Acquired
02:35:30 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[02:35:30] S1: But they start getting pretty nervous because they're like, no. This show's days might be numbered. Like, we don't know how long Jerry can keep this going, how long Jerry will want to keep this going. Larry's already left. They're both rich beyond anyone's dreams here. They realize that after the eighth season, they kinda have a now or never moment where they need [02:35:51] S0: to hold out and negotiate for much higher salaries. Which is incredibly awkward because the relationships between the actors and Larry and Jerry was always fantastic on set. Yes. It is notoriously a very professionally run show. There's no, like, drama between people. Whenever issues came up, they would resolve them and move on and try to get [02:36:13] S1: to the root of it. And they would actually help each other with their acting, which other TV shows... Like, there was an unwritten rule that actors didn't give notes to other actors. [02:36:20] S0: Right. So it creates this big awkwardness of we're all gonna hold out.
02:36:20 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[02:36:20] S0: Right. So it creates this big awkwardness of we're all gonna hold out. [02:36:25] S1: Right. I mean, at the end of the day, Jerry holds all the cards because he's the one who decides whether the show continues and how. Right. Nonetheless, they get it all done at the deadline for the ninth season. And Jerry supports the cast by telling NBC and Castle Rock that he will agree to come back for a ninth season in 1997 into 1998, but only if the whole rest of the cast also signs on. Like, he's not gonna come back if they aren't able to sign all three of the other cast members too. Yep. So they reach a deal, $600,000 per episode for each cast member for one season, plus an option to extend that same deal for a second next season, hypothetical tenth season if the show comes back, which is all dependent on Jerry.
02:37:18 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[02:37:18] S0: Yes. So on season nine, the cast effectively did secure what they had set out to do. It wasn't, like, the highest number that they originally asked for, but it did get them the amount of money where they don't need to work again. Yes. Because all of them are extremely typecast now. It's like the worst thing as an actor to be on a number one show in an extreme role like any of these roles And not have back end. And not have made your entire rest of your life's income from that show. Because it's just hard to get other parts. So at 600 k an episode, that's $14,400,000 for each of Julia, Michael, and Jason in that season. Good. Like, yeah. Not what it would be if you had back end, but, like, you could live your... The rest of your life on that when you may have cut off your ability to make big money from acting ever again in the future. So with Jerry now at $1,000,000 an episode, each of them at 600,000, that means that the cost per episode of talent is 2,800,000, which now means that the cost of each episode is, I don't know, $3,500,000. But NBC is absolutely happy to pay this because [02:38:34] S1: As we talked about this. [02:38:35] S0: Giant advertising profits. Yeah. So $7,080,000,000 in in production costs for the season. Okay. We're gonna make 200,000,000 directly from ad sales, let alone all the other secondary benefits that come from it. [02:38:47] S1: Yep. And we should note here too that Jerry's $1,000,000 per episode salary made him the highest paid TV actor in history at that point here in season nine.
02:38:47 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[02:38:47] S1: Yep. And we should note here too that Jerry's $1,000,000 per episode salary made him the highest paid TV actor in history at that point here in season nine. [02:39:00] S0: Yep. Without back end. Yep. Just from the per episode fees. [02:39:03] S1: Just from the per episode fees. So all of this leads here at the end of 1997 to Jack Welch inviting Jerry Seinfeld to brunch to discuss a hypothetical tenth season. Jack Welch. [02:39:24] S0: The CEO of the conglomerate General Electric, which is at the time thought to be the best run company in America, in the world. [02:39:32] S1: Yep. And I think the most valuable company by market cap in the world at this point in time. Yes. It is worth Jack Welch's time to take this extremely seriously and invite Jerry Seinfeld to brunch. [02:39:43] S0: And talk about a potential season ten. Yes. But listeners, before we tell that story, now is a great time to tell you about one of our favorite companies, WorkOS. You have heard us talk about this all season. Once you find product market fit, the fastest way to grow is upmarket, and enterprises won't buy your product until you have gotten enterprise requirements like single sign on, SCIM, that's SCIM, permissions, audit logs. WorkOS gives you all
02:39:43 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[02:39:43] S0: And talk about a potential season ten. Yes. But listeners, before we tell that story, now is a great time to tell you about one of our favorite companies, WorkOS. You have heard us talk about this all season. Once you find product market fit, the fastest way to grow is upmarket, and enterprises won't buy your product until you have gotten enterprise requirements like single sign on, SCIM, that's SCIM, permissions, audit logs. WorkOS gives you all [02:40:11] S1: of those as drop in APIs. But the twist now is that it's not just your customer's employees who need to get into your app anymore. It's their agents, which brings me to Kramer. In the classic season eight episode, The Bizarro Jerry, Kramer wanders into an office and just starts working there without ever being fired. When he... Kramer finally does get fired, quote, unquote, for sloppy work, he says, I don't even really work here. [02:40:43] S0: This listeners is the situation for most agents today. People just hand out shared API keys to an agent or borrow human login credentials with full permissions, but obviously with very little accountability. It's really not that different from Kramer managing to get an employee badge.
02:40:43 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[02:40:43] S0: This listeners is the situation for most agents today. People just hand out shared API keys to an agent or borrow human login credentials with full permissions, but obviously with very little accountability. It's really not that different from Kramer managing to get an employee badge. [02:40:59] S1: Yes. So Work OS built the right infrastructure for this, a sign up form for agents. It's called auth. M d, and it's an open protocol. You publish one plain text file to your domain. Auth dot m d tells any agent how to register, what your service offers, and what it's allowed to do. An agent reads it, signs up on the user's behalf, and walks away with its own access token scoped exactly to what it needs and nothing more. [02:41:27] S0: A real world example is Neon, the database company that Databricks bought for a billion dollars. More than 80% of their databases are created by agents, not people. An agent reads neon.com/auth.md, spins up a database scoped to that project, and a human claims it later with one link. [02:41:45] S1: Nice and clean and much more secure. [02:41:49] S0: Auth used to mean proving you are you. Now it means proving your agent is allowed to do this specific thing as you right now with limits. That's how you get in the door with enterprises now, and it's why OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Perplexity, and hundreds of other AI startups build on WorkOS. You can learn more at workos.com/auth-md, and just tell them that Ben and David sent you.