Working With My Best Friend (ft. Laren)

0:02What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper with Call Her Daddy. Daddy gang, welcome back to another episode of Call Her Daddy. Today I am joined by none other than the producer of Call Her Daddy, my best friend, Lauren McMullen. Wow. For anyone that didn't watch my documentary on Hulu, Call Her Alex, one of the reveals in the documentary is that Lauren has been the producer of Call Her Daddy and has been working with me for over four years. And a lot of you, actually most all of you, were shocked. I have never talked about this publicly. We have kept this a secret and we've kept it private.

0:53And today we are here to get into why we decided to keep it private, why we never shared it with the world, the reasoning behind it, and also what it's actually like to work with your best friend and the process of call her daddy. We are going to walk you guys through what we do every single week in working together. So I think we should just get into it. Let's tell them how this came to be. So I think we have to go all the way back to 2020 and the pandemic. And first, again, I think everyone knows this is at this point, but Lauren and I have been childhood best friends since we were about six years old.

1:35Yeah, second grade. Second grade. So six years old, Lauren and I have been best friends. And we have grown up together. We played soccer together. We made movies together. We didn't go to the same high school or college, but we've been best friends our whole lives. And in 2020, when I was producing and editing and hosting Call Her Daddy on my own, it was the pandemic and I was by myself living in New York. And it was a pretty dark time. I think I was really struggling. There was a lot going on online, obviously, with Call Her Daddy. And I was pretty isolated in New York City at the time. And Lauren happened to be going through a breakup at this time.

2:12And Lauren was trying to figure out her next move. Am I going to have to move home? What am I going to do? And I remember saying, Lauren, just move into my apartment with me. This will be beautiful. Let's live together again, because we had lived with each other at one point. And so you moved in. And at this point, explain to the daddy gang what you're doing. Like I'm hosting this raunchy sex podcast and you are doing what? So I had just finished Teach for America. So my undergrad degree is in neuroscience. I never intended to be a teacher. I did two years of Teach for America where I taught fifth and eighth grade science in Newark, New Jersey.

2:46I did my two years and then I was in grad school at Columbia getting a master's in clinical psychology because I wanted to go on and get a PhD and be a therapist. So when I moved in with you fresh off my breakup, I was in my first year of my master's program and I was nannying for a crazy family on the side to make money. So then Lauren and I moved to Los Angeles. We decided we were done with New York for a little bit. We wanted to try something different. Lauren wanted to get away. I wanted to get away. I knew it would be better for Call Her Daddy. I would get so many more guests in Los Angeles.

3:24So we got on a plane and we headed to LA and we moved into this home together. And then the school I was teaching at had reached out and was like, our neuroscience teacher quit. We can't find anyone who can teach neuroscience. We'll let you teach entirely remote. Can you teach neuroscience to these high schoolers? And I'm living in California teaching children in New Jersey. So my first class was every day at five in the morning. and then I'd be done work at 1 p.m. So you'd be waking up to like go record Call Her Daddy at 1 p.m. and I'd be finishing work for the day. We knew no one in L.A. I didn't have a car.

4:00It was COVID. It was locked down. There was nothing to do. So I'd be like done work. Like, hey, Alex, like what are you doing for Call Her Daddy? Like, yes, I'll help. I'll watch you. I think this is when we really started to feel like, oh, my God, I missed this part of our friendship. Lauren and I, as you guys will watch in the documentary, as you watched, we fell in love with two things at a very young age soccer and making movies and music videos and that was our genuine passion and so you getting to come back into that world I think was so exciting for both of us because it also kind of rebirthed a part of our relationship that we had lost in a way and so we both just leaned in and we started having so much fun and so when I signed my deal with Spotify that was six months into us living in the house I would say and that obviously changed my life forever and it changed I felt like everyone's lives around me just because it definitely put me publicly in a different stratosphere like I felt like there were there was more attention on me there was a bigger conversation around money again I think people don't really know this but like I didn't have a team like I was still editing my own episodes it It was fully just you at that point.

5:11Yes. Like there was no writers in these interviews. Like I was writing all my interviews. I was editing all these things. I was like, you know, I'm now making enough money where it's dumb. How am I not paying people to help me? And that I think was the beginning of the start of it all. Do you remember like the first real conversation post Spotify? So we sat down and you were like, I want to have something more consistent, something more formal. What are you interested in? What are your next moves? Because at that point I had graduated from my master's program and I wanted to go get a PhD, but I decided I wanted to take one more year before applying so I could do more research and get my name published on more papers.

6:01So I I was like, wait, this kind of works out really well. You want to go into your first year of Spotify, having people around you that you trust, feeling comfortable, not starting, just like building a whole team from like scratch and not knowing anyone. So I'm like, this is perfect. I'll take my gap year with Call Her Daddy. Why did I forget? That's how it started. Yes. You were like, for sure in your head, you were going to go to grad school. And there was going to be one year that you were going to work with me. I was going to get a freelance rate. Yep. and bill you for like my hours weekly at my freelance rate.

6:34And then on the side, I'd also be doing my psychology research and trying to get published in more academic research. To give everyone more context, this moment of me being like, okay, I'm going to hire you for a year. It really was us being like, let's just do this for one more year together. It'd be so fun. And it was kind of the perfect setup for both. It made you feel more comfortable going into your first year of Spotify. And it gave me consistent paid work while I tried to just write and apply to grad school. But in no way did we think this was long-term. But now that I was going to be like billing you hourly and like tracking my hours and like having deliverables to me and like actual deadlines to hit, it did start to become more real at that point where at this point now you are my boss and there is a differential between the two of us.

7:23It feels a little bit different than like me just sitting in the corner, giving you thumbs up, laughing and saying like, Like, oh, tell that funny story. Tell that joke. Like now I'm like researching the guests you're having on. I'm pitching topics I think you should talk about. Like I'm spending real time doing like actual real work and it's feeling more real. And at that point, we kind of had to have a conversation of like, okay, if we're going to do this one year and do it right and not leave feeling resentful that you felt I took advantage of the situation and was just using you for money or that I felt I didn't have clear expectations and I'm not really set up for success.

8:05We have to treat this more real. And that's when we had the really hard conversation of, I think I need to leave LA. I needed more things of my own. I was living in your house. I was relying on you and Matt for plans. I was working for you. And like, I - We needed to shake it up. And it was beautiful to see you go to Chicago and still to the same be fucking thriving like that was without a doubt the best decision I think you could have ever made for yourself picking that city I feel like you have had such incredible success there you've had such a support system like it's been beautiful so I'm just so happy that actually ended up working out um yeah I think that's like the best thing we ever could have done and I remember we podcasted together being like I'm moving to Chicago oh my And we told the daddy gang, we're like, I'm moving to Chicago for a job opportunity.

8:54The job opportunity was call her daddy. And I was moving to Chicago so that we could give it a real chance. And we didn't fuck shit up. We're professional. Each other's like assholes. 24 seven. Oh, my God. I forgot that we publicly said that. I'm sorry, you guys. That's like a little white lie we told. Sorry. But so then we. OK, so now let's explain in that moment. Why did we not tell the truth about why you were going to Chicago for a job? because at that point we truly thought it was going to be a one-year thing like imagine in my mind we're really conceptualizing this is like this is my gap year before i'm going to get a phd yep and we thought it would just be really confusing to people and we're like we work together and now we don't and like knowing the way that the internet spins things i think people would immediately be like oh they're not working together anymore because right shit went down not a girl's girl and she ruined yeah look alex did it again kicked lauren to the curb no literally so yes yeah that's what people would say so it was very easy we were like okay great we'll keep this under wraps and love you and come visit all the time lauren moves to chicago i'm in la and the minute she leaves we just hit the fucking ground running i think the next big moment was the year mark the year mark we were coming up on the year mark and i'm sitting in la being like there was a part of me that felt in my gut holy shit i have never had more fun in my life working with someone and i have never felt at such ease and we just have the best dynamic and i think I selfishly was like oh my god I actually can see it I can see how this could work long term but if I put my selfish wants aside and I also put my work aside if I put on my best friend hat as Alex from young Alex and you being my best friend I was like but what does Lauren want because I am living my dream this I am living everything I could have ever wanted I love my job so much but does Lauren feel that same way and is Lauren gonna want to do this full term and I started to get worried that I'll be honest I remember when I look back I was worried that you understandably because we've talked about this on the podcast before like you were enjoying understandably the work but the money I think was so so much security for you I think you were starting to be like fuck it's so nice to like comfortably afford my apartment and get to do all these things and so I started because money was a huge stress in my life growing up yes and I think I started to worry as your friend like fuck is she feeling this which is nice but is she forgetting how much she wanted to go and get this PhD and is she going to choose this life because of the money not because she genuinely wants it and I started to feel a little bit of guilt where I was like am I pulling Lauren away from her dream because I'm living mine and you said that to me we have like a really real and honest conversation at like that year mark yeah and you were like at this point I really can't imagine doing this without you because you were trying other people like we were kind of planning for my departure so like you were trying other people you were interviewing other people you were having other people come and freelance with you and it just wasn't the same because I know you so well so like I have this insanely unfair advantage and like I can look at something immediately and be like Alex would never say that Alex doesn't agree with that oh my gosh alex would hate that i would hate that yeah you just can't teach that because it's just you've been my sister my whole life like so it's like so finally we had a really honest conversation where i voiced all this to lauren and i remember just going back and forth being like as selfish as i want to be that i want you to know i value you more than you know and i would love you to do this literally until the end of time with me i need you to be honest with yourself and take time to really think what do you want yeah you were like I could never live with myself if we look back in five years and I feel like I tore you away from your dream yeah so I went and I talked to my therapist about it for a while yeah while we were kind of talking about why did I want to be a therapist I wanted to be a therapist because what you'll see in the documentary.

13:21My dad passed away from suicide when I was in college. He suffered from bipolar disorder for my whole life. And so that's what drew me to that. But more than that, I just wanted to have deep, impactful conversations and I wanted to help people. And I was talking to my therapist and I was like, well, if I stay on this show, I will have deep, impactful conversations and I think I'm gonna impact and help more people than I would if I was just a therapist. Like Alex is reaching millions of people a week. That was like, I will never forget. I almost wanted to start crying where Lauren came to me and was like, it just clicked for me.

14:07Like there's so much we can do with this show and there's so much work to be done. and especially you had said like the direction I already feel you pulling it in the show was changing yeah and it just felt like holy shit let's do this yeah like it was kind of all like the stars were kind of like aligning in like a weird beautiful way and in that moment we weren't like let's do this for the next 10 years it really again was kind of like let's see how this goes yeah because again you were so young we were like Lauren if in two years you decide you don't want to do this anymore you can still go get your PhD yeah like so I was I think I was at 27 at this point yes so there was time and again just for context unwell the company hadn't been started it was still just me at Spotify and so we started yeah and I remember offering you where were we when I offered you your salary um I remember exactly where I was I was sitting at my kitchen table and I almost fell out of the chair.

15:10I literally remember being like, okay, so I'm going to give her like a full time salary. You're my only employee, basically. So I was like, and I went in and I like pitched you and you were like, yeah, I'll take it. Yeah, for sure, Alex. And we just started. And let's talk about how you first started. Because I think now being able to say like you are the head lead producer of this show. I did not start there. She no she did not. So when Lauren came in you really took on the research role. So a lot of what Lauren was coming in and helping me do was there's so much information obviously about the guests that I will be interviewing and Lauren was a beast with research because that literally was like my master's degree for clinical psych.

15:56I was just cranking out research and cranking out papers So like I can research and I can write. And so then talk to people a little bit about like what your first position was and like what you did. So if you had a guest on and the guest had an autobiography, I would read the autobiography, essentially turn it into a book report and present to you and like brief you on the person's life. And then I started getting like more systematized and like I made you like a research system where like I made like a memo where it like breaks out like fast facts about them, put their life into a timeline, put in angles I think you'd be interested in, put in things I think you should avoid talking about.

16:29And I would kind of like talk to you about the person and like get you, I would just brief you on the person and kind of pitch to you like what I think would be interesting for you to talk to them about. Yes. And that was kind of the start of it. Slowly, it has completely changed in a beautiful way. As my Spotify career continued, we then started Unwell. and once we Matt and I started unwell and our company started to grow Lauren and I recognized that there were so many more tentacles of the business that I was being involved in and so I was like I need you to take on a bigger role for call her daddy and so what that looked like was Lauren started now to in researching she would write the full first draft of the interviews instead of me now.

17:21And so she was doing the research and she was writing these episodes. And then she was also helping me with all of the social media organization. So I would have a vision of how I wanted to roll. I'm very specific about how I want to roll out who the guest is, what I want the teasers to be, what I want the promo to be. And so Lauren would start working with our editors on crafting the promo, writing a script. This is what the promo should say this is at the time that this needs to get uploaded like at that point I started like kind of touching everything yes and finally I think once we realized we needed more people on our team is really when you took your net the next jump of your career which was we found truly one of the most talented writers I think we've both ever worked with we stole her from CNN from the news world shout out chase we love you and she came on and changed your life because like i was talking about this like with chase recently because she was like i cannot fathom because now we have like a we have more researchers too which is really helpful because with my background i make us take the research so seriously yes um and they were like how the hell were you doing this alone we well we don't know but we got I would start I would start work at 6 a.m.

18:45and probably work until 9 p.m. and we we wouldn't stop like we were obsessed yeah but again we loved it so much that I never would wake up and be like fuck my life like I have so much work fuck Alex I was like this is so exciting we have three interviews this week I have three books to read this week we gotta get it done interviews to write this week and so finally once Unwell was up and running, I think it was very clear now that we needed to yet again reconfigure and systematize because we now do have an editor on Call Her Daddy. And although there are some weeks that I'm like, I will be personally editing this.

19:17Like, for example, the Kamala Harris interview, I was like, no one can touch this. I have to edit this on my own. Those are moments I'm still doing final edits or whatever. But we now have someone who's helping with edit. Shout out Alex T. Love you. Love you. um what i will say is i think there's a lot of people on the internet which makes me laugh understandably i get why people would think that though again is because when i signed with spotify when i signed with sirius xm i think there's this idea that there's these corporate big wigs who are like handing me the cards and saying say all of this and i'm just like this host and meanwhile it's like when you're for literally my entire Spotify time when you're reading these questions it's us like it's us putting this shit together and now as we ventured on it's yes it's literally me Lauren and one to two other young women in their 20s and we're all doing basically a round table we're talking about what we want the interview to be and then we've got a someone's going to do the research someone's starting the prelim on like what the interview flow will be we're doing multiple drafts we're having zoom meetings every week.

20:29We're going through, oh, I don't like this. Let's change this. Let's move this up here. This topic should hit harder. Let's move this to the front. And then I go and I do the job. And so it's so collaborative. It's so rewarding. And the interview process has become such a well-oiled machine, but it's taken a lot of work to get there. So why don't you talk a little bit about what you do every week? With having Unwell Now and you doing so many things beyond Call Her Daddy. I handle anything logistic related to Call Her Daddy. So anyone on the Call Her Daddy team reports to me and I manage the entire team.

21:09And I'm essentially the person who makes sure from booking to the editor, to the social media team, to the research team, to the interview being written, to communicating with PR reps, to making sure that episode makes it on uploaded on time yes that i'm handling like everything making sure everything is happening and everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing so that now you are purely thinking about nothing besides the creative and it's so nice the way that you are able to keep the ship running and sometimes you'll have three interviews in a week yes and it's insane chaos but it's amazing and we love it yeah I was gonna say like I've never felt so fulfilled never felt so stimulated I've never felt like I've done something that's had this much of an impact before like we're saying how like we work insane hours but like I never wake up dreading my job I sometimes like wonder like oh like how did I like clock like a 14-hour day yesterday and like not think twice and like I don't feel burnt out it's because like I legitimately like love this job so much and I care so much about this job and I think like one of the coolest things is how much autonomy I feel like I have I feel like that's like a big factor of like loving my job like I can have a therapy session where I'm like I just had the best talk of my entire life and I can be like Alex like I think we need to talk about this you're like okay go write an episode or I'll read something and I'll be like this is important like go write an episode it's such a rewarding process that I think looking back on the days that I obviously took such pride in doing it all on my own I think I now take so much more pride on not doing it all on my own because I think getting to share the joy of what this show does every week with other people who get to be a part of the behind the scenes it is indescribable the feeling like I know it sounds sappy daddy gang but like getting to give you guys interesting fun engaging content every week and it all is coming from the hearts of us and a few more other young women in their 20s like it's so fucking cool that we are creating these conversations um and it's coming from this like just genuine place of like we're literally saying some of these ideas are because we were at a dinner and then it turns into an episode that's getting millions of views i'm like

23:59let's talk also now about i think one of the biggest questions that we have gotten online since announcing that Lauren and I work together is how the hell do you guys have a work friendship balance? Because that just seems like it is a disaster waiting to happen. And I completely understand why you would think that. So let us tell you about it. I think that like we kind of described in the beginning days when it was just us, we are extremely, we've always been very communicative. And I think, although this may sound weird, once we kind of got our rhythm of how we wanted to work together, like literally of just like, are you getting paid?

24:46Are you quitting your job? Okay, now you are getting paid. Now you have a salary. What is my job role? What are my day-to-day responsibilities? Yes. Once that happened, when we're just working, it is the easiest thing in the world and I will say it is easier than when we were kids like when Lauren and I were children we you we had such a passion for filming and writing scripts and and creating these worlds together and the two of us like my mom says in the documentary when the two of us were in a room it was almost too much we both were so creative and passionate and so we were saying up until like 3 a.m.

25:27like in your dad's closet editing like as children and taking it so serious and so when one of us had a vision and the other disagreed we would butt heads more back then be like no lauren like that won't keep the viewer engaged and you're like but alex it looks better if it's like this we were so much more combative when we were younger now it's like it's just seamless. I think something that may sound counterintuitive is I think it's actually easier that there's a hierarchy. And in theory, and we can get into this more in a minute, in theory, you are my boss. And I think that does make it easier because at the end of the day, it's your call and I'll defer to you.

26:05It's not like we're like co-hosts, like arguing back and forth of like what we're going to talk about. And at the end of the day, you're the one saying this shit like I'm not going to force words out of your mouth it's your voice and it's your show and like I'm here to help push us forward and make us better and guide you and help you but I'm not going to tell you your views and beliefs on something it's a good point like I feel like you've always been so respectful of as invested as you are you know when it's like okay but it is your call and but again like we're so in simpatico with almost everything and i never want to get in front of the camera if we haven't talked through something where i'm like but what do you think about it and then even if i if i hear your piece and i disagree with you i'm gonna speak it out to you and if you disagree with me i don't think i've ever gotten on camera with us being in disagreement and being like oh well i'm gonna say it anyways ever in my career and there is i feel like rarely moments but there have been moments where the team will say something to me and I'll be guys I totally hear what you're saying but I'm gonna disagree with you guys on this one and I'm gonna just go for it um and that is the beauty of it's my show I can do that but I do think it's very rare that I go against the grain of the team and I it's just when I'm having a feeling most of it is when it's like comes to marketing and social media I feel like I have this pulse on it that sometimes I just have this feeling and I've got to go with my fucking gut Yeah, I think another thing is like how we maintain a friendship and a working relationship is during like the work week.

27:45We are very professional. Like if we get on a Zoom, like we're not shooting the shit on the Zoom. Oh, no. Someone if someone like not in our company got on the Zoom, they would have no idea that we're best friends. Like we are very. No one would know. yeah we really save our like catch-ups because our current um situation is i come to la for a full week every month so that becomes more where we merge the two yes i stay in your house we have dinner every night together we jacuzzi hang we yeah and we are like the minute we'll be like okay it's like 6 30 should we stop working and they'll be like immediately we close our laptops we go in we watch a show we drink wine and we can turn on friend mode immediately but that is just because i think of the years of repetition again when lauren moved to chicago we kind of had also in her send-off a conversation of like our friendship is so solid we have been friends for basically our whole life neither of us are worried about our friendship let's really pour into this figuring out what is our working dynamic and what is our working relationship and to do that it's really confusing if we're working together during the daytime and you're trying to have the strength or not even strength but you're trying to feel comfortable enough to tell me I don't like that or that's not good enough and then a few hours later we're shooting the shit about like do you like this outfit like yes that was confusing in the beginning where we needed to just figure out how do we get comfortable of having working conversations yes and having them side by side with friend conversations was difficult but now we're like fucking experts I know we're so fucking good at it now like we can if it's five minutes before and I'm like wait are you on a zoom and Lauren will be like no I just got off my last zoom I'm like wait get on the zoom link before everyone gets on because I want to hear about the date last night and we'll like quickly talk for five minutes and then all everyone else on the team gets on and we're like hello everyone and we pretend we didn't talk for five minutes and it's like we can shut it on shut it off.

29:48I think it's also been really important to us because I recognize that as the owner of the company and as the host of the show, I can make all these calls. And I think I have such a respect for you and awareness for you that I don't want our dynamic to ever impact the way other people on the team or at the company feel about you. And I think obviously it was easy when it was just the two of us. But now I never wanted you to feel like, oh, fuck, I can feel that other employees are like, oh, Lauren just gets special treatment or Lauren gets to do this because she's Alex's best friend. I think if you asked anyone at our company, they would say, one, without a doubt, Lauren McMullen is the hardest working person at this company.

30:35She will do anything and everything to get the job done. You are so brilliant. Everyone respects you. And so I think if there is a moment yes of course where they're like where does lauren stay when she comes to la well of course you're staying in my house but it doesn't rub anyone the wrong way because i don't think one when we're in the office we don't speak like we're friends no you are the producer of call her daddy like people will hear me on zooms being like lauren that doesn't look good enough can you please like circle back with the team i need like three go fix this and like make it better and come back yeah i think i can say the reason you and i have had such a successful outcome in working together is because this isn't a friendship it's you are my sister like truly like again in the documentary you see like the ties that our families have the relationship basically from fucking diapers together like this isn't something that if we get in a fight then you're just out of my life or I'm out of your life like we are together forever and I think it has allowed us to lean into the professional aspect in a way that we have such unwavering respect for each other that nothing could come between that because when it has and when we've had issues it is immediate we're on the phone or we're in person we'd like let's work through this and it has been pretty seamless yeah and I can imagine a lot of people on the internet being like how how I mean of course I have like the looming cloud of the one really public fallout with a woman.

32:12And I feel like that has obviously tainted a lot of people's opinion of me. As a friend? Yeah, as a friend, even though that's the only friendship people publicly saw. Of yours? Of mine, that they thought they knew the whole story, understandably, because we did an incredible job of what our job was, and it was marketing this friendship um but i think it was just it's just hard because i can understand people would try to compare the two almost in like alex how did you not learn your lesson of working with friends and like it's just so different i think that's difficult for me to sit back and watch and read um and i'm assuming they'll probably be those type of comments when this comes out like oh how'd you not learn your lesson it's gonna happen again and like one like we were saying like I've known you for 25 years I think people forget that you knew her for a year and a half in total it's just a very different situation and um I'm really proud of our friendship and I think every friendship in my life I almost always look at us as like the model friendship because I think the way that we communicate the way that we respect each other the way that we are honest with each other and loyal to each other has allowed us to put ourselves into what maybe some people would understandably think would be a difficult situation to put a friendship under that kind of pressure and the fact that we've thrived and has been I think a testament to how hard we work at being with each other through it all I agree

34:09we asked the internet if you guys have any questions for lauren and i about working together and so we are going to answer them today lauren do you want to read some what is the coolest experience the two of you have gotten to have together since working together oh the olympics was obviously very fun the olympics was insane like i think especially with our sports background i think the two of us getting to go and produce a show for peacock and it was so much fucking work it was so much work but it was so rewarding we won a fucking emmy for it we won an emmy wait i forgot do we never tell anyone that no you guys we won an emmy Lauren and I are both going to have Emmys in our offices.

34:56Yeah. I forgot. So it made all of the blood, sweat and tears worth it. It was so much work, but it was really rewarding. And I think I'm really proud of us because trying a new format doing live. It was. Yeah. Olympics was pretty fucking cool. OK. What is Alex's best and worst quality as a boss? Oh, OK. And then you can do it about me. What is my best and worst quality as an employee? OK. You go first. um okay your best quality is how much you care because i think it's really palpable and the expectations are high and the standards high obviously that's what makes the show one of the best in the world but i think how much you care and how hard you work inspires everyone on the team and i think the whole company is inspired so you're inspiring so many people on a daily basis and also the whole daddy gang oh my god love you i love you too that's really sweet okay now you're about to hit me with the worst um your worst quality is your fucking typing skills i fucking knew you were gonna say that i don't like no i don't know if you like skip typing class all of elementary school laurie cooper like what were you doing to your daughter but she cannot type no no i purposely changed the settings on google docs so that she can't get in and access them because she'll fuck them up i'll make like a chart or a diagram you like put caps lock on in the middle of a sentence you have like punctuation in the middle of a sentence like it's it's i need to like no lauren like gets angry with me she'll be like stop typing because i'll have a thought or or when i'm talking so fast and you can only type so fast so then i pick it up and i try to add on what i'm saying and then you're like alex stop it get out of my documents because lauren's very specific about her formatting and her documents and i come in and i just crush your fucking soul i don't also know why i never learned i for some reason always use caps lock not shift so then i'll be in caps lock and i'll look up and like oh fuck no it's bad and even like in your work slacks like oh even in your work slacks well we don't slack each other like our company has a strict policy for work-life balance we talk on slack but we will tax that's the one thing that like we go around we're inappropriate yeah we tax we don't slack with each other but when you slack you're so like i guess it's good blunt but like you just always seem so angry on slack where I'm like and then you'll you always sometimes will call me be like wait you good oh no yeah I'm bad I'm a bad um texter you're bad with your fingers and words you're leave the words to your mouth truly you're not one for the I will say it's an abomination when I get it in those documents it's bad I just feel like yeah it's not my strong suit no okay my favorite thing of working with you two things but only because I have to say it even though I'm kind of taking yours but it's a different version which is when I started call her daddy I genuinely never believed someone would care about the product as much as I do and I know it is unrealistic for anyone to care that much but you are second to none like I know if there is something going on and it's 3 a.m and I call you and I'm freaking out about something with call her daddy you will do anything no matter where you are in the world no matter what's happening you will drop everything and you put call her daddy first always and it makes me just feel so supportive because in it being my show I understand someone wouldn't love it as much as I do and it and it really does feel like you care as much as I do so that's number one I do number two I think it has been such an incredible process watching you become a boss and from starting in research and now growing to people reporting to you and reporting structures and how much they respect you as a boss I know something Matt and I had wanted you to work on the past like two years was being more direct and being not confrontational, but just being able to have these hard conversations, whether it's a layoff, like you've had to, Lauren has had to lay people off.

39:12Lauren has had to have honest conversation. If work isn't up to par, Lauren has had to, you've just had a lot of growing. I feel like in the past two years since Unwell has started that I do think has allowed you to step into this executive role in a way that has changed the way I think people see you in this space. Again, as you're not my best friend, you are one of the best, highest people at this company and you are there for a fucking reason. It has nothing to do with you being my best friend. It's because you're really fucking talented. Okay, we're going to get emotional. Okay, your worst thing.

39:52If we're going to be nitpicky, Ever since someone bought you your Headphones that you edit with Or you're like doing your notes with What do you think I'm going to say Every time I call you on the phone You sound like you're Underwater and you're going In and out you're spotty and I can't hear A word you're fucking saying so I'm calling Lauren After like a debrief of a fucking interview And every time I finish my interview I get Into my car we have this ritual I call Lauren immediately And I zoom into the Interviews and I listen to the interviews live And then I call her and as when it's on the top of my head, we go through every single question that I asked.

40:28And Lauren is at her computer and I debrief every question. Oh, that wasn't interesting. We're going to cut that one. Oh, we're going to have to cut this down. That their answer wasn't that interesting. Oh, I want to move that to the front. And I give Lauren all these notes. And Lauren sounds like this. And I'm like, Lauren. And she's like, sorry, sorry. Turning off my AirPods. Sorry, Apple. I don't know what the fuck is going on, but it is. I think it's an issue with my phone, too. Maybe something's going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I literally am like Lauren You're like sorry Sorry disconnecting Disconnecting That's my biggest pet peeve of you Oh great It's like literally so minimal You're a bad typer And I wear headphones During conversations Yeah it's fine Okay what else What is the most awkward conversation You've had to have at work Oh I know this The most awkward conversation The two of us have had to have at work Yeah I know this Okay go ahead So back like we were saying When it was just the two of us I asked you for a performance review why did i forget about this because i blacked it out yeah because i fucking blacked it out you're like i don't really like we don't need to do i'm like no no no like i need to like know like what are like my next steps to grow and how i'm doing and like we need to have an honest conversation about things i need to grow on and how you feel about me and the company and for context when she says company this is before unwell unwell has started before we have 70 80 people working at this company so it's me and Lauren and Lauren's like let's sit down for a review and I'm like sure let me pour myself a coffee even though we talk every minute of the day and I was like Lauren I don't know if I can do a performance review and she was like just try you guys I wish we would have fucking recorded this zoom I we both show up with notes that we both wrote and yours are probably disgusting no fuck you and you can tell we're both reading off of our notes because Lauren's like I'm going to advocate for myself now and and pitch as to why I deserve a raise and I'm literally sitting there be like okay go ahead and you can tell Lauren's like reading off of her computer and then here's my growth here are my strength and we're both dying laughing you're like no stop we need to be serious

42:44okay one of the questions is is her name lauren or lauren her name is lauren but her nickname is lauren because my mom was so southern she'd be like lauren lauren um what's one thing you didn't know about each other until working together that's hard go ahead mine's like kind of deep when you're good friends with someone like obviously you celebrate their successes and you know their accomplishments and like you are like I did this at work today and I accomplished that like when you get to like see it and witness it on a day-to-day level it's like a whole different experience and like I obviously knew you were creative and I knew you were smart but like you're like brilliant and you're like a genius and like I am constantly in all of you and I'm just like damn how'd she think of that Lauren you're literally gonna make me cry thank you No, I feel the same way about you.

43:40I think working with you, I always knew you were so smart. And obviously, like we in living together when you were more in the academic field, I was always just so inspired. But it's hard tangibly to be like, I'm not in that field. I don't know what a research paper is supposed to sound like or look like. Yeah. And I always knew you were so brilliant. And we always talked about that, like how you just took after your dad in that way. like he was so fucking bright it was like inspiring to be in rooms with him and I feel that way about you like and now getting to work with you the way that you are so good at multitasking and yet giving somehow 100 % to every multitask at the same time like you juggle so many things at once and you're so eloquent and calm and I don't know it's just really fun to watch something that wasn't like your natural thing that you wanted to do in your life become something that you are beyond talented in it is really cool to see you take it on and conquer it and make it look like you went to fucking school for this shit so I don't know it's just really cool to watch each other grow and like I think that was a moment where so when the premiere of the documentary happened um I think Lauren and I were just so but you were both just so emotional because again this is a documentary yes about the rise of color daddy in my life and then you are a huge part of it but I think a lot of that documentary was so full circle for us because of how long we've been doing this together and so there was so much emotion tied into it and our best friend, Kristen, who is like the third in our dynamic from childhood, who was in our childhood videos.

45:34The three of us getting to come together, I think was such a beautiful moment for me because when you are having a lot of accomplishments, sometimes you forget to pause and really stop and be like, if you knew this at 18, you wouldn't even believe it. And so I think being around you has also allowed me to stop and really be more present because you remind me of childhood you remind me of home so it's like I can hole out of being I'm like executives around me and all these people from Spotify or Sirius whoever be and when I look at you it brings me back to childhood and it makes this job still feel like a mom and pop thing that like hasn't gotten too big and out of my control and it still is my baby and it still is something that is all that's coming from the heart and I think that's what I'm excited about that people know now that you are working with me it I hope it gives people more clarity whether you hate the interviews or love the interviews like it's us yeah and it's not some big corporation that's writing these things and I'm just regurgitating like it's us and like it or hate it i'm really proud that we haven't strayed from the basement to now like it is always going to be us look at that ending that was i think that's where we have to end it you guys i am so so happy we finally got to get this off our chest now no one's gonna think lauren just like doesn't have a job and just like is randomly in la for like the longest time all the comments were always like how is lauren always with you like how does she like travel around like does she even have a job right i have a job lauren works at call her daddy and unwell and um it's just now i guess the beginning of you guys knowing this next chapter of our life and i don't think we're slowing down anytime soon i think we're just ramping up oh there's so much coming get fucking ready bitches love you guys thank you so much for tuning in i will see fuckers next wednesday goodbye Bye.