WIRED's Editor on Elon, Trump & Silicon Valley's War on the Press

23:11Eric Newcomer:It's like a conversation starter rather than reader. Yeah. And I think that, and this is true of many publications, but I think Wired 20 years ago, longer, whatever, in previous eras, was very happy to position itself as a fortune teller, and as a publication that had all the answers and knew where this was all going. And I think one of the differences with me, people can like it or hate it, is that I think that that's a lie. And I think that no publication knows where this is all going. I think this is an incredibly complicated transformational moment. And for us to posture as if we can tell the future and that we know where it's all going and how it should shake out would be incorrect and disingenuous.

24:02And I don't want to do that. I want to bring our audience along with us as we try to figure this out. I think that's kind of the best distillation I can give you.

24:11Eric Newcomer:I feel like our society needs heroes. I don't know what the answer is, but I think part of why people got so mad at journalists is it was like, oh, quibble with everybody. But it's like, who is the hero? It sounds like maybe this project you're working on, you're like, oh, we're trying to identify some. But do you see this problem of like, we need to build as a society, build up some like this is who you should aspire to be? Or what do you think of the role of the journalist is creating like aspirational type figures? Well, never at the expense of accuracy. But I do think part of Wired's role, and depending on what you cover as a journalist, part of your role is to say, this person or this company or this startup or this academic institution, this is really interesting.

25:00This person is doing something really interesting. Or this person has a really interesting point of view that's different that you haven't heard before, and we're going to introduce you to them. I think that that is certainly within Wired's purview. I think candidly, in the last two years, especially the last year and a half since Trump was elected, look, I run a well-resourced, healthy newsroom, but we cannot do everything all the time. And so I think I do think a lot of coverage has been very focused rightly on what the fuck is going on over there. And we got to do that stuff. That is of paramount importance to me.

25:34And I prioritize that coverage. I do. But I do think there's more space for us to carve out in exactly what you're describing, which is saying like, that's really cool. And we're going to introduce you to this person. We're going to tell you about what they're doing. And so again, we have found sort of like a lane where we can do that in a wired way that we're really excited about. And like, I do agree with you, too, just to keep rambling. um things can feel really hard right now right things have felt hard for a long like 10 years things have felt pretty tough you know Trump 1.0 COVID it's just it's like and I do worry about the sort of narrative around media and journalists as like doom and gloom doom and gloom doom and gloom so dystopian always so negative look accountability journalism is accountability journalism.

26:20And it's really important. It's what I do as a person. It's like in my blood. But I do think finding those moments of levity for an audience, those moments of joy, of humor, of aspiration, finding things to celebrate, I do genuinely think that is really important. And that is certainly something I want people to see with Wired. I want them to feel that like, yes, they published that incredible investigation into, you know, Jim Dolan and Madison Square Garden. And then I read this piece about this incredible scientific discovery around Parkinson's disease. Like I want both of those things to exist in one place.

26:57And I think they can. And I think they do. I do think there's more we can do over here. And I think we have some fun plans to do it.

27:03Eric Newcomer:If I, you know, look at my own writing and some people watching this, we'll see this as a critique. Other people will like it. But I mean, I think our hero is sort of, you know, we do these like story of the cap table piece, which is investor like built up a position in the company and they made a lot of money. Like in some ways, newcomer doesn't cheer for like assholes. Like I've written very negatively about like Chamath, Pali Hapitiya, you know, we certainly snark about Elon plenty, but I think, you know, it's like a pro capitalist publication that celebrates people like doing, I guess the day-to-day business of Silicon Valley.

27:37Eric Newcomer:and you know like a lot of these companies i mean you know sass is getting destroyed but you know a lot of companies are sort of boring software companies they're not sort of palantir they're sort of like amoral you know making you know tech workers slightly more efficient or you know companies slightly more efficient like do you have a house view or do you have a view against i guess the day-to-day of like the tech industry or sort of like boring software like do you think that's like a bad thing for people to be doing it's a good thing like what do you because i feel like you know i had kara swisher on the podcast recently yeah she told me oh great and i got sort of mad at her about like tech bros well i think she got mad at you too yeah yeah we went back and forth and she said yeah what's her version of it or about what you're saying plus or minus a few additional details i just think well you can say whatever you want um she's great yeah no i mean i just think you know there's certainly people doing things i disagree with in the tech industry yeah but i think the rank and file like i think the tech bro thing has just been so dismissive that it, like, we could have brought those people along, right?

28:39Eric Newcomer:Like some of them have turned to this sort of like MAGA, anti-media, whatever, like anti-elite, just insanity, partially because we can't say, oh, like, congratulations, you build a business and that's what society depends on. It's not my job, though, to bring Mark Zuckerberg along. Not Mark Zuckerberg. It's not my job. That is not my job. But I'm asking about like the boring, you know, software CEO, like Mark Benioff. Like he used to be the like. before he made ill-advised phone calls to the new york times on his private jet he was a cool dude yeah i mean but he was already like yeah i was going off the rails look i mean it's it's i just it's not it's not my job and i do not believe it is any journalist job to bring along executives they they are big boys they're big guys they're grown-ups i'm a grown-up they make their own decisions about their political affiliations they make their own decisions about how they want to receive the coverage.

29:31Eric Newcomer:I want to know more about what Kara said in advance. Or what? She said you guys bickered. Right, isn't it? She bickers with people all the time. Like, I feel like... And then I was like, that's good to know. I better listen to that one. She does bicker. I mean, I'm not trying to, you know... I wasn't ready to dig her by surprise. This is going to live rent-free in your head now. You're going to be sweating this much. No, no, she sent me a, like, you know, a very Kara response afterwards. I'm not surprised. Yeah, I think she likes to debate. I think that's... But I mean, journalists, we push other people.

29:55Eric Newcomer:Like, don't you think journalists... I feel like we've in some ways have sort of escaped some of the back and forth that we expect. Oh, like we push other people, but we don't like to be ourselves. And then we say, oh, I'm just sort of the person asking questions or like telling stories or whatever, you know. Well, sometimes that's true. Look, I'm not running a multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Well, this is funny. People are welcome to ask me questions. Exactly. They can email me. In the air and just use the thing. Just don't send more death threats, you know. Do you get a lot of death threats?

30:23Eric Newcomer:Yeah. Yeah. That's terrible, obviously. Thank you. It's fine. It's part of the job, but like just email me and we can go back and forth. Like I'm happy to sit down and have coffee with Trey or whoever. Have you engaged with them at all? Well, no, I'm not on Twitter. This all existed in Twitter. Did it transcend Twitter in any way? Yes, it transcended Twitter via screenshot into wired Slack. But no, no. But like I'm available. I don't see myself as being sort of like, I mean, look, the job of journalists is to ask questions, find stories, tell those stories. Like, that's the job. But for me, as the overseer of a newsroom of journalists, like, I'm happy to have a debate.

31:08I'm happy to sit down with someone and say, OK, you don't like what Wired is doing. Let's talk about it. I'll tell you what I think. You tell me what you think. You don't have to read it.

31:16Eric Newcomer:I had a funny, Balaji Srinivasan, you know, who used to work at Andreessen Horowitz and the author of The Network State and sort of a media antagonist, you know, went on one of the like the monitoring the situation, you know, the new Andreessen tech show. Yes, they're monitoring. Yeah, exactly. Not really going well. But Balaji and Taylor Lorenz sat down and it was funny. I felt like a subtext of it was that he was almost sad that like he wasn't fighting with journalists anymore. That like during the pandemic, we'd all like lost our minds and we're fighting with them. And then, but it's like, I, I, but they sort of retreated from direct engagement, right?

31:56Eric Newcomer:Like Mark Andreessen will occasionally like put in his Twitter account, like, or like not, not up for us answering hard questions. or, you know, he changes it. I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you that one of the virtues in the corner of journalists is that we're generally game to talk about it. And a lot of these people who actually, like, wield the levers of power, just, like, sidestep answering any hard questions and are literally, like, building their own media platforms Yeah, I mean, they're going direct, you know? They're going direct. And they can do what they would like. I mean, that is their prerogative.

32:29I think I think it is I can understand why that has been the reaction like I get it but we're always here to talk and have conversations you know like we're available

32:44Eric Newcomer:we're available like you'd interview any of them of course right totally and we have and we have recently you know like we're we're available we're down we're happy to do interviews we're happy to have tough conversations. We're happy to disagree. And for that to be adult and professional and diplomatic and respectful and all those things, but we're still going to cover the hell out of you. That's the job. To what extent do you think Silicon Valley's anger that the media turned against it is really anger that the public turned against it? A lot of it. A lot of it. And I think they see media as a vehicle by which that public sentiment was, you know.

33:22Eric Newcomer:That it was the media's fault that the media moved it rather than reflecting that the media sort of riled up the general public um and contributed to negative sentiment i think what the media by and large and again this is not a monolith i mean different outlets approach things differently they told stories that needed to be told i mean this is new we publish newsworthy information and we have editors and lawyers and fact checkers to make sure that the information we're publishing is newsworthy information. A company doesn't have to, or an executive, they don't have to like what we're publishing, but the job is to publish it.

33:56And so I think this idea that we are, as a monolith, kind of like the bad guys who sowed public dissent, or dismay or disgust at this industry, I mean, I think it's a very overly simplistic narrative. I think what a lot of the public feels, and I think we're seeing this play out in AI now, is a loss of agency. I think they look at that industry and they feel like I this is happening to me and I feel like I don't have a say and I'm very very frustrated by that right I think that a lot of it boils down to agency and I think that that as as AI continues to permeate through society I think that's going to be really

34:34Eric Newcomer:interesting I know you don't love getting into prognosticating but just where do you think this like negative sentiment towards AI goes. No, I mean, I'm, that's the thing is I'm not a fortune teller, but I like to think about this stuff. I mean, I think that's, that's kind of the job is to, to think about it. And I think that's a really interesting question because I think there is so much ill will. I think there is so much anger. I think there is such a feeling of, of loss of control and loss of agency. And I think that that's fascinating. um i also think that if you look at a lot of the language coming out of the executives running these companies they are not doing themselves any favors you're not doing yourself any favors by coming out and saying all these jobs are going to be wiped out existential threat could be very bad it's like they're not they're not helping their case you know well what do you yeah i'm really torn on that issue specifically because at once as a journalist i sort of root for them being honest It's like if they think, oh, there's a 10 % chance every job is eliminated, they should say that.

35:39Eric Newcomer:On the other hand, Dario, that clip just like runs endlessly. It's everywhere. I mean, I think about him saying that all the time because it just never goes away. And it's just a piece of his answer. I think it's like the full thing is like if we don't do anything type. Yes. And I think that they are operating, unfortunately for them, from a place of deficit of trust, right? So if you are in the general public, you already kind of look at the tech industry with, you know, kind of like, I don't know about you guys. And then you hear them saying that stuff. Of course, you're going to be upset. Of course, you're going to feel like this is happening to me and I might lose my job or this data center is being built in my town and there's nothing I can do about it.

36:17You know, it's there's this this palpable frustration. my hope for where it goes right is that individual people and again it's hard to talk about this as such a monolith but that what i want is for individuals to find the use cases for ai that makes sense for them in their lives right and that will be very different for whoever you are whatever your circumstances are what i hope is that there can be a democratizing effect right around access to health care around access to education that stuff is is fascinating to me and so promising. And I wish there was more conversation about that stuff. I wish they were spending more time talking about what could it look like from the point of view of education and learning, right?

36:56If this technology was available, not only across the United States, but like around the world, like what's what is possible there? Because that's really interesting. So I would hope that there can be sort of meaningful moves towards AI as technology being used by people in ways that is practically beneficial and that is used at a sort of societal level in a way that has a democratizing effect and that creates access and creates all of the opportunity that we sometimes hear about. That is my hope, right? I think what people are feeling right now, and if you work at any company and you have a CEO, not talking about Conde Nast, and genuinely not, but if you have a CEO who's saying, you know, I need 40 % productivity gains from AI, of course you're going to feel like this, because it's not being handed down to you in a practical, useful way, right?

37:46So I guess I didn't tell you what I think is going to happen. I'm telling you what I hope happens. And the path to get there feels very muddy right now. It feels very muddy. And I'm someone who is a control freak and who likes to have all the answers. And I think something that is frustrating for me about the AI conversation is that I just don't. I don't. And I'm curious what you think, like what has to go right for this technology in 10 years to have had a net beneficial impact on the lives of everyday Americans, right? Like what would that have to look like?

38:19Eric Newcomer:I mean, to me, my concerns are probably much more, and this is probably a very Silicon Valley take, but the access to the technology being sort of gatekept to the wealthy, right? Because if you think about what they're fundamentally doing, it's that you spend money and you get out intelligence. So on the one hand, that's an amazing, powerful tool. Like I think they should be leading with the fact everybody now has access to this like genius with tons of information who can do lots of work that we're handing to you at great subsidies at the moment you know and if anything my concerns are more that like you know the people with capital like in everything are going to get to sort of have more of that for themselves just because they happen to be rich at the time this technology was created but i think based on everything we've seen from what the technology can actually do people who use it have access to it you can figure out like lots of interesting stuff like i i just we use it regularly for proofreading like i think it's super helpful and just like my strategic planning i feel like we like dump a bunch like i'm like go through my emails like what what are my priorities right now it's like a good sort of like thought partner on that like prepping for these every podcast i do i like talk with claude for a little bit like oh what's interesting and it thought that i was going to interview you and split your throat right that was questions i thought you were going to come gunning for me which you haven't but obviously you're definitely and i like it i wish more more people would turn the mic back i like it but it's i'm just curious about your point of view more willing than many guests yeah no i think this is i think this is all really interesting and it's almost like there's an it's almost like there's a need and our the package that we're doing has a bit of this as sort of a joke but like it's like a national curriculum for this stuff right because i think again if you don't work in tech if you are not adjacent to tech in some way like if you don't like work at wired um and you're just hearing about this stuff you're reading a little bit about it your ceo is sending emails about it that sound kind of vaguely threatening like you might lose your job you see that clip of dario on instagram you read in the newspaper that like there's a data center being built you're just freaked out and mad you're not actually learning okay how do i how do I use OpenClaw?

40:28Like, how does that actually work? What's the best way to use ChatGPT? Like, it's the inequity of access that you're talking about, I think is a real thing. The financial piece of it for sure, but also just like the baseline ability to engage with the tools.

40:42Eric Newcomer:But they're there. Like, to some degree, I do think - They're there, but like, come on. We're talking about like two busy parents in Kansas City, Missouri with three kids. You know, like, we're not talking about you and me. We're not talking about you and me. I feel like they bear some responsibility. like I do need to person. Well sure, a modicum of responsibility. But again, this is - It's like being subsidized right now. You know, it's like - A trillion dollar industry sort of that feels like it's just encroaching on their lives. So sure, they bear some responsibility for to educate themselves, so on and so forth.

41:10But this is such -

41:11Eric Newcomer:It's like a self-educating tool. It's a tool that if you go to it, you say, what can you do for me? It'll start coming up with ideas. Easy for Eric to say. I think easy for Eric to say. Anyway, this is, it's fascinating. And I wish I could tell you, well, this is exact in 10 years. This is it. I just don't think anyone knows. And I think if they say they know they're a liar, I think they're a liar. Do you know where it's going to go? I mean, it's impossible to prick. Exactly. I just continue to come back to, you know, I did a post when I got married, just like thinking about like, congratulations.

41:40Eric Newcomer:Thank you. It was a little while ago now. Now I'm in the, I have a seventh month old. So that's a new milestone post. Thank you. That's the right, the correct congrats. But, um, you know, I took stock of like all the technology that was involved. And there's like an insane amount, like a lot of it's mundane, but it's like everything from registry to like logistics, like you share it. Like I feel so dumb to be like, do you use Instagram? But I do think I'm shocked that there's so much resentment about technology when I think if you went out and you talk to any random person, technology is like ubiquitous in their lives.

42:15Eric Newcomer:Like it's like you think they don't like the experience when they're using it. They don't count the ones that they do like. Like, I just don't understand. I think this is sort of the tech industry's core frustration. It's like, you know, I don't know Mark Zuckerberg, but it's like people use the products. They seem to like them, yet they say they hate the industry so much. Do you use Instagram? I do use Instagram. You don't drive joy from using Instagram? I know I do. I'm I am that that is sort of what I was about to say, which is I think for a lot of people. And I think ultimately, like, there's a complexity to this.

42:50I don't think it's as simple as saying, I love Instagram. I hate the tech industry. I think it's, I use Instagram because it's where all of my friends are and I love to follow celebrities or I have to be on it for work or whatever the reason. It's hard for me to stop, right? These products are very hard to stop using. Once you start, they're addictive and they have consequences, right? Maybe it's, I use Instagram. When my 14 year old started using it, she developed XYZ. like the technology, the products are complicated. They are not unequivocally good or unequivocally bad. So I think it's less that people love the products, hate the industry.

43:29I think they have a complicated relationship with both. And I think if you don't have a complicated relationship with both, you're probably not asking enough questions. You're probably not curious enough about why am I finding myself on TikTok for two hours every night? Or what is the story behind that US acquisition of this product that was from China and now it's not and Larry Ellison's involved. I think if you just love the product, no questions asked, you're probably not asking enough questions about why. And I think once you start to ask those questions and learn a little bit more, it becomes more complicated.

44:03So sure, there are some people who have disavowed all social media and hate the tech industry and want to go live in a log cabin. I think for most people, though, it's just a complicated thing. It's a complicated thing, right? Like I don't use X anymore. I don't use Facebook. I have not found them to be particularly enjoyable, useful, productive for me personally. Oh yeah.

44:25Eric Newcomer:X is like a poison that I consume so that my readers hopefully don't have to. It's like, I will ingest this poison so you can escape it. I'm not prescribing it to people. Plenty of wire journalists are still sort of power users on there, but I use Instagram it's a meta product I'm aware I have a complicated relationship with it like everybody else I use TikTok are you um no I don't make TikToks don't go looking I just consume passively on the couch have you given like corporate guidance on do use AI tools or don't or like what's are people allowed to proofread their stories with AI like I assume you've said AI can't write your stories or what's the line?

45:03Yeah, we have actually a new policy rolling out over the summer that's updated and we're going to publish that on our site so it will be available to our audience and we're going to share it with the staff. So I won't share it here because the staff haven't seen it. The management team are going through it and adding notes, but it's what I think you would expect, which is can you use it to generate imagery? Can you use it to generate a draft of your story? No. Can you use it for research purposes or interview prep or to suggest, you know, how you might outline a story or, um, to, you know, offer you headline suggestions that you can then like brainstorm and workshop.

45:41Yes. Like it's a very helpful tool in that regard. So there are certainly some use cases where it's like, absolutely. Like some of you on staff may find this unhelpful in some of these respects. For others of you, it might be like transformational in terms of how you're able to do your job. We want to create that for the staff. What we don't want is to publish AI generated work in any regard. If we're going to publish, let's say, AI generated imagery, it would be because we are using it for illustrative purposes, right? The story is about a new image generation tool. We're going to show how that works.

46:15So we're writing a story about an AI generated like deep fake. And we're going to show what that is with labels and all the requisite kind of disclaimers for our audience. So it's pretty simple. And we are also using AI. I think the more interesting stuff to me is building our own investigative tools with it and sort of our reporting tools. And so we have a team working on that for all sorts of things.

46:40Eric Newcomer:Do you think AI will get a scoop? Yeah, I think it will facilitate the getting of scoops. And some human gets to take credit for it. I think if you can go through thousands of hours of video footage and pull out snippets where certain keywords are mentioned, yes, it can absolutely facilitate a reporter, but you have to know how to use it. And so I think what we're working on, I don't think we're working on this. We are working on a suite of tools that will be internal to Wired, obviously vetted and approved by my parent company, Condé Nast, that we would then train the staff on. It's a small team.

47:09And so I think for us, we certainly see it from a reporting point of view as a strategic advantage. If we have really clever, we have really clever people who work at Wired. And if we can have tools that are created by those clever people that are as clever as they are, I think it gives us some nice advantages in our investigative work. And so I'm excited about that. But yeah, we're not, we're not publishing AI generated stories and we will not be. I think human generated, human generated storytelling for humans is what we're going to stick with.

47:39Eric Newcomer:I think it's a good brand to have. I think that will have staying power. What about you? Yeah, I mean, I think very similar. I think I'm less certain on how much I need to like sort of pound my fist and say there will never be AI pros in this. On the one hand, I think we're already starting to see subsects that are using it. And so differentiating from them. I mean, I think it's clear that it's validated by me, but I don't know if I have some fundamental problem if like I put a story in a cloud and it like says, you know, this line would be more clever. like this and if I agree like I'm publishing the best story so I don't have a strong I don't know like human only sort of I guess point of view on this but I definitely see myself as sort of you know the one creating it and need to be sort of primarily creating it and think that that will be a differentiator and part of being premium over time which obviously your brands are meant to be premium is that it comes from a human oh yes they are premium yes sorry but it But it's also your strategy that they are premium.

48:41Eric Newcomer:But this is going back to some and we're getting towards the end. But why do you think some people, so much of tech turned MAGA? What is your sort of diagnosis of what happened? Because I don't want this interview to come across like I'm deeply upset about that. In some ways, my view is like, I'm so mad about the fascist tendencies and the Trump support that I'm almost like, whoa, was all this sort of like, I don't know, piddling negativity that just sort of like push some of them away, not worth what we got, which is like such a souring. And I do think talking to, I had Matt Mahan on the podcast, who's not doing very well in his run for California governor.

49:23Eric Newcomer:But in some ways, it's just like, I mean, Daniel Lurie is the most popular mayor. I know. I interviewed him in December last year. And literally, I think what he succeeds is like, he says, thank you to tech. He says like, good job. Like, he still criticizes them some, but it's like, oh yeah, you're in a like, okay endeavor. And so I do think like they're insanely sensitive to just like not, and I get it. They're like, we're A students in many cases trying to build like the life I was supposed to build. And then they get to the end of it. And like, you know, the media class, myself included, are sort of like, no, we don't like you anyway.

49:55Eric Newcomer:And they're like, what the heck? And like, so I guess, do you, do you disagree with that narrative that we like, that by being sort of negative, we lost ones that we could have kept? I mean, obviously there's something deeper and darker to like support sort of a fascist agenda, but what is your gloss? Well, again, I come back to, it is not my job, Eric, to keep anyone. It is not my job to keep a grown man. They make their own decisions. So I just, I reject that premise, but I will answer the question. And it's a good question. It's one I tried, I've tried to ask a lot of people this too, because I'm genuinely curious.

50:27And I think it's a few things. And I think it's not all the same answer for every individual that we would be talking about. I think some of it is hurt feelings for sure. Thin skin, hurt feelings, anger, animosity, not only towards the sort of perceived like progressive left-wing media, but towards the Biden administration, right? I think they found the Biden administration really difficult and unwieldy to work with. And I think there's a lot to that. I don't dismiss that out of hand by any measure. So I think it's sort of hurt feelings.

50:54Eric Newcomer:The crypto industry should have been able to buy the SEC as the American way. No, I think they were notoriously thorny and uncooperative and just like tough to even get time with. Like I've heard that a lot and there is something there. So I think sort of frustration and anger and hurt feelings. And then I think the second bit of it for some of them is just sheer opportunism, right? And I don't even necessarily mean that in the worst way. You're the CEO of a company. You're Tim Cook. Right. What do you do is your responsibility is to who? shareholders you're going to do what well you're going to present that tchotchke in the oval office right and you're going to like be mortified presumably but it's it's opportunism if you're someone like sam altman and you and you see the window to get in and start to sort of shape things the way you wanted them to be shaped or it's fiduciary duty right they're running businesses so i think some of it was that just like we got to play with the hand that we've been dealt and that looks disgusting and traditionally like you know the business owners have been supportive of fascism like throughout history it's like if it's good for business and i'm not saying that i agree with that but i think that that that is what we're seeing i called tim cook a quizling so i i think he should have taken a stand what's the point of having sort of the one of the most powerful companies in the world being the ceo of that company having such a reputation for being a thoughtful leader and then like you said it better than i could throw it all away but it's they're running companies and they see that as their primary duty um and the third one is maybe some them were just kind of always like that and now they get to be who they really are and they feel very comfortable they are not sort of dressed up as a republican for four years and not even a republican a fascist they just like always sucked in that way and now they can just suck very publicly um so i think it's like those three things some or all of them are true for most of those people.

52:55But I think this narrative of like, media did this is come on. Come on.

53:00Eric Newcomer:Yeah, I mean, it gives us too much power. But in some ways, the tech set is convinced media, you know, most powerful force in the world. Well, the good thing for them is they can start their own. And it seems like they are right. I do think that's the answer. It's funny, like to bring this full circle on the wired, you know, acquisition idea. I think it's just like, build your own successfully. Like they don't really seem to be able to. We're doing our thing. Right. They can go do their thing. Nobody's stopping them. That's capitalism. And you know what? Build your own. Don't destroy a brand that has evolved into a particular thing.

53:32Maybe we'll do Trey Stevens Wired. Maybe we'll do a special issue.

53:36Eric Newcomer:Are you doing that? Maybe we will. I don't know. I can't say. He's going to commission. Or like he's going to. People aren't going to know. He can guest edit the issue. Is this an invitation? Trey, call me. All right. Katie Drummond, this was so much fun. This was really fun. Thank you for having me. That's our episode. Thank you so much, Katie Drummond, for coming on the show. Enjoy the conversation. This is the Newcomer Podcast. Please like, comment, subscribe, support the channel. Please follow along for more at the substack, newcomer.co. Otherwise, I'll see you in a week or so for the next Newcomer Podcast.

54:08Eric Newcomer:Thanks for listening.