← The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Can Journalism Survive AI? — with NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien
00:44:37
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- [00:01]
Podcast Host
Support for the show comes from vcx, the public ticker for private tech. The US Stock market started history's greatest wave of wealth creation. From factory workers in Detroit to farmers in Omaha, anyone could own a piece of the great American companies. But today, our most innovative companies are staying private longer, which means everyday Americans are missing out. Until now. Introducing VCX, a public ticker for private tech. Visit getvcx.com for more info. That's getvcx.com carefully consider the investment materials before investing, including objectives, risk charges and expenses. This and other information can be found in the funds prospectus@getvcx.com this is a paid sponsorship. Support for the show comes from Northwest Registered Agent. Your business identity is everything that makes your business legitimate and professional. With Northwest Registered Agent, you don't just form a business. You start a complete foundation built for privacy, credibility and growth. That includes registered agent service, a business address, operating agreement, domain website, professional email, phone number, and built in privacy. In other words, your home address, personal email and phone number. Stay private. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com Prof. Gfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent@northwestregisteredagent.com profg free.
- [01:31]
Meredith Kopit Levien
The worst advice I have ever gotten is stay in your lane. I am Rabin Arsan, Athlete Executive Founder and staying in my lane would have kept me small. Don't protect other people's comfort at the cost of your growth. This week on Project Swagger my strategies for embracing your multi hyphenate existence. Tune in now at Project Swagger wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:00]
Scott Galloway
Episode 3881988 Prozac was introduced to the US market. Depression for me is like having a huge dick. It's just something I've learned to live with. Go go go. Welcome to the 388th episod of the Prop G Pod. What's happening in today's episode we speak with Meredith Kopit Levian, CEO of the New York Times. I'm a big fan of Meredith. She's done a great job there. It's not an easy God. So I don't know if you know this or not.
- [02:41]
Podcast Host
I was on the board of the
- [02:41]
Scott Galloway
New York Times and being the CEO is a shitty job because 50% of America hates the New York Times. It's also in a business that's just not a great business. They do it better than anybody, but it is long form journalism that's fact checked. It's just very expensive and a shitty business in the world of Google and Facebook. But Meredith has done, done a great job. Anyways, we discussed with Meredith the future of media, the impact of AI trust, polarization and the evolving role of journalism. So with that, here's our conversation with Meredith Kopit Levian. Meredith, where does this podcast find you?
- [03:29]
Meredith Kopit Levien
I am in Washington D today, which is unusual for me on a Tuesday, coming to you from the Washington bureau of the New York Times.
- [03:37]
Scott Galloway
Actually, let's use that as a jumping off point because it's kind of a tale of two cities in terms of the Times and the Washington Post. The Times, this is kind of the mother of all softballs, but it's true. The Times just posted its strongest year in recent memory. 13 million subscribers. Your revenue approach with revenues approaching 3 billion. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has laid off around a third of its staff. And it seems that generally speaking, legacy media companies are in a bit of a crisis mode right now. And the Times is, I think, on any objectionable measure or objective measure. What have you done right or what do you think is working that's not working at other legacy media companies?
- [04:18]
Meredith Kopit Levien
That's a big one to start off on. Let me start by saying I'm rooting for all high quality independent journalism. I think the Post is still plenty of high quality independent journalism, particularly original reporting on big important topics. And there are a number, number of outlets doing it. You know, I can talk to you about what we are doing and what I think has gone right so far at the Times. Probably the biggest and most important part of the story of the results that you just described is that we have made a sustained and very deliberate investment over a very long period of time in original independent journalism. That's in journalists and in the support system structure around them to make sure they can do extraordinary work. We've got the largest newsroom in the history of the New York times. Now it's 2,300 people. We have 3,000 total journalists and content makers at the Times. They are pursuing just an extraordinary range of coverage, things that are of great civic and geopolitical consequence and also stuff that's just deeply relevant to people in their personal lives. And I think the Times has invested sort of throughout its history in that and recognizes that that's where the value is most derived. And that's the thing we do best in terms of, of long term value creation. I'll add to that that we have had a very clear strategy that we've been out now for in some ways multiple decades, but I can at least speak to the last decade. And we've given that strategy to be the essential subscription to curious people everywhere. We've given it the time and the space and the resources to play out. And I think we also have a long history of using tech and format innovation to make our work more and more accessible to people. So I think all those things are working and I just want to say. And we will be, you know, hard FM for years to come. I mean, it's not that this is a high quality independent journalism is a hard business. Doing the kind of work I just described is hard work, particularly the journalism part of it. And you're going to, you know, I will be talking about the deliberate investment in that. That and the fight to keep doing it for years to come.
- [06:59]
Scott Galloway
So you're the CEO of a public company and public investors want growth. Where do you see as the biggest avenues for growth for the New York Times company?
- [07:06]
Meredith Kopit Levien
I always say I think our best days are still very much ahead of us. And I say that as the CEO of a company that's been around for 175 years. Growth. We see growth in news and in our lifestyle products and I hope we get a chance to talk about those too. We see growth domestically and in internationally and we see growth in an opportunity to take so much of the extraordinary work we are doing and push that work into new formats and modalities where lots and lots of people are getting their information and particularly this year, video. We are very, very focused on making the Times. So take us some time to do it. But making the Times as perform preferred a brand for watching the news and the other things we do as it is for, for reading and listening to it.
- [08:05]
Scott Galloway
So you've, my understanding is you have sued several AI companies at the same time. You are, have just signed a deal with Amazon. How are you, what is your strategy and approach to AI?
- [08:19]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Yeah, I would regard the two things you just said, enforcing our rights in court and also doing the deal we've done with Amazon as kind of a piece. The idea here is this is a business that is grounded in making high quality, original independent journalism and other kinds of content that is intellectual property. And copyright law protects that intellectual property from its use by others without our permission and without control over our work. So that's what the lawsuits are about, enforcing the rights around our intellectual property. And I'll just say there, the companies that are making the LLMs are spending in many cases hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on things like talent and power and compute, all the stuff that goes into making models. And one of the things that goes into making models is high quality information, and we'd like to see them pay a fair wage for that as well. And at the same time, the Times has a long track record and history of forging partnerships and doing deals with companies where we feel like we're getting sustainable, fair value exchange for our work and where we have control over how our work is used and where it comports with our strategy. And that's what you've seen us do with Amazon.
- [09:59]
Scott Galloway
It strikes me that, so there's essentially two or three LLMs that dominate the market and there are just a ton of media companies that they're crawling, I would argue, hijacking their information. Would the Times be open to either participating in or leading a coalition similar to what the music artists have done, that demands or speaks with one voice? Because one of the flaws I see in the ecosystem, Meredith, is that each media company has a tendency to overestimate its importance in the ecosystem, recognizing that no one company is indispensable for, for Alphabet or Meta or in this case, OpenAI. It strikes me that the, and I remember arguing this 20 years ago at the Times that you shouldn't go it alone. You might get 10 or 20 or $50 million. So one of the LLMs or companies can brag, put out a press release saying that they're the, you know, they have a licensing agreement with the New York Times company. But it's. In sum, isn't part of the problem that companies including the Post, the Times, Conde Nast, Nikkei, name all these media companies news corps, that you guys just don't play well together and as a result haven't created a coalition to push back on big tech, which has absorbed so much of the market capitalization and attention that used to be the domain of those traditional media companies. Quite frankly, I'm saying this as an ecosystem that you're part of, aren't you guys the perfect enemy? And that is you don't get along and form coalitions.
- [11:37]
Meredith Kopit Levien
So many questions in there. No, let me try and get at least a few of them. The first thing I want to say is I think everyone running a business doing high quality independent journalism, doing original journalism, thinks of the other companies doing that sort of first as in the same pursuit, and thinks about protecting that pursuit. And I want to say, as it relates to the enforcement of our intellectual property rights, we have taken the actions we've taken to benefit the Times. But we've also taken them because we think we've got a really strong. We've got a really strong story in terms of how much intellectual property we have, how long we've been doing it, how much of it is copywritten. We think that that is quite important to how things go from here. And we thought we had a big opportunity to do something here that was important for the Times, but also important for journalism more broadly and important for society in terms of there being a continuously sustainable model for high quality independent journalism, by the way, over time. Probably important for the LLMs because the LLMs need high quality information sort of coursing through their models as well for the models to actually be good. So that's the first thing I would say. And then I would also say if you look at the issues that kind of animate collective interest in the industry, and I mean sort of small c. Collective. Many of us are focused on the protection of the rights and safety of our journalists. And we go at that together. When America was leaving Afghanistan, the Times worked with a number of news organizations who you would consider close competitors to help get people, journalists and the people who supported them for 20 years safely out of Afghanistan. And when we think about defending the rights of journalists to do their work in an unfettered way, you see a lot of support coming out from other organizations. So I don't totally agree with you on the characterization of we're such enemies that we can't do things together. And even having said all that, I do think that every company's intellectual property rights really matter. And companies should be in a position to control how their content is used. And I think individual companies having that control really, really matters.
- [14:39]
Scott Galloway
Okay, so Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers Pictures, New Line Cinema, DC Studios, Miramax, CBS, the CW, CNN, HBO, TBS, TNT, TruTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Discovery Channel, HGTV, Bear With Me, Food Network, Travel Channel, Animal Planet, TLC Investigation, Discovery, Idaho Science Channel, and the Oprah Winfrey Network, and the Magnolia Network, addition to Paramount, hbo, Max, Discovery, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Bleacher Report, CBS News, cnn, CNN and Espanol, hln. I'm almost done here. CNN International, Warner Brothers, Discovery, Paramount International Channels, and then a variety of production companies are all about to be under the control of one family, the Ellisons. Your thoughts?
- [15:29]
Meredith Kopit Levien
I wondered where you were going with that. Listen, I don't have much to say. I run this company and I've been doing that for.
- [15:42]
Scott Galloway
You're an iconic leader. What would you say to the FTC and the Doj right now. Do you think this is good for the media ecosystem to have all these brands under control of one family?
- [15:51]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Look, I think I care a lot about work that is kind of first human made, creative, expressive work that drives our culture and that includes news and includes the work of all the companies you just named. And I am for whatever conditions are going to allow that work to flourish, what the control structures are, who sits atop of them, I'm sort of not spending a whole lot of time thinking about that. I do care a lot about news in particular in that context, and I am for a very healthy market of other news competitors. And that's good for the Times, good for journalism, obviously, good for the public.
- [16:39]
Scott Galloway
I'm not sure what to take from that. Does this consolidation worry you or you just think it kind of plays out the way it plays out?
- [16:48]
Meredith Kopit Levien
I think what I'm really saying is I have not spent a whole lot of time thinking about, nor is it my work to think about, how that will affect the Times business. I am intently focused on how the Times can keep hiring journalists, deploying those journalists in ways that help them get to the best work, and making the other extraordinary lifestyle products we make. And you know, that's, that's where my focus is. I'm sure there are other people at the Times, including our media reporters, who will have a lot more to say about that.
- [17:22]
Scott Galloway
We'll be right back after a quick break.
- [17:28]
Podcast Host
Support for today's show comes from Northwest Registered Agent. Starting a business can be overwhelming. But if you want to take that first step, look no further than Northwest Registered Agent. You can get access to thousands of free resources forms and step by step guides without even creating an account. And when you sign up for a free account, you can get access to corporate guides. These are real experts who answer your questions, no strings attached. And they don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. And when you're launching your next big thing, you need experts in your corner to help you navigate the unique hurdles your business might face. Don't wait, protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com Prof. Gfree and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent@northwestregisteredagent.com Prof. Gfree. Support for the show comes from pipedrive. If you're running your business, you know the deal with most CRMs. They're packed with endless features. You'll never use interfaces that feel clunky, and you end up spending way too much time just trying to find basic information. That's exactly what pipedrive is trying to solve. Pipedrive is a simple sales CRM tool for small and medium businesses. Pipedrive brings your entire sales processes in one dashboard, giving you a crystal clear, complete view of the sales processes and customer information so you stay in control and close more deals faster. It all centers around the visual sales pipeline, where you can see every deal, what stage it's in, and what needs to happen next. Since everything is in one platform, pipedrive makes it easy to unite your team, keep track of sales tasks and stay on top of your leads. Plus, pipedrive is powerful enough to scale with your business, but simple enough that your team can actually use it effectively. From day one, you can switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies over using Pipedrive. Right now. When you use our link, you'll get a 30 day free trial. No credit card payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com profg to get started. That's pipedrive.com profg and you can be up and running in minutes. Support for the show comes from vcx, the public ticker for private tech. For generations, American companies have moved the world forward through their ingenuity and determination. And for generations, everyday Americans could be part of that journey through perhaps the greatest innovation of all, the US Stock market. It didn't matter whether you were a factory worker in Detroit or a farmer in Omaha. Anyone could own a piece of the great American companies. But now, well, that's changed. Today, our most innovative companies are staying private rather than going public. The result is that everyday Americans are excluded from investing and getting left further behind, while a select few reap all the benefits. Until now. Introducing vcx, a public ticker for private tech. VCX by fundrise gives everyone the opportunity to invest in the next generation of innovation, including the companies leading the AI revolution, space exploration, defense tech, and more. Visit getvcx.com for more info. That's getvcx.com carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, discharges and expenses. This and other information can be found in the Fund's prospectus@getvcx.com this is a paid sponsorship.
- [20:58]
Scott Galloway
One of the things I use AI for the most is I use it. I don't use it to write. I find that I thought my next book I would just put in a very thoughtful prompt and boom, I'd have my next book.
- [21:10]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Get a book out of it, right?
- [21:11]
Scott Galloway
Yeah. And it isn't panning out that way. I find that so far it's kind of all chip, no salsa, that there's no real voice there, it sounds like what it is and that a computer wrote it. But at the same time, I do use it a lot for editing and for fact checking. If you were to estimate what employment or the number of people will be not only just in the New York Times newsroom, but other news, other big newsrooms, do you think AI? What do you think the impact of AI is? Because I have generally found that it does. While it doesn't replace the written word or your ability to write, it does in fact increase efficiency. What are you thinking in the back of your head? What is the size of the newsroom right now? Where do you see it in two or three years?
- [21:55]
Meredith Kopit Levien
So 2,300 people in the kind of core newsroom working on what you think of as coming from the New York Times proper. And then 3,000 total, including the 500 plus journalists, the athletic and the journalists working at wirecutter and cooking and so forth. So roughly 3,000 people. Let me say I feel very strongly, and again, I run a public company and I say this to everyone who will listen. I don't think the sort of core, you know, the work at the essence of what journalism is meant to do and sports journalism and shopping advice and high quality recipes and even the production of games. I think that's like first and foremost a human endeavor, you know, by humans, for humans. And I'll just say I don't think people talk enough about the idea that what is it that journalists do? Reporters go out into the world and with expertise in the domain that they're covering, they unearth new facts and they work with editors to make sure they do that in as full a way as possible. And then they bear witness to things. Sometimes in very difficult circumstances, they bear witness to important things that are happening that the public should know about. And then they translate that with sensitivity and judgment and a very careful professional process in a way that's meant to get people to understanding. And you've got human beings like in all parts of that equation. And I certainly think that technology, including AI will help make parts of that. To your point, about what's going to help you write your book, it will help make Parts of that go better, maybe be more efficient. But I don't think it replaces the sort of thing at the core that we're doing. That is certainly true for high quality independent journalism. I think it is also true when you think about sports journalism. Are you going to send a bot into a locker room to talk to a team that's just not made the tournament because they didn't win their conference or I think we're starting to see what recipes made by AI that have not been tasted and tested by chefs do. And I could go on and on across the New York Times portfolio. So I have real confidence that we'll find ways, as we always have, to use technology to make aspects of the work even richer or more efficient and maybe give time back to the human journalists doing the things I've just described. But I absolutely do not believe there will be wholesale replacement if the New
- [24:59]
Scott Galloway
York Times Company were to be accredited with any huge strategic transformation. That is, the company has a market cap of 8 to 9 billion, which is pretty substantial. The stock performance has been strong. You're doing about. It looks like 200 to 250 million dollars a month in subscription revenue and 75% of your revenues come from subscription. I would just, if I put myself into your head, it's like okay, subscription, subscription, subscription revenue. And what do you find is a really drives gets people to subscribe and not churn. And two, when you look forward, what new channels and I'm going to assume continue to invest in a world class newsroom. All right, let's assume that's a given 10 million digital subscribers. At some point you're going to have to have a board deck that says this is how we get to 15 million in the next five to seven years. What are the areas and what type of new types of content do you think will drive incremental subscriptions?
- [26:03]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Let me start by saying we are playing in really big spaces already where hundreds of millions of people spend time and that's news broadly defined. And I always caution people to say news is not just kind of war and politics, it's science backed health and wellness and it's culture and it's lifestyle and it's how we live today and so many other business. It's tech, it's so many things, it's what will the impact of AI be on companies and jobs. So news is a really big thing that has persistent demand and there's kind of nothing else like it in terms of bringing in new audiences every day, especially in big news moments. So that's in a giant space. And then let's go through the other spaces. Sports. Scott, I think you're a sports fan. I do listen to you and I think you're a sports fan. We've got the largest sports newsroom on earth with the Athletic. We're, you know, more than 500 journalists covering every major team and league in the United States and European football and sort of growing into a number of other things. Sports is a giant category. We are in really early days. We've been in the athletic for four years. So lots of running room there. We've got 11 games now. Tens of millions of people play some of our games every single day. Games has done extraordinary things for the times. And I would just say since we had crosswords and the mini and spelling bee and then we acquired wordle and then after we acquired wordle, we made connections and strands, which are two of our biggest games. And we've just put out two new games. We've got pips and now we've got our first multiplayer game in crossplay. So like, that is an engine where there's still tons of running room and that keeps giving. And I often say, you know, Wirecutter, the shopping advice that Wirecutter does, you know, human tested product reviews, where there is like a professional process that goes into how do you pick this is the right thing if you want those less expensive version, this is the right thing if you're willing to pay more for it. I think in all and cooking, you know, 25,000 human tasted tested recipes. I would say, Scott, for growth in every one of those areas, we see real running room. And often the work is how do we prioritize to get to the biggest things first. But I could tell you in every single one of those products, there are kind of ample places for more growth. And then I'll just say all of those products are getting more visual, they're getting multimodal, they're getting more sort of video oriented. And you and I both know that you just listed off a huge number of companies that mostly work in television or video. They make things that people watch and the more we can make the times into something that is across the portfolio as preferred for watching as it is for reading and listening. I think the more growth we can have when you.
- [29:21]
Scott Galloway
So I was with a TV producer this weekend and they said that the chill that the FTC's aggressive actions against media companies and the president constantly interfering and issuing statements that this company should go away or this company should succeed or this the Secretary of War or the Department of War stating that, picking favorites, saying that the Ellisons are doing a great job and others aren't. And this producer said that the chill has been pretty dramatic and that is everything they do now has to go through vastly more legal checks. And quite frankly, there are some things where they choose different words for fear that they're going to be sued by the Trump administration or be intimidated. Have you found, do you sense this chill at the Times?
- [30:12]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Short answer, the Times is not being chilled or cowed or in any way, shape or form coming off of the work of pursuing the truth wherever may lead, even when that is to an uncomfortable place for a subject for some part of the audience, period. My longer answer is the encroachments on the independence of news outlets is it's awful. It's awful for the news outlets. It's awful for society. Why does the Times cover the actions of the Pentagon and the military? Because it is our job to help the public hold power to account and to help the public understand if, if the country is going to war or if series of geopolitical actions are being taken, why? What is the context for those actions? What are we to know about them? We do that work not in service to our own interest. We do it for the public, as do other news outlets. And I think any encroachment on that, anything that makes it more difficult for journalists, us to unearth facts and get them to the public is really problematic. And I think the thing that doesn't get talked about enough is press freedom has been something. It's not a left right issue. It's something that has enjoyed bipartisan support in this country for many, many years. And I think we have gone from a time when there was real institutional sort of reinforcement of the importance of a free press, even from leaders who most definitely didn't like the way that they were covered. I think we've gone from that to having leaders and institutions actually do work to sow doubt in the press. That's why a lot of these actions are happening for their own interests. And I think it's terrible for the country.
- [32:26]
Scott Galloway
But are you spending additional resources on legal review to try and make yourself more immune?
- [32:32]
Meredith Kopit Levien
The Times has an extraordinary team of lawyers because of the need to protect our press freedoms on behalf of ourselves and the rest of the industry, because of what we talked about before with AI probably have more lawyers today than at any point in our history. But I want, you know, the thing you're really asking me about is does the reporting change, the answer is no, right? More reporting, more interesting things are happening.
- [33:03]
Scott Galloway
Even if it was, I wouldn't expect you to own up to it. And I see no evidence that there has been a chill. What I'm asking is, is it increase the expense around legal review and ensuring when you have a target, when you have a target on your back and an active shooter, you have to spend more money on security.
- [33:22]
Meredith Kopit Levien
You know, the, the example that I think sort of demonstrates how much we spend or how much goes into this is, you know, we've had people with the war in Ukraine is now in its fifth year. We've had people there continuously the whole time, some spending, you know, unbelievable amounts of time there. And every time we put a reporter on the ground in Ukraine, there are security experts, there are translators, there are logistics people making it so that as safely as possible and you can't eradicate all the risks, that person can do their job. And if you think about any storyline, including the Washington storylines, just making sure we have the right legal and editing support structure around our journalists is a huge part of how the time goes about its work. And yes, we are spending lots and lots of money and effort and resources on it, no doubt.
- [34:21]
Scott Galloway
We'll be right back.
- [34:28]
Podcast Host
Support for this show comes from LinkedIn. It's a shame when the best B2B
- [34:32]
Scott Galloway
marketing gets wasted on the wrong audience.
- [34:34]
Podcast Host
Like imagine running an ad for cataract surgery on Saturday morning cartoons or running
- [34:38]
Scott Galloway
a promo for the this show on a video about Roblox or something.
- [34:42]
Podcast Host
No offense to our Gen Alpha listeners, but that would be a waste of anyone's ad budget. So when you want to reach the right professionals, you can use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers according to their data. That's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title industry, company role, seniority skills, company role revenue. Also, you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn Ads boasts one of the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com Scott that's LinkedIn.com Scott. Terms and conditions apply.
- [35:30]
Meredith Kopit Levien
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- [36:01]
Scott Galloway
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- [36:23]
Meredith Kopit Levien
What time is it, Ben?
- [36:24]
Scott Galloway
It's Cloud. We're back with more from Meredith. So I want to transition. We actually ran into each other this weekend and we were talking about our sons. I have two sons. You have one son, 17, is that right? Meredith?
- [36:42]
Meredith Kopit Levien
My son is almost 15.
- [36:44]
Scott Galloway
I'm sorry, 15? Almost 15. Oh wow, you're in the thick of it. Talk to us a little bit about observations on raising a 15 year old son in a digital age. With all the obviously the obstacles. What advice would you have for other mothers in your position with a 15 year old son?
- [37:03]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Well, I'll say one of the first of all, my son is extraordinary. His name is jj. He's just like a winner of a kid. He's a really kind person in his. If you'll indulge me for a minute, when I gave a speech to him at his bar mitzvah, I said my son is the best judge of character and goodness I know. And if my son doesn't like someone, it always makes me think twice. And by the way, he likes most people, but it makes me think twice because he's such a sensitive, emotionally evolved human. And I'm super proud of that. And he's a great communicator. Look, I think I'm terrified by the amount of time he and his friends spend with their face attached to a phone. And I've got a kid who's a four sport athlete and so he is really busy. He does not have time for wanton use of screens. But if I could make all of it go away, even in that limited time he has, I would. He teases me that, you know, if he called me from a party and said there was stuff happening at the party that no parent would like, he jokes that my first question would be, did you give yourself more time on Instagram when you know you shouldn't. So, you know, I really, I think I'VE I've got a really sensible kid and we talk a lot about making good decisions as a teenager. I think the attachment to the device that's always there and to the things that happen on those devices.
- [38:36]
Scott Galloway
Do you have rules around the algorithms?
- [38:38]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Oh yeah, absolutely. And the algorithms feeding things to him that sort of match the things they think he already likes. I think that is a. Of all the things going on in my kid's life, that's the thing I worry about the most.
- [38:51]
Scott Galloway
What has surprised you most about two or three things. I mean obviously being present. But in this age, any advice for people? I mean beyond the screens about parenting 15 year old boys, I mean you have a very demanding career. You are not in a 40 hour a week job and obviously a lot of benefit comes from that. But how do you manage? And not only that, I especially think that, look, I still think a great deal regardless of how good the co parent is, that the majority of domestic and emotional labor still just happens to typically fall to the female in the relationship. How do you balance the tension of trying to stay very involved in a 15 year old boy's life with what must be pretty serious demands of running a public company?
- [39:36]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Yeah, listen, I will say my son is always on my mind. Sometimes that is frontal lobe and sometimes it's somewhere in the subconsciousness. But there is no hour of a day that I am not worried about something that he's dealing with or thinking about the thing he's going to do that afternoon or you know, wondering did I sign that piece of paper he needed to go do the thing. I mean that's just. And you know, I don't know if that breaks differently along gender lines but my experience as a mom is there is no moment when your children are not on your mind. That is my experience. Look, I have to work hard because of my demanding job to be physically present and then when I am physically in the same place with him, to put my own devices away and to really be like looking him in the eye so that I am seeing him and hearing him. I also think, Scott, you I wonder if you have this experience but you know, I talk all day long and I'm the boss of a lot of people and so people, sort of, some number of people probably feel like they have to listen to me and I have to work really hard at work to be a good listener. I have to work even harder at home in an environment where I'm used to being listened to to make sure
- [41:00]
Scott Galloway
our sons are not impressed. They do not believe we can fire them or give them a bonus.
- [41:04]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Yeah, I mean, he's. And. And. And nothing. You know, I tell everyone who'll listen, nothing makes me feel more vulnerable, more insecure, more anxious than an important decision about my son or an interaction with him. Did that go okay? Did I land with him? The thing I want him to take away from that. And so I guess what I would say to you is making peace with the idea that there are no shortcuts and substitutes for that. And that often I'll say to him, eyes on mom. Eyes on mom. I'm saying something. And sometimes he'll say something to me after where he was like, you didn't have eyes on me. You didn't hear me say this thing. And so a lot of it is just like, how do I make sure I'm not just physically with him when the important things are happening? But, like, that my mind is totally there.
- [41:57]
Scott Galloway
What you said, it really resonates is I'm at my most insecure around parenting and my interactions with my sons. For better or for worse. I think I get it mostly right at work. And not every decision, but a lot of decisions when I'm speaking to their mom about what we do here, how much agency do we give them, not give them, when do we discipline? What does discipline look like? What are the right incentives around the screen? I have never been less sure about any decision in any domain as the ones I make around my kids. And I thought that some instinct was going to wash over me where I would just know what was right. And I have found that it's just not the case.
- [42:37]
Meredith Kopit Levien
I couldn't agree with that more. And it's interesting. My dad is gone. He's gone. He died when my son was just under two. And he was a teacher, and he taught teachers, and he studied early childhood development. And I am, like, constantly sort of in my mind seeking, what would my dad tell me to do? I've been. My. My son is entering high school next year. So, like, this is the period where you're saying, is this the right school? And how will he fare there? And like I said, he plays all these sports. There's a million things to talk about. And I literally called my mom, who I'm lucky to live near, on Saturday, and I was like, I'm driving JJ to this place. Will you meet me and just have dinner with me? And I literally sat at a bar with my mother on Saturday night, and I said, you're the only person who likes. I just know unequivocally has both of our best interests at heart. And am I, like, am I thinking about this high school thing the right way? And just, you know, and that, like, just speaks to. I needed help. And like, the only part, you know, I have so much vulnerability about it. Yeah. And then I think, how must my kid feel? Right. There's like, we all feel so much vulnerability about our. Our family relationships and our most loving relationships. And so I try and carry that into how I do discipline him or when I do ask more of him in some way. I think about that, too.
- [44:09]
Scott Galloway
Yeah. We have boys that are exact same age, and we're going through a high school search now as we contemplate moving back to the U.S. and we struggle with how much agency to give him such that he feels invested, but at the same time ensuring that he feels a sense of security, that his parents know what they're doing, and we're not just flailing around. It's just. It's so hard to strike, or we're struggling with striking that balance. And my view is, I think kids want to feel seen and noticed, but it's up to us to give him a sense of security, that we know what we're doing. And at the end of the day, we're going to make these decisions for him. You know, I talk a big game, and then he gets upset and I go to the other decision. But anyways, last question here. Meredith, you've been generous with your time. At some point, like all CEOs, you'll decide to hang up, hang up your pen or your cleats or whatever the appropriate term is. What would you like to do next?
- [45:03]
Meredith Kopit Levien
What a fun question. Well, listen, my. My shoes are, like, glued to my feet at the moment, so I'm not hanging them up right now. I feel so lucky. I don't get to talk about this enough. I feel so lucky every day. This is my job. I've been at the Times for. For almost 13 years. And it's like, it's unbelievable to get to do this work and to get to represent this newsroom's work and to get to do it in this moment when, like, to your earlier point, everyone's being, you know, sort of asked to pull their punches, and the Times just isn't doing that. And to get to, you know, be a part of building these extraordinary lifestyle products that are, you know, or games or, like, they're cultural sensations. Like, it just. We're having a ball. And that said, I am pretty obsessed with the development of other people. I think one of the great untold stories of the kind of last decade at the Times is just how many extraordinary leaders in news and in business have been developed. And I think that's a really deliberate thing. The company takes that very, very seriously. And hard to imagine that, that I won't continue for a long time to do things that are adjacent to journalism and or sports because I think both of them make society better.
- [46:28]
Scott Galloway
You're not on the publishing side, you're on the business side. But when they say your name and they want to say, oh, yeah, what is the one thing that you feel has been your biggest? Is it an increase in subscription? Is it an increase in the newsroom? What is quote unquote, what would you like on your career tombstone, if you will, at the nyt? If it could only be one line, what would you like it to be?
- [46:52]
Meredith Kopit Levien
Ensuring that we are in a position to always find and grow the widest possible audience for the work of the New York Times. And by the way, every business question at the New York Times, like the first and last answer is, can we keep growing the engaged audience for the work? That's it. That's what it always comes down to.
- [47:12]
Scott Galloway
Meredith Kopit Levian is the president and CEO of the New York Times. She's joined us from her office in our nation's capital. Meredith, always appreciate seeing you. Thanks for your good work.
- [47:26]
Podcast Host
This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Laura Geniere. Cami Reek is our social producer. Bianca Rosario Ramirez is our video editor, and Drew Burroughs is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the prop
- [47:37]
Scott Galloway
G pod from Propg Media.