Is It Time to Remember the Metaverse? — with Matthew Ball

0:00:01 (upbeat music)
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0:00:07 a Ben and Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice
0:00:09 produced with Vox Creative.
0:00:12 Ainez Bordeaux is a self-described hellraiser,
0:00:14 and she became an activist
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0:00:20 And without a trial,
0:00:23 Ainez was sent to a St. Louis detention facility
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0:00:28 notorious for its poor living conditions.
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0:00:33 and won on the first episode
0:00:36 of this special three-part series out now.
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0:01:23 – Episode 310.
0:01:26 Three-1-0-0 could belong in Los Angeles County in 1910,
0:01:28 the first public radio broadcast was conducted
0:01:30 from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
0:01:33 Having sex with me is like the opera.
0:01:35 No one has any idea what the fuck is going on
0:01:39 and at the end, there’s a fat guy sweating and yelling.
0:01:44 ♪ Go, go, go ♪
0:01:46 (upbeat music)
0:01:54 Welcome to the 310th episode of the Prop G pod.
0:01:57 By the way, our first joke, actually in 1910,
0:01:59 the Boy Scouts of America was established.
0:02:00 That’s just too easy.
0:02:04 There’s just too many jokes about Scout leader Patrick,
0:02:07 and the bottom line is I was a Boy Scout,
0:02:09 and it was one of the nicest experiences I had as a kid.
0:02:12 The Boy Scouts is taking an immense amount of shit.
0:02:13 It is a wonderful organization,
0:02:15 or I should say it was a wonderful organization for me.
0:02:17 I was raised by a single mother,
0:02:19 and every Wednesday night, she would drop me off
0:02:22 at, I think, it was a junior high school in Culver City.
0:02:23 I was 42.
0:02:24 I was a wee below.
0:02:27 I was a Boy Scout, and then there’s a transition period.
0:02:29 It’s like puberty scouts where you’re a wee below
0:02:30 and you wear a different scarf.
0:02:33 And true story, I used to wear my Boy Scout uniform
0:02:34 to school, including in junior high,
0:02:37 which was just such a big hit
0:02:39 with the ladies and the cool crowd.
0:02:42 It really sort of established my social currency
0:02:44 showing up in my Boy Scout uniform,
0:02:46 but they were really good people.
0:02:48 The crew, if you will, everyone needs to find their crew.
0:02:51 And Boy Scouts for me was a group of kids
0:02:55 who maybe weren’t the coolest, so to speak.
0:02:56 Maybe weren’t the most social.
0:02:58 Maybe weren’t the most athletic,
0:03:00 but wanted to find their own crew.
0:03:03 We used to go camping once a month outside of LA County.
0:03:07 I gave them an appreciation for nature, leadership.
0:03:10 The Scout leaders there were incredibly generous
0:03:11 and thoughtful and nice.
0:03:15 And we used to have to do things like plan out your backpack.
0:03:16 And I used to do that with my mom.
0:03:20 And then at the end of the weekend of camping,
0:03:22 we would go through, we’d make these lines
0:03:25 and make sure that there was absolutely no sign of us
0:03:27 that we had been at that campsite.
0:03:30 And we used to study for and take tests for our mare bed.
0:03:31 It’s fire safety and not tying.
0:03:35 By the way, both those things have come in real handy for me.
0:03:37 I had a joke lined up, as you can imagine,
0:03:38 incredibly crude and inappropriate.
0:03:40 And then I thought about just how wonderful
0:03:41 the Boy Scouts were to me.
0:03:45 Anyways, so again, welcome to the 310th episode.
0:03:47 In today’s episode, we speak with Matthew Ball,
0:03:50 the CEO of Apilion, a startup advisor
0:03:53 and the former head of strategy for Amazon Studios.
0:03:54 Matthew has sort of, not sort of,
0:03:56 Matthew’s developed a following
0:03:59 just ’cause he’s got such a big fucking brain about tech.
0:04:01 And he speaks in sort of this,
0:04:04 almost like you’re asking chat GPT a question,
0:04:07 except it comes back not with an anodyne answer,
0:04:09 but with a really thoughtful nuanced answer.
0:04:11 He reminds me a little bit of Josh Wolf
0:04:13 ’cause Josh Wolf has one of those brains
0:04:16 that’s just like, I’m on a 286 Intel
0:04:19 and he’s on a Pentium or a GPU.
0:04:20 And they have different styles,
0:04:22 but they’re both these incredibly bright people
0:04:24 who have this incredible range around technology.
0:04:27 Anyways, I had not heard of Matthew
0:04:28 and then I interviewed him
0:04:29 and I immediately went on YouTube and found out
0:04:31 this is gonna be a resource for me
0:04:33 around any question I have around technology.
0:04:37 Okay, before we get to that, let’s bring all of this back
0:04:39 to our favorite subject, me.
0:04:41 I am an Aspen and I absolutely love it here.
0:04:42 I used to come here in the winter,
0:04:44 now we only come in the summers.
0:04:46 My strategy is the following.
0:04:49 I’m pretty much taking not all, but most of my money
0:04:52 and I’m buying these beautiful places around the world
0:04:55 where I hope my sons will just find irresistible
0:04:57 and they’ll come spend a lot of time with me.
0:05:00 In addition, I’m going after a 0.1% strategy.
0:05:01 I think it’s terrible and I’ll fight it,
0:05:03 but I think it’s going to happen.
0:05:05 I think income inequality is only gonna get worse
0:05:06 around the world.
0:05:08 And what’s interesting about people I find it interesting
0:05:10 is that the poor and the middle class
0:05:12 are much more interesting in the sense
0:05:13 that they’re much more heterogeneous.
0:05:15 If you look at their apparel they wear,
0:05:18 if you look at their culture, their food,
0:05:19 it’s pretty local.
0:05:24 So the middle class and Laurentian people in France
0:05:29 dress French, eat French food, vacation in French places.
0:05:32 The very wealthy or the wealthy are incredibly homogenous.
0:05:34 They all party in St. Barthes, they all wear Hermès
0:05:37 and they all send their kids to American universities.
0:05:40 There’s definitely sort of an elite lifestyle
0:05:41 that has been globalized
0:05:43 and there’s two real global consumers.
0:05:47 There’s the wealthy person who buys the same products
0:05:50 and has the same experiences and then there’s teenagers.
0:05:51 That’s also a global cohort.
0:05:56 They listen to Taylor Swift and where Nike,
0:06:00 actually they’re wearing Adidas or Adidas recently
0:06:04 or Hoka or on, Nike’s really shit the bed lately.
0:06:05 But those are the two cohorts
0:06:09 that have emerged globally until about 20 years ago.
0:06:13 Another cohort emerged globally and that is the tech buyer.
0:06:15 That is the MIS or the head of operations
0:06:17 typically are the same person who went to the same schools
0:06:18 and buy the same products.
0:06:20 So what do we have here?
0:06:22 We have the emergence of global brands
0:06:24 that typically are in one of three categories,
0:06:29 technology, Microsoft and NVIDIA are global brands.
0:06:32 Brands that target teens, see above Adidas
0:06:33 or even the North face.
0:06:36 And then brands that target the very wealthy,
0:06:39 almond hotels or Chanel.
0:06:41 Anyways, fascinating, total right turn
0:06:43 from what the script is here.
0:06:45 And my producer is just sort of sitting there
0:06:47 shaking your head like, what the fuck is he doing now?
0:06:50 Anyways, I also saw last weekend,
0:06:52 and I’m super excited about this,
0:06:54 got tickets, took my kids and their friends
0:06:57 to see Deadpool and Wolverine.
0:06:59 I think it’s called Deadpool and Wolverine anyways.
0:07:02 And it amassed $205 million in domestic ticket sales
0:07:03 during its opening weekend.
0:07:06 The most money this year and a historic record
0:07:08 for an R rated film.
0:07:09 Wow, didn’t know that.
0:07:10 I loved it by the way.
0:07:12 I absolutely loved the one-liners.
0:07:14 I think Ryan Reynolds is incredibly talented.
0:07:16 Actually, so is Hugh Jackman.
0:07:17 They’re both crazy fucking talented.
0:07:21 Hugh Jackman can sing like no one’s business.
0:07:23 What was that movie, “The Great Entertainer”
0:07:26 where he played Barnum or Bailey or whatever it was
0:07:27 and then died, was in that movie?
0:07:29 God, “Watchings and Dies.”
0:07:30 Zach Braff, who knew Zach Braff could sing?
0:07:31 Did you know that?
0:07:34 I did not know that Zach Braff could sing.
0:07:35 That was an outstanding movie.
0:07:37 I think musicals are especially impressive.
0:07:39 That’s gotta be really hard to pull off.
0:07:41 Anyways, absolutely loved “Deadpool.”
0:07:42 But I’m struck a little bit.
0:07:45 One, Hollywood will pretend that the movie’s business
0:07:46 is back, it’s not.
0:07:49 It’s still off 20% from its pre-pandemic levels.
0:07:52 And I think the majority of the interesting content now
0:07:54 is on the medium or the small screen,
0:07:56 specifically your television or your phone.
0:07:57 Why is that?
0:08:00 Because the type of money that’s required
0:08:03 to make a feature motion picture is so extraordinary now
0:08:06 that everybody just goes to these 10-pull franchises.
0:08:07 I mean, I think this is the third
0:08:09 or the fourth “Deadpool” movie.
0:08:11 And there’s not as much what I call
0:08:13 license for creative content.
0:08:15 And I even think about, what other franchises
0:08:17 that have been launched in the last few years
0:08:19 that’ll get three or four sequels might be frozen?
0:08:20 I don’t know, there’s probably something else.
0:08:24 But my son at camp just went and saw Minions 4
0:08:25 or Minions 5.
0:08:28 I mean, there just isn’t, there isn’t a ton
0:08:30 of originality, whereas when I tune in,
0:08:31 I’m about to watch “Presumed Innocent.”
0:08:33 Everyone says, “That’s totally binge-worthy.”
0:08:36 But I do think you’re gonna continue to see
0:08:39 a leaking of influence and return on investment.
0:08:40 And one of my pieces of advice,
0:08:43 reductive generalizations in terms of advising young people
0:08:46 and on a career media is the return on your invested capital
0:08:48 is gonna be inversely correlated
0:08:49 to the size of the screen.
0:08:51 And if you wanna be on the screen,
0:08:52 everyone’s like, “Well, I’ll start doing
0:08:55 cute little videos, but then hopefully I’ll get a TV show.
0:08:57 And then who knows, I’ll hit the big time
0:08:58 with a big, and be on the big screen
0:09:01 so I can see my face really, really fucking big.”
0:09:04 So there’s a certain prestige or vanity aspect
0:09:07 or a psycho, if you will, or a psychic return.
0:09:09 What is really interesting or I find interesting
0:09:13 is I get 20 to 30 emails a day asking for advice.
0:09:15 And it’s wonderful that people would reach out to me.
0:09:17 It’s also a little bit frustrating
0:09:19 ’cause I think that this is a really thoughtful email
0:09:20 from someone who’s very sincere
0:09:21 and I can never get to all of them.
0:09:23 By the way, if you’re out there, I apologize.
0:09:25 I just can’t get to all of them.
0:09:27 But I’m increasingly over the last two years
0:09:28 getting a lot of emails from people
0:09:31 in the media industry asking what do they do next?
0:09:34 That they say I’ve been very critical of the rider’s strike.
0:09:37 I thought that was literally like the head up your ass
0:09:38 shit for brains.
0:09:42 I don’t understand strategy negotiation of the ages.
0:09:44 And I’ve said all along that this industry
0:09:45 attracts way too much human capital.
0:09:47 There’s 180,000 people in Sagaftra.
0:09:49 There should probably be 10,000.
0:09:52 And as evidence of that, 83% of them didn’t qualify
0:09:53 for health insurance last year
0:09:55 ’cause they made less than $23,000.
0:09:56 I wanna crush your dreams.
0:09:59 If you wanna go into a vanity industry, fine.
0:10:01 You wanna go into modeling, fashion, sports.
0:10:03 You want your own jewelry design level.
0:10:04 You wanna be a fashion designer.
0:10:05 I mean, seriously, you know
0:10:08 if you’re trying to go into a vanity industry, that’s fine.
0:10:12 But you have to set up guideposts for yourself or metrics
0:10:15 that if you’re not in the top 10% pretty quickly,
0:10:18 you should get out the quote unquote top 10%.
0:10:20 If you’re in the 90th percentile of actors,
0:10:22 that means you’re an Uber driver.
0:10:24 If you’re in the 99th percentile,
0:10:26 that means you make a living, not even a great living.
0:10:29 I know some actors who you would all know.
0:10:31 You think, wow, they’ve been in series.
0:10:33 They make a good living, not a great living.
0:10:35 Unless you’re in the 0.1%,
0:10:37 it is a very difficult way to make a living.
0:10:40 Whereas most industries and non-romance industries,
0:10:42 just being the top half and you can make a decent living.
0:10:45 And if you’re in the top 10% much less the top 1%,
0:10:47 boy, oh boy, are you going to kill it?
0:10:50 But anyways, back to Deadpool and Wolverine.
0:10:52 What else is popping off the screen?
0:10:53 What are we watching?
0:10:55 The Olympics, who would have thunk it?
0:10:57 I didn’t even know the Olympics were on.
0:10:59 And my feeds on my platforms
0:11:03 are all these amazing people doing amazing things.
0:11:04 By the way, by the way,
0:11:06 speaking of opening ceremonies at the Olympics,
0:11:09 I love Celine Dion.
0:11:12 I did not know this.
0:11:12 I did not know this.
0:11:15 I see her visage or image and I think,
0:11:19 oh God, lame Canadian, lame Canadian coming my way.
0:11:21 And then when they’re about 15 seconds, I’m thinking,
0:11:22 wow, she’s pretty good.
0:11:25 And then within 30 seconds, I’m fucking crying.
0:11:27 (upbeat music)
0:11:30 Wow, is she talented?
0:11:35 And by the way, France, Parisians, oh my gosh.
0:11:38 Generally speaking, a group of very disagreeable people.
0:11:40 I used to go to France a lot for business.
0:11:42 My company L2 focused on luxury brands.
0:11:44 The home of luxury is France.
0:11:44 I used to go to Paris.
0:11:47 No joke, have a series of meetings with everyone
0:11:50 from LVMH to Chanel to Clarence.
0:11:53 Just a ton of brands, right?
0:11:56 Dior, Chloe, we would spend a week and have jam-pack.
0:11:58 And almost every meeting I’d come out of,
0:12:00 I think, Jesus Christ, that was a shitty meeting.
0:12:03 Basically, French people who would cross their arms,
0:12:05 we would say something and they would argue with us
0:12:06 and then speak to each other in French
0:12:07 and there’s disdainful tones.
0:12:09 Like, who is this stupid fucking American?
0:12:11 And we’d be on the way to the airport.
0:12:12 And I would say to my colleague,
0:12:14 I always went with the same people,
0:12:17 usually who were covering Europe without reason or luxury.
0:12:19 I’m like, God, that was just the worst meeting I’ve ever had.
0:12:20 And then I’m not exaggerating,
0:12:22 we’d get a call from the client saying,
0:12:24 that was amazing, we wanna see you again.
0:12:26 They just have a different mentality.
0:12:28 Also, people will say that Parisians
0:12:29 are different than the French,
0:12:32 but I have come to appreciate one thing
0:12:34 or more than one thing about France.
0:12:36 There is something in the DNA of the French,
0:12:37 there’s something in the water
0:12:40 where they have an easier time
0:12:42 crafting the most beautiful things in the world.
0:12:44 If you just look at the panache, the style,
0:12:47 the touch points of the Olympics and the opening ceremonies,
0:12:49 I think, wow, I wish I was there.
0:12:50 I actually got invited to the Olympics
0:12:52 and I said to my kids, do you wanna go to the Olympics?
0:12:54 ‘Cause I thought, gotta take your kids to the Olympics
0:12:55 at least once.
0:12:57 And they said, no, we have no interest.
0:12:58 And it struck me that the World Cup
0:13:00 has become so dominant the last four years
0:13:03 and slowly but surely the Olympics
0:13:05 have actually decreased in popularity.
0:13:07 Although from a business standpoint,
0:13:09 it seems to be enjoying a little bit of a bump.
0:13:12 An April MBCU had already sold more than 1.2 billion
0:13:14 in advertising for this year’s games.
0:13:16 That’s a record for Olympic ad spending.
0:13:18 A lot of this should be adjusted for inflation
0:13:20 ’cause I think a lot of these numbers are a little bit,
0:13:21 I don’t know exactly.
0:13:23 A lot of this doesn’t feel Apple’s Apple’s.
0:13:24 And it was back to the Olympics.
0:13:25 The other thing that’s really struck me about the Olympics
0:13:28 is you can get is the difference between streaming
0:13:31 and broadcast or linear.
0:13:34 Watching the Olympics I find on MBC
0:13:36 is actually a quite frustrating experience
0:13:38 because they say, and now we’re headed to three meter diving.
0:13:41 You’re like, well, I’m not sure I’m into three meter diving.
0:13:43 Whereas if you watch it on Peacock,
0:13:45 you can actually sign up and pick a sport.
0:13:47 So if you just really wanna see surfing all day long,
0:13:48 you can watch it.
0:13:50 Speaking of streaming, it is beginning
0:13:53 to kind of consolidate, if you will.
0:13:55 So there’s this great chart from Antenna
0:13:58 looking at committed versus curious.
0:14:00 And that is people who are just trying it
0:14:02 versus the people who are committed customers.
0:14:04 And it’s interesting, you would expect Netflix
0:14:07 to be at the top and their ratio is 2/3 to 1/3.
0:14:11 So 2/3 of people are committed, 1/3 are curious.
0:14:13 I think curious is a polite way of saying people
0:14:15 who might churn out, who sign up to download
0:14:17 all of Ted Lasso and then churn out.
0:14:18 Next, and this really shocked me,
0:14:22 was Hulu at a ratio of 35 to 65.
0:14:24 So if you wanna think about a market capitalization
0:14:27 or a dominant player, Netflix is two to one,
0:14:31 basically hardcore customers who are likely renew,
0:14:33 versus the next player, which is one to two,
0:14:35 which has got a dramatically impact margins
0:14:38 because Hulu has to reinvent its customer base
0:14:39 every goddamn 18 months.
0:14:44 Paramount Plus comes in about the same level at 36.64.
0:14:49 Disney is 40, 60, some more committed.
0:14:51 Peacock is at 35.
0:14:52 Max is at 28.
0:14:53 That really shocked me.
0:14:55 I always think of Max and specifically HBO
0:14:57 as having me able to tap into the zeitgeist.
0:15:01 And Apple TV Plus, who I think has spent 20 billion so far
0:15:03 on programming for Apple,
0:15:05 TV Plus for their effort here is 32.68.
0:15:07 I wonder if they kind of regret it.
0:15:11 I wonder if Apple TV Plus is not nearly the kind of,
0:15:15 I don’t know, train wreck that the mixed reality headset is.
0:15:16 But I wonder if they had to do it again
0:15:20 if they would spend $20 billion original scripted drama.
0:15:22 Anyways, the market continues to consolidate.
0:15:23 I am loving the Olympics,
0:15:26 but also what I found is I’m spending most of my time
0:15:28 watching it on TikTok.
0:15:30 But I love the idea of amateur athletes.
0:15:33 Things have happened since the Olympics
0:15:34 over the last 20 years or 30 years
0:15:37 and make me wonder if why it has not done as well.
0:15:39 Is it because professional athletes are involved?
0:15:40 I don’t know.
0:15:42 Is it because they’ve brought in things like,
0:15:43 I don’t know, mountain biking,
0:15:45 which I think is important to establish
0:15:49 a younger customer base, but it does lose the purity.
0:15:51 But more than anything in our editor-in-chief,
0:15:53 point of the south Jason Stavros,
0:15:55 I think the key to a luxury brand going back to France
0:15:57 and luxury brand is the following.
0:15:58 It’s scarcity.
0:16:01 It’s the illusion that you are part of a tribe
0:16:02 that says something about you.
0:16:03 It’s self-expressive benefit.
0:16:06 Actually, there are really two things that luxury offers.
0:16:07 Only two things.
0:16:09 The first is it makes you feel closer to God.
0:16:10 Why?
0:16:13 Because the majority of these very artisanal handcrafted
0:16:16 illusive products with a domain of religious institutions.
0:16:18 The religious elites figured out a way
0:16:19 that they needed to manipulate the masses
0:16:22 and make them feel like we are closer to God
0:16:24 and you need to do what we tell you to do
0:16:26 and also to provide them with comfort.
0:16:27 So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna invite you
0:16:30 to these places of worship, these temples, these mosques,
0:16:32 these churches, these chapels,
0:16:33 and we’re gonna fill them
0:16:34 with the most beautiful things in the world.
0:16:38 We’re gonna engage the most incredible, sophisticated,
0:16:41 impressive artisans to build frescoes on the ceiling.
0:16:42 We’re gonna have incredible music.
0:16:45 We’re gonna have the most gorgeous pageantry
0:16:47 and candles and smells.
0:16:48 And you’re gonna get the sense
0:16:50 that there’s a decent chance of God hangs out here.
0:16:51 And we’ve been doing this for hundreds,
0:16:52 if not thousands of years.
0:16:55 And as a result, we associate fine things,
0:16:57 artisanal things with being closer to God.
0:17:00 And when you see the mesh on a boutique of a net-a-bag
0:17:01 or the slip on the back of a 9/11,
0:17:02 you feel closer to God.
0:17:03 It stills you.
0:17:06 It’s a very rewarding experience to be in the company
0:17:07 of this type of artisanship.
0:17:09 In addition, the second thing
0:17:11 is that it increases the likelihood
0:17:13 that you’re gonna procreate.
0:17:14 Why?
0:17:15 Because it says something about you.
0:17:17 Ergonomically impossible menolablonics
0:17:19 make your legs seem longer.
0:17:22 This makes you seem more elegant, more feminine.
0:17:25 Having a Panerai watch or a Porsche means your kids
0:17:27 or the kids that you or mate and you decide to have
0:17:29 are more likely to survive
0:17:30 than someone who is wearing a swatch watch
0:17:32 and driving a Hyundai.
0:17:35 So it’s the ultimate expressive, self-expressive benefit.
0:17:38 And by the way, this has been the best performing asset class
0:17:41 over the last 30 or 40 years, whether it’s modern art
0:17:42 or whether it’s a luxury business itself.
0:17:45 On a risk-adjusted basis, luxury has performed better
0:17:47 than even, yes, you guessed it, tech.
0:17:48 And it’s produced, I think,
0:17:50 the second or third most billionaires.
0:17:52 This is an unbelievable business.
0:17:54 And it has huge motes by virtue of the fact
0:17:55 that it has heritage.
0:17:58 You cannot recreate Chanel right now.
0:17:59 You just can’t.
0:18:01 You can’t have that story.
0:18:03 You can’t have that heritage.
0:18:06 And if you’re able to establish that illusion of scarcity
0:18:07 and artificially constrict supply,
0:18:10 I go into the Panerai store here in Aspen,
0:18:12 see above, Douchebag, Prilish Douchebag,
0:18:13 but they always say to me,
0:18:16 oh, that’s a limited run or we don’t have that one.
0:18:18 These are not difficult items to manufacture,
0:18:20 but they create the illusion of scarcity.
0:18:21 Who’s best at this?
0:18:22 Who’s best at this?
0:18:25 Hermes, who get this as double the market cap of Nike.
0:18:27 Jesus Christ, that blows my mind.
0:18:30 Anyways, the illusion of scarcity.
0:18:32 Also the learning here, personally,
0:18:35 there is the illusion of scarcity that you want to create.
0:18:37 You want to have boundaries.
0:18:40 In my brand, I absolutely say no to 95%.
0:18:43 Now granted, I’m in a position of privilege,
0:18:46 but creating a sense that you’re, I don’t know,
0:18:47 your brand or your person, if you will,
0:18:49 has a touch of exclusivity to it
0:18:52 once you’ve established some domain expertise
0:18:53 and some credibility.
0:18:56 I think it’s key to creating margin, if you will.
0:18:58 So it’s the same way with a services company.
0:18:59 Let me translate this to B2B.
0:19:00 What are you doing B2B?
0:19:02 In my opinion, what’s the best way to market?
0:19:04 You put out thought leadership.
0:19:05 They get some awareness.
0:19:07 With L2, we put out a ranking
0:19:09 and you create a reverse inquiry model, if you can.
0:19:12 That way it changes the entire tone of the conversation,
0:19:13 right?
0:19:15 And you try and create an illusion of scarcity
0:19:16 that you’re doing them a favor
0:19:17 by them signing up as membership.
0:19:20 The entire membership model and hospitality right now,
0:19:22 whether it’s Maison Estelle or Soho House
0:19:25 or Casa Chiprione, that entire thing has just exploded,
0:19:28 although I think it’s probably saturated at this point,
0:19:29 is all based on the illusion of scarcity.
0:19:31 Gee, can you recommend me?
0:19:34 So I can pay $7,000 a year to then go buy drinks
0:19:36 at what is essentially a nice restaurant.
0:19:38 This again is the master of illusion of scarcity.
0:19:41 This is what has become a branding.
0:19:44 The ultimate, ultimate rejectionist exclusionary
0:19:46 artisanal brand is U.S. higher education.
0:19:48 To a certain extent, the U.S. has become a luxury brand
0:19:50 because of our fucked up immigration policies.
0:19:51 But you get the point.
0:19:54 Scarcity, luxury brands equals margin.
0:19:55 And let’s bring it home.
0:19:57 Some wonderful moments from the Olympics.
0:19:58 Simone Viles, Jesus Christ.
0:20:00 That shit’s just inspiring.
0:20:02 She gets a lot of attention, so I’ll move on.
0:20:04 Two best friends from America,
0:20:06 I think they’re called Cookin’ and Bacon,
0:20:09 or best friends who’ve been going to the Olympics
0:20:12 three or four times or one just made her like fourth trial,
0:20:13 finally made the Olympics won a medal.
0:20:14 That was a nice moment.
0:20:16 The Philippines won its first gold medal.
0:20:18 And finally, finally, there was a gymnast from North Korea
0:20:19 who won a silver medal in the Olympics.
0:20:23 She didn’t win gold, but her execution was flawless.
0:20:24 Get it?
0:20:27 Anyways, go six rings, go Olympics.
0:20:32 We’ll be right back for our conversation with Matthew Ball.
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0:24:00 (upbeat music)
0:24:09 Welcome back, here’s our conversation with Matthew Ball,
0:24:12 the CEO of Opelion and author of the revised book,
0:24:16 The Metaverse, Building the Spatial Internet.
0:24:17 Matthew, where does this podcast find you?
0:24:19 – In Midtown Manhattan.
0:24:20 – So let’s bust right into it.
0:24:23 You’re one of the go-to experts on the metaverse,
0:24:26 a topic that we just haven’t paid much attention to
0:24:28 since some of the hype faded.
0:24:29 Can you give us a state of play?
0:24:32 Where does the metaverse and spatial computing stand today
0:24:34 in 2024?
0:24:36 – So overall, those in the industry talk
0:24:38 about these three different peaks for the theme.
0:24:41 The first happened in the late 80s, the early 90s,
0:24:43 that’s where you had really all of the terms
0:24:44 that we talk about today.
0:24:48 Spatial computing came onto the scene roughly ’91, ’92,
0:24:52 the metaverse in ’92, you had the advent of virtual reality,
0:24:56 artificial reality, certainly cyberspace, the matrix,
0:24:58 they all came out of that early period.
0:25:01 And that was sparked by the emergence
0:25:05 of graphical user interfaces of the internet at large,
0:25:08 of 3D computing, simulation and video games.
0:25:12 And they all attempted to capture these terms,
0:25:14 what the future might look like.
0:25:15 And we very quickly realized
0:25:17 that those technologies were premature.
0:25:21 15 years later, we had this second burst of activity.
0:25:24 Second life ends up on the cover of Time Magazine,
0:25:26 and there’s a belief that we’re going to see
0:25:28 the metaverse finally come to fruition.
0:25:30 And then the following two to three years
0:25:32 after that peak for second life,
0:25:35 you have the starting of nearly all of the modern efforts
0:25:38 to build wearable glasses and goggles,
0:25:41 magic leap, you have the Snapchat acquisition
0:25:43 of Virgins Labs, you have HoloLens,
0:25:45 you have Oculus VR.
0:25:49 And then we kind of encountered this 10 to 15 year stagnation
0:25:51 in the hardware side.
0:25:53 And then in 21 and 22, we had this other burst
0:25:56 where there was general consensus that finally,
0:25:59 the technologies had matured,
0:26:01 the internet infrastructure, computing technologies,
0:26:03 even some of the wearables that we imagined
0:26:05 we might one day wear,
0:26:08 that they had all matured to the point in which finally,
0:26:12 this 30 year old term, roughly 70 year old conquest
0:26:15 and 100 year old idea was ready for prime time.
0:26:18 And then it got hoisted onto the front page of the news
0:26:19 by Mark Zuckerberg.
0:26:23 So we had this long progress of technology and progress
0:26:27 suddenly lead us to this belief that it was imminently here,
0:26:29 if not changing the world already.
0:26:32 And so where are we in 2024?
0:26:36 I think the focus on that hype, the name,
0:26:39 and the relative un-success or general lack of success
0:26:41 of meta suite of metaverse products
0:26:43 has led to a belief that the idea
0:26:47 has come and gone, been Julie rejected by consumers,
0:26:50 but actually the progress of all of the constituent parts
0:26:54 has continued, not just with more child
0:26:57 and leisure oriented activities, Roblox and Fortnite,
0:27:00 but indeed had mounted displays at large,
0:27:02 general computing simulation,
0:27:03 and the creation of virtual worlds
0:27:05 using artificial intelligence.
0:27:09 But now at scrutiny has shifted elsewhere.
0:27:12 – So give us the tax work definition of the metaverse.
0:27:14 What is the metaverse?
0:27:15 – The best and easiest way to understand it
0:27:20 is a 3D shared and live version of the internet.
0:27:23 The internet as we have it today is best understood
0:27:27 as a dozen or two common protocols and a suite of standards
0:27:29 that enable the consistent, comprehensive,
0:27:34 and coherent exchange of data across 110,000 autonomous
0:27:37 and independent networks,
0:27:38 hundreds of millions of different servers,
0:27:40 billions of different devices,
0:27:42 supporting about 5 million applications,
0:27:46 billions of websites, all exchanging information.
0:27:48 And yet what that internet lacks
0:27:50 is really three fundamental elements.
0:27:53 First is the ability to transmit again,
0:27:54 coherently, comprehensively,
0:27:58 and consistently 3D information for it to be shared.
0:28:02 What you and I are doing right now, live Zoom,
0:28:04 is essentially one of the few things we ever do
0:28:06 on the internet that’s truly shared.
0:28:07 And essentially everything that we do on the internet
0:28:09 is not actually live.
0:28:11 When you and I go to theNewYorkTimes.com,
0:28:14 not only are we disconnected from the New York Times server,
0:28:16 but even when the New York Times updates,
0:28:18 we’re still looking at the old version of it.
0:28:20 And so the metaverse is best understood
0:28:24 as a shared, live, and 3D augmentation
0:28:27 to the existing internet as we experience it today.
0:28:29 – So technology is generally speaking,
0:28:33 everyone was happy to kind of pronounce crypto dead
0:28:36 about a year ago, and it’s come roaring back.
0:28:39 Voice was super hyped, it’s come down a bit,
0:28:40 it might come back.
0:28:44 This does feel as if it’s been, I wouldn’t say forgotten,
0:28:45 but it feels like there probably
0:28:47 is still some opportunity there.
0:28:48 Where do you see the greatest opportunity?
0:28:51 What industries do you think will register
0:28:53 the greatest leverage or success
0:28:56 around metaverse applications?
0:28:57 – Well, I think to start,
0:29:00 one of the unfortunate consequences of Meta’s name change
0:29:04 was the strong association with these technologies
0:29:06 and their concepts with virtual reality
0:29:09 or social workrooms that we would use to engage
0:29:12 in lieu of Zoom call or physical meeting.
0:29:14 Most of the pioneers in the category
0:29:16 strongly separate the two.
0:29:18 Some don’t even believe that virtual reality
0:29:19 has much of a future.
0:29:21 Neil Stevenson, who coined the term,
0:29:23 talks about it being central to his idea
0:29:24 of the future in the ’80s,
0:29:27 but he has essentially disavowed the requirement
0:29:30 of virtual reality or augmented reality from the metaverse.
0:29:33 So when you go to some of the larger businesses
0:29:37 in the category, whether that’s of Epic Games or Nvidia,
0:29:39 they have no requirement nor expectation
0:29:41 of a near-term solution for this hardware.
0:29:43 But if you’re gonna talk about
0:29:45 where we’re seeing these imminent opportunities
0:29:48 that are perhaps not covered extensively,
0:29:50 I think there’s two great examples.
0:29:55 The first is in the use of actually these headsets
0:29:57 in more industrial use cases.
0:29:59 Four years ago, the United States performed
0:30:00 its first ever live patient surgery
0:30:02 using a mixed reality headset.
0:30:04 The first was spinal fusion.
0:30:07 The second was the removal of a cancerous tumor
0:30:09 on a spinal column.
0:30:10 The United States is now performing
0:30:14 between four to 600 surgeries a year using these devices.
0:30:17 And the results, they’ll preliminary, right?
0:30:20 We haven’t seen a decade of patient outcomes,
0:30:23 do show that the surgeries are typically performed faster.
0:30:25 They’re more accurate.
0:30:27 They are, in some instances, much cheaper.
0:30:30 And most of the surgeons that perform this talk about it
0:30:33 in the same way that they did GPS in the early ’90s,
0:30:35 are revolution in how they perform
0:30:38 a relatively complex and yet routine process.
0:30:41 And yet one in which we’re still not able to do nearly
0:30:43 what we can with the technology today
0:30:46 that we imagined a few decades ago.
0:30:49 – It does feel like a healthcare is an obvious example.
0:30:52 And so talk to me a little bit about gaming.
0:30:53 I’m an investor.
0:30:55 I’ve made one of my largest investments
0:30:58 about three years ago in epic games.
0:31:01 It’s not much of this is around syntax or nomenclature
0:31:04 ’cause I think of, I think of Fortnite as the metaverse,
0:31:06 to a certain extent, I don’t,
0:31:08 I’m trying to figure out where gaming ends
0:31:10 and the metaverse begins.
0:31:14 And give me a sense for, now speaking as a,
0:31:16 advise me as a shareholder of epic,
0:31:19 how the metaverse will impact gaming
0:31:22 and who you see as sort of the winners in that space.
0:31:24 – So you’re right that a lot of this is a debate
0:31:25 over terminology.
0:31:28 In fact, even Spatial, which Apple has embraced,
0:31:30 has its origins, as I mentioned, in the early ’90s,
0:31:32 but it was never contemplated to actually connect
0:31:33 to the physical world.
0:31:36 It was just a description of a 3D space in a computer.
0:31:38 And so all of these terms, the metaverse included,
0:31:41 have kind of been perverted, reapplied in scenarios
0:31:43 it was originally not intended for
0:31:45 and become a part of corporate propaganda, right?
0:31:49 We’re Spatial, not metaverse, we’re metaverse, not Spatial.
0:31:51 I interviewed Tim Sweeney,
0:31:53 the founder and CEO of Epic recently,
0:31:55 and he likened the metaverse to a stock price.
0:31:57 He said, when something cool comes out, it goes up.
0:31:59 When something lame comes out, it goes down.
0:32:01 And more often than not over the last three years,
0:32:03 lame things have come out.
0:32:04 And certainly when you take a look
0:32:07 at those leading use cases, Fortnite is one such example.
0:32:10 They at least don’t capture the pop culture imagination,
0:32:13 the way that it did three to four years ago.
0:32:15 But it’s a good way of understanding the proliferation
0:32:17 of these technologies and trends.
0:32:20 Roblox, as an example, it has an advantage over Epic,
0:32:21 as you know, as being on mobile,
0:32:24 has about 375 million monthly active users.
0:32:28 That’s more than the entire active user base
0:32:30 of the Switch platform, the Xbox platform,
0:32:32 and the PlayStation platform.
0:32:35 Nearly all of its users are under 18.
0:32:36 And so you’re seeing something that,
0:32:39 despite being concentrated at a younger demo,
0:32:42 is nevertheless larger than another category
0:32:45 that spans all age demographics.
0:32:47 The other interesting thing about that category is,
0:32:50 of course, those younger users have no interest
0:32:54 in the capital M, M word, its trends, its significance.
0:32:58 It’s just a form of habit and how they socialize.
0:33:00 But when you talk about the companies such as Epic,
0:33:03 when people talk about the internet,
0:33:04 the internet is in some regard,
0:33:08 not unlike the constitution in the States,
0:33:12 in the sense that it was never meant to say static,
0:33:16 and yet it hasn’t really been updated for several decades.
0:33:18 The consensus is that the standards
0:33:22 which would support a shared live 3D internet
0:33:24 have to come from private business.
0:33:26 And therefore you need other private businesses
0:33:30 to willingly adopt standards and technologies
0:33:33 another entity owns and operates.
0:33:36 And therefore you need to trust Epic looks like
0:33:39 through its strength of existing platform,
0:33:42 its economic engine, and then its stewardship
0:33:45 by a more philosophical controlling shareholder
0:33:47 looks like one of the most likely entities
0:33:48 to pioneer those changes.
0:33:52 – There’s a chapter, I guess it’s an updated chapter
0:33:54 in your book that explores the century-long history
0:33:57 of AI and AI philosophy.
0:33:59 And also the six ways this technology controls
0:34:01 the metaverse, walk us through those.
0:34:03 – So I think when you take a look at many
0:34:05 of the technological impediments to building
0:34:07 what many have imagined, whether that’s a headset
0:34:10 or just a digital twin, a persistent simulation
0:34:13 of San Francisco as Tesla is now seeking to build,
0:34:17 a lot of the time we are facing literal laws
0:34:18 of physics constraints.
0:34:21 That’s actually why the Vision Pro is so expensive
0:34:26 and yet so unrewarding for many users.
0:34:27 And so we’re now starting to see these different ways
0:34:31 in which our dreams are being made real through AI.
0:34:34 Number one is that when you take a look at an HMD
0:34:36 head mounted display like the Vision Pro,
0:34:39 the best way to talk about what you can’t do
0:34:41 is to compare it to the device many of us have.
0:34:44 A Xbox Series X, a PlayStation 5,
0:34:46 those are 10 pound devices.
0:34:49 They’re the size of two or three different shoe boxes.
0:34:51 That’s despite the fact they don’t need a battery.
0:34:54 That’s despite the fact they don’t need a screen.
0:34:57 And yet they don’t need a mobile connection.
0:35:00 We don’t worry about the heat that they generate too much
0:35:02 because they’re feet and feet away from you.
0:35:06 They don’t need cameras to understand the world around you.
0:35:09 And they don’t need to take safety precautions, right?
0:35:11 To understand that there’s tax returns on the table
0:35:13 or that you’re about to stumble over an object.
0:35:18 Shrinking a 10 pound relatively underpowered device
0:35:19 that doesn’t need two of the heaviest things
0:35:22 that can have a screen and a battery
0:35:24 into something portable and wearable.
0:35:26 We haven’t found the science
0:35:30 that would allow us to overcome those challenges.
0:35:31 And yet through artificial intelligence,
0:35:35 we are actually starting to kind of co-opt that system, right?
0:35:37 We’re starting to come up with smarter ways
0:35:40 to have the system predict what you’re going to do
0:35:42 so that it doesn’t have to process it.
0:35:44 That processing requires battery, for example.
0:35:48 It requires tax on a limited GPU.
0:35:50 In fact, when you’re wearing a headset,
0:35:52 one of the biggest challenges
0:35:55 of just power reservation or preservation
0:35:58 is when you see the Vision Pro,
0:36:00 you’re actually looking at a reproduction of the world
0:36:04 around you from three to four different external cameras
0:36:06 that have to be stitched together.
0:36:07 But those cameras are actually captured
0:36:09 about an inch and a half in front of your eyes
0:36:12 and on an obtuse angle.
0:36:13 It’s artificial intelligence
0:36:16 that is bringing all of those images together,
0:36:19 shifting it back onto your eyes
0:36:22 and then making it seem like it’s coming from your eyes.
0:36:24 So that’s just one such example
0:36:28 of literally if we want to have lightweight portable devices
0:36:31 that are comfortable, powerful, able to do what we want,
0:36:34 it’s actually not a question of lithium ion advances,
0:36:35 not entirely.
0:36:38 It’s not about how many nanometers we have
0:36:39 for how many different transistors.
0:36:41 A lot of the time it’s how much smarter our systems
0:36:44 can be with scarce information.
0:36:45 The two bigger elements
0:36:48 are just about actually producing the world.
0:36:49 There was a lot of scrutiny,
0:36:51 and I know you’ve covered this around Galaxy’s Edge
0:36:55 at Disneyland and as expensive as that was,
0:36:57 it’s shocking to most people to realize
0:37:00 that the cost of making a virtual Galaxy’s Edge
0:37:02 is actually not necessarily less
0:37:06 than it was to produce a physical theme park.
0:37:09 And if you actually want to staff that with individuals
0:37:12 who can bring to life Naboo or Navarro
0:37:16 or the planet of Hoth, it becomes more expensive still.
0:37:17 And so with artificial intelligence,
0:37:19 we’re starting to see this reality
0:37:23 that if you wanted to produce the Disneyland of your dreams,
0:37:26 have it populated as you might imagine
0:37:28 and also allow you to do essentially everything
0:37:28 that you would want to do
0:37:31 and by extension can’t do in a theme park.
0:37:32 We’re talking about billions of dollars
0:37:36 in annual investment that is starting to shrink down
0:37:37 into the hundreds of millions
0:37:40 and where the cost curve might bring it even lower still.
0:37:42 – Something that I don’t think gets enough attention
0:37:47 is the application or applications of the metaverse and AI
0:37:51 in terms of simulation or its use on the battlefield.
0:37:53 And you have a chapter on this,
0:37:56 give a sense for where you think this intersects
0:37:58 with military strategy.
0:38:00 – So the best way to do this is to talk about
0:38:03 one of those terms that has kind of been forgotten
0:38:05 and even Microsoft moved away from,
0:38:06 which is digital twins.
0:38:10 Digital twins a few years ago became so common
0:38:13 because every company that felt obliged
0:38:14 to have a quote unquote metaverse strategy
0:38:16 just said, let’s make a digital twin.
0:38:18 And they very quickly realized
0:38:20 that sure it had some signaling value.
0:38:22 They got their employees to feel good about it.
0:38:23 They tested some new technology,
0:38:25 but they realized they didn’t really know
0:38:27 what they were going to do with it.
0:38:29 And one of the problems, and this comes back to AI is,
0:38:33 there are really five different levels of digital twins
0:38:34 that we talk about in the industry.
0:38:37 And the advanced ones require artificial intelligence.
0:38:39 And most of them were level one.
0:38:40 Level one is a digital twin.
0:38:42 It’s like a physical miniature.
0:38:44 It’s a model, a diorama.
0:38:45 Teams feel good about them.
0:38:48 Executives like having a diorama of their corporate campus,
0:38:50 but it reflects a statement.
0:38:52 It’s a point in time.
0:38:54 And it doesn’t have much applied value.
0:38:58 Level two digital twins take that original digital twin
0:39:00 and they make them real time using IoT
0:39:01 and other simulated systems.
0:39:04 You’re now having a live reproduction of that environment.
0:39:07 Level three are predictive digital twins.
0:39:09 They can tell you what’s likely to happen.
0:39:11 Level four are prescriptive.
0:39:14 They provide actual recommendations to the individuals.
0:39:18 And then level five, we talk about autonomous digital twins.
0:39:21 Those that can produce prescriptions and predictions
0:39:25 at such a high velocity that a human agent
0:39:28 can’t actually effectuate those changes effectively.
0:39:30 So that’s level one to five.
0:39:33 And by three, four, five, we start to get actual utility,
0:39:36 but we require high levels of accuracy,
0:39:39 sophistication, and velocity from AI systems.
0:39:41 We have two other axes.
0:39:43 One is the volume of data.
0:39:44 Obviously you can have a digital twin
0:39:47 that captures individual vehicles or fleets,
0:39:48 and that’s a very big distinction.
0:39:51 And then we have the amount of other network
0:39:52 digital twins you have.
0:39:54 Are we talking about a factory plant
0:39:56 or a McDonald’s in Manhattan?
0:39:59 Or are we talking about one plugging into the entire corpus
0:40:02 of a simulated environment of a Manhattan?
0:40:03 So once we understand this scope,
0:40:06 you start to talk about how these technologies
0:40:07 are being used today,
0:40:10 in particular in battlefield testing,
0:40:13 where you’re saying we have all of these systems
0:40:15 that can today do a decent job
0:40:17 of predicting and prescribing activities
0:40:19 for a relatively stable system
0:40:21 with relatively low cost of failure.
0:40:24 And by that I mean a production facility.
0:40:26 Pretty stable in what it’s going to do.
0:40:28 And the consequence of a line pause
0:40:31 is real for General Motors or Tesla,
0:40:33 but it’s not life-threatening.
0:40:35 There’s still a belief that we don’t have the level
0:40:36 of prediction or prescription,
0:40:40 let alone autonomy, to bring that into an active battlefield.
0:40:42 And what we are however seeing,
0:40:44 in the UK as a pioneer here,
0:40:47 is the use of this in active training,
0:40:52 in better simulation of what may or may not go right or wrong.
0:40:54 And in general, this connects to your earlier point,
0:40:57 which is the technologies that are almost always used
0:41:01 to actually test this, especially with human agents,
0:41:03 is the Unreal Engine out of Epic.
0:41:07 – You also had an edition of the book
0:41:08 where you’re talking about big techs fight
0:41:10 over undersea cable infrastructure
0:41:13 and Starlink versus Amazon’s project.
0:41:15 Kuiper, I’d love just,
0:41:17 you have such a big brain around,
0:41:18 I don’t even think he’s the metaverse guy,
0:41:22 I think he’s more like kind of like the cutting edge tech guy.
0:41:24 I look at Starlink and I see something
0:41:27 that has the width of the Amazon
0:41:28 and that this thing could be potentially
0:41:31 one of the most valuable companies in the world.
0:41:32 And some of this is just,
0:41:35 I’ve had such an incredible experience with a product
0:41:37 when it’s offered on planes.
0:41:39 Talk to me about Starlink,
0:41:44 if you agree that it’s got that sort of potential
0:41:47 and product excellence and moats
0:41:48 and who are the competitors
0:41:51 and where are they relative to Starlink?
0:41:52 – So I love this question
0:41:54 and it actually gets to the earlier point
0:41:56 around updating or supplementing
0:41:59 the internet protocol suite as we know it.
0:42:03 There was a largely under covered fight
0:42:05 going on between the big giants
0:42:07 to actually own the submarine cable infrastructure
0:42:09 of the internet.
0:42:12 Meta, as you called out in 2018,
0:42:16 they owned 0% of what we call the internet backbone
0:42:19 or the oceanic backbone.
0:42:22 By the end of this year, the free internet foundation
0:42:27 estimates that Meta will own 12 to 13%
0:42:31 or own, co-own, or be the capacity owner, right?
0:42:33 Essentially a leasehold like a wireless tower
0:42:35 of all submarine cable infrastructure,
0:42:40 about 170,000 kilometers of cable.
0:42:43 They will own the cables that connect 47
0:42:47 to 55 different African continental countries.
0:42:49 And it’s believed that out of the 12 to 13%
0:42:53 they own worldwide, 40 to 50%
0:42:57 of all of the African continental internet infrastructure.
0:42:59 That has led to additional escalation
0:43:01 from Google and Amazon companies
0:43:04 that were much farther ahead in purchasing
0:43:06 and owning these fiber optic connections.
0:43:08 When you talk about Starlink,
0:43:10 you’re again talking about another system
0:43:13 that we don’t have a traditional competition
0:43:17 or comparison for, but is now roughly 70%
0:43:21 of all low earth satellites that we have globally,
0:43:23 including all of those of China and NASA,
0:43:27 where they’re expected to put up another 12,000
0:43:30 in the next 12 months, up to 30 to 40,000 more.
0:43:33 And the cost and velocity advantages
0:43:38 they have over any other competitor is astonishing.
0:43:40 And so I’ll bring that back, which is you say,
0:43:42 okay, so what’s the challenge
0:43:44 with updating the internet protocol suite?
0:43:45 The challenge with the internet protocol suite
0:43:46 is it’s decentralized.
0:43:49 No one mandates a protocol’s adoption.
0:43:50 We’ve proposed many.
0:43:54 And so one classic example is the internet protocol suite
0:43:56 does not differentiate between any packet of data.
0:43:59 It doesn’t know what’s real time you and I talking
0:44:03 and it doesn’t know what’s an email or a Netflix stream.
0:44:06 And so you and I may have our call dumped
0:44:08 because there’s congestion in the network
0:44:10 and a network hop just says,
0:44:12 well, we’ve got to pick between these two.
0:44:15 So let’s dump Scott and Matt to let the email through,
0:44:19 severing the connection, not just delaying ours.
0:44:21 To get everyone to agree,
0:44:25 you need 110,000 networks,
0:44:27 millions and millions of different routers
0:44:29 to all say, let’s accept it.
0:44:32 And there’s no simple, let’s classify this versus that
0:44:35 because all data has different demand needs.
0:44:36 And so when you start to talk about the scope
0:44:39 of Meta’s ownership of cable infrastructure
0:44:43 or Starlink, you start to have a private party
0:44:48 that can forcibly or effectively produce new protocols
0:44:50 that reshape how the internet manages
0:44:51 and discriminates traffic.
0:44:53 I’m not talking about net neutrality.
0:44:56 I just mean like the fundamental understanding
0:44:59 of data and routing to start to change
0:45:02 the way the most profound technology
0:45:05 the last 50 years operates in a way that
0:45:08 at least in some regions of the world
0:45:11 and potentially globally through Starlink,
0:45:14 nothing else can even propose an alternative.
0:45:16 And that’s where you get into something truly remarkable.
0:45:19 And that’s a moat that would perhaps take
0:45:23 50 years to even try to chip away at.
0:45:25 – So you’re bullish on Starlink.
0:45:28 – I think it’s remarkably hard not to be.
0:45:30 – Yeah, that’s my sense too.
0:45:32 What other, okay, so Starlink, what other companies
0:45:34 when you look at how all the moons are converging
0:45:36 or not converging here, what other companies
0:45:39 are you especially optimistic about?
0:45:42 – So before I shifted over to interactivity
0:45:45 and gaming at large, I was primarily focused
0:45:47 on Hollywood and media.
0:45:50 I was the head of strategy for Amazon Studios,
0:45:52 which ran at the time, essentially what users
0:45:54 think of to be as prime video.
0:45:56 And I’m very familiar with your perspective
0:45:57 on generative AI.
0:46:00 Look, I think that technology is remarkable.
0:46:04 And I think you can kind of tell the general fears
0:46:08 around that technology by how the criticisms have changed.
0:46:10 A year and a half ago, it was the number of digits
0:46:11 that were on a finger.
0:46:15 Right now, most of the criticisms that I see are that
0:46:18 it looks great, yes, but it doesn’t have the nuance
0:46:21 of a human expression, of a human performance.
0:46:22 They say it’s plugey, right?
0:46:26 The lighting is bad, it’s not dramatic.
0:46:31 And just the fact that we have gone from visual deformities
0:46:37 to a normative sense of like taste is extraordinary.
0:46:42 And of course, the funny thing about that is
0:46:45 to even believe that the visual presentation
0:46:48 or the performance is flawed is to assume
0:46:51 that there’s a uniform human response to those things
0:46:52 when we know that there isn’t.
0:46:55 Which is to say, an expert may say that doesn’t land
0:46:58 the way that cinema or Scorsese would,
0:47:01 but that assumes that every viewer would.
0:47:03 The pace in which that technology is improving
0:47:04 is remarkable.
0:47:07 I think the ethics of how a lot of the training data
0:47:10 has been used are often reprehensible
0:47:15 or at worst, willfully ignorant of the ramifications.
0:47:17 But having gone through this fire wave
0:47:20 of virtual production and real-time production,
0:47:23 which we realized was probably 10 to 15 years
0:47:26 ahead of schedule, I think that we are very quickly
0:47:29 coming to that fundamental change point
0:47:32 for how generative AI is used in workflows
0:47:35 for video game, for music, for cinema at large.
0:47:38 And I use cinema deliberately
0:47:40 as opposed to just movies or content.
0:47:43 – So it’s had a strategy for Amazon Studios.
0:47:46 How do you think AI, if you will,
0:47:48 is gonna sort of crawl up to stack a Hollywood?
0:47:52 Is it the existential threat
0:47:55 that the WGA claimed it was and yet got no protections
0:47:56 from it, as far as I can tell?
0:47:59 Or do you think it’s actual?
0:48:03 Or is it a productivity tool that potentially lowers costs
0:48:06 and some media companies adapt, others don’t,
0:48:10 but on the whole, the media ecosystem stays robust
0:48:11 and some there are winners and losers?
0:48:12 Or is it really gonna start,
0:48:15 is it gonna disrupt Hollywood?
0:48:19 Is Hollywood the next Detroit at sort of the feet of AI?
0:48:21 What are your thoughts here?
0:48:23 And if you were still advising Amazon
0:48:26 or traditional studio, where do you think,
0:48:30 how do they best defend or go on offense here and leverage AI?
0:48:31 – Well, we have to keep in mind
0:48:33 that one of the reasons I think that Hollywood
0:48:36 has been more skeptical around generative AI
0:48:39 is the lessons of the last few supposed waves.
0:48:41 When you take a look at Netflix,
0:48:43 Netflix in many ways or streaming video,
0:48:45 democratize video distribution
0:48:47 and it changed the monetization,
0:48:50 but it did nothing to alter the cost structure of production.
0:48:52 It’s one of the reasons why fans decry
0:48:55 the fact that streaming has replicated the cable bundle,
0:48:56 but it’s more expensive.
0:48:58 Well, of course, we haven’t come up
0:49:01 with any real innovations to the production cost.
0:49:03 We produce more expensively than ever before,
0:49:06 in part due to the competitive intensity
0:49:09 brought about by the democratization of distribution.
0:49:11 You go back 15 years earlier, you get to VHS,
0:49:13 a new channel, a new monetization scheme,
0:49:18 but it didn’t again change how we produced.
0:49:21 Digital film and the advent of computer generated imagery
0:49:24 in the early ’90s, in many ways,
0:49:28 was expected to change production and democratize it
0:49:30 by eliminating sound stages,
0:49:34 but the cost of digital cameras at the time,
0:49:37 the cost of CGI, actually elevated budgets
0:49:39 to the point in which anyone who wants to have an epic
0:49:42 or a spectacle, the films that do best in movie theaters,
0:49:45 requires often, not exclusively,
0:49:47 but often hundreds of millions, if not more.
0:49:49 Hollywood is therefore kind of attuned
0:49:52 to this idea of the new disruptive technology,
0:49:54 doesn’t change production,
0:49:57 therefore maintains the merits of project financing,
0:50:02 of distribution slates to diversify risk of sound stages.
0:50:04 And in many ways, the actual cost
0:50:07 of running generative AI systems right now,
0:50:10 plus the importance of distribution
0:50:12 that they’ve spent 15 years trying to build up
0:50:14 through streaming, has led many to believe
0:50:16 that yes, it’s a disruptive force,
0:50:19 it is more likely than not going to affect
0:50:22 below-the-line workers and supporting systems,
0:50:26 but many believe that especially with the law on their side,
0:50:29 that it’s still gonna shake out mostly for them.
0:50:33 I’m skeptical because I think that we have never before seen
0:50:38 an actual massive disruptive force on the production side,
0:50:41 and one that in classic disruption theory,
0:50:45 suggests that many of their existing resources
0:50:49 become at best distractions
0:50:53 and at worst cumbersome cost hurdles for them.
0:50:56 And so this is to say, it’s a little bit difficult
0:50:59 to predict the outcomes, but I do think that everything
0:51:02 that we expected from YouTube that we didn’t get,
0:51:06 which is to say a massive volume of independent creatives
0:51:10 that have never touched nor gone through a traditional pipeline,
0:51:12 and yet are producing content that doesn’t look
0:51:14 like a $300 million Marvel film,
0:51:17 but looks like a 40 or $50 million Marvel film,
0:51:21 only it is more easily updated and edited,
0:51:24 changed, customized, frankly, transplanted,
0:51:27 and re-imported into an immersive environment,
0:51:31 into a storybook form, that’s gonna be really hard to slow.
0:51:34 And crucially, because Hollywood will no longer
0:51:37 own the distribution levers, can’t stymie either.
0:51:42 – The only place I would take exception is that,
0:51:43 I do think on the production side,
0:51:45 there has been a globalization, right?
0:51:47 They’ve brought down some production of the RIs
0:51:51 gone up by producing stuff in South Korea and Spain.
0:51:53 I think Netflix has done a pretty good job with that.
0:51:55 Would you agree with that?
0:51:56 – Depends on how you wanna define that.
0:51:59 Do I think that Netflix has done an outstanding job
0:52:02 in Spain and South Korea, in Australia?
0:52:06 Absolutely, I think investors often overlooked
0:52:08 Netflix’s advantages because they compared it
0:52:11 to HBO domestically, a business that had 50 years
0:52:13 of investment competing against one
0:52:14 that had a few years of investment,
0:52:18 without appreciating that in many foreign territories,
0:52:20 Netflix is HBO, not just to the consumers,
0:52:22 but to talent, to production expertise.
0:52:25 They own sound stages, they pre-booked sound stages
0:52:29 that they financed the construction of for years.
0:52:33 At the same point, there isn’t much evidence
0:52:35 of the routine repeatability, low-loan,
0:52:38 efficient production investment
0:52:40 of those foreign internationals hitting over here.
0:52:43 We have Squid Game, but Squid Game
0:52:45 was now three plus years ago.
0:52:47 We had Money Heist before that,
0:52:49 a title that they didn’t actually produce,
0:52:50 but purchased the license to.
0:52:53 I think that is to say, Scott,
0:52:54 I think that by American standards,
0:52:57 where we’re used to five to $15 million per hour,
0:52:58 Netflix has excelled in diversifying
0:53:00 their international production
0:53:02 to the two to $5 million budget level
0:53:05 when servicing those regional customers.
0:53:07 But I haven’t yet seen so much evidence
0:53:08 that they’ve been able to substitute
0:53:12 the American diet for high-cost scripted shows,
0:53:13 which much lower,
0:53:17 more efficient international scripted shows on balance.
0:53:19 We’ll be right back.
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0:53:55 but they also know that it’s only a matter of time
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0:55:34 (upbeat music)
0:55:39 – It feels as if we’ve written about this
0:55:41 at the kind of the streaming wars, if you will,
0:55:45 are just this great case study and economics.
0:55:49 Overinvestment because the markets are willing to replace
0:55:52 or say, well, we want growth over profits,
0:55:55 so there’s a massive overinvestment.
0:55:56 And now we’re going through a shakeout.
0:55:59 Cost-cutting and consolidation.
0:56:01 As you look at the landscape here,
0:56:02 of all the different streamers,
0:56:04 who do you think the winners and losers are?
0:56:07 Who are the consolidated oars and the consolidated ease
0:56:10 and any kind of off-market predictions
0:56:13 about what might play out in the next 24 months?
0:56:14 – Well, I think we have to start from the fact
0:56:17 that even as recently as 2020,
0:56:20 it’s remarkable how profitable that category was.
0:56:21 People talk about pay TV,
0:56:23 but I think it’s generally underappreciated
0:56:25 that if you can believe it,
0:56:28 pay TV or network television distribution
0:56:33 was a top-decile EBITDA business in the United States.
0:56:38 The median industry has a roughly 13, 14, 15% EBITDA margin.
0:56:43 Network distribution was around 37 to 40% in 2020.
0:56:48 That compared with renewables, nicotine, and oil and gas.
0:56:49 Why?
0:56:51 Because the amortization that you netted
0:56:53 against your operating income was enormous
0:56:55 because you had to build pipelines.
0:57:00 Any system that said just shifting from a top-decile
0:57:05 to a top-quartile category,
0:57:07 meant that you were gonna lose roughly one-third
0:57:09 of your profit margins,
0:57:11 that you probably had two times the cost structure
0:57:12 that you needed.
0:57:14 And that’s before accounting for the fact
0:57:16 that your two biggest competitors,
0:57:18 non-traditionally, are Amazon and Apple,
0:57:20 which need not a dollar of direct margin,
0:57:23 and you’re competing against a business Netflix
0:57:25 that said we don’t care for 20 years.
0:57:28 There is no way, there has never been,
0:57:31 a way to run away from that system.
0:57:33 And so all of the outcomes
0:57:35 that I think have long been predicted,
0:57:36 seem as inevitable now.
0:57:40 There’s too many players, the cost structures remain too high.
0:57:42 And that’s before you even take into account
0:57:45 the aforementioned generative AI displacement.
0:57:48 There’s nothing the average American still,
0:57:52 in 2024, does with their free time more than watch TV.
0:57:54 And I don’t think that that share of time
0:57:56 is even going to last as a result of video gaming,
0:57:58 social media, and other practices
0:58:01 that we see from the younger generation.
0:58:04 And so we’re going to see more companies go belly up.
0:58:06 We’re going to see more companies merge
0:58:09 and like Paramount and Viacom,
0:58:12 find out that despite their doubled size,
0:58:15 they’re gonna end up half the size they were.
0:58:17 – So take it a step further.
0:58:19 I’ll put this out there.
0:58:23 Time Warner survives, Disney survives, Netflix survives.
0:58:25 Other than that, I feel like all bets are off.
0:58:26 What are your thoughts?
0:58:27 – How do you mean survive?
0:58:31 Like as going concerns or direct to consumer business?
0:58:33 – My sense is they’re all recognizing,
0:58:35 even the deep pockets of Amazon and Apple realize
0:58:38 they don’t have the appetite to make the requisite investments
0:58:41 to be kind of standalone big competitors here.
0:58:43 And everyone’s looking for a dance partner
0:58:45 or to get acquired.
0:58:47 It just feels like the whole,
0:58:49 there just isn’t enough room for all of these players.
0:58:52 And what I’m putting to you is who do you think
0:58:55 it’s acquired sooner rather than later?
0:58:58 Might we see one of them actually get unplugged?
0:59:01 – Well, look, I think it remains very hard
0:59:03 to imagine what the independent future
0:59:05 of Alliance Gate or stars will be,
0:59:07 especially as a separated entity.
0:59:09 They kind of have all of the drawbacks
0:59:11 they had as a combined entity,
0:59:13 plus none of the narrative and none of the ability
0:59:16 to at least tap into two segments of the value chain.
0:59:20 AMC has been looking for a dance partner for 15 years,
0:59:23 clearly overestimated its value over and over
0:59:25 to the point in which there’s no dance partner
0:59:26 to find for them.
0:59:29 But the more important aspect is,
0:59:31 look, if you take a look at WBD,
0:59:34 these days it’s circling less than $7 per share.
0:59:36 It’s a collection of assets
0:59:38 that seem increasingly out of whack.
0:59:40 You have the Turner sports regime
0:59:43 that’s apparently about to lose its NBA assets.
0:59:45 You have CNN, you have HBO,
0:59:48 which as of now is decoupling further still
0:59:50 from the rest of Macs.
0:59:51 I think it’s important to recognize
0:59:55 that under current leadership,
0:59:57 WBD has actually sold off
1:00:00 most of their plausible growth story.
1:00:05 They’ve renewed a deep into 2030s distribution agreement
1:00:06 with Bel-Canada.
1:00:09 They’re apparently renewing their sky distribution deal
1:00:12 in Germany, in Italy, in France.
1:00:14 They’ve renewed a South Korean distribution agreement,
1:00:17 an Australian distribution agreement with Stan,
1:00:18 at the point in which you’re saying
1:00:22 we’re gonna downsize our domestic business in HBO.
1:00:24 We’re going to start licensing all of our content
1:00:27 to Netflix and anyone else who will buy it.
1:00:29 In all of the international territories
1:00:31 that have the highest streaming penetration,
1:00:33 we’re going to retreat and license
1:00:35 for the next decade to come.
1:00:38 And then you’re giving up your most valuable rights
1:00:39 on the Turner side.
1:00:42 CNN has no strategic adjacency
1:00:44 and the stock price has lost 75%
1:00:48 since it debuted only two and a half years ago.
1:00:50 It’s very hard to imagine
1:00:53 that that current structure can endure.
1:00:54 And that’s not even talking
1:00:55 about the video game side of this.
1:00:58 – And Matthew, before we go here,
1:01:00 we have a lot of young people who listen to the pod
1:01:03 and are working hard,
1:01:06 trying to establish currency in a professional marketplace.
1:01:08 And I think anybody that looks at your background
1:01:09 and what you’ve achieved
1:01:11 and the seat you’ve sort of created for yourself.
1:01:15 And I think that is a really cool profession.
1:01:17 Can you give us a little bit of the backstory
1:01:19 about how you got to where you are now
1:01:22 and any advice you might have for young men and women
1:01:27 who are looking to establish what feels, smells
1:01:29 and looks like a really cool, well-compensated career?
1:01:32 – So I’d say two things.
1:01:35 Growing up in the early 90s,
1:01:39 I was a relentless user of these really hard to use systems.
1:01:41 I was a big pirate in the 90s.
1:01:42 I was on IRC chats.
1:01:44 I was using MS-DOS.
1:01:48 The use of those products often provided, I think,
1:01:51 a intuitive understanding of what was around the corner.
1:01:52 Why?
1:01:55 Because often the systems that,
1:01:57 especially Hollywood starts to bring,
1:01:59 feel regressive at the time, right?
1:02:00 I’ll give you an example.
1:02:02 Like TV everywhere is one of the biggest disasters
1:02:04 that Hollywood has ever invested.
1:02:06 Do you remember ultraviolet, Scott?
1:02:07 – Mm-hmm, yeah.
1:02:10 – And it was one of those things where
1:02:13 if you had been a pirate and I don’t endorse piracy,
1:02:15 I’m talking about the products
1:02:17 of using these experimental technologies,
1:02:20 you all of a sudden realized that what you were being asked
1:02:23 to use was a woefully inadequate version
1:02:25 of the already-cluge systems
1:02:27 that you were doing 10, 15 years ago.
1:02:29 And then when that’s put in parallel
1:02:31 with a product like Netflix that, yes,
1:02:32 came from an independent company
1:02:33 that didn’t own its destiny,
1:02:36 that was licensing content that had all of its flaws,
1:02:39 that didn’t have live sports and live news,
1:02:41 it provided me with a much clearer understanding
1:02:44 of this is at minimum a better model
1:02:46 and at maximum a better model
1:02:47 that is competing with companies
1:02:50 that don’t even know what a good model looks like
1:02:52 and are to some extent ignorant
1:02:54 of what consumers are already doing.
1:02:58 And so I do think that using those technologies constantly,
1:02:59 which in the case of crypto
1:03:02 means going through truly terrible systems
1:03:04 and often losing your money as a result of it,
1:03:06 not saying that you should speculatively invest,
1:03:07 there’s no substitute for that.
1:03:09 You cannot learn it by reading blog posts
1:03:11 and going on Twitter.
1:03:14 The second thing is, I would say I’ve done a good job
1:03:18 in my career of constantly switching out of a category
1:03:22 where I believe the big strategic problems have solved
1:03:23 and then focusing on the categories
1:03:26 where you only have hard
1:03:28 and sometimes intractable questions.
1:03:30 In the case of the metaverse or VR,
1:03:32 that means going after a field
1:03:34 that you’re gonna get wrong a lot of the time.
1:03:36 It’s part of the reason why I’ve updated this book,
1:03:39 it’s a 70% remake from only two and a half years ago.
1:03:43 You can’t think of the metaverse the same way in 2024
1:03:44 after the Vision Pro,
1:03:47 after the crypto crash and resurgence
1:03:49 and after the advent of AI.
1:03:53 But if you can be relatively unsentimental
1:03:54 about going for, in my case,
1:03:57 streaming video was really hard in 2013.
1:03:58 You didn’t know who to hire,
1:03:59 you didn’t know the business model.
1:04:03 It was darn hard to get an app on a Samsung TV,
1:04:04 any television.
1:04:06 But by 2017, 2018,
1:04:08 we essentially figured it out,
1:04:09 which is why 2019,
1:04:13 we saw every single service on earth come to market.
1:04:16 I pivoted out to an uncertain category.
1:04:19 And when you have the opportunity to learn,
1:04:20 go to labs,
1:04:23 talk to entrepreneurs on Slack day in and day out
1:04:25 about something no one has figured out yet,
1:04:29 but most people think is about to become significant,
1:04:31 you end up with a multi-year advantage
1:04:33 that you can continue to compound for.
1:04:37 Matthew Ball is a CEO of Apelian,
1:04:38 a diversified holding company
1:04:39 that makes angel investments,
1:04:41 provides advisory services
1:04:43 and produces television, films and video games.
1:04:45 He’s also a venture partner at Makers Fund,
1:04:47 Senior Advisor to KKR,
1:04:48 Senior Advisor to McKinsey and Company
1:04:51 and sits on the board of numerous startups.
1:04:53 The fully revised and updated edition of his book,
1:04:56 “The Metaverse” is out now.
1:04:58 He joins us from Midtown, Manhattan.
1:05:01 Matthew, you’re one of these guys.
1:05:03 You remind me a little bit of Josh Wolf.
1:05:06 I don’t know if you know him from Lux Capital.
1:05:11 But I feel like I’m working with a 286 or a 386 ship
1:05:13 and the way you guys are able to process
1:05:15 and distill information is just,
1:05:18 it’s not only impressive, it’s really inspiring.
1:05:20 Appreciate you sharing our thoughts with our audience
1:05:22 and congratulations on building
1:05:24 such an impressive career for yourself.
1:05:26 – Thank you. It’s very kind.
1:05:28 (upbeat music)
1:05:31 (upbeat music)
1:05:37 – Algebra of Happiness.
1:05:40 I was invited to speak at something called
1:05:42 White Dudes for Harris,
1:05:45 which was a Zoom call that Garner get this,
1:05:48 160,000 people and raised about four million bucks.
1:05:49 So I got to speak for two or three minutes.
1:05:52 And my favorite thing is I got to speak
1:05:54 after the governor of Minnesota.
1:05:56 And before, Luke Skywalker, that’s right,
1:05:59 Mark Hamill spoke after me.
1:06:02 Initially, I thought I’m so sick of identity politics.
1:06:04 I don’t want to be associated with an event
1:06:08 that identifies me based on my bage-ness
1:06:10 and the fact I have outdoor plumbing.
1:06:12 But I signed up for it because,
1:06:14 and of course, all the Trumpers weighed in and said,
1:06:17 “If we did this, it would be accused of being racist
1:06:18 “and bigoted and blah, blah, blah.”
1:06:20 I think you have to take gestures
1:06:21 with the intent that they’re given.
1:06:23 And this was, let’s be honest,
1:06:27 this was non-whites and women have absolutely been ignited,
1:06:31 enthralled, motivated, inspired
1:06:34 by the prospect of a president Harris.
1:06:35 I love that.
1:06:38 I think it’s been very difficult not to get swept up
1:06:39 and come a lot, if you will.
1:06:41 And regardless, I want to be clear,
1:06:42 she was not my chosen candidate,
1:06:43 but neither was Bill Clinton.
1:06:46 I was supporting Michael Dukakis, remember him?
1:06:48 But I’m all in.
1:06:49 I think she’s a competent person.
1:06:51 And I think the person she’s running against
1:06:53 is not a great role model for young men,
1:06:55 and that’s not what I’m here to talk about.
1:06:58 Vice President Harris has received a lot of grief
1:07:02 from Vice President nominee, J.D. Vance,
1:07:03 for not having kids.
1:07:06 And that’s just not true.
1:07:09 Vice President Harris is a stepmom, if you will,
1:07:10 to two kids.
1:07:13 And my stepmother just played
1:07:16 such a positive role in my life.
1:07:18 My dad’s been married and divorced four times.
1:07:20 He had a daughter by his third marriage,
1:07:23 but his wife, Linda, his third marriage,
1:07:26 was the first person to spoil me.
1:07:28 Do you remember that, the first person?
1:07:30 For most people, it’s their grandparents, right?
1:07:32 And my grandparents were not around.
1:07:34 So some background, Linda had been told
1:07:36 that she could never have her own children.
1:07:38 And so when this little,
1:07:40 when this eight-year-old and Levi’s corduroys
1:07:42 and an OP shirt and missing his two frontiers showed up,
1:07:46 she was just in love, like moment one,
1:07:47 and used to spoil me rotten.
1:07:50 I’d come over and she’d have like chocolate
1:07:52 hidden around the house.
1:07:54 She’d take me to Toys R Us,
1:07:57 and she’d see me eyeing the remote-controlled P-51 plane
1:07:59 and say, “Well, what about this?”
1:08:00 Even though I was too embarrassed to ask
1:08:01 ’cause it looked expensive.
1:08:03 The first person who spoils you,
1:08:04 you just love the rest of your life.
1:08:06 Anyways, my stepmom, Linda, spoiled me.
1:08:10 She was also really good in terms of encouraging my father
1:08:12 to be more involved in my life.
1:08:13 She and I spent a lot of time together
1:08:15 ’cause my dad was on the road,
1:08:17 so I would go out to my father’s every other weekend
1:08:19 and basically hang out with Linda.
1:08:21 And she was such a positive role model for me
1:08:23 and was such a loving person.
1:08:26 Reason I bring this up is I think stepparents
1:08:29 are very much underrated and overlooked,
1:08:30 including the vice president.
1:08:33 I think that it is an especially strong signal
1:08:35 of your humanity, your generosity.
1:08:38 And generally speaking, your capacity to love
1:08:40 when you do what most stepparents do,
1:08:42 and that is love those children like they’re your own.
1:08:44 (upbeat music)
1:08:46 This episode was produced by Caroline Shagren.
1:08:49 Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer
1:08:52 and Drew Burroughs is our technical director.
1:08:54 Thank you for listening to the Propg Pod
1:08:56 from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1:08:58 We will catch you on Saturday
1:09:00 for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn.
1:09:03 And please follow our Propg Markets Pod
1:09:05 wherever you get your pods for new episodes
1:09:07 every Monday and Thursday.