964. - Jon Kelly

30:25Jason Stewart:We didn't know the Sam Altman flick was getting the kibosh back in the day. And now it's like literally everything. It's Elon talking about putting his fucking dogs on the desk at the White House and saying, I want you to kill this person. It's different now. You guys are billionaires. What do you think? It's true. And I use my money for good. I always give anonymously. It's fine. Don't worry about me. But I think that - Those who know, know. Okay. I think the power thing, and I think Elon is a bad example, obviously as a bad person, but I think he's a good example for people who want to be bad.

31:03It's like, oh, you can like, this guy's doing it out loud and there's no consequences really. So it's going to encourage other people to try that on whatever level they're at. Well, I don't want to sound controversial, but you do have to remember he's obviously an out there personality, but the amount of wealth he's created for his partners is extraordinary. If you look at the number of billionaires they're minting in Austin right now, it's transformative. One of the funny things, if you step back and really do try and think deeply about this stuff, is technology in the last 20 years has accumulated more wealth and fewer hands ever before.

31:37We know that in some cases it was due to profound strategic thinking. In other cases, it was due to luck. Most people don't admit that they got incredibly wealthy by being totally lucky. so they apply their worldview to other sort of professional genres where they may have less experience. But if you think that's going to stop, you're crazy, right? Because, you know, whatever the sort of software and mobile revolution did to centralizing that wealth and fewer people, AI is going to turbocharge that. And it is, it's heavy stuff, man, you know, but that, But every time I think people get frustrated with it, they consider the alternative.

32:19And unfortunately, this outcome is actually much better. I mean, I was reading, I think it was the New York Times, there's a story about where they interview AI employees, like low to mid-level that are making upwards of six figures, saying that we're going to get priced out. We're making what is considered by, I would say, 99 % of Americans to be a very healthy salary, especially for my age. And I can't afford to live in the city I work in.

32:42Jason Stewart:It's major city, middle class now. The middle gets chiseled in a lot of ways in this culture. But by the way, too, not to do any reverse Robin in here, but I think we started by talking about New York. There's a lot of people, Galloway talks about this in Pivot all the time, and it's true. There's a lot of people who make millions of dollars and feel priced out of New York now, too, and of L.A. But yes, there's no question. and those people that you're talking about, Jason, who are in those roles, they're, in many cases, not only are they being priced out, but they're also training agents that are going to take over their jobs in a couple of years.

33:21They're like, I'm not going to make enough money to pay my gas bill.

33:24Jason Stewart:I was talking to a founder friend of mine this morning and we were talking about how you have to hire enough people to build the team that will fire them in 12 months so your company can then get the next valuation or whatever well i can tell you we don't do that at puck but i but there is a um there is a world in in all circumstances i'm sure your friends being sincere where um there are financing sources that would um uh that would applaud that advice um but yeah yeah but i'm not as dystopian about uh ai coming for all these kinds of jobs as some others but we don't have to talk about that and make it a little grim no i'm not either i'm not either i mean i think it's sort of like i just think people people just think about things too much if that's that i know that sounds crazy but it's sort of like there's always something looming that is going to change our society for the worst that's historically just whatever that is black says don't think about ai too much guys just no i'm just saying i think people become i think people become obsessed with this stuff and how it's going to affect them and it's like of course you have to think about it a little bit as a function member society but i think people really let the doom and gloom sort of take over their psyche and there's no upside.

34:35Well, people are, uh, the human mind leads anyone to be binary, right? You want to think it's good or it's bad. And, and, you know, none ever send the time it's somewhere in between. It's a little more complex. I think a lot, whenever I hear the kind of, you know, uh, doom loopers, I'm reminded of an old boss of mine who, um, it's probably about, uh, five or six or seven years older than me. And he had one of his early professional experiences. He worked in the magazine industry, which is where I started my career. Uh, he worked at time magazine and on the night of december 31st 1999 you know uh time uh inc which was part of a public company at that time this is a well time order was was about to happen yeah they sent all what they called them the young people to the office basically because they were worried at like when the clock struck midnight y2k that it would be like you know robocop or transformers or something and like the machines would would you know these these small sprout legs and start shooting exactly and take over humanity and guess what happened like the clocks updated and they were like nope happy new year it's midnight life is going to go on anyway it's important to remember that sometimes our worst fears aren't always true there's a great mad men scene about that as well

35:44Jason Stewart:where they get the computer installed in the office and the one yeah the one guy loses his mind he gets 51 50 because he thinks the computer is gonna you know it's the same exact thing that's happening with Anna well earlier you were mentioning uh capitalism we're talking about ways we can make money uh you know we got to make more money year over year and the media business it's a little tricky have you ever thought about you know puck odds puck betting not not necessarily your own calci or polymarket platform but you know the way people can get some tips on bloomberg or whatever, like, you know, Puck has it, has this movie at, you know, whatever odds.

36:23I got to tell you guys, I listened to your episode with Wiesenthal. I worked at Bloomberg for about a year and a half and I laughed so much. I loved hearing you guys. You loved hearing us ask, what is a Bloomberg terminal? Exactly. The only reason I know what a Bloomberg terminal is, is because I've lived in New York for so long. That's like something you learn when you, if you are not in finance and you're far away from like I am, you learn that when you live in New York City. Otherwise, I would have never known that.

36:50Jason Stewart:We're talking about the price of the terminal, like the Erewhon smoothie. Like, this costs$32 ,000? What? And if you go into certain trading floors, it's almost like a sort of ancient civilization where the chieftain has eight terminal screens to sort of show that they're the most important person on the trading floor. Anyway, but it was great, guys. I feel like Bloomberg LP should hire you as salespeople because you were absolutely natural. One of my favorite memories of working there, however, was every conference room was named after a market where the terminal was in. So like Shanghai, you know, L.A., Atlanta.

37:28And then every quarter there was a maintenance worker who came around with like an X-Acto knife because underneath the name of the market was a number of terminals they had that were rented in the market at that time. and every month they would exacto out the number and replace it with the new one. And you're right, it's like$30 ,000 a screen. So when they went from like 742 to 761, like that was major coin at the time. What did you guys ask me? I can't remember what this question was. That's really funny, actually, that they care that much, that they need their employees to see. It's only the employees are seeing those numbers go up, but I guess it's good for morale.

38:04Jason Stewart:The original question where I was asking if you were considering like having puck odds like for sports or film premieres or you know what you know is chanel going to be acquired by lvmh what are the odds type of thing you know the um the short answer is no but i think this is not a podcast where we do short answers uh from from uh what lauren's told me so the the longer version is like the prediction market space um uh which there is being defined right now similar to like it's actually actually interesting it's It's like ride sharing or gaming beforehand, where the companies are really well capitalized and run by great leaders, and they are faster than the regulators.

38:43So at some point, the rubber will hit the road, and we'll see what does happen there. But that's not what we do. You know, Puck is in eight different professional markets, and we also own AirMail, which is sort of a leading cultural voice. and we want to be able to offer uh you know insight information in you know news you can't get anywhere else from incredibly trusted journalists that you absolutely love and can't live without uh this would be a diversion to get into that um sort of prediction but i guess i mean i guess because i mean obviously i've been a puck subscriber since like day one and i i mean i think i i guess the the when you think about pushing into these new territories because obviously you've grown quite a lot, you know, as far as like what you're actually covering.

39:30Is that, are those decisions kind of based on the journalists that you're hiring? Do you know what I mean? Like, is it like this guy is now free or we want this guy, we're going to go make an offer. Is it based on the talent or is it based on the interest area or what comes first? The three things that you look for in coordination are a trailblazing, part of the sort of generational talent you need to have uh you can't just say somebody's great they have to be like obviously well you're asking people to pay for it you're asking people pay for it and it's not a newspaper so it's like you it has to be great yeah i mean for what it's worth i think that the um uh people pay now i actually think that that media that you don't pay for is um is much more imperiled than the media that you do pay for um i think that that's a okay watch your mouth how long gone free wherever you get podcasts three to three days a week go ahead i don't know if we're gonna call us media the um you need you need a remarkable talent you need a market that i think has a professional audience that feels underserved um that that's crucial um uh and that's it can be that can mean different things in different spaces and then you also want a market that has an endemic advertising opportunity and if possible has one a market that has an experiential need to where there's a a need for professionals to to want to uh convene to to meet and eventually probably to do deals and and uh have professional value so you want um you our most successful markets that we're in have uh have all of those factors yeah sure i mean that makes sense that makes sense but i mean the airmail stuff is it obviously you you worked for graden for a long time it made sense it made sense it made sense for you to do that deal and like i i love airmail i think it does occupy a space that like is necessary i think julie's doing a really good job i think she's great but it's pretty good it's no puck but it's something but i mean And that's the first time you acquired something.

41:24So, I mean, I think that that opens the door for questions like, you know, because I think a lot of these, I don't want to use a dirty word, but sub stacks are, you know, some of these things are going to get too big for their britches. And if they don't have the capacity to hire their own teams, someone like you can swoop in and put them under the umbrella. Is that something you're looking to do more of? Has AirMail been successful in your eyes so far?

41:47Jason Stewart:Come on down, Ben Shapiro. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So the short answer, which don't worry, we won't rely on is yes, absolutely. Right. And by the thanks for putting Julia Vitale has been an extraordinary talent. She's the editor in chief of AirBail. She's awesome. She's awesome. She's she's she is a true talent. I've been in this business for 25 years. She's you know when you see it. She's a true talent. We've actually acquired a number of a couple of small businesses before we acquired AirBail. our wall power which is our art franchise helmed by mary manneker uh was born out of a business called art market monitor that we acquired but that's more of like an industry you know what i mean that's more of like an industry paper i guess airmail is like a that was a glamorous totally thing totally they're not apples to apples but just to point out to get to your your second part of your question is that yes we believe that there are a lot of targets and sub stack that we would love to envision inside Puck, inside Airmail.

42:44Maybe they're a brand that we would want to just preserve, the brand that the creator has created. I think you've got your finger on this. There are a lot of reasons for elite talent to go to places like Substack or Beehive when they began to do it. Hey, no one with talent went to Beehive. Come on. Come on. Well, when Puck, when we launched in 2021, we wanted to offer the best of both worlds. We realized that elite talent had a lot of optionality, and we wanted to give them the opportunity to build a business with enterprise value where they were partners. They were going to be there to help guide the journey.

43:22They would be able to put money in their pockets through their own success, and we'd build a business around them. There were other people who wanted to go on their own. I always viewed Substack, and this is probably just because of my background as someone whose parents were writers, someone who had grown up in magazines. I viewed Substack as a gateway drug. You know, I think that it was an opportunity for a lot of creators to go and to be on their own. But another word for that is being a freelance writer, which there's nothing wrong with that. It's so funny that you say that, though, because no one ever says that.

43:55And that is exactly what it is. That is what it is. I'm the child, the adult child of freelance writers. And that's a wonderful that's a wonderful calling.

44:02Jason Stewart:But the challenge that adult child, adult children are freelance writers. The few, the proud. We meet in the Presbyterian Church on Wednesdays at noon. Coffee is black. Just show up. It's hard to build enterprise value. To your point, I think that as you get bigger, you have to hire. You don't have economies of scale. It eats into margin. We want to be able to be a solution and develop partners in that route. That's an option. I also do think that we're living in a moment when, I think in sort of metaphors and frameworks sometimes, but I really do think that the last five to 10 years of media has been like, do you guys remember Pangea from like middle school, like the Big Bang, all that stuff?

44:49Is this a Pangea, the landmass? Yeah, the landmass. Yeah. Yeah. You're both looking at me like you're on Iowa. Okay. Heat up your 4th of July at The Home Depot with our wide variety of grills under$300 and make every gathering one to remember. Give your outdoor space a glow up. Whatever your budget is, the savings on seasonal plants starting at$5. With the grill fired up and your backyard set to perfection, you'll be able to invite friends and family over to kick off the party. Start celebrating with low prices guaranteed at The Home Depot. Prices may vary by store. Exclusions apply. See homedepot.com.

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46:11I didn't know if this was some weird dot-com bubble we missed. You're talking about the classic Pangea. We're dumb.

46:17Jason Stewart:We're not stupid, John. Not everyone remembers Pangea, But there were these large landmasses of media companies in this metaphor. The Big Bang happens. It leads to landmasses of various sizes that over the course of many bazillions of years lead to landmasses that make sense. That rebundling is really happening now in media. And yes, I think that ambitiously Puck wants to play a significant role in that. The rundle. The rundle. I mean, we talk about this all the time. At a certain point, it's like, I think, and I think this isn't a good thing, is like, it's re-engineering the magazine. So there's multiple voices that are experts under one roof.

46:57And that's what Substack to me has always lacked. You know, it's funny. We always talk about the magazine arts here at Puck. I actually, you know, I feel like they're really coming back in a way that's pretty powerful. I think just given the, like, lines on our foreheads, I think we're all kind of around the same age. Maybe I'm a little bit older than you guys. I hope so because you got a lot more money than us. So if you're not, it's going to fucking knock me down.

47:21Jason Stewart:John, you look great for the amount of stress you must spend. You do look great. If you're listening to Pivot, I know you're older. Not joking. Not joking. You have a youthful glow. You look like you live in fucking SoCal. Yeah, you look like you could be in Palm Beach every Friday to Sunday. That's for sure. It's all the tennis courts in the suburbs, guys. We've got to get you out there. You're selling us. You're selling us. Yeah, yeah. We'll get you. We'll exchange peptide stacks after we hit record. Okay, John? There are a couple great lessons of the magazine era that I learned from Greg and that I think are more true than ever.

47:52Not every brand has to be great. That doesn't mean every brand has to be super duper scale, right? When we look back at the Web 2.0 era, a lot of the companies that we liked and that did really well for time, they started out the right size. And then based on fundraising demands and expectations, they had to get to a scale in which they kind of caved in upon themselves. I agree. Gawker should have stopped with Jezebel. We didn't need the car site. We didn't need the sports side. I agree completely. So we think about that a lot, Puckman. We want to grow sustainably, obviously. We want double-digit revenue growth every single year across our franchises.

48:26But we also want to make sure that we're making something that is scarce and something that you love. Actually, I remember at my first, one of my first pitches when I was pitching the business, probably this is way before COVID, I worked at TPG, a private equity company, and I was with a couple of deal partners. and uh we were looking at the initial business model and i said you know the end of the day what you really have to do is make something that people love um and they were like okay hard pass you know like bro you got a spreadsheet you can show me or something i don't really believe in all that love shit vague is that what you mean no well they will and they they you know co-led the series a and and were part of the beast so they're they've been incredible partners and and they believed in but what i um i didn't have a language was evolving that hadn't quite crystallized yet that it would turn into something that we all understand now that i think is a business term uh a term of art but a real term which is fandom you know and um what pup tried to do was to create professional fandoms for um for the markets that were in you know uh you don't just read lauren because you work in fashion or the beauty industry and you need to know it you love it you're obsessed with lauren you you know um you you want to know what she did last night you want to um you want her impressions of the show is like that part that that's really really important and um you have to scale that with a with a sometimes i think if puck is almost like a fashion business in the sense that you have to um you have to scale that you have to scale that but you have to scale it with a lot of grace and these are lessons that were learned for me in the in the magazine era um and uh it's it's very cool i i'm amazed by um you know there are a lot of touches that i think puck has like the headlines that are you know to me were born out of watching you know gradents like headlines uh 20 years ago that a younger generation it's just new to them like punny yeah pithy headlines um uh you know a headline that makes you laugh or feel something like that was the that was the table stakes when i was starting my career that's all you had it was it was i mean when i worked at um at vanity fair in like 2004 there was a guy named bruce handy was a very talented editor who would write like six selections for eight selection eight right eight headline drafts for every single story like in the well you know which younger listeners may not know was like the back half of the magazine where the you know with the double truck photos maybe your listeners probably do know that but a few people do and then there was a woman named I didn't know that there you go see right the fan service here um and there was a woman named Elise O'Shaughnessy who lived in Newport who would uh basically top edit Bruce's headlines and write her own headlines and like in a way that was not condescending but like a little patronizing she would star the ones that she thought were pretty good for Graydon and then eventually would go to his desk and he would just put a check next to the one he liked like that was for the headline guys like that's just like yeah we're putting we're putting that that much effort into the headline because that's the only way we're going to get somebody to read this story it is the reality if you don't connect there then it's a lot harder well what i also notice about about puck and well this is a bigger conversation i think in the business in general is sort of like the way that writers are now forced to be sort of camera facing let's say you know what i mean like before you could just be good at your job and write your stories and people would read them now it's a little bit like what's this like obviously now people do podcasts that's different i just mean there's not i i don't think there's a pressure for matt bellany to make tiktoks i i'm gonna say i'm gonna guess that's probably not coming from you i don't know no i don't think matt's on tiktok um i i certainly um wouldn't uh you know i i would never tell him to do that uh i mean you know but he has clips on reels and youtube and twitter no but that's from the podcast Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is there was a point where it was like...

52:23What's the diff? Well, it used to be different. It was like you have to figure out a way to make your face known, whereas now a podcast does that without having to be as gross, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let me tell you how I think about it, which is one of the ways that we try and think about it and monetize it at Puck. For truly elite talent, they have many skills, And you have to recognize what their sort of skill stack is, as it were. They're remarkable journalists. They can gather information. They're great writers. They're great podcasters. They're great marketers.

53:00They're great conveners. And I think that, and the last part is actually quite crucial, but underappreciated. They're distributors. Matt Bellany's What I'm Hearing email franchise, it's coming from Matt. Like, if you respond to, if you hit reply, it goes right to Matt. You know, he's and his credibility and obviously like extraordinary talent, but his credibility is it gets it to you. And that's like that's so different than when, you know, the result when I started my career. um and so you know part of our business model and proposition really is um that we want to be we want to be the platform for this elite talent so that they can all you know uh embody and amplify the kind of brand halo power of puck but also um lean into what makes them uniquely talented well you let people have an attitude like you know what i'm saying like lauren's gonna say some shit that'll piss somebody off matt matt said the thing about can lion that went viral i've seen that everywhere i agree with you i mean it's fucking funny it's like actually funny that's the thing it's like it's actually funny and sometimes these industries need to get a little kick in the ass because it they take themselves too seriously and i think that is like that's necessary for almost any business well a lauren and matt um who are two of our biggest stars and truly like once in a generation talent they really are um slow down now uh they are besides youtube um but no they are we're up for sale just let us know i mean you know they're uh they have the they make a lot of things that are really hard look really easy um yeah i i don't think that um you know matt's unique matt matt's just like his extraordinary credibility allows him to make that joke and everyone is like oh yeah i agree with him right or until he's right well you can tell that matt in a classic way is not trying to make friends let's say you know i think that's the big complaint about he's less worried about being canceled i mean yeah definitely that but i guess i mean that like the way that all of these you know the jake shanes of the world are getting killed you know because they want to be friends with their subjects you can tell that matt has no interest in being friends with his subjects his job is to report some of them but mostly no unless they're baseball players you can't do what matt does without having incredibly deep relationships.

55:26Yeah, for sure. You can't. It's deep relationships earned over decades. But I think relationships and like friendships are different, if that makes sense. Like, I think there's like a palling around that podcasts encourage that like maybe a classic journalist approach, it would never get that far is how I feel about the way he operates. You know, I think everyone everyone has a different style. I think that um, people, everyone knows Matt is the most scrupulous, fair guy that, that you're going to find. He's also very funny. Um, but he's not ever going to be, um, bowled over. Um, yeah. Yeah. And that's, I blame him for a lot because he's made everybody a fucking armchair expert in the movie business.

56:13And that's that for that is good for your bottom line, but it's bad for my ears and eyes, you know, guys telling, talking to me about fucking opening weekend. I'm like, dude, you work you work at a store like what the fuck do you know you don't need to know about you don't need to know about this like what are you talking about but it's it that's a testament to the reach well that's uh look it matt makes so many unbelievably hard things look incredibly easy and the fact that he's uh you know you guys aren't hollywood executives who need to study the box office but yet he's made it so interesting to you while you know uh creating work that is incredibly uh not just relevant but like mission critical to the people who run the studios and the agencies is a is a sign of the breadth of his talent well that's what i was going to say it's like if you got bozos reading it and you got the guys making the decisions reading it then that's it you got the full spread you won at that point well you you mentioned uh we were talking

57:08Jason Stewart:about magazines earlier a lot of magazines have had to really shift more into you know throwing parties and magazine editors are now you know hosts of events and things like that um and you mentioned experiential being a part of puck's uh overall revenue how how big of a part of your overall revenue is experiential you know we don't normally break out our um our revenue mix uh publicly even on a even on an investor-minded show like this one um but uh it's rev mix it's it's a It's a material part of the business. A lot of the experiential is downstream of the commercial business. So some of the advertising we sell is matrixed in with events.

57:54Some are sold separately. It can depend on a number of inputs. But it's an important and growing part of the business. I think, look, I'm not Nostradamus. A lot of people in this industry say the same thing that we do, which is that convening is really, really important if you do it in a high-end way. You have to make things that people want to do. I like you. You used the word convening, and that's a really sexy way to put it. I like that. Oh, thanks. I like that. Is that an original, or did somebody teach you that? God, I can't remember when the first time I learned the definition of the word convening.

58:27I took Latin, so convening. I don't mean that. I just mean I didn't know if somebody was throwing it around. You're like, you know what? I see a way to apply that. I like it. Puck provides a lot of, you know, I think at our core, we provide business intelligence to a professional audience in a way that offers them the sort of textures and narrative voice and wit and mirth that they can't get anywhere else. And so a lot of our experiential business is built around putting people in professional settings where they can exchange ideas and relationships. Oh, yeah. Part of paying is that you get to be in the room with like-minded people that are in the same industry that you might not have come across otherwise.

59:12I mean, it's a simple—

59:13Jason Stewart:I've been in some great puck dinners where I sat next to people. I middled out of some tables that— You've been at puck dinners? I didn't deserve to be at them. Yeah, definitely not. Which dinners were you at? I've been to a few Sherman. The last one, what was it? I was sitting next to the CEO of Skims. It was at Mr. Joe in LA. John's going to get off the call and be like, all right, Lauren, we're going to tighten the belt a little bit on this shit because these guys should not be there. I was wearing a suit, John. I was wearing a suit. We said industry leaders. I don't know what you meant by that.

59:42You're very adamant. Did your suit have sleeves? Just curious. You can go either way. This was a sleeved piece, this particular one. It was one of his classic sleeved pieces. It was hot. it was hot though um it's like a wild thing um in in major league you know it's like it's not the california penal league but no but whatever ever you know everyone's got a different look i'm glad i'm glad you're there and had a good time so you get a flavor of what i'm discussing that that these are places we want to create environments that you want to attend um because your time is limited but also there's professional value as well yeah yeah rich people want to meet

1:00:12Jason Stewart:interesting people interesting people want to eat meat rich people it's all there um so you you You were talking about hiring all the people, the Shermans, the Belonies to all these positions and kind of let them do their thing because you trust them. Do you feel like because you do that, you haven't felt the need to hire a CTO at Puck? We have a CTO. As in chief taste officer? Oh.

1:00:37Jason's looking for work. So I think this is low-key him soft-selling.

1:00:41Jason Stewart:The remainder of the questions will be employment-related. as a... Are there any podcasts you're eyeballing for acquisition at the moment, John? We can segue the conversation right now. I'd love to learn more, Jason. Do you have a resume that you can send me? That would be really helpful. I negotiate on his behalf so you can just talk to me. He's not answering any questions unless it goes through me. I'm not forward-facing currently for the brand. Yeah, we'd love to. Chief taste officer. No, but on his... The CTO, chief taste officer was a serious question. Is that something... Obviously, it's a funny thing that people are talking about now, but companies are hiring people to give their brand taste.

1:01:20Jason Stewart:Obviously, it's more so a tech startup or an AI company and less so a media brand. But what are you thinking about? Yeah, we're probably going to skip that one. You're like, headcount's kind of tight right now. That's not top of the pyramid for us. That seems like something AI can do for us. Damn. Real talk. What is the, all right, so you've been doing this a long time. That's a good flip right there, John. You've been doing this a long time. What is sort of your, you know, what is your daily intake looking like? Like, are you reading four newspapers before you leave for the office? Like, how crazy is it for you to try to keep up?

1:01:56You know, I read a lot. I read what you think I read. I like that. The new Playboy is great. I couldn't agree more. They're doing great things over there.

1:02:07Jason Stewart:Turn that thing around, man. They're doing great things over there at Playboy. God, I wish every My Monday Morning Diet fucking email is like, I read what you think I read. I listen to the podcast you think I'd listen to. You know exactly what I fucking do. I'm not going to blow your mind. All right, so there's no secret. You're doing the regular stuff to stay informed and blah, blah, blah. But I mean, I think you do have somewhat of a purview across a lot of things. So I didn't know if there was any nooks and crannies. My partners help, obviously. I mean, there's no education like a puck education, truly.

1:02:38You learn from the experts in this field, and you want to make sure that you have a supportive base of information. Remember, I'm also obviously laser-focused on the business of us. So we have a large infrastructure at this point that's able to support Lauren, Matt, Dylan, Mary, and their partners to ensure that they're doing the best work of their careers. But I don't, as long as you're consuming information across a number of categories, political news, which, you know, maybe read out of sort of just a guilt, natural, personal, patriotic interest. But I think that what's important to me is to read journalism, but also not to only exclusively read journalism, right?

1:03:25Like, I'm very interested in analyst reports about media and financial companies. I want to make sure that I understand a lot of the industries where we have, you know, leading products the way that the pros who work in those industries would, you know. Sure. And there actually is often like this is this is one of, I think, things I'm most proud of that puck is that we have established this position that that's almost in many cases above journalism, sort of between journalism and equity research so that you're along with, you know, narrative and and recognizing these are. You're getting like the hard data.

1:04:02And you're seeing it at a high level where you can see the strategy. You know, a lot of I'm not trying to put down any peers here, you know, in other companies, but. Please do.

1:04:11Jason Stewart:I wasn't thinking that at all, but now that's all I'm thinking. It's not binary. Things don't always happen because somebody made a bad decision. It's usually there is a complex spider web of decisions that had to be made in a compressed period of time. And so I try and when you're a business owner, by the way, you recognize that people do the best they can. And sometimes there are elegant outcomes. But I read a lot. I wonder sometimes how many thousands of words I read a day, many, tens and tens of thousands, and look at bazillions of spreadsheets. to it you learn over time um to consume information really really quickly and you also know uh when you're when you've consumed enough at uh an acceleration where you can make a quick decision and you have to know when you can't make that decision too which is actually not to overshare but that's a that's a critical no i mean no i mean that's that's why you're the boss all right what about any trashy shit though because i mean you know i know all but you know like what's the Are you looking at Doom Wah on Instagram?

1:05:22Which podcast are you listening to at 2X? Again, I wish I was... This is the part Lauren warned me that I was... You're a call her daddy day one subscriber. It's okay. You know what's funny? I got to know Alex a little bit, and I really like her and Matt. I feel like her media intelligence is totally underestimated. She's someone who is going to be successful for decades in this industry. I don't have... She'll be running Paramount Plus one day. God willing. If she needs a chief tastemaker, I'll put your list on top of the pile.

1:05:56Jason Stewart:Taste officer. Sorry, that's what I meant. Executive taste officer. Executive taste officer. Yeah, there you go. He's wearing his badge. You just can't see it. I'm not the most high-minded person in the world. I think if you talk to my friends, they would say that I'm actually like, I play against type in a lot of ways. You might think that somebody who had my job and was more a feat than I am. I'm not. I read a lot of trashy things. I'm very interested in a lot of trashy things. It's interesting for me to see how they course to the culture. I think that there's a high-low matrix that most people who work in media sort of live by.

1:06:37Mine's not a ton different on a personal side. But on the other hand, like, I recognize that Puck is making products that have to be incredibly relevant to the most influential people in society. We have first-party data on who our subscribers are in markets from politics to fashion to Hollywood. It's the top of the top of the top. So you got to, yeah, sure. So you just got to. All right. So where's LeBron going? Oh, man. Wouldn't you love to know? China. it seems like i mean a lot of the signs are pointing back to um to la which does not seem like the right decision to me like the clippers no he said today oh you miss it he said today he's not going to la but he's going somewhere that happened like an hour ago oh are you guys ahead of me sorry um uh well then your guess is as good as mine i don't know when this show's coming out i don't want to look stupid i think if the knicks had lost there was a real chance he'd come to new york oh he's not gonna do it now uh now did you go to did you go to any of the finals games no it's funny i try like hell um i i didn't get in uh the closest i got was i took my kid my older kid to the parade um which uh passed by our office i've been uh it's funny lauren put this on the approved topic list because i grew up in new york so i'm a lifelong nick fan and i was like you know at the age in 94 when we got so close um so this is big for you huge huge um you know uh it's hard to for for me and people in my generation to believe that there is a greater nick than ewing you know and like there is now like this it's uh he's totally totally been just i've heard a lot of debate about about jalen brunson and where he stands i think you can't i think you can't debate it i think that um you know ewing didn't get the chip and and uh he and all these like all these miss finger the rick smith's finger roll like you know we we love ewing but we But we apologized for the guy a bit, you know, playing alongside Jordan.

1:08:32I mean, do you guys remember, I think game five of the 94 series was during the OJ chase. And so that was like the one game when we blew out the Rockets. And I remember as a kid, like, couldn't watch that. I think I got it on the radio. That was the absolute highest point of Nick fandom imaginable. Like you're on the brink. You think you're going to, you're thinking of a chance to clinch. And then Brunson, Brunson eclipsed it, you know, and when we were done, when we were down 13 points, uh, we knew we were going to do it. It didn't look good. That felt like the OJ trial. You're down 15, 13 points when you come out on top.

1:09:10Maybe that's, it's a, it was never in doubt. Side by side. It was never in doubt. I think we knew all along. There was never, there's never a doubt. No, it was, uh, I live pretty close to the parade route. So I was, uh, enraged at the difficulty it caused me. But when I talk to guys like you who grew up a, you know, disgruntled fan, I do, I can see the joy is real. It was surreal. We were up on our, um, our office on the 23rd floor of a beautiful office tower on Greenwich street and looking up church towards West Broadway was a, it was a sea of, uh, blue and orange. It was crazy. So many fucking people.

1:09:45All right. So as we wind down here, what, let's just, what magazines do you think are going to survive? We can go Hearst. We can go Condé. We can go Independent. What do you... Number one, New Yorker is my vote. Of course. But what else you got? The New Yorker will survive. You know, they're all going to exist a lot longer than you imagine. They'll continue to be hybrid. I think people tend to think that these transformations are overnight. They're not. They're much more gradual. And you guys see this because I listen to the show. There's a lot of sort of use cases for print that there weren't before.

1:10:17They're just going to be smaller businesses, right? That's obviously happened. The new houses love The New Yorker. It's a part of the family's public-facing identity. That's not going anywhere. The Atlantic is the same way. I think that Hearst is a lot less precious about its print business. The other brands, they'll become more and more digital and less and less print. I think they've maintained their print identity because there's still some economics tied into it. There are a number of advertisers that really do want their creative to show up that way. There are more, you know, I say this as someone who used to work in this industry, there are more magazines than there are people who want to read them.

1:10:57Eventually, that will rectify and it'll be healthy for the two-sided marketplace, guys. Like that'll be healthy for both sides. People who have the talent will be in places where it's the most valued and the consumers get the best deal. You're right. You're right. I just think it's a funny, I don't know, I just think it's a funny time because it's sort of, we're at that, I mean, it feels like an inflection point that's lasted for a long time, but where it's like our general generation that still holds on to it and thinks it's important is we're just getting older and older and the young people are sort of discovering it in a different way.

1:11:28Maybe you're appreciating it a different way, but I don't know if those things are going to ever meet in the middle. You can't be nostalgic about media. Good media is profitable media. You'd be surprised how many people are late breaking to that realization. And I have a 12-year-old and an 8-year-old, and they don't just watch YouTube all the time. They sit down on the couch and throw YouTube from the older one's phone onto the screen. It's a totally different way of consuming them than we ever did. and they're not watching shows. If you said to, you know, they're barely aware of what Nickelodeon is.

1:12:01They're not, you know. Shit. A lot of the traditional franchises that we grew up with are not relevant to their world. Like you have to be. They're like, get this Ren and Stimpy out of here, old ass. Like I ain't watching that. Yeah, I'm sure. There's a Nickelodeon experience near us that actually is pretty sweet and that's the only way they know Ren and Stimpy. But yeah, that's irrelevant to them. And even like, you know, A lot of franchises are the Netflix shows. I'm just saying if you want to build successful media, you cannot be sentimental or sanctimonious. It's just not helpful. Yeah. No, I mean, that's good advice.

1:12:39I needed to hear that too, John. The little slap in the face for Jason.

1:12:42Jason Stewart:Let's talk about cold food as we land this plane, John. Oh, you need to do your homework. I'm a big food lover myself, avid home cook, and I hear that you exclusively consume warm foods cold? This is funny. Hold on, hold on, hold on, Jason. You're saying that foods that would be traditionally eaten warm, John prefers cold. Maybe the spaghetti meatballs comes out and we let it come down to room temp before we start twirling? Fake news, guys. No, what you're referring to is I have a very religious no hot lunches rule. Because of the smell? No, no. Only crazy people eat warm lunch. Damn. Maybe I'm talking to you too right now.

1:13:26Jason Stewart:Even in the winter months, John. Even in the winter months. No way. No, it creates mental fatigue for me. So if I'm in a serious environment, like if I'm having lunch with an investor or a client or someone who... You got to be on. If we got a check writer across the table from us, we ain't getting the soup. Keep the bisque away. No, definitely not having soup. But if I'm in a situation where it's not a safe space for room temperature lunch, which is the real sort of threshold, then I will order something and I will wait till it cools down. And, you know, I'll let you eat and enjoy yourself. I'm not here to make you uncomfortable.

1:14:01It's your lunch too. You can enjoy yourself.

1:14:03Jason Stewart:This is okay. So I have a similar philosophy with the way lunch foods that are heavy weigh me down and certain things I avoid. Otherwise... See, that's the first step towards freedom. so i always considered it to be like heavy foods versus light foods and you're opening my eyes to temperature and i was not yeah temperature is the main culprit is what you're saying yes it's it's temperature turn the oven off babe i'm gonna have lunch after this uh uh everyone wants uh a nice satisfying lunch i just think that if you're like getting something piping hot out of the oven uh i just have a hard time like you know getting back to work and and focusing at the level that i need to um and and what you're right about um uh because you are betraying your sources here a little bit is that not everyone responds to this um with the normalcy that i think i deserve you know i i told you i'm on the same side i'm fascinated and i want to learn more yeah this is reasonable well this is really reasonable what i think is going on here too is that i'm a pretty normal basic person and this is like my one big quirk and i think that it catches people off guard and i'm um and i hold tight to it corks are all i care about john if it works for you it works for you there's no reason to deny that yeah thanks and hey by the way breakfast and dinner no restrictions right we can do whatever we want okay i'm letting my fucking hair down at breakfast i'm having some oatmeal have like sort of prescribed lunches that you stick to like your big three or do you do you swim in a vast sea of cold plates or do you is it pretty regimented?

1:15:39It doesn't have to be cold. Again, room temperature. I meant non-hots. Jason, come on, bro. Respect. Jason, respect our guests. Jesus Christ. You know, our Puck's second office was in Chelsea right next to Momoya. You guys big Momoya? Yeah, I've been to that office. I've been to a party there. Momoya is Momoya. So sushi a lot. I don't know. I'm not a help nut, but I do what I can. I'm not getting any younger guys. What's your caffeine intake? You're not tucking a zen in there after a cup of coffee, are you? Oh, no. That's gross. Is that your thing? No, no. You're so productive. I just want to pick up some tricks.

1:16:15Jason Stewart:But you don't smoke cigarettes then. No, no, no. No, definitely not. I drink a lot of coffee. I wake up very early, and I drink a lot of coffee. And actually, I have a self-imposed rule. I try not to drink it after three. How early are we talking? Are we Mark Wahlberging? Oh, no. There's no ice bath at four in the morning. That's crazy. No, but I'm productive at six. I feel like I have to be responsive to people who need it. You're firing at six. Yeah, I'm working. Is your shirt tucked in at six? I wear the same thing every day. It's another quirk. So it takes a lot of the choice in the morning out of the equipment.

1:16:53Well, we got blue polo. That's a similar. Jason and I also subscribe to the blue polo. What else? What's on the bottom? I'll let you figure out the rest, guys. You know? but I'm up and at them early and I get a lot of work done and then I think my kids school go run and go to work What brand is the polo John? This is a Sid Mashburn polo Oh repping ATL baby shot to Sid Friends of the pod I've got like 10 or 12 if you want one Jason I bet we're not the same Jason he knows you're looking for work so you can spare a polo for a young man

1:17:29Jason Stewart:You don't even have to wash them just thank you we just really appreciate it John all mine have sleeves though so no he can do that himself don't worry look I just I just finished a hike and came down here it was too hot to put clothes on and also when we did our episode with Graydon Carter I it was in the dead of summer as hot as hell and I was wearing a similar wife beater and he he could not stop insulting it it was really funny no that's on the no fly zone for him one of the best moments of how long gone was Graydon Carter being disgusted with our tattoos to the point of next time I saw him he brought it up yeah people don't know this about grading but he's very canadian in a lot of ways and like that's um and the and the and the body art thing is a person shouldn't have tattoos and i learned that he mentioned it a lot in his memoir about yeah i was like this guy fucking hates tattoos more than i mean maybe anything in the world which is it's cool a good course you guys have other charms though so i think it's a little late to turn that one around but you guys make a for it in other ways.

1:18:26Definitely late. For sure, that would happen. All right, John, thank you for joining us on How Long Gone. It was a pleasure. If you want to check out Puck, you go to, is it, what is it? Puck.news is the website? Yes, exactly. Sign up. Thank you. Sign up. Pay for the, what's the expensive membership? The Inner Circle membership is$250, which will get you access to airmail as well, and I couldn't recommend it more. There you go. All right. Thanks, John. We appreciate the time, and we'll see you soon. All right. My pleasure, guys. Thank you.

1:18:56Thank you.