＂170M Down To 22M” - Daily Wire Layoffs REVEALS Billion Dollar Miscalculation
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
4
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Toxicity
13
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Hate speech
16
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Summary
Daily Wire laid off 50% of its staff in Nashville, according to a report from the company's internal memo. The memo was leaked to the New York Times, but a Daily Wire spokesperson denied the report and said the cuts were the result of a "difficult decision" made by the company.
Transcript
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So, story comes out, and you know everybody is in the market.
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The moment something bad happens, they're losing, they're doing this, they're doing that.
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We're killing it. Let me tell you how many subscribers.
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So, you know, when you're doing great, you brag, but when you have a setback,
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the market's going to criticize you as well, and that's part of capitalism and how it works,
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So, Rob, what numbers do we have? Which one is this?
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So, Daily Wires hit with layoffs across a number of teams,
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Let me go to it and read some of the numbers to you.
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And then, Vinny, I'm going to come to you on this one here first.
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So Daily Wire has been hit with another round of layoffs.
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I'm more interested in reading the stats because the stats I'm reading about is 50%, 60%, 85%.
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They went from 200 employees to losing 100 employees, you know, in the Nashville office.
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And so today the Daily Wire made a difficult decision to restructure the organization,
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Spokesperson said we are deeply grateful to those impacted, their contributions were instrumental in the building of Daily Wire into what it is today.
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The statement continued, the cuts were largely concentrated at our Nashville production office as the company has invested in new formats,
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Our footprint as the company has invested there has evolved.
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Over the last year, we have added production staff in D.C., the Northeast, and Florida.
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The step allows us to focus our resources on an ambitious slate of new entertainment projects
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Additionally, we will continue to invest in our editorial team and investigative journalism,
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where we have already added numerous new reporters across the country
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and established a D.C. bureau with a seat in the White House briefing room.
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Cameron Arcana, a political reporter for the side, was affected by a round of cuts.
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He posted about the layoffs on social media on Friday.
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I was impacted by the layoffs today at Daily Wire, so I'm looking for opportunities in journalism, communication here in D.C.
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Candace said, who worked at the company until 2024, commented on the layoffs.
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She hinted that at least 50% of the company staff was affected.
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Hearing that Daily Wire laid off over 50% of their staff today, as much as I positively despise what their executives put me and my family through,
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Brent shared, the editor-in-chief from Daily Wire,
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That's insane and also insane to post without verifying.
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I mean, Pat, this is what happens when your whole company is built on personalities
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and then you forget they have a massive audience.
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A big chunk of that audience is going with them.
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And at one point, Ben Shapiro was pulling 170 million views a month on YouTube.
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And then post-October 7th, you know, a lot of things changed.
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He got a lot more aggressive, going after anyone not lighting up with his stance on Gaza.
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That shift alone starts narrowing the audience, and you create tension inside the company.
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Then long after that, Candace Owen gets fired, whether you agree with her or not.
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You're pushing out someone who built a real audience underneath your umbrella.
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So instead of locking in what already worked, they tried doing this whole thing into something conservative.
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They did studio, you know, movies, kid content, streaming products.
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Everything at once sounds great until it doesn't work.
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You can't run a newsroom, a film studio, a kid platform, a product line all at once unless you have endless money and you have serious discipline.
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And they stretch themselves thin, chasing everything instead of just dominating the lane that they already own.
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I think Matt Walsh, Rob, I think the racist one did very, very well, his documentary.
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But most of those big wins, Pat, they didn't land.
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And as my friend Thomas the Biz Doc Ellsworth says, words talk, numbers scream, and these numbers scream.
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You went from 170 million views to 22 million views.
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And they're still carrying the same heavy operation bill that when things were booming.
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The brand matters, but the connection people have is with the person.
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So when those voices leave or get pushed out or fired because they don't agree with the boss and they can't have a debate, the big piece of the audience goes with them.
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So that's how you end up with a company that looked like a billion-dollar machine, but it's, you know, leaning heavy on the people carrying at them.
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Look, this thing comes down to one word, and that's Ben.
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Ben Shapiro is the face of the Daily Wire, and they have incredible talent.
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I think Michael Knowles is a very likable, smart guy.
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They have their whole crew over there, respect to what they've done.
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Obviously, when Ben stood up for Israel against Hamas, that showed cracks in the system.
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Did the media wire, sorry, did the Daily Wire change or did the consumer media landscape change?
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I think they've stood for exactly what they stand for as a group, collectively, and the market has changed.
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If you look at the Israel approval ratings, there's a direct correlation to how Americans and the world feel about Israel fighting this war in Gaza and against Iran to how Daily Wire subscriptions go.
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Now, if you ask me, hey, Ben, if you had the chance to do it all over again, fire Candace, go against Tucker, defend Turning Point USA, defend Israel, would you do it all over again?
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And do you know what I think his answer would be?
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Because to me, this is not about likes, views, clicks.
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Even when he attacked Megyn Kelly, he said, stand for something.
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Even if he loses subscribers, even if he loses viewership, it doesn't matter to him.
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If all of a sudden capitalism wasn't that cool, and we do fear that communism had taken over America,
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and we saw that the media landscape and the consumers were like, I don't know, we're kind of into this socialism thing.
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do you think we'd give one inch to that we would double down on capitalism so when you believe in
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something you stick with it and i think that's what he's doing well i say i have a couple
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observations and one of them i was trying to find the numbers over the weekend because i didn't want
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to put my hang my hat on a number that was that was incorrect so you have is pat pat you and i
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always talk when you say they say who they is if you say a lot say a number and do your research
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and put it up so what do we know that they spent millions of dollars on bent key didn't work and
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then they canceled okay so wow an entrepreneur started a product they spent a bunch of money
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on it it didn't work and the board at the same time coincidentally not coincidentally march of
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last year i think it's been over a year since jeremy boring uh stepped down as ceo and they
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say okay you know maybe that didn't work well look meta they tried to do the metaverse and they spent
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billions of dollars into a hole. That didn't work either. So you see things like that. You say,
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wow, maybe that affected your cash reserves. But what was very interesting to me, can you go back
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to the ratings, the chart that Vinny was talking about? Yeah. Pat, take a look at this. Most media
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companies, and I looked at this this weekend, most media companies, 2024 from January to October
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was like fantastic and they were up why it was the election show they're talking primaries they're
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talking states they're talking just trump really back no we're gonna go with kamala is biden did
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he write the letter didn't he write the letter remember all that look at this if this is if this
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is correct from this uh this group then the daily wire viewership was going down into an election
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cycle where most of the podcasts and the media kind of went up into an election cycle so i thought
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that was kind of interesting difference that that they experienced and those are those are my
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observations yeah so my thoughts here on uh this story here number one running a business is very
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hard and running a business that's a public business is even harder and then running a
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business where the face of the business has an opinion is even 10 times harder okay so in this
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case the guy that when you think about daily wire who's the face of daily wire ben shapiro
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But, you know, one thing with him, I don't think, you know,
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he's not a sensitive guy that's going to be affected by it.
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By the way, this makes Jeremy Boring look good.
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This makes Jeremy Boring look good because this says the creative guy was gone.
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Love him or hate him, you know, he at least maybe was the creative guy
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He was a guy that was going out there doing the –
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if you have to say naturally who was more funny, Ben Shapiro or Jeremy Boring.
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So the rebranding of Ben has been let's try to see if he's funny
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and let's make him be funny and doing all this stuff.
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The rebranding of trying to attack in the way they do with Candace,
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the way they're doing, I also don't think that's working.
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I think if Ben went on the road and did some of the stuff with campuses
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and schools and stuff like that, I think they can bring that eyeball back up again
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because he's phenomenal with that, being on the road and talking to kids.
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Him, Crowder, this is way before anybody else was doing it.
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And then, you know, last but not least is I do believe, you know,
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they may have tried to sell a year ago, maybe two years ago,
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It's like, hey, let's go to the market because they went from Fox News' enemy
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to Fox isn't an enemy, and maybe we team up together,
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and maybe Fox acquires us, and we go under them.
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Shapiro solicits backers or buyers for Build Out Daily Wire.
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When it was on the market, we had some interesting conversations
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Some people came in, and they asked us about our interest,
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But, you know, this is the part about business.
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You know, we sold a week before money being cheap.
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And sometimes, like, that's not like, oh, my God, you guys were such geniuses.
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It's very easy to say, let me tell you how brilliant we are.
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Because then all of a sudden, boom, rates went up.
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We're not making any acquisitions the way we were.
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So our timing, of course, the company is worth way more than will be sold today.
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But a part of it is also timing of when you drop and you move on.
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So repositioning, remessaging, and see if the market is turned on by it or not.
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But this is not in – and by the way, CBS is having a hard time right now.
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The 60 Minutes person that's doing the interview, what's her name?
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Leslie Stahl is a Jew, reporting to a Jew and working for a Jew, right?
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So Leslie Stahl, where is Leslie Stahl's family from?
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So she's Jewish, who she reports to, Barry Weiss, is Jewish.
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Who bought the company is David Ellison and Larry Ellison, who's Jewish.
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I'm not going to watch CBS because I don't know what these guys are trying to do.
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This is a very, very, very weird time to be in a media space.
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and you're better off building on systems instead of personalities
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because if you only build it on personalities, they're going to go,
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they're going to leave, they're going to do this,
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and then Jordan Peterson's going through some challenges.
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And I saw Michaela Peterson that put a clip about it.
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Of course, Jordan Peterson at one point played a very,
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and we heard some news with Rudy Giuliani's also not feeling good.
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He was one of the biggest fighters in America we ever had.
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No matter how much people say stuff about Giuliani, you know,
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our prayers are with him and his family, and I hope they go through it,
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It's nasty, it's ugly, and you have to change your approach
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Early in the morning I went to Publix because we didn't have mushrooms.
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I said, babe, the way I make my omelet, both me and Tico like it
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And, by the way, when I go to public, 7 o'clock, 6.30 in the morning,
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whatever time it is, I'm dressed like a, you know, I just got up.
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And when he's hugging me, I'm just watching his hands, you know,
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You know what I'm saying when you're hugging somebody with the hands.
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Your strategy for running your media company may have to adjust
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instead of the traditional way of doing it to get sponsorship money.
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And if you make the right adjustments, maybe you want long-term.
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If you don't and you bring personalities, personalities nowadays,
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no matter the moment you bring in, there's everybody in their ear saying,
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hey, you know, you should do this, you should do that, you should do that.
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So this constantly gets people to not be able to retain.
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So kudos to Knowles and Walsh and all those guys for being there
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because they get so much pressure every day for leaving.
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So they're constantly getting criticized to leave.
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Hey, why aren't you leaving and doing your own thing?
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We're going to see this thing over and over again with stories.
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There's only a few people that I put in this category of Ben Shapiro,
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I think someone like Dave Portnoy is in that category.
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You know, the Tuckers of the world, the Candices of the world
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If you listen to the voices that, you know, choose your enemies wisely,
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he's made Candace an enemy he's made Tucker an enemy to an extent he's made Megan Kelly what
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happened but look at what his enemies are saying Tucker is calling Trump the antichrist and then
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forget he said that Candace is telling people in the military just uh unlist from the army
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a dishonorable discharge don't die for Israel okay that's at the very least uh un-American uh
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you have Nick Fuentes who's basically saying go vote Democrat and I'll ask you this initial
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question what has changed from the perspective not the business model the perspective from what
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you're hearing from the daily wire because i would argue nothing's changed they're doubling down on
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what they've always done do you think they should change or should they stay the way they are
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personality wise and content wise i'm not saying business perspective or do they stick to their
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morals and their values and say no this is what we stand for we're not gonna we're not gonna listen
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Do you trash Turning Point USA or an Erica Kirk or basically say this thing?
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One day I'm in Atlanta, and I'm talking to this other guy,
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and the company has pinned us against each other.
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But I got along with everybody, including this guy.
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Very, very good at what he does, but not my kind of guy.
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It's the kind of guy that looks at you, says stuff,
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I'm like, listen, I don't play these big shot bullshit games.
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Because to my face, he would compliment behind my back.
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And by the way, I wish him nothing but the best.
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They're going to share this video with him, and he'll see it.
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the moment you did that one thing you lose me permanently i don't play games
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but i'm gonna tell you what happened when we were at this event he says my style is
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you know i destroy you and then we become friends and then when i'm bigger than you then we become
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friends the hell is that so he said this to me and it's like hey we should start doing your face
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yeah but he's talking about other people but i get what he's saying he says we should do events
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together i'm like i'll never do events with you but the reason why i didn't want to do events with
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them is because i knew he would brainwash and confuse others and divide i don't play those
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games i understand deception very quickly when people try to play games it's very obvious very
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effective i've read all the power books 40 laws of power art of war 33 strategies of war the rings
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you read any of these stuff on manipulation and and power i read them because i knew what by the
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way i gave one of our guys in the company was using 40 laws of power against our guys you know
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what i made the book of the month the next month i had everybody in the company read 40 laws of
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power so nobody could do it flip the script i said everybody read 40 laws of power so nobody
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can manipulate against you but you know what happened here's the challenge adam if we come up
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and i behind closed doors i'm constantly trying to destroy your career in media
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and you're an 18 year old kid 19 year old kid and i'm telling everybody how bad you are
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they can destroy their career, and in comes the one guy.
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So if you came up in any business, including media,
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and behind closed doors you made the phone calls
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because you have access to those guys to destroy their careers,
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I haven't been around the game long enough to know what everybody did.
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and I would size everybody up when I would talk to them.
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It's not like we've been in this space for a long time.
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And I don't even know if you understand what I just said right now.
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Some people didn't understand exactly what I just said right now.
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If you came up and you intentionally used your power to destroy people's career,
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F you, if you did that, because if that's how you win,
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you deserve everything that's coming your way because that's how capitalism works.
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Oh, you can because I'm going to talk about Fauci?
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And who was telling you that we were getting strikes?
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So if you played those games, don't think it only happens on the liberal side.
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If conservatives do it, I'm not with that either.
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Like, I enjoyed watching Tucker's interview with New York Times.
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I said what my position is, but I actually enjoyed the interview.
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Because I'm watching the game, how it's being played,
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and I want to know people's position so we can adjust accordingly
00:20:51.180
So, no, I'm not part of the – as much as people are like,
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you know what, all the death threats I got for interviewing Bibi
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and Nick Fontes, who the hell had both of them on within 30 days?
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Because last minute, you remember what happened last minute?
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I'm like, that threw my calendar off, and I couldn't really get into it.
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But if you came up and you used your card to do that, I don't play that game.
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And by the way, you and I could agree together politically,
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I still don't play that game because, you know, my daughter's at end.
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I don't want to stay on the story for too long.
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I'm getting Brooklyn to get in the habit of, you know,
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I'm in that phase with her because she's four years old.
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I haven't had to do this because Senna's nine, about to be ten.
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And she has to do these steps, exercise every morning.
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I'm like, baby, as cute as you are, you have to write it.
00:22:32.460
But if the one thing in our family, we don't bully and we don't get bullied.
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And the market is filled with a lot of bullies and some of them that are covert bullies.
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You especially are the kinds I don't like.
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Like Trump's this kind of a bully, but there's some deceptive James bully.
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I don't do that, and, you know, we try not to touch a lot of different positions.
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Anyways, I'm going to move on because we'll be in this topic here for another 45 minutes.
00:23:12.240
Every three to four years, we find ways to improve value attainment,
00:23:18.280
and I'm talking about with the public, so I want to hear commentary from the public.
00:23:21.940
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00:23:26.380
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00:23:36.580
Anybody that text the word PBD to 310-340-1132,
00:23:52.920
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00:23:55.600
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00:23:59.180
And for anybody that completes the survey, beginning to the end, all of it answers,
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It doesn't matter if it's 50,000 people that take it or 5,000 people that take it.
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00:24:22.220
Valuetainment started off with me doing a couple basic videos with Mario,
00:24:25.720
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00:24:29.240
Till today, it haunts me every time I see those pink socks.
00:24:31.760
You know, and the way I'm sitting on that couch, Rob,
00:24:34.120
if you want to show the first clip we ever did on Valuetainment,
00:24:36.900
it really inspires me to know how far along we've come
00:24:40.440
and all the board videos we used to do to then starting the podcast.
00:24:45.380
Yeah, if you go there, go to videos and go to the oldest, oldest right there,
00:25:09.800
I think it's 2013, whatever it is, when I wrote a book.
00:25:17.360
Everywhere I go and I run into people and we talk
00:25:21.620
It's always great, the relationship that we have together
00:25:25.740
So it would mean a lot to us if you can go do the survey.
00:25:32.520
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00:25:42.160
Can you also put that in the comments section, in the chat,
00:25:45.200
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00:25:48.080
But we're going to thank you, Jake, for that as well, the voice of God.
00:25:53.440
We will make sure to read every single one of the piece of feedback you put
00:26:01.520
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00:26:05.920
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00:26:08.600
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00:26:10.860
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