147 - Why Mainstream Media Sucks & How to Fix It with Saagar Enjeti

Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. This is how to get started, how to get better, how to front run the opportunity. This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. Guys, we had Sogar from the Breaking Points Podcast on the episode today. We talk about why mainstream media sucks and how to fix it. Not just a problem, but a solution.

The end of that problem. A few takeaways for you today. Number one, we talk about mainstream media, why it's broken.

And the prescription of how to fix it.

Number two, we talk about advice Sagra has for crypto media. How do we make sure we don't become them? You know who I mean by them. Number three, we talk politics because we had to. Sager's into politics. Uh, and we asked him about the candidates, his guess on the likely candidate for the 2024 US election. And is all of this going to lead to civil war? That's a question on our minds. Number four, what does Sagar think of the whole FTX thing?

He lost money in BlockFi, it turns out. He watched the SBF plus four heaths debate. He's been in crypto since Balogy introduced him to crypto in 2017. But after this, has he written it all off?

That was a question for him today. And it was good to get Sagar's perspective, who is a talented, I think, content creator outside of crypto. But share some of our core values, David. What are your thoughts going into this episode?

Yeah, after just talking to Sagart, I'm just so proud of him, man. He he and Crystal went up against uh like Teeth and Nails, which is mainstream media. He went up against the system, the the composed network of incentives that keeps the elites in power, keeps the mainstream media companies in power, keeps the Democrats and the Republicans in power. And him and Crystal.

Just said, eff it, you guys are just a bunch of acting charades, and we need real media in a new, real, honest, authentic media institution out there. And so they made breakpoints. And I couldn't be more proud of Sauger and Crystal, even though I don't, I just talked to Sauger for an hour and a half. I haven't talked to Crystal at all. But just like we need people like that in the world to make sure that we don't go backwards as a society. So that's really just the impression I've been left with after this episode.

Yeah, it's definitely a kindred spirit. And uh the the work they're doing over there is uh is pretty cool and we we we felt some of the shared values and kinship with uh with bankless. Um I I think it's also good to get sort of somebody on the outside of the crypto bubble their perspective on this whole crazy space. And uh so there's a lot of that conversation too. Of course, premium subscribers, make sure you stick around because David and I are about to have an epic debrief conversation about what we really think about Sogar. It's all good things, I think. I really enjoyed him, David. But if you want to tune in to get our raw and filtered thoughts, make sure you click the link in the show notes if you're a premium subscriber. If you're not, consider becoming a premium subscriber. You get all of this content and a slew of other features when you upgrade, including the private premium RSS feed.

With no

Yeah, no hats. All right. Speaking of which, we will go right to our conversation with Sogger. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. Bankless Nation, we are super excited to introduce you to Sogger and Jedi. He is the co-host of a fantastic podcast I go to for all things politics. It's called Breaking Points. Crystal Ball is his co-host. This is kind of an anti establishment political news sort of podcast. I think there's some kindred spirit with uh what we're doing over here at Bankless. They launched in June 2001. Breaking Points right now has 850,000 subscribers. Let's just round that up to a million subscribers, which is uh pretty hard to do, I must say. Sauger, welcome to Bankless.

Hey, thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it.

Hey, we're excited to talk to you because there's a number of things we want to pick your brain about. But like one thing that I think you have in common with probably people in crypto is um you guys see that some of the machines that run our society, some of the institutions, let's call them, are kind of broken right now. And so we want to talk about a few of those. We want to talk about media, that institution. We're gonna talk about politics, we're gonna talk about the economy. Um, but before we get there, David and I are about to get on a uh

do an interview with a politician, Senator uh Pat Toomey, who's coming on the podcast. He's got like 30 minutes. You know, he's rescheduled a couple times, but we're gonna do it. Um we don't

talk to many politicians, but I know you're in that world and you do. What like what's your advice? What should we uh what should we talk about?

Uh, yeah. So number one, don't let the handlers handle anything. They're gonna try and say he's late. They're gonna try and say he's got a hard cutoff. Let the senator go when the senator needs to go. Okay. That's number one. So they always give you a short and a fake time frame and they always reschedule, and they always want to try and keep you off the game. Number two, these people do this for a living. They're filibusters. So and they have scripts. They're perfect. They know how to launch exactly into them. So they're better than podcasts.

Oh, they're they're good at this. They they are the pe they are the kings of saying nothing with as much time as possible. Uh the way that you get this job is by being an arch narcissist and also being boring. And so this is uh this is their turf. So I would really just try, throw them off their game, ask them something interesting, um, try to get to the value almost as soon as possible. I find it useful to let them uh get their script out within about five minutes and then start to dive in a little bit because they feel like they don't have to revert back to. But it's a real

He's gonna come in with something to say then.

He's got an agenda.

Right.

Yeah. I mean, in my opinion, they're not going to agree to do an interview with you unless they have something that they want to. And I we don't have to get into the circumstance. I'm assuming it's like some legislation.

It's like the only he's the only crypto friendly senator on the banking uh committee. Everyone else hates crypto

Right.

And uh, you know, this is like, you know, the FTX aftermath. I'm sure you guys talked about a little bit. Um, this is after that. So I don't know what I mean, I think he's he's like we're we're gonna talk to him as if you know he is one of the few crypto friendly senators who's come out and been like, crypto's great, and here's why. So we want to talk about that, but he might s have some other ideas of why he's coming on a

Yeah, I would I would just try to drill down into it. I'm like, what do we like? Why are you you know it a fun question would be why are you here? What do you think? Yeah, yeah. Why are you here?

Sorry about that, David? Making it just super meta. I'm always a fan of making it meta because it makes people uh step back on their heels. Sagar, is there any uh is there any politician that doesn't fit that mold or are they all universally like this?

I think once you get elect so before they get elected, some of them can be fun. Um, so and I know some people before they get elected, and they'll talk a little bit more off the cuff, but you know, there's so many constituencies and internal, you know, what we were talking, you were say referencing systems, institutions, like the risk is so high. If you say the wrong thing, you will just get killed here in Washington, even if you say the truth. So it can cause you some serious problems. I would just, in general, like that's why I really despise and and generally don't talk to a lot of politicians whenever they're asking to come on.

Uh, you know, people will come on, but I want to talk about this one thing. I'm like, yeah, but you don't get to decide. And in general, the way that it works is that cable news is very accommodating because they have very short periods of time where you can come on and hawk your stupid bill or talk get the attention that you deserve. The system is really not designed to get into anything nitty gritty. And unfortunately, like when you really talk to these people, you're like, you don't know anything. You know, like a long form.

from podcast. I think that's a good one. Yeah, is it the

thing?

Is it the time constraint that makes that meta reality?

I think that they love the time constraint. Um the time constraint works on both ends, right? So cable, by definition, is short bursts in between advertising. That's their true market. They need to serve that. They just their job is to fill time in between ad breaks. Politicians' job is to say something as inoffensive as possible while also advancing X, Y, or Z agenda. So it's really a match made in heaven. Like the format is born for each other.

The people who actually listen though and are like affected by this, it's not really to their benefit at all.

So so does this our format of media where uh we have like 90 minute long podcasts and uh you know we're we we don't have like this cable news high production thing. Like, is that is this format of media like

this this has to be difficult for them. This is like almost hostile territory for them.

You know what it is? It's uncertainty. They these most of them are old. They're really old. And they don't understand what's going on here. Most of their staff tells them to do it because they know it's cool. Like they know it's a thing, but they then they don't really understand what it is. They don't consume it. And the real issue is that people in Washington, they really don't consume, especially our type of podcast. If you really ask people around here, like what podcasts do you listen to? It's either going to be pop culture or pod save America, God forbid. And so it's just it's it really is like unidirectional in terms of the media that they consume and are familiar with. They think a five minute spot on Morning Joe is like, you made it, you know.

Really?

That's oh, yeah.

Still it? That's still pinnacle?

Yeah.

Not like Joe Rogan or anything like that. That hasn't taken 'cause

When I

when I went on Rogan um afterwards, I only had one person who worked on Capitol Hill who reached out who was like, Hey, that was really interesting. Um when I used to do Fox News, it was endless.

like

And

you say Rogan is way more influential than like Morning Joe.

well, I mean it's on who? You know, and and this is the most important thing. Like not that they care about voters. Okay, but they don't care about voters. No, they care about the system. Yeah. They they care about talking to each other. So

Everything has a function. Like everyone's always like, why does how can X, Y, and Z paper still exist? And I'm like, because the 500 people who read it are, you know, all work in the Pentagon. And so, like, if you

if you want to influence Ukraine policy, are you better off on breaking points or are you better off on the New York Times editorial page? Obviously, on the New York Times editorial page. Why? Because the Secretary of Defense will read it. I could have a segment with, let's say, a million views, something like that, of critiquing Ukraine. Nobody here is going to watch it. So, you know, average Joe might watch it, but like what realistic power do they have over the State Department and the Defense Department? And unfortunately, message to all of you who are listening you basically have zero. I have zero.

So

You less than me.

is it literally just a delineation between just like

the many and the elites? As in like New York Times is like the elite uh the media institution that's read by elites to talk about elite things and then there's podcasts, which is like, you know, the many. Is it is it is that the delineation here?

Absolutely. Look at this podcast. It has a huge audience. It's very influential. You know, I was talking, Ryan, uh, right before you came on. I think it's actually crazy that you guys are not getting the do in kind of the SBF TikTok write-up. A TikTok in journalism is like the step by step by step because it's very clear that it all really began in the Eric Voorhees SBF confrontation. Well, you saw that. That happened. Of course I did. Um that happened on your show. And I'm like, okay, that precipitated this, precipitated this, which precipitated the crash. Have you read a New York Times article that referenced it? No. But I'm aware of it because, you know, I exist online. And I think it is uh actually a crimp, it's criminal to not include that interview because it takes it back to like the genesis of how it all started. So

It's complicated. I mean, I what I really think about it is, and you guys are familiar, CNBC. You know, CNBC, nobody watches CNBC, but the 100,000 people who do, they're all multimillionaires, traders, and billionaires. So like if you do a one, we call it a hit, you know, in cable news. Like you do a hit, which is like an appearance on cable television. One appearance on CNBC, it can move markets, it can set the, you know, the discourse on fire. And that has a tremendous effect on Federal Reserve policy. You know, one something something that a lot of people don't take notice of was that story that Jerome Powell has a secret Twitter. He has like a sleeper Twitter.

He didn't

Like Jerome Powell.

account.

Yeah, he's in a non-account.

Oh god.