State of Banking, Media, and AI — with Andrew Ross Sorkin

23:21And that's what journalism is. And if we're not interrogating those people and interrogating those ideas, whether you like those ideas or you dislike those ideas, I don't think we're doing the job. There is an, you could argue about the format, meaning the context, you know, the people in the audience? Who is in the audience? What does that look like? How does that work? Is it on, is it live? Is it taped? If it's taped, could you fact check in a way if it was taped that you couldn't if it's live? So I think that there's probably fair, fair arguments to be made about that. But I do think there were things that came out of that interview that were revealing to me.

23:57I mean, I did learn certain things. I was shocked. I don't know if you were shocked when he said, Maybe I shouldn't have been shocked when he said that he would pardon many of the folks that were involved in January 6th. That, I thought, was a very revealing and telling thing. By the way, on both sides, I'm sure there are people who support that, and I'm sure there's lots of people who don't support that. But I think knowing that is valuable. What do you think? I think she was given it. I feel sorry for the right term because she's not a victim. But Caitlin Collins, I think he's just impossible to interview, especially when you fill the audience with his red pillars.

24:39You know who I thought did the best job of handling a similar situation was actually CNBC. When Deirdre Bolsa, I think I'm saying her name correctly, I stumbled across an interview she did with the founder of Opendoor, Keith Rabois. And he started saying things that were just blatantly false. and she would stop him and in a forceful yet dignified way saying, Keith, you can't say that. It's not true. And she managed to do that. She managed to interrupt somebody and who was not saying, you know, was spewing falsehoods and yet doing it in a respectful way. And Caitlin wasn't able to do that. I think he just kind of rolls over people.

25:20They obviously fucked up with the audience, but loosely speaking, I agree with you. He's a Republican front runner. They should, bring him on. And the other thing I would argue is it was actually bad for him because the decision's going to be, the presidency is going to be decided by a small group of swing voters in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia. And I got to think, I don't know if you felt this way. I had PTSD watching the thing. I thought, do we really want to go back here? So I think there's no question that, you know, putting him back in prime time is a question about that. Do I think that it set him back?

25:58I don't know. I don't know if it set him back. I mean, I think it probably galvanized a lot of, it may have galvanized a lot of Democrats if he becomes, and look, if the election were held today and it's a Biden versus Trump rematch, and that's what it is, you know, there's going to be a large swath of people who are going to come out, I would imagine, against Trump. There are Democrats who would like Trump to run. They think that's actually a positive. They say, look, Biden beat him the first time, he'll beat him again. I don't know if that's the right call or not. So let's switch. Let's get back to sort of your ballywicker domain.

26:45You speak to CEOs every day. You speak to them on camera and off camera. It feels as if a recession has been a month off for about 18 months. Do you have any gut feel when you speak to these business leaders around the real economy and if any projections or feel you have for the economy for the back half of this year? So, look, I'm a journalist, therefore I'm probably a professional skeptic. So take that for what it's worth. And I say that because I do think it's harder to see how things will be better in six months than they are today in the real economy. You could argue that the stock market is always ahead of the real economy if you think the stock market is efficient and right.

27:33so i think it's very possible and i think most of the the ceos that i speak to when they think about their own business they think the second half is going to be harder than it is now and if you look at profit margins today they're at close to record highs you know interestingly i don't know if you saw stan druckenmiller uh last week he made this comment that he thought it was possible you know given where profit margins are that you could you know stocks may not be higher for 10 years, he said. So I think there's something in there. And, you know, everyone's playing this game of interest rates and, you know, what's inflation really look like.

28:12I think once we get through that, whether it's a soft, soft-ish landing, maybe a hard-ish, whatever landing that is, I'm not even worried about the landing piece. I'm worried about what comes after. Because my great worry has a lot more to do with sort of a sense that you live in some kind of stagflationary period for a long time. I don't know what it is that turns the economy up. Yeah, it's such a random walk, right? We've been talking about a recession. I thought what Ken Griffin said was really interesting. It may have been on your show. He said that of the$5 trillion stuffed in people's pockets, there's about$1 trillion left.

28:53They're burning through$100 billion of it, which means in kind of two to four quarters, people are going to start running out of money. Bingo was his name. I agree with that. And by the way, most bank, the bank CEOs will tell you by Q4, Q1, that that money runs out even quicker than he would probably say. And yet record low unemployment, you know, retail sales pretty strong. I mean, if you didn't know, if the media wasn't telling us every day that a recession is imminent, would you think a recession is coming? It all feels, but at the same time, it feels like we're setting ourselves up for not even a small fall, but a big fall.

29:30I've never seen an environment like this where everybody is so sort of perplexed. There really isn't a consensus around what is going to happen. I'm curious. Do you know anybody who is saying to the moon anymore? I don't know anybody who's calling for an economy that's, you know, rip roaring. Yeah. By the way, maybe that's the call if you think that, you know, oftentimes, you know, everybody thinks one way and the truth is it turns out the other way. What are your thoughts? We're not Monday morning, but we're Tuesday morning of the banking, the regional banking crisis. What are your observations?

30:07Where do you, you know, what do you think we got right and wrong? What do you think this says about the broader economy? Any thoughts around regional banks moving forward? So I have a view that the banking system in America is now fundamentally broken. Fundamentally broken. And it's not just about regional banks. It's about the banking system. And to me, the lesson of this past, call it a couple of months, six months, has actually a lot to do with the digitization of finance. And I think that when you really look at what happened to Silicon Valley Bank or to Signature or even to First Republic, the idea that deposits can literally flee as quickly as they did.

30:58$42 billion walking out the door of Silicon Valley Bank in four hours, to me, changes the entire dynamic. How, as a bank, can you insure, self-insure some other way, insure that the deposits stay at the bank? It used to be you'd have to either call the bank, line up to see the teller. I mean, there's something almost GameStop-ian about this. I actually think that GameStop, if you remember GameStop a year and a half ago, two years ago now, I know you might think these are totally unrelated, but to me, they're actually completely tied together. GameStop happens and you see the power and speed, the rapidity with which a group of people, humans, can use digital tools to fundamentally change the value of companies in ways that are completely unexpected.

31:48And I think that, married with where we are now in the banking system, sort of creates chaos in terms of what banking is supposed to be. Because the idea was always, you put your deposits in. By the way, the deposits could be short-term deposits. You could always walk out with a deposit. But they're always going to be lending at long. There's always going to be a mismatch. Whether you're, by the way, a big bank or a small bank, it doesn't matter. That's the point. That's how they make money. But it's a fundamental in an era where you can model out how quickly people will take their money and how does that work.

32:24In an era where you can do it literally from the phone, think about that. Think about what that means. By the way, you can extrapolate this idea out to all sorts of digital businesses, subscription businesses, SaaS businesses. Think about how quickly, you know, we've tried to make it so easy to onboard people and also so easy to leave. And in fact, the incentive there was if you made it easy for people to leave, it would force businesses to actually do better by the customer. But there's a flip side to that. And in the banking business in particular, it's a dangerous one. Yeah, there's externalities around a frictionless economy.

32:59So if you believe, and the numbers are striking. The story I talk about, you get an email from your venture capitalist. I got that email saying, we're pulling, we're telling all our portfolio companies to transfer their money. Here's the person at J.P. Morgan. Here's the link to get it done literally in three minutes. There's no downside to transferring your money to J.P. Morgan. And so if you think anytime there's insecurity, anyone with more than$250 ,000 is going to go to one of the biggest banks that is the title of your book, Too Big to Fail. So if regional banks can't survive long term, which I'm not sure they can, what do you think is the solution?

33:38Do we just remove the cap on FDIC insurance? I'll make it more complicated. Let's say we decide that we are going to guarantee all deposits. We explicitly say this, not this implicit situation where you're not really sure what Janet Yellen is going to do or not do. You say it's hard and fast. It's the law. And then let's say that you are the treasurer or CFO of some company with some amount of money at some smaller bank. And one day, it just so happens that you are watching the stock of that said bank crater fall. Even if I told you, Scott, that your deposits were completely insured, I think you may very well say to yourself, you know what?

34:22Actually, I'm still going to move my money. I'm watching this stock fall. People are very worried about this bank, even if I'm totally guaranteed. Now, maybe they don't all do it a mass. I don't know. But I've been because I've been playing around with lots of different ideas of what kind of guarantee systems could you create? Could you create some kind of FDIC plus program that guarantees payrolls, for example? Would that be enough if you raised it to five hundred thousand dollars? Does that do the job? You know, what is it that does the work for you? And I can't get there. I don't know what the failsafe version of this is.

34:59The only counter to your argument around even if the stock, you know, even if you remove the cap, it wouldn't make any difference is that my understanding is the majority of the money that fled these banks was capital in excess of 250 grand. I agree with that. So Charles Schwab, the majority of their accounts, I think they have$300 billion in deposits, but the average deposit is$20 ,000, and they didn't experience any real flight because people thought it might in fact – people thought we're safe. But you wrote – you literally wrote the book on this, Too Big to Fail. And all of a sudden, Too Big to Fail is a good thing.

35:34Do you think that other than J.P. Morgan, who are the other winners here? Well, I think right now you'll see J.P. Morgan, clearly a winner. I think Bank of America will be a winner, though. I think you'd look at some of the whole to maturity stuff that they that they have. It's larger than you'd want necessarily to be in a perfect world. I think Wells Fargo is a winner. Citi might turn out to be a winner. You're listing off the biggest banks in America, the biggest banks in America. And then we have to just decide, do you know, I'm not Canadian, Scott, but do you want to live in Canada? Do you want to live in Australia?

36:06Do you want to live in some of these places? Because that's what it looks like. Now, it's sacrilegious. sacrilegious to have this conversation to say that maybe, to even raise the issue, would we be better off as a country to have a small number of banks? And the idea of killing community banks is terrible because they actually are working in the community in a way that these other banks are. And then you have to say to yourself, okay, let's say you only have five, six, seven, eight banks. What could you do to incentivize those banks to lend in these markets where, frankly, the profits may not be similar.

36:40And they say, I wouldn't want to do this. I know firsthand on the other side of that concentration of why it's bad. And that is I've always started companies. And about 10 years ago, I started doing venture debt, where if a general catalyst or a tier one VC invested, Comerica or SVB would show up and say, if you raise 15 million, we'll give you three or five million on amazing terms and venture debt. And by the way, that was a profitable product for them. Now you had to bank with them. that has gone away. It's no longer available because these niche banks, I mean, basically, when there's a reduction in competition, fees go up on business and retail banking consumers.

37:16So it's the tension between the systemic risk. But couldn't you make an argument that a small number of ring-fenced bank failures is a sign of a healthy economy? Because what people don't appreciate is that a bank that loans out 500 bucks on 100 bucks in deposits, I mean, that's leverage and growth. Senator Warren's saying we need to match one-to-one parity. It's like, well, okay, Senator Warren, get ready for a very low-growth economy. Exactly. I mean, that's the thing that people don't appreciate. I know I don't disagree with you. Part of me wonders, here's a very basic, perhaps super simple solution.

37:53The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requires the banks on your app, on your statement, on anything, that anytime the account, whether it's a business account or something else or an individual account, is over$250 ,000, there is like a nicotine label that pops up on your screen that says, warning, this is not insured. And then it's on you. I mean, this goes to this other question about, you know, personal responsibility and whatnot. I know people, by the way, I know people in my family who literally have been, you know, that put money at this bank, they put money in this bank, They put money in this bank because because people they grew up with the idea that, you know,$250 ,000 was the limit.

38:41Coming up after the break. I would argue to you that one of the reasons that Fox still loved Tucker Carlson, despite the fact that advertisers frankly didn't want to be on his broadcast, was because he served an audience. and those cable carriers around the country cared about that audience keeping their cable bundle together. Stay with us.

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40:34Let me pivot back to media. You're, you know, I won't even say a media star. I'll say a Canadian media star. But you're in the thick of it. You're on the front end. D-List, right? What was that show on Bravo? Was it D-List? Give me a break. But you're an ad-supported, you're in one of the few places that's making money in ad-supported media. I'm just curious, what do you think of Tucker Carlson going on Twitter? Do you think this is a good idea? Do you think it'll work? Well, so there's, you know, you just said it's ad-supported. And the truth is, within the TV side of my life, it is still, for the most part, a linear cable business.

41:10And that's a carriage fee business, much more so than it actually is an advertising driven business. And this is just a this is the fees that a cable company pays to CNBC to carry CNBC such that people at home say it's worth my hundred and twenty dollar a month. And that's why, by the way, that was that's true of Fox. That's true of CNN. That's true of MSNBC. The lion's share of the revenue of these cable networks has been a carriage fee business. The advertising business has been always a smaller minority piece of the pie. In fact, I would argue to you that one of the reasons that Fox still loved Tucker Carlson, despite the fact that advertisers, frankly, didn't want to be on his broadcast, was because he served an audience.

41:56And those cable carriers around the country cared about that audience keeping their cable bundle together and paying their annual or their monthly fee. So the real question to me about, you know, Tucker Carlson going to Twitter is, can he make the economics of that as valuable to him personally and to the system, if you will, on Twitter? I don't know. I've never known enough about, you know, when you see the number of views on a video on Twitter, it says, you know, a thousand, a million, that have to be watched for three seconds, one second, five seconds, 20 minutes. It's it's not that I mean, it's it's definitely not 20 minutes.

42:38It's clearly not 20 minutes. It's probably closer to the way YouTube does it. So, you know, then the question is, can you make the economics that work? And will people watch TV, truly, truly watch TV on Twitter? Is that, you know, a sort of that form factor in that medium, the way people will do it? And again, I don't know. I watch a lot of the clips just like you do, I imagine. Would you watch a whole show that way? I don't know. So let me, as somebody who gets a lot of offers to do new cool stuff, I see a lot of stars, whether it's Megyn Kelly or Tucker Carlson or I'm trying to think of some more, you know, Andrew Cuomo.

43:18They're doing their own thing. They go to, you know, whether it's their choice or not, they go to Substack, they go to Discord, they go to Twitter, they do their podcast or they, you know, there's all these different venues where they start. People are killing it. Look, Joe Rogan is making that model work for him in a big, big way. I think others may not be, though. Joe started, though. He was organic in podcasting. He wasn't, you know, I mean, he was successful, but not the icon that he is now. If you were to, if you said, OK, Andrew, you, I mean, you're the key. You love big platforms. I think you have mastered.

43:52I do like big platforms. I like big platforms that have hopefully both an audience and credibility. And that's what I've, you know. Yeah, I think you've decided, I may be A-Rod, but I still need the Yankees. And I still need a stadium and a venue and a coach and all that good stuff. But if you said, if someone said to you, Andrew, you have to go try and forge an income stream and presence and relevance on one of these new platforms, be it Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, doing your own thing, a sub stack. Can you think of like the one or two that would be most appealing to you if you had to go try and start something on one of these, you know, with one of the new, the new co's?

44:36Have you ever thought about what you would do? Gun to the head, I think the truth is, and I don't know if I haven't seen anyone else do it differently. I think the most successful ones are doing it on multiple platforms. So, you know, yes, Joe Rogan, you know, Call Her Daddy's a huge success on Spotify. And by the way, that's a podcast, increasingly also effectively a television show, right? I mean, that's where it lives. So I think you probably start there. The real money in advertising revenue is in the podcast video space. I think less. And then I think you then have to leverage the social media component pieces, whether it's Twitter, whether it's Instagram, TikTok, or the like.

45:24I don't know. I mean, and then there's the secondary question is the folks who are making money to me on social are doing it as influencers and effectively, therefore, endorsing product. I think that's a very hard position for, and I think one of the reasons I actually like doing what I do the way I do it, I think it's a hard position for journalists to be in the true endorsement influencer space online. Just based on the sort of, at least maybe they're old school ethical guardrails, but I think those guardrails are what we have today. Maybe that's going to change, by the way, but that's, I think, where we are.

46:02So you more than dabble in media. You've had a book turned into an HBO film, Too Big to Fail. You're very involved in Billions. You're the co-creator of the series Billions. I'd love to get your take on the writer's strike. How do you think that plays out and the dynamics behind it? You know, I think the writer's strike is a truly complicated one because you have two sides that want things that are totally diametrically at odds, which is you have the writers, I think, fairly, you know, want better job protection, especially in the AI world. We haven't talked about ChatGPT. I'm shocked that hasn't come up yet.

46:48And they also want back end and things that looked closer to the old economics of television at a time when TV is moving, obviously, to the streaming side. The other element of this is, given where the streamers are and actually how complicated their business is, you could make the argument that for at least the next three or four months, they actually have no incentive to negotiate, meaning they're actually going to make money. You know, a dollar saved is a dollar made. And the next couple of months, they're going to save a fortune. I mean, tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars that are not going to have to go out the door for new production.

47:28And because everybody's in the same boat, you know, it's a gift and the field is flat. It's not like one firm is advantaged over the other. You could argue Netflix might be marginally advantaged just because of the amount of throughput and production they had stuff going prior. But I just don't see this coming to a close anytime soon. Yeah, I think this is going to be reminiscent of how Margaret Thatcher just kept saying no to the British coal miner units and just broke their back. I don't think that sounds well for the riders, but let's switch gears again. Crypto. Give me your top line thoughts on this market, where it's headed, any reflections on what's gone on here.

48:13You know, I've been surprised at how resilient Bitcoin has been. It may or may well be the one an only piece of the crypto puzzle that is truly meaningful. I think Ethereum is a great technology and has some value. Is it imbued with value? I mean, I've always thought, could Ethereum work and also be worth a cent, one cent? Yes, it could, technically. I think there's two versions of crypto that we could talk about. One is like money crypto, and one is like tech crypto. I think there's some interesting tech crypto, I mean, stuff that's sort of being built right now on top of Ethereum and other things.

48:52It's kind of interesting. Money crypto, I think, may have had its time. And I think the other piece of what the SEC is doing right now around Coinbase has made it very, very complicated for any of these exchanges to really be as aggressive as they would want to actually try to invest in money crypto. And just sticking with technology, you brought up AI. What are your thoughts about who are the winners here and any AI, new companies, beneficiaries, existing incumbents. What are your thoughts? Okay. So I do think it's transformative. And I'm, you know, I'm squarely in the camp of Bill Gates, who, you know, will tell you a story of how he saw a demo in the 1980s for a graphical interface.

49:41And it wasn't until last fall when he saw a demo for ChatGPT that he could say he'd seen anything comparable, meaning game changing in the business. I think it is that big and will have massive effects on labor on the way we live. It just, I can't even, both good and bad. Microsoft will obviously be a winner of sorts, though I think it's very possible that Bard and Google, I don't know if they're going to fully catch up, but I think given just the scale that they have already, they can play in that game. There's really only two other major large language models that I think people are really focused on.

50:21One is Anthropic, and the other is Inflection. This is the firm that was started in part by Reid Hoffman. Within the sort of engineering space, those are sort of the four major players. Then there's Scale AI and others, but they're sort of working on things to help the other players. So to me, the big question is, what does AWS and Amazon ultimately do? I think they probably have to partner or create or own one of those businesses. And similarly, where does Apple land? And I don't know where you put also a meta in that. By the way, I think Lena Kahn, who I interviewed last week, she's right. This will benefit the incumbents because it requires infrastructure.

51:09It requires big dollar infrastructure. It requires chips, lots of NVIDIA chips and others to make this whole thing work. And by the way, those guys are going to be the ones who are regulated first, but I wouldn't even worry about them really. Folks, I'm worried about, but both worried about and where the opportunity may lie is there's so many sort of smaller, you know, open source projects that are being worked on right now. And the question is whether any of those projects can actually, you know, reach escape velocity. And that part, I don't know. Can you think of any, when you speak to what sectors do you think are most likely, I mean, Chegg announces, kind of just acknowledges that ChatGPT is cutting into the business and the stock gets taken down 40%.

51:51Can you think of any sectors that you think are sort of on the kill list or are going to have the toughest time responding to the threats of AI? Well, the truth is, and I think Barry Diller was right when he said that he's been threatening to sue over ChatGPT and the idea of large language models because he is desperately worried that the content providers are going to have a really tough time. I think there's going to be great value, actually, for a company like The New York Times or CNBC or NBC in the context of breaking news. I think the true value in the content play will be about news that's breaking.

52:30If you can break the news, that will have enormous value to people. But I'm not sure the archive, and I'm not even talking about the archive 100 years ago, I'm talking about the archive like, you know, 24 hours ago or possibly even 10 minutes ago will have value. Because once the story is broken, the AI will be able to write the same story, if not better by layering other things. So I worry deeply about the content companies. And I also, I mean, you talk about TV or movies, you know, think about a TV show. A TV show might have a writer's room of, you know, a showrunner, maybe there's a deputy, maybe there's a handful, five or six other writers and a writer's room assistant.

53:16You know, is it possible one day that two or three of those spots will be just replaced by AI? You know, that's what scares me. So I know your time is limited here. You've been very generous. One last question. I'd just love to know, you know, I know you, I know you, I don't know you well, but I know you well enough to know that you're a very thoughtful guy, a family man. And coming out of COVID, post-COVID, if and how has it changed your view to what you want to accomplish? Not as much to work, but with respect to your family and your relationships and just your general thoughts about how you want to live your life.

53:55Oh, you're going to get me on the couch here because this is like the issue that I spend probably too much time thinking about. Maybe not enough time doing what I think I should be doing about. But in a way, COVID, you're not really allowed to say this out loud. It was an element that COVID was a blessing in that I really spent time with my family in a way that I hadn't in a very long time. And it was a gift. It was revelatory. It was so many things. And there's part of me that almost yearns for some of that. But I've tried to rearrange my life and schedule to be a bit more like that. Though obviously we're now, I'm traveling constantly again and working at all hours again and meeting people in person again.

54:53I wish I could, but I am trying to say no more than I used to. I think that's actually been the biggest lesson. You can say no and that's okay. and and but i also don't know if that's a a period in a career meaning you know in my 20s you never wanted to say no because everything was an opportunity everything was an opportunity and so when where is the moment where you feel more comfortable um saying no and maybe being being okay with and accepting professionally that that whatever that opportunity is you may lose it but on the other side that you're gaining that opportunity to spend time with in my case i have two sons and a daughter and a wife and what that opportunity, how blessed that opportunity can be.

55:36So I will say this. I was just at a memorial service for someone who passed away and her husband was speaking. They had been together for 55 years and it was the big takeaway for me. He said, you know, when you're with somebody for a really long time and you have a family, one of the things you do is you say to the other person, say, remember when? Remember when we did this? Remember when we did that? Remember when we had this argument? Remember when the kids did this together? There's a lot of that. He said, I don't have that anymore because she's not here. And I thought it was such a, I say to my wife a lot, remember when?

56:16Remember when we did this? And we've been together for 17 years, married 20 years since We started dating and that's a long time. And so there's a lot, we have that. But I want to be able to have those memories with her and with my kids. And, you know, every moment that I'm working, I'm probably not having that. But at the same time, I, you know, we, I've also tried to incorporate that into my work. And we're all trying, we're all trying, probably not doing as well as we should. Andrew Ross Sorkin is a columnist for the New York Times and the founder and editor-at-large of DealBook, an online daily financial report published by the New York Times.

56:55He started in 2001. Andrew is also co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box and the author of Too Big to Fail, How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System and themselves. He joined us from his home in Manhattan. Andrew, it's always a pleasure. Best to you. It's always a pleasure. I don't know if I'm allowed to extend the show. I just want to say to you that I listen to you as much for your insights into business and tech and all that good stuff. But the stuff that I often just think about and ruminate and think is so valuable is your conversations about family and about what's important.

57:38And it's really so meaningful. And I think you do such an extraordinary job. So I just want to thank you on behalf of the Sorkin family. I appreciate that. That means a lot coming from you and especially Pilar. Thanks, brother. Thanks.

58:00Algebra of happiness, listening. Listening is a superpower, and it's something that I didn't embrace, and I don't think a lot of people, especially men or especially people who like to think of themselves as leaders are important. They have a tough time listening. Why? Because they're put in situations where a lot of their success has been a function of their ability to communicate and assess the situation and sort of weigh in and hopefully have the best view because you know they're the leader and that leads to you not being a great listener and a lot of great leaders or a lot of CEOs my observation has been they're especially good at listening they ask questions and they listen and they might weigh in but a young CEO oftentimes feels the need to you know use everyone else's statements as a prompt for them to give their view and their opinion where this really pays off is at home and recognizing that sometimes when your partner is upset or saying something, it's not your job to kind of weigh in and counteract it.

58:54I do this, I used to do this with my kids. Everything they'd say, I'd say, well, this is what happened, or this is what you should be thinking. And sometimes all they want is just for you to listen. And it's not about correcting them. It's not about arguing with them. It's just about kind of listening. Also, also, I think listening is a power move. I, for the first time, recognized when I got older, the power of silence or not responding, and that if someone would say something, and I would just reflect on it and just look at them. I think it reflects confidence, just to be comfortable in silence and or not respond and just nod your head and listen or ask another question and let them do the talking.

59:35And I'm not suggesting that you don't engage, but there is something around engaged silence. It's called listening. So a gangster confidence move, a sign of empathy, a sign of investing in your partnership. Very simple. Active listening, just engage. Be silent, but engaged. This episode was produced by Caroline Shager and Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly Markets Show.

1:00:24What did we think of our algebra of happiness on listening?

1:00:32I'm sorry, what'd you say?

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