Sources' Alex Heath on breaking scoops, using AI as his editor, and the unbundling of tech journalism

Speaker 1: Yeah. Probably detects. Four. But yeah. Anyway, we have our last guest of the show, Alex Heath from Sources in person live in the TVPN UltraDome. Alex, good to see you. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on down to the TVPN UltraDome. Sources.news is the website. News. Access is the podcast. Yeah.

Speaker 4: So you're really in the in the process of breaking through because anytime you get quoted right now, it just says sources

Speaker 2: Sources says say then a lot

Speaker 4: of people are reading that and out there saying

Speaker 1: You created sources.

Speaker 4: Apparently some sources. Yes. But you are the final source.

Speaker 5: I named it that for a reason.

Speaker 1: Yeah. It's good. And you've been on a tear. Like truthfully. Like, there's always a question about, okay, you leave the place. Yeah. Is it better or worse? And and it's just been scoop after scoop. Thank you so What's the secret?

Speaker 5: The scoop cannon's always loaded, gentlemen. It is. That's all I gotta say.

Speaker 1: Scoop doggy dog right here.

Speaker 4: You got anything more this week? Anything I

Speaker 5: got some stuff next week.

Speaker 6: Wow. Next week? Wait.

Speaker 4: Wait. But but how do you how do you keep it in the chamber? Aren't you worried that somebody's gonna out scoop you?

Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. There's always that fear. Okay. There's always that fear. Sometimes you know based on the story or the beat. You know like who your competition is. You know if they're on vacation.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 5: You know, if they're on

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5: Maternity between

Speaker 4: Do do you hire, like, private investigators to track your your rivals to make sure Oh. Oh, they're out in the game right

Speaker 1: Keep tabs. Yeah. Keep tabs. What yeah. What's super interesting is that I feel like your beat is just, like, what's actually interesting in tech to me. No. Seriously. Like like because there that's the goal. You could come out and you could be like, yeah. I'm I'm I'm I'm tech, but I'm focused on SaaS or just AI. And you're hitting everything that I'm interested in consistently. And that's just really really hard and I see your name on every single article that's posted. So like, do you ever sleep? Like what what what's going on?

Speaker 5: I've been using AI a lot to leverage output

Speaker 16: Okay.

Speaker 5: Where now it's my editor and it's my first draft. Okay. I'm the ultimate editor of it.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5: Yeah. But, you know, the combo of granola running that during meetings Oh, okay. Training Claude to really write like me.

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 5: So, you know, it does the first pass. Yeah. I spend about half the time that I used to spend on a story writing it. Yeah. But I'm spending all that time now what the AI gives me, making sure it's not like just lazy AI writing. Sure. Sure. Because that still happens. Yeah. Yeah. And realizing that I think the leverage I have now is like my network, the interviews I do, the scoops I get. Yeah. And not much of writing.

Speaker 1: The sources? Sources.

Speaker 6: Yeah.

Speaker 5: And like the writing.

Speaker 4: I never I never your work like expecting to be entertained by the Yeah.

Speaker 5: The pros. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4: But but I don't I really don't care at all.

Speaker 12: I know you could A

Speaker 1: lot of people are

Speaker 2: lost on

Speaker 5: that. I always hated writing. Yeah. I love scooping. Yeah. That's what I've always loved.

Speaker 4: You're your hall of fame.

Speaker 5: I'm like, I've been doing this for a while and I think like the longevity you have to have now especially with AI is you you have to use the tools.

Speaker 1: Wait. Did our did our giant ice cream scoop ever come? Did we order that? Oh, we couldn't find

Speaker 4: We got a mini batch from trying to get like a

Speaker 1: comically large ice cream scoop

Speaker 12: for the gong. I love it.

Speaker 1: You guys are doing great.

Speaker 5: I love it. By the way, the last time I came on here was WWDC Yeah. Last year. Yeah. That's You guys had, I think, 80,000 followers on X.

Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5: And I was like, I left that. I was doing it outside of Cooper Steve Jobs Theater. That was fun. I was like, these guys are onto something. Thank you. The magic you guys have, like seeing you guys Yeah. Just like ascend has been incredible.

Speaker 1: Yeah. There's been ton of ascending going on broadly this year. Everyone needs to ascend.

Speaker 11: Did you see all

Speaker 4: the hammers in the No. Some my my biggest number one question is how are you balancing your relationships when you're balancing access that you have Yeah. These companies, the executives will actually talk to you Yeah. On the record and are excited for you to tell their story. Yeah. But at the same time, you're kinda getting some stories out the back door at times.

Speaker 5: You have

Speaker 4: to have yeah. And yeah. But what's what's that dance like?

Speaker 1: How do

Speaker 4: you the needle? Because some some reporters fly too close to the sun, scoop too close to

Speaker 1: the To cone?

Speaker 4: To the cone.

Speaker 1: To cone. Too close to

Speaker 5: the cone. Yeah. It's it's a balance, you know. I've always looked up to Sorkin and how deal book Yep. And the reporting he's done. Yep. And the, you know, I consider him like Yeah. Like a mentor and like the way he approaches it is it's it's just fair.

Speaker 4: He's here with us. Go. Check check the street. Check the street.

Speaker 1: Hey. Is he really?

Speaker 4: No. No. I just I got a sound effect right there for you.

Speaker 2: No. He's

Speaker 5: he's definitely the GOAT. And like, what has given him longevity is the fairness that he approaches an interview with. Right? So giving people that maybe don't even deserve it a fair shake.

Speaker 11: Mhmm.

Speaker 5: And just approaching things out of curiosity Mhmm. And being a nerd

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 5: And not being like instinctually against whatever they're doing.

Speaker 14: Mhmm.

Speaker 5: Mean, I have opinions. Like, just interviewed Chris Best from Substack about their Polymarket deal

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 5: This week. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah. I I What's that deal?

Speaker 5: Deep product integration with Substack where basically any Substack writer can embed a Polymarket Sure. Like natively in the CMS. Yeah.

Speaker 4: And are they getting paid on like an impression Yeah. Question?

Speaker 5: Asked him that and he wouldn't answer. So you infer with that.

Speaker 4: So so but but are creators getting

Speaker 5: So they're do So Polymarket is is buying basically like they'll pay us They offered it to me. I said no, but like they'll pay you to embed a market for Sure. Your

Speaker 4: Someone set up a Polymarket on if Alex Heath will ever take Polymarket money.

Speaker 5: There we go. I think I think that's zero. But like, that's a good example. Like, I have pretty strong opinions about prediction markets and Polymarket specifically

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 5: And reporting I can't share yet. And and But, like, I still wanna hear Chris out. I'm like, why did you do it? Yeah. And he's he's geeked on prediction markets as is every tech CEO, as you guys know.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 5: And so I just wanna understand that. And I think a lot of reporters, like, they don't ask Say that again.

Speaker 4: Can you say that

Speaker 2: another couple

Speaker 1: times? Actually five times?

Speaker 5: But like he wants to

Speaker 4: No, we've experienced that where it's kind of random, but certain interviews get thrown up on prediction markets and then you get people in the chat, and they try to trick us into, like, at they it it sometimes they'll see, like, they're asking a genuine question, like

Speaker 13: Mhmm.

Speaker 4: Them about this. And I'm used to trying to respond and

Speaker 1: So you usually trust the chat. Be like, oh, they're interested in question.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Then I'm like, wait, why do you want me to ask this person about Bitcoin? Like, I I I have the, you know

Speaker 5: It's a taste thing. Right? Yeah. Like, and you guys are experiencing this too. Like, taste is what matters. Yeah. Then also, like, being able to I mean, just to the point about, like, how do you do scoops and do interviews, it's like just balancing the fact that, like, I am It There's a bit of a leverage thing where it's like like, you can't buy me and I may also kind of ruin your day a little bit if I scoop something, but I'm at least gonna do it with a smile. Right? Whereas a lot of reporters will

Speaker 1: do it and like can it

Speaker 5: a smile. And and they won't. And it'll be kind of like Vindictive.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Exactly. No. That's really good. What what are you looking for out of Apple this year broadly? I'm I'm always interested to hear this excitement about a new foldable. There's some leadership changes in the works.

Speaker 4: We got a lamp. Very interesting.

Speaker 1: Coming. I've been very interested, like, in, like, the story behind the story Yeah. Particularly with regard to John Turnis because, that feels like there are leaks and Apple's pretty tight, but then Mark Gurman's always getting scoops. But you have to imagine there's internal politics around who's leaking what, why are they leaking it, why are they not leaking Yeah. That Tim Cook is staying or something like that. There's some sort of internal machine. So I don't know. Have you just been processing apps?

Speaker 5: I've been following Apple for a long time. I actually got started at a rival Apple. Gurman and I are about the same age, and we were doing rival Apple blogging in high school. And then in high school.

Speaker 4: You know, blog for blog with the Gurmanator?

Speaker 1: And well, no. He destroyed me.

Speaker 4: God. Apple's amazing that you have a career. You're like, I gotta get me out of here.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I just find Alex, like, washed up with with Chinese Chinese food covering him and, like, dusting him off. You gotta get back in the arena, dude. It's okay.

Speaker 5: Shout out shout out Mark.

Speaker 4: Yeah. We love Mark. We

Speaker 1: love Mark.

Speaker 5: He's fantastic. But but Apple always has had a it's why I got into this. It's why I started covering Techus for a lot of people.

Speaker 1: Right? So interesting.

Speaker 5: And I feel like they've lost their soul in a way, man. It really bums me out. Like, I don't I I'm curious about the glasses. I'm Yep. Like Mark, I've also heard they're coming next year, the first glasses. Be curious to see, you know, but then it's like, Alan Dye was doing that and he left and went to Meta. Yeah. So, it's like, he saw what they're doing and still went to Meta. Yeah. Just kinda weird. Tim Cook

Speaker 4: He likes to have founder mode lifestyle.

Speaker 5: I guess. But I just Apple, I just, I think they're stuck in an era that doesn't feel of the moment. Right? Yeah. And I'm curious with the leadership reset, will that solve it? Ternus doesn't seem like the person who would solve that. Yeah. But, you know, to credit to Tim, as you guys say, like, returned a lot of, you know, value to shareholders. But but is Apple, like, culturally relevant anymore?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. There's an interesting pivot where it's like, oh, no, they're becoming Microsoft, which is also like an incredible company.

Speaker 4: Yeah. One everyone

Speaker 5: Doesn't inspire people. Totally.

Speaker 4: Here's here's something. So everyone's vying to be the Apple of AI. Right? Yeah. You see this in a lot of the the marketing campaigns, advertising campaigns. A lot of it feels heavily Apple Yeah. Inspired. And Apple should be thinking, well, why not us? Why don't we be the Apple of AI? But instead, they're doing Genmoji. Right? Like, they they have an opportunity to have, to lead with heavy heavy campaigns around the magic of AI and they can say, we're not even building data centers. We're not we're not we're not, you know, we're not increasing your your What's

Speaker 6: speed bill?

Speaker 4: Yeah. They're they're they have a really powerful position but it feels like they've lost. It doesn't feel like anyone at Apple is in love with advertising anymore. Mhmm. Like, is really willing to meet the moment and deliver the kind of campaigns that I think they could.

Speaker 5: Or like you the next demo day, I bet if you were to poll all the founders in the next demo day, like what company inspires you the most? How many would say Apple?

Speaker 1: We did this. We did this. And I was expecting it to be all like Elon and Tim Yeah. And not not not Tim Cook, but Steve Jobs.

Speaker 4: Yeah. And he was the company. We asked the founder. But a lot of people still said Steve.

Speaker 1: Jobs. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah. But

Speaker 5: But not a current Apple.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. How do you balance Apple's such an interesting beat because it's or at least it has been for a very long time. It's still very much consumer relevant where Mhmm. I imagine that there are just Apple fanboys who read German. Right? And but then when you talk about, you know, Alan Dye going over to Meta, that's more industry focused. So how do you think about your audience blending tech enthusiasts with just, you know, tech executives who need to know about what's going on in their industry, trade versus entertain infotainment.

Speaker 12: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Like, these are the two extremes that

Speaker 5: we're I mean, I worked at a very scaled publication before the verge. Right? And Oh, wait.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, tell me the

Speaker 5: the was a business insider ten years ago. Yeah. You guys remember Chatter in New York? Yeah. Yeah. It was there. It's very fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like that back in the day. And then The Information and Verge, Rise, Deputy Editor for the last like almost five years. Yeah. So it did the scale thing and now I'm in the influence game. Mhmm. And I was like, I kinda think you guys are. Right? Like, you're not going for huge scale. Yeah. About your audience being a couple 100,000 people.

Speaker 1: Totally. Totally.

Speaker 5: That's what we need. Yeah. For me, like, I wish I could I wish I could brag more about the source of subscriber list. It's a great

Speaker 11: list.

Speaker 1: It's a great list.

Speaker 5: I should I should I've actually been doing an exercise where I tally up the market cap of the the people on the list.

Speaker 1: That's the

Speaker 4: number. We've we've done we've done

Speaker 9: that too.

Speaker 1: We've done that too. Like, don't count

Speaker 2: the number

Speaker 1: of subscribers you count the market cap with the CS.

Speaker 4: The average the average VPN follower at one point was Oh,

Speaker 1: you know

Speaker 4: had like a billion dollar market cap.

Speaker 1: Okay. There you go.

Speaker 5: So so and it helps with brands. Right? Yeah. It's like it's like you're like, well, you're not big, but it's like, yeah, but you wanna reach like these

Speaker 1: people. Exactly.

Speaker 5: So it's not like enthusiasts. It's not like how I came up in the OG kind of Apple world or the the tech blogging world. It's it's I'm it's the source of subscribers work in these companies that I cover.

Speaker 9: Yeah.

Speaker 5: They work in finance

Speaker 4: and policy. What what stories are not a fit? Because we Yeah. Like Ben Thompson's a hero

Speaker 12: Yeah. Of

Speaker 4: ours Same. Both from

Speaker 1: Another goat. Just

Speaker 4: Goat. Just his, you know, his ideas all the way through his business model. The whole spectrum. Consistency. He talks a lot about, yeah, consistency. He talks a lot about, like, companies that he doesn't cover. He's like, stop covering Twitter, stop covering Yeah. Like Elon. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Stopped covering Tesla. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Is there is are there categories that you that you are maybe fascinating but not

Speaker 1: We we we try and stay out of politics just because Yeah. Saw once you wade into that, you just become like, oh, well then you have to do the culture

Speaker 5: That's not the white space in media. It's not. Well, the white space is what you guys are doing.

Speaker 1: And you as well. Yeah.

Speaker 5: So because that's it's a return to form. Everyone has gone towards Totally. Right? Or even just kind of It's

Speaker 4: crazy too because I didn't actually think there was any white space left in No. Independent subsets.

Speaker 5: Everything comes around.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Everything comes around.

Speaker 4: Yeah. But but also it some it takes the right entrepreneur.

Speaker 5: Yeah. But to your question, I think it's taste. I don't think I Okay. When you're in a newsroom, you're taught to think in beats Totally. Companies that you're covering, sectors. And for the first time and I was doing this at the verge towards the end because I was kinda just doing my own thing. But I really just go where my interest is and where I know this is the most interesting company right now. Yeah. So it's right now, it's like all OpenAI, it's Anthropic, it's the big labs. Yeah. But, you know, Notion's interesting. I think Ivan's

Speaker 1: I saw that. Yeah. And also wanna

Speaker 5: story talk about like Sigma.

Speaker 1: Okay. Right? They beat earnings and everyone thinks saspocalypse. I was thinking the exact same thing. I wrote about it.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Sometimes we're like a day

Speaker 1: after Exactly. Exactly. And I was just like, okay. Yeah. This is a story that Yeah. Like, a lot of people would just be like, I'm I'm over. Being It's Yeah.

Speaker 4: We had we we had Evan on and then that night Yes. He broke the story on specs. Yeah. I was like, yeah, would

Speaker 5: have been nice We to can work on that

Speaker 4: next time.

Speaker 5: But yeah, no, it's it's just kind of knowing like this is what's relevant. I do think it's a taste thing and I don't think it's a thing you can teach. It's a thing you just kind of

Speaker 1: Yeah. We gotta get you publishing while the while we're doing a live interview and then you text us. What? Would you Would

Speaker 2: you eventually Wait.

Speaker 1: Do know who we're booked?

Speaker 5: It's in the No. Okay. It's the scoops are in

Speaker 1: the chain. Okay. Okay. Oh. Oh. Okay. We'll book those people. We'll book those people.

Speaker 4: Do you do you ever see yourself rolling rolling up or or rolling in other independent? Because I think there's there's gonna be writers out there that are good for about one banger Yeah. Story a quarter. Oh, really? It's actually not Yeah. It's not really a fit for a a monthly subscription. Yeah. Would say it's a challenge. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you're But they could work great under your umbrella.

Speaker 5: I think based on the way things are going, that's gonna happen. Yeah. And I think that'll happen for a lot of

Speaker 4: I think consumers want that. Like, if you can find like four or five other people and then stay super lean which is like, hey, we don't have a ton of bloat. Yeah. We're not hiring like, you know, 200 people to do this but

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 4: Five writers, one P and L

Speaker 7: Yeah.

Speaker 4: One subscription. Like, that's that's what consumers want. I mean, I'll subscribe to pretty much any new Yeah. Tech writer just to generally support them.

Speaker 5: That's too much.

Speaker 4: But it's not like, I'm not reading all of

Speaker 5: them. Yeah. I think there's interesting ways you can compensate on rev share, profit sharing, ways that traditional newsrooms can't.

Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 5: And I also think

Speaker 4: Yeah. And I don't think I was saying this yesterday. I don't actually think it will do well at the sub stack level because there's a lot of people that would wanna be in your bundle Yeah. But you don't wanna be revenue sharing with them. Yeah. But if you can set it up and like actually you're running a business and being like, you know, managing the personalities Yeah. Managing where they're at, I can I can imagine sources getting to It doesn't have in the same way that we're anti scale and that Mhmm? You can say, cool. I wanna build a newsroom over time, but it's five other people.

Speaker 11: And I

Speaker 5: don't need to raise VC to

Speaker 4: do Yeah. That are individual contributors.

Speaker 5: Like these all these VC backed newsrooms that are four years in and not profitable and the cap table's, you know, screwed and like, I don't need that.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 5: And so I'm I'm kind of I feel like we're Kindred like mindset here. Like, you it's we're in this unbundling phase of media, which is so exciting.

Speaker 1: And there will be rebundling. It's funny that we sort of landed in the same place with like very different Yeah. This is my first I mean, I had a YouTube channel before. Yeah. I have never been to journalist or worked in a newsroom and but we still sort of landed on the

Speaker 4: correct thing Yeah. Because it's all love horses.

Speaker 1: We all love horses. Did I say horses? What what was that horse?

Speaker 5: What does the horse represent?

Speaker 1: Progress. Progress.

Speaker 5: What's the year of the horse?

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker 1: It is the year of the horse.

Speaker 4: We're Before.

Speaker 5: Knew you knew what the year was gonna be.

Speaker 4: So get your reaction Yeah. Too. So I forget what we were talking about, but our friend John Palmer was listening to us on a podcast talking about what's happened with with media and that it's really hard to media is all about personalities and talent. It's really hard to retain talent if you can go set up a sub stack.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 4: Or, you know, we didn't need to start on television. We could just set up some microphones and a camera and get going. And

Speaker 1: We call it the barbell effect.

Speaker 4: Yeah. You wanna own the

Speaker 1: platform, YouTube, Substack Yeah. Or you wanna be the individual Yes. Creator basically. What's

Speaker 4: John's theory was that that comes for software in the same way where you still have a huge platform like a Salesforce that has a bunch of other kind of layers to it. But then you'll have like, you know, yeah, an AWS. But then you'll have like a bunch of new entrants which are like, you know, in the same way that we maybe compete with some cable networks technically

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 4: For attention. You would have like a 10 person team that is building like some software that historically needed like a thousand people and had this bloated cost structure.

Speaker 5: That sounds right. I think what Ivan told me about agents too in software where he was like, if your company cannot be traversed by agents, you're gonna be in a rough spot. Oh. I think that extends to what you're saying. Like, I think Yeah. The young teams that are agile, that understand that, may have a shot at actually disrupting the big players, but the big players will always exist.

Speaker 4: Yeah. And I

Speaker 5: do think distribution is still the thing that really matters. Right? Like, guys probably feel that. Like, you have that with X and YouTube, but, you know, and sub stack's good, but, you know, that's the thing when you go out on your own is you're like, oh, man, I gotta fight for distribution. I gotta fight for every eyeball. Yep. I gotta publish every day because Yeah. When I'm not publishing, I'm not getting subscribers. Yeah. So that's why I went to four times a week. Yeah. Because it's like when I don't, I don't get anything. So it's like putting it out everywhere. Yep.

Speaker 4: Is travel important to your work?

Speaker 5: Yeah. I gotta go out and touch the sources. I mean, not literally, but you know what I'm saying? Like, I gotta go out

Speaker 4: and Grab them right when they walk out of the office.

Speaker 5: I gotta shoulder brush the sources.

Speaker 1: Last last time we were trying to meet up, you were like, I'm across town doing an interview Yeah. Yeah. In person

Speaker 5: Yeah. Which is important. That's always been the thing I've invested in. I've never understood reporters who just sit in their office and like blog all Signal It's like you're never gonna get really differentiated stuff because the really especially in the age of AI where you can generate anything. Yeah. Like, if I can just generate the copy, what matters is like what's feeding the copy. Yeah. And that's me going out and like interviewing someone.

Speaker 1: I I

Speaker 5: remember breaking

Speaker 1: a story. I went to something like political in Las Vegas and Teddy Schleffer from the New York Times was just hanging out

Speaker 5: at the bar.

Speaker 1: Yeah. He didn't get invited. Yeah. That's that's old school. Gumshoe.

Speaker 5: Old school, man.

Speaker 1: Old school. Gumshoe. And and and everyone everyone there was adversarial to the New York Times, but everyone was talking to him. Everyone was like, I I, you know, I gotta hear this guy. I gotta I gotta say my side

Speaker 5: of the It's fungevity in this game.

Speaker 1: It's so

Speaker 5: good. You gotta do that and you gotta love gossip. Oh, yeah. And you have to have like a level of just

Speaker 1: you do.

Speaker 5: I mean, this is what this is. It's like gossip. People are always like, why do people tell you things? Why do people tell you things that violate an NDA? Oh, Yeah. And they always think it's vindictive or they're pissed and they're trying to right a wrong or it's moralistic.

Speaker 1: A lot

Speaker 5: of people just like to gossip, man.

Speaker 1: Yeah. They'll and and I mean, maybe the more optimistic view is like they like the world operating on the truth and so the truth out can be beneficial. That's to update that. That's the more I

Speaker 5: mean, think is not negative. Yeah. True. I think it's just like mean, I

Speaker 1: guess we're neutral. It's neutral. It's just Versus like the vindictive, I'm leaking something because Yeah. I want you to write about my enemy. That's different. That does happen. But there's also people that And I said, like, the story deserves to be told.

Speaker 5: Yeah. And you wanna, like, give and take. So a thing I try to do also is, like, I share stuff. I don't just, try to ask.

Speaker 1: So What do you think about the future of investigative journalism? Like, really, really long, like a year, it just feels like

Speaker 4: that's so challenged.

Speaker 1: It seems the most challenged.

Speaker 4: Because telling somebody, hey, subscribe

Speaker 16: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And then

Speaker 4: I'm gonna just go off in the wilderness and then ultimately kind of like become free. Yeah. Challenge.

Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, the big magazines will have that for as long as they can. It's probably just gonna end up aggregating to the Times, the Journal. Yep. Maybe not the watch The barbell. Anymore. It's the barbell. Yeah. And so those kind of people aren't their own brands and they don't want to be either. Right? Totally. And so it's a different kind of skill and it's a different mindset. Yeah. So you actually don't mind being protected and behind a brand. It's actually better for you if you're doing that work because have you the legal protection, you have all that benefit of time. Yeah. Whereas like when you're out like me, I just don't have time. So, yeah, do think it just will accrue more to the to the barbell that we've been talking.

Speaker 1: Will you ever write a book?

Speaker 5: You know, I've I've thought about it. Yeah. I've been I've had conversations. No one I know who has written a book has enjoyed it. Mhmm. Like afterwards. Yes. No one I know afterwards is like, I'm so glad I wrote that book. There's lot of things out there.

Speaker 1: I'm just trying to pull

Speaker 4: the ladder up. A lot

Speaker 1: game theory is also tell all your enemies not to do that.

Speaker 5: Do people read books? Like, I mean, I I don't I haven't read a full book in a long time.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Mean,

Speaker 5: my wife does, but like she's not reading like the kind of book I'd write.

Speaker 1: No. Here's what you do. You take your latest article, you print it out like it's a book page, you take a picture of it with your phone, give it a little weathered yellow Yeah. Color overlay.

Speaker 5: And you say, Claude, make this 800 pages. No. No. No.

Speaker 1: You just show that on a screenshot and people will be like, oh, it's authoritative. It's Here's

Speaker 4: here's marketing here's a marketing idea for you. We were gonna do this. We didn't get around to it, but I think you should. You should actually have the sources like daily print edition that you just put around SF everywhere. Like give it to all the cafes. It's just it's lead it's you don't have to do it forever, but it'd be good lead gen for the newsletter.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Or like a week

Speaker 4: All you do, you just have like have a process when you publish something, print it, distribute it to the cafes.

Speaker 5: That is a good idea.

Speaker 4: Yeah. People be hired.

Speaker 5: Out there is important. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm gonna do events this year, like, getting out there That's great. Like, filling like, yeah. Being out in the world.

Speaker 1: No. No. It it seems ridiculous for a podcast to have like as aggressive of a brand we have. Oh, it matters. It matters. It matters. We ran a Super Bowl ad for a reason. Yeah. We've broken through

Speaker 5: Did that do what you guys hoped? The Super Bowl ad? A 100%.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I The sponsors seemed thrilled.

Speaker 5: Exactly.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, no. The point was that it wasn't just sponsors. Yeah. The guests.

Speaker 1: Was all the guests.

Speaker 4: There was thousands.

Speaker 1: And so Yeah. Like, we've had so many guests come on the show.

Speaker 4: I don't think you had a logo when you came on.

Speaker 5: I didn't. So

Speaker 1: Yeah. It's okay. But but we've had a lot of the guests that come back on the show and they since they've been there, oh, thanks for putting

Speaker 2: this in

Speaker 5: that, you know, and whatever. Well, you guys are crushing

Speaker 1: it. Seriously.

Speaker 5: It's very awesome to see what you guys are doing. And yeah.

Speaker 1: Last question for What's the longest you've ever held a scoop?

Speaker 5: Oh, my God. That that's

Speaker 4: Holding a scoop is like being underwater.

Speaker 5: That keeps me

Speaker 4: All you wanna do is take a breath.

Speaker 5: A sign you're getting too cocky and and is when you hold it and you're not worried about it, which has happened to me. Okay. And then and then I get scooped and

Speaker 1: I'm like, fuck.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Months? Couple months.

Speaker 1: Couple months.

Speaker 5: Couple months.

Speaker 1: Because, yeah, we've been talking to some folks who are writing books

Speaker 5: Mhmm. And that's really hard. Don't know how.

Speaker 1: Because it's like a year or two.

Speaker 5: I don't know how you do that. And The advance has got to be

Speaker 1: crazy for that. Oh, yeah. I guess you're getting paid upfront

Speaker 5: for Yeah. Just getting subs on stuff. And you gotta you gotta, like, itemize things out Yeah. In a way that a book doesn't. Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's I'm holding right now, actually, and it's it's tough. I'm like antsy. Okay. I'll I'll be back on with you guys. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm gonna like this.

Speaker 4: Well, it's great having you on. It's been amazing to see your success and again threading that needle by being, you know, telling interesting stories but not being adversarial is is fantastic. Yeah. Fair and balanced. Fair and balanced.

Speaker 5: That's bronchi,

Speaker 1: baby. Seriously.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Can we call it?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Think we can plant the bomb. Hey. Tell everyone.

Speaker 4: You can end the show with us. Yeah. Tell everyone where to where to

Speaker 5: sources.newsaccess.show.

Speaker 1: Access. Alright. I like that. That's actually that's really funny. But Access is available in your podcast Yes. Of course. Yes. Leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe to our newsletter at tbpn.com.

Speaker 4: And have the best weekend of your life.

Speaker 1: Have the best weekend of your life.

Speaker 4: Just do it.

Speaker 1: Go get a scoop. Excuses. But don't hold on to it.

Speaker 5: We love it. Goodbye. Nice

Speaker 7: work, brothers. I'll see you on the next one.