early
on the like collapse the distinction quickly so that
there's equal sort of responsibility on both ends or
at least relative to audience and relative to brand.
I mean, the only other thing I would say on this is that what
people often overlook is like, is your shit good?
Is it an entertaining product? Like that's all it comes down
to. Like I know and it's I'm happy
to always, you know, shit on the all in guys.
They have a good show. It's an entertaining show.
They have like a dynamic that appeals to people that makes for
compelling, you know, listening or consumption or video or
whatever. And it's like, if you don't have
a fundamentally good product, doesn't matter how much
philosophy behind the changing tides of media you're basing
this on, if it's not interesting, no one's going to
care. That's it.
It's it's like a fairly, I mean, the nice thing about media,
aside from the fact that, you know, the business model is
broken, is that like the audience is often pretty
dependent on whether you day in, day out put out a compelling
product. And a lot of these things just
weren't good. All In is a good show.
I'm sorry to say it. It is a good.
Show arguing for capitalism. I mean part of what happened
with media is that the reporters got very disconnected from the
customer right. I think one thing that newcomer
is a response to is that yeah, we are responsive to our segment
of readers. Now we found the segment of
readers we like right If you're going to unsubscribe because I
shit on Trump or whatever you're a lost cause.
So we we still have a segment but like I think, you know when
I was at Bloomberg and certainly many other Bloomberg reporters
are very disconnected from which stories are driving like the
bottom line. And so building media businesses
that are more responsive to customers, you know, reflect the
culture and are more responsive to to the mood for good and bad.
Speaking of griffs from one to another, you know, we talked
about the, the VC media grift, but I think there's a, there's a
broader, I would say griffs are in vogue right now.
Griffs are in, you know, from the top down.
I think we're seeing a lot of a lot of discussion over how we
can take advantage of the moment and and, you know, fill our own
bag while the gettings are good. There's a point we've been
hitting over and over again in this newsletter when we do talk
about politics, which is that ultimately the Trump presidency
and attitude towards grift and deal making in corrupt ways is
is bad for business and all of the Silicon Valley people who
support him and have viewed it, you know, oh, this will be
favorable and regulation. To me, it's not favorable if he
makes a mockery of what your business is doing.
The Trump meme coin dinner that was announced this week just
kind of encapsulated this, right?
Because basically the top 220 Trump coin holders will get like
a private dinner with the president.
Like that is just such an example of how crypto for all
the VCs I talked who pitched me on the legitimate crypto
industries that they are building is just totally thrown
out the window by their supposed biggest booster and just like
what is clearly of like influence scheme.
You were talking to a lot of crypto people, ones who I assume
are happy that Trump is in office and being one of the
biggest boosters of this, you know, of, of, of cryptocurrency
in the blockchain in history. Are they on board and described
as legitimate, the meme coin? I mean, do they view that as
like part of the same positive uplift in the economy and
transformation or this is like they're trying to push that off
to the side? I would say well within the like
coin holder people, I'm sure people who are just, you know,
like separate from the founders are excited about this in the
crypto ecosystem because they can make a buck off of it.
But like the crypto investors I've talked to, you and founders
that I've talked to who are happy about cutting regulations,
but not so happy about the optics of everything going down,
they recognize that the grifty stuff hurts their business.
So they've actually expressed to me like, no, this is like a bad
call. We don't think that this like
helps the crypto industry at all.
It just seems like it's a pipeline to pay off Trump and
get close to him. And so even the crypto investors
I've talked to know that this seems like it will not help them
in the end. And yet people I like the end,
you know, we talked about, you know, all of the close to Trump
people, the end reasons of the world like are still sticking
with with it for now, and I just don't see why this is seeming
crypto. And in some ways, the Silicon
Valley view of business has always been, unfortunately, a
story of better angels, you know, build, grow, you know, do
new things, create and on the other hand, sort of grift and
make sort of momentum trades, right?
I mean, you look at Andreessen Horowitz, right?
Marc Andreessen is now one of his many famous sayings is it's
time to build an essay about just America.
We need to do a lot of things. Build a lot of things that's
that's supposed to be the message underpinning the firm.
You know, they've got a very successful crypto fund.
But my sense is a lot of those investments, you know, we're
sort of flips, You know, you make a bunch of money on
Filecoin. Obviously Coinbase, you know, is
a key investment. And that is a real company,
though, a company largely built on speculation of crypto assets.
But like a lot of the building for crypto is still to come and
a lot of the money made has been on sort of speculation and
flipping and getting out at the right time.
I mean, you see a lot of VCs making money on Solana.
But anyway, yeah, the the the the ideal of Silicon Valley is
this sort of building and creation.
And the more that front and center in the American
psychology is thanks to our president that the way to make
money is grifting and to selling tokens that's going to every
entrepreneur is going to be like, well, I guess the mood at
the moment is get rich quick, not build for the long term.
But that's always one of the greatest gifts about Trump is
that he has no subtext. And so when you present him with
something like a meme coin, you can construct whatever
architecture of like transformation of currency and,
and, you know, the blockchain and the value it has.
But in his eyes and maybe the truth behind it all is like, oh,
this is a flip, right? This is like, oh, so you
basically just want me to like pump this shit up?
At least we're not getting bullshitted anymore is your
point? Like it like.
He's like crypto, I get it. I get what you guys are into
here. Sure.
I'm I'm totally down to just pump this thing up and flip it
and, you know, see if a couple of people can make money, myself
included on it. This is Trump stakes.
This is Trump University. Like he, he just manages to cut
through everything to make it at its most basic fundamental level
that I'm assuming is very frustrating to the crypto people
because they're like, no, no, dude, this is about a
revolution. This is not a flip.
This is not about just lining my pockets.
This is about a whole new, you know, wholesale change.
He just kind of is like, don't fucking say that out loud dude.
Like we all know what's going on here.
You don't have to just make it that apparent.
Don't make this a QVC, you know, commercial.
Just thinking back even to the tariffs, right, like he, all of
his advisors were trying to say like, no, this is some genius
strategy of negotiation. And the first reason he backed
off at all was that he was like, well, the markets got a little
out of whack. So we're toning it back.
Like he's always been very direct about what motivates him
and where things are going. But I just don't think that all
of this is in any way good for the business community that has
attached themselves to him. And the fact the fact that it's
still hanging on like is a little absurd to me.
And we'll see how long they stay.
I don't know. At the end of the day, American
culture needs to be and can be more than the culture set by the
president. I mean, this is supposed to be
the view of the Republicans, you know, the small government
party. And so I think at this time,
more than ever, we have the obligation not to let Trump
corrupt business in America and sort of to continue to build
real, meaningful businesses even as we're seeing this messaging
that you could try to get rich quick and the people at the top
are doing it. But certainly Trump isn't making
it easier to keep great entrepreneurs focused on real,
sustainable businesses like they should be.
And it seems like every time he backs off most of his most
insane policies, it's because some senior person in the
traditional business world has a meeting with him in which he's
like, yeah, you got to cut this shit out.
So it's like Jamie Dimon goes to the White House.
Yeah, exactly. Where's Jamie Dimon?
Be like, yeah, we all gripped a little bit like, OK, you do
some, you know, short trades or whatever, but like, you can't do
it like this, man. Right, right.
Yeah. So it's Jamie Dimon coming in
there and be like, yeah, cut this shit out.
Like you're you were destroying the S&P and then now with the
China tariffs probably backing down.
It's because like Walmart and Target CEOs basically came into
the the Oval Office and we're just like, yeah, that's where we
get all of our stuff, man. You're not going to be able to
charge 145% tariffs on on the place that makes all these
things like. Yeah, yeah.
All right. All right, we'll see you guys
next week.