Exxon Mobil CEO on the Global Oil Supply & ‘Revenge Saving’ 6/27/25
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And now, a next-level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows, and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day. You've got AT&T 5G, so you're fully confident. But the vendor isn't responding, and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn more at att.com slash 5G network.

Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, ExxonMobil's Darren Woods, the big oil CEO on energy around the world following the kickoff of the Israel-Iran conflict. Do we have enough? One of the advantages that the U.S. saw and the global market saw with respect to this disruption is just the growth in U.S. supply. I think it speaks to the importance of having domestic supply.

The major players in the creator economy. One-time MTV boss, Sean Adkins, on the new innovations. TV didn't get rid of film. Cable didn't get rid of broadcast. The creator industry is not going to get rid of traditional media as we know it. What it is, is it's additive to the system.

and prolific YouTuber Darman rewriting the script. One of the biggest streaming platforms out there is coming to our studio next week to talk about us creating original content for them. So I think the transition from Hollywood-driven content to creators creating content for these platforms is happening right now.

Plus, the latest on the negotiations over the big, beautiful bill in the Senate and seeking revenge, taxes and savings. Some good news on Americans' rainy day funds. Auto enrollment, is that like the auto pen? Oh, there I go again. It's Friday, June 27th. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand back, you buy in three, two, one, cue, please.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan. Andrew is off today. The U.S. and China confirming details

of a trade framework now, a trade framework that aims to allow rare earth exports to flow more freely from China to America. This is according to China's Commerce Ministry. A spokesman spokesperson said China will review and approve export applications for items while the U.S. will cancel a range of existing restrictions imposed on China.

Yesterday, President Trump said the two countries had signed a deal the prior day. Details were thin on that announcement. This sounds like the official sort of...

signing of what they arrived at in Geneva, which then it was off. And Besson said-- - I think it has to be passed by like the Chinese parliament or something. - But remember this was the framework that we thought was done. And then Besson said, "No, they're not." And then people got mad and then we came back. Now, it looks like it's done, but it doesn't get us really any further than what we already sort of celebrated at one point. And then it seemed like it was off 'cause China wasn't cooperating with Rares.

That's back on, but the bigger trade deal, obviously this is not that, but a White House official later clarified that the two sides had agreed to an additional understanding of a framework...

to implement what i was just talking about the geneva an agreement reached in switzerland last month commerce secretary howard lutnik uh telling uh bloomberg probably the the new service not the mayor former mayor although we could use him now that the trump administration also has imminent plans to reach other agreements with 10 major trading partners for his part president teased the potential trade deal with india that he said would open up that country

In the meantime, the Trump administration signaling that it could extend the dates on which steep tariffs will be reimposed on other countries. The White House press secretary told reporters that the July 8th and 9th deadlines are not critical and that President Trump could choose to extend them. Or, she said, if other countries refuse to do a deal, the president could simply pick a tariff rate that he thinks is advantageous to the United States.

And then Treasury Secretary Scott Besant asking the House and Senate to remove what has turned into a controversial piece of President Trump's tax and spending bill. Some people have called it the revenge tax. It would allow the Treasury Department to hit companies from other countries with the tax if the U.S. determines that those countries are putting unfair tax burdens on U.S. companies.

In a series of posts on X, Besson said that the United States had reached an understanding with other G7 countries and wanted the U.S. House and Senate to get rid of that so-called revenge tax provision in the big bill. However, that tax was supposed to help pay for the president's marquee legislation, so it is unclear what removing it will do to the overall cost of the bill and what other changes might have to be made as a result.

It now appears that the Senate may not begin voting on it today. That's something that had been teased earlier in the week, but of course all these questions about what can go into it, because they're using reconciliation, you can't have anything in it that's considered a rider that doesn't matter to the bottom line of the budget. And so there's a lot of things back and forth, and every time you change one of those, you may have to then change.

something else. A lot of leeway. And they're complaining about this parliamentarian. This parliamentarian, I thought, allowed them to put in the provisions for not regulating, allowing AI regulations beyond a federal level. It's hard to imagine how that works. Who appointed her? I think...

I think she was appointed in a previous administration or something. People are complaining. Republicans are complaining about that. But the parliamentarian is supposed to follow this rule, the Byrd rule. Yeah, but it's in the eye of the beholder. I don't know how much of it was, you know, the Byrd bath might have been a lot easier to do in the last reconciliation. Although the idea that they allow... Politics informs everything.

You know, think about the judges across the country. The minute you hear of a ruling, you say, who appointed? Oh, it was an Obama appointee. I guess, but I hate to cast aspersions on every decision that somebody makes because it's not what the ruling party wants to have happen in some of these things. We had Ted Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz, on to say that they were going to have to talk to the Senate parliamentarian about wanting that AI report.

regulatory ban. States and local jurisdictions would not be able to pass rules on AI. And even he admitted that it was, you know, a dubious call as to whether or not that could be worked in. Right. I don't, all I know is that Republicans are complaining that... And the Democrats complain when they're in power, too. Right. Right.

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The other is Dambisa Moyo, co-principal of family office Versaca Investments. She also serves on the boards of Chevron and Condé Nast and is a former employee of Goldman Sachs, as well as the World Bank. In a news release, Starbucks praised Moyo as a skilled global economist.

So the role of the parliamentary staff as advisory and the presiding officers may overrule the advice of the parliamentarian. But in practice, that's very rare. The most recent example of a vice president as the president of the Senate overruling the parliamentarian was Nelson Rockefeller back in 1975. He was vice president? Mm-hmm.

That ruling is extremely controversial to such an extent that the leaders of both parties immediately met and agreed that they did not want this precedent to stand. So the next week, the Senate altered the rule under consideration through a standard procedure. The Senate majority leader may also fire the parliamentarian as occurred in 2001 during a dispute between parliamentarian Robert Dove and majority leader Trent Lott. You remember that

I mean, the Byrd rule is so, it's Robert Byrd, obviously, from him. He was so old, he was a leading member of Congress, and he had been in the Klan. That's how old. From West Virginia, right? That's how old he was.

So it goes all the way back to that. But the reason that they did this is because they didn't want people just sticking, you know, budget bills have to get passed. They didn't want people sticking all kinds of riders full of pork and their own pet projects to have them ride through on something like this. If you're going to use this to force it through the Senate without having to have anything more than a majority, you don't need 60 votes. You just need 50 votes to get it through. The whole thing is kind of a scam. They try to force things and they have nothing to do with the budget and both parties do it.

Yeah, I'm kind of in favor of the rule sticking. We almost don't have a filibuster, but you can thank Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema. Americans are tightening their belts after a post-pandemic spending spree. The latest read on the U.S. personal savings rate is going to be released at 8.30 Eastern. Ahead of that, Sharon Epperson is here to discuss...

How and why Americans are increasing their nest eggs. We just finished talking about the revenge tax. What are you talking about? There's more revenge. There's more revenge. You know, many Americans are changing their financial habits right now from revenge spending that trend of splurging after the pandemic to now moving in the opposite direction. Their revenge spending.

Saving, that's what some are calling it, as consumers focus more on building their savings. A recent Vanguard survey found 71% of Americans plan to shift their savings approach this summer to prioritize emergency savings and flexibility. Several factors are prompting consumers to be cautious and cut back.

fluid tariff negotiations, the prospect of higher inflation, interest rates lingering at higher levels longer than some expected. They're also concerned about geopolitics and social unrest. So many consumers want to stockpile cash right now to protect themselves from unexpected cost increases in the future.

The personal savings rate is the percentage of income left after you pay your taxes and you spend money. That rate has risen sharply this year from 3.5% in December to 4.9% in April. Meanwhile, the 401 savings rate is at a record high as some retirement plans are making it easier for workers to enroll and contribute.

A new Vanguard report shows the average saving rate for employee deferrals was nearly 8% in 2024, matching record high levels from 2023. A recent report from Fidelity shows 401k saving rates hit a record high in the first quarter of 2025 with an employee contribution of $9.5

And when you add matching contributions from employers, the savings rate for those participating in 401k plans is closer to Fidelity's recommended savings rate of 15% a year. Joe. So they're helping with the 401ks, but I mean, are companies...

getting people to save more or people really are doing it on their own? Well, I think companies are helping a lot with the auto-enrollment feature that many 401k plans, but a lot more plans now have an auto-escalation feature so that automatically you're

contribution will go up 1% every year or 1% or 2% every year. And so that is forcing people to do the right thing, which is to contribute more money as they can, as they get pay increases also. Auto-enrollment, is that like the auto pen? Oh, there I go again. There I go. There I go. Daggone it. You're right. I can't... But, you know, if you can opt in, you know, I don't know. I think I sat... My first job, I definitely was at least a...

than I should have been before I got in my 401k. I think my first job, they automatically enrolled us. It was a very paternalistic thing that saved me a ton. Yeah, yeah. I'm all in favor of that. It saves a lot of people. Yeah. Because I would not have probably done it myself at that point. You're not thinking about retirement. You're thinking about...

paying the rent. Exactly. And you get a raise and you're like, okay, now more money to spend. And some companies are saying, but they have more money to put away now. So let's do the auto escalation. And it's helped a lot of people. And to boost these savings, are they watching CNBC? How are they doing it? They have to watch CNBC. How could they possibly do anything else? So that's helping, do you think? I think it's definitely helping. What are they using? They use CDs?

Well, I mean, people are using they're looking at high yield savings accounts and those, you know, close to 4% still. So it's still better than inflation. You're still doing well with that. CDs over 4% for a six month CD. But the other thing is some financial advisors are saying now is the time to think about some alternative emergency savings. And that could be if you have equity in your home, getting a home equity line of credit.

at the rate of seven or eight percent you're not using this money but you least have it because you now have equity in your home and what's interesting they're saying with people who are concerned about job security do that now while you have a job to have the line the only thing i will say is that if you have credit card debt even if it's a higher rate if you you can always

shuffle that off if you get into a very dire situation with the home equity line of credit right if you don't pay it back you lose your house exactly you have to be very disciplined you have to know that you're going to be able to you're securing that credit yeah and rather than having the bank have that credit and you being able to eventually worst case scenario declare bankruptcy right right right so it's you know you have to know yourself and what what you're able to do but still at seven or eight percent if you have a big great to have just don't use it for stupid stuff right

Right. Exactly. Thanks, Erin. Sure. Cheese will be next.

Coming up on Squawk Pod, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods is weighing the value of doing business in Europe with the costs of complying with the EU's regulations. We've ended up in Europe with a mishmash of frankly impractical regulations with unrealistic ambitions. That has slowed economic growth. It has made the businesses operating out of Europe uncompetitive. It has raised the cost of living in Europe.

Plus, the price of oil amid disruptions from the Israel-Iran conflict. And Wood's perspective on consolidation in his own industry. That's all right after this.

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And now, a next-level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows, and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day. You've got AT&T 5G, so you're fully confident. But the vendor isn't responding, and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn more at att.com slash 5G network.

Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Becky Quick.

Joining us right now for an exclusive interview to discuss all things energy and oil is Darren Woods. He's ExxonMobil's chairman and CEO. And Darren, I want to thank you for being with us this morning. Good to see you, Becky. It's good to see you, too. We've been watching so closely what's been happening with oil prices, and we've seen a real rapid rise and then drop off again after what's been happening in the Middle East. Crude oil back at $65 a barrel.

But it got up there for a few days. And I just wonder, from your perspective, what you were watching on this, what you think is happening and how volatile oil prices will continue to be. Well, I think you've got to start with the context of the global markets prior to the Israeli bombing of Iran. The markets were very well supplied. In fact, there was plenty of spare capacity and OPEC was bringing additional barrels onto the marketplace. And so

prices were generally trending down with that additional supply coming into the marketplace. What we saw right after the initial bombings is the markets reacting to the potential implication of impacting the production and the supply coming from that region, not necessarily what was coming out of Iran. In fact, there was plenty of

supply available to offset any of the any barrels that were disrupted and kept out of the market coming from Iran. It was more of a concern around the transportation corridors, the Straits of Hormuz or other production in the in the region. As the

the bombing and the conflict progressed, what became very clear was a concerted effort not to disrupt that global flow of oil and natural gas. And so as a result, the markets have stabilized and prices have come back down, reflecting what I think is a very healthy supply of both gas, natural gas and oil. In other words, you think these prices probably stick around these levels for a while?

Yeah, I think, you know, the concern was a broader disruption in the region. Today, I think it looks much, much less likely that that will happen. And so I think stability there, if something was to change, you'd see that impact just reflecting the critical source of supply coming out of that region of the world. Did you change any plans when you saw prices spike or were you just kind of planning contingency plans that you could roll out if need be?

Well, the most immediate reaction that we took with respect to what was happening there is we've got people based

in that region, in that area. And so our first priority was to make sure they were safe and that we were taking care of their families and protecting our individuals there, which we took action with that respect. You know, if you look at what we're doing as a business, we're diversified all around the globe and we have a very significant presence here in the U.S. And in fact, I think one of the advantages that the U.S. saw and the global market saw with respect to this disruption is just the growth in U.S. supply.

I think it speaks to the importance of having domestic supply, a broad diversified supply base around the planet and the growth there to offset and stabilize potential disruptions at any place in the planet. So our production here in the US, we're growing faster than anybody else. We've got a very large production base here, big investments. We were continuing on that basis.

Hey, Darren, we've been talking this morning about the revenge tax, which I didn't even realize was part of the big, beautiful bill that's been working its way through Congress. The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, has asked Congress to take out the revenge tax because he says that they've negotiated with the G7 nations to make sure that American companies aren't being held up for some...

held hostage basically for some taxes that the EU was putting in. This was designed to counteract that, and when they got their way with the negotiations, they said, okay, let's take it out. I know you all, the oil industry and the administration, have been working on trying to do some similar activities when it comes to EU climate regulations. Can you tell us a little bit about what's happening and what you've been talking to the Trump administration about?

Sure. I would say I'd start by just saying it's not an industry specific issue. This is a broader issue associated with any large company doing business in the EU. And I think, again, the context for this is if you go back, the European politicians have for decades been trying to decarbonize their economy.

Unfortunately, we've been putting policies in place that are more aligned with an ideology rather than the true understanding of the technical issues and the solutions that are available to address the impacts of climate and reduce emissions. We've ended up in Europe with a mishmash of, frankly, impractical regulations with unrealistic ambitions.

That has slowed economic growth. It has made the businesses operating out of Europe uncompetitive. It has raised the cost of living in Europe. I think policymakers are waking up to that issue. Unfortunately, their response is not to fix and revamp the policies that they put in place that aren't working, but instead try to bring the rest of the world down to their level. And so they've passed legislation last year called the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, CSDDD,

which basically requires any company selling into Europe to meet EU regulations and try to meet, again, their ambitions with respect to climate that frankly is not technically practical. So for a company like ExxonMobil, any other large company selling into Europe as well, you have to shape policies for your entire operations to meet EU regulations. That says for us here in Texas,

we have to make our business here in Texas comply with EU regulations. If we don't do that, they can sue us and the minimum penalty that they put in place is 5% of our global revenues.

So it is a rational piece of policy. It's probably some of the worst legislation I've seen passed anywhere in the world. And so we are advocating to the Trump administration to address this as part of their trade policies. We've talked to Congress about putting in blocking legislation. We're frankly trying to help the Europeans save themselves here.

Because the alternative would be that you would no longer do business in Europe? And that is exactly the issue, is the exposure and the requirements that that puts on a multinational company like ourselves means what's the value of doing business in Europe versus the cost of implementing some impractical, unachievable regulation across our entire operations all over the planet.

Cutter Energy out of Qatar has been very vocal in saying they'll stop supplying LNG if that legislation is enacted. And so I think it's a very serious threat to the people of Europe and the economic well-being.

It sounds very much like the Digital Services Act, although the idea of it coming back with the 5% tax that they could put on your entire global revenue, but the idea of having to run your entire business anywhere in the world based on what they have said, I guess that's a different and new standard. You've had conversations, I think, directly with President Trump about this?

I've talked to President Trump, I've talked to the EU president, and I've been engaged across the political spectrum, really trying to raise the awareness and to point out the fact that EU politicians are basically trying to regulate U.S. companies in the U.S. and frankly, any company around the world who does business in the EU.

The irony of this as well, it's not just our emissions that we're producing, but that law requires us to reduce the emissions of our consumers. And so it's a very irrational piece of legislation that frankly is going to do significant damage to the economy and frankly, any business who wants to sell into Europe.

darren this week we heard rumors brought up that the company has shot down but the idea of a tie-up with shell buying bp um it kind of points to the consolidation that we've seen in the industry kicked off by you and some of the big deals that that you've done as well do you think we will see more consolidation in your industry yeah i think uh i can't speak for other companies but if you look at what we've been trying to do the opportunity to consolidate

Ultimately, it has to be driven by the ability to create additional value above and beyond what either company can do individually. Our strategy has been to really focus in on what we think are key competitive advantages, strengthen those advantages. One of the chief ones for us we've been very focused on is technology development, making sure that we can bring value to the resources that we're trying to produce.

And when you develop a unique capability in that space, you can find other companies that you can apply that technology to and basically make one plus one equal three. And so if you look at our Pioneer transaction, when we did the transaction and announced it, we said we were going to generate about $2 billion on average over 10 years of synergies there.

We recently updated that to $3 billion just based on the value that we're able to unlock with the combination of both what we brought and what the pioneer organization had in place. And my expectation is we'll continue to up that synergy level because we're finding more and more opportunities. That's the drive for consolidation and combining companies. My expectation is with the work we've been doing to strengthen our advantages, we'll find more opportunities for our company to do that. Obviously can't speak for others.

You can't speak for others when it comes to Chevron Hess. The litigation that you guys have been tied up under the mediation, I guess I should say, has prevented Chevron from being able to go ahead and close the deal with Hess because of the disagreement over Guyana, that partnership that is seen as the crown jewel for that. Can you give us an update on where that stands?

Well, it's going through the process of arbitration. You recall that Hess, 70% of Hess's value is locked up in the Guyana asset that we have been developing, that we believe that transaction gives us a preemption right. Obviously, Hess and Chevron feel differently about that.

We weren't able to reconcile that difference, and we're basically using the mechanism that was laid out in the contract to go to arbitration. We're going through that process. My expectation is over the next month or two, we should see a ruling from that panel, and we'll get, I guess, clear guidance on the interpretation of that contract. Hey, Darren, I don't envy you trying to—

you know, satisfy not only the Europeans, but even in this country as administrations change. And we've had Republican congressmen or maybe senators, they refer to it universally now as the green new scam. And they refer to some of these renewable credits in the bill as they keep using the word scam there as well. The president feels differently than the last administration, I think.

Lee Zeldin, I've had conversations with him. So, you know, I don't know if you know at this point what you're supposed to do in terms of, you know, you've never thought about abandoning fossil fuels, obviously. But you certainly have taken a lot of steps to appease the very powerful climate lobby that it was so important. I mean, look at the last administration or California, for example, and or California.

you know, utilities where CO2 is classified as a pollutant. A lot of these things are being reversed now. Do you feel like you went too far with appeasing them? Can you roll back any of that?

Well, I think if you look at our track record, Joe, we didn't do a very good job of appeasing that ideology. They say that your carbon capture is just a whitewash or no, they say it to greenwash your other efforts, which are still in maximizing fossil fuel. Yeah, I don't really say that. I said, oh, I like I like I like those carbon capture because I think it's crazy to even talk about. Yeah, I don't pay much attention to the ideology and the ideology.

the partisanship that's going on here. Frankly, the way we run the business, Joe, is focus on the fundamentals. If you look at what the world needs, we believe as a company that the world needs to find cost-effective opportunities to reduce carbon emissions. The issue that we have here is that effort has been painted or defined by what I think is a niche industry.

ideological view that the way we move forward is to chuck out everything we've done over the last 150 years and start all over again with a solution that frankly doesn't address the needs of society. That's the wrong approach. I don't define addressing carbon emissions

by that approach. I look at it as an engineer in a company that has a huge technology capability. How do we try to address that need, but do it in a way that doesn't damage economic growth, that doesn't raise people's cost of living? There are lots of opportunities here to get more responsible and reduce emissions at a very low cost.

that doesn't penalize people, doesn't raise their costs. And we've decided, the politicians have decided not to go down that path, but instead to try to vilify the oil and gas industry. So I don't support that, but I do support thoughtful, constructive ways to start looking at how we can reduce emissions. We took lead out of gasoline.

We desulfurized our fuel over time as we realized the impact. Lead's different than CO2. The whole emission boogeyman idea of CO2. There's terrible stuff in emissions, obviously. It's not convinced that it's CO2. We've got to go. Darren, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Next on Squawk Pod, former MTV president Sean Atkins is heading up a new kind of studio, one for content creators. Creators here can come up with an idea in a matter of days, green light it, produce it and get it in front of their audience. And it's just something that just doesn't happen in the traditional ecosystem. And he's partnered with a top scripted digital creator, Darman, who's built his career on YouTube and plans to stay there.

A new era in entertainment right after this.

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Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out...

That's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. This is SquawkPod. Stand by Joe. Here's Mike. Q. We're at some SquawkBox.

On CNBC, I'm Joe Kernan along with Becky Quick. Andrew's off today. Let's focus right now on the creator economy. YouTube creators are building full-scale studios and turning their channels into media businesses, challenging Hollywood's dominance in scripted entertainment.

Joining us right now is Darman. He's the founder of Darman Studios. He was named number two on Forbes top creators list for 2025. He makes short, dramatic videos on YouTube that teach life lessons, often ending with a positive or emotional twist.

We're also joined by Sean Atkins. He's the CEO of Darman Studios and the former president of MTV. And gentlemen, welcome to both of you. It's great to see you. Dar, I want to just talk about what you've built because it's pretty phenomenal coming from 2018, doing these scripted videos that you were doing, I think, in your apartment, using your apartment as the soundstage and set up for all of these things to now having this giant studio.

that takes up a huge amount of space and knocking out videos that I think are bringing in something like 10 billion plus views a year across all these platforms. How did you do that?

It all started with a simple mission of just helping people that are going through a hard time. I'm somebody who has just gone through different types of hard times in my life, and I wanted to create content that inspires the world, that you can turn your life around and you can accomplish all your dreams regardless if you've been through different setbacks. So it's been amazing. The community we've built of over 125 million followers, clearly a positive

positivity is winning on the internet for once, which I'm really excited about. Yeah, I've watched many of the videos. They're almost like Aesop's fables. They're scripted and good wins out in the end. One of them was the gold digger who dumps her boyfriend. She doesn't have patience for him while he's building this brand. You didn't seriously think I was going to wait around until you get me the things that I really want. Who do you think got me this bag? Um,

I don't understand. Babe, please have some faith. No, I am done. I need a real man who can satisfy my needs. She feels bad about it five years later when she's kind of down on her luck and realizes that he's moved on. I mean, there's no subtle to these things. People really do want that feel good message, I guess. And where are they most popular?

They're actually the most popular within the US. And a lot of these stories are originally inspired by my own real life experience. Who dumped you? What did you say? Who dumped you? Was that what inspired you? Somebody heard me. Somebody heard me and I started a whole movement around it. But yeah, I mean, even though we have about a 55% primarily English speaking audience, you can imagine with 10 billion annual views, we have a pretty global viewership as well.

That one, the gold digger video that I mentioned, that was self-inspired? That was self-inspired. I got to make sure my wife is not listening right now. Yeah, I know. I mean, no, that was great. You talked about how, I mean, it really followed the story in it.

you know, the guy gets the really nice good girl in the end. And I guess that's what happened there. I mean, that is something. I didn't realize that was inspired by real life. Sean, why don't you talk about where the studio started, where you think it's headed at this point, because you're brought in to bridge that gap between what's happening in digital and traditional media.

Yeah, the exciting thing is that this actually reminds me in my own career of how the reality business and the cable business both exploded from the traditional businesses. And so you have these entrepreneurs such as DAR who built these incredible businesses direct to their audiences. And so they've gone from building it in their homes, in their apartments, to all of a sudden what we have today is we have 100,000 square foot facility with about 200 employees.

We cast about 1,500 actors on an annual basis. And we get about, as you sort of said, a billion views per month and have over 145 million followers across platforms. And the exciting thing that's different for these creators versus the traditional system is that the creators here can come up with an idea in a matter of days, green light it, produce it, and get it in front of their audience. And it's just something that just doesn't happen in the traditional ecosystem.

So, Sean, what does that mean for Hollywood and broadcast television? What's the threat that it poses, I guess? I'm always an optimist, or I wouldn't be in the industry that I've been for this long. It's like everything ultimately is additive, right?

Film didn't, TV didn't get rid of film. Cable didn't get rid of broadcast. The creator industry is not going to get rid of traditional media as we know it. What it is, is it's additive to the system. And so this is a part of the system that allows entrepreneurs at very low economic point, as long as they want to take a multi-year risk such as Dara and Laura did in founding the company, to build content that they own the intellectual property of. And then they are the distribution, the intellectual and the monetization of it.

And that's the difference between the traditional gatekeeper model where you have to go through somebody, spend several years hoping that they make your content, and then ultimately that gatekeeper owns your IP. Hey, Dara, I have to admit, the videos are entertaining. I think most of them are below 10 minutes. Am I right on that?

They're actually TV-length episodes, so everything is 22 minutes and 25, yeah. And we've even put out feature films before. So do you think that this is something that translates beyond YouTube? Could you get some of those stories picked up in other areas? Because the production's getting better with it, but there is, you know, like, where's your next target? You do YouTube, you conquer YouTube, and now what?

A lot of people think that there needs to be a next step. Sean and one of our very first hands-on said, I'm going to be honest, we're going to spend 0% of time thinking beyond YouTube, just in the sense that there is so much opportunity within these platforms themselves that continue to grow. We can launch into new genres. We can go into episodic content. We can go into feature films.

But that being said, there's definitely a lot of interest from other platforms. We actually just signed our first deal with Samsung not too long ago. One of the biggest streaming platforms out there is coming to our studio next week to talk about us creating original content for them. So I think the transition from Hollywood-driven content to creators creating content for these platforms is happening right now. Daria, I would guess that part of the...

appeal to you is what Sean was just talking about. You don't have to go through this creative process where other people sign off on things. Would you ever want to be in a position where maybe you would have a feature film or one of those other things if you had to give up some of your control over the creative process?

We're very collaborative. I think the industry used to approach creators more so in a way that they were going to tell creators exactly how to create content. But now I think the industry is recognizing that creators clearly have some sort of special magic about their creative process. They've been able to build

audiences of tens of millions or hundreds of millions of subscribers. They're able to get billions of views on their content, such as ourselves. And so more and more, I'm seeing streamers and major studios wanting to tap the creativity of creators and not mess that up. So yes, I'm very collaborative, maybe more so than even traditional YouTubers are.

But at the same time, I think there's a certain magic in what we do that we definitely don't wanna lose because that's what our whole community is built upon. - I mean, I get at it because Mr. Beast, there's always talk, he's number one, you're number two on this fortune list. There's always talk about bringing in people to act as investors as part of this, the idea of eventually doing something more, maybe even going public. Would you bring investors in? Is that a plan? Do you need more money to scale bigger?

So we had the good news about us. We're very profitable. We don't need the money. That being said, we are having conversations, you could imagine, because of where we sit in the market and our unique position with investors in terms of looking at what we think the next opportunity is if we wanted to take on capital. Okay. Very interesting. Sean Dar, I hope you will come back and visit us again. Sean, you were MTV? Is that what you said? I was. I was. Didn't video kill the radio star?

No, actually, it's funny if we both look at it, right? MTV's not doing so well and radio's doing better. The Bungles were wrong. That's correct. That's correct. That's correct. The emergence of creators...

The analogy often used is a little bit the cable model, right? Like there was a world where there was only three channels in the world. And then cable came along, right? CNBC got to exist and all these great new ways for consumers to consume. Creators are just the next version of that. So you can kind of think of DAR to use a cable model. DAR is sort of like the scripted part of cable, the USA, the TNT, that kind of came up. Can you tell me what's going to happen to the cable model? Would you mind sharing that with me, please? Yeah.

I think you know as well as I do that it's under quite a lot of duress. We're not going anywhere, though. We know that. Exactly. It's not going to zero, but there will be, it'll be consolidated. Less than zero? It's another cultural reference. I don't know. Streaming doesn't seem like the end all be all. It's still mostly cable that people are watching, so...

Like I said, I'm an optimist. It's never going to be, no one has a tendency to go, this is going to destroy that. And the answer is always a hybrid of the two. It's like, like DAR proved it's content anyway. It doesn't matter the pipes or where, where it's coming from. It's the content anyway. You know what? I would even say. When the consolidation of cable, when the consolidation of cable happens, it'll get back to its original value proposition, which is a good price for great content. Good. I would even say content is king. I just made that up.

I just made that up.

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