How Johnny Harris Changed The News Forever

26:14And if it's not, it typically underperforms. We tried to scale that whole thing. And I think everyone's been down that route of like, how do you scale a creator themselves? You don't. You don't. You don't. Because taste is not a very scalable. Yes. It's not. Exactly. And it's taste and it's this weird passion of like, I'm obsessed with this and I want deeply for you to understand it too as the audience. And so I'm going to obsess over every word and every little frame to make it perfect. That is a very delicate thing that does not scale. What I think is really fun about something like bread or Swiss bunkers or, you know, what I think is super fun about bread and McDonald's ice cream machines is that when you kind of like get all of the fluffy, pretty stuff and fun stuff out of the way, which I love that stuff, there is something to be learned from each of those pieces.

27:10Oh, bread tells the story of America, which is crazy. When I watched that, and then I watched it two or three more times, once with my brother and once with my wife. Well, that's cool. Because I was like, I need you guys to watch this. This gives context to America. Yeah. And again, these are very nuanced subject matters, but like that's what's amazing. is also over time when you build a brand, you become associated with something. So like if I see someone else make a bread video and you make a bread video, I know what it means for Johnny Harris to make a bread video. It's not, it's going to be about the broader human content.

27:42I want to make a bread video. That is. You can. You can make some sourdough bread. I'll make a bread video with Wonder Bread. I've seen Wonder Bread in your house. Oh, wow. Okay, whoa. Hold on. Are you a symbol? Are you a symbol? I love Wonder Bread. There is a big difference between like a nice country white and Wonder Bread. I love a country white. Yeah. Love it. He calls country white. No, I don't go after the show. I don't want to do this. I also, I like Wonder Bread. Not in this house. In your previous house. Don't come to me with it. I was a different person That was his previous house. I don't want to, Samir.

28:11That's previous him. Yeah. Okay. Also, I was like born and raised in New Jersey on Wonder Bread. New Jersey is the epicenter of American manufacturing. He's come all the way to country white. I've come all the way to country white. I think you need to back off. As he was on his way to LA. And occasionally I go to the farmer's market and I get a rustic loaf. Did you guys have Ezekiel bread growing up? Oh, yeah. Ezekiel bread has seven different seeds. But I didn't, because I didn't grow up in LA or Ashland. Ezekiel bread was like. LA and Ashland are the two homes of Ezekiel bread. But actually, yes.

28:43Obnoxious hippie food. It is. Yeah, fair. Yeah, fair. So, but two, two, two, back to the filter and back to bread. We had better childhoods. That's all this means. That's all that means, everybody. I do. I do see, as he said, the channel as like an expression of my brain. My brain is interested in a lot of other things that you don't see because they aren't case studies in, in some context that I want you to understand. I, what you end up seeing about shampoo or ice cream machines or bread, in addition to like the more heavy hitting stuff is a click for me where I'm like, there is a bigger thing here that 2 million people should know about.

29:21And it's fun. Sometimes it's a fun entry, sometimes it's a harder one, but 2 million people should know about this because this is very juicy. And so there is this like driving a lot of the content is a deep desire for a lot of people to understand this thing that I just understood. And back to your point about authenticity and like the sort of vernacular, if people want to just have a human explain something or hang out with them, I really think that that is the defining attribute of this shift in media. It's like, I want to feel like someone's genuinely interested in talking about this and not standing in front of the microphone, reciting things in a weird voice that I don't really understand, which is the traditional news format.

30:03It is alien. It's other. It's sort of, I'm on a pedestal speaking down voice of God. This is a very different thing. And I love that it exists because it allows us to express very authentically to the audience. Can we talk about the business of both Johnny Harris and New Press, which is your guys' company as you're starting to build new channels? Because I've been watching Johnny for a long time. I've also been watching you for a long time in your days as a YouTube creator. There is a tangible difference in, you know, my experience of Johnny on Vox, Johnny as an independent creator, and then the Johnny Harris organization today.

30:45And from our conversations, I understand that that has a lot to do with you. Has everything to do with Izzy. Absolutely. Like you are an unbelievable storyteller, right? Thank you. And I think there's a few storytellers on YouTube who I think are like at the top of the list. you're at the top of my list Thomas Bragg is another one who's at the top of my list from Yes Theory there's a few people who I'm just like I watch their videos and I cannot believe how good they are I'm just super jealous and I just yeah jealous as hell just like if I could do that the highest price but you and I were talking on the phone the other day and I was sharing you know that I've had aspirations in my past probably when I was younger of building like a big media company and as I got as I've gotten older I lose those aspirations or I've lost them, you know, more and more of like simplicity is something I value.

31:35I was surprised to hear you guys had 25 employees. I didn't know that. Or 25 team members. I was surprised to hear it too. I don't know where they all - There was like an inflection point of output. Yeah. I remember I felt like I'd be like waiting around for a Johnny Harris video. 2022. I'm not waiting anymore. It's just always there. It was every week. I want to hear the story of, is your decision to go, I'm no longer a YouTube creator, but I'm still, or not still, I'm going to play this role instead. This like operational producer role. Yeah. It's not something that I've talked about much outside of, or at all, outside of like close friend circles.

32:11Cause it was really loaded for a really long time. And I may get teary because I do. And anyone who did watch my videos knows that, but. Wait, let me set you up though first. Yeah, please. Actually. I guess it was about to go on an emotional. I was just about to say the best thing ever. Hey, set me up. I'm going to set you up. This better be a damn good alley-oop. It'd be really fucking good. The music was just about to turn on. I was leaned in. I was like, okay, this is about to get emotional. Retention, your retention curve. We don't normally do this, but I may play some music under that. I think for the audience, as the storyteller who likes context, the audience should know that Izzy started a YouTube channel before I did.

33:00She was the sort of trailblazer in our family and started a travel and lifestyle and mental health and food channel that was very beloved. It was a mix of vlogs and then like cinematic kind of like poetic pieces. She very quickly grew a large audience and was very beloved. And then one day gone, decided she didn't want to do anymore, even though she was like growing. So there's the context. Back to the emotional moment. And I will say it was one day to the next. It really was. It really was. So it's so complicated. And like looking back, I have some better understanding of it. I was talking to my sister the other day and I was saying, it's like, it was a breakup with like a bad boyfriend, you know, but man, did I love him?

33:52Like I loved that boyfriend so much and I was almost hooked on him. And we've all been there, right? To clarify, the boyfriend is YouTube. The boyfriend is proverbial. The proverbial boyfriend. It's YouTube. It's metaphorical boyfriend. It's YouTube. Yeah. It's YouTube. No, it's YouTube. And for me, what led up to it was I was kind of at like the height of the success I'd seen thus far in doing what I was doing. I had shared a lot about my life. A lot. and a lot about some of the most personal things in my life. I had shared about sexual assault. I had shared about my son who is autistic and raising him, our son.

34:34He's yours too. I'm the father. Yes, yes, yes. He is the father. It was confusing because it could have been YouTube. YouTube the father? YouTube is not the father. It's the bad boyfriend. It's the bad boyfriend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Johnny's the father. Yeah, let me set you up.

34:51it was so necessary i'm so glad i did it no regret it really added so so no i appreciate it um can i ask you a question everyone's just interjecting yeah well you invited the interjection which made me feel like it was necessary yeah yeah yeah um during that time of building this youtube channel and sharing all this stuff personally was that motivated did you feel motivated by money, status, fame? Were any of those motivating factors? Not for most of it. So when I started on YouTube, I didn't know anything about YouTube. I'd never watched YouTube. And then I called Johnny and I was like, we're going to be travel bloggers.

35:31She said bloggers. And I was a filmmaker at the time and he's like bloggers. And then he had watched Casey Neistat. He had really shaped his filmmaking. Big time. And to be totally honest, because we had grown up in a more conservative upbringing, we were Mormon. Shocker. Johnny has a million videos about it. We've watched the videos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a lot of self-doubt on my part about going out and doing something that was not mothering. And there was doubt on his part. Totally. And that was just a real thing. And it's not something that most about me having a career. Because Izzy graduated college knowing that she was going to be a mom.

36:14And like that was it. Like in terms of like there wasn't ever plans for a career. Yeah. And to be fair to him, our son had recently lost his language. I had taken a step back from our wedding filmmaking business. I was I had spent two years being at home with him and I was his his full time everything. And it was so unbelievably intense a time. but when I called him he was like vlogger and then he's like are you sure and he really was trying to say like hey don't set yourself up for I'm like this is disappointment this is back then it felt very saturated I was like everyone's a travel vlogger and like this is hard I was like this is not going to be easy I was working at Vox trying to make it on YouTube there I had a whole media company and that was hard to get subscribers I was like you're gonna like squeeze in travel vlogging in the, like in your free time and somehow make, get a following.

37:06I was like, this is, I didn't push too hard against it. I was just like, this is going to be really hard. Like, let's just make sure we're wide open. If my kid came up to me and said like, I'm going to start a YouTube channel. I would probably have, you know, I'd have a similar response, which is like, are you sure? Um, but it was a dynamic at play. And I had a chip on my shoulder of being like, I can fucking do this. Like, I'm going to do it. And that day that I had called him at work, I started watching all 100 of Casey Neistat's vlogs that were available at that time. And I studied the shit out of these videos.

37:41And I just started learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. And we didn't have a lot of money at the time. And it sounded great to go to Costa Rica on someone else's time, right? So I started making, and it was a slow road to the amount of success that I had. And for the majority of the time that I was creating, it really was, and I feel a little like saying this, but it really was that we were genuinely living an interesting life, and then we were capturing that life. And then we were putting that life out to people. But what you see quickly happens is like the tail, you kind of start chasing like the tail, right?

38:24And like suddenly you're starting to live an interesting life so you can capture it. And that started to happen really at the tail end. And I think it was a big part of what led up to me stepping away. Little foreshadow here. In the process of doing this, when she had like 10 ,000 subscribers, was she was hiring people. And I was just starting to dabble with my own YouTube channel. And I was like, you're hiring people? Like, how are you doing this? And she's like, yeah, I'm hiring people. We have a process here. We have project management for my videos. And me, like one man band guy, I was like, I go into my black box and I make a video and it comes out.

39:02It's a video. And so she - Well, and you're at Vox and you're like, no one will project manage me. Yeah. Like we just were opposites in that way. I was like so protective and inefficient. She always had this knack for like, dude, just systematize it. Like, let's do like this. And, and that she built something. She really built a little organization around her thing. And I was developing a skillset with that. And, and, you know, that was both fortunate because I was able to transition my team over to him. That's huge. You know, that was so fortuitous. Like, again, I was scrappy one man band and she just brought that over and started to like orchestrate around me.

39:41Yeah. And that took us some time. It did. Because I was a bit of a stallion. That's the stallion. Best way to describe it? It's like the kindest way. Was that like the coolest way to describe it? You were a stallion like you were like. Interpret for me. What do you mean? I'm curious what you're understanding because I want to hear your interpretation of me being a stallion. I am probably more similar to you in that like I know I am in that like every time Samir has hired anyone starting with Jesse in the beginning I'm like what do we need Jesse for? Why is Jesse here? Because like I film, I edit.

40:12And I do the things the way I like to do them. Yes. Yes. Wild stallion. Yeah. Hard to tame. Yeah. Okay. I just never thought of myself as a wild horse. It's hard to tame. When I hear stallion. But now I am. It feels like my interpretation of what you just said is like, I'm like a hunk. Oh. That made it really hard. Because I'm a stallion. And it's like, whoa, bro, this is a weird curveball. I was like, how do I understand this right now? Like, I'm like feeling insecure. about like her boyfriend. You're true for her boyfriend, but I'm a stallion. Yeah, the issue is I'm so attractive. It's really tough.

40:48No, but I am an unruly, unpredictable, don't like systems or predictability. I want to just go in and break things and make it. And there's a lot of magic to be had there. And I think that, you know, we can get into where the company exists now. But yes, he was like a stallion short mixed with whimsy. Like he was like a unicorn. Like he just was like difficult to reign in. And so that was difficult, but also there was competition between us because I had given up this thing and then I was doing this other thing. And I couldn't do that other thing as well because I hadn't taken the time to study that other thing because we made two totally different crafts.

41:29Now we can co-produce, but it took years to get there. And so I'm glad at the time because I'm like, oh, I can transfer my skills and I could. but man was it tense between us for a period of time to figure out our especially on the creative side like her coming in and being like i'm going to operationalize your chaos that would have been fine was awesome i was like great i don't have to think about project management i don't think i assume i didn't have to think about sponsors i was like this is amazing yeah but then she's like but i want a say in these notes and i'm like but this is my thing and i and i was cagey about it because of see previous comment about being a hung stallion um and but she was like no i'm a creative i'm a filmmaker and so we had that sort of tension with time there was like you studied the craft like one thing about izzy is she's really good at getting good at things like she will be like it's like a it's maybe a pride thing or something where it's like if i'm not good at this i'm going to show that i can get good at and she got good at finance and deals and accounting and spreadsheets and explainers about international affairs.

42:34And now she is involved from the ideation and pitching all the way through to art direction. She leaves notes on - Do you like green light an episode? Yeah. Like if you guys have five ideas and you're excited about all five, are you the one who goes, we're doing this one next? So that wasn't the case for a long time, but now we do story days together and we're green lighting side by side. And so it takes the shape more like, let's say Johnny gets really excited about something and I'll kind of put on the brakes a little bit and be like, I don't know. I don't know. I just don't feel like we've landed there.

43:13And like, if Johnny says, I have a Trump card, if he says, I see it and I know it will be good. He's looking at me this whole time. He's pointing at you. Yeah, he really is. If he says, I see it and I know it's going to be good, then like there's enough trust between us that we can like disagree and commit you know well and part about being the stallion is like disagree and commit that's a bezos yeah you've read some books yeah yeah i'm big on disagree and commit it's important and in a jeff bezos yeah yeah that's exactly where that's from yeah and it's a fantastic no no i i see that now but i'm gonna keep trying there still is and this actually goes back to our to new press one of the things that we identified early on because we did try to scale me and be like, let's operationalize Johnny to the extreme.

44:01What we realized is that like, if it's going to be creator led, the creator at the top of each of these channels has to feel empowered to be like, this is my brain expressed. Yeah. So as he comes in, empowers, she brings in all these story ideas. We do this thing, but she does know at the end of the day, like I'm doing a disservice if I try to bulldoze something in. Yeah. And I took years of like proposing strategies to vet stories because he was operating almost entirely from the gut. And that's great. The gut is a great place to vet stories, but it should be one of the tools and probably the veto tool right in your tool belt, but it shouldn't be the only tool.

44:40and so now it's i'm excited about the story i just don't feel like we've landed on it that's me saying that and then it's like what if we like shift here we shift here we make it a bigger question or like and and what i think i bring is the ability to say like i don't know and for that exact reason i can relate to the audience better than you on this you know will you pay me a picture is this like a writer's room or is this just you two like 25 people is a lot of people so i'm like trying to understand what these people do and also the original team that you brought in. Who were those people and what did they do?

45:18At the time it was an editor and assistant. And then once I came on board, I hired another editor. So it was small. And those people grew. And I've had an editor assistant that I brought on. So our team is made up of a lot of post-production people, editors and animators. We have a senior production manager who oversees the entire production from a project management standpoint. She also field produces. And she has a production coordinator who works with her in tandem to keep all of the videos across all of the channels moving forward. We do not miss our deadlines. We do not publish late. We have, you know, it's like everything happens when it's supposed to happen.

46:01Every video is scheduled out for the next six months. Right now. And all of my time, all of my writing time is scheduled out until probably the end of January. Almost just like audibly gasped, but every video for the next six months. Yeah. Across all channels. And every deadline. And every deadline is already articulated. And my time is literally articulated and accounted for in blogs. Do you like that? I like it because it is, I like it for this chapter of my life in the sense that I am so prolific if I feel like I don't have a choice. I'm very ADD. If you're in the stable. If I'm in the stable.

46:36There we go. He almost chooses it. Or the racetrack. I'll say we could have extra time, but you do like the constraints. I choose to not know that there's flexibility. So I look at my calendar that has been designed for months, and I say for the next six hours I have to finish the script or I have to get this thing done or whatever. And my whole week is built off of those blocks, and they are down to the minute, and they are like a race every day. And that's how I get a wild stallion that's been investigated. Yes, I've been investigated. How many meetings do you have to be in, if any? Zero? As few as possible.

47:07Meetings to me are. Only in the afternoon. I will take them only in the afternoon after writing blocks. And as few as possible. They're usually high level business meetings where I want to sit in. Yeah. Or they are production kickoffs where I'm like transferring the script after I finish the script. Transferring that to somebody. There's like three days a week for me or back to back. Like I'll have eight meetings in a day. My communication is all asynchronous. So I am sending looms and Slack videos and voice notes. How do you maintain? Can we just, you just said you send voice notes, which is a character trait of the Harris family.

47:42I am a voice note obsessed person. This is my fault. So I am delighted by a 60 second voice note. Delighted. Well, that's a weakness of yours. A five minute, 17 second voice note, which is what I got from Iz. The audience can let us know if you guys agree, but there is a cutoff. five minutes is way beyond the cutoff for a voice note. I was on my way home from, or maybe I was heading into a doctor's appointment, but I had a moment and I was like, I'm going to tell him what I think. I do agree with you that it should be shorter. I am never going to call you. Who is going to find time to coordinate a call?

48:20No, don't coordinate the call. Just call me. I will be able to call you. We have slivers of time. For every minute you add to the voice note, I just think your expectation of when you'll get a response has to be delayed at least another couple of days. What you'll learn about me is I never expect to hear back. And you may also never hear back. And that's really what it is to be my friend. Personal texting. That's crazy. You and I would never tell. But we'd still love each other. And that's really most of my friendship. And that's what's happened. And I don't take any of it personally. And that's exactly the thing.

48:55The funny thing about, I think, our relationship is like, Johnny, you and I were on the phone the other day. And I, like, enjoyed it so much. and Johnny wanted off the phone so bad by the end. Yeah. And I was like, stay for a little bit more. He loves to end the conversation. I have another idea, Johnny. Make me so anxious because I'm always like, I'm cutting into a block. Sure. Like my blocks are sacred. And so I reduce meetings by sending five minute voice notes because I'm like in five minutes, I can get done. I can communicate what needs to be communicated. No, we're not sending voice notes.

49:24We're sending looms or Marco Polos, but it is the way that he communicates mostly with the team. We also have in-person team members. Our team is also made up of reporters who are in charge of fact-checking, but they're also story producing on videos. And to answer your question, they are pitching. But what it looks like when we have a story day is the two of us, and we're mostly going to be on our feet, and we're going to have a huge piece of paper that is sprawled out across a huge table. That's cool. And we are going to have markers, and we're going to be arguing and debating. And drawing thumbnails.

49:57All day. drawing out the thumbnail this is a new process that he implemented maybe six months ago and has been revolutionary it's like gone from the stallion's gut to a which is a wonderful place but I also it's because I believe that I need your team to animate Johnny's head on a stallion I can make that happen I believe that the best stories I really feel this strongly like if you're going to convince me that you should get 4 million people to sit down for 30 minutes of their time, precious time to watch a thing, then you sure as hell should be able to defend that story. And that doesn't mean like that it's not going to happen again, like he has veto power, but when he can, that's a good story.

50:48It's a really good exercise. It's a good story because he cares enough to do it. This is a weird thing that I've learned about human psychology, which is if you're creating for 100 ,000 people, the gut really works. It's like, I'm going to make something and 100 ,000 people are going to be interested in this or whatever. If you are creating and you have to reach 2 to 4 million people every time, which kind of we have to for the business to work. They have to be home runs every single time. Not every time, but again, he tells himself certain things. Don't tell them anything different. They kind of do.

51:20In order for the brands to come back and pay the rates that they do so that we can pay people, they have to be home runs every single time. You have 25 people on payroll. Yeah. The overhead is not cheap. It can't be volatile. So it can't be like I'm doing a video on something. No, they can't. So since we got to the point where the home run has to be pretty consistent, it has been very useful to not have it just be like, I'm interested in this esoteric thing and I'm going to make it interesting with animation. Is he coming in and being like, but defend it. Why is this interesting? Has been a really good exercise for me to appeal to a much bigger audience.

51:51Which he was very resistant to. Super resistant. Still kind of am. No, you're loving. I'm trying really hard, but boy, it is not easy for me. But I feel it. It's also your life that you have to defend. I will stop and say, I made a brand off of trolling Johnny. And I love. What do you mean you made a brand off of trolling Johnny? A big part of my channel was just trolling Johnny. I love to troll him. You have a fake account. Oh, I have a separate brand. yeah as the ceo of the company i also have a brand where i just shit on it and the brand deals over there are great they're incredible yeah actually no but they're not for him by the way those videos do pop trolling johnny harris yeah oh yeah oh they pop they pop yeah some of them are good face critiques but i will say he is and you've grown so much in this way You're an incredible, you're my very favorite creative collaborator.

52:53He's an incredible creative collaborator. It is a blast. Those moments, like, we love nothing more. We had a date the other night. We had, like, candles and pizza and, like, we had, like, four different meals. And we just drew thumbnails. No, but we were sitting there and we just debated for an hour on various subjects vigorously. Including whether or not Taylor Swift has an objectively good voice. I was hoping you wouldn't say that. And where she ranks to Sabrina. I'm going to cut you guys off right there. We're not even going to say anything. I'm not going to join this because I have too much time.

53:21No, and no one should. We've done this. Once the camera's cut, we'll start that one out. Everyone needs to stop this conversation right now. The whole point was because we need to be careful. Here's the thing. He's an incredible creative collaborator. He has come a, you've come a really long way. In collaborating. With being able to share that process and see the merit of someone else in that process. but now when we're both in on an idea it very often is our most successful video yeah and that's exciting and then it kind of proves the concept for like okay look at what we just did and we developed together we could do it again and again and again what leads up to that when you ask if it's just us is that our reporters and team members everyone's welcome to pitch we now we went through all sorts of pitching mechanisms and made them way too complicated and now I just say one sentence.

54:12One sentence pitch. That's all I need. If you want to do more, you go right ahead. That's not fully true. They do flesh out a couple points. There's a visual. But it's really hinged on, can you sell it? Can you really boil it down? And that forces the pitch to actually be something that we can approach. And technically they're asked to do one sentence, but they almost always give us more. I enjoyed the kind of sexiness of the one line pitch. So I'm going to forget what Johnny just said. It is what we assign them and it is what they're supposed to do, but they are overachievers and I appreciate that about them.

54:43And they turn something over that's like a little bit more. But can you convince me? And like the most, the least words possible that this is interesting. I am literally going to voice note the hell out of you with our ideas for our videos. Man. Because I need your feedback. But make it four minutes long. Izzy's really good at doing that. No, I know. I know. Izzy's feedback. I respect Izzy's feedback deeply. Like once I got ChatGPT to summarize your voice note. Which he did do. Which I did do. I really respected it. Yeah. You know, it was even better live. I listen to it like a podcast. I put it on in my car.

55:15I'll tell you what I did. I'll put music in the background. Sound effects. Yeah. I can do better. I'm going to edit it up a little bit. Wild Stallion song. And then I'll. I need Michael Barbaro. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say that for the most part, our team's pitches have not gotten through historically. And I think that that's been pretty frustrating for them. And frustrating for us, you know, but more frustrating for them. and this there is a there at the end of the day and this is i don't know if this is a strength or a weakness at the end of the day there is a final filter which is i have to be excited about and she can make me excited about something but if it doesn't click for me it does not get made even if it's an objectively good idea and like that is frustrating give me the few things that make it click just like a couple things he actually wrote these down it's if i can see like i have a very visual kind of weirdly visual where like things that shouldn't be visual are visual for me and yeah synesthesia yeah in addition to all sorts of other weird quirky things um everybody knew what that was except for me in this room like to words sees colors words and colors a lot of musicians talk about yeah if i okay so if if if a story comes in and intellectually it makes sense so like the intellectual filter i'll be like oh yeah that causal mechanism makes sense This equals this equals this.

56:32But then I need to be able to see something sexy. I need to be able to see an intro or a data viz or even a color scheme that makes me like see it in After Effects. Like see it in the editor and like feel and like I start to see the edit kind of. And that moment's very apparent once it hits for him. If I can get a little figment of just that, then I'm like I can see this thing through to the very end. I will sit through four or five days of scripting because I'm so stoked on this and I'll make it great. Can you give us an example of like in a video where you kind of had one of those initial visualizations or feelings?

57:09So we were in Scotland with our children, road tripping around, and the Washington Post published this like bombshell investigation, like this investigative report about Trump and Egypt and the 2016 campaign. It was like this sort of wonky investigation. We read that together one evening. We listened. It was 30 minutes long. We listened to the AI version of it. And as I was listening, I could see this. I could see exactly like the dark color scheme of the map. I could see the thin lines connecting. I could see the money icons. And I was like, done. Like, yes. And it's like, and then we talked about it.

57:47We're like, we can make it this. And then, you know, like we have to actually make it into a green light-y type thing. but if I can see that then it just it's like a fire is starting to actually catch and I need some version of that for me to feel good about a story I'll get through a story and sort of if I don't feel that but it's way harder and it's way less pleasant and it doesn't at the end of the day it doesn't have the same kind of is that a DNA from Vox to the audience because like Cleo says the same thing right of like a key visual so so Cleo the key visual is a little different key visual is a more of an intellectual exercise where if there is a visual that anchors it where it's like with this visual we can explain the story that is a strong marker for like we should do this we could be more disciplined in that yeah and and i used to do that way more with my story pitches what i'm referring to is way more subjective and way more of like a feeling it's like a weird like sort of inspirational kind of feeling that i do get I get it like I was just on the airplane writing a story about AI war and I was just trying to like get that that kind of like excitement the art of it because I want these stories to be artful I don't want them to just be information I want them to I want people to feel something when they watch them and that feeling starts with that little kind of spark early on so like that is the final filter for me for a story that I know is but but again that's a strength like I think it would be inauthentic to the audience for Johnny to push forward stories that he's not excited about unless we feel for some other reason we need to urgently cover them.

59:20Like Trump and Kamala, honestly. There are other reasons to cover things. We should do this because it makes sense. We rarely do that. But they're there for him and for the way that he explains the world and sees the world and what he's curious about. So it should be something that we're filtering through. Like right now, Finland. Finland is all I can think about. I've been talking about Finland because I feel the spirit on Finland. Don't you? See, can't you feel that? I'm sorry. it's all he's thinking about right now I can see the shots of like some base in northern Finland right now and I'm going to go there and make a fucking amazing piece because I can see it and I don't know what the story is going to be about because like I'll figure that out and that's where something gets greenlit like that that is there are still moments where that is just greenlit because it just makes sense to me how do you though make sure and stress test that it's not something that's going to get a hundred thousand views I story edit at some point.

1:00:14So like for instance. But we know like I know that it's going to get two and a half million views. Finland will get two and a half million views. So what's another example? Because you were saying like there are times where you come in and you're like, okay, I know you like that idea and you're excited. But I'm going to defend it to make sure that it really. So he just made a video in Georgia and I, the country, and I was concerned about it. I was concerned about. I didn't fully grasp the story that he was going to tell. He hadn't really explained it very well, which is a red flag to me because it's like, okay, well, you clearly don't understand this yet, which sometimes is a strength for a field story.

1:00:48But I was concerned. And time, you know, Finland's easy because Finland just performs. People are fascinated by Finland. It does. Yes, it does. I don't like I am not on this. Our next upload is Finland. I am not on Finland. I don't know if Finland performs. Well, it's like it does. It performs. I think I've convinced you. I think the contagion has been caught. No, no, no, no. She's like, Finland's fucking amazing. No. So, but I... Well, of course Finland is a one out of ten. Well, of course Finland's great. So we... Samir's like, what are they talking about? I don't know what you guys are talking about.

1:01:21Finland. Okay, I'm done with Finland. Okay, moving on. I was mad about this video. I was mad that he was pushing it. We had just kind of come off of some Russia-focused videos, and this was going to be about Russia. and we were seeing from our audience real Russia fatigue. And that is a real thing in news cycles. And there were other things more, not necessarily more urgently going on, but going on. And I really felt like we need to pivot and I'm not sure that this has it. And he didn't convince me that it was visual. And we agreed to disagree. And he flew out like a week later. And I was I was very suspicious of this story.

1:02:04Once you come back and this has changed. But if we're, you know, you come back a little bit more humbly, too, where you're like, I'm just not sure how I'm going to shape this thing. You know, the stallion has been domesticated. Yes. It's in the stable. But that process is going to be us sitting probably in premiere and we're workshopping what the assembly is of that and how it's going to work and what is the hook and what and I'm looking at the script and I'm story editing that. And it's not to say I go in there and I make magic. He makes magic. But I come in with what we call on our team fresh brain.

1:02:43And fresh brain cannot be underestimated. When you're steeped in a story, when it's everything that you know and you've been thinking about, you no longer know, or it's very unlikely that you do know, what is the most interesting part. It's why you talk to people about something and like experts, they're terrible. Experts are terrible about talking about what they know. You know, and so you need someone with fresh brain who's like, actually, the most interesting part that struck me is this. And that's a collaborative process. That's been a huge thing. Sometimes we used to get in bigger. You know, that was one like we now know how to kind of scuffle together and be like, whatever, we're going to make the thing and I'm going to really show up to make it great.

1:03:24And I will never not. You know, like I'm all in on whatever we're going to make. Because I'm really invested in the channel and New Press. Like I really, really, really believe in the mission and the impact that we can have. That's not bullshit. I really do. So that's why I show up. We used to get in like pretty big fights when this was like last year. Yeah. When we'd be like a month into a story or we're six months into a story or we're near publishing a story and I would just turn to him and I'd be like, you hate this story. I know you hate this story. It is like pulling teeth, getting you to go through this story.

1:04:04So why did you say yes? Why did you greenlight it? Why did you let someone put this forward? And that's on you, to be clear. It's not on the researcher or the story producer. That is on you. And you were overwhelmed and stretched. When we were publishing, when you started seeing me every week, that was at a time when we were scaling me. And it turned into a lot of that final filter thing. I was like, whatever. I'm now being humble. And I started to humble myself too much. and the wild stallion was suddenly just like a pony. I actually had to say like, we're going to stop with that. No, I'm going to keep going with this because it actually is a really good metaphor.

1:04:39There's fear because this could go so far and we really don't know where this metaphor ends. You're saying the stallion thing. I'm currently... It could follow me home. This is a new metaphor that we're going to hit. So anyway, it's all visual for me. It's a one out of 10. I did start to.

1:05:02It's a good metaphor. I did start to green light stuff that I didn't actually feel the spirit on. And it was later on once I was later on like, this is horrible. So we've reached this really nice collaboration where like Izzy really understands what I'm trying to do. She builds that up. I'm humble enough, but I also like that could have come off as me being critical. I wasn't being critical. It was like an aha moment. And I had to fight for him, you know, as his partner more than his business partner. At that point, I wasn't really even thinking and optimizing the performance as much. Now it's all I think about.

1:05:37But then it wasn't. And I really was like, why are you doing this to yourself? You're going to ruin it. Because I knew. I knew what that felt like. You keep making something that you hate, you're not going to be able to sustain it. Because you're not just doing this as like a technician. You're doing it as an artist. And that is pulled from somewhere inside of you. It's like Elizabeth Gilbert, big magic, magic. You know, it's like that is a it's a finite, you know, resource and it needs resupplied. And so I actually pulled him aside and it was two things. It was please stop doing this. It was three things.

1:06:09Please stop doing this because it makes my job so much harder. I'm so tired of pulling you through stories that you don't want to do. I'm so tired of trying to get you to leave notes on stuff that you are over. You know, it was also. don't do this because it's going to hurt something that you really love doing. He really loves making videos, you know? And then the third was, I need you to be a little bit more of a diva. I need you to throw your elbows around. I need you. That's coming across. Yeah. The talent is back. It's back. You know, but I really was like, I need you to walk into these rooms and say, no, no, we're not telling that story because I don't find it interesting.

1:06:49We're not telling that story because I don't know if it's good. I will do that, but I can't pump out four videos a month. I can't. And I was like, too bad. So this year was actually the first year that, this is fairly new. Like this is the first year that we went down to like two videos. So we know we could do more. Two and a half. Two and a half on average. The hell does that mean? Oh, oh. It means two. Spread out over the year. Just to be fair to his average. It's called the mean? Yeah, what's happening? so so and that gave me this space to to actually feel the spirit it's not a math show two and a half yeah we're not math two and a half what do you mean yeah I was like like shorts yeah yeah that's the process you guys are now you know like scaling beyond Johnny right search party is is a channel you guys launched that I when I first saw that I was kind of wary I mean I didn't know much about where the org had gone like I didn't know you had 25 employees so I looked at that and I was like, yeah, sure.

1:07:48And then now, as I'm talking to you more, I'd love for you guys to just pitch New Press, what it is, what it's going to become. What are you doing now? Where does this org, this DNA that you've created, which I really respect because everything you're saying is problems that we face and problems that a lot of creatives face. I think we may set up a call with you to just, I'm actually 100 % serious to run through. The more I can chat with you guys, the better. is incredibly challenging. Scaling taste is probably the hardest thing. Being bottlenecked by taste is incredibly challenging. So all the above.

1:08:25And then also going like creativity and performance, like you're half programming executive, half filmmaker, right? You have to operate as both as a creator. And actually you kind of have to operate more as a programming executive than a filmmaker, right? It's 80, 20 probably. So all of that, you know, again, I look at what you're doing and I'm like, you guys have found incredible success. Yeah. You could just keep doing this. Yeah. You can probably make generational wealth doing it. Yeah. Why do more? So great question. And let me explain first what it is we're building because it might help answer some of the questions and like those pitfalls you mentioned that get really tricky.

1:09:06We are building a new news media entity called New Press. And that is going to be the umbrella company that is over five to eight excellent creator-led independent journalism channels. And they're all lovely. And I'm lucky, truly, to work with each of them. Um, so, so it will be those channels and those creators will have very small teams that creatively they manage, but operationally and project management wise, they do not. We have a full operation. Go ahead. Do they get a salary or are they partnered into the channel? It's a great question. We have full ownership of the channel. They get a salary and benefits.

1:09:54And then they get a generous rev share over time as the channel scales. And they are all very, very happy with the deal. And we feel with the perspective of creators that it's a good deal, given the fact that they will not have to, one, take the risk of launching their own business. But that is kind of, I don't know if that's like the sell really, because they'd be successful. And I tell them this on the call, they'd be successful. They'd make something huge. Look at Clio, you know? But they really don't want to run a business. They really, really don't. And so what I make sure is the case is that they are not worrying about brand deals.

1:10:40They are not worrying about agencies. They are not worrying about syndication. They are not worrying about publishing. They are not worrying about upload timelines. They have a full project management team. They have thumbnail designers at their disposal. I do all hiring. I do all firing. I do all performance reviews. Everything is handled. So they, which this is what they approached us about wanting to do, they get to still sit down and just make the thing. And it doesn't mean it's not draining creatively. It is. You can't really escape the fact that they're always going to be having to come up with ideas, like you said.

1:11:14But they're not doing all of the rest. And if we're doing our job really well, they're not really thinking about it too much either. The other sell is hopefully we can make something that is bigger and more impactful together. We're story editing one another. We've learned so much. Each of the people that's come on board and are coming on board are very passionate about the idea of growing something as a group, as a cohort, and having that camaraderie and that trust and someone to kind of like fall back on and look to and pitch to and brainstorm with. And when you spend time doing it on your own, you realize how hard it is to not have that, you know, and all of them are coming from entities where they have had that.

1:12:05So that is the structure. That's the thing that we're growing. Do you have? It's just very cool to see you embody this like badass media mogul, you know? Yeah. Thank you. It's just really cool. Like I've known you for a long time and you just feel very natural in this. I really believe it. I think it's fun because I really, really believe in it. I really do. And like, I've done other things and tried other things we all have that like, I, it just didn't fully click. Like I believe something needs to change. I don't think we're going to be the only solve. I hope like really pray to the God that I don't believe in that we are not like, I really, really hope that we're not, but I think we can be one part of the solve and a pretty impactful one if we reach the audiences that I think we're capable of reaching.

1:12:58And so that gets us a little bit more to like, what is the mission? Like what, what is it that makes a new pressed independent, like creator led channel? Right. And, and that's a myriad of things. I've talked a lot about accessibility because I'm deeply, deeply passionate about it. Majority of Americans do not read past a sixth grade level. That is a real fact. And it's a real problem. And if we don't acknowledge it, we're leaving so many people behind in what is already an information vortex, you know, like it is a tornado out there. And so I really, first and foremost, want our videos to be accessible to anyone and everyone who wants to learn about the world.

1:13:51What does that mean? It means using plainer language, not being jargony and wonky because it feels good, not getting caught up in what's really easy to get caught up in, which is speaking to your peers and to experts. Still having to be rigorous. I think. Yeah, and it doesn't sacrifice rigor. That's another pillar. These videos are deeply rigorous and deeply researched and deeply fact-checked now. We did get called out at one point for that, and they've always been fact-checked, but we did not have the level of interventions that we have now. So they're rigorous, they're visual, they're accessible.

1:14:32and they are they're creator led I think that the other thing that New Press allows us to do and the thing I'm excited about is like right now payroll relies on home runs from the Johnny Harris channel. Yeah the stakes are high for your channel. The stakes are high for one channel that is bottlenecked around one stallion. So long as you talk about Finland you're good. Which is actually the next six months of videos is just Finland. It's just Finland in part one through twelve. we may even launch a new press channel just for Finland new press is strictly about Finland I actually should have just said that it's making Finland accessible again again so you poke around this episode you're going to get so lost oh boy it's so true this is not one you can skip around on seriously let's flip that no if you watch the whole thing you'll be found you'll be found.

1:15:30Yeah. There's a lot of pressure in that. And there's a lot of key man risk. There's a lot of like bottlenecking around like Johnny write the script. And that that isn't actually a good creative energy for the company. It's it's exciting for me. It's exciting for us as we make these like big bangers. But at some point somebody's been hanging out with Mark Rober. Yeah. Bangers. Gotta hit those bangers. But actually. When did that happen? That's actually very true. Juicy nuggets and bangers. Juicy nuggets and bangers. Juicy nuggets. But I, when I'm 45 years old, I hope that we have a media company.

1:16:12I still want to be making videos, but I hope that the pressure is distributed across a larger set of creators and sort of verticals so that I can start to exercise my creativity in a different way. Right now, my creativity is exercised because I have these highly pressurized, prolific blocks of writing and a beautiful organization that, like, makes it all happen and a creative collaborator and producer that helps bring it to life. I don't know if when I'm 45 I want to be doing that. I don't know if when I'm 45 I want to have my next six months planned out to the minute. Yeah, or at that volume.

1:16:51And I don't know if I want to be publishing two and a half times a month on average for a year. I think what the newspaper had was that it did have the front page. It did have the crossword. That kind of is what people bought it for. Most people buy it for the entertainment and the sensational thing. But then in between, in the middle of these pages, there is deep dive investigations, the spotlight section that's doing really important journalism. The people aren't paying for that. They're not buying this for that. But because they're buying it for the front page and the crossword, the journalist can do the six-month investigation.

1:17:26I want to be able to do the six-month investigation. That doesn't really make sense financially, but because we have a big organization, I can do that. And it's floated by the fact that we're all doing this. So I think what New Press allows us to do is replicate the incentives of old media, which had some really good things, but do it in this sort of creator-led new media way and to distribute some of that risk and also pool together creative talent. Like it's a really exciting prospect for me. I could never build it. I would never want to build it. If it were me without is, I would just make videos all the time for the rest of my life.

1:18:05Stallion in the wild. Stallion in the wild. And it would be wild and chaotic and crazy, but it would work. And it would be financially successful. And it'd be a lot more about Doritos. And there would be weird shit in there. And there would be moss and there'd be Doritos in a lot of Finland. And it would be fun. And so much Finland. And yet her role in all of this coming over and building this thing has afforded us like a, another opportunity, a different vision that I'm really excited about. How do you not become Vox? How do you not fall to the same fate? Okay. I do. I've been talking about this.

1:18:34This is actually, I am not even kidding. Like both pillow talk and like the first thing I started. We should clarify for the audience though, that like Vox, like what I just said, do you agree with that? of like, you know, there was at one point where Vox was the greatest video journalism I had ever seen in my life. Yes. I think Vox was transformative for video journalism. And also their brand has become a little bit more diluted and is objectively performing less well in the last few years. Because my opinion from the outside looking in is that any media company, when you get big you face revenue pressures that are at odds with creativity yeah vox that's one that's that is one theory buzzfeed but the vox but the vox story is different and it's a different cautionary tale for us so let me let me say the first thing and i'm not saying this like truly out of any pressure it's something i've been thinking a lot it's the same thing like what i said about news media and like how it has a place i used to just be like fuck it we're done with it.

1:19:40We don't need like news anchors and we don't need breaking news. We do. We do. We need some version of it and someone has to do it. And like you said, it's synergetic. Separately, Vox Video, which is really where we were most involved with the brand. I mean, that's where I got my start. We would not be where we are without it. And also, it has so dramatically shaped what we do. They came up with the craft that we have now built our entire company on. We ask ourselves often, how do we protect ourselves from that risk of becoming so big and so corporate that your audience feels distant and disconnected from what you're making?

1:20:30And your talent leaves. Your talent leaves. That's really scary. The first solve was, how do we create a deal that gets talent to want to stay? Turns out, you pay them for the work that they're doing. you pay them some part at least of what they are bringing into the company right and that was a big place a big area they were bringing nothing like when i was at vox doing borders and i was the most popular show i was getting paid a good salary but vox was not monetizing that show it would get 100 million views per season and they were not monetizing that and there was no talent bonus so I was not getting paid for that.

1:21:09And there was no plan to say, Johnny or Cleo or whoever is someone who wants to build a sort of brand here, we're going to give you a path. They tried, but it was never a priority. And so the cautionary tale for us is there's all kinds of like company culture stuff and all these things that like we want to preserve because Vox had that. but the cautionary tale is if you want people to stick around and grow this thing and put them above the brand that is why New Press is going to be something that no one really knows I mean us industry folks will talk about it but like it's going to be Search Party and it's going to be Tunnel Vision it's going to be Johnny Harris that's what people will know and you may not even know and you may not know that they're totally connected because we think that the creators will stick around if they are given freedom and compensated And so that is our antidote.

1:22:02And we think the audience will feel most connected if it's more about the creator than the brand itself. So those are a couple things that we're trying to improve. But the corporate question is one that keeps me up at night. How do we keep it scrappy? I think a big mistake that these companies made is, well, I think two big mistakes. And I don't know that we won't make them. I hope we won't. But I'd be naive to say it's totally avoidable. Because I'm sure if I sat down with those people, they'd say, you know what? I had the same exact fears and I tried really hard. And it just turns out it's really, really hard once you reach a certain size to retain that quality.

1:22:38What are the two things? I'm like, I'm like. Let me set you up. Keep you. So the two things are. I'm like, you're giving me the other side of the story of what they're saying. Separation of creative and operations. Yeah. They cannot overlap. And revenue. And revenue. It's on the operational side. Yes. Although those are deeply intertwined. They're deeply intertwined. Revenue and creative are deeply intertwined. My team does not need to know that something, and I'm talking about my team of hosts and creators, they don't need to know that something underperformed one time. They don't need to know that on this video, their conversion levels were this bit below.

1:23:14They do not need to know that. It does not matter. It's okay. We're in it for the long haul, right? And there's other ways to shape it because I know how to bridge both. I can shape it on the creative without shaping it using my operations skills, right? Or my revenue knowledge. Those two have to remain separate. When I hire someone on the operations side, I have a very clear conversation that they will not touch creative. They will not pitch stories. They will not shape stories. They will not talk about what the color should look like or what the map should look like. They won't talk about how the thumbnail should look like.

1:23:49They can talk about it with their friends. They could even talk about it with their colleagues, though I'd prefer they don't. Don't you dare bring up Finland. Because the creative team is in charge of that. Do not talk about Finland. Don't say that word here. Nope. Most people, and what that does is it's not like at that point I'm hiring someone who's like, I have creative aspirations, but sure, I'll be over here. It's not punitive. It's that I am making sure I find the person who's like, I love this and I love supporting that through this and I'm happy to stay over there. That's essential. The other thing that I think is really, really important to be wary of is that you have to keep the processes scrappy.

1:24:35You have to be wary of just increasing overhead for overhead's sake. The hires have to be really strategic. They have to one amount to more volume for the most part so that they're not just a weight on the system. And there's some fun weights to hire, but they just create pressure to make more. So you have to be really strategic and go like, am I going to get what we need out of this to support this creator? If the answer is no, if it's not going to make their life easier and them better at doing what they do best, or it's not going to make the operation side more strong and scale what they're doing to get more bang for their buck with that effort, it has to be a no.

1:25:14It has to be a no for us. We also have to be wary of growing too big. I don't want a huge company. I don't. I don't have aspirations for that. I want something. I never want to grow in a way, and I'm not saying that those other places did this because I don't think they did. I don't think that's what happened. I don't want to grow in a way that we optimize for speed and sacrifice quality. I want quality to always be our number one and quality in the videos. Quality in the communication, quality in the visuals. Like that has to be our North Star. I think the day we shift on that or we compromise on that, it's just like it's a ticking time bomb at that point.

1:26:00We think about this often. You have to develop a very clear-cut understanding of what success looks like and how much money you want. Yeah. Honestly. And we don't know. Like we're at this point where we're really getting our heads around new press, the vision. we haven't put scale we've we've basically said like five to eight channels but in terms of like in the weeds what that looks like i think there's going to be momentum towards like well if it's eight why don't we do 10 you know like we're gonna have to really be disciplined about putting the brakes on because it will be very hard to go back in time but i think again if that north star is the north star like if the if the creative quality is the north star then the answer to why not 10 is likely because launching that many channels sacrifice quality.

1:26:46Well, that's the thing. And Izzy is really good at scaling. Izzy is amazing at scaling. She's been able to scale and keep quality well beyond what I thought was possible. And so it's like, I think we're going to get really good at this because of what she's built. I'm worried that there will be that momentum. And so we have talked about, even today, on the Uber over here, I was saying like, I want to make sure that the momentum of making stuff and the money that comes in doesn't become so much that like we don't know when to push the brakes and have me step back and have a season of making stuff that takes longer.

1:27:22That's going to require some planning and some really firm boundaries. It's also not an overnight skill. And real leadership. Yeah. And we had a situation this week where we secured almost all of our sponsors for next year, which I've never done at this point in the year. It was very exciting. And then more. And it was, we knew how many videos we were making. How many videos? Three per month on average. 2.5-ish. Three. 36 videos. 36. 36 next year. Yeah. And there's ways that that works. And 36 on the Johnny Harris channel. On the Johnny Harris channel. For new press across the board, how many videos do you think you guys are publishing?

1:28:0224 on Search Party. So, and then the other channel will be making likely a weekly show. A hundred videos. Oh, well, if it's a weekly show, then it will be 150. And then Tunnel Vision will be making every month. So, scare the shit out of it. So, between 100 and 150 that you know are going to, and all of them are sponsored. And then a billion shorts. Yeah. And they're all going to be sponsored. Yeah, roughly. Not the shorts, though. No, the shorts won't be sponsored, but all the VOD will be. Every single long-form VOD is sponsored. yes i don't let something go live 100 % this lady over here i'll take the job yeah i'll come work for you and so yes that that is the plan but they were pushing us you know they weren't pushing us i i i'm i if my if our agent media mogul in our industry yeah yeah but seriously but hopefully like yeah itty bitty one but like um so i did say that they were pushing us we're same height.

1:28:55I just need to be able to stay home a lot. That's all I'm saying. But, uh, yeah, no, I just need, I just, I just, man, we were getting, we weren't getting pressure. It felt like pressure because it's money. My agent, Mark, is the best human on the planet and would never pressure me to take a single thing ever or you. But more came through. And the reason I say this is because I think it's, again, it's another muscle that if you're not practicing now, you're fucked. Saying no? Yes. Saying no. And we said no. I'm bad at that. We not only said no, we said no. And also go back to those brands and make them flex on this and this and this because we're not even going to – I'm not making our hosts make videos quicker or publish on a different month than they want to.

1:29:53I love that this is all happening. This is going to be how this is. This is the first time I'm hearing about this. I'm like, this is fucking awesome. Wait, we have sponsors? I was like, this company is so cool. Can I work there? Do you by chance need a stallion? Boy, do we. And so, so, you know, to our agency and team's credit, they went and made that happen because they're very good at doing that. But I think that it's, it's similar to like, you know, we watch people retire and they're lost and then they just kind of go back to work because they just never figured out how to love something and feel like self-worth out of something outside.

1:30:32Hard to do. Very hard to do. I got a lot of fulfillment out of this thing, you know? um but you have to be practicing those things as you go and practicing saying no and practicing saying it's enough and and it is enough like let's be real at that point at six channels it's enough and i if i do it right it's like really good and that's like that's i mean i want the money but that's also like that's way better it's really good and hopefully it's it's good for the world you know like hopefully i i watch our our son uh henry who's autistic and he's almost 12 which is crazy that's crazy and terrifying and um and he watches our videos both as they're being like watches the fine he's like is the is the pentagon budget one ready yet dad and then he knows publish the fine he knows publish day he tracks it because we've said like it will publish And then he comes and he's like, I heard there was a new search party video on NATO, you know, and I'm, he's like, can I watch it?

1:31:34And he watches them over and over and over again. And sometimes we're on a plane and I'm like, people are going to think we're narcissists because he just keeps watching like Johnny for, you know, six hours. But when I see that, like, this is my son who struggles to read and to write, you know, he's a brilliant, one of the most brilliant minds. And this is not hyperbolic. He is one of the most brilliant minds I have ever come across in my entire life. And I've spoken to some brilliant people. This kid understands like theoretical mathematics on a level that you and I and him will never. but reading and writing is really challenging for his specific brain and the way that it works and when I see him light up and understand geopolitics and economics and climate and all of these different things that I'd never dreamt of understanding in my lifetime let alone at 12 that is like the fuel that gets me going that is the thing that I'm like there are so many Henry's out there.

1:32:34They may not be on the autism spectrum. They may not even have a disability, but they feel disenfranchised or they feel like they fell through the cracks or they feel frustrated with how their brain learns. They feel frustrated with how information is presented. And we can be the place that gets like that light to turn on where it's like, oh, one, it's okay to not know something. And two, isn't it so fun to learn it? And that's like, I want to do that more and more and more, But only to six channels. On this subject of like scaling a creative organization, like what you guys are doing with New Press is like something that a lot of creators won't get to.

1:33:13When you first came in with Johnny, like any creator who's trying to build a team around themselves, similar to like when I listened to Bezos on Lex Friedman, I was really amazed at some of his little points about organization, about time to decision, like decision-making as a metric in an organization. He had frameworks about building a team that I just hadn't heard and really turned a light switch in my head. I think a lot of creators who are trying to solve hiring or building a creative organization would appreciate some knowledge of even three things that you would say are critical that you've learned in building a creative organization.

1:33:56okay so okay uh this is stealing one from cleo who is one of my best friends her husband um who is also one of my best friends um but he always says that bias towards action should be number one and that is something that we have in spades johnny and i we have no patience to do things the right way or the long way or the, you know, complicated way, it gets us in trouble. It really does. And it's actually a problem. But for the most part in business, it serves us well. So bias towards action. You make decisions quick. You do things fast. You break things. And you don't talk about it. You don't get the feel good of talking about a problem or presenting the reasons it can't happen.

1:34:41You get the feel good by solving the problem of what is the first step towards. I actually don't even want to hear about the problem until you've taken some steps. Yeah. Multiple steps. Yeah. And you are sure you cannot solve that problem unless that problem is urgent and you need to talk to me. So bias towards action. The other is to be kind. And I know that that sounds like, oh, how sweet, but it actually is a bit self-serving be kind to other people. It took me a while to learn that. I'm kind in my life, but when business starts to happen, it gets harder. You're on deadlines and there's a lot of pressure and you're moving quickly and you're frustrated.

1:35:32And you only have about five minutes to express that frustration before you have to move on to the next fire that needs to be put out, right? Right. And you can't, you can't, and it will not be effective to bully people into doing the thing that you want them to do. That's obvious within a team or it should be, but it's something that needs to be applied outside of your team with people, with companies that you work with, with your agency, with your finance team, with, you know, people you outsource to, with the brands that you work with. I always say that I want us to be the nicest and coolest rocket ship in town.

1:36:08It's like everyone wants to work with us because we treat them well. They leave us feeling good. But we have high expectations and we're moving fast, you know, and it's like come on the rocket ship, but you better hurry up. You better move at our pace. But at the end of the day, we're going to show up with kindness and respect and like humanity. It is important. It's important as you're building relationships in this industry. And it's important that your team is on board because they reflect you and they reflect the brand. And then it's important that you're on board with your team because it would be hypocritical otherwise.

1:36:41Right. And it's something that I had to get better at over time. I would say the, the one that has been so fundamental for me in this relationship is finding where structure works and leaves room for your creativity and that you can create reliable structures, templates. Like for me, it was just templates for a really long time. It was my script templates. Our script is this very, very large document with all of these templates and tables and color coding and all of this stuff. It's incredible what he's made. That allows a team to actually work together with a lot of communication and structure that's reliable.

1:37:23Another version of that is what Izzy's built with the operation and the project management. It is structure that still allows for creativity. So any kind of repetitive creative system. That doesn't constrain the creativity. It can constrain. So you have to find the places where you can put structure and template around your creativity because you're going to be doing this over and over and over and over again. And that to do that in chaos every single time is not sustainable. And so finding ways to boil down what you do into. And obsessively reduce lag, like just like where you can so that you can just stick to doing the thing you do best.

1:38:03Yeah, and getting rid of the sections that you don't. And that's honestly advice for hiring. That's like how you hire is you find the things that you don't have to love. Not just that. You find the things, you look in the mirror with your most honest self, and you say, what do I not do best? If I set my ego aside and I set all these protective measures to tell myself that I'm a good CEO aside, what do I not do best that someone else could do better? I'm a good operations person. I've built a company. It's working, but I will not be handling the operations in our company because it's not what I do best.

1:38:42And that is okay. It has to be okay. And it's also not what I love. I think if it were what I love, you know, I enjoy it, but if it were what I love, I might choose to come up, you know, you can, you can come up with other reasons that something's valuable, but finding, finding out what, what you do best and being really honest and then hiring for the things that you don't is essential. That kind of structure. Okay, the last one. No, four. I know you only asked for three. But this one really, really matters, and it really matters with hiring. And it took me a while to be able to put it into words.

1:39:17Caring more about getting it right than being right. And this could be applied to everything. Marriage, being a parent, being a journalist, being a CEO, being a team member. In our team, there is an expectation that each and every one of us cares more about getting it right than being right. And that shows up in different ways. If I come to you with feedback, one, I hope you trust that that's a sign of respect and that I believe that you can grow on this team. And that if I weren't giving you feedback, that should raise some red flags for you. You're about to get axed. Yeah, or maybe I just don't think you can do that thing.

1:39:55And so, you know, when you get 100 notes on a cut, know that it's because I see the potential in that cut and the potential in you and I know you can handle it, you know. But let's say I'm coming to you with feedback. My hope would be, and I express this in return, that you hear me and you take a moment to care more about getting it right than being right. It does not matter in that moment that your defense mechanisms come in, that you want to be right, that it hurts, that you're not right, that it's scary, that you're embarrassed. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. I'm actually good to never talk about it again with my team members.

1:40:32We don't need to hush it out. I don't need to know why. Just tell me that you care about getting it right and that you'll do it differently next time. That's it. All feelings gone. I'm not frustrated. You're good and you're going to improve. The other way that that shows up is in our journalism. We try really hard to create a culture that's allergic to posturing by showing up and needing to express that you know things. It is like the quickest way to shut down good dialogue, to show up and like pretend you know everything about Israel and Gaza. When like there's a few people in the world who are experts and spend their entire careers on this.

1:41:12And they would say they don't know everything about Israel and Gaza, right? So like it's just silly. So the goal there is that every single time we show up in a discussion or with ideas, that you care more about getting to the destination where you understand it, getting it right, which is going to mean dialogue and questioning and asking and admitting what you don't know, instead of being right and showing up with all the information. If you have hires who can do that, you've got a really great team. Yeah. There it is, folks. I love that. Yeah. If we didn't have a cap on this, we would keep going.

1:41:51We have to do it again. We would turn it into a joke. But I think you guys, when we have our new studio, need to come to us. This is essentially a voice note to the audience. Yeah. This is a voice note to the audience. But man, I'm really excited for you guys. I think like what you've built is incredible. I think like it can't be stated enough that you guys are meticulous in your storytelling and in your creative work. like every frame is thought about. And I think that, um, is something that we should all really look at and respect deeply because it's very easy to not do that. Yeah. You have the option to not do that and you choose to do it, uh, in your style and your voice.

1:42:31And, uh, I love it. I love it. I can't wait to see what happens with new press. Uh, who knows? I imagine as you were talking, I was like, is you'd be a great person to work for. I've never really had a job, but I think I I would take a job with you. I hope so. I can always do better. And I really mean that. I think on the subject of empathy, like you have empathy towards creatives, which I think is important in the next cohort of CEOs. Hugely important. Creative companies. Okay. I'm not opening any other subject matter. I have nothing to say to you. Thank you guys so much. This is great. Thanks guys.

1:43:11Thank you.