[MUSIC PLAYING]
I’m Ezra Klein. That is “The Ezra Klein Present.”
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So I’m recording this Thursday, April 28. As of at this time, it’s been a wild week. Elon Musk is poised to purchase Twitter in a roughly $44 billion deal. If the sale completes, the world’s richest particular person goes to personal some of the necessary communications platforms there may be, a platform that shapes narratives in politics, in media, in finance, in expertise, and a lot extra.
Chances are you’ll not care about Twitter or use it. I do know a lot of you don’t. I like that. However what occurs there impacts you anyway. I’d argue that Donald Trump rode his Twitter account to the presidency, and naturally, used his Twitter account very aggressively all through his presidency. It was, arguably, his principal communication channel. So issues that occurred there find yourself affecting the entire world, whether or not or not the remainder of the world needs to be there.
What makes Twitter highly effective is consideration. It’s a really liquid marketplace for consideration. And I’ve been for a very long time within the economics of consideration and the way they’re altering. The basic evaluation of that is that when info turns into considerable, because it has turn out to be in our period, it’s consideration that turns into scarce. And thus, consideration that turns into actually invaluable. And a focus is what Twitter manages and trades in, notably the eye of elites and actually key industries.
Elon Musk is without doubt one of the most subtle customers and channelers and focusers of consideration on this planet proper now. A few of it in service of his corporations, and, arguably, his income. A few of it simply because he appears to utilizing it. Telling tales, holding issues the place he needs them to be, being the middle of it.
So how does it change for him to be perhaps crucial consumer of this platform to its proprietor? How does that change Twitter? How can he use Twitter to alter perhaps all the pieces else? And what does all of this inform us? What gentle does it replicate on the worth of consideration at this time?
Felix Salmon is a chief monetary correspondent for Axios. He’s co-host of the podcast, “Slate Cash.” And somebody who has thought quite a bit in regards to the economics of consideration, the way in which fashionable monetary markets work, and the intersection of the 2. So that is a type of conversations that went in instructions I didn’t predict, which made it an actual delight to have. As all the time, my electronic mail ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Felix Salmon, welcome to the present.
It’s an awesome pleasure.
In order of Monday, Twitter appears prefer it’s going to be bought to Elon Musk in a roughly $44 billion deal — an enormous deal for Twitter. Why do you assume he needs it?
So I feel Elon Musk is just like the basic YOLO investor/entrepreneur. He all the time goes full-out, places himself on the sting of the envelope as a lot as potential, tries to do issues that everybody says is unattainable. When he first invested in Tesla, he mainly put all the cash he had on this planet, all the cash he constructed from promoting PayPal into that.
He isn’t the type of billionaire who likes to only see the numbers on his checking account go up. He doesn’t truly spend some huge cash on private googaws. He famously bought all of his properties as a result of he didn’t actually care about them. And what he needs to do — when he feels happiest is when he’s on the sting doing one thing harmful and unattainable.
And so if he spends all of his free money on shopping for Twitter after which tries to do one thing harmful and unattainable and places himself ready the place everybody goes to hate him, and he has this imprecise notion of free speech, one thing, one thing, that he in all probability received from a late evening bull session with Peter Thiel 20 years in the past — that’s what makes them really feel alive. I feel he’s simply actually enthusiastic about doing one thing harmful once more. If you find yourself value $200 billion, nothing is absolutely harmful.
I take Musk’s said view, said function that he’s shopping for Twitter as a result of he thinks Twitter is necessary and he thinks free speech is essential critically. I feel that the very first thing you must do when individuals make strikes is to take heed to what they’re saying in regards to the transfer. What’s perplexing about it to me is that Twitter is a spot the place speech is comparatively — is kind of free, truly. In comparison with once I was arising in journalism or once I was youthful, I don’t assume there’s something just like the speech insanity of Twitter.
Now, there are margins. There are issues you possibly can say, ought to they’ve gotten rid of Donald Trump when he was spreading election disinformation? However these turn out to be actually, actually arduous instances. And deciding them in another way on the margin — there are speech points in each instructions. For example, if elections are not credible, that’s truly unhealthy for speech, and unhealthy for political illustration, and unhealthy for a bunch of the linked values you might need, or if it’s very easy to unfold what individuals consider on the time.
To make use of a tricky instance that I feel Twitter determined wrongly — however to make use of a tricky instance of suppressing The New York Publish reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop computer. If it’s very easy for what you consider to be overseas authorities disinformation or hacking to be unfold on Twitter, that’s additionally a type of speech drawback, not simply letting them do it’s not merely a speech reply. So I feel that’s the place a few of the confusion is available in.
Though, I feel so far as Elon is worried, he has a really simplistic view of this. He has the view that allow all the misinformation move. And so long as it’s authorized, you are able to do it. He hasn’t struggled with the complexities. He hasn’t completed this in apply. And he definitely hasn’t checked out all the European Union legal guidelines towards numerous types of speech, which can truly severely constrain what might be placed on Twitter if he has to adjust to these.
He’s nonetheless in honeymoon hearts in his eyes section proper now when it comes to what he thinks Twitter might be. However the one factor that we are able to look to shouldn’t be a lot what Elon has mentioned about Twitter, however what Jack Dorsey has mentioned about Twitter. And Jack Dorsey —
The previous C.E.O. and co-founder.
And the co-founder. And he has all the time been upset at Twitter being a public firm and the necessity to earn cash. And naturally, it was his predecessor as C.E.O., Dick Costolo, who actually moved it into the promoting enterprise. And that was financially fairly profitable, but it surely did transfer Twitter away from the Jack Dorsey dream. And we all know that Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk are very shut. And it’s conceivable, if what Elon Musk says about him not doing this for cash and probably not caring a lot in regards to the economics is right, that we may get a purer and cleaner and in a bizarre approach higher Twitter.
For example, let’s simply say he removes the retweet counts. He removes the general public comply with accounts. He removes the likes. He removes all of that gamification, which makes Twitter such a horrible place, and simply makes it a platform at no cost speech. That will make it arduous for him to service the debt that he’s taking over to chew with it, as a result of it must make some huge cash with a view to do this. However it might turn out to be nearer to the dream that Jack Dorsey has, and I feel he in all probability has as effectively.
I wish to put a pin in the way in which you described that dream, as a result of I don’t assume Dorsey’s dream and I don’t see any proof of Musk’s dream is that you just de-gamify Twitter. The like button, the retweet button, the quote tweet characteristic — these are all there and used and loved by these people.
What I do, although, wish to say about that’s you introduced up one thing, I feel, that’s necessary within the financing of the deal, which is the way in which Musk is doing it places a strain on Twitter to earn cash or strain on Musk to lose cash that wasn’t there earlier than. So are you able to increase a bit on that piece?
So there are three ways in which Musk is paying for Twitter. One is that he’s placing up $21 billion of money. And nobody actually is aware of the place he’s going to get $21 billion of money, though he did simply get about $20 billion value of choices vested as a part of this unimaginable pay bundle that he obtained in 2018. So he may wind up utilizing that and a little bit of different cash. So anyway, he’s going to have to boost the money in all probability by promoting a bunch of Tesla inventory in a technique or one other.
The subsequent half is that he’s going to carry onto a bunch of Tesla inventory however borrow towards it. And so roughly $12 billion goes to be borrowed towards his current Tesla inventory. He’s going to must pay curiosity on these borrowings. And that curiosity goes to be — I don’t know — $400 or $500 million a yr, which is a major amount of cash. And in idea, he’s going to need Twitter income to pay for that curiosity.
However then on prime of that, he’s utilizing Tesla itself to borrow cash. This can be a basic leveraged buyout transfer the place you mainly mortgage the corporate that you just’re shopping for and then you definately use the income of the corporate to pay the mortgage. And he’s borrowing a lot cash towards Twitter itself, that with a view to simply pay the mortgage on the corporate, Twitter goes to have to earn more money than it’s making proper now.
So add that each one collectively and it’s going to be arduous for him to demonetize it, to cut back the reliance on promoting, except he comes up with another income mannequin, like making individuals such as you and me pay for this factor that we’re hooked on. He’s going to wish to seek out methods for Twitter to make some huge cash except he’s completely happy dropping a couple of hundred million {dollars} a yr on Twitter, which perhaps he’s.
When you’re completely happy spending $44 billion on an asset, if it’s a consumption good, if it’s simply one thing you’re shopping for since you assume it’s necessary to personal it and you’ve got a dream for what it may be, perhaps he’s OK spending $44 billion after which additionally a couple of hundred million a yr.
Properly, the opposite argument — and this does get to the purpose that the tech author Ranjan Roy was making — no person has made more cash, arguably, by Twitter than Elon Musk. Are you able to discuss a bit about the way in which that he has understood, consciously or subconsciously, how he can use Twitter’s attentional energy to extend the valuations of issues he owns, buys, invests in, or just cares about or enjoys?
I’m not totally certain I agree with Ranjan on this one. There isn’t any doubt that there’s a correlation between the rate with which Elon Musk tweeted and the time limit that Tesla inventory went to the moon. And Ranjan’s thesis is that by some means there’s a causal relationship right here and that the tweeting triggered the Tesla inventory to go up.
And I don’t actually purchase it. The concept is that Elon Musk turns into this one particular person PR and advertising marketing campaign by dint of being huge on Twitter, and that’s all he wants for the inventory to go up. And he turns into this meme inventory, and all of the Elon Musk fan boys love his Twitter account, wind up shopping for Tesla inventory of their Robinhood accounts. And if we have been speaking about an organization the dimensions of GameStop, say, then I’d purchase that.
However we’re not speaking about a couple of billion-dollar firm like GameStop. We’re speaking a few trillion-dollar firm like Tesla. And once you’re speaking a few trillion-dollar firm, I simply don’t consider that the huge institutional buyers who’re shopping for and promoting that inventory are doing so on the idea of Elon tweets.
So I purchase that for Tesla, largely, which is to say — I don’t actually agree with you that the way in which Musk has constructed himself right into a real-life model of Tony Stark within the media is irrelevant to the unimaginable, unimaginable a number of Tesla trades out over income. I imply, it’s a very robust inventory towards its fundamentals. However I do assume long-term Tesla makes vehicles and it sells them. It isn’t a inventory the place I fear that over any very, very prolonged time period, it may be wildly out of step between its valuation and its worth.
However Musk is any person who has experimented and loved utilizing, primarily, Twitter to maneuver all types of markets round. I feel the very enjoyable model of that is Dogecoin the place he clearly had a pastime of simply getting individuals to take a position on this bizarre meme coin. And he despatched its worth up billions and billions of {dollars}. There’s a well-known case the place he advised individuals to make use of Sign, which is an encrypted textual content messaging service. However an organization known as Sign, its inventory started multiplying as a result of individuals misunderstood what he was saying.
Normally, there’s something that he appears to see, and no less than play with experimentally, round consideration, valuations, crypto. Tesla purchased a bunch of Bitcoin. And by asserting that purchase, Bitcoin went approach up, making the worth of Tesla’s Bitcoin purchase value much more. There’s one thing there that I feel — whether or not or not you assume it’s why he purchased Twitter — it’s truly not why I feel he purchased Twitter. However it’s related to what Twitter is doing and to a bizarre intersection between finance, consideration and social media that appears more and more central to numerous markets proper now.
Yeah, that is what’s often called the Elon Musk memelord thesis, mainly. And he’s the uber memelord. And he can transfer issues like Dogecoin simply by tweeting. And he’s a grasp shit-poster. And he takes numerous pleasure in shit-posting. And good for him, proper? And there are monetary penalties in comparatively minor shit cash, like Dogecoin, or in tiny little shares like this firm known as Sign that went up.
And one of many curious issues about Elon’s tweeting is that whereas he’s absolutely conscious that there are monetary penalties to his tweets, he doesn’t appear to have any explicit curiosity in monetizing these. In actual fact, when you have a look at the Dogecoin escapade, when he tried to make Dogecoin hit $1 when he appeared on “Saturday Evening Stay,” he failed. It truly went down when he appeared on “SNL.”
He doesn’t fairly have the limitless memelord powers that individuals generally ascribe to him. And once you’re as wealthy as Elon Musk, and you’re doing as huge bold issues as Elon Musk is doing in house, and electrical autos, in batteries, and solar energy, and also you title it, this can be a pastime. This isn’t a core financing mechanism.
I wish to take into consideration the distinction right here between a financing mechanism and a storytelling mechanism, as a result of I feel there’s some connection there that’s a bit bit fuzzy. It’s all the time good for me when individuals come on the present and don’t say what I’m anticipating them to say. As a result of one factor that was in my head with you is a quote that you just’ve written, which is, “Consideration is a commodity, which signifies that memes, a approach of focusing and scaling consideration, are a option to create worth. Nobody understands this higher than Elon Musk.”
And to place my playing cards down a bit, one factor I’m on this dialog is this concept of consideration as a option to create worth, on the very least to create valuation. So that you sound fairly skeptical of this concept now. However once you wrote that, what have been you fascinated about?
So I feel — no, that’s true. He understands the eye financial system. He did obtain one thing with Tesla. And I’m saying that perhaps a yr in the past, particularly when Tesla inventory was going by the roof, it did really feel like Tesla was the one recreation on the town when it got here to electrical autos. They usually have been like coterminous. It was like vacuum cleaners and Hoovers or copiers and Xerox.
Everybody who needed to consider sooner or later — the dream future that Elon Musk was portray — needed to perforce consider in Tesla. And his extremely excessive public profile was definitely instrumental in serving to to solidify that connection. The way in which that Tesla will get the trillion-dollar valuation is mainly by getting monopoly energy in electrical autos, being three years forward of some other E.V. producer for the foreseeable future.
And I feel one of many causes that different EV producers like Rivian and Lucid are actually buying and selling at very excessive valuations, though decrease than they have been, one of many the explanation why individuals are very enthusiastic about Ford, specifically, in terms of the standard auto producers, is that individuals are pondering, whoa, truly, when you have a look at all the E.V.s on the market, Tesla doesn’t essentially have one of the best ones anymore. It’s not essentially three years forward of everybody else.
It’d nonetheless be in all probability one of the best worth when you put all the pieces collectively, however there’s no explicit motive to consider that that’s going to be the case. The love of the E.V. market, the love of the E.V. story, the facility of that storytelling not routinely simply leads to Tesla inventory going up as a result of it may simply as simply end in Ford’s inventory going up.
I feel this level about storytelling is absolutely necessary. And I wish to perhaps steelman my view of why he purchased Twitter, which is said to what you simply mentioned, which is I don’t assume he wants a financing mechanism for Tesla. It’s very well-financed. In actual fact, he’s taken a bunch of cash out and dropping some valuation at Tesla by doing this.
I do assume that when he talks in regards to the significance of speech, he isn’t just fascinated about how straightforward it’s for, say — I don’t know — neo-Nazis to publish on Twitter. Not that many individuals truly get banned on Twitter for what they are saying. So the speech positive factors of unleashing moderation strike me as comparatively marginal.
When you consider — and I feel that is roughly right — that Twitter is crucial narrative setter in crucial industries on this planet — politics, finance, leisure, media, expertise — and you’re any person like Musk who believes it is vitally necessary that individuals have narratives of the longer term that he thinks are good ones as a result of he’s attempting to instantiate a specific thought of the longer term within the current, and Twitter is a spot these narratives are actually at conflict, then how that place evolves, regardless of the near-term query of an Edit button is, turns into actually, actually necessary.
And past the valuation of any explicit inventory, I feel his view — and I feel it’s an affordable view — is that storytelling drives way more of the financial system, way more of politics, and way more of long-term funding and even shopping for choices than individuals wish to consider. And that storytelling now occurs on these social platforms. Just like the billionaires earlier than Musk purchased newspapers. However he sees additional than they’re. So he’s shopping for the platform.
100%. And that I utterly agree with. That the billionaires earlier than him, the shortsighted billionaires who solely had single-digit billions to waste on media whimsy, would do one thing like Jeff Bezos shopping for The Washington Publish, or Marc Benioff shopping for Time journal, or Pat Quickly-Shiong shopping for the LA Instances. You’ve gotten a sure amount of cash which you can afford to lose, and you purchase a media outlet and you are feeling necessary.
And also you’re completely proper that Twitter is a meta-media outlet. It’s a lot greater. It’s the platform that undergirds all of these. It’s extra akin to one thing like Rupert Murdoch proudly owning Fox Information. It’s a very highly effective device for anybody to unfold narratives that everybody has to concentrate to. And proudly owning that makes you in all probability essentially the most highly effective billionaire on this planet.
Up till now, it’s been Mark Zuckerberg, as a result of Mark Zuckerberg controls Fb and Instagram, that are vastly bigger than Twitter. However they don’t have fairly the identical narrative energy that I feel you appropriately ascribe to Twitter. After which when you take the narrative energy of Twitter and also you add it to the narrative of Elon Musk as Tony Stark, the person who can form the longer term, who’s going to house, who single-handedly created the E.V. trade, and so forth and so forth, that provides Elon Musk a degree of affect and energy that I don’t assume we’ve seen in a single man in our lifetimes.
Why does Twitter have that degree of narrative-setting energy? I clearly consider it does. You consider it does. However Fb is greater, and I don’t assume we consider it does. TikTok, I feel, at this level, might be greater or no less than going to be greater. I haven’t appeared on the numbers. I feel it’s greater. I don’t assume we consider it has that narrative-setting energy. So what’s it about Twitter? As a result of individuals take heed to this. They’re not going to — lots of people should not on it who take heed to the present. I do know this as a result of I get their emails.
Properly completed. Congratulations.
Yeah, there’s this bizarre dynamic the place all people who’s an influence consumer is self-loathing about it. What makes Twitter highly effective in your view?
The factor that makes Twitter highly effective is it’s, A, public in a approach that not one of the different ones, aside from perhaps Instagram, are. And B, there’s a community impact the place everyone seems to be on it as a result of everyone seems to be on it. So Jack Dorsey replied to considered one of my tweets final week, proper? And that type of — I put up a tweet. Elon Musk replies. Jack Dorsey replies. Marc Andreessen replies. Tim Geithner — you may get an entire bunch of individuals coming into this dialog.
Tim Geithner doesn’t reply to issues on Twitter. [LAUGHS]
Tim Geithner doesn’t. However Neel Kashkari may.
Sure, completely. We all know Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, reads a bunch of monetary Twitter — tweet writers.
And so, yeah, there’s lots of people learn it. However even the people who find themselves writing, handle to seek out themselves in excessive degree conversations that they used to must go to Davos to have and faux to be well mannered. And these ones are way more trustworthy, way more freewheeling. And between them, they actually do create the narrative. There’s a VC Twitter narrative. There’s an enormous anti-woke narrative on Twitter, which is the place this stuff typically coalesce.
And woke narrative.
And there’s additionally a really robust woke narrative on Twitter, completely. And it was that the woke narrative could be born and developed perhaps on Tumblr. Tumblr barely exists anymore. Now all of that has moved to Twitter. There’s been this large sucking sound that if you wish to be a part of the general public dialog on any topic, you might want to be on Twitter. There’s no different platform for that type of city sq., everybody who’s anybody is speaking in regards to the issues that matter.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So right here’s a quite simple mannequin of all this. Let’s imagine that spotlight has all the time been a invaluable useful resource. It’s all the time been one thing that at some degree might be traded into foreign money. Elite consideration is a very invaluable type of that useful resource.
And there has by no means been a market as liquid with elite consideration and with as low a barrier to entry to get close to that spotlight, notably if you have already got some buy, as Twitter. It’s why individuals used to go to Davos. However now it occurs on a regular basis proper out of your pc or your cellphone, extra to the purpose. And you are able to do it and take your shot 1,000,000 occasions a day whilst you’re bored, attempting to procrastinate on one thing else.
But it surely’s that liquid attentional market appears new, the power to govern that and take part in it at scale, looks like a real change to how media is run, how monetary narratives are created, how issues are valued, how they’re understood, et cetera. That feels to me just like the related change right here.
I feel it’s arduous to govern. I feel Donald Trump managed. I feel Elon Musk has managed. And doubtless perhaps Marc Andreessen is managing on the margins. However past that, it’s arduous to consider people who find themselves actually altering Twitter. You take part in it. You’re on a largely equal footing with everybody else. And it’s notably tough to monetize, proper?
I feel Twitter has completed a really unhealthy job of promoting the eye of these energy customers to individuals who need that spotlight. Given the variety of extremely necessary individuals on Twitter, they will’t be focused. Twitter shouldn’t be saying you possibly can put an advert in entrance of Jay Powell and he’s going to see it. I feel in all probability given his Web3 evangelism, Elon Musk has a plan to attempt to use crypto by some means to make each human authenticated after which to by some means have the ability to monetize that extra successfully. However I feel that’s nonetheless in tremendous, tremendous early days.
I feel I’m utilizing manipulated extra neutrally than you’re, which is solely to say — I feel I’m in all probability utilizing it extra equally to take part. However I do assume individuals are in a position to monetize it in small methods. I feel numerous journalists get jobs as a result of they’re identified by different journalists and seen by individuals on Twitter. I feel that lots of people within the tech trade get identified by one another on Twitter.
The rationale I feel it tends to be highly effective in industries the place it has excessive penetration is that it turns into a part of your standing within the collective psyche of people that may rent you or work with you. And so that’s one thing that at key moments can actually matter when it comes to the amount of cash you make. I do know numerous Substack writers. And Casey Newton for one, who writes the nice Substack “Platformer,” which is a incredible tech trade publication. However he mentioned with a view to get individuals to pay him for his publication, he’s received to be on Twitter quite a bit, plumping the publication.
And so I feel there’s numerous that, which is extra modest than the Elon Musks who can dominate it. However years in the past, Sean McElwee, the top of Knowledge for Progress now — he’s turn out to be a extra average man — however he used Twitter to get “Abolish ICE” right into a line that individuals actually use. I’m watching Catholic integralists on Twitter turn out to be a factor the place you truly can say the phrases “Catholic integralists” and a few individuals may know what you imply. One thesis I’ve — and you could possibly inform me when you assume it’s flawed — I feel consideration issues. I feel it’s mattering extra as a result of now you can get extra of it at scale extra typically than was potential to do earlier than.
I feel that’s proper. And I feel there’s a case to be made that Travis Kalanick may nonetheless be working Uber at this time if it wasn’t for the #DeleteUber hashtag taking off on Twitter.
The #MeToo hashtag took off on Twitter. The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag took off on Twitter.
Yeah, when you can distill an idea all the way down to a hashtag, when you can create #BlackLivesMatter as a hashtag, you can begin a motion. And that may actually change the world for certain. That’s 100% a factor. That occurs. And once more, occurs actually overwhelmingly on Twitter versus different social networks.
It’s a bit bizarre to me how central Twitter is, though I feel there’s a case to be made that we predict it’s central simply because it’s essentially the most seen half. That if a bunch of individuals are saying #DeleteUber on Fb, as a result of it’s non-public and nobody sees it, the impact is there, but it surely’s invisible. It’s like darkish matter. It’s like visitors the web sites get from individuals sharing emails with one another. And so we underestimate how necessary it’s. And we take a bunch of that energy from Fb and attribute it to Twitter. So perhaps we’re overestimating, however there’s little question that it positively is highly effective.
Properly, I feel — it’s humorous, this isn’t the dialog I’d meant to have. However I like having this one as a result of I do take into consideration this quite a bit. I feel we’re within the flip now. I feel it was extra central 4 or 5 years in the past. And I feel we’re presently within the lag because it’s changing into much less central. And the explanation I feel it’s changing into much less central is I feel extra industries and establishments have developed totally different sorts of immune techniques to what’s happening on Twitter.
It’s notable that my very own establishment, The New York Instances, on the newsroom facet, simply put out this huge memo saying, we actually encourage you, reporters, to not be on Twitter that a lot, to not think about what is occurring there may be what is absolutely occurring on this planet. And I feel it’s a response to the view that The New York Instances has truly been too responsive on Twitter, too open to Twitter as a coverage-setting agenda-driver
However one factor I feel is occurring truly is that the sensation of being deluged by a public on Twitter — a micro-public — was actually stunning and new a few years in the past to establishments. They usually didn’t know the way to react. So normally, they overreacted. They over-read what it meant. They adopted it too intently, each when it was geared toward them and simply as a sign of sentiment elsewhere. And once I have a look at numerous totally different locations now — politics additionally being considered one of them — I see way more pushback to that than there was even in 2018.
You and I are bloggers and we perceive that you just shouldn’t learn the feedback. And that your commenters —
Proper. Sure.
— should not your readers. And we type of get that — but it surely’s true. If you find yourself the topic of a Twitter pile-on — and I’m certain it’s occurred to each of us — it feels horrible. And also you do really feel like everyone seems to be attacking you, even when everybody is absolutely not attacking you. It’s a really disproportionate, unrepresentative a part of Twitter mob. So it’s good that what you’re saying is occurring.
Personally, I exploit it a lot lower than I used to. I discover myself in non-public Slacks and different textual content message teams and stuff. The stuff that I wish to say, which is a bit bit trolly, I don’t have to say that on Twitter. And it feels good. And I don’t must be feeding that specific beast. So I’m with you. I’d love Twitter to turn out to be much less necessary. I feel — and I hope — that it’s going to. That locations like “The New York Instances” will proceed to underweight it in comparison with the place they have been.
It’s humorous as a result of that is — as any person who needs to see Twitter turn out to be considerably much less influential — I truly assume it’s good Elon Musk goes to personal it. As a result of my considerably counterintuitive take — and I’d name this a speculation way more than a prediction — is that he’s going to make a few of these contradictions and weirdnesses very tough to disregard.
You talked about earlier Twitter is a public sq., which on some degree it’s. However what it truly is is a gamified dialog performed for the advantage of a company that has by some means come to function a public sq. in a approach that I feel may be very unhealthy for public discourse. I don’t assume most individuals are their finest selves on Twitter. I actually love listening to Elon Musk in numerous boards. I feel he’s a extremely attention-grabbing, considerate particular person. And I actually don’t just like the particular person he’s on Twitter the place he typically bullies individuals and is shitty to people with quite a bit much less energy than he has.
However what’s going to be bizarre to me when Musk owns it’s as he continues to make use of it — and he’s very unleashed there. He indulges his resentments. He goes on the warpath towards Senator Elizabeth Warren, calling her Senator Karen. He calls individuals who query him pedophiles, et cetera, et cetera. It’s going to really feel actually bizarre to individuals after they’re upset at what the proprietor of Twitter is doing to supply free labor to the proprietor of Twitter.
And that’s not going to result in some collapse of the platform or all people to depart it instantly. However to what we’re saying, in a world the place I feel there’s already numerous skepticism, numerous tipping level dynamics round how numerous influential Twitter customers really feel about being there, when Musk inevitably activates them for one motive or one other, it’s going to be very arduous to return again the subsequent day and say, effectively, I’ll proceed writing common content material for this factor that the extra I create for it, the more cash on the very, very small margin, however collectively in an actual approach goes into your pocket.
Having your largest and most aggressive consumer be the proprietor forces you to essentially ask, do you just like the proprietor and do you wish to hold working for him? And being on Twitter is now on some degree working, or no less than volunteering, for Musk Industries, or will probably be if the acquisition goes by.
I really feel lots of people have been making this argument about Fb and Instagram for some time. They’re like, why am I offering all of this cash and energy to Mark Zuckerberg who’s the one that I don’t actually agree with and I don’t wish to enrich? And yeah, certain, it really works on the margin. I’ve a bunch of individuals I talk with over Sign reasonably than WhatsApp as a result of he owns WhatsApp and never Sign.
So it does occur, however I don’t assume it occurs to a level that it’s actually going to maneuver the needle. I imply, let me ask you — Donald Trump got here out, advised Fox Information that even when and when Elon Musk permits him to rejoin Twitter, he gained’t. Do you consider that?
No, I don’t consider that. However I don’t assume that’s the identical scenario. I’ve very difficult emotions about Elon Musk, the particular person. I feel he has acted in numerous methods the place for any person of his energy it was insupportable for him to behave that approach, like calling the man who questioned him a pedophile or a few of the union-busting stuff.
However I additionally assume he’s completed great good on this planet. What he’s completed within the electrical automotive market, within the photo voltaic panel market, within the rocket market. What he tried to do in serving to co-found OpenAI. What he’s attempting to do with Neuralink. I’m any person who thinks that his general impact on the world has largely been fairly good. And in some methods I fear it will distract him from higher pursuits.
So once I make this analogy, I don’t make it totally. I’d not be on a community owned by Donald Trump if he purchased it. I simply wouldn’t be. I gained’t go on Fact Social and attempt to turn out to be an enormous tweeter on Fact Social or no matter — truther, I assume.
Zuckerberg, I feel, is an attention-grabbing counterexample to me. He works very arduous to attempt to be personally noncontroversial. Now, he’s not as a result of his platform is so necessary, so he truly can’t be. However Mark Zuckerberg shouldn’t be on the market in, as Elon Musk calls it, going goblin mode towards the individuals he doesn’t like on Instagram. It simply doesn’t occur.
And if he was, if he unleashed routinely, and used it as way more of a venue for his pursuits and waded himself within the algorithm, I feel that might truly trigger numerous issues for Fb. I feel, as you say, some individuals — not that many — have backed off of Fb already. If he raised the contradictions there to insupportable ranges, if he actually personified it himself and made himself extra controversial, it wouldn’t be sufficient to destroy it. I simply assume it might matter.
So what you made me consider there was this perennial debate, which Elon Musk is on the heart of, between being public and being non-public. And Elon Musk famously hated Tesla being a public firm. He tried to take it non-public. He did not take it non-public. With hindsight, he would have made an insane amount of cash if he’d succeeded in taking it non-public.
However he doesn’t like the way in which that the general public markets have the eye span of a gnat. And he doesn’t like the truth that the general public markets enable Invoice Gates to placed on the quick place, betting that Tesla inventory goes to go down. He doesn’t like shorts normally. He does like working corporations just like the Boring Firm or SpaceX, which aren’t public, and he simply will get to regulate with out all the noise related to public corporations. He simply will get to do what he needs and never get second-guessed the entire time.
It appears to me that’s what you’re saying is that each one of that noise and the truth that public corporations are owned by tens of millions of individuals — actually, tens of millions of individuals — everybody with an S&P 500 index fund owns some little sliver of Tesla, that that type of broad distribution of possession is an efficient factor for one thing which is akin to a public utility, like Twitter, and that any type of non-public possession is a nasty factor.
I feel you could possibly all the time think about the benevolent dictator. It’s simply that, as we’ve seen in governments all over the world, it’s arduous to truly have farsighted benevolent dictators.
What I’d say about —
I don’t know that I’d —
What I’d say in regards to the public possession of Twitter is that that’s removed from benevolent.
Properly, that’s why I want to end the purpose.
The crucial of being public — everlasting development. That irrespective of how huge you’re, irrespective of how a lot cash you make, irrespective of how profitable you’re, your shareholders are all the time going to need you to be greater and extra profitable and earn more money subsequent quarter, subsequent yr, subsequent decade.
And that crucial to maintain on rising is, I consider, fairly strongly one of many huge the explanation why social media has turn out to be so toxic. That crucial for development has created an financial necessity to optimize for consideration. And the way in which you optimize for consideration is by creating outrage and mobs and shit-posts.
So I don’t know that I purchase that. However I additionally — the second half of what I used to be going to say is I don’t consider public possession of this stuff is sweet both. However I feel I’d put the equation in another way than you do. You’re saying, on condition that social media corporations are the general public sq., do you favor non-public or public possession? And I feel I’m saying — and I assume it a bit bit depends upon which non-public and public possession, however nonetheless.
My query is all the time the way to not have these establishments, these platforms be as central as public squares? I feel it needs to be way more fractured than it’s. And I feel they’re unhealthy. And I feel — I imply, that is my column in The Instances at this time — however I feel Twitter, particularly, is a horrible public sq..
I’ve this complete riff that a few years in the past Jack Dorsey, who clearly all the time has had a sophisticated relationship with Twitter a bit, clearly finds what he has constructed exceptional but in addition appeared a bit bit appalled by it the entire time. I feel he’s any person who sees each the great and the unhealthy of it comparatively clearly.
He tried to rebuild Twitter’s mission round selling wholesome conversations. They usually commissioned a bunch of analysis on the way to measure the well being of dialog and gave this congressional testimony about we’re right here to serve the general public dialog, and improve its civility, and its well being, and its blah, blah, blah, blah.
The rationale that may by no means work is that that is by no means how you’ll construct one thing for public dialog. I imply, we all know quite a bit truly about what makes individuals discuss to one another effectively, and replicate, and be open to alter. And having quote tweet capabilities, however even having 280 characters, to say nothing of 140 that got here earlier than it, is rarely how you’ll do it. As a result of by design, you truly must strip nuance out of what you’re saying simply to suit it within the field.
And so extra so than I feel the nice distinction right here is non-public or public, the query I’m all the time asking myself, as any person in politics the place I feel Twitter is especially a poison, is, what are the circumstances that must come up for it to be solely 60 p.c as influential within the minds of political decision-makers and actors as it’s at this time? I don’t assume the nice query is, is it on the inventory market or has it turn out to be the non-public playground of a really, very strongly-opinionated billionaire, who’s — a mega-billionaire — who can also be its largest and most aggressive consumer. These each appear to be, frankly, unhealthy outcomes to me.
Properly, let me offer you an instance of a social community that isn’t optimizing for consideration — LinkedIn— the place you possibly can publish at no matter size you want. You may have lengthy considerate conversations that has astonishing attain within the skilled world. Folks actually do go there every single day to learn what’s occurring within the trade and to be a part of that dialog, the place conversations are astonishingly civilized, there’s little or no controversy over what will get posted there.
And all of that stuff is mainly only a option to hold individuals on the platform and engaged with the platform, in order that if and after they wish to get a brand new job, they are going to be simply reached there and so they’ll hold their C.V. up-to-date, their résumé up-to-date on the platform. That appears to work fairly effectively. I don’t assume Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, is attempting to optimize LinkedIn as a social community. And exactly for that motive, I feel it’s in all probability one of many healthiest social networks on the market.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I used to be having a dialog yesterday with Eli Pariser, who based Upworthy. He’s the man who has popularized the concept of filter bubbles. And now he works on fascinated about methods social media can turn out to be more healthy. And he mentioned one thing to me that I’ve been reflecting on since — and I’m paraphrasing right here — however that it’s simpler to think about going to Mars than having a really public sq. once more.
And one thing on this dialog — and I’m not saying it’s flawed — however that it’s miserable to me is that our set of concepts for what may create a spot individuals may collect and focus on the problems of the day — it’s just like the one Elon Musk runs, the one Mark Zuckerberg runs, the one Microsoft owns. Some issues shouldn’t be in both of the variations of personal right here after they’re enjoying such a central position in issues which can be public.
Now, I’m not any person who has some imaginative and prescient of how you’ll construct any type of public various right here. However I do assume it’s value not being so trapped in the way in which we do issues now as to assume that any of those are good outcomes. I imply, some items needs to be public. I truly really feel the identical approach about constructing libraries. And it’s simpler to think about at this time that we might go to Mars than that we’d create the library — the general public library system — from scratch, as a result of our imaginative and prescient of really having public items is so attenuated that the imaginary work you would need to do to get there, it simply appears a bit bit unattainable. However I feel that how weirdly dystopic issues are getting, the place the world’s richest man simply buys the world’s most necessary meaning-making communications platform and we’re all similar to, effectively, hope it goes effectively. [LAUGHS] It’s actually fairly unusual.
I completely agree with all of that. And I do agree that it might be virtually unattainable to construct public libraries at this time. I feel, actually, it might be virtually unattainable to place fluoride in water at this time. Primary public well being interventions —
Certain.
— could be unattainable. Or iodine in salt. However I do want to say — and I’m not saying I’m considered one of these individuals — however Elon and Jack are positively two of those individuals. There’s a robust perception within the Web3/crypto neighborhood that Web3 solves this drawback and that it’s exactly the choice collectively-owned, decentralized, public sq./construction that you’re in search of. And that one thing, one thing, crypto one thing, we are going to get there.
And we have now a bunch of individuals in Silicon Valley who’re investing numerous time in it. There are a bunch of billionaires on the market — crypto billionaires — who’re attempting to create exactly that world. I’ve not but been persuaded, however that’s clearly, I feel, behind Elon Musk’s thoughts someplace when he’s shopping for Twitter.
So I spent numerous time over the previous yr speaking to crypto individuals. And there’s quite a bit within the tradition I discover genuinely inspiring. And one thing I’ve spent numerous time fascinated about simply over the past month is an analogy of crypto as a again to the land motion for tech. Not the VC class. However numerous the people who find themselves actually enthusiastic about decentralized re-buildings of all the fashionable conveniences of the net, however not directly the place you must do all of it your self now, as a result of that’s what it means to be decentralized at that degree.
It appears to me quite a bit like a again to the land motion within the ‘60s and ‘70s, only a digital one. And I’ve numerous sympathy for that type of want for authenticity and want for participation. However then once I truly ask the individuals how something goes to work — like, as an illustration, this — you began that sentence by saying, they, Jack and Elon, have this concept of a decentralized — however that’s not what’s occurring. The transfer from public to personal is a centralization. Elon Musk has turn out to be — or is about to turn out to be, it appears — the only real proprietor of Twitter.
After which I haven’t heard any model of the place he’s going to offer again its voting to some type of — I’ve heard him discuss how he believes a Mars colony ought to have direct democracy and a way more radical type of voting on each initiative. Perhaps he’ll convey that into play. It might be type of attention-grabbing. However he doesn’t truly run any of his corporations that approach. He runs his corporations by unimaginable fiat. He fires individuals with unimaginable vigor when he doesn’t like how individuals are treating him. There’s no less than numerous allegations of fairly intense retaliation.
And what I see in crypto is lots of people utilizing a imaginative and prescient of decentralization, utilizing beliefs of decentralization to spend money on new centralizing capabilities — OpenSea, Coinbase, et cetera. I’m not even essentially towards it. I don’t take into account myself a crypto-hater. However there’s numerous wanting to unravel issues of energy by code even whereas the people who find themselves financing that appear to be doing it in a approach that’s going to offer themselves more cash and extra energy to do issues like purchase crucial communications platforms. And so my head spins when I attempt to give an precise account of what anyone’s pondering right here, however perhaps you may give it to me.
So I’m actually not the particular person to ask about this as a result of I mainly agree with you on all of that. But when I needed to sketch it, what I’d say is Elon Musk has mentioned that he needs to make the Twitter algorithm open supply. There isn’t any Twitter algorithm that issues.
This ignores the massive quantity of handbook labor concerned in moderating Twitter. He thinks that it may possibly all be placed on an algorithm. However let’s simply say for the sake of argument which you can algorithimize Twitter. He has mentioned that he needs to authenticate each human on Twitter. Principally give each human on Twitter their very own blue checkmark.
Put these two issues collectively. Take all the people on Twitter. Give them a blue checkmark that can also be a bit hen coin, a crypto token. Make the algorithm open supply, decentralized, and outdoors his management. Create the window onto that dialogue, which is the Twitter app or the TweetDeck app that he nonetheless continues to personal. However say that anybody else may create apps. And that is, by the way in which, what Twitter was for a couple of years earlier than it killed off its API. And we don’t have to get into the historical past of Twitter right here.
However enable anybody else to create home windows onto what individuals are doing with their hen cash and doing with their algorithm, and he will get to proceed to monetize through the app and through promoting adverts and even promoting hen cash. However different individuals can do this too. And it turns into — different individuals get to interact within the dialog utilizing no matter means they like, no matter RSS reader/Twitter reader you wish to invent. All of it lives in some crypto utopia. And he makes numerous cash on hen coin as a result of he issued hen coin.
That imaginative and prescient is completely positive for me. However genuinely — that is all the time my query — what position is crypto enjoying in that imaginative and prescient? As a result of what you simply described, largely — to say it one other approach, is rewind the clock to when the Twitter API is open, so builders can create third celebration apps for utilizing Twitter. 100% agree. I feel it was horrible that they shut that down and destroyed an enormous class of innovation and firms. However that was earlier than crypto was a factor it’s at this time. So that you don’t want crypto to do this. You simply have to reverse a choice Twitter made.
Then there’s one thing about giving each human being a checkmark, however I don’t perceive in any respect what crypto is doing there both. It’s not such as you can not have bots that attempt to enroll in .ETH accounts or one thing. So verification is a sophisticated drawback that I’ve by no means seen crypto truly resolve. I perceive how crypto helped resolve — it may give me the power to maneuver across the web and confirm utilizing my public key who I’m. However the query of how you’re verifying who’s signed up for public keys is the arduous drawback there.
After which the management over the algorithm, after all. I imply, in the event that they needed to let individuals vote on how the algorithm works now, that may be a utterly potential factor to do. And I hope he does it or I hope he lets individuals have algorithms they alter. I’ve all the time needed these locations to offer me some management of the algorithm. Let me run some little slider so the algorithm now is aware of to point out me extra issues which can be on like a six on the engagement scale, not a ten.
However however, I’m all the time very confused once I hear a few of these visions about actually what technological position crypto is enjoying in them, as a result of they appear like issues we are able to do now that corporations have chosen to not do for a bunch of causes. After which it’s like one thing, one thing crypto and so they’re going to make totally different selections. And perhaps they are going to. I may simply be too dumb to get it.
I feel — I imply, once more, I broadly agree with you. I’m not going to push again on that. I feel that, in idea, having a DAO constructed on everybody with a hen coin —
A DAO being a crypto construction that has self-automating governance mechanisms.
Proper. It might be very arduous to get the present Twitter consumer base to successfully vote on something. If it was all primarily based in crypto, I feel it in all probability could be simpler. After which I feel the opposite a part of Web3 and the promise of Web3 is that there’s this monetary facet to it — that the hen coin would have some type of monetary worth. And Elon Musk may monetize not simply by Twitter’s money move however by monetizing hen coin. The people on Twitter may accumulate hen coin, may speculate in hen coin, and could be extra engaged that approach. And do I perceive how it might all work in apply? Do I’ve a imaginative and prescient for this? Hell, no. I actually don’t.
However I do assume that doing it with a crypto underpinning would change issues and will make it theoretically worthwhile in a approach that doing it with out crypto underpinnings wouldn’t. An entire bunch of random crypto initiatives that don’t have any intrinsic worth have numerous precise worth as a result of cash are value numerous cash for no apparent motive.
Which in a approach will get us again to the place we began and the place I had extra meant for us to go. As a result of when you consider that imaginative and prescient, and Elon Musk is definitely higher than virtually anybody else has been at driving consideration to cryptocurrencies, and a spotlight creates valuation in these currencies, it wouldn’t have to serve a very necessary technological function to only create numerous curiosity hype. It’s a completely new approach of working one thing. Folks spend money on that as a result of they’re fascinated and since they’re there and so they wish to be a part of this new factor.
And that may very well be attention-grabbing, proper? That’s the way in which that Musk may flip each his and Twitter’s capability for producing consideration — turning that spotlight into the valuation of currencies into one thing that may very well be by some means, by mechanisms I don’t totally grok, a approach of financing or compensating individuals for tweets after which partaking them extra deeply within the platform.
Proper. Consideration is the foreign money. However truly a foreign money is a foreign money. A cryptocurrency actually is a foreign money. [LAUGHS] And it’s quite a bit simpler to monetize.
To me, this all the time ends in the identical place, although, which is a genuinely attention-grabbing query about the way forward for crypto, of the net, of those corporations, which is it’s my chorus on this space which you can’t resolve energy issues by code. And a really elementary query is whether or not the individuals with numerous energy over the expertise trade at this time — your Elon Musks, your Marc Andreessens, your Jack Dorseys, et cetera — really need much less of it.
The way in which they act, I don’t precisely see it. But it surely’s not unattainable. And it’s not unattainable that they’ve checked out what they constructed and don’t like the way in which all of it appears now and that they wish to check out radically totally different governance buildings. Nothing forces them to do this. However that’s why to me these should not actually issues of code. They’re questions of ideology and so they’re questions of energy. Do these individuals truly wish to quit energy?
I feel it might be a extremely exceptional approach for this story to play out if Elon Musk spent $44 billion on Twitter to have much less management over it than the C.E.O. he purchased it from has. I’m skeptical, however it might be actually attention-grabbing. That will be fairly a approach for the story to unfold.
It might be. And I don’t even assume it’s technically potential. I agree with you on the crypto expertise not being there to have the ability to pull this off. And but, on some degree, if the crypto expertise did evolve to that place, and if he may pull it off, and if he may truly earn cash by giving up that energy, and decentralizing, and placing Twitter onto the blockchain in such a approach that it was completely censorship-resistant by any authorities, I feel he could be very attracted by that imaginative and prescient.
It’s actually attention-grabbing, as a result of it’s one place the place a few of the rhetoric in regards to the freedom decentralization gives and the realities of what decentralization does have all the time been in attention-grabbing pressure. I don’t keep in mind the title of it proper now, however there’s a pretty big DAO the place a few of the key early gamers in it have been ejected by the neighborhood for what I feel that Musk and others would perceive as woke cancellation causes.
Issues that that they had written and mentioned elsewhere have been fairly offensive, and the neighborhood determined they didn’t need these individuals working their place. And to be, on the one hand, a free speech absolutist — whether or not or not you consider Musk is, I feel it’s how he understands himself to be — who needs to ensure the boundaries of speech on Twitter are as large because the constitutional boundaries of speech are.
However then when you actually needed to offer the neighborhood energy, the neighborhood may vote for moderation, may select moderation pathways you wouldn’t assist. And so what do you do in that case, which is, after all, all the time a query of dictatorships and democracy.
What do you do when you assume that individuals may make choices you wouldn’t make? What do you assume would occur if the bulk would flip towards your views? That’s all the time a spot the place I feel a few of the tensions which can be prone to come up, if issues like DAOs actually emerge as central autos, are very unresolved.
Completely. And my huge tackle crypto is that it’s so far behind the place everybody thought it might be at this level, that each one of those questions which we’d have thought a couple of years in the past ought to begin being resolved by now should not being resolved by now as a result of crypto is definitely evolving surprisingly slowly, aside from in purely monetary methods the place you’ve received all method of decentralized finance and yield farming and purely speculative exercise.
However when it comes to the stuff that’s actually occurring, it’s very nascent. We will’t actually see the way it works. A number of what we do see doesn’t make any sense. My favourite DAO story is the one that attempted to purchase the Structure for $30 million received outbid by an old school billionaire. However these $30 million that they put in there, in return for these $30 million, they received tokens although they do nothing. There’s only a wonderful messiness to it.
So yeah, I feel we are able to dream of a world the place Elon Musk decides to let the customers of Twitter with their hen cash make all the selections about who needs to be kicked off the platform, after which the customers will determine to kick Elon Musk off the platform and it turns into like this nice ironic transfer. And it might be an awesome story. And it’s not unattainable. However proper now that’s all it’s. It’s like science fiction. We don’t know how it might prove as a result of it’s so nascent proper now.
I feel that is going to play out by some means or one other in a approach none of us count on. I feel this one’s going to be —
I feel that’s virtually sure.
—going to be very, very bizarre.
Yeah.
At all times our closing query. Felix, what are three books you’d suggest to the viewers?
As a great blogger, I have to, primary, plug “The Bond King,” by Mary Childs, that got here out a couple of weeks in the past. She is the best monetary journalist on this planet in terms of attempting to elucidate the bond market to regular individuals. The bond market is the factor that nearly nobody understands, particularly the up to date bond market.
I additionally needed to — one of many issues I feel that individuals don’t do sufficient after they suggest books is suggest books which can be principally footage reasonably than phrases. Footage are essential. So I believed I’d say that everybody ought to exit and purchase a guide by a blogger, Dave Addey. It’s known as “Typeset within the Future.” And it’s a fully fantastic guide the place he goes by all the nice science fiction motion pictures like “Alien,” or “Aliens,” or “Star Wars,” or “2001,” and appears on the fonts in these motion pictures and mainly explains which fonts are used, why they’re used, what they imply, and the way that displays our visions of the longer term. And it’s nerdy as all hell, but it surely’s completely wonderful and I adore it. In order that’s “Typeset within the Future,” by Dave Addey.
After which for my third guide, I have to suggest — and I do apologize for this one a bit bit as a result of it’s arduous to seek out — my favourite guide of all time, which is “The Shock of Cremona,” by Edith Templeton. Edith Templeton was this extremely poshly educated English girl who grew up in Prague, spoke many languages, was fairly risqué in some ways. Grew up across the time of the conflict. After which after the conflict, within the Fifties, determined to take this journey by northern Italy.
And he or she wrote it up. And he or she went to all of those little cities in Italy, like Cremona, and Parma, and Ravenna, and Arezzo. And it’s her travelogue of what was then a really younger nation, post-war, speaking in regards to the tradition, speaking in regards to the structure, speaking in regards to the meals. I like when she arrives in Parma and she or he’s like, they’ve this cheese right here that’s like no cheese you’ve ever had earlier than. It’s a must to attempt it out. And it’s written on this unimaginable dry English wit. And it’s very humorous, and really erudite, and simply beautiful. So it’s known as “The Shock of Cremona,” by Edith Templeton.
Felix Salmon, thanks very a lot.
Thanks. [MUSIC PLAYING]
“The Ezra Klein Present” is a manufacturing of New York Instances Opinion. It’s produced by the nice Rogé Karma, Annie Galvin and Jeff Geld. This episode is fact-checked by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair, Rollin Hu, and Jenny Casas. There’s unique music by Isaac Jones and Carole Sabouraud. Blended and engineered by Jeff Geld. Our government producer is Irene Noguchi. And particular due to Shannon Busta, Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
