Special guest Joe Aston joins, Winter Olympics Sexism, the Rise and Fall of Luke Sayers, Corporate Travel Management and Temple & Webster Crash

21:39My point more is when it comes down to five hundredths of a second, like why don't they just stick everyone in the same bobsled? Let's see who's the best. I agree. That would be much – I think the same with cycling. Should we be using the same bike? Even BMX. Yeah. So the one to watch if you're going to watch bobsleds. Totally. Now I want to move to this point, which is Annika Wells, your favourite minister, because you're always defending her. She's well out of the news, isn't she? Well, so she can't travel anymore, basically. You agree? She's stuck in Queensland. Yeah, she's not going anywhere.

22:06Because the minute she gets on a plane, presumably her husband's like you can't go without me and then there's two tickets right so she's not going anywhere which takes her adult kids as well that was the problem so it's all over I think and so she didn't even go to the Winter Olympics do you know that? nor should she really why is sports minister going to the Olympics? it's ridiculous I'll probably have you been to the Olympics? least of all with that I haven't been to an Olympics does Catapult do much Olympics stuff? yes lots of Olympics stuff and so Sydney Olympics obviously I went to I didn't go I haven't been to the Olympics I really I went to Commonwealth Games Sydney Olympics was amazing and so I was a bit young and so Annika was wants to still make comments about sport because she's a sport minister.

22:40And her comment was how proud she was that 62 % of the Australian Winter Olympic team is female. Okay. So how do you feel about that comment? I find it a highly sexist comment. Sexist, right? Yeah. You think it's sexist or not sexist, Mike? You're scared now. I don't know if I'd call it sexist. I need customers, right? Mike's too woke for this question. Sexist or not sexist, Joel? He's got a microphone there? He's also. He's scared to answer. He can't answer. You're all scared to answer. But you're the reason our society is going down the toilet, by the way. So sex is for two reasons. One is one of the main reasons, the percentage.

23:21Let me tell you these numbers. I'm going to tell you participation numbers and you tell me what you think this pertains to. Yeah. 20, 22, 27, 29. I think those are the numbers. No idea. What do you think that pertains to? No idea. It's got to do with the number of participants of Australian athletes in the Winter Games. I don't know that. And so that is the number of participants, the number of male participants, starting four years ago and going forward to this year. So it started at 29 and now we're down to 20 male participants. One of the reasons is because in order to equalise the number of female participants in the Winter Olympics, which I totally support, they had to reduce the number of male participants because they didn't want a larger overall number of participants.

24:06So it's now harder to get into the Winter Games as a male and so the number of men has been steadily diminishing over time. Now, it shouldn't have to diminish just because it's harder. We might get better, but we don't get better. And so one reason the number of female participants has risen is simply because the number of male participants has diminished. So the percentage goes up, right? But the second reason I think it's sexist is even more consequential, which is the split between men and women in the Winter Games is now 53-47. It used to be much worse. It's almost the same. More females or more males?

24:39More males. 53-47. I'm totally in. It should be 50-50. Yeah, sure. That's where it's getting. The split in Australia is 62-38. Yeah. So we should not be saying how great is it that 62 % of participants are women because they are massively overrepresented on the general split, we should be saying, how come there are only 38 % males participating when 53 % of overall participation is males? I'm all in favour of women having equality in sports, as you know, selfishly for catapult and also just because I think it's right. But I'm not in favour of twisting the truth so that you say, how great is it?

25:18You don't solve sexism with more sexism, which is essentially what's happened. It's actually problematic that men are so underrepresented as a percentage. This is classic affirmative action in the universities where they disadvantage a certain group to favour another group and then you have people who aren't deserving going and it gets out of control like we saw in the US in the Ivy League where it just came in absolute shambles there. Well, I'm not even sure that this is the consequences today of affirmative action. I think female winter Olympians in Australia might just be better right now than males.

25:46Like we've got one great bobsledder. We've got some – we're good at aerial skiing. Well, we won golds in both freestyle, male and female one. We won a fairly lucky gold in border cross that was female. So I think we had three golds, right? And we had a genuine chance of gold in bobsled, in the mono sled. Yeah, because I think the Australian is – she's the best in the world. And so I get why we're skewing towards women because we're more of a chance of winning medals. I've got no issue with that. But we shouldn't paint that as how great is it. It's 62 % because the logical end point of that is it's 100 % women.

26:21Well, that's the logical end point and so that's ridiculous. I just think it's not that hard to figure out. Equality means if the split is 53-47 going to 50-50, then equality would be a same split of 53-47 going to 50-50. So do you know who – I'm going to possibly say her name wrong. Do you know who Destiny Ayava is? Great name. No, I don't. A-I-A-V-A. So she is an Australian women's professional tennis player, ranked inside the top 200, but outside the top 100, which is the death zone of earning a living playing tennis. But unbelievable, right? Phenomenal. Now, she has just retired from tennis at the age of 26, I think, in a very unhappy state.

27:04She's actually called tennis something like an abusive boyfriend over the years. I actually saw that headline. And one of the big problems that she has had is that people on social media have been barraging her with abuse about her body, body shaming. Have you seen this, Mike? No, I haven't. Yeah, body shaming stuff. Now, the thing is this, professional tennis players, female tennis players, it's going to be pretty tough for them to be 40-kilo eating disorder models, and nor do you want them to be, right? And essentially, she's an Islander by background. I think she might be Samoan by background.

27:37Her mum is like this kickboxer slash very successful rugby player. And her dad's like a power lifter, okay? Yeah. So she's not going to be a 40 kilo, 45 kilo, whatever. Nor is Serena Williams, the greatest of female tennis players. Yeah. Nor is Sabalenka, who's currently on. Nor is Sabalenka. Like, you've just got to be whatever shape you need to be in order to excel, right? Women's tennis has gotten so much better with these powerful hitters. Absolutely agree. And it is terrible that she has faced this barrage of body shaming so bad that, like, it seems to have deeply affected her. I know a lot of pro athletes listen to this podcast.

28:15I've obviously had quite a bit to do with pro athletes over the years as well. And so I would say this, like, I think it's terrible. I think she's a complete winner. She should feel like a winner. Nobody should feel like a loser being in the top 200 tennis players in the world. And probably what, the fifth best in Australia or something like that? I mean, it might be higher than that, right? And so I would hope, she's young, right? She's 26. hopefully she takes a break and she finds some love for the sport and she goes back to being able to play it for herself if that's what's right for her. Well, I recommend this for all people but especially athletes.

28:48Stay away from social media. It's not good. Do not read what people have to say about you. These people are all jealous about their own lives and that is why they're saying nasty things about you and hopefully just turn all this stuff off and enjoy being amazing. Which is why I stopped really writing about you on Twitter is just the abuse you get. I was certainly not an athlete, but like just the abuse you get from people who think it's okay to insult people. It's just bizarre. It's terrible. And I really think people that are in the media and have a profile, like unless you're one of these few people that really enjoys harassing back on socials and like that's how you get your kicks and there are some of those maniacs, but you should just turn it all off and focus on what you're doing because I think this is a really sad situation for someone to have excelled so dramatically that they're one of the 200 best.

29:37I think she was 176. All right, she had a bad Australian Open. Like she got knocked out in the qualifiers, but she made it to round two last year. Yeah, that's pretty good. Like, I mean, turn this stuff off and just find happiness in like your own endeavours. Yeah. So here's my quiz. You ready, Mike? I'm so ready. Okay, so China versus US, the cost of everyday things. I believe this is in US dollars. So I'm going to name a thing. Actually, I'll start with monthly salary. I'll start with rice. I mean, rice is going to be a pretty big difference. Before we start with things that people buy, I'm going to start with monthly salary after tax.

30:10And that will anchor you for other stuff. I see. Because what you're trying to work out is like buying power and then you're going to like sell. Purchase by power. Purchase, yeah. I thought it was actually pretty interesting. Differential cost differences of some stuff versus other stuff. What do you reckon the average American earns versus average Chinese person earns after tax? In US dollars? I presume this is US dollars, yeah. After tax? Yeah. I'm just going to go for a round number in the US and say 50K USD? Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay. Oh, I thought it was monthly. Oh, monthly. So 4 ,200 monthly.

30:42So it's exactly 50K. Mike's not used to it. Mike's thought it's$50 ,000. It's a monthly salary. No, I was going to – you didn't let me answer. I was going to say 5 ,000 a month. Yeah, so you both are. So China. I won't tell you until you have a chance to answer. China. And it's US dollars. US dollars per month. God, this is a good question. Average. Yeah. Median? Average, it says. I'll say 3 ,000 a month. Okay. I think that's a pretty good guess. I might say$500. So you're both wrong. Mike Moore wrong. It's$1 ,000. $1 ,000. Okay. Wow. I wasn't that wrong. Not far off. Yeah, not far off. Yeah. Okay, so.

31:17Because lots of people live in the countryside. Actually, the most amazing thing about the China miracle economically is not what people in the cities earn, but it's how dramatically the wealth has increased in the countryside. Yeah. That people that were starving to death and now that they've really risen in the countryside and they can actually afford to eat. There's some really interesting ones here because I won't give too much away. Okay, we'll start with, I'm having close to your hard idea, cappuccino. How much do you reckon US versus China? Because there's a lot of Starbucks, which is pretty expensive.

31:48I'm going to go for maybe$4 US. I'll say five. Michael, ding, 5.32. 5.32. It's pretty expensive, isn't it? Yeah, and US dollars as well. I find US, especially like places like New York, because Australian prices have been in US dollars. Well, I'm not sure. Like the thing about China is the cappuccinos are all being served in the cities. And so I think there might not be much of a difference in price between those. I'm going to stick with$4. I'll say$6. $6? More expensive? More expensive than US. I'm just throwing out one. Mike has been an absolute mare so far. It's$2.95. All right. Do you need to give the Mike to Joel after this?

32:24Well, it's not – I said two here. Yeah, yeah. Sure you would have. So it's not very different. And that's because – Luxury good. It's an urban luxury good. Okay. One-way ticket on local transport. Well, I think that will be massively different. So$2 in the US would be my guess. Michael? $3.50 US. $2.50. I'll give you both equal. That's fine. In China,$0.10. A dollar. $0.28. I'm firing this quiz. Well, because I just – Unbelievable. Your quizzes are junk, to be honest. Now he likes quizzes. He's starting those quizzes again. Tony Barber over there. This quiz is actually something that you can like wrap your head around, not just me guessing.

33:03What company that has 32 letters and a J in the middle is the smallest company that makes feet or something? Okay, movie ticket. So I think in the US it might be$7. Oh, no, that's way too cheap. I think in the US it might be$14. I'm going to say$13 in the US. Well, just don't get anchored by me. No, well, that's where I was going to go. I'm going to go write it down now. Michael, go first next time. You go further to China Well hang on Are we right in the US or not? You're very close My idea's actually on fire here At 15 So you're pretty close to it Didn't I say 14? You said 13 You said 13 Oh I said 13 The reason you said You're acting big time The reason he thinks he said 14 Is because I said 14 And he just copied me Instead of going one lower You should have gone one higher Yeah exactly So the question you should think about Mike Because I don't know I'm trying to think about this Is do we think movies are a luxury A city luxury in China Or do we think they've made it Into the countryside My gut feel So there are a lot of made in China movies.

34:00Yeah, I think they've made their way out because there are a lot of Chinese movies that become like highest grossing. The highest box office in the EU has been Chinese movies. So I'm going to say$8. $8, I think that's way too high. So you have to think about the price of – think about it relative to the price of transport. So transport was$2.50 and$15. It's like, you know, a bit – what's that? Seven times the price. And so if transport was – $0.25 or whatever it was in China, I said$0.10. Then I think it might be$1.50 kind of thing. The Empire Strikes Back. Is that right or not? $6.39. Really?

34:37Well, that means it can't be too much rural. It must be mostly a city thing. It's probably a minimum, because you've got to pay the Hollywood and all that stuff. So I think there's a minimum movie ticket you have to do to actually justify it. So how the hell can people have, so it must be mostly a city endeavour because$6 in China,$6 USD, is very expensive for something. I've got another one for you. This is interesting. Gallon of gasoline. Mike first, US. Oh, I wouldn't even know how much a gallon is. What's a gallon? Four litres. Four litres. Oh, okay. So what do I pay for fuel here? That'll be six or seven dollars.

35:11Six or seven dollars in Australia probably. Australian dollars. Australian dollars. I'll say US four and China I'll say one. I think it's cheaper than$4 in the US, but I think you're not far off. I think it might be three. I think. I'm fire here, 3.32. Yeah, because it's a bit cheaper. Mike wasn't far off though. Yeah. So I'm going to tell my reason, then I might be wrong, right? Because I was wrong on the movies. The thing is, some things need to be subsidised in order to stop to keep the Communist Party in power. And so you have to make sure people can eat and I suspect you have to make sure they can get around.

35:43I suspect this might be subsidised. I suspect this could be 50 cents a litre in China. I think you failed your earlier test. Yeah, how much is that? Is it a luxury item? Is driving a luxury item? I'd argue driving is a luxury item in China. I don't think it is, is it? Also, the other thing you haven't thought about is China's not a producer of fuel where America is. I thought they might have subsidised it. In fact, I wouldn't have got this right either, but I wouldn't have got it as wrong as you guys got it. China more expensive than US. Really? So US is 3.32 and China 4.35. I would have come roughly equal.

36:13US has the cheapest gasoline in the world. So you know what would be interesting to know? Whether diesel is the same as well, because all of these factories are running on a lot of diesel. and so it'll be interesting to know. I'm shocked it's not subsidised. I want to go through all of them because there's quite a few here. McDonald's combo meal. Well, this is the, so shouldn't, well, that's a city good, presumably. Like no one in the farm is eating Maccas. So I think it would be pretty similar to American cost. So what's an American meal? I don't know,$5, China. Is it still that cheap in America?

36:43I think so. Can you guess? I'll take this. America$5, China$3.50 might be my guess. I'll say America$8, China$3.50. I think it's good that you don't know this answer, by the way. My email's off. It was$12 in America. $12? This is a meal. Have you been to Macca's in America? I've never eaten Macca's, but I reckon it's$15 in Australia. I know, but Australian McDonald's is a different quality standard. You know my view on Macca's? I think they've stuffed it with the push-button things. You can't – they look disgusting now. Yeah. China,$4.97. Macca's in Australia is of different quality to Macca's in the US.

37:13Better? Much better. Yeah. Much better. Okay, I'll give one more. Mobile monthly phone plan with 10 gig data and calls. $25 USD? Michael? I'll say$19. I'll be anchored. $60. You're miles off. $60? Yeah. For mobile phone. What are you paying for a mobile phone plan in Australia? I pay like$90 or something. What do you pay? Yeah, I pay about$70, I think. All right. Well, that's lower than$60 USD. And like, I think you can get it. I think you can get - And I have unlimited data online. I think one of these Vodafone plans you can get for$25 a month. Yeah. Vodafone reseller plans. Anyway, that's what it says.

37:49And what about China? I don't know. Well, I'm obviously falling off a cliff on this. Started so well. So promising. I don't know. $25. I've given up now. Michael? $7. Oh, he's got it. He's come back. The kid is back. He's actually. Oh, wow. I was three games to love up. And then all of a sudden it was like five. Absolute choke. I was 5-3 down. I didn't bother playing the last night. I Stephen Bradbury did it. Yeah, he's the truth. Yeah, although you Stephen Bradbury did it low. If you tell him the score, it won't be great for you. But like, that was a decent quiz. I just shock. I think we'll go on that high note.

38:22We'll go to Super Good Bake, back with some really great stories soon.

38:37And we are back. We've got a very, very special guest with us, Adir. Our number one guest three times on the show now. Does that make me know why? Knocked off Stensholt. So he's over the Atlantic on Prats Chirps. You thought he meant number one as in the top ranked, which will also give you – He just means by frequency. Yes, well, that's what I thought he meant. And by appeal to our listeners, I think. Yeah, I agree with that. Those interviews that you do, the video interviews, they must have been tremendously successful because they are great. Thank you. Have you had a lot of feedback on those?

39:09Yeah, heaps. It's a surprise that they've been as successful, including acquiring paid subscribers, because there's sort of this view that podcasts have to be free. and because that's how they've always been. But guess what? Because you give like a 15-minute free and then a one-hour paid, right? So I want to hear the rest of it. Yeah. I don't know why I thought this, but people will subscribe to Rampart for my articles, but no one's going to subscribe for video content. I'm not sure why I thought that. I think just because that's how it sort of is elsewhere. But yeah, like the numbers of new paid subscribers off the back of that content has been phenomenal.

39:44I think it might be partially that. I think people want to subscribe because they love your writing. They go, oh, do you want to pay 600 bucks or whatever it is for the writing? And they see the video and go, oh, I want to see the James Packer interview as well. It's the kind of portfolio effect. It's a front door in and I agree. It introduces – well, it's introduced so many more people to Rampart who didn't really know that it was there. And I think that's the thing about this video content. You guys know better than I do because you've been doing it for longer. But you clip up this stuff for socials and that is effectively your advertising in the way that you used to take a billboard out.

40:17It serves both purposes. What's been your favourite interview so far? Jeez, that's a tough question. I think interviewing Jane Hurdlicher was – I thought you were going to say that was your favourite. You're from a Bette Noire. Yeah. I thought she's sort of got a really mixed reputation. Did it change your view on her? I think so. I really respect that she fronted up and she answered hard questions and I think people were able to see a human side of someone who's just sort of like a bit standoffish and cold. And I think some of that's a double standard. Yeah, totally. Not all of it, but. Well, did you think about her explanation on Ellen Joyce, which was effectively, he was amazing, but then kind of.

40:56Lost the plot. Yeah, lost the plot. Well, that's sort of been my thesis for a long reason. Yeah, so that's an insider's view that shares your kind of. And she was quite close with Ellen, right? Certainly at the time. Yeah, I think, yeah, absolutely. When she left Qantas, so she was running Loyalty, then she left to go A2, right? Was that, do you think, Ellen pushing her out? or she left Pula for own fruition? I don't think she was pushed. I think she went – I don't think she wanted to go from being the CEO of Jetstar to being the CEO of frequent flyer. That was sort of seen as a – perceived as a demotion.

41:27But loyalty is a much better business. Well, I would think that was a demotion as well, though. Like one is you're running an airline and then one is you're running a division of a business. Which makes all the money in the business, though. I get it. Well, I think if you took a long view, it would have been smart to say, well, if I do this for two, three years, I've then got – I've run an airline and I've run the loyalty. I mean, she's really well placed to replace him. But as we know, like Alan Joyce was not leaving for anything. But she could have got – I mean, I guess she wanted to stay in Australia.

41:51But if she had run loyalty for a few years, she could have got an international job on the basis of what you just said, which is that's where the money is in the scheme. Well, I think she wanted to leave. But, yeah, your James Packer interview is, in my view, probably the best interview I've ever heard. I remember I listened to it on the golf course and I thought, oh, I just never want this to end. You're obviously friends with James. I put you in a really interesting position. You've known him for almost a decade now, I think. talk us through getting the interview because he doesn't do many he really doesn't know interviews how did that James sort of interview come about obviously my relationship with James is complicated for my job always has been and I've faced some criticism for being friends with him and you know I'll cop that that's fair but it's always been one of those things where I thought well I've got this friendship I'm not going to write about him you know some journalists would write about their friends and then you know what then you criticize for that too so yeah it was sort of like okay I'm gonna ask James to do my podcast was an unusual was a step change in my thinking and look just to be totally frank about it I was being a bit mercantile like I needed someone who would be you know really get attention for my you know small business and he was very generous I mean he said yes straight away I think he said something like I owe you at least that and I thought mate you don't owe me anything but you know.

43:10Because what was the fight you had with him Who was that over? Hamish Douglas. That's right. Yeah. And I think in the form of the time you were proven completely right with that. So – Yeah, I mean I don't know. I don't know that anyone's ever completely right about anything. Well, to be honest, you actually could have gone a lot harder on Hamish and didn't for reasons we all know about but like you pulled your punches there. So it's almost surprising that he – Yeah, but I mean in James' – you know, James is – this is – I'm not revealing anything that he hasn't said himself. You know, he's been – had really struggled with mental illness and he has a very severe case of bipolar disorder and when he blew up at me he was in a manic episode.

43:44I mean he was blowing up at everybody. So I never took that personally. When he sort of – when that happened I just knew that it would all, you know, go under the bridge. Do you think the interview would be as well received as it was? Well, going into it, you know, it was the first one I recorded. I took this whole thing really seriously and, you know, I hired Eliza Harvey, who's an amazing producer and journalist from the ABC. she's now joined rampart full-time but um you know we'd spend eight hours on the questions just writing the questions of every episode and really wanted to do the highest quality you know like 60 minutes or former you know current affair level quality of premium video interviews that sort of is a gap at least in business in australia there's no one was doing it and i'm not you know yarn event i don't have those skills you know so i was quite nervous and i put in a lot of work to try and get it right but it was my first interview so I was nervous I was friends with the guy I sort of didn't want to put him in a position where he's going to say something that would damage him it was all it was it was sort of complicated we flew to Fiji he was his boat was that where it was I wonder where his boat was in the middle of nowhere so anyway we're all sitting there and he actually got sort of started off waffling for a fair bit and I'm sort of sitting there going okay this is a bit ponderous and then he just warmed up he was amazing I mean he was so honest he was super self-reflective and he was the version of James that no one else sees you know that I see the guy sitting there who's very humble you know gives himself a five out of ten seemed very humble in the interview but I think that's how he comes across it's interesting you say people don't see that because I don't think I've ever met him I think my natural disposition towards him is extremely positive whenever I've read him speak whenever you know there was a book that was written about him that he seemed to cooperate with in some way oh he definitely cooperated a lot in that book this is um yeah yeah and and i feel like he's overly harsh on himself yeah i agree he's um very introspective i kind of walk away mostly feeling like he seems like a very decent human being who may not have been blessed in the way that he was born into the world to be honest i always say that on this podcast to adam i think if he was born middle class he would have made it like the guy's smart with a lot of drive and i think being born as the son of the most well-known rich person in the country by a mile did him no favours at all in life.

46:06That's my view. Not just rich, it was media personality. Yeah, I've always felt like he seemed like a very decent human being. Well, I agree. If we didn't love him before, after his Dan Andrews comments, I loved him more than I love a child almost. That was the moment. I was just like, wow. When he said what he said about Daniel Andrews, I just thought, oh, boy, this is going to be big. And so it was. People do tell me that maybe three podcasts can pass between you mentioning Andrews. I reckon they might be overestimating that number, to be honest. I don't know if you were. We talked about the news last week where Dan Andrews in hospital and I presume you heard that.

46:44What have you heard that hasn't been published on Dan Andrews' current health? Nothing, to be honest. I mean, yeah, I've heard bits and pieces. But, you know, I've also heard a lot of things about Dan Andrews. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of gossip about the guy that turns out to be pretty tenuous. This is not falling down stairs gossip. This sounds much more genuine. People are even more fixated with him than you are. Like this is a guy that has a lot of people fixated on him. For good reason though. Maybe. I don't know. I want to ask you something else about an interview. Has anyone said no?

47:11You don't have to say the names. Oh, sure. Really? Yeah. I'm shocked by that. You said no to being interviewed by me? Yeah. Oh, no, plenty of people. What basis? I think that's a terrible decision. Well, some people just don't want to be on a podcast at all. There's lots of people like that and I respect that. There are other people who sort of think, well, what's the purpose of this at this stage? You know, they might be, what will people think I'm doing this for? I get that too. But these are people who – There's plenty of also no, yes but not yet. You're very nice on the podcast. Like you don't – like if you look at your writing, it's not that you attack people, but you point out rogues and stuff that we want to be pointed out.

47:49But in your interviews you come across – not that you don't ask hard questions, but you're not attacking people. You're not being overly critical. You're getting their story. I have a platform to write what I think. I'm there to draw out what they, for them to explain themselves in a more deep way. That's a good way of saying it. There's no point having a podcast where I heck to people. And that would be a very short series because no one else would come on. That's hard talk. It used to be, whatever that was on CNN or whatever it was, where they just pummeled global leaders for 15 minutes. I mean, and like the thing is, you don't really get a lot out of that because the victim is very defensive in their responses.

48:26But I feel like people that are in the public eye in business, so that could be a CEO of a big company, a chair, board directors, like effectively you've put yourself out there as a public figure by doing that. Okay, it's not the same as a celebrity, but I feel like you should be inclined to come and talk about your views on things or defend yourself is the wrong word, but it's not like you're staying at home not wanting to participate in public life. Being even a director of a public company is participating in public life. I think those people should be coming on the podcast and speaking. Yeah, but I also have to choose people that are interesting.

49:01And, I mean, the thing you realise quite frankly in Australia is that there is a finite number of people who are interesting to a broad range of people. Like there's lots of people who would be interesting to a narrow pool, but we're sort of going a bit wider than if it was, say, a written profile for Rampart subscribers. So how's the business going? so that we spoke to you about eight or nine months ago, it was better than you expected. Is it? It looks like it's flying from the outside. Don't you agree? Yeah. Well, obviously we're biased because we love it. No, but we're not biased only if it looks like it's flying.

49:31We might lie about it. I mean, I probably would lie to be honest and say it looks like it's going great. So it's hard to know if I'm telling the truth or not. But it looks like it's going great. Like honestly, it does. Name me this, you know, the startup founder who turns up and goes, oh, it's just, it's terrible. Like, oh, the numbers are catastrophic. Well, we had someone on here who's startup failed. and they were very honest about that. It was actually a really interesting discussion after the fact. No, it looks like it's going great because people talk to me about it and when I look at the video interviews, that is so obvious to me that that is content that is going to drive subscribers.

50:06And you're seeing 20 articles on the Packer interview. And you're employing more people to write for you. It's pretty obvious it's going well, right? It's going really well. I sort of had an arbitrary number of paid subscribers that I needed to hit where I estimated I could pay myself what I used to earn and I flew past that number by 50%. Wow. And now how are you tracking relative to your – so now it's been a year exactly, right? It's been a year this week. Happy anniversary. Happy birthday. Oh, yeah. Happy anniversary. If you said day one, you said I'd love to be at X thousand subscribers in a year, how are you relative to what your initial hopes were?

50:39Yeah, I'm 50 % higher than that. But, I mean, having said that, that was an arbitrary number. But we've got multiple thousands of paid subscribers. We've got multiple millions of revenue. That's amazing. You just signed an incredibly prestigious naming sponsor for what will allow us to now do the second series of growth, the video series. So that will now just switch to a monthly cadence. We'll just permanently have a monthly one of those. I don't know where the ceiling is, but when I left the AFR, the AFR had 150 ,000 digital subscribers or thereabouts. There's a TAM. Well, I mean, potentially.

51:13Obviously, it's not the TAM for a subscription news product that's just me and a couple of them. Well, 140 ,000 probably subscribe to you. Well, that's definitely obviously very flattering and all that. But being more conservative, well, if they had that many, I'd be able to get myself 10 ,000. I think when we chatted a couple of years ago, I thought 10 ,000 was about what you'd get to at that level of price. And so if you then incrementally add other really compelling voices, then that number 10 ,000 might become over time 15, 20, 25, 30. And, you know, with the prices that we have, I think the economics can be quite attractive.

51:49I think the way I would build something today is around a character or personality to begin with that people can follow and then expand it out from there. I think that's the way to build media today. That is maybe, I don't want to say that's what you've inadvertently done because I don't think you knew what you were doing and your aim is not to replace the fin review. No. But that is the way to build a media business today. And so I don't know if that$150 ,000 is your TAM because some of that will be, a lot of that will be businesses buying subscriptions for their staff. Do you have that as well?

52:20Oh, yeah, we have. Oh, okay. Well, then I think, so I'm not sure I agree that$150 ,000 is not your TAM. I think it might be your TAM. Well, as I say, it's not the TAM for Rampart with me. Just you, yeah. It may be the TAM over a much longer period of time for more of an all-star cast. but a bit like interesting podcast subjects, I can tell you there's also a finite pool of really excellent business journalists in Australia, that's for sure. So who's working for you at the moment? Ivor Rees. Ivor Rees is the former Chanticleer columnist. And he was an analyst, right? Morgan's, right. Was it Morgan's?

52:57He was Morgan's, he was Bailey's, he was Wilson's. He was an excellent journo when he was writing Chanticleer. He was covering REA when it was 30 cents. He should have been buying REA, not covering it. Well, he was. Let me tell you. So he's certainly not writing for Ramp Up for the money. He does one column a week for me and he's got a really significant following already. Like he's just on fire. One or two articles he wrote, I thought you'd written them, which is the biggest compliment I could give him. I didn't realise. And I saw it, oh, I overwrote this. Like it was one of a couple of his earlier ones.

53:27It was very much your, I don't know if you've. Yeah, I mean he's not trying, he's certainly not trying to mimic me. He's got his own voice and he's quite, you know, he's a bit cantankerous. And he's just got a lot of corporate memory. It's the other thing in journalism. People come and go and there's no one sitting there going, hang on, I've seen this all before 20 years ago. Or I've seen the full purview. I've seen the full range of what this company has done. Especially in today's environment. In terms of strategic errors. 1999 and if you live through that, it's pretty helpful. And we're also cross-promoting with other sub-stackers, you know, like Gideon Haig, who's a great cricket writer, wrote for us over summer.

54:02You know, John McDonald, who's a fantastic arts writer, speaking of Cantankerous, who we ran a piece of and he'll write for us more. Yeah, just really. I thought Emma wrote a great article. Emma Fisher, yeah. Fantastic article. She's a great, she's a great voice. Great to get her back on, actually. I think she. I'm trying. Yeah. Because, you know, the way to compete with a Finn is not capital brief, in my view, because that is something that is trying to replicate like for like what they do. I know they would say they're trying to break stories differently, but that is a head-to-head. And, again, I just really think the media landscape has shifted.

54:34in the last 15 years and I don't, I think people can follow journalists to other places now. It's not just about the media having the distribution and I think that's really changed media. Yeah, well, I mean, I was saved from making that mistake and I was all set, I'd soft raise, I mean, I hadn't signed any documents, but I'd soft raised a lot of money. I was going to hire a lot of journalists all at once and, you know, try and build an instant newsroom and I took advice from some pretty significant figures in digital publishing in New York and Washington. And they were like, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that.

55:10Mostly because that's what they'd done and they wish that they hadn't. They said start as small as possible, don't raise capital, bootstrap it and grow incrementally. Because otherwise all you're doing is burning your own equity to pay these people who won't necessarily, you sort of don't know for sure that they're actually going to bring in any paid subscribers at all. And so instead, you know, I started, It cost me$100 ,000 or something to build my tech stuff. And we were profitable from the second month. Yeah. And by the way, I subscribed to Capital Brief. But I think when I pay, I think I subscribed to 50 % off.

55:41It was, what,$150 or something. And I thought that is a hard way to make money. Like that is a lot of work for$150. That feels like a tough road. And I know like way back in the day when Alan Kohler started, his various things, like business inside, what was it? Business Spectator. Business Spectator. I mean that made no money. The Eureka Report did that. Made tons of money, right? $5 million to News Corp. Yeah, but what I'm saying is the media business with all the journalists, that could not make any money. And the tip sheet made money. But the thing about that to remember is that that was in the late 2000s, right?

56:15And he also gave all of his equity to Mark Carnegie and John Wiley, not all of it, but a majority of it, for a fairly small amount of start-up. And Eric Beecher as well was a big mess. So Kohler was unlucky, really, in terms of his timing. If Business Spectator had been today, he wouldn't have sold to News for 30. He would have sold to News for 300. He would have had recurrent subscription revenue. That was a great product as well. Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of Lemming stuff. Like they had a lot of kids picking up the AR bar, ripping off the stories and putting them up online. So it was sort of low down the value chain.

56:49But then to have those tremendous commentators over the top, you know, Kohler, Barthol, got Leibson. Yeah, some serious. Yeah, so you're right. they were in the wrong time because today they would have built the brand around those characters. And charged like wounded people. That's right. You're absolutely right. It was Coleroy's peak, right? Yeah. Can I talk about businesses? Yeah, I want to talk about some business. We obviously got Joe. While we got Joe here, we'll – Well, I was just going to raise Firmus because they're in the fin again. So my long-term view on Firmus and NeoClouds more broadly is I think the business models are unviable and irrespective of the fact that I think the trajectory of AI is probably unviable, even if it's not – It was the Oz, basically.

57:28I was not going to correct that. Was it? Oh, it was the Oz. This is about his character. Yeah, the Oz run a piece about his character, which is essentially you have to pass some character test with the ASX and the guy's been to jail for insider trading, so is he going to pass the character test? My view on this is twofold and pretty simple. One is I think if you go to jail and you do your time, that's it, right? You've done. You've paid your price. That's how the justice system needs to work. He was 21 as well. And so I think they should leave him alone for that. But I also think this, these neoclouds are basically the Titanic and we're at the moment of iceberg dead ahead and we're arguing about whether the captain is wearing the wrong cap.

58:08Like that doesn't seem to be the biggest issue with firmness. I think firmness will get away. I think it will get away. I think it will get away. They'll make tons of money. Do you think it will get away, Joe? It's a big IPO. Yeah. IPO straight into the ASX 20 is pretty unprecedented. Look, is the market deep enough? Is there enough liquidity in the local market? Who knows? I would be surprised. But they're certainly going to try. That's for sure. Look, I totally agree with you on the point of character. Like if you were going to hold like a moral excellence test or barometer for the chief executives of every public company.

58:47Would Richard White qualify? I mean, are you kidding? Yeah, exactly. Chris Ellison qualify? Well, indeed. I mean. Because Chris has actually backfacably admitted to crimes, right? Like he hasn't been prosecuted for them, but he's confessed to them. No, he hasn't been charged yet, but he certainly will be. Because he can't backfacably confess. Yes, he has. Yeah, look, I didn't really get that. I mean, the idea that the ASX will say that Oliver Curtis is not allowed to be a CEO is just absurd. Especially the ASX is so desperate for listings at the moment. Well, exactly. If you're going to list an ASX 20, they'll take it.

59:17They'd take an Israeli crypto exchange, wouldn't they? They would. That's like anything at the moment. But I do think it's a bit weird that they're listing in Australia. Like why would this not be a logical listing where CoreWeave is listed and where Iron is listed? Maybe because they can't get away in the US. Maybe. But why would it be able to get away here but not there? Because Regal and others are involved in it here. This is one of the reasons I think it might get away. This is way bigger than Regal has ever tried to. I know. But basically all of the investors are significant operators. I think if anyone was going to be able to push this onto the boards in Australia, these existing investors would be able to.

59:53Plus, didn't Blackstone just give them$10 billion of debt? That's debt, not equity. I know, but then they've got Blackstone lobbying in their corner because Blackstone's going to feel a lot better about their debt if they're a public company. Blackstone might want to pick the business up for cheap. I'm not sure Blackstone... Well, that's interesting. Yeah, maybe. Blackstone spent a lot on the equity of Air Trunk. Yeah. What, is it 24 billion? 24 billion. I don't know. Yeah. I'm not sure of the equity. I think it was equity value. I could be wrong. I mean, I think this is a sideshow. I think the bigger issue is we never really – I mean, we talk about them a little bit, but, you know, they've got cooling tech.

1:00:25What does that mean? We've got superior – The cooling tech makes no sense. I can be quite – How are these two random guys coming up with something that no one in the States has come up with, no one in China has come up with? This is what the cooling tech is. Like, it's quite specific. So they get the racks and they've re-engineered them to be able to immerse them in liquid because you have to cool these things. The problem is cooling. I mean, there's a hundred problems, right? Getting – you can't even get the chips, but – And the power issue. You can't even make the chips, right? You can look at the power and the cooling, but they're immersing them.

1:00:51And so CoreWeave doesn't immerse them because this hasn't really been done at scale before, and CoreWeave just wants to roll out fast. And so the chips are liquid cooled inside the chips. They're not just air cooling these data centers anymore. And so the idea that Fermus has is let's immerse these things in liquid, which definitely is much better at cooling. But it's not like CoreWeave hasn't thought of immersing them in liquid. Eventually, everyone is going to immerse them in liquid. This is the most 1999 business I've ever seen. There's just an engineering challenge to say, let's go and build brand new data centres with a whole new engineering model of immersing these things in liquid.

1:01:26And CoreWeb does not want to do that. And whenever Firmus uses a third-party data centre to roll out, which is their initial plan, they can't immerse them in liquid as far as I can figure out. Why aren't Google and AWS immersing them in liquid? I think eventually... These guys aren't stupid. To be honest, I think everyone will eventually. But just not in the next five years would be my guess. Why not is my point. Because it's slower to... Do these guys have better tech than Google? No, but they're starting from scratch. Comical. They're starting from scratch. That's their advantage. The whole coin thing sounds like because fraud of them all.

1:01:51That makes no sense. Forget their convictions 20 years ago. This is much more concerning. None of it's fraud because it's all too transparent to be fraud. Like irony is not fraud because they tell you everything they're doing, right? So it's not fraudulent. They're going to be the biggest thing to happen to Tasmania since David Boone, I think. Can I ask about another one of your – you were, I think, possibly the first to talk about a guy called Jamie Ferris out of Brisbane who – Oh, wow. Why don't you tell us about how you found out about the story? I think you would have written about, what, 2016, 17?

1:02:20I think you started writing about him when – Yeah, well, I mean a fund which is now merged with Regal called VGI Partners. It was Doug Tynan who – Yeah, launched a short attack on corporate travel. If I look back at that, you know, I think the key learning was that they sort of over-egged some of it. This is the short – Thesis. Short seller. I'm sure they may not agree with this, but they sort of threw 80 different things at corporate travel and 10 of them maybe weren't that compelling. And so what it allowed Jamie Ferris to do was to focus on the 10 that weren't very compelling and only talk about those.

1:02:56But if you go to some of them and you still look at them today, like for instance the impossible – Margins, right. The irreconcilability of their cash flow statement. Yeah. They were really compelling and very difficult to explain and of course Jamie Ferris never even bothered – was never forced to. Yeah. And a lot of it all starts to make a lot of sense now. Like they just kept, like many roll-ups, they just kept bolting on acquisitions and so you could never get a clean year-on-year view of their numbers. For instance, they had an income statement. The expenditure in multiple periods was much, much higher.

1:03:33Sorry, much, much lower than the cash flow for the same thing. Like they had wage, they'd say their wages were like$30 million but they'd spent double that. I'm sorry, I might be mis-explaining it. I might have that backwards. But either way, their account said that they were spending much less than it was possible for them to be spending. And obviously you don't have to use a direct cash flow statement but it's very, very uncommon for a business like that not to. And eventually it should reconcile. Like at least over two or three years, it should eventually reconcile. Exactly. Exactly. So then you have COVID, which allowed them to do all of this sort of move into stuff that was really not BAU for them.

1:04:15It's the UK BB badge thing. Yeah, well, they started doing sort of, not only did they do a lot of COVID accommodation sort of. Asylum seeker stuff. Well, no, that's the other one. So they did asylum seeker stuff, but they also absolutely rinsed the UK government and consumers. Well, we had it here, the hotel. Oh, the hotel quarantine. Quarantine stuff. and COVID testing services. They were doing all this stuff that was crazy margin, which was once off, which really pumped them up. But then they moved into this asylum. Because they never raised. They were the only travel other than us who didn't raise during COVID.

1:04:48Like, so flights into raise, web jets, that's where beds famously raised. Like, both hugely dilated. Emergency raising. Booking.com raised, the$200 billion Goliath, Airbnb raised, $100 billion, and these guys didn't raise. No. From henceforth, they just had these super profits, It's like 60 % earnings margin on their European business. And corporate travel is a much more competitive business than leisure travel, for example. Your margins get smashed because it's a fairly commoditised product. Well, it is and it isn't. I mean, you can charge pretty fat margins to government. But look at the all-of-government contract here.

1:05:24Everybody wants that contract. It's not as if it's a non-competitive contract. No, look, that's true. But then they somehow, after securing it, manage to – It's a bit like the builder who tells you that they can do it for cheaper than anyone else. And has anyone, any builder ever stuck to the price they told you they're going to charge? Well, the classic case was talking about Annika Wells before we got here. That's right. That's your all of government contract. Yeah. And Annika Wells$40 ,000 flight. That was because presumably CTM are making a massive margin. I keep hunting for that$30 ,000 business class flight to the US.

1:05:50It's impossible to find. It's because CTM made$20 ,000 margin. Yeah. It's actually impossible to find that price. In that case, it's right. There's very few businesses where you scale that large and the customer does not demand a volume discount. I can't think of any other business where you can go, okay, well, I'm going to be a multi-billion dollar vendor to you and I'm going to charge you the same prices as if you just went out and bought each unit of sale. They should be getting lower service. They should be demanding lower service fees and all sorts of stuff. Absolutely. The government, you mean?

1:06:18Government, yeah. They should also be demanding guaranteed fare discounts right up to the day of travel. Totally. Like the airlines, when a customer is that big, that's something that you can deliver. Well, the government's got a huge advantage in that their funder demands no equity, provides money every year, and the minute they provide the money, they assume that money is gone and they're going to get no return for it. That's the advantage the government has with the taxpayer. I think this is the core of all of these overspend problems. No one really cares because there's going to be more money flowing through and if you don't spend it, you don't get it next year.

1:06:53Look, we can go on for ages about those. Back to CTM. So what eventually transpired, obviously, we found out eight months ago, was that they had retained refunds that should be repaid to the UK government, the Australian government and other customers. Yeah, and the amount of money exceeded the amount of cash that they have left. Significantly. Probably doubling that. And we're talking cash and free cash because a lot of that cash is tied cash. Well, exactly, exactly. So they're now allowed to continue operating on the IATA rails. Which is bizarre. and they say that they're able to draw on their debt.

1:07:24Sorry, but the R. On their, yeah, lines of credit, which I just think, well, hang on. What kind of bank? What do you – I would love to know what they have told their banks and what they've told IATA. Because if they've told IATA the truth and they've told their banks the truth, how is it possible that they're allowed to draw that? Well, I think IATA – Or operate on those rails. This is not exactly too big to fail, but I think the message to IATA is if you take this away, it's going to be a complete catastrophe to all of these. We're a huge player. But that's not IATA's concern. IATA is there as a clearing and settlement system for airlines.

1:07:56But what's going to happen to all the money that all of these huge number of customers have already paid them that's supposed to go to the airlines? That's presumably gone out of the way, though. That's not coming back. They're losing more and more money every day because every customer's leaving them. But if they stay operating, then presumably they will keep – You're assuming they're profitable. No, but I'm assuming that they're continuing to forward money to the airlines for the seats that they've collected, and I think IATA would be worried about that. They're now on a much tighter leash, so they have a limited number of tickets that they can have in credit.

1:08:21Which makes their profitability even worse. Correct, because they're constrained really in selling. But IATA just wants the airlines to get paid for the tickets and I think their view would be if they take them off the IATA rails, the airlines are never going to see any of that money. I think it's obvious why IATA is doing it. The banks, it's hard to know. Maybe they think if they send this business into receivership, they're less likely to get their money than if they continue funding it. It's sort of like at some point you've got to wonder how hard the board is looking, you know. At this stage, it's almost like I don't want to know.

1:08:55All of the issues with their accounts eight years ago were pointed out to the chairman who declined the opportunity to look more closely. He's been chairman for – Ewan Crash has been chairman for six or seven years? How long has he been chairman? Since 2018, I think. Okay, eight years. Yeah, and of course when this all came out – this is the other thing about corporate travel. Like you can almost never trust anything that the company says. They came out and they said, oh, well, this is just a non-cash issue that we're having with our accounts. They changed auditors. The new auditor came in straight away.

1:09:26They go into a trading hold and they say, oh, we're just having a little disagreement. Don't worry, we might have to restate our profits, but it'll all be non-cash. Well, that turned out to be complete horseshit. Of course it was. It's the opposite to the truth. It's the opposite. And this is months and months and months ago. Like this was in August and they're still suspended from trading. I mean, what could be so complicated unless it was like really, really bad? How are we going to find the cash to keep operating, right? A lot of the shareholders are reduced. They're holding to zero. I guess – Yeah, well, I mean, there's a whole market in off-market trades.

1:09:58Which is amazing. Everyone's at massive discounts just trying to get rid of the shares. What do you think it's selling for? Doug's trying to sell – he said one cent is what he'll take if the closeout is short. People are sold for zero. Yeah. Others 75 % discount. Yeah, like they're trading. $4 or$5. So, I mean, I don't know who the, the buyer of that, the buyer of those, $4 or$5 has big balls. That's, good on you. That's like a, that's like a Phil King type, type of trade. I think you'll be buying at$4. What was their, what was their halted price? It was$16. So it's not, cause I said to you, I said to you, you, I would definitely buy it for 1 % of their, like, cause when we work through what they've got, and you wouldn't, but this is like 30 % of the halted price.

1:10:44That feels pretty high to me in this situation. And of course, sorry, and the whole point that we now return to is, of course, Jamie Ferris, they threw Jamie Ferris' underling under the bus and said, oh, he's terrible. It wasn't even there at the time this happened. It's like - The American. He was the head of the European Union. UK, yeah. Michael Healy, I think his name was. Corporate Travels had like five CFOs. Yeah. And this guy took over well after this. Well, that's your criticism. Your criticism is like – I quoted Joe there. The turntable of CFOs. I think your line was Jamie Ferris has always been the CEO of this business.

1:11:17CFO. And CEO. And so like this whole – the notion that you could just – the underling would be found responsible for this whole disaster was just so – Orchestrating this fraud from the UK. And then finally, what was it, two weeks ago, they announced Jamie Ferris is going. But he's staying on as a paid consultant and everything's fine. Can you just imagine that people believe just the most incredible nonsense in this market. How is – and we talked about this last week, I'm not sure, but how is what Jamie – what CTM did, not Jamie specifically, how is it not a crime to retain refunds that would you – it's no – to me, my view is no different than getting paid money in your bank account by mistake and retaining it and spending it on other stuff.

1:11:53Well, the thing about a crime is it has to be an individual involved and I don't know which particular officer of the company will be found to have been the decision maker. And I'm also not a lawyer and I'm certainly not a lawyer specialising in UK law either. so I wouldn't even venture to ask. But I think it impacted Australian businesses as well. It wasn't just UK businesses. Well, this is the thing. We don't have enough information yet. I mean, every client is doing their own audit. I'm pretty sure the initial announcement talked about Australia as well as UK clients. I don't remember that.

1:12:25So maybe I've missed it if that's the case. Would you keep using them if you were a customer of them? I would. Is Rampart a customer of CDM? No. But now might be a good time to negotiate a good deal. Well, if your money ever makes it to the airline. As long as you're using a credit card and you get a charge back, I think you're fine. I mean, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't stay a customer if I was a customer personally. No way would I be a customer of those chonks. Especially if you're paying in advance. If you're using a credit card, big deal because you charge back. But if you're paying cash, that cash goes if they go out.

1:12:53You're an unsecured creditor. Yeah. I really feel for the staff. Yeah. It's an awful thing to happen to anyone to find all this sort of – the world evaporate under your feet. It's a hard sell if you're a corporate. So I think about it as like, so if I was on the board or let alone, God forbid, the chair of that board. You would never get appointed to that board because you have your own opinions about it. So I think about that and I think when you say people believe anything, I think mostly, most people are not involved on the inside of these things. And so one of the things I try to be very open about is what it's like on the inside of these things.

1:13:28Now, Catapult is a different kind of board because everyone on there has a background in business. I don't say that like as a joke. Like that actually makes it quite unusual as a board in Australia. But also I see how high pages runs. It's a well-run board. But I think if the CEO and CFO are bringing stuff to you, even if it's fraudulent, at the beginning it's hard to tell. That's the honest truth about being on a board. Like you can be lied to by a CEO and CFO for a significant period of time. I accept that. But when someone external does a short thing on you and takes you to pieces. And I agree with you.

1:14:05Like doing 80 issues is much less effective than five issues, five good issues. At that point in time, I would think I better look into this in detail. And I think my D &O insurance would come and say to me, you should look at this in detail because you've been given a heads up on this. And I think that's the moment at which the defensive story falls to pieces because they did get that heads up on we think there's something sick inside this business. But had that not have happened, I just want to say honestly, had that not happened, there will be great narratives inside that company by people a lot closer to the business than the board about why margins are so good.

1:14:41And it would not be easy to go and probe why these margins are so good as a non-executive, independent non-executive director in that business. How would you go about that? Well, I would say I would like to see the source material. Show me the contracts. So the Audit and Risk Committee should have sat down with the auditor and gone through that. But then we say this point, which is the auditor signed off on all of these accounts. It was not until they swapped auditors. Every corporate fraud in history had an auditor. I know. Like auditors sign off on fraudulent accounts all the time. And so it's problematic because the Audit and Risk Committee goes to the auditor and says, let's talk about this.

1:15:21But the auditor is signing off on this. And so the question is, there is something fundamentally wrong with a system where an audit and risk committee and an auditor can sign off on years and years and years of what's effectively misstated accounts. And I'm not sure how to fix that, but like... But you're saying, I think the opposite of what you're saying is true. That can only happen when no one is asking questions. If anyone's asking you questions, how is it possible that our EBIT margin is double our competitors or two and a half times our competitors? And if I had more scale, so I should have had a high margin and a low margin.

1:15:53No, I totally agree with you on that. Well, Amex, Global Business Travel, has a lower margin. Like, how is that possible? So when I think about the intricacies of the audit and risk committees that I'm part of and the detail that we would go into things, yes, I agree with you about that. Like, that was an obvious question that should have been asked. But ultimately, there still is a lot of reliance on an auditor and the company to provide answers to you on those things. And the question is, at what point does a director, and maybe this is the broader challenge with the way things work. So I'm not a career director.

1:16:30Like this is not what I want to do for a living. But if one is a professional director, you're getting appointed by an existing board. And if you are the person that is asking questions to the point where an executive starts feeling harassed or other board members start feeling uncomfortable, the likelihood of your name continually being put forward to go on boards is going to be zero. Well, you have perfectly captured what I've been saying for years. But it is true. Like, I know that you know it's true, but I'm saying as an insider, like, so Catapults Board, like, it might sound very self-serving and it's totally self-serving for me to say, Catapults Board's not like that, but one of the reasons it's not like that is because I think it's very important to have people around the board table that have sat in these seats as CFOs or other roles historically so they are better placed to be able to dig into things because they understand where you would hide things if you wanted to hide things in an organisation.

1:17:26Speaking of rogues, can I switch to another one? Joel. Luke Sayers, Mr Melbourne. You've written a lot about Luke. I've never met Luke. I've never met him either. He's a YPO guy. Trust me, you're not missing anything. I remember the first time I met Luke and he reminded me a lot of Kevin Rudd in that he spends the entire time he's talking to you looking over your shoulder for someone else. Oh, that's horrible. It's more powerful. It's interesting to talk to you. And I thought, okay, I get who this person is. This is PwC era? You were speaking to him or post? Maybe. I think it was post, yeah. So Sayers and Co at this point?

1:18:02That's just one of his peccadillos, frankly. Yeah, look. Probably not his worst. The whole dick pic thing is pretty gross. And I've sort of been thinking about this a bit lately because there is no doubt that part of this is just old-fashioned prurience. and we are just can't help but being obsessed with what's happening in people's bedrooms and in their private lives. And I'm guilty of that to a certain extent. I think we all are. But the thing that I find most interesting about Luke Sayers is his tax leak scandal stuff at PwC. And his evidence to the Senate was repeatedly implausible. Like he said things that has been contradicted by all of the other evidence has been found by multiple Senate committees to be unbelievable and yet he just still charges on.

1:18:54And so to me the only thing that's interesting about the dick pic scandal is how similar it is to his previous scandal in that people seem to believe what comes out of his mouth and then get really surprised when it turns out not to be true. Like he's just a hilariously false individual. If I said to you there's going to be a PwC scandal and people are going to take fools, but the person that was CO at that time… Never knew anything about it. It will be accepted that he never knew anything that was going on. It would be implausible, right, if I tried to pitch that to you. I think, look, I care no percent about this dick pic scandal.

1:19:33I think the reason it's news is because of what it is, right? Like if it was… Well, it goes to the AFL, the governance of the AFL. It goes to Melbourne as well. It's very – it's not a great reflection on high society. High society is a bit – What's the issue with it? The issue with it is that pick was sent to a female sponsor. Is that the core – Allegedly his mistress. That was obviously the allegation. But what's the core issue that the AFL should have been investigating? What they should have been investigating was why the president of one of their clubs was sending an explicit photo tagging the employee of a club sponsor.

1:20:15Yeah. Which then Luke takes centre stage and all of the implausibilities begin. It's alleged that Sayers sort of blamed it all on his wife and a lot of that, you know, I think he's difficult to – he's got to be difficult to bear out. And mostly that the AFL took him on his word. I mean, this is supposed to be a tribunal of fact and they didn't even check with the person who was being blamed. I mean, it's just completely crazy. And then he even gets his kids involved. I mean, oh, God, the guy is just unbelievable. Well, I've heard tons of stories about him. Like, I'm not going to repeat them here.

1:20:54Like, I don't know what to believe and what not to believe and I don't really care about these types of things. Obviously, like I'm conflicted because I've got this close relationship with the AFL and I've got like they're I've always found them to be good I haven't been involved in this part of the world you've never sent a dick pic so it hasn't been an issue no one's ever sent me one let's start by saying that and so I do feel like um to me most of what is going on here seems to be you can't make too many enemies and expect to get away with that forever the other thing that of course is highly relevant is that the AFL hired quite a senior executive to run all of their media and government relations, et cetera.

1:21:33And they hired Luke Sayers PR person. So Sharon McCrowan, you know, who I don't know really particularly. Used to work for Dan Andrews. Yeah, she did a great job. You know, there's a bingo card. Dan Andrews bingo card here. Which is relevant. You're on six for this episode. She worked. She did a great job for Afterpay, I think. And she got some magic beans. $5 million worth of Afterpay. Like many people did. We all wish we got those. But she also worked for the CFMEU. Yeah. And she, with Leon Zwire, she was sort of subcontracted to Leon at ABL and everyone is allowed to have legal representation no matter who they are.

1:22:16But PRs sign up voluntarily and I don't know who would want to do the PR for Luke Sayers. But she was doing his PR on the PwC stuff, which I don't think he comes out of very well, and then jumps in to help him with his dick pic scandal, which is then the subject of an AFL investigation. Five minutes later she comes in and becomes – is hired as a senior executive. Or maybe they thought she'd have a great job. The most senior PR executive. Point to Andrew Dillon as the most senior person there. Yes. So that – I mean, look, all of this is subject to legal proceedings. We'll have to see what actually comes out.

1:22:49But, look, it's just an incredible soap opera. Well, I'm highlighted by the event that I think your ex-colleague, Mark, I think Mark broke it last week with the Luke Sayers thank you bash at Francois. Was that Hannah actually? Oh, it was Hannah who broke it. Sorry, Hannah. That was a great story. Yes, the rear window team have been awesome on this stuff. And that lunch or dinner or whatever it was at Francois, I mean I just thought trying to think how I could torture my worst enemies, I would send them to that meal. It sounded absolutely horrible. So you had Eddie Maguire there. You were one of your bet noirs.

1:23:19You had Sharon was the only female in the room. You had Andrew Bassett there who I've obviously been critical of in the past. You or me? Me more than our dear's good friend. So our dear obviously has a different view. This is like the let's make a dear sit uncomfortably in a squirm conversation. Well, look, I respect Andrew Bassett. Dan Andrews in the room. But I don't quite understand his blind spot for Luke Sayers. But you could say that about quite a lot of people. Well, who invested? Apart from Andrew obviously invested in – I think that business has gone to zero. The Foxes? Jerry Ryan? If you – I don't think it's gone to zero.

1:23:52I don't think that's true at all. I understand it's been written down to close to zero. by investors. But I don't think it looked like a bad investment. Like, this is the thing. No, I didn't. I absolutely didn't. We can have this particular – I'm just going to say a devil's advocate position. So we can have this particular view of all that's going on. I don't really care about it because I don't care about this kind of stuff. But I understand why people are interested in it. I'm not arguing it's not in the public interest. I think it is in the public interest because of how many powerful people are involved in this.

1:24:19But at the time that Luke, say, has left PwC and started his own thing, I think that would have looked like a good investment. It would depend on your view on Luke. Was he effective at PwC or was he not? Well, he grew PwC. He made a lot of money when he was running it. Well, PwC was number one before he started. Let's be clear. They were clear number one. Yeah, but they grew immensely. He made a lot of money. Well, they're now number four, so you'd argue that. Well, sure, sure. But, I mean, we're talking about a point in time. Yeah, at that point in time, I think you can be overly critical of everything about someone because something is not good.

1:24:51We've worked with PwC. They're our order. We've worked with Rob Silverwood, who is amazing, who now obviously has his own shop. He grew that business. Then there was no - He lost the lead significantly. Don't forget, Pricewaterhouse merged with Coopers and Libra. And they were double number two. Now Deloitte's bigger than - He ran that business. Distant number four. There was no tax scandal. He was the president of the Carlton Football Club. In this town, like that gets you a lot of contacts. This guy's deeply connected. I'm not just denying he's deeply connected. Hang on, he's in with the Andrews government.

1:25:21Have you ever met this guy? I've never met him. Like that's the thing. When you meet the guy, you just go, how does anyone believe anything? But they do, right? I've spent five minutes with the guy and knew that. But I've spent a lot of time with politicians and you think – he's met a lot of politicians and you think, my God, that's who's running this country? Yeah, well, true. That's true, right? And so whatever's going on here – But that doesn't mean you'll give them your money. But if you think they're going to make you money because – like somehow this personality, whatever you think of it – quite a silent investor.

1:25:53This person, whatever you think of them, has built this huge network and I think is primed to make all of this money. And the house of cards that it turned out to be, like it wasn't obvious that was a house of cards at the time. It was a bet on Dan Andrews who didn't run Victoria. Because he had a great business while Dan was in town. His closeness to Andrews was sort of the selling point. But that was a good bet, wasn't it? He's still running the state of Victoria. It's sort of like saying, you know, there was a point in time where selling tobacco to people was a good bet too. All right, but that was a very good bet at a point in time.

1:26:25But like Daniel Andrews' government, the extension of his government is still running the state of Victoria. That is not Luke Sayer's problem. Luke Sayer's problem is not any changes of government. We've got a different problem now. His problem all has stemmed from, if not for this dick pic, he would be fine. That is not true. It is because he dodged the PwC tax scandal. No, he did not dodge it. It's still he wears it like a rotting carcass. and that is why his business was really – it was really struggling. Do you think that is what made the name change happen and the sale? No, Dick Pick made the name change happen.

1:27:00Dick Pick made it happen faster but I think the damage was done and that's the substantive issue here is the PwC tax leaks. I think a lot of people didn't like Luke to the point almost – Well, that's my point. And the Dick Pick morphed that into – it brought the haters into the open and allowed them to have unbridled public hatred. And let's be honest, if you've got, I mean, I talk about you in the third person, if you've got Joe Esten feeling this way about you, it's not going to disappear from the media, right? And well. That's going to be the truth, right? And you wouldn't be the only person that feels this way about him.

1:27:32And I just kept coming back to the same point, which is this whole thing feels to me like a moment where he made too many enemies that are too keen to give him a kick now, and that is why this is not going to disappear. And his wife might be on that list, by the way. I think she's head of the list. I just think he encapsulates this. I love Melbourne, by the way, but it does encapsulate this thing that's not great about Melbourne, which is it's like this game of mates. Mate, mate, mate, mate. Isn't that everywhere? Sorry? You don't think that's everywhere? I don't think it's everywhere, no. You have to be a certain size of town.

1:28:05But was this the case 20 years ago? Has it always been like this yet? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, everything has? Yeah, absolutely. And they're just different names and different faces. But, you know, this whole it's who you're in the club with rather than whether you have any skills whatsoever. Look, I'm not defensive about Melbourne at all. Actually, I think if you go to Sydney today, I know you'll agree with this, if you go to Sydney today and I was starting a business today, I mean, you'd have to start it in Sydney. Like it feels like such a more dynamic city. This city has really been set back obviously in the last 10 years by what's happened here.

1:28:38But on that point of you have to be a certain size, Adelaide is smaller. I don't know what goes into Adelaide and Brisbane very well, but they're smaller. Sydney is a bit bigger. Why do you think this is, this Melbourne characteristic? Do you have a view on that? Or is Adelaide the same? Oh, Adelaide and Perth are the same. They're the same. Okay. Absolutely. All right. So you think Sydney's different because it feels bigger than, much bigger than the other cities? Well, I mean, it's not bigger anymore. I mean, they're sort of fairly similar sized populations, but Melbourne's extremely parochial.

1:29:05Yeah. Like, it's got its own sport, you know. Yeah. That's true. That's true. And as I say all of this, like, I love Melbourne. I come here all the time. To be honest, like if you treat cities like equities and you want to buy low, now it's probably a good time. Well, you can buy property. I couldn't afford the tax. Yeah, that's true. Dan Andrews didn't come from Melbourne. I think he was from the country. So was his wife. Luke Sayers from the country. Eddie from effectively, well, from... Outer suburb. Broadmeadows. West of Melbourne. Broadmeadows. I love my favourite thing that Kerry Stokes ever said was, you know, Eddie McGuire carrying on about Broadmeadows.

1:29:41You know, like it was – I grew up in the unwanted children's home in Broadmeadows and the rest of Broadmeadows was perfectly middle class. I actually once went to Broadmeadows – on the way to the snow, I once went to Broadmeadows Maccas. That was pretty bad. One of the trash compactors in Star Wars. Was it as bad as the Maccas that – what was it? Which Maccas did Scott Morrison? Endicomio. Endicomio. Endicomio. Yeah. Probably about the same after Scott went there. I just want to talk about – Who else do you want to complain about? Temple Webster. I want to talk about Temple Webster, one of our favourites of the contrarian.

1:30:10It's been a tough few months for Temple and Webster shareholders, presumably none of whom are Contrarians listeners, with companies suffering at shock, 32 % single-day price calamity last week as it missed profit expectations for December half. Which doesn't make them unique, right? It's a tough time to be reporting results. Well, 32 % is pretty unique. Yeah, it's high. It's high. There were some whoppers in August, though. I mean, the reactions are really outside. Yeah, and you almost can't report anything right now. Like, if you report 90 % of your result is good and Nick Scully reported these great results, but Jan was a bit weaker.

1:30:43I thought Nick Scully was hardly done by it. And said, because November is so big, it's slaughtered. Still not cheap, by the way. Temple was trading at$28 a share last year, giving it a$3 billion valuation. It's now trading at$914 million. The company reported revenue growth of 20%, but a massive drop in gross margin has damaged investor confidence. Carismanic CEO and co-founder Mark Coulthard remained upbeat, telling investors that, in our eyes, it is not a miss. I think what analysts are doing is looking line by line, whereas we have told everyone what we want to do is manage the business for growth.

1:31:14So I just want to break down that comment. So in our mind, it's not a miss. That's okay, but there is consensus. So you either miss consensus or you don't. And then criticising analysts for looking line by line, like isn't that what he's doing is looking line by line? Yeah, we're just using other lines. Yeah, he just doesn't want those lines. Don't you think we could have written this half yearly results release three months ago? I think we picked the revenue number and we picked the EBITDA margin. Yeah. Like it was pretty straightforward. I think it came up with 3.6 EBITDA margin. Everybody was thinking it was going to be 3.9.

1:31:47Both are terrible numbers. What the hell is the difference between those two numbers? Well, apparently. That's the same number. Well, I think as we talked about. EBITDA. This is the excuse that the market was looking forward to really. Like the business had already been sort of 50 % down and now it's dropped another 30. It's still probably 80 % overvalued. Agreed. It's getting closer to what we think it should be. The question is when you close the short. Not now. Not yet. At$5. No. No, it's$7 now. Yeah, I might close it at$5. I think it's worth two. You think it's worth two, but I don't think the market's prepared to take it.

1:32:20It's going to overshoot more, not less. Maybe. All right. All right. Have you got a short open? No, we only talk about having shorts. We don't actually do it. It's possible. Let's be accused of insider trading of some sort. But I think the issue, the biggest issue they had was if you look at contribution margin, they gloat about this 20 % revenue jump. What do you think contribution margin did? Oh, I mean, it would have barely moved. Zero. I've looked at the results. But my assumption is they spent all of their profit on marketing. They spent all their margin on marketing. That's the usual. I mean - No, this is bad even for them.

1:32:49They've never done this. No, they did that a couple of years ago. Not quite. Remember, we thought they fixed this. Dollar for dollar. We thought they fixed it. We talked about last month that we think, oh, they fixed this contribution margin issue. Well, I can give you a quick summary of why this came back. It's pretty straightforward. They weren't on track for 20 % growth. Yeah. They had to get to 20 % growth. We knew they were 14%. I said to you they'll get to 20. They had to spend all of their gross profit to get to 20. They got to 20. That's what they mean by we're optimising for growth. If it is to Mark, he'd been able to fool the market because some of the people investing in this business are a complete moron.

1:33:21I still know funds that are long on this, by the way. What's that, sorry? I still know funds that are long on this stock. This is staggering that you could be long on this stock. Yeah, I agree with you. You could tell a mile away that this business doesn't have pricing power. It's got Koala competing against it. It's got Nick Scali. You've got a key. You've got a key. You've got a key. You've got a key from everywhere. The only way they can grow revenue is by effectively operating at zero margin. And then the way they try and do the reverse, their profit drops. So they can't grow and grow profit at the same time.

1:33:46Yet people value this business at$3 billion when it made like$3 million in profit. To their credit, once again, we can put them in the category if they've been totally honest about their shortcomings all the way through. Like it's been all of the reports. They never lied about anything. They basically just convince people that having this low EBITDA margin is fine as long as they keep growing. And then if you, remember I said to you, one analyst showed me their model and they had to model 30 years out in order to put a positive rating on this stock. So yeah. Just before we go, Joe, you've been really great on antisemitism in the last, well, last two years, especially the last couple of months.

1:34:26I know both of us are super grateful for your contributions to the subject matter. um how have you you're a sydney sydney side i think you live not that far from bondi um how is how has the last sort of few months been for you and obviously you're not jewish yourself but you know plenty of jewish people and what's the yeah um well i mean i'm not sure that i have been that good to be honest one of the things i thought after bondi happened was i should have said more and um i wish i had and it's hard you know because you can get inured to things you know you get used to them and it's tragic when it takes something awful happening for you to sort of get jolted out of it but look I was yeah I was going to Adelaide Writers Festival uh this late later this month to interview uh Michael Lewis yeah which were amazing yeah I know I was and Louie I was really grateful to Louise Adler for asking me to do it you know and I've always had a great pretty good relationship with Louise Adler um without really following very closely her stuff on Israel to be honest yeah I mean I was just really shocked about that whole situation and I have to say good on Tony Berg you know ex-Macquarie for coming out and and and revealing what was really going on there because Thomas Friedman of all people yeah to be banned to be to have his invitation rescinded to the Adelaide Writers Festival because of what was a pretty innocuous column in the New York Times and they're carrying on like he's sort of like right of Bibi.

1:35:54He's like a Democrat. He hates Bibi. Yeah, exactly. So there's something really crazy going on in Australia, I think globally as well. People that I really know very well, very smart people, and just the way they carry on about the pro-Israel lobby and I just sort of think, where's this coming from? I don't know. It could just be, you know, we're all in down our own silos. They may be they're just consuming different content to me or whatever. But I don't lie awake at night feeling like the pro-Israel lobby is doing anything that's particularly damaging to my liberties as an Australian. But, like, there's people out there, real people with real jobs in senior parts of Australia who think this.

1:36:35The Randa Abdel Fattah stuff was – I sort of didn't really know who she was. A bit like Antoinette Latouf, you know. These things are the making of these people. I think the Jewish lobby is completely strides in those two as well. They should have just shut up about them and let them die a slow death. Inevitably, once she was invited to the Adelaide Writers' Festival, the damage is done. Uninviting was always going to make her an arter. How all of these artists can rise up in her defence is pretty disappointing. But that's the crowd that goes to Writers' Festival today. I went there last year because my book had come out and I felt pretty uncomfortable by some of the sort of vibes that I was picking.

1:37:20Because I also interviewed Josh Bornstein for his book, which was more about Qantas and corporate life. And, you know, Josh was the lawyer for the TWU in the baggage handlers case at Qantas and I get on well with Josh and I respect him in terms of his capacities as an industrial relations lawyer. As I said on stage, I think I said something like, you and I couldn't possibly disagree more on the issue of the Middle East or Israel or whatever I said. And anyway, I thought I was going to be shouted off the stage. Yeah. By the crowd. And I was just thinking like. But you didn't feel physically endangered.

1:37:56No. You just thought they were. Yeah. Because I'm very keen to go to this, whatever the fake Adelaide Writers Festival is that they've, you know, jammed together to try to give Abdel Fattah her stage. It's called the Hamas Writers Festival. Whatever it is. And, like, if she wants to go and spout that rubbish, then I just want to ask questions from the stage. I think maybe I'm very interested in your view on this. I know you don't know very long. But, like, you think we should silence these people or you think that we should argue against them? Well, I don't think – like, the suggestion that she was sort of silenced, I mean, she was uninvited from a festival.

1:38:30But some people want to silence her, right? Some people want to silence this kind of speech. Well, I think there's always got to be a line between freedom of speech and hate speech. I agree. And I think I've tried to in a couple of articles for Rampart and I've put that one I wrote about this issue outside of the paywall so anyone can read it. But like there has to be a distinction between saying, you know, raging against the Netanyahu government or the IDF. Whether or not what you're saying is actually true or factual, you have a right to say these things. Once you start saying that, you know, a certain part of the Australian population should not be safe, should not be allowed to be safe or ever feel safe.

1:39:11And she says culturally safe as if that somehow makes it okay. A bit like she says Zionist when what she means is Jews. But, you know, you just cannot go around threatening people's safety, cultural or otherwise. And at that point I think that speech does need to be restricted. But, like, there's also lots of hypocrisy on this stuff, which is why I usually don't write about these kind of, like these sort of freedom of speech, religious anti-discrimination stuff because inevitably you've got, you know, whichever side you're on, you see all of the discrimination that you're against and then there's all this discrimination that you're happy to let go.

1:39:46Yeah. But through to the keeper. So there's a lot of hypocrisy around this. Because you can't care about everything. That's one reason or it's malicious. I think people should read and find that article you wrote. I know I kind of pitched it hard at the time you wrote it. That's the paywall. I think people should then subscribe to Rampart after they read it. But I do think – Let's get Joe to 150. Like that was the – 150 ,000. Yeah. That was the best – Bit of a way to go. That was the best article that I had read, full stop on that issue, because everyone wrote stuff about it. I wrote stuff about it.

1:40:16That was the best article I read on this issue. And also John Silvestre wrote a great – we've got to let Joe go. He's been very generous with his time today. I know you've got to get to it. I also don't want to – eventually your subscribers are just going to die of boredom if we keep talking. What if our listeners actually love it when we go long? It is actually crap. You guys are almost go as long as acquired. Well, that's Adam's dream. Adam's dream is to change the name of the podcast to acquired and then to get those two guys instead of me and then he'll be happy. My dream is to one day be on acquired.

1:40:48And also have their advertising deals. Wow. I agree. We actually had Ben on the pod. I don't know if you've heard of it. We went through the economics. You had who on the pod? We had Ben, one of the acquired guys on the pod. Oh, really? We went through the economics of acquired. I'll have to go back and listen to that. Adam got him on. I take no credit for that. You got him on. He was amazing. And he talked about economics in the business. Did you hear their 10-year anniversary episode with Michael Lewis? They went through a lot of that. I think Michael got it from us. Yeah, I'm sure. We've got to let you go.

1:41:15You've got to get somewhere. Thank you. You've been super generous for your time. Thank you, Mike and Joel. Thank you, Idea, of course. We will not be in person next week, but we will be doing this from afar. Look forward to it.

1:41:29Thank you.