Ashlee Vance on robot fight documentaries, the brutal economics of streaming docs, and a China trip in the works

have our last guest of the show. We got Ashley Vance from Core Memory. He's the founder. He's a CEO. He's the podcast host. He's a documentarian. [applause] He's an author. He's a multihyphenet.

He is a friend of our show. We were excited to announce his uh his launch of Core Memory a little over a year ago. We made a Sports Center type hype reel.

Amazing.

Uh he said a lot of crazy things about some legacy media companies that I probably wouldn't say now, but we all had a good laugh. [laughter]

Was it Death Now? death now for Bloomberg. Short the stocks like we were going crazy.

You time may tell you. We'll see. We'll see.

Yes. Yes. But uh how are things? What What What's most interesting to you? What are you What are you tracking today? You've done so many different things. Tours of Abene. You You've been tracking this AI talent war I feel like pretty well with the Mark Chen interview and Jerry Turk as well.

Yeah. Jerry Kylie Robinson joined our team. She

huge pickup.

What do you call her? A scoop. Uh uh we she's scooping like a BaskinRobins employee. That's what we call. But we have a whole list of scoop related puns that we will be slowly trickling out as more scoops hit the timeline. So I don't want to leak them all. Send them to

you. Hold on. It's so cool to be here, man.

Welcome place is amazing. You guys, we're recording. We're filming you. Filming you. I'm recording on my face. All the cameras. I think I'm the first person to do a

a meta walk up, I'm told. Um, and yeah. So, well, what are we doing? Um,

well, first of all, you're at a Quanet hut.

Yes. Which is near and dear to my heart. You guys know Silicon Valley began in a quanet.

I didn't know that. No way.

Yeah. When we figured out how quickly you can actually build these structures, we were shocked.

Yeah. Like extremely.

And there's that one startup that's doing like the inflatable ones from uh some Bellarus technology. But yeah, no. Quaset HUDs. William Shockley.

Yeah.

Invents the transistor at Bell Labs. His mom lives in Palo Alto. This is like why Silicon Valley Silicon Valley. He wants to His mom's not doing great. She misses him.

He wants to move out. So he moves to Palo Alto. Sets up Shockley semiconductor lab in like 1954 maybe. And it looks exactly like this. It was on It was right in Mountain View on San Antonio Road. It no longer exists.

It's amazing because we always get like why aren't you in San Francisco? You know, is this a real tech [laughter] show? It's like we recreated Silicon Valley here in Hollywood.

No, I saw it. I saw it and it was it was

How is SF? Uh, do you go to robot fights like daily now? Is that a weekly thing? Do you have a season pass hourly?

Yeah,

it's a lot. We just went to one this Saturday. Wreck had one at Kizar Pavilions was kind of like their biggest one yet. We've been filming like Oh, my metal glasses died. Uh, we've been filming

a documentary more or less. So, so kind of like from the very beginning of the robot fights all the way through. So, yes. Uh,

how do you think of the timeline? Is this a 10year project? Because my expect I haven't been yet, but the the my expectation, tell me if I'm wrong, is that it just sounds like the craziest, most awesome thing ever. And yet, the robots today are still kind of making progress. And so the actual action in the moment, it's probably a fun place to like hang out with friends and watch, but it's not yet like, oh, I'm I'm sweating. This is like better than UFC.

It's a little little comical at times at the beginning, [laughter] but you know, it's getting better.

The idea the idea is that the documentary would would show over time and then

Well, I think we want to do this is like this is kind of the cool thing. So, we make we do make films for Netflix, HBO, all that stuff. But, I think we're going to try something different here where it's like a

documentary that's that's living and ongoing. Yeah. So, I think we're going to we're going to take what we filmed for the last six or seven months, put that out as like chapter one of the rise of the robot fights, and then just keep following it along, which is I mean,

we have internal not like fights, but just the best strategy on how to release some of this stuff. But, I think it's kind of cool. I think you can do different things now that we have our own distribution and and kind of play with the format a little bit.

How do you actually like how do you actually process watching robots fight? Is it like scary doomer? Are you actually entertained? Um like

it's pretty fun, man. Everybody

like at this last fight you could tell there were a lot of people who had never seen one before. I mean it's the spectacle of it all. There is there was an element where the first round went and then a bunch of people cleared out because I think they were just once they've had their fill. It has to get better, right? Well, well, I think what they should do is is do the robot like extreme sports. I think before you get fighting, it's like robot cliff jumping. Watching a robot [laughter] jump or or or base jumping, right? Watching a robot hurl itself off a cliff and then be like trying to pull a parachute and like if whether it works or not like pretty cool.

I'm with you. I do think

big wave big wave surfing robot big wave surfing pretty good that the fight it's getting like

better pretty quick and now so you know when it first started they had these little miniature robots and that was super goofy cuz they barely hit each other and fall over but you know now they're getting this this year

in the next 5 months we'll see like the 6'2

you used to go to the the battlebot shows back in the day I have some good memories there those things were lethal those things those things like

I just jumped from 411 44 to to to 5'11. That's pretty tall.

Yeah. So, we just filmed uh is kind of Well, I won't tell the backstory, but we have filmed there is a six-footer in America.

Sixfooter in America

that I think is the only six in America. Yeah.

Does that make you feel the AGI the AGI more than visiting a big data center?

I mean, the cool thing I Okay, I just I find this cool as like a cultural phenomenon. This San Francisco sort of

art meets tech kind of thing. But then I do it resonates with me because it is this physical instantiation of AI and even though it's not

as cutting edge as some AI solving a physics problem maybe there is this you you do feel the AGI because there's like something to it and there's this energy and that's what like drew me to the story from the beginning. Yeah.

Are documentaries just like a get-richqu scheme [laughter] like break down the business model?

Cannot cannot count all the cash man. I I always laugh cuz people are like,

"Well, it sounds it sounds like, oh, I work with Netflix. I work with HBO." You sound like a like you're you sound like you're in mogul mode, but the reality is like you have to invest years of your time and it can you you know, obviously it's a business, otherwise you wouldn't be investing in it. But break down the realities of like what it actually takes to create a documentary, sell it, monetize it.

It is hard. It's probably harder than ever, maybe. I mean, we went through this the glory years of all the streamers lighting up and then they couldn't get enough content and they were they were overpaying for everything. And so, you could actually you don't make money like a scripted project that really hits, but you could do pretty well with a documentary if you really had something good. And now it's brutal. You know, Netflix most of the streamers kind of cap what they're willing to pay and it's not a very high number. It's like call it like two million bucks and and so you have to get your budget under that. you're following something for could be one year, it could be six years and to spread all that work and money over

some of the best Yeah. Some of the best stories. I mean, it's so hard because there's companies today where if you knew where they'd be in 5 years or 10 years, you'd be like, "We need to have a camera on this team every single day." But then they could just peter out and it doesn't become interesting and then you've just kind of

which is what we kind of try to do. I mean, we try to place these bets.

But you're kind of you're acting as like an investor basically.

Yeah. Cuz like the robot project,

I'll go as a reporter first and be like, "Oh, there's kind of something here and this this character, this person is really interesting. Let's like follow it for a bit and then we can do sort of shorter episodes and then, you know, once you really figure on something, you can go all in a bit more." So, we have like our own money to invest

in the projects that we really care about and then sometimes partner with

How have you pro have you cared at all about what's happening with Warner Brothers Discovery? Is that do you think that actually impacts the documentary market? Does it consolidate buyers?

More consolidation with

be like, hey, it was 2 million last year. Now it's like one and a half. Is that like kind of the concern?

Yeah, I mean continued consolidation is a real problem. Then I mean there's this there's this part where like tech companies own every major media company now and and it's a real issue for some of the stuff we want to cover because it's like does it compete with this? Is this offensive to all the tech people? And so it really limits, you know, to some degree the scope of what you can come.

I had thought about that, but like even even like if you just want to make a documentary about like the the the Apple Vision Pro, how it was made, whatever. And it's like if it looks if it looks damaging to Apple, and then you sell it to Netflix, well, like those two companies compete, and then they could even if there's no comp there's no true conflict of interest, people could be like, well, you know, was there, you know,

you know, is Netflix going to buy some doc about a Apple?

Oh, yeah. they might not want to glaze Apple.

Then you have

you're always after the most interesting people, right? So you've got this list of whatever the top

20 30 tech figures that you might want to follow for a dock and then it's like who whose alliances are they on and who hates them and you know who fits in where and you're just trying to make a movie and have people watch it. So

uh talk about scoops and the importance of scoops in making a documentary that feels like it can help a lot. You also have these multiple touch points. So I could imagine you like interviewing someone and then being like that would go well in a documentary. Maybe I want to hold that. Like how does how do scoops work in this?

That's horrible. I mean because I do books and documentaries and it's it's like

so you get good scoops and you have to wait a year.

I know you're sitting on some stuff.

You're like you have to sit and then you just when I when I see these open AI

you got to hide your hide.

Well you got to hide your notes from Kylie too cuz she's like that's a scoop right there. No, no, now you're on the same team.

We're on the same team. We'll figure all that out. But no, I mean it is it is really hard. Like sometimes you're sitting on something and you you know I remember when I did the Elon book.

Yeah.

You know, there was this anecdote where Google almost bought Tesla and I had that like two years before the

Yeah.

book was going to come out. You're just like praying to God nobody nobody happens upon this in in the meantime. And the documentaries are the same way. In a perfect world, if you do manage to like

ride through that, then yeah, you you know, you have not only this long form piece that's that's revealing a lot about these people, but you've got some news with it to help. When I when I released that story ahead of the book on Bloomberg, that's what shot the Elon book like up the Amazon charts before it came out. How do you think? I've always been struck by the fact that uh in the Netflix app, in the iTunes, like Apple TV app, it's very hard to like screen record and share because they don't want you stealing the whole thing, which makes sense. But it also hurts like clippings. Whereas, if you share a story, you could screenshot it and that can go viral. With books, it's very important to like pick a good excerpt and then run that in a magazine, right? Like New York Mag got the first chapter of this new book and they distribute it and whatnot. Uh, I'm wondering how you're thinking about how documentary promotion might change in the future.

I mean, it's funny because the we're living in these two worlds right now where we're doing stuff on YouTube on our channel and the the doc world. And the second you go into the doc world is a lot like the publishing industry. things get very traditional very quickly and there's a lot more

reluctance to try things out and and they once you've signed over to Netflix I mean they kind of own your thing and you're a little bit at their mercy of how they want to do it. So it's not something honestly that I've

thought a ton about and I haven't seen you know like an incredible amount of creativity yet on on embracing that. Are there any traditional Hollywood executives that look at your YouTube experience as a feather in your cap? I'm just thinking about that Neurolink documentary that you did. Well, it was a YouTube video went super viral and the structure of that video was amazing because it was all the great stuff about an Ashley Vance like documentary video production, but then it had a hook. It had oh, Elon's going to call. It had it had like it opened loops. It was like also a Mr. Beast video, you know, and it was the best of both. And I and I imagine that I you probably saw Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on Rogan talking about second screening and how more and more Netflix executives want you to retell the plot 25 times. Um, but if you're coming from the YouTube world, you can say like, "Hey, if it's holding retention on YouTube, like I know I can edit like that for you and you'll have similar retention." Is that interesting yet? Well, I mean, I think there's a massive clash going on right now. I mean, like the guys filming us who make our show, we sort of at Bloomberg, we learned how to make a TV show that was like a Emmy nominated show for

way way way less money than

Netflix or Hulu would pay for a similar show.

This was Hello World.

That was Hello World. And then obviously we're doing that at Core Memory. But uh,

you know, there's this economics that I think we figured out they work very hard is one part of it. Um, but the second you sign up with a Netflix, the budget expands, everybody's padding that like you'll get line items on a budget for um, landlines of like $15,000 because people are just trying to This is how Hollywood works. It's very strange. So, you have these you've got this clash of finance from the old world and then the model of the new world. And so, you know, when I talk to more traditional Hollywood execs, some I think are not

paying as much attention maybe to YouTube as they should, but then there are some really big producers the second we started the company, they called and they're like, "Dude, we want to kind of do what you're doing or we want to be part of what you're doing and rethink how we go about things." And so I mean it I still think YouTube if you know it's been around what like 20 I still feel like it's it's this is it's very early days for how this is going to play out because I I I think that is where you have the most flexibility and the distribution of the entire world it still beats everything. Yeah.

How do you think about

Yeah. And it would be nice if they bought uh documentaries where they're like we'd love to buy your documentary for this creator payout.

We floated this idea. [laughter] Um, no, but I I think it I mean one of the challenges of building a modern media brand, I think like you have the Substack business, you could roll out you if you could potentially lean more into YouTube at some point and build out a subscription business there, but then you're kind of like splitting

splitting attention, which which can be tough.

It's hard to figure out. And Substack Substack's been great. Our stories do great, but it so far I would say is like not a visual first platform. So, putting stuff behind the payw wall. Um, it's been tricky, but that's there has to be some way to figure this out where you are. You can't just give everything away. Um, and that's it's kind of fun now because we have all these different levers to play with and try to try to see where this goes.

Yeah.

Uh, how did you react to the different Super Bowl ads?

Well, thank you guys for putting the core memory logo. I think we snuck it twice on the through some sort of mis [laughter] we got on Tyler over there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, I'm blank. I was just happy that you

We actually snuck the We snuck the ad on Fox Business yesterday. I saw that.

So, that ran there and then it snuck on to the billboard in in Time Square as well. So, no longer has been there.

I think we're going to the Olympics next. You're coming with us.

Everyone could see it. And I'm not just saying this cuz I'm in the Ultra Dome, but you guys are are just marketing geniuses. I mean, it was so smart. When I woke up on X that morning, it was just every single person was was pushing it along and then and then I I did the same thing. And no, I mean, um I liked I don't know.

I kind of like the world ad. I think people are so torn on world how they feel about it, but but I actually like that one. Yeah. And then I the Claude

Open AI uh Yeah. I don't know.

Wait, Worldcoin ran it out.

No, no, the world Yeah, world. I mean, it's world now, but yeah, tools for humanity. I didn't even see that they were

there's one about it was like, you know, are you human?

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's Yeah, that's somewhat of an optimistic message in a time when people are sort of AI skeptical. So, you have a little bit of wind at your back when you go into the Super Bowl where people are probably like, h, this AI stuff.

So, I have a question. Uh, can you go to China for like a few months?

I'm trying to figure this out. So, we want to do it's

like I want your I want the I want to I want I want to feel like I toured China through your eyes.

You got me like 99% of the way there. Only you can take me across the finish line.

So, I appreciate you saying that. We are trying to do this. I mean, we filmed the Hello World in China. When I was at Bloomberg, we had some difficulties with China that made it made it harder to get a visa for a period of time. And so now I've been trying I actually want to get in touch with I show speed because I want to know like what the Visa

Yeah.

YouTuber versus pure journalist Visa situation is like but yeah no I 100% want to go to the humanoid robot factories. I want to go to BYD. I want to do all that stuff.

Very cool. Yeah. Be great.

We're definit we're going to go to India this year and shoot an episode which is already lining up.

Yeah.

Uh talk to me about storytelling. When you're in information capture mode, you're doing reporting. You're getting a ton of different facts and scoops, but then at some point it needs to boil it down into usually a three-act structure. Do you think in the hero's journey? Do you think in the eight-part story circle? Do you think in act one, act two, act three? And then you're trying to map things to that. Or are you just hunting around and then when you get lucky, you're like, "Okay, the third act has happened. I'm feeling it. I'm ready to publish."

There's always sort of an arc. Um I don't know if it's not always the hero's journey, but yeah, you're not wrong. I mean, a lot of the people I'm chasing are these eccentric inventor types on a quest and and trying to figure something out.

Um, I usually when you do the magazine futures, if it's if it's like 5,000 words in length,

those usually my first thing I think about is the character spending time with them. And then, you know, those break down

usually into like actually four or five, six sections. And for each section, I always think about it like a documentary or a TV show. You want something to open. you have to like keep momentum for the reader because you're asking them to stick with you for a while. And so

those are the bits that I always think about. So, you know, you set up the state of play in the first act or you're you're taking someone into some really weird world through an anecdote and then and then yeah, you're going on this this journey where you're getting into more in more detail. I always like my fatal flaw. Maybe I I short shrift the ending. I spend so much time on the beginning and then

you should obsess about the ending as well, but I always kind of just get there and then figure it out on the fly.

It's really hard because like in in many ways the the third act of the Elon Musk story is like the SpaceX IPO. Like that's the final boss. That would be that that ties it in a bow in some ways. So if you're like, well, I'm not going to wait 15 years, so we're finding a different third act. I found this with the I did a a piece on uh Parker Conrad and Ripling. Incredible. Act one starts Zen or starts Zenits, right? Uh gets fired revenge story starts the second company and then it's like okay well they're building building and it's like what's the third act? They got to take the company public. Hasn't happened yet. I'm sure he'll be successful but it it doesn't tie itself in in the in a bow with like the dramatic third act. It's the hardest thing about the for the long form stuff we do whether it's a book, magazine story or a documentary is you're doing

real time reporting on tech and it's always changing so fast and then like on the Elon book I had to pick you know you just have to pick a moment where you're like okay this is this is we're going to button this up. Same thing on the last book and and so no I mean that part's really hard but it

I battle with this all the time after I finished the Elon book for a whole bunch of reasons. I was like, I'm only writing about a dead person next time. But then I like I like only get excited about

Well, the shopping book is ready to go. You you know it off the top of your head.

That one that one is good. There's a couple people have have swiped at that one. But yeah, no, I mean it's I get excited when I walk in places like this when I walk into factories and I kind of feed off that. So I have it's it's like

I have no choice but to chase what I'm interested in. But it's hard to figure out what

Elon the Elon book is a biography. What is heaven? When the heaven heavens went on sale,

which is in your uh lobby. I signed it

multiple copies. Father's Day. That's how we first met.

It's it's

I sent him a picture and bought a bunch.

So, we made a movie based on it called Wild Wild Space, which is on HBO, but it's a book. It's kind of like a book, non-fiction book, tracing the underbelly of of new space being born. And so, we go along with a couple rocket companies,

some satellite companies, but it's it's less Elon, less.

Is it an ensemble cast? This is a tour of an industry.

There's like four there's four distinct sections that would

for sure tell you some of the history of space and then fully bring you up to speed on on like the rise of commercial space. But yeah, we go with Rocket Lab, which is after SpaceX, the second most successful rocket company, Planet Labs, which

changed the face of satellites. Firefly is one of my favorite stories in the book. I hang out with this Ukrainian dude. We go to Ukraine. We're drinking scotch at Vandenberg Air Force Base down down the road. All kinds of adventures. And then Astro, which you know is still going, God bless them. Um and and is was trying to make the smallest, cheapest rocket possible. And so, um I spent six years on that with Astra

overnight. Success.

It was I was there. I was with Astra when it was like four dudes in a room trying to get the engine to burn for the first time all the way up to when they flew to orbit for the first time. So, I think um I mean mostly that book is it's meant to like immerse you in that. Yeah.

Did the moon uh Mars to moon pivot from SpaceX, did that surprise you or given wondering if you guys I'm still like processing this in some ways. I mean,

but like it didn't come out during the biography of the conversation.

No, no. I mean, Elon even until recently is full Mars, you know. And do you think it's because

they're going they're going public and you now

as a public company you or a soon to be public company you can't be messaging like we're going to Mars we're going to Mars but then we're actually

I think Elon probably could still keep messaging that because the Roadster Yeah. Yeah. The Roadster. But yeah 10 public markets are less excited about what you're going to do in you know a decade or two decades versus what you're what are you going to do for me right now? Take me to the moon.

I mean, oh man, we could talk about this for a long time. You know, the Mars thing was always part of Elon's genius, I think, because it sounded completely insane to most people. And yet, if you were into space and you were young,

there were a lot of people who actually wanted to go do that and it was part of building this religion, this very aspirational thing that made you want to go to SpaceX that filled you with like all this passion for what was going on. Even Gwyn Shotwell, I mean, she's the she co-runs the company with Theon. That was that was like her quest. That's what she wanted to do. And so, it always had this like

mystical overtones, you know, which is the same way with Tesla of of creating this big climate change sort of um revolutionizing technology. So, in some ways, I feel like he's come, you pardon the pun, back to Earth a little bit with [laughter] like with with this, right? because it's it's slightly less I mean it's still you're building a colony on the freaking moon, but it's it's it's like it's slightly less aspirational. It's much more practical for all the reasons you lay out. I mean clearly

the US government wants to try to beat China to the moon, although I don't think we will. Um but that's where the US government's attention and money is is on the moon. Um and with all the space data center stuff, I mean all this interplay between

building these layers of infrastructure. So I think I think he's he's chasing money and what makes sense in this near term.

Yeah,

it's more pragmatic,

less sci-fi.

It made me a little sad, man. Like canceling the Model S, you know, stop stopping production on that along with this Mars thing. I mean, it is as someone who is like his biographer. I mean, it's it's a massive philosophical change and the Model S just represented that was the moment that Tesla actually became real and electric cars became real and like shocks, you know, it sold so many more than anyone had expected. So, these are these are like really momentous things. I think Elon's really practical. I think he's all in on AI. He needs money to fund that. SpaceX is like this sexy um thing that people get excited about and you can use it to to raise money for other things. And so, you know, I think he's just being very very practical. And um I think he probably it's the the pressure and the immediiacy of this AI race that might be making him make statements and decisions that normally he could he could put off, I think. Yeah.

No, that makes a ton of sense.

Time to plant the bomb. We're getting out [laughter] of here. You can close the show out with us. I want to hit the gong. Two best-selling books. Go tomememory.com. You want to hit the gong? All planted. Leave us five stars on Apple Podcast, Spotify. Go to tbpn.com for our newsletter. Go to corememory.com for your newsletter, for your subst.

Follow Ashley on X, YouTube, uh, podcasts, everywhere. Go buy the books. Go buy the books.

Buy them all. Buy 100 copies by We will be back tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. Goodbye. Nice work, Bryce. I'll see you on the next one. See you on the next one.