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SPEAKER_02
Okay, we got a friend of the show, Jordan Harbinger is here. Jordan, how are you doing, man?
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for having me on, man. I'm just chilling, self-isolating, you know, the use.
SPEAKER_02
We are all isolating, but I appreciate you dropping in on the show, just parachuting in, just for a couple of minutes, it's always fun to have you. You know, this is a crazy time, 2020's been a crazy year. We got coronavirus and we also had, you know, the sad tragic passing of Kobe Bryant, who was a guest on your show.
How did that happen?
SPEAKER_01
How do you get Kobe? Yeah, you know what was funny is I was pitching a publicity team for a different guest that I can't even remember now because he was about 1% as famous as Kobe Bryant and they booked it and it was like some comedian, which I of course was really excited about. They booked it and they canceled it and I got really annoyed and they said, well, would you consider interviewing Kobe Bryant instead? And I said, yeah, of course I would consider that. Let's do that.
So we set it up and I flew down to Kobe's office and went over there and hung out for a while and did the interview right there. And it was, it was incredible. It was a really interesting experience to be there with his team as well for that day.
And honestly, it was probably September of 2019. So the timing was interesting. You know me, I asked him all kinds of questions that had nothing to do with basketball, including about creativity, business, hiring and firing because you wonder how a guy like Kobe Bryant decides who to hire and how he lets people go.
I don't know if I'd want to be on the wrong side of him. And I did end up asking him about his life and what he's going to do for his second act. And if he ever creepily, I asked him if he ever thinks about what he's going to do if he were gone because he has kids and he was really, really honest in the interview, he was really, really straightforward.
And I admire that. It was a really good interview in my opinion.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that is intense. High stakes interviewing, to say the least. And was he like an idol of yours before you did the interview?
SPEAKER_01
No, man. Honestly, I look, who doesn't love watching basketball, but I wasn't even, I'm just not a fanboy of athletes in general. So it was a great unique opportunity, but I wasn't nervous because of that.
I was more nervous because you just never know if your audio equipment's going to screw up. So I was more nervous, like make sure it's recording than I was nervous to be sitting in front of Kobe Bryant. Honestly, he was so friendly and unassuming and not very loud.
In fact, we even had audio issues recording it because we're like, hey, we got to turn him up really high. And I said, you're really quiet. And he goes, yeah, I'm just not a loud guy, man.
And I was like, oh my God, can you be loud for like the next 45 minutes? So it was a really unique experience. I'll be thankful for that for a long time to come.
SPEAKER_02
That is amazing. When we started this show, we were doing the interview style thing and I made a bucket list, a wish list of all the guests that I would want. Kobe was on there and when I look at your show and I've been going, I've been plowing through the archive of episodes that you've got, you've had a bunch of them.
So you've had Tony Hawk, you've had Kobe Bryant, who are some of the other awesome episodes that people should check out if they do binge your show like I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01
Sure, yeah. Howie Mandel was really good, the comedian. He was very open about things like mental illness and how he doesn't shake people's hands.
I've had Dennis Rodman, Malcolm Gladwell. And I also had Frank Abagnale, which a lot of people haven't heard about or from, but he- Is that the catch me if you can guy? He is the catch me if you can guy. So he's the real guy that was played by Leo DiCaprio.
And we talked about the psychology behind how he was able to trick so many people. And now he teaches, of course, FBI and intelligence agencies how that's done as well.
SPEAKER_02
That is amazing. So if you're one of the listeners to the show who misses when we used to do the interviews and bring in guests, well, this is my recommendation for you. You should go check out the Jordan Harbinger show.
He's got tons of interviews from guests that we were hoping to one day have on our show. He's already had them on. Check them out on iTunes, on Spotify, wherever you can find it.
Jordan, appreciate you as always dropping in on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me on guys. We're on, we're back.
What's up? Me and Sam are here. Sam, you wrote something at the top of this. I want to hear what you have to say, which is people's reply about what we talked about last time.
Thrasi, let's jump in with that.
SPEAKER_00
All right, you want to, I'm going to read just word for word. I have it pulled up on my Twitter. Okay, you ready? I'm not going to read the guy's name.
He goes, I'm a modest size, mid seven figure Amazon seller and a network of guys that range from one to two million to probably 50 million plus. We have a few guys in our network that actually sold their company to Thrasio. How do you call it? Thrasio.
Thrasio. Thrasio. Happy to chat about Amazon e-commerce sometime.
Okay, so I'm going to read his replies. Now, for those of you listening, the background is, is that on Tuesday, Sean and I talked about Thrasio. It's a company that raised money.
They raised 100, 200 million at a 750 valuation. I don't remember.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, close to 100 million at a 750.
SPEAKER_00
Thrasio. A big company. You can, they're only two years old.
And what they're doing is buying Amazon fulfillment, filled by Amazon company, fulfilled by Amazon companies and they are making the brands better and just owning them. They're doing a bunch of stuff. And so I had a guy reach out to me and he's, I go, that's great.
Tell me, what's the, I asked him, what's the cash flow situation like? For most guys sub 10 million dollars, they're probably working with zero to a handful of US employees still actively involved in the day to day, large team in the Philippines and in cheap locations and are probably netting between 10 to 20% a year. And so the typical size for three to five million, the typical size is three to five million in revenue and they're probably pulling in 500 to a million dollars a year for themselves. But the problem is, is that it's getting harder and harder.
In 2013, you could sell almost anything in scale seven figure business. Now there are a lot more dominant, more sophisticated players and it's incredibly hard to enter in the business. The Amazon algorithm is much smarter and it makes ranking incredibly expensive and difficult.
Also Amazon treats their sellers like trash. So it's kind of a mixed bag. I could take a month and do nothing and let my team run it and it can go perfect.
Or I can get an email tomorrow saying my account has been suspended or killed and I need a lawyer to reinstate everything or I'm just crushed. So anyway, Sean, I wanted to fill you in on this because I thought it was cool insight. I didn't know about that.
SPEAKER_02
That's a good insight. So a couple of thoughts on that. So the first is, I think he's right, back 2013, 2014.
It was a lot easier to do it than it is today. That seems consistent with what I've heard. In fact, it seems like the formula is build a successful Amazon business in 2013, 2014, 15, then start teaching other people how to do it because it's too hard to do anymore.
And so now you start giving away the sort of secrets and you become a teacher for the next three years. So I think that's the career path right now. The other thing that comes to mind, we were talking, I was talking to Andrew Wilkinson about this and he was saying, he used the, I think it's a Charlie Munger quote, which is, oh no, no, no, it's an Naseem Taliib quote, which is, it's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller.
So there's a high probability you can make a little bit of money consistently every single time you reach down, you pick it up. And then there's a low probability of complete death. And that's what he's talking about when he says, you can get a letter tomorrow that says your account is suspended, goodbye.
And that's it. Or Amazon cuts the rates of your category. Like I have a friend who was doing millions of dollars of book sales as a third party bookseller on Amazon.
And then Amazon was like, you know what? Now our take rate on books has, you know, not 10%, we're gonna do 25% thanks. And that like killed the whole business.
SPEAKER_00
That happened to me. That happened to me the other day. So in the trends group, someone was like, just so you know, Amazon changed the fee.
So basically I have various blogs, like my personal blog or something like that. And it makes just like small amounts of money, like three to $5,000 a month off Amazon affiliates. And I don't even check it.
It just runs because I've just written a lot of content over the years. They changed the rate. And someone told me in the group, I think they, I forget what I was earning.
I don't even check it. I think I was earning 6% to 9% for affiliate revenue. And then they changed it to, they like halved it.
So that money just halved. And it's no big deal because it wasn't like a big income stream for me. But if you're a wire cutter or if you're Buzzfeed and you made $100 million from this, it's a huge deal.
SPEAKER_02
Right. Yeah, that 20% cut makes a really big difference.
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so. No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't a 20% cut.
It was way bigger than that. Oh, okay. It was like half, they halved.
Ouch.
SPEAKER_02
And what category are your links mostly in? Is it electronics? Is it some cat? Is it one category or is it just across the board?
SPEAKER_00
They rate, they lowered it across categories, but across the board, it's close to half. My categories were probably personal care and electronics. I mean, just anyone who, yeah, or books, a lot of books.
SPEAKER_02
Right. Okay. I wanna know another topic. So we're good on Thrasio.
You wanna add anything else?
SPEAKER_00
Do you not want to? No, I think it's consistent with what we thought.
SPEAKER_02
I like when people fill in the gaps with information that we don't have, right? I'm not an FBA seller. I don't know the ins and outs of that market. I just think it's interesting.
We talk a little bit about it and then people fill in the gaps and in the next episode, we come back a little smarter. That's a nice little formula we have going. So I appreciate that.
If you ever talk about stuff, you know, tell us more about what you know that we don't.
SPEAKER_00
Before we go deep into serious stuff, do you wanna talk about how we're doing and talk about, I wanna give you feedback that I got from listener Sean. You ready?
SPEAKER_02
Am I prepared for this? Is this harsh critical feedback? Do I need to?
SPEAKER_00
That's good. Okay, great. No, okay.
So what I'm noticing with this podcast is we have a similar amount of views each week and I think it's the same people over and over. I think we're like part of people's routine, which is cool. And I think one of the secrets to growing a podcast is you have to have guests.
So when we had Andrew, he shared it. So all the people who like him came and listened and I hope we've got them hooked and they're gonna listen from now on. And so the way that we're gonna do this is we're just gonna get more guests.
But here's what people keep telling me. And they weren't saying this about Andrew, but they like it when it's just you and I riffing it and just making shit up on the fly.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah, I've felt that. And I think it's even more on these Zoom calls because the Zoom call pace is a little slower. When we're in person, it's a little bit better, I think, to have that third guest on the seat.
And it definitely depends. The third guest's gotta bring the energy. You can't just be successful and smart.
That is not enough. You have to bring energy. You gotta know what people wanna hear about and get to the point.
And so that's the rubric for guests, which is hard when you're also trying to find famous guests because they help the show grow.
SPEAKER_00
And just for the record, Sean and I have recorded with, I think we've done it a bunch of times. I personally have done it a bunch of times. And it was wonderful people who I like and it just turned out to be bad and we just don't publish.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we throw it away. And we don't even tell the guests. We just don't understand anyway.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I've done it a couple of times. Like throughout the years for whatever, I don't even remember what I was recording stuff for. I've interviewed someone who was an amazing operator and the content was whack and I'm like, nope, trash.
Yeah, exactly. And so anyway, the feedback that we're getting, Sean, is that people like us because they say that I'm more optimist and you're more down to earth and that we riff and they love that and that they can't get that anywhere. But you and I are like, let's go get more guests.
And people don't like the guests. But unfortunately that helps us grow.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, well, we'll keep mixing it in. Dude, I had a call yesterday that I was like, if I had just recorded this, this would have been like one of the dopest podcasts ever. It was just me and Furkan, we have a call every once a week now that's just called cool shit.
And he lives in like the edge of like technology. He's like in the dark web basically, not in the illegal way, but sort of like, he's on the forefront of what's interesting going on.
SPEAKER_00
He's just like a, he's just a nerd. He's just like a very typical Silicon Valley engineer. Yeah, but he knows, he knows me well enough.
SPEAKER_02
He knows me well enough and also he loves money enough where he knows how to take that stuff and bubble up the bits that are interesting, the bits that are relevant and not just get lost in the weeds of technology. So that kind of was amazing, but unfortunately, I didn't record. The other thing I was gonna say about the guests is being guests on other people's podcasts is the other way to grow.
So I had each on yesterday reach out to like 50 podcasts and just be like, hey, I'll go on and talk about it. Right? Like I'll go on, I just sold my company. I can go on and talk about that.
Hey, we built a podcast that did a million downloads in the first six months. We could talk about how we did that. And so I think guesting on other people's podcasts might be a good way.
You did this with Gary V with Pomp.
SPEAKER_00
So maybe we could do more. Yeah, I've probably, so there's a caveat there. I've probably been a guest a hundred times and there was a period like over the trailing six months.
I have it set on my calendar from three o'clock to five o'clock. That's only guesting on podcasts. And I would do it and some of the small ones just drove nothing.
Like it was total hit or miss. And so I would spend like three weeks doing it. And it's almost like, and you probably like this.
It's like being the comedian. You just say the same shit over and over and you kind of figure out what hits. And it's fun.
It's almost like therapy. You just talk about yourself. It's cool.
But it gets a little repetitive and the results are not always there, but they are sometimes.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And the thing you said at the beginning, which is for podcasting, you get this bass and it's the sticky, sticky bass of people who listen to it all the time. It becomes a part of their routine.
They start to really love you, that sort of thing. It's very different than other products I built where I'm like, all right, I want to get millions of users to just visit this page or just use this once a week or subscribe to this and kind of forget about it. That's been a lot of the products I built.
This is the opposite. It's like an army of 100,000 people who will go to war for you. I think there's people in this group that would, if I said, hey, I need you to beat this person up, they would go beat that person up.
There's people who really have your back. And when I started this, I remember I was talking to Suli who was the very first guest on the pod. And he was like, what are you thinking next? You just sold the company.
And I was like, I really like this podcast thing. He goes, okay, is that a business? Like in some ways it's a step down, right? It's like, I'm gonna wait way less doing this than I did my last business or any other business I wanna do. And I was like, look, I want to just be in like a million people's ear balls every morning.
If I did that, I just know that that's a good thing. And I don't know how to get there, but I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna get into a million people's ear balls every morning on their way to work, on the way to work.
I think that's powerful.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, it may or may not be a business, but it definitely will lead to way more opportunity. I've had a lot of, I mean, I've been doing the content thing a little bit like before the podcast. So I kind of understand it, but the podcast definitely is different.
I remember I went to New York, Sean, and I just tweeted. I was like, we're gonna be over here. I'm gonna be over here, because I was there for a hustle advertising crap.
And I just tweeted, I was like, yeah, we're gonna be here. I had 200 people wanna come. And so we only let maybe 20 come.
And because we're in people's ears, dude, like these people, this kid, Ryan said something to me. And he's like, yeah, you know, because you said how much you like this thing. And I was like, I don't remember what you're talking about.
And like, they think they know you and it's funny.
SPEAKER_02
And the other thing I like is that people are, the people who listen to this are actually pretty, they're really smart and successful. I think a lot of podcasts that are about business, they cater to kind of lowest common denominator. So it's like, oh, the entrepreneur is their core market.
And in our Facebook group for this podcast, I posted something saying, hey, I'm doing something cool for people who have a business that does over a million dollars a year. And there's like a hundred plus replies just in that Facebook group of people who have businesses doing over a million dollars a year, right? So these are not like kind of like the one entrepreneur who's at their nine to five job or a college kid or something like that. Like, of course there are people like that, but the audience also is mixed with a lot of interesting, successful people.
There's a bunch of VCs that listen to this. It's crazy. So anyways, enough about the podcast.
Let's give people some other topics or ideas.
SPEAKER_00
Let's talk one more thing about the podcast, which is my house looks like is crazy right now. I had to go and buy this mic. I've had to like set this all up.
Dude, it's been so hard to set up like a Zoom thing. And it's hard. I hate this shit.
SPEAKER_02
I know you want that business to exist, which is push a button and give me like a dope podcast, like turnkey.
SPEAKER_00
Yes. Oh, and for anyone who's listening, this is podcast related a little bit. I promise I'll finish up with this, but this is awesome.
So my friend, Neville Badora, he sponsored last podcast, copyrightingcourse.com, I'll plug him. I did like a happy hour with him.
I mean, I don't know, a dinner where we just, we're just shooting this shit because we haven't been able to see each other because of this stuff. He used a DSLR as his webcam. And it was awesome.
It was so, it looks amazing. It made it look like a Greek God. It looks like he's like, it's all like, it's like, does that, I don't know about cameras where it does like, you're blurry in the background.
SPEAKER_02
I think it's called like bokeh or something like that. So, so I saw on YouTube, there's this guy, Gary Tan. He's an investor in Silicon Valley.
He's like, you know, one of the wife, commonator partners. And he did this YouTube video that was like, how to look like a fucking amazing on zoom. And I was like, dude, this makes sense.
This is the new, like, this is the equivalent of wearing a suit to work now, right? Like is sitting on zoom and not looking like shit with your room looking like shit. And so this video only had 1500 views, but he's like, look, this is the camera I used. This is the mount.
This is the lens. And here's how you get the, that blurred background look. And like, he looks amazing.
And then when I saw that photo, the screenshot you had of Neville, I was like, I bet you he watched that video. And there was only 1500 reviews, but I was like, anybody who's watching this. And the other guy who, who did it was a Neve Drawer, who's the founder of, he was at product.
net. Now he had a shrug capital and he does it too. And it really does look amazing.
And when I saw that, I was like, I should do this. I should, I should invest.
SPEAKER_00
So I'm good to do it. I didn't know about this video. So last night I bought $700 for the stuff.
I bought, so I already have these Phillips Hue light bulbs. You know what those are? Yep. Where you, I just say, Alexa, turn the lights on.
I like smart watch. It's going to turn the lights on. And so I bought those, but you see back here behind the couch, I'm going to put them there.
And so it's going to like shoot up. And it's going to, I hope it's so like, I, we have like a room. Oh, wait, I forgot I'm not using the camera.
We have a room clean. Anyway, you'll see it. So I'm into, I'm into all this.
I like it.
SPEAKER_02
So this guy reached out from Twitter who, he's done a couple of e-commerce things that are kind of interesting. And so I was talking to him and that's his new thing. So he's basically, he initially was targeting Twitch streamers cause he's like, look, when you're a streamer, you're basically broadcasting from your bedroom and streamers invest in all this like artwork, cool lights, wall panels, smart speakers, all this stuff to make the room look good.
And he's like, I'm going to make an e-com store that's like just going to do that. It's going to be, what's it called? I'll find the name of it. I don't know if he wants me to kind of out him.
So we may have to bleep this if he's not into it, but I'll say it right here. It's called visual candy. And this guy's smart.
I like this guy a lot. And so, but now with the work from home, I think this extends a lot past where his initial market was, which is YouTubers and Twitch stars. And now it's any professional who's going to spend some amount of time in a home office.
And just think about the amount of home offices that are being built out right now, because people are needed infrastructure for this, but that's going to stick around once COVID goes away.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I have loved, I'm really into it. I've like gone to Amazon and I've tried buying like all the stuff and it's kind of complicated because I didn't know which batteries do this. I was like, how do I just, I was like, where does the camera need to be? So I'm doing this.
There's another thing called a cam link. I just looked this up. Elgato makes it.
Elgato, yeah. And I went and looked at it and it was, they built this entire thing for streaming for gamers. And it looks awesome.
I'm gonna, I definitely am going to start buying this stuff. I'm probably going to drop two grand on all this crap. I think we'll turn our, we have another bedroom.
I'll turn that into an office. So I'm, I like all this crap.
SPEAKER_02
Dude, I love buying shit. When you buy, and when I just get on a buy streak and I'm like, yeah, you know what? I deserve this. I need that.
And like, you know, what's the problem here? And, and actually buying stuff is not, I don't know, there's something like cathartic about it. Like just the act of buying it feels fucking great. And I love it.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but for me, I've been having to call 1-800-GOD-JUNK and having to spend, like if I buy like a new desk, the boxes are so big, I gotta pay $100.
SPEAKER_02
The box problem is insane. Especially here in San Francisco, the box problem is insane.
SPEAKER_00
I fucking hate it. I hate it. It's one of the reasons why I moved.
I live in a house now. I used to live in a building. And one of the reasons was, is because I didn't have to worry about the trash.
Right.
SPEAKER_02
Well, no matter how much space I have, cause I thought, oh, I got this new house. I was like, now I have a garage. I got this like tradesmen alley.
I got this extra closet. But it's that same principle. I think it's, I forgot like the Parkinson's Law or whatever, which is time will, work will expand to fill the time you give it.
So let's say you have a week to do the project. Guess what? It's gonna take you a week. If you had a day to do that same project, it would have only taken you a day.
And in the same way, like junk, your shit will expand to fill the space you have. And that's-
SPEAKER_00
So here, let me, let, I've thought about this a lot. Let me get wise here. Okay. I'm a amateur beekeeper. So I have bees.
Do you know this? No. You didn't know that? That's your house right now? You don't have bees? Right now. So they actually went away, but since 2013, I've kept bees.
So I've always, for the most part, in my San Francisco life for 10 years, I've lived in Glen Park. It's a nice neighborhood in San Francisco. It's like residential though.
And I've always had a backyard and I wanted a hobby that was not expensive and I didn't want it to turn into a business. And I just wanted something fun that I could be outside. And I like, I made a list of hobbies that I could pick.
You just picked the lamest one. And beekeeping came up at top because it doesn't cost a lot of money to start. If you want to, you can just leave it alone and not do anything.
Or if you want to, you can just leave it alone and not do anything. Or if you wanted to, you could poke around with it and be active with it. It's a low maintenance.
Low maintenance, it only costs three to $500 to get into the hobby. You don't have to buy a bunch of shit to keep up with it. And it was allowed me to be outside.
And so I became a beekeeper in 2013, I think.
SPEAKER_02
Yo, how long do bees live? Like, do you still got a bee that's around from then?
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, no. They, I think they might only live for like a few months. They could cycle through.
And so I bought about 10,000 bees. And I get honey from them. And I just give it away.
And I call it Southern Sam sticky icky. And so I've had bees for years. And when I lived in Soma, I only lived in Soma for a year.
And then I went back to Glen Park. And I just kept it on the roof at my office. So you can have bees.
I would have 10,000 bees just on the roof of our office. And no one would know. They say to themselves mostly, and they go out and get honey.
Or get pollen. And they turn it to a nectar. And it turns into honey.
And anyway, here's the interesting thing that I learned. See, this has been like, this is where the wisdom comes in. Here's the interesting things that I've learned with bees, bees fill the space that they are given with honey.
So if you give them a lot of space, they will always fill it. If you don't give them a lot of space, then they just won't make it. And so the rule of the sticky icky.
And so I've learned this through bees, that humans are the same way. If you give them a lot of space, then they will fill it with a ton of stuff. If you give them not a lot of space, they just won't buy stuff.
You just won't get stuff. And so that's the important thing. So when you think of like, I'm going to get this huge house.
So I'll have a ton of room, and I'll have more space. You're going to fill it to the brim with crap, and you will no longer have space.
SPEAKER_02
It always works that way. That's amazing. I love that story.
Didn't know you were a beekeeper. I've known you for like six years. Had no idea.
By the way, we both studied abroad in Sydney. And I took a class because when you study abroad, you're trying to have a good time. I'm trying to learn.
And so I took the easiest class I could find, which was a bee class. And so I learned all this shit about bees. And bees have some crazy things, like just two quick bee facts.
If I remember correctly from 10 years ago, I learned that when the queen bee goes to mate, she leaves on an expedition. And she will mate with as many male bees as she can along the way. And she basically has sex with them and then kills them right afterwards.
Blakes their back and they die. And then she gets impregnated by all these bees. And then there's this other thing, which is really interesting that people have learned from bees, which is a big evolutionary learning, which was in a beehive, many of the bees could be fertile.
But they choose to be sterile. And they choose to just take care of the queen bee's kids. Because they're all related by some 25.
They're all like quarter sisters or something like that. They're all 25% related. And it turns out like in a Darwinian sense, your genes are better off surviving if you just tend to these half sisters and quarter sisters that you have, rather than trying to have your own kids and survive.
And so that's the crazy thing about bees.
SPEAKER_00
Bees are awesome, man. It's a great hobby. You can get into it for $250.
All you got to do is go to Amazon and you type in beekeeping kit. And someone will send you the kit. And then you go on your local Craigslist.
You might even be able to buy them online. But that might take a few weeks. But if you go on your local Craigslist, you type in bees.
There is a farmer nearby who you can pay $100. And they'll give you 10,000 bees. And they'll set it up for you.
It's super easy to get into. And it is so fun. Bees, you could eat.
I get. Fuck. I'll get. I've got to think about this.
Probably five to eight gallon milk jugs. How big is that a gallon of milk? That worth a honey. Maybe five to eight a year.
SPEAKER_02
They're producing. OK, cool. I want some honey.
I'm also related to this idea of people buy stuff. And people love stuff. And people will fill their space with stuff.
And bees will fill their space with stuff. If you want a good five minutes, go on YouTube and type Chris Delia, girls love things. And you will have a great time for five minutes.
OK. And now that brings me to a random startup idea. So I don't think this would work.
So let me start with that. But there's something interesting here where so Netflix recently Netflix in the last few years started going heavy into comedy. So comedy used to be like HBO kind of owned the space where they would do HBO specials.
And then that kind of dried up. And comics are like cockroaches. They'll always survive.
It's like, OK, we'll go play in the dingiest room. We'll go on stage. We'll get a Netflix special.
We'll get a HBO special. OK, we're back to the dark room again. Like they won't quit because they're degenerates.
And now podcasting has been a huge boom for them. So Chris Delia, who also just had a Netflix special come out, these guys make tons of money. So Netflix started cutting like 10, $20 million checks, I believe, to these comedians because they know that comedians have these rabbit followings.
And the content is good. It's unique sort of proprietary content. But I think that there's a product out there, sort of like a crunchy what Crunchyroll did for anime.
I think somebody could do for the mid-tier comedians. I think you could make a $5 a month, $7 a month subscription to the comedians that are not going to get Netflix specials. So not Chris Rock and not Seinfeld and Chappelle and all those guys.
But the next tier down. One level below the Whitney Cummings of the world, because they are still getting Netflix specials. And I think you could add them up.
And it doesn't have to be the hour long special. It could be like a 10 minute set or a 20 minute set or something like that. And I think you could get, I think each of them have a few thousand fans that would pay to be able to access that exclusive comedy content.
And so you would, if you just aggregate all the comedians, then it's a sort of all you can eat pass, where as a viewer, I can discover other comedians too. So anyways, I think that there's a business potentially for a mid-level Netflix for comedians where you aggregate. What do you think?
SPEAKER_00
Great. I'm looking up information so I can, my brain's rolling. And let me tell you what I think.
So first of all, Quibi, I imagine, is trying to do something like that. So Quibi, is that even fucking how you say Quibi? It's pretty stupid. I mean, look, I think with Quibi, it actually can be great because the people who are running it are super smart.
But it does not look like a good bet now. But it still might be. Anyway, they're trying to do something like that.
Second, I think that that is a great idea. And I think the way that I would find out how to do it is I would look up Quello. Q-E-L-L-O.
Have you heard of Quello? I've never heard of it. OK, Quello's cool. So what Quello is, I think it was started way before its time.
It's an app on Apple TV. And all they have is live concerts. And so it was started in 2010.
And it's available on, it's an app for your phone. But I think it's best on Apple TV. And you could download it and you pay $10,000 or maybe $10 a month.
Sometimes $10,000 a month. I think it's $10 a month. And you just get access to a library of live concerts.
Have you ever wanted to do that? Or is that just me?
SPEAKER_02
I kind of do this on YouTube. But YouTube has enough free, like I listened to a bunch of Red Rocks concerts, right? Because there's a concert venue called Red Rocks, which is awesome. And any time a musician goes there, they film it with epic cameras and sound.
And they're just available on YouTube for free. But this is cool. I like this.
SPEAKER_00
It's awesome. And it's better than YouTube, but YouTube is great. And the reason it's better is because if you buy a concert DVD, the camera works a little bit better and the sound is a lot better.
And I love live music. And so I am a big fan of this. And they have 70,000 paying subscribers.
They were recently acquired by Stingray Communications, which is a publicly traded company in Canada. It's a cable company. So if I were you, Sean, and I wanted to launch this, or if I was a listener and wanted to launch this, I would look up Stingray Communication.
And I would go and read the filing for that company. And I would figure out exactly what Quello does. That's what I would do.
And I would learn about how they did it because it's a relatively niche thing. They only have 70,000 subscribers. It's not huge.
And they've been at it for 10 years. So it's not a big number. And I think it is an incredibly viable business.
And I think it's great. Another thing that I would do is I would look up Discovery Channel and then National Geographic. Are you familiar with National Geographic, obviously? OK, National Geographic is still a huge company.
Disney recently bought into it at a billion dollar valuation. And they still make hundreds of millions of dollars a year from their magazine subscription. Is that crazy? That's insane.
And so I would figure out, but here, National Geographic was a nonprofit. And so the good thing about nonprofits is you can go and see all their numbers. And so what I would go and look at, I would look at Discovery and I would look at National Geographic and I would look at Coelho.
And I would see what they are doing because those are relatively niche subscription companies that crush. So long story short, great idea.
SPEAKER_02
OK, cool. What else we got? You wanted to talk about this CARDA thing.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I am a user of CARDA. I think the product's only OK. It's still quite frustrating to use.
But CARDA laid off a bunch of people the other day. 167 people. Yeah, and they raised money.
And their CEO, Henry, wrote this message that he made public. And he said something like, it was not your manager's fault for laying you off. It was 100% my fault.
In fact, it was the opposite. Your manager's tried to help you. And I'm the one who reviewed every list.
And I said, we're going to fire this person. So blame me. And I think that was great.
I thought it was a great message.
SPEAKER_02
So high level, he was basically saying, hey, we laid a bunch of people off. And I'm going to publish the announcement I made to the company so that, presumably, other CEOs and other companies can learn from this, use this, or take solace in the fact that I did this to, I don't know, whatever the purpose was.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, content marketing. And he published this. And I typically fall into the category of all press is good press.
Go ahead and do it. I thought this was lame. Did you agree? And I tweeted at Henry.
And I want him to come here. And I'll say this to his face. I think he seems like a cool guy.
This move, I think, was kind of lame. Right.
SPEAKER_02
I would agree. I've kind of followed this guy for a little while. Like I've read some of his other stuff or seen some interviews.
Seems like a good guy. Seems like a smart guy. And I think Carter's a good product.
And I like some of the other stuff they've done. Like they have a next chapter program basically to help people who want to leave the company. They don't make it this awkward exit.
They celebrate it and whatever in theory. So I thought this was lame mostly because I thought two things. I thought it was tone deaf.
And secondly, I didn't think the actual statement was very good. So I thought just the premise of what he was trying to do, like what is the upside and what is the downside? To me, it looked like he was trying to pat himself on the back. And I know he would never.
He would say, that's not what I was trying to do, blah, blah,
SPEAKER_02
I think he was trying to pat himself on the back and also like give a little bit of sort of put Carter's name out there again. Like just by the buffer way of like publishing everything and the good, the bad, the ugly and you get attention. But I just thought it was tone deaf.
And also it seemed like what he wanted people's reaction to be was like, wow, great leadership, way to take responsibility, great CEO ship. And he got that. And both not from me.
When I read this, I was like, this was a pretty horrible way to do the announcement. And I'll tell you why. He started.
OK, so here's like, I'm just going to bullet point the summary. So he goes over the last few weeks, we're talking about recession planning. I said, layoffs were likely.
And today is the day I can't delay it any longer. OK, weird start. But all right.
Then he says, I'm sorry if I apologize. If I sound robotic, I'm reading off a script because I don't know if I can get through this without something to lean on. OK, you're not the victim.
Don't say that.
SPEAKER_00
That's also kind of, yeah, that's pretty lame.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, lame as fuck. Then he says, OK, let me start with the details. We're going to lay off 161 employees.
That's 16% of our company. It's going to be different across the company. All right, whatever.
Then this was weird, I thought. It was just like, if you are one of those affected, you will receive an invitation from your manager. If you do not receive a meeting invitation, you are safe.
And I was like, OK, Hunger Games, a little odd way to do it. But in a Zoom world, I don't know if there is a better way to really mass do this, where you can't have the information come out until it needs to come out. But I just thought it's anxiety.
That's a very anxious feeling thing. And also, you've got to know if you're the CEO and you say that people's minds just start racing in that direction. They're just imagining what the next hour of their life is going to be.
They're not even going to hear the next three paragraphs you say. Like their mind is gone. They checked out.
It's thinking about themselves. And so whatever the next three paragraphs are, ignore it. So then he goes, all right, the moral conflict.
This is the part I thought was wack. So he's like, in a couple of town halls ago, I said there was two perspectives around layoffs. The first is the shareholder perspective where reducing costs and protecting cash are what matters.
The second is the employee perspective where nothing matters more than saving jobs and helping employees in a time where it's unemployment at levels of the Great Depression. So each of these are clear. They're unambiguous.
And they're correct from their perspective. But they are diametrically opposed. This creates a conundrum for CEOs.
CEOs sit between shareholders and employees and wish that they could do both. For every CEO, they have to deal with this conflict. I chose to manage this conflict by taking the shareholder perspective and deciding who should leave and taking the employee perspective on how to help.
To me, I was like, what is this paragraph? Like, dude.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, what the fuck, dude? It's all the same. You're just trying to build a company that makes profit and does work with good people. That's the same thing.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. And think about it. You have to think about your audience.
Do you think your audience gives a shit about the shareholder perspective and the dilemma you have as a CEO and how you've chose to straddle this as a CEO? It's not even about you. So I just thought this was the part that was really odd to me that seemed like, I don't know, I wouldn't have included this in the statement. And I thought that this made it look quite bad.
And I would not want other CEOs emulating this part of the statement, because what matters is your audience is your employees and you need to know, hey, this is really hard for us. We tried to analyze every situation, cut every other dollar we could before we cut anyone's jobs. And we did that.
But this is the path we have to go. I'm terribly sorry. I did not manage the company in a way where we had enough buffer.
This is a failing on my part. This is the worst day in my time as a company and it's for all of us. And so here's what this means for you.
And all you have to say is this sucks. We tried everything we could do. This was the last resort.
And here's how we're going to make it right by you. And not this theory about how shareholder value matters and the CEO has to straddle these things. It's like nobody cares.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. And I think that that's not only does nobody care, I think that that is just a silly way to look at it, which is when you're building a company, like step one is create something that people want and get it into their hands in a profitable way. OK, that's step one.
Like that is just the basics of a company, which is you make something that someone wants to give you money, or you make something and you make a profit off of it. And if I was.
SPEAKER_02
I don't think that's step one, but that is the fundamental premise of the company.
SPEAKER_00
That's the fundamental premise is what I mean. And so if I was him, I'd be like, look, here's the deal. Like we expect it to grow a lot faster when we're investing in this and the plan would have worked.
But this thing slowed everything down. And so we just have to cut things that are not profitable. And that sucks.
And I'm sorry that that sucks, but that's what's going to happen. And I think that if you just say that in a more straightforward way instead of all this shareholder value shit, like people already know that.
SPEAKER_02
Like they're all adults in the room. They understand this fucking crazy virus is happening in companies across the board or having trouble. Some companies have no revenue now.
Like people get that, that that's happening. And it's just like, OK, so what's going to happen at our company? Oh, at our company, we've they tried everything they could. They're making the the sort of this is what you need to say was this was our last resort.
We did this in a way where we're not going to have another round of layoffs because that creates, you know, a ton of
SPEAKER_00
I wouldn't say that. I would I would say we're going to try not to.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, like, you know, that is our goal and how we did this. But even then that's speaking to the people who are staying, you know, really at this point, you just have to speak to the total group and just say, some of you are going to be affected. Here's how it works.
We're here's how we're doing our best to make it right to do right by everybody who's done right by us. This is no fault of your own. This is a fault of ours in running a company that was not did not have the margin of error to deal with.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think that like what I would just say, if I had to do this, which I hope I never have to, but I probably will have to one day, not like I'm saying at our company, but I'm not implying anything. I'm just saying one day if I have a if I have a long career, which I will, that you gotta say, look, I have 100% of the flock that I have to manage and take care of. And sometimes that might mean that I have to fire 30% of the flock in order to take care of the other 60.
And that is just how life works. And this just sucks. Right. And I'm trying to make this in such a way that the 40% are not completely hung out to dry. But this is just what I have to do.
And I'm sorry that this is the situation. And if you want to blame someone blame me. Right. And that's that right. And that's pretty much all you have to say.
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02
Like you don't need the epic speech. And you know, right now we're kind of like, look, I think we're clear that, Hey, personally for us, this did didn't like come across great. And we weren't like, Oh, wow, that was epic.
Um, on the other side, uh, you know, we're just kind of off the cuff coming up with what a, what a better speech might be. But the reality is that in this case, like you basically have a speechwriter, you have a multi-billion, you have a billion dollar company and you have time to think about this. And this is the what what we're reading is his output after thinking about it.
And so that's the part that I thought was a little.
SPEAKER_00
Also, I went to have published it. I went to publish this because it's like, do you take this fuck it, take this on the chain? Like, and by the way, I know I'm criticizing this guy. I don't know him.
He, I, and I will tell us to, I'll say this to his face and I'm sure he's actually a good, good dude. This is just a big miss. But, uh, I would say like, dude, you got to take this one on the chain and just like, this is a loss.
And, and say, be a man and say what you want to say to your people, which, uh, that's your fault. That's wonderful. I wouldn't publish this.
SPEAKER_02
I didn't understand that. And also, um, I'm not sure, I'm not sure what the, what the sort of upside of was, of that was now on the other hand, I think they did some things great, right? So like the actual actions that they were taking for people, I thought were great. They're like, look, we're going to extend the Cobra health insurance till the end of the year because health insurance is super important, especially right now.
And so they didn't have to do that, but they did. Uh, they removed people's cliff and they invested their shares. They didn't have to do that, but they did.
Um, you know, they, uh, they give them, I think a bit of severance, didn't have to do that, but they did. And then they have this sort of alumni network where they're trying to help people get jobs. Cool. I like all of that. Like I liked all of that action.
I just didn't like the preamble and I didn't like the sort of pat on Patrick seemed a little bit like pat me on the back, please. Can I show you my leadership during this adverse time? So you could like, tell me I did a good job. And that's the part I didn't like.
I liked a lot of the action. And of course, and I don't like you. I don't know this guy.
So, you know, this is not no, no personal thing against them.
SPEAKER_00
I've, I've, I have friends who work with them and I've heard a lot of positive stuff. Um, I just think that like, and I, I, I value, I applaud Carter for raising this money and going big and trying to make something happen. And I applaud them from over, for over hiring in hopes of like it working.
Like I, I applaud the risk taking and I want people who are listening that just because Sean and I are criticizing this guy, you got to take risks still and you got to try this big shit and it's not going to work all the time. Good. I mean, not good, but like whatever, that's just, you got to, it's comes with the territory. And I just wish you would have took it on the chin a little bit more.
Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_02
I got another, I got one more topic that's on a more positive note. Okay. So, um, I got to wash it. I feel like I got to have had some hatred spilled on me there.
I got to wash that off. Um, so this is, yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, Sean, you and I typically are, I'm rarely a hater. Exactly. So we're rarely haters.
So I, and I, yeah. So I want to go and this by saying, I hope these guys crush it. I hope they do wonderful.
I believe I think they actually will. Um, I just think that this one move was a stupid move and probably a very long and positive journey. Right.
SPEAKER_02
Um, and, and look, you know, there's a big difference of, of, uh, criticizing a person versus criticizing an action or criticizing, uh, you know, something that was done. And this is definitely like, just didn't like the message, not the, don't know, don't even know the messenger.
SPEAKER_00
Um, can we just say, by the way, that a lot of people, um, in me, uh, like in who have these podcasts and newsletters and they're all fucking haters of the people they're covering. Right.
SPEAKER_02
Is that not the craziest thing ever? Well, I think it's like, um, it's like a fair trade. Uh, so, so, so there's a guy, uh, Eric Weinstein. Have you heard this guy's podcast? It's called the portal.
Smart guy. I don't know too much about him. He runs like Peter Teals, uh, fund.
And so he's been talking about this concept lately. That's called K-Fabe. No. Okay. So he's like, Hey, there's this wrestling term called K-Fabe, K-A-Y-F-A-B-E. And he's like, okay, K-Fabe is, is like, you know, in wrestling, it's basically wrestling is a fake fight, right? WWE, it's like a prearranged sort of agreed upon fake fight where I'm the hero and you're the heel or I'm the good and you're the bad, whatever.
And, um, and it's like the dialogue is sort of an agreed fight, um, for, for both of our betterment. Like the more we feud, the more popular we both become. And, um, the fight itself, like, okay, we agree, we sort of agree to do this.
And so he talks about how this happens in the real world too. Like right now I see this whenever Trump goes and does his briefing. And then there's that one guy from CNN, Jim Alcosta, I think is his name.
And yeah, always there. And he Trump's like, okay, yeah, you're next. And then he asks his question and Trump like rips him.
And then that becomes like the seven minute YouTube clip and CNN talks about it all day. And, um, like, you know, on one hand it's like, why doesn't Trump just kick this guy out or like, you know, remove, revoke his press, you know, credentials here. On the other hand, why doesn't this other guy, you know, either, you know, fight back or start, uh, or like take some other action every day.
The same sort of thing plays out. And I think in reality it serves them both extremely well where, uh, CNN gets awesome content that people want to watch because it's juicy to see the president fight with somebody. And Trump also loves the attention on the left, on the right, good and bad.
And then he drums it up as, dude, those liberals are always trying to say this. And then the right supports him more because he has an enemy that's attacking him. Right. And so there's like this dance that they're doing. Um, so I get that intentionally.
SPEAKER_00
I get that, but here's what I don't get. So I'll give you a very specific example. This pissed me off so much.
There's this woman named Natasha T to, to, I forget what her Natasha to Natasha to, I don't know how to pronounce her last name, but I forget it though. It's like, uh, anyway, she was a blogger for Valley Wag, which Valley Wag was pretty funny and all, but they took it too far. All they did was make fun of Silicon Valley.
Um, and then she worked at Buzzfeed and then Wired Magazine and now she's at Washington Post and she had this article that says Silicon Valley now deems luxury housing an essential, an essential good or whatever, uh, good. And so people are still building multimillion dollar condos. And in the first fucking line of the article, it says the mayor has deemed luxury housing as well as all other types of housing, including, including housing projects and this other stuff as essential.
And it was in the technology section of the Washington post. Oh yeah. Here's Natasha to Tiku.
Tiku TIKU and I've met her before and, uh, and I was like, what the fuck? That's like saying, like, I'm going to write an article in tech crunch and be like, can you believe this? Billionaires are able to buy $1 million cars. And then in the article and be like, but also anyone can buy any car, including a $1,000 Mazda, including a $20,000 Honda Civic, including a $50,000 Mercedes. Right. It's like, what? And then why is it in the tech section of Washington post? Oh my God, this pisses me off. And so I looked this woman up and she's very educated.
She went to, uh, NYU and then like Columbia Journalism or like, uh, just like Ivy League, just really smart woman. And I'm like, why would you study for eight years or however long it took and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars when you're just going to do this? Hate. You're just going to hate the people who you write about.
Right. I don't understand it. Why not just go and write about something that like you want to sell? Of course, they'll say, we don't hate them.
SPEAKER_02
We're just, you know, we're reporting on that. We're reporting the stories. We don't, we don't hate them.
So there was a really interesting thing, uh, uh, that happened recently where before coronavirus, um, there's this guy, Boloji, who's on Twitter. Pretty popular guy. He was at Andreessen Horowitz and a bunch of stuff.
He was at Coinbase and things like that. So he's kind of one of those like on the forefront of things, guys. So back in January, he showed up at a crypto meetup and he was wearing gloves and a mask and this was January when nobody in the U.
S. was really worried about this and everyone's kind of laughing like, what are you doing? He's like, well, you know, I think that there's a, you know, you know, maybe small probability, but that this coronavirus thing that's happening in Wuhan is going to be like a major, you know, global pandemic. And people are like, okay, biology.
All right. Thanks. And so this writer came out and wrote us to do a box.
The box, a recode writer. Yeah. So a recode writer.
SPEAKER_00
A recode. Oh my God. This is inferior.
SPEAKER_02
So the quick story here is the recode writer reaches out to apology and says, like, Hey, I want to get your comment on a story we're doing about, you know, Silicon Valley's reaction to the coronavirus. This was again, early on. And he was like, yeah, I'm not interested.
Why don't you report on like, who cares about Silicon Valley's? What the Silicon Valley elite think about coronavirus? Like you should report on the state of testing, the state of the you know, the spread of the virus and all these other like kind of like important facts that should be reported on.
SPEAKER_00
And he tweeted out that he did that.
SPEAKER_02
He screen shot at her DM and tweeted it. And then all the journalists were like, dude, she was just asking for comment. Why are you putting on blast? This is why people hate Silicon Valley.
And he was like, no, no, no, no, I know this game. And he, so he talked about this. He's like, this is a strategy called befriend and betray where the journalist comes to you and says, Hey, biology, you're an expert.
I would love to get your take on this thing. And all they're trying to do is write the story and what the headline of the story came out with something along the lines of like, you know, why Silicon Valley's not doing handshakes anymore. And it was like laughing at Silicon Valley, sort of for overreacting to the coronavirus.
This was early on before all the lockdown and stuff.
SPEAKER_00
And he said, he goes, I promise you the headlines could have been Silicon Valley nerds refuse to shake hands. And that's pretty much what it was.
SPEAKER_02
Now the body of the article I went back and read it was actually, you know, somewhat fair. It was just reporting what was going on, how, you know, whatever. But he was right about the headline and headlines often written not by the journalist, but by the editor because the editor needs to drive clicks, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, so this is a pretty interesting feud. If you want to hear more of the Jason Callaghanis did a podcast with biology that I thought was pretty awesome. So I can't, I can't stand that.
SPEAKER_00
Particularly given like me, like people always like, oh, you're a tech bro. And the like, a lot of some journalists will say that. I'm like, you work at Vox.
If I'm tech, so are you. Right. Like, what does that mean? Like, like I had a journalist from the New York Times come and interview me. She's like, so what are you and you're like tech bro, friend? Yeah, I was going to ask you to do this.
SPEAKER_02
So tell the story of your New York time story. This is an amazing story you've told me before.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. So first of all, like I, I made sure I recorded it in a hit because I knew, I knew that this person was going to take me out of. So what was the context?
SPEAKER_02
You went to New York or how did it go down?
SPEAKER_00
No, she came here. She goes, Hey, you seem like an insider. I want to come and learn all the things that people are going to are talking about.
You're trying to betray and yeah. And I go, okay, fine, come. I know what you're doing.
Come on. And, uh, but maybe it could be positive. Like maybe we'll become like we can exchange cool information.
Maybe you'll write something positive about me. Maybe I'll just whatever and maybe it'll turn out good. And she comes, she goes, can I record this? I go, yeah, I'm going to record it too.
And, uh, and, uh, because I didn't want a thing to be taken out of context. And she goes, so like you're like a tech bro. Like what do you and your tech friends talk about in your bro friends? And I was like, first of all, why are you calling me a bro? Like what are you and your tech chick friends? Like, why would you ever say that to me? You don't know me.
And that's just rude to say. Anyway. And I, and she, I go, well, I don't know.
You, I go, you're a tech. You tell me, she goes, no, I work at New York times. I was like, you guys just announced that most of your revenue comes from digital.
Like you're a, why am I tech and you're not tech? Like you are tech and she was, well, it's just different. I was like, well, you tell me what you, you, you and your tech friends talk about. And she goes, well, we're not, whatever.
She like, try to dismiss it. I was, I was like, and anyway, I go, well, we talk about, uh, just like, you know, sports and I was like, I don't know. We just talk about normal stuff, like a cool diet, so they're like cool food and like all types of weird stuff.
And, uh, it was just so odd. She was just so trying to like, it was so much like an other, like I'm an other from you and I'm like, well, I don't, I don't understand this, this, this, this, uh, dichotomy here. Like we are actually in the same industry.
I work in publishing. So do you, uh, we both make both our most of our money from the internet. Uh, like, why are you calling me this tech bro? I, you don't even know me and she's like, what, you don't listen to Joe Rogan.
Do you, I'm like, well, yeah, I do. I let's do a lot of cool stuff. I, uh, I read, and this is true.
Every morning I go to CNN and then I go to Fox news and then I go to HuffPo and then I go to Bright Park because those are all like, uh, kind of the opposites. I read all types of stuff. I like Joe Rogan.
I like Oprah. I do all types of stuff. Why are you trying to like set me up for this Gotcha moment? And it was horrible.
I hated it. Yeah. And so to sum this up, the headline, by the way, we have it. Multi-million dollar mansions, high rise waterfront condos and a stately Victorian all deemed quote essential under public health orders in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
That was the headline. Right. And then in the first paragraph, it said, it said, it resaved the headline and then added as well as housing projects and low income housing all deemed essential. Right. Uh, it's crazy. Oh my God, I can't stand it.
I'm like, why would you cover this?
SPEAKER_02
Uh, when we bought Bebo back, so we had bought Bebo for a million dollars out of an auction and, um, we were going to relaunch it as something. And so nobody knew that we had bought it back. It was like done in a courtroom.
It was like kind of on the low. And, um, there was a new reporter and we're, you know, we were kind of friendly, I guess we had friends of friends that were mutual. And so I was like, okay, hey, um, you know, I want to give you a scoop and, you know, on the embargo and like come do an interview and whatever.
So she was like, great, comes over, doesn't interview, explain the whole thing. We talk about what we're doing, blah, blah, blah. Next day, uh, the article comes out and this is the person we gave the scoop to.
It could have given it to anyone. Next day article comes out headline was remember Bebo. Yeah, that Bebo was like, it was something like, um, you know, uh, remember Bebo? Yeah, it's dead, but maybe, you know, it was like something like Bebo is dead.
Remember Bebo literally was like, lol was like in the headline. It was like making fun of it. And then the whole article was our conversation.
We talked about it was like legit. So I texted her, I was like, what the fuck? Uh, what is this headline? And she was like, I'm sorry, like I don't get to do the headlines. My editor does the headlines and he just like, you know, he's going to do what's going to drive the most clicks.
And like he decided the thing that would drive the most clicks is, um, talking shit about the buyback. I'm like, yeah, right. Like it's like buying my space back and trying to relaunch it.
And so I was like, you know, that's, that's fair. But, um, wow, what a shitty move to pull when you're sort of given a embargo. You, and you have all these other elements of the story that you could have like used as the lead.
SPEAKER_00
Sean, I, but I don't blame, I don't blame her or him because like, um, I think that if you, just because you gave her an embargo, like she should be still say the truth and say her opinion, like, and she shouldn't hold back. If she thinks you're stupid and what you're doing is stupid, she, just because you gave her that, she's saying that's true.
SPEAKER_02
The two things that I thought were weird were, uh, number one, the headline and the story were so disconnected. The story was what she actually thought and the content of our interview,
SPEAKER_00
which was positive. That's for, that's for us.
SPEAKER_02
And then the headline was just something completely different that was written by a completely different person and just shows kind of like the way the inside of those organizations work. The second thing I thought was just kind of whack was like, um, no heads up. Like there's a sort of a human connection to this too.
Right. Like if I, uh, done you a favor by giving you an exclusive piece of news, even if you're going to write something that you know, I'm not going to like when you're like, lol, this thing is dead. Yeah, right.
It's not going to come back. Then, um, you know, to surprise the person, I think is an unnecessary extra slap versus like, oh, I just, I so disagree with you.
SPEAKER_00
I totally agree with your first point, but I don't agree with your second point, which is, um, if I'm going to say something negative about you, I'm not going to give you a heads up. I'm just going to say it, but that's dumb dumb business, right?
SPEAKER_02
You, you cut yourself out then going forward, right? Like we had a bunch of other stories that came out in the coming years. And guess who like never got a word, right? Her, she just cut herself out for no reason. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I think it's a, it's definitely, it's a hard thing to balance. And this is why some people, like for example, if someone says that they're a conservative news site, well, the reason, and one of the reasons why they probably could keep giving conservative people a good look is so they can get positive. They can, yeah.
So it's definitely hard, but me personally, if you, if like, if someone comes on this podcast and they go, like, I don't, like, will you make me look good? I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm not going to make you look good. I'm not going to make you look bad.
Like we'll talk. And if I think you say something dumb, I'm going to just going to tell you that's stupid. Right. Like I'm not. So I, I, I think that, um, I think that if I agree with that game, I've got to suffer the, the, both the positive and the negative consequences.
And the positive consequences is maybe they're going to think I'm great and they'll tell the truth. And also as a quote, journalists or I don't know what you want to call me or both of us, we're going to like find the truth. But also if someone thinks that about us and it's negative, we got to live it by that.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I don't mind getting negative press. I did mind the sort of dissonance and also, uh, I don't know.
Like I just think like it is again, bad business for that person because you burn your own bridge. Whereas if you're like, Hey, look, um, like just want to let you know, like the article is going to talk about this and it's going to mention this. Right. It's going to be, there's going to be some negative parts, parts which were skeptical about and there's these cool, which could have kept that relationship. Didn't lost a relationship that like, maybe it affected them.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Maybe telling you ahead of time is going to be negative is not bad. But like, if I think that what you say is bullshit, I'm going to say it no matter what. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
That nobody wants the other side. Right. Otherwise nobody will read the shit if you're not telling it like it is. If you're not telling your actual opinion, then the, you know, the whole ecosystem doesn't work.
But all right. Anyways, I think we have any other ones we want to talk about? You have one?
SPEAKER_00
I know we were, well, I was going to say, didn't someone come on the show and I was like, I'm going to tell this person. I think there's that, that, that, what they're doing is really stupid and it's definitely awkward. What did that happen? Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_02
I don't remember that. No.
SPEAKER_02
I think Henry was, oh, I know what it was. It was the, the woman from Everly. Well, I think she came on with the, the tests and.
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I know. I was like, I think nutritional testing is bullshit. Right. And you said it straight to her face and then she kind of answered you. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back.
I'm trying to say like, literally, I don't even remember. Like, did we call her out?
SPEAKER_02
No, no, no, you literally said it to her. I kind of, I kind of stirred the pot. I was like, Sam, why don't you tell her what you think about this? So then you like, dude, you told her, tell her what you were saying.
Like, you know, just go ahead and say it. Yeah, definitely set it up.
SPEAKER_00
But it's definitely awkward. Like before and after you're like, I'm being nice to put like, I'm definitely going to roast you right now. It's super awkward.
But I think if you do it a certain way, it's not that bad. It's like, cause, and they should understand. Okay. One last thing. Dude, we, we, we totally went off the rails here.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02
Well, last thing, but yeah, we did go off the rails. This podcast was about like beekeeping and like all kinds of other shit, but whatever. So I'm going to take my hat off.
And so I clearly need a haircut. My friend Greg launched this company or not, it's not a company. He just created a website called youprobablyneedahaircut.
com. And it basically surfing quickly off the, the quarantine stuff where people are locked at home, everyone's hair is growing out. Nobody can go get a haircut.
You shaved a Mohawk. What he's doing is he's barbers who are also out of work. They're at home.
They can do a zoom consultation and basically help you cut your own hair. And so, uh, if you need a haircut, go to youprobablyneedahaircut.
SPEAKER_00
Your hair looks good. Did you cut it? No, I'm going to cut it.
SPEAKER_02
Dude, it's awful. It's, yeah, it looks good right now. I agree.
Actually, it does look good now, but I looked at it before this hat was on it and it looked awful. So I'm going to go cut my hair.
SPEAKER_00
So I've, I've, I've been cutting my own hair for 10 years now. I have, I've had the clippers. I can tell you all about, I know how to do a fade.
The other day I did shave it completely bald because I, How do you do the back? You know, my, um, Sarah, my wife will help me, but for years I would do it on my own and admittedly it probably didn't look great, but I watched videos on how to like give a fade. Right. And I, it's, it's not that hard, but, uh, I've been doing it for years just because for a long time I was poor and I didn't want to pay money, but now I do it because I'm like, Oh, I don't want to like drive there.
SPEAKER_02
I don't want to go. And plus they always make me take my headphones out and I'm like, well, now I'm bored. Like you don't understand.
I constantly have information going in through my eyes or my ears and now you're making me just sit here like this sucks.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. And also I just don't want to talk to them. Oh, I don't want to like so.
So what I do is I close my eyes and that's like a sign for not, not talk, but I, but I wish that there was like an app like for out of certain barbers was like click, like do not talk to me or talk to me because like for weird, like people like me, I'm like, I'm just super, I don't like the confrontation. I just don't want to, I don't want to talk. Just leave me alone.
I'm like that. I'm like that.
SPEAKER_00
I'm fucking grocery stores. You know, Jack, Jack Smith, he, he we're like the same way we go to grocery stores and I'm like, if I don't see what I don't want to, if I don't see what I want to buy, even though they probably have it, but in different sections, I just won't fucking buy it. I just won't buy it instead of ask or if I'm with Sarah, I'd be like, Sarah, we go ask for this.
I like, I don't even want to talk to anyone. Right.
SPEAKER_00
It's all I think a lot of people are like that.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Did they add this into Uber where you could get in and be like, yo, let's not, let's not do that thing where we talk.
SPEAKER_00
Yes. Yes. And it's awesome. I just don't, I'm just like uncomfortable and I don't want to fucking do it.
But more barbers, you know, the last thing that know what they need at barbers is they just need like six different haircuts for men and you just feel like, give me the four.
SPEAKER_02
But they do have that.
SPEAKER_00
I feel like a lot of, a lot don't, and you just say the same thing, like short on the side, a little bit off the time, like everyone says the same thing. It's like, it's like, dude, just like show me a picture of like five people and I'll just point. Right. A lot of barbers don't have that.
SPEAKER_02
Or dude, it could be unspoken because everybody just wants short on the side, a little less short on top, but shorter than it is currently. And you should only have to say anything if you want some other shit like, oh, I'm going for this other look. I want to do a look.
Okay. Then that's on me to tell you about the look. But if not, I just want to sit down.
No words. Just do the short on the sides, a little short on top.
SPEAKER_00
Same. Just like, give me like three options, like completely bald. Like, just whatever the three are, and I'll just point at one of them.
And by the way, just don't talk to me unless I initiate conversation.
SPEAKER_02
And do my eyebrows because they're getting a little long. I got long eyebrows. Everyone knows that.
Don't make me ask you. Well, that's the number. Don't make me ask you.
That's the number. That's the number four.
SPEAKER_00
And also they say like, do you want your, you want the back of your neck rounded or square? And I'm like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00
I don't care. Like I don't see it. You, you'd be the judge.
SPEAKER_02
Exactly. And I, I, one time I asked him, I was like, what's the deal with this question? Because I don't know. And like, is there a difference? What's the deal? And then someone told me, actually, one of the barbers actually taught me, they were like, look, if you do square, when it starts to grow back out, it's going to look shitty.
So it looked good initially, but then it looks, it'll look obviously not square after it starts to grow out. He's like, do the round because then even as it grows back, it's like blends in. It's not so bad.
SPEAKER_00
That's awesome. Dude, this sounds like a Larry David episode. Like a, like, so what's the round of square? What's the difference? Like, I mean, We try.
We try. Um, so, um, this one went off the rails. I, I, I think people, this is going to hit with some people.
So tweet at me and Sean and let us know if this like,
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, just tweet like, yo, stick to the script. If you want us to not go off the rails as much or just say, go off the rails. If you want us to go off the rails.
SPEAKER_00
Well, the good, the good news is Sean is we don't have to do that much work to research for next Tuesday because we, I actually had some stuff to go over. All our topics are still there. But because we got stuck on journalists and, uh, be keeping and a bunch of stupid bulls.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
I'm mad again about that article from 10 years ago now. I'm like, still pissed. Me too.
SPEAKER_00
I got mad. I'm friends with this. The woman I talked about, I'm friends with her on Facebook and I like call her out and, uh, it never fucking wins when I argue with people.
I'm going to go decompress. I end up looking like I look like an asshole and it just doesn't work and I do it all the time. All right, man.
I'll talk to you later.