#26. 'WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn'
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The main title is WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn, the Hulu documentary on Adam Neumann's implosion, and it splits the room. Sonny's big-boy review: the subject is inherently compelling but the filmmaking is muddled — it never cleanly distinguishes WeWork's employees from its tenants — yet the ridiculous cast (especially Neumann's Gwyneth-Paltrow-adjacent wife Rebekah) makes it entrancing; his larger read is that a real ~$1 billion business (cheap post-college coworking with free beer) was inflated by greed and hubris into a fraudulent $47 billion. Vic scores it a documentary-quadrant B-minus (plot B+, an A for staying under two hours, and an F for the conspicuous absence of the summer-camp orgy he's sure the movie lied about). JVL, who has written a lot about WeWork, is the resident expert and is disappointed the doc chased the cult angle over the far more interesting fraud — the dual-class voting shares Neumann alone controlled, the invented "community-adjusted EBITDA," and the endgame where he effectively held SoftBank and Masayoshi Son hostage to extract a ~$1.2 billion buyout while employees were laid off with nothing; he floats a theory that in modern winner-take-all VC, being crazier is the rational strategy. The three then riff on the hate-watch documentary genre (Theranos, Fyre Fest) as documents of a decadent age that preys on people's hunger for meaning. The long opening is all birthday material — recorded on JVL's birthday: his daughters' diabetes-inducing Magic Chocolate Dream Pie (a whole box of Oreos in the crust) from a My Little Pony cookbook, a Batman 1989 Lego batwing, a Cameo appreciation tangent, and a surprisingly heated debate about high-school and pandemic showering habits, before Vic signs off with his signature "I'm sure it's fine."
From the show notes
On this week's episode the gang celebrates JVL's birthday. How often does everyone shower? And is the new WeWork documentary on Hulu any good? All that and so much more on this week's episode of The Sub-Beacon.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00- WeWork wanted to become an ex-Facebook, an ex-Google. - It became this poster child for this growing trend of flexible offices.
Sonny00:00:08- They had already reached a billion-dollar valuation. - WeWork!
Guest00:00:12- WeWork was the most overvalued company in the world.
JVL00:00:16- They were willing to spend any amount of money.
Guest00:00:18- When I say they're serving alcohol, they are serving alcohol.
JVL00:00:22- Make some noise!
Guest00:00:24- Everything about WeWork was propaganda. - For God's sakes, they're running desks.
Vic00:00:43- Hello and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about
?00:00:56The Sub-Beacon. - Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget
Vic00:00:56about The Sub-Beacon. - Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about The Sub-Beacon.
?00:00:58- Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about The Sub-Beacon. - Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about The Sub-Beacon. - Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget
Vic00:00:58Subbeacon Merchandise Store at tpublic.com. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL, happy birthday!
JVL00:01:05Woo! Thank you, sir. You know, it's funny you say that. I am wearing right now. Ah! I'm wearing a piece of merch. Straight from. Which I got for my birthday. Straight from the store. Straight from T-Public. Oh, so you're wearing the same thing.
Sonny00:01:17I'm wearing a different color, but yes, we're twinsies. We're the same, you and me.
JVL00:01:21How do you feel? Well, I feel great, except that I may have to call Wilford Brimley. What are you saying? I might have some of the diabetes.
Vic00:01:34Oh, no. What are you saying? Oh, come on. Why?
JVL00:01:37So, the best part of my birthday was that my two girls, who have spent a lot of the pandemic baking, and so I hold them, honestly, partially responsible for my bloated physical condition. And they... This is so good. They... Baked a birthday cake for me. Oh. And they used the My Little Pony dessert cookbook that they found at the library. And as you might imagine, all of these recipes involve some sugar.
Vic00:02:11Yeah.
Sonny00:02:11Yeah. I assume, like, bags of sugar. I assume there's, like, put... Enter one bag of sugar into the bowl. One pound bag of sugar. So, I had the...
JVL00:02:23The Magic Chocolate Dream Pie, which was what they made for me. It was delicious. And I immediately wanted to call Wolfer Brimbley about the diabetes starting.
Vic00:02:35I would... I got the letters, real letters from these people. Look at them. They were real letters from people with diabetes. I would have... Did they have cakes in the cookbook? Did you look at it? Are they named after the different ponies, like Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo?
JVL00:02:51There are... There's 100%. There's 100% a rainbow, basically a tie-dyed Bundt cake, which is the Rainbow Dash cake. It's the Rainbow Dash.
Vic00:02:59So it's not in the shape of... It's not like Carvel, where you get, you know, a shape of a whale.
JVL00:03:04Whale of a dad. Yeah, it's not Fudgy the Whale. Fudgy the Whale. It was great.
Vic00:03:08My girls are the best. That's right. They're the best. Did you eat the whole cake, or did you...
JVL00:03:14No, we all shared it. I did a little bit of math. They used an Oreo crust, which they made from scratch. They made the whole thing from scratch. And they used... They used an entire box of Oreos. And I did the math, so we cut the pie into five pieces. You gotta crush it. There are 30 Oreos in a box. That means that each piece, just to start, is five Oreos. That's just the crust.
Vic00:03:43That's considerable. That's considerable. Diabetes! You know what's funny? You should say that, JVL, because the other night... This has only happened once or twice. I don't want to alarm our listeners because I do insist I still have Wolverine blood. But, you know, the Wolverine blood, it's only... Much like kryptonite, its only weakness is diet. Everything else I'm impervious to. But I had the weird sensation of hot feet. You ever have... Like, oh, my... You know, some people say, oh, my feet are chill. They're freezing. You know, my feet are cold. I was in bed under the covers, and they just felt hot. And I said to Kate, do my feet feel hot, too? She goes, yes, they feel very hot. So, I did the worst thing possible, which is look it up on the internet.
Sonny00:04:26Well, you've got foot cancer now.
Vic00:04:27Yeah, it's a foot cancer. I don't know if you know about it. For symptoms of foot cancer, hot feet.
Sonny00:04:33Your feet are riddled with cancerous cells. They're going to have to come off.
Vic00:04:38You know, it could be any number of things. It could be running related or whatnot. But one of the things they said is it could be early onset diabetes, you know, type 2 type. But why would that apply to me, really?
JVL00:04:49Yeah.
Vic00:04:50And why would it be? The second thing is, I don't know how you pronounce this, JVL. You're a doctor of sorts. Is it neuropathy or neuropathy? Neuropathy. Neuropathy. And it's like, oh, nerve damage. And I said, well, what causes nerve damage? And they said one of the causes of nerve damage is in, according to like Mayo Clinic or whatever the site, I put this in quotes, alcohol misuse. What does that mean?
JVL00:05:15You know what that means? That means going out to a party and not drinking enough so that you're not fun. Exactly. You get there and the people. The people who are there, they look at you and they say, this guy isn't really making the party more fun. He is misusing his alcohol by not drinking enough.
Sonny00:05:29Alcohol misuse to me is when you go and you have one beer because one beer doesn't do anything. No, no.
Vic00:05:36Except all you're doing is gaining weight.
Sonny00:05:37All you're doing is consuming calories that you could have gotten from Oreo cookies in the crust of a pot. That's right.
Vic00:05:44I was going to say alcohol misuse is like, oh, I'm trying to get the stain off. Let me use the alcohol.
JVL00:05:49So I want to throw one other thing out, which is that another one of the gifts. I got was from my, my sister. She got me something, which I did not even know exists, which is the Lego night Batman, 1989 bat wing homewrecker edition. And when, when completed this from the Tim Burton Batman movie, uh, will be 20 inches across and is so robust that you can mount it on your wall. Like it's a damn television. You, you could in theory, get some glow in the dark paint and paint a moon around it so that at night you have the bat wing silhouetted against. I mean, that's something you could do. That's one option.
Vic00:06:34Uh, how many pieces is this?
JVL00:06:36I don't know. 2,500 pieces.
Sonny00:06:39It's who could say, is it a, is it a, is it an actual Lego or is it a lepon?
JVL00:06:44No, no, it's the actual, my sister only does the best for me.
Vic00:06:47Uh, JVL, you know, the, the, the Batmobile you had in your office. Oh yeah. Is that also 1989 Batman?
JVL00:06:54You know, funnily enough, they have, I discovered after getting this and doing some research into it, there is now also a Batman 1989 home record edition of the Batmobile, but it is very similar to the one I had, which I got 20 years ago. Yes. 20 years, 15 years ago. Anyway, all of this is, I was talking about those movies with my wife and I said to her, do you think the kids would really like the Tim Burton Batman? I thought about this is that an all ages kind of thing. And then I realized that for G money who loves superhero stuff and is only four years old, Batman and Robin would probably be his Citizen Kane. Oh yeah.
Vic00:07:39You bet with Chris O'Donnell, Batman, Chris O'Donnell with the pain and the George.
JVL00:07:45Oh yeah. Oh, and Mr. Freeze ice skates, Mr.
Vic00:07:48Freeze poison.
JVL00:07:50I mean, I think the G money. Would watch that thing and just the entire time be like, yeah, yeah. Amazing, amazing. And so I kind of want to do that just, just to watch him watch it. Do we think that, do we think that that is the kind of movie that is so perfectly bad that it is pitched exactly for today's four year olds? Does that sound about right?
?00:08:13Yeah.
Vic00:08:13I mean, I'd watch it, so, you know, no, I mean, I, you know, my answer is going to be, yeah. Watch, you know, we see Silverstone.
JVL00:08:20I mean, you know, he's a little younger. He's a little young for getting excited when they, Joel Schumacher zooms in on her ass when she gets onto the bedside.
Vic00:08:26She was, she was already, she was already post clueless in that, wasn't she? Way too old for you.
Sonny00:08:32And that one also has. I was going to say way too big for me. That one also has Uma Thurman, right? As Poison Ivy. Yeah, Poison Ivy. Uma Thurmy as Poison Ivy.
Vic00:08:38And, and, and a really sad Bane.
JVL00:08:42A Bane with no lines. Oh. Bane only grunts as if he's an animal.
Vic00:08:46No, I mean, you know what it reminded me of? It was like, it was like a knockoff of Juggernaut, I thought. You know, and he's just running into things. And again, especially now in retrospect, of course, because there is the real Bane, who we all know and love. Yeah. It just, just pales.
JVL00:09:01I don't know if you remember this, but you and I saw that movie together, Victorino. Which one? And I complained to you, Batman and Robin.
Vic00:09:05Batman and Robin, we did?
JVL00:09:06As we were leaving the Avalon, which is where we saw that.
Vic00:09:11Oh, you mean up in Connecticut Avenue, Avalon?
JVL00:09:13That theater? Wow. I complained to you about Bane, and I said, how could they take Bane, the noblest and greatest of the Batman? He's the one who brought him. He broke Batman's back. And I think you said something like, uh, yeah, I gotta go. We're doing something. And you just couldn't get out of there fast enough. You're like, I have an Algonquin round table slash orgy at the Kennedy Warren. You go, you go back to Arlington comic book guy.
Vic00:09:42I, I forgot that, you know, the, the movie that always stands out. Well, we watched many movies together, obviously, but what are the ones that always stands out? It was, uh, men in black because I almost had an accident on that one.
JVL00:09:56I remember that when that, when we saw that at the Arlington courthouse and when that was over, you were like, I gotta go. I gotta go.
Vic00:10:03I mean, it was like, I, I, I would, you know, I thought I might not make it, you know, cold sweats. And it was happening during the tunnel scene where the car goes upside down. And I thought, this is it. There's going to be an accident somehow at this movie and it might not be the car. All right. It was, uh, it was amazing. And boy, so it was great. It was great.
Sonny00:10:21It was great.
JVL00:10:22Wait, Vic, question. Question.
Sonny00:10:24Vic, Vic, did you, did you go all the way home? No, no.
Vic00:10:27I went to JBL's apartment and destroyed. I destroyed that.
JVL00:10:30Oh, I thought you destroyed the, the AMC bathroom. Okay. Did you do that and then destroy mine?
Vic00:10:35No, no, no. I saved it all for you, but you kindly slipped, uh, a matchbook. Oh, I slipped matches. That's weird. I slipped matchbooks and I was like. Believe me, that was a two match special. That was, yeah. That was unholy.
JVL00:10:45Can I, can I, can I do one, do one, two other things?
Sonny00:10:48Please, please. It's your birthday. It's your birthday.
Vic00:10:50You can go as long as you want.
Sonny00:10:51I, I have one more question. I have one more question. Yes. How far, how far, uh, did you live from the theater, JBL?
JVL00:10:58A four minute walk.
Sonny00:11:00So you were. And we drove. So you were. Okay. So you were in like Roslyn. No, no. I was. Or the other way. The courthouse.
JVL00:11:07The courthouse. I was, I was four blocks. Yeah. Okay. Four blocks away. And we drove. So it was a high 240 seconds.
Vic00:11:14I still, every now and then I'll pass that complex by on 50.
JVL00:11:16It's huge. It's very large. It's very large. Very large. Uh, so two other things I would like to. Just early shout outs in the show to, uh, my boys at the SSEU show who did a special episode of their show just for me, where they, they wrote a poem towards the night before JBL's birthday. And, uh, another special shout out to all of my friends at the Bulwark, including you Sonny Bunch for sending me a cameo.
Vic00:11:43Oh, oh, I saw it. Did you hear about that?
JVL00:11:46Oh, I saw it. It is the, the caterer from the fire festival. Fantastic. Who had been. Uh, had been sent to the customs to take one for the team in order to get the water released. And he told me that he heard that I was really good at taking one for the team. Fantastic.
Sonny00:12:05That was, that was fantastic. That was all Jim Swift. That was a, that was a Jim Swift special.
Vic00:12:11And it was, uh, it was also very clear. The quality of it was very sharp. And, and I mean, I do love that. I had a Tara re cameo by. Uh, our, our friends, uh, friends of ours sent us, sent me specifically a Tara read one, but, but yours was more sober.
JVL00:12:31So I, I have a question about cameos. So I have now been party to four different cameos. Uh, I have had two sent to me one by hacksaw, Jim Duggan, one by this gentleman, Alan King, there's your Tara re cameo. And then I sent a cameo to a friend of mine. One of my priest friends from, uh, coach from, from WWE, John Coachman. Every single one of these cameos has been absolute gold. Is that just the norm? Are all these things awesome? Or do some, is that I have just gotten lucky and that 90% of them are just dross. And it's like, you know, someone's smoking a cigarette. Yeah. Hey, Jimmy, people say, I love you. Thanks for 500 bucks. That was kind of hard.
Vic00:13:13And it was hot, but, uh, but I was going to say gold in which sense though, uh, quality, quality of the video. Yeah. Or the script or the delivery of the script.
JVL00:13:24The delivery, but also just the, the people doing it seem totally into it. Yeah. Like they're not, they're actually having fun with it.
Sonny00:13:32I would do that.
Vic00:13:32I should get, we should get on Cameo.
Sonny00:13:34So I, uh, so, so, so Beth ordered a Cameo for, uh, one of her friends when she got pregnant, like a congratulations, you're pregnant. And she got one of the girls from the, the OC, uh, to, to do it. I forget. Heidi. It was Heidi. Heidi Montag. Not, not.
JVL00:13:51Oh, Spencer and Heidi.
Sonny00:13:54Yeah. No, not different. Not, not the TV show. The OC, the, uh, the reality show. Oh, the OC.
JVL00:14:00Sorry.
Sonny00:14:00Right. So, uh, and she was, she was like super into it.
JVL00:14:04She was like, she was like, I'm so excited.
Sonny00:14:06You're pregnant. And it was like, it was like really nice and, uh, and, and very good. So my understanding is that all of these are perfect. Every Cameo that's ever been done is perfect with high, high energy all around. Everybody should do that. I have all sorts.
Vic00:14:21Of questions. One is, are, do you, uh, is there some sort of a rating thing? Do you, uh, you know, do you get to rate the Cameo? Because I wonder how it drives performance and the number of people who want to go to you versus others because they heard somewhere that that person was really good. Uh, and the second thing is what's the take, you know, like, is there like what percentage it goes to Cameo? What percentage it goes to?
JVL00:14:41I don't know, but you know, for most of these people, I mean, look, it's great money for three minutes of your time. Right. And it means a lot. It's not, it's not rich money. Like nobody's getting. Nobody's getting rich off of the Cameo stuff. Well, there's the guy from the office.
Sonny00:14:56Well, there's the guy from the office. There was a story about that. He made like Kevin, I think, from the office. Oh, you're kidding.
JVL00:15:01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:15:01Made like, made like a million dollars last year. No, really? Good for him.
JVL00:15:05Well, maybe you can.
Sonny00:15:06I mean, but I think that's, I do not think that's the norm. I do not think that's.
Vic00:15:08But he probably charges a real premium.
Sonny00:15:10Yeah.
Vic00:15:11But it would still be worth it if he delivered it in Kevin voice and I just, I was just watching the office. I told Sonny, that would be fantastic.
JVL00:15:18So anyway, Cameo, great. My understanding is they're all perfect and there's never been a bad Cameo done. And thank you to everybody. So that's all.
Sonny00:15:27Yay.
JVL00:15:27Gentlemen, how are you?
Vic00:15:28Sonny, what's going on?
Sonny00:15:31Would you say that Cameo, we should come back to this, but I want to put a pin in this to talk about later. Should Cameo be valued more highly than WeWork and that sort of thing? We'll come back to this.
JVL00:15:45Let me throw this out there right now, just as a sidebar. The most criminally undervalued tech company in the world is OnlyFans. Oh. Mm-hmm.
Sonny00:16:01That thing... What is it valued at?
JVL00:16:03I saw something about this like a month ago. It's really low for a... I think it's like three times price versus earnings or something like that.
Sonny00:16:14Well, nobody wants to buy stock in a pornography company. Can I tell you the difference? Why is that?
Vic00:16:18Everybody buys stock in weed. The difference... The difference is WeWork elevates your consciousness and OnlyFans elevates something else. Oh. Oh. Elevates your head. Oh, again. Sonny. All right.
JVL00:16:32That's our news.
Sonny00:16:32What else do you got? Sonny, what's up? Come on. Speaking of OnlyFans...
Vic00:16:36Oh, did you have technical news for us, Sonny, about... No, you didn't have any news about the episodes. Did you want to talk to...
Sonny00:16:44Oh, I just wanted to... Yeah, thank you for reminding me. Just as a heads up to folks who are listening to this, I'm going to say that I'm going to If you're listening on the Patreon, if you enjoy the show and you've wanted to tell people to get into it, we are going to start putting new episodes back on the iTunes feed, so they'll be a couple weeks old.
Vic00:17:04Yeah, don't worry. It'll be old episodes. It'll be old episodes, but basically... If you're listening to this now, it's new.
Sonny00:17:10Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, we're just... Look, we don't want the Sub-Beacon to be a closed ecosystem. We want to be able to grow the show and bring people in, et cetera, et cetera, and it's very hard to grow a show. It's a show that's entirely behind the paywall, so we're going to be putting up... Again, I think basically it's going to be episodes that are two weeks old, so we just posted the one that was... I can't even remember which one.
JVL00:17:32The Kid Detective. Oh, yeah. We posted that one on the iTunes feed this week, and it'll be... All your friends.
Sonny00:17:38So, you know, if you have people who want to get... If you're like, I love this show, it's the only thing on Patreon I subscribe to, you should listen to it, send them the old Apple feed, and they'll be able to get into it. Get a sense of it, so... Wonderful. Yeah, that's... Thank you for reminding me. Yes. I, you know, I had forgotten about that entirely.
Vic00:17:58And in other news, you were reading something today, Sonny.
Sonny00:18:01Showering! Speaking of OnlyFans, I'm in the shower right now as we talk. I'm live streaming this to my OnlyFans. There was a story in the New York Times about showering and bathing habits during the pandemic, and I'm very curious how you guys have fared in this regard, because for a while, so I'm reading this New York Times story, and it's like, you know, I think the numbers are like 16% of people have, you know, are showering once a week or less or something like that, you know, at this point, instead of the normal, which is showering at least once a day. Come on, don't be a savage. But during the pandemic, for like a solid like four or five-month stretch, there was a period where I was showering maybe two times a week. Like, I was... I was showering like twice a week, tops, because I wasn't going to the gym, I wasn't going to see anyone, I wasn't like going out and doing anything. I was just at home all the time, working on my laptop on the couch, and then going and then picking my kids up from school and going to bed. I mean, like, I just was like, I was deeply lazy, and part of that laziness was not taking a shower. Now, thankfully, because the gym is back open, I'm like going to the gym every day, I come home, take a shower. It's like, I've got a whole routine now, got a whole routine. But this is the problem with the pandemic. Like, the big problem with the pandemic is that it broke so many routines that it like radically altered the way that I just lived my life. And one of the ways that it did that was by like, just like, I just stopped being a clean person. I just was, I was less clean all the time. And I was curious if that happened to you guys at all. JVL. Or if you... You go first. You stayed clean.
JVL00:19:52I will preface this by saying that I have very particular needs when it comes to showering. For instance, when I was an undergraduate and I would... I hope you enjoy that sound effect. So when I was an undergraduate and we had practice for the crew team at 4.30am or something ungodly, I would shower before practice. Then I would go to practice and get sweaty and gross and then come back and shower again before going to class. Because I just... The idea of like starting the day not showered, which is how a civilized person begins one's day. Right. So, you know, I mean, in a perfect... In my perfect world where everything is going the way it should be, I would shower three, maybe four times a day.
Vic00:20:39Oh, so you're the other... You're going in the other direction. Like washing your hands. I wasn't sure which way you were going to go. So like... Wow. Okay.
JVL00:20:47Except that during the pandemic...
Sonny00:20:50Exactly like Sonny.
JVL00:20:52It's crazy. I dropped down to once every three days.
Sonny00:20:57That one is... Once every four days.
JVL00:21:00Because I'm not going anywhere. I was like the exact same thing. You noticed. Drive a kid to practice. It's like... Come home and work.
Sonny00:21:06What am I doing? What am I doing in my life?
JVL00:21:08Drive a kid to school. Come home from... Just like why... And I would think to myself, why would I spend the time?
Sonny00:21:13Like that's time that I could be spending working. See, it wasn't even the time factor for me. It was like... It was literally... It was literally just like, why even bother? Why even bother? Why bother? If you don't feel...
JVL00:21:25What do I have to live for?
Sonny00:21:26What do I have? What do I... I mean, this is the thing. If I was like outside, you know, playing with the kids and get sweaty or whatever, all right, that's one thing. But like, you know, I just... I'm just like sitting at home, just sitting there, watching TV, work at writing, recording podcasts. I would say my... It's not like I'm doing anything physical.
Vic00:21:46I would say my general routine is showering every other day. And I think that's... I think that's mostly held up during the summer, obviously. That's your general routine in a non-pandemic?
Sonny00:21:57You shower just on a regular basis? You go... Every other day?
Vic00:22:01I'll skip a day. Yeah, sure. But like, if I'm sweating, if I'm sweating... All right, make me look like the European over here. But if I'm sweating, I'll shower every day, like in the summer. I'll just throw some cologne on instead of going to the shower. In the summer... I'll do the Italian shower. In the summer, I can shower every day. They call me Mr. Dracona. No, I know. In the summer, I can shower every day. In the summer, I'll shower every day. But, you know... Oof, you put on a little Dracar, and they don't even notice. You need a Dracar Noir. But, you know, and I remember in Rome, where, you know, we were walking around. I mean, sweating bullets. That was... It was one day. I showered three times in one day. It was insane. But it was, like, really sweaty. But during the pandemic, I don't...
JVL00:22:41Does Kate have to die before we can nominate her for sainthood? Yeah. I don't think... Could we start the beatification process now while she's alive?
Vic00:22:48But, you know, I mean, do keep in mind... I am Asian. You know, we don't really stink or sweat. You know, we just don't smell. You're a clean people? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, we're a very clean people. But even during the pandemic, I don't think I've gone to the stretches that they're talking about in the New York Times. Maybe two days. But you'll notice... I mean, you know, what do they tell you anyway? If you go that long, you know, wash the hairy bits. You know, the hairy parts. You know, I mean, at the very least, you know, do that. These people who are doing once a week, I mean, that's what separates us from Europe. You know, I mean... And you can tell that when you're, like, going in an elevator with tourists, you know, somewhere. You'll notice it.
JVL00:23:26Can we have a brief extension of a conversation I was having on The Bulwark? Yeah. About high school showers?
?00:23:32Okay.
Vic00:23:33No, I never showered.
JVL00:23:35I never showered. I don't want to talk about this.
Vic00:23:36You don't want to talk about it? Okay.
Guest00:23:38Was something happening?
JVL00:23:39The same thing that happened to you.
Guest00:23:39Sonny went to a high school called Oz.
JVL00:23:41My friend, Sarah Longwell, was telling me as if it was the most normal thing in the world that, yeah, you know, in middle school, they had a gym. And there was a gym teacher who came in and, like, stood there and watched all of the girls showering together to make sure they showered. Is a gym teacher a guy or a girl? In middle school? Yeah. Starting in middle school. In middle school gym. And she's just like, because that's what happens. It's weird. I didn't like it. I was like, that is not what happens.
Sonny00:24:06That's not what happens at all. No.
JVL00:24:08That is what happens in either prison or when you have a pervert as your gym teacher.
Sonny00:24:15Yeah. That's what happens in Sucker Punch. In my high school, you could theoretically take a shower after gym, but nobody did that. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody did. Nobody did that. I mean, the only, like, I literally cannot remember a single time anybody showered after gym in my high school.
JVL00:24:37Did you ever see the group showers at your high school used? Yeah. Because I went for four years. I never once saw that. And those things, like, the grout looked like it had basically dried out and turned to sand because there had not been liquid in the ground.
Vic00:24:50Although, on that tile, in 60 years. Our high school, as far as I know, the football team, they all had to shower.
JVL00:25:01As a, for hazing? No. Just, you know, initiation.
Vic00:25:04And it was a jail style. It was like a jail style shower, as you know. You know, it's like out in the open. It's not in private stalls. It's not private stalls. And you went to Holmdel High School.
Sonny00:25:12It's like American History X.
Vic00:25:14Oh, wow. Wow. Was it Holmdel or Wall? Which one was it?
JVL00:25:19It was Holmdel. Okay. It was Holmdel.
Vic00:25:20It was Holmdel with the naked twister. Naked twister. And, in fact, we had a, there was a football game.
Sonny00:25:26I have no idea what you're talking about.
JVL00:25:28There was a high school in Central Jersey that, during Vicks and my time, was a big deal in local news because the parents had caught the high school varsity team hazing freshmen by forcing them to play naked twister. Which is a totally normal thing. Yeah.
Vic00:25:46There's a lot going on there, by the way, so to speak. But I remember. I remember it was a big deal because the Monsignor Donovan football team was going to, they were hosting the Holmdel football team for a game on a Friday night. And there was going to be, you know, they were just telling us, don't start anything. But one of our, one of my classmates did get down to the, because it's like the track that surrounds the football field. Oh, yeah? And he got down on the track and he was wearing like a cape that was, it looked like a cape, but it was a twister, like a twister mat. And it was a lot, very controversial. Keith Arnott, that's who did it. It was very controversial.
JVL00:26:23I thought it was funny.
Vic00:26:25So you guys had to do showers. The showers is included. I never, I never showered in high school.
JVL00:26:30I mean, in the shower. So we, I would be interested to know what the, what the Sub-Beacon listeners have on this, because we, when we talked about this on, on the show with Sarah and I, we got so much email and there seems to have been set like several chronological dividing lines in this because. So the people who were over the age of 60 said, oh yeah, not only did they shower, but we, I know my, my high school had a swimming pool and we all had to do swimming lessons and pass certain swimming certifications. They just made us do it naked. And I heard from, I heard this from at least five different people.
Vic00:27:08And again, I just thought to myself, what is happening out in America? I always imagine, you know, like, like my wife, Kate, you know, she went to high school
JVL00:27:18in Connecticut and she was in. The cheerleaders all showered together and it was the same room, you know?
Vic00:27:23I mean, it was like no stalls there. It was all giant. And she went to school with Gretchen ball. Yeah. So as you can imagine, I had questions for her. Yeah.
JVL00:27:31Yeah. Well, I assume they had shower buddies to get them in and out of the showers faster to help wash each other. Right. Cause four hands are better than to get in there. Get in there.
Vic00:27:42Uh, okay. Thank you for that JVL. I thought you were going to, uh, give us a Peloton update or something and still not here.
JVL00:27:50It still hasn't arrived. Did you see the, you didn't, you didn't, you got the bike, not the treadmill. Cause the bike, the treadmill has been killing people. Yes. Yes.
Sonny00:27:57The killing killed one person.
JVL00:27:59The Peloton treadmill is essentially like the, uh, the center night live mirror. Right. Have you seen this unimportant? One of the other Peloton clones is something called the mirror, which is a giant, uh, portrait size, like 65 inch flat screen television with a camera in it. And you stand. And you stand in front of it and work out.
Vic00:28:21And yes, it kills people as well. It sucks.
JVL00:28:25You know, this is a black mirror style thing, right? You're working out in front of the screen until one day you are sucked into it, into the alternate dimension. You can't get out. No, I mean, and that's what all the instructors are. There are people who have been captured and sent into this phantom zone, the phantom zone.
Vic00:28:39Very good.
Sonny00:28:40Along with general Zod. I don't know. Wait, I I'm sorry. I don't understand what's actually what this TV setup is that you're describing. What is, oh, I've seen that. It is like a, is it like a. It's like a, it's like a yoga thing where they're doing your like, but you know, so
JVL00:28:54it's, well, it's not a mirror, it's a screen and the screen, you know, has a camera built into it. And so it shows you yourself back, but it also has, you know, is projecting the trainer for your group. Just picture Peloton, but with like calisthenic stuff, but it is, you're standing in front of it and it's just like, they're talking to you and their life size because it's a 65 inch screen.
Sonny00:29:14That's literally Orwellian. That's from big brother. That's the screen.
Vic00:29:18Well, they tell you to work out. Yes. They're telling Winston to do his, you're not, you're not stretching, touch your toes.
Sonny00:29:24Yes. That's, you just read that book.
Vic00:29:26I did. It's so fresh in my mind, man. And the version you get at Costco is just an actual mirror. Believe me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But you know, the, the, the also do an app because my wife's cousin's wife, if that And so it's a running app for when you go jogging or running outside, but so you, they have these, you know, attractive trainers doing this, but of course you're not looking at them because you got, you, otherwise you're gonna get hit by a car. So I guess you just play it. I asked you and you just listen to them coaching you along as you're running.
JVL00:30:08How do we even know the running? Uh, you know, I, for anybody who is into this sort of thing, the Nike run club app is I think the best of all of these. It's really good. Do you use it Victorino?
Vic00:30:18I do not. I don't have anything. In my ears when I run. Really?
Sonny00:30:23No, you don't listen to you. You just like her with your thoughts. Here's my head. It's, it's meditative.
JVL00:30:31Can we get a recording of that monologue? I would just love to hear the interior monologue. I wave to people all the time. You know, I look around, I wave to people.
Vic00:30:42I don't know. I wave to people all the time, you know, especially other runners. We give each other the wave and stuff. The only people who I say are the rudest people. Uh, when you're, are, are, when you wave and they don't wave back or like the high school girls. I don't know why it might be because I got this thing poking out of my shorts, my phone. I'm talking about my phone. Uh, I was going to make a joke about you joining a Peloton nation, being part of a cult. And speaking of cults, that was my transition. Anyway, I'm sorry. We went down, we went down this path. That's okay. 30 minutes later. Um, we're talking this week about the Hulu documentary. We work sunny. How about a big boy review?
Sonny00:31:23Uh, so the, we work documentary on Hulu is a little bit like the fire festival documentaries that were on Hulu and Netflix. Uh, and, and in the sense that they are, is this is a story of hubris and absurdity, um, and, uh, massive wealth all rolled into one in like the worst, most possible way. So it's, it's basically the story of this guy, Adam Newman, who, uh, uh, convinces people that he has created this brand new tech company, um, that is, that is going to revolutionize how people work. You know, it's not just people are going to work here, but they're also going to live here and they're going to, we're, we're going to have them set up in workspaces so we can monitor who is working best where, and these people who are working on all these different projects are going to work together. It's the, we revolution, you know, the, we revolution, uh, and, and in, in the course of promoting this, this ridiculous company, it gets valued up to $46 billion or something, $47 billion. And then it all comes crashing down. Now we all know the story of WeWork, um, and we all, we're all, we're all kind of familiar with it. Um, and, and I, I speaking strictly from the perspective of like the art of this documentary, I was a little bit underwhelmed by it because I was occasionally kind of confused about who exactly. The, the movie was talking about, and this is like, this is possibly, this is just a me not paying enough attention problem, but there's a moment kind of early on, maybe 10, 15 minutes into it where they're talking about, uh, going to, they're, they're talking about all these people who are working in the WeWork offices. And then these people are all going to this big camp event. It's a big, you know, it's a big party. And I was like, wait, the people who are renting the space are like the customers are
JVL00:33:20going to this WeWork.
Sonny00:33:21And that's what is. And so like, I, there, there's this just very basic problem with the documentary where they don't do a good job of delineating like tenants, who it's actually about like tenants versus employees and, and what everybody is getting out of this. I like, I, I, again, maybe this is, maybe this is just a me problem. Maybe this is me not paying enough attention. So, so for the first like 10 or 20 minutes of the show, I'm, I'm, I'm watching it. I'm like, wait, are, are they talking about the workers or like the people? Who are working within the WeWork like in renting the, the, the, the space and stuff. And eventually I realized, okay, this is almost entirely from the perspective of the employees. Um, this is almost entirely from their perspective, but again, the documentary does weird things that kind of conflates the two, like the guy who, uh, who lived in one of the WeWork pods, right? Like he, he is not an employee of WeWork. And, and yet he is one of the voices in this. So again, it's, it's like a, it's a, it's a weird. Really confusing documentary in very basic ways. Now that said, it's, it's such a compelling story with such ridiculous people, um, that it is hard not to find it kind of entrancing and the, the, the big star, the breakout star of this, I assume is the wife of Adam Newman, the crazy, uh, you know, the, the, the crazy woman who is related to Gwyneth Paltrow somehow, um, and wants to be this kind of influencer or, you know, style, style individual. Um, but yeah, the, the documentary itself is very weird and, and uneven just from a, a, a filmmaking perspective. The subject matter manages to overcome all of that. It's, it's, it's really interesting and fascinating. And like the, the, the weird thing is, and I, this is more JBL's area and topic of expertise. So I will, I will kick this to him. But the weird thing about this is that, look, it seems like there is a billion dollar company in here, a one, maybe a $1 billion company where you have somebody who's really good at fine. He partners with Jamie diamond or somebody, and he's really good at finding spaces to convert. He's really good at turning it into a thing that people want to do because what they have done, what they did at WeWork was create basically a post-college experience for people who were done with school, right? You, you go there and you hang out and you just, you spend all day working in the common area and then you go and you drink and you fall asleep. For a few hours and you get up and you do it again. And if you don't have kids, if you don't have a wife, if you don't have a girlfriend, if you don't have a big cluster of friends in this, this place that you've moved to, this is actually a perfect, uh, transition out of college into a real world. And like, I, I think there's, there's a valuable company in that there's a valuable idea in that, but you know, maybe it's a billion dollar company, maybe it's a $500 million company. Maybe it's, you know, whatever, but it's not a 47 billion. And all of these people want to be $47 billion companies. They all want to be the Facebooks or the Instagrams or whatever. And I like the, the, the, the hubris of it all, the greed of it all is the thing that is most striking and, and, you know, kind of, kind of nuts. So I don't know. I can't get to you, JBL. You are the, we work.
JVL00:36:40Well, we'll talk about the, the, we'll talk about the business of the summit. Victorino. Yeah. What did you think? Did this movie make you angry? Were you bored? Were you interested? Were you, what, what, what were the emotions going through your head?
Vic00:36:58Well, you know, I gave, it gets a, uh, it gets a, uh, a documentary quadrant score of B minus. Uh, so you can't score a documentary. That's why it's a document. That's why I say it's a documentary quadrant, depending on the certain things I will give an N a two, because if it's not that kind of a thing that you don't expect it, but there are other things that there's potential, the making of Caligula.
Sonny00:37:18Yeah.
Vic00:37:18Then you better have. Did you better deliver on these things? So number one, the plot's like a B plus. I get it. I don't understand a lot of it. I still, to this day, do not know what amortization is. And I look it up. I look it up all the time and I look at it in English and I have no idea what they're talking about in English. I have no idea what they're talking about. Okay. Uh, duration, however, is an a, it was under two hours. Okay. So violence action, obviously an a sex. No, no, no. It's all. Hold on.
JVL00:37:44Let me stop it right there. The violence is an F minus, minus, minus, minus, because there could
Vic00:37:50have been violence because what this movie needed was, was an enormous amount of violence, killing all these people, just beating all these
JVL00:37:58people for deserves to be beaten to a pulp. And the fact that they were not, I think is a huge mark against the movie.
Vic00:38:06I was okay. Well, I mean, if you want to look at it that way and I would say sex nudity, I did give it a rating for that. That was not any, that was an F because if you're telling me that there wasn't like a giant orgy at the summer camp or at the building at the, what's the whole point of living? Yeah, come on. Don't tell me that didn't happen. They really lied that don't they? Uh, yeah, they do. Uh, so I thought it was interesting, uh, and fascinating, but it does come down for me. It came down to the fact that the guy is a con, but it is amazing how many people, it amazes me how many people fall for that sort of new age bullshit. You know, like, oh my gosh, it's so amazing. The elevation of the consciousness and blah, blah, blah.
JVL00:38:42We are going to elevate human consciousness and unlock your super powers.
Sonny00:38:49The interesting thing is that there's the only, the only real con, like the only real like con artist aspect of it really comes in at the end when he's doing all of the weird tech stuff that he's clearly like made up and that like nobody, nobody has any idea what he's talking about. And it's, it's, it's a bunch of nonsense, you know, like the, the, him being a charismatic person, whatever, that's, you know, that, that, that doesn't strike me as a con exactly. It just strikes me as a charismatic person, but like the, but like, he's just the, the, the, the buildings were what they were. They were just like the guy says, you know, they, they're just renting fucking desks. Right. Like, I mean, that's, that's all they're doing and they're doing it. They're doing it well and smart and they have free beer. Right. That's like the big draw.
JVL00:39:34No, no. See this, we are not a real estate company. This is, we are the world's first human social network. Yeah. Love it. It's, it's fucking guy.
Vic00:39:47It's, it's, it's really me. And you know what else? I mean, people. People talk about how charismatic he, he and his wife, they look like aliens. I'm not afraid to say that. They look like very aliens, she in particular, and I, and I found her frightening, uh, and it, it made total sense for her to that, that interview clip with Gwyneth Paltrow that made total sense to me and then her discussing her discussing, we grow, we grow, which was going to be their version of
Sonny00:40:12daycare kindergarten, I mean, come on now.
Vic00:40:16So, uh, it was, uh, for me, interesting that. I was able to get to that point, but people do jump on it. Everybody wants to be the next, everyone's looking for the next Google. So, uh, that part did not surprise me, but wow. Uh, and it just, and, and parts of it, as you know, I love a good party. I love being social, but I do hate forced socialization, if you will. Uh, and this is like forcing people to be, you know, let's force you to all get along together and be friends. Let's force you to go to this camp. And again, I don't like mud and stuff. And that's what they met a reference to and that count me out. Except for you have bracelets, so, you know, they're going to make sure you're
JVL00:40:52listening to their version of a TED talk, literally tracking your employees to make sure they go to that's why that is wild as well as JVL. So did you, I mean, so quad documentary, and this is, it's always a little dangerous to go into a documentary, knowing a lot about the subject. And I, you know, I've written a bunch about WeWork, so I know not a lot about it, but a fair amount. And so I was. Disappointed in that the structure of the documentary is meant to focus on the cult like aspects of the company, rather than focusing on the fraudulent aspects of the company, because to me, that's the much more interesting story. And maybe it's not to most normal viewers, maybe to normal viewers. What is interesting is this guy who sounds like Tony Robbins with a brain injury. Um, you know, like who I gotta say is, you know, I had heard him a ton prior to we work blowing up and I actually, I think I've said this on the shows when we talked about the stuff and years ago, I think the idea of coworking spaces is the future because eventually companies are gonna realize they can make their employees pay for their own desks.
Sonny00:42:10Yeah.
JVL00:42:11Right. So you, you know, you, Mr. Big corporation, except at the very largest level where you have your own campus, anybody below like 500 employees. Is gonna realize, hold on a minute. I don't need to pay for it. I don't need to pay for an office. I can, I can make my employees literally pay for their own desk, but that is not a giant business. It's like a real estate business. You're subdividing real estate. You start slicing those things. The margins are reasonably low. Uh, and listening to Adam Newman talk, even when he was, I just thought to myself, this guy doesn't sound like a leader, nothing coming out of his mouth. Sounds charismatic. Again, he sounds either crazy or like, he doesn't know a fucking thing in the world. Like it's all every fourth word out of his mouth is, is bullshit. Yes. This is not the case when you, like, when you listen to Jeff Bezos talk, Jeff Bezos does not sound like somebody who has no idea what he's talking about. Peter Thiel talk Peter Thiel, you know, they may be wrong. They may have a, but, but these are guys who have deeply thought about what it is they're doing and the way people signed on to this thing, I don't know. And so maybe there is a cult, like his secretary was one of the characters who I was interested in, but hate it because she's this 23 year old girl who gets off a bus in grand central station and just, you know, it's crashing with, uh, you know, goes to work as an executive assistant at a hedge fund and then someone says, my boss is. Uh, is this guy, Adam Newman at WeWork and you got to come be his secretary. Cause it's gonna be me and this girl, you know, she's crying about how I, we were going to change the world. And I'm just like, I'm sorry, you're a 23 year old executive assistant. You were, you thought you were changing the world, but I
Vic00:44:06think they all think that now. I think they all, I don't think it's just her. Uh, it's everybody that was, you know, everybody that was crowded into that. They're they're big annual summer event and the DJ saying, when I say week, we, you say work, it made me sick. You know, it's like, it's just like, oh, I gotta say this.
JVL00:44:27Every time they showed a shot of the, the raging summer camp stuff, all I could think of was this is stuff white people like that is a lot of white people. That I don't know how you run a company in New York city, which is an insanely diverse place and put together a group. Of people that is that white.
Vic00:44:52Well, I don't know about that. I didn't notice that, but I, I enjoyed, you didn't notice that. I did not know. I don't, I don't look at color JVL. You don't see, I don't see color. See, I'm much more than you are, but it was funny. The black lawyer who was talking to the, the, uh, the guy at the event who was talking to another black guy who was asking him and he says, well, who's an
JVL00:45:09usher, just an usher, let me ask you something, brother. He says, is this a cult, you know? And yeah, he got it. Uh, so I don't know. I mean, do you guys, where are you on the cult? Cult versus business aspect, which do you think would have been more interesting?
Vic00:45:23The ending, it was interesting JVL when they're talking about when, you know, they're looking through the numbers, right, the books, they have to open up the books digitally speaking and, uh, and a beta and it's such, and he was using the term, they had a term called community, a beta, right. EBI DTA. And so, uh, it's, it's the earnings before, et cetera, interest, et cetera, and depreciation, whatever. So, uh. But they're looking at that and they just slashed all the stuff that would have made them, would have exposed their debt saying, oh no, well, this doesn't count and this doesn't, they turned it into profit. Yeah. And that's how they did it. And they're just sort of just making things up. And it also ties into the earlier thing about the, uh, the lattes versus cappuccinos.
JVL00:46:08Yeah. And another big, whatever, another big piece of the story was the way the shares were constructed. So there were, there were different classes of shares and only certain classes had voting rights and. Adam Newman held all of those. I mean, this was a either somebody inside WeWork missed all of this in an incredible dereliction of legal and fiduciary duty or, or they were in on it because no corporation could be, and this is why people went crazy when they, when the S one was finally filed for the, for, for the IPO and once people looked and saw how the corporate structure of it was, they were like, are you fucking kidding me? This is. This is nuts. And you know, the, I, the part I really didn't like about the, the documentary was the real, the last 15 minutes or so where I felt like it was, it was okay. It was perfectly serviceable, but it did not stick the landing in explaining like exactly what happened because what happened is, uh, it turns out that we were not only as WeWork not worth $47 billion, but that Newman has contrived. To present something, which many people viewed as nearly being fraudulent. I'm saying this carefully because Adam Newman has retained a, uh, lawyer, a legal firm, which goes around and searches out basically every mention of this documentary and sends lawyer letters to anybody who says anything nasty about. Wow. And at the bottom of the lawyer's letter, it says, this is confidential and off the record, so you can't tell anybody that we sent this to you.
Sonny00:47:49God, I hope they send us one. I hope they send us one. Cause I will, I will read it on the air. They've sent it.
JVL00:47:55They've sent, I have one of them as it turns out. Uh, so, so this guy was doing this stuff and when it comes out and everybody goes running away from him and it turns out that the company can't do the company can't be viable because the needs more money and needs credit to stop its debt because it's burning like a hundred million dollars. A million dollars a week or something insane like that. And so it's bleeding out, it's bleeding to death and nobody will advance them any credit because he's there. And what happens is this in order to get credit, he has to be forced out. He says to Massa and the SoftBank guys, well, as it is right now, the company is still worth 12 billion. If you wait another couple of weeks, it'll be worth 9 billion and after that, who knows what it's going to, it's going to zero, probably that's with me here. If you make me go away, right, save the company, then maybe you'll be able to salvage $4 billion worth. So if you give me 1.2 billion, I will leave. And then maybe you can salvage something or not. And that's what SoftBank does. And so at the moment when everything is terrible and what the company needs is a turnaround, because he's there and he holds all the voting shares, he essentially is holding the company hostage and he forces, he forces SoftBank to buy him out again, to the tune of close to $1.2 billion, at the end of which he goes away and all of his employees get laid off and sent packing
Sonny00:49:40with nothing, nothing, here's, here's a question I had had while I was watching it and it was something that I thought I had read, but maybe I hadn't in a long time. Again, this is why I'm glad you're on the show JBL, because I know you will know this. There was a chance that SoftBank like was going to fail as a company, right? Like the biggest bank in Japan was like on the verge of just collapsing entirely because of this, right?
JVL00:50:06It almost, it almost broke SoftBank, which is SoftBank is like the size of Wells Fargo, essentially equivalent in Japan, way bigger, way bigger and SoftBank is, is even bigger than that. And it's, uh, you know, so the vision fund, which is, you know, the hundred billion dollar hedge fund, which is financed almost entirely by the Saudis. Yeah. And here, so here is the, the, another, again, so this is the type of question, which I wish the, I wish the filmmakers had explored. One of the things Massa says to Adam Newman when he goes to him is he literally tells him, you gotta be crazier. I know you're out there. You're talking about all this crazy shit, but you gotta amp that up like 10 X. That's how you get people to give you the real money. And so Adam Newman is like, oh, okay, I'll just turn it to a left. Does this, does this get to 11? Right. And he gets even crazier. And that's, that's when the vision fund, like just start shooting the money into him. What if we are at a place in capitalism where that is actually the right strategy? Oh, and what I mean is this. So what you have is one of the reason people in finance like tech is because you have very low marginal costs, very high ability to scale. And many of the sectors are winner take all. And so the, the idea for these VC funds is you go out and you, you spread around a bunch of bets and you bet on 150 different companies. And it is totally fine if 149 of them literally go out of business in a week because if one of them becomes Facebook, then that pays for everything else.
Sonny00:52:00And that is essentially masses approach, right?
JVL00:52:04You know, when SoftBank is doing better than ever again, give money to everybody. And so long as I, so long as one of them hits, then it's all this other stuff and all the chaos that it creates, right? When something like this happens, I mean, it was really bad for New York real estate. Uh, bad for the people who work, it's just bad, right? Tons and tons of economic destruction. I don't know. Is that good? Is that bad? These are interesting questions that the, you know, and they had the guy from the NYU business school, that professor who was really good. I thought he was very good. I could have had 15 more minutes of him. Uh, a couple of the Forbes reporters were very smart and very good. Uh, the, the guy with the hat, I don't know who he was who talked about the Nantucket sleigh ride and how, cause that's what Newman was. Zuman realized that he had caught the Vision Fund in Massa so that they needed him more than he needed them. They were the whale. And so long as he lost enough money, right? This is, again, all of this is a 25X version of if you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank owns you. And if you owe the bank $150 million, then you own the bank. That's what all of this is, but just at a larger scale. And I don't know, these are interesting questions. And instead, the documentary was more concerned with he was so charismatic, we thought we were going to change the world. And I don't know, like, I feel like we've heard those. Well, it worked for me. I understood I didn't like it. I didn't I'm not saying I'm sorry, I'm not saying I didn't like it. Yeah, just saying I felt it could have used the most interesting stuff right on the floor. That's all I am. It shouldn't ask you guys this. We now have this little mini genre of hate watching documentaries like Theranos documentary, the Fire Festival documentary, this thing. What sort of emotional impact does it have? Do you enjoy watching people that you want to murder? Do you do? Do you not enjoy? Do you find it cathartic when they meet their comeuppance? Kind of a lot.
Vic00:54:20He didn't meet his comeuppance, did he? No, because he still has more money than we do.
JVL00:54:23Billion dollars. Yeah, Billion.
Vic00:54:26Yeah. So there's a little bit of an outrage feeling there at the end. You shake your head.
JVL00:54:30I mean, you know, Holmes is going to be fine. Elizabeth Holmes is not going to be standing on the corner asking for food. Yeah.
Vic00:54:35You know, so what are your bosses should take a gamble on us. Give us a million bucks. I mean, you know, what is a million to the division?
JVL00:54:42But that's you got you got to ask for a billion, right? Nobody will give you a million bucks. But maybe if you. Ask for a billion.
Vic00:54:47They'll be like, oh, that's interesting.
JVL00:54:49But what do you guys think about this idea of the the hate watching documentaries about. Is it healthy? Capitalist fraud? I forget healthy. Like, is it enjoyable? Like as a genre, is this sort of thing that you think? Yeah, I don't know about enjoyable. I find it interesting. I find it informative.
Vic00:55:07You learn something, you know?
Sonny00:55:09I mean, we we. These are the documents of our ridiculous, decadent, age, right? Like these are these are the things that demonstrate that the system is broken, but nobody has any idea how to fix it. I mean, that that was my big takeaway from the Theranos stock was all of these people, all of these smart people coming in and putting their reputations on the line for this ridiculous thing, this ridiculous box of needles and vials of blood broken glass was swirling around. And, you know, the fact that you had the fact that you had, like the most again, the most the most respected people essentially in the country, guys like Jim Mattis, right, vouching for this thing and it being totally, totally fraudulent is like is is the the the giveaway that we are we are we are living in in some sort of end times. Who knows what that what that is going to look like? And I think that these. These these are all of a piece where you have you have ridiculous you have ridiculous people, ridiculous amounts of money and ridiculous technological trends all converging at the same place because the Fyre Festival thing, like it's fun watching the dopes, the rich dopes, you know, get hoodwinked and lose their money sandwiches. But but the thing the thing that's actually interesting about it is the way that social media was used to create this idea of the Fyre Fest, this idea of a thing that is it that you need to go to to be important and popular. And like, that's where all the that's where all the cool stuff is happening. And and and with this, it's the same thing, right, where you have these. And this is why I disagree with you slightly on the cult versus business stuff like leave aside the fact that the business side of thing is harder to make cinematic than the cult side of thing. Like, leave that aside. The the the issue here isn't so much the fraud. The fraud happens. It happens all the time and in every age and every in every country, everywhere. What is interesting is this idea that I think people look, I think the people involved in this thing, aside from Adam Newman, who knows what he thought, but the people he brought on board actually believed that they were changing the world, right? They believed in this idea of we are making new. We are we are rediscovering how to work. We are we are changing the face of. Work and what it looks like, and they were given purpose. They were given a reason to come to work. They were given something that is changing the world, and that is that is what was taken advantage of here more than anything else, more than a desire for wealth or or any of that. I mean, that's all handled in the Moss and Softbank stuff. I like I again, this whole this whole genre, this whole mini genre, if you will, is basically just. How how people are using technology to. Take advantage of the desire to find meaning in in in your life, people are lost, right? That's what that's what it is. That's that's the that is the the running theme through all of this is like we are going to give you something that gives you meaning in your life because and that's what people are looking for. They're all trying to fill that hole in their their chest with, you know. Either we work or blood machines or, you know, baloney sandwiches.
JVL00:58:50All right, let me let me ask you guys a question. You are walking through the jungle. Accompanied by Elizabeth Holmes, Adam Newman, Rebecca Newman and Billy McFarland. You come upon a hole in the ground at the bottom of which are those, you know, the tiger spikes and also water moccasins. And piranhas and sharks with lasers on their frickin heads. And you can push one of these four people into but you can only push one because there's not room for the others. You can only push one of them into this pit of death. Who is it?
Vic00:59:37I don't know. I want. I don't know. I don't know. They're all equally bad.
Sonny00:59:42Probably Billy McFarland. Is there one that stands out? That guy is spectacularly I think it has to be Adam Neumann because he's the one who walked
JVL00:59:50away with all the money.
Sonny00:59:51What if we can? What if we can? Can we extort Adam Neumann? Can we say, like, we're going to throw you in this pit unless you give us half that one point two billion dollars?
JVL00:59:59No, you can't. All you can do is throw them in the pit with the piranhas and water moccasins and tiger sticks.
Sonny01:00:06I find Billy McFarland much more annoying, frankly.
JVL01:00:09It's interesting that he went to actual pounding the ass jail, right?
Sonny01:00:13Elizabeth Holmes is pretty bad.
JVL01:00:15For me, she's my number two. If you tell me that I can't have Adam Neumann to throw into the pit of death, it would be
Sonny01:00:24her. What about Rebecca Neumann? Her before Rebecca Neumann? Oh, no, no, no.
Vic01:00:28Absolutely. No, other way around.
Sonny01:00:30She's a... Scary. She was weird. I don't like...
Vic01:00:34I don't like the looks of her. Really quickly, I was going to say it reminded me, this whole cult thing reminded me before I worked at the Standard, so this is in the summer of '95 and I was looking for jobs. There was a... There was a posting for, I forget what even the posting was about, if you're interested in this or that, come to this meeting about working in... Scientology. No, it wasn't. It wasn't Scientology. Dianetics. But it was something of international business, whatever it was, and you had to drive out to, I think it was like the Reston... The Prestige Worldwide. I had to go out to Reston Town Center, so I said, "Okay, let's see what this is about." So I get there early. Not sure. I'm just looking to see what this is about, and there were some young guys, young guys dressed up. Like they didn't have their jackets on, but obviously they were like khakis and shirt and tie and the whole thing, and they were young. They were like my age at the time, maybe a little bit older, probably a little because then if I was straight out of college, so maybe they were in mid-20s, they were going to McDonald's. I saw them coming back from McDonald's, and they were going back to the office. And the name of the office was Equinox or Equinox, and I don't know if you know about it. The gym? No. No, no, no. So I said, "Oh, I don't know what this is, but stay for the presentation." Right? So you sit there. I get inside. And the guys who I saw, because I remember one guy was there was ... Who was this Asian guy? That's what I remember. But anyway, he was watching. They had CNBC on TV, and so you have the stock tickers and stuff like that. It's going on. They're keeping track of what's happening on Wall Street. And then you sit down. Everyone, all these young people like myself, sit there in this room, and a guy comes up there. I remember the guy because he was wearing a khaki suit, which is very unusual. Who wears a khaki suit? This was the '90s, but anyway, he starts talking about ... The idea of Equinox, and making money for yourself, and having this kind of money, and being involved in business, and everything, and people, blah, blah, blah. And at the end of the day, what was it? They were selling water filters. And also vitamins. Oh. Anyway, but they said, "If you sold X amount, then you'd get a piece of it yourself." But if you get other ... The key is not just to sell it, but to get your friends to sell it.
Sonny01:02:43Amway. You got to get people under you.
Vic01:02:45It was like that, and at which point I realized, "I got to get out of here. This thing's crazy." And everyone's nodding along, and I'm like ... And I wondered how many of those people stayed. Anyway, fast forward, then luckily, Jon Podhoretz rescued me, and then I worked at The Standard. But then Equinox popped up in the news later, because the whole thing went down. You know what I mean?
JVL01:03:06Do you remember Doug Liman's directorial debut was a small movie called Go, which I always think of as like ...
Vic01:03:13Of course.
JVL01:03:14Swingers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He directed Swingers. Oh, okay. So Go is kind of like teen ...
Vic01:03:23It was very '90s. Teen ... I don't know. I know what you're getting at. I know what you're getting at. Whatever.
JVL01:03:31Teen Pulp Fiction. Teen Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Anyway, and there's a great scene where Scott Wolf, I think, and Jay ... Who's that comedian? Jay Moore. Jay Moore. Jay Moore wind up at ... They're a gay couple, and they wind up at Bill Fichtner's house. Yes. Yeah. And Bill Fichtner brings him into his bedroom, and you think that ... They're convinced. ... weird swinging sex stuff is going on, because he's asking him also, "Do you like this? Do you like the sheets here? Do you like this bed?" All this stuff. It's the cologne. Smell the cologne right now. Right. So Scott Wolf thinks that he is being propositioned for a swinger thing here, and then he turns
Vic01:04:06out it's all Amway. Right. Consolidated. It was called Consolidated Products. And then they said, in fact, it was Jay Moore who says, "You're selling Amway?" and then he stops. He goes, "No, no, no, no." "It's not Amway. It's called Consolidated." It was like another ... So much better. It was like a rival to it. It was a rival to it. And I've actually ... And we're running over the time here, but I actually sat through one of those because of a friend who was into that at the time. Josephine? No, no, no, no. So I had to listen to this. I thought I escaped him because I skipped the group meeting that we had, that we all got roped in. Nobody realized what they were getting into.
JVL01:04:45At the time. And then ... Instead you went and bought some tanzanite.
Vic01:04:49I sure do. And it's funny because a friend of ... My friend Jose was there and he decided if he's going to sit through this, he's going to get his Big Chill 7-Eleven and fill it up with bourbon and coke. Anyway, so I ended up getting a one-on-one with this guy, Randy, and he's talking to me. And it was all about if you had more time, what would you do? If you had more time, what would you do? What would you like? What would you like to do? Mm-hmm. What kind of car? Two chicks at the same time.
Sonny01:05:17Right. I just jack it all the time.
Vic01:05:19Right. Besides, I'm doing it now. Right. Or if you could buy any watch, I'm like, "Well, I'm wearing a Rolex." No. But anyways. So anyway, but it turns out it's Amway. But the weird thing about Amway is that they were just ahead of its time. It's about never having to leave your house and ordering stuff in a catalog, which is basically Amazon. It's so ... They got robbed. They got robbed.
Sonny01:05:39Yeah.
Vic01:05:40It's almost exactly the same.
Sonny01:05:41That's almost exactly ... Okay. It's like SkyMall.
Vic01:05:43It's like SkyMall. I always wanted to. Okay. Spirit of the week. Are you drinking anything, Sonny?
Sonny01:05:50Just Diet Coke.
JVL01:05:51Okay.
Vic01:05:52I'm just drinking water today. I'm drinking. What do you got there? Yeah.
JVL01:05:56What do you got there? Birthday. Birthday drink. Of course. I'm drinking a glass of the Coppola Vineyards. They're Claret. Oh, yeah. Sure. It's a good one. Which is a blend, a Merlot and Cab blend. That's a nice ... And I love it. Yeah. And Costco sells it like $5 cheaper than anybody else. Yeah.
Sonny01:06:11Yeah. So it's like 10 bucks a bottle.
JVL01:06:13That's good every day. That's very nice. That's pretty cheap. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. Any corrections? I'm sorry. Vic, you're doing good every day.
Sonny01:06:24This is my special occasion wine.
Vic01:06:25Vic is like, "Yeah.
Sonny01:06:26That's fine." Yeah. That's your opus one.
Vic01:06:29That's what you give to the homeless guy when you're coming ... I wouldn't even go that far, Sonny. I wouldn't even go that far.
Sonny01:06:32You pick up a ... When you go to the store and you buy seven bottles because you know you got to give one to the bum to get by, the Claret ... Give him the Claret.
JVL01:06:40The Coppola Claret. The Coppola Claret. Yeah. The Coppola Claret is my special occasion wine. Yeah. The maker of God's Law of the Three. That's okay. You can turn it up.
Sonny01:06:48You can turn your nose up to it. I love all the Coppola wines. I drink all of them, not exclusively or anything, but they are all very good.
Vic01:06:57Okay. That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, compliments, tweet us @SonnyBunch, @VictorinoMattus. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon. Just go to subbeacon.com. We are there. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny01:07:14Bye bye. What do you got?
JVL01:07:21Victorino, what do you got? You didn't even tell us what you've been up to this week. How are you? No, I told you.
Vic01:07:26Hot feet. Other than that, no. I've just been ... Hot feet. Hot feet. But no, not anymore. Foot cancer. Not anymore.
Sonny01:07:33Yeah, that's right. Neuropathy.
Vic01:07:35Doesn't the wolverine blood take care of the foot cancer? I think it's really ... Again, it's one weakness is it has nothing ... It doesn't counteract diet.
Sonny01:07:41Can't do anything against food. Other than that ... Have you been eating anything particularly bad recently? What was your ... What were your lunches like this week?
Vic01:07:48No, I've been ... I have been good so far, and yeah, I made a nice fried cod today, and I basted it in butter, but if you cook it at home, it's okay. My big thing is ... My fixation is, of course, is finishing everybody's food. I hate waste, because waste is a sin, but the next thing you know, I'm eating it.
JVL01:08:13Is there any food left over? You've got a teenage boy at your house.
Vic01:08:16Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's picky. Doesn't he eat everything that is available? He'll eat everything else, but if there's leftover from a dinner or something like that.
JVL01:08:25But not oysters.
Vic01:08:26That ... Okay, yeah, when did I have that? I think I had that last Friday. Okay. But other than that, eh. I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure it's fine.
?01:08:35Thank you.
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