Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Welcome back to Tasteland. I am your co-host, Francis Zehrer. And I'm Daisy Alioto. 0:10 And today we are speaking with Ben Dietz, who is a, as he describes himself, longtime media/entertainment business guy, uh, now advisor for hire to brands, publishers, and agencies. 0:23 He is very much a connector, um, I think as evident in his newsletter, which has 100-plus links that he sources from however many people every week, um, his, his Breakfast Clubbing series. I like Ben. Great guy. 0:38 I also like Ben. Mm-hmm. We should do one of those I like Ike old vintage political campaign posters, but with Ben. Mm-hmm. But, ugh, I... But now I'm just thinking of Isaac Likes. I like Ben Dietz, and I like you. 0:54 [laughs] Cool people like cool things. Did you notice that Perfectly Imperfect has, like, quietly rebranded from cool people like cool things to a taste of somebody else's taste? I'm like, hmm. Mm-hmm. 1:03 Am I unaware- That... Okay, but that's been over a while. I, I, I frankly- Oh, no, I'm not saying that they- Bit us... like, cop- Mm-hmm. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, certainly not. 1:13 I'm just saying it's interesting the, the evolution of the favored word to express the same thing. Yes. Is all I'm saying. I haven't... I, I, I only cons- I used to read their newsletter. Mm-hmm. 1:25 I only consume their Instagram posts now, and even then I... Only a couple slides. I, uh- Well, it's a social magazine- It's true... so they don't want you to leave Instagram anyway. That's true. That's true. 1:32 There to keep you seated. Just like ick. Just like ick. Um- Just like ick. Speaking of ick- I like ick. [laughs] I like ick. You, you had your... 1:39 Okay, so yesterday- Have we not talked since we did start doing Ick- little Ickelodeon videos? Little Ickelodeon videos. Um- You missed your cold call. That's okay. I missed, I missed my cold call. I was... 1:48 I, I can tell you where I was. I was enjoying a burger, um, at one of my favorite local- [laughs]... bars, restaurants, uh, and my phone was on do not disturb, as it often is. 2:00 I re- remember noticing that, and I was like, "I'll try to disturb." [laughs] Yeah, total failure. I'll attempt a disturbance. I, I'm- 'Cause, like, it's also my way of testing whether you have me as a- Mm-hmm... 2:09 a breakthrough contact. Oh, no, I have nobody as, as that. But- Well, best of luck with that... 2:14 I, I'm addicted to my phone, and this is, like, this is like- Someday somebody's gonna call you with Oasis reunion tour tickets- [laughs]... and you're gonna be on do not disturb. Y- sure, it would be fun. 2:22 Um, but I think that the time is coming and going, plus I'm, I'm... I was never really an Oasis guy. I like Oasis, but, uh, I never listened to even a full album of theirs until probably a year ago. I have a confession. 2:33 What? I actually kind of assume everyone puts on do not disturb as a sign of displeasure- Hm... because I exclusively use it as a sign of displeasure. [laughs] I do it because I'm addicted to my phone. 2:45 [laughs] Um, I- And I don't want to have to manage all these individual notifications. I literally only turn it on when somebody has annoyed me. Hm. 2:53 And so, you know, if you're listening to this and you've seen me put on do not disturb and you're wondering if that was you, maybe. 3:00 But now when I'm talking to somebody and they turn on do not disturb in the middle of the conversation, I'm always like, "Oh, man, I've displeased them." [laughs] No, I- I think at, uh... [laughs] Do not disturb... 3:09 Eternal do not disturb is, um, you know, it's, it's active resistance against phone addiction, platform culture, um- The thin purple line. The th- [laughs] Jesus Christ. Um, okay, but yeah. 3:23 So you had this Dirt Roundup post you sent out yesterday. Yeah, yeah. Well, it took- Why? Is it 'cause it's the beginning of the school year? Um, well, there was, like, sort of an announcement buried in there. 3:32 It takes me- Hm... well, first of all, it took me a while to come up with how I'm gonna frame this, 'cause I assume, like, everyone is so traumatized by their favorite publications going under. 3:40 I'm like, how do I email people in a way that's not like, uh, they're gonna think I'm asking them for money- I'm still here... or the publication's going under. Mm-hmm. 3:49 Basically, I, through the rest of the year, am trying, taking the, like, bigger long form piece that we've done about, like, once a week at this point, sup- like, supplemented by stuff that comes out of the podcast, and Dirt Prompts and special projects- Mm-hmm... 4:04 and just rolling all of those longer ones into a single monthly issue. I like that. Yeah. Sort of inspired by 4Columns. Um, I also thought maybe this will be easier for a, a potential advertiser to understand. 4:17 It might be less of a tax on people's attention. So it was me announcing that we're, like, trying that. Mm-hmm. If anyone notices, like, oh, there's been a cadence shift, or I feel like I'm hearing from Dirt less. 4:27 Um, people hear from us a lot, though. Yeah. And also, like, we have... We're putting out such a high volume of stuff on Clone- Mm-hmm... um, where somebody's really looking for, like, link aggregation on a daily basis. 4:39 I kinda want them to just go there. Can I just interrupt you, by the way, briefly? Yeah. I, I wanted to check Clone visitor. I'm, I just checked right now. I'm visitor- Did we cross 100K? No, you're almost there. 4:48 I'm visitor 99,497. Probably by the time people listen to this tomo- tomorrow- Wow... um, it'll be well over. Just sit there, just sit there and hit refresh for me. You want me to get you up to- Buddy. 4:59 [laughs] I'm just kidding. What do I win if I hit 100? Uh- A sheep... my lifelong loyalty. [upbeat music] Can I, can you hold up your watch for me? This watch right here? Oh, yeah. 5:16 You're wrist watching, Daisy? It's a Rolex. It's a Rolex. It is not a Rolex, but it's nice of you to say that. [laughs] It's- [laughs] If you're listening at home, it's a Rolex. Yeah. [laughs] Wait, what is that? 5:30 This is a, this is... It's a Seiko. Here, I'll, I'll- Oh, it's a Seiko. It's, I'll- It's a nice Seiko. Yeah, it's a really nice Seiko that my brother bought in a pawn shop in- Oh, that's lovely. Yeah... 5:42 yeah, a pawn shop in Reno. Uh, my brother lives with his wife in a place called Nevada City in California, and which is not far from Reno. 5:50 And so he went into a pawn shop and found this watch and bought it and gave it to me for Christmas, which was very nice of him. Yeah. That's really nice. Thank you, Daisy. 5:58 I'd forgotten ab- I, I forgot about your, uh-Your day, your Hodinkee days My stint in the watch world I've never seen that Clearly, yeah. I can't tell the difference between a Rolex and a Seiko, but... Did... 6:10 Well, I mean, the bracelet, to be fair, the bracelet is very similar, and it Riverside's a little blurry, guys. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Well, it's because of the high fidelity connection, right? 6:19 Like [laughs] She's not wearing her, she's not wearing her glasses... you gotta... you know? Yeah, exactly. Um, what... I was just reading something this morning that I, I noted for Stick. Let's see where it is. 6:28 Um, which was that the... according to some, uh, Sotheby's executive, the watch market is now demonstrably bigger than the art market. Hm. Which I thought was really kind of fascinating. 6:44 Um- Just, just by total capital, or, like, by, like how many active buyers- Yeah, this is... would you measure it? 6:50 This is, this is from a profile in The New Yorker of Patrick Drahi, who's the, um, the owner of Sotheby's. And I'm trying to find the quote. 6:58 But I, I think it, it basically is asserting that the GMV of the watch industry is bigger than that of the art industry. Hm. Which seems odd to me, but maybe it's specific to auctions. Hm. 7:09 Because art, e- e- e- especially, like, the Bla-... Art is the third largest black market in the world after weapons and drugs. 7:19 And, um, so it seems odd to me that watches would be anywhere near the same size, but- [laughs]... I suppose it's possible. Maybe, it's, maybe it's all due to the tariffs, 50% tariff on Switzerland. Yeah. 7:31 And- I think it's only 39%... sit, I need to sit with this one... of tariff... transitions. Yeah. I need to sit with this one, because- Only 39... 7:37 the time to market of an artist with potential to increase the total market cap of the art world is a lot different from the time to market, quote-unquote, "of a luxury watch." You can't create new luxury brands. 7:53 You can create luxury models, but I don't know, the art market just has too many human fa- human capital factors that I think it's hard to compare them. Yeah. Well, I mean, r- right. 8:07 Dollars, dollars to dollars you could compare, but from a, from the standpoint of, of what goes into the creation of those dollars, probably it's a, it's, it's more nuanced. 8:16 I find it interesting you should say that you can't create a new luxury brand. I worked, I... And, and, and close to and worked a lot with, um, Ruba Abu-Nimeh, who is a, a 8:27 w- you know, very senior art director creative, creative director, creative advisor to, um, brands, luxury brands, beauty brands, et cetera. 8:37 And we had a big fight one time about whether a luxury brand could be less than 100 years old. And e, it, 8:48 I, th- that comes in the, in the aftermath of speaking to a new watch brand which is launching next year, which I may do some work for, um, which is bringing a luxury proposition to market and w- wants to be understood as a luxury brand. 9:06 It's, it's in- it's intriguing to figure how important that distinction is. I guess from my standpoint, I don't really care too much. Well, I think... 9:14 I mean, when you say it like that, it's like if a luxury brand has to be over 100 years old, that's because of who has bought it over those 100 years and, like, the, 9:23 the, the, the clout that they've given it by buying it, right? 9:26 So I guess you could ha- Like, I think you could may- maybe bring it down to, like, 10 years or something like that, but there has to be some demonstrated history of who's buying it and how they're using it, right? 9:37 Well, and, and- It doesn't have to be 100... I think Ruba's... And Ruba's point ha- had more to do with... And I, I don't want to, to speak for Ruba here. I'm, I'm... 9:45 This conversation was a long time ago, and I don't want to mischaracterize what she said. But, but I... It, it had to do effectively with the idea that you can't have luxury without 9:55 demonstrated history of craft- Mm-hmm... and demonstrated history... and, and demonstrated heritage. Yeah. And he- like, the history of craft has to, has to unfold over time, and heritage, y- you can't invent it. 10:08 You can't buy it. It has to develop over the, over the course of that long period of time. So... Yeah. I think luxury, it's like cars. 10:16 It's not based on what the first buyer is willing to pay for it, 'cause I 100% believe that you can have a new watch brand and sell it to the first buyer at luxury prices. 10:27 It's what is the destiny of that thing once you drive it off the lot. Mm-hmm. Sure. And you could even have, like, a, a really good secondary market for, say, like, a Tesla. 10:40 Um, but if you, you kind of conjure in your mind's eye, like, what is an antique Tesla- [laughs]... um, a heritage Tesla. Like, I think- Yeah... some of the, the luxurious... 10:52 I think if you want to look at it as like a, almost like a Walter Benjamin type aura- Yeah... deferred over 100 years or a few decades, like, 11:03 you can only come to understand that once you see what the, like, third or fourth person to encounter it is willing to value it at. Yeah. That's... It, it's interesting you should say that, Daisy, because the, the... 11:15 One of the big conversations that came out of the Grand Concours at, at Pebble Beach last year was what in today's auto market would... could be viewed in the future as a classic. 11:27 And the consе- This is reading from Dan Neil in The Wall Street Journal. R- the consensus was the Cybertruck- Hm... would... 11:35 is the only thing in the current market that can be viewed as a, as a future classic, which a, now, given this is a year ago, this is pre-Trump's reelection. Mm-hmm. 11:43 This is pre-Elon's, like, blowup and meltdown, et cetera, et cetera. But I, I thought it was really fascinating that this thing that is so, to my mind, like, objectively ugly and ridiculous 11:58 satisfies the qual- the qualities that people identify as being-Future classic, right? It is demonstrably different. Mm-hmm. It is a, a, a, a, a change in the way of working. It is a, you know, definitive price point. 12:14 It's a limited distribution. So it, it has all of these hallmarks. It's also awful, but- Yeah, it's, it's a classic because it broke the genre... or some other classic. Yeah. 12:24 It's also supposed to be, like, poorly made, right? Like falling apart, so will it last? Well, I don't think it's supposed to be, but that seems to be- [laughs]... its reputation, yeah. Well, I hear it is- [laughs]... 12:33 is what I, is what I should say. It's like a cubist painting. Mm-hmm. The, the thing about the Cybertruck, I read the, um, the Walter Isaacson Elon Musk biography a couple... like a year and a half ago or whatever. 12:44 You, you read it so we don't have to type thing? I read it so you don't have to. Yeah, thank you [laughs]. But the really the o- the only thing I remember from it, um, the... 12:52 and, like, this is the deta- the only detail I, like, I can share is that, uh, the design for it, he's talking about... 12:57 or he's talking about how it came to be and why it looks like this, and Isaacson says that Musk, like, in some meeting, uh, he was, like, talking to his then 13-year-old son, I believe, um, and, and the kid said, "Why doesn't the future look like the future?" 13:15 Or something like that. Sure. And then Elon was like, "Oh, wow, like, we have to make a car that looks like the future." 13:20 But to me, it's like this is this guy who w- w- I don't know when he was born, like in the, in the '70s or something, this is this, like, Gen X guy's idea of what the future is from when he was a teenager in the '80s, right? 13:31 So it's this, like, it's this dated vision of a future. Yeah. It's... well, it's interesting you say that. Elon is, is a couple of years older than me, so much so that we, we overlapped for a year at, at Penn. Oh, wow. 13:43 And he was my... he was, matter of fact, some friends of mine, he was their RA. He used to smoke them out. It was pretty funny. Uh- Wow... a- anyway [laughs] That's a great detail. I'm on a, I'm on a... 13:53 it's, well, it's very funny. The, those same guys and I are on a group ch- a group chat with a current Democratic member of Congress who also went to the liberal arts- This is much better than the honey badger anecdote. 14:04 [laughs] You made the clutch move of, uh, smoking your friends out- [laughs]... as their RA. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] El- Elon has always, he's always been fun, but he, uh... but, but i- I... 14:17 it's funny you should say that, Frances, the idea of it being a, a, an, a manifestation of the future that he saw as a teen because the DeLorean, which of course was- Yes... 14:27 literally the future car, is probably the automotive... the, the, one of the closest automotive, um, s- what's the word, analogs to- Mm-hmm... to the Cybertruck. 14:37 It's sort of like the Cybertruck's like a DeLorean turned around- 100%... in the other direction, yeah. Yeah. 14:42 This reminds me too, like last fall, I think, we had Loren Menard from, from Gob on, the mycelium earplug company, and s- a, a thread we had in that conversation was that, like, nobody talks about what the 22nd century looks like. 14:56 Like, I, I feel like you... you know, b- in the 2000s there was so, or in the, in the 1900s, there's so much fiction and, and like what is, what is 2000 gonna look like, which makes sense. Like it- Sure... 15:07 2000 is a, is a new millennium. It's much more exciting than 2100, say. 15:12 But, um, yeah, this is, this is just reminding me of that, that I still haven't really seen much, like, theorizing or fiction or whatever specifically about, like, well, what does the next century look like, which I guess we're at the beginning of this one, and there's, you know, it's... 15:24 there's, there's plenty to focus on in the here and now that's uncertain, so- Right... 15:28 it doesn't make sense to look that far ahead, but- Well, a- and it's also, it's a sort of a dark commentary that Elon, when thinking about what the future looks like, decides to make it coffin shaped. 15:39 [laughs] But, um, the, the [laughs] you know, we'll just get that going. It's funny, the, the... yeah, why do we skip from the 20th or the 21st century to the 25th century- Mm-hmm... 15:50 of Buck Rogers lore, the Buck, Buck Rogers lore rather? Where is it? Okay. Well, there you go. Well- There's, there's a, there's a... where is the, where's our, um, where's our Aldous Huxley of, uh, of the 22nd century? 16:04 Yeah. Yet to be born, slouching towards Silicon Valley, waiting to be born. I mean, only one of us has a publishing imprint and can, uh, influence the creation of that subgenre. Who? Um- [laughs] 16:18 Well, the other thing about the thing that's limiting, um, it's not a, a watch per se, but, um, in the car genre is software dependency. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 16:30 Um, and I saw, like, recently the, this is somewhat related, the Echelon bikes, um, there was a bounty set by a right to repair- Unfamiliar They're like a, a Peloton. Mm-hmm. 16:44 There was a bounty set by a right to repair advocate to jailbreak the bike because they used to be compatible, like you could use the bike with other software programs- I see... and- Mm... 16:59 um, somebody jail broke it, but it's actually illegal for them to kind of, um, to advertise the method because you could be undercutting Echelon's business model. 17:08 Um, and like with cars, like even the Cybertruck, like whether something has the potential to be a classic and whether it would be drivable by somebody who appreciates that classic in even like a decade now are totally different issues. 17:21 You don't necessarily run into that with a watch, although- Mm... I'm sure there's scenarios in which a certain methodology or the ability to make a piece, um, is threatened, but 17:32 cars as a category are like threatened in a way they haven't been before with the, uh, obsolescence of that software dependency and like... 17:40 So as you were talking, I was thinking maybe of a, a car of the future has no software dependency at all. 17:45 Doesn't necessarily mean that it's not high technology, but it would be- It's entire- right, it's an entirely mechanical creation because it, that, that allows it to s- sidestep obsolescence. 17:57 Um- Is software itself at odds with the idea of luxury? Well, how long do you have? [laughs] Because I'm saying it is. 18:05 I think in short, without like, without really thinking too much about it, it immediately seems like it is, right?Eeeh, yeah. It's funny. You sort of... W- what is, what is... W- what would software need to be luxurious? 18:21 It would need to have a, a kind of an elegance of construction that makes it modular over a very long period of time, right? Like, the, the reason that- Mm-hmm... that craft objects 18:32 persist is because they are, um, durable and- Yeah... like modular in their use over time. 18:39 Software, because it's written to be to a purpose and a moment, probably inherently isn't that, so you'd have to change the framework of the software. The idea of- I don't know, Daisy, what would, would... Oh... 18:48 of having, the idea of having to use software at all I feel like is, like, is not luxurious, right? Yeah, but you're responding to the environment around using the computer, which right now is, like, a labor dependency. 19:03 Mm, mm-hmm. I mean, I don't know about you. It's like I'm using my computer in a closet right now- [laughs]... and it's working out pretty great for me, so. It's not feeling luxur- luxurious? 19:11 [laughs] I'm in a room in my apartment that's basically a hallway, so feel you. [laughs] I- That's a, that's a fascinating question, though. I wrote about this- Francis... 19:20 a little bit, um, and I talked to Ruby about it, and Ruby made this sort of bespoke suit Savile Row comparison where- Mm... 19:29 if the luxury version of software is essentially bespoke software, which I think some people would argue, oh, you know, this is a direction for AI to take where the software is responsive to you and people will pay a lot of money for that. 19:44 Sure, fine, that's one version of it. But the other version of it is, like, there's a human tailor. You have a relationship with a programmer. They're basically your suit tailor. Mm-hmm. 19:53 You go to them every year to upgrade your [laughs] personalized software stack. Like, that I kind of buy. Um, I have maybe even kind of created a really bad version of that between me and the 20:10 one to five, my, my quants that I text- [laughs]... when I'm in a little bit of a pickle. Um. [laughs] Your one to five quant. But I think that they would not be pleased if I referred to them as my tailors. 20:21 I, I struggle- [laughs]... a little bit with the idea of what software personalized for me would do. Like, I, I, like, it's, it... I, I have trouble literally conceiving of it. Like- Mm-hmm... 20:36 w- what, what, what does it do? Well, it would have to know everything that you know, right? This is... I mean, this is getting to the clams thesis a little bit. Well, but, but how- [laughs] Yeah... 20:44 okay, but, so it knows everything that I know, and then it does what? [laughs] Serves you- For me, I've, I've actually been thinking about this a lot. Like, 20:53 I think it would have to know everything that I know or enough to take away from my, um, decision fatigue or decision- Okay... paralysis. Okay. Mm. But I like making decisions. 21:09 I just don't like the volume of decisions that I have to make on a weekly basis- Sure... because they are all bids on my time, and some of them are more important to me- Mm-hmm... than others. Yeah. 21:20 Um, but I think a luxury software for me would read my inbox and be able to prioritize the emails in the same way that I would prioritize them, and I think this probably exists now with a 21:32 strong training barrier that has- Mm... made me never interested in it. [laughs] Sure. Um, and then report it to me with the same prioritization that I would feel. 21:43 Tell me which decisions have to be made, and for the low stakes ones, suggest with high knowledge of what I would say what the answer should be and then send the answer for me. Okay. 21:54 So it's, so it's- It's a virtual assistant. [laughs] It's a virtual assistant. These, right, that does exist. That email thing does exist. It, yeah, 100% exists, but I wouldn't trust it. Mm-hmm. That's the problem. 22:01 Well, and I, and I, I feel the same way as Daisy. I was think- I was thinking, you know, like s- s- sick 22:07 my, my weekly newsletter, the free version of my weekly newsletter, I'm, I'm changing from Thursdays, which has been its traditional day since its inception, to Wednesdays because my week is just organized in a way where Wednesdays are gonna be easier for me, and I also... 22:20 It, it will help me in terms of monitoring the, or- Mm-hmm... modulating the amount of volume that goes into it so it's a little bit more incisive. Um, 22:30 w- making that change requires a whole bunch of, like, dumb busy work like- Mm... firing subscribers who have been inactive and, uh, you know, adjusting subtext and, and so on and so forth. Mm-hmm. I'd like to... 22:42 I'd, I'd like not to have to do any of that stuff, but in order for me to train a system to do it for me would take as much time as it does for me to do it for this one particular use. 22:53 And it's to Daisy's point, like, the, the training barrier, which is not a term I'm familiar with but I, which I like a lot, like that, the training barrier is what's keeping me from doing it. I just don't- Mm-hmm... 23:02 you know, the juice isn't worth the squeeze proverbially. Um- Well, it's also, I mean, the doing it is, is, is part of the point, right? W- yeah. I mean, y- I think you're right at a, at an emotional level, Francis. 23:15 I wish that were less true. It's one of the things that I try to work on all the time, like, making that sort of, making that less true, but yeah. I have a controversial take. So I- Oh, boy. 23:28 [laughs] So I have the, like... I haven't turned off, I don't know if there's a way to turn off the automatic Gemini- Mm... summary of a long email thread. Mm-hmm. 23:38 I have actually found it to be quite useful for tracking how a conversation evolves or devolves over time. And- Interesting... 23:47 I have eve- I have recently had some, like, frustrating email chains where I look up at the summary and I'm like, 23:56 "Okay, I actually think the summary has in some way encapsulated how the conversation has deviated or gone poorly," because it's like this person came in with this ask, and then it became this, and then it became this- Sure... 24:08 then it became this. And it's doing a pretty un- opinionated summary, but I'm like, 24:14 I have-At certain points, um, fed conversations into ChatGPT of threads where I'm sort of second-guessing my emotional read on the situation. 24:25 And, like, for instance, this is gonna be funny to Francis 'cause I bully ChatGPT a lot. [laughs] Um, but just as, like, one node of understanding- Right... 24:35 is this me or, like, d- where did I err in this interaction according to ChatGPT, which a- an opinion I would rank as, like, three out of 10 but could still be more valuable than ranting to my husband if he's busy. Sure. 24:49 That's how I would sort of calibrate it. Sure. I'm like, I wonder if that Gemini summary, like, how much would we accept if it started to inter- interpolate a little bit? 25:02 Like, maybe there's, like, a little thing on the side, little flag that you could click, and it's like, 25:08 "Hey, this is how this conversation [laughs] could've gone differently," or, "Hey, it seems like there's a lot of stakeholders in this discussion, and the only two people are talk- that are talking are, like, this people." 25:18 Mm-hmm. Or like, "Hey," like, "it seems like email number five is when a decision should've been made." Yeah. I would actually, like, kind of appreciate that. Okay. Like, that's what I want. 25:27 So you, you want chat, you want chatbot management consultant for your- I think if it's-... your correspondence... doing the work of a raw summary, I would actually be looking for a little bit of an emotional- Sure... 25:41 summary of the stakes of the people in the conversation and sort of the ability to, like, unfurl what dynamic has actually occurred here. 25:53 Now, that, the issue is, like, this machine is famously lacking emotional intelligence. Um, but nobody's gonna sit there and rate the interaction because I don't wanna be responsible. Right. I don't want the people in... 26:07 I don't want up the, the, like, seven stakeholders at Bumfuck Agency to know I rated the interaction a one. They should know that, though. 26:14 Like, and it would be really nice [laughs]- You could just go work for Amazon, and then you could be a part of that ranking system all the time, [laughs] like, every day... 26:20 it would be really nice if, like, the Gemini summary of my, like, long-ass thread with Bumfuck Agency was like, "Hey, here's a little flag. Just so you know, Daisy's the CEO, and you wasted her time." 26:33 [laughs] Yeah, but, well, but there- therein, therein lies the, the, the fundamental- Right, because their read of the situation would be different. But you should be able- Well, well, no... 26:41 you could, like, slide it as a slider. Not, not just, not... But, but Daisy, not just that. Yeah. 26:45 But because you're, you're dealing with an agency which is inherently a business based on, and therefore incentivized by, spending time. Mm. Like- Mm... that's what they wanna do. 26:59 They wanna spend time with you because- Yeah, yeah, yeah... they bill their clients back for the time that they spent, not for the productivity of that time, and not for whether it helps you at all. 27:08 Could give a shit about that. Maybe I'm kinda talking myself into this. 27:11 Maybe it's a ph- a filter that lets you cosplay as each person in their interaction, like a summary that knows what each person wants to get out of the conversation and how close they are to getting that. 27:22 That's so dangerous- Because-... 'cause then you're just, then you're just, like, m- having this, having ChatGPT imagine what the other person- No, because it's really not hard to know... incentives. 27:28 But I, I think, look, I think the, the, what this gets to at its heart is, is a conversation. And you, you, you guys talked a little bit about this with, with David Marks last week. The, the, 27:38 w- what is missing from most of these kind of conversations and analysis is a real, like, candid discussion about where people's incentives are, right? Mm-hmm. 27:49 Not about how people feel, and not about how, you know, where we're meeting people where they are in, in, in the moment. But it's like, what do you really want out of this? Like, what actually benefits you? 27:59 Because that's the thing that you're gonna be motivated to do. What actually, what I actually get out of this is what's gonna motivate me to do it. So let's just put cards on the table and go, "All right." 28:09 I think most people can't separate that from emotion. I would love if every interaction was that. Yeah. I, I mean, well, I, I don't think you have to separate it from emotion entirely. I just think the... 28:19 And this is, this is, you know, my one great criticism about, or not one great criticism, one of my many great criticisms about the, the whole digital media ecosystem of the, you know, vices and buzzfeeds and boxes and so on and so forth, is that you had the, the legacy of a capital J journalist structure that said 28:40 church and state must be divided because- Mm-hmm... you can't have, um, subjective interests get involved in the objective reporting of, of facts. While at the same time you're saying, um, you can't have, 28:56 y- y- you, you have to create stuff that is fizzy and attention grabbing. And so y- 29:04 y- you, you set up these two different, different incentives, which is like, um, one where journalists are told page views matter, and you're, you're working to a short-term result. 29:15 And you're saying to business people, "You're working to a different short-term result," and neither of them has long-term in- Mm-hmm... mind as it's created. 29:26 And so you just g- get this path that naturally veers off in, into opposite directions. Um- I guess though, like, if there's already a third- We don't, if we just talked about- Yeah... 29:33 if we just talk about incentives, like, sorry to cut you off, but it's like if we, if we just said- No, no, you're fine... Daisy needs the most eyeballs possible on this piece- Mm-hmm... 29:41 as an editorial person, and so she's gonna say the wildest shit possible. And Ben needs 29:49 the most, um, predictable content on this page because he's gotta keep a r- or, you know, a, an ornery brand manager happy so that the money keeps flowing in to pay for what Daisy does and to pay for what Ben does. 30:03 Then it's like, okay, now we understand each other. I can give some to Daisy, and I n- can explain to the ornery brand manager, "You're paying for this voice." Mm-hmm. Right? 30:12 And I can say to, um, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, commercial person, "Without this editorial content, you're nothing. You l- you have nothing to sell, so deal with it. Fucking figure it out." 30:25 And then you can u- use your collective EQ to, to meet her in the middle. Um-Can I say something else? Just really, I'm gonna, I'm gonna- [laughs]... offer this up. Yeah. 30:34 I noticed something yesterday, and I, I texted a little bit with Emily about it. So Emily Sundberg, former guest of, of your show and of mine, um, sh- a- added a postscript last week to her, to Feed Me- Oh, yeah. 30:51 I saw that... which explains what Feed Me does. And, and she, she re-added it on the 21st of, of August, which was just sort of a random Tuesday, and I didn't notice it until yesterday. But it- Mm... 31:02 one of the things it does is it talks about what Feed Me allegedly is, right? In, well, in Emily's conception. 31:07 And one of the things is, is like if you come here for, and she used the word fuck boys, and I just thought i- in- as a f- person who used to be responsible for commercial sanctity around brand safety, I was just like, "This is int- this is an interesting signal." 31:22 This is the media marketplace now saying, "We don't give a shit about brand safety." Mm-hmm. 31:27 Um, just simply by that, the use of ch- of that word in the, the metadata, it's just like you either get down or lay down, right? Like, this is the way that the, the market works now. And I, 31:39 I, I, I think it's kind of fascinating that th- the, the lapse of that whole business where incentive was not clear has now been, i- is now being e- uh, like, taken over. 31:52 And Daisy, I think you guys are j- are a great example of it, and Francis, I think you are too, of like, of people who are just like, "No, let's, let's get into where the incentives actually lay- Mm... 32:02 and l- let's lay it bare," because the truth is not black nor white. Yeah. Yeah. I think I posted on LinkedIn the other day, like I made a status that was like, "Brand safety is dead. It's all about brand alignment." 32:14 Like, I think people are just like, "We literally have a rapist in the Oval Office, and like, I'm not gonna accept that you won't advertise on my site because we talk about drugs." Mm-hmm. That's my perspective. 32:26 [laughs] It's, look, uh, look, brand safety is a way for people to go home at 5:00 or to get to the- Yeah... fucking media buy happy hour. Nobody does that anymore. 32:33 Or give a no that they're gonna make anyway, a no that they were gonna no anyway. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm sorry to circle back on this one thing. I just wanna put a pin in it. You said circle back. 32:43 By the way, Keith McNally says we can't say circle back anymore. I'm following that- Oh... that dot. I, I just, I read the book the other, uh, the other week. 32:49 It was really- Keith McNally should stop joking about pimping out his staff- Yes. [laughs]... if he read Life and Death in Offsar. 32:54 Um, so I'm saying, like, there's already a third party in my inbox, right, summarizing my interactions. Yeah. 33:00 How much harder would it be for it to take a step in, like, breaking gridlock and saying like, "Hey, um, this email chain went dormant seven days ago. 33:12 It seems that Daisy is waiting on Sarah to define the deril- deliverable, but it's possible that Sarah is waiting on more information from Daisy." Flag it to both parties. Yep. 33:28 And that's an opportunity for both parties to say, "Oh, fill in the blank." Yeah. Break the g- gridlock. Like, if there's already a third party in my inbox, it's like you might as well help the discussion, right? 33:43 Yeah, and w- it's interesting, right? Like, the, the, I... My Gmail sends me notifications that a, a thread has- Yeah. Wow... not responded to in some period of time, but you're right. 33:53 It doesn't add any sort of constructive- It doesn't have a thesis, though... there's no constructive layer to it. Yeah. Right. There's no thesis on why it's been dormant. Have you heard of, um, Sunflower? No. Tell me. 34:02 Clothing brand from Copenhagen? No, but I, I have considered purchasing from them. I never have. Uh, no, I'm talking about, uh, it's, it's, it's some new email app. It's in, like, alpha or beta right now. I don't know. 34:13 Um, I, I've waitlisted for it, but I, I have not received it. But, um, I for- I forget who it makes it too Sunflower, let Francis off the waitlist. He's a very important person. Let him off the waitlist. Yeah. 34:22 I, look- Have you guys, are you aware- I'm gonna give it away... of what influence means- [laughs]... in the modern media ecosystem? Because you're looking at it. Oh, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill. 34:29 Uh, no, but, but it's, it's, I see- Don't tell Unc to chill. [laughs] You chill. Jesus Christ. Um, but- Stop... the screenshots I've seen of it- Unc... um, it, it has- Yeah, yeah, yeah. 34:39 [laughs] It has one of these summaries at the top of it where it's like, it's the briefer of like, here's what's in your inbox today. 34:43 Like, this person needs you to respond to them about this, this person this, and it, like, it does a bit of this, like, to-do list. This is again, this is all based off- I might be rocking with Sunflower... 34:51 a few screenshots. [laughs] But, um, it looks interesting. I, I'm, I'm interested to try it. Um, Ben, I did... You, you mentioned your, your pod- your podcasts. You have two podcasts. 35:00 Um, as, as a fellow, uh, person of, of, of- Three in strictly speaking terms. Three. [laughs] Anyway, sorry, go ahead. 35:07 Well, okay, well, okay, I don't even know what the third one is, but there's Sick Talks, there's Hip Replacement. Sick Talks, I believe, has been on a bit of a hiatus. Yes. 35:13 Uh, returns today as this is released, tomorrow as we record. Um, w- what are the differences between, between Sick Talks, Hip Replacement, and the third podcast that I seem to have missed? 35:25 Okay, so the third podcast is Culture Club Show. So w- which was- Mm. So Culture Club Show and, and Sick Talks came out of the same, 35:33 um, moment and impulse, which was the high pandemic, being stuck, sequestered in, at home and being- The old excuse to talk. The, the old excuse to talk. 35:45 Culture Club Show came out of a, a, a specific condition, which was Clubhouse, which we will get into- Mm... in a second. Sick Talks came out of a specific condition, which was Instagram Live, and 35:58 w- what they, what, what Sick Talks does is it brings to bear the, the pattern recognition from my weekly newsletter with a guest, where I basically share the links in advance and I say, "Here's what's gonna go into the newsletter. 36:14 What jumps out at you?" Mm-hmm. And it's a, it's a way for me to understand other people's pattern recognition as well as to just dig a little bit into like, what, who they are and what their lives are. 36:23 So it's, it's more like a one-to-one interview show or kind of a, 36:28 like, a profile of sorts with the, with the, the people.Culture Club Show was a, a discussion between Ruba, who I mentioned earlier, Jeff Carvalho, who was one of the founders of Vice Noodi, um, and Gian DeLeon, who is the, now the men's editorial director at, uh, or the men's fashion director at Nordstrom, but is... 36:46 w- was at that time, um, a writer at, or an editor at Com- or at, uh, Vice Noob too. And that was more a broadly speaking about the sort of general culture developments that we miss. 36:57 So we talked a lot about art, we talked a lot about music, we talked a lot about, um, niche subcultures, like animation and skateboarding and whatever, and we did that in a, in a, in a public sphere. 37:07 We really liked the discussion, and when Clubhouse sort of dissipated, we then said, "Well, let's turn it into a podcast." Um, Jeff and I do that occasionally. It's been on a little bit of a break as well. 37:19 And what has taken my attention recently is called Hip Replacement, which is... 37:24 was a joke based on the idea that I've had both of my hips replaced because I'm old, and in my convalescence, I was thinking, "Wow, this is the universe really telling me that I'm, I'm, I'm unk." Um- You're washed. 37:41 [laughs] I'm washed. How do I stay current as a Gen X-er with Gen Z kids? It would be interesting to put a Gen Y person in the middle, and the most- Mm... 37:51 the person with the most sort of capital M millennial sensibility that I know is Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick, who does the, the, the, um, Trend Report, which is an excellent newsletter, but also is like, it's, it's... 38:07 and I say this in the most loving way, it's, it's very arch and from a, a very particularly millennial point of view, and I think Kyle would, would cop to that. So it's about... 38:17 it's supposed to be a discussion between generations each week where we, we look at the same- Mm... developments and kinda go, "All right, here's a Gen X take. Here's a Gen Y take. 38:24 Here's a Gen Z take," and, um, hopefully, get to something useful. Yeah. So those are the pod... That's the pod, the world of podcasts. 38:31 On, on the generational thing, uh, I was thinking about this given that you were at Vice for almost 17 years. That's right. 38:37 Um, and I, I was starting to think about, um, average job tenure by generation, and I, I found... 38:41 I, I don't know how precisely accurate this data is, but I found this, this one sample that said boomers were on average at a job 10 to 15 years, whereas Gen X five to 10, millennials three to five, which take, you know, take with a grain of salt that the, uh, the youngest millennials have only been working for up to 11 years if they started at 18. 38:59 And then Gen Z, this one especially is a little more like grain of salt because much younger, uh, Gen Z, one to three year average tenure. But, um, I, I've seen that in my peer group for sure. 39:10 Like I can think of- Yeah... I'm, I'm... I'll be 31 next week. I, I only know of one of my friends who's been at a place for very long. 39:17 I think she was at a place for seven years right after college, stayed for a long time, and that's by far the longest tenure of any of my young millennial friends, right? Um, yeah, I, I don't know. Is... 39:28 Will, will anyone ever work at one place for nearly 17 years again is kind of what I was thinking here. I, I, I think so because I think that there are, there are tremendous benefits in that kind of tenure. 39:42 The, the thing that has to happen in order for that to be the case though is you have to create a condition or the, or the, the place has to create a condition where there are, there is value in tenure, right? 39:53 And, and I don't mean in a sort of a university standpoint, from a university way of thinking about it. But you, you... there has to be a, a ability to advance. 40:02 There has to be range of responsibility and ability and, and, and room to, to, to progress and grow as a professional. There has to be, um, financial incentive. 40:13 Um, there has to be, uh, w- a level of cultural currency in a world where we are all obsessed with how relevant we are to the moment. 40:23 Like, it, it has to do a thing that is, that is, um, is relevant, and, and there has to be a social sa... 40:30 There has to be a, um, social safety net is probably not the right way to put it, but there has to be a little bit of a safety net involved. A, a, as a, as a way of explaining this a little bit, I went to a... 40:41 w- part of my job at Vice was, was going around and doing road shows for how Vice's capability could fit in and serve the capabilities or the, the, the needs of many different marketing organizations. 40:53 Um, I got in some pretty weird rooms as a function of that, but one of the weirdest was Johnson & Johnson. We went to their, um... 41:01 I went to a big meeting of their staff in New Jersey and did a presentation about how Vice, which was at the time was launching what became Tonic, the wellness vertical, how it could fit into J&J's, you know, three, then three-pronged approach, um, which was medicine, which was like, let's call it, um, medical care, and which was medical equipment. 41:25 Um, this is reminding me of the opener of, uh, Nostalgia, Selling Johnson & Johnson. [laughs] I'm, I'm not familiar, Daisy, but that's- Very different. I mean, 41:37 I think there's a, there's a leaning into the drugs aspect that Johnson & Johnson probably wasn't looking for from Vice but would've been on brand. [laughs] That's- Hold on. I'm looking it up. 41:47 So, so w- well, why are you- This is, like, Kendrick and somebody else. Um- Well, you know about- Oh, no, it's Pusha T featuring Kendrick Lamar, 20 Plus Years of Selling Johnson & Johnson. Oh, there you go. 41:59 Started out as a baby-faced monster. [laughs] Oh, I see. [laughs] It's about selling drugs. It's a song about selling drugs. You think- But the first Johnson & Johnson is in the first line. 42:07 Wait, you're saying there's a Pusha T song about selling drugs? You're kidding me. Um, my new bit, which is maybe not very good, is do you remember the iconic tweet, um, Chuck E. Cheese is short for Charles E. 42:16 Cheese, which as far as I know is true. Smells like entertainment cheese. Canonically. Mm. Right. Right. Right. True. Charles Entertainment Cheese. Charles Entertainment Cheese. 42:24 I've been saying Pusha T is short, short forPusha T cheese, um, which is maybe not as funny- Push and come. [laughs] I find it very funny. [laughs] It's funny. It doesn't make any fucking sense, but it's funny. 42:34 Well, exactly. Okay, wait, I wanna, I wanna get back to, so you're at Johnson & Johnson road show. Okay, just really quickly. Yeah. So, so, so we're at Johnson & Johnson- Mm... 42:40 and one of the, one of the things is I do my little song and dance from stage, and then we do breakouts. And in breakouts, all of the people are... 42:47 You know, they get around the table, and they introduce each other and, or introduce themselves, and there's like, "Hey, I'm... 42:51 You know, I'm Bob from the field office in Haddonfield, and I have been at the company for 25 years." And then, "Hi, I'm Marsha, and I'm in from Petaluma, California, and I'm been at the company for 17 years." 43:04 And I just d- like, we went around the table, and I was just like, "I can't believe you guys have been here for this long." Yeah. 43:09 And they're like, yeah, the, the, the most junior person at that table had been with the company for seven- about 17 years. It was really insane. And I, I was sort of like, "What keeps you here?" 43:22 And it was just like, "I don't... The company takes care of us." Mm-hmm. Companies need to take care of people in, in a way that they don't presently, and that's... It's, 43:32 it's, it's a f- it's a function of how society doesn't take care of people either. Like, if we, if we got into a place where, 43:37 uh, we had just simple nationalized healthcare or one payer healthcare, it would send such a signal to the, to, to the marketplace that, like, you need to take care of people, that it would reframe those employees. 43:51 Right now, it's like- I think, yeah, I mean to bring to- Get, get- Go ahead... ex- g- get, get to your result and fuck everybody else essentially. Mm-hmm. 43:59 The topical, like Vogue succession I think kind of dovetails well with this thinking about, like, only, like, loyalty is still rewarded. 44:08 If you look at, like, what's happened recently at Condé Nast titles, like, who has ascended at Vanity Fair, who is ascending at Vogue, they're people who've been there for a long time. 44:16 But it's sort of like that diagram of the plane with the bullet holes. Like, there's only room for one or two people to be rewarded for their loyalty. Mm. 44:24 So if you know it's not going to be you, a truly ambitious person does not stay, they leave. Yeah. And I- That's very true... like I know, I've known Sam Pine since college. I think he's been at GQ, 44:37 uh, he's been at GQ this whole time basically, and I have had a lot of other jobs, um, including my own company. But I very strongly believe he will be editor of GQ someday. Sure. Um, but 44:53 if it's him, then it's not, it couldn't be somebody else who stayed there as long. Mm-hmm. 44:57 And the not Sam, like, for the majority of people, unless there's a very clear succession line for them, I would say if I see somebody who's my age and they've been at a company for seven to 10 years, I assume that they're not ambitious. 45:11 Y- really? In... As- Yeah... opposed to assuming that they're not very well incentivized or that they're not, you know, on some sort of progressive- I have never met a well-incentivized millennial. 45:21 [laughs] Or, or that they're not having a shitload of fun, and maybe that's a generational thing. 45:25 Well, I think for, for a lot of my friends, like, I'm at a point now where a few of my friends are at larger institutions, companies that could be, you know, called institutions. 45:32 But a lot of my friends are still, whether they're in a restaurant or they're in a startup, which these are not stable, you know, c- types of companies usually. Sure. A restaurant certainly not. 45:42 A startup usually, like, you know, you're, you're, you're trying to blast off burning all this fuel. If you don't, the company won't exist. 45:48 So I think a lot of people I know are just in these jobs where, like, longevity is, like, not really a, [laughs] a safe bet for any of it, right? Well, it, I, I mean, 46:00 I don't think you should be- the, the, whe- whether people should bet on longevity and whether people will experience longevity are two different questions. Like, I, I don't- Yeah... 46:08 y- you shouldn't, of course you shouldn't bet on longevity. That's, and that's... Because, because that, that's a recipe for complacency. 46:14 But what you should do is try to create the conditions where longevity is possible- Mm... both as an employee and as an employer. That's, that should always be the goal, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 46:25 Most people move up by changing jobs. Um, so- Th- that, statistically, that's true, Daisy. And- And- Yeah... companies don't, like, I haven't seen companies really take care of people. 46:34 So, like, if somebody is staying somewhere for a long time because they're being taken care of, I would assume that they are the outlier. 46:40 Most of the time, like, my interpretation if I just saw that on LinkedIn is this person doesn't have the confidence to leave. So okay, so let's, let's dig into that for a second. 46:48 If, if someone ha- doesn't have the confidence to leave, so w- what, what level of indictment o- on, against them is that for you? None. I'm not your mom. I just- [laughs] We're not the same, we're not similar. 47:01 [laughs] Right. Okay. Well, like, I mean, that, but that- Like, I'm not your mommy... but that, but that is- Like, get that picture... but that isn't, then, then that means that there is a degree of indictment, right? 47:08 Because if you're saying we're not similar, then that means we're not like-minded. I'm not inviting you to the cool Dirt event- No... 47:16 or to participate in the Friends of Dirt what we're buying if money was no object thing that I didn't get invited to for instance. I can very much imagine us in a long- [laughs]... 47:27 email thread where I'm wishing there was an AI interpolator because they are coming at it with the mentality of somebody who's been doing the same thing for the last 10 years, and I'm coming at it with the mentality of- Sure... 47:37 a very high stakes, high risk. Um, okay, wait, I, I have another- I'm sorry... I have another angle I wanna add to this. 47:41 Uh, so, uh, I recently met your son and former, um, Hip Replacement podcast guest two times, I believe, uh, at- Hip Replacement podcast producer for, for- Producer. Oh, excuse me. Yeah, yeah. 47:52 Put some respect on Campbell's name. But- Series producer Campbell... but so I was, I was also just home last week visiting my family, and my family are farmers, small farm. 48:02 Um, you know, the, I grew up on the farm, so there's so many people who kind of came through there over the years and, and I'll see them now and then. And I, I saw some people there who are in their early 40s. 48:12 I hadn't seen them since, uh, they're, so they're about 10 years older than me. I hadn't seen them since they were, they were in their late 20s and I was a teenager. Sure. 48:18 And they were saying, like, "Wow, it's, it's so great to see you. You're doing good." Like, now that we have kids, they have, like, a, a 10-year-old or so. 48:25 Like, "It's so interesting to see how your parents treated you and, like, the way they did or didn't push you, um, in any given direction." 48:32 So I know that, like-Uh, this is probably something you think a lot about, of like how to- Mm-hmm... whether or not, how to shape your, your kids as they go into- Yeah... the workforce. 48:42 Um, and I think that's very relevant in what we're talking about, about longevity and like how to set yourself up for success. 48:47 Um, yeah, I don't know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on like how you are trying to set your children up for success in, in the working world. I think the, the, the story of, of, of parenting, uh, 49:00 uh, seen in hindsight, you know, now 20, roughly 20, mm, you know, almost 20 years into it, is that y- you, you can only control what you can control, and so it's better to try to influence and guide rather than demand or, you know, like demand or diminish. 49:21 Yeah. The, the, the thing that I, it's basically s- the thing that I want from both of my kids is I want them to be well-mannered, 49:30 well-socialized, and curious because I think if they are those three things, they set themselves up for the widest number of, of, of, you know, serendipitous opportunities- Mm-hmm... to come, right? Like, um, 49:46 and c- I found c- I found parenting Campbell when he was young very frustrating because he 49:53 was clearly very bright but didn't excel in the ways that, like, maybe I had as a kid or that I wanted him to, or that I felt like, well, he's never gonna get into Penn, or he's never gonna, you know, hit these benchmarks that, whatever, I'd, I'd set for myself. 50:10 What you realize is that if you, if you let the kids find their way to equilibrium, they'll end up being happy, more self-satisfied, and therefore more successful. And I, and, like both of my kids come from a very, like, 50:25 w- you know, let's call it privileged position, right? Mm-hmm. We are, um, well off, we are s- well-situated, we are, you know, well-educated and, and hopefully, like, well-socialized ourselves. 50:38 We s- we make good role models and, and there aren't a lot of conditions of, of deprivation. But by the same token, like, th- these, th- these kids don't... We don't give them things for the sake of giving them things. 50:50 They have to, they have to work for what they get, and they have to understand that w- you know, w- putting yourself out there and taking risks is a part of life, never mind success. Mm-hmm. 51:03 So if you don't hurry up and do it, you're gonna lag behind. So sorry, it's my, uh, very unrehearsed but sort of- No, this, that was really good... accurate statement of things. 51:14 Yeah, I was talking with a friend about this concept of gentle parenting, and it gets really reduced to like just never saying the word no, but there's nothing gentle about 51:25 not giving boundaries or not allowing somebody to fail. Mm-hmm. If you never allow somebody to fail, I actually think you're doing them a huge disservice. Oh, a massive disservice. Absolutely. Massive disservice. 51:36 And then, y- you know, it's, it's also, uh, th- th- the, i- you know, if, if we coddle, what we also l- miss out on is the, the uniqueness of, of somebody's individual experience. 51:51 Like, I was, uh, I have always been as, w- w- like verbose politely or- [laughs]... or loquacious politely or verbose impolitely as, as I am now. And w- w- but when I was a kid, I was, I was a late bloomer, I was... 52:07 You know, I entered high school f- at 4'10". I was a tiny little kid. I looked like I was eight years old. And, um, uh, w- what I had to do was become hyper social- Mm-hmm... 52:20 because that was my way of dealing with this, like, extreme disadvantage that I had relative to my peers. I didn't look mature, I was not mature, et cetera. Um, 52:33 what I wanted when, when Campbell went to high school was for him to become hyper social because that had reaped dividends for me, and he didn't want to, and he wasn't ready for it. 52:41 He has become more, much more hyper social now, but- He perhaps didn't have to. Well, [laughs] he didn't, right, 'cause he wasn't 4'10" and- Yeah. [laughs]... like, uh- He didn't wanna be the tall, talkative guy. 52:51 [laughs] Yeah. Well, he's, he's... You know, anyway, the, the, the point more so is like if, if, if we had imposed, um, if I had imposed the same rules on him or if, if I had said to him, um, 53:05 "It's okay that you're not any of these things," both of those conditions would have been equally deleterious, I think. So- Mm-hmm... 53:13 yeah, you have to, you have to land in the middle, and, and you're right, Daisy, there's nothing gentle about letting people fail, but you also, there's nothing kind about it either. Mm. 53:22 Yeah, no, I think if you're like, uh... It's like never... You never al- you don't allow them to develop grit or the, the muscle of that going through failure experiences like allows you to develop. 53:35 So it's almost like, uh, it's kind of like the emotional equivalent and psychological equivalent of like foot binding, right? Mm. [laughs] Like you're really cutting off somebody's ability to grow, right? 53:47 No, I'm saying like- Oh, all right. No, I understand. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Sure. That was, that was slightly arcane, but yes, I, I get what you're saying completely. 53:54 It was a little arcane, but we got there. That's on brand. Oh my God. Man, foot binding is such a... Wow. One- Disgusting. Yeah... okay, I, I listened to the most recent episode of Hip Replacement, and- Okay... 54:03 one thing I, one thing I liked is that you, every October and February, you do, um, a straight edge, sober, vegan month. I, I do. Your, your month of cleanse. I really like this. 54:14 I did a dry January for the first time this, this, uh, this year, and I, I've never, I've never felt better. Um, I've not had a dry month since then. How long have you been doing that? Uh, 22 years this year. 54:29 It, uh, it, it... Or 21, I guess. I, I, uh, the, the very simple short way to describe it isThe year before we got married, my wife moved to LA for a job, and we did a long distance relationship. 54:41 And so I had no reason to go home. Mm-hmm. And so I would go out every night and, you know, essentially get drunk. 54:49 And I came home on February f- I came-- woke up on February first, two thousand and four with the worst hangover of my entire life. And I just said to myself, "I gotta take some time off." Yeah. 54:58 So I took the month off, and at the, like you, Francis, at the end of the month, I felt better. 55:02 I had saved a bunch of money relative to the amount that I was earning at the time, and I just thought, "I'm gonna make this a practice." And what I have found over the course of time is that you-- if you 55:13 a-attach these periods of sobriety or of just abstinence to, like, blocks of time, the month, for instance, it's much easier to, to, to, uh, socialize that idea with somebody e- with other people. Yeah. 55:29 If I say, "Oh, I'm not drinking this week," or, "Oh, I had a rough night last night," people on the other side of that transaction tend to feel like it's something to do with them- Mm... is my experience. 55:38 Whereas if you just go, "No, no, March first, like, we'll go for martinis," it's, it's, it's easier for them to understand it. And so that was the, the framework. 55:48 The vegan thing was just a way of adding a, a degree of difficulty after being sober for a month is, is easy. Mm. 55:55 And in fact, I just started a-- We're gonna do a Cali sober month for September to address some stuff that my wife has going on, um, i-i-in, in terms of her, uh, ex-exploration of experience, let's call it. Yeah. 56:10 Um, so anyway. Love that. Um, okay, one other thing I've, I've always wanted to ask you, you, you put like 100 plus links in, in your weekly, the weekly free version of your newsletter. 56:19 How many of these- I have done, yes. How many of these do you... Yeah, you're, you're lowering it to about 80, right, in the new edition? No, I'm, I'm, I'm-- we're going in, we're going 50, and we're going- 50? Okay. 56:27 We're going- Well, no-nonetheless, this question still applies. How many of these do you read in full? Uh, I skim all of them. 56:35 Because wait, also let me, let me say quickly for the listener who, who might not know, who might not be subscribed, though I'm sure any listener of Tasteland is a, is a, uh, Sic Talk subscriber, um, it's basically it's, it's like, it's like a poem itself. 56:45 It's like it's not really about- [laughs]... reading everything. It's like it's the one-liner description you give to each one and the order in which they're in. Proofrock. 56:50 Yeah, uh, Proofrock as has been discussed on the, the Future Commerce episode- [laughs]... of this podcast. Um, but anyways, the floor, back to you, Ben. Well, well, no, what I was gonna say was, so I, I skim everything. 57:01 I read 57:03 a, a, a, a, to, like, a Word perfect level almost none of it, um, because w- I'm less concerned about the, the, the craft of the pros, and it's apologies to all the writers out there, but it's, what I'm more interested in is the pattern recognition that goes- Yeah... 57:18 into all of it. It is the, the- You're reading the wind. I mean, that's a very charitable way of saying it, Francis, but, but it's kind of the idea. 57:28 It's like it's, it's trying to, to get a grasp of the zeitgeist so that I'm able to then go, oh, right, you know, the watch market. Oh, Daisy mentioned watches. Mm-hmm. The watch market is bigger than the art market. 57:40 Speaking of which, it's Armory week, so let's talk about going to the Armory preview on Thursday. Oh, there's also the new... I'm acting as a mentor for New Inc. this year for the New Museum. That kicks off on Thursday. 57:53 It, it's, it's, it's a, just a way of, of creating these kind of, elucidating these sublime connections between topics to, to get a sense of what matters to people in the moment, um, 58:06 and then inviting them to, to, to go deeper because I don't have- Yeah... the attention span to, but they might. I love that. 58:13 But the reason, the re-- so sorry, one thing, the reason that I'm, that I'm shortening it is because I have found myself... 58:22 There's a, there's a guy who's on Hip Placement named, um, Josh Garan, who does a, a newsletter called The Social Juice, which is so much more complete when it comes to the world of marketing, for instance. 58:33 Then I start to go, all right, well, what is w- now that Sic is in its eighth volume, what is my value add here? How do I- Mm-hmm... you know, continue to make it interesting for myself and for the readers? 58:43 And I think a little bit more focus, um, a little bit less small C Catholic approach to the, to the, the media landscape is gonna be what the doctor ordered for twenty twenty-five, twenty six. 58:56 I think we'll end it right there. Um, go subscribe to Sic Talk- Thank you so much... if you're not. [laughs] This was great. Thanks, guys. Uh, an honor to be on. 59:04 Frequent listener of Tasteland, and so very pleased to be invited. Perfect. Ciao. 59:10 [outro music]
