893. - Joe Weisenthal

25:57Jason Stewart:Yeah. You know, just buy the index fund, maybe buy some treasuries and then check in on a year. That's the most cliche financial advice in the world. It also happens to be pretty good, I think, for like 99.9 % of people. Depending on how many monitors you have in your living room? Yeah. No, if you have eight monitors, you could beat the market, that's for sure. But I only have space for two, and so therefore I'm glad that I can't. Okay, so are you technically not allowed to play the markets? There are pretty serious constraints. Yeah, I don't play the market. But is this enforced by the law or by your employer?

26:33Jason Stewart:The SEC or by the employer? Bloomberg, I don't know. I think these are things, I think most news organizations within New York City will have their own set of rules. I don't think there's any laws per se. I think that's just a good way to destroy the reputation of your company. But look, there's, you know, like we know that there's - Don't talk about Barry Weiss like that. Don't talk about Barry Weiss like that. There's news entities that are like built on this. A few of them launch every few years. Someone has this idea that we're going to hire journalists to do investigative stories and we're going to trade on the subjects of their investigative reporting prior to the story coming out.

27:14And that will be the business model of our newsroom. I don't know whether any of those have really been successful, but like, look, you know, you could in theory have a hybrid sort of news org trading shop. And I'd say like that kind of exists. There are certainly newsletters on Substack and others that essentially have this like hybrid version of the business model where like someone is writing about the topic, but also, you know, trading or whatever.

27:41Jason Stewart:Same thing with a lot of sports gambling as well. Yeah, that's right. If I were you, I'd do this bet, this bet, this bet, this bet. Yeah, and here's what I'm doing. Yeah, so I don't think there's really many laws around this. It's more like how much do you want to have some self-respect for what you're publishing? Okay, have people maybe with a little – anyone slid into your Bloomberg DMs and said, hey, I'll give you – I don't know. I'm going to zell you 100K if you tell me. I got 3 million. and I want to know where to invest it, I'll pay you 10 % or whatever. Do you get offers like that? Do you want offers like that?

28:21No, I never have. You know, like, no, I never have. Unfortunately, no. I would love to tell some story.

28:27Jason Stewart:It's just dick pics mostly? I was offered a life-changing fortune and I didn't do it because I have such integrity. Life-changing, right. But actually... It's funny about me. I was offered a life-changing amount of money and I said no because of the self-respect. I mean, at a certain point, can you retire? can you put the jersey up in the rafters and just go start getting fucking big ass stacks of paper it's not obvious that like this is the thing which is the people ask various versions of this question they're like oh have you ever like thought about um you know going to the other side like being an investor working at a hedge fund or a fund it's like no like i'm a journalist i talk about what happened yesterday i don't know what's going to happen tomorrow okay and so like i don't And the other thing is I, by and large, have come to think that most reporters, journalists, whatever, do not have the right mindset for the actual job of trading and investing.

29:21You know, we're like sort of trained to be cynical and like, you know, take some like trend over the last several years, AI, crypto, et cetera. Like if you're cynical and savvy about this, you missed out on huge runs. So like by and large, like you have to be a little bit. It's a different kind of - What I would say is a lot of good investors have a certain, and I say is only in praise, a certain foolish optimism. And you have to have that. And foolish optimism is not something I associate with a lot of people in media, if I'm being honest. No, I would agree. Foolish. Foolish. Foolish. But not the optimism part.

29:58Jason Stewart:You're too skeptiana for it. That's right, yeah. You've got to have brass balls and silver balls. I also wanted to, though, I wanted to ask about this sort of, because I feel like you were around for the boom of all these startups and, you know, private equity and all these investments. And I personally am, I think every idea is bad. Yeah. And I don't, and when one works. Yeah, I know. When one works. This is our curse. It's a curse. It's a curse. When anyone's ever been like, oh, why don't you help me with this thing? I'll give you some equity. I'm like, I don't want equity. This isn't going to work.

30:30like are you out of your fucking mind i want cash and then every once in a while something that's the problem we're surrounded by people who like have actually made a ton of money because they actually just said yes for once in their lives and you're like oh that's never gonna work you know we're all you you we're the same it's like that's not gonna work that yeah you know and i'll take the stock fuck cash but i guess my my question is seeing so many of those how many times have you thought to yourself like this this one's gonna work and it does like how often are you surprised, I guess, is my question, as someone who knows this stuff a little more intimately than a layman.

31:03Jason Stewart:Probably Tesla was the last one for you, Joe. I'm surprised almost all the time when anything works, particularly in the media industry, particularly in the media industry specifically. So you're saying that Semaphore getting$40 million is a surprise to you? I'm very impressed. I'm very impressed. I'm very impressed. I'm impressed too. Should be more like Semla 2 instead of Semaphore, is that what you're saying, Chris? No, I guess my whole thing with this is the whole valuation culture. As someone who doesn't work in numbers or understand it that well, I'm always flabbergasted by like, wait, so you owe somebody$50 million technically, but you're worth$500 million based on some projection.

31:43It all feels fake. That's my problem. It all feels like a spreadsheet. If you think about it, so imagine, let's just say a company gets a$40 million investment. In reality, at some point, the implication of that is that this is going to be a company that in the future is making tons of cash, such that the person who made this investment actually withdraws$40 million and multiples of$40 million in profit back out of the company. They ultimately pay back the investor. I mean, but what happens most of the time is that the company gets a bigger valuation and either, okay, maybe it gets bought out by another company and then the investors get paid back.

32:28Or it goes public and then a bunch of public shareholders own it and then the investor sells theirs. But still the fundamental aspect of all investment is this idea that this will be a profitable enterprise that will produce so much cash because revenues are higher than costs and those profits will be distributed back to those investors.

32:46Jason Stewart:The EBITDA is fucking lit. So that's why we're doing lit EBITDA. But if you think about an investment and you're like, oh, well, here's a$200 million company. I could see it maybe worth$500 million in a few years if they do well. It's like, okay, yeah, I guess I can see that. If you say, here's a$200 million company, and I expect that in a few years they will be massively profitable such that cash will be returned to shareholders, it's like, no, that's so hard to imagine. Even though fundamentally, it should kind of be the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're right. It's different. It is different, but it feels the same.

33:21But if you're just like, oh, you know what? The valuation will be higher. I'm not going to worry too much about actually a profitable enterprise that will pay back the shareholders and then some. if you're just thinking, oh, the valuation will probably be higher in a few years. It's like, okay, I can get my heads around there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll stick to that then. I'll stick to that then. Yeah, just invest in the companies with rising. It's that easy. Just invest in the ones where the valuation is going to go up. Unfortunately, Joe, I'm not super liquid right now. That's actually a good idea, Joe.

33:46I'm going to start doing that. Yeah, yeah. That is financial advice.

33:50Jason Stewart:Okay, Joe, did you get Bitcoin or Ethereum or anything like that back in the day or still currently? This is the curse. I've been following it forever, you know, but it's like, no, I'm like the most boring, boring investor in the world. So when you say forever, you had the opportunity to buy Bitcoin when it was. We all did. We all like it was just sitting there on Coinbase at like$10. Like it's just sitting right there. Like this is the thing, which is like making a lot of money is just clicking a few buttons on your phone. But the problem is you don't know. But it's like that joke that people have.

34:25It's like there's millions of dollars trapped in your phone right now, and the right sequence of buttons can extract that millions. It's like someone else is using their time tapping on the phone and sending a tweet. That's what I do. And someone else did those same thumb taps. Same, brother. And they made tens of millions of dollars on Bitcoin, but they're all just thumb taps. But I guess why didn't— It's just someone else tapped the right sequence. Why do you think these kind of alternative currencies attract the worst people on Earth? Like, why do you think it's why do you think it because it seems like a pretty simple thing to be like, oh, I'm going to follow this.

35:00I'm going to invest in it and then hopefully it'll pay off. But it attracts a certain kind of person that only wants to buy supercars and live in Miami penthouses and wear chrome hearts. And I want to know why. Yeah. Well, look, here's what I would say about that. Like, I've thought about various versions of this question a lot. But I generally, so it's like, okay, here is this novel instrument, a cryptocurrency that doesn't fit into some sort of traditional schema. And we can't obviously identify the cash flows or why it's going to exist, et cetera, right? Okay. So the way I tend to think about a lot of these things is that there is some correlation between sort of normal beliefs and normal personality, right?

35:40And part of having a normal personality, part of just fitting into the world, part of being like a sort of functioning adult in society is more or less like, yeah, you know what? I'm mostly going to agree with other people. Maybe I'll pick my spots where I have a little bit of a distinct opinion or something. But by and large, I'm going to smile and shake people's hands like, yeah, that makes sense, et cetera. And then there are some people who do not have that gene. They do not have that thing in their brain that tells them behave normally in society. But because they don't have that sort of like be a normal person gene, they I do think some of them are more open to both extremely good and extremely bad ideas that other people don't believe in.

36:19I mean, I see it, too, in economics where it's like various schools of heterodox economics or you probably like Sam, like, you know, various like sort of extremists of like unusual. Like they tend to be weird. Like there's nothing like you like think of like some like some whatever, some like Marxist or some like someone who believes in. Austrian economics or something like that. There's no fundamental reason why sort of having a non-mainstream view of economics will cause those people to be just like a little different, except that there is this, they don't have that filter that sort of compels them to just nod and agree with everyone else on things.

36:53And so I do think that like people are just sort of different than you and I are both, yeah, more open to both the good and the bad.

37:00Jason Stewart:I am built different than you guys. I wish I was built like Jake Paul and I'm not. And that's kind of, that's what I think about every day. For better or worse. Joe, speaking of Twitter, do people in your circles give you shit for still being on it? There's a few. I don't get that much hate for it. Okay. The funny thing is, so I have a Blue Sky account that I post every once in a while. That is funny. And I'm only... Yeah, I know. But the thing is, every time I post there, like I'll post an episode or something, Every time I post there, people are like, what the hell are you still doing on Twitter?

37:38So I was like, well, you know what? I don't really want to post here anymore because I'm just reminded of the fact that you're mad at me for being on Twitter. I've heard that the Blue Sky community isn't quite as friendly as they were once built. Yeah. Well, the thing is, it's like they're the only ones who remind me of how bad I am for still being on Twitter. I see what you're saying. So you're saying you go through your daily life and it's fine, but then you go on Blue Sky. Yeah. So then I make the effort to do something else, and that's the only time I'm reminded that I'm a bad person for still posting on Twitter.

38:02so like you know what I'd rather just not be reminded of that and so then I'm not there it's a little bit perverse I didn't need a reason not to use blue sky but I'll add that I'll add that to the pile I'll add that to the pile they're the only ones who will tell you you're bad so it's like alright I just don't want to see it you gotta avoid that toxic space but I imagine you were on Twitter early days early days much like Jason and I were yeah from that one it was good yeah this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace Jason all I do all day long when I should be doing my little work is click and surf on different websites that I find on the World Wide Web.

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40:17Jason Stewart:Yeah, nobody wants to deal with returns, but ShipStation, they make it so easy and then when you are shipping all that stuff out you don't want to you don't have time is it going to be cheaper if i fedex it or if i ups it or if i this if i that don't worry ship station compares all those rates for you and then bundle some discounted rates if you're doing some drop shipping of all that stuff you know you didn't even know you could negotiate carrier rates did you you loser add ship stations automation and intelligent features to your life. Try ShipStation free for 60 days with full access to all of their features.

40:54Jason Stewart:No credit card. Need it. Go to ShipStation.com and use the code HOWLONG for 60 days for free. 60 days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're saving on every shipment. That's ShipStation.com code HOWLONG ShipStation.com code HOWLONG for me personally, there was a lot for several years in the 2010s. There were two things, which is there really was a pretty rich community of people that really knew ball, like really new finance, really new markets, really new economics, who were posting a lot of alpha on there, like genuinely novel things. People who really had a lot of deep subject matter expertise, and they were not the type of people that the journalists and newspapers like we're talking to so there are like voices that were emerging that i wouldn't have found elsewhere like people really knew their stuff etc and i think a lot of that really is gone and i loved that i met so many people who became friends or colleagues or people we've had on the podcast through like that people like and then i think like unfortunately quite a few of them left because they're like wow like there's just some slop of various forms i still am entertained i still find it useful to sort of, where is the Zeitgeist, so to speak?

42:16You still tell Grok to put people in bikinis. It's still fun. Someone did that to me the other day. Oh, really? Really? What color did they choose for you? It was a black bikini.

42:29Jason Stewart:I love the way you said that. I don't know why exactly. I haven't really explored Grok. But for all those people that were like, oh, I'm like, you know, they're a serious person who's like a central banking or something. It's like, I just think like eventually people are like, I kind of had enough of this. Like most sane people, they're like, let's be real. You know, I kind of had enough. I mean, I think it, like when we were, speaking of industry, I was watching the recent episode. And when there were the two people that were running the company who were at odds and the foreign bank investor who's now CFO is like, this is a serious company.

43:01Jason Stewart:He's not a serious person. And I think, you know, the Twitter divide has been divided from serious people and not serious people. Yeah, it kind of feels like it. Do you feel like you're a serious person if you had to sway one way or another? I think, yeah, I think I'm the last. I mean, I think I'm a serious person. I also think I'm like the last. I'm the last serious motherfucker on Twitter. Suck my dick. Yeah, and I'm also like pretty normal. Like I just like, I have very normal opinions on just about everything. I have like very normal tastes. No, I'm just like a really normal guy. How do you feel about this?

43:30Normal? Yeah, I'm just normal. It's like, when did, and so I'm always like talking to my wife. It's like, why can't people just be normal like you and I are anymore? I just have like normal political opinions, normal, normal tastes, et cetera. But like there's fewer and fewer of them. Okay. Normie rights matter is what the wise - But somehow, somehow I've spent the last, like what I was going to say is somehow I've spent the last 15 or 16 years on this one app in which I have proceeded to view, proceeded like one by one. So many people I know have like lost their minds in some way or like taken on some crazy persona.

44:03And I'm like, oh, I'm like a survivor. I'm the same guy I was I'm older now You're crawling out of your foxhole I didn't lose my mind and I don't really know how that is Maybe I'm better than I I don't think I lost my mind Because you're built different

44:18Jason Stewart:You have a north star You have good discipline You're not an idiot But you're also not a dork ass And there's a few of us I'm going to put that in my mind I'll reword it I didn't love it but it was good I think that also there's just some people that are more affected by social media in every single way. Yeah. As far as like it's shaping your beliefs and changing your personality. Oh, completely. And I think you either kind of are that person or you're not. And that allows you to survive differently. At night, you know, I think one thing that helps honestly is I have two kids. And at night, before I go to bed, I'll like scroll Twitter.

44:55And I was like, oh, the world is coming to an end. This is terrible. Like society is completely cooked. And then the next morning, I was like, oh, I got to take my son to school and everything. Like, that walk to school is extremely normal. It's probably the same way people have been walking to school for 100 years. It's normal for you, but your son's like, why is my dad on his phone the whole time while he's walking? And it's just a different, you know, he's a little disappointed.

45:16Jason Stewart:Daddy has to reply to the haters now. You know, you've like, unironically, you've like cut something deep there. Daddy's got to reply to his haters now is really funny. Like, hold on one second. Hold on, sweetheart. Just hold on one second. The scary thing is that it's not a joke. I don't want to talk about it. I'm in this picture. I don't want to talk about this. This reminds me of - I don't like where this conversation is going. Speaking of when Twitter was good, it reminds me of a tweet I just pulled up from rapper Tyler, the creator, from 2012, so 14 years ago. Yeah. Ha, ha, ha. How the fuck is cyberbullying real?

45:56Jason Stewart:Ha, ha, ha. Just walk away from the screen. Close your eyes. ha ha ha yeah i mean there's something to that he said the n-word a few times and i chose not to there's something to that where it's like i close i turn on the screen and my life actually looks pretty normal and society does not feel cooked when i'm like walking around new york city taking my son to school yeah or taking him to the park last night we like played tennis against the handball wall in the park and it's like that felt very normal we could have done that 20 years ago if you didn't have kids you could have been listening to a podcast while you did that just something to think about that's the thing and then that would contribute to the cooking of my mind so I have to have this like Outlight of normality Yeah but you could You don't have to listen To doom and glooms You don't have to listen To Tim Dillon Talking about how You know Society is collapsing You can listen to How Long Gone Where we just That's right Try to figure out What Emma Stone Had done to her face This year Yeah important stuff But it seems like You have a pretty healthy I feel like you have A pretty healthy Media intake I would assume It's quite robust But it doesn't seem like You're going down The dark alleys Of Reddit or whatever.

46:56No, I'm like, I never go down like crazy rabbit holes or like, oh shoot, it's three in the morning and I've spent the last five hours like watching like manosphere videos about protein or something like that. No, like I like - You haven't started hitting your face with a hammer just quite yet. No, I never, I haven't done, I'm not engaged in any looks maxing currently or anything like that.

47:17Jason Stewart:Okay, well I wonder because we're all about the same age. You're two days older than me actually. I just checked it. We're all Virgo podcasters. Amazing. Cis white men. But anyway, I was thinking, wait, I just lost my train of thought. It's okay. You're distracted. I understand. We have a guy of this magnitude. The pressure's on. That's the problem when you - You guys are so starstruck by talking to a Bloomberg podcast host. Honestly, Joe, when you link up, you know this. When you record a podcast with a fellow podcaster of a certain stature, the work is sort of not on you. You know what I mean?

47:53It's like Jason and I could say three words for the next hour, and you're going to take it from there, and we're going to be all fine. We're both. I want to impress you guys. You want to impress. You're chocolate.

48:05Jason Stewart:We're milk. Put us together. It's a nice blend. On our own, it's great. Yeah. No, no. I say this, too. We do not have other podcasters on that often, but we do from time to time. It's exactly what I said. It's like, oh, it's so easy to talk to them. They just know how to do it. It's so, they know the rhythms. They don't give a seven minute answer or something like that. But you've been doing this, you've been doing this for a long time. Ten years? Long time. Yeah. More than a decade, correct? That's right. Yeah, November or October of last year, we did 10 year anniversary or 10 year birthday. What do you think has, I mean, obviously besides an influx of people, like what do you think has changed most in that side of the business?

48:47Like as far as someone who's been doing it twice a week for 10 years, like what is the biggest change you've seen? You know, like at the beginning, there was no business, right? I mean, it's interesting. There was no podcast business. I've said this publicly, you know, Bloomberg, when we started OddLots, there was no podcast team that existed at the time. We went to the head of radio and the head of radio was like, OK, you can have 30 minutes of radio studio time to record your podcast and give you some help to edit it. But there was no podcast business or podcast team. And that was very fortuitous to us because no one listened to the podcast for the first four or five years.

49:24Had there been a podcast team or a business, like maybe six months or a year in, they're like, no one listens to this. Like, what are we doing? We're pulling the – yeah, they're pulling the plug. So the biggest change is that people recognize that there is such a thing called the podcast business. And then that creates all these, you know, different dynamics where it's like it's probably harder within the context of any large media organization or any organization at all to just let something run forever because it's fun to do because it's like, you know, where's the math? And so I do think like, yeah, it's the fact that it's become a business that's probably changed it.

50:00But, you know, we've gotten way better about building intuitions of what our listeners like and we're better interviewers and various things like that. we're just better at the job than we were. I mean, I can't go back and listen to those. It's painfully cringe to go back and listen to our 2015. I can't listen to what we did last week. No, I can't do that. I can't actually do that either. I find it very difficult to listen to myself. Do people come up to you in the street and stuff? Is it like how often do you get recognized? And not just at like a financial conference.

50:31Jason Stewart:I'm saying what neighborhood do you have to avoid? You can't go to Fidai. You can't go to Fidai without bodyguards. You know what? It's honestly, it's semi-regular. I don't know. It happens with some regularity. My daughter hates it. I'm still very flattered by it. Yeah, it's awesome. Every time, I was like, I am genuinely, genuinely so thankful that anyone would take their time and listen to podcasts. And that's what I do professionally. So I actually love not just the flattery of someone being recognized, but I want to talk to the person. I want to ask them questions because I want to know what they do and why they heard it.

51:04I love chatting. They're like, bro, I just wanted to say I like the podcast. Yeah, that's right. Tell me why you love me, please, in front of my daughter. Leave me alone, bro.

51:13Jason Stewart:Speaking of the podcast business model, obviously we have Patreon. We have subscriptions. We have access to the Discord where you can go and chat with Joe. There's advertising that you do. But another thing that Chris and I do is brand deals, things like that. You do live events and things like that. We do live events, yeah. Are you allowed to do brand deals? Like, are you allowed to be an influencer or has that crossed the line too? I, no, I mean, no. What's the difference between you doing an ad read on a podcast versus you doing an ad post on Instagram? We don't do many ad reads, but the, um, the, you know, it's like, it goes through, you know, we, I am a, I'm a salaried, I'm a employee of Bloomberg, you know?

51:59And like, it's actually, you know, this is actually an important thing, which is I am very happy that I do not have to make these sort of decisions about brand stuff. And the example that always comes to mind, I guess it was 2022. Oh, yeah. So it was early 2022. And we got an email from, you know, someone at FTX. And they're like, oh, we'd love to have you at our event in the Bahamas. And we'd pay you to come down. and like stay at a hotel and all of this stuff and like do whatever. And you could imagine like, you know, I just, I was like, we don't do that. We don't, we're never going to like accept payment to like appear somewhere.

52:39We're never going to accept payment at hotels. If you're an independent business and like part of your model was like appearing at events, you imagine, well, should we say yes to this? Like, you know, people do speaking fees, et cetera. I am very glad that I was like not on stage as a paid guest of Sam Bateman Freed in spring of 2022 too, because that would have looked terrible. But, you know, I didn't even think about that. Sure, that could reflect badly. I would never consider, like, trying to make that work then. I think there are good reasons to have from a sort of, especially from, like, if you're in the news business, to have pretty good, robust roles so that you're not even, like, thinking about these things, like, who you want to be associated with.

53:20It just doesn't come up. And, like, and I'm very glad. I think that's freeing in a lot of ways. I just don't want to think about having to I don't want to make the decision

53:29Jason Stewart:Don't even drive past the pink berry and you won't ever feel tempted I don't want you to feel uncomfortable saying anything you don't want to say publicly you said you are a happy salaried employee but is the success of the podcast alter that at all? Are there commissions based on performance or regardless of how well the show performs do you make the same amount of salary? I'm going to avoid salary talk. Well, look, here's what I can say unironically and just completely sincerely. This is not fake in any way. Is that Bloomberg is such a natural fit for odd lots. Because the main thing is we do want to reach a professional audience.

54:17Bloomberg is core to the professional audience. Like the sort of like we do want to have conversations that involve like let's seriously dive into these things. So it's like. Also, I would like to say Bloomberg is a blue chip brand. It's not like it's not like a upstart podcast network. Yeah. It's like there's a level of respect. Yeah. There's a level of respect and network and we have offices literally all around the world.

54:40Jason Stewart:There's no big money players brought to you by Will Ferrell. Yeah. Yeah. This is dear media. Without getting too much into business specifics of my life, it is a great fit. It's like the best home that I could imagine. Say less, Queen. Say less. I think these situations are interesting because it's happening more and more. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Where these media companies - I look up my bank account. I say, this is a great fit. I love it. When the media companies invest in these podcasts and the podcasts sort of get big enough to operate on their own - Yeah. And I think that, like, you know, you see this happening, which is every legacy media organization of various sorts wants to, like, well, how can we, like, have our, like, sub-stackers in staff, right?

55:24Like, they're all trying to figure this out. How can we have our capital T talent and they'll be the brand and we'll be the platform for them? Like CBS with Barry Weiss. And I think it's really hard for most of them to figure it out. Like, I think it's, like, really tricky, and I think there are various, like, reasons that it's, like, really much harder said than done. Because intuitively, you think, like, okay, you know, X newspaper. Like, I think the New York Times has figured it out better than most, but I think it is really hard for an organization to, like, find that line where the, quote, talent.

55:58I hate that word, but we all know what it means. The, quote, talent has their brand, but also they're, like, sharing, they're creating some enterprise value along with the umbrella brand. No, I mean, I think Popcast is a good example of that. And I think that's one of the better, like, speaking of New York Times. But I do think the other option is sort of like you want to get into these spaces that are somewhat uncharted territory for you as a media company. If you want some of these bigger names, they're making too much money to come work anywhere. Like, why would they do that?

56:30Jason Stewart:Why would I have my show on Netflix when I can just do it on YouTube? I mean, the math just, you know, there's all kinds of screwy media math. I mean, there's the fact that, like, you know, people stop subscribing to newspapers and then end up paying like five times as much as what they were spending on newspapers for Substack subscriptions. You know, there's like unbundling, which is like caused everyone's media consumption budget to go up. But then for some reason, like they would not then like pay for The New York Times, even if it included like five news. It's there's just like. No, it makes no.

57:00That shit is crazy to me.

57:01Jason Stewart:like that's wordle is the is the main thing that tips people over if they're going to subscribe like spending a hundred dollars a month or whatever on substack and then not subscribing to a single newspaper or like a magazine like new yorker harper harper's or whatever it's very very common yeah yeah that's become like very common but it's a strange it's a strange thing where for some reason people will just click that credit card button for a substack but and not for like a publication that has a could have 10 newsletter writers yeah i think well i mean a newspaper is really just a collection of of newsletters if nothing else i mean really when you think about it when you think about it i don't want to edible is kicking in now but i i just i find that to be so fascinating because i i don't think i still don't think there's anything more i don't know the feeling of like picking your newspaper up from the you know whatever from the front desk or the front yard it ain't the same as opening fucking 15 newsletters and sifting through to see if there's anything good you want to read it's just a different yeah i think it's totally different yeah but i think that goes back to the conversation we have all the time about gatekeepers and sort of like you know somebody organizing these things and giving it a reason to exist under one umbrella and how and how substack you're right it's like i have to get 15 of these to find the two or three that i like and everyone is hit everyone has had this idea of like some sort of federation of like right like you've seen this like oh like why don't we brand and we'll be i don't know it doesn't seem to work i don't know it's not as far as i know it's never gonna no it's never gonna work it's never gonna work it's also like this is and this is something i think odd lots serves a similar purpose but i think the the sub stack newsletters that succeed uh aren't entertainment based they're sort of like you're getting something it's service like you're getting you're learning something you're getting something it's leading you to buy something you want it's giving you information you don't have otherwise whereas like we're in the inter jason and i are in the entertainment business like we do this because it's fun and we want people to have fun and laugh and enjoy it and other other you know people the most listened to podcasts beyond like a joe rogan or call her daddy are these like you know 20 minute news the daily type shows or the globalist or whatever that are i mean it's like watching paint dry but people people still luckily feel the need to be informed i think the variety is fun and sometimes you win and sometimes you sometimes you lose and that's fine because even for us even when it's painful for us it's funny for somebody yeah yeah for sure a bad podcast can be good if you want to walk towards the darkness you know what i mean but what is your what is your attitude towards entertainment like do you feel like you're providing a service do you feel like you're providing entertainment do you want it to be a little bit of both i want to be a little bit of both i mean i do think it's really important i want to genuinely learn something and i want someone to have like oh i'm going to dedicate 45 minutes to an hour of listening to this podcast and come away having knowing something more about the world i think that's like but you know i also think like it's got to be fun it's got to be funny to some extent it's got to be interesting it's got to be lively what um what uh what podcasts do you listen to for entertainment not for educational purposes i don't listen to podcasts really um i guess what what sources of media spoken like a True pro.

1:00:13Spoken like a true pro. You know, the thing is, I've said before, I'm in a newsroom all day. All I do is talk, talk, and people are talking to me. I play music. I'm in a country music band. When I have a chance to put on headphones, which is not that often, because I'm either around my kids or in the newsroom all day, I want to listen to music instead. Hold the fuck on. Hold the fuck on. Let's get into your country bona fides. What are we talking about here? You guys sound like Sunvolt? Like, what's the vibe? I listen to a range of stuff. So Hank Williams Jr., George Strait, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard.

1:00:46And then, you know, I like a lot of the – I love Hardy. I like Morgan Wallen. I like Ernest. I've been listening to the new Zach Bryan album, which is actually extremely good. Someone described the new Zach Bryan album, and this is the best. It sounds exactly like every other Zach Bryan album. That was me. So it's good. Oh, that was you. That's my tweet. That's my tweet. It's so funny. Every Zach Bryan song sounds exactly like every other Zach Bryan song, but it's a great song. Yeah. No, you're right, though. So it's great. You're right. This food tastes like a smash burger with fries. Yeah. It's great.

1:01:18I'll take it. I didn't know you were. Are you from the South? What is your. I went to college in Texas. Okay. And my wife's from Mississippi. Okay. So that's when you discovered the twang? You were in Austin, though, right? Yeah, Austin. So you couldn't. It wasn't no Landman. It was not Landman, which I love. You went down a tick. but um but i think it was so i i was living in vermont when i was in high school but i felt drawn to the south like i felt like and i i felt like i it was like i was a you know i'm i was born i'm a jewish guy from detroit who was living in the northeast but i felt like this pull of the south and like play country music and stuff and that's what i sort of made that happen hey welcome home brother as a as a southern southern man no neil young myself i i find it to be it's funny to me when because i think it's more accepted now that that is also like more you know this is like popular music in some way whereas before i think it was very popular racist music i play guitar and i play i have a uh yeah i have a g and l a set which is kind of like their equivalent of a telecaster which is the classic country guitar and i'm in a band and go listeners go check out light sweet crude we're on spotify okay so you're in a band who is in the band with you uh there's a few of us.

1:02:29The cast sort of rotates but there's a core. There's two other guys that have been there from the very beginning. My friend Paul Williams. He has a think tank here in New York City dedicated to housing. Also a great songwriter. I know.

1:02:42Jason Stewart:I got a housing think tank. And then our bassist is an economics professor at John Jay University. I know. This is awesome. And our original drummer is... This is awesome. It's really fun. But you know our songs aren't jokes. So people think we're gonna like oh we're gonna like sing songs about the fed and stuff like that does it look like on the office when all the guys play band like music in the warehouse we play in our basses basement these days but we like try to write serious songs and they're fun I like that no I think this is a great outlet and I also I love I just feel like we Jason and I associate with so many people who make music professionally that at this point I'd say I rarely come across people who do it just for the love of the game like really I mean like honestly you know what happened so I'll tell the reason So I, several years ago, I had a birthday party and I put on a country music playlist.

1:03:34And a friend of mine who hates country was like, I'm going to drink till I like country. And I like turned to my wife. I was like, that's a great title of a song. Like I'm going to drink. We're going to. So I wrote this song, We're Going to Drink Till You Like Country. And I recorded it into my iPhone. I like wrote it in a weekend. I recorded it into my iPhone. I uploaded it to SoundCloud. And then I posted it. I tweeted it. I said, if anyone's in Nashville and likes the song, like sell it to an artist. And someone from Nashville reached out and they're like, this is actually a very good song.

1:04:01I think I could sell this. And he was from a very serious, like, he's like, this is actually, you wrote a really good song here. He got two singers in Nashville to record demo versions of it. And then a label put a hold on the song, but then none of their artists bit. So it didn't end up selling. But I did have the experience of a record label putting a hold. And then I had the bug. I was like, oh, I was so close to getting a song published or a song recorded by a recording artist.

1:04:25Jason Stewart:You started walking around the house like Sam Smith. You got all my plaques behind me. Yeah, so I was like - What's for breakfast, man? I got to get back in the studio. And that, I was so, like, I could taste it. And so then I was like, all right, I got to start playing. And that's when, after that, because I had come so close to actually selling a song in Nashville, that I was like, all right, I at least got to scratch that itch and start playing. Dude, I love, that's a great story. That's, I mean, what more push do you need than that? That's the greatest push I've ever heard. Maybe we can change it.

1:04:53Jason Stewart:Since you already love country music, you don't need to drink to the point where you love it. That's right. I don't need to, but some people do. Drink till I love hyper pop. Maybe something you could get into. I don't know. I'm trying to sell it. I write one for various genres and just sort of market them around. Every genre gets one. Every genre gets one. That's a good. Okay. So in your free time, you're making music. You're watching some television or whatever. but for the most part. Doing anything but listening to a podcast. That's right. That's basically accurate. That's cool. I mean, Jason's different than me.

1:05:23I listen to one podcast, basically, and Jason listens to all of them to sort of understand the landscape.

1:05:30Jason Stewart:Yeah, kind of. Well, that actually reminds me of the question I forgot to ask you. You mentioned paying attention to lots of news sources, but you and your position, are you the type of guy, this is something that I hope to get into later on in life, even though we're the same age, but not just going to one news source, but actively going, I'm going to do Fox News, Al Jazeera, Newsmax, True Social, Drudge Report. Are you getting the full tapestry of the news, or are you just sticking to one? I'm not just sticking to one. I'm certainly not getting the, quote, full tapestry. I'm not. The tapestry, I would say the tapestry is too large these days.

1:06:11I should know what they're talking about on Newsmax probably more than I do. I would probably be, I shouldn't. I don't I'm not you know like my inbox is a very good source of news are you a big newsletter subscriber speaking of I actually subscribe to a fair number of newsletters I'm that person who has a consumption budget that doesn't really make any sense that's why I can speak to this I am that bitch so I have various newsletters

1:06:34Jason Stewart:well you can subscribe on Substack without giving them money that's true that's how I do it I don't know anything about that zero goose eggs is that real can't get a doll out of me And then, you know, like the Bloomberg Terminal, which again, so the other thing on the Bloomberg Terminal is all these newswires on that. So I like, you know, like all the Wall Street Journal, all the New York Times, all these articles are actually available on the Terminal. So I like read a lot of news just on the Terminal. The top page on the Terminal is sort of like our front page of the news is like a good like mostly Bloomberg stories, but curated a little bit.

1:07:09So I read that a lot. But I read a lot of like it's not really news per se, but I kind of think it is, which is, you know, the analysts on Wall Street send out research memos on whatever it was the event of the day and whatever. And I read a lot of that, which isn't news per se, but it's close enough. It's news to you. Yeah, it's news to me and it sort of helps me understand. So I read a lot of like sell side research and stuff like that. So you're telling me that these analysts and they're doing this for free? They're doing this for the love of the game? No. So the way like the business works is that like you have like a brokerage shop.

1:07:41Let's take a Morgan Stanley or something like that. And then there will be a guy at Morgan Stanley who writes about autos and he'll regularly write reports about the state of the auto industry and stuff like that. And the idea is these reports go to people who trade regularly with Morgan Stanley. I see. And so it is sort of this service of the banks is not just for the love of the game, but people will trade. For their clients to be informed. And then they could talk to the guy, right? So there's like, I like this, but I have some more questions about, you know, where GM and Ford are in the electric car race or whatever, based on this note.

1:08:15So these are services provided by the brokerages as a reason to do some of your trading activity with them. That's it. Look, as an information lover, maybe I'll, oh, you know. No, no, it's great. All right. Let's go top five banks of all time. What do you, what do you got? Deutsche, Deutsche, Deutsche. Are we going? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, going, yeah, let's start. Silicon Valley Bank. You know, my contrarian take for a long time is that Silicon Valley Bank is like the type of bank that we want more banks to be. Because, and I say this unironically, the thing about them is they really like customized their offerings to a specific type of client, which was, of course, you know, VCs and tech startups and hold your money.

1:08:59Rich versions. It's like this. I mean, that created this phenomenon of like depositor concentration risk that was not good. But it's like what you think of like banking, like they actually like know their clients needs and they differentiated offerings and so forth. So I held I've sort of been disabused of this notion a little bit, but I did hold the thing for some time after they blew up. It's like kind of too bad. That was a good bank. That was a good or they made a few mistakes. It's like a small independent credit union for a local neighborhood. you know it's the same kind of yeah yeah except the vibe except the neighborhood was silicon valley and they're like local more money yeah we wanted svb to make it but i kind of liked svb i i told this story once before i think but i went to silicon valley years and years ago to shoot something um that involved google and i was at the google office and i asked i was like trying to make small talk with these fucking mouth breathers and i was like hey where do like all the like Where do all the CEOs go for lunch?

1:09:58What's the nobu of Silicon Valley? And they were just like, we don't leave for lunch. They provide that here for us. What are you talking about? I was like, yeah, no, I know, but you know what I mean. Where do they go? Yeah, but where do they go? And people were just like, they did not understand the concept. Tim Apple gets to go out for lunch probably, right? Where does he go? They did not understand. They just did not compute. That's so fascinating. They provide that for us here, and then they take the bus home back to, you know, it was just all so insane. I was like, these people are not for me.

1:10:27They're locked in. They are locked in.

1:10:30Jason Stewart:They're too locked. They're so locked. Like a chastity belt. Okay. I wanted to circle back to Bari Weiss and CBS really quick as we're closing out. CBS, they're speculating a segment, Whiskey Fridays, powered by Jack Daniels, where they have a giant Jack Daniels banner on the background, which is sort of co-opting the podcast business model, having the cans of Liquid Death or Happy Dad or whatever shit is sponsoring your pod. Is that a foolish thing? Is that the end, beginning of the end, or is that the way network television is going to have to go? I think that every new executive producer who enters the TV business from another industry always has the thought, what if we create talking at a bar?

1:11:18This is just like everyone has this thing. What if we could re-a-a-try? Are you talking about Club Random? So I don't know if you remember, Fox Business, when it launched, they had a show that was recorded at the, I forget which hotel it was in New York City. Was that like the Capitol Grill it looked like? Something like that. So everyone who walks, who is new to a news organization, like we're going to shake things up. We're going to liven it up. what if we could recreate just you and I chatting over some drinks at a bar and so when I saw that about whiskey fridays like yep there it is there's the idea but they have a sponsor for it so good

1:11:55Jason Stewart:for them but I mean that's what I was gonna say that is true but but I think the big difference being this is the first time and correct me if I'm wrong network television or cable television has had a giant alcohol sponsor billboard essentially on the backdrop of their show I mean, look, I don't blame anyone for trying to find a dollar in Network News. Okay. I mean, like, you know. I don't blame anyone for finding a dollar anywhere, personally. So what if you're on a set right now for Odd Lots podcast? What if Bloomberg was like, we're going to throw Jack Daniels banner behind you. We're going to throw 818 tequila behind you or Zin or whatever it is.

1:12:32Jason Stewart:Are you going to say, sounds good, get your money playa? Or are you going to say, I need, break me off 50 stacks or else I'm out of here? That's a good question. I don't know. This is the nice thing about it. I want to say again, this is me being sincere again. It's nice to work for a really serious, successful organization. Yeah, because, I mean, no, but Jason, that really is the difference. It's like you know they ain't going to do that because it's working. When it ain't working, you start getting desperate. Be serious. You start going to Kentucky looking for barrels, you know, to put in the background of the segment.

1:13:05Jason Stewart:Right, right. I know what you mean. like a certain place you know i think hotels the carlisle the chateau there's certain things where like we do things a certain way and we're never gonna waver we're never gonna right you know go the cheap way we're never gonna do some dumb we send you an app that you have to download to get the wi-fi or whatever it may be there's there's none of that horse shit and there never will be and that's how you keep your customers for life keep the customer satisfied as they say um that's Joe can you send me the MP3 file of Yeah we'll send that You have my email Oh yeah I thought you were on the audio I will send you I will need the wave or the A file of this conversation from your beautiful producer but I would also like the song so we could throw it at the end of the episode I will shoot it over We need all of this for this We have a lot of people who listen who are in the biz so maybe we'll get picked up You get a publishing deal you moved the family down to Nashville.

1:14:03Jason Stewart:Yeah, you shouldn't have been sniffing around Nashville when we could have been in Burbank the whole time. You know what? I had an opportunity to go down there for like a song. I don't, it's too - 2026, we're going to figure out a way. Yeah, but please, if you have listeners, listeners, if you're into biz, we can get one of your stars to cover a Light Sweet Crude song. We'd love to license one. There we go. See, this is the thing. This guy's money-minded, Jason. That's what we're always going to listen. That's it. Yeah, enclosing the sale right here. Joe, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

1:14:32Thanks for having me. You guys listen to Odd Loss wherever you listen to podcasts, and we'll see you soon. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it. All right. Take care. Thanks, Joe. Later, bro. We're going to drink till you like country music. Just need a jukebox, tequila, and some lime. We're going to drink till you like country music. Even if it means we're here past closing time.

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