Ted Audio Collective.
HBR presents. Hi everyone, you're listening to After Hours.
I'm Youngmi, and I'm here with Felix and me here, and we're back with shiny new equipment.
Back from the summer, well rested.
How was your summer guys?
It was wonderful, but at the same time, I'm so happy we're back with After Hours.
I did miss you. I had the same reaction too.
It feels great to be back, but the summer was spectacular.
So give me a highlight.
Like something good, a good memory from the summer.
Lots of great memories.
Lots of time with the girls.
Lots of traveling. But like last summer, the highlight was a huge LEGO project.
Last summer was the Taj Mahal.
And this summer, we did Hogwarts.
Huge Hogwarts. Wow.
And the girls are at prime age for Hogwarts.
Wow. How many pieces?
It's around 6 ,000 pieces, I think.
8 ,000 of the 6 ,000 are beige.
Is it that kind of thing?
But the beautiful thing about LEGO, the whole thing is like a metaphor for life because you doubt yourself and you doubt LEGO because you're like, they didn't put the right pieces.
They didn't give me the right direction.
But then it all works out.
It's just such a great metaphor for like persistence and believing, and it turns out it's beautiful.
A metaphor for life.
All of life is just a big LEGO.
And lifelong loyalty to LEGO.
You got it. Felix, give me a highlight from your summer.
I have a strange relationship with the ocean.
I really like the ocean, but I like my ocean to be empty.
He needs a private beach.
So we found the perfect spot at Milos actually in Greece.
The emptiest ocean we can possibly imagine.
It's really fantastic.
How has no one else discovered it but you and Lisa?
Oh, no, it's like there's other people.
I mean empty as in no fish, no algae, no jellyfish, no...
Like I don't mind people.
I don't want things in the ocean.
Have you tried a bathtub?
I think what you're thinking about is a swimming pool.
Yeah, I love swimming pools too.
But you know, swimming pools, it's like limited, how far you can swim.
So I love to swim like long in pieces.
But the ocean has to be empty.
And what about you, Jungmi?
What was your highlight?
Oh, I traveled a bunch.
I have to say though, the real highlight for me was just having both of my sons back home under one roof for the entire summer.
It was so joyful. And my sons, keep in mind, they grew up with me as their mother, which meant they grew up with a mother who was really incompetent in the kitchen.
And now, you know, with my new cooking phase, on a semi -regular basis, I would prepare dinner for them.
That is great. And I think they were really impressed.
This is the wonder of low expectations.
I think you're really smart, Jungmi.
Which I have mastered, absolutely.
So it was good. Okay, but we have so much to talk about, and it was hard to figure out how to get back into the season.
So we have to talk about WeWork.
Absolutely. But let's look back on the summer and figure out who won the summer.
And I'll explain what I mean by that in a second.
All right, so we spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about some of the biggest companies in the world, in particular consumer tech companies.
So I'm talking about Apple and Facebook and Google and Amazon.
Out of all of these companies, who won the summer?
And by that I mean, who had the best summer?
And if you want, who had the worst summer?
Can I cheat a little bit and say it's a company that has had the worst and the best summer at the same time?
As you know, Facebook, I think, is in so much trouble.
There's all the regulatory action.
There is now the FTC seriously looking into allegations that they misuse, the market power that they have.
So just like a lot of really terrible stories.
And so, in a way, if I think about who has the most to lose, the FTC allegations I think are going to be pretty serious, that's definitely Facebook.
And then at one at the same time, they add 100 million users.
And it's just a financial powerhouse, like you wouldn't believe.
Maybe the most astonishing number I saw is that they're adding a million users in the United States.
Like, who is that actually?
Who is not on Facebook?
And yet, they get even better penetration.
So it's in a way, it's testament just to how powerful the company is and the kinds of experiences it provides to its users.
And then at the same time, of course, the dark side, how powerful the company is and how it uses that power, sometimes in great ways and sometimes in not so great ways.
I confess, I had them at the bottom of my list.
So I'm not going to surprise anyone by saying I think Apple won the summer.
Did you know before the summer?
No, no, I knew before and after.
So first, let me just try to make the case, because I know you're going to ridicule me.
So first, in terms of stock price performance, they've done fantastic, outperformed all those other folks.
Second, you know, I think the rollout of the Apple Card and the usage on Apple Pay is going to be amazing.
They did it elegantly, they did it well.
The TV Plus rollout was really nice.
And then their services revenues are like growing at 15%, you know, per year.
So I kind of had them winning.
I kind of think Amazon is just clocking away.
I thought the most amazing thing about Amazon this summer was the FedEx stuff, which is the rivalry with FedEx.
I mean, any illusion that anybody has that Amazon is not coming at you should now be shattered.
And they play nice and then they come at you.
And it is really something.
Google feels to me like it was rolling along.
Yeah, so I don't know.
I'm going to take Apple's winner.
What do you say, Youngmea?
You know, I think the bottom line for me is they're all winning.
It's incredible. A summer's gone by.
And I remember when we ended last season, there seemed to be some fragility maybe around these companies because of all of the negative press and all of the regulatory threats.
And I think this summer, they have all gotten stronger.
It's unbelievable. Amazon is absolutely crushing it right now.
So I'll just call it a few things with respect to Amazon.
So they're moving to one day delivery, which is going to put so much additional pressure on their competitors' cost structure.
Their advertising business is growing like gangbusters.
So their advertising business now in the U .S.
is half the size of Facebook's.
Alexa is everywhere.
Amazon Care, a controlled experiment for healthcare delivery for their employees, is brilliant.
Amazon Prime Video is really beginning to make inroads against Netflix.
I mean, they're just absolutely killing it.
Now, having said all of that, my pick, believe it or not, is Apple.
Yes, Anthony, you've seen the light.
Okay, I know. And I know I have been so down on them.
In part because of the lack of innovation coming out of the company.
I've been so uninspired by them for so many years and even uninspired by their push into services.
And then over the summer, they announced results.
iPhone sales were still weak.
Margin and profits were down.
Johnny Ive left the company.
And then I think it was just a few weeks ago they did their new product launch.
And I think people were kind of, you know, unimpressed with what they...
It was so so, yeah.
It was so so. But what I like about what Apple's done this past summer in particular, what they're doing is they're really laying down the tracks for this new era.
So if you start with their install base, they have 1 .4 billion active devices in the world today and a user base that is intensely loyal.
And so what they're doing now is laying the foundation to monetize that loyalty through a loyalty based subscription program.
Not unlike what Amazon has done with Amazon Prime.
You can see it happening in slow motion.
So what are the signs of this?
Number one, they are now prodding people to pay for their phone in installments.
It's really interesting.
So they used to say this phone is 600, 700, 800 dollars.
And now front and center, they have the monthly price.
The price is 25 dollars a month.
It's 30 dollars a month.
They've taken AppleCare, which used to be a purchase, and they're prodding people to an installment pricing.
They've launched a whole suite of services.
Apple Arcade, five dollars a month.
Apple TV Plus, five dollars a month.
Apple Music, Apple News, those are both ten dollars a month.
So mark my words, the loyalty bundle is coming.
It's just a matter of time where they say, you know what, instead of having all of these little subscriptions for one price, say 20, 30 dollars a month, or 120 dollars a year, you can have the whole thing.
And so you see this strategy now.
They want to make sure their phones stay in as many hands as possible, get people comfortable with paying subscriptions, and then eventually introduce the loyalty bundle.
And they're going to give it a really clunky name because they have lost their ability to name things.
Yeah, Apple Prime Plus Max.
But, you know, we've talked about the power of recurring revenue and what a force multiplier it is.
I think it's really interesting.
So what's beautiful about it is it's a nice illustration of a company that has basically lost its competitive edge in hardware that now shifts the profit pool towards services.
And the logic of that shift is that you have hardware as an entry gateway into this universe of services.
I think, to me, the most interesting thing to think about is if you don't have that enthusiasm, if you don't have the sparkle in the center, is there enough magic for people to say, and I will sign up for that, but, like, I could have the Apple video subscription, even though maybe we're a little more
enthusiastic about Disney Plus than Apple, where I'm the least sure is how well will the bundle work if nothing sparkles?
I think, in a way, you don't need the sparkle, right?
Now we're talking about delivering real value on really important services in a bundled way on devices that we already love.
So, yes, perhaps the magic and spark are gone, but I kind of look at it the opposite way, which is you can't coast on that forever.
I think this fixation on declining iPhone sales is missing this larger transition.
And, by the way, the margins in the service business are amazing, and we haven't even yet seen them roll out the power of all this.
So, people have voted.
They like Spotify better than they like Apple Music.
People, I think, they will like Disney Plus better than they like Apple.
And so then the question is, like, if you're this big music fan and Spotify is your world, can we imagine that people say, well, I already pay for Spotify.
Like, why would I want to buy into the Apple universe?
I think the key to being the successful default platform on which this stuff sits is that you've got to figure out where you want to win and where you want to be a really great partner.
If Apple can structure its relationship with players like Disney and Spotify so they can continue to sit on top of the Apple ecosystem in a win -win way, but on the other hand, Apple then needs to figure out where it wants to win.
So, Apple Arcade is fascinating.
It is utterly fabulous to have access to games for $5 a month without the noise of micropayments.
But the economics of that business are phenomenal because Apple's costs are fixed.
So, once they pay for those costs, every incremental subscription is pure profit.
So, they can scale that very profitably in a way that they can't do music or news.
So, I do think it's definitely going to be tricky for Apple to navigate.
It's hard for me to imagine, to your point, Felix, that they can win in all these dimensions.
But can they put something together that's compelling enough that people are willing to...
For example, all of us probably belong to Amazon Prime, but that's not the exclusive service we use.
We use other things as well.
So, can it be one of those players that we are willing to pay a monthly fee to?
But we also shouldn't...
First off, the new phone is really quite nice, and we're still generating $25 billion a quarter of sales from it.
So, it's not as if it has to become a 100 % services company.
There's still going to be a bunch of fat margin revenue associated with devices, with upgrades, and new users.
So, that whole machine really is quite formidable, right?
And they feed each other.
It's not as if it's a one -way street.
So, maybe I could relate one experience that I had early in the summer.
I was on the West Coast with a group of engineers, and there was one person at the table who talked about Apple Card, how amazing it is, and how wonderful.
And you could literally see it was one of these Apple moments where even the person's expression, the facial expression, was really like, oh my God, this is the best thing.
So, it turned out, I think there were six or seven of us at the table.
No one else had an iPhone.
And I think the interesting question is, are there services that are so out of this world that we would now go out and say, oh my God, you know, Apple Card, you absolutely have to have it.
And as a result, I switched my device.
If you think about the power of the old ecosystem, that's what the phone did, right?
The phone was so amazing that you went out and you said, God, I just have to have this iPhone, and it breaks my heart how expensive it is, but I have to have it.
Ultimately, in competition between ecosystems, I think that's an important thing to think of.
Can they come up with something that will make me, when I choose my next device, to think, oh yeah, I should go back to iPhone because it has some service that I really love.
But Felix, I think those days are somewhat over.
And the fact that they've lowered the price on their entry -level phone, I think is really revealing because they're finally admitting that there's price elasticity.
And that winning demand is, particularly in countries like China, where, you know, $50 can make a difference between you buying this phone and that phone.
So I think right now, what you're seeing is a recognition that they have a really robust install base.
Can they continue to maintain and perhaps even incrementally grow it?
But more importantly, can they begin to monetize that install base in a very different way?
Would that give them another 10 years of really solid results for their shareholders?
I think yes. I think they're laying the groundwork for another decade.
In particular because the margins on services are so amazing.
Margins are amazing.
In a way, it's an even better, it's a 60 % margin.
But Felix, you are right.
The magic is not there anymore.
I find it so interesting, you know, in a way, that's been true for Microsoft for a very long time, right?
The magic is gone. And yet they're market positioned.
You look at the financial profitability of the company.
So I think to me, one of the really interesting questions here is, can you survive without magic?
Right? And I think the answer is probably yes.
Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so way back in February on a podcast, the three of us talked about WeWork.
This was before we saw the perspectives.
We did, yeah. Before we had much inside information about the financial condition of the company.
But we were all pretty down on WeWork.
I think that might be an understatement.
So over the past month, the wheels have really come off.
They were headed toward an IPO.
They ended up pulling their IPO.
First question for the two of you, how did we get here?
How would you sum up how WeWork ended up in the position they now find themselves in?
So to me, this is just the ultimate cautionary tale about mega venture capital and too much cheap money and the ultimately really deleterious effects of that model on entrepreneurship and on venture capital in general.
So the question in a way is, how did we get here?
The opposite way to frame the question is, why did it take so long for us to get here?
Which is a way of saying, what was apparent for a long time, which is valuation that's out of control, founder with problematic tendencies and ultimately business model that was kind of more dressed up in mystical language than in real language.
So look, I think it's horrible to see bad things happen to companies.
There's no fun, there's no joy or schadenfreude in that.
It's just there's something good about seeing the correction because we get back to reality and we need to collectively get back to reality.
So there's the question of cheap money and are people overpaying for companies that are loss making and they're not in the mold of companies that will ever have strong network effects where you think the loss making is really an investment in future profitability.
But maybe the even more remarkable aspect to this story is if you are a soft bank and if you own roughly a third of we, how is it that you pay zero attention to corporate governance?
I think the valuation question obviously is a hard question.
It's hard to know what these companies are valued, but that in the case of we, you look at horrible, horrible corporate governance.
That is not a question that is in dispute.
And how is it that such a significant investor obviously doesn't care, doesn't take the time, doesn't take the energy to influence the company in ways that it adopts better governance practices before they go public?
That to me, I don't really understand how that happens.
I agree with both of you here.
What an indictment of SoftBank and Massasan.
And in my mind, he's still not getting enough blame for this.
Adam Newman, I think is just getting absolutely pilloried, and perhaps deservedly so.
But I think one of the reasons that you see other venture capital firms sort of dancing on SoftBank's grave a little bit is the entire industry has always held its nose as it watches how SoftBank operates.
And for people who aren't familiar, SoftBank modus operandi is really distasteful.
Imagine you're a founder, and you want to raise $50 million on a $500 million valuation.
And SoftBank comes to you and says, you know what, instead of $50 million, I'm going to give you $200 million on a much higher valuation.
It's really hard to say no to that.
And if you do try to say no to that, they do almost kind of a reverse ransom, which is they say, okay, if you don't take our money, we're going to go give it to your biggest competitor, and we're going to fund them, which means that they're going to be able to outspend you and crush you.
So it's really this perverse modus operandi, and it creates terrible, terrible incentives.
And it's not just incentives at the micro level, right?
So then in the product markets, you have inefficient companies winning because they're burning cash as fast as they can.
And in the commercial real estate market, which is the relevant one for WeWork, you end up seeing valuations that get a little bit out of whack.
And in a way, you know, young me, if you're competing against that company that got funded by SoftBank, it's even worse, right?
I mean, I've talked to entrepreneurs who are like, they just...
they go out because they can't compete against those folks.
Again, not to try to be, look at the silver lining, but watching that burst is a great thing.
The faster it gets undone, the better.
Can I add just one more thing to the broader conversation here over the summer?
So you see company after company whose share price declines very quickly after IPO.
So you see Uber, you see Slack.
And the part that I think, at least to my taste, is sometimes missing from the conversation is, yes, the valuations were horribly off.
So say, let's say it's not even $15 billion, it's really $10 billion.
It's someone who built a $10 billion company.
That doesn't happen every day, right?
We sometimes forget, like there's so much focus on what's that decline post IPO, that we forgot, oh my God, this Uber idea, it really did change people's lives.
It's a multi -billion dollar company.
The way millions of people communicate inside enterprises with the help of Slack, it really changed what communication looks like.
And so we shouldn't forget that, even though the valuation at the time of going public wasn't right, there's still pretty significant entrepreneurial brilliance in what each of these people have done who built these companies.
Yeah, and the thing I would add is that, while I agree with you, if you don't manage it carefully, it can create a little bit of a death spiral, right?
Because once all of your employees, their shares are underwater, you start to lose your best people, you start to lose access to additional capital, everything starts to spiral downward.
So you have to manage it really carefully.
So having said that, what should WeWork do now?
It's pulled its IPO, it's had to eat a lot of humble pie.
So what are the steps that it should be taking now?
So one is the activities and the companies that are under the broader we roof don't really make sense.
And so besides obviously doing all the right things on the governance side, the first thing to really think about is what's the right scope for this firm?
So that you can really focus on the core of what the company is.
The second thing, which is to my mind at least the most significant competitive challenge, if you have a platform company that thinks almost exclusively about one side of the platform, you get competition on the other side.
So WeWork is the company that has really thought carefully about what's the experience like for people who work in these offices.
Now, when you look at where does the competition come from?
So you look at convene, you look at no -tell, they all specialize in pleasing the landlord.
And so I would be obsessed with thinking through that competitive challenge.
The we model is, you have long -term obligations against short -term rental contracts, super risky.
The convenient no -tell model is much more, oh, it's a profit sharing model.
That model in a downturn will perform so much better than the we model will perform.
And so finding the right balance between the two sides on the platform, landlords versus companies and individuals who rent these office spaces, I think is task number one for them.
I just want to underscore something that you said implicitly, Felix, which is the governance piece of this has to be the first thing.
You mentioned it, Felix, I just want to highlight it, which is you really want to rethink what the checks are in place to see what's been going on.
And there has to be an interrogation of what happened over the last six months.
And that sounds unfun, and it is unfun, but it has to be done, and it has to be done quickly, and it has to be done well.
Because my instinct is there's more to be found, and so you have to look deeply, and you have to remove the people who are even vaguely involved with that.
And then I would follow your game plan exactly, Felix.
I am much more skeptical about what the underlying value proposition is here.
It is a pretty traditional bricks and mortar space.
I have a hard time getting that excited about this relative to the competitors like Regis.
So you have to pair the portfolio, because there's some nonsensical stuff in there.
But the core business, it doesn't feel like it's going to be as exciting as people ever perceived it to be, and that's fine.
But to your point earlier, young me, that is not a sexy, exciting business.
And managing the transition from the heights they've been at down to the mundane level of those businesses...
It is hard, but they have to do it, or they're going to go to zero.
They're going to zero, that's right.
But this is I think what you said earlier, which is so profound and right, which is these roller coaster rides are really costly.
Yeah, absolutely. And once you come crashing down from that cliff, you can say, well, yeah, we can just scale down, we'll do it, it'll be fine.
And the answer is, yeah, everything has to change in that process.
So I'd be worried. I think it's not clear that they can do it.
Yeah, I would add a couple of things.
Number one, they have to prove out the business model.
So even with their S -1, they have not provided enough financial information to be able to tell whether or not the buildings they've occupied the longest actually are profitable.
In other words, the core business, is it an actual sustainable business?
They have to prove the business model.
They have to cut expenses.
They desperately need an alternative source of funding.
I mean, they are going to burn through $3 billion in cash this year.
They have tens of billions of dollars in obligations on the books.
And it's going to take additional capital to grow into this huge cost structure they have.
So they desperately need to find an alternative source of funding.
They need to fix governance.
They need to bring in an external CEO with a lot of credibility.
They need, importantly, I think, a really highly credible CFO.
But mostly, to what both of you guys said, they need to put their head down, pair expenses, focus a business, and just try to rebuild this thing back up.
But I mean, the question is, is the underlying business really attractive?
Well, Regis is profitable, right?
Yeah, it's a good business, you're right.
But it's not of the scale and the scope that's going to get the kind of people who are interested in WeWork now.
I am a little more optimistic.
So you remember reading the story a couple of weeks ago, a large financial institution that wanted to redo their offices.
What's the first place they go to to look at what an office today looks like and the kinds of amenities that people want in an office?
And of course, they went to look at WeWork.
I think there's interesting ideas coming from WeWork's competitors about incremental revenue.
So for instance, what's true for most of these smaller companies that, you know, they will have one or two floors in a building.
But the amenities and the services that they provide, everything from catering to office services, it's actually available for the entire building.
So that's a logic that comes from thinking about, oh, the landlord is really my prime partner.
And as a result, I think there is significant value creation and value capture opportunities there.
Is it on the order of, oh my God, this should be valued at a multiple of a tech company?
No, that was always silly.
But I do think maybe in the way a little bit, like if you ask me today, is Uber ever going to be profitable?
I don't know. Is it of enormous, significant, also cultural importance what they have done?
Absolutely. And I feel a little like that about WeWork.
Will they leave a lasting impact how we think about workspaces and the organization of work?
Yes. Can you attach a business model to that that, you know, is much more profitable than Regis?
A little more profitable, probably not much more profitable.
In 10 years, we're going to remember WeWork as a failure of governance and we're going to remember WeWork as a failure of mega venture capital.
We'll remember Uber as a company that transformed mobility.
That would be my bet more than anything else.
Well, so let's move to that question, right?
So what are the broader implications of a story like this?
What are the ripple effects, if any?
I think this idea that you can rely on private valuation.
So if you're unsure about what's the true value of a company and you just go to the last round of private financing, I think that idea is dead.
Deep, deep skepticism about the ability and incentives of professionals to actually tell us anything about the likely value of pre -IPO companies I think is one consequence.
I mean, these guys were ready to sell WeWork to us at a $50 billion valuation.
It's unbelievable. And then like 24 hours later, they're coming back and saying, you know, actually, what about $15 billion?
Imagine if someone tried to sell you a car for $5 ,000, and you said no, and then they came back and they said, okay, how about $1 ,000?
I actually think the ripple effects are going to extend even further.
So in the last couple of months, WeWork has been through the ringer.
Juul has been through the ringer.
These are two of the most valuable private companies in the world.
So then you look at the other ones that are kind of in that stratosphere evaluation.
Airbnb is looking to go public.
I mean, we've spoken about Airbnb on this podcast.
And one of the things I think we talked about was how before going public, they really need to clean up their act in terms of regulation, particularly in some of the more busy cities in which they operate.
And I believe they're committed to doing it.
And I think if they do it well, then it could be a real blockbuster IPO in a good way.
But nonetheless, they have to do the work.
I mean, these things like good governance, having a clean business model with full transparency, being on the right side of regulation, these things feel like nuisances, but they are so, so important.
And I think this episode has underscored that, right?
And all those really important things got devalued in a world of mega venture capital.
So, you know, to me, the good news here is hopefully the decline of that model.
I think it has these ripple consequences for the way we think about particularly private companies, but also hopefully messianic CEOs, which is, again, something that was cultivated by mega venture capital, which is you need to justify writing a $5 billion check.
You have to say that this person is the most special person in the world.
And then that very special person unsurprisingly tries to get away with very special things.
And so hopefully that whole culture is gone.
OK, so this is another one.
We're just going to have to stay tuned and see what happens.
OK, Piggs, you've had an entire summer to think of recommendations.
Yes. It was so hard because there's so many to choose from.
Actually, I think that was the hardest part of the summer is like storing up recommendations and not being able to share recommendations.
I have something from Netflix, a documentary called American Factory.
Oh, I saw it. You saw it?
Isn't it wonderful?
Great recommendation.
It's a story of a Chinese investment in an American factory.
It was a GM factory.
It got shot down and then Chinese investors come in and they're building a factory that produces glass also for cars.
And it's the story about GM workers who used to work for GM now being employed by a Chinese company.
It's the story of managers and workers from China being transferred to the Midwest and this completely different environment.
And in the end, it's a story of a super rich person who decides to make this investment.
And one reason why this was one of the most memorable entertainment experience this summer is emotionally I felt you really get pulled back and forth.
There's a moment where you think, oh my God, yes, I'm totally on the side of American workers, go unions.
And then you think, oh my God, this poor guy clocked out of China, dropped in this completely foreign culture, trying to teach people what it means to be really productive.
And your heart goes out with him.
So it's really like the emotional pull is really remarkable.
What did you think, Yangvi?
I think you described it so beautifully.
Felix, what's amazing about watching it is as you say, you feel your sympathies swinging back and forth between these two different cultures and you experience so much empathy on both sides.
I know this sounds overblown, but I think it's an important documentary.
It's not just good.
I think it's important.
You walk away from it having a much deeper understanding, I think, of some of the tensions associated with global trade and living in a global economy.
Which is so hard to do.
If you think about the issues they're tackling, to think about it from a pedagogic perspective, the amount of complexity that they're teaching in that documentary, it's actually kind of stunning, even just as a pedagogic moment.
Yeah, really well done.
Meir, what about you?
So I took my wonderful sister as a gift for Raksha Bandhan, which is a Hindu ceremony, celebrating siblings.
I took her to see Darren Brown.
And Darren Brown is a mentalist, kind of a magician, who has a Broadway show called Secret.
And first off, I love magic.
And Darren Brown has produced a number of really stunning shows.
And the great thing about him is he's kind of hands on the table, which is he's not pretending like it's all magic, right?
Like he's saying, I'm doing something with you right now and I'm tricking you.
But you still leave Slackjawed at...
Is it like close hand magic or is it like David Copperfield big magic?
It's so hard to explain.
There's a part of it which is David Copperfield, but he's also doing a lot of hypnotism.
And he's manipulating your thoughts.
But he's doing it right in front of you.
And so my recommendation is Darren Brown, Secret specifically, you can watch him on YouTube.
And my recommendation is also siblings and also giving gifts that are experiences.
Because as part of Raksha Bandhan, you're supposed to give a gift to your sibling.
I usually give some stupid thing that she doesn't need.
But it made me realize giving gifts that are experiences and going to a show together was so much better.
And then Darren Brown was specifically fantastic.
Oh, that's a great one.
So my recommendation is gifts as experiences, siblings, and Darren Brown.
Okay, my recommendation...
It was so hard, you guys, to choose a recommendation.
I read my brilliant friend, the four novels, over the summer by Elena Ferrante.
Amazing. So good. Having said that, that's not my recommendation.
This is my trick. So what is happening here?
Okay, the only reason I put that in first was because I wanted to somehow represent myself as being somewhat highbrow because my...
Because you're coming with a lowbrow.
It's all impression management.
There's no shame in this.
There's no shame in this young me.
Just deliver the lowbrow.
Yes, I read, and I was trying to slip in the fact that, you know, I read books.
But my actual recommendation, I'm really obsessed with succession on HBO.
So good, so good, so good.
It's so good. And I'm a little reluctant to recommend it because it's so vulgar, but it's so good.
It focuses on this family -owned business, which is this global media and hospitality conglomerate.
Imagine a combination of Fox and Disney, all owned and run by the most dysfunctional family.
Fantastic, yeah. And the adult children of this family are all jockeying to try to succeed their father in running the company.
And this family is such a train wreck of greed and ambition, and they're also despicable, yet I recommend it.
I'm completely obsessed.
Oh, it's so good. I mean, it ended last season so well.
I mean, because it got actually better during the course of the first season.
And the second season is even better.
It's so good. And if anybody out there decides to sample it, I will say that the first couple episodes, I didn't like it at all.
And I had a friend who said, keep going, keep going, it's really good.
And then I found myself sucked in.
So, Succession on HBO, don't judge me as a result of mine.
She does read. Don't forget, she does read.
I do. I do. I don't just sit around and watch soap operas on HBO.
I've never been tempted to do this before, but the theme song for Succession is so good.
It's so operatic. It's amazing.
I almost wanted to make it my ringtone, which I would never have ever the last time I would do it.
I was afraid you were going to say you're going to sing it.
Have no fear. Hey, Felix, you haven't seen it yet?
I have not. No. Oh my God.
You got to see it so we can talk about it.
You could do a whole thing on this.
Yeah. Anyway, okay, that's it.
We're back. We're back and we'll be back in a week for our next episode.
In the meantime, have a great week, everyone.
This is After Hours from the HBR podcast now.
We'll be back in a bit.
