← On with Kara Swisher
On with Kara Swisher
Why Ben Stiller Made Severance (and Doesn’t Care about What Elon Says About Him)
01:01:26
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- [00:00]
Kara Swisher
The M7 is a little. It picks up noise. It's a much better mic, so.
- [00:05]
Ben Stiller
Okay, how's that?
- [00:05]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, that's good. You're very manly. It's great.
- [00:08]
Ben Stiller
Okay, good, good.
- [00:22]
Kara Swisher
Hi, everyone. From New York magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher. And I'm Kara Swisher. Today I'm talking to actor, director and producer Ben Stiller, someone I' gotten to know over the past few years and really enjoy talking to. I really enjoy the second season of his hit series Severance, and it's finally arrived after almost three years. I liked the first season, but the second season has really taken it to a new level. This is Apple TV's dystopian workplace comedy thriller about a company that's taken work, life, balance to the extreme. In the world of severance, employees at the company called Lumen can choose to sever their brains into two selves, one for work and one for living. When they clock in at 9am Their brain is wiped clean of the outside world. And when they clock out at 5pm it's wiped clean of work. I just love this show. I can't explain why you have to watch it. It's about a lot of things that are going on today, but it's a lot of things that have gone on for a while, and it's about who you are and the unconscious. And it's also very, very funny, which is the best part of it. Ben is the show's executive producer, and he's directed many of the episodes. So we're gonna get into the themes, big ideas, and creative choices that have gone into the series, which is written by a man named Dan Erickson. It's his first outing, and what an impressive outing it is. Reverence is also a success for Apple TV. It's reportedly generated $200 million. For the streamer, we'll talk about his experience working with the tech giant, get his views on how tech money is impacting Hollywood, and how Trump's return could affect the ability of artists to get their stories made. On that note, our expert question this week comes from Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw, who writes a weekly newsletter called Screen Time about the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. So stick around.
- [02:06]
Ben Stiller
Foreign.
- [02:11]
Kara Swisher
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- [03:40]
Lucas Shaw
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- [04:03]
Ben Stiller
Machine learning at netsuite.com Vox netsuite.com Vox.
- [04:09]
Kara Swisher
It is on Ben S welcome and thanks for being on on hi Kara S. Hi Kara S. That's right. That's obviously a severance reference for people who don't know. This show is about a world in which you can become a different person during working hours. A person is called your innie and it is you, but your brain wiped of all the details of your outie life. So the innie is you but not really you. It's without a lot of information or background. I'm just curious, have you ever thought about what your innie would be like?
- [04:39]
Ben Stiller
You know, recently I've been thinking about it actually, but I think you know, the innies are more innocent, they're less corrupted by life experience and so I guess my innie would be like a little bit more, you know, fun loving, innocent, playful. Though I think I am still playful in certain situations, but I do feel like I'd probably be maybe like a little less sort of like hunched and stressed, you know.
- [05:08]
Kara Swisher
Well, you know, it's interesting cause some people's innies are not like on the show. Like Helly's is quite angry. Right. She's instantly angry and her outie is also angry in a different way.
- [05:19]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, I mean, I think Heli is, you know, she's rebellious and curious and not a rule follower. And yeah, she's got a lot of, you know, it's like, I don't know if it's necessarily anger as much as, you know, sort of like this questioning of authority and not taking things, you know, at face value and accepting them just because they tell us we should accept them.
- [05:44]
Kara Swisher
Right. So you wonder where that comes from. Right. Cause a lot of them do. And then they suddenly get rebellious pretty quickly. All of them, by reading books or going down the hall to see a potential boyfriend or whatever, they lose their. They become outies pretty quickly, I would say.
- [05:59]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, I mean, we looked at it sort of like the first season was these outies were sort of, you know, kids, you know, they're pretty young, they're only like two, you know, Mark's only probably like two years old and Irving's maybe was there a few more years. But they're kind of innocent and childlike to a certain extent, but also have developed personalities. And then as the season evolved and as the second season is starting to evolve, I think they're kind of becoming more adolescents and more, you know, kind of. Yeah. Self empowered and questioning authority. And so I think there's like a maturation that's happening with them slowly.
- [06:41]
Kara Swisher
Right. And a cynicism that goes with it because they're beginning to see things. So would you ever do get severed? I'm just curious. I was thinking, I was talking about with my wife Amanda, like, would you let it happen? She said it would be impossible to sever me because I'd be the same irritating person. Severed her.
- [06:58]
Ben Stiller
I don't know if I'd want to be totally cut off from part of my life experience. I think in retrospect, when I look back at painful situations I've been in or things that have happened in life that didn't feel good. I could imagine not wanting to. Wanting to go through that pain. But I also think that, you know, one of the ideas of the show is this questioning of, you know, what can you actually cut off. Right. Because we all have to deal with everything on some level. And I think it's also what I was really attracted to when I first read the script too was there's so many different ideas of what, you know, severance could be a metaphor for. And I think we all do sever to a certain extent when we, you know, check out if you have a drink or, you know, you take a gummy or you, you know, watch a TV show or if you go on your phone. I mean, we all find ways to cope with the everyday sort of, you know, torrent of stuff that's coming at us in life.
- [07:54]
Kara Swisher
Right. It's also, I go to hardware stores and browse. When I do, I love them. So to be clear, you're not the writer of Severance, but you're executive producer and have directed quite a lot of the episodes. But. But you have been the driver of it. It feels like you were supposed to star in it. And you said you prefer to either direct or act, but not both. So what attracted you to it and the writer, Dan Erickson?
- [08:19]
Ben Stiller
Well, honestly, the script came into our production company, and it was a spec script, a script sent to see a writing sample. And Jackie Cohn, who worked at our company at the time, read it, and she gave it to me, and I read it, and I was like, this is great. It's a great writing sample. And also, is anybody doing this show? It was so unique. The tone, the dialogue, it reminded me of shows that I'd seen before, but it felt like its own thing. I was one of the ideas bandied about to be in it, but really, the second I read it, I was like, this is Adam Scott. And I felt just a desire to make it. And sometimes it's hard to actually analyze what it is that draws you to something, because sometimes I think it's something subconscious. You don't necessarily know, but you have a feeling for it. And I've tried to listen to that over the years in terms of just, you know, kind of going with my gut feeling about something and not even knowing what it is. I just thought it was good. I thought I wanted to see it. I thought I could see it in my head and wanted to, you know, wanted to make it happen. So that. That was it.
- [09:25]
Kara Swisher
What was the thing about it? Cause if it reminded. By the way, you are the voice of Keir Egan, right? The cult leader.
- [09:32]
Ben Stiller
I am the voice of Keir Egan in the. And I guess it's episode eight or when you hit 100% and you got, like, the little video of Kir on the mountaintop. So it's an actor playing Kir, because we actually have the voice of the real Keir Egan that Mark Geller portrays. When you see. And he's who Keir Egan is when you see him. I mean, I think it was the mix of humor and weirdness and the basic and the tone of the humor, which related to me to a lot of comedies that I loved. The Office banter. This feeling of sort of like this weird sort of like in the movie Office Space or Parks and Rec or the Office. You know, that sort of genre of office.
- [10:12]
Kara Swisher
Workplace comedy.
- [10:12]
Ben Stiller
Comedy. Yeah. Where it's like a lot of the humor is based in sort of everyday stuff. But then there was this other layer to it, which is these people don't know who they are, where they are, what they're doing, why they're doing it. Yeah, right.
- [10:26]
Kara Swisher
I mean, it's sort of like you put Mary Tyler Moore in an absurdist Sartre play or something. A little bit of no Exit, I guess. Cause it's also a lot of friends of mine, they're like, oh, I don't wanna watch it. It's too. It's a thriller. I'm like, no, it's a comedy, but it's also sci fi. It's romantic, it's dystopian, it's absurd. You've called it a workplace comedy. Is there. There's also.
- [10:48]
Ben Stiller
I feel like it's. Yeah, I feel like it's rooted in the workplace comedy genre. And then it also has these aspects of, you know, thriller, but also like 70s sort of, you know, style thrillers. And then also the weird kind of Twilight Zone vibe to it also. And I mean, to me, that was what was exciting, was that it's a combination of all these different things. And when you see something like that where you haven't seen it before, but in some way it triggers these ideas for you. It makes you want to lean into it. And so Dan had never had anything produced before, ever before. And so I had obviously worked for a long time, so he and I sort of partnered up. And it's always been his vision, but I think we really collaborated a lot in terms of the. Just the feeling and the vibe of it and the. The direction of the story as we looked at, you know, building it out from this pilot that he'd written.
- [11:42]
Kara Swisher
Mm. It also has a. I know it's. I don't know how old this guy is, but do you remember the. One of the last Planet of the Apes, like, beyond the planet. Not beyond. When they're sort of in Century City. A Planet of the Apes.
- [11:52]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. That might be battle or conquest.
- [11:54]
Kara Swisher
Conquest. I don't remember it had that really Cheap feel, but also, you know what I mean, in those weird places.
- [12:00]
Ben Stiller
Well, these are formative movies for me, the Planet of the Apes movies. I went to the Lowe's 84th Street Cinema and watched the Battle the Planet of the Apes, you know, marathon, where they go from playing the apes all the way through conquest or whatever. So, yeah, that's deeply rooted in my, you know, my DNA of, like, just things that I love to watch.
- [12:17]
Kara Swisher
Or Omega Man. It had a little Omega.
- [12:18]
Ben Stiller
Omega man, for sure.
- [12:20]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. We're all Charlton Heston. How so?
- [12:22]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, a little bit of Logan's Runnish.
- [12:23]
Kara Swisher
Logan's Runnish. So. But there's also a sense in the moment right now that big tech controls us, but this is about big corporations controlling us, which is not an uncommon trope. There's been a million movies of that. In this case, it's with cooperation, though, not full disclosure, which is what tech is like right now in a lot of ways.
- [12:43]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, technically, Lumen is sort of a med tech company, you know, and they. And they go back to the 1860s and 70s when Kerrigan founded it. And, you know, it kind of is really, you know, one of those companies that does a lot of things and you shouldn't quite know everything that they do. And obviously, the severed workers have no idea what they do there. And I always think that's interesting when you see the characters having to talk, especially for Mark in the first season when he just talks about, you know, supposedly I'm a corporate archivist or something like that. He doesn't have any idea what he's up to. And I think that idea of people who are working for giant corporations with a tech or whatever, who actually knows what they're really working towards. And I don't know about that world that much, but it seems to me.
- [13:34]
Kara Swisher
Well, it's a maximalization of what is working even for. Right. Like, what's the idea of what works even for. When you're just a cog in a larger picture of it.
- [13:43]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. And I think that goes just back to human nature. It's like, we all want to work. We all want to have something to do with our lives. And then there are certain people who, you know, have ideas of doing things that are, you know, who knows what they want to do? I mean, you could pick any tech billionaire. You know, what are their. You know, what are their. Their goals and their aims and. But ultimately, we're all just people who want to work and be happy and fill our time with something that we think is meaningful. And it can be really distressing when you're doing that in something you think is good or meaningful to you. But then the overall goal of this corporation you're working for might be totally nefarious.
- [14:22]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. The goal of the billionaires, tech billionaires, is fascism, as it turned out, and greed.
- [14:27]
Ben Stiller
Right. It's all about greed.
- [14:28]
Kara Swisher
Well, power, power, power is where it is. Or they know better, and they will tell us what to do. And that's what this Corp Lumen is like that too. We know, we care, but then they don't actually care in any way. So there's a lot about the unconscious as a model of knowing, separating you from doing. Severed, but not entirely severed, since a lot of it creeps into the consciousness, like the happiness he has in one world and deep unhappiness the others. And the idea that it would seep into it. What does that mean to have two senses of knowing? And how does it impact directing the actors? Because the actors obviously have to be two different people when you're doing it.
- [15:06]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. I mean, to me, again, it's one of the really interesting aspects of the premise of the show is how much of a person can be cut off from. I guess, you know, this. If it's your brain, if it's your mind, you know, there are technologies that are approaching trying to do something like this. But what is it that can cross over if you don't remember anything about your life? What are the innate human desires or characteristics that make you a person? And so that's constantly what we're looking at and asking in the show. And for the actors, it's great because that's a question they can ask in literally every scene. They can wonder about, well, how much of this is coming through my feeling for Dylan and Irving, if they're having a conversation, how much of Dylan's outy life is coming through for Dylan, even if it's not what the scene is about, or for Adam Scott playing Mark, he's constantly going back and forth between that and. I think that's. To me, what's really interesting about the show, too, is finding those places where something transcends the severance barrier, an emotion or a feeling. You know, there's a time in episode, I think it's like, I forget which episode. So season one, where Dylan says, basically, you know, do you think. Does love transcend the severance barrier? And, you know, that's the question, you know, what transcends and what. When we. When we suppress feelings, how much can you really Keep out of what? Your experience. I mean, it goes to the questions of post traumatic stress disorder. Suppressed memories, repressed memories, all those things.
- [16:50]
Kara Swisher
Years ago, I had a friend who was in one of those psychiatric things where they did therapy every day for hours and hours and was trying to find out all about themselves and figuring out where suppressed memories was. And they said, have you ever been to therapy? I said, never. I don't wanna know that much about myself, like something like that. I said something offhand, which is probably rude to someone who's in intense therapy. And they said to me they were a pretty unhappy person, I would say. And they said to me, you're blocking. And I said, it's working because I'm happy and you're not. Which was kind of an interesting moment. And I thought about it, watching this. I thought it'd be really interesting to watch this if you're a therapist of some sort too. Like, how do you look at this? Cause everything's about the conscious and unconscious and what bleeds into each other.
- [17:35]
Ben Stiller
I mean, as a person. I've been in therapy, okay. And I've talked a lot. And, you know, that question of how much talking about your past or talking about memories and issues, you know, there's questions about that, how much that really can help. Right. You know, and alternate therapies that are much more, you know, in the body and actually, you know, not really just about analyzing. And I think that to me resonates because I feel like a lot of this stuff is internal. And there's even questions about generational trauma that people talk about now. And it's really interesting because you think about what is cellularly in our bodies that we carry with us.
- [18:20]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, well, except in this case, they use an advanced piece of technology to create this ever. Right. To create the suppressing of the unconscious or the conscious. But even though it's an advanced technology that's happening here, it seems like everyone in the show is living in the 70s. As you talked about, it's a retro set. The costumes feel older on certain. On all of them. Really talk a little bit about that, why you wanted the look and feel. There's also a lot of doubling and duality, which was there's people walking together in twos, or it's a theme of two characters playing two different people. Talk a little bit about that, the look and feel of why you had the retro set. And also the duality that's happening visually.
- [19:03]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, well, in terms of the Audi world and the inuorld too, what I thought that Dan had written in the pilot was a very sort of generic kind of world. And I think he was commenting on that, I think, in a way, in terms of what working for a big corporation can kind of turn you into, and that sort of blandness, that corporate blandness, I felt we should mirror in the outside world. And I didn't want to have any actual reference points, like, you know, like CNN or, you know, brand names or things, you know, when you saw the news, just, you know, and that was sort of. The idea was like, we don't quite know where or when this is. It's kind of now, but we don't want to have any sort of touchstones or. And even in the technology. And look, I grew up in the 70s, and I do feel like ever since cell phones and smartphones were invented, it's really changed our lives, obviously. But also storytelling, because so many things that you'd have to do before that you tell a story, you'd have to go and do research or whatever. Now you just get on your phone. It's not very cinematic.
- [20:14]
Kara Swisher
No.
- [20:15]
Ben Stiller
You know, and that's why, like. Like. Like a prison story, too, inside of a prison, you. You don't have access to that technology. Prisoners aren't allowed. So. And in a way, severance is a little bit of a. It has a prison aspect to it.
- [20:27]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. It's got the Stanford Prison Experiment vibe to it.
- [20:30]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. And I think, you know, that world should be as kind of interesting and off and generic in its own way as the ini world, the outie world. And so that's kind of why we sort of gravitated towards that. And so the duality aspect, though, is just inherent in the theme. So just. That's a natural sort of, you know, tendency for us then, to look for in the imagery that. Because it's just telling the story in a way, and it lends itself to that. So I think that's part of just the sort of visual world of the show. And I think when you have a clear theme and you have an idea that's really specific, you want to stick with that theme and let everything build off of that so it feels organic and not forced, hopefully. And that's what I think the great thing about this idea is that it allows for that.
- [21:24]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. I went back and looked at the movements, and it's all duality. It's really interesting. But it also adds a level of suspense, since there is what the viewer knows and what two different people know, and then the pervasive sense of. Withholding information in a total surveillance environment. Right. There's a lot of misinformation happening here in this environment, largely by the Lumen executives who are not severed, by the way, who know both sides.
- [21:49]
Ben Stiller
Right. And we are constantly, you know, dealing with that question all the time. The question of how much Lumen knows, how much they're listening to, how much they're seeing, you know, within the severed world. I think there's always a question of how much they're letting happen, how much they know is happening, how sometimes the technology isn't quite great there. There's like, you know, there are places they can find like, you know, like a closet or something like that. And, you know, that's like a specific aspect of the reality of the show that, you know, maybe if we were doing this as a modern day show, everybody would be like, oh, wait, well, there's no way you could do that because they would have microphones everywhere. But I think there's something to the sort of clunky nature of this corporation too, that is kind of fun. And, you know, we don't have any. There's one security person in the first season, Graynor. But early on we had experimented and thought about having security guards on the floor. And anytime we ever brought security guards in, it always felt to me like it turned into like a Star Trek episode or something. There was something about it. And we realized, oh, well, like, the more we don't tell, the more we don't show, the more the audience has a chance to fill it in themselves. And that's always been, for me, a little bit of the question as I put the show out into the world. When we were making it the first season, we made all nine episodes and nobody had seen it. It's like, oh, I hope people will buy this, because, you know, you have to buy into it. But it's there because I feel like those aren't the questions as much that I'm as interested in, as opposed to the sort of greater themes of the show.
- [23:28]
Kara Swisher
Right? Absolutely. I mean, it's also a return to work story, which is sort of in the news right now. This idea of return to work. Did you understand that at the time you had a Covid period in here when you were making it?
- [23:42]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, not at all. I mean, yeah, the first season we made starting right when Covid started, and we were delayed, actually six months in production because of it. And so when the show was finished and people were starting to go back to work, and some writer wrote about it as like, oh, this is like one of the first return to work shows. It was purely, you know, that's just happenstance. So it was just, I think, the timing of how the show came out and it seemed like both the aspect of being sort of severed from everybody else in the world, you know, as we were, and that weirdness. Even making the show where the actors were, you know, we were first season, everybody was in full ppe and, you know, face masks.
- [24:26]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I don't remember any of that. I don't remember blocking. It's working. Someone's like, do you remember that? I'm like, I don't.
- [24:33]
Ben Stiller
You know that. And Trump was president before you knew that.
- [24:35]
Kara Swisher
I don't remember that. It's not going very well right now. We'll get to that in a minute. But no blocking. It's working. I want to get into the business of this in a second, but do you have a character you particularly vibe with on the show?
- [24:50]
Ben Stiller
I mean, I really enjoy all the characters equally. I like them. Adam is the key, I think, because, you know, he's the protagonist. But Milchick, that guy Milchick.
- [25:02]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, Milchick. Excuse me, Milchick.
- [25:04]
Ben Stiller
Well, Milchick is. Yeah. I mean, I'm excited for this season with Milchick too, just because I feel like he's an enigma and he can be scary, but there's so many different aspects to who he is that make him a really fascinating character. And everybody works for this corporation, so at the end of the day, there's a chain of command. And I think that's something that's interesting to us in the show is sort of like how even if it's this weird kind of world or these maybe possibly, you know, scary characters that work at the company, they're also looking. And so they have to deal with all of the office politics, too.
- [25:45]
Kara Swisher
The defiant jazz scene was my favorite in the entire. When they were dancing. So awkward. I've been at that party. I've been at that office party where they have cake in the office. They do pineapples here.
- [25:58]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, the pineapple fruit plate as a way of luring people back. You know, it's like sort of like, you know, those shitty little, you know, perks that you get that, you know, in contrast to what these people have experienced, that. That's huge for them. I mean, though they are trying it in season two on the outies. But the. It's funny to me that when they have an office party, it's still just them. There's nobody else there. So it's Just like, the lights change, but it's still the same four people who are, like, mingling with each other.
- [26:27]
Kara Swisher
Right?
- [26:27]
Ben Stiller
So that was one of my favorite sort of setups that we had with, you know, the idea of, like, well, okay, where is this gonna go? And all of a sudden, when you get this next level perk, they're gonna change the color of the lights in the room and you're gonna dance. And the combination of Milchick is like. He's kind of like, obviously the best dancer there.
- [26:49]
Kara Swisher
Such a good dancer.
- [26:51]
Ben Stiller
An amazing dancer. Tramell Tillman and Adam, the best white guy dancing I think I've ever seen.
- [26:58]
Kara Swisher
Quite good. He didn't do his. Biting his lips, the white man overbite. Yeah.
- [27:05]
Ben Stiller
To save that Billy cr. Yeah, yeah. It was. To me, the weirdness of that moment is kind of like, well, that's what's in the show. It's motivated because it's a. You know, it's a party. It's a perk. You understand why they're doing it. But it's also just so weird. And it's really fun to be able to, like, explore that.
- [27:26]
Kara Swisher
We'll be back in a minute.
- [27:32]
Ben Stiller
Foreign.
- [27:36]
Lucas Shaw
Business leaders. Are you playing defense or are you on the offense? Are you just. Excuse me. Hey, I'm trying to talk business here. As I was saying, are you here just to play or are you playing to win? If you're in it to win, meet your next mvp. Netsuite by Oracle. Netsuite is your full business management system in one suite. With Netsuite, you're running your accounting, your financials, hr, e commerce, and more, all from your online dashboard. One source of truth means every department. Departments working from the same numbers with no data delays. And with AI embedded throughout, you're automating manual tasks plus getting fast insights for your next move. Whether you're competing on your home turf or looking to conquer international markets, NetSuite helps you get the W. Over 40,000 businesses have already made the move to NetSuite, the number one Cloud ERP right now.
- [28:26]
Ben Stiller
Get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com on. Get this free guide@netsuite.com on.
- [28:34]
Lucas Shaw
Okay, guys.
- [28:36]
Kara Swisher
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- [29:42]
Ben Stiller
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- [30:11]
Kara Swisher
To talk a little bit about the business. Have you been surprised how popular it's gotten? I know Succession got more popular in the second season, right. And Severance was Apple's first new series order after the company launched its streaming service and it was trying to do an HBO thing that was very clear a place for big talent to come and make what they want with big budgets. Now severance is reportedly costing a lot of money and there have been cuts at Apple pulling the budget as the second season was being produced all across the way. But at the same time, Parrot analytics was noting that you might be generating $200 million for Apple in terms of subscriptions and everything else. And at the same time you're about to maybe announce your third season. Talk a little bit about the calculations here of how you look at it. Cause it used to be so much easier. Now you made mostly movies over TV shows. But talk a little bit about the calculations because it's a weird economic environment at the same time.
- [31:05]
Ben Stiller
Honestly. Yeah, I know very little about it. It's a weird world to be in from the beginning, it was a new, strange experience, because when we started developing the show, Apple wasn't even up yet. And someone called up and said, yeah, Apple's gonna do a streaming service, too. And I remember, like, laughing, going like, what? Who's. Okay, Everybody's doing streaming services. This is crazy. And we went out and pitched the show to different hbo, all these places, and Apple was the only one that bought it, and they weren't even up yet.
- [31:37]
Kara Swisher
So what did the others say about it?
- [31:39]
Ben Stiller
Well, you know, no one ever really tells you it's Hollywood.
- [31:42]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:43]
Ben Stiller
They say we loved it. It just wasn't for us. Yeah, but that's just the way it is, and that's par for the course. But they said yes to it. And then it was like, okay, we're gonna develop this thing for Apple, you know, Apple tv. That's weird to think of. And then a couple years go by, and then all of a sudden they're up and running, and we're a show that's in production for them. And so, honestly, I had no sense of what success would be other than I hope people watch it. And, you know, they don't really tell you the analytics.
- [32:13]
Kara Swisher
Oh, they don't? No. They don't ever tell you the analytics?
- [32:16]
Ben Stiller
No. They show us graphs and charts, but without numbers attached to them. And it's weird. I think that's weird for any creative person, especially when you're used to. You make a movie, you know exactly how many people went to see it on opening night, how much money it made a show, you get Nielsen ratings. So in a way, it took the pressure off of us because there wasn't some number we were waiting to hear. All we wanted to hear was like, yeah, we're happy. A lot of people are watching it, and you want people to watch the show. But the first season, we were lucky enough to get very positive critical response, which hardly ever happens in my life. And I was so happy about that. And it seemed like people were watching it, but I didn't know how many people. And then we went into our process of making the second season, which got hit by the stream strike. And, you know, it took a long. Much longer than we wanted. So coming back after three years in this culture is, you know, it's like 100 years in terms of just any guarantee that people are still going to be there. But in the meantime, Apple had grown. They'd built out their subscriber base, and I think they also really get the show, have Always gotten the show. I thought they did a great job of marketing it the first season in terms of just, like, the aesthetic of it with the show and Apple, and it always felt like a good thing.
- [33:35]
Kara Swisher
Well, it looks like Apple headquarters, but go ahead.
- [33:37]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, it does. And that wasn't intentional. I've never been to Apple headquarters, you know, seen, like, aerial shots, but, like, really, we designed it, but it always felt like it's, you know. Yeah, this fits on Apple. And then the second season, they really put a lot behind it. I think they believed in it and they, you know, had money invested in it, too. And luckily, our fan base, our core fan base really was still there for it. And I felt like it could go either way. It could go. You know, it's three years and we waited for this. You know, no, thanks. Or, like, nobody cares. It's back. Or it could be, you know, hey, it was worth the wait. And that's totally out of your control when you're making something. So you just put your head down and do it, you know, so you don't know.
- [34:21]
Kara Swisher
I mean, I'm just. This parrot analytics is pretty accurate. $200 million for Apple in terms of subscription. You don't know.
- [34:27]
Ben Stiller
Yes, I saw that. But that's all.
- [34:29]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah. Does that change your, you know, going to Apple saying, I want more money, I want.
- [34:34]
Ben Stiller
No, no. Because honestly, I feel like they've been great. I have no complaints. It's like they. They've gotten behind the show. They. I, you know, and they. These things are so complicated. I think I was really happy to see that article because I. I didn't know, but I also feel like they've always been like, yeah, we love the show. We're behind it. And. And, you know. Yeah, it's never been, like, a thing.
- [34:58]
Kara Swisher
Did you have any problems working for a tech company?
- [35:02]
Ben Stiller
You mean, like, in terms of just my own sort of moral.
- [35:05]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. Versus a Hollywood. Yeah. Well, just. This is a whole new change with these tech companies, sort of Amazon and Apple.
- [35:13]
Ben Stiller
For me, just the concern that not knowing what Apple TV plus would be like, whether or not they were. How serious they were about it, whether or not we would be looked at as, you know, a real show early on, you know, in that way, I think, like. And, you know, that's also the not knowing what they had really planned for and what they were trying to do, other than them saying they wanted to make really good shows.
- [35:38]
Kara Swisher
Right.
- [35:39]
Ben Stiller
Which they have. But, you know, you do hear, of course, everybody's like, well, you know, ultimately, it's a phone company. You know, they're making phones like Amazon.
- [35:46]
Kara Swisher
The creator of Transparent called me once and I said, you're selling toilet paper. That's what you're doing.
- [35:51]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. And look, for a creative person who grew up in my generation, it's weird to see, you know, it's weird to see that Amazon prime is on there. Like, when you're shopping for Amazon stuff and you could just click on that and watch movies and shows, it takes away something of the specialness of movies, when you look at it that way. And then there's the other aspect of what's informing their decisions based on their analytics and the level of information that they're getting that will create for them ideas of what they think they want to produce for their.
- [36:23]
Kara Swisher
Yeah. So what are the chances of a third season? You did get Tim Cook in an ad. That was a good sign.
- [36:29]
Ben Stiller
Yeah.
- [36:30]
Kara Swisher
He's a big ham, by the way. He pretends he's not a ham. He's a ham.
- [36:34]
Ben Stiller
He seemed to like it.
- [36:35]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [36:36]
Ben Stiller
No, Yeah. I think their chances are really good. And you know that. Yeah. I mean, for us, we just want to be able to tell the story in the number of seasons that it should be to finish the story. And that's what's great. I mean, that's the upside of working in this era, is that we're not a show that has to keep going because the network, it's a network hit show that they're saying we need 22 episodes and you gotta keep doing till the ratings drop. That pressure is not there. And that, I think, is something that gets lost a little bit in all the sort of weird negatives of this world, too, is that you have that creative freedom.
- [37:13]
Kara Swisher
So at the same time, there's the Netflix phenomena. Right. They regularly beat all the other streamers. More top 10 shows combined than all of them. Despite the quality and reviews that Apple gets. They'll pop up anything Netflix, like, really pretty much. Now, you guys have been doing a bunch of marketing. You had the season two pop up in Grand Central Station. That was hysterical. Where you put them in a glass box and had people have them do their work in the glass box, which.
- [37:39]
Ben Stiller
Was for three hours.
- [37:40]
Kara Swisher
They were there for three hours and you were outside. People were shooting pictures of you at the same time. How do you. Is everything else go around Netflix in that regard, or is there. Streaming is sort of starting to settle, I guess, but maybe not.
- [37:54]
Ben Stiller
I don't know in terms of how it's all set, settling out. It's just. I Know, it's a crazy new world. I know Netflix has changed everything. The amount of shows that they produce, movies that they make, the level of what they're putting in and spending, it's just changed everything. So everybody who makes stuff, you want your stuff to be seen. And so it's that sort of push pull where if you have something on Netflix, you know, that you have a chance for more people in the world to see it than probably ever. But it also could be just go down the queue very quickly and never even, you know, get any attention. And that's a real thing too, you know.
- [38:39]
Kara Swisher
So you're scared of the queue.
- [38:41]
Ben Stiller
The queue, yeah, sure. But I mean, like, who wouldn't be feeling like, oh, I don't wanna just go down. But it's just such a crazy world now that the cultural moment that you have for something. I actually like being on Apple because they don't drop everything at once. We get to have an episode every week. And I think for our show, that benefits our show. It does, because we get a chance for people to chew on it and to think about it and to talk about it and to go online and go back and forth and to want to.
- [39:08]
Kara Swisher
It.
- [39:08]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. And to want it and. And I like that. And maybe that's just a generational thing and just I'm an old guy who's like, oh, I remember when shows would come on and you know, every week. But it's. It is succession was like that. Right. And you look forward to that. And I think, you know, it's just the new world we're in. But, yeah, Netflix has turned. It has turned the movie business upside down and it's still trying to find its way, I think, in terms of what defines a movie. You know, I'm hoping, and I really do believe we're going to get back to what people went to the movies for besides Spectacle and, you know, Giant IP and, you know, and all that stuff. And, you know, I feel like that will come back around.
- [39:53]
Kara Swisher
Well, you've made both types of movies, right?
- [39:55]
Ben Stiller
Sure, yeah. But, you know, back in the day a little bit, and I haven't done it for a while. And, you know, in movies, and it's hard, too. You know, the thing is, like, the movies had that version of it where you have an opening weekend, and if your movie didn't do well on the opening weekend, a wide release, then it would go away pretty quickly. So it's kind of the same version of, like, being on the queue at Netflix. It's just kind of you know, on steroids or something, you know, even more.
- [40:20]
Kara Swisher
Existential in that vein. There's a question. Not from me. Every episode, we ask an outside person to record a question. Here's yours.
- [40:27]
Ben Stiller
Hi, Ben. My name is Lucas Shaw, and I'm the managing editor for Media and Entertainment at Bloomberg News. My big question is. Following the strikes and the broader pullback on spending in Hollywood, many executives, producers, and creative people say this is the worst time to work in Hollywood in their lives. What's another moment in your career where your peers had so much existential dread? Thanks. Ha, ha.
- [40:49]
Kara Swisher
That's presuming you have existential dread.
- [40:51]
Ben Stiller
But, I mean, existential dread is sort of something that creative people have all the time.
- [40:59]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [41:01]
Ben Stiller
And that, I think, could be like, generational trauma that I have too. I mean, I, you know, grew up around that too. It's, you know, it's. It's not a very secure, you know, business being an actor or a creative person. I mean, I can't remember a time when people were as off balance as they are now. I mean, it's. Everything has changed in such a big way. I'm trying to think of when VHS happened or something like that or things like that, but it's just all been sort of thrown out there in a way that we don't know. I don't think the people who are making things know where it's gonna land either. So they're trying to figure it out. And there's a lot of fear because those people want to keep their jobs, which I understand, but they, you know, have to make these choices based on what they think the audiences are doing. And so, yeah, I. I don't. I can't remember a time like this, what didn't feel.
- [42:01]
Kara Swisher
So you had noted it in the New York Times interview, though, that when a decision is made, it's never explained to the creative person, or usually if it is, it's not usually the truth, et cetera.
- [42:10]
Ben Stiller
Well, that's. Yeah, that's just sort of, you know, old school.
- [42:13]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, that's old school.
- [42:13]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, it is. It's. And, you know, it really is. You know, people don't ever say, I don't know of in any business, because I've only done this. But, like, people tell you when they reject an idea or something, if they always tell you the actual. Their honest, you know, reason why they're doing it. But I think, you know, in. In this business, people want to keep their relationships with each other and they want to stay connected because they don't know what the next thing is going to be. And that's just always been a part of.
- [42:41]
Kara Swisher
But I do think you're right. The bosses don't know what's going to happen. Right. That's the problem is they really don't know. And going back to existential jed coming up with the guardrails for use of AI in filmmaking are important points of negotiation. The actors and writers strikes. We've talked about this. There was some recent controversy with the Oscar nominated film the Brutalist. They use AI to correct the Hungarian accents of its lead actors. Do you think about AI's potential impact on the industry? Are you thrilled by it? Is there a line in your head that shouldn't be crossed when applying. I suspect you might lean into it. I don't know why I think that maybe.
- [43:14]
Ben Stiller
I think it's so unknown, it's scary to think about what people could do with it. The potential, what is actually possible to do. I do believe that creative human beings are always going to be what people want to connect with and see their stuff. There are little places where AI. I feel like almost what's going on with CGI really is, in terms of visual effects is basically into that world anyway at this point. Yes, that's true. Using those tools. I mean, there are little ways that if I feel like, oh, to be honest, I'd say like, oh, you're doing adr, which is when you're looping extra lines or something and an actor's not available. If the actor said, hey, it's okay, you can use my voice and we can get the, you know, those words that you need to put in. Because I'm not available to do because I'm doing another movie, something like that. Those are like kind of like mundane, practical things that I think would be really helpful. And I don't know, I mean, I think I love the Brutalist. I, you know, I don't in any way look at that as that making that movie lesser in any way at all. Honestly. I also am very impressed with that movie, as a lot of people are, because the price it was made for. But the unfortunate thing is that a movie like that has to be made for such a low price.
- [44:37]
Kara Swisher
Low price, yeah.
- [44:37]
Ben Stiller
You know, it's just, it's hard because I know how much creative people will, you know, will really stretch themselves to do what they want to do creatively because they, you know, and it's really hard to get the opportunity to make a movie that's not something that everybody in the world is gonna want to See, but yet those are the movies that we celebrate with awards and, and move us. So that's what I feel for are the creative people who are forced to have to really sacrifice a lot so that they can get something made. And now whether if AI could in some way help that, I don't think that's a bad thing. But where the rules are around it, I mean, the idea of somebody taking your image and then being able to do whatever they want with it, it's very concerning to me when I see what it could be done.
- [45:24]
Kara Swisher
Well, they take your image a lot. Zoolander, all your different parts.
- [45:28]
Ben Stiller
I've often seen that also happened. That's always happening, that kind of thing. Right. I think ever since the Internet, you know. But I do think it's concerning when you see in the political world how, you know, political ads can be created and people doing things that they didn't do. It's, that's, that's really scary.
- [45:46]
Kara Swisher
We'll be back in a minute. At New Balance, we believe if you run, you're a runner, however you choose to do it. Because when you're not worried about doing things the right way, you're free to discover your way.
- [46:16]
Ben Stiller
And that's what running's all about.
- [46:18]
Kara Swisher
Run your way.
- [46:19]
Ben Stiller
@Newbalance.Com Running.
- [46:27]
Kara Swisher
Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert Flouride Kennedy Jr. Went before the Senate today in fiery confirmation hearings.
- [46:34]
Ben Stiller
Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon? I probably did say that.
- [46:42]
Kara Swisher
Kennedy makes two big arguments about our health, and the first is deeply divisive. He is skeptical of vaccines. Well, I do believe that autism does come from vaccines. Science disagrees. The second argument is something that a lot of Americans, regardless of their politics, have concluded. He says our food system is serving us garbage and that garbage is making us sick. Coming up on Today explained a confidant of Kennedy, in fact the man who helped facilitate his introduction to Donald Trump on what the Make America Healthy Again movement wants. Today, Explain Weekdays wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Prof. G Markets, we.
- [47:26]
Ben Stiller
Speak with Robert Armstrong, US Financial commentator for the Financial Times. We discuss Trump's comments on interest rates and who might emerge as the biggest winners from the deep sea cross trade. In the world we lived in last Friday, having a great AI model behind your applications either involved building your own or going to ask OpenAI can I run my application on top of your brilliantly good AI model? Now, maybe this is great for Google, right? Maybe this is great for Microsoft, who were shoveling money on the assumption that they had to build it themselves at great expense.
- [48:04]
Kara Swisher
You can find that conversation and many.
- [48:06]
Ben Stiller
Others exclusively on the Prof. G Markets podcast.
- [48:10]
Kara Swisher
So you recently joined me in a not so exclusive club. We've both been called names by Elon Musk. I am seething with hate and an asshole. In case you're interested. I'm not gonna repeat what he said about, you know, what he said about you. We're not repeating that word. Cause I'm a good girl, okay? I don't say that word anymore. I used to when I was a kid. We don't do it anymore. But he seemed upset that you endorsed Kamala Harris. And then after, you wondered an interview whether Tropic Thunder could be made today. And I wish there was. As you know, I'm desperate for Tropic Thunder too. He wanted you to be more upset about how Wokus has supposedly ruined comedy. Talk a little bit about this.
- [48:45]
Ben Stiller
That makes no sense to me.
- [48:46]
Kara Swisher
I have no idea what that means. Well, you think he's on the up and up now these days? Cause he makes so much sense about everything he does.
- [48:53]
Ben Stiller
But I have very little interest in his whole thing and, like, what he's doing.
- [48:58]
Kara Swisher
So tell me why. Because he was retweeting a Daily Mail headline that read, ben Stiller says woke America killed Edgier comedy. That's not what you said at all, from what I could read.
- [49:08]
Ben Stiller
No. Yeah. That was a total. Yeah. That was not at all. It was the opposite of what I was saying. I don't know why he has so much time on his hands that he's retweeting something that was written about me. I know he really likes Tropic Thunder. Great for him. But I think he's after the Nazi salute. The double Nazi salute. Yeah, I'm just. I'm not. Yeah. Not into it. Never was into it. And I think, you know what's happening. Honestly, not. Not that anybody needs my opinion, but what's happening in terms of him being so close to the president and, you know, all the questions that. That brings up in terms of conflicts of interest, all of that stuff is really, really concerning.
- [49:51]
Kara Swisher
It is absolutely. The two of them together and what.
- [49:53]
Ben Stiller
He cares about, pop culture and all that stuff. It's like, you know, who gives a shit?
- [49:59]
Kara Swisher
You know, he wanted you to agree with him that Tropic Thunder couldn't be made. Isn't that awful? It goes with the narrative of, isn't everybody trying to stop us because we're the greatest victims on earth? Us rich people are the greatest. I think that's down that lane. Something like that. Yeah.
- [50:13]
Ben Stiller
I mean, I don't think it makes anybody a victim. I mean, what the temperature is in terms of what movies are getting made or not. The reality is, yeah, sure, the environment is different and it would be tougher to get it made. I don't know if it could get made or not. I think it would be harder to get it made. But that doesn't mean I'm commenting on the state of our culture. I think it's just.
- [50:36]
Kara Swisher
He wanted you to agree with him, I think.
- [50:38]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't.
- [50:39]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, but you don't. Okay. But one of the things that people are worried about is a Trump chill in Hollywood. Now, obviously that's happening in tech. Everybody showed up at the inauguration. All the tech. Richest people in the world. New York magazine recently quoted an anonymous producer who said, there's more fe in the executive suites now than there's ever been. There seems to be a pulling back. Disney pulled a trans character, for example. Is there any indication for you that Hollywood executives would be more hesitant to fund projects with political messages? Quite a few of yours have them. Now. Besides sports that you endlessly blue sky about which I don't understand any of your references, you're also very political. You don't shy away from that. But I believe they're a basketball team. In any case, you are a political. But do you think about that at all?
- [51:28]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, sure, I think about it. I mean, yeah, I don't know, like after, you know, when October 7th happened and, you know, in Israel. Yeah. I was trying to think of, like, well, what should I say? And it was really. I realized, like, I'm not going to be able to express myself in a tweet or a blue sky post or, you know, it's just. Just. I don't want to go into that arena of, like, having to sort of, like, distill some idea down into a thought that then people are going to debate and, you know, what's going to happen with that. But so to me, it's more a question of, like, where do I express myself and what do I do? And I don't think having to legislate all this stuff on the, you know, on your phone all the time or as much as sometimes there's an instinct to. To me, that's not something that I. I'm gonna really do well with or it's just not gonna make me happy to do that. But I feel like that's why I wrote a little something about October 7th and just put it out there because I wanted to express myself. I just think it's this social media debate, and what it turns into is not. Never really goes well.
- [52:37]
Kara Swisher
What about the art itself? Do you think how it will be impacted by the time we're in? If you could look forward. I know I interviewed Rachel Maddow recently, and we talked a bit about our podcast about Nixon's corrupt first vice president, Spiro Agnut, and it's being adapted into a feature film. You were reportedly set to direct. Do you think about doing. Are you directing that? Is that correct?
- [52:56]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, I'm trying to get that movie made. We almost got it made a couple years ago. I think it's more important now. Look, I think artists are incredibly inspired now to speak out in creative ways about what's going on in our country. My daughter's an actor. She just graduated from drama school, and she's a writer, and she wants to make movies. And she said, you know, all I want to do right now is make stories about women and what they're going through because of what's going on in our country right now. So I think people are really inspired, and you're gonna see a lot of amazing art come out of it.
- [53:32]
Kara Swisher
Does it make you want to do more? Because, I mean, Angels in America came out of Reagan, right? It came out of that anger. A lot of that art came out of things.
- [53:40]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. I think you have to be true to who you are and, you know, in terms of what you create. But, yes, for sure. And I think we all have to, like, kind of look at ourselves and say, okay, you know, what message are we putting out there with whatever it is we make? But even if a comedy, a drama, whatever it is, it doesn't all have to be political. It has to be true to who you are. And, you know, we're all affected by the world that we're in, so it's hopefully gonna be a reflection of the experience that you're having in some way. I don't put that pressure on people to have to go out and do something. I think you have to be, you know, do what feels right for you.
- [54:13]
Kara Swisher
Is there something that inspires you now at this moment? Because, I mean, do you get. Feel more? I don't feel like you're gonna be making Night at the museum 7 at this point or whatever we're on. Whatever we're on.
- [54:22]
Ben Stiller
Well, I mean, honestly, though, I still think it's good to have stuff that you can watch that can make you laugh and get your heist movie.
- [54:30]
Kara Swisher
What's it called? Heist.
- [54:31]
Ben Stiller
Oh, Tower Heist.
- [54:32]
Kara Swisher
Tower Heist was so good.
- [54:33]
Ben Stiller
Do you wanna know? You know what? We shot that in the Trump Tower.
- [54:37]
Kara Swisher
You did. I know you did.
- [54:38]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. And. And the movie was originally called Trump Tower Heist, but Trump wanted them to pay him for the use of his name, so they changed it to Tower Heist.
- [54:46]
Kara Swisher
Oh, wow.
- [54:47]
Ben Stiller
Well, I don't think anybody ever heard that.
- [54:49]
Kara Swisher
Oh, wow. Good to know.
- [54:50]
Ben Stiller
Sorry. Yeah. But no, look, I, like many people after the election who, you know, didn't vote for Trump, kind of, you wanted to just sort of hide for a moment and just not have to deal with the reality. And I think, you know, now it's sort of this moment in time where it's like, okay, this is the reality we're in. It's not the first term. We have to look at. Look at ourselves and do what we feel is right to, you know, to be who we want to be in this moment. And so I think it's. That should all be, you know, what you're expressing, and it should all be part of, you know, what you want to say. So, yeah, that movie Bagman, I'd love to get that movie made right now because I feel like it sort of tells the story of what happens when people do the right thing in the face of somebody who's trying to, you know, go past the bounds of what their power is.
- [55:35]
Kara Swisher
Right. And Spear Ragnew is quite a character. He's such a fantastic character. That was a great podcast. I like all of Rachel's podcasts a lot.
- [55:41]
Ben Stiller
Me, too.
- [55:42]
Kara Swisher
So my last question, where we go is this idea of influences you now, or perhaps before I know your mother and father, the great Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. She died in 2015, I think. That's right. And he died in 2020. You're working on a documentary about them right now. Can you talk a little bit about this? And I imagine they gave you a lot of advice about entertainment, business, and storytelling over the years. Is there anything about their careers, from your perspective, that endures and what influences you today?
- [56:11]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, I mean, they worked together as a comedy team. They got married in 1953, and they weren't making any money as actors, both separately, trying to get work. And then my dad came up with this idea of them doing a comedy act together about who they were. And then we were born, my sister and I, and so grew up around it all. And for me, it was exploring in the movie this life of living in a household that was constantly part of their creative process because they would work at home and they would write together and they would perform and come home and, you know, be parents and actors and it was all sort of intermingled. And then of course, you know, you grow up. And I got married and had kids and became an actor and my kids want to be actors. And I was so looking, looking at what is it inside of us that the creative process is and how that connects with relationships that we have in our life. When you do this kind of thing, when you go to an office job, you go to the office, then you want to maybe sever and not think about it. But in a life where you're a creative person, it melds through and it's always part of who you are. So it affected my parents marriage. They stayed married for 60 plus years, but there was a lot of stress and tension in there. And I was able to. My dad recorded a lot of stuff, audio recordings, Super 8 film. And he recorded them rehearsing and then sometimes the tape recorder would keep going and they'd get into an argument or they'd talk about what was going on in their life. So I was able to take those tapes and kind of see something that I hadn't seen in their private life together and how they, they navigated this relationship and their careers together.
- [57:57]
Kara Swisher
And when does that, where is that coming out?
- [58:00]
Ben Stiller
It's going to be Apple. Apple movies? Yeah. And it's going to come out later this year, I think.
- [58:06]
Kara Swisher
So. Last question. What then influences you today about doing this from them? What did you come away with?
- [58:13]
Ben Stiller
I think I came away with a better understanding of my parents in terms of. Of my dad's creative process in particular because he was very focused on that. And sometimes it sort of took him away from the family in a way, just kind of in his head a little bit. And I think I inherited that from him. And I think it's kind of made me look at my own relationship with my kids and my wife and have a little more perspective on that and maybe be kind of, you know, I don't know, like, less angst about that because, you know, an appreciation of like going, okay, we've gotten to this place, things have not always been perfect, but, you know, you keep evolving. And both my parents, I think, were constantly evolving and questioning themselves and looking inward. And I think that's, that's something I got out of it.
- [59:09]
Kara Swisher
All right, Ben, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
- [59:12]
Ben Stiller
It great talking to you. All right, bye. Kara.
- [59:18]
Kara Swisher
ON with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castor, Roselle, Kateri Yocum, Jolie Meyers, Megan Burney, Megan Cunane and Kalyn Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Special thanks to Kate Furby. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you already find the show show, you get a pineapple. If not, you get the dance experience and you do not want that experience. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.