Who does Silicon Valley want to elect in 2024?
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I'm Yasmin Garnier. I'm Josh Christensen. And this is Most Innovative Companies. ♪

On today's episode, Fast Company contributing writer Issy Lepowski. They had raised $100 million for 1.1 million followers just in a matter of days. Noma chef and host of Omnivore on Apple TV+, Rene Redzepi. I thought I was eating wild chervil, but I was eating hemlock. And as always, keeping tabs. Big is a really problematic man. But first, here's the download. ♪

The news you need to know this week in the world of business and innovation. On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that he would be dropping out of the presidential race just one month after a poor debate performance. And if you're just hearing about this now, I honestly do not know where you have been, but I would like to go to there.

That would be crazy. That would be crazy if someone was listening to this podcast. Yeah, their sole news source. I'm so sorry in advance. You're woefully under-informed.

Well, after Biden dropped out, he did endorse VP Kamala Harris and her campaign has thus far, I think, received over $100 million in donations through ActBlue and various other sources, not to mention that she's basically locked up the nomination. So any thought of a contested floor fight at the convention have been put to rest.

pretty quickly. We saw stock futures rise after the news and the tech executives, shocker, are still divided in their opinions. We've been hearing a lot and we'll hear more about today. People like Elon Musk and David Sachs and the cadre of Silicon Valley folks who are still on side Trump. But there are also others like Reid Hoffman who are on Team Coconut and who had already praised Biden before. Cuban was another one of those as well.

Look at you using that fancy word, cadre. Anyway, we will talk about it. Yeah, you should talk, Miss Comparative Lit.

We will be talking more about that later. On Friday, tens of thousands of Windows PC users woke up to blue screens of death linked to a faulty automated security update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. I sadly was not affected and still had to do my job, which was disappointing to say the least. The one day I'm upset to be a Mac user. I know. Yeah.

The outage forced airlines to ground flights, disrupted vital hospital record systems, and even booted some news broadcasters off the air. Remember those Mac PC commercials?

The one where, like, Justin Long played the Mac? Yeah. That's all I could think about when this was happening. I could just picture just a blue screen of death. Just, like, John Hodgman painted blue. Would have been a commercial that Apple totally would have done. Mm-hmm. Condé Nast, the publishing giant behind magazines like Vogue,

Vogue and The New Yorker and our neighbors down in Manhattan has sent a cease and desist to AI-powered search engine Perplexity according to a report from the information. Should also be noted that Perplexity AI was on our MIC list this past spring. And we had an episode where we talked about it with Amy Farley. Yeah, go back and listen. The

letter accused perplexity of plagiarism and demanded the platform stop crawling its content for their search databases they aren't the first company to do this however forbes has also said to cease and desist to perplexity i really want at one point for like some publication to send a cease and desist and and uh perplexity to send back like don't worry we don't want your content

You know it's going to happen to us. Anyway. Google is killing its plan to get rid of cookies in its Chrome browser amid objections from the advertising industry. The company previously said they would eliminate the tracking technology to better protect users' privacy.

Now, instead, users will have the choice to turn cookies on or off. And finally, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon are fighting over the broadcasting rights to NBA games after both companies bid $1.8 billion to carry the games. Warner Bros. currently holds the broadcast right to air games on TNT alongside their excellent flagship show inside the NBA. So good. It's so good. So good.

And they were set to stop broadcasting games and inside the NBA after next year because they initially didn't put in a bid to re-up their TV contract. But in the final hours, they did match Amazon's offer to be the third distributor of NBA games alongside NBC and ESPN ABC.

So we'll see how this plays out. I'm personally hoping we can continue getting more Chuck, Shaq, Kenny. I hope so. Ernie. And Ernie. And that's the news you need to know this week. So, Josh, what is your favorite restaurant in New York City? Hmm. This changes quite a bit. I do really like Red Paper Clip, which is down in the West Village.

I walked by it so many times, but I've never actually eaten there. It's really terrific. It's like a Taiwanese fusion-based place. They also, strangely enough, have like an excellent burger. And they really are quite good. So I think that would be my favorite restaurant right now. And of course, there are like the slumming it places where I just want to get like, you know, some crap food that's delicious. Um.

What is your favorite restaurant? Cafe Mogador, East Village. Easy. Oh, you've talked about that before. Yeah. Before and after my husband proposed to me there. Oh, yeah. Except ours was kind of funny because we like agreed to get married because we're trying to buy an apartment and our parents were like, you should get married.

And then my grandma was like, I have heart failure. And I was like, you need to propose to me this weekend. So we went and bought a ring. Also, it turns out my grandma just had an EKG that weekend. Yeah. She was just being dramatic. But I was like... The playbook. Really? To force the marriage. And then on the subway down to Mogador, I was like, don't be too crazy, but you should like propose in the restaurant so we get like free food. Yeah.

That is so on brand for you. It's like, what if they comp our dessert? Then we got to the restaurant and I got embarrassed and I was just like, just give me the ring. Don't tell anyone. Honestly, I have never heard a proposal story that is more in line with the person that you are.

I have actually never tried Cafe Mogador, though. I've walked past it a number of times in the East Village. I need to go. Oh, it's so good. Highly recommend. We also got some recommendations from our guest who's going to be on a little later, Renee, which is why we're talking about restaurants that we definitely need to try.

That's right. So Rene Redzepi, the creative genius behind Nomo, which has been named best restaurant in the world many years over, came into the studio to tell us a little bit about his new Apple TV Plus show, Omnivore. But before we get to that, we got to talk politics. So as we just mentioned, President Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place.

Back when Harris ran for California district attorney, she received donations from tech investors and venture capitalists, including Sheryl Sandberg and Reid Hoffman. But Harris isn't the only candidate who's received money from Silicon Valley. J.D. Vance worked for prominent VCs and even started his own with money from Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen and Eric Schmidt.

So today we're going to look at Silicon Valley's role in the upcoming election. And here to help us break it down is Fast Company contributing writer Issy Lepowski. Hey, Issy, and welcome back to the show. Hi, thanks so much for having me. So to start, notable names like David Sachs or Marc Andreessen have actually pledged their support for Trump. I think Mark Zuckerberg called him a badass, too. Oh, yeah, that happened over the weekend. Yeah.

But, you know, speaking specifically about Sachs and Marc Andreessen, is this a new rightward shift for them? So I think you have to talk about those two people as separate individuals, right? So for David Sachs, except for in 2016, he sort of had a long history of supporting Republicans. And also in the years leading up to this election, he was a driving force behind the recalls or a

attempted recall of Governor Gavin Newsom and successful recall of the San Francisco DA. He's also an ally of Elon Musk and has kind of aligned himself with the quote-unquote anti-woke politics that you see from Musk. He's somebody who's really been outspoken about the democratic policies in San Francisco and in California and about how he feels that that has sort of been the ruin of democracy.

of this region. And so for lack of a better term, he sort of bought into the culture wars of the left-right dynamic. And those issues really graft onto the Trump campaign very easily. So no, not a huge surprise for David Sachs, not a huge rightward turn, maybe just a little bit more public about it. Marc Andreessen and his partner Ben Horowitz, I think in the past, they had contributed to both parties.

And, you know, they they came out in this podcast sort of explaining why this time around they are supporting Trump. And in doing so, they kind of explained that they are the experts on one thing. And that thing is business and what they call the little tech agenda. So they sort of said that they were setting aside these sort of cultural societal issues that may have caused them to oppose Trump in the past, which they had been.

quite outspokenly so. And they were kind of weighing the two sides, which candidate's going to be better for crypto, which candidate's going to be better for taxes and emerging industries like AI. And

From my read of it, a very rudimentary, did a very cursory look at where both parties stood. It sounds like they had some very engaging conversation with former President Trump where he said, you know, yes, he agreed with them on all these issues. They looked at the Republican campaign platform and decided that, you know, this was their guy.

But at the same time, you know, I think Pete Buttigieg said this recently, speaking with Bill Maher, you know, it is kind of an old story for very wealthy investors to be Republicans, right? What are they thinking? Silicon Valley is supposed to be, you know, they're supposed to care about climate. They're supposed to be, you know, pro-science and rational and libertarians. Normally libertarians don't like authoritarians. What's up with that? I think it's actually, we've made it way too complicated. It's super simple.

These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican Party that tends to do good things for very rich men.

So in that respect, it's not an entirely surprising turn for these guys, even though given the other issues that are at play in the election, climate and what have you, immigration, which is important to Silicon Valley, it is a shift for them. I do think it's really funny that a lot of these VCs, I think Marc Andreessen is one of them, spend so much time

writing blog posts and opining about the world and talking about how things should be run and all their social views. A manifesto. Literally wrote a manifesto. Exactly. And then they're like, listen, I'm actually an expert at one big thing. Mm-hmm.

Right. Which is me making money. So I feel like a lot of these feel like the Andreessen stuff. It really does go back to the Mayor Pete clip of just like, oh, rich guys like that when their taxes are cut. I thought it was interesting listening to the podcast with Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the

way that, you know, they kind of referred to what was written in the Republican Party platform as if that was some really extensive policy document outlining exactly how the Republican Party was going to accomplish this. Really, it was a very short bullet list that said sort of all the things they wanted to hear. And for me, you know, two guys whose job is to do due diligence and to really examine the specifics of things, I don't know, that felt to me a little bit like

they were searching for a justification for making this decision rather than that actually being the justification for the decision. We talked about this with Ainsley Harris a month or two ago around like the great men theory of people like Andreessen want to get government out of the way so they can like bend the world to their whims or maybe not in such dire terms. But it seems like, yeah, a bullet list that's just like, you can do whatever you want. We support you and no details beyond that. It's like, perfect.

Right. Certainly get big government out of the way is also a tale as old as time for like small business owners. Right. And I also think that you're right. The lack of detail may work in Trump's favor because, you know, though they've both been President Trump and Biden when he was president.

supposed to be the nominee, they are looking at the last four years of actual policy. And they're comparing that to a policy platform, which is a very brief written document. And so the devil's always in the details. It's harder to pull off the policy in reality than it is to write sort of the aspirational ideas in a platform.

Kamala Harris is a pretty pro-business politician, or at least that's her reputation. And obviously she's got a great relationship with people like Reid Hoffman. Do you think she could even change anyone's minds here? I don't.

doubt that she's going to lure anyone back who has already, you know, in the way they have come out so publicly, you know, once they have, you know, in David Sachs's case, spoken at the Republican convention or written these massive checks like Elon Musk has done or Andreessen and Horowitz. I think they're sort of sort of lost for this cycle. But that doesn't mean that Kamala Harris isn't going to animate other people in Silicon Valley who have a lot of money. That's

for everyone from the billionaires and millionaires to like the run of the mill tech workers who generally are already Democrats, but may have just been sitting this one out. It seems like there's been a ton of momentum behind her candidacy over the last few days. I think the most recent count I saw was that they had raised $100 million from 1.1 million followers. And we're talking on just in a matter of days.

I think that probably a lot of those people are from the Bay Area. She is from the Bay Area. She is the first, as far as I can tell, nominee that the Democrats have ever had from the Bay Area. It's not just her hometown, but it's also where she started her political career. So I think, yeah, you're going to see a lot of animation among those traditional Democratic donors, but also the regular tech workers. What can you tell me about Harris's record with big tech over the years?

Tell us about her time as SF District Attorney and California Attorney General. I wouldn't say that she has been the biggest critic of big tech. She has taken some notable stances. You know, when she was an elected official in California, she was sort of early to concerns about Section 230 because she was coming after Backpage.com, which you recall was effectively disbanded.

taken offline because it was found to be participating in sex trafficking. Later in the Senate, where she also represented California, she, you know, she supported FOSTA-SESTA, which was very unpopular law with the tech industry. This basically amended Section 230 to, you know, protect victims of sex trafficking nominally. But in reality, it really, you know, is thought to have had a much broader chilling effect and is, you

you know, often held up as an example of what not to do when you're trying to reform Section 230. She does seem open to AI regulation. You know, she's talked about how it's a false choice to say that we can have regulation or we can have innovation, but not both. She's kind of planted a flag when it comes to the, you know, is AI's most urgent issue, you know, the sort of existential risk to humanity, or is it the more immediate risks to people's rights? And she also sort of

said that, you know, for a lot of people, those risks to their immediate rights can feel existential. So it did feel like she is very open to regulation, also enforcing regulations that already exist as it pertains to, you know, AI threats. Although it also sounds like, you know... A little squishy? Sure. Although it also sounds like she's kind of like, AI, it's a thing. Yeah.

There are upsides and downsides. I do really want, if there is a debate, for someone just to ask whoever the moderator is, just like, what's generative AI? Just explain it to me, of both the candidates. I don't think you get two good answers, but I do think you get at least

a reasonable answer from Kamala or that's broad and not specific. Honestly, she'd probably pivot to the existential thing. She'd probably be like, well, listen, it's the new technology. Yeah. We really need to talk about its impact on working people. And that would probably be OK. And that's it. Yeah. Trump would get the China virus and woke my virus real quick.

Well, you bring up China, but I will say, you know, it's that is going to be an issue as they as they talk about AI. It's all related to, you know, where does the U.S. stand vis-a-vis China? Right. And so talk of it all. Sure. And so, you know, but it's not just TikTok. It's also like more powerful AI makes more powerful weapons, more powerful military. And that is a very, very real geopolitical dynamic.

There is this sense, I think, especially on the left, that they really want to do something to prevent, you know, all types of AI related discrimination, but also not to lose their edge when it comes to China. I think on the right, what you're hearing is just China, China, China, China, China. So to the extent that she has...

to talk about AI during this race at all, you're going to see her continue to try to walk that fine line between both sides, both the need to accelerate development and also the need to rein in potential risks. Trump's VP pick, J.D. Vance, comes from the VC world as well. You've written that his approach to tech has more in common with the Biden administration's than might meet the eye. Tell us more about that.

Okay, so J.D. Vance, you know, author of Hillbilly Elegy, senator from Ohio, also a former venture capitalist himself. And Trump picked up on this.

picked him probably for the first half of what I said, the sort of resonance with the American heartland. And the subtext of all of that is the second half of what I said, which is that he was sort of handpicked by Peter Thiel, which was his former boss and a major, major GOP mega donor and also massively supported by Elon Musk, who is apparently becoming a major, major mega donor to Trump as well. So it is this weird combination, right? You have this

obviously elite investor who is backed by the most wealthy men in the world. But he's very anti-elitism, very anti-big tech. And I think he's trying to make that make sense by doing the same thing that we talked about with Andreessen and Horowitz, which is talk about sticking up for little tech, right? He wants to reform Section 230 when it comes to the big guys, but not for the little guys. Does it make sense? Yeah.

I will say, I mean, one reason why antitrust regulations are sort of popular on both sides is there's this feeling that you have these monopolies at the top that are preventing challengers from coming in. And that's, you know, if you're a pro-business Republican, that's bad for small business. If you are a

you know, on the left, that's bad for consumers, that's bad for choice, that's bad for costs and all kinds of things. So there are a range of ways in which, you know, policy can attack monopolies and strengthen small business and startups. So for that reason, J.D. Vance is like a big champion for Lena Kahn, who is the very aggressively, you know, sort of an antitrust

Hawk, who is the chair of the FTC. A lot of pro-business Republicans say that she's sort of a bully and a villain, right? So he supported the CHIPS Act when a lot of Republicans said that was sort of reckless spending. The CHIPS Act is spending a ton of money on building up the semiconductor sector in the United States. And so it's interesting to see there are these overlaps with the Biden administration, even though he is absolutely not a moderate on

You name the other issue, abortion or immigration or what have you. You briefly made him sound reasonable. In no way is he a moderate, but, you know, he's... When it comes to a whole range of issues, especially the topic of tech, he's kind of this...

populist style of Republican. And there are some overlaps with what we've seen from the Biden administration. Harris is the subject of a truly crazy amount of memes. Everybody's talking about being coconut pilled at the moment. Trump aside, because I think he is also subject to an insane amount of memes. How does that compare to Biden? Do you think the meme war matters when it comes to voting?

Yeah, so two different questions there. The Biden campaign had really tried to make him a meme with the whole dark Brandon thing. So cringe, just like so bad from the get-go. For me, it felt kind of forced. And this was, you know, 81-year-old guy who obviously didn't do his own social media, and a lot of politicians don't. But the online imagery and voice was just really disjointed from the real thing. So...

And I think if you go back... I think that's putting it lightly. Disjointed's where he lives, baby. And I think Hillary Clinton's campaign fell into that trap too, right? She was this very wonky, serious woman who wore like pantsuits and had the hair all quaffed. And then online they tried to make her like...

cool kid, nasty gal. So I think that the Harris campaign will have an easier time. She's younger, so it's more believable. They don't have to sort of like manipulate what you see. These are real clips of her being quirky or silly or whatever. And the Biden campaign couldn't do that in the same way. But I will say, I do think there is a risk involved

to, you know, believing that these memes equal momentum, right? Like campaign staffers are very young, especially the ones who are managing social media. And, you know, the people who are circulating and making these memes are very online, but do they represent the average voter? So I think the campaign has to be careful not to really drink its own Kool-Aid. But...

counterpoint to the point I just made is there has never been an election where digital video was more important, right? Like we, there's a growing subset of voters who, or would be voters who don't read the news and just aren't reachable on other types of platforms. So, but they are on TikTok. So there is that subset of voters that would be otherwise unreachable. And so for them, I think that it could be potentially important. I want to be clear, you know, when we talk about the meme aspect of all this, there's a part of me that's like,

Her campaign doesn't need to take that up. Other people are making the memes, you know what I mean? Like, young people are. And I think there's always a danger when a campaign starts to try and be in on the joke that it sort of stops being funny or cool or interesting. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, with any, I think, any corporate entity, like, when they start to lean too much into the culture, it becomes very cringe. We don't want another Pokemon Go to the polls. That...

I think Democrats tweeted a H-O-T-T-O-G-O vote.

thing recently and I was like no yeah that's not great I wish I literally don't know what that means it's a chapel roan song hot to go hot to go vote I have heard that name about a thousand times in the last week and never before in my life white people are obsessed never heard that name in my life but the last week it's been everywhere it's a singer yeah she's really blown up in the past um

In the past four or five months, it's really like... Okay, well, last seven days in my life. There's so many people who are like, I love Chapel Roan, so you know they support gay rights or whatever. It's like a signifier. I feel personally attacked. I don't even mind them, but I feel like the fandom is a bit of a nightmare at this point. Yeah, it is a little bit.

I'll give it a listen. I like her music. I like her music, but I'm just like, oh, it's good music. I've been on her for a year and a half, so I feel better about it. Cooler than us. Well, thank you so much, Issy. We'll be back with you for Keeping Tabs. But first, a quick break followed by my interview with Noma Chef and recent documentary host Renee Redzepi.

Danish chef Rene Redzepi has been cooking and leading the renowned Copenhagen restaurant Noma for over 20 years. Now he's sharing his enthusiasm and knowledge of food in another way by hosting the new Apple TV Plus series Omnivore.

I talked to him about sustainability in the restaurant industry and his upcoming plans for Noma 3.0. I started the conversation by asking him where the concept for the show came from. Yeah, so the concept, I guess it's more than 10 years old. Wow. It was a time when Noma, the restaurant, was...

getting known around the world. And I was actually being offered TV probably once a month, all sorts of TV shows. One of them I remember was called Fire and Ice. And I had to go out and cook with celebrities in cold areas in Scandinavia and use fire. Yeah, that never became anything. But it did make me think that period, if I was ever to do TV, what would I do?

And my favorite childhood TV hero was David Attenborough. And Planet Earth, I love them. I would dream away as a child watching David Attenborough lift a tiny leaf and watch a beetle under it and stuff. Then fast forward 10 years into now.

You know, I meet Matt Golding, who is the co-creator of the show. He used to produce Anthony Bourdain shows and work with him for a long time. I mean, we stand on his shoulders. Anyone who's doing food TV stands on Anthony Bourdain's shoulders. So...

That sort of commitment to quality, to interesting stories, but at the same time not having it be like a travel show where it's about, I'm not the main protagonist in it. Yeah, it's not the sort of Rene show, right? You narrate a lot of it, though. Was that always going to be the case for you? Is that what you wanted? Yeah, that was 100% what we wanted from the beginning. It was written into the DNA of the show that

We were only going to do it if we would find someone that'd be okay with not having, let's say, a host, but rather a guide.

And I have to give props to Apple TV Plus because they believed in something. You know, usually today when you do food shows, they're driven by a real celebrity. Yeah, Stanley Tucci. Yeah, or whoever that's out there and they have a newfound love for Italy or wherever. No, they believed in it. And we spent two, almost three years making something that I'm really proud of, that I myself learned something from. I feel like I have become a better cook now.

The show traces some individual ingredients that have kind of shaped the world. So it's like salt, rice, banana, pigs, tuna, corn. How did you narrow it down? How did you choose those ingredients? Yeah, at first it was like 100. Yeah. And perhaps 120. And I think at first we had...

eight ingredients. They were all more world staples, like sugar was in there as well. And so was the potato and wheat. But we could quickly see the stories would be very one note. And as we're planning how to actually tell the stories...

We just wanted a huge array and a diversity of stories to tell. So that's why a thing like chili is in there, which is not at all an ingredient that has changed nations or it doesn't offer us caloric value. But we eat it throughout the world, so it's important.

The focus of that was how we love something as a people. I like that. Yeah. A lot of the show is focused on sustainability, and it's something that you've championed at NOMA a lot. Tell me how you approached kind of researching the show or building that into the narrative. I guess if you are a sentient being, you know that there are things happening there.

with our world, with our climate. Yeah, you've been outside today. I've been outside today. I've been outside for the past almost 47 years and

We feel the differences. On the other hand, there are plenty of shows and there are plenty of information out there that tells you what not to do. That sort of almost shames you into, oh my God, I've been living my life wrong for the past five years. And so we knew from the get-go that's not how we want to approach things. It's not us telling anyone what to do. It's inspiring people to actually perhaps change.

look at the world differently after they've seen this show. And perhaps after they've seen the show, they think, wow, I never knew food was this important. Yeah. I think in one of the articles I read, you were saying, we're going to end up being more vegetable forward if we want to be sustainable. Yeah.

How have you changed your diet? Has the show affected how you think about what you're eating? Yes, absolutely it has. I think about that all the time. And I think I do eat meat. And we also eat meat at the restaurants for the team. But 50% of days are actually meatless days, which we have the same in our home. Oh, I didn't know that.

And researching and doing the show kind of further enhanced just that notion that, yeah, this is what we're going to do. And if we plan it well and we cook well for ourselves, we can actually eat as well as a roast chicken. But once in a while to get roast chicken is also magnificent. Yeah.

Yeah, I know. It's hard when people are like, just quit, you know. I think that is an unrealistic notion to tell people next week all of you stop everything that you hold dear to yourself and what you like because you've been doing it wrong. I think it actually pushes people into the opposite thinking. They're like, well, you're not telling me what to do, so now I might double down on it. Right. I'm going to eat steak for breakfast. Yeah.

I like that. I think it might just be serendipity, but the show is on as Noma 2.0 is closing. For our listeners who don't necessarily know that much about the future of Noma, tell me about sort of the next phase of the restaurant. Yeah. I mean, in short, we've been open just about 21 years. We have experienced incredible success.

And during the first lockdown of COVID, I was kind of projecting into the future 20 years from now. It was just clear the way we're operating, the level of attention we have to just everyday production as a restaurant, which most work is production work. It's actually chopping things. And also, you know, for our listeners who don't know, you know, you were growing things on premises and make it, you know what I mean? It's a...

It's a massive project. It's a massive project. I could see that, okay, we are changing as a team. We're growing up. Everyone around us is having kids and we need to grow as an organization. How do we actually support that as an organization? That needs to change a different financial platform. But then the model of working that we have, open every night, restaurant work,

I could see if we were doing that, we'd probably slowly burn ourselves out and the creativity would spill out. And what I actually like about my work is the creation of things. So we've envisioned this new plan where restaurant work in the future will be where we have fun. It's going to be like our hobby. But of course, we lose all our revenue because that's a problem. And so building that new financial platform is...

very much at the center of NOMA 3.0 so that we can be creatively free. And that financial platform is in part the sort of consumer goods that you're releasing, right? As we were planning for NOMA 3.0 in the early days of the lockdown, of course, immediately somebody sits in the office and looks at the budget and say, this is not going to work. Yeah. And of course, I knew that. And that was also our moment to

of this thing that we've been thinking about for so long, like maybe a decade. We have a fermentation lab. We've championed a fermentation lab. And

And we have hundreds of stuff that I feel like we've invented. So we thought, let's see if we can bring that into people's homes potentially. And so we started No More Projects. And there's now like 59, I think it will be this summer, different products from umami paste to oils and all sorts of things that can like help you cook better. Mm-hmm.

And we're hoping that will be the basis and the foundation of it. Although in the future, our network, our creative team, what we have built up as a creative unit, we'll also be using that

in collaborations with other food startups, with stuff like universities, to actually participate in food in a bigger way than just serving 40, 50 people a night. So there might be other business ventures coming beyond just our own product lines. And the economics of fine dining are unbelievably tough. Do you think it's

possible to run a sustainable fine dining restaurant and turn a profit? I shouldn't say it isn't. It's very difficult. Maybe there's someone out there doing it. I think we'll be able to do it if our plan works. Then we're going to be able to have

one of the strongest, most resilient organizations with a financial platform that is rock solid. And we're going to be able to have an organization that can just thrive for a lifetime and hopefully be creative and be part of changing things for a lifetime. That's the goal. And you're about to go to Japan for a pop-up. Are you planning on doing pop-ups around the world? What does that look like?

Yeah, so we're going to Japan. It's a hundred and this time like 115, 16 people of us going. 13 of them are children. And we're bringing everyone and we take care of everything. Schooling, daycare, housing. The children will be fermenting in your lab. Actually, they will have a regular life in Japan. They will go to school and have to do Japanese homework. And that's a part of the fun. Really? Yeah. I like that. And we'll be living there for six months.

And so the future will definitely hold that. I think even in Copenhagen, our home base, when we open as a restaurant in the future, the mindset will be like a pop-up. Yeah. Now to go back to TV, we talked a little bit about Parts Unknown. I've got to ask you about your favorite film.

food-related TV shows and movies. I'm not sure anyone here in America knows Keith Floyd. No. I know Pink Floyd. Yeah. But I don't know Keith Floyd. But you should check out Keith Floyd. Yeah? Yeah. Because if you check out Keith Floyd and his tone of voice, his energy, then you also kind of know that parts are known Anthony Bourdain, where he found some of his inspiration from. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, he was...

Like a crazy Englishman, loved to drink wine, traveled the world, always had the right comment, full of knowledge, but in a slightly sarcastic but friendly way. Yeah. Incredible television. And in terms of movies, there's so many. Tampopo, I like.

Big Night, now that we're here, is one of the best food movies. What did you think of the menu? I haven't watched it. You haven't watched it? I haven't watched it. Everyone asks me, so I've decided myself I'm never going to watch it. Because as soon as it came out, you know, we'd had guests at the restaurant saying, oh, did you watch the menu? They say that it's because of all these Scandinavian restaurants. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And you're like, I promise I'm not a murderer. Yeah. And I promise you'll feel good after this. Yeah. But so I decided never to watch it. Right. That's fair. And also, so often when there is something food related, they always make a little bit fun of it. That's true. Which is kind of annoying as a food person. You know, we're struggling hard enough. Now you got to make a movie making fun of everything. That's fair. I think making fun of foodies is fair game, though. Yeah. Because there's like a...

I need to watch how I don't say too much. You don't want to insult your team. I'm staring all over at my team here in the corner. I'm a foodie, but even I'm like, you know. I mean, I feel that I'm very young. Yeah. But I still remember that first time ever when I was a kid.

When I went to a table and someone filmed me as I was explaining the dish. And I remember going back into the kitchen and feeling so violated. Yeah, I can see that. This person is filming me without my consent. Yeah. And...

Today, most of the time I will be explaining to a table and people will be filming and not really watching me. They'll just be watching the screen. That's depressing. That's how it is. Yeah. I mean, it's the same if you're in a concert. It's true. You're not really watching. You're mostly filming. Yeah. Well, that's the nice thing about, you know, if you go see a play, they make you switch your phones off. Yeah. Maybe that's what we got to do. Maybe that's what switch off, I think, would be fantastic to do that a little bit.

I mean, we're here in New York. We're not far from Wall Street. Wall Street have opening hours. I like that. Let's have opening hours for social media. At a certain point, it's enough. Switch it off.

And let's just do real life. I like that a lot. And you were recently on The Bear. Yeah. You made a cameo appearance. What do you think of the show? I haven't watched the full show. I've only watched some episodes. I mean, we know the people from The Bear before The Bear. Oh, really? Yeah. They're sort of long, old people.

pals, I actually think they're doing something for industry. They're giving some opportunity and some attention to the industry. But in terms of watching it as an industry person myself, it's a little too stressful for me. It's unbelievably stressful to watch. And I can, to me, it's like, I don't know if I could survive. But imagine coming home from work. You're like, oh, I'm still at work. But it's like the worst day at work ever. It's like the worst day.

Yeah, because of course it is TV and it's condensed and a lot of it is fiction, but they're trying to make the drama work really intense. I mean, the reality kitchens are not that crazy. That makes a lot of sense. I don't know. I feel like if you mess up in your kitchen, it's got to be a little scary. People just don't mess up.

You know, you mentioned you have kids and the staff at Noma has kids now. Has growing up changed the way you think about work? Yeah, 100%. And without a doubt, I think about it all the time. I mean, I am myself constantly and I say this and it truly is like that constantly.

I'm constantly feeling either guilty that I'm at work or guilty if I'm not at work or vice versa. Most people I know feel this. Like, oh, I should probably be doing a little more now that I'm just having time off. And then if you spend that little more time at work, then you're like, oh, I should probably be home with my family. That's real. It's real. It's a problem. How do you introduce food to them? Are they like mushroom garum?

Connoisseurs. They eat. I think one of the things that we have to do when you get kids, any parent, is to make sure that they eat foods. That's one of the most important things. I mean, food is literally everything. Yeah. What we eat, how we eat.

makes us happy and healthy. If we're eating good foods, we know it makes us healthy. If we're sitting with great people, it actually makes us happy too. So in the Redzepi household, you weren't allowed to not eat your broccoli or spinach? I mean, I'm lucky because I grew up in an Albanian household. When we had our life in what was then Yugoslavia, it was a very rural life.

There was no refrigerators. Electricity was just light. Every day was cooked meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner. When we then moved full time to Denmark as a family, mostly because of that terrible war that broke out, that sort of just spilled in into that era as well. So even though there was less money and all this stuff, but I mean, if you know how to cook. Yeah, then everything's good. You can do it fairly okay. It doesn't need to be magic. I mean,

A pasta cacio e pepe is not really complicated to make if you know how to do it. But it's really good.

beyond simple nutrition, to me, this is what makes life fun and livable. Yeah. Do you remember the first meal that made you want to become a chef? Yes, I remember it vividly. What was that? I've told this story before, but there's a very long version. There's a short version. I'll do the short version. But I'm 15. I have left ninth grade in great dishonor. And my best friend, Michael,

He wanted to be a cook, so I tacked along with him, not knowing what to do. I think it's the first week. That's how I remember it. We're asked to cook a dish that we can choose whatever we want. It's a competition and we'll be judged on flavor and how we dress it. And we wanted to win. So I remember almost as if it's yesterday, the feeling of asking myself,

Actually, I never really thought about what I like about food. And that question, what is it that I like about food in my young 15-year-old mind sparked a curiosity that I didn't have before. And then as we're flicking through pages in the library, there's a roast chicken recipe. And it brings me back immediately, like a ratatouille moment. For real, they do happen.

And I'm in a dusty old courtyard in my family household. And I'm watching my aunt slaughter two chickens, me and my cousins running around after the headless chickens, after which my aunt, she plucks the birds, rubs them in oil and salt, actually, and also a little bit of chili. And she's roast them in the wood-fired oven with a pan of rice underneath. And it's

And today, still, this idea of chicken rice is one of my favorite things to eat. But because of that, we cooked a chicken recipe. Did you win? We didn't win. We became second. It's haunted you forever. That's why you... No, no. We had a few first places after in later life. So I'm fine with that. I found my thing. I found my passion.

And that's lucky. If you're able to do that, most of the people I know, they're still looking for it. Totally. I guess my next question building off of that is, what is the first meal that made you think about sustainability? Well, it wasn't actually a meal. It was us foraging. Yeah. When we started Noma, we went into the landscape to find food stuff for us to cook with. I never thought of sustainability at all before that. Yeah.

One of our foragers, his name is Roland Ritterman, and he's a big old Swedish man with a big gray beard. And he was picking wild snails for us. A few years in of doing that, he comes to us and said, there are no more snails. And we're like, why? What's going on? Snails don't disappear like that. Then it turned out that he had picked them.

before they laid eggs in early spring. So that was the first moment like, well, we're actually, that's not what we want to happen. What's going on? We're taking something and then we depleted it. That was the first moment where like, okay, we need to be careful here. If we want to take care of things and make sure that we have, not just for the next menu, but the chefs after us also have snails, then we need to be careful. And that was a big moment for me.

Of the ingredients that you sort of trace or talk about in your show, which one had the most surprising story to you? I'd say it's the episode on banana. Coffee is also close, but banana was, for some reason, and I don't know, I feel like I should have known this before we went into the research of the episode, but banana.

You grew up hearing things like the Banana Republic. Yeah, totally. And you have no real idea what it meant. At least I didn't. I just thought it signified a nation in disarray with some despot leader.

And then when you dive into it and you realize there's a reason for the term that Nations was toppled because an American fruit company. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Actually, I never put two and two together. Actually, was kind of semi running those tiny little nations. Yeah.

Hence the term the banana republic. I never knew it was that impactful, that banana, this thing. We have it at every 7-Eleven. You can't find an airport anywhere in the world. I have been to the Arctic Circle in a little airport where there are like two planes a day. And there are bananas. There's bananas. It's the Cavendish banana, the one to rule them all that we eat all around the world. But that the history is so deep.

And laden with so much emotion. I had no idea. I guess over the course of making the show, you must have eaten a lot of meals. I know you trace ingredients, but were you traveling a lot to make it? We traveled quite a bit, actually. For the show, 16 countries were visited, five continents. Wow.

hundreds and hundreds of different people. I only went on five trips. The show was filmed during COVID. Traveling was super complicated. I mean, we had one time where we're in the Yucatan jungle at a small milpa farm where we're checking out corn. At the same time, there are 40 person crew in Djibouti.

For salt harvesting. So that was happening sometimes two, three shoots at the same time. Oh, got it. I didn't realize you didn't do sort of everything. No, I would say that's impossible. For instance, there's an episode on tuna. We spent nine days just in southern Spain doing

to film the harvesting of tuna. That sounds kind of fun. It was fun, but can you imagine? That's a long time. That's like a seven-minute segment in this actual episode, and we have eight of them. So it's one of the biggest things I've ever been a part of is this show. Would you make a season two? I would love to make a season two. That would depend on

how many people are going to watch this show. I think you actually learn something about the world through watching it. When you think of your future, obviously you are inextricable from Noma, but how do you want to split your time? I think my work is Noma. That's always my main work. Actually, I'm not fallen out of love with my work. I feel like I love it as much as I always do. I just want to work in a different way.

And now we have to do a season two and three and four and five. I mean, there are a lot of ingredients in the world. That would probably take 15 to 20% of my time. When you talk with other chefs about sustainability, do they have a similar perspective to you? I'm thinking, I remember Eleven Madison Park went fully vegan. Yeah. Do you see more people thinking about that? What are those conversations like in the industry? Oh, yeah. Everyone's thinking about it. You almost never not think

hear anyone thinking about it. You can even talk to chefs that have steakhouses. Yeah. Yeah. And they're thinking about, well, what sort of steak do I have then? Because steak is not just steak. You know, there's the worst bit, which is probably what the vast majority of steak is. But then there's also the other parts of eating steak that comes from regenerative farms. They're grazing all year long. It's a different approach and it's completely different from

in its output. So you hear people that have steakhouse, they're thinking about that as well. And of course, at the end of the day, you're also hearing people actually dine out thinking about it. But if we are to have real big change in this field, we need like government change. What kinds of things do you think government should do? I mean, focus on agriculture. How we're growing our food is almost...

equal to how healthy our planet is. If we find better models, and there are many of them, it's not a thing you change overnight, obviously. It's a process. It could take 15 years for a more healthier practice in agriculture.

But they are out there. That would really dramatically change things for food. And a healthier growing cycle means healthier, more nutritious food. Yeah. Probably means, in my book at least, healthier and happier humans. I like that a lot. I have some rapid fire questions. Best meal in America. I have to go back in time to a place that doesn't exist in New York anymore. It's a restaurant.

that used to be called WD-50. WD-50? It's not there anymore. It's on Clinton Street on the Lower East Side. And it was one of the best

if not top three restaurant in the world for many years. And New Yorkers drove it out of the city in a way, you know? Of course we did. It was extraordinary. And I think that that's probably one of my top meals ever in America. Do you like fine dining experiences yourself? Or, I mean, I speak to a lot of chefs who are like, I come home and I order from like a halal cart or I just get pizza, you know? I love to eat and I love food and I love to cook.

And I do like fine dining experiences. But to me, this idea of fine dining versus, let's say, a brasserie food or a hot dog cart... Is like a false... Yeah, it is. Because if you are a hot dog cart owner and you are wanting to do the best that you can, it's the same commitment. That makes a lot of sense. It's the same ethos. So...

I prefer most of my time definitely to eat in places like that. Yeah. And not sit and have a five-hour meal. Theatrical production. Of course not. Maybe five times a year I'd do that. Most of the time I try to go to the sort of mom and pop shop and a family-owned restaurant.

where they really take care and they serve you every day. The doors are open. That's the restaurant industry, most of it. The fine dining segment is nothing. It's like an insect in comparison to that. Do you have a food guilty pleasure? Like, is there something you snack on at midnight or is there like a fast food restaurant you can't resist? I

I don't even know if this is guilty pleasure, but probably my main food that I can't live without, which could be considered guilty pleasure, is chocolate. Yeah, me too. What's your brand? What's your favorite? This is going to sound very snobbish, but there is a small chocolate maker in Mexico City called La Rifa. I told you it was going to sound snobbish. Called La Rifa. La Rifa, okay. And they make the best chocolate in the world.

We've been using them for more than 10 years at the restaurant. And I probably eat anywhere from 100 to 150 grams of their chocolate in every day. Yeah, I'm actually kind of in the same boat as it's like my producer always makes fun of me. Yeah, it's fantastic. I'm not eating low-rifa chocolate. I'm eating Cadbury's. Once you try, the thing is, it's about is the same when you have coffee. Yeah. Once you get used to... The good stuff, it's hard to go back. I won't say the good stuff, just the other stuff. Yeah.

The different stuff. What is the most underrated ingredient in food? What is an ingredient that you really think more people should be using? Actually, it's a sipless salt. Oh.

Season your food. Oh, yeah, yeah. White people don't really understand. Learn how to season your food. Start with that. Start with salt. And then the second thing, which in Europe we don't use at all, which is chili. Yeah. Season your food with chili. Yeah, I like that answer. That's delicious. What is the most overrated ingredient? I don't know why things that go into the luxury segment, like everyone's eating Wagyu,

As if, you know, it's sort of the best stick. I certainly don't think that myself. While I like caviar, this idea that it's super luxurious and very special, you can buy it in every airport. I find those things to be overrated. I think true luxury is...

Finding a wild mushroom and eating that. Yeah. That's in season, you can't get. That's real luxury. Have you ever had any foraging accidents? Many, many, many, many. Too many to count. In the early years of Noma, I would eat anything without proper research. I don't recommend that. I've experienced like violent diarrhea on the spot. Oh my God. Yeah. As soon as you eat it? Like 20 minutes after, suddenly you feel this rumbling. Yeah.

And yeah, and it's violent. And then I tried vomiting. I've had choking sensations. Yeah.

That's insane. At one time, which was the worst one, actually, I thought I was eating wild chervil, but I was eating hemlock. And hemlock is actually... Yeah, that's what killed... Socrates. Socrates, not Aristotle. There we go. And so that was my 25-year-old me. Fearless, stupid. Since then, of course, we know exactly what we're doing. You didn't die, but what happened? I mean, before I ate...

a potent soup of it I actually discovered what I was doing because you know I ate it and I kind of liked it it doesn't taste bad that's the thing um so you can eat it in small amounts or I could at least and I guess my last one is what is the best Noma Projects ingredient I use your garum the mushroom garum but that's the only one I've figured out okay do you have others I'll send you some no oh I will take you up on that actually no we'll send you some what's the favorite uh

I don't think I can choose, but it would be, I love rose vinegar because it's actually made from hand harvested wild roses that are harvested on the shorelines of Denmark. And it's, you know, you're picking them petal by petal. And we pick like 800 kilos to make the rose vinegar. So it's really fragrant. It's summer in a bottle. We just came out with one that's called Rhubarb Tamari.

So tamari is a thick kind of soy sauce, and we make one with the freshness of rhubarb.

And it's golden, super dark, like old balsamic vinegar. It's fantastic. Are there any condiments that you secretly like the sort of, like, say for me, I'm going to be honest with you, I love Heinz tomato ketchup. Yeah. I don't think I've ever managed to found an upgrade that made sense to me. I never grew up with Heinz myself. Right. That makes a lot of sense. It's just not a thing for me, but it would be

It'd probably be hot sauce. Hot sauce is the thing for me. I mean, I didn't grow up eating chiles, although all my family did. It was a very common thing in Albanian culture to eat it. I was afraid of it only as an adult. Oh, did you get into it? I fell in love with chile. And now, yeah, I need it for almost anything. And chile hot sauce is magic. Yeah. Because you can take a mediocre sandwich from the corner. If you have a good hot sauce,

It lifts it. What's your hot sauce brand? Or do you make your own? No, we make our own. You make your own? We have our own. It's the Noma family hot sauce, we call it. We've been making it for 10 years at the restaurant. We go through buckets of it. It might actually someday arrive on Noma projects. That I will be buying because my husband's from Texas and Colombia. We test out a lot of hot sauces. It's fantastic. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Rene. This was really fun. Thank you for having me.

Okay, we are back with Issy and it's time to wrap up the show with keeping tabs. Each one of us is going to pick one story, trend or piece of pop culture we've been following this week from the many tabs floating around on our computers. I know I'm not the only one who has, you know, 457 open right now. So Issy, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on?

So I am keeping tabs on new photos that came out of the and just like that cast. Oh, my God. I saw them this morning. I'm a I'm totally team Aiden. And so I was very pleased to see that Carrie and Aiden are together in these. Oh, for sure. For sure. Annoying. Anyway, big is a really problematic man. Well, the

They're not a binary. She can find a third guy who's like good. She and Aiden were meant for each other. For some reason, he's wearing like a very goofy too small suit in the photo. So I'm hoping that that is a plot point and not a style choice. But he is looking great. Otherwise, she's looking great. And I can't wait to watch. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on?

I'm keeping tabs. I have several tabs open of season reviews of season four of The Boys. Do either of you watch The Boys? No, but people really love it. Like, I've thought about starting it a bunch of times because...

It's got this, like, pretty rabid fan base. I will say, I really enjoy the show. It's really good. But this is the season where there's kind of been a little bit of a... I wouldn't say backlash, but the one review that I have open here that I thought was quite good is from Slate, and it says, what happened to the boys? And essentially, like, the superheroes are corrupt and obsessed with themselves and...

It's super graphic, and the boys are basically this team of normies that's kind of out to take down the corporate overlords of superheroes. It's basically an indictment of, like, corporate America, of politics, of Marvel in a lot of ways. And this season fell kind of flat on that front because it's, like, literally the season finale last week...

Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. You have been warned. Spoiler alert. One of the main plot points was an assassination attempt on the president. And so it came out after the Trump thing. And so then it had this warning label up front and it just felt like,

it felt like it had missed the mark on that satire piece. They even had a little plot line that was spoofing Pizzagate from back in the day that felt really dated. And I think this happens with a lot of satire shows, is it sort of runs its course pretty quickly, because it's hard to keep up that level of specificity. The show, personally, for me, still has a really high floor, because I think the plotting's good, the acting's good, and the action is...

really fun, but this season did really feel flat, and it's interesting to see the sort of

think pieces around that. Yeah, so that's what I'm keeping tabs on. I think the larger point here is that like satire is really, really hard since 2016 and very few people get it right. And it's kind of unfortunate for our like media diets. I think more people are just looking for escapism. Yeah, but you know what still holds up? Like Veep remains so funny and was funny in the moment. I think they did a good job carrying that through.

Yeah, I think Veep is sort of timeless in its critique, too. It's not like necessarily set in like this is politics. Like I think you can basically it drew and I think it drew from with its illusions politics from the entirety of the modern era. Yeah. What are you keeping tabs on? Is he did you ever watch Josh? I'll ask this to you, too. Actually, did either of you ever watch America's Next Top Model back in the day? For sure I did. No, never did.

Every woman did. It ruined a lot for all of us. It made me think of a very different definition of fat.

But Tyra Banks, since leaving Reaction's Next Top Model and leaving her job as Dancing with the Stars host, started an ice cream brand called Smize Cream. Smize, a term that was popular on Reaction's Next Top Model. And last week, I don't know how they fit this into her schedule, and it did make me wonder if she was really doing anything. Kamala visited the Smize Cream pop-up

In Washington, D.C. And I was like, that's insane. I was like, you should be dealing with AI, but OK. Retail politics, baby. So anyway, I wanted to bring that up because I saw it in my brain just like melted. I was like, what? Like the ice cream. Indeed. Which apparently is pretty good. Don't knock until you tried it. I can't say I've ever tried it.

It's literally called Smize Cream. That's not... It's called Smize and Dream Ice Cream. And I don't understand what that dream is doing there. Yeah, I don't really know what the dream's doing there, but it's better than calling it Smize Cream. You are making it sound vaguely medical now. It's...

It's a little bit like always going into surgery. We need to spread some smize cream on the incision point. Well, beautiful place to end this. Thank you so much, Izzy, for coming on the show. Thank you, guys.

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