The Slowdown's Spencer Bailey & Andrew Zuckerman¶
Published on Mon, 26 Oct 2020 10:00:00 +0000
Whether you're looking for practical advice or a philosophical conversation, you're in the right place.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Stephen Pulvirent speaks with Spencer Bailey and Andrew Zuckerman, co-founders of The Slowdown, a media company launched in May 2019 that creates "short-form content with a long view." The conversation explores their philosophy of slowing down in an age of weaponized speed, examining how they use podcasts, newsletters, and social media to encourage thoughtful engagement with time, culture, nature, and the future.
The discussion delves into the origins of The Slowdown, which emerged from Bailey and Zuckerman's shared frustrations with the state of media and their mutual appreciation for craft, design, and interdisciplinary thinking. They launched just before the pandemic, making their mission unexpectedly prescient when the global slowdown occurred. The co-founders discuss their two podcasts—Time Sensitive and At a Distance—and their rigorous approach to interviewing, emphasizing the importance of deep research, creating space for vulnerability, and knowing when to simply listen.
The conversation also explores humanity's relationship with objects and material culture, touching on collecting, uncollecting, and how our connections to things evolve over time. Both Bailey and Zuckerman share their perspectives on watches as personal objects that can serve as reminders of craftsmanship and presence. They discuss their business model, which combines independent media with selective client work for mission-aligned companies, and hint at future developments including a unified website launching in 2021. Throughout, the episode emphasizes the value of slowing down, depth over speed, and creating media that encourages reflection rather than mere consumption.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Andrew Zuckerman | The history of timekeeping has always been fascinating to us. You know, from the Egyptians, the obelisk dividing the day into two 12-hour periods, the candle clock in China and Japan. I mean, these were things that I was really thinking about a lot. And every single day in our Instagram story, there's a 15 second video of the date being drawn. That's it. And every month we bring in a different artist who creates the calendar to give you an opportunity to just slow down and meditate for 15 seconds on the day of the month marked by a human being with their hand |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polverant and this is Hodinky Radio. This week we're gonna dedicate the entire show to a conversation between me and two of my friends, Spencer Bailey and Andrew Zuckerman, who are the co-founders of The Slowdown. The Slowdown's a new kind of media company that launched back in May 2019. They do podcasts, they do a weekly newsletter, and their idea is to create what they call short-form content with a long view. These are two guys who are deeply obsessed with time, but with slightly different perspectives that come from Spencer's background as a journalist and Andrew's background as a photographer and director. They think really smartly about how we relate to time in the modern era, and we definitely go deep on that topic in this episode. Most of what we discuss is pretty big picture, though there's some watchner chat at the end, so be sure to stick around for that if that's what you're looking for. These are two guys I always enjoy talking to and from whom I always learn something. After recording this, I actually had to sit down and take some time to gather myself, jot down some thoughts, and think a little bit more about how our conversation relates to my own life. Hopefully, it'll have the same impact on some of you. So, without further ado, let's do this. This week's episode is presented by Our and the brand's newest in-house movement, the Caliber 400. Stay tuned later in the show to learn more and be sure to visit Oris.ch for all the details. Hey Spencer and Andrew, good to uh good to have you guys on the show. Thanks for having us. Good to catch up. It's been it's been quite a while since I've talked to either of you, I think. Pandemic, yeah. You've both had some some pretty significant uh kind of like I would say moments like with a capital M since since the pandemic started. I mean, Spencer, your uh your book just came out, right? Yeah, uh it actually |
| Spencer Bailey | comes out in a week. I don't know when this is airing, but um it comes out on October twenty eighth, and uh that was sort of a labor of love that I did mostly in early mornings and weekends uh while building the slowdown with Andrew |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I I have a copy of the book uh and I love it. Um I think you know, we'll link it up in the show notes so people can can check it out. Um but I I pre-ordered it pretty pr pretty early on. Uh and it's it's beautiful, but it's it's also kind of a heavy topic. And I think it's it's when hearing you say that you worked on it, you know, kind of like early mornings, nights and weekends. Uh it's it's pretty heavy stuff to be doing |
| Spencer Bailey | first thing in the morning. Yeah, yeah. I mean right before waking up in the morning. Um and and I guess we should clarify the books about memorials and memorial making, and waking up in the morning at like five to write about um, you know, how we memorialize uh tragedy, trauma, mass genocide, uh the holocaust slavery lynching. I mean it was it was pretty heavy. Um and I turned the copy in the first week of March right before the pandemic. Um so actually it was interesting to like close this uh book project about memorials and at the same time be running a company with Andrew called the Slowdown as we all went into a global slowdown. It was just this very strange confluence of things happening all at once uh that seemed somehow um prescient or uh even if it was never our intention like andrew and i always kind of expected we'd end up in a big slowdown, by the way. Um but we just w Oh we weren't really sure how or what sort of form that would take. Um but we knew it was happening and we knew there was there's this big sort of disparate movement of people all over the world who are calling, have been calling for some sort of slowdown, um or or looking for a slowdown. Um I just think none of us really expected it would |
| Andrew Zuckerman | be a global pandemic. Yeah, I mean w it definitely wasn't a pandemic we were thinking about, but I think as early as twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, we were really starting to recognize how speed was being weaponized in media, in culture, um, very specifically out of Silicon Valley, um across the board. Um and so we we'd been speaking a lot about this and we were kinda wondering how to grow a lotus out of that mud um and turn the force of that opposition as a strength for us and a a as a strength for culture. So we really it began with like many things in disappointment. Um and as as our good friend Simon Critchley talks about, uh you know, philosophy starts in disappointment, not wonder. Um and and we we just sort of we're sharing uh um uh a perspective that that that we knew was worth mining. And um and yeah we we uh week by week as we were building the company and as we were learning more and more about um like minded uh people who are curious in in in similar things, we realized that uh as Spencer was saying that it's really disconnected and unlinked from each other all of these perspectives and what we wanted to do was figure out a a storytelling engine that could bring these ideas together um across culture and nature and the future to explore time and how in a way agency can be restored through your perspective on time. |
| Spencer Bailey | I would add to I would add too that um you know we we all become so obsessed with speed in our culture. And one of the things that connects to that is this notion of duration of time. And you know, we describe what we do as short form content with a long view, but what's really interesting is like we make an hour-long podcast. Like most people are like, That's not right. They're like, that's not short. But yeah, but the reality is it's like an hour in the grand scheme of life is incredibly short and what you can do in an hour, what you can learn in an hour. Um the fact is like an hour long podcast is actually short form content. We've just all been told that short form content is a TikTok video |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Right. Yeah, no, I I I think that's super interesting. And I think it's it's interesting that you know media more broadly has been kind of veering toward the polls, right? Like it's it's like a TikTok video, an Instagram post, or it's a ten episode Netflix series, you know? It's it's one extreme or the other. And I think that sort of like things you can do in like thirty to ninety minutes to me is is really fascinating just as like a media professional. Um 'cause I agree with you, Spencer, like what you can do in an hour is kind of miraculous and like trying to accomplish as much as you know a 10 hour thing in an hour but making it feel like it goes by in you know, sixty seconds is is kind of an interesting interesting challenge. Um but I think thinking about kind of the the timeline, if we're gonna expand the timeline a little bit here of of the slowdown itself, you guys launched it almost exactly a year before the actual slowdown happened, you know? Like so you you kind of had this this uh sort of prescience about the situation going back a couple years. You get the slowdown off the ground, you have kind of a year, you know, 10 months to explore these themes, and then the slowdown happens. And I wonder in what ways do you think that that ten to twelve months of producing things under the slowdown banner and what you learned in that time kind of maybe helped prepare the two of you for for what hit us in in Mar |
| Andrew Zuckerman | ch? You know, it's funny, we spent about a year before we put anything out into the world really just looking at this idea super deeply, which is something that I think rarely happens when you start a company. Um before we'd we'd put anything out in the world, we kinda had a name early on, but but we did a whole lot of thinking and reading and talking and looking um before we decided to do anything, uh execute on any of it. We really wanted to kind of understand the cracks before we tried to make them visible. And um and then w the way we really got started, we we didn't go out for traditional funding because we didn't want to um kind of uh establish who we were, what we were doing, and how we were gonna do it uh theoretically, and and ask someone to support that without really knowing what that was gonna look like. So we decided to to be very modest about it and um start with humble platforms that we could control where it was actually about what we wanted to say and and and and how we wanted to say it. We knew that we wanted to create context. You know, this idea of um kind of cognitive empathy, like not sharing how people feel, but understanding their worldview, like perspective taking. And so it was important for us to just start with the idea of conversation. I mean, I don't know if you remember at the time, you know, it was all the TED talk and at presentation, you were just being spoken at all the time. And it was this like uh late stage information age kind of uh barrage of information. And we just wanted to have conversations and allow people to arrive at things through conversation. Um and so we started the podcast time sensitive and uh and through that I think um really started to learn the medium. Um and then by the time the pandemic started, uh I mean, Spencer, you and I were like, the hell is going on? Um I was sick. We were wondering if you were sick. We were just sort of in a haze and then we said, Well we gotta do something, this moment. If we don't know what's going on, that means no one does, and we need to start to have conversations about what this looks like from a distance. Um and so we started a podcast, |
| Spencer Bailey | what March The N the end of March is when we um I think went live with it, but we we s we started recording basically within a week or two of of the pandemic um interviewing, you know, our our first episode was Bill McKibben, the the environmentalist and author. Um but it's I I actually think it's interesting too to go back um to sort of the impetus for the slowdown to talk about how um how the pandemic kind of hit us uh as a as a sort of entity. And you know, Andrew and I actually met when I was the editor-in-chief of Surface and Andrew had curated an exhibition at a small gallery in Chelsea. Um exhibition, and I would probably butcher it if I tried to describe the show. It was about time actually. But yeah, I mean it really it was it was about actually the the the I would say of the slowdown has four major sort of themes we're exploring. It's culture, nature, the future, and time. And is this is this the chamber show that you're talking about? Yeah. And the exhibition really looked at the elements of life and the tools we and the tools we use. And uh so it had everything from a paleolithic hand axe to space gloves and and really beautifully designed, immaculately made objects. And I was just like so taken with the show because having run a design magazine, I was kind of frankly just annoyed with how insider-y so much of the design world is. And I felt like here's a here's a show that speaks about the universality of design. Here's a show that speaks about, you know, everything from like Lescale to present, like talking about the cave paintings as a, you know, in a way, all the way to like where we are now. And uh Andrew and I didn't actually know each other before that. We were we were introduced through Juan who ran the gallery, and um Juan connected us because uh Andrew wanted somebody to to talk to him for this book they were making um rather than write like a curatorial statement to set up an interview and that interview I think became like not only is our first conversation on paper, like as as a as an interview, but that conversation I think really was the starting point for what became a friendship and ultimately turned into the slowdown. Uh and I think that the issues and the things that we were talking about then have now become all the more important and relevant for what we're doing right now. So it's sort of like it started with a converse this company started with a conversation maybe five years ago. Yeah, it's it's funny |
| Stephen Pulvirent | that you you brought up the show because it was something that was was on on my list of things I wanted to to chat with you guys about because I remember, you know, for people who may not know, you and I were were colleagues at Surface at the time. Um and I remember running over on my lunch break one day to like quickly take a look. And I realized very quickly that like, okay, this was a thing I I wasn't gonna do in forty five minutes, like on my on my lunch break. Like I needed I needed to go back another time and like really soak it up. Um and it it does feel to me like so much of the I hate the word DNA, but I you know it's a it's a hazy morning here. I can't can't come up with a better word there, but so much of the DNA of of the slowdown seems really rooted in in that show and rooted in this idea of taking seriously, you know, the long arc of time and the way that material culture is a part of that and a way that our ideas kind of carry forward from from one moment to the next. |
| Andrew Zuckerman | Well there there were definitely ideas in that um in those four exhibitions we did that year that that that um that were nascent really at the time. It was exploring it and and the slowdowns given us both an opportunity to delve deeper deeper, both into like indigenous culture and also um just the idea of a connected experience throughout time. I mean, you know, I I think what we were going through at that moment was, you know, the rise in uh just a ferocious uh scale in Silicon Valley. And uh with no recognition of how we got here and where we're going. It was move fast and break things and it was very much about um it doesn't matter what happened before. New, new, new, that's all that matters. And um at the same time it was happening in design, as if, you know, things hadn't occurred before that. The design conversation, as they say, which I couldn't understand at the time. There were people that were talking to me about the show that didn't like the show when it came out that said this isn't a part of the design conversation. I was like, I don't even know what that is. |
| Spencer Bailey | felt and I felt like the second I saw that show, I was like, this to me is what the design conversation should be |
| Andrew Zuckerman | . Yeah, I I was I was interested in the human relationship to nature, right? As we all are. And and now more than ever. And so in many ways that that show I would say is how how Spencer and I found common ground on on how we were seeing things. That that that sort of uh it made it visible for us. And and um Yeah, we both fun experience, I think |
| Spencer Bailey | . I think we both uh coming out of that realized we happen to be um in addition to having like a a deep appreciation for design and craft um also really appreciating um thoughtfully crafted and designed media. And I think we had mutual frustrations about the state of media. We felt that there had to be a healthier, like more sustainable way, that there could be a platform for bringing, you know, art, economics, philosophy, design, architecture, politics, science, technology, all these things together in a deep comprehensive way that was still approachable, that still could be digestible and didn't feel like some I don't know, like the I think there's a fine line between being like mass and being totally, totally niche. And I think we wanted to find this sort of common ground between intellectual depth and rigor. Um but also something that could be |
| Andrew Zuckerman | . Not too smarty pants. We hate that. I mean that's the other thing. It's just the simplistic way of looking at things. And and and and not really about taste or style, but about ideas and and and perspective. I mean, Stephen, I'll join you in the struggle to find the the right word at this point in the morning. But you know, this idea of interdisciplinary, like uh you know, we really uh I we don't like domains, we don't like labels in any way. The most interesting people I know are able to function through um a way of looking at the world in any sector that they're in. So I find economists to be some of the great um philosophers and artists of our time just the same as architects and and traditional fine artists. So I we really wanted to cross those kind of um um barriers, you know, how can you put um uh multiple people with different disciplines in the same conversation in a real way, not in a kind of uh theoretical way. And also how c how we can understand people who have varied interests. I mean one of our first episodes, you know, was an actor who of time sensitive. Untime sensitive, who you know as an actor, but but but the episode was all about running. Um so oftentimes we're trying to look at the whole person um and and understand who they are through their perspective on time, um and that that was kind of where it started, but at a distance obviously is very different. Um I think we were talking about that a little bit. |
| Spencer Bailey | S sorry to the listeners who are getting confused. We have two podcasts. One is time sensitive, the other is at distance. And a and Andrew and I are both the co-host of of of each po of both those pod |
| Stephen Pulvirent | casts. See this this is what I love about having other media professionals and specifically podcasters on the show is like when I do a terrible job setting up the kind of framework for this. You guys jump in and fix it for me. I love it. Um but I I think you know you you you said finding common threads, Andrew, and I think that's that's something that I personally really like about time sensitive. Uh and you know, from that first episode that you referenced, the one with uh Peter Sarsgaard, um, which as a runner myself I I really loved, um, but also just like everyone from I don't know, like Liz Diller to David DuCovney, right? Like these are people that you know for the stuff they make, right? Like you know Diller because of her buildings, you know Peter Sarsgaard or David Ducovney because of their movies and TV shows. And while those things get talked about sometimes on the show, they're not like the show is not a show about stuff, right? It's it's a show about these like human threads that connect everybody and you know, having a very blunt conversation with Liz Diller about kind of like the specter of the Holocaust hanging over her family is not at all what most people tune in to hear Liz Diller talk about. But at the same time, when you hear it, it's it's so human that you you kind of can't help but relate to it in a certain way. Uh and I think those kinds of conversations are are really really powerful uh and kind of transcend the the more particular labels, whatever those those happen to |
| Spencer Bailey | be. Yeah well I mean I think we we had um we had the novelist Hari Kunzru on at a distance recently and he has a a podcast called Into the Zone that came out recently, basically about the idea that nothing is black and white, that there are these sort of amorphous borders between things and we shouldn't label things so so, you know, clearly as this or that. And I think if you look back at what what we really wanted to come out of that, come out of making the slowdown is this idea of nuance. And I think nuance is like, you know, one of the metaphors we were using early on is talking about food, like thinking about uh the the content you consume similar to like a meal, right? And if you go back to the slow food movement, I think there's this idea that like understanding where your food comes from, how your food is made, enjoying the food that you consume, like there's a lot of nuance in in food and in understanding uh what it is you're eating. And I think the same can be said of media. Like you can definitely apply this idea to media that we need media that allows people to slow down, to turn inward, to think about things on a deeper level. Like there you know, if you're taking the time to consume something, that thing better come from like a place of good integrity. It better come from a place that's like thoughtfully done that the that there was like solid reporting, it's been fact checked, there's a level of quality that you are expecting. |
| Andrew Zuckerman | Um Yeah, I mean we like we like well crafted things overall and you know less but better is a big part of how we see things and and uh we knew we wanted to craft everything to a very high level and also focus on that but but connected to that is also how we made these things. I mean we took making the podcast pretty seriously in terms of, you know, the recording and and and putting thoughts into somebody's ears needs to come beautifully cooked, you know. So um we definitely spent a lot of time on the quality of the work we were putting out both in visually with design and sonically with |
| Spencer Bailey | with the podcast. Yeah I mean with time sensitive especially we we wanted it to be a multi-sensory experience and we can definitely get into talking about the senses on this podcast because that's part of what we do. Um but you know big part of it. Yeah, it it was really thinking about um was really thinking about how do you make a podcast visual um in addition to being impeccably high quality in terms of audio and so we have this um beautiful studio setup at our um studio in Chelsea um where we record time sensitive and then we created this digital experience that has hyperlinks, pictures, uh condensed and edited transcript. So you can get this sort of full picture. And actually we've really seen that the website has worked. More than half of our listeners to Time Sensitive are listening through the TimeSensitive.fm website. So it's become clear to us that people are turning to it not um not just 'cause it looks nice, but because it really adds another layer of experience. It adds something more |
| Andrew Zuckerman | . And some people don't even like to listen. I mean we have a a number of friends who who just read it. It's really fascinating. |
| Spencer Bailey | And we had we had a we had a um guy in the UK very early on after we launched, r write to us on Twitter and thank us. Um he's he's deaf. He actually can't listen to podcasts. And so he was, you know, thanking us for the quality content and for giving him the opportunity to listen, literally. And I th I think forever we' |
| Andrew Zuckerman | ve both been fascinated by the by the idea of multiple points of entry. Um when I was making uh projects years ago I used to make a number of books and and they And then figure all the ways that we're gonna actually that was before that was sort of a nefarious term. Um, collect all the data for the project and then go and figure out all the different ways that people could consume it. Some people would see the book and not even know there was a film. You know, so w we knew when building our own platforms that we wanted multiple points of entry. We're building a house with many doors, but what's important is what you're getting once you're inside. Um so we just want to find ways for people to enter that space |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . In a lot of ways, and you mentioned, you know, fact-checking and and all of this stuff. But when you're prepping for a show, and I say this with personal experience, you know, if it's a straight interview show and it's you know Terry Gross style and it's question and answer question answer that's that's pretty straightforward and easy to do in a lot of ways. I mean it's not easy, but it's it's straightforward in some ways. But the sorts of conversations you're having, you can only sort of prep so much and only sort of control so much. And I wonder is is that something that you guys embrace that that bit of serendipity, or is it something you try to control for? How how do you guys think about that heading into a recording, you know, in the days and hours leading up to sitting down with somebody in the studio |
| Spencer Bailey | . I mean, I think Andrew and I both do it in our own way and a little differently, but also quite similarly, um, we're both very rigorous about the research we do. Um, I think we both believe in the fact that uh if you're going to have somebody on your show, you should read everything that has been reported and written, at least in in recent years, on them, and really understand the questions that have not been asked. And really find the layers of their story that connect to time in a way that's deep. I can give a good example. Um Michael Kimmelman, the architecture critic of the New York Times, who came on the podcast. He doesn't get interviewed a lot, but he has written an incredible amount. He was the art critic at the Times prior to his current role. He's been there since um you know he's been on staff since I believe 1990. And um I tracked down his first story he ever published in the New York Times. And the and the lead sentence of that story was Time has generally been a good editor. And and it like it took me, you know, that came out of 15 plus hours of research and reading. And when I came across that sentence, I was like, shit, like this is gonna be this is how I'm opening the interview. Yeah, those are those moments as a journalist where you're just like Yes. Oh, he'd for and he'd forgotten about it. He didn't even know that that was the first story he'd written, and it was about some classical music performance at a church in downtown New York in 1987. I mean it's wild. like you you just have to keep digging and digging and digging and digging until you find those things and out of that um and it's often what's on the periphery that's the most interesting I think. Um and I think that's sort of what Andrew was trying to say earlier. I love this um Chinese notion of qi and I got into it a little bit with Ivy Ross from Google when she came on the podcast. But it's this sort of idea that like energy is embedded in everything. And I think that's really true of an interview. That that the especially an in-person interview, the kind of intimate interviews we're doing in the studio, like if we have weird energy with the guest, it's gonna come through. If we have great energy with the guest, it's gonna come through. And that energy all stems out of the first question, and that first question stems out of hours and hours and hours and hours of research |
| Andrew Zuckerman | . Yeah, I mean I I think that you know Spencer and I do at a distance together. So that process is really, you know, we we're constantly sending each other things and uh that that we're reading, we have our eyes wide open um all the time and and then we'll do collective research uh for at a distance. So we'll actually do the research together. We may have read things before but we'll do that as a joint session. Time sensitive, it's sort of eat what you kill. We get our own guests and we research in our own ways um for those episodes. And we have really different ways of interviewing people. As you said, Spencer's coming from a journalistic background, so his um his approach is different than mine. Um and and I think overall what we get to is a kind of very balanced um binary kind of show. It goes one way and then it goes another. Our guests are different, our interests are slightly different. Um, but we both do tons and tons of research. I mean for me it's a very it feels quite selfish. It's not really a job. It's like I I look deeply into something I'm interested in and then I get to sit with that person. And um, you know, w we Spencer's interviewing history has always been or or often been in that context of um of publications that are coming out, of uh more journalistic. My interview background was was very different in that I was making books that were filled with interviews. Um and you know I I the first interview I ever gave in my life was with Michael Parkinson, the great um Parkey, the great English interviewer, the sort of Charlie Rose or well I guess he has a better better history than Charlie Rose, but the Charlie Rose of England. Um and he I don't think he ever got in any trouble like Charlie Rose did. But anyhow I you know, I was quite nervous and and I I I had been just m mainly a director and a photographer at that point and I I s was doing this book called The Wisdom and I I sat down with him the first interview and and I said, you know, I just want you to know I've never interviewed anyone before and uh so I might not be very good and uh and you're like the greatest interviewer ever so um bear with me and he said, No, you know, we just need to actually be interested in each other and then we'll have a good time. And I've never lost sight of that. That you know, I I for me the rule is I just won't do an interview unless I'm truly interested in that person. And if I'm truly interested, the research I'm just gonna sniff out what matters to me. And my way of doing it, which I think is is is a little bit weird, but I I kind of imagine what they'll answer. So I'll pretty much write the episode out imagining what their responses will be so I can get to the next question. So I'll often like write a fantasy imaginary script and back into the questions that way so I can guide where it's going. So it might seem like it's very natural, but it's been uh for both of us it's very preconceived um and pre thought out. We 'cause we don't really we hardly edit anything. Um it's a tight |
| Spencer Bailey | hour. What is interesting though is like I feel like my approach is quite the opposite in some ways where I'm like I definitely come with like an idea of like I'm gonna ask these questions very similar to Andrew. And sort of anticipating a structure to the conversation, but at the same time, like sometimes I just it goes so haywire. Like the other week where it was like I yeah, our sound engineer afterwards was like How did you b balance all of that? Like it went you know, it went all over the place and and you know, and I think I think that um you know, some of that is the journalist in me for sure. Like the I you know, s it brings me back to like when I was at Columbia Journalism school doing some of that shoe leather reporting and you just never know what's gonna happen on the street. Um I I kind of love that energy and attitude. And you know, I I I think too about, you know, w what I was saying earlier about like how how you respond to people and and it it it comes out of a deep, deep curiosity. Um, you know, and and a and I think a deep respect for the person you're sitting with and you show that res you show that respect by doing your homework. I I I I think about um actually the first cover story I ever did uh which was for surface and it was Zaha Hadid and that that probably is like one of my f most memorable interviews of all time. And um I remember we were we were in the Mercer Hotel and I walked in to interview her. I remember going to the front desk like uh I'm I'm here to see Saha Hadid. And then they're like, Yeah, come over to the uh yeah, she's expecting you, and they took me to this corner table and I sat down and and she's sitting at the table next to me eating a salad with these blue driving gloves on as these two assistants are furiously typing. And you know, at the time I was young, I was uh uh twenty-seven and being sized up by Zaha Hadid, like literally staring at me as I sat in this corner booth and I'm mildly terrified for sure. Um a after like ten minutes, she finally comes and sits down and, you know, sends a couple texts on her phone, listens to a voicemail, whatever, finally looks at me and says, I'm ready and you know, I could have totally botched it. But instead I had front loaded this question showing that I'd done my homework, that that, you know, it was a it was a question about her vitra fire station, which at the time was celebrating 20 years and kind of this very pivotal moment in her career. And I'd really dug into that. And so for basically the next hour and a half, it was just like this open, free-ranging interview talking about everything from like Gunnar Burkett's in Oklahoma to her first project in America in Cincinnati. And after the interview she removed her right glove to shake my hand. And it was this sort of like, you know, I showed her the respect, and in the end, she showed me the respect back. And there was this really interesting, not just dialogue that happened during the conversation, but the sort of um, you know, human interaction that took place. And I hope that with what we're doing with time sensitive, that kind of intimacy is coming through in the audio. Because I think that that is what makes a podcast, especially an interview podcast, really special when when as a listener you feel like you're sitting in on a conversation that uh is vulnerable and open and that you probably shouldn't even be sitting on in on, but but you have the pleasure of getting to experience |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . This week's episode is presented by Oris. The foundation of any good watch is a great movement. And with its latest in-house creation, the caliber 400, Aurist is setting a new standard for everyday timekeeping. The team at Orist asks themselves, how can we produce the best possible watch at the best possible price? And the caliber 400 is a big part of their answer. The brand new movement was conceived to stand up to the demands of modern watch wearers, providing reliable service for a decade, literally, in addition to coming with a full 10-year warranty to match the suggested 10-year service interval, the Caliber 400 employs a number of technological innovations to make it an ideal movement to power a contemporary, go anywhere, do anything, watch. The caliber 400 is powered by two barrels, giving it a full 5 day or 120 hour power reserve. More than 30 of the movement's components are anagnetic, including the silicon escape wheel and silicon anchor, so the caliber will perform at peak accuracy under any conditions. In fact, during testing, the Caliber 400 was exposed to more than 11 times the amount of magnetism required to be certified anti-magnetic, all while showing only one-third of the allowable deviation in timekeeping. So yeah, it's seriously anti-magnetic. Finally, Orris even rethought one of the most essential elements of an automatic watch, the winding rotor system, introducing a new bearing system to make it more efficient and durable at the same time. The caliber 400 is a class-leading in-house movement that combines innovative design with impressive engineering, and it'll be making its way into some new Aurus watches very soon. For more about Oris and the Caliber 400 movement, visit Horus.ch. All right, let's get back to the show. I wonder, without calling out anyone, you know, in in particular, have have you either of you ever sat down for an interview for time sensitive or had a conversation for at a distance where like that energy either didn't click or it clicked in kind of like a a weird way and it went off the rails either in like a totally crazy but beautiful direction or went like totally just full on off the rails and you were like, okay, maybe this is is too much, maybe it's too vulnerable, maybe it's it's not enough or whatever. And you kind of are are sitting in those chairs and thinking to yourself, like, shit, how do we how do we either make something of this or how do we like kind of get get ourselves out of this out of this hole |
| Andrew Zuckerman | ? I mean, you know, th there's the we won't talk about the ones that actually don't, you know, w where where you walk away like kind of offended, like what the fuck was that? Um but but but what I will say about that is early on um Um I I really wanted to do a an interview with with a good friend of ours, Björke Angles, the architect. And you know, I I knew so much about Bjarke um that I wanted to talk about and I designed this whole interview and we sat down and did it and it just kind of like didn't land. It didn't work. There was too much sort of we know each other, there was too much comfort, and it I when I listened to it, I I said this isn't for an audience. This is this doesn't work. And uh and he came right back and did it again two days later. And we just so so the idea of recognizing failure in an interview, I think, is really, really important. And the generosity and willingness of a guest to come back and try again with you, uh is is is amazing. I mean, because it wound up being one of, you know, a a very important episode for us early on, but um I don't know if it would have been if we hadn't done it again. Um so so I think that that's the interesting part of that uh uh sort of if we can respond to that in some way. Like otherwise it's just like, yeah, some guests suck and you just kind of walk away and you go, That that didn't work as well. Well I will say |
| Spencer Bailey | I think you know for everyone we've had on time sensitive, and maybe it's partially 'cause it's an in-person interview, but and also because we heavily vet the subjects we invite on, the guests have been incredible. Like I I have had just such amazing experience of time sensitive. Whereas at a distance, because we're recording, you know, two a week and it's at a a much faster uh cadence. I think um you know there's still there's still quite a um you know we're still very uh diligent about how we're vetting and inviting guests on. But uh just I think due to the sheer number, we're not we're obvious we're all human, we're not going to get along with or or like every single guest. Um, but out of the almost 90 we've done it at a distance, maybe one or two. Yeah, I can think of I can think of one specifically that drove me crazy. But um but yeah, I mean I think also with time sensitive to connected to your to your question, Stephen. Um there there are moments where things happen in an interview that you just have to let them be. You have to let them unfold the way they will. Um a an example I can think of was um Daniel Ballou, the chef I I had on the podcast fairly recently, and I asked him a question about how the coronavirus has changed his relationship with time. And he broke down and and um got very teary and I kind of just let him do that. I didn't want to impede or or or put any of my own sort of um I I don't even know what as an interviewer. It was just like the best thing I could do in that moment is shut up. Yeah. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I mean that's that's like, you know, I I think and correct me if either of you disagree, but I think that's in some ways like the the greatest secret of of interviewing people is the best interviewers are the interviewers who know when to shut the hell up and just let somebody go uh and to not constantly feel like you have to like you know, you're not a sheepdog here, like you don't need to just herd them. Like you can let them go for go for a walk and trust that they'll come back a |
| Andrew Zuckerman | ro Thinking about the other side of this conversation. You know, that's that's all I'm thinking about. And and how is it going into their ears? And how is it not about me, but how is it about the subject? And how can I shepherd the subject's ideas into the listeners' ears in the cleanest, clearest way possible. Like we are responsible for that. And so yes, I I do believe that in a sort of like go with things and everything, but but you also have a responsibility and you're holding a certain space for the subject to really um not be all over the place or you lose a listener. Yeah. So I think there's somewhere in between those two. I do think I |
| Spencer Bailey | do think um owning, loving, accepting awkward silence is also just a really great tool for an interviewer. Like to to know that awkward silence is part is is as is as important as certain questions you will ask. Awkward anything. It's |
| Stephen Pulvirent | good. It's true. Um I I did want to ask, you know, your mission is to slow in in some ways is and I don't want to, you know, kind of like dumb your mission down here, but like in some ways is to encourage people to slow down, right? Like it's right in the name. But at the same time, you know, you're using a medium, you're using podcasting, which, you know, I think the the sort of like Silicon Valley go, go, go attitude um has really kind of found a home in podcasting with these, you know, three hour meandering shows that you're meant to listen to at 2x speed and like that whole side of podcasting that I'm not particularly interested in personally. Um neither I would I would imagine. Um Loom's not not my thing. But uh there's that, and then there's also you know, Instagram, which is maybe like the greatest uh, you know, I I won't say straw man because they are culpable in some way, but they they kind of get held up as as the totem of of you know like doom scrolling and just always like need more, more and yet I think you guys utilize those those two platforms in a really interesting way. And I wonder in what way you're you're almost like weaponizing them against themselves. You're you're kind of like subverting trend |
| Spencer Bailey | s in the platform. So it's such a good it's such a good question And and I I wantrew to talk about what we've done with hand marking time because that's really been uh so sort of h his his baby. Um but but I I totally am with you, Steven, on the in in using the term weaponize because I think you know this idea of weaponization of speed is something that we are really trying to counter and we're really, really interested in how do you make something that's physical digital and how do you make something that's digit digital physical? Like that sort of intersection and and full circle experience is sort of embedded in everything we're doing from our podcast to our weekly newsletter, which explores the five senses, and specifically to this platform we've built through our Instagram stories called Handmarking Time that um Andrew's really been steering uh yeah I mean we're trying to |
| Andrew Zuckerman | make thumb stoppers don't get me wrong but but but but but but we're trying to do it in a sort of um uh nice way, I guess you could say. Um uh early on, you know, w we were I mean, Spencer uh got into um Carlo Rivelli's book on time and and the order of time. Everyone should read it. And and uh you know, we were reading a lot about time, thinking a lot about time. We launched with this very poetic video um uh when we when we sort of announced the world, hey we' we we we've got a thing going on, take a look. And it was about the the stretchiness of time and uh how time can be um viewed in so many different ways. I mean w the history of time keeping um and how how m time is marked has always been fascinating to us. You know, from the Egyptians, uh, you know, with the obelisk dividing the day into two twelve hour periods, the the candle clock in China and Japan. I mean, these are things that I was really thinking about a lot in terms of how you mark time. And I I thought, you know, one very simple thing we can do uh in social is that every single day in our Instagram story, there's a fifteen second video of the date being drawn. That's it. Like an on Kawara thing, like any uh there there's a million different references for just can we take fifteen seconds to just consider what the day of the month is? And every month we bring in a different artist who creates the calendar and we've done this, I don't know, 20 months of it so far or whatever. And it ranges incredi |
| Spencer Bailey | ble. We had we had Andrew's son uh do one, we had sh the artist Chantel Martin. Yeah |
| Andrew Zuckerman | . Yeah, I mean it's huge range. Um and and every month there's a new calendar created and and I just wanted to use that environment um to give you an opportunity to just slow down and meditate for fifteen seconds on the day of the month marked by a human being with their hand. And uh that's just been one of the very simple projects that we've that that we've that we've done online and on social media to use the medium for something different. And I do think it's this |
| Spencer Bailey | sort of encouraging of slowing down without being prescriptive. And I think we really want to emphasize that. Like this is we're we're not a platform in the vein of, say, goop where it's like here are 10 steps to do this or that. Like we will we will never be that. We're really interested in putting ideas forward and content forward that does encourage a slowing down without being prescriptive |
| Andrew Zuckerman | . And and and essentially at the end of the day is a screen for you to project your own self onto. That's in in in both of our work uh leading up to the slowdown, that's been a very important intent is is do you leave room for who's looking? And what you're actually doing is creating a space for them to be, not for you to take up their |
| Spencer Bailey | own. Which is actually funnily enough the whole focus of my book on memorials which is arguing for abstraction and and that's effectively what those environments do is is encourage people to slow down to turn inward and to reflect. And in so I guess in some ways the slowdown is a kind of like memorial of sorts. I mean, we're we're certainly looking at at a distance as a memorial of the of some of the greatest thoughts um that have percolated and bubbled to the surface during the pandemic |
| Andrew Zuckerman | . Well that's really it. I mean I I remember thinking early on, like, you know, how are people even gonna know about this? Or are we gonna get enough listeners? And and in truth, I I didn't really care. What it really was about for me was can we capture the best thinking during this incredibly you know profound moment of shift? And you know, the the thoughts that happened during this moment are clearly different than the thoughts that were happening before and will happen after. So how do we capture that and and capture it well enough to be able to look back on it a year from now or |
| Spencer Bailey | a hundred years from now. And now we're in the process of figuring out what is at a distance look like as we near the end of the year. Um December twenty second will be episode one hundred, so we will have recorded a hundred episodes this year. And that may be our last episode. We're we're figuring out what that will look like. Um and and we're planning a uh a publishing project connected to the podcast. Very cool |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Well, I I don't want to do too hard of a pivot here as we've spent quite quite a bit of time talking about, you know, ways to make it a lot of this is the part where we talk about watches. Yeah. No, this is Steven hard piss. This is the part we're we're not gonna talk specifically about watches, but I I do want to make sure that's I like watches. We can talk watches. No, no, I know I know you're both you're both into watches, but I wanna talk about stuff more generally. And and I think, you know, my my creative journalist segue here will be the like, you know, you talked a little bit a a little while ago, Spencer, about, you know, making digital physical and making physical digital. And I think the relationships between ideas and things is something that I know both of you are are deeply, deeply invested in and have been, you know, long before uh the slowdown. And it's it's ultimately, I think, like maybe the most important question hanging over what what I spend all day doing with with watches. Um and and I'm curious how maybe the last couple of months have have changed or reinforced the way you guys think about how we should relate to to the objects in our lives, to the the physical world around |
| Spencer Bailey | us. I've been thinking about this um a little bit and um was actually just on the Domino magazine podcast sort of talking about this. I, you know, I think that um you know the objects we bring into our lives and into our homes, and this may sound really obvious to Hodinky listeners who care intimately about watches, um, is that uh they're a reflection of your values. And I think in this time of the pandemic, what it's showing is how interconnected we all are. And how we got here is is in large part a result of just unfettered consumption. Just just like endless Buying endless shitty shit and and I think that you know this notion of fewer better things, um to to use a a phrase from Glenn Adamson, uh is is really important. Um thinking about like rather than buying those ten things that you want to fill your room with, like why not save up for one really great thing? That to me is probably like one of the more important lessons that I hope more people are coming out of the pandemic with is they stay at home and look around their apartments and homes and realize that they don't like half the stuff that's around them. And that they probably probably should have, you know, thought about it differently |
| Andrew Zuckerman | . I I I see it slightly differently than Spencer only I mean and that might be a product of my age, but you know I um I don't think of things as forever. Um I I I I have collected many things very deeply, um, in art, design, antiquity, um in all sorts of ways. And what they represent is a sort of roadmap of my curiosities. So the objects in my life, um, and that that that my family lives with are um are markers of time in many ways. And uh it's interesting I'll go through periods where I just really don't want those things around. Um either I I don't agree with how I was thinking at the time or I'm not interested in what I was interested at that time and and I just want them out. Even if they're the best examples of that period. They can sometimes hold me back. So for many years I was I was super interested in collecting and uh sort of having things and uh uh but once I had them they sort of had diminished satisfying returns. And what I started to realize, and you know, might be just sort of having three kids and growing up and and all these things, I I uh I actually started to not want many things around and even if they were the best example and there were the fewest of them or and and really just wanting to um constantly leave room for new thinking. Um so I I started to respond had this sort of negative response, I think after forty where I I just didn't want things that represented um my previous curiosities because they in a way held me back from the new ones. So I've managed to hold on to certain things, but but uh I don't like putting too much power in the objects um even if they're the greatest examples, you |
| Spencer Bailey | know? Yeah I think connected to that, I you know I, would elaborate that like a personal connection to an object is such an interesting thing because you're constantly in dialogue with it. And sometimes, as with certain relationships, you may decide you don't want that in your life any longer and and and you need to let it go. Um whereas other other relationships grow stronger and stronger and you you have them with you throughout your life or you you you know in the case of And the ol |
| Andrew Zuckerman | der you get, you pare it down. That's why maybe there's so few things now where where you really edit hardcore. Um you just don't want a lot of stuff around |
| Spencer Bailey | . Yeah. I mean I I know that uh I know that for me looking around my apartment, 'cause you know, we're sometimes it does feel especially for those of us who have been in the city during this whole pandemic, it's like you almost feel like you're uh in a hermetically sealed box or something and you're like you know, you're you're looking around your home and you're like, oh, I don't know if I really want that anymore. Like you're you're you're staring at every object and putting a lot more weight on the things around you than Aaron |
| Andrew Zuckerman | Powell Or things that you got interested in early and which were co-opted by sort of uh populist capitalist movements, uh y y your perspective on them changed. I mean, it was like the DWR effect with furniture collecting. You know, it's like all of a sudden that chair is not so special because now it shows up in every Airbnb. And so th it's interesting how your relationship to object change as culture's relationship changes. |
| Spencer Bailey | It's it it's it's funny you say that, Andrew, because I've been really sick of my aim chairs. Yeah, it's interesting |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . My my wife and I are in the process of packing our apartment up. Uh we're moving out of our current place in ten days. But um that process has been really fascinating. We've been in this place for six years and it's a pretty small, you know, New York apartment. And there's something really liberating about letting things go. And I've I've talked to some other hodinky radio guests about this idea, but like there's almost an I don't know what the word is for it, but it's it's whatever the inverse of collecting is, like uncollecting, um that can actually be I like uncollecting. That's a good idea. It's that pleasure that you get. It's it's the opposite pleasure of the hunt, right? Like there's that that immense pleasure you get of getting really nerdy about something, tracking down, like you said, Andrew, like the finest example of the rarest thing and making it yours, but then there's there's also a pleasure in acknowledging that like this thing doesn't own you and you can let it go and that's okay and that it doesn't ha have that sort of power over you anymore. Um it reminds me my one Ste Steven, you're you're sounding like Marie Kondo. Hopefully not too too much, but uh no shade to Marie Kondo. But um Hold on to more than ten books though, whatever her doctor was. Yeah, books about books. Books books are like the one exception. Like books I I it was one of the first things we boxed up 'cause it was the easiest. Uh and I've been living in an apartment with like twenty books in it for the last two weeks. And it's been it's been really weird. I I actually didn't realize how much I would uh like how oppressive I would find it to not have books around. But um it yeah, it it reminds me of this uh one of my favorite things from all of literature is actually the epigram to uh Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned, which is to the spoils go the victor. Um and I I being somebody who deals with things all day for a living, I think about that all the time. And I I I think, you know, what you've you've said, Andrew in particular about like the emotional and intellectual relationship can change and at a certain point it's a good thing to be able to let that go and and acknowledge that you know the physical object might be the same but the reasons you wanted it and enjoyed it are not the same and that's okay and it's not sort of a you've changed. Yeah. And that' |
| Andrew Zuckerman | s Yeah, you've you've changed. And it's like you get rid of the books from last year's school. You know, it's like you don't need last year's textbook. And I just dumped a whole bunch of stuff at an auction the other day from my space collection and it's absurd how like geeky I got about collecting space artifacts and I can't tell you how good it felt to get rid of it all. Um and now they're in homes where people probably really love them or collections that are important, but I don't have to deal with it anymore. And I also don't have a responsibility to take care of it anymore, which is the best part. You know, you sort of when you collect things that are rare, you have a responsibility to them. They're not yours. They're just with you for that moment. And so getting rid of 'em is also liberating. It's like uh it's getting rid of a responsibility, really. Yeah |
| Stephen Pulvirent | , I I totally agree with that. And both on the the responsibility to the object and also the idea of things going to a place where they're loved. I mean, I know I know plenty of watch collectors who who own, you know, not plenty. I own no handful of watch collectors who own like a hundred plus watches. And that is not a type of collecting I could ever participate in in anything. Uh it's like not usinging the th and engaging with it and having like an active relationship with it stresses me out. Like it feels like I'm somehow letting this thing down, that it it needs someone to love it and appreciate it and enjoy it. And if I'm not giving that to the the watch, the chair, the photograph, the whatever, um that like I almost it's almost my responsibility to allow it to go to a place where it will be loved and appreciated. And |
| Spencer Bailey | I think that um connected to what you're saying there's there's this idea of where you put it, you know. Yeah. Like if if you stuff it in a drawer, like, yeah, you're gonna probably ignore it and forget about it or or shove it in a closet, but like, you know like I think about this blue painting I have in my living room. Like I enjoy that every day. I look at it, I stare at it, it calms me down. It's ever since I got it, it's completely transformed my home. And you know, if I didn't have that blue painting, maybe there'd be something else there. Um, but like that attachment has grown stronger with time, not only because I happen to really like the painting, but because of where it's hanging |
| Andrew Zuckerman | There there's this refrain in my in in my house my wife and I where we'll we'll just say, Well, you know, I haven't heard from that in a while. Where it stoppppeded it sto having something to say. And you know, especi specifically more with art, when when it no longer has something to say to me, um art or objects, it just sort of it it's time to go because it might have something to say to someone else. Um but watches are different. You know, watches can be quite personal. And I agree. You don't need lots of them. Um but there is there there's something about it. It's like the last the last thing that you can carry around, you know |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? Yeah, I I completely agree. And I know that, you know, I know that Spencer, uh the watch that Spencer wears most days is is has a great story to it and represents a trip and a journey and it's funny |
| Spencer Bailey | because it's like a memorial on my wrist, right? Like it's you know it's based on a trip I took to Morioka and Nagano to see the Grand Seiko factories and you know the Epson Seiko factory. Um and that whole journey to Japan and I was I was actually the first non endemic watch journalist to visit those factories and being there with a bunch of like, you know, watch nerds was kind of amazing because they were asking questions that I just didn't know about and I was a I was asking questions that they'd never heard asked before. Um because I was concerned with the the materiality and and craft uh and the and a lot of the design elements in a way that um were maybe more macro thinking than the micro thinking that often is is typical of a watch journalist. S |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ure. And and Andrew, you're uh I know I've spotted you wearing uh vintage Daytona a couple times. Are you mostly a a vintage watch guy when it comes comes to that thing |
| Andrew Zuckerman | ? Yeah, I mean I'm not really a watch guy. I have a couple watches. Um I have some friends that have like hardcore collections that kind of taught me about stuff. You know one friend in particular who is really into Paul Newman's and he started buying them, you know, fifteen years ago. Um uh and and and I always liked that watch. I never even knew it was valuable, but um every time we were hanging out, I'd asked to to to to uh to try it on and look at it. And there was something about the size of it, the thirty eight millimeter I loved. And at one point I I I found uh a nineteen seventy five, sixty-two, sixty-three, big red. Um and I I bought it uh it was a long time ago. Um so it was you know somewhat uh manageable and that's the watch I wear every day. And then I have this super obnoxious gold submariner. It's like it's from nineteen eighty. I mean it looks like somebody's first um like bonus. You know, it's like super gross. And and it uh it's 18 karat gold and it has a nipple dial. And you know, this dude spent must have spent a lot of time playing golf because the the batina on the bezel, it's like it's blue. It's gone the I don't know what it's called, but when it goes from black to kind of blue. Um and it's uh I don't know, it it it kind of represents everything I hate, and there's some sort of irony in that and I like wearing it sometimes. It really isn't my personality, but it's beautiful. It also comes from this kind of like I like the idea of like a chunk of gold you could grab during the apocalypse and like get over the GW bridge with it. Right there with it. It's that kind of object. And then I have a uh I have an ikepod hemiopod from from when he you know the first run of it way back. It's a beautiful weird watch and and uh a couple other little things. But but yeah, I wear this big red every day. Um and uh hoping no one really knows what it is when I'm wearing it. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I mean that's one of the nice things about watches is is I mean you already mentioned that they they can be intensely personal, but they also I think more than some other categories of of you know whether it's clothing or even like sneakers or things like that, they're still niche enough that m most of the time you can go out into the world with like a really great thing that you've built a personal relationship with and not worry that other people are gonna be staring at it or make a fuss over it. I mean a a gold Samariners slight slylightly different thing, but um in general there |
| Andrew Zuckerman | 's it's totally chain out. It's like when that gold watch for some reason, you can see people's eyes change when they see it. Like I didn't think you were that guy. And that's what I like about it. The sort of disarm |
| Spencer Bailey | ing quality of it. It's like a Halloween costume. I mean what I love about the the Grand Seiko I've got is that it just gets me thinking about the steadfast like fastidiousness that went into making it and the fact that I got to see that in action. You know, like every time I have it on, I'm kind of like what it makes me want to bring that kind of level of of like meticulousness to the work that's like langa. Sort of a repres representation. Yeah, yeah. Langa is another example of that. And they've been an amazing partner of time sensitive for us. Um we've gotten to like n nerd out and learn learn about Longa's brand just by reason of them supporting. That's a whole nother level though. That's not a Rolex. You know, that's like a that's a hardcore to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Long longa is definitely my dream watch. If I had to if I had to like think of a watch that I one day really hoped to own, it would be a longa |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I am right there with you. And uh I I think what you said, Spencer, about you know, kind of the watch making you want to be better is is to me one of like the ideal ways we can relate to objects, whether it's it's a watch or something else, is like having that thing push you to be better and like on a human level and not push you to accumulate more stuff or to make more money or to do whatever, but to just like be better and to improve yourself. And if an an object can kind of serve as a totem for something like that, I I think that's that's a really powerful thing in in a lot of ways |
| Spencer Bailey | . Yeah and we're all trying to I think find a way to be as present as we can in a world in which we're in a global pandemic about to face a a US presidential election and dealing with, you know, clim catelimate the crisis, like how do you how do you find a sense of um center in the midst of all of that? And I don't know, somehow I think watches or marking time can can be a tool for helping do that. Yeah. I I totally, totally agree with |
| Stephen Pulvirent | you. Um cool. Well, we're getting kind of short on time. We ran a little longer than than w I was expecting, but uh I think I think it's great. And I just wanna at the end I mean it's two people, so that's why. You have to deal with both of us. That's true. Yeah. And it's true. And it and it's and it's been a while. It has been a while and I think honestly also the the three of us have pretty similar interests in a lot of ways, and I think you, know, I I didn't even get to probably half the things I wanted to talk about, including um the amazing newsletter you guys do, which we'll we'll link up so that people can check that out. But I w I wanna give you both an opportun |
| Spencer Bailey | ity gonna launch uh a website next year um that will bring everything under one umbrella at slowdown dot TV. Perfect. That's uh you |
| Stephen Pulvirent | you pre uh you you preempted my my question which was gonna be what what's's coming down the pipe for you guys? What what do people have to look forward to? And uh I guess that that must be the the big thing then |
| Spencer Bailey | . Yeah, um I mean we're developing uh other platforms and projects. We've got we've had some stuff on the back burner um that you know by reason of making at a distance we had to put some things aside. Um we also do client work uh and so that keeps the lights on and things moving forward for us and also keeps us uh very busy. I mean that's that's really a bulk of our focus is um some of these client projec |
| Andrew Zuckerman | ts there's definitely been a lot of that um I mean I the to to to describe that part of it because I think we meet a lot of people that go so you're doing this thing it's very independent you're not heavy on advertising how do you do it um and and our answer is generally that we we have a very, very, very unique and very boutique approach to helping very few brands. We basically work as Black Ops, the CEO, um uh largely for early stage companies um that are mission align with what we're doing. So we're not an agency at all, but we do um high level advising and some execution uh to move things forward um which for us is is is not just a way to keep the lights on but but really because we see that being in a in a storytelling platform where where your role is to communicate ideas, to shepherd ideas from other people, that's what good brands do. So few do that. Just see that their their c comms efforts are really just about information and education, not about marketing. So we don't really do marketing. We we do a lot of help with communication and um helping uh reduce story down so that people can understand what they're doing. Um so we we keep ourselves quite busy with a couple of companies uh that we work closely with so that we can actually affect some change, not just talk about the changes that are happening. |
| Spencer Bailey | Yeah, and we're only working with clients who we feel really reflect our own sort of vision and values. And the work we're doing on the media side is actually feeding the client side in an interesting way where we're getting sort of first order research through the conversations and a lot of the interviews we're having and the exploration of the subjects in the newsletter, all of that is kind of captured in what we're doing um uh on the client side as well. And so there's this sort of interesting dialogue between culture, nature, and the future on the media side and on the client side |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, combining those two things, it's interesting to to hear you say you're getting learnings kind of in in both directions. I think that's the relationship between kind of like quote unquote like journalism or media and then doing brand work. Um, I think is kind of like uh not shady, but I think it's it's just clouded for most people. I think they just don't have any sense of what that that can look like. And it's it's interesting to hear that you guys think of it as kind of really core to what you do and not just something that gets sort of like tacked on. |
| Andrew Zuckerman | Yeah, we always knew that. I mean we didn't want to start uh we're actually not big fans of media companies who have a a consulting arm. What we we built it together at the same time and um were very, very clear about who we were working with and why and um uh take quite a while to take on clients. I mean what we're involved in is driving new technologies that will shift the world in a positive way. Um and so the the specifically through technology for the most part with the clients we have. It's the background that Spencer and I can bring to bear there. But um you know we we won't just take any work and we're not involved in kind of any efforts that are not uh what we think are morally aligned with with with our own intent. So there's not it's not nefarious, it's just what we do, you know. Um and and and and they they are codependent. They are working in concert |
| Stephen Pulvirent | That's great to hear, and um I'm excited to hear that we have more to look forward to coming, you know, with at a distance hitting episode one hundred at the end of this year and the new website coming early next year. And uh yeah, we' well'll make sure to link everything up in the in the show notes so that people can check it out and you know, leave us comments on the site if they've got questions for either of you guys. Cause I think there's we we've almost like we've talked for an hour and we've almost asked more questions than we've answered, which in some ways I think is is the sign of a good conversation. But uh yeah, I think we could we could probably sit here for a couple more hours and not uh not run out of stuff to talk about. People might get bored, but Yeah, I think the three of them of us wouldn't. We'd we'd have a great time and poor Gray would have to uh you know, cut seventy five percent of the interview and make his job a little harder, but uh yeah. He can he can handle it. Right. Um so yeah, thanks thanks so much for coming on the show. It's honestly just good to catch up with you guys and and have a nice conversation. And uh I'm I'm personally really excited to see what uh what keeps coming. You guys are one of my uh you know favorite that both of the shows are two of my favorite shows out there and uh I'm excited to to keep listening. Thank you so much for having us, Stephen. This was really nice. Yeah thanks for having us. It was it's great to be here. Awesome |