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our next guest needs no introduction she has an incredible uh career in film she's an entrepreneur she's a podcaster
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but interesting we learned about a year and a half ago that our friend Gwyneth Paltrow is also
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a fan of the all-in podcast [Music] [Music] are you trolling me with my glasses do
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you have your blue lights on I can't I honestly can't see without these things at this point it's
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unforgiving I'm just curious thanks for uh zooming in here um when did you become aware of the
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podcast because you said you'd listen to two podcasts you have your own amazing podcast how did you discover the all-in
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podcast because you wrote about it so graciously in the group newsletter and said it's your latest Obsession then you
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shattered us out on another podcast so I get like a hundred we all get like 100 inbounds when you do that but how did
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you find out about our podcast I think he's recommended to be my friend um and I just you know there's some
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obviously the field is so crowded but I thought okay put it on and honestly I think you guys
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are the only thing I listen to religiously every single week but I love all of them would you open my mind and
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challenge my thinking um and actually learned so much from all of you so I I just I appreciate what you
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guys do and I really feel very honored that you um you know my husband that we have a
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little bonus attention is he thinks I'm in a long time with David so he's letting him do this so it's
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but you're breaking up a little bit but I think I heard in there that she hates David she hates David sash is that
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correct that you just I I heard that I was in favor of bestie but um so you're traveling right now you
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don't have starlink on your plane I'm flying on American did not lend me his claim for this uh appearance
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we'll make sure regret we brought the summit to you this year but you couldn't make it in person I wanted to ask you of
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all the things you've done uh you had this incredible uh career in Hollywood which really spanned from the
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independent film era all the way to the Blockbuster superhero era uh obviously uh goop and the tremendous success there
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and podcasting what have you enjoyed most and then I'm wondering I know you get haranged by all the Marvel fans to
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play Pepper Potts again but it's not exactly your decision um what have you enjoyed most in your
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career you know I have to say I genuinely and have enjoyed all of the chapters I've been incredibly fortunate in that
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I've had this amazingly diverse life I've been an expat in London for a decade a
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and it's been it's been it's been really it's been just thrilling to be able to do that and then kind of segue into a
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life of Entrepreneurship and I don't I would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite yeah
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yeah how did you how did you make that decision Gwyneth we talked with Alexandra botez before this she's a uh
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you know gotten a lot of notoriety and built an audience streaming chess um chess matches and now she's building
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her own business and we're going to talk to Jimmy Donaldson Mr Beast here in a minute and he's similarly building his
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own business with his audience um how did you make the decision to build goop to build a business with your
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audience instead of uh endorse other businesses and get paid to put your stamp on other products that were
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already in market and help us think about you know the the intention on being an entrepreneur and an owner
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instead of being you know an endorser and a service provider I mean I I think that in my position you
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know we're expected to kind of be an endorser and put our name on something more white label in my case maybe it was
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naivete like I just really wanted to try to build something Brick by Brick and have that incredible hockey stick and
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education and um and the business happened very iteratively it really just started with me kind of writing content
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in my kitchen in London almost 15 years ago which is kind of hard to believe and
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the business models there have been a few of them they've slowly evolved over time you know we started monetizing
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content and then moved into product and then making our own product um and I think it's sort of what I didn't
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like so much about acting was the part where you're kind of waiting around waiting for permission to engage to
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create something to put something out in the world and this is far more immediate
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and um I I loved my acting career but I find this like incredibly fulfilling in a
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much different way yeah maybe you could talk a little bit I know I listened to your pod and I've
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been watching your intellectual curiosity it seems like aging and kind of living our best lives in our 50s and
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Gen X is kind of moving into this new era I'm curious what you'd think about this having multiple careers and moving
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into this this new era of life um and living your best life in your 50s in your 60s people are staying healthier
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longer skiing into their 60s and 70s I want to bring up too much skiing I know that was a bit of a distraction this
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year for you congratulations on the case um yeah I mean the best part of it was when you walked out of the case and you
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put your hand on your shoulder said I just wish you well or something you were very you were very kind and magnanimous
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but maybe talk about just how great it is to be able to just keep having this healthy lifestyle and you know what
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you're doing on the Pod because I'm watching you intellectually go from shorter to longer to longer and more
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in-depth conversations um yeah thanks Jacob um you know I that's your way of saying you're full of
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[Laughter] um you know I think what I watched over the span of this kind of 15 kind of General curiosity in wellness
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and this idea that we can impact the the way that we feel I think you know we were a little bit early on the early
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side and the trends um and and I I really am so happy to see people understanding that how they think and
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how they breathe and what they eat really impacts how they feel the quality of their relationships and everything
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and and I think it's it only intensifies in your 50s I think when you start to understand that life
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really is finite and in a way that you don't you can't conceptualize that when you're 26 years old and so I'm glad that
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I um I feel bullish about aging you know I I definitely want to do whatever interventions I can to feel good and and
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happy and and live a long life I I love my kids so much I want to live a long time and meet their kids and
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um and I think the Pod the goop pod is is just a way for me to learn more about kind of what's out there and we talk to
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amazing doctors and and experts and scientists and thinkers and and so for me it's just a wonderful opportunity to
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learn and that's why I said in the beginning I don't know if it cut out but that's why I I listened to your pod
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religiously every week it's the only one that I I listen to every week because of
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the depth of of knowledge and you guys I think are bringing this amazing kind of
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open-minded perspective um and that's why I think you're you're so resonant with your listeners do you
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um you've probably read then you heard us talk a lot about Brian Armstrong's memo
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you probably heard us mention Toby ludke the CEO of Shopify his memo now both are
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sort of in one end of the Spectrum which is we're a team we're not a family keep your views to
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yourself essentially and you know we're coming here to work but there's a spectrum of different ways can you just
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describe where you are on that spectrum and some challenges or things that have you know you've had to go through in
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building this business relative to what how those guys would have run you know their companies
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yeah I mean I think that's been kind of the the most unexpected challenge is is the people piece the team building piece
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that knowing how once you're at a certain scale you know and you're not a CEO interacting with every single member
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of the team every day how difficult it is to define a culture um be agile about the changes in the
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culture um and I think you know for us I think it's hard right like I'm I'm a woman
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founder our team is probably 70 women women you know are typically are we're collaborative we are creative
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um and I I think that it's very hard to you know for us anyway at group 10 it would be impossible for there to be this
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kind of strict team uh mentality only I think we we do bring our hearts to what we do we
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there's there's meaning at what we're trying to create and um but but then again you know there are
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boundaries that need to be created and honestly I think when I look back at all the mistakes that I've made in in
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growing this company all of them stem from you know my wanting to be a family is that a
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different way my inability to sometimes say what needed to be said in order to spare
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somebody's feelings and so that that is there's a lot of personal work for me in
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that in that Spectrum um and I think that I'm sort of starting to really get the hang of how to do that
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and do it in my own way but I kind of had to give myself permission to to navigate through it and sort of Define
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how I want to operate like that as a leader and and I suppose being a celebrity uh
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is is an adjustment for people working for you I'm curious how that transition was and and can people be normal around
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you at work the truth yeah I mean it just must be hard at first no I think it is hard you know I think
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um I think people come in and you know I've been in the culture for better or worse for a really long time now so I
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think everybody kind of has something there coming in with um a Prejudice or a projection
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um and and I also just am you know famous so sometimes that's kind of it feels like a filter that lives between
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me and and other people I think the best people at goop you can feel like they drop that really quickly
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um and and we we work best and make the best stuff and and grow in the best way when people say no and people challenge
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me um is Hollywood challenged in being able to speak its mind Hollywood from the outside seems to have
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a very kind of monocultural point of view and you're very quickly canceled if you say the wrong thing or you say
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something that's on your mind that doesn't fit with the standard and is that something that you view to
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be kind of an inherent challenge in Hollywood today you know I it's interesting like
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the I think cancel culture is really toxic and really stems from you know I mean I have a whole long
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theory about this but I I do feel like um I do feel like in our culture there's a very binary way we look at good and
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bad and I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and we are not good at understanding that we are human we are
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all light and dark and at various times we have great qualities we have qualities we're working on
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um and I think what happens is because we don't live in a culture where we're allowed to sort of show our shadow sides
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um when somebody else does something that you know we can quickly have Sean right over we sort of jump on it because
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it feels like a release you know it feels like a relief like oh well at least I didn't you know do X like this
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guy um and I don't think he gets his very far as the culture I think it's actually
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really reductive and um and I'm hoping that we're going to kind of mature out of this binary cancer culture way of of
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looking at things you know I personally don't think about it because I would never open my mouth like I I have to be
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myself and and of course you want to be measured and you know you don't want to unnecessarily you know get yourself in
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trouble or say something stupid but at the same time I think it's important to be true to who you are be in Integrity
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say what you mean and and sometimes you know you see that that creates controversy but I don't think that
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that's always a bad thing what is the future of of Hollywood I feel like I was thinking about your
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career because I was reviewing all the amazing films you were in in the 90s and then obviously I mentioned you know um
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the last run of the superhero films it feels like you're part of the last generation of movie stars and Freeburg
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and sax and I are huge Cinema Buffs and fans of what you do um maybe you could talk about I've I've
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watched her movies yeah he liked pop She Bop texted me like hey what should I watch tonight and I give him well no I
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tell you to watch something really great and you're like that was terrible and I'm like well okay it's got seven Oscar
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nominations anyway um terrible movie yes she wasn't in it if she was in it'd be better
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Carr was a great film it was incredible yeah did you see Tara Gwyneth so what's been what have we lost now
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with this kind of the end of Cinema it's kind of heartbreaking for me and I wonder if it's heartbreaking for you too
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and maybe then you could speak on the strike and maybe how that might get resolved I know you're out of it pretty
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much but maybe you could talk a little bit about the end of yeah watch yourself what should the unions be fighting for I
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mean you're on the other side in a sense you're running a tech company you know you're probably figuring out how to use
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Ai and all of these disruptive tools your old compatriots must need a lot of help and guidance to not fight for the
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wrong things so yeah how do you think about the future of Hollywood like how would you
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direct them like hey guys this matters and this other stuff just doesn't matter yeah I mean it's I think we're at an
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incredible inflection point and you know to to start with your question JJ Cal like the the inherent models of the
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business have changed so much as we know with streaming um I I do think that it brings up really
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interesting questions around like what does this mean for artists going forward um the business isn't monetized the way
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that it used to be residuals used to be a huge part of how artists made their living and I do think that this is an
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area where the studios kind of need to need to readdress how they have been paying in the back end
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um especially on TVD but we are living in a time where there are these emerging technologies that just are going to
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change the way that things are made and so I think you know look I as you said I'm kind of out of it I I
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I don't um act very much anymore I am married to a television writer um who knows far more about the ins and
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outs of this um but I I do think you know there are I think artists do need to understand that
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you know it's like with anything when when an industry um led by you know first these
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technology right streaming and now ai and these things that are coming around the corner I think we all need to be we
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all need to be open-minded um and understand that like the the train has left the station these
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Technologies exist so we're gonna have to find the best way forward through them what what what is your point of
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view what is the conversation behind closed doors on generative art generative film where we're headed not
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the public conversation but the behind doors dinner conversation with your colleagues and Friends
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I think people are really concerned you know my actor friends are very concerned
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about the idea that you know for example just use myself that they could decide you know to make the Royal Tenenbaums
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too and because I don't own my IP Disney owns that IP and my name and likeness for that film that they could just
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theoretically create a sequel and not ask my permission um and that I wouldn't have to be paid
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for it so that that's kind of what the actors where they go like you know for example I invested in a company called
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speechify where they use AI um you can I don't know if you guys know I use it and you can read the New York
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Times you're one of the official voices on speechify in right so um you know I read a bunch of stuff into
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a microphone and then AI took my voice and now if you want to read uh then you know Walter isaacson's new book on Elon
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which I know David sacks is going to be the first person in line to buy that book
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um you can you can listen to it with my voice so you know in that case I said I'm licensing it to you and here are the
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parameters but I think the idea is going forward if that that wasn't the case um it could be it could be a
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free-for-all that's that's kind of what that's what the actors are worried about
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I think you know I think the writers that I speak to um they seem to be less worried about
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the AI piece right now because it's so nascent and obviously it's mining things that have already been written and you
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know I think art that resonates with people comes from new ideas um and new ways of creating resonant
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intersections for people and I think we're always going to need people for that I mean maybe I'm naive but that's
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so I don't think I don't find writers behind closed doors as concerned about the aips as I do the actors right now
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that makes sense we have a friend here who's a showrunner is a television writer he may be in the audience here
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somewhere I think that's his attitude as well which is like I don't really want to be on strike and I don't I don't need
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to be protected from AI that's kind of like protecting me from a word processor or something like that that I mean I
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think these AI tools are going to be really useful to writers it's going to be kind of crazy to say that writers
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can't use generative AI Tools in their research or writing or whatever I agree with you about the actors that that's
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different I think actors should be able to control their name and likeness and make licensing deals for that that kind
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of stuff but but I think but I do think there's like a little bit of paranoia going on with the writer's Guild like
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there I think they're way too concerned that like writers rooms are going to get
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replaced with AI software and I just think you know this is a debate we have in other occupations as well where
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people are really afraid that you know AI is just going to replace all the jobs and you know I think our view is at
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least for the foreseeable future it's giving more like co-pilots where it's a human working with the software not a
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total replacement of the human yeah yeah I think I think that's right can I ask you about
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um unions for a second so part of you know revitalizing maybe the movie industry but a lot of these industries
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is just that sometimes the cost of making these things just get really outrageously high right and you know
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you've probably lived on sets of movies where it's just like these cost overruns
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and then you get into this tricky accounting and then all of a sudden one producer is pursuing the other all of
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this stuff at some level just boils down to there's just just massive cost inflation that exists that probably
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shouldn't exist nine people doing a job the one person Etc um just talk to us about like what is
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the future of that kind of stuff like how do you provide opportunity how do you protect
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folks but then how do you make sure that the costs don't become so exorbitant that it just kills the industry Without
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You noticing I think it's a really good question I mean you know I think you have to look
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at who who profits from all of the inefficiencies and um you know it's one of the reasons that I
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feel so frustrated when I'm on set is because it's it is inefficient and it does feel like there's a lot of padding
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um but again you know it's this is the the systems that exist um have been in place for a really long
00:21:01
time I I I don't really want to opine on um you know the state of unions per se I
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think you know I I would focus more on like if I was running efficiencies and um and I I would rather I would rather
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create profit for shareholders from creating efficiencies and like dealing with all of the essentially offbacks
00:21:26
that it takes to make something like that and and and less about you know not wanting to share profits with the art
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artists you as somebody who did movies in this incredible Golden Era Sundance era
00:21:39
independent film all these incredible new directors who you got to work with and then this Golden Era of Television
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arrived over the last four or five years which is I'm sure you know you've enjoyed and I know your husband's uh
00:21:51
participated in that meaningfully have you can you must have gotten tons and tons of offers because they keep trying
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to get movie stars to do TV shows did you ever consider any of them are there any you passed on that we could
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hear about and um what would what would it take to get you to do one of those TV shows like
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what have you passed on I'm always interested in that my mother says who's also a great actor
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she says I'm never allowed to say anything about what I passed on she says it's not ladylike and I can't do it in
00:22:23
public so I have to defer not even one okay what would it take to and have you considered it like it does seem like a
00:22:34
moderating have you ever moderated we could use a new monitor here soon yeah can I can I ask you I assume
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meaning like in the next two hours when this thing is done I'm gonna can I ask you your point of view on the rules that
00:22:49
the academy passed for qualifying for best picture um obviously they added all these
00:22:54
diversity rules this past year I think they were formalized this past year um and we heard from Larry Summers
00:23:00
earlier today I know you it's a pity you weren't here because there was a lot of
00:23:04
great conversations um but Larry said something along the lines of um you know self-esteem should
00:23:11
come from Achievement not achievement coming you know it was I don't want to butcher it but basically we have a
00:23:17
challenge right now that we aren't really earning um the credit we get and we risk seeing the best things not
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always win does the best film not win if there's a lot of new qualifying criteria
00:23:31
that might keep the best film out of the best picture nomination because it doesn't fit these
00:23:36
new diversity rules how do you view that how does Hollywood behind closed doors talk about this and is this the right
00:23:42
way to kind of um you know give the awards for the best pictures every year you know Friedberg I honestly don't even
00:23:52
know like I feel so out of this business I don't even know about these new diversity roles uh well to get nominated
00:23:58
can I educate myself yeah that's the whole point of the podcast all good well when you moderate these next episodes so
00:24:06
um I'm looking forward to it I have a question which is uh back to goop for a second so you're building distribution
00:24:11
this is like this theme this afternoon a little bit um with Alex with you with Jimmy who
00:24:16
we're going to talk about which is these new content creators emerge you guys create formats that engage in
00:24:22
audience what they really give you is their trust you build these new distribution rails and then you decide
00:24:28
Gwyneth where do you want to point those distribution is it chocolate bars in Jimmy's case is it you know merch and
00:24:33
chess related things for Alex um I'm sure that you and your team are looking at like what are these areas
00:24:39
that are just so brittle that can just be totally ripped apart like where new brand consideration can happen you can
00:24:46
establish the trust can you just give us some insight into that like what are the
00:24:49
old laggard businesses that are just ready to get dismantled do it more from the inside out like what
00:25:03
do where is the book base that I oh Zoom I mean it was held up pretty well so far
00:25:21
all right with that uh we'll thank you Gwyneth Paltrow yeah amazing well done I mean
00:25:31
it's kind of great um that she is so engaged with the Pod and yeah well I'll tell you her comment
00:25:39
about waiting around um on a film set really resonated with me I've released a couple of movies I've
00:25:44
been to movie sets if Dolly and thank you for smoking congratulations smoking and if you talk to anybody who's ever
00:25:49
visited a movie set the first thing they will say every time is there's so much waiting around it's like it's boring
00:25:56
it's a lot more boring than he thought it was going to be and there's a huge amount of time waiting around on sets
00:26:01
for the next you know for the next setup they have to move the lights around or whatever so you know in I'll tell you
00:26:07
with Dolly the dolly movie we did you know they would do like an eight to ten hour shooting day I would get the the
00:26:13
dailies which is all the material they shot you know in a link to basically like a Dropbox folder everything he shot
00:26:19
was two hours so you take a 10 hour shooting day you're only shooting for two hours of that and then that two
00:26:25
hours is maybe three two or three pages of material you're watching five takes of every
00:26:32
angle or whatever so so there is a huge amount of of just sort of boredom on a set so um I think it's really cool that
00:26:39
cheap while thinking about this is like hey I could start a company yeah and I think your growth is one of the first to
00:26:46
do this like 15 years ago yeah I mean she came before anybody and I think she she
00:26:52
had a lot of iteration along along the way [Music] we open source it to the fans and
00:27:09
they've just gone crazy [Music] besties [Music] oh [Music]