Semafor's Ben Smith on the Warner-Netflix deal, AI's political backlash, and how trust became media's core problem

engineering team. Well, without further ado, we have Ben Smith from Semaphore joining. He's in the re waiting room. Ben Smith, good to finally have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

It's good to finally be on.

Yes.

Nice to be here.

Well, we were confused. [clears throat] We were confused because early early in the show about a year ago, you broke a story about a a group chat, Chattam House, and we were very confused because we assumed that Ben Smith was a pseudonym because it sounds like the name that goes on every kid's fake ID if you don't want someone to know who you are. You make up a name. John Doe, Ben Smith. This is just a name that you pull off the shelf, but it is in fact your real name. Correct.

Wow, that's a really insightful observation. [laughter] But yes, it is my real name. Fantastic.

Uh, well, maybe I should have used a pseudonym. A lot of people were mad about that.

They were they were upset about that, but I thought it was an I thought it was an insightful piece. I thought it was a a fun little peak behind the curtain of the Chattam House. But anyway, uh, we are here to talk about the Warner Brothers Discovery News. Uh, first, can you c can you actually uh introduce yourself since it's the first time on the show? Uh, would love to get up to speed on the a little bit of the semaphore journey.

Yeah, sure. Sure. I mean, I've been a political and media reporter for my whole career. Was at Politico when we founded that and then ran BuzzFeed News for eight years. Oh, yeah.

Was media columnist for the New York Times. And so, I've had like a real front row seat on how insane the media is in in all sorts of ways. But, but and also how frustrating it is for consumers right now in particular, how overwhelmed people feel and how hard it is to figure out who to trust. And that at se4 that's was sort of the core impulse was to try to create a platform that thinks a lot about just sort of how you make yourself trustworthy by being really straightforward and transparent and then how you just try to cope with the fact that everybody's overwhelmed by incoming and there are great new outlets popping up all the time that you want to be across and there are garbage all over the place that you want to avoid and how do you help an audience and really like the most the people who are most driven insane by this are the most sophisticated consumers. like how do you help people navigate this and that

well a big big problem right now part of the chaos is on X specifically there's like thousands of accounts that are like headline accounts right they're just acting they all they do is post headlines they do breaking just in all this stuff and so now there's a whole new crop of accounts that are purely fake news but they use the same formatting and so now I just never I don't some of the stuff I'm like I I'll I do think it's been it's it's put media in an interesting position Because if in some ways if you're like legacy media, you know, the think newspapers, cable networks, things like that seem to have uh their durable edge is they have like monopolized the truth. Like I I I still of course they put out fake stuff now and then by accident or they just get the reporting wrong and they'll issue a correction. But it still seems like a lot of headlines happen online and I'm just like I'll wait till an account from a company that is has existed for more than like 10 years post it because until then I can't really verify it.

Yeah. I mean Axe, you know, Axe was this incredible machine I thought for a long time for just figuring out like what is going on in the world and had lots of other problems and we got very politicized and you could have people, you know, tell you to kill yourself all day and stuff like that. But like it was a decent place to know like what is happening and it definitely kind of rewired my brain. I feel like I now there's nowhere and honestly to some degree this is what we're trying to do in our newsletters like there's not somewhere you can log on and just be like what is happening in the world.

Interesting.

And and be confident that you're getting an accurate read on that.

Yeah. Do you think there's a difference between like the the the opinion and the factf finding side? I feel like with a lot of the legacy media outlets, um, people maybe still believe that like that's a good source of truth. That's a good source of facts, but they might not com they might not, uh, agree with like the conclusions or the contextualization or the opinions that are wrapped around those facts. But most people still have faith in the traditional media actually following like factf finding guidance. But there at the same time there has been an immense amount of pressure uh may maybe on the back of opi people's disagreements about their opinion section that has led to the questioning of their factf finding sections. Yeah, I think this is like truest in coverage of technology actually. Like you guys feel it most intensely because there's been this to me at this point like kind of boring and repetitive war between journalists who particularly post Trump saw everything bad they thought was happening in America as the fault of Meta and then on the other hand technologists who felt that they were like just there trying to build companies and being persecuted by these psychotic journalists. And um I don't know but like I having been part of that on on the journalism side like there's a lot of truth to both sides of that. Yeah.

Um

but I do think that we're also in a world where consumers like are just not going to take a single view a single perspective. Don't want that. Want diverse perspectives. And so like just literally what we do at some is we like break the stories up into here are the facts and here's the journalist's opinion which is transparently displayed and here's somebody else's opinion instead of in the traditional way trying to kind of weave those together.

Yeah. And I think people would rather disagree with you o openly and disagree with your analysis than kind of feel like you're sneaking it in.

Yeah. No, that's a good

sense.

Um, how have you been processing the the the Warner Brothers story? Like how long have you been covering this? Have you been covering Zazlov like the entire time? Because the there's been there's been like the the writing on the wall that like this was being packaged for years. Correct.

Yes. I mean I think that you know I mean this is incredibly I mean Warner is obviously this kind of cursed company that has been acquired and sold and the each acquirer regrets the whole thing you know Warner

the brothers were never split up though

the [laughter] brothers but it is also the you know it's the great Hollywood studio right um and

and and when Zazlo with this sort of unbelievably audacious acquisition of this Hollywood gem by this kind of garbage reality TV cable conglomerate for it of discovery. You know, Dr. Pimple Popper was buying HBO was this incredible bit of, you know, cable um business magic and financial engineering and that then just immediately destroyed enormous amounts of value and the stock [clears throat] went down to like what seven or eight dollars.

Um

I mean, as a pure financial story, it's amazing, right? Like the value destroyed and now created in this bidding war that that Zas Love has created. Um, but [clears throat] also obviously a story about movies and politics and power and all the other stuff wrapped up in it.

Yeah. Did you uh did you think that the bidding war was fake or that were you expecting the bidding war to materialize in a way that uh that that felt real? We

Yeah, we were talking with a friend who we tr who who uh has had an incredible career in media who I won't name, but he was like, I don't think there's going to be I don't think there's a war here. I think I think a deal will get done, but I think this uh there's only one person who's a real or or one group here that's a that's a legitimate buyer. This was again

maybe six weeks ago at this point. Uh certainly hasn't played out that way.

I would have said exactly the same thing. I think Netflix

did either like a very convincing head fake or changed their mind and I think no one thought they at least I didn't think they would seriously bid. I thought, you know, the the um Warner Media is both a bunch of interesting but like quite challenging to operate cable businesses. CNN being like the most culturally important and then

and then and then a studio a movie studio and and there were a lot of people who really wanted the movie studios. As was going to, you know, spin out the cable assets and then sell the movie studio and that seemed on track. And so when Ellison came in and just said, "I'll take the whole thing." Yeah. Did I I definitely assumed like no one else really wants that. and and and he's and Ellison isn't really an he's sort of a non-economic actor here. He's a you know fundamentally like a kid who wants to buy a movie studio and so how do you how do you bid against that?

Yeah.

The history of the movies is being bought by people whose motives aren't economic.

Yeah. Kind of like sports themes, right?

Yeah. Totally.

How do you think about

That's a great analogy.

Uh how do you think about this from Netflix's perspective? Um, like obviously as a tech company, Netflix has been like such an incredibly performing stock became so big. Was at one point Fang, which was basically Mag7 uh before there was Mag 7. Uh, but from my perspective, I've been a subscriber of Netflix forever. I I don't really see myself ever turning, but I just there's only a few things that have really broken through. Like I know Squid Game, I know Stranger Things, there's like a few moments and it's hard for me to picture the staying power the there's not as much FOMO TV as I look over the last decade of my, you know, entertainment watching career. It's like, oh, like I couldn't have missed Game of Thrones. I couldn't have missed Succession. There's like all these important moments that only came from HBO. They only came from Warner properties. And so from my perspective, maybe it's expensive, but it felt like uh this was a way to backfill some really like legacy assets that you just can't create overnight for no amount of money because, you know, it just takes 50 years to create Porky Pig. I guess

that's a [laughter] that's an amazing assertion. Um yeah, but I think you're Yeah, you're basically totally right. There's something about the staying power and the and the cult the even just sort of like internal creative culture at HBO that has had this string of high impact things and then also write a library that includes Harry Potter that includes like North by Northwest Three Days the Condor Lord of but like just you know decades and decades of amazing TV and cinema Columbbo I think is in there right like that that sometimes are in there Rambo there there's

sometimes you want to watch that and sometimes you want to watch Yeah. And so there's a logic to there's a logic to that. Netflix already also spends I think hundreds of millions of dollars licensing stuff from Warner

and so there's some logic to I mean there's there's some you know some actual synergies there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Uh does cable end up with does the cable business end up with Paramount Sky Dance either way Netflix doesn't want it. Clearly Ellison the Ellison's really would like the whole the whole thing.

Yeah. I was sort of confused. But if the cable business just stays out in the ether, what what is it just going to just pick that up?

Bunch of debt. Do they not do they do they really only care about uh what's your read?

So, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think my the basic thing that people would always say at at at Paramount is CBS News is 5% of the company, 5% of the revenue, and 80% of the headaches. And the way in which the news business has gotten swept up into this is that that's what Donald Trump cares most about. I mean, he also wants a remake of Rush Hour 4, by the way. That was a scoop one of my colleagues had recently, so he doesn't

Oh, 100%. He has It's been confirmed. He told Larry Ellison,

that's crazy.

I want I want Rush Hour four. There's only been three. I want four. Jackie Chan's like 71, so it's challenging. They like these days they shoot his fight scenes like in the dark. But um

but no, that's Brett Ratner is making that movie because Donald Trump wants it. And but but mostly what Donald Trump wants is favorable coverage of Donald Trump. And by the way, however favorable it is, however favorable you're making it, that is not favorable enough. He wants it more favorable than that.

As the Ellison are now finding, like they've I think softened CBS's approach a bit. And all Donald Trump is going to do is yell at them about negative coverage of Donald Trump. So it's like a bit of a slippery slope there. And also a disturbing thing that the president is, you know, interfering in regulatory matters to affect. president get a does the president get a report every day of like here's the different takes because I'm assuming he's watching Fox

and I'm assuming he's dailying Fox so does he getting like a deep research report do you think he's running like a query in in chat GBT it's like tell me

he's watching a lot of TV he's he's got a bunch of screens up he's switching between them and then he has an aid who has an iPad who brings him things that are of particular significance

sure that he then watch

something happens on a different screen you can you can see

yeah he's he's watching a lot of television Don't worry.

In any case, the CNN the CNN part of this and I don't I think the Alison do care about news particularly. They're very very pro-Israel and they were disturbed. They felt CNN got CBS got too anti-Israel. Um but and I think they would like I I do think they are sort of ambitious about CNN and and there's always been a thought that CBS and CNN would make a good combination, but the driving force here is the movie business and the news business is implicated as a way to make Donald Trump happy.

Yeah. And is that just uh David Ellison's like passion for movies? I mean he did I think something that's getting lost here is like he founded a movie studio 20 years ago like he's not like new. This isn't like a pet project that he picked up today because Oracle stock popped. Like this is this has been his life's work. Now he's had you know a massive advantage with his dad. But like it's not like he's was he it's not like he was doing a basketball thing last month and now he's doing movies. He's been doing movies the whole time.

Yeah. No, totally. And in fact, like lots of rich people dabble in the studio business. And he's built something totally real and made a lot of movies. We've all seen Top Gun. I mean, like, you know, like really like big stuff and and Sky Dance has been like a successful important part of Hollywood. And he's also I think he importantly kind of like learned a lot. Like he's not a newcomer to this weird business.

Totally. Yeah. What What did you read into the text message? He says uh he says you know he he said he sends this message to Netflix to say uh we you know we had dinner and we you know you will find out that we are who we were at that dinner. Um if he's buying the company is that is that you know is that setting the expectation that they'll be continuing to work together for 5 years 10 years or is it just like in the course of this sale process we'll be good people?

I mean I have no idea what that text message was. It was sent I think hours after his lawyers had sent like some kind of flaming letter to the board saying you guys are screwing us and aren't playing you know and are refusing and aren't negotiating on in good faith and giving it a sweetheart teal to Netflix and then sent a kind of to me like kind of hapless and plaintiff message to Zaz love saying really I love you. Um

good cop bad cop is a classic strategy.

Yeah

I guess [laughter] so.

Good cop bad cop. Um, what do you think are some of the uh the like the the the outsider interpretation of the deal? A lot of people are are worried about, you know, just Warner Brothers getting sold. It feels like some people are anti- Warner Brothers getting sold to anyone because they're like, no matter where it goes, they're going to cut jobs or they're going to pull back from uh from movie theaters. Um, how how are you interpreting? And I and I do think the people that are like, "Oh, well, you probably subscribe to Max and Netflix and you'll be able to cut one of them." Yeah.

But I just don't buy that Netflix wouldn't just They might give you like a sweetheart deal for a couple years until everyone forgets and then it's like, "Hey, we have like by far the best portfolio of content in the world and we're

you might even call it a bundle.

We can we're bundle maxing. We're back back to the bundle." And and as a consumer, I am annoyed enough at having different accounts and and boopping around. I' I'd be happy for just one. I'd be happy for rebundling.

Uh but I I just don't buy that it's like such like a a win for consumers and even in the medium term and probably not at all in the long run.

You know, I don't know if it's not a win for consumers because that thing you said like it's so annoying. This landscape is so annoying for consumers. You realize, "Oh my god, I signed up for MGM Plus two months ago to watch something and it's still billing me." And everybody is living in this world of like

two or three streamers you feel like you have to have three or four others that you forgot you signed up for.

And and it's not a tenable situation. And and I think that is that that kind of consumer push

is pretty real and is the kind of like the obvious like in the media is a boring straightforward business. like trading credit default swaps here like and I think that just obvious to have the number the the notion that you solve it by basically having the number one and number two merge with each other

is like is not the obvious solution to that I think and I totally agree with you obviously means prices grow up I mean the people who are most freaked out though are the sellers right are the issue of like is this a monopsiny or like the you know the movie makers the actors is going to take a haircut because there's only one buyer left and they're very and Hollywood is obviously very concerned about that.

Yeah. If you have one buyer, you have you're a price taker.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. It's funny. I was uh on on the consumer side. Uh I agree with you. I was looking for uh posts about the deal potentially being a monopoly. And I found multiple posts that were like, "I miss when Netflix was a monopoly and they had everything in one place. Now I have to [snorts] go to six different streamers." And I was like, "That's funny." Um but yes on on the buyer side that is obviously more of the the risk. I I wonder how are you interpreting the rest of the big tech companies playing in um in Hollywood right now because it feels like Apple has a lot of money to spend on buying media assets and buying movies and producing stuff. Amazon as well. Who knows? Maybe Mark Zuckerberg buys the rights to UFC for VR then eventually starts getting into movies. It feels like there's a lot of money chasing media generally. Do you think that we're going to see like like more of like a pullback from the other big tech companies or do you think they'll go harder than ever? How how are you interpreting the rest of big tech's role in Hollywood changing?

You know, it's a great question. I mean, Amazon and Apple in particular both spend a lot of money. Neither have quite fig built the I mean I would say almost the creative culture that Netflix did manage to and that um and that HBO is really the you know the best at which is kind of willingness to take these cultural risks like it's not a tech business. It is a business of taste and of relationships and of all this stuff that's hard to hard to scale. Um, Apple Apple's made a lot of obviously like wonderful stuff that has some cultural impact, but they're also incredibly careful about their own brand

in a way that I think is ultimately like makes it really hard to do to do the things that really cut through culturally.

I talked to a filmmaker years ago right as Apple TV was getting spun up and Apple was starting to take it more seriously and he said like, "No way. It's not going to work because Hollywood is a hits driven business. It's a venture capital style business. You have a lot of Fminus movies for that one A+ movie. It's all about this high risk. And Apple does not like having, you know, egg on their face for a bad result. And so Apple everything has to be an A minus level basically to get out the door. And if you have that if you have that brought to uh to to to Hollywood like he was saying like that wasn't really the culturally thing. Then I think what he was missing was the fact that Apple probably wants to distract from the services monopoly and so there's a whole bunch there's a whole extra incentive to continue saying like what what app store revenue what are you talking about when we say services we mean Ted Lasso like [laughter] we you know we have this so I don't I don't know if you buy that Brad Pitt but I I've always enjoy I've enjoyed that conspiracy theory uh cropping up over this year just this idea Apple but you know how how have you interpreted that

I love I love the idea that movies are venture capital except without the returns.

Yeah.

Um it's like you get the risk but you don't get the outsiz but like at best you don't get the outsized returns.

Yeah. Maybe that'll be Roloff Bo's next business. [laughter]

Yeah.

He wanted he wanted venture capital um return free risk

but you know Yeah. And I mean the risk also we actually mentioned Ted Lasso like for instance one thing that cannot that you will never see in an Apple TV production is anybody throwing or damaging an iPhone.

Yeah.

Like there's just like it's just like you're living in their world and there's smooth edges to it. Um

the smooth edges are crazy. I saw this I saw this whole conspiracy theory about how the lighting in Ted Lasso and Severance are both very highkey, very flat, not a lot of contrast, and that that would potentially like prepare you for this metaverse where you're in the Apple Vision Pro because the Apple Vision Pro looks like this and it's all like it's like the Apple brand brought to cinematography within their like media assets and it was like maybe it's just their culture bleeding over there, but also maybe it's something more about like their view on the world and like their their opinions. It was very very interesting. But uh at least the shows are beautiful.

They are beautiful.

The shows are beautiful. I think they're not.

They're just not they're not divisive.

They're not divisive.

Really good good culture, good art is always divisive in some way.

Totally. I mean, even Game of Thrones, I remember like watching season 1 and being like, "Oh, this is this is like maybe going too far. Like this is like can this be on TV?" It's like edgy. It's like it's like there's a lot of like, you know, the the adult content, the violence. like it it definitely pushed boundaries even though it was like you know R-rated I guess it was like aggressive and you just don't expect that from Apple but uh so yeah may maybe you're back to monopsiny if you're selling something that's going to be for mature audiences uh where are you going other than Warner Brothers Discovery Netflix [laughter] you know this this conglomerate

yeah and so I think like Hollywood in some way is very torn because they they really hate Trump and they hate the idea that Trump's friends are jamming this thing through with threats of kind of illicit regulatory pressure and on the other hand they hate Netflix. So it's like a tough

rocking a hard place. Yeah. Rocking rock in a hard place [clears throat] for sure. Um

let's switch gears to something uh they they hate even more which is uh AI.

Yeah.

I'm cur I'm curious like how you guys have been trying to

focus your coverage, how you personally feel about it. if you could snap your fingers and make it disappear, would you? Uh or or do you enjoy it personally? I'm I'm curious like just kind of Oh.

Um

yeah, I'm curious on on your your kind of semaphore's kind of view and how you've even been approaching coverage because our a lot of our coverage is obviously positive. We use AI a lot. We work uh we we get a lot of value from it, but at the same time, we're well aware that most it feels like most of the world at this moment is using it. but even sort of like hate using it uh which has happened quite quickly.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I guess I mostly see it as just the greatest story. Like it's just, you know, it's incredible story right now in of politics, of economics, of of and of technology and, you know, we're just covering it obsessively. Reed Alberg, my our our tech reporter, broke the story two days ago that that Nvidia is going to be selling, you know, allowed to sell H200s to the Chinese. I mean, you know, it's just it's a story that is pulling everything in. you have this, you know, American economy that is limping along except for AI which is driving all the growth. I,

you know, you know, talking to yesterday I interviewed um Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania. It's all he wants to talk about. I mean, it's just a fascinating

political. I mean, I use it and we use it I think probably I bet the way you guys do in like for the most boring stuff. It's like incredible for video production transcription. Yeah. you [clears throat] know, and essentially like I think the way a lot of companies are using it, which is just to take out cost on extremely boring things that you're happy to have software do.

Yeah.

Um but yeah, but I think like yeah, we're mostly thinking about I think the story that I'm obsessing about now is really the the coming political backlash. Like I was just talking to a Republican consultant here in Washington who's essentially shopping for a candidate to lead the anti-I basically sees thinks there's this big lane. And I kind of buy this against JD Vance. Like he's the frontunning Republican nominee and the attack on him will be this guy is a tool of the tech industry. He's a tool of these AI guys who want to take your jobs, poison your children's brains, and build like these weird boxes in your neighborhoods.

And it's just not it's not a popular. It's like not popular. And one of the strange things is that, you know, Trump is just unbelievably pro AI. It's probably the most important decision this administration made is that David Sax really persuaded him. Came in day one. He's with Sam Alman, he's with Elon, like all in for AI, but he didn't campaign on it. He hasn't really like bothered explaining it or selling it at all.

And so I think we're just set up for a huge backlash that you're going to see in the midterms.

Yeah, it's a fascinating story. I mean, I agree with you about AI touching just like everything. You can look at it from what is it doing to your kids to, you know, you can be sci-fi and say in a thousand years the robots are going to control everything. You can talk about jobs. You can talk about taxes and all this stuff. Um, but uh,

yeah, for for consumers that aren't working in tech, they're like, I it's cool to make a video of a cat surfing, but I'd rather just keep my job and keep the cat surfing videos.

It's just fascinating how much tech missed this. They like they didn't even with social media like you pointed out this whole thing about uh you know the the the war between media and tech around Facebook maybe stealing the election that type of stuff right uh it's like well at least everyone kind of enjoyed social media for like a decade like from 2006 2016 like yes people were like there's some I saw a bad picture or like oh you know I found out some bad information or something but there was it was it was mostly like, "Oh, cool. Instagram. I saw a photo that my, you know, aunt posted." Like, "This is nice." People had a pretty good time with it for like years, years, years, years. And then eventually it turned and now we've grappled with it. We talk about the the pros and cons, but we all kind of used it and we're all like okay with it. With AI was like on day one, I hate this. I hate everything about it. Looks ugly. I don't like it. I I don't trust it. Um, and and oh, by the way, uh, go do some research. Uh the people who are making the AI, they've been talking about how it's going to kill everyone for like a decade. They've been writing books about this for like a decade. Yeah.

Well, what do they think in Silicon Valley about this?

Yeah, we kind of created the crisis cuz Yeah. Some of these videos pop up and [laughter] you're like, wait, this was four years ago and they said there's, you know, someone at a lab is on record saying it's very likely that AI on a long enough time horizon will kill all of us. [laughter] like

no one was saying that on social media. You go back and no matter what you think of Mark Zuckerberg, you go back and you find the the scandalous video of him before he was so powerful. It's like yeah, he's drinking a beer out of a solo cup with a journalist in an interview. It's like it's pretty harmless. It's pretty harmless. It's like a little sloppy, but it's like not it's not him saying like, "Yes, I believe this will definitely swing the election in 10 years. Mark my words." And then it does. It's ridiculous.

Yeah, we skip straight to skip straight to the apocalypse. And right, it is also totally Sam Alman's fault. flash an incredible feat of marketing that you say like I have this new product so incredible that it's going to kill everyone definitely got people's attention.

Yeah, I mean there there is a long lineage of technology uh millinarian technologies actually being uh like it's easy to marshall resources around them. I mean in many ways SpaceX is of the same cloth in the sense that the [clears throat] you know Elon Musk was out there saying like if we don't go multilanetary all of humanity could be wiped out. So there is this existential crisis that if an asteroid comes and hits Earth,

it's over for humanity. But if we build my company SpaceX and we get to Mars and we put a Mars colony there, then we have a backup plan. And if the and if the asteroid comes and destroys one of those planets, well, the other one's still got some people on it. We can rebuild. And so it was it was an apocalyptic, you know, scenario in some ways. It wasn't the backbone of the business, but it was a piece of his rhetoric. And but it's still more positive because it's not the rockets that are going to destroy us. It's the rockets that will save us, but it's still conjuring the idea of an apocalyptic scenario in some ways. So I always found that interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean I do think that that you know by the end of the social media era all these CEOs and it's still true were so like kind of beaten down by being grilled by Congress and hated the media and felt like everyone was out to get them. They're still like they all when they don't want like talking to the media. They like all you guys all live in your signal group chats and like feel that everyone is out to get them. actually the successful CEOs of this moment now talk to everybody are back to being these kind of mad visionary prophet types who as you say like millinarian um figures and I think if you look at like you know Daria or Altman or any of these guys it's sort of a throwback to an earlier style of maybe overselling but of being very very interesting when they talk about their products not being

sort of embedded in the culture wars.

Yeah. I mean like you you just you you you go back through the story of like Amazon and Jeff Bezos and it was like finance guy delivering packages then he's hosting some web servers like there was never really this like world consequential thesis that bubbled up. He's done some great interviews. He's been inspiring in many ways, you know, uh but he's never he's never brought that uh you know like world historic consequences to bear in his rhetoric and uh I don't know maybe that's benefited the company it the company certainly done well so maybe it didn't hurt it would be funny like if we don't deliver this package in two days everyone dies we need to do prime we have to the entire fate of humanity rests on you getting diapers in two days Yeah. Well, that's that's how I feel about the podcast industry.

Yes. Yes. Uh, how do you see the the podcast industry evolving? What what's your take? You I mean, you mentioned like consumers being unhappy with media and I and I and I think I could think about a bunch of different instantiations of that, but like the fragmenting media landscape, like how are you thinking about what it means to be like independent this the like the micro niml community? like uh h do you think that there's like a pendulum swinging and we'll see reconsolidation, rebundling, or do you think it's just going to diffuse and be smaller and smaller operations forever? How are you thinking about like the new media landscape?

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's gosh, it's been like new media as long as any of us can remember.

Someone was calling Verge new media or or legacy media and and I'm like there like Yeah, they felt very new. It was very funny. Anyway, sorry. Yeah, like I was a I sort of was a blogger when that was new media, right? So, it's I feel like I've and but you know the core I do think there's like still a nostalgia for a 20th century media that's like not coming back because that was because you needed a broadcast tower or a printing press to reach a lot of people and that was a and there's been a tech and I think when people people in my business and the east coast media often try to figure out like what went wrong, you know, was it when the CBS News got something wrong about Bush in 2004? or was it when the New York Times put up its payw wall too soon or too late or something and like no these there was a huge technological shift around distribution that kind of swept away a lot of this old stuff and it wasn't it wasn't something they could have tactically really avoided like it was just a huge technological change and so there'll never be that kind of or not in our lifetimes that kind unless the government imposes it reconsolidation around a very limited number of new sources like you got to go to North Korea for that um but [snorts]

but Um, [clears throat] but that said, I think we are because consu it's driving consumers crazy. The pendulum has swung out. You know, they say media only bundles and unbundles and we're out at the unbundled moment

and you can just see it swimming back. Like Fox is rolling up right-wing podcasts. MSNBC is about to roll up a bunch of leftwing podcasts. By the way, are we still calling these things podcasts? Like it's TV. Um,

yeah.

And and everything is converging on this tell this very familiar but kind of boring television format that will start to get juiced up and become a game show with 19 boxes and whatever. Um,

and and we're all going to have to start spending production. [laughter]

No, you know what I mean though? Like we also produce a podcast that like I I think looks fine, but I can feel the pressure to raise the production values as whereas like two years ago we could all been like in our pajamas in our basement and it would have been fine. And so I think there is this convergence and the audience is going to expect it. It's going to be competitive. It'll have to look better. It'll have to be tight more tightly edited. I suspect people are going to want that.

Um and it [clears throat] won't look it won't look like old TV. But I do think you're going to see consolidation around all the advantages you get when you're consolidated. You have a central guy selling all the ads. You can build subscription technology. You can cross-promote. Like there's all these again media business is so unlike the tech business and unlike the finance business in how uncomplicated it is.

Sure. And and I think like you're going to just see consolidation for all these really dumb and obvious reasons that that have to do with and also it's sort of exhausting to run a small business for a long time and people who start them will

I don't know how you guys actually I'm curious because you're in this like how how are you feeling about it?

Do you want to stay independent? Do you want to be consolidated?

Well, I would say the best way to think about it is we we like being the talent side. We're not in this to run a we don't we don't have any interest in running a multiund person organization. We don't really even care that much about scale. We're very okay with our niche. We think it's like a couple hundred thousand people in the world that like are really going to enjoy this content and millions more will see the content in different forms. Uh but uh knowing friendly environment like like just earlier on the show we had Joe Weisenthal from Bloomberg. like we're not trying to poach him to do the Joe Weisenthal show on the TBPN network because like the whole network thing is a joke. Uh it's just a show. We And so I'd much rather you know Joe just does Odd Lots which is a fantastic show and then comes on our show when he feels like it and it makes sense and uh and we

Yeah. The question going back to like saying you know MSNBC what MSNBC is doing with podcasters and what the cable networks are doing with podcasters. my uh when you look at the revenue that these cable networks you know the basically the revenue streams that they built up over time getting a dollar from every home that that uh that is subscribed etc per channel uh it depends on depends on the network but I don't like it's so hard to rebuild that with independent creators and get back to the scale right it it basically shifted to

the streaming you know you need a website like a website or an app is now the distribution. Uh and so I think that you know we just we understand like this huge bifurcation between the platforms and then the individual creators that can command attention, right?

But if somebody came to you and said like you know I heard you I heard you guys say on TV just the other day with Ben that you wanted to be talent and like you know what like we'll just just like we'll take all this off your hands. We'll pay you a salary. will commission you in some way on the but you don't have to worry about anything else. we'll get you hair and makeup like whatever you know

fly business class whatever you want you know and treat you as talent and you just don't have to run a company and worry about all that stuff like I think that's going to be the pitch to people who are getting exhausted who are super successful creators but are sick of running a small business don't really

sure

aren't I mean you guys are actually entrepreneurs so it's a little different

it's weird because anywhere I've only

so we've built out you know we we hired

but I but I understand that from a lot of perspectives for sure

we hired somebody I've worked with in the past Dylan uh who started his career back at CNBC, worked at HQ Trivia, like understands media really well. We've built out a team around us that allow us to do that and allow us to work on the stuff that we really enjoy. I think uh one one thing that's been interesting is how many how many traditional journalists have gone independent, but historically they were in the scoop business and then they go independent and they realize like when you're part of a bigger media company, you can get one crazy scoop every three months and you're like from my from my view like you're killing it like you're adding a lot of value to the organization. But when you go independent and you're like getting three a scoop every few months is that enough are you creating enough value to justify having people give you a lot of money every every single month. I think yes to some degree, but I think you'll see a rebundling in certain niches around, let's say, a bunch of like scoop driven technology journalists that say like, hey, we all went independent, but we should actually kind of rebundle together because it'll just create a more incentive for somebody to subscribe because they know like on an ongoing basis, I'm going to be getting and and that's what obviously like TBPN roll up of like Alex Heath and Casey Newton.

We wouldn't want to we wouldn't want to we wouldn't want to do that. But I

No, I'm joking. But but but I could but I totally [clears throat] see what you're saying. I mean in a way the way that's kind of what you're doing and I think

totally there's a kind of scoopy aggressive being reporters basically what I am

who

who wants that who I think I want and people want that kind of direct connection with an audience and

authenticity and transparency that you get with Substack but also they're features of that kind of reporting that it makes more sense to be part of a newsroom and we've tried to create a space that is

that is the best of both of those worlds for journalists. Yeah. And I think when a journalist goes from like being able to spend all their time like obsessing over a company or an industry and getting scoops to then, okay, I have to do all of that still to put food on my plate, but then I also have to like develop an ad sales business and I have to like figure out and I have to manage a podcast editor and I have to hire another editor and and uh I got to do my taxes and things, you know, like it just really adds up. And then are you going to be as elite of a journalist if you're doing all those things? And there's a very real scenario where someone else just join takes your job that you had previously and ends up out competing with you on scoops because they don't have to worry about any of that stuff. So

I think that's something that a lot of people will have to figure out.

You know a lot about newsrooms. That is so much about like the way we're thinking about founding some of

that's hilarious because I don't have you ever been

I've never been in a newsroom but I just but but I mean yes. So, so much of

part of uh a lot of the success of the reason that we've uh been able to break through this year is we're not trying to do anything else besides besides media, right? I mean, you've seen how many people have you seen build a tech media company and become a venture capitalist as soon as they have

any amount of I got to get out of

I got to get out. I got to get out of this. I just enjoy I I there's there's very few things on earth that I love more than advertising. So, I love I love media. There's very few things on earth I love more than talking with John that about business and technology. So,

uh, we know we know our

Anyway, final line round. What's the biggest fish you've ever caught?

The biggest like fish fish?

Yes.

Not a fish. Not a

I went out with my uncle in the I go out fishing for stripers with my uncle in the middle of the Hudson River.

Cool.

I think we got like a 45 lb striper. I'm probably It's probably 40. I'm like I'm obviously it's grown since I caught it.

Nice. We're we're hitting the gong for you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Last last question.

I've only gone for scoops, but I'll I'll take it.

We love to hit the gong for scoops, but uh uh I'm curious if you think that um kind of blowback against uh widespread gambling will be at all a part of the next election cycle. Do you think it'll be something that certain politicians kind of like latch on to and realize that there's a large number? Yeah, the AI the AI thing feels obvious right now, but the gambling thing it feels like maybe that's coming soon.

Yeah, I think you know whenever there's something where you're like it's crazy that this was ever illegal, we like why why did the idiots of the past why were they ever against this? We should obviously just legalize it, then like brace for backlash. There was probably a reason.

Yeah.

And and totally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think lots and lots of people, lots of religious people, lots of non-religious people are like going to get pretty are getting pretty upset about this. And there's going to be there have been these sort of smallcale belist athlete corruption scandals. Oh, yeah.

But we're going to have our, you know, Chicago whites black socks moment, right?

For sure.

And that'll be the thing that drives it, I bet.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That would definitely be like more of a national story that nothing's really broken out and been like the current national story for like a full week.

But I mean, imagine how much money you could make fixing the Super Bowl.

Exactly. Yeah, that'd be crazy. And that would really Yeah, that would be really depressing to a lot of fans, but not me because I don't watch the Super Bowl anyway. [laughter]

And actually, it could just be like a parlay where like you fixed like the,

you know, how many how your shoelaces were tied in the second half or whatever. Maybe.

Anyway, thank you so much for coming on the show. Great to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you guys. Thanks for thanks for having me on.

This is a lot of fun. We'll talk.

Bye. Uh, let me tell you about numeral.com compliance handled. Numero worries about sales tax and VAT compliance so you can focus on growth. Our next guest is Matt Hicks, the CEO and president of Red Hat. We've been keeping him waiting too long in the reream waiting room. So, let's