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Troy1: Will your lifestyle get
better when you move to Hungary?

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I'm thinking of moving to
Hungary except for the,

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you know, the government.

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There's not much but better.

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Yeah.

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Nick: Who, who, who's Fasc guy?

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Brian1: The isn't Orbin Orin's
kind of like, he's like a
quasi authoritarian, isn't he?

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Nick: Uhhuh.

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I mean, I guess you, y'all
would know all about that.

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Brian1: All right.

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Let's get into it.

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This is a very special edition
of people versus algorithms.

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Alex Schleifer had a hard
stop, so he couldn't make it,
but we've got Nick Denton.

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Brian2: Who may or may not have
just sold his lovely apartment in
soho And is moving to Budapest.

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Nick is the former CEO of
Gawker Media founder of that.

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Probably an iconic, I would say it
was like an iconic, that's, that word
is overused, but, you know, it was
one of the defining, media properties
of the last era of digital media.

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I, I always thought there was,
there was Buzzfeed Envy, and
then there was Gawker Envy.

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That a lot of people in the industry
had, and I think sometimes, like
we lose sight of the fact that, you
know, Gawker was early to a lot of

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the

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trends that, that were sort of

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speed running right now.

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I mean, it had the authentic

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voices.

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it.

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was a network of niches, had
a tech infrastructure that was
participatory with, with Kenia,
and it moved aggressively into
commerce, which is Troy's darling.

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And now, you know, this

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media industry is, has just been swallowed
by what we call the information space.

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It is basically viral Twitter accounts.

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It's, outsiders that
have Political agendas.

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It is openly partisan.

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It's all kinds of different things.

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It's both exciting, but it's,
also a little bit scary.

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So wanted to have, have you on

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Nick to talk about all of this Troy,
how would you set up this conversation?

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Troy2: I would set it

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up, in a way

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I'll try to maybe not
flatter Nick too much.

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I remember when I was at Hearst and

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David Carey

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was a big fan of,

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yours.

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Nick,

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and I think among the executive ranks at

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Hearst, there was

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great admiration

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for what

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what Nick had created at

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Gawker.

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And, a desire, even if they didn't
really, you know, like that old line,

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everybody wants to go to
heaven, but no one wants to die.

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A, a desire to try to kind of
find some of the Gawker magic
inside of Hearst, which was a.

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Nick: which was a,

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Troy2: You know, a, a, a
huge, transformation from,

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you know, this kind of
deeply paternalistic

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print,

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sort

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of holding company to, to
something that resembled Gawker.

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But when I met Nick, I remember

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coming to the

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Gawker office and talking to you a
couple times, Nick, and what I saw
was everything that, that I kind
of admired in digital media at the
time, that I thought was sort of

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the right formula where

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it clearly you

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had.

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You know, the aspiration.

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to build longstanding media brands.

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You had a kind of rabid high metabolism

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editorial team, maybe a
little too rabid at times.

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Nick: we'll get into

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that.

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Troy2: Yeah.

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But, but you know, certainly
understood the distribution
mechanics of digital media.

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It's important to

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remember that like, you know, I was

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dealing with with.

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With editors that had really no

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sense of what it meant to
be connected to audience.

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So like magazine editors are
notorious, notoriously detached from
the realities of what it doesn't
matter what their audience thinks.

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It matters what they think.

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and then you had this

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analytical system, whether or
not that was inspired by Jonah
or not, but like that fed them.

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sort of performance insights
and it re resulted in, they

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were big sites, you had big traffic.

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The other thing I admired always was you,
you seem to find the right balance of

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Monetization and audience
experience, right?

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You never did what a

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lot of people did, which is sort of

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fed the audience to the wolves

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and, and so that was admirable.

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And then you, you did again, what a
lot of the sort of consolidators or

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aggregators or portfolio media companies
wanted to do, which is you had a

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single sort of, platform that

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was templated.

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And I Remember at the time
having these, like unbelievably

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drawn out long arguments about whether

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a single system could serve

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L and Harper's Bizarre simultaneously,

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which is

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just like so

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maddening and so
frustrating, such a waste of

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energy.

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And then every time I
talked to you back then,

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You were obsessed with Kenia.

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Now maybe that was just me
reading into it, Nick, but

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I saw in that

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That

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you

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were a systems thinker

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and you

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realized that.

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like a lot of the aspirations of, of,
of a handful of media entrepreneurs that
you wanted to find the intersection of

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technology

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and media that would give you

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a little bit

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more of a moat than, than what the sort of

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treadmill of,

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digital media would've otherwise

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given to you.

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And so you,

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wanted to, to

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find a

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way to get.

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Sort of self-sustaining ecosystem
with the audience kind of involved.

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And community media was always the idea.

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So I, I fucking loved what you were

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doing.

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and then I, I gotta tell you,
as a guy who sort of faced,

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you,

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know, the pressures of
cancellation, I guess that's
a maybe one way of framing it,

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Nick: it.

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Oh, what, what, what, what was yours?

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Troy2: Well, I kind of got

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on the wrong side of the union and
stuff at Hearst and, and you know, Ben

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Smith kind of went after me in

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Brian2: Oh no, we're not gonna

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Troy2: a bit.

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So, but, but let's not,
let's not get into it.

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Brian2: Well, that's for
the second half of the

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program.

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Troy2: Yeah.

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Nick: Just to tell you, I,
I wasn't even particularly

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aware.

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Troy2: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Which I, which I love about it
but, but you could have been
like, incredibly bitter about the

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Peter Thiel thing.

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You contextualized that
moment to me with grace and

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kind of frame it in a
way that I, I don't know.

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I just love how you think about it

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and

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Nick: did, he

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did me a

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huge

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favor.

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he did me a favor

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that

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I, I, I'm only now

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beginning to comprehend, what
a, what a huge favor he did.

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he

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did it for me.

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Troy2: Well, you probably
wouldn't have got 140

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million for the company
if you sold it when

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Nick: it.

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Troy2: to

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sell it.

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Nick: Well, I mean, I
mean, I, I had an alibi for

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selling.

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Troy2: Yeah,

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Nick: You know, if you're
founder selling is always

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very difficult because
why are you selling?

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Troy2: right,

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Nick: What, what, what is it

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that you see that other people do not see?

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and

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so if, if you're actually making
a a, a free will choice to

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sell, you're immediately

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in a weaker, in a weaker position,
you know, you, you immediately
have an explanation to give.

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So he, he gave, he gave me a, a
pretext, he gave me a, a reason

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to sell.

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I've, I've said, I've said this before,
but I was relieved when gorka.com was

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shut.

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It, it, it was, it was time.

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I, I, I wasn't able to do it

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myself.

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I. I did fire half

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the staff in 2015 and
bring it to Heal then.

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But, but I, but I hadn't

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shut it down.

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And I probably should have shut it
down just, just for sheer business
reasons, just because there was Gizmoto

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and Life, er

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and Kotaku and these other
incredibly valuable, extremely
successful, highly profitable

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sites, that were being
dragged down by this,

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political, jihad that was
taking place within Gawker And
to a lesser extent, Jezebel.

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Troy3: Nick, where I
was going with this is

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interested in if, if, if Gawker
to me Sort of represented

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all,

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the things that.

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You know, media shifted from being kind
of supply led in the magazine era to
being demand led in the internet era,

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and it.

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meant all the fools rushed in.

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So it was endlessly
competitive, obviously.

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And you

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know what it meant was, I was

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I was having breakfast with the
magazine editor this morning and she
was like, well, you know, the moment you

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shifted the business.

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from being, you know, what used to be
the civility of print to where we all had
to kind of grind it out to get audience
every day, everything changed and it felt
really, really, really relentlessly hard.

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But if that was,

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so, so we, we, you know, everybody
that was kind of trying to
build stuff and that era wanted

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to build,

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you know.

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the economics, the efficiency, the
incentives, the kind of data structure,
community involved, all the things that

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Represented

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g the Gawker moment.

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And what

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I, I'm interested in

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is, is is kind of like.

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Do we ever have a kind of sustainable
media system moving forward?

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I mean, we still read the New York
Times and I still read, you know,
a lot of, you know, the Atlantic or
whatever you're reading, but like,
they all feel so fragile right now.

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And is is there, is there a
model, you know, in the future?

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And, and I think that to me, without
asking too broad a question that doesn't

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really have an answer to me.

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There's something happening that,
which a lot of people don't see,
which I think is built around the
idea of audience participation.

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And

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it has to do with really interesting
things like prediction markets and AI

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and how they're gonna sort of change
the way we interact with information
and our, and the models we have of
assembling people to build audiences
is really far from where we end up.

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Nick: WW where, where
do you want me to start?

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With the past or the present?

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Brian2: present and future.

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We can go back to the past later.

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Troy3: But yeah, with reminding us of, of
how the past got us to the fu gets us to.

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Brian2: Yeah.

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Nick: So trying to analyze
myself, which is hard.

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I think I've, I've always seen the,
community was the, was the real thing,
was the, was the core of the thing.

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And media is just one of them means by
which you draw people of a certain kind.

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In, into a community.

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And, and so that the, the original Gorka
business, you know, whether it was a
talent spotting business or whether it
was a media management business with
measurement tied very, very closely

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to comp compensation and a very simple
feedback mechanism for riders to, you
know, maximize, well, first of all, page
views well before buzzfeed, by the way.

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And then later influenced by
Buzzfeed, tied to uniques.

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So, so there was that side of Gorka.

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But, but the, I mean, the core, my core
interest was always in creating a space
for people to discuss and to build upon.

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Articles to, to make new stuff out
of the, out of what was already
there, out of the, out of the
narrative that was already there.

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00:10:43,675 --> 00:10:50,350
And, and my belief was also that that
couldn't just simply be a, an ideological
echo chamber, that that was boring.

242
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That, that, that was not, that, that
wasn't the essence of a good community,
a good party, a good event for,
for a, for that to be a good event.

243
00:10:57,530 --> 00:11:05,870
You needed a mix of people and they
needed to be able to discuss stuff
and argue, and for that argument
to kinda get, rough at times.

244
00:11:06,030 --> 00:11:08,880
But, but for that all to be
part of, part of the community.

245
00:11:09,090 --> 00:11:21,360
And so, so that was always probably,
has always been, my, my focus when it
comes to systems design is like, is
trying to create an environment in which
people are drawn out of common interest.

246
00:11:21,640 --> 00:11:29,484
But they're actually able to, to argue and
discuss and joke with each other and kind
of have, have fun, learn and have fun.

247
00:11:29,994 --> 00:11:35,999
Troy3: In in those days when you were
building Kenia, were you the sort
of product inspiration behind that?

248
00:11:35,999 --> 00:11:38,069
Were you pushing the teams to build that?

249
00:11:38,319 --> 00:11:38,609
Nick: Yeah.

250
00:11:38,759 --> 00:11:39,784
That, that was all me.

251
00:11:40,294 --> 00:11:42,634
Troy3: How would you have
described Kinia to someone?

252
00:11:42,634 --> 00:11:45,514
I guess it's at its most basic,
it's a commenting system.

253
00:11:45,569 --> 00:11:45,859
Nick: Yeah.

254
00:11:45,909 --> 00:11:57,134
The, the idea was simply that it was
a, it was a com commenting system in
which it wasn't a free for all, but it,
in which the person who had put up the
original comment, the thing that had got

255
00:11:57,194 --> 00:12:07,584
gotten the response, or the author of
the original article, would have control
over which comments they would respond to
and which would be displayed prominently.

256
00:12:07,884 --> 00:12:12,964
And so, yeah, it's not that different
to the way the Twitter comments are
organized, except the Twitter comments

257
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actually also include all of the,
the junk at the end, the stuff that
didn't get any replies by the author.

258
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Brian2: and they were really high quality.

259
00:12:20,150 --> 00:12:20,930
They were additive.

260
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And this was at a time when, you know,
internet comments were, I mean, I compare
it to, to entering like a porta-potty.

261
00:12:28,070 --> 00:12:37,490
You, you know, you don't look down like
there's nothing good on the page when you
look down on the comments and Gawker's
comments were additive and throughout
the, the different properties in Coer

262
00:12:37,585 --> 00:12:43,467
Nick: I, I, I, I mean, I was, I
probably, I probably started to
compromise around 2000 10, 11, 12.

263
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but I was a perfectionist, a
perfectionist publisher, that I, I,
I couldn't stand the idea that there
would be, such idiocy on my pages.

264
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So I I I, I couldn't bear the idea that
we would actually have dumb, dumb comments
or, or that the sicker fans would win,
or, just the, the pure idiotic trolls.

265
00:13:03,188 --> 00:13:07,723
You know, you, you, you, you talked
about how, you know, concerned
we were about the environment.

266
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You, you know, the moment when I kind of
gave up emotionally on Gorka, it wasn't, I
know the impending trial or the suspicion

267
00:13:16,616 --> 00:13:22,766
that Peter Thiel might be behind this
legal campaign or the unionization of,
of Go Curve, although that didn't help.

268
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But it was actually, I think it
was the moment when I had to,
sign a contract without Brain.

269
00:13:28,703 --> 00:13:32,435
I think it was, whatever
those junk list junk links.

270
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Was it Tabula?

271
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Maybe it was Tabula.

272
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I can't remember.

273
00:13:36,703 --> 00:13:38,053
Brian2: They're the big two, although our

274
00:13:38,248 --> 00:13:46,807
Nick: I like those guys revolt me and
I, I revolted myself, uh, for, for,
for, for putting that junk on the page.

275
00:13:47,087 --> 00:13:55,967
You know, when, when we had, you know,
plenty of interesting discussions
to put up there, you know, we, we
didn't need to interrupt anybody
with a bunch of irrelevant links.

276
00:13:56,327 --> 00:13:58,907
But whatever the internet is as it is.

277
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Troy3: So how does that connect
to the future in your mind, Nick?

278
00:14:02,741 --> 00:14:05,771
What, how, how do you think
about the model for the future?

279
00:14:06,011 --> 00:14:06,221
I'm, I.

280
00:14:07,630 --> 00:14:11,590
Nick: I mean, I, I still think
discussion is, is, is where it's all at.

281
00:14:12,110 --> 00:14:14,150
I suppose you could
include podcasts in that.

282
00:14:14,610 --> 00:14:17,393
TWI Twitter gets interesting
when, when there's a discussion.

283
00:14:17,723 --> 00:14:24,369
There was a little exchange between, was
between Matt lazier  the center centrist.

284
00:14:24,879 --> 00:14:31,840
Economics and political writer,
and Joe Lonsdale, who was kind of,
kind of part of the teal group.

285
00:14:32,240 --> 00:14:39,440
And there was a thread in which they
were, they were basically agreeing
a hundred percent that, you know,
America was abdicating its empire,
its imperial responsibilities.

286
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:42,890
You know, it was allowing the system
change to happen without even a fight.

287
00:14:43,460 --> 00:14:48,350
Like complete agreement between
people who were sort of, at least
nominally in opposition to each other.

288
00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:54,355
And, and that like, that, that's
the kind of thing that you still
pretty much only see on on Twitter.

289
00:14:54,905 --> 00:14:58,171
So TWI Twitter is still, I think, where
the action is, as far as I'm concerned.

290
00:14:58,656 --> 00:15:00,766
Troy3: Ezra Klein
agreeing with, Elon Musk.

291
00:15:01,541 --> 00:15:11,416
Nick: Uhhuh, there's a, there's
a big sway from kind of know
right wing social democrat, you
know, through to neo reaction.

292
00:15:11,716 --> 00:15:15,826
Troy3: Well, the whole book
abundance is, you guys are right,
except don't be assholes about it.

293
00:15:16,866 --> 00:15:24,001
Nick: And, and they say this after 30
years, after 30 years, they wake up and
say, oh, oh, maybe housing is an issue.

294
00:15:24,571 --> 00:15:30,481
You know, or, or, or maybe we
need a connected up regional
transportation network to bring
people from the housing to the jobs,

295
00:15:30,571 --> 00:15:30,691
Troy3: or

296
00:15:30,691 --> 00:15:34,501
maybe our form of government doesn't
work, but we, we can make it work.

297
00:15:34,569 --> 00:15:43,124
Nick: the most pathetic thing ever was
seeing Pete Bud, however you pronounce his
name, a after the election, talking about
lessons learned and where the Democrats

298
00:15:43,124 --> 00:15:49,374
go from here and, and saying that, oh
yeah, I think Ezra Klein and Mattius
had some interesting ideas on Hauser.

299
00:15:49,974 --> 00:16:01,534
I mean, no kidding, but, but, but the,
but the fact that you're just, just now
waking up, you know, after administration,
after administration, of overspending and

300
00:16:01,534 --> 00:16:09,064
irrelevant wasteful government action,
like, and now you're waking up to the
abundance agenda, you know, way too late.

301
00:16:10,086 --> 00:16:10,746
It is irrelevant.

302
00:16:11,791 --> 00:16:15,961
Brian2: Yeah, I, I'm interested
in like, when you're talking about
conversation and it being, you know,

303
00:16:15,961 --> 00:16:22,191
on x, you know, it might not be
the, the best quality conversation
sometimes, but it, it, it happens.

304
00:16:22,701 --> 00:16:28,161
Can media, can institutional
media, for lack of a better
word, serve that role anymore?

305
00:16:28,161 --> 00:16:35,331
It seems like the, the sort of
abdicated that, I mean a lot of, a lot
of properties ab abdicated their, the

306
00:16:35,436 --> 00:16:39,501
Nick: think, I think the New York
Times comment, I think the New
York Times comments are meaningful.

307
00:16:39,891 --> 00:16:45,141
You know, it's a, it's a, it's a
pretty good bellwether for, you
know, moderate liberal opinion.

308
00:16:45,651 --> 00:16:51,347
The new New York Times comments and, you
know, just the, the change in the New
York Times comments on, say trans issues.

309
00:16:52,162 --> 00:16:54,332
Has been, kind of, kind of remarkable.

310
00:16:54,612 --> 00:17:02,232
So, you know, they, you, you can
kinda see the Democratic Party
mainstream moving on some of these
issues if you, if you follow them.

311
00:17:02,732 --> 00:17:08,522
But yeah, beyond the New York Times
comments, I'm not really sure what
true discussion platforms there are.

312
00:17:09,017 --> 00:17:18,034
Troy3: did you talk somewhere,
Nick, about your love of using
AI to kind of cast scenarios

313
00:17:18,384 --> 00:17:18,734
Nick: Uhhuh.

314
00:17:19,221 --> 00:17:21,381
Troy3: Brian, I want to try
to connect two thoughts here.

315
00:17:21,381 --> 00:17:30,051
'cause Brian is kind of, of the belief
and he said this, the day that it launched
that poly market was really future media.

316
00:17:30,561 --> 00:17:32,426
Are you, are you familiar
with you, you know,

317
00:17:32,426 --> 00:17:32,816
poly market?

318
00:17:33,131 --> 00:17:33,521
Right.

319
00:17:34,001 --> 00:17:34,451
And,

320
00:17:34,451 --> 00:17:39,161
and that this notion of,
you know, the, you know, of

321
00:17:39,161 --> 00:17:39,611
course.

322
00:17:39,611 --> 00:17:44,561
the internet made media two way, and
of course we're more engaged when

323
00:17:44,771 --> 00:17:47,441
we get to be, you know, in the cast Right.

324
00:17:47,621 --> 00:17:49,511
And comments make us part of it.

325
00:17:49,511 --> 00:17:51,131
So it's kind of natural.

326
00:17:51,221 --> 00:17:53,711
It's as close as media gets to gaming.

327
00:17:53,891 --> 00:17:54,241
Nick: right.

328
00:17:54,306 --> 00:17:56,526
No, it's, it's not as close as it can get.

329
00:17:56,526 --> 00:17:56,736
Even

330
00:17:56,961 --> 00:17:59,571
Troy3: well, it gets closer
in prediction markets is my

331
00:17:59,571 --> 00:18:00,111
point.

332
00:18:00,621 --> 00:18:05,211
And it gets closer in sports
betting and it, it, it gets closer.

333
00:18:05,211 --> 00:18:11,781
I mean, arguably the whole
creator economy is a manifestation
of that same idea, right.

334
00:18:11,781 --> 00:18:11,991
That

335
00:18:11,991 --> 00:18:13,056
we're all part of it.

336
00:18:13,371 --> 00:18:18,985
And I was reading with
interest, you talking about
scenarios I want, is that media

337
00:18:19,495 --> 00:18:21,570
Nick: Well, lemme just tell you what I do.

338
00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:29,760
So I, I trade as, as a thing you
see from the bio on my account.

339
00:18:30,130 --> 00:18:33,410
I trade stocks, shorts long, typically,

340
00:18:33,860 --> 00:18:36,170
Troy3: Did you hit the Tesla
short at the right time?

341
00:18:36,370 --> 00:18:37,630
Nick: One of them at the right time.

342
00:18:37,630 --> 00:18:40,670
Two of them are looking at underwater
right now, but, there's a lots

343
00:18:40,670 --> 00:18:41,000
of, a

344
00:18:41,045 --> 00:18:42,650
Troy3: hit the apple short too, right?

345
00:18:42,715 --> 00:18:44,060
Nick: a Uhhuh a lot.

346
00:18:44,060 --> 00:18:45,320
There's still a lot to play out.

347
00:18:45,660 --> 00:18:48,630
Look, I do what any business
journalist would do.

348
00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:53,920
You know, I was with the Financial
Times, in the Eastern Europe covering
emerging markets, derivatives.

349
00:18:54,260 --> 00:18:55,490
Then technology.

350
00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:56,970
I was value wag.

351
00:18:57,330 --> 00:19:01,560
That's probably the more
important part of my biography
than being publisher of Gorka.

352
00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:03,360
Certainly for my current incarnation.

353
00:19:03,360 --> 00:19:05,700
You know, I, I, I was actually value wag.

354
00:19:05,700 --> 00:19:09,025
I wrote Value Wag, in 2007.

355
00:19:09,205 --> 00:19:09,865
It was the summer,

356
00:19:09,925 --> 00:19:11,245
Brian2: Like I remember
you moved out there

357
00:19:11,285 --> 00:19:11,688
Nick: It, it.

358
00:19:11,740 --> 00:19:13,630
was about It It was like, I
think it was eight months in

359
00:19:13,630 --> 00:19:14,170
total.

360
00:19:14,580 --> 00:19:19,630
Without wanting to boast too
much, the, when I did it, it,
it was on everybody's screen.

361
00:19:19,955 --> 00:19:27,235
So, and they were all riding in, you
know, with, all of them, you know,
Andreson, Musk, the whole dam, cast

362
00:19:27,235 --> 00:19:32,695
of characters all riding in with their
tips and their arguments and their
grievances and all that kinda stuff.

363
00:19:32,695 --> 00:19:36,135
It was very easy, to put oneself in
the middle of the information flow.

364
00:19:36,475 --> 00:19:40,415
Then, So, electric cars, this is
kind of how I came into all this.

365
00:19:40,575 --> 00:19:45,790
I, I was kinda, I was into the
SU seven, the zmi, SU seven,
it looked, it looked cool.

366
00:19:46,030 --> 00:19:49,600
It had a kind of inoffensive
Porsche style design.

367
00:19:49,910 --> 00:20:02,180
And the specs and the cost were like,
it was just like off the charts in
terms of where it ca, where it came in,
you know, $27,000 for a, like, top of
the line kind of Porsche equivalent.

368
00:20:02,735 --> 00:20:03,305
Troy3: A super Car?

369
00:20:03,845 --> 00:20:05,705
Nick: Well, the ultra is a supercar.

370
00:20:06,222 --> 00:20:07,602
And, and that's a bit more expensive.

371
00:20:07,602 --> 00:20:10,422
That's whatever, 70 to
$80,000 in, in China.

372
00:20:10,642 --> 00:20:19,432
But, you know, this is a car that
is not, not made by cheap labor, but
it's made in a, in a completely or
very, very highly automated factory.

373
00:20:19,612 --> 00:20:30,142
Not even by a car maker, but buy a phone
maker, you know, on its first, its first
outing in the auto market, and it comes
out with, you know, it comes out with

374
00:20:30,142 --> 00:20:40,392
this, you know, and then you compare it
against Tesla and then you start to do
the questions like, you know, okay, that's
BYD versus Tesla, Tesla sales in 2030.

375
00:20:40,970 --> 00:20:42,500
Let's, let's take conventional wisdom.

376
00:20:42,770 --> 00:20:45,140
Sometimes I would starve
the AI of information.

377
00:20:45,290 --> 00:20:50,420
So I, I would, I would turn off
its web search and just have a
look at its 2023 knowledge base.

378
00:20:50,420 --> 00:20:56,060
I. And just gonna gimme the conventional
wisdom on where BYD is going and where
Tesla is going in terms of sales.

379
00:20:56,600 --> 00:21:07,523
And then you start to drop in little
facts, you know, sort of,  oh,
oops, oops, Roman salute, uh,
that's not good for European sales.

380
00:21:07,853 --> 00:21:10,433
Germans still a bit sensitive
about that one actually.

381
00:21:10,713 --> 00:21:16,833
And you know, so you, you drop in these
new little bits of information and
then you see the projections change.

382
00:21:16,953 --> 00:21:29,673
And, you know, when I was getting to
a 10 to one ratio of BYD to Tesla,
forget about Zami and Neo and all
the other Chinese manufacturers, but
BYD to Tesla 10, 10 to one in 2030.

383
00:21:30,193 --> 00:21:37,213
And then looking at the relative
stock prices, which I, I think is
now five to one, I was maybe eight
to one when I started all this.

384
00:21:37,553 --> 00:21:43,193
So you look at that and that looks
like the most obvious trade you've
ever seen in your, in your entire life.

385
00:21:43,493 --> 00:21:48,863
And, and the most argue, most
obvious argument that you could
ever make, in a financial newspaper.

386
00:21:49,203 --> 00:22:03,663
That's, you know, Tesla relative to BYD
on a medium term, say five year time
horizon, looking, you know, Tesla is
extremely overvalued in relation to BYD.

387
00:22:04,653 --> 00:22:05,058
Troy3: Or, or

388
00:22:06,303 --> 00:22:07,743
Nick: come and argue with me

389
00:22:08,491 --> 00:22:09,648
Troy3: the narrative written.

390
00:22:09,648 --> 00:22:10,548
Another way.

391
00:22:10,608 --> 00:22:16,848
The Chinese inspired collapse
of the global car industry
creates a Nazi renaissance.

392
00:22:16,878 --> 00:22:19,908
As the German automotive
industry collapses,

393
00:22:20,358 --> 00:22:23,148
Nick: Okay, now, now you're
running ahead with the story a bit.

394
00:22:23,388 --> 00:22:25,323
Troy3: I mean, it's not, it's
not that hard to believe.

395
00:22:26,028 --> 00:22:34,378
Nick: the, my, my story actually
has Elon on Mars, that the, that the
Chinese are magnanimous enough and wise
enough to give America its victories.

396
00:22:35,004 --> 00:22:38,544
Give it Greenland, you know, like,
let, let, let America take Greenland.

397
00:22:38,544 --> 00:22:44,394
It, you know, needs something on the
map to show that all this dismantling
of empire was actually worth it.

398
00:22:44,664 --> 00:22:51,324
You know, let it, let it have its
North American bastion, you know, let
it take Cuba, you know, it's, it's
gonna need, America's gonna need to

399
00:22:51,339 --> 00:22:52,659
Troy3: Not Canada, Nick.

400
00:22:53,076 --> 00:22:57,221
Nick: I, I mean, I, I'm, I'm
guessing Canada would be surrounded
on three sides by Alaska.

401
00:22:57,506 --> 00:23:03,686
Greenland and the mainland United
States, so that, that that room
for maneuver is gonna be limited.

402
00:23:03,936 --> 00:23:06,606
But, but yeah, I'm assuming
that they don't occupy Canada.

403
00:23:06,846 --> 00:23:08,406
But green Greenland is another matter.

404
00:23:08,406 --> 00:23:10,476
Greenland wouldn't be too, too difficult.

405
00:23:10,536 --> 00:23:20,376
And then Mars, you know, a wise
Chinese leader would let the
Americans do as they have done
since, like, their ancestors' time.

406
00:23:20,586 --> 00:23:29,256
You know, when the, when the going wasn't
that good back in your home, consonants
on your home planet, you know, you up and
you leave, you know, you cross the ocean,

407
00:23:29,496 --> 00:23:37,326
you cross into planetary space and go and
set up a new civilization, a new branch of
humanity spreading forth into the starts.

408
00:23:37,506 --> 00:23:49,936
So, so I, if you wanna go novelistic here,
that's, that's the end of my novel, you
know, is that humanity does split and
the, and the Americans go off into the,
into the void, to pursue their own future.

409
00:23:50,431 --> 00:23:51,151
Brian2: It's possible.

410
00:23:51,451 --> 00:23:53,011
So how does this intersect with media?

411
00:23:53,011 --> 00:23:57,541
Not, not this part, but like the, what
we're talking about with, you know,
trading on information because, you know,

412
00:23:57,541 --> 00:24:04,921
there was, there's been hints of this,
this things like Hunter Brook and media's
looking for a better business model.

413
00:24:04,951 --> 00:24:05,431
Ads have

414
00:24:05,461 --> 00:24:08,448
Nick: do you, what do you, think a,
what do you think an investment is?

415
00:24:08,453 --> 00:24:10,608
You know, like, what do you
think a stock purchase is like?

416
00:24:10,608 --> 00:24:11,298
There's a memo.

417
00:24:11,898 --> 00:24:25,998
There's a memo, and, and the, and
the memo goes, you know, here's why
BYD will, in our belief, be worth
more relative to Tesla in 2030 than
the market currently recognizes.

418
00:24:26,238 --> 00:24:28,008
You know, here, here is the argument.

419
00:24:28,338 --> 00:24:31,038
Here are the branching counterarguments.

420
00:24:31,398 --> 00:24:36,378
Here's the thread, here are the sub
threads, the comments if you, if, if you

421
00:24:36,378 --> 00:24:36,738
like.

422
00:24:37,018 --> 00:24:40,348
And, and the, the whole thing
together makes up a, a tree.

423
00:24:40,678 --> 00:24:41,698
It's a knowledge tree.

424
00:24:41,698 --> 00:24:45,658
It's an argument tree, an argument
tree that the AI is actually
pretty good at understanding.

425
00:24:46,088 --> 00:24:47,768
You know, it thinks in these terms too.

426
00:24:47,768 --> 00:24:49,778
It thinks in, in spatial terms.

427
00:24:49,783 --> 00:24:54,038
It sees the argument, you know, as, as
some kind of, as, as some kind of network.

428
00:24:54,348 --> 00:25:02,898
And so if you allow the argument to
be expressed as that kind of, as that
kind of network, well, first of all,
it is pretty easy visually just to see
which narratives look plausible to you.

429
00:25:03,108 --> 00:25:13,498
A human being, an intelligent human being,
you know, who's well read, you know,
has read The Economist on the Financial
Times and, you know, certain select,
Twitter accounts for, for long enough.

430
00:25:13,708 --> 00:25:22,808
You know, we'll be able to tell what's
plausible or not, and that AI will be able
to help, and understand the issue better
having seen this structured argument.

431
00:25:23,178 --> 00:25:27,108
And so my, my theory is that actually
there's no real difference between.

432
00:25:27,463 --> 00:25:34,303
Media and investing, or to that
matter, I mean, the line with
software is pretty blurry too.

433
00:25:34,693 --> 00:25:39,923
So, so even to, even to talk
about a media industry, as, as
some kind of distinct thing makes

434
00:25:40,168 --> 00:25:42,988
Brian2: Yeah, but it's also,
it's a better model, right?

435
00:25:42,988 --> 00:25:46,918
Like it's a better model than
getting people, to webpages to put,

436
00:25:47,218 --> 00:25:47,578
to put

437
00:25:47,578 --> 00:25:47,998
ads in

438
00:25:48,053 --> 00:25:48,713
Nick: ads in front of.

439
00:25:48,778 --> 00:25:50,038
'
Brian2: cause you're basically,

440
00:25:50,142 --> 00:25:51,792
Nick: I'm certainly
finding it a lot more fun,

441
00:25:52,127 --> 00:25:57,227
Brian2: but you're basically like,
you're, you're injecting a meme, like,
and memes like are, are consequential.

442
00:25:57,227 --> 00:25:59,567
I like, I've like, they're consequential.

443
00:25:59,567 --> 00:26:06,047
I feel like, as, as to how the, the
whatever this media system, if it is
a system, how it works, like memes.

444
00:26:06,157 --> 00:26:14,292
Nick: I mean, I don't know
actually, because like the, the,
the China, China Hagerman meme,
you know, the China will win.

445
00:26:14,342 --> 00:26:16,202
In, in the industry.

446
00:26:16,502 --> 00:26:22,032
China will win like that, that
meme, I mean, it's been going
around on the internet a a bit.

447
00:26:22,132 --> 00:26:26,062
You know, there's the Xi Jinping
meme, you know, do nothing win.

448
00:26:26,482 --> 00:26:37,422
You know, there are the cyberpunk cities,
there are those memes that go around, you
know, now you've got black influencers
marveling at high speed trains and,
and cities and su sevens, in China.

449
00:26:37,422 --> 00:26:40,002
So you, you have those memes
that are, are going around.

450
00:26:40,212 --> 00:26:55,071
But in terms of like, you know, who's
on the China train, like right now, I'd
say it's, me, gls, as of maybe a couple
of days ago, Balaji of asin, I mean Ray
Dalio obviously for quite a long time.

451
00:26:55,591 --> 00:26:56,962
But we're talking about individuals here.

452
00:26:56,962 --> 00:26:58,432
We're not talking about any institutions.

453
00:26:58,732 --> 00:27:03,172
You know, the, the, the moment when
the Financial Times or the Wall
Street Journal or the Economist will.

454
00:27:03,757 --> 00:27:06,337
You know, suddenly put their
institutional weight behind.

455
00:27:06,337 --> 00:27:12,817
An idea is like never, like they,
they, they never put themselves out
on the line like that as institutions.

456
00:27:13,097 --> 00:27:18,947
And which is why, you know, if
you really wanna be ahead of
the markets, you have to follow
individuals rather than institutions

457
00:27:19,383 --> 00:27:20,388
Brian2: Was Wirecard.

458
00:27:20,388 --> 00:27:22,368
like publicly traded when?

459
00:27:22,578 --> 00:27:24,528
When the FT took it down?

460
00:27:24,588 --> 00:27:25,818
I mean, that would've been great to trade

461
00:27:26,178 --> 00:27:26,478
Nick: trade against.

462
00:27:26,914 --> 00:27:35,084
they came out with some, some
apparent discrepancy in the Tesla
books, but then maybe walked
back from them from that, angle.

463
00:27:35,294 --> 00:27:38,264
I mean, they, they're definitely
looking, I mean, every,
everybody's looking at Tesla now.

464
00:27:38,714 --> 00:27:46,544
So, you know, if you're, if you're a
business jour, if you're any kind of
business journalist in this world,
financial journalist, business
journalists, industrial journalists,

465
00:27:46,544 --> 00:27:53,414
automotive journalists, if you're,
if you're anywhere close to any of
those fields, like, you know, this
is the greatest story there ever was.

466
00:27:53,414 --> 00:28:00,714
You know, like rise up of, out of your
slumber like I did, because the, because
it doesn't get any better than this.

467
00:28:00,714 --> 00:28:04,344
This is, this is absolutely epic and
it's playing out, you know, right.

468
00:28:04,344 --> 00:28:13,234
On this phone that I'm looking at
right here, you know, at the end
of this call, I'll just go and I'll
switch back into whatever Elon is
saying since his emotion last night.

469
00:28:13,495 --> 00:28:21,265
Brian2: Troy, how does this intersect
with how you're looking at, you know,
where the media industry in quotes goes
because I mean, we talk all the time.

470
00:28:21,265 --> 00:28:25,675
It's like media itself has never been more
plentiful and more powerful in many ways.

471
00:28:25,855 --> 00:28:29,935
Yet at the same time, this sort of
institutional media industry is, like Nick

472
00:28:29,935 --> 00:28:32,455
mentioned, it's leaking
power to individuals.

473
00:28:32,580 --> 00:28:34,170
Troy3: yeah, it makes me
think a lot of things.

474
00:28:34,170 --> 00:28:36,630
It makes me think that, first of

475
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:39,990
all, so, so Nick is the
equivalent of a high

476
00:28:39,990 --> 00:28:41,070
powered programmer.

477
00:28:41,580 --> 00:28:43,320
In the media context, right?

478
00:28:43,615 --> 00:28:50,169
And, a high powered programmer
doesn't like a lot of distance
between their thoughts and the
metal of the machine, right?

479
00:28:50,169 --> 00:28:57,219
Like they wanna write assembler
code and, and so you go to where the
conversation is happening, right?

480
00:28:57,219 --> 00:28:59,319
You go down a level in media.

481
00:28:59,529 --> 00:29:11,169
That is not to say that you still don't
need an interpretive layer on top of
Elon Musk and, you know, whoever Matt
Glas and all those people to make it
understandable to a lot of people.

482
00:29:11,169 --> 00:29:12,789
It's just a smaller business.

483
00:29:12,999 --> 00:29:15,849
And I think that, that, that
media is, is vitally important.

484
00:29:15,849 --> 00:29:18,674
I think a couple things,
have, have happened.

485
00:29:19,094 --> 00:29:31,599
Is that broadly speaking, I don't think
prior to, say two years ago, we ever spent
as much time questioning, the veracity
of what established media was saying and

486
00:29:31,599 --> 00:29:37,329
the amount of interpretation that goes
through an ever, through every headline,
and therefore the amount of bias in it.

487
00:29:37,629 --> 00:29:44,859
And so there, I, I think that
there's a healthy sort of like
questioning now of the system by
which we used to get information.

488
00:29:44,949 --> 00:29:50,649
It may be more chaotic, it may lead to
like, you know, unfortunate outcomes,
but I think it's really important.

489
00:29:50,889 --> 00:30:02,649
What it makes me think about as an
investor, is that I, for the most part,
I think that digital media, and I really,
I didn't ever want to admit this before.

490
00:30:02,859 --> 00:30:04,719
I think it's incredibly hard to win.

491
00:30:05,199 --> 00:30:06,699
You just can't win the game.

492
00:30:06,999 --> 00:30:10,779
Like Jonah couldn't win the game and
ultimately Nick never won the game.

493
00:30:11,289 --> 00:30:14,919
And because there's no protect,
because distribution is,

494
00:30:15,189 --> 00:30:16,209
Nick: It's, it's the wrong game.

495
00:30:16,419 --> 00:30:17,619
Troy3: it's, it's the wrong game.

496
00:30:17,619 --> 00:30:18,909
Distribution is destiny and you

497
00:30:18,909 --> 00:30:19,149
can't.

498
00:30:19,383 --> 00:30:27,963
The only way that you can control
distribution is if you have the
power of network effects and
platforms, and those don't really sit
alongside, you try to do it with Kja.

499
00:30:28,143 --> 00:30:30,633
They don't sit alongside
media particularly well.

500
00:30:30,698 --> 00:30:33,303
Nick: Look, I, I I think we had
it, we had it for a few years.

501
00:30:33,303 --> 00:30:41,823
We had it from maybe, maybe 2006
to 2012, before our discussion
environments got, got swamped, you
know, swamped by Facebook and Twitter.

502
00:30:42,243 --> 00:30:44,253
You know, those niche
discussion environments.

503
00:30:44,253 --> 00:30:47,013
That definitely, definitely worked
for a few, a few years there.

504
00:30:47,013 --> 00:30:52,983
So I, so I think we had, we had
the, you know, we, we had that
mode of power that you need.

505
00:30:53,353 --> 00:30:55,693
But, but yeah, it's, it's, it,
it is definitely difficult.

506
00:30:55,933 --> 00:30:59,443
you know, the, the media skills
are so valuable in other fields.

507
00:31:00,058 --> 00:31:06,898
I like, like I wonder why everyone's, you
know, around there pecking for pennies
in the dirt along with the chicken.

508
00:31:07,348 --> 00:31:09,838
You know, like it's,
it's, it's very demeaning.

509
00:31:10,148 --> 00:31:18,938
And a lot of, you know, there are a lot
of media people with, with extremely
good brains, you know, who are absolutely
early to see big system changes.

510
00:31:19,118 --> 00:31:24,528
You know, maybe they can't do the most,
the most diligent earnings, analysis.

511
00:31:24,928 --> 00:31:32,728
So maybe they're not great stock
analysts in the, in the traditional
sense, but I, I, I don't say much
stored by those numbers anyway.

512
00:31:32,878 --> 00:31:38,678
And to the extent that they are
meaningful, that, that meaning is
priced into the numbers, beforehand.

513
00:31:39,038 --> 00:31:45,218
So I think those journalist, journalist
skills of kinda understanding who's
up, who's down, which Mees are.

514
00:31:45,878 --> 00:31:50,328
Pumped up, which, which memes are
looking, are looking vulnerable.

515
00:31:50,578 --> 00:31:55,948
The, those are skills that are
very, very well suited to this
current phase of the markets.

516
00:31:55,978 --> 00:32:07,003
Brian2: So gimme an example that like,
sort of brings that home that, someone
who uses media but not to like, get people
to web pages, to, to put ads and even to
pull and operate links in front of them.

517
00:32:07,513 --> 00:32:13,273
Nick: I mean, okay, lemme tell you, the
weekend that I put the Tesla, my big
Tesla shorts on, probably prematurely.

518
00:32:13,273 --> 00:32:14,413
I should have waited till now.

519
00:32:14,783 --> 00:32:17,513
But, but whatever I, I, I
felt like I was in a rush.

520
00:32:17,963 --> 00:32:29,468
But it was the, I, it was the weekend
after Musk had first been restrained
After the, after the chainsaw had been
transmuted into a. Into a scalpel.

521
00:32:29,468 --> 00:32:31,298
I think that was the word that they used.

522
00:32:31,508 --> 00:32:35,778
And this was gonna, these were gonna
be more delicate cuts, going forward.

523
00:32:36,198 --> 00:32:38,538
And he still goes down to Mar Largo.

524
00:32:38,538 --> 00:32:43,378
He doesn't, he doesn't get up and
go back to his factories, as any
self-respecting businessman would.

525
00:32:43,768 --> 00:32:51,282
So, but he, he's going down
still clinging onto Trump's
leg, going down to Mar-a-Lago.

526
00:32:51,532 --> 00:32:58,268
You know, he's, he's there trying to
get his picture being in frame with
the president, at, at the dinner.

527
00:32:58,333 --> 00:33:04,138
And, and then through the night,
I think it was 3:00 AM I was,
I think I was in Europe then.

528
00:33:04,358 --> 00:33:07,388
It was, it was 3:00 AM East
coast time, Florida time.

529
00:33:07,478 --> 00:33:10,118
And he is like tweeting, stuff.

530
00:33:10,148 --> 00:33:16,148
White babies, models of white babies
on bayonets at some South African.

531
00:33:16,601 --> 00:33:21,251
Demonstration, like just
pure race, war, race baiting.

532
00:33:21,611 --> 00:33:26,261
And, and, and I'm thinking to myself like,
he's not going back to those factories.

533
00:33:26,801 --> 00:33:28,811
He's not gonna go back to
those factories anytime soon.

534
00:33:29,355 --> 00:33:36,375
He is completely captured by his
audience on x. And, and the reason I
know this is because I've seen it myself.

535
00:33:36,585 --> 00:33:39,815
I've seen how riders,
myself, probably parly too.

536
00:33:39,885 --> 00:33:40,575
I don't think ever

537
00:33:40,575 --> 00:33:41,205
completely.

538
00:33:41,515 --> 00:33:52,355
But I've certainly seen how the Gorka
riders got absolutely caught up in their
audiences, you know, around 20 11, 12, 13,
14, 15, during the peak of lefty Twitter.

539
00:33:52,755 --> 00:33:57,015
And I see that happening to mosque
now, and there is no easy way out.

540
00:33:57,497 --> 00:33:59,027
Troy3: you talk about memes though, Nick.

541
00:33:59,027 --> 00:34:03,647
You called America Meme Nation
of the Dollar, a meme currency.

542
00:34:04,187 --> 00:34:05,027
What, what What does that

543
00:34:05,212 --> 00:34:05,652
Nick: does that mean?

544
00:34:05,813 --> 00:34:10,073
So I think we all understand
that there's a lot of psychology
that goes into market prices.

545
00:34:10,073 --> 00:34:10,193
Yeah.

546
00:34:10,752 --> 00:34:14,382
Now if you just look at the Tesla price
since two 30, I dunno what it is this

547
00:34:14,382 --> 00:34:14,622
morning.

548
00:34:14,622 --> 00:34:14,982
Two eight.

549
00:34:15,312 --> 00:34:17,532
Troy3: a meme stock too,
which is probably true.

550
00:34:17,532 --> 00:34:17,562
I.

551
00:34:17,592 --> 00:34:17,772
Nick: Yeah.

552
00:34:17,772 --> 00:34:18,732
People call it a meme stock.

553
00:34:18,732 --> 00:34:25,662
And yeah, if you just look at the news,
the news has been, you know, the pa, the
panels of the cyber trucks are coming off.

554
00:34:25,662 --> 00:34:27,522
The glue doesn't keep them on.

555
00:34:27,702 --> 00:34:30,582
It's not forged outta one piece of metal.

556
00:34:31,092 --> 00:34:33,762
You know, it's, it is not one
piece of metal as I had imagined.

557
00:34:34,092 --> 00:34:35,832
You know, it, it's actually, it looks

558
00:34:35,832 --> 00:34:36,072
kind of

559
00:34:36,072 --> 00:34:36,618
shoddy.

560
00:34:36,852 --> 00:34:37,852
Troy3: decided not to get one,

561
00:34:38,362 --> 00:34:48,792
Nick: Well, Darius was, Darius was kind
of into them, and, and that actually did
persuade me that the, teenage though the
design might be, it's, it is individual.

562
00:34:49,092 --> 00:34:52,722
And when you see it walk running
along Crosby Street here in Soho

563
00:34:53,352 --> 00:35:01,602
and, and every single delivery guy, and,
you know, like every UPS guy is just
ogling this thing and they're all, you

564
00:35:02,202 --> 00:35:09,642
know, turning to each other and smiling
and laughing and, you know, it's the event
of the day for like, you can't hate it.

565
00:35:10,002 --> 00:35:10,292
Troy3: Yeah.

566
00:35:10,422 --> 00:35:11,742
Nick: I, I, I, I couldn't hate

567
00:35:11,792 --> 00:35:14,012
Troy3: People don't voice in Miami, Nick.

568
00:35:14,460 --> 00:35:15,480
They don't look twice in

569
00:35:15,525 --> 00:35:15,745
Brian2: No

570
00:35:16,240 --> 00:35:16,470
Nick: Oh no.

571
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:18,540
Brian2: plumbers like
have their like decal

572
00:35:18,575 --> 00:35:18,995
Nick: detail.

573
00:35:19,220 --> 00:35:23,090
our kids have got little toy cyber
trucks, you know, like they, they're cool.

574
00:35:23,477 --> 00:35:30,887
Like you, you look at the value of Tesla
as a car company, it's maybe worth 5%
or 10% of, of what it is right now.

575
00:35:31,287 --> 00:35:38,197
So the rest of it is, you know,
I had the, very, very ambitious
projections of robot rollout.

576
00:35:38,707 --> 00:35:39,937
And robot car rollout.

577
00:35:39,937 --> 00:35:45,127
Robot taxi rollout, or just
Musk magic, real life Iron Man.

578
00:35:45,547 --> 00:35:46,897
You can't bet against Musk.

579
00:35:46,997 --> 00:35:49,277
People have lost so much
money betting against Musk.

580
00:35:49,457 --> 00:35:53,117
Do you really wanna be one of the people
that loses money betting against Musk?

581
00:35:53,327 --> 00:35:58,697
So it is that, it's that kind of
magic factor, and that's probably
like those two things together.

582
00:35:58,697 --> 00:36:02,777
The magic of the numbers and, you
know, optimistic forward projections.

583
00:36:03,107 --> 00:36:06,077
And then the magic of Musk's aura.

584
00:36:06,417 --> 00:36:09,747
Probably they account for
nine tenths of the value.

585
00:36:10,167 --> 00:36:12,267
So you, you have to look at
that as being a meme stock.

586
00:36:12,687 --> 00:36:27,517
And then you look at the dollar itself,
you know, every single time I go anywhere
else, like Hungary or Brazil, I, I'm
filled with a sense of panic that I
need to get my money out of, out of.

587
00:36:28,027 --> 00:36:38,137
Dollars into a place where it can buy
a real nice house for $2 million in
the middle of Sao Paulo, you know,
with a great gym and school and all

588
00:36:38,137 --> 00:36:47,137
the amenities you'd ever want of a
big, big international city right
there at maybe one quarter of the
cost of the big American cities.

589
00:36:47,507 --> 00:36:54,827
And you know, and you start to look at
the US and the dollar itself, you know,
the, the whole idea of a re reserve
currency is a psychological thing.

590
00:36:55,397 --> 00:36:58,937
Reserve currency is the
ultimate meme stock.

591
00:36:59,747 --> 00:37:05,957
You know, it, it, it, it depends
on people's perceptions of the
strength of that power behind it.

592
00:37:06,317 --> 00:37:13,217
The, the, the, the strength of
the military power, the financial
power, the, the hidden reserves.

593
00:37:13,367 --> 00:37:15,677
You know, how much gold
is there in Fort Knox?

594
00:37:16,007 --> 00:37:17,147
Who, who does it belong to?

595
00:37:17,637 --> 00:37:21,967
And you know, when you start
to question all of that stuff,
then things get very scary.

596
00:37:21,972 --> 00:37:22,032
Indeed,

597
00:37:22,709 --> 00:37:32,569
Brian2: But it seems like to me it's
like media has moved from being about
like acquiring attention, you know,
to then translate into money, usually
through ads, but to trying to create

598
00:37:32,569 --> 00:37:40,099
these memes, like we talked about,
abundance, like they created a meme
and that's like, that is, that is the
currency for influence these days is to be

599
00:37:40,174 --> 00:37:44,742
Nick: I, I mean my, I mean my, I think
my currency, I mean, I would like to
think is a bit, is a bit different.

600
00:37:45,112 --> 00:37:52,942
The, you know, like, like a, you
know, like journalists through the
ages, I believe you, you put out some
information in order to get information.

601
00:37:53,452 --> 00:38:00,617
You know, so you, you, you, you put,
you put out some of the information
and the insights that you developed
on that information, whether you've

602
00:38:00,617 --> 00:38:07,967
done it just through, you know, you
through human intuition or through ai,
assistant analysis doesn't really matter.

603
00:38:08,387 --> 00:38:12,379
But, like you can, you can take that.

604
00:38:12,859 --> 00:38:22,069
Information, and you can make, there's no
reason why you shouldn't be able to make
money out of it, but directly, I, I like,
I I don't really understand the, let the,

605
00:38:22,579 --> 00:38:31,879
why we're complicating things so much,
so much when a traditional journalistic
practice of putting out information and
getting in information, building on the

606
00:38:31,879 --> 00:38:40,369
information that you already have with
new information and building up the
structure of the argument in your head,
looking down every single contingency.

607
00:38:40,734 --> 00:38:48,839
I, I don't see why that isn't actually
perfect, as a, as a way to analyze
the future and potential investments.

608
00:38:49,049 --> 00:38:56,279
And I don't understand why journalists
are always so incredibly hesitant
about acting upon their own insights.

609
00:38:56,759 --> 00:39:02,399
Troy3: Have you played with this, what's
the name of that application where you can
follow the trades of the Congress people.

610
00:39:02,609 --> 00:39:03,569
Congress people?

611
00:39:04,304 --> 00:39:11,873
Nick: I, I dunno, but I, I think I
made a mistake on the Lockheed Boeing,
bakeoff, because I, I, I think the

612
00:39:11,873 --> 00:39:17,183
congress, the congress critters were
buying Lockheed, the head of the
transaction and it was a mistake.

613
00:39:18,083 --> 00:39:22,013
And I think, I think I went, I went in
alongside them, which was un unwise.

614
00:39:22,146 --> 00:39:28,756
Brian2: So what, so just to like
put a bow in this, like how would
you sum up your, like, theory of
the case about, about all of this?

615
00:39:28,756 --> 00:39:34,006
About like how media can be used in,
in a different way to make money.

616
00:39:34,006 --> 00:39:43,936
I mean, it's not like new or anything,
but like we were saying is like,
it's still incredibly powerful and
influential to be able to, you know, use
the tools and practices of journalism.

617
00:39:44,026 --> 00:39:44,596
Exactly.

618
00:39:44,596 --> 00:39:49,876
But like the old ways of making money
from that are increasingly obsolete to me.

619
00:39:50,272 --> 00:39:53,917
Nick: who is able to keep in their head
both argument and counter argument?

620
00:39:54,427 --> 00:40:03,097
Like what kind of, what kind of
person is able to see that things
could go this way, but if he did
this, then things would go this way.

621
00:40:03,277 --> 00:40:12,517
You know, like who, who is capable
of actually analyzing those kind
of situations, trying to work out,
you know, what Elon Musk's, Musk's
psychological payoff, payoff structure

622
00:40:12,547 --> 00:40:23,527
is, you know, what are the options open
to somebody, you know, if he's trying
to write the science fiction novel
of, of his own life, what, what are
the, the next likely moves you like?

623
00:40:23,527 --> 00:40:27,817
You can analyze this as, as a science
fiction narrative if you want,
because he's suddenly writing one.

624
00:40:28,327 --> 00:40:36,775
And, and so, so I, I, I guess what
I'm saying is that, or not you
actually assign percentages to each
potential path, or whether you just

625
00:40:36,775 --> 00:40:43,295
simply judge the credibility of a
particular narrative path, it doesn't
really matter, but journalists.

626
00:40:44,075 --> 00:40:51,172
Traders, you know, maybe my tutor
at Oxford who was kind of good at,
particularly good at doing that whole,

627
00:40:51,352 --> 00:40:55,582
you know, being able to take either
side of an argument at the same, you
know, pretty much in the same session.

628
00:40:55,912 --> 00:40:59,272
You know, there are certain intellectual
traditions that allow for that.

629
00:40:59,681 --> 00:41:03,311
and I think journalism at least done
in a certain way, does allow for that.

630
00:41:03,586 --> 00:41:06,316
Troy3: Well, hey, Nick, Nick, Nick, a
slightly different question for you.

631
00:41:06,416 --> 00:41:18,386
Have, have your points of view on
journalistic ethics changed since, you
know, the, the day you fired half the
staff at Gawker and where you sit today?

632
00:41:18,686 --> 00:41:25,646
Meaning the role of journalists, sort
of now we have this need to feed the
machine every day, and some of it feels

633
00:41:25,646 --> 00:41:34,826
like sort of petty ha hall monitoring
to, you know, to like out, out sch
Freud to like holding power accountable.

634
00:41:35,306 --> 00:41:38,421
Like do, do, do you have a thought
on that, on that continuum?

635
00:41:39,224 --> 00:41:46,739
Nick: I, I mean, I, I gotta say, I, I
think I probably said all I possibly can
about media and you and May and maybe
answered one question too many already.

636
00:41:47,049 --> 00:41:49,839
Because like, I, I don't
think about this that much.

637
00:41:50,199 --> 00:41:52,359
I don't think about the
media industry that much.

638
00:41:52,679 --> 00:41:56,519
I, I mean, I can tell you who I read
and it's, it's almost all individuals.

639
00:41:57,009 --> 00:41:59,499
I, and I do, I do follow
them very closely.

640
00:42:00,019 --> 00:42:07,309
Tho those individuals who I think
of as being bellwethers of one
particular group or, or another,
it's al almost all individuals.

641
00:42:07,369 --> 00:42:08,329
I don't think there's any

642
00:42:08,329 --> 00:42:10,289
institutions, that, that I follow.

643
00:42:10,539 --> 00:42:14,480
But, but I, but I don't
track in industry at all.

644
00:42:15,089 --> 00:42:16,019
Troy3: The York Times

645
00:42:17,591 --> 00:42:17,831
Nick: No,

646
00:42:18,551 --> 00:42:19,541
Troy3: go to Twitter first.

647
00:42:19,686 --> 00:42:26,086
Nick: I mean, I, I would, you
know, I would read Ganesh at
the ft. There's certain people,
you know, I, I like Joe Weal.

648
00:42:27,151 --> 00:42:27,811
At Bloomberg.

649
00:42:27,911 --> 00:42:31,121
So yes, there are certain
people at certain institutions
that I pay attention to.

650
00:42:31,609 --> 00:42:33,469
Brian2: Do you think Substack
is an interesting business,

651
00:42:33,756 --> 00:42:37,096
Nick: I dunno, there's certain, there's
certainly some interesting people on it.

652
00:42:37,539 --> 00:42:41,949
I mean, ILA Igl is basically, is, is the
democratic body as far as I can tell.

653
00:42:42,849 --> 00:42:46,089
I mean, he, he certainly, it provides
most of the intellectual content.

654
00:42:46,479 --> 00:42:46,929
Brian2: Yeah.

655
00:42:46,989 --> 00:42:49,209
Well, it's kind of the successor to blogs

656
00:42:49,509 --> 00:42:50,229
in some ways.

657
00:42:50,229 --> 00:42:52,509
I mean, newsletters are the
new blogs to some degree,

658
00:42:52,967 --> 00:42:54,167
similar ecosystem.

659
00:42:54,675 --> 00:42:59,205
are you surprised that that Silicon
Valley turned on the, the media world?

660
00:42:59,205 --> 00:43:05,715
So, I mean, you, you saw like, you
know, you were, you were doing Valley
Wag and so at the time you were doing
Valley wa that was unusual, right?

661
00:43:05,715 --> 00:43:11,925
Like this was, this was the time of like
fawning coverage still, I think it was
still fawning coverage then for most

662
00:43:12,345 --> 00:43:12,855
media.

663
00:43:13,282 --> 00:43:24,832
Nick: I mean value wa was, was certainly
the goca sites were a mix, you know, so
there were definitely critical pieces
and, you know, some of them more serious
than others, you know, carried interests.

664
00:43:24,832 --> 00:43:28,012
For instance, we had a, we had a little
campaign against carried interest.

665
00:43:28,522 --> 00:43:31,144
But, look, they've always been touchy.

666
00:43:31,654 --> 00:43:35,914
They, they used to be more hands
on in their media management.

667
00:43:35,914 --> 00:43:44,564
You know, they used to be in your inbox,
in your email, and, you know, and Peter
Thiel was still trying to whine and
maybe not dine, but certainly whine

668
00:43:44,564 --> 00:43:52,094
Ryan Tate as late as 2011, you know,
three years after the supposed terrible
insult that had been visited upon him.

669
00:43:52,574 --> 00:44:05,294
And so they, they've definitely,
the media management, varies from,
you know, gentle, encouragement, you
know, through to, lethal lawsuits.

670
00:44:05,634 --> 00:44:11,754
And must certainly seems to be
inclining towards the more aggressive
end of the spectrum right now.

671
00:44:12,124 --> 00:44:13,774
It seems to be mainly rhetorical.

672
00:44:14,149 --> 00:44:15,739
You know, mainly threatening people.

673
00:44:16,189 --> 00:44:18,769
That that was a very
doctor evil point he did.

674
00:44:18,769 --> 00:44:18,979
Right.

675
00:44:19,219 --> 00:44:29,179
I mean, I'm guessing he was talking
about Reed Hoffman, you know, it
was like, I'm gonna, we, and we're
going to get, you had a, it had
a definite supervi quality to it.

676
00:44:29,410 --> 00:44:35,080
So, so I, I I, I assume he's
gonna, some move against the
media would be popular about now.

677
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:36,910
I don't know exactly
know who the target is.

678
00:44:37,420 --> 00:44:39,730
Like what, what's the media
expression of Reid Hoffman?

679
00:44:40,150 --> 00:44:42,940
Do you, do you boot him from XI dunno.

680
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:53,875
Troy3: How, how, how did this little,
little Nick Denton renaissance
start, like about a, what, three
weeks ago you, did you decide that
you were gonna have a, a moment?

681
00:44:54,415 --> 00:45:00,065
I mean, I think you're being, you know,
partly, I don't know, you, you joke a
little bit about selling the apartment.

682
00:45:00,065 --> 00:45:01,685
Surely that wasn't the motivation.

683
00:45:02,075 --> 00:45:05,675
Is it because you are leaving
the country imminently?

684
00:45:05,675 --> 00:45:11,525
Is it because you felt like
there was enough stuff that
you wanted to talk about?

685
00:45:12,035 --> 00:45:14,135
Are we gonna expect to hear more from you?

686
00:45:14,513 --> 00:45:15,653
Nick: It was January 20th.

687
00:45:16,470 --> 00:45:18,540
It was not the Trump inauguration.

688
00:45:18,540 --> 00:45:21,570
It was not the Musk Roman salute.

689
00:45:22,060 --> 00:45:23,727
But it was the, the deep seek drop.

690
00:45:24,297 --> 00:45:28,137
And, just playing around with
deep seek, for a few days.

691
00:45:28,137 --> 00:45:35,417
Then we, we were on vacation, in like,
in a place where the dollar goes a long
way and playing around with deep seek and

692
00:45:35,417 --> 00:45:41,507
realizing that it was, it was better than
Claude, it was cleaner, like seemingly
less censored from my point of view.

693
00:45:41,507 --> 00:45:43,097
I didn't ask it about Ian man.

694
00:45:43,677 --> 00:45:48,777
And the idea of American AI
supremacy fell away in an instant.

695
00:45:49,593 --> 00:45:52,593
See, you could see it was, it
was, it was, it was obvious.

696
00:45:52,593 --> 00:45:52,803
Okay.

697
00:45:52,803 --> 00:45:58,563
Well, so, you know, they've matched
in this, they're gonna match in
pretty much every other AI model type.

698
00:45:58,993 --> 00:46:06,703
And it, the story of AI is gonna be the
same as the story of, you know, every
hardware industry, which is the Chinese
come up at the low end of the market, and

699
00:46:06,703 --> 00:46:15,263
maybe if their initial products aren't
quite as good, but they're priced at
10, 10 x less or a hundred x less, and
gradually they move up the value chain.

700
00:46:15,533 --> 00:46:21,443
And clearly AI and by extension
software are gonna be no different than.

701
00:46:22,268 --> 00:46:30,998
Drones or electric cars or
robots or batteries or any other
industry you wanna think about.

702
00:46:31,368 --> 00:46:37,458
And you know, when you come to
that conclusion that all of these
different industries are not all
different industries, but they're

703
00:46:37,458 --> 00:46:47,688
all part of one larger industry,
that there is no real difference
between phones, batteries, robots,
drones, and a bunch of other sectors.

704
00:46:47,688 --> 00:46:52,488
That this is all one category in
which companies are competing.

705
00:46:52,848 --> 00:46:58,248
And the only one that Amer America
has is Tesla in that field.

706
00:46:58,518 --> 00:46:59,958
Europe has nothing.

707
00:47:00,328 --> 00:47:08,938
And China has, you know, probably
about a dozen different contenders
in, you know, coming at it from
robots, phones, cars, batteries,

708
00:47:09,148 --> 00:47:10,048
and all directions.

709
00:47:10,555 --> 00:47:13,705
So that, so that was the,
that was the trigger really.

710
00:47:13,750 --> 00:47:27,190
It is just why, why is all of my
money in US stocks and US real estate
when China is, you know, is already
in 2023, twice the electricity

711
00:47:27,190 --> 00:47:32,030
production of the United States,
heading towards 10 x the electricity
production of the United States?

712
00:47:32,390 --> 00:47:34,820
Electricity reduction is a
good proxy for the new economy.

713
00:47:35,250 --> 00:47:41,247
So expect the Chinese new economy
to be multiples of the size
of the American new economy.

714
00:47:41,487 --> 00:47:50,752
And, you know, and taking that scenario
work out, Hey, ai, if I believe this,
tell me how I can best make money.

715
00:47:51,418 --> 00:47:52,198
It's not that hard.

716
00:47:52,203 --> 00:47:55,717
Troy3: Yeah, I told you to come
outta your shell and talk What?

717
00:47:55,717 --> 00:47:56,377
What happened?

718
00:47:56,737 --> 00:47:59,557
But suddenly you were like, I
don't wanna be quiet anymore.

719
00:47:59,557 --> 00:48:00,667
This is too interesting.

720
00:48:01,132 --> 00:48:03,292
Nick: I, it's like I
said, it's the best story.

721
00:48:04,012 --> 00:48:13,832
Like if, if you've, I, I would in, in
my, in my time, I've covered the fall
of the Soviet Empire, you know, the
revolutions in Eastern Europe, emerging

722
00:48:13,832 --> 00:48:23,046
markets, the rise of the emerging
markets, the derivatives scandals of
the 1990s, the first kinda wave of,
you know, international finance, in

723
00:48:23,046 --> 00:48:31,876
Europe and Southeast Asia, then Silicon
Valley, seen up close when I was doing
Valley Wag from a greater distance
when I was, with the financial times.

724
00:48:32,276 --> 00:48:38,526
And, and I can tell you that this
right now is by far the best story
that I've ever, come across in my life.

725
00:48:38,796 --> 00:48:43,881
And, and, and if you're not, if you're
not mesmerized by it, I, I mean, I
don't know what else is, I don't know.

726
00:48:44,046 --> 00:48:45,546
I dunno what else is
as interesting as this.

727
00:48:45,546 --> 00:48:49,146
There's certainly no, there's
certainly no fiction that's as
interesting as this right now.

728
00:48:49,798 --> 00:48:54,328
It so it, so it is, it is, you know,
let's, let's bring it back to media.

729
00:48:54,530 --> 00:48:55,670
And we should be talking about media.

730
00:48:56,090 --> 00:49:03,934
This is the biggest media story I
have ever seen, bar no question.

731
00:49:04,354 --> 00:49:06,154
There's trillions of dollars at stake.

732
00:49:06,364 --> 00:49:07,834
There are empires at stake.

733
00:49:08,254 --> 00:49:18,164
You know, there is a new era coming,
and it's all gonna play out right
in front of us, you know, through
our fingertips, you know, through
our, through the clips that we take.

734
00:49:19,207 --> 00:49:19,897
it's, awesome.

735
00:49:20,047 --> 00:49:23,017
Brian2: and you're short
America in this narrative.

736
00:49:23,396 --> 00:49:31,364
Nick: I'm actually not, I'm not
sure American, Chamath from the
oil in podcast that he was Short
Wall Street, long Main Street.

737
00:49:31,914 --> 00:49:34,704
So I look, I, I did own
a bunch of copper stocks.

738
00:49:35,134 --> 00:49:42,137
And I, and I don't, I don't see why
this should be so bad for, you know, if
this ends up with a devaluation, let's
say a devaluation of 50% of the dollar.

739
00:49:42,550 --> 00:49:50,940
After all the tariff dance is complete,
we just end up with, you know what,
this is a, this is a, this is unstable.

740
00:49:51,270 --> 00:49:53,160
The markets need to
move into e equilibrium.

741
00:49:53,160 --> 00:50:00,420
And the way for them to move into
equilibrium is that the dollar must drop
because it's ridiculous that America is
running in a deficit in the agricultural

742
00:50:00,420 --> 00:50:06,125
trade, right now, when America ought
to be one of the great agricultural
suppliers to the entire planet.

743
00:50:06,485 --> 00:50:15,095
So if you bring down the dollar
by 50%, I don't think that's so
bad for the fracking industry, not
necessarily natural gas industry.

744
00:50:15,495 --> 00:50:17,145
Is that so bad for corn?

745
00:50:17,575 --> 00:50:19,165
Is that so bad for Iowa?

746
00:50:19,435 --> 00:50:22,315
Is that so bad for American manufacturers?

747
00:50:22,555 --> 00:50:24,295
Is that so bad for Arizona?

748
00:50:24,655 --> 00:50:27,235
Now for the inland states,
this could be fine.

749
00:50:27,570 --> 00:50:30,715
Brian2: It's gonna be not as fun
to go to Italy in the summer.

750
00:50:30,745 --> 00:50:31,855
I gotta say in the

751
00:50:32,095 --> 00:50:36,955
Nick: Are you, y'all have been lauding
it over us for way too, way too long.

752
00:50:37,075 --> 00:50:45,875
D don't, don't you think that those
euro pores insults were, you know,
they, they just kinda passed through us
without, any feeling, any feelings being

753
00:50:45,875 --> 00:50:46,205
hurt.

754
00:50:46,445 --> 00:50:49,980
You know, you you you were
all calling us Europas.

755
00:50:50,225 --> 00:50:50,495
Both

756
00:50:50,585 --> 00:50:50,975
Brian2: of us,

757
00:50:51,095 --> 00:50:52,715
Nick: both liberals and conservatives.

758
00:50:52,830 --> 00:50:54,905
Brian2: Hey, I just
want go to Sicily, Nick.

759
00:50:54,905 --> 00:50:56,615
I don't know why the hostility.

760
00:50:56,720 --> 00:50:58,070
Troy3: I think of you as a local,

761
00:50:58,340 --> 00:51:03,740
and when you, when they asked them,
but the, the, one of the funny things
that I thought you did in a, in an

762
00:51:03,740 --> 00:51:12,140
article I read somewhere, is that you
apologized for sending us the Irish
and Scott that became hillbillies.

763
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:12,920
Nick: Uh,

764
00:51:13,019 --> 00:51:13,769
Troy3: Is that, is that.

765
00:51:14,823 --> 00:51:22,198
Nick: but I mean, it was, it was
when, it was when, uh, Vance and the
others were, big into thank yous.

766
00:51:22,198 --> 00:51:25,408
You know, like the, you know, Europe
should have been, you know, the

767
00:51:25,408 --> 00:51:28,588
French should have said, thank you
for saving them from speaking German.

768
00:51:28,898 --> 00:51:38,888
And Zelensky should have been more
thankful for, you know, for sending
thousands of men to their death to,
to save Europe from a Russian invader.

769
00:51:39,198 --> 00:51:45,788
So, it was, it was around the time
of the thank yous and I was running
through all the things that I thought
America should thank Europe for,

770
00:51:46,011 --> 00:51:53,091
you know, patients wait, that we don't
pull out our money from the US stock
market and treasuries just like that.

771
00:51:53,441 --> 00:52:00,011
That we don't respond to every
outrageous insult, from Vance,
or mask or Rubio or Trump.

772
00:52:01,052 --> 00:52:03,527
you know, in the same tone that they
would, that they were delivered.

773
00:52:03,857 --> 00:52:14,287
You know, there's a lot of, there's
a lot of anger, in, in Europe about
this kind of, this constant, this,
the, the succession of insults,
they're just like, continues.

774
00:52:14,557 --> 00:52:16,207
It, it's, it's demeaning.

775
00:52:16,207 --> 00:52:22,477
And if you think that people are just
gonna switch back to the way things were
before you got another thing coming.

776
00:52:22,777 --> 00:52:30,667
But anyway, I was in the middle of this
rant and then I realized, well actually
we didn't really send them all our best.

777
00:52:30,667 --> 00:52:36,262
You know, like, may, let's,
let's be, let's be, let's
be a little bit honest here.

778
00:52:36,262 --> 00:52:37,267
That, yeah.

779
00:52:37,537 --> 00:52:39,247
Amongst the kind of the Jewish scientists.

780
00:52:40,007 --> 00:52:43,457
And you know, the hardworking
Germans after the 1848 revolution.

781
00:52:43,727 --> 00:52:48,767
And so we send you some, we, we
send you some high quality human
capital that, that's for sure.

782
00:52:49,127 --> 00:52:54,617
But you know what, there,
there were a lot of panelists,
Sicilian peasants in the mix too.

783
00:52:54,977 --> 00:53:02,177
And, and then, and then I think maybe,
you know, maybe we're gonna find the
most expensive of all with the, with

784
00:53:02,177 --> 00:53:09,017
the Scots-Irish, the Borderers, you
know, who were pernicious and pious even
before they arrived on the East Coast.

785
00:53:09,347 --> 00:53:15,737
And when they did arrive on the
East coast, they were pushed, you
know, by the peace loving Quakers,
by the coastal elites at that time.

786
00:53:16,037 --> 00:53:22,487
You know, nudged them gently up
the valleys, you know, so they
could, they could die fighting
in the Indians on the frontier.

787
00:53:22,857 --> 00:53:28,827
And that and that original betrayal
in America, you know, people
talk about, you know, whatever
the original Sin of America was.

788
00:53:28,892 --> 00:53:31,917
And, and there are several
original sins to choose from.

789
00:53:32,427 --> 00:53:41,555
But I've, I've always thought that
that original scene is one that, should
be a little, a little stronger in the
narrative, because that's the story
of JD Vance's ancestors, you know,

790
00:53:41,555 --> 00:53:54,175
JD Vance's ancestors who, who arrived
already despised, on the East Coast and
then were pushed into the hills, by the
Lowlanders that didn't want anything to do
with them, with, with their fighty ways.

791
00:53:54,275 --> 00:53:56,050
Troy3: Do we have the
Quakers to thank for that?

792
00:53:56,570 --> 00:54:04,265
Nick: I I think, I th I think it was
both the Quakers in Pennsylvania and
the, I guess the gentry in Virginia.

793
00:54:04,315 --> 00:54:10,675
But, but although definitely the Quakers,
you should read Albian seed for the
more, more detailed history of this.

794
00:54:11,167 --> 00:54:18,817
Troy3: Well, Nick, if, if one wanted to
participate in Nick Inc. In the future,
do you, you trade on your own account?

795
00:54:18,847 --> 00:54:21,577
Do you create a Denton hedge fund?

796
00:54:22,157 --> 00:54:24,660
Do I, does my money fall yours, Nick?

797
00:54:24,900 --> 00:54:34,540
Or do I do I, put seed capital into
the next kind of poly market esque
AI assisted scenario, planning media,

798
00:54:35,329 --> 00:54:37,939
Nick: Oh, you know, you know all the
lingo, you know all the lingo already.

799
00:54:38,314 --> 00:54:38,794
Troy3: right?

800
00:54:39,619 --> 00:54:41,029
Nick: So somebody's been doing some

801
00:54:41,029 --> 00:54:42,199
talking with the AI here.

802
00:54:42,784 --> 00:54:43,654
Troy3: a business coming?

803
00:54:43,924 --> 00:54:44,284
Is there a.

804
00:54:45,619 --> 00:54:49,521
Nick: Well, I mean, there's my business,
which is, investing in my family's money.

805
00:54:49,927 --> 00:54:56,047
and so we have a, I guess a two
month track record now, and I, I
think I've disclosed all the trades.

806
00:54:56,107 --> 00:55:04,343
It's long BYD, the long zami, short
Tesla, short apple, long gold,

807
00:55:04,773 --> 00:55:05,493
Think no.

808
00:55:05,498 --> 00:55:05,688
Oh,

809
00:55:06,033 --> 00:55:07,413
Brian2: so you are short America.

810
00:55:07,413 --> 00:55:09,183
I mean, that's as short
America as you can get.

811
00:55:09,735 --> 00:55:10,125
Nick: Oh, sorry.

812
00:55:10,335 --> 00:55:12,705
Long, long grab in Southeast Asia too.

813
00:55:13,245 --> 00:55:17,865
Well, I, I, I wouldn't say that, I
would say, I would actually say I, it
is more like a, it's a rebalancing.

814
00:55:18,570 --> 00:55:20,790
Troy3: will you be taking
visitors in Hungary?

815
00:55:21,158 --> 00:55:24,818
Nick: Yeah, I'm actually, I'm
actually thinking of opening up
a little space, a little cafe,

816
00:55:25,148 --> 00:55:31,598
you know, just, you know, just like in
the old days when news and financial
speculation and coffee and maybe a

817
00:55:31,598 --> 00:55:33,038
drink up to 6:00 PM

818
00:55:33,263 --> 00:55:36,833
Troy3: our friend Andre Baz, is he,
he's a great Hungarian, is he not?

819
00:55:37,253 --> 00:55:38,183
Nick: He is a Hungarian.

820
00:55:38,183 --> 00:55:40,463
I, I, I, I don't think
I'm friends with him.

821
00:55:40,565 --> 00:55:47,285
Troy3: Can connect you if you're
interested, but is there a way
that we could maybe get him to
decorate your, your, your new hotel?

822
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:50,840
Nick: does, does he spend
much time in Budapest?

823
00:55:51,350 --> 00:55:52,310
Troy3: I, you know, I don't know.

824
00:55:52,310 --> 00:55:55,430
I only see him on Shelter Island
where he has a, a little hotel

825
00:55:55,550 --> 00:55:59,670
Nick: Well, look, I, I'll, things don't
take too long to spin up in, in Hungary.

826
00:55:59,670 --> 00:56:03,780
So, come over to Budapest in
September and we'll do a, we'll
do a podcast from over there.

827
00:56:04,290 --> 00:56:05,100
Troy3: Oh, that's a great thing.

828
00:56:05,100 --> 00:56:08,000
Maybe we could do a little
conference over there on, media next.

829
00:56:08,110 --> 00:56:16,000
Nick: the, the space is very small
deliberately, so, it fits maybe
a, a dozen people participating
and maybe a few more watching.

830
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:19,465
Troy3: maybe we could take it out of your
space and get a hotel or something, you

831
00:56:19,578 --> 00:56:21,978
Nick: I, I can, I actually like
the idea of something small.

832
00:56:22,428 --> 00:56:23,028
Let's just, that's, that's just me.

833
00:56:23,028 --> 00:56:25,638
I, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not
looking to do an events business.

834
00:56:25,918 --> 00:56:31,632
But, but, but, but, but the idea, but
the idea of, you know, you put out
information and you get information.

835
00:56:32,077 --> 00:56:33,552
We're, we're just trading, you know?

836
00:56:33,912 --> 00:56:35,472
Troy3: I wanna track your trades, Nick.

837
00:56:35,472 --> 00:56:36,552
I wanna start putting 'em in.

838
00:56:36,552 --> 00:56:38,052
I want to know when you got in.

839
00:56:38,327 --> 00:56:40,097
Nick: let me see whether
I can dig out the dates.

840
00:56:40,607 --> 00:56:47,807
The, the, the, the, the, the
call you, I mean, you can, you
can more or less work it out by
the, the, the BBYD, oh, I forgot.

841
00:56:47,807 --> 00:56:52,297
Tencent, BYD, Zami and Tencent,
was at the beginning of February,

842
00:56:52,723 --> 00:56:53,683
maybe the second week of February.

843
00:56:54,193 --> 00:56:55,333
Troy3: When did you short Apple?

844
00:56:55,843 --> 00:56:56,503
Nick: More recently,

845
00:56:57,013 --> 00:57:05,053
I think, I think that was the, it
was people like DHH and Gruber,
like some, some real hardcore
apple fanboy turning against it.

846
00:57:05,342 --> 00:57:07,682
Troy3: Gruber gave them a
little slap a couple of weeks.

847
00:57:08,102 --> 00:57:16,682
Nick: I, I mean, I, I think those
kind of things, those things are
meaningful, you know, that, like, that
that's a, that's a, that's a meaningful
event when somebody like Gru turns.

848
00:57:16,952 --> 00:57:28,932
And then there's also a very interesting,
Palmer lucky, interview on YouTube with
a YouTube podcaster in which he, he has
a, a whole six minute, you, you've got
to, you've got to look at this thing.

849
00:57:29,262 --> 00:57:36,932
It's a six minute playbook on how Xi
Jinping could shut Apple down with
a, one signature on a piece of paper.

850
00:57:37,442 --> 00:57:41,732
You know, you know, basically
how you know the design in China,
the designed in California.

851
00:57:42,062 --> 00:57:42,782
It means nothing.

852
00:57:43,562 --> 00:57:50,652
What matters is that it's, it's made
in China, and China could seize the
supply chain, at a moment's notice.

853
00:57:50,697 --> 00:57:52,452
It, it would be easy for them to do.

854
00:57:52,662 --> 00:57:54,432
And you know, as long as
that's the case, they just

855
00:57:54,487 --> 00:57:54,647
Brian2: Yeah.

856
00:57:54,912 --> 00:57:56,112
Nick: ball balls in their hand.

857
00:57:56,337 --> 00:58:00,197
Troy3: Well, you know, I like a
Palmer, rant as much as the next guy.

858
00:58:00,362 --> 00:58:01,412
Nick: Oh, he's, he's awesome.

859
00:58:01,922 --> 00:58:13,862
if, if America, if America had a hundred
more like him, a hundred more Travis
Colonics, Palmer Lucks and Elon Musks,
if it, if it had a hundred more of

860
00:58:13,862 --> 00:58:22,112
them, you know, those kind of a Rian
figures who, who don't give a fuck,
like then, then I might actually have
some second thoughts about my bets.

861
00:58:22,112 --> 00:58:22,352
You know,

862
00:58:22,584 --> 00:58:36,566
Troy3: Brian, for, for your edification,
if we want to tie this conversation up
in a bow, it to me, there needs to be a
media layer on top of Nick Denton, because
most people aren't gonna do that work.

863
00:58:36,956 --> 00:58:41,636
They're not gonna, they're not
gonna abstract the insights out
of the Palmer Lucky conversation.

864
00:58:41,876 --> 00:58:46,346
They're not gonna follow Matt
and glaciers, and someone
needs to make sense of that.

865
00:58:46,436 --> 00:58:51,236
And if you tied that in with stock
trading information, I think we could
make an interesting media product.

866
00:58:51,756 --> 00:58:55,566
Nick: There hasn't been a, a
good new financial publication.

867
00:58:56,196 --> 00:58:56,406
Troy3: Do you

868
00:58:56,406 --> 00:58:57,756
follow this account called

869
00:58:57,756 --> 00:58:59,076
Unusual Whales?

870
00:58:59,796 --> 00:59:00,306
Nick: yeah,

871
00:59:00,460 --> 00:59:02,560
I mean if you, I think the
following list is public there.

872
00:59:03,140 --> 00:59:04,460
And that's basically everybody I follow.

873
00:59:04,782 --> 00:59:09,452
So you can pretty much get a,
get a very, very clear sense
of who I'm paying attention to.

874
00:59:09,452 --> 00:59:18,002
It's basically right, right wing thinkers,
traders, some Musk fan boys, some,
some swing voters in the teal world.

875
00:59:18,354 --> 00:59:20,514
A few financial journalists.

876
00:59:20,661 --> 00:59:21,981
Yeah, that's, that's pretty much

877
00:59:22,018 --> 00:59:33,178
Brian2: One final media question is
like, why do you think there's so,
there's so much more energy in the sort
of right wing part of this alternative
media than there is in left wing.

878
00:59:33,178 --> 00:59:35,008
Because I mean, it was
kind of the opposite

879
00:59:36,244 --> 00:59:36,664
Nick: was it

880
00:59:37,239 --> 00:59:37,629
Brian2: I feel

881
00:59:37,744 --> 00:59:43,389
Nick: I I, I, I I haven't found
anything that the left has said
interesting in, I know several decades.

882
00:59:43,839 --> 00:59:44,289
Brian2: Oh, really?

883
00:59:44,829 --> 00:59:51,189
Nick: I mean, sto like Matt Sto
and some of the anti-monopoly
people, it's the same tune.

884
00:59:51,189 --> 00:59:53,079
But yeah, it's a good tune
and I agree with them.

885
00:59:53,509 --> 00:59:57,169
The Neoliberals, yes, I, the
abundance agenda is awesome.

886
00:59:57,349 --> 01:00:00,289
I believe in the housing,
housing theory of everything.

887
01:00:00,529 --> 01:00:00,799
Yeah.

888
01:00:00,799 --> 01:00:01,969
I'm like, sign me up.

889
01:00:02,239 --> 01:00:02,599
I'm there.

890
01:00:02,659 --> 01:00:03,889
I'm there, I'm there.

891
01:00:04,219 --> 01:00:05,059
I'm a yimby.

892
01:00:05,089 --> 01:00:06,139
I'm a total yimby.

893
01:00:06,139 --> 01:00:06,919
I love the Ybi.

894
01:00:07,069 --> 01:00:08,359
Troy3: it really is ridiculous

895
01:00:08,794 --> 01:00:17,194
Nick: I, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not
gonna put my, you've just woken up
now in 2025 and, you know, in the
final years of the empire, with a

896
01:00:17,194 --> 01:00:24,424
plan to turn it around that, you know,
probably your last chance was back in
2008, but that was probably the last

897
01:00:24,509 --> 01:00:27,529
Troy3: or, or there's something
wrong with the system,

898
01:00:28,143 --> 01:00:28,983
Nick: Well, obviously,

899
01:00:29,268 --> 01:00:29,878
Troy3: obviously.

900
01:00:30,468 --> 01:00:34,665
Brian2: But the fact that like
podcasting is so filled with, with.

901
01:00:35,205 --> 01:00:38,475
Right wing figures versus
left wing figures, that that
doesn't surprise you at all.

902
01:00:38,745 --> 01:00:40,455
That's par for the course, I guess.

903
01:00:40,510 --> 01:00:43,500
Nick: no, I mean, they, they've been a
lot more, I mean, look at my follow list.

904
01:00:43,650 --> 01:00:46,140
There's, I, I think there's
barely a left winger in there.

905
01:00:46,570 --> 01:00:50,615
And, and, and, and, that's not,
I mean, I mean maybe that's just
me being ideological about it.

906
01:00:50,675 --> 01:00:53,435
But I think, I think I'm curious enough.

907
01:00:53,975 --> 01:01:00,215
I, I'm curious for different points of
view and interesting facts and insights
that I might not have otherwise follow.

908
01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:03,065
And, and I will take them
from absolutely anywhere.

909
01:01:03,065 --> 01:01:06,275
You know, I'm completely in,
I'm an information omnivore.

910
01:01:06,275 --> 01:01:07,625
I will, I'll take it all.

911
01:01:07,895 --> 01:01:10,205
And I just don't see anything
interesting that's coming from them.

912
01:01:10,625 --> 01:01:14,135
I look, I, I like Mad
Gazi, president for life.

913
01:01:14,135 --> 01:01:17,375
I'll, I'll, I'll, if I was voting
in America, I would vote for him.

914
01:01:17,715 --> 01:01:22,665
There's no way he can ever stand for
election, you know, he's a Singapore kinda
leader, not, not an American kinda leader.

915
01:01:23,250 --> 01:01:24,330
Troy3: well, maybe, maybe.

916
01:01:24,330 --> 01:01:25,740
Nick, how's your Hungarian?

917
01:01:26,295 --> 01:01:26,805
Nick: It's okay.

918
01:01:27,195 --> 01:01:28,905
Troy3: Do you think you
could run for president?

919
01:01:30,101 --> 01:01:39,236
Nick: No, I, I used to Christian, I, I,
I was colleagues with Christian Freeland,
who later became can Canadian finance
minister and, and Trump's Beno Benoit.

920
01:01:40,156 --> 01:01:46,301
and, and I guess she's an enemy of
Putin as a Ukrainian, and, and we, we
used to fantasize about what we would

921
01:01:46,301 --> 01:01:53,171
do if we were, if we had control of
one of these, these European countries
like I guess Hungary or Ukraine.

922
01:01:53,471 --> 01:02:01,851
But thank God they never gave it
to us because we were, I think,
I, I think far too detached from
the everyday, to, it was very

923
01:02:02,021 --> 01:02:02,371
Troy3: Right.

924
01:02:02,721 --> 01:02:04,686
Will this move require you to give up?

925
01:02:04,686 --> 01:02:06,126
Do you have American citizenship?

926
01:02:06,321 --> 01:02:07,701
Nick: No, I never, I never took it.

927
01:02:08,073 --> 01:02:10,533
Troy3: So, so you don't
have to pay American taxes?

928
01:02:11,418 --> 01:02:11,748
Nick: Right.

929
01:02:11,748 --> 01:02:12,168
Now I do.

930
01:02:12,168 --> 01:02:12,468
Yeah,

931
01:02:13,053 --> 01:02:13,743
Brian2: Troy, are you?

932
01:02:13,743 --> 01:02:16,368
Are you anything you need to

933
01:02:16,413 --> 01:02:20,223
Troy3: I made a big mistake because I
was being a little idealistic and I,

934
01:02:20,350 --> 01:02:21,490
Brian2: You went right for the taxes.

935
01:02:21,490 --> 01:02:22,210
That's all I know is there's

936
01:02:22,330 --> 01:02:26,307
Troy3: No, but I'm a You know,
I'm Canadian, but I have an,
I'm now an American citizen.

937
01:02:26,307 --> 01:02:26,607
Yes.

938
01:02:26,862 --> 01:02:29,397
Brian2: Are you gonna renounce
your citizenship for tax reasons?

939
01:02:30,177 --> 01:02:30,777
Troy3: I never said that.

940
01:02:30,777 --> 01:02:32,457
I'm just gonna move to Miami just like

941
01:02:32,637 --> 01:02:33,297
Brian2: yeah, that's fine.

942
01:02:33,297 --> 01:02:34,167
That's an in between.

943
01:02:34,256 --> 01:02:37,926
Nick: We'll, we'll make, we'll
make sure you make whatever move,
before the exit taxes Come in.

944
01:02:38,190 --> 01:02:38,970
Troy3: that's a good point.

945
01:02:39,480 --> 01:02:39,930
Brian2: All right.

946
01:02:39,930 --> 01:02:40,920
Should we leave it there?

947
01:02:40,980 --> 01:02:42,660
Nick, thank you so much
for taking the time.

948
01:02:42,754 --> 01:02:43,174
Troy3: Thanks, man.

949
01:02:43,450 --> 01:02:44,515
Nick: Good, good talking, Trey.

950
01:02:44,653 --> 01:02:46,423
Troy3: Do we want to join?

951
01:02:46,779 --> 01:02:47,499
Brian2: If he'll come on.

952
01:02:47,499 --> 01:02:47,799
Sure.

953
01:02:48,182 --> 01:02:50,732
Troy3: Maybe we can debrief
with anonymous banker

954
01:02:51,025 --> 01:02:51,415
AB: hey

955
01:02:51,762 --> 01:02:55,471
Troy4: You know what, we had
a nice conversation ab with,
one and only Nick Denton.

956
01:02:55,981 --> 01:02:57,271
He has a lot of big theories.

957
01:02:57,271 --> 01:02:58,831
He's short on a lot of things.

958
01:02:58,891 --> 01:02:59,491
He's short

959
01:02:59,641 --> 01:03:01,591
Brian2: Well, first of
all, he's over media.

960
01:03:01,621 --> 01:03:06,481
He, he can't, he, he doesn't, he doesn't
wanna talk about the media business,
but he likes media to make money still.

961
01:03:06,661 --> 01:03:07,741
And it seems like

962
01:03:07,801 --> 01:03:12,031
Troy4: Well, he liked, he thinks
that the skills of journalists
are relevant to making money

963
01:03:12,551 --> 01:03:12,851
AB: Yeah.

964
01:03:13,096 --> 01:03:13,396
Brian2: me.

965
01:03:13,871 --> 01:03:16,241
AB: So he said that, you mean you
don't need to be a journalist to

966
01:03:16,241 --> 01:03:17,021
make money in media?

967
01:03:17,021 --> 01:03:17,771
Is that his point?

968
01:03:18,511 --> 01:03:20,101
Troy4: well, if he was
gonna make money in media?

969
01:03:20,101 --> 01:03:23,221
he'd do the ultimate affiliate,
which is trade Stocks.

970
01:03:23,731 --> 01:03:24,121
Right.

971
01:03:24,151 --> 01:03:29,641
He's, he's short on Apple, by
the way, ab, he's short on Tesla.

972
01:03:29,641 --> 01:03:32,851
Obviously he's long on
all the Chinese car brands

973
01:03:33,259 --> 01:03:34,399
Brian2: he is going into gold.

974
01:03:34,489 --> 01:03:34,939
He is.

975
01:03:34,994 --> 01:03:36,649
He's got a prepper portfolio.

976
01:03:37,069 --> 01:03:38,354
AB: Did he say anything on Reddit?

977
01:03:38,847 --> 01:03:38,967
Troy4: no,

978
01:03:39,057 --> 01:03:39,687
he didn't mention

979
01:03:39,758 --> 01:03:39,921
AB: Got

980
01:03:40,277 --> 01:03:41,567
Troy4: but he's very long

981
01:03:41,567 --> 01:03:41,717
on

982
01:03:41,717 --> 01:03:48,227
community media and media discussion
as media, which I thought was a
really great part of the conversation.

983
01:03:48,227 --> 01:03:48,467
Brian,

984
01:03:48,855 --> 01:03:49,605
AB: mean, it's interest.

985
01:03:49,605 --> 01:03:50,925
I think they said discord.

986
01:03:50,925 --> 01:03:54,525
Discord just filed or will go public
later this year at some point.

987
01:03:54,752 --> 01:03:56,824
So I think there's communities
popping up everywhere.

988
01:03:56,824 --> 01:04:02,584
There's a lot of places, I think based
on your ages in mind, that we don't
necessarily understand the communities.

989
01:04:02,584 --> 01:04:08,744
Like I, I can't use Discord but
there's a lot of connectivity
happening, people talking, chatting.

990
01:04:08,804 --> 01:04:09,194
I don't know.

991
01:04:09,704 --> 01:04:14,324
Brian2: I'm glad you can't use
Discord because Alex, who had a
hard stop, so he couldn't be here.

992
01:04:14,424 --> 01:04:18,504
He was always giving me shit because,
like I said, discord was just fried.

993
01:04:18,504 --> 01:04:20,274
My brain, I can't, I can't handle

994
01:04:20,304 --> 01:04:20,664
Troy4: Hold it.

995
01:04:20,664 --> 01:04:24,654
Did, did ab, did AB just put
himself in our age cohort?

996
01:04:26,069 --> 01:04:26,289
AB: I'm

997
01:04:27,304 --> 01:04:27,395
one below

998
01:04:28,449 --> 01:04:28,989
Brian2: Two below

999
01:04:29,269 --> 01:04:30,241
AB: I'm, I'm old.

1000
01:04:30,364 --> 01:04:30,874
I'm old.

1001
01:04:30,904 --> 01:04:31,084
Yeah.

1002
01:04:31,084 --> 01:04:33,004
But it's, it's weird when you use these,

1003
01:04:33,024 --> 01:04:33,774
Troy4: I'm not, I'm not a

1004
01:04:33,774 --> 01:04:34,644
boomer Brian.

1005
01:04:35,019 --> 01:04:37,809
Brian2: So Anna said, I said
we might do a Gen X episode.

1006
01:04:37,809 --> 01:04:39,759
She said, isn't Troy a boomer?

1007
01:04:41,409 --> 01:04:41,829
Troy4: That's

1008
01:04:41,949 --> 01:04:42,309
Brian2: before be.

1009
01:04:42,309 --> 01:04:43,269
I laughed so hard.

1010
01:04:43,774 --> 01:04:51,244
AB: I think what's always interesting
is when you try to use a product that
is getting a ton of traction and you
can't, you just, it doesn't make sense.

1011
01:04:51,244 --> 01:04:55,319
It's, it's a weird thing like Snapchat
for example, like, I just, it just,

1012
01:04:55,324 --> 01:04:56,104
doesn't work for me.

1013
01:04:56,614 --> 01:04:56,884
So.

1014
01:04:57,054 --> 01:04:57,384
Troy4: Yeah.

1015
01:04:57,654 --> 01:05:00,474
Well, Brian, I, I just wanna go back
to the Gen X thing for a minute.

1016
01:05:00,474 --> 01:05:08,994
'cause I was reminded today at a meeting I
had that the latchkey kids that are Gen X
are now having to kind of drag the bodies

1017
01:05:08,994 --> 01:05:17,904
from, you know, the digital wreckage and
find, find new ways to eat, eat, hunt,
eat and kill, or the other way around.

1018
01:05:17,904 --> 01:05:19,374
Kill, hunt, kill, eat.

1019
01:05:19,884 --> 01:05:21,984
Yes, there's more and more of us.

1020
01:05:22,494 --> 01:05:23,184
Brian2: Wait, explain that.

1021
01:05:23,184 --> 01:05:23,874
What, does that mean?

1022
01:05:24,384 --> 01:05:30,384
Troy4: What, what I mean is there's
no institutional protection for
any of the Gen Xers anymore.

1023
01:05:30,384 --> 01:05:30,954
It's over.

1024
01:05:31,464 --> 01:05:40,588
Brian2: No, this is, this is all I,
the New York Times had a great, piece
that got sent to me by like several
people about the creative class of Gen

1025
01:05:40,588 --> 01:05:47,038
X that got the sort of their knees cut
out for, from under them right when
they're in the prime earning years.

1026
01:05:47,368 --> 01:05:48,118
It was a tough one.

1027
01:05:48,476 --> 01:05:55,946
AB: I can tell you from what I'm seeing,
like a lot of these traditional media,
either the public companies are gonna
be splitting themselves apart again

1028
01:05:55,946 --> 01:06:05,306
to find value or any combination is
so much of the potential value upside
after the combination or decoupling
is through headcount reductions.

1029
01:06:05,306 --> 01:06:08,131
And it's that that middle
staff, right, that are people.

1030
01:06:09,011 --> 01:06:17,711
Late thirties, maybe forties to mid
fifties, who, like you said, Brian,
are in their higher earning years
and there's just duplicative staff.

1031
01:06:17,771 --> 01:06:23,891
Um, there's ways that they're in
technology is getting necessarily, they
don't are necessarily needed anymore.

1032
01:06:24,251 --> 01:06:28,091
And so, and there's not new net new
jobs in traditional media space.

1033
01:06:28,271 --> 01:06:34,004
Obviously this happened in newspapers,
it's happening in tv, radio, there's
just, there's not a need to have.

1034
01:06:34,669 --> 01:06:35,749
Extra bodies around it.

1035
01:06:35,749 --> 01:06:41,989
It's the only way when you have headwinds
from advertising revenue and declining
audiences to make these businesses work.

1036
01:06:42,439 --> 01:06:51,709
Last week, I think it was reported
that Apollo's gonna start shopping
Cox Media Group, which they acquired,
I think four to five years ago.

1037
01:06:51,769 --> 01:06:54,559
And the question everyone has is
like, who's going to buy that?

1038
01:06:54,659 --> 01:07:04,709
The strategics in this space might get
some regulatory relief from Congress
to be able to buy more TV stations, but
otherwise, there's not another private
equity firm that's there to buy it.

1039
01:07:05,249 --> 01:07:09,719
And when a strategic buys it,
they're gonna be buying basically
stations that they already like.

1040
01:07:09,779 --> 01:07:13,199
They're gonna be buying a
station in a market where they
might already have a station.

1041
01:07:13,619 --> 01:07:14,999
And So the only way to make it.

1042
01:07:16,019 --> 01:07:18,059
From an MA perspective
is to just cut a bunch.

1043
01:07:18,059 --> 01:07:20,339
You're basically combining
both stations together.

1044
01:07:20,639 --> 01:07:23,969
You're ripping out the entire back
office, and the only thing that

1045
01:07:23,969 --> 01:07:27,569
you're keeping separate is the news
product in a little bit of ad sales.

1046
01:07:28,057 --> 01:07:32,332
Brian2: So this is like the time
for the, I mean, we talked about
this with the cleanup, right?

1047
01:07:32,362 --> 01:07:39,922
And this is going to be, I guess
what you're saying is it's gonna
be broader than just some like
struggling digital media publishers.

1048
01:07:40,243 --> 01:07:40,478
AB: Yeah.

1049
01:07:40,658 --> 01:07:43,538
I mean it's, it's already happened
a lot in the newspaper space.

1050
01:07:43,598 --> 01:07:45,458
It, it happened in radio.

1051
01:07:45,878 --> 01:07:47,618
It's going to happen now in tv.

1052
01:07:47,858 --> 01:07:56,948
The main reason why it's happening now
in TV is there's, there was a lifeline
that traditional or local TV got, which
is in the form of the retransmission

1053
01:07:56,948 --> 01:08:02,011
fees, uh,  distributors . And what
had happened is at the beginning
when they first got those fees.

1054
01:08:02,606 --> 01:08:05,276
All the, big networks started
charging an affiliate fee.

1055
01:08:05,276 --> 01:08:10,016
So they were get, so A, B, C,
NB, C, they were getting part
of their retransmission fee.

1056
01:08:10,436 --> 01:08:16,106
and over time the amount that the kind
of the corporate overlord was taking
from the local TV station has crept up.

1057
01:08:16,166 --> 01:08:22,286
And so that line of revenue has
gone from a big contributor to the
bottom line to, to basically nothing.

1058
01:08:22,556 --> 01:08:27,626
And so the only real way to
make these stations work and
politicals up and down over time.

1059
01:08:27,896 --> 01:08:28,076
But the

1060
01:08:28,076 --> 01:08:29,726
only way to make this these stations work

1061
01:08:29,726 --> 01:08:30,266
is to just cut

1062
01:08:30,266 --> 01:08:30,866
costs out.

1063
01:08:31,241 --> 01:08:33,526
It's like the last of all the local media.

1064
01:08:33,571 --> 01:08:36,001
Troy4: and the pol the political
money was a big part of the

1065
01:08:36,226 --> 01:08:36,496
Brian2: Yeah.

1066
01:08:36,496 --> 01:08:47,566
And also, I don't know if the political
money comes back as strong because
Trump and the Republicans prove that
TV advertising in, in, in politics
is totally overrated to some degree.

1067
01:08:47,566 --> 01:08:49,276
I mean, he was able to,
he's a unique candidate.

1068
01:08:49,276 --> 01:08:57,766
He was able to earn a lot of it, but
they got outspent like tremendously and
they poured a lot of money and energy
into, you know, get out the vote.

1069
01:08:58,266 --> 01:09:03,186
And, and those, the kind of like
ground operations, that they
were always weaker on, I thought.

1070
01:09:03,666 --> 01:09:07,656
But it's interesting to see how
that'll affect the TV market.

1071
01:09:08,056 --> 01:09:08,266
AB: Yeah.

1072
01:09:08,266 --> 01:09:09,616
I mean, there's a dirty little secret.

1073
01:09:09,616 --> 01:09:15,166
A lot of general, they're
called GCs of campaigns take a
percentage fee from traditional TV

1074
01:09:15,166 --> 01:09:16,876
ad spend, and so

1075
01:09:17,436 --> 01:09:18,366
Brian2: They're all loaded for that.

1076
01:09:18,366 --> 01:09:21,606
I mean, this is a best business to be some
political consultant and be like, yeah, I

1077
01:09:21,606 --> 01:09:23,796
got just the guy who can
handle the, the media bar.

1078
01:09:24,031 --> 01:09:29,641
AB: Yeah, and then their buddy from
college makes the TV commercials,
and so they spend 80% on ad buys.

1079
01:09:29,641 --> 01:09:34,981
They take, I think, less from the
digital advertising, so I think
there's still a longer tail in.

1080
01:09:35,491 --> 01:09:45,211
Political ad buying, but the rest of
the market, like for e everybody, even
like smaller advertisers, the internet's
easier and easier to advertise on.

1081
01:09:45,211 --> 01:09:55,501
So I think long term and just the number
of subs is going down, the number of
subscribers, I think, I remember looking
at the research when full distribution
was over a hundred million households.

1082
01:09:55,501 --> 01:09:57,271
It's now down to like 55.

1083
01:09:57,331 --> 01:10:01,981
And at the time everyone thought,
okay, this is like, I'm, someone's
predicting it's gonna go down

1084
01:10:01,981 --> 01:10:02,881
five to 10% a year.

1085
01:10:02,881 --> 01:10:03,871
And, and it's happened.

1086
01:10:04,296 --> 01:10:05,016
And people are getting

1087
01:10:05,016 --> 01:10:06,696
reconnected in a lot different ways.

1088
01:10:07,476 --> 01:10:10,221
Troy4: Hey, ab, what
pronouns do you prefer?

1089
01:10:10,886 --> 01:10:11,876
AB: He, He,

1090
01:10:11,911 --> 01:10:12,351
Brian2: and b.

1091
01:10:12,776 --> 01:10:13,016
AB: he,

1092
01:10:13,076 --> 01:10:14,876
we're in Trump's Trump Trumpland.

1093
01:10:15,146 --> 01:10:15,536
So

1094
01:10:15,611 --> 01:10:15,971
Troy4: Okay.

1095
01:10:16,481 --> 01:10:18,611
what else hit the market this week?

1096
01:10:18,701 --> 01:10:18,941
AB.

1097
01:10:19,451 --> 01:10:19,631
AB: I dunno.

1098
01:10:19,631 --> 01:10:20,561
I got the Cox.

1099
01:10:20,711 --> 01:10:24,011
The Cox Media stuff is people are trying
to figure out what's gonna happen there.

1100
01:10:24,585 --> 01:10:28,575
I think there's, there's more news on the
TikTok stuff of who's in that process.

1101
01:10:28,575 --> 01:10:33,765
It sounds like they haven't really
gotten that much information, but it
sounds like there's more investment

1102
01:10:33,765 --> 01:10:35,205
firms trying to pair up.

1103
01:10:35,565 --> 01:10:38,085
As we talked about before, it's
a, it's a pretty large purchase.

1104
01:10:38,462 --> 01:10:39,362
Troy4: Any smaller stuff.

1105
01:10:39,382 --> 01:10:39,602
AB

1106
01:10:40,112 --> 01:10:41,582
AB: I think you'll see
a couple of these like.

1107
01:10:41,972 --> 01:10:43,322
Remaining orphan

1108
01:10:43,322 --> 01:10:45,572
digital assets get sold
in the next month or two.

1109
01:10:45,572 --> 01:10:47,522
I know a lot of these
processes are just finishing

1110
01:10:47,522 --> 01:10:47,852
up.

1111
01:10:48,362 --> 01:10:49,232
Troy4: you do those though.

1112
01:10:49,292 --> 01:10:50,822
That's your stock trade, right?

1113
01:10:50,822 --> 01:10:51,212
Ab,

1114
01:10:51,722 --> 01:10:53,132
Brian2: Orphan digital assets.

1115
01:10:53,132 --> 01:10:55,547
What is, can you define
an orphan digital asset?

1116
01:10:56,049 --> 01:10:57,999
AB: just think of like the
platforms that got built

1117
01:10:57,999 --> 01:10:58,299
up.

1118
01:10:59,437 --> 01:11:00,969
Five years ago that have been se Yeah.

1119
01:11:00,969 --> 01:11:06,909
So orphan like at Yahoo, you
know, they have much stronger
or larger strategic priorities.

1120
01:11:06,909 --> 01:11:12,999
And so if something's non-core that's
losing money, that, you know, they're,
they're selling these assets and

1121
01:11:13,299 --> 01:11:16,209
I think the values that they're
selling them at are pretty low.

1122
01:11:16,209 --> 01:11:17,799
They're just trying to
get 'em to a home where

1123
01:11:17,799 --> 01:11:19,689
someone's not gonna
just completely blow it

1124
01:11:19,754 --> 01:11:22,139
Troy4: Now, did they shuffle
that one off to the glue factory

1125
01:11:22,439 --> 01:11:23,219
or what?

1126
01:11:23,219 --> 01:11:24,219
What's your take on

1127
01:11:24,219 --> 01:11:24,579
that one?

1128
01:11:25,119 --> 01:11:25,449
AB: Yeah.

1129
01:11:25,479 --> 01:11:30,579
but they're unsustainable businesses,
so it's sort of the only place
they can end up by Glue Factory.

1130
01:11:31,419 --> 01:11:43,929
it's just operators that are gonna spend
less on content, lean into different
distribution platforms like Google News
and Google Discover, and then probably
add a bunch more ad units to the page.

1131
01:11:44,526 --> 01:11:44,706
Brian2: Yeah.

1132
01:11:45,573 --> 01:11:45,813
AB: Yeah.

1133
01:11:46,713 --> 01:11:50,763
but that's, that's the only
way that traditional or
digital media works these days.

1134
01:11:50,768 --> 01:11:55,293
I, I don't think there's too many
profitable people that don't have
subscriptions that are actually

1135
01:11:55,293 --> 01:11:56,103
making it work.

1136
01:11:56,163 --> 01:11:56,403
I,

1137
01:11:56,671 --> 01:12:01,031
Troy4: You know, that's, it's
funny, I just wonder if slathering
a bunch of, ad units and

1138
01:12:01,031 --> 01:12:07,121
floating video players on a webpage
makes anything more effective,
it seems like a shell game.

1139
01:12:07,459 --> 01:12:07,729
AB: Yeah.

1140
01:12:07,879 --> 01:12:16,579
And it's gonna be more of a shell
game when half the traffic are, or,
or more are, are the different agents
running around retrieving information

1141
01:12:16,579 --> 01:12:18,139
for people and it's not a real person?

1142
01:12:18,769 --> 01:12:19,099
Oh,

1143
01:12:19,148 --> 01:12:20,918
Troy4: what the most
dangerous thing is, is

1144
01:12:20,918 --> 01:12:38,047
that publishers are consoled by Google
Discovery traffic as a core serp, high
intent traffic wanes, and they're just
gonna get hit again when the whole
page changes and discover evaporates.

1145
01:12:38,597 --> 01:12:42,557
Brian2: discover is like the Achilles
heel that's keeping afloat A lot of

1146
01:12:42,803 --> 01:12:47,403
AB: Everybody, everybody right
now, because if you, you think
about it, you're running at a 20%.

1147
01:12:47,523 --> 01:12:54,723
We're just gonna take some very broad
tr assumptions here, but if you're
running at a 20 to 30% margin in your
business and you're all programmatic

1148
01:12:54,753 --> 01:13:01,863
revenue, and Google Discover is 20 to
30% of your traffic, if that goes away,
your business just went unprofitable.

1149
01:13:02,103 --> 01:13:03,213
I think the deal to talk

1150
01:13:03,213 --> 01:13:06,633
about this week is the Rocket
Mortgage deal with Mr. Cooper.

1151
01:13:07,248 --> 01:13:09,048
I don't think most people
have ever heard of Mr. Cooper.

1152
01:13:09,202 --> 01:13:10,732
Troy4: Was Mr. Cooper the banker on

1153
01:13:10,732 --> 01:13:10,972
it?

1154
01:13:11,328 --> 01:13:12,078
AB: Exactly.

1155
01:13:13,068 --> 01:13:14,118
I did work for Mr.

1156
01:13:14,118 --> 01:13:15,484
Cooper before, but, so

1157
01:13:15,698 --> 01:13:17,288
Brian2: Rocket Mortgage
for those who don't know.

1158
01:13:17,798 --> 01:13:19,928
AB: public company, big,
big mortgage company.

1159
01:13:19,928 --> 01:13:20,828
I think one of the top

1160
01:13:21,038 --> 01:13:22,003
three or top five.

1161
01:13:22,664 --> 01:13:22,784
Brian2: Yeah.

1162
01:13:22,874 --> 01:13:24,224
but they've been buying assets.

1163
01:13:24,550 --> 01:13:24,880
AB: So they bought

1164
01:13:24,880 --> 01:13:25,390
Redfin

1165
01:13:25,779 --> 01:13:25,949
Brian2: What

1166
01:13:26,009 --> 01:13:26,369
AB: you know.

1167
01:13:26,469 --> 01:13:26,669
Brian2: do?

1168
01:13:26,977 --> 01:13:30,532
AB: Was meant to make the,
yeah, it was meant to make the
home buying experience better.

1169
01:13:30,562 --> 01:13:31,762
So they had their own agents.

1170
01:13:31,762 --> 01:13:34,132
They were like, look, most people
don't like this experience.

1171
01:13:34,132 --> 01:13:36,202
Most consumers are finding
the houses on their own.

1172
01:13:36,202 --> 01:13:37,162
Why do they need an agent?

1173
01:13:37,162 --> 01:13:38,482
So let's just charge less.

1174
01:13:38,872 --> 01:13:39,382
It worked.

1175
01:13:39,382 --> 01:13:39,892
Okay.

1176
01:13:39,892 --> 01:13:41,362
They hired some of their own agents.

1177
01:13:41,842 --> 01:13:48,562
But I think what this year's turning
into, there was like a headline
that said, deal volume is less in
Q1 this year than it was last year.

1178
01:13:48,682 --> 01:13:49,492
I think that that's.

1179
01:13:49,737 --> 01:13:51,207
An easy headline.

1180
01:13:51,237 --> 01:13:55,407
I think it's a little bit different
when you look by market, because some
markets are up, some markets are down.

1181
01:13:55,407 --> 01:14:04,197
But what you're seeing with like a
rocket mortgage, this sort of deal is
similar to like the gen digital money
line deal, where people that have

1182
01:14:04,197 --> 01:14:10,887
large audiences online and that are
starting to transact more online, want
to basically own the full ecosystem.

1183
01:14:10,887 --> 01:14:18,597
So with Rocket Mortgage combining
with Redfin and Mr. Cooper, which
is a big loan servicing business,
you basically complete the funnel.

1184
01:14:18,952 --> 01:14:26,092
So one of the biggest things in
in mortgage is refinancing and,
and people believe as the rates
go down, that refinancing business
will get bigger and bigger.

1185
01:14:26,302 --> 01:14:34,487
And so you can see rocket Mor mortgages
in the perfect position because they know
they can con contact the consumer because
they have all this loan servicing data.

1186
01:14:34,847 --> 01:14:40,869
They now own a part of their
business, Redfin, that makes money
on future sales or future buying.

1187
01:14:41,019 --> 01:14:42,729
And so it's this really.

1188
01:14:43,155 --> 01:14:44,175
We'll see if it works.

1189
01:14:44,175 --> 01:14:50,055
But it's a very large company in
the real estate space that basically
owns every single part of the
consumer journey and the lifecycle.

1190
01:14:50,415 --> 01:15:00,495
And it's a, it should be a little bit more
immune to having to pay Meta or Google
for net new customers or any other person
in this landscape that drives leads.

1191
01:15:00,495 --> 01:15:02,475
So that's sort of the thesis.

1192
01:15:02,755 --> 01:15:13,083
Their belief is even if we can get a
little bit of Mr. Cooper's business to
help to refinance via Rocket Mortgage
and our platform, that won't be paying
anything for customer acquisition.

1193
01:15:13,083 --> 01:15:16,533
And so it will be, it will
drop straight to the bottom
line in terms of contribution.

1194
01:15:16,533 --> 01:15:20,733
And then owning Redfin is like
the perfect way because it's like
you get pre-approved for a house.

1195
01:15:20,913 --> 01:15:28,473
I think a lot of times people take that
pre-approval and then use that bank
to finance their eventual purchase.

1196
01:15:28,533 --> 01:15:33,303
So you can see when you're
looking for a house, you'll
automatically know what you can pay.

1197
01:15:33,678 --> 01:15:39,108
Hopefully the data gets good enough
where you're already approved
and instead of waiting 60 days,
you can close much quicker.

1198
01:15:39,168 --> 01:15:41,448
'cause you'll probably have already
uploaded all your information.

1199
01:15:41,448 --> 01:15:46,788
You're basically collapsing
the home, fine, finding part
with the financing part,

1200
01:15:47,298 --> 01:15:48,918
and then it'll be serviced by Mr.

1201
01:15:48,918 --> 01:15:49,278
Cooper.

1202
01:15:49,278 --> 01:15:49,308
I.

1203
01:15:49,830 --> 01:15:49,950
Brian2: I

1204
01:15:49,950 --> 01:15:52,020
mean, does this fit, is
this a media business?

1205
01:15:52,170 --> 01:15:52,800
I'm just wondering.

1206
01:15:53,385 --> 01:15:53,835
Troy4: it is.

1207
01:15:53,835 --> 01:15:55,040
It's median transactions.

1208
01:15:55,470 --> 01:16:03,900
Brian2: Well, that's what I, I, I
sort of, to tie it back to like Nick,
that's what I I sort of, you know,
media has never, I don't say never,
but it's, it's very powerful still.

1209
01:16:04,290 --> 01:16:09,300
It's just, it doesn't work as a
standalone business in most cases.

1210
01:16:09,775 --> 01:16:14,905
AB: I think the reason why it's scary
for media companies is, you know,
rocket Mortgage, I'm sure sponsors

1211
01:16:14,905 --> 01:16:20,245
some sort of sort of sports stadium
or something like that and they
probably pump a lot into different.

1212
01:16:20,620 --> 01:16:26,770
Publications where they think the
consumers are gonna be looking
for homes or whatever, high
propensity to, to get a mortgage.

1213
01:16:26,770 --> 01:16:29,500
And so as they have these
ecosystems, they'll need

1214
01:16:29,500 --> 01:16:31,510
to spend less to find new customers.

1215
01:16:32,012 --> 01:16:33,630
Troy4: Well, that's a good ab

1216
01:16:33,955 --> 01:16:37,735
I look forward to getting your feedback
on the Nick Denton conversation.

1217
01:16:37,937 --> 01:16:38,237
AB: good.

1218
01:16:38,657 --> 01:16:39,287
So what else is he?

1219
01:16:39,287 --> 01:16:40,637
Long Gold.

1220
01:16:40,637 --> 01:16:41,207
What else?

1221
01:16:41,711 --> 01:16:42,041
Brian2: gold?

1222
01:16:42,041 --> 01:16:43,151
I, that's all we talked about.

1223
01:16:43,241 --> 01:16:43,331
Yeah.

1224
01:16:43,331 --> 01:16:45,496
Well, Tencent, BYD

1225
01:16:46,015 --> 01:16:49,265
Troy4: I'm gonna get his
portfolio and, start tracking it.

1226
01:16:49,648 --> 01:16:50,908
AB: Is he in Newsmax?

1227
01:16:51,551 --> 01:16:51,771
Troy4: No,

1228
01:16:51,923 --> 01:16:52,097
AB: Okay.

1229
01:16:52,226 --> 01:16:52,526
Brian2: so,

1230
01:16:53,721 --> 01:17:01,905
Troy:  That's it for this episode of
people versus algorithms where each
week we uncover patterns shaping
media culture and technology.

1231
01:17:02,309 --> 01:17:05,749
Big thanks as always to our
producer, Vanja Arsenov.

1232
01:17:06,259 --> 01:17:10,939
She always makes us a little clearer
and more understandable and we
appreciate her very, very much.

1233
01:17:11,439 --> 01:17:14,889
If you're enjoying these conversations,
we'd love for you to leave us a review.

1234
01:17:15,325 --> 01:17:17,985
It helps us get the word out
and keeps our community growing.

1235
01:17:18,461 --> 01:17:20,151
Remember, you can find People vs.

1236
01:17:20,181 --> 01:17:24,621
Algorithms on Apple Podcasts,
on Spotify, and now on YouTube.

1237
01:17:25,103 --> 01:17:27,393
Thanks for listening and
we'll see you again next week.

1238
01:17:27,621 --> 01:17:28,221
Troy4: that's it.

1239
01:17:28,221 --> 01:17:28,971
Thanks guys.

1240
01:17:29,487 --> 01:17:29,787
Brian2: All right.

1241
01:17:30,251 --> 01:17:30,471
Bye.