WIRED Roundup: Zuckerberg’s Illegal School, Nepal’s Discord Revolution, Fandom in Politics

0:00Hi, I'm Nicole Phelps, the Global Fashion News and Features Director and co-host of Vogue's podcast, The Run Through. Each week on the show, our listeners get an all-access pass to the world of Vogue with the latest fashion news and the most exciting voices in the industry. On Tuesdays, join me to hear interviews with influential leaders in the industry like Calvin Klein, Daniel Roseberry, and Jonathan Anderson. On Thursdays, join Head of Editorial Content at Vogue, Chloe Mao, and Head of Editorial Content at British Vogue, Chomenadi, as they explore style and culture through the lens of fashion with guests like Martha Stewart, Kamala Harris, and Tracee Ellis Ross.

0:39The Run Through with Vogue, new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

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2:55That's outshift.com. Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley. I'm Wired's Director of Business and Industry, Zoe Schiffer. Today on the show, we're bringing you the top stories that you need to know about this week. including how the Democrats fared much better than anyone expected in this week's elections, and how some of those victories show the power of online fandom. I'm joined today by our senior politics editor, Leah Figer. Hey, Zoe. Great to be here.

3:26Leah, our first story this week is one that will really make your head spin, and it's about how Mark Zuckerberg opened an illegal school at his Palo Alto compound. out. Zoe, I'm obsessed with this story. Before you continue, I think that it's really important to say that Caroline, the lovely reporter of this story on your business desk, obtained 1 ,665 pages of documents about the dispute about Zuckerberg's house. This story is canon now. Caroline Hoskins is a complete star. Our fact-checking team literally cried when I asked them. They were like, wait, sorry, how many documents are we looking through?

4:07I was like, yes. Shout out to the Wired research team forever. The school, I think we just have to say, is named after one of the Zuckerberg family chickens. It's called the Bicken Benz School. I mean, hearing you say this, it's, I know you're being serious, but again. So the Crescent City neighborhood in Palo Alto, where the Zuckerbergs live, as you can imagine, is some of the best real estate in the entire country. It's filled with these gorgeous homes, a ton of greenery. Mark Zuckerberg has been expanding his presence throughout the years in this ultra fancy neighborhood. The plot of land that the Zuckerbergs live on has expanded to include 11 previously separate properties.

4:48This is so funny and just such a nightmare. If you're living on the street, you paid whatever,$5 million for your house and suddenly like all of your neighbors are Mark Zuckerberg. Important to note that not all of them are like connecting either. I don't totally understand what that means. Do they walk through a neighbor's porch to get to like their horse's pool? What does this entail? We have more questions. We have to Google Earth this. I think there's some holes in this story that we need to fill in. The expansion first became a concern for Mark Zuckerberg's neighbors back in 2016 due to fears that his purchases were driving up the market pretty dramatically.

5:22But then about five years later, neighbors started noticing that a school appeared to be operating out of the Zuckerberg compound. So this is illegal to do without a permit, at least under the area's residential zoning code. And so naturally, the neighbors started to alert the city. Caroline Haskins, the reporter on this story, obtained over a thousand documents, like you said, outlining the resulting fight between the neighbors and the city authorities, basically arguing that it felt to them like the Zuckerbergs were getting special treatment. You know, the existence of this school was known, but Caroline's reporting reveals two really key things.

6:00First, how long the school might have actually been operating, right? I mean, records by the California Department of Education directory claim that the school opened in October 2022. However, as Caroline found, neighbors claim that this is a year after they first saw it begin its operations. It's also two and a half years after the head of the school posted on her LinkedIn about this new role. There's so many confusing different things. And second, the other really key part is that it shows a pattern, right? For almost a decade, Zuckerberg's neighbors have been complaining to the city about noisy construction work, this intrusive security presence, the hordes of staffers, business associates.

6:40I mean, it's Mark Zuckerberg. He has an entourage. They cause traffic. They take up parking. That sweet, sweet street parking in Crescent Park. Right. I know. I was like, I really fail to imagine that anyone who has a house on the street, like, needs street parking. But like... I will say that did stick out to me, which just shows that I live in New York. I will literally be walking in a neighborhood that is not my neighborhood and go, ooh, great parking spot. Hope someone really gets that soon. Absolutely. I mean, apparently the Palo Alto neighbors feel the same. The documents paint a picture of years of the neighbors actively complaining and some of them claiming that city officials were giving preferential treatment to the Zuckerbergs because their complaints weren't being addressed very quickly or very effectively in their view.

7:28There's instances of the neighbors reaching out directly to the Zuckerberg family office to asking them to address the same issues. One of these messages to the family reads to please, quote, ideally stop or at a minimum give us an extended break from the acquisition, demolition, and construction cycle to let the neighborhood recover from the last eight years of disruption. Oh my God. I know. Unreal. All you wanted was to just live in Palo Alto and enjoy your life. And instead, you were Mark Zuckerberg's neighbor. Moving on to our next story. Last month, news broke of President Trump pardoning CZ, the multi-billionaire founder of the crypto exchange, Binance.

8:09In 2023, CZ had pled guilty to willfully failing to implement measures against money laundering and violating U.S. sanctions in his business. Back then, he'd agreed to forfeit his role as Binance's CEO, and Binance agreed to leave the U.S. and pay a record$4.3 billion penalty. But it seems that CZ's reputation is going through a bit of a makeover in Trump's second term in the White House. In last month's pardoning, the Trump administration claimed that CZ had been a victim of the Biden administration's war on crypto. His pardon was, as you can imagine, hotly debated on the merits. But our colleague, Joel Kalili, says that more than that, the pardoning carries conflicts of interest and potential long-term consequences for how the crypto industry goes about regulation.

8:55Leah, I'm honestly curious how you feel. I mean, we know how you feel about AI. How do you feel about crypto? Oh, my God. No one's asked me this in at least two years. I love this question. Wired has an unbelievable reporter on crypto. like you mentioned, Joel, everyone should really go back and look at his just archive of incredible crypto reporting and specifically his reporting on the many conflicts of interest between crypto, the crypto industry and President Donald Trump. You know, there's some key figures that pop up a lot. Obviously, CZ is a big one, but you also have like the Winklevi, right, who have appeared at many a Trump family event, donating money to the ballrooms and other endeavors.

9:41and are also the arguably original crypto bros. The conflicts of interest in this part are really, really wild between like Binance and World Liberty Financial, the crypto business that's owned by Trump and his sons. Binance agreed in May to receive a$2 billion investment from a coin denominated in USD1, a coin issued by World Liberty Financial, which would earn tens of millions of dollars in this arrangement. So clearly there are some messy, messy bits of this. But the thing that I keep coming back to that I'm sure you do, too, is that Trump gave this pardon without actually knowing who CZ is, question mark.

10:20But literally when he was asked by an interviewer and by interviewer, I mean literally his 60 minutes interview that aired on November 2nd. He goes, oh, OK, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I can only tell you this. My sons are into crypto. Yes. What? I know. I know. I mean, I think there's something kind of sweet that we're still getting shocked. Some people are getting enraged by what looks like obvious self-dealing, what looks like obvious conflict of interest. I mean, my view is this is at least a large reason why Trump is back in the White House. Under the Biden administration, it was hard to pay to play.

10:57And the tech industry did not like that. They felt like if you talk to a lot of tech CEOs, they were going out on a limb. They were giving money, resources, support to the Biden administration. And what did they get in return? They got a really hostile, in their view, FTC. They got slaps on the wrist. They got Biden coming out and saying, in some cases, implying that they had blood on their hands for various actions. They did not feel like there was anything to be gained from continuing to support Democrats, whereas Republicans, it felt like at least you know what you were going to get. If you support Trump, you can expect to get a little kickback in return.

11:31Absolutely. And on his end, Zhao seemed to have changed his ex-bio from ex-Binance to just Binance. Right. And the crypto industry, for what it's worth, obviously, I think overall, based on Joel's reporting, really appreciates Trump's support. At the same time, Binance not being in the United States was positive for a lot of their businesses. So the fact that Binance could now be coming back is kind of sending people into turmoil, trying to figure out what's the strategy if this major crypto exchange relaunches, competition spikes, what do we do? And worth pointing out, Binance and CZ did not respond to Wired's request for comment on this story.

12:13Our next story takes us all the way to Nepal. Wired gave us the inside scoop on how Gen Z essentially toppled Nepal's leader and chose a new one through Discord. This is how it went out. This past summer, some young Nepalese social media users started seeing reels shining a light on the country's, quote, Nepo babies. These videos showed the luxury cars and designer clothes owned by the country's elite, which was quite a contrast to the life of most Nepalese citizens. As this flurry of videos kept growing, the tone behind them also shifted from just showing the luxury goods to criticizing corruption and inequality in the country.

12:53At the beginning of September, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology ordered internet service providers to block access to 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube, ostensibly because the companies had failed to register with the government as required by a Supreme Court directive. But to many young people in the country, the timing was just a little too convenient, so the reason rang completely hollow. VPN downloads surged, and in the next few weeks, the digital defiance from these videos translated into street protests. This is where Discord servers became the main form of communication for protesters to coordinate and protect each other.

13:33Unfortunately, the protests would ultimately leave at least 72 people dead and over 1 ,000 people injured nationwide, making it the deadliest unrest in Nepal's recent history. The protests kept going, though, and eventually 10 of the Gen Z activists who'd participated were invited to sit down with members of Nepal's military to basically decide how to move forward. It's incredible. This entire story, which has been unfolding, as you said, Zoe, for quite some time, is just such a testament to the way that social media is not only utilized these days as, like, communications around the world and various protest movements, but literally as this deciding force.

14:15Like, this is real life right now. Like, watching people on Discord actually vote in this way is a pretty unbelievable part of this article. Quite literally, it was through Discord that young Nepalis decided on who would be the next leader. One quote from the article that I will never get out of my head is, please decide on a representative right now. We do not have time. Like, it was such an interesting look at where there are crackdowns on different ways to communicate. And obviously, we've seen this over the last few decades. Twitter pre-Elon Musk was a very, very specific place for organizing and information.

14:52I'm thinking of Nigeria. I'm thinking of Egypt. This has been consistent. And this article, I think, took that and threw it even further. And obviously, there's kind of a lot that's happening right now in this space with young Gen Z activists utilizing socials in this way. We look at Kenya. We look at Mozambique. We look at Madagascar. This is really happening across the board. The parallels with the 2011 Arab Spring really stuck out to me. I remember Twitter's offices in those days, if you would walk in the front door, they would have papers spread out talking about the Twitter revolution. And that's really how social media saw itself.

15:30It saw itself as a tool for empowering democracy around the world in a lot of places. That narrative has really died down, it feels like. But we could see in kind of this Discord story that young people were saying the tools available to us are not adequate. And so we're going to use these online tools to build our own. Coming up after the break, we'll dive into how this week's election results were a win for Democrats, not just electorally, but also online.

16:07150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us, and now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America wherever you get your podcasts.

16:36welcome back to uncanny valley i'm zoe schiffer i'm joined today by senior politics editor leah feiger okay leah let's dive into our main story election day this week ended up delivering key wins for democrats in new york new jersey virginia and california mickey cheryl and abigail spanberger won the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia. Zoran Mamdani skated his way to becoming mayor of New York City. And California voters said yes to Proposition 50, which will allow state legislators to redistrict before the midterm elections in an effort to counter GOP-led gerrymandering in other states.

17:13So obviously, Leah, you have been paying very special attention to what's going on here. I know you've had an incredibly busy week. Just high level, What has been your main takeaway? You know, as bad as some Democrats are at campaigning, the Republicans are worse. Like, we're in a very particular moment right now. I think, obviously, the story of this election cycle is Mamdani. This was an absolutely unbelievable campaign from start to finish that Democratic institutions did not support, that Democratic leadership did not support until, quote unquote, the very end. and in a very lukewarm fashion.

17:54And yet this was the campaign that won, that the people wanted. McKenna Kelly had a fantastic article up about how Mamdani's campaign really figured out how to channel fandom, right? This idea that has been around for a while, you have your Taylor Swift fandom, you have your Beyonce fandom, and you have your Zoran fandom. Like this, the clips of him on social media that were in everyone's feeds were not just from his campaign. They were not very canned DNC responses featuring some kind of lame music and memes that already feel dated. These were fans that were recreating videos and making homages.

18:31This was something that we haven't actually seen in a very long time, not to mention just the network of volunteers. And they brought together everyone in person. So like this was pretty incredible. Right. Okay. But I have a question for you, because obviously this man is good at social media. I think we can just say that. But how much of being good at social media is also having an outsider campaign. Because I feel like that's the narrative that Democrats have lost as of late. They're the establishment now. They're the ones that have been in power. They're protecting and championing our institutions.

19:07And Republicans have felt like they're the outsiders. They're the ones trying to change things up. So I guess I'm curious, how big a factor do you think that was in Mamdani's success? We can't count that out. This was someone who did not have the buy-in of the Democratic institution, which a lot of people looked at from within the institution as a serious negative. Democrats aren't polling well. Right. This has been a pretty mind-bendingly difficult year for this party not in power. And so to have someone that's an outsider that's saying, I actually want to fix this. I want to do this better. I think that can only help in this situation.

19:45And to then pack that in with an incredible team of volunteers, a social plan, and a very progressive platform, like a really, really progressive platform. Right. There was an essay that I can't stop thinking about that was written by a Breitbart author. And, you know, Breitbart has done many things and I read them, but I am not, I would say, their number one fan or supporter, bluntly. But this article did an unbelievable job of capturing what, in some ways, a new left looks like, is that it's not just college-educated white people in Park Slope that are saying, like, yeah, support the underclass.

20:29The dynamic has shifted. It's that people no longer have the purchasing power that they were told they were going to. These are college-educated people in Park Slope who can't afford to buy a home. And in fact, what this article is saying is Republicans have to be on the lookout for this. What so many people want right now, in his mind and in this essay, are actually very conservative values of like, I want to have a home and I want to have a yard and good school for my kids and safety and all these things. And obviously, I would argue that both parties to a certain extent try to pitch that sale to their constituents.

21:01But he does a very good job of saying, if we do not understand that that's actually how Mom Donnie helped build this groundswell in New York by saying like, yeah, prices are too high. And having like, you know, your Bowdoin-educated, Harvard-educated graduates in Park Slope going, yeah, what did I do this all for that? They might not be in as bad of a position as a neighbor in a different borough, but like, they are still not where they want to be. So in some ways, the Democrats lucked into that on messaging. But then you have other races, like New Jersey was a bit of a shock. Dems were saying that Cheryl was running this terrible campaign and she crushed it.

21:39She like really crushed it. It made me very eager to get into midterms coverage, Zoe. I'm happy to hear you say that because we both know that midterms are going to be your entire life very, very soon. I want to touch on one more aspect of this story, which is that our colleague David Gilbert reported on how MAGA influencers, Republican lawmakers, and conspiracy theorists have all responded to Mamdani's mayoral victory in New York City by pushing far-right anti-immigration and Islamophobic rhetoric and claiming the city had essentially fallen. So tell us about that. This is rhetoric that had been coming for quite some time.

22:17I mean, this was the entire campaign, right? This was basically what Cuomo had been pushing as well. You know, if you go with the other guy, you're screwed. New York is done. It's all over. So I did anticipate, we all anticipated the absolute freak out that was going to come. It was so racist, so full of conspiracy theories, so full of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiments. I mean, it really was just exactly what you thought it was going to be and worse. You know, right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh is just saying a third world communist won in New York because New York is a third world city right now.

22:55I don't know. I live in New York. I think it's fine. We're going to see how, you know, everything plays out, and a new mayor and a new team is always a shakeup for a city. But Steve Bannon is going like, uh, jihadi, Marxist, Bolshevik. Like, this is— They're so triggered. Yeah. They're so hysterical, and they're so triggered. It was really interesting. And I mean, there were some threatening undertones, if I can say that. Look, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of Stafford Policy, and also the architect of the Trump administration's hardline immigration policy didn't add commentary right after Mom Donnie won, but did post a screenshot on X from a 2023 report pulled from the nyc.gov website that showed that around 50 percent of New York's households contain at least one immigrant.

23:41It was elucidating to see, and I really think that come January, February, March, we're going to be having some probably pretty serious conversations about some of this and how it plays out. Leah, I feel like that's a good place to end. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks so much for having me, Zoe.

24:06Hi, I'm Nicole Phelps, the global fashion news and features director and co-host of Vogue's podcast, The Run Through. Each week on the show, our listeners get an all access pass to the world of Vogue with the latest fashion news and the most exciting voices in the industry. On Tuesdays, join me to hear interviews with influential leaders in the industry like Calvin Klein, Daniel Roseberry, and Jonathan Anderson. On Thursdays, join head of editorial content at Vogue, Chloe Mal, and head of editorial content at British Vogue, Chomenadi, as they explore style and culture through the lens of fashion with guests like Martha Stewart, Kamala Harris, and Tracee Ellis Ross.

24:45The Run Through with Vogue, new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.