#077 Kurt Wagner: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Power, Influence, and the Cost of Free Speech

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the tensions between whether you believe it's it's upholding free speech or not has sort of like flip flopped.
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You know, conservatives hated.
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Twitter several years ago thinking that it was overstepping and now they're like, Elon is here to save the day.
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And liberals or left leaning folks typically now are like, what's going on over at Twitter?
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Elon, what are you doing?
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Welcome to another episode of The Mind Hack podcast.
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I'm your host, Cody McLain, and I've spent my career building and scaling businesses, navigating the highs and lows of entrepreneurship.
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On this podcast, we dive into the minds of industry leaders and experts to uncover what drives them and the insights they've gained along the way.
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Today we're diving deep into the chaotic and fascinating world of Twitter with none other than Kurt Wagner, the author of the book, battle for the Bird, Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and the$44 billion fight for Twitter's Soul.
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Kurt's got the inside scoop on how two Tech Titans wrestled over one of the most influential platforms of our time.
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From secret boardroom betrayals to late night tweet storms.
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We'll explore how Elon went from joking about buying Twitter to shaking the company's very foundation.
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We'll also dig into Jack Dorsey's quiet Influence, the Staff Chaos Post Takeover, and how this battle has reshaped the platform and the future of free speech.
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This episode has it all, backdoor deals, employee exits, and high stake decisions that changed everything.
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We'll uncover the drama behind the scenes, the pivotal moments that shape Twitter's fate and what it all means for the future of social media.
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So, without further ado, please help me in welcoming Kurt Wagner.
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Kurt, welcome to the show.
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Hey, thank you so much for having me.
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So, I'd love to just jump into, the gritty nature of it all when Elon initially joked about buying Twitter.
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but he joked about buying Twitter, but within months it actually became a $44 billion reality.
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Can you walk us through that turning point when it stopped being a joke and it turned into one of of the most significant tech acquisitions in recent history, what was the catalyst?
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Yeah, I mean there's some debate, as to exactly what ultimately motivated this guy to buy a platform that he loved, right?
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This is something he'd been using for years, something he clearly felt a connection to.
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So it was, someone described it as like, you know, when a maybe a rich person but who's not the richest man in the world says, Hey, I really love that beach house over there.
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You know, they wanna buy their summer vacation home.
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It's sort of like Elon buys his, favorite social network.
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But I do think there was a handful of things leading up to the purchase that, any one of them or maybe all of them combined, maybe sort of motivated him.
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I think you have to start in January of 2022.
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And that is, when in.
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Document this in the book.
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He reached out to Twitter because he was upset about an account that was on the platform called Elon Jet.
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And this account was following the movements of his private plane, right?
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So when it took off, where it landed, how long it was in the air, what the CO2 emissions were, and Elon did not like this at all.
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thought it was an invasion of his privacy.
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And he reached out actually to the CEO of Twitter at the time, Parag Agrawal, and basically asked him.
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To take it down.
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And Parag said, no, there's nothing really that this account is doing to violate our rules.
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And basically right after that, in January of 2022, Elon started building a stake in Twitter.
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And I think the theory, or perhaps, motivation could be that he thought, well, if I'm a shareholder of this company, then maybe.
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My complaints will, carry a little bit more weight.
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Maybe I will join the board and, as a board member I'll be able to kind of get this stuff done.
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So that's sort of one theory.
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I think, you know, the other is, we saw his ex-wife Talulah Riley, you know, complain to Elon in private about, the fact that Twitter had banned an account for the Babylon Bee, which is a satire site that was making, jokes about, trans people.
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And twitter considered that hate speech, and they took the account down and you see this back and forth text messages between Talulah Riley and Elon.
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That's sort of like, man, what's happening?
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Where's free speech?
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We need free speech.
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And she actually makes a joke like, can you please buy Twitter and shut it down?
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his response is something like, well, maybe I'll buy it and make it radically free speech.
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Right?
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And again, this is happening in a private, just two people, him and his ex-wife having this exchange.
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And lo and behold, a few weeks later, he actually buys Twitter.
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Right?
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And so I bring these moments up.
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Not because we know them to be the exact reason for the acquisition.
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Elon's, own biographer.
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Walter Isaacson basically said he had so much money, he just didn't know what to do with it.
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So he went and bought Twitter.
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But I really do think it's probably a combination of things, right?
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he's mad at the company.
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He wants them to take down these accounts.
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He's, mad at the company because they're not, in his mind, upholding free speech.
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He's got more money than he knows what to do with.
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And this confluence of things kind of bring us to April of 2022 when he actually makes an offer to buy Twitter.
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And I think for some people it was surprising.
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They accept it.
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there was a thought, actually, it's hard to imagine now because it feels like he way overpaid for Twitter.
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There was a thought in that moment that actually his offer was too low.
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And that maybe Twitter's board would reject it because, the company was worth more than that.
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And, I think you know, I'll stop there'cause I'm sort of throwing a lot at you already, but the reason I think it's important is it's never just one thing.
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And I think in this case it was probably several little things that all sort of snowballed together to get this deal going and over the finish line,
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Yeah.
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And Twitter's board initially resisted Elon's takeover with, not sure if you refer to it as a poison pill strategy.
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but eventually they gave in, and I'd love if you happen to know any inside scoop on why did Elon seem to change his position?
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Because it almost seemed laughable that he used this concept of the spam bots and the Twitter said that it was less than 5% and he really stuck and said that, no, it's way more than 5%.
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I was lied to.
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so why did the board initially resist Elon's takeover?
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And then why did Elon seem to change his position after he made the initial offer?
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So we'll start with the board and the, the poison pill idea, which you brought up.
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And I really think, from the outside, at first, and I remember feeling this way when I first saw that they initiated this poison pill, which for those who aren't familiar, is basically a, a measure where if an individual shareholder buys, in this case more than, I believe it was 15% of the company, it automatically triggers this situation where they flood the market with more shares, right?
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They just constantly flood the market so that that person who's trying to buy a, significant stake cannot.
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Maintain, a large enough stake to have control.
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And it is a defensive measure.
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And I actually, I think when we first saw that they were initiating this, we thought, oh wow, they really don't want him to buy Twitter.
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I think in, in reality, and what I've learned is it was less about that and more about slowing him down, right?
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Elon was moving incredibly quickly.
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He basically, sent a, an offer to the board, Hey, I, I wanna buy you guys.
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And within like a week he was like, yo, what's your answer?
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I need to know right away, otherwise I'm gonna just, go out and do this on my own.
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And so I think they were trying to just slow down, slow him down.
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So they sort of threw up this temporary wall, this poison pill wall to try and accomplish that.
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In terms of why he ultimately changed his mind, I mean, so in the end of April, 2022, he acquires this company or agrees to acquire it for $44 billion.
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You have to look at the next 2, 3, 4 weeks.
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After that, the stock market took a big dip.
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Elon's net worth fell.
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I, I don't remember off the top of my head, but I wanna say it was by 40, $50 billion within, a month.
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And so suddenly this person who had so much money, he didn't know what to do with, is certainly still has a lot of money, but not nearly as much as he just did when he had agreed to buy Twitter.
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And so I think there was a feeling quite quickly after signing that paperwork that maybe he had, overbid or he had overpaid for this company.
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And so his way to try and, get outta that deal was think, okay, well how can I get outta this deal?
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Well, one way would be to, basically prove or, try to prove that this company lied to me and that I'm buying a business that isn't actually worth what I paid for it.
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And I think that's why we saw him and go after the bots thing, is that he was basically trying to say.
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Twitter's not worth $44 billion because they've been lying about their user base this whole time.
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Now he wasn't able to basically uphold that argument.
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But my, kind of read on the situation and from all the conversations I've had, people believe that that was simply a, tactic to try and lower the price and say, what's the one way I can get some of my money back while I can accuse them of, essentially lying to their shareholders in hopes that they'll lower the deal for me.
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Did Elon have any trouble securing funding for that?
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Because I know he didn't want to sell his, Tesla shares since that would devalue Tesla and then he went out to obtain additional funding.
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I know you mentioned Sequoia, Morgan Stanley.
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I'm not sure if Jason Calacanis was just an advisor.
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but can you explain what was Elon's funding strategy and also what is the current situation with that?
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Because I've, heard, I haven't fully looked into it, but that he largely leveraged banks to fund the acquisition and now these banks have been having to write off these loans since the, since it seems like the stock price just completely tanked and they haven't been able to sell these loans.
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But wondering if you can explain the funding situation, how he obtained it, and then what the current situation is.
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Sure, I'll try and simplify it as much as possible.
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So we have $44 billion we have to get to, right?
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And I believe there were various iterations of his funding over sort of a, a couple month span as this was going on.
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But where I think he ended up with was a $12.5 billion loan that was actually taken out by the company itself, right?
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So the money that's paid back on that loan actually comes from Twitter or now x, which is why it's called a leveraged buyout.
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They took a bunch of debt onto their balance sheet as a company, which then they are responsible for paying back.
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So let's see, 44 minus 12 and a half.
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Uh, let's see, we're at 42, 32, we'll say 32 billion left.
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he took some of that from investors.
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You mentioned a few of them.
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Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, friends and family.
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Jack Dorsey, former.
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Co-founder of Twitter, former CEO of Twitter, rolled his share over.
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And then the rest of this is coming from Elon himself, right?
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His own cash basically.
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And, he did sell a bunch of Tesla shares in order to, basically stockpile cash for this deal.
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I believe we had a story, in Bloomberg just a few months ago.
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Where we got our hands on some, X documents through a FOIA process, freedom of, Information Act process.
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And it said that Elon owned, I believe it was like 74% of the company.
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So, the vast majority of the funding came from Elon himself through sales of Tesla and, and other things.
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But, that pretty much oversimplifies it because it really was a messy, complicated couple months where he's trying to entice investors to buy in.
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He's doing various versions of loans from the bank.
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At one point he was gonna take out personal loans.
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He ended up just doing the business loans through Twitter.
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But, you know, getting $44 billion, even when you're as rich as he is, is a lot more complicated, I think, than people would expect.
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it's not just as simple as like, oh, I'm just gonna go to the bank and, and withdraw some cash.
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You know, these guys don't just have that much lying around.
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And I think I.
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You know, that got messy and that got complicated.
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And I think that's probably another part of the reason he wanted to try and lower that price is that he realized, wow, to get $44 billion cash is actually a, a much bigger task than I had initially thought.
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Right.
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love the part in your book where you mention what seems like a text conversation between Elon and Larry Ellison, where Larry asks, what do you recommend?
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And then Elon responds with, I recommend 2 billion instead of 1 billion, but then Larry ends up only sending 1 billion.
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Yeah.
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I mean, it's like you, you and I are like, Hey, you want a coffee?
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Like, uh, sure, yeah.
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Why don't you grab me a coffee, you know?
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Sure.
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A billion dollars.
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Why not?
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It was, um, it was a text conversation and I think, if you recall, so I'm getting ahead of the story a little bit, but Twitter, ultimately, sues Elon, over the summer of 2022, he tries to back away from the deal and Twitter says, no, no, no.
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You signed a contract.
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we'll see you in court.
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We're gonna force you to buy this thing.
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And as part of the.
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Discovery.
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All of these text messages of Elon's, got in the hands of the court and the judge, and they were ultimately released later that year.
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So a lot of the conversations I have in the book between Elon and, folks like Larry Ellison, or Gail King, the media personality, um, these, these text conversations came from that batch of, private communications that were, made public by the court because of this lawsuit that he got himself into.
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So that's a little bit of behind the scenes of like, where some of the reporting comes from is from some of these court documents.
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I.
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and now today it was reported I believe in the Wall Street Journal that in order to complete his purchase, Elon needed another 13 billion and he was able to group seven banks that included Morgan Stanley, bank of America, and Barclays who pulled together loans.
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And somehow these banks are now left having to write off these as bad loans.
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Wondering if you have any knowledge or can explain kind of what happened with to these banks in these $13 billion.
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Yeah.
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I'll do my best.
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So, that was the 12.5 billion I was referencing in terms of loans that the company took.
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It, I think it was technically 13.
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'cause there was, it was right around there.
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But the idea is that, let's pretend you're Morgan Stanley.
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You loan Elon a billion dollars, you don't actually want to keep that $1 billion on your balance sheet, right?
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Like, you wanna be able to put that $1 billion to work elsewhere.
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And so usually what Morgan Stanley might do is they'd loan it to Elon for a billion dollars and then they would, uh, pass that loan off to someone else, right?
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They would basically sell that loan to somebody else and they just sort of take the fees, right?
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They take the middleman, the.
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Fees and they have their billion dollars back and now they can go do other deals.
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Well, the problem is, is that Twitter or now X, the business is doing so poorly that nobody wants to buy those loans from the banks that initially offered them.
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Right?
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So if you're Morgan Stanley and you, lent Twitter a billion bucks, you can't find anybody to take that loan off your books.
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So now you're kind of stuck with it.
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And the problem is, is that that's a billion dollars that Morgan Stanley now can't, again, go deploy elsewhere, go do anything else with, and I think it's uncommon that Wall Street Journal story was great and it, it probably did a better job than I'm doing right now of explaining exactly what happened.
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But it's uncommon for banks to be in this situation.
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Most of the time when they have a loan like that, they're able to find someone else to basically take on the risk.
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Right.
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And because the company's just doing.
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So poor.
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no one else wants to take on the risk.
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And I think, you know, at the end of the day, they could be fine.
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Like as long as X or Twitter continues to, pay back the interest rate, pay back the principal on the loan, every, I believe it's quarter, they owe, at the end of this, maybe they'll be made whole again.
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They'll get their billion dollars back plus interest and no harm, no foul.
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But, you know, that could be several years.
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And I think ideally they want to be able to move quickly and it's just not a good sign for the health of the business if no one else wants to take on that risk at this point.
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and everybody seems to always have an opinion about Elon and so many different perspectives.
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How do you think this acquisition of Twitter, uh, has it hurts or, and perhaps helped his reputation as somebody who can manage and run a successful business?
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is he going to have trouble trying to get loans in the future if he wants to get more loans to build another business?
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I think what we've seen is that banks and business partners are so sort of infatuated with everything that Elon is doing outside of X, that he hasn't necessarily been like too hindered by the struggles that the company has had.
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He started an AI company called X ai, and he recently raised $6 billion of funding for XAI and.
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You would think maybe that would be the kind of thing where it's like he couldn't find investors for it because X went so poorly.
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But you have to remember when people are invested in, X or Elon, they're really trying to invest in that relationship, And I think there's a lot of banks and investors who are hoping that, okay, well someday SpaceX is rocket company.
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That's gonna go public.
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That's gonna be a massive IPO.
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Maybe that's gonna be, you know, the next trillion dollar company.
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Who knows?
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And they don't want to burn a bridge with Elon because when he comes calling and says, Hey, do you want invest, you know, a hundred million dollars in XAI?
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They say, whoa, whoa.
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Last time we gave you a hundred million, you ran it into the ground.
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No, they wanna stay on his good side, right?
00:17:12.179 --> 00:17:13.769
So they say, sure, sure, sure.
00:17:13.769 --> 00:17:17.909
We'd love to keep doing business with you in hopes that that leads to the next big thing, right?
00:17:18.778 --> 00:17:25.638
I think reputationally, you ask a lot of these people in private, they might be a little bit more critical, right?
00:17:25.638 --> 00:17:29.929
They might say, well, gosh, what happened at X is certainly not a good sign.
00:17:29.929 --> 00:17:34.189
They still want to be in business with him because they see these potential returns down the road.
00:17:34.548 --> 00:17:43.500
But, I think this has probably done something to his reputation, as a business sort of, uh, someone who can and run a successful business.
00:17:43.621 --> 00:17:45.750
But I also think Twitter is so polarizing.
00:17:45.750 --> 00:17:46.891
I mean, you've seen this, right?
00:17:46.891 --> 00:17:53.131
Like X is so polarizing politically that it's like some people think Elon taking over X was the greatest thing that's ever happened to the internet.
00:17:53.340 --> 00:18:00.015
And some people think, it's been an absolute disaster, dumpster fire, and it feels like there's very few people who, sort of are in between.
00:18:00.015 --> 00:18:04.105
It feels like people have picked these two very, strong opinions on one side or the other.
00:18:04.105 --> 00:18:08.609
So I think a little bit long-winded way of saying, . Banks still wanna work with him.
00:18:09.089 --> 00:18:17.920
I do think this is his reputation, and I think for the general public, people have made up their decision or, made up their mind about Elon in one very dramatic way or the other.
00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:21.869
Either he's a savior or uh, you know, he looks silly with some egg on his face.
00:18:22.133 --> 00:18:23.366
so after the acquisition.
00:18:24.086 --> 00:18:39.482
Twitter faced this wave of internal chaos with these massive layoffs and, and resignations and Elon seemed to come in with a particular management style and that contributed to this, tumultuous atmosphere at the company.
00:18:39.873 --> 00:18:48.619
And so do you think it was a, feeling of spite or do you think this is how he runs companies, so, what is his management style?
00:18:48.829 --> 00:18:57.170
How did it impact the culture, and what impact do you think his emotional state had on the decisions he was making in the moment when he first took it over?
00:18:57.932 --> 00:19:03.781
Elon is, um, has a very aggressive management style.
00:19:03.781 --> 00:19:04.771
I would say.
00:19:04.832 --> 00:19:07.172
It's, incredibly fast paced.
00:19:07.801 --> 00:19:11.576
It's very engineering heavy and engineering focused.
00:19:12.251 --> 00:19:18.402
you know, if you were an engineer working for Elon, that is like, you're the, tip of the spear, if you will, right?
00:19:18.402 --> 00:19:20.426
Like you are cream of the crop at the company.
00:19:21.057 --> 00:19:34.797
And I think when he walked in the door at Twitter, he was so convinced that the company was a failure or had been struggling, that he thought, I need to do things.
00:19:34.797 --> 00:19:40.886
So, so different just to sort of like, get this thing onto a new trajectory, right?
00:19:40.886 --> 00:19:44.997
Like I need to be almost dramatically different in order to.
00:19:44.997 --> 00:19:46.017
accomplish what I want.
00:19:46.067 --> 00:19:47.777
So what did that look like?
00:19:47.777 --> 00:19:51.227
Well, within the first week, he laid off half of the employees.
00:19:51.227 --> 00:19:56.567
I think it was more than four thou, or right around 4,000 employees, 3,500 employees, something like that.
00:19:56.836 --> 00:19:58.156
Uh, so that was week one.
00:19:58.467 --> 00:20:02.142
he wanted to do it within days, but they couldn't quite get it orchestrated enough.
00:20:02.142 --> 00:20:05.757
I mean, it's hard to lay off that many people in, in a week.
00:20:05.757 --> 00:20:09.567
And yet, and yet here he did, uh, slashed costs, right?
00:20:09.567 --> 00:20:10.886
Hey, we're not gonna pay for that bill.
00:20:10.886 --> 00:20:12.777
We're not gonna pay rent on that property.
00:20:12.777 --> 00:20:13.856
We're not gonna do this.
00:20:14.393 --> 00:20:16.042
changed product roadmap.
00:20:16.192 --> 00:20:24.346
Instantly told people, Hey, if you can't get this done, in the next 10 days and the next week, whatever it is, don't bother showing up for work or, you know, you're fired.
00:20:24.346 --> 00:20:24.707
Right?
00:20:24.707 --> 00:20:31.076
So just like there were people literally sleeping at the office in that first week or two, to try and meet these deadlines.
00:20:31.416 --> 00:20:33.267
And I think to some people.
00:20:33.267 --> 00:20:35.432
That was a really exciting change right there.
00:20:35.517 --> 00:20:43.227
There was this feeling that Twitter had moved too slowly for a long time, and that suddenly there was someone there lighting a fire under everybody and everything.
00:20:43.257 --> 00:20:44.457
And that, that was exciting.
00:20:44.936 --> 00:20:47.457
And then there were people who were furious, as you can imagine, right?
00:20:47.457 --> 00:20:56.876
Like suddenly this world, this lifestyle, this product that they thought they knew and had spent years building or working on was being sort of upended overnight.
00:20:57.057 --> 00:21:00.777
And so, as with a lot of things Elon related, it was polarizing.
00:21:00.777 --> 00:21:03.057
There were some people who were all about it and really into it.
00:21:03.057 --> 00:21:05.307
And then there were some people who hated it and couldn't wait to leave.
00:21:05.307 --> 00:21:07.457
And, I think he did that strategically.
00:21:07.457 --> 00:21:09.959
I don't think that it worked, in my opinion.
00:21:09.959 --> 00:21:12.148
I think it was a little too dramatic, too fast.
00:21:12.479 --> 00:21:21.179
But the one thing I think you can't say, you can't say that he didn't come in and, and at least try to mix things up, because I think he certainly did.
00:21:21.179 --> 00:21:22.338
And, that was by design.
00:21:22.876 --> 00:21:31.747
And one of the things that Elon seems to do, I mean, as we see now where he's ended up suing the advertisers who left the platform.
00:21:32.126 --> 00:21:35.656
As a function of, his own opinion of these companies.
00:21:36.497 --> 00:21:41.567
It seems like not everything he does is all that strategic.
00:21:41.567 --> 00:21:47.626
I think four or five years ago, a lot of people had a lot more respect for him because of the accomplishments that he's made.
00:21:47.926 --> 00:22:03.201
But then he does things like, as, I love your, your description in the book where you describe him as he has the, humor of a 12-year-old boy because of all, all the 69 jokes and when he gave in the initial stock offer, was it, it was like something,
00:22:03.261 --> 00:22:03.892
54.
00:22:03.892 --> 00:22:04.777
20, yeah.
00:22:04.777 --> 00:22:05.017
Four.
00:22:05.017 --> 00:22:07.176
There was a four 20, weed joke built in.
00:22:07.176 --> 00:22:07.507
Yep.
00:22:08.061 --> 00:22:09.981
Uh, or walking in with the kitchen sink.
00:22:10.126 --> 00:22:17.676
so he has this humor and some of the things that he does in hindsight, perhaps in the moment they look ridiculous.
00:22:17.826 --> 00:22:28.849
In hindsight, perhaps they ended up being good decisions, but in some things you just have to question, is this, is this really the doing of an, an intelligent person?
00:22:28.849 --> 00:22:37.301
Or is this some aspect of him that has so much spite or, hatred or he just wants to get back at people?
00:22:37.511 --> 00:22:44.558
and that perhaps that's leading to this, this new crisis for Twitter, which is really revenue based.
00:22:44.679 --> 00:23:00.906
So I'm wondering if you can explain, I know this is just your opinion, your, opinion of the difference in his strategic and some of the, in hindsight terrible decisions that he's made and what situation Twitter is currently in with its revenue and the advertising, component.
00:23:01.102 --> 00:23:01.882
Yeah.
00:23:01.942 --> 00:23:06.561
I think this is a big part of the downside of moving as quickly as he does.
00:23:06.561 --> 00:23:06.801
Right.
00:23:06.801 --> 00:23:10.491
We were just talking about how sort of his calling card is that.
00:23:10.701 --> 00:23:13.311
Yeah, everything has to happen yesterday.
00:23:13.402 --> 00:23:15.922
Like it is a million miles per hour at all times.
00:23:16.221 --> 00:23:27.561
And when you're doing that, you're not sitting there and saying, Hey, let's be really thoughtful about how we, you know, roll this out, or let's be really thoughtful about the way we structure this new division, or whatever it may be.
00:23:27.951 --> 00:23:31.432
And there are real downsides to getting those things wrong.
00:23:31.432 --> 00:23:38.231
And I think there's a, I'm going to kind of lean on, an executive who worked for Elon for a few months before she left.
00:23:38.231 --> 00:23:41.231
Her name was Esther Crawford and she was a product executive.
00:23:41.231 --> 00:23:44.892
She sort of got semi-famous during the takeover because she slept.
00:23:45.217 --> 00:23:47.833
in the office in a sleeping bag, in an eye mask.
00:23:47.893 --> 00:23:52.468
I think it was like the first week and someone posted a picture of her or maybe she posted a picture of it on Twitter.
00:23:52.837 --> 00:23:58.358
but anyway, she ended up leaving a few months after Elon got there after sort of being all in for those first few months.
00:23:58.509 --> 00:24:01.298
And she wrote this really like long and thoughtful post about it.
00:24:01.298 --> 00:24:12.992
And, one of the things that she said, which I thought summarized it perfectly, was she was like, you know, Elon is terrific at solving, I'm paraphrasing here, but she says something like, Elon is terrific at solving, Engineering problems, right?
00:24:12.992 --> 00:24:17.192
Like math, critical thinking, hard engineering problems.
00:24:17.643 --> 00:24:20.103
But running Twitter is not an engineering challenge.
00:24:20.103 --> 00:24:23.942
Running Twitter requires social emotional intelligence, right?
00:24:23.942 --> 00:24:30.382
You have to understand culture, you have to understand people, you have to understand speech and the way that speech is received by people.
00:24:30.801 --> 00:24:32.991
And it's a different problem, right?
00:24:32.991 --> 00:24:45.573
Like he's been able to solve his issues at SpaceX or at Tesla by simply working longer hours, working on the assembly line, never taking a shower because he is like sitting there in the factory for 48 straight hours.
00:24:46.143 --> 00:24:50.042
That's not what Twitter needed or really needs.
00:24:50.103 --> 00:25:01.103
And I think there's a difference like I'm not sure if his skillset naturally translates to fixing or running Twitter the way that it does, you know, building a car or building a rocket ship.
00:25:01.462 --> 00:25:06.165
And so it's maybe an oversimplified way of explaining why I think things went wrong.
00:25:06.496 --> 00:25:06.945
But I think.
00:25:07.213 --> 00:25:16.978
He didn't necessarily have the, you know, social or emotional, thought process that is required for some of the decisions he made early on.
00:25:17.157 --> 00:25:23.038
And I think that really came back to, to haunt him and bite him because he stepped into a business.
00:25:23.038 --> 00:25:25.137
He was sort of unfamiliar with how to run.
00:25:25.861 --> 00:25:41.344
In terms of Twitter's current position with its advertising, I know that there's, there's been some media attention and that Elon initially criticized these advertisers, because they had complaints over some of the things that he was saying, and so they pulled out.
00:25:41.763 --> 00:25:47.733
And now as say, like last month or so, Twitter actually filed a lawsuit against these advertisers.
00:25:48.003 --> 00:25:50.584
And I'm wondering what do you think the strategy is?
00:25:50.584 --> 00:26:01.183
I know this is, just hearsay and in some perspective, , because in some one might view it as that he's now suing the companies that are used to give him money.
00:26:01.513 --> 00:26:09.554
And so one would think if you, if you file that lawsuit, that you are now de incentivizing companies to want to spend money on your platform.
00:26:09.763 --> 00:26:17.174
I'm wondering if you have any idea what his strategy might be here, or is it just this 12-year-old boy perspective, that just is trying to do it outta spite?
00:26:17.799 --> 00:26:23.286
I spent a lot of time attempting to understand like, what's the play here, right?
00:26:23.286 --> 00:26:27.306
Like, is he playing, you know, chess and we're all playing checkers type of thing.
00:26:27.306 --> 00:26:27.726
Right.
00:26:27.726 --> 00:26:34.776
And I just can't really figure out what the benefit is of attacking.
00:26:35.385 --> 00:26:40.746
. So publicly and so viciously, the people who give you all the money you need to run your business.
00:26:40.746 --> 00:26:42.935
And so you mentioned the lawsuit.
00:26:42.935 --> 00:26:44.736
That was certainly a big deal, right?
00:26:44.736 --> 00:26:59.893
Where he, he sues this, advertising trade industry group that represented a bunch of the largest advertisers on x a year ago, or not quite a year, but I believe it was last December or November, he went on stage at a conference and he told advertisers to go f themselves.
00:26:59.893 --> 00:27:01.002
I'm sure you remember that.
00:27:01.002 --> 00:27:02.143
That was quite public.
00:27:02.393 --> 00:27:09.752
within the first week of taking over Twitter, he was, basically threatening, I will go thermonuclear on advertisers if they stop spending money here.
00:27:09.752 --> 00:27:12.123
It's like all of these things to me.
00:27:12.461 --> 00:27:13.691
Do not make sense.
00:27:13.780 --> 00:27:21.131
If you are trying to successfully run an advertising business, you don't go after the people who give you their money and attack them in the way that Elon has.
00:27:21.431 --> 00:27:24.161
So I can't fully explain it.
00:27:24.280 --> 00:27:27.671
I don't know if there's a deeper strategy.
00:27:27.671 --> 00:27:33.580
The only thing that, you know, someone described it to me as, as sort of a, a burning the boats.
00:27:33.580 --> 00:27:39.790
They were like, look, he's always thought that, that Twitter or now X needed a different business strategy.
00:27:39.790 --> 00:27:42.161
Like advertising could not be the full business.
00:27:42.161 --> 00:27:42.371
Right?
00:27:42.371 --> 00:27:44.111
It's too volatile.
00:27:44.111 --> 00:27:48.780
It's too, you're, dependent on people who could just decide they wanna pull their spending all the time.
00:27:49.320 --> 00:27:51.090
And so maybe this is like, all right, great.
00:27:51.090 --> 00:27:53.131
We're gonna absolutely burn the ships.
00:27:53.131 --> 00:28:00.090
We're gonna cut ties, whatever you want to call it, and get rid of advertising so that we're forced to build something else.
00:28:00.090 --> 00:28:04.800
But to me, like, I don't really buy that because why, why would you do that?
00:28:04.861 --> 00:28:08.191
Like, unless you have another very solid business plan in place.
00:28:08.685 --> 00:28:12.256
There's really no reason to burn the boats, if you will.
00:28:12.256 --> 00:28:20.174
And so I think, you know, people are seeking an answer to explain this kind of behavior, this kind of attack that he's had on, the ad industry.
00:28:20.474 --> 00:28:26.565
But I don't really, I can't sit here and honestly give you a, valid reason for him to be doing these things.
00:28:26.565 --> 00:28:33.175
I think it's sort of self-destructive behavior and, only, he could really explain exactly what the end goal is there.
00:28:33.635 --> 00:28:33.996
Right.
00:28:34.536 --> 00:28:39.463
And a lot of the book you spend really explaining who Jack Dorsey is.
00:28:39.463 --> 00:28:46.874
and as I, if I recall correctly, you were originally writing a book about Jack Dorsey when a lot of this stuff ended up happening.
00:28:47.176 --> 00:28:53.027
and Jack Dorsey had a vision of Twitter as being more of a public service.
00:28:53.086 --> 00:29:07.626
So I'm wondering if you could explain what Jack's vision was and perhaps what kind of relationship Jack and Elon had that enabled Jack to be such a proponent of Elon, taking over the company.
00:29:07.842 --> 00:29:09.311
Yeah, well, you're right.
00:29:09.311 --> 00:29:11.922
I did originally sort of set out actually to write.
00:29:12.747 --> 00:29:15.567
What I would say was maybe more of like a Jack Dorsey biography.
00:29:15.567 --> 00:29:21.567
It was certainly more of a, like, maybe the story of Twitter, but through Jack Dorsey as the main character.
00:29:21.567 --> 00:29:26.547
Sort of like, uh, both of them, like the story of Jack's story of Twitter together and then Elon showed up.
00:29:26.547 --> 00:29:30.115
So it's funny, the timing was, very interesting for Elon to buy the company.
00:29:30.115 --> 00:29:31.525
'cause I was already working on the book.
00:29:31.525 --> 00:29:36.954
I was very early, thank God in the process because, pivoting to the Elon stuff was easier that way.
00:29:37.255 --> 00:29:47.115
But I think Jack's a really interesting character and, and I'm glad, um, the first half of the book really focuses on Jack and his impact on Twitter and how we got to this point for Elon to come take over.
00:29:47.565 --> 00:29:52.365
And I think it's important for people to understand because Elon didn't just show up, you know, out of the blue one day.
00:29:52.365 --> 00:29:59.209
Like there was a whole backstory that got us here and I think, you mentioned that Jack sort of wanted Twitter to be maybe like a public service.
00:29:59.209 --> 00:30:00.949
And I, I really think that's true.
00:30:00.949 --> 00:30:08.040
You know, I think if he could, maybe go back in time, like Twitter would exist without, obviously you need money to run a business.
00:30:08.040 --> 00:30:08.280
Right?
00:30:08.280 --> 00:30:13.431
But he never really wanted it to be this big for-profit, wall Street behemoth.
00:30:13.820 --> 00:30:22.800
I think he just wanted Twitter to exist as this platform for people to say what they want and interact and, and exist, in as light touch away as possible.
00:30:22.800 --> 00:30:26.161
And what I mean by that is like he didn't want anybody to have to interfere.
00:30:26.161 --> 00:30:29.820
He didn't want, he certainly didn't want to be the one saying what you can and can't say.
00:30:29.820 --> 00:30:32.161
He didn't think the government should say what you can and can't say.
00:30:32.340 --> 00:30:36.211
It was a very idealistic version of what Twitter ended up becoming.
00:30:36.570 --> 00:30:47.221
And I think because Twitter ultimately did go public, because it is a business that needs to make money to add employees and users and you know, it's on this sort of Wall Street hamster wheel.
00:30:47.550 --> 00:30:51.090
I think he sort of began to resent what Twitter had become.
00:30:51.090 --> 00:30:54.661
And I think by the time he ended up ultimately leaving the company in 2021.
00:30:55.336 --> 00:30:57.766
I think he was sort of burnt out by Twitter.
00:30:57.766 --> 00:31:07.501
I think he was like, Hey, I wanted this thing to feel more like a, a public service, and yet here we are, constantly grinding for another quarter of profitability or whatever it may be.
00:31:07.501 --> 00:31:11.486
And so I think that was really, in a very, very condensed version.
00:31:11.486 --> 00:31:16.766
I think that was sort of Jack's ultimate issue with what Twitter became and how we got there.
00:31:16.766 --> 00:31:18.236
Now, in terms of him and Elon.
00:31:18.669 --> 00:31:23.648
I think what you need to know about that relationship is that Jack Dorsey admired Elon tremendously, right?
00:31:23.699 --> 00:31:29.999
Elon was someone who he thought was, maybe hero is too strong of a word, but certainly someone he looked up to.
00:31:30.269 --> 00:31:33.808
He thought what he was doing with, you know, Tesla and electric vehicles was amazing.
00:31:33.816 --> 00:31:34.056
what?
00:31:34.056 --> 00:31:35.556
SpaceX was amazing.
00:31:35.895 --> 00:31:39.195
he invited Elon to speak at the company all hands.
00:31:39.195 --> 00:31:42.465
He would, you know, text or DM Elon.
00:31:42.465 --> 00:31:45.465
So like, there was a bit of an infatuation there, right?
00:31:45.915 --> 00:31:50.715
And so let's put yourself in Jack Dorsey's shoes early 2022.
00:31:50.806 --> 00:31:52.036
He had just left Twitter.
00:31:52.576 --> 00:31:55.726
This company he built had become this thing he doesn't like anymore, right?
00:31:55.726 --> 00:32:00.145
It's now this publicly traded company that's on the profitability hamster wheel we're talking about.
00:32:00.655 --> 00:32:05.486
And he's thinking to himself, okay, what's the one way that I can sort of salvage what I built?
00:32:05.486 --> 00:32:10.435
How can I bring this back to a place where it's no longer beholden to Wall Street?
00:32:10.864 --> 00:32:12.740
And at that point, Twitter's very expensive.
00:32:12.740 --> 00:32:13.550
it's a big company.
00:32:13.550 --> 00:32:15.740
It's worth $44 billion.
00:32:16.201 --> 00:32:30.346
and he says, well, there's only very few people in the world who could basically afford to buy this thing and bring it private so it's no longer publicly traded and give it the freedom to sort of pursue this alternative, reality that Jack had in mind.
00:32:30.436 --> 00:32:37.396
And lo and behold, one of the only people in the world with enough money to do this was this guy, Elon Musk, who Jack admired, had a relationship with.
00:32:37.757 --> 00:32:45.463
And, I think when Elon showed up as a potential buyer, Jack jumped in immediately, Because he sees this very slim, this slim.
00:32:45.642 --> 00:32:46.872
Opportunity, right?
00:32:46.872 --> 00:32:54.491
Like the one guy in the world with enough money to do the one thing in the world Jack wants, which is buy Twitter, take it private, and really just let it be a public service.
00:32:54.491 --> 00:33:05.711
And so I think that's part of why we saw him really boost this idea, encouraged this idea, instigate this idea, and, uh, why it mattered so much to him that Elon in particular was the one to do this.
00:33:06.568 --> 00:33:09.002
And so I'd also love to understand.
00:33:09.347 --> 00:33:14.387
Who Jack Dorsey was, as you describe in the book, he had this routine.
00:33:14.387 --> 00:33:17.867
00 AM he would meditate for 30 minutes.
00:33:18.075 --> 00:33:22.657
He would do some sort of a, a seven minute I've, I've done those things before, like a seven
00:33:22.883 --> 00:33:23.242
Yeah.
00:33:23.248 --> 00:33:24.353
Seven minute workout.
00:33:24.518 --> 00:33:28.724
And then he would, walk to work and maybe he'd be on the phone or listening to a podcast.
00:33:28.944 --> 00:33:40.345
and since he was also running Square at the same time, he had this as, as some form of, to help have some form of a sanity so that he was able to do what he could.
00:33:40.345 --> 00:33:45.011
Because as you described, he was an introvert and he needed that quiet time to get his energy.
00:33:45.301 --> 00:33:54.152
can you go into depth about who Jack Dorsey was and what led him to even be somebody who largely didn't even see himself as a CEO?
00:33:54.152 --> 00:33:59.531
And, from the outside one might see that he's really also not somebody who should be a CEO.
00:33:59.561 --> 00:34:04.852
How did he end up in this position who's running two companies two publicly traded companies at once?
00:34:05.465 --> 00:34:09.619
Yeah, it was one of the reasons I was so fascinated with his story was that it was almost.
00:34:10.438 --> 00:34:20.579
it didn't make any sense that this guy who didn't really believe that he should be a CEO was a CEO and as you point out, was a CEO of two publicly traded companies.
00:34:20.579 --> 00:34:22.739
At the same time, he is an introvert.
00:34:23.065 --> 00:34:24.264
he was never married.
00:34:24.264 --> 00:34:25.585
He doesn't have kids.
00:34:25.585 --> 00:34:35.954
So like, his life was very much work, especially, when he first returned to Twitter, he returned to Twitter in, 2015 and he was running Square and Twitter at the same time.
00:34:35.954 --> 00:34:39.405
And it was like, you know, single guy, no kids, but two jobs.
00:34:39.405 --> 00:34:41.025
He was working all the time.
00:34:41.264 --> 00:34:49.764
And so part of his way of coping with that was to sort of challenge himself physically, whether that be walking to work, uh, workouts.
00:34:50.105 --> 00:34:53.704
saunas, hot tubs, cold tubs, meditation.
00:34:53.704 --> 00:35:05.554
Like he just physically put himself into these challenging positions, I think to compensate for the fact that he's mentally very distracted by, you know, these two full-time jobs that he has.
00:35:05.855 --> 00:35:10.985
I think as he got comfortable running those two companies, things changed a little bit.
00:35:11.434 --> 00:35:16.077
And, you know, the way I think about Jack is like, he's an idealist.
00:35:16.077 --> 00:35:21.748
I think he sort of views these things as in their purest form sometimes, right?
00:35:21.748 --> 00:35:28.378
Like, oh, well this is how Twitter should work or could work if we get this right.
00:35:28.802 --> 00:35:38.411
And maybe because of that doesn't always see like the literal things that are happening right in front of him, or either miscalculates or, or, overlooks them.
00:35:38.481 --> 00:35:39.161
And so.
00:35:39.527 --> 00:35:43.898
To me, I think like the interesting thing about him, yes, he's an interesting guy personally.
00:35:43.898 --> 00:35:46.628
Like he went on 10 day silent meditation retreats.
00:35:46.628 --> 00:35:49.117
He would fast for like days at a time.
00:35:49.117 --> 00:35:51.307
He would only drink water, no food.
00:35:51.487 --> 00:35:54.007
Like he's a very unique person in that regard.
00:35:54.307 --> 00:36:12.277
But I think what made him interesting from a business perspective was that he was sort of this guy who like saw the idealistic version of the things he was running, but was not necessarily like the strong decision maker that we're used to seeing in the tech world, right?
00:36:12.277 --> 00:36:23.018
Like Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos or certainly Steve Jobs back in the day, they would say, here's my vision and I'm gonna control every little specific detail to get this thing to reality.
00:36:23.467 --> 00:36:30.918
Jack Dorsey was more like, Hey, here's a sort of vague vision and I'm gonna let you all get there as best you can.
00:36:30.918 --> 00:36:33.157
And I'll serve as a sounding board along the way.
00:36:33.217 --> 00:36:33.577
Right?
00:36:33.577 --> 00:36:36.637
And I just think it's like a very distinct management style that.
00:36:37.105 --> 00:36:48.445
Maybe works when you're advising somebody doesn't really work when you're supposed to be the CEO, doing the hands on day to day, which he was not only doing for one company but was supposed to be doing for two.
00:36:49.052 --> 00:36:49.322
Yeah.
00:36:49.322 --> 00:36:57.875
And as you mentioned, there was some ideation on the board that maybe it could be a relationship like, mark Zuckerberg had with,
00:36:57.992 --> 00:36:58.922
Cheryl Sandberg.
00:36:59.177 --> 00:36:59.657
Sandberg.
00:36:59.686 --> 00:37:00.077
Right.
00:37:00.376 --> 00:37:03.617
And I guess that never really ended up working out.
00:37:03.746 --> 00:37:18.346
do you think his management style led Twitter to become this kind of over bloated behemoth that seemed to have so many employees, wasn't, profitable and seemed to kind of lack direction on the stage?
00:37:18.346 --> 00:37:31.371
Because the back of his mind, he's seemingly growing this, this feeling of resentment towards Twitter and the capitalistic standards and requirements that you serve the shareholders first.
00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:34.123
And so I see his perspective.
00:37:34.451 --> 00:37:38.221
how do you think he feels now after Elon took over?
00:37:38.784 --> 00:37:49.650
You know, I, there was a time where he, um, he has acknowledged publicly that like things did not go as expected or as planned.
00:37:50.016 --> 00:38:00.275
He's certainly acknowledged that, like the fact that Twitter had to sue Elon to buy the company and all this stuff, and then Elon ended up taking over in a very controversial way, right?
00:38:00.275 --> 00:38:03.096
Like basically forced in to the company.
00:38:03.606 --> 00:38:06.215
Jack has acknowledged like, none of this was great.
00:38:06.315 --> 00:38:15.878
none of this was good, but he's also stood behind Elon, at least in the public comments that he has made about it, which are few and far between at this point.
00:38:16.248 --> 00:38:25.931
I think it was maybe . At this point, almost a year ago, I think he went and did an interview, that I watched where he basically said like, you know, I still believe in Elon.
00:38:25.931 --> 00:38:28.242
I still believe this thing can be turned around.
00:38:28.521 --> 00:38:31.702
some of that may be that he's actually a shareholder in X, right?
00:38:31.702 --> 00:38:35.842
So he has a billion dollars of his own net worth sort of tied up there.
00:38:35.842 --> 00:38:40.251
And, maybe he's a believer because he needs to be a believer financially to get that money back.
00:38:40.641 --> 00:38:44.601
But, this is the idealistic version of Jack that I was talking about, right?
00:38:44.601 --> 00:38:58.251
I think he can sometimes like see the, this, this big picture, this long form version of something that maybe the rest of us don't see because he refuses to see the roadblocks, in between those things.
00:38:58.251 --> 00:39:00.411
And, it's hard to say exactly how he feels today.
00:39:00.442 --> 00:39:03.711
'cause he's, he doesn't really use X anymore.
00:39:03.711 --> 00:39:06.322
He doesn't talk about X anymore as far as I can tell.
00:39:06.572 --> 00:39:11.192
so he's really moved on from this company and this thing, but I can't imagine.
00:39:11.822 --> 00:39:15.211
That he sits here and says, ah, this is exactly how I envisioned it.
00:39:15.271 --> 00:39:15.601
Right?
00:39:15.601 --> 00:39:20.972
Like, we know that things are, certainly not the way that he had maybe thought they would be.
00:39:21.271 --> 00:39:24.601
when he ultimately encouraged Elon to buy Twitter two years ago.
00:39:25.027 --> 00:39:25.657
Right.
00:39:25.777 --> 00:39:30.179
And one of his primary motivations was this concern of free speech.
00:39:30.599 --> 00:39:33.478
And we know that 93% of the employees.
00:39:33.923 --> 00:39:35.123
Leaned liberal.
00:39:35.304 --> 00:39:40.309
And that's, there were most of the donations of those employees were on the democratic side.
00:39:40.670 --> 00:39:44.179
And there, there was a really great video that Johnny Harris went into.
00:39:44.179 --> 00:39:48.996
I don't know if you watched, it was about a month ago, where he, it's titled The Problem with Elon Musk.
00:39:49.416 --> 00:39:54.635
And in it, he mentions just really the background of, Elon in the whole situation with Twitter.
00:39:55.054 --> 00:40:03.994
And one of Elon's primary, one of his primary reasons for the acquisition was as he said, he wanted it to be a platform of free speech.
00:40:04.264 --> 00:40:09.565
And he was too concerned that the liberal media was conflicting with that.
00:40:09.594 --> 00:40:11.858
And, it was creating misinformation.
00:40:12.278 --> 00:40:20.048
And so now that Elon has taken it over, there's been several instances of Elon actually shutting down accounts.
00:40:20.318 --> 00:40:32.550
And even we, we know that he gathered the engineers together and told them, I need you to, I want you to modify the algorithm because I am not getting enough views on my tweets.
00:40:32.909 --> 00:40:45.590
And now even if you don't follow Elon on Twitter, I'll scroll, and you'll still see his tweets pop up because they, they made sure that every time he tweets it gets shown to more people.
00:40:45.889 --> 00:40:49.597
what do you think of that and is your, perspective of this?
00:40:49.597 --> 00:40:55.476
Did Elon really seek to acquire this from a perspective of maintaining free speech?
00:40:55.717 --> 00:41:00.467
Because it seems the evidence is contradictory to what he said it was going to be about.
00:41:01.077 --> 00:41:03.746
I think there's a version of this, which is true.
00:41:03.746 --> 00:41:11.246
I think Elon probably acquired Twitter to uphold his version of free speech, right?
00:41:11.246 --> 00:41:20.360
And, what I mean by that is, free speech as it like suits him and as it doesn't step on things that he doesn't want it to step on.
00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:23.179
And so a good example is the Elon Jet account.
00:41:23.179 --> 00:41:25.489
I mentioned sort of at the beginning of the conversation, right?
00:41:25.489 --> 00:41:34.159
This account that was following his private plane, one of the first things he did once he took over was ban this account, even though it wasn't doing anything illegal, right?
00:41:34.190 --> 00:41:35.570
He just simply said, Nope.
00:41:35.914 --> 00:41:38.228
Uh, I don't want this thing, following my plane anymore.
00:41:38.228 --> 00:41:38.797
See you later.
00:41:39.128 --> 00:41:46.268
He suspended and banned some journalists who covered the Elon Jet account simply because they were writing about this account.
00:41:46.577 --> 00:41:58.880
we've seen him say, add terms to sort of the, like, uh, Twitter used to have, you know, a list of, words or, um, phrases or things that would be considered, you know, hate speech, for example.
00:41:59.070 --> 00:42:06.269
Elon has added terms to that related to transgender people that most people would not consider a slur or an attack at all.
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:09.750
It's just something that makes him personally uncomfortable.
00:42:09.750 --> 00:42:14.769
And so now, you can't use that language on X anymore without, some type of penalty.
00:42:14.769 --> 00:42:20.769
So my point being is that like he's, he, you know, is a self-proclaimed free speed absolutists.
00:42:21.125 --> 00:42:29.211
but really he supports free speech so much, so, so much as it aligns sort of with his own personal, beliefs or ideologies.
00:42:29.211 --> 00:42:31.882
And I think there's a, obviously a huge distinction there.
00:42:32.242 --> 00:42:41.391
And what we've seen, you know, over the last six months or so is that one of the big complaints from Twitter before Elon got there was that it was too liberal, right?
00:42:41.391 --> 00:42:42.621
The employees were liberal.
00:42:42.621 --> 00:42:48.800
the policies were liberal, it was unfair to conservative speakers or, conservative ideas.
00:42:48.800 --> 00:42:50.750
These were the accusations for years.
00:42:51.039 --> 00:43:01.800
But, there was no one, like at the top of the company openly voting for, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and waving a democratic flag at the convention or whatever, right?
00:43:01.800 --> 00:43:07.139
Like these were the accusations, but there wasn't necessarily that blatant display.
00:43:07.614 --> 00:43:07.885
Yeah.
00:43:07.885 --> 00:43:08.125
And.
00:43:08.235 --> 00:43:11.204
Now Elon is doing that in the other direction, right?
00:43:11.204 --> 00:43:13.514
He is openly endorsed Donald Trump.
00:43:13.514 --> 00:43:17.835
He's donating to Trump, he's openly attacking Kamala Harris.
00:43:17.835 --> 00:43:33.815
So like, it's just interesting that the accusations of Twitter being biased before, you know, have now swung in the totally opposite direction, but with a leader who's very, very, very openly, picked a political side and is being a very politically active as we head into an important election as well.
00:43:34.280 --> 00:43:34.699
Right.
00:43:35.210 --> 00:43:49.739
And there was, I think at least one or more university studies back in, it was between say, 2020 and 2023 in which they looked at whether there was more of a liberal or a conservative, view.
00:43:50.130 --> 00:43:58.478
And their research actually discovered that Twitter gives conservative news, greater visibility than liberal news, which I found interesting.
00:43:59.105 --> 00:44:08.351
I mean we, you have to remember, like to go back to when this was probably its most heightened was around 2020, I would say.
00:44:08.608 --> 00:44:14.849
and there were two important things going on, right There was Covid and there was a presidential election and.
00:44:15.208 --> 00:44:28.628
Those two things were very polarizing, It became where, you know, if you were cautious about covid and supporting masks and vaccines, you were a liberal, and if you were conservative, you couldn't do any of those things.
00:44:28.958 --> 00:44:32.039
And so, you know, there was like a tension there.
00:44:32.039 --> 00:44:39.809
and Twitter was erring on the side of trying to keep people safe and removing misinformation about covid, which was then seen as a liberal agenda.
00:44:40.199 --> 00:44:42.269
Same thing with voting in 2020, right?
00:44:42.269 --> 00:44:44.670
Because everyone's now voting by mail because of covid.
00:44:44.969 --> 00:44:48.840
And it was seen like, well, if you support voting by mail, you're clearly left leaning liberal.
00:44:48.840 --> 00:44:51.239
And if you, and otherwise you're conservative.
00:44:51.280 --> 00:44:59.440
and so the reason I simply bring that up is like, I think this is a very, this has always been a very polarizing platform.
00:44:59.809 --> 00:45:08.989
I think like the tensions between whether you believe it's it's upholding free speech or not has sort of like flip flopped.
00:45:09.079 --> 00:45:10.639
You know, conservatives hated.
00:45:11.045 --> 00:45:16.324
Twitter several years ago thinking that it was overstepping and now they're like, Elon is here to save the day.
00:45:16.414 --> 00:45:21.034
And liberals or left leaning folks typically now are like, what's going on over at Twitter?
00:45:21.117 --> 00:45:22.378
Elon, what are you doing?
00:45:22.407 --> 00:45:30.396
And it's just, it's been interesting pivot 'cause it happened so quickly, to see this platform sort of, change direction, that fast.
00:45:30.797 --> 00:45:39.768
have you been able to form any opinion or interview any, any PhDs or professors that really explores?
00:45:39.947 --> 00:45:43.728
What's the dilemma with running a platform as influential as Twitter?
00:45:43.967 --> 00:45:51.318
Because this has been a longstanding debate since these are technically private platforms, so you can, they have their own rules.
00:45:51.318 --> 00:45:53.088
It's just like being on private property.
00:45:53.268 --> 00:46:00.077
They can kick you out off of that property and they can have rules as to what you are allowed or not allowed to say.
00:46:00.541 --> 00:46:03.811
free speech is not necessarily a given on these platforms.
00:46:03.811 --> 00:46:05.311
It is not a federal law.
00:46:05.552 --> 00:46:07.802
So is there a balance?
00:46:08.222 --> 00:46:14.045
Do you, do you think that any of these platforms like Twitter, how, do they navigate this complex ethical landscape?
00:46:14.501 --> 00:46:25.181
I'm pretty convinced having covered this industry for over a decade now, that there's no single person or platform that's going to get this right for everybody.
00:46:25.211 --> 00:46:25.512
Right?
00:46:25.512 --> 00:46:26.501
I mean, it's impossible.
00:46:26.501 --> 00:46:27.132
It's impossible.
00:46:27.132 --> 00:46:32.514
You're not going to be able to properly thread this needle for, for, for everyone.
00:46:32.514 --> 00:46:35.338
'cause everyone falls on a slightly different.
00:46:35.338 --> 00:46:37.615
place on this very complicated spectrum, right?
00:46:37.615 --> 00:46:43.572
And so I think what we've seen is, I think the biggest difference is like, you've seen good faith, in my opinion.
00:46:43.572 --> 00:46:46.177
You've seen, Hey, we're going to attempt to learn.
00:46:46.177 --> 00:46:52.237
We're gonna attempt to understand and we're gonna make the best decision, even though we know it's not gonna please everybody.
00:46:52.268 --> 00:46:59.467
And then there's the, you know, the Elon approach, which is basically like, this is how I personally feel and therefore that's the rule.
00:46:59.467 --> 00:47:08.068
And I think, a lot could be different about X or the perception of X could be different if it felt like there was more thought put into some of these things.
00:47:08.338 --> 00:47:15.193
But it really, to me just feels, you know, like Elon makes the decisions and that's what everyone goes with.
00:47:15.193 --> 00:47:18.413
And, um, no matter what, he's not gonna please everybody.
00:47:18.413 --> 00:47:22.222
But it, I think at times feels like he doesn't take it as seriously.
00:47:22.222 --> 00:47:26.063
Maybe as, you know, people would want him to, or as thoughtfully as people would want him to.
00:47:26.670 --> 00:47:35.320
And so looking forward, I know that Elon had moved the headquarters of Twitter from, uh, California to, to here in Austin.
00:47:35.440 --> 00:47:52.360
And it was partly based on a new law that I, I believe that, the California law was that if a kid came out as trans or told his teacher, or school, that they had a different sexuality, that the school was no longer required to tell the parents.
00:47:52.519 --> 00:47:59.706
and personally I can understand that because you can imagine that, a kid might be living with parents that would obviously not accept that.
00:47:59.945 --> 00:48:11.255
And so he was upset about this, and that seemed to be one of the reasons, probably just the public reason as to why he was moving his headquarters from, from California here to Austin.
00:48:11.585 --> 00:48:19.059
So, looking forward, how do you think Twitter's leadership under Musk is going to do you think it can maintain.
00:48:19.344 --> 00:48:26.436
Its influence, or, because I know that we've also seen Facebook has launched, threads, which is very much a very similar to Twitter.
00:48:26.686 --> 00:48:27.637
so what's the risk here?
00:48:27.637 --> 00:48:30.222
Do you think that there's a, good future for Twitter?
00:48:30.922 --> 00:48:32.211
.
00:48:30.922 --> 00:48:32.211
Kurt: You know, I'm somewhat skeptical.
00:48:32.211 --> 00:48:40.552
I'm, I, I'm not of the idea that, um, Twitter will disappear in part because Elon has so much money, right?
00:48:40.612 --> 00:48:46.461
That I think he can keep the lights on, out of his own pocket if needed for a very long time.
00:48:46.911 --> 00:48:48.742
But I do think that.
00:48:49.157 --> 00:48:59.567
This is a company that's like the business is, is struggling and, um, it's now been two years and they haven't really figured out how to win folks back.
00:48:59.567 --> 00:49:06.016
And on top of that, you're seeing him sort of run into these clashes with governments and regulators around the world.
00:49:06.016 --> 00:49:08.086
You know, they just got banned in Brazil right now.
00:49:08.086 --> 00:49:19.887
Brazil's not a huge market for them financially, but it's certainly a country that you want to be present in that you want to have a foothold in, and that you want people to be using your product and not your competitor's product.
00:49:19.887 --> 00:49:26.570
And so I just think, like, I, I worry somewhat that Elon's decision to go.
00:49:26.570 --> 00:49:35.601
So all in on, um, conservative politics is going to maybe paint X or Twitter as a.
00:49:36.231 --> 00:49:38.391
Purely right wing social network, right?
00:49:38.391 --> 00:49:42.260
Like this is the, this is like truth social, but much bigger.
00:49:42.800 --> 00:49:50.300
And the longer that that feeling is maintained, the more it just alienates an entire group of people who don't wanna be part of that, right?
00:49:50.300 --> 00:50:01.320
And it becomes smaller and it becomes more focused on just kind of regurgitating or reiterating the exact same points and the exact same ideas, to the same group of people who want to hear them.
00:50:01.681 --> 00:50:11.670
I think for all of Twitter's flaws, before it was very much like a place where you could go and kind of learn about a whole bunch of different things and discuss a whole bunch of different things.
00:50:11.670 --> 00:50:12.420
I don't know about you.
00:50:12.420 --> 00:50:20.880
My feed is now almost all conservative politics and I'm still on X because I cover the company and, and have been for a long time.
00:50:20.880 --> 00:50:30.791
It's hard to just walk away, but it's becoming less and less useful to me, as a place to go get my news because I just feel like I'm seeing sort of versions of the exact same thing all the time.
00:50:30.791 --> 00:50:31.331
So.
00:50:32.003 --> 00:50:35.393
I would say, you know, am I worried about it going away like in the next year or two?
00:50:35.393 --> 00:50:41.063
Not necessarily, but am I, you know, does it feel like it's maybe losing some relevance to me?
00:50:41.063 --> 00:50:44.664
I think that it might be, and that's more dangerous, quite frankly, right?
00:50:44.664 --> 00:50:57.346
Because if you see that relevance, if you see that conversation to a threads, or to Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or wherever people end up going, it's hard to win those people back once they've made a decision to leave.
00:50:57.771 --> 00:51:08.108
the Twitter algorithm still seems to be relevant in that there, there is even a documentary about black Twitter and, and I, I have friends who will go on Twitter for hours.
00:51:08.108 --> 00:51:17.197
I know my Twitter's full of entrepreneurship and inspiration, and yet I'll see there are other Twitter accounts and it's just full of memes about current pop culture.
00:51:17.467 --> 00:51:21.128
And there could be something going on on tv, whether it's the Olympics.
00:51:21.128 --> 00:51:27.938
You'll see instantly people are creating memes and in some way you, you learn more about culture and society.
00:51:28.157 --> 00:51:43.458
Uh, especially if you subscribe to that side of Twitter, but it's still so fascinating how we have Twitter and you can still be in your own bubble, whether that's the conservative media or whether you're just really interested in, into cats or pop culture.
00:51:43.847 --> 00:51:50.148
Um, I, I wonder if that's going to continue to evolve because that does seem to be a primary news source for a lot of people.
00:51:50.588 --> 00:51:50.739
Yeah.
00:51:50.739 --> 00:51:58.329
I mean, I think it's, it is good to hear that other, you know, that your experience, for example, is still, it sounds like maybe somewhat unchanged from, since Elon took over.
00:51:58.329 --> 00:52:02.409
Would you say it's like a similar scrolling to what you had before?
00:52:02.943 --> 00:52:05.824
Yeah, I'd, I'd say it hasn't changed, uh, significantly.
00:52:06.559 --> 00:52:08.599
Yeah, so the, I mean, I guess that's good, right?
00:52:08.599 --> 00:52:15.168
Because from my perspective, like my feed has changed significantly and it might be because I'm following so many.
00:52:15.498 --> 00:52:26.838
You know, media members, it could be because as, as part of covering Elon, I not only follow him, but I cover a, a follow a lot of sort of the people within his orbit, his friends, his advisors, things like that.
00:52:27.259 --> 00:52:33.702
Because my, my feed has definitely changed and, and gotten quite political and, quite politically conservative to be specific.
00:52:34.012 --> 00:52:41.663
and it's less about, I would say like news to me and more about just, you know, opinions or I get a ton of videos.
00:52:41.663 --> 00:52:46.043
I'm sure you get some video, at least I, my feed feels like it's full of video.
00:52:46.262 --> 00:52:48.472
but not necessarily like high quality video, right?
00:52:48.472 --> 00:52:54.112
Like user generated, like, hey, check out this, uh, you know, crazy thing I saw at the park or whatever.
00:52:54.429 --> 00:52:55.028
so.
00:52:55.336 --> 00:53:02.206
I think this is a, this is actually a perfect example of like why Twitter may be around for another 15 years, right?
00:53:02.206 --> 00:53:05.027
Is that for me, it's becoming less useful for you.
00:53:05.027 --> 00:53:10.577
It's not, and for every single person's gonna be somewhere on the spectrum of like, do I get value from Twitter?
00:53:10.577 --> 00:53:11.387
Yes or no?
00:53:11.476 --> 00:53:16.097
And I don't think that like it's any one thing to everybody, if that makes sense.
00:53:16.097 --> 00:53:22.907
It's something unique and different to each person, and that's probably part of the reason that, some people are, going to stick around for a long time.
00:53:23.534 --> 00:53:28.637
so I have this, three questions in this kind of more interactive segment that's more quick.
00:53:29.027 --> 00:53:32.806
What's one thing about the Twitter deal that surprised you the most?
00:53:33.750 --> 00:53:37.333
I would say, you know, we talked about it already during the conversation.
00:53:37.483 --> 00:53:43.572
I think the Elon Jet, . Detail was very illuminating to me.
00:53:43.572 --> 00:53:50.023
Because I think as I was set out, you know, working on this book, I, I like, everyone was like, why did this thing happen?
00:53:50.023 --> 00:53:56.052
Why did Elon suddenly start buying shares in Twitter in January of 2022?
00:53:56.052 --> 00:53:57.612
Like, what was the motivation?
00:53:57.733 --> 00:54:03.583
And I can't draw, I can't say for certain that's what it was, but I can say that the timing is certainly very interesting, right?
00:54:03.583 --> 00:54:13.152
That the same month that he's complaining about this account that he once banned, he starts to build a stake in the company with the hope of presumably using that stake to, you know, wield some influence.
00:54:13.362 --> 00:54:19.873
I just think that like, to me, that was a really aha moment of like, wow, did this whole thing, is this why this whole thing started?
00:54:19.873 --> 00:54:25.992
I don't know, I can't say for certain, but the timing definitely aligns and it's a, it's an interesting data point.
00:54:26.619 --> 00:54:27.398
Yeah, for sure.
00:54:27.548 --> 00:54:31.958
And it, even though it is public information, I mean, I, I'm a pilot myself.
00:54:31.989 --> 00:54:39.099
I fly out of Austin and I, I, I see Elon's hanger that's down there at Austin Bergstrom, but that's, that's publicly available information.
00:54:39.099 --> 00:54:41.228
And so they're just taking it and posting it on Twitter.
00:54:41.378 --> 00:54:48.016
And it seems, I if I had a, a thought on it that it's a, billionaire who always gets what he wants.
00:54:48.346 --> 00:54:57.594
And when you have something that you can't get you obsess about it and it just becomes the, the one thing that you have to, figure out how to solve it.
00:54:58.193 --> 00:55:01.193
yeah, I think, I think that's, that's probably right.
00:55:01.193 --> 00:55:03.923
And, and he had the money to do it right.
00:55:03.923 --> 00:55:10.793
He's one of the few people in the world who sort of had the ability to do something about it just with his checkbook.
00:55:10.793 --> 00:55:12.623
And so that's what he kind of started to do.
00:55:13.465 --> 00:55:18.175
Do you ever think that Twitter will escape its dependency on advertising?
00:55:18.175 --> 00:55:20.065
Do you think it'll be able to find another revenue source?
00:55:20.847 --> 00:55:22.918
Oh man, I've thought about this a lot as well.
00:55:23.838 --> 00:55:26.507
mean, I think a subscription business makes sense for Twitter.
00:55:26.507 --> 00:55:29.438
They haven't figured it out logistically yet, right?
00:55:29.438 --> 00:55:35.378
Like they haven't figured out what's the combination of like services or perks or whatever that people would pay for.
00:55:35.378 --> 00:55:36.307
That makes sense.
00:55:36.907 --> 00:55:39.161
I think on paper that should be it, right?
00:55:39.161 --> 00:55:44.951
if you are going to move away from ads, you would go to some type of premium version that people pay for.
00:55:45.534 --> 00:55:50.364
They've been talking about that for six years at this point, well before Elon got there.
00:55:50.603 --> 00:55:52.284
And they haven't even come close.
00:55:52.284 --> 00:55:59.621
So I wanna say yes because on paper, yes, of course there should be a business that isn't advertising, but no one has figured it out yet.
00:55:59.621 --> 00:56:01.751
And there's been smart people who looked to do this.
00:56:01.751 --> 00:56:08.231
And so I'm gonna say like, does it, I, I won't say never, but I will also say.
00:56:08.657 --> 00:56:12.797
It's been six years, no one's come close to sort of, figuring out this thing.
00:56:12.797 --> 00:56:21.637
So I don't know what it would look like, but as of right now, they're pretty advertiser dependent for the foreseeable future as far as I can tell.
00:56:22.278 --> 00:56:28.009
And if you think Jack Dorsey could turn back time, do you think he'd still sell Twitter to Musk?
00:56:29.057 --> 00:56:39.568
I do, I think he thinks that he was making the right decision, that he was saving Twitter from this Wall Street hamster wheel that we talked about.
00:56:40.347 --> 00:56:50.217
I think, elements of the deal in his mind obviously went wrong, But I think the general game plan of bringing Twitter private.
00:56:51.012 --> 00:56:59.472
Trying to fix Twitter as a private company or change Twitter as a private company, was the plan and was the play the right play?
00:56:59.862 --> 00:57:18.768
So even though things have gone the way they have, I think he, you know, from, and I say this, I'm kind of going based on the things he said publicly since the deal went down, I get the sense he's sort of bought into the idea that this was the right strategy, even though maybe the outcome hasn't been ideal for a lot of people, this was the only and, right way to do it.
00:57:18.949 --> 00:57:31.789
And because of that, I think, he would probably do it again in hopes that maybe some of the specific details of what happened would get changed and, we'd be in a different situation now than we are, but I think he believes in the broader plan that ultimately ended up happening.
00:57:32.726 --> 00:57:38.786
On a more personal note, writing a book as comprehensive as Battle for the Bird is no small feat.
00:57:39.356 --> 00:57:45.385
Do you have any, any tips, habits, routines that helped you to manage the complexity of this project?
00:57:45.626 --> 00:57:51.715
Do you have any advice that you'd give to aspiring writers or journalists who want to tackle similarly challenging topics in the future?
00:57:52.003 --> 00:57:52.574
Sure.
00:57:52.574 --> 00:57:56.079
I mean, I think there were two things that sort of, you know.
00:57:56.706 --> 00:57:58.146
Were a huge boost.
00:57:58.206 --> 00:58:06.686
Um, one just basic organization of notes, sources, I had so many spreadsheets, like calendars, right?
00:58:06.686 --> 00:58:09.626
Like these, like mapping things.
00:58:09.626 --> 00:58:12.175
Basically, you're, you're sort of a, a historian.
00:58:12.175 --> 00:58:12.925
You're mapping.
00:58:13.371 --> 00:58:14.871
Well, when did all these things happen?
00:58:14.871 --> 00:58:23.840
And so I had a spreadsheet, like a calendar spreadsheet where each tab was a different month and I'd have, 20, 30, 40 bullet points within each one, and then I could jump between.
00:58:24.231 --> 00:58:25.581
So that's very meticulous.
00:58:25.581 --> 00:58:26.751
It's time consuming.
00:58:27.001 --> 00:58:30.210
but every time I learned something new, I'd plot it on my calendar, right?
00:58:30.210 --> 00:58:30.661
I'd, I'd.
00:58:30.681 --> 00:58:31.971
Put it in the timeline.
00:58:32.030 --> 00:58:39.141
And, um, I think for me, just like basic organization was huge when you're dealing with this much information and this much, sort of nuance.
00:58:39.320 --> 00:58:44.721
And then I think the other thing is I've been writing for a long time and I always hated outlining.
00:58:45.260 --> 00:58:47.240
to me I was like, why would I write twice?
00:58:47.240 --> 00:58:49.940
Like why would I outline, but then also have to write the story?
00:58:49.940 --> 00:58:51.021
Why should I just do one?
00:58:51.471 --> 00:58:58.971
But I think with a project this big, I was sort of forced to outline and I think that I was better for it and the book is better for it.
00:58:59.030 --> 00:59:08.800
And, everything from like setting three big or four big sections for the book to then breaking down the chapters within them to then breaking down the sections within those chapters.
00:59:08.800 --> 00:59:14.201
And, I spent a lot of time literally with physical note cards, so I would say, okay, I'm writing, chapter five.
00:59:14.510 --> 00:59:16.632
it encompasses this sort of time period.
00:59:16.632 --> 00:59:23.382
I'd look at my, my timeline and say, okay, here are the 20 different things that happened within that time period that I wanna be sure to.
00:59:23.867 --> 00:59:31.606
To highlight, I'd write 'em down on 20 different note cards and I'd literally sit in my living room, put 'em on the floor and like map out the sections.
00:59:31.606 --> 00:59:31.817
Right.
00:59:31.817 --> 00:59:31.967
Okay.
00:59:31.967 --> 00:59:33.646
Well these three note cards go together.
00:59:33.646 --> 00:59:34.907
Let's make that section one.
00:59:34.907 --> 00:59:35.717
This is section two.
00:59:35.717 --> 00:59:48.951
So it sounds a little, uh, daunting perhaps, or at least it seemed daunting to me, but like meticulous notes in the timeline and then meticulous outlining and going so that when you go to write you have a game plan.
00:59:49.010 --> 00:59:52.971
I think for a project this big, those are both a necessity, so I'm glad I did them.
00:59:53.121 --> 00:59:55.701
I'm sure I would do it slightly different if I were to ever to do this again.
00:59:55.701 --> 02:00:00.740
But I think those are two things that I would, definitely start with if I were to ever, uh, do another book.
02:00:01.317 --> 02:00:04.943
and before we, we wrap up, I'd love to know what's next for you.
02:00:05.233 --> 02:00:16.802
are there any new projects on the horizon or is there anything that you see in the social media landscape that you are looking at with a close eye with, some change might be in the horizon?
02:00:17.297 --> 02:00:21.108
Uh, no other books planned at the moment, although I did really enjoy writing this one.
02:00:21.108 --> 02:00:22.488
So maybe, maybe someday.
02:00:22.488 --> 02:00:29.238
It's like one of those things, I dunno if you've ever like ran a marathon or half marathon or something where it's like, ah, I'm really glad I did that.
02:00:29.238 --> 02:00:31.578
I'm proud I did that, but like, I definitely need a break.
02:00:31.608 --> 02:00:34.247
That's sort of how I felt about the book.
02:00:34.247 --> 02:00:42.828
So I'm taking, taking a break from book writing, but, um, not because I didn't have a good time, just'cause I need to focus on other things in terms of like day to day.
02:00:42.828 --> 02:00:52.518
I mean, everything is AI right now and I think like if we look at the, um, the social space in particular, the idea of generative AI is huge, right?
02:00:52.518 --> 02:00:58.417
Like, are all the videos, are all the photos, are all the posts that you see simply going to be created by.
02:00:58.853 --> 02:00:59.903
A machine, right?
02:00:59.903 --> 02:01:05.813
Like how much of this, how much of what we consume is going to be generated by real human beings coming from their brain?
02:01:05.813 --> 02:01:13.182
And how much of this is gonna be sort of outsourced for us to, open AI or grok or meta or whatever it may be.
02:01:13.182 --> 02:01:18.132
So I, it's a little scary to be honest as a journalist and as a writer, right?
02:01:18.132 --> 02:01:23.802
This idea that like, well, can this AI just do a huge portion of my job for me?
02:01:23.802 --> 02:01:29.556
Like, um, but at the same time, I just think it's a really, that trend's not, not slowing down.
02:01:29.556 --> 02:01:30.877
It's not gonna go away, right?
02:01:30.877 --> 02:01:40.737
So to me, we're spending a decent amount of time, focused on that and just sort of trying to get a sense for like, not only how are people using it, but how are the companies preparing for it, right?
02:01:40.737 --> 02:01:49.122
Like, how are they bracing for a world in which you can with a few keystrokes, kind of create anything you want?
02:01:49.212 --> 02:01:54.552
And, uh, that's a really fascinating and kind of scary future that we're walking into.
02:01:54.552 --> 02:01:54.972
I think.
02:01:55.453 --> 02:01:56.113
Yeah, for sure.
02:01:56.210 --> 02:02:01.829
we just might end up in a world like, Dumb and Dumber, where there's, so much content that's AI generated.
02:02:01.829 --> 02:02:12.029
The content itself becomes useless, and so the, the only reason for reviewing, looking at content is say for hedonic entertainment purposes.
02:02:12.220 --> 02:02:14.529
but I certainly hope we don't end up in a future like that.
02:02:14.994 --> 02:02:20.494
Yeah, I mean, you would hope there's always gonna be room for like authentic creativity, right?
02:02:20.524 --> 02:02:22.604
but it's just, it's all new, right?
02:02:22.604 --> 02:02:23.595
We're, we're just learning.
02:02:23.595 --> 02:02:24.975
We're kinda learning as it comes along.
02:02:24.975 --> 02:02:28.034
So that's, I'm, I'm excited to see what, comes of it.
02:02:28.685 --> 02:02:31.925
Well, Kurt, this has been an incredibly insightful conversation.
02:02:32.225 --> 02:02:44.453
Your work, it not only sheds light on, on the inner workings of one of the most influential platforms of the world, but I think it also prompts us to, really think deeply about the broader implications of social media on our lives.
02:02:45.172 --> 02:02:51.502
Battle for the Bird is a must read for anybody interested in the future of social media and its impact on society.
02:02:51.985 --> 02:02:56.065
We'll be keeping an eye on Twitter and the other platforms as they continue to evolve.
02:02:56.426 --> 02:03:04.555
And if this conversation sparked anything in you, please go ahead, hit the subscribe, drop us review, share it with someone who could use a little mind hack of their own.
02:03:04.975 --> 02:03:08.756
Keep exploring, keep challenging, and remember, there's always more to learn.
02:03:09.445 --> 02:03:12.506
Kurt, thanks for hanging out with us and enjoy the conversation.
02:03:12.880 --> 02:03:13.659
Yeah, I had a great time.
02:03:13.659 --> 02:03:14.470
Thank you for having me.