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The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The Existential Crisis at the Heart of the Hollywood Writers’ Strike
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The Existential Crisis at the Heart of the Hollywood Writers’ Strike
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A
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B
Let's get into two first, Commercial parody.
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C
We were trying to think of a funnier serial name.
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B
The favorite options so far include Honey.
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C
Bunches of Sadness, Oat Bung, and Swastikos. You probably have a mental image of what it's like to be a TV writer, sitting around a table with a group of funny and creative people spitballing story ideas and lines of dialogue.
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B
Fruit, lupus, dingleberries, fart nuggets. That's really great.
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C
But with the rise of streaming and then with the pandemic, this kind of writers room is getting harder to come by. Fewer screenwriters are staff per show, so they're doing more work for less time and for less money. And the arrival of AI makes this tenuous situation even more precarious. Last week, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, halting the development of all new film and TV for an indefinite period of time, possibly months. You're listening to the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggatt, a senior editor at the New Yorker. My colleague Michael Shulman interviewed some WGA members before they went on strike. And he wrote a piece titled why are TV Writers so Miserable? So you've interviewed a bunch of writers. I believe you spoke to a number of TV writers before they actually went on strike. And I'm wondering if you could just sort of give us a rundown of the major demands, like why exactly are they striking?
- [02:53]
B
There are a bunch of demands and a bunch of problems that are structural in how television works these days that the Guild has been fighting for. Basically what's happened over the last 10 years is that the streaming model, the kind of Netflix model, has really changed how writers are compensated. And you know, the old model used to be like, if you worked on a network sitcom or a drama or something, you would work on a 22 episode season, say, and that's a lot of employment. And then after that you get paid residuals for if it went on syndication, if it went to, you know, DVD sales, stuff like that. You have this passive income. And so you could live a pretty good life. You, you know, like a middle class sustainable existence in a pretty expensive city like Los Angeles. As a television writer. What they're saying now is that a number of factors have basically whittled it down so that that kind of thing is not possible anymore. And TV writers are basically living like gig workers. So the writers rooms are smaller, they have fewer people, they meet for fewer weeks. So they are working a lot of the time for minimum fees for a short amount of time, and then not knowing where their next gig is coming from because these are not longer sustainable jobs. And then the residuals don't come because they're on streaming.
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C
Yeah, I assume they don't get paid every time someone streams an episode of something. Because you could see a world in which residuals could, you know, they could just rework the residuals so that they work with streaming. Right.
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B
Netflix doesn't even release their data on what people watch. So that's another bone of contention. But essentially what the writers are saying is that these big corporations that are making record profits on all of their content and producing tons and tons of content because the world revolves around TV now, is cutting them out and basically making it impossible to just make a living and be a screenwriter.
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C
I'm interested in something you said earlier, which is that before streaming it was possible as a TV writer to live a solid middle class lifestyle in Los Angeles with. Which is funny. I mean, maybe I'm just naive, but I always thought of TV writing as pretty glamorous.
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B
Well, look, being a writer in Hollywood is typically not something you do for Respect, you know, like the cliche has always been like, Hollywood treats writers like garbage. You know, it's a director's medium. If it's movies, it's studios, producers getting all the credit. Writers get rewritten, they sort of get ignored. But the trade off is that you get money. And in my piece about this, I quoted a very famous telegram that the writer Herman Mankiewicz, who later co wrote Citizen Kane, sent to one of his newspaper friends, Ben Hecht, in 1925, that basically told him to come out and work for Paramount. And he said, there are millions to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. So that was kind of the idea. Like, you know, that was the 30s when there was the rise of the talkies and all these writers like Clifford Odets and, you know, Dorothy Parker were going out to Hollywood. You know, William Faulkner. They didn't do that for glory and they often hated it, but they made some solid money. I think a similar thing happened with prestige TV about 10 years ago. I mean, half the people I knew who were playwrights or journalists seemed to all leave New York at the same time and go to Hollywood to start writing for tv. And this was the era of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. TV was having a creative revolution and it was really exciting. And you could, if you were a playwright, you could go off and start writing for some great show on AMC or something. And it wasn't even slumming it. All your friends were doing it too.
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C
Yeah. I mean, how much of the strike is about that aspect of it? Just the fact that these writers aren't getting much respect and haven't gotten much respect over the years? I mean, the headline of your piece is, why are TV writers so miserable? I mean, obviously the miserableness is sort.
- [07:04]
B
Of not to pay. Not getting paid well does make you miserable and also makes you not feel respected. So they're intertwined. You know, there are really serious economic issues with how writers are compensated for writing TV and movies. And if you listen to them, like it's really. The technological change has really trickled down into taking advantage of the writer. But I think connected to that is a certain kind of creative frustration. You know, TV is kind of getting worse. The incentives now aren't necessarily to find the next Mad Men, but, you know, if you're like Warner Brothers Discovery, it's to get the next Batman show or the former hbo. Max, which is now Max, announced a whole Harry Potter TV show. Like there's more and more franchises.
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C
The listeners can't see this, but the look of Disgust on your face is very palpable.
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B
Yeah, no, I mean, I talked to one of the TV writers I talked to who's, you know, worked for stuff like Watchmen on HBO and the Leftovers. These really innovative, interesting, groundbreaking series that came out of this explosion of creative experimentation is now saying, like, you know, you can show an original script to one of these companies and they'll love it, and then say, okay, this is great, but which of the following Batman projects would you like to work on? You know, at the same time, I think there are certain things that make the job just less fun. Everyone's meeting on Zoom now instead of in an actual writer's room that is connected to some of the things that the WJ is demanding, because there's a new thing called mini rooms that have kind of taken over the industry. This sort of an interesting term for a truncated writer's room that meets before production or sometimes before the show is even greenlighted, and basically plans out entire season of television. And then the writers are paid their minimum, and then they disperse, and they're not brought on set. They can't continue to do rewrites, and the showrunner is sort of left alone to finish out an entire season of television. That is creating a lot of stress, both financial strain on the staff writers who are not getting to stay with the show through its production and its post production, and also for the showrunners who would love to have a staff of writers working for them for the most part in helping them with all these scripts. And so there's just a lot of stress and unhappiness all around. And also this sense that, you know, it's not this golden age of fresh, original ideas that it once was.
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C
What changed? I mean, we all love prestige television, or at least I do. I mean, you know, the Sopranos, Mad Men, that's like the bread and butter of tv. And it just seems strange that there would be this transition that both the viewers don't really like, and then also the writers and showrunners don't like toward just an entirely different type of tv. I mean, as you said, it's. You know, most TV is bad nowadays. So what led to these, like, incentives, I guess.
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B
You know, one of the writers I spoke to said something like, when Netflix arrived on the scene, everyone said they're going to drive the industry over a cliff, but then everyone piled into the car. I think that sort of gets at it, which is that all of Hollywood has run sprinting toward this streaming model, and you now have peacock And Paramount plus and Max and all these streaming services. But it's very hard to make money that way. And entertainment was a very lucrative medium that has now sort of put everything on streaming platforms and realized that you can't really make the same kind of money that way unless you continue growing your subscriber base. And so stuff like announcing a Harry Potter series is a way of telling the shareholders of these companies, okay, we're going to have something that's a big franchise. It's ip, it's a promise of future profitability, whereas the next cool, weird idea doesn't necessarily do that. So the incentives have changed in a way. I think these periods of creative ferment in Hollywood are almost the exception to the rule. I'm sort of reminded of movies in the 70s, where the studio system was crumbling. You know, the old studio heads didn't know how to speak to a youth audience, and they suddenly were turning over the movies to these young, cool directors like Scorsese and Coppola. Like, that's sort of what happened with tv. But those conditions only last so long.
- [11:36]
C
So what is the current state of the strike? Like, it's been about a week now. Have the studios done anything to indicate that they're listening to the wga, that they might be willing to compromise on, you know, some of the. More like, contentious issues, like what's happening?
- [11:51]
B
No, they haven't. In fact, they haven't restarted. They haven't restarted negotiations since the strike began, and they haven't, as of the moment we're talking. They haven't even announced any plans to start talking again. Everyone seems to think that they are very far apart, the two sides. There's the WGA and then the producers organization, the amptp.
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C
What is that exactly?
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B
The alliance of motion picture and television producers.
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C
So that's like Warner Brothers, Disney. I mean.
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B
Yeah, yeah. All of the big producing companies, Netflix. I mean, what's interesting is to look at the group and there are so many tech companies in it now, like Amazon, Apple, Netflix. Like, these are the new players alongside the Warner Brothers and Universals.
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C
I wonder how that even works, because you would assume that Amazon just has such different priorities than NBC, even if NBC has.
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B
Absolutely. And they have, in some cases, very different business models. Like some of those old studios don't have streaming services. Whereas Netflix, who basically seems to be the villain of this strike. I had a friend who's a screenwriter who said that in Hollywood, the picket lines outside of Netflix have the rawest, angriest emotion of all of them.
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C
Why Is that. Is it just people hate the game or.
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B
No, it's because Netflix is the. They're the one who have come up with this new business model that's taken over everything else. The Netflixification. My God, that's a really hard word to say. The Netflixification of Hollywood. Ted Sarandos, the co CEO of Netflix, said right before the strike that they're in a good position to wait it out because essentially they have a big stockpile of stuff that's already been produced. When you think about it, you know, the last strike in 2007-2008, TV was very different. You know, you would turn on the TV at 11:30 and not get your new episode of Letterman. Now the Netflix algorithm can just push a foreign show or a reality show in front of your eyes and the average viewer may not even know that anything is different. Of course, that will only last for so long because eventually they will run out of original. And we've already seen in the past week, production has shut down on major shows. You know, Hacks has ceased production. I just saw Severance stop production on season two today. Heartbreaking, because I really am looking forward to season two of Severance.
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C
It ended with such a cliffhanger.
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B
I know, I know. But we're gonna have to wait. And you know, of course the writers would be eager to tell you that this could end tomorrow if the producers gave them what they wanted.
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C
Yeah, I mean, what you say is so interesting. It makes me think that this strike could potentially last even longer than the. The one in 2007, just because obviously Netflix can keep pushing stuff to the top. But then you wonder if they might just change things around so that they're buying old IP from other. I guess I was just thinking about how like, you know, a show like Gossip Girl, like that used to be available on Netflix, and now if you want to watch it, you have to go to hbo. And like, I wonder if the streaming platforms could almost play some kind of game where they're buying things and selling things and creating a world in which viewers just feel as though what they're getting on these platforms is new and exciting, even if it really isn't.
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B
The traditional TV season isn't as central anymore. I mean, it is there. You know, in September, shows are supposed to come back, and they might not, but it's less pronounced. I mean, the 2007, 2008 strike lasted 100 days. The one before that was 1988, that lasted 153 days. So it passes prologue, you know, only for A couple months. And what's interesting is that where you feel the pain as a studio or as a viewer, it kind of trickles from one thing to the next. Like, you know, already the late night shows like the, you know, Jimmy Kimmel, the Tonight Show, Siren Night Live, those are instantly affected and they go dark because there's basically zero turnaround time between writing and airing. Then the next thing to be affected will be scripted dramas and comedies. And then, you know, if it goes on long enough, it could even affect the release date of movies which are written, you know, maybe a year before they come out. So there's a kind of rolling series of effects. And I've also been hearing that there's just so much solidarity with other unions in Hollywood that, you know, they, you know, Iatse and the Teamsters, like, if they see a picket line of writers on a set, they're not gonna cross it. And so this is how you get, you know, entire productions shut down.
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C
Coming up, Michael Shulman on how the writers strike might Foreign.
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I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.
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I'm Michael Kollori, Wired's director of consumer tech and culture.
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C
And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.
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D
At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech.
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B
Right. So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you.
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D
Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.
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C
Would you say that a victory for the WGA would be a step toward better tv? I guess. Is the focus more on just like the pay and the conditions, or are some of the demands. Do they actually have to do with the quality of television that's being put out? Just less sort of like content. Happy? I think second screen content is how it's referred to in your piece.
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B
Yeah, yeah. One writer did tell me that the streamers are looking for second screen content now, which is basically stuff you can have on while you're checking your phone. So that's. We're certainly not in the land of the Sopranos anymore if they're looking for second screen content. I mean, taste is subjective. I would like TV to be the best it can be. Obviously. We are in an era where there is a lot of scripted television. And so this is what gives the writers leverage. Like, you need us, you need our ideas, you need our writing. You need us on set to be writing it. You know, one of the things that it's come up with mini rooms and other writers rooms is the studios aren't paying for writers to be on set. So that means for them that they don't get experience that helps them climb the ladder to become a showrunner, or they become a showrunner so fast, and they've never really had the experience they need to learn.
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C
And selfishly, as a viewer, I mean, it seems weird that the writers can't see what's happening on set, which characters have chemistry with one another. I feel like there are things that you could see on set that would, you know, factor into the plot line.
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B
Yes. And also, when you have writers on set, it makes the shows better. I mean, one show that.
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C
How can it not?
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B
I was on the set of Succession a couple years ago watching a scene with Jeremy Strong, and there was a writer coming up with alts, you know, alt lines. And they tried a couple different things. They chose the best one. So, you know, the idea that you can have scripts for an entire season and then just it goes off and gets made and the writers are cut out, that's sort of what these companies are trying to do. And yet it's not in the best interest of good television. I mean, right now, stuff that's in production, as a friend of mine put it, like, say you have to move a scene from, like, a hallway into an office, and you have to have the characters say something different because of that. Like, you need a writer to do that, you know?
- [19:59]
C
Yeah, no, for sure. You were saying that Netflix is the villain of this or one of the villains of this, or at least they've been painted that way. Is there a sense of whether there are any, like, heroes or outliers among the studios? Like, is there a network or a platform that's trying to do it better? Or that maybe is known for being slightly better toward their writers than others? Or are they all just kind of in. I mean, I guess they're all kind of negotiating together.
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B
This is not exactly an answer to that question, but related, which is the writers I've spoken to have said they are not at odds with the development executives at these companies. You know, if you've had a show at Netflix or Hulu or HBO or something, they love the executives they work with. And those executives are themselves frustrated because they would rather be finding the next cool great idea, which is why they entered television, than having to tell the writer, I love this, but you need to come up with a Marvel pitch or something, or the next Star wars thing. So it's kind of radiated out to even the suits, but they have to convince the people above them to greenlight a show that's new and original and weird.
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C
That's so interesting. So it's not just them railing against the man. It's like, in some ways, the man can actually be supportive. It's like there's a man above the man. There's always another man.
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B
There's always another man. Sometimes it's a woman, but mostly it's a man. But this is why I'm saying, like, everyone in Hollywood seems so miserable because the misery is radiating out. The incentives are changing, and the moments of creative golden age ferment, they come and they go so fast.
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C
Yeah, I mean, the golden age is gone and now we're in the age of AI. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about AI and sort of the concerns that it's generated among TV writers and just kind of. I know that that's been a big part of the negotiations is this question of AI, how much it can be used in the writer's room and how people will be credited and whatnot if it is used. But what's. What's going on?
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B
I mean, my impression of this is that it actually wasn't a huge priority for the WGA going into negotiations. They thought, okay, we're going to put some guardrails, ask for some regulations on how AI is used. And according to them, because the producers, I said, absolutely not, it suddenly raised a big red flag. It's like, what are you planning? How soon are you going to replace us all with robots? So it seems very futuristic and crazy. Obviously, AI can't write the next episode of Succession, but there are real reasons to be concerned. And the fact that the producers said, ok, well, we're gonna counter with, why don't we meet about it once a year and discuss it? That was their counter. Let's have a meeting. It's like, let's have a picnic and discuss. Now, in the last WGA strike in 2007, 08, they were discussing the Internet. TV was just going onto the Internet in a way that we now know is second nature to us all. And the WGA said, okay, we need a piece of this if TV is going to be online. But they didn't know where it was going. They just knew it was going somewhere. It's sort of similar with AI now, where you don't know what it's going to be capable of doing. Say you want to adapt a book into a screenplay, but you want to do the first draft by AI you have an AI converted a book into a bad first draft, and then you hire a screenplay on like a day rate for cheap, to sort of punch it up. Or maybe on a late night show, you have AI come up with a bad first draft of jokes and then you hire actual humans to like, turn them into real jokes. Could that be a cost saving measure? There's some real issues with copyright because AI generated stuff cannot be copyrighted. And so then what happens? I mean, I can imagine saying, okay, maybe AI can't write the next season of the White Lotus, but if you gave it every season of Law and Order, could it write the next 100 episodes of Law and Order? And in that case, do the writers who wrote the original episodes get credit? Do they get paid? And then do you have any humans going forward, like for the next, like, you know, 50 years of law and Order episodes?
- [24:23]
C
I mean, is that what the WGA is? Are they trying to say that, yes, if AI is fed hundreds of episodes of Law and Order written by other people, that those people should then be credited or have. Are they just trying to start a conversation about this? I mean, do they.
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B
No, they're trying to have actual rules. Yeah, you know, like, you can't just have robots do it. And, you know, I think they were pretty freaked out that the producers said, how about we have a nice chat about it every year instead? So that has now become. And it's also a kind of a flashier news item. So I think people are paying attention to it, but it is a real thing.
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C
And so thinking back to the writers strike in 2007, which lasted, I think, 14 weeks, I mean, my memory of it is just that shows that I really liked all of a sudden had like very short seasons or didn't come back. Like here. One theory I've read is that you can trace the rise of reality television in some ways to the 2007, 2008 strike, just because it was a period where all these scripted shows came to a stop and the studios were looking for other forms of content to put out. And there's been debate about whether that's true or not. But there just seems to be a lot of confusion about the long term cultural impact of these strikes, whether if there are like genuine cultural Shifts that can be attributed to those older strikes. Like, can you see other interesting cultural changes come as a result of the strike, aside from just shows stopping for a while.
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B
Yeah, I mean, I do think that thing about the reality television boom is somewhat overstated. I mean, all the major reality shows like Survivor and even the Apprentice were on before that strike. Well, before it and clearly after it ended. It's not like scripted television went away. Like we had this incredible era of scripted shows, which is what we've been talking about. So I don't know. I mean, you can never tell what the unexpected consequences will be. One thing that I have seen people talk about is that it's possible that after a certain amount of time, I think it's July somewhere, studios might be able to use this strike to their advantage to get out of contracts with sort of high paid writers that they want to wriggle out of due to force majeure. It's like, oh, there's a strike. We can kind of cut off whatever we were paying you.
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C
I mean like Phoebe Waller Bridge.
- [26:49]
B
Yeah, Phoebe Waller Bridge, who has been in the news lately because she got this gajillion dollar deal with Amazon and hasn't actually produced any shows in the past three years. See, this is one thing that I think gives the average person a kind of warped sense of what TV writers are making is cause we hear about the Shonda Rhimes and the Ryan Murphys and the Phoebe Waller Bridgeses, these people who are kind of star writers who have these like TV empires and get paid millions and millions and millions of dollars. And that does kind of skew what you see as like the average earnings of TV writers. But that is not the average person who makes a living as a television writer. So the strike might affect some of those contracts. I mean, you really can never tell. And it depends on how long it goes on. It's a difficult, unpredictable industry. I do think though that this strike has really captured the enthusiasm of other creative professions in Hollywood. I mean, the DGA is now negotiating. SAG comes after that. And I do wonder if the kind of discontent with the status quo will change because of everyone's collective angst.
- [28:19]
C
Was that part of it last time? I guess like just the entire industry being in solidarity with the writers who were striking.
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B
No, everyone has told me that who was involved then, that this is way different, that there's way more solidarity. Last time it was really just the writers.
- [28:32]
C
You know, as we said earlier, you've talked to a number of writers who are striking right now. What do they, you know, realistically think that they are going to achieve? I guess it's like, maybe it's kind of a pessimistic question, but are they at the point where, like, they're sort of expecting to have to compromise on certain things, or are they feeling stronger than ever in their original proposals?
- [28:55]
B
The writers that I have talked to are almost giddy with, you know, this sense of fight. And they tell me that, you know, going to a picket line in LA is almost like a party atmosphere, and people come by and honk at them. And they have really funny signs, which we've seen on Twitter. My favorite is pay us or we'll spoil succession.
- [29:17]
C
Yeah, I've seen some that are like, chatgpt wrote this.
- [29:22]
B
Yeah. I mean, we'll see if that carries over, if it lasts three months. But what do they. I mean, they want what they want. And the question is, you know, it's a strike. So eventually they go back to the negotiating table and something happens, but we don't know what. I think on a fundamental level, what they want is to stop this erosion of the writers room, this erosion of sustainable compensation. And I think one thing that is working is they want the public to start thinking a little bit more about who writes the TV that we are all consuming constantly.
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C
Yeah, I think that's definitely happened. Which is, I mean, sort of related to another question I had, which is, I mean, obviously, this is only, like, the latest major labor action we've seen in, you know, the last couple years. There have been teachers, nurses, Starbucks baristas. They all went on strike in the past year. But it seems like the writers strike in particular is something that we've all kind of been talking about, partly because we all watch television and, you know, they've been getting a lot of media coverage. And I guess, like, do you think that the, you know, this writers strike, you know, given how heavily publicized it is, that it'll be good for labor overall? Or is this almost an example of, like, a more elite strike dominating a larger conversation about labor?
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B
That's a good question. I mean, obviously, anything that has to do with show business in Hollywood gets outsized media attention. But I also think that labor strikes can have an infectious quality, and they can inspire other people and other industries. And, I mean, we just had Harper Collins go on strike. Yeah, that was another one that seemed like, oh, this is an elite industry. These people work on books. What are they complaining about? But it got a lot of visibility, and it really helped people think about, okay, who's working at the company that makes the books that I read. So I don't know. I think there seems to be a lot of labor unrest in the country in general these days, and a lot more attention paid to that. And I think that Hollywood obviously gets sort of magnifying glass on whatever they're doing, because we know these players, like, you know, if, you know, hacks is shutting down or, you know, Drew Barrymore is pulling out of hosting the MTV Video Music Awards in solidarity with the strike.
- [31:54]
C
That's like a personal problem for me.
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B
If she, like, people know, okay, Drew Barrymore. Drew Barrymore's concerned about this. All right. I mean, it reaches more people. So who knows?
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C
Do you? I guess I'm just trying to figure out how long this can possibly go on, because on one hand, it seems like the streaming companies in particular are in a place where they're going to be able to put off a deal for a while, but they can't just not have anything new forever. And then you have all these writers who also need to get paid. And I know that some of them are being paid. I mean, there have been headlines about late night hosts who are going to continue to pay their writers even while they're striking, but that probably can't continue indefinitely. So, I mean, do you have any sense from the people you've talked to of this could last longer than the last strike? Maybe it'll be 150 days, but there's no way that it can be a year or. I mean, could it be forever?
- [32:48]
B
Be forever? Yeah. There's never going to be a scripted television show or a movie again. No, it'll end at some point, but obviously nobody knows what's going to happen. But you're right. I mean, I talked to a young writer for my piece named Alex o' Keefe, who wrote for the first season of the Bear. He had an incredible story because he grew up in poverty in Florida. He was a speechwriter for Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. He worked in the Sunrise Movement, and then he got this job on the Bear. And yet, you know, he never went to set. He had to stretch out the money that he made, you know, after paying his reps and paying his taxes, paying his WGA dues. And a few months ago, he won an award as part of the WGA Awards. They won Best Comedy. And he showed up in a bow tie that he had bought on credit. His family had helped pitch in for his suit, and he had a negative bank account. And he's now told me he is now applying for jobs to work at movie theaters because of the strike. So, yeah, it's really hard on people. But I think that from what I've seen, the writers are ready to settle in for a long fight. I'll say this, the word that keeps coming up is existential. So they know that this is not just about the next three months. It's about whether they can even remain in this business, whether this remains a profession in the way that it has been.
- [34:19]
C
Well, thank you so much.
- [34:20]
B
Thanks, Tyler.
- [34:23]
C
Michael Shulman is a staff writer at the New Yorker. You can read his piece why are TV writers so miserable? On newyorker.com now, this has been the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggatt. The show is produced by Michelle Moses with help from Sidney Cobb. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Our theme music is by Alison Layton Brown. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next week.
- [34:58]
D
I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.
- [35:01]
B
I'm Michael Kollory, Wired's director of consumer tech and culture.
- [35:05]
C
And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley is about the people who power and influence of Silicon Valley.
- [35:14]
D
And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about a big story, often at the intersection of tech and politics.
- [35:24]
B
Right. So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin, Doge, or Elon Musk, we will always explain how these Silicon Valley forces are.
- [35:31]
C
Affecting Washington and how they affect you.
- [35:35]
D
Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.
- [35:44]
C
From PRX.