Frank McCourt wants to buy TikTok
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Before we get to today's episode, I was on the Rapid Response podcast talking about all things Apple following WWDC with former Fast Company Editor-in-Chief Bob Safian. If you are interested in giving us a listen, we've included the link to the episode in the show notes. I'm Yasmin Gagne. I'm Josh Christensen. And this is Most Innovative Companies. ♪

On today's episode, Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Max Uffberg. Most people didn't know that Facebook was selling your data for a long time. Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beer. This is the kind of thing that brands just get flop sweats over the prospect of getting that kind of cultural attention. And as always, keeping tabs. The shot that they had of the presenters was from below and the teleprompter was clearly set above. It was insane. But first, here's the download. ♪

The news you need to know this week in the world of business and innovation. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy wants social media companies to put cigarette-style warnings on their products. In an op-ed for New York Times, he demanded these companies add youth mental health advisories to their platforms.

writing that many young people feel addicted and unable to set limits with their favorite apps. You know how on cigarette cartons they'll show like a black lung? I wonder if it'll just be like a crying 13-year-old. Yeah, no, I think that looks just bloodshot eyes or... A brain melting. Yeah. Someone being stuck on a loop watching Charlie D'Amelio videos.

Wells Fargo fired more than a dozen employees for using devices that simulated keyboard activity, according to Bloomberg. Mouse jigglers have been blowing up online. They're basically tools that jiggle your mouse so your work status doesn't change to a way. Wells Fargo proves that they may not be so subtle. I think the biggest problem with this is that companies are just micromanaging activity, not output. It's just stupid and doesn't actually lead to more or better work.

If you leave for a 30-minute coffee break, like, I have confidence. I know you're answering your emails all the time, you know? Yeah, it's not that deep. Measure people's output, not how much they're moving their mouse on a screen and then be like, that's just jiggling. The Securities and Exchange Commission has been investigating Elon Musk for disclosing the amount of Twitter stock he owned.

before he took over the company, which he famously delayed a little too late, and he happened to violate a rule in the process. Musk did give testimony that indicated that he might have violated the rule as a result of neglect, as he told the bank that he sought legal advice about the rule when, whoops, in fact, he did not seek legal advice.

It's the latest in a big news week for Musk, with the Tesla shareholders also approving a record-breaking $45 billion pay deal for the CEO last week. Yeah, over the next 10 years. Oh, over the next 10 years. I thought it was per year. Just a measly $4.5 billion a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he can afford whatever SEC fine is coming his way. Yeah, that's the thing. He...

He is untouchable, like, at this point. Like, he's rich enough to be untouchable. So, some listeners may remember Scooter Braun as the guy who, five years ago, had a feud with Taylor Swift over basically owning the Masters to her first six albums. That led her to re-record all of her music. Taylor's version. Taylor's version, baby.

Now, Scooter is retiring as a music manager. His announcement came after reports surfaced last year that many of his most high-profile clients, that include Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, were no longer working with him. And finally, the Justice Department sued Adobe, the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat, after claiming that the company made it challenging to cancel subscriptions to its software. Well, honestly, what company isn't it hard to cancel their subscriptions to? I know.

It's true. In this lawsuit, though, the department said that Adobe concealed details of its pricey cancellation fee in the fine print through optional hyperlinks and text boxes. Yeah, I get locked out of InCopy all the time, so Adobe is on my shit list. I'm not smart enough to use your programs. How am I going to figure out how to cancel? Dumb it down for Yaz. And that's the news you need to know today.

Josh, what's the most deranged AI generated thing you've seen on social media? I don't know if I necessarily, maybe it's because I just can't tell what's real and what's AI. I know that's not true, but I don't know if there's anything like most of the stuff I just see that's weird. It's just like people with like multiple, multiple more fingers and stuff like that. The kind of like normal run of the mill. I'm sure I've come across something, but honestly, like

Probably the most deranged stuff is like some of the weird AI songs that are out there. Yeah. That are just really like odd and different. But like, I don't have any good specific answers to that. What about you? It seems like you have, this is a leading question. It seems like you're fishing. For months, people have been writing about this, but it has been served to me several times about shrimp Jesus. Yeah.

What the fuck is that? I have no idea what this is. It's like a statue of Jesus surrounded by shrimp that is like gone mega viral on Facebook. How have I missed this? Oh, it's a Facebook thing? Yeah, dude, Google it. I'm so serious. And there's been so, ugh. There's so many variations on it. Listeners, hold on while I Google. It is.

It's horrible. It's horrifying. Now there's a lot of variations of it. Oh my God. It's so crazy. Oh my God. I don't... Listeners, we're going to put a link to this in the show notes. Very upsetting. If you haven't seen it. Wow. Wow.

I don't like that at all. I think we got to move on from this topic. I'm uncomfortable. I'm going to be off for the rest of the episode. So basically, I think we all know that social media is really messed up. And in the next segment, we're going to talk about some billionaires who are trying to change it. Back in April, President Biden signed a law that would ban TikTok unless his parent company, ByteDance, sold the social media app.

The company was given about nine months to a year to find an American buyer. So today we're going to dive into that race. Specifically, we're going to look at one billionaire who's spearheading a bid, former L.A. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt. Fast Company senior staff editor Max Upberg sat down with McCourt a few weeks ago to discuss his interest in buying TikTok. Now he's going to tell us all about it. Welcome, Max. Hey.

So to kick things off, there is a Frank McCourt who is a famous writer. He wrote one of my favorite books, Angela's Ashes. But that is not the Frank McCourt we are talking about today. Who is this Frank McCourt? It is not that Frank McCourt. Who is this Frank McCourt? This Frank McCourt is a Boston real estate developer who is well known to some sports fans as the former owner of the L.A. Dodgers. Mm-hmm.

But more recently, he's been trying to reshape the way the internet works. Mostly through his nonprofit, which he founded in 2021 called Project Liberty. It's like a classic, like that's got to be a conservative thing. Yeah, I know. Every time I've seen that, I've been like, what type of liberty are we talking about here? It sounds a lot like a PAC, but it is very much a web-focused nonprofit that has nerds

No real political affiliation as far as I know. Although the nonprofit is trying to give people ownership of their own data, right? Yeah, exactly. Project Liberty revolves around this idea of a decentralized social networking protocol or DSNP for short. What does that mean? Of course. I know what it means, but everybody else. So a DSNP is basically it's a blockchain built protocol

Open source infrastructure. Incredible, incredible string of words. I know. I tried to explain this to my father, actually, and he was like, midway through, he was like, you know what? I don't care anymore. That's fair. But it's basically, it wants to allow users to determine when and how their data is shared. DSNP users can

remain anonymous, though they might have to self-ID at certain points. But think of it as like an internet where you control your data and you can also migrate your data and your networks between different services versus right now where everything is very siloed within individual apps and services. So it sounds like they migrated some users from a social network called MeWe, which doesn't

Does sound fake. But tell us what MeWe is and what the deal is there. Okay, so MeWe is a free and subscription-based social media platform that is sort of like a privacy-focused Facebook alternative. It's got a really small user base on the scheme of things. There are 20 million users on MeWe. The active user count is much lower. So last year,

MeWe migrated its entire platform to Project Liberty's DSNP. And that was, at the time, Frank McCourt called it a huge validation of the project. I think there were a lot of people who were skeptical at the time that MeWe could actually migrate its backend tech over to Project Liberty's DSNP.

There's a lot of buzzwords here. But MeWe actually did it. And, you know, that's where TikTok comes in is that Frank McCourt wants to buy TikTok not because he, like, wants to run a giant social media network per se. It's more like he wants to move those users over to his version of a user-prioritized internet. Now, before I ask you more about TikTok, I do want to take...

I would say a sort of daily mail moment in this podcast to talk a little bit about Frank McCourt's personal life because he did sell the L.A. Dodgers off to pay for...

his divorce because he had an affair with a horse trainer or something? Tell me about that. How pertinent is this to the story? It needs to be mentioned, but... I need to bring this up. And I was like, there's no good way to bring it up, but it does need to be said. Yeah, I will... He did own the Dodgers and sell the Dodgers to Magic Johnson, actually. Yeah. He had a very public divorce. He's now...

by all counts, in a happy second marriage with that second wife. With the horse trainer? Yeah, I think it did give him a lot of bad press, partly because I think of the way he handled the sale in like a sort of hasty fashion. But he's been working hard since then to...

kind of like repairs public image in part through, um, he opened Georgetown's public policy school. Oh, that's what it's named after. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Not the Angela ashes, Frank McCourt. Successful writer, but different level of, of wealth here. Me seeing me like that's crazy. Um,

And do you think the sort of lack of privacy in his personal life might have a barrier on why he wants to be so private now? Is that too much psychology for you? I am not qualified enough as a...

psychoanalyst. I like that your answer to that implies that you were qualified as a psychoanalyst to some degree, though. I haven't finished my four years of coursework. I'm on year three. But let me weigh in like a year. I did ask him, though, why he's so interested in data privacy, especially like

He's a billionaire. He kind of can do whatever he wants. Not to say that billionaires don't care about their data, but I was kind of like, why do you care? He had a good analogy, actually, when I talked to him. He likened it to the post office. He said, basically, imagine the post office comes to you and says, well, provide a service where we're sending your mail all through the country. In exchange, we can open every letter and

and read all of your most intimate correspondences and your family's correspondences. And we can also, in turn, sell that information to third parties who can, you can say, hey, this guy's

self-conscious about X, Y, Z and then sell that information to a third party who just hits you with a barrage of products. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the same time, though, I will say when you sign up to this particular post office, I got to drop this metaphor. You do agree to those terms and conditions, right? Like there's an opt-in element to all this. He just wants a different option for people. Is that fair to say? Well, is there really an opt-in? I think this is a larger thing. Like the internet's such a,

and social media sites to certain degrees, maybe not TikTok necessarily, but like a lot of social media is essential to people's lives and careers. And even if it's not like water or shelter, it's as close to a need as you can get to be on the internet. So do you really have an option to opt out of what internet companies present you with? Right. Also, I don't know that

Big tech has been super transparent about their data practices over the years. Whether that, I mean, most recently that manifests with AI, their AI policies. But before that, most people didn't know that Facebook was selling your data for a long time. And not just because

They're not reading the fine print, but it was a pretty shadowy operation. Yeah, that's true. Although, if you are a big-time internet shopper like me and you look up one thing on Net-A-Porter, that dress or those heels will follow you around online for the rest of your life. And really, we could end up being thankful for this. Well, does that bring up another point? And I believe you got to this with Frank in your interview. Like,

How much do people actually care? Because I feel like there's a lot of like apathy towards data privacy now. I think like there was a time when people cared a lot more about their data. I feel like a lot of people now have just kind of resigned themselves to their data. I mean, that's how I feel. Yeah. What is Frank's like thinking about this? There's kind of like a public opinion battle he's waging to write.

Yeah, I asked him about that. I basically said, I think most people just accept it as a given that they are tracked and commodified online. Anecdotally, I just haven't met many people. They think it's creepy, but it's sort of like the cost of doing business on the internet. It's just, that's how it is. I think he views the stakes as being much higher because he's looking at

specifically the way social media platforms prioritize fringe and extremist content. So it's not, I think for him, the stakes aren't just like that companies are selling you crap you don't need or preying on your insecurities, which that is bad. But I think the bigger problem is what happened on January 6th, basically, is like if social media networks have all this data,

and are using it to inform what content they push, and they're pushing the most reactionary extremist stuff. I'm not being hyperbolic here. I think he views it as a threat to the health of democracy. I don't think it's totally off-base or conspiratorial. I don't know that most people still

are going to care. Yeah, like two things can be true at once. How did the idea of him buying TikTok come about? Tell me about his thought process there. Tell me about, you know, where things stand. Things started with, obviously, like everybody else, he was reading about the TikTok ban. And he was like, well, I actually have billions of dollars, unlike everybody else. Exactly. He was like, I happen to be a very wealthy man. I mean, I think he wants to put together basically

a little consortium that can make a play for it. They face competition from other billionaire-backed groups and such. You know, even if he does manage to buy it somehow, why should we trust him with our data? Like, that's the thing that always gets you about these data privacy guys. I'm like, okay, so you're just saying that you should be in control of all this? Okay.

I asked him a question to that effect. He says he has no interest in running a company. He wants to use his money, power, influence, all those things to help buy TikTok or the US version of TikTok. And then he doesn't want to be running this in a day-to-day way of a CEO. What's better? Is it better to have Frank McCourt leading or Frank McCourt at least handling

heavily involved in TikTok or ByteDance. Right. Or Steve Mnuchin. I feel like... Door number C is pretty rough. Sorry, I said door number C. That sounded so stupid. Door number three sounds much worse than the other two options. Well, I think that's the thing. It's like, there's no world where, I don't think, where TikTok goes the route of like Mozilla, where it becomes this foundation. No, I think...

It's going to be owned by some large, powerful person or entity. The question is, what is the best for user safety, user data, all that stuff? How confident would you be that this technology that Project Liberty is supporting and that he presumably wants to migrate all of TikTok over to would actually do what he wants it to do and limit extremism? Like,

Do we have any confidence that it can scale at that level? Or like, because we only have a very small migration that's a thousandth. Yeah, we have a very small sample size relative to what we're talking about with TikTok. And again, I kind of tried to push back against that to some extent. And he said, listen, we hire more engineers. If this goes through, we increase the staff. I mean, the underlying premise does work. Like,

this infrastructure that he helped build, just, it works. Like, people are using it right now. On MeWe. On MeWe, which, you know, MeWe has a very dedicated user base, I came to learn. Did you sign up? No, I didn't sign up. I had actually...

done some reporting on MeWe like years ago. Should we become the biggest podcast on MeWe? Yeah, can we really take advantage of the MeWe platform? We need engaged listeners. Honestly, I think that's well within our grasp. I think we could do it. Talk about the broader implications of all this. How would his goals for TikTok basically impact

all of us, if he succeeds in this lofty vision, what would that mean? It would mean that we have evidence that, A, there are real alternatives to internet protocol that can work at scale. It also means that there are, within those alternatives, means by which people can take back control of their data on the internet. Again, do most people actually want that?

debatable. I think most people find the internet's data practices creepy. Yeah. But there's a big step between finding something creepy and actually taking action to like change your practices. And yeah, I think should that bid actually prove successful, it would make a very real viable alternative to our current structure. I don't think it's going to like

usurp what we've got right now, but it would be like a major secondary player, I think. So like we've talked a little bit about, obviously there are three options, but how likely is all of this to even happen? How likely is this all to take place? If I were a betting man, I would say...

The odds are not overwhelmingly great, but it's not something to rule out at all. This segment, forget all of it. First, you need ByteDance's lawsuit to get thrown out. Then you need Frank McCourt's bid to...

to actually work out. And then you need a successful migration. So like those are three major points that have to all happen in McCourt's favor. So I wouldn't say this is like a slam dunk by any means. I do think that just the fact that it's gotten this far is actually pretty

pretty noteworthy in its own right. If you said a few years ago that there was an alternative to the current internet, basically, that might buy the biggest app in the world or buy the US branch of it, I think people would have called you crazy. It shows there's real appetite with not just users, but also major market movers to shake things up.

Thanks, Max. You're going to stick around for Keeping Tabs, but we're going to take a quick break, followed by our monthly chat with Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beer. We're going to jump into our monthly Brands That Matter segment with Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beer. Beer. Beer. Yes, and Josh, hello. Welcome back, Jeff.

So this episode is airing while you're in Cannes, which you've conned your way into such a good situation. Can I just say? A yearly trip to the south of France. It's a hard life. You're like turning to your wife like, sorry, babe, I got to go to work. It's tough. I miss Father's Day. I miss Father's Day. I don't feel sorry for you. It's not like you're missing your child's birthday or Mother's Day. It's your day. Yeah.

And you know what? It is. Children, I'm going to Cannes. Actually, usually I'm in the air. It's not really that great. But yes, so the official name is the Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity. It basically started like 50 years ago or more. Actually, no, in the 50s it started as the Cannes Film Festival.

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all in one place. And the vibe is kind of, not that I've been to all of these, but it feels like because there's awards, conference, networking, business deals, all this stuff. It's like Oscars meets Davos meets South by for these industries because they're all interrelated. They're talking about the state of the industry. They're awarding

work from the previous year and they're doing actual business. So it's an interesting thing. It's like why you'll see you like be somewhere like on some random yacht or something and they'll be like a obscure ad targeting startup talking to pro athletes or Spotify execs or someone from Deloitte or McDonald's all in just like one spot. Yeah. Who's the coolest person you've seen at Cannes?

Oh, this is easy. This is easy. Jeff Goldblum. Oh, that's fine. That was a good one. That was a really good one. Of your namesake. Yes. And he was actually like exactly, you know, they don't meet your heroes. This was not one of those situations. He was like, Jeff, Jeff. Yeah.

Yes. Good to see you. Yes. Yes. It was awesome. And he was talking about working with brands and all that stuff. So that was a while ago. But yeah, there was another, there was a Ridley Scott dinner situation. That was pretty cool.

So yeah, it's a weird mix and mingle of all these people who make money from each other. And the reason I'm there is because they're all there. And we talk about brand culture. We talk about how business meets culture. So to think about what work they're awarding and how they're viewing the state of their industry and charting the course for the next year is kind of why I'm there. And I'll be talking to...

We're working on a little video series with CMOs from brands like Google, Amazon, Unilever, McDonald's, and more, just talking about the issues they're facing right now. What is this Dan Whedon, Whedon, Titanium Lions contest, which is just the craziest name? Yeah, that's like the, you know, universities have like the liquid death memorial event.

position for sociology and anthropology professor. They have these like type massive titles. The Frito-Lay School of Nutrition. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So there's about, I think, 30 categories, just like if you picture any sort of awards show or whatever, there's a whole bunch of categories across, you know, there's film, they do sports, they do print and outdoor advertising, all these different segments of the work. But titanium, and it was named for the late Dan Wyden, who founded Wyden & Kennedy, who

People would know from inventing Just Do It for Nike and being Nike's agency for years and years. The titanium is kind of like the big finale. It's awarded on Friday, the last day. It's kind of in Oscars parlance. It would be the best picture. It's the big one. And it's work that spans all kind of different media and platforms. It's not one thing like it has to be a TV commercial or has to be a social thing.

It's basically the work that they see as the most innovative overall. And yeah, so there's 180 entries to that category alone. They've whittled it down to a finalist list of 20. The other thing that's a little different with this category is, so there's juries for all these awards and different ones for different categories. And usually it's the work submitted,

The jury picks the winners and there you go. They're announced and it's wonderful. But once it gets to the shortlist, these folks in Cannes, so this week, now that this is airing, the nominees kind of have to go in and live pitch to the jury. That's great.

Cool. I was going to ask, is there like, you know, an Oscar style campaign that goes on beforehand? How meta would that be? It's a campaign for your campaign. Well, talk about meta. Some of the shortlisted pieces are Super Bowl ads for Super Bowl ads for Super Bowl ads. It's like, so this could be an ad for that. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's not really the I'm sure there's some some lobbying and certainly some promotion that, you know, leaking your kind of glorious case study online or something like that. But no, I don't think it's not the same as Oscars in that way. But yeah, so there's 20 and they're from there's a bunch from all over the world for from for big clients, for charities and nonprofits to brands you've kind of never heard of. So it is an interesting mix.

So let's talk about some of your titanium predictions. I know a lot of people are paying attention to this, just like they were with... I mean, is it going to be La La Land? Is it going to be Moonlight? What are our titanium? Am I going to be Warren Beatty? No, I think it is tough. But I mean, obviously, it's not an exact science. I have three that I think have a really good chance. The first is...

DoorDash's Super Bowl campaign. It's DoorDash All the Ads, I think it's called. And that was by Wieden and Kennedy. And I like that because it's the scale and creativity it used to kind of make a branded, already cultural branded moment in Super Bowl feel a little different. So basically what it did was the brand, like, you know, they wanted to promote themselves as you could DoorDash anything, right? Like they'll deliver anything to your door. So basically they said they ran a contest and did an ad around-

brands. We talked about this. Yeah, we talked about it. You could door dash the winner. So some guy in San Antonio won like a BMW i5 M60, a one-year subscription to Paramount Plus. So basically they would award, deliver someone every product from all the brands in

in the Super Bowl. It was, you know, that's a cool call to get got people's attention. It played with the platform of the Super Bowl and the role brands play. And from an industry awards side of things, I mean, the logistics to negotiate and deal with every single Super Bowl advertiser to get them on board is a bit of a feat as well. So I like that one. I was hoping the kick of destiny would

would get in there, but I guess not. The kick of destiny. I don't even remember what brand was associated. FanDuel? FanDuel. Yes, that's right. That makes sense. Aren't they in trouble? FanDuel? FanDuel is always in trouble, actually. I'm assuming any betting platform has always got a little bit of a fire going. Yeah, there was a thing about like, are you betting money on whether Gronk's going to make the kick or not? But it wasn't. It was just like...

I don't know, some sort of credits. Guys, I'm not going to get into it here. It's not even nominated. We're talking about it. So the second one is another Super Bowl campaign, which is interesting. Very different. Also meta in a way. L'Oreal brand CeraVe. CeraVe? I'm going to say CeraVe. CeraVe? CeraVe.

I'm Canadian. That's it. The French. Because the whole thing was Michael. Sarah. Exactly. Yeah. Also Canadian. Yeah.

This is no longer a brands that matter segment. This is a, this is who's Canadian with Jeff Beard. Just going down the list guys. And you see the local Canadian Reynolds is probably in there somewhere. Okay. So Martin short Sarah V as you Americans say, uh, worked with a agency Ogilvy New York and they basically, it's such a weird kind of wonderful influencer campaign where they got Michael Sarah, who's not exactly like your typical pitch, man. He's not like Kevin Hart out there all the time or,

or Reynolds or whoever. But like, so instead of just like making a teaser for their Super Bowl commercial, which every brand does now and putting it up to social media or whatever, they basically recruited like

450 influencers across TikTok and Instagram, whatever, and got them to kind of see this idea. I was like, what is Michael Cera doing? There was like that video that went viral well before the Super Bowl of Cera in some random New York pharmacy, like a Duane Reade somewhere using a Sharpie to sign bottles of the moisturizer. Yes!

It was so good. I got sucked into a rabbit hole on these when this happened. You weren't the only one. The campaign got more than 6 billion impressions before the game. Holy shit. Yeah, yeah. So again, this was one where it's like you're talking about logistics of the influencers and keeping it kind of not secret, but like...

eking things out in a way that really got culture to pay attention, which is incredibly hard for any brand. And I feel like I forget if he was on Kimmel, but he was he was on late night talking about like, this is the kind of thing that brands just like get flop sweats over the prospect of getting that kind of cultural attention. And and it was it wasn't just paid attention. It was actually people thought it was fun and got into it.

That's a really good one. The reason why I like that, and speaking of some of the Super Bowl ads, I find myself walking away from the Super Bowl remembering the ad, but not the brand that it was associated with. And you can't possibly do that with Sarah V. Yeah. I mean, it's just kind of a marriage made in heaven with the last name of Michael Cera, but...

Still, I mean, like we were just saying with the kick of Destiny, I couldn't remember who it was about, which I think is a bit of an issue and maybe a just-a-me thing on that. Oh, absolutely not. I mean, it's totally... It's a cliche that the Super Bowl, you'll laugh and love the celebrity ads or whatever and be like, eh, what was it for again? So yes, the use of the name and also just the way it wasn't just your basic kind of teaser thing.

BMW had a great teaser with Christopher Walken, for example, talking on the phone about like, well, it's an ad for an ad. What the hell am I doing? Like that was funny. But what I remember that I had to look it up this morning was a BMW or what? So you're right. It's Michael Cera with CeraVe. It was perfect. So the third one is more international. It was a French ad for the Telecom Orange.

Or orange for my... Orange. Mes amis français. Ah, man. It was called Women's Football, and it's by an agent called Marcel Paris. And basically, it was an ad that showed all these fast-paced clips, highlights of France's men's national soccer team scoring these amazing goals, great moves, goals. But then the footage rewinds, and the...

And the visual effects editing reveals that actually what they did was put, I don't know how they did it. I'm not a scientist, but they put the images of the men on actually the goals that everyone was like, that were so beautiful were actually from France's women's team. And so it was kind of the bait and switch of like, oh, you thought these were awesome. They're actually the women's team. So, you know, watch women's football, I guess.

So it was really cool visually. It went crazy viral. Like they claim the most. Yeah. Yeah. I remember the most viral French ad ever for whatever that means, but it was covered. It was covered, but it was covered by media and over 90 countries for a, for a very France specific ad. There was a bit of polarization between like, there were some that said,

This is amazing. It kind of messes with and changes our perception of the quality of women's football. While there was others saying it could be seen as disrespectful in the sense that you need to use the men's game to justify the worth and attract attention to the women's.

That said, that's going a little deep, but I would say, I would say that you've watched this ad and it's the kind of spot that to Yaz, to your point, like in terms of how, you know, you guys came upon it. Like this is the kind of thing that friends pass along to each other, especially if they watch soccer or whatever. Like this is, it was a cool, cool spot. So that's the can lions and the people looking to take home the, is it a literal titanium lion? It's the award that, uh,

Or am I just... I don't know. It is a trophy. It is a trophy. Okay. If it's not a literal titanium lion, I'm out.

So you mentioned three campaigns. Who's the winner to your mind? Who wins the Jeff Award? The Jeff Award. Well, you know what? I'll change my mind. Who should we be placing money on with FanDuel, Kick of Destiny? Add of Destiny. Oh, that's a tough one. I don't know. Who knows? But what I'll say is I think based on the complexity, the creativity, scale, et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to go with...

Sarah V. Michael Sarah V. I'm going to go with that one. I did love that ad campaign as well. Sarah V., you win the titanium Jeff. Also, they picked the right spokesperson. You know, Michael Sarah is like kind of ridiculous enough. Like if it was Ryan Reynolds, you know what I mean? You'd be like, all right, man, you're always doing shit like this. But yeah, absolutely. It was it was great.

It was awesome. I want to ask about hot dogs. Can we talk about Joey Chestnut and Nathan's Hot Dogs? Is this a brand? Yes, absolutely. Nathan's. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yay. Okay, so quick breakdown. Nathan's Hot Dogs. So Joey Chestnut, who, you know, is the big competitive eater, legendary, signed a...

or had a brand deal for the vegan hot dogs made by Impossible Foods. Nathan's Hot Dogs, who sponsors the big July 4th contest out at Coney Island, did not like this and therefore kicked or banned him. I don't know what the term is.

out of that contest. So he will not be participating. That was like a big deal in the competitive eating space, but also outside of people who like to cheer on soaking hot dogs in water and scarfing. Yeah. The brand association between Nathan's and Joey Chestnut is I have no interest in this. And I know that Joey Chestnut and Nathan's are connected. So that's a big deal that they're, I guess, separating.

People seem really upset about this. I mean, is it a New York thing? Is it an America thing? Is it an eating thing? I don't know. Joey Chestnut is a purely American hero because someone who can eat more hot dogs than anyone else is...

distinctly American. 73 in like 10 minutes? Is it? It's something crazy. Curious if this is like what this does for his impossible contract. Like, is this a brand win or a brand lose, right? Because surely they were like, well, Joey Chestnut is going to eat a bunch of our hot dogs and like at this contest and...

you know, our brand is going to get out there. What does that mean for that company? That's a good question. I think, you know, the whole reason, obviously, they would go after him is because this is the guy. I mean, could you pick a guy that makes hot dogs look less appetizing? The idea that his association just with it is like he's the legit, you know, to Josh's point, the great American hot dog hero. So him being associated, I think,

initially would be a brand win uh with this big uh controversy my answer would be it depends depends on what you want to do with it and what he's willing to do with it because i think there could be a very interesting way impossible could approach this in the sense that okay counter program on july 4th have him eat 73 impossible hot dogs exactly put it live on youtube or whatever like do a

Have you no heart, Yaz? Put on your own event, right? Like, do a thing. Like, he was actually kicked out of that. Put him in front of a seamless in a studio and have him eat 70 Impossible hot dogs. Imagine how you'd feel. Do they react the same with the water dipping, I wonder? Or is that just for the buns? The water dipping's more about the bun. Yeah. I don't know. I actually don't think I realized he ate the hot dog, like, the bun as well. Yeah, I thought he was just eating sausages. Yeah.

Clearly more than I knew. Well, that's clearly, and that's the news you need to know today. So guys, I will have a glass of rosé for you this week and maybe we'll talk more about brands that matter once I'm back on North American shores. Thanks so much, Jess. Merci. Merci. All right, we're going to take a quick break now and we'll be back with Keeping Tabs. ♪

Okay, we are back with Max, and it's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where each one of us shares a story, trend, or piece of pop culture we're following right now. And Max, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on? Well, at the risk of embarrassing myself, last night I watched The Meg 2. And...

Now that's the shark movie starring Jason Statham. Hell yeah. Sequel to the Meg. Big shark. Is the shark named Meg? It's a Megalodon. No, it's a Megalodon. It would be cool if it was just a girl named Meg. Meg Ryan just jumps out.

Come on, Meg. It's the biopic about Meghan McCain's time on The View. Sorry, go on with The Meg 2. What's your review? The... Absolutely awful movie. But the really interesting thing that I became fascinated by is The Meg was...

largely financed through Chinese film production companies and largely financed specifically by China Film Group Corporation, which is owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party. What? They do a lot of stuff. They fund a lot of different, like, random things. Yeah, but, like, what ideals are they advancing through the Meg, you know? I don't... The wild thing is that in the Meg, which was released in 2023, the plot is that, like...

These research scientists in China had the shark and the shark escaped from the lab. I was like,

They didn't think that's maybe not the best plot to do right now. I love this. Oh, my God. I love this so much. So that's been my week so far. You know, the guy who signed off on the budget was like, a shark named Meg? Sick. He wasn't reading through the plot. I don't think the shark is named Meg. I just, I

I haven't seen it, but I'm assuming. You heard it here. The shark is just a girl named Megan. It is her bachelorette party and she's throwing a shit fit. Buy me shots.

Oh, no. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on? Well, while Max was watching The Meg last night, I was being a cultured individual and watching the Tony Awards, which obviously I'm a big theater fan, so I was keeping an eye on that. And yeah, I've seen a decent amount of stuff this year. I wasn't surprised necessarily by any of the winners. Big winners were Stereophonic, which I haven't seen yet, but I've heard is amazing and I have tickets coming up.

next month for Best New Play. And The Outsiders won for Best New Musical, which is based on the... Why am I forgetting? Oh my God, I'm forgetting the writer's name. S.E. Hinton? S.E. Hinton, yeah. That brain...

which was written 60 years ago by S.E. Hinton. Who? Did you realize that S.E. Hinton was 16 years old when she wrote the book The Outsiders? Fuck that. I am so tired. That's insane. I'm so tired of being in my 30s and just feeling shown up all the time. And like, listen, is it mildly derivative of West Side Story? Yes. But for a 16-year-old...

I really loved the book when I was a kid. I really liked it too. I just want to be rude because she was 16. The Meg franchise is actually based on the novel The Trench. The Meg and the Meg 2 were written by degenerative AI and you can't convince me otherwise. But back to the Tony Awards, my one criticism of the night was...

I don't know who directed this production, the Tony Awards itself, but the camera work was insane the entire night. Like, the shot that they had of the presenters was from below, and the teleprompter was clearly set above, so everyone was looking up

as they were reading the teleprompter. It was insane. It was an insane production. It's because it was made by theater people and not film people. Clearly, honestly, like, just get me someone who knows how to set a camera angle to do the Tony Awards. But it's never been this bad before. It was bad. It was rough. And also...

No shade to Ariana. Well, a little shade to Ariana DeBose. Stop having her host things. She's very talented. She seems like a lovely person. Unless she raps again. Yeah, I just... I can't get behind her hosting as many things as she does. It's just...

It's not, not for me. It's not, not for me. But that was the Tony Awards. Congrats to all the winners. And a lot of the performers who, me and my wife, who is a theater person, as many people know, knew a lot of the performers out there. So congratulations to all of them. Were there any major snubs?

I don't think so. I think it was a little bit up in the air between who would win Best New Musical between The Outsiders and Sufts, which was written by Shana Taubman, produced by Hillary Clinton, which does look fantastic and won Best Book of a Musical and Best Score, but didn't win Best Musical. I think the biggest drama overall with this year's Tony Awards was the inclusion of

Illinois, which is a show that's basically a contemporary dance show to the Sufjan Stevens concept album, Come on, Feel the Illinois. And people were questioning whether it's technically a musical because basically it's four set singers singing through the album. And then it's beautifully choreographed.

contemporary dance and wonderful orchestrations. Justin Peck. Justin Peck, yeah. He choreographed it. It's really stunning. And it's one of my favorite albums, of course, because I'm a 34-year-old white man. Sufjan Stevens is right in my sweet spot.

But people were like, is this actually a musical? Should this be included? I'm personally all for it being included just because I think it was a terrific piece of theater, regardless of its general structure and whether that technically qualifies as a musical. Yaz, what's your keeping tabs? So this weekend was Father's Day, and I have enjoyed seeing all of your hot dads on Instagram. But I'm here.

But I'm here to talk about a batshit crazy Instagram caption from Vin Diesel. Now, he has since amended it, but I did find the old one. And the first thing I have to say is I have heard from three different people in the film industry who do not know each other and are not connected that Vin Diesel is a really bad person. I mean, that doesn't surprise me. Vin Diesel, in every interview, talks about the fact that he has a really high IQ, which I find extremely funny. But...

I would say that this caption implies that he does not. So he posted a still from the Riddick franchise, Chronicles of Riddick. Actually, it may be a concept art from Fast X. I don't really understand. It's a car riding in some snow.

And the car says SS on it. Probably Fast and the Furious. I could not tell you, though. I'm not keeping up on the diesel canon. So anyway, on Father's Day 2024, he was location scouting for Riddick Furia. And he posted like a normal like

Happy Father's Day to you all. And then, you know, while location scouting in Europe for Riddick, the concept art from Fast X Part 2 kept pouring in. I guess that's what this is. And then he followed it up with this. On a side note, dot, dot, dot, I saw warships off my country shores. Hmm. I'm not the Tucker type, dot, dot, dot.

As a father, my kids live in that country. Hmm. Putin, I will fly to the Caribbean. Come have dinner. Let's not let foolishness dictate the future. Hashtag happy Father's Day. Oh, God. So I think he just invited Putin to have dinner with him in the Caribbean. Sounds romantic.

And all I'm saying is Tony Blinken, get out of the way. Yeah, Secretary of State. Honestly, not putting it past Trump if he wins the next term to have Secretary of State Vin Diesel. Vin Diesel. Yeah. This reminds me of when Dennis Rodman became friends with Kim Jong-un. Oh, yeah. Oh, never forget. Yeah. It's like a very weird thing. Can this harm Vin Diesel's film career? I mean,

Does anybody look to Vin Diesel for political? I guess what I'm thinking is, is there a world where Vin Diesel is kicked out of his various franchises and finds himself auditioning for the Meg 3?

Because you know who would love this is the Chinese Communist Party. Or be Riddick colon the Meg. Should just start merging all the franchises. Oh my God. Well, tying it all together. And that's it for Most Innovative Companies. Max, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me.

Our show is produced by Avery Miles and Blake Odom, mixed and sound designed by Nicholas Torres, and our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate, and review, and we'll see you next week.