This episode features Shaan Puri and Sam Parr reacting to a recent interview with Linda Yaccarino, the new CEO of Twitter. They discuss the awkwardness of the interview, the surprise appearance of Yoel Roth, and the broader implications for Twitter’s business strategy and leadership.
Topics: Twitter, Linda Yaccarino, Yoel Roth, Elon Musk, Business Strategy, Corporate Leadership, Social Media, Advertising, User Engagement
The Cringe Interview [00:22]
Shaan Puri: All right, I’m scrolling on Twitter and I just keep seeing this. The most uncomfortable live interview I’ve ever watched, the cringiest interview, the worst CEO interview I’ve ever seen. And you know what I got to do. You know what we got to do when it’s Cringe City, because I’m the mayor of Cringe City. We got to watch this interview that everybody is talking about. It’s the the new CEO of Twitter. So Elon hired this woman, Linda Yaccarino. She gave an interview, and I’m excited because, uh, A, I love CEO Cringe. I love CEO Cringe. Some guys like toes, some people like furries, some people like the Japanese anime shit. They’re into that. Everybody’s got a thing. This is my thing. CEO Cringe. I can’t get enough. Let’s jump in.
The Surprise Guest [01:28]
Sam Parr: Okay, so what happened was at this conference, the Code Conference, and they’ve always had a bunch of CEOs come to this, like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, uh, Travis Kalanick from Uber, they’ve had, uh, they always have these headliners. And this year, the headliner was going to be Linda Yaccarino. So, what I guess what happened is before she, this is she’s the headliner, before she went on, this guy, Yoel Roth, who used to work at Twitter, uh, was a surprise guest. So that’s why this is a little bit controversial. He was a surprise guest. Somebody the CEO of GM dropped out. They were like, “Oh, we have a last-minute replacement.” This guy, Yoel. He comes on and he basically, he used to be the head of Trust and Safety at Twitter. When Elon first bought it, he was like, “Go follow Yoel. That’s the place to get up-to-date info on Trust and Safety. He’s the man.” And then in five weeks, he got fired, you know, quit, got fired, whatever, uh, and him and Elon got a big spat about it. So, they are not on good terms. So, I guess this guy, Yoel, came on right before this, and the context is he was obviously sharing his negativity about Twitter. So, she kind of like got like blindsided, I guess, before this. So, that’s the context.
Linda’s Response [02:37]
Linda Yaccarino: I’d be happy to respond. Um, I think I’ve been given about 45 minutes. But I do want to address, um, Yoel and I don’t know each other. He doesn’t know me. I don’t know him.
Shaan Puri: Why is she using like a, uh, ASMR voice? It’s like CEO ASMR. She’s like, it’s like bedtime story ASMR. She’s like, “And Hansel and Gretel went all the way through the forest.” Is this a funeral? Why is she coming out with this energy? I’ve never seen her talk before, so this is, uh, this is not what I imagined the CEO of Twitter or X or whatever to sound like. Okay, more ASMR.
Linda Yaccarino: I work at X. He worked at Twitter. X is a new company building a foundation based on free expression and freedom of speech. Twitter, at the time,
Shaan Puri: Ironic, by the way. She’s like really upset that he just came on this, he went on stage at this conference and like spoke his mind, um, while being like, “X is the free speech platform.” Shouldn’t she just be fine with him speaking his mind? No?
Linda Yaccarino: was operating on a different sets of rules as said by himself, uh, different, uh, philosophies and ideologies that were creeping down the road of censorship. It’s a new day at X, and I’ll leave it at that.
Shaan Puri: Who else is inspired by that? It’s a new day at X, and it is what it is. Like she’s trying to say something optimistic, but the way she’s saying it, is this how she always talks? The way she’s saying it is so, uh, downtrodden. I don’t understand. If you go on stage, everything is wonderful. We’re going amazing. Nobody believes you. Uh, so that’s a very strange.
Linda Yaccarino: Seriously, the, uh, team at Twitter is fantastic.
Shaan Puri: Oh, oh, right after giving the big speech that he worked at Twitter, I work at X, comes back and says the team at Twitter is doing fantastic. She’s just like all of us. We call it Facebook, not Meta. We call it Twitter, not X. You can’t make fetch a thing.
Linda Yaccarino: If you’re talking about my own personal well-being and safety, uh, I feel great. Um, I’m well protected. What I, he made a comment about the FT interview, uh, I guess as he was preparing to come on the stage, uh, that the public scrutiny weighs heavy on me, uh, my kids, my family, my parents. Uh, I think that’s just a, a human emotion when you get thrust into such a public spotlight, uh, in conjunction with the nature of the platform itself.
Shaan Puri: Is she, is she trying to hit a word count? This is, this is me in ninth grade, just double-spaced, trying to hit the word count to get to get this in. I mean, that’s just human nature in conjunction therefore such as. She sounds like the girl from the the Miss USA pageant.
The Business Discussion [06:19]
Linda Yaccarino: People out there in our nation don’t have that, and I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and
Shaan Puri: itself, when you’re automatically a recognizable public feature, uh, public person 24/7 globally. And and with the ability for, uh, or the inability for anyone to control other humans, uh, actions, comments, recognizable. And I’m an identical twin.
Shaan Puri: Recognizable? What? Actions, comments, recognizable? What is she talking about?
Linda Yaccarino: think how she feels.
Shaan Puri: All right, solid joke, that landed.
Linda Yaccarino: Actually made the security team a a dollar bet, because I only ever bet a dollar, by the way, because the reason I only bet a dollar,
Shaan Puri: Let me finish that for you. Because I’m already rich. The reason I only bet a dollar is because I’m already super rich, and it would make absolutely no difference to me if I won or didn’t win. You know, give it, give me the Jeff Bezos, uh, laugh. It’s because I’m super rich.
Linda Yaccarino: ever is because it’s really only about winning. But I want to, uh, it’s very hard for me to refute or sift through the combination of opinions of Yoel’s experience and the positioned as fact, uh, that were pre-
Shaan Puri: She’s made two mistakes so far. First, ASMR funeral voice telling the Hansel and Gretel bedtime story. Very strange choice, right? You come out and people feel, you’re making people feel a certain way because the way it looks like you feel. And so her entire energy was was wrong. She did not come correct. Somebody who is confident, somebody who is optimistic about what’s going on, somebody who’s excited to be here, um, they will they would have a totally different energy. So that was the first mistake she made was she let this guy’s previous talk throw her completely off her game and come out with this very strange energy. Second thing, we’re now six minutes and 30 seconds into this this interview. She’s still addressed all the points that he made. Nobody would have even paid attention to that guy’s talk. She’s six and a half minutes in and is still playing defense. If you’re explaining, you’re losing. Right? It’s as simple as that. It’s like number one PR rule. If you’re explaining, you’re losing, and she is explaining.
Linda Yaccarino: But but Linda, cuz cuz I I want to shift gears from Yoel’s interview to a conversation about the business.
Shaan Puri: Nice, doing her a solid, being like, “Hey, maybe stop talking about Yoel and start talking about your business.”
Linda Yaccarino: Yoel had 25 minutes to talk about it.
Shaan Puri: You have a lot longer.
Linda Yaccarino: Yoel got the blue one, and I want the blue one. But he has the blue one, but then if I get the blue one, then I’m going to have it.
Shaan Puri: If if you you want, you have all the time that you have for us. Um, I want to talk to you about the business and that and the issues of engagement, because I see a lot of data as a reporter at CNBC, and Apptopia, which tracks app usage, says the actual time spent on Twitter did get a post-Elon bump after the acquisition, but it’s tracked down all year since then. A new report out from Apptopia just this month says app downloads have sunk to new lows. It’s in 96th place. And when it comes to usage, X is now 25th in active users behind Telegram and even Samsung Clock. So how can we reconcile what Musk has said about engagement, the numbers you just cited, with all of these different data points here?
Linda Yaccarino: Well, uh, you know, with over 540 million global users, the I I’d love to sift through, um, you know, the data points that you that you picked out. Uh, uh, And they’re really just tracks tracks of app downloads and engagement. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but when you look at the length of time spent She’s like, “Yeah, yeah, but you know, it doesn’t. Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about that. So, yeah, but let’s look at something else.”
Linda Yaccarino: the engagement on X right now, the key metrics are trending very, very positively. So if we want to talk about all the initiatives that have been put in place, like was covered in the previous interview, about all the, uh, brand safety and content moderation tools that exist now within my first 100 days at the company, that didn’t exist for the eight years prior, uh, uh, formerly known as Twitter, I think those are the type of things we could be fo- we should be focusing on in terms of progress that has been made, because in the just short 100 days-ish that I’ve been at the company, what had to happen was was for me to, you know, kind of get in, look under under the hood.
Shaan Puri: Why is she acting like a raccoon? Get in there, sift through the trash. I’ve seen that. I have seen that in my backyard before. That is a raccoon going through trash.
Linda Yaccarino: And when I realized and I looked at, because it’s still a lot of learning.
Shaan Puri: What what did you realize, Linda? What did you realize? Say it. Just say a simple sentence.
Linda Yaccarino: I mean, come on. It’s it’s 100 days. There’s a lot of learning that’s still going to go on. But the velocity of change No. No, we’re not having more velocity. the scope of the ambition at X.
Shaan Puri: Scope is a mouthwash.
Linda Yaccarino: Really does not exist.
Shaan Puri: When you raccooned through the data, what did you find, Linda?
Linda Yaccarino: where else, forget the other platforms. At any other company likely on Earth, there is no analog for the book that is being written right now.
Shaan Puri: Book? What are you talking about? Also, ultra-dismissive hand motion. Shut your mouth hand motion. Nice.
Linda Yaccarino: advertiser products that did not exist, that are now wrapped up in brand safety, third-party verification, the company that was described about an hour ago no longer exists. And I would argue pretty aggressively, no matter if you want to I I I don’t know the the the stat. Did you say Telegram? Yeah, five minutes ago when I asked you why you’re ranking below Telegram and downloads and then you started talking about scope and velocity. I did say Telegram. Does anyone even say Telegram? No, you’re behind Telegram. No, no, I know. I I I it’s I have to I have to scrub your numbers. Um, Does anyone even talk about Telegram anymore? Yeah, no, I’m saying you guys were behind them, less downloads than them. You’re worse than the people you’re making fun of. Yeah, I got to scrub your numbers. Okay. Let’s scrub it up dub. App Store charts free. Free apps. Let’s go. Where are you at? Telegram. Telegram, number 22. X. X, number 63. We scrubbed the numbers, Linda. You’re behind Southwest Air. You’re behind Peacock and Impulse Brain Training. Oh, greatest app of all time here, right? Coming in at number 68. Let’s go. We scrubbed the numbers. We scrubbed them. They’re good. They’re clean.
Linda Yaccarino: Um, but that being said, that when you put in context what has happened in the last 10 months and specifically the last 12 weeks of listening to our employees, listening Listening to your employees? You fired all your employees. You fired 80% of your employees. What are you talking about? You can’t hear them. They’re walking They’re walking away with their box from their desk. What are you going to hear?
Linda Yaccarino: the great news is another fact that was, um, inaccurate. Uh, uh, in June, actually, I did an interview with one of your colleagues at CNBC, Sarah Eisen. Specific time? And I think in August. Uh, was that August? It was 100 days. Oh, oh yeah, it started in June. It’s all a blur. Um, uh, because again, the pace of innovation is unlike anything.
Shaan Puri: Oh, what a gem of an excuse. The next time I’m late, “Oh, I’m late to pick up my daughter from school. It’s the pace of innovation.” That’s why I’m late.
Linda Yaccarino: you could ever imagine. Uh, think about it. It’s exhilarating to the point of intoxicating. That’s why. She’s got bars, though. I’ll give her that. She’s like Mike Tyson.
Linda Yaccarino: And you get inspired and pushed by Elon Musk to do the things that you would never normally think were possible, you land on a day like today. You show up, you tell them the mountain high of accomplishments that were made in just 12 weeks.
Shaan Puri: She’s going Michelle Obama. When they go low, we go high.
Linda Yaccarino: And you don’t look back and compare yourself to a legacy company that doesn’t exist anymore. All you’re doing is comparing yourself. What are you talking about?
Linda Yaccarino: I I it’s been a day, so I brought my card. You’re you’re welcome to I have my card. I was supposed to put Was that blank just now? Hold on. Got to go back.
Linda Yaccarino: I I it’s been a day, so I brought my card. You’re you’re welcome to I have my card. I was supposed to put I think that might be a blank sheet of paper. put an X on it because I was watching the interview. And I didn’t have time. Okay, so one question I have is, what are the daily active users that you have? Because that is the metric that Simple question. Can you answer? How many daily active users? And you mentioned the Sarah Eisen interview. What are your daily active users? And then also you told Sarah you were nearing profitability. How close are you? Yeah. Yeah, well, that’s so exciting. I’ll get I’ll get back to your first question, but what’s so Bet she doesn’t. Bet she does not get back to that first question. Hey, I bet you a dollar, Linda. You only bet a dollar? I bet you a dollar you don’t answer the daily active users question. But let’s see.
Linda Yaccarino: exciting is that, um, from an operating cash flow perspective, we are just about break-even. So the, um, uh, a kind of other emotion that was painted in the previous talk, Still referencing the previous talk. we feel pretty good about where we are. And when I did the other talk that you said was in August, um, it it was too soon. I think it was about five or six week in. I couldn’t have eyes on uh even the rest of third quarter, let alone fourth quarter. So, um, now that I have uh uh immersed myself in the business and we uh have a good set of eyes on what is predictable and what’s coming is that it looks like in early 24 we’ll be turning a profit. So that’s exciting. So, so 90% of the top 100 advertisers have returned to the platform. In the last 12 weeks alone, about 1500 have returned. So whether it is uh uh uh small business or big big brands, right? Like AT&T, Visa, Nissan, all returning. Why are they returning? They are returning because of the power and significance of the platform. The place that X has in this world. Why So do you have a stat on daily active users? Yeah, I’m going to. I love the interviewer’s smile. They’re like, “Uh, you’ve been bullshitting for five minutes now. Do were you going to tell me the number or no?” Oh, now she picked up her phone. What happened to her blank sheet of paper? Okay. 200, 250, something like that. Okay. So the stat when 200 or 250 million daily active users, that’s less than when Elon bought it, I’m pretty sure. Did Yoel leave his facts? No, this was when Musk took over, there were 237 million monetizable daily active users. Yeah. So, so listen to this. One of the reasons that, um, I’m in the chair I’m in today, and in the chair I am at X, And I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I am. So condescending by the way, this whole like, one of the reasons I’m in this chair and you’re down there. Like that’s basically the vibe, the energy that she gives off. Um, she asked you a simple question. How many daily active users you got? Don’t give us this speech about why I’m in the chair I’m in is because I’m so great. That’s not an answer to how many daily active users you have.
Linda Yaccarino: leading the company is because I knew for the last decade, and you knew this, part of my old remit was to oversee not only the advertising revenue for the company, but to look after all of our enterprise relationships, our, I still say our, um, the all of the NBCU enterprise relationships and Twitter was one of them. I specifically used the name Twitter, by the way, purposefully. And and uh that’s when for 10 years and how I fell in love with the platform because I knew, first of all, we all knew the trajectory of where broadcast cable, uh, television and usage and consumption was growing. She’s like, “Yeah, the previous company I was at was going down, down, down, down, down, and so now I’m just, the reason I’m in the chair I’m in is because I oversee this.” What is she talking about?
Linda Yaccarino: But this Oh. Hang on. She doesn’t have X installed on the home screen of her phone. I see Facebook. I see Instagram. I do not see X. It’s a black icon. Where is it? I don’t see it. Wow. And also, what kind of psychopath It looks like she has a settings wheel on her dock. What kind of psychopath does that? Just showing your phone, talking about how great X is, and then not have the app installed. This is why, uh, this is why this is why I do what I do. This is why I do what I do. Aggressive clap. This is why I do what I do. This is why, as the mayor of Cringe City, we live for this moment where she thinks she’s mic dropping. She thinks she’s saying this really impressive important thing and she’s just embarrassing herself.
Linda Yaccarino: That’s news. When you when I used to sit in my office and watch you on television, it was the only What? Do some work. Why were you at the office watching television? Well, I’d love to I’d love to I’ll give you I’ll give you almost like a more personal specific uh number which demon- All right. Another dollar bet. I’m up $1. Is this going to be personal or specific? I bet it’s neither.
Linda Yaccarino: straits, part of the growth at X. If you take our communities, 50,000 curated Wait, why are we talking about 50,000 communities? I thought it was going to be personal and specific, Linda. environments and conversations of communities on X, okay? The The pause to just absolutely make up whatever that wherever the hell she’s going, just be like, “Okay, so I said 50,000 communities, what the hell could I say next?” in numbers and time spent is up dramatically just since June. Okay, so Right? So Where was the personal and specific example, Linda? So, hold on. I want to Wait, Linda, we’re running short on time. So I got to get we have so much to cover here. So Okay, where do you where do you want to go? Okay, I want to talk about your role running the company. And Elon Musk just announced a new monthly fee for users. Yep. And my question for you is, do you want to start charging all users of X, as he said, and how many users do you think you will lose as a result? Can you repeat? Can you repeat? Can you repeat? This reporter just broke news to the CEO, I’m pretty sure. That that could you repeat was a, what the hell are you talking about? Let me buy some time.
Linda Yaccarino: Musk announced you’re moving to an entirely subscription-based service. Nothing free on about using X. Did he say we were moving to it specifically or is thinking about it? He said that’s the plan. Yeah. So, did he consult Yeah. News to me. Consult you before he announced that? We talk about everything. Okay, defensive, so defensive. Got to go back. Hold on. Did he say we were moving to it specifically or is thinking about it? Oh. The sit back like she just served her. Like this is uh whatever, stomp the yard and she just her. And then He said that’s the plan. Yeah. So, did he consult you before he announced that? Did he ask you about this? Cuz you’re the CEO, right? We talk about everything. No eye contact. Look to the crowd. We talk about everything. Do you guys hear that? Everything is okay. I’m in charge here, okay?
Linda Yaccarino: You don’t cover product. Right. The all of the product teams report to Elon Musk. And as a result of that, there’s been a lot of Is anyone in this room Can I Can I finish please? Wait, Linda, let me finish. Please, let me finish. As a result of the fact that the product team does not report to you, the product team at Meta reports to Mark Zuckerberg. Because the product team does not report to you, there has been speculation that you are in more of a COO role or a CBO role, a CEO in name only. You know what’s funny is that we talk about that a lot at X, uh, as you You do? Everybody asks you, “Are you really the CEO?” You guys talk about that a lot? No, it’s a very flat organization and the teams are very empowered to perform at their highest levels. And who’s kidding who? I don’t care what the structure is at Meta, but who wouldn’t want Elon Musk sitting by their side running product. I see a show of hands. I there may be a few show of hands to get the cute chuckles you’re getting. Honestly, that’s a good point. Uh, Elon run Elon is a um a very, very, very accomplished engineer and uh person capable of building things. So I think it’s totally right. You’d rather have him running a product engineering organization, not definitely not this lady. Definitely not the ASMR CEO. I mean, can you imagine her trying to talk to an engineer? Like, this lady is asking for a number and uh like, “Hey, how many users do we have?” And she’s talking in circles about velocity of change and innovation and blah blah blah and saying, “I’m going to I’ll come back to that.” Like, engineers don’t like that shit. Uh, you know, you can’t just talk circles around people who actually build things. You um you have to directly answer their questions or directly give clear concise statements. This lady is I mean, the BS detector is like I mean, if if if the uh car industry wasn’t questioned, would we have the electronic car in- industry? I mean, Uh, pretty sure she just said electronic cars industry. Is that what you think Tesla does? It makes small electronic cars instead of electric cars. You’ll be hearing some of those announcements in the next week or two. But thank you so much, everyone. I got to go. I really appreciate it. Linda Yaccarino, thank you for making the time for us. Thank you. Let’s see how they exit. This Oh, the snub. No handshake, no hug. some of those No, uh, no words. I really appreciate it. Linda Yaccarino, thank you for making the time for us. Thank you. And walks by pretends like you don’t exist. Nice. Power move. Okay, um, yeah, I grade this an F. That is an F. Defensive, insecure, says nothing of substance. Uh, this is crazy to me that this is the CEO of Twitter, as it will be called. Um, not inspiring. I don’t understand why somebody would like this is like, I think when people think about corporate America or bureaucratic companies, like this to me is the nightmare. Somebody like this rises in the ranks and becomes CEO of one of the best tech company, you know, one of the best technology products in the world, uh, that’s used by, you know, whatever, hundreds of millions of people, doesn’t know the first thing about technology or product or speaking straight English. Um, is just a hand-wavy type of person. That’s really crazy to me. I got to see more Okay, this is what is this? I Googled her name and this was the first picture that came up. You know, maybe don’t pose maybe don’t pose like Jesus on the cross for your uh for your front page photo. Maybe don’t wear all red and dress like and pose like Jesus on the cross. Does she always talk like this? I want to see some of her old interviews. Okay, let’s see. What is this? Stephanie Rule, I accept your COVID-19 challenge. I’m still stuck mostly at home and I’m doing Okay, she lost her mind in that video. Um Why is she accepting the COVID-19 challenge? Oh, nice. And singing and washing her hands. Nothing more performative than people uploading videos of themselves taking COVID precautions. With no rhythm. This is this is how we should end the video. Cuz I just want this uninterrupted for 25 seconds. Producer, 25 seconds uninterrupted of this dance. End the video. Wow. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Okay. Yeah, I grade um I grade that interview an F. Um just comes across like a total bullshitter. Um doesn’t answer any questions directly, super defensive, weird ASMR voice. And by the way, her background. It’s not like, okay, when Zuck does weird interviews and it’s like, “Oh, he looks like a robot. This guy’s terrible.” Okay, genius kid programmer turns out to not be so media savvy. This lady is a media exec. She’s 60 years old, spent her whole career, 40 years working into the television industry. How is she so poor at doing interviews or media? That was that’s supposed to be what you’re good at. If this is how you’re like, is this what you’re good at? Because you’re terrible. Um, all right. Well, that is the end of Shaan Reacts Cringe City. Hope you like this video. If you like these, I’ll do more of them. There’s plenty of cringe out there. There’s cringe everywhere, to be honest with you. If you like these and you want me to do more, leave a comment on YouTube saying Cringe City. Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better.