Thread by @jason_kint

“I’ve never met with him. And I don’t think I will begin right now.” - Sec Yellen on SBF as NYT DealBook has kicked off. She later confirms it’s a “Lehman moment for crypto.”

Going in on antitrust with Sec Yellen. She’s talking about network effects then calls it a good thing if Apple is looking at what is available on its platform (in reference to Musk@Twitter outrage). Doesn’t touch on Google, Facebook, Amazon and the bills awaiting Sen Schumer.

Upon Ben Affleck being told Mark Zuckerberg will be interviewed later, Ben Affleck notes, “there are a lot of Justice Dept officials in here.” He may not know Zuckerberg along with Netanyahu, Zelensky and SBF are all to be interviewed remotely. Make of that what you will.

ps Zelensky was amazing as usual. Tremendous message to the audience and America. And he even found a way to be humorous with a Starlink joke when the connection went down as he was being asked about Elon Musk’s meddling and support for Russia over twitter and wherever else.

Insightful point from RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale that IP is transitioning from an agency culture to a principal culture. References how this happened with sports over the past decades (Yankees being example). Lots of important points on content being truly king.

Just enjoyed a wonderful lunch with a table of brilliant pharma execs where much of topic was information integrity and communication. Now shifting to Mark Zuckerberg being interviewed. Sorkin deftly uses a virtual *hiccup* as a transition into the first question re: metaverse.

Often not understood, Zuckerberg is talking about metaverse to deflect discussion away from the threats to surveillance advertising, Facebook’s core biz model and 97% of its revenues, being demonstrated by Apple and privacy+antitrust regulations/lawsuits rolling out. It works.

Good. Sorkin now pivoting to apple and economics question of a world where Facebook/Zuckerberg is actually having to meet consumers’ privacy expectations and lawmakers’ data protection regulations. Facebook hasn’t lost 70% of its market cap due to metaverse.

News flash. Mark Zuckerberg is a mess trying to push more scrutiny at Apple. He’s a terrible messenger on public scrutiny in every way whether it be his track record or his talking points. “We got to our policies from years of experience” is quite a loaded comment.

Zuckerberg just confirmed he’s seen this antitrust deepfake from yesterday in saying, “we kept it up because it was clear it was a parody.”

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1597588497724211200

Zuckerberg now asked about TikTok and China then references how he also travels around the world. He doesn’t note to Sorkin that he reportedly still can’t visit Canada or UK due to prior summons to testify. No audience questions for the remote guest. Sorkin did well regardless.

Now shifting to CEO of Netflix followed by Pence, Netanyahu, TikTok CEO and SBF so quite a close coming. Hastings@Netflix credits Hulu for proving them wrong that an ad supported tier will work for lower subscription prices. #streaming

Sorkin hits on question about password sharing which Netflix is tightening next year. Business maturity challenges. @DCNorg studied this which especially impacts Gen Z relative to even Gen Y.

https://twitter.com/dcnorg/status/1438179062187532297

Sorkin ticks off the major broadcast holding companies and CEOs one by one to Hastings who deftly says, “that’s awesome, $110B of revenue” and competition for creating the best content. Very much agree - and need competition by the tech platforms and distributors for it all.

Inside baseball question that Hastings won’t likely get asked… he departed Facebook’s board after 8yrs as Zuckerberg was settling for over $5BIL subject to massive pension fund lawsuits now moving forward in Delaware not getting enough attention. Had to be principles.

Sigh. Former VP Pence resorts to the normal botching by saying, “freedom of speech does not mean you can yell fire in a crowded theatre.” You very much can, especially if there is an actual fire.

TikTok CEO now on stage with @andrewrsorkin. Smoke without fire if you buy the answers. It would be a mistake to buy it. That said, Twitter and Facebook aren’t necessarily any less concerning at this point.

CEO of TikTok reiterates they don’t run any political advertising because it doesn’t fit their mission. Twitter (used to) have the same policy, too. We’ll see how long this all lasts but the intersection of false political ads with powerful microtargeting is where issues rise.

deer in headlights. interview begins. without question, this interview should be happening. Journalism.

SBF starts first answer with “at the end of the day, I’m the CEO.” This sounds familiar with other CEO crisis interviews. Sorkin follows up by landing it with a real life impact story from someone who lost their life savings.

I believe SBF just very quickly tried to jam in a “PR assault” in his explanation for what happened. That’s absurd excuse creation.

Sorkin doing good journalism. He asked SBF if he commingled funds which he denies and blames it on poor oversight. Many answers later Sorkin then asks when the commingling began. SBF’s lawyers 👀.

SBF says he was nervous starting November 2nd. Sorkin asks him what he was nervous about - “a run on the bank or that you were going to get caught?”

In awe of @andrewrsorkin performance today closing with a brilliant interview of SBF. AFTER interviewing the CEOs of BlackRock, TikTok, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Prez Zelensky, PM Netanyahu and VP Pence yet still having this precision in his probing questions.

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1598080509728653312

“I’ve had a bad month” - SBF then Sorkin references a deleted tweet that is inconsistent with timeline and prior answers shared in the interview. “You telling the truth?”