Seinfeld

00:27:11 · David RosenthalPlay from here

[00:27:11] S1: Yep. I think she lasted two or three years, but they bond over, you know, not getting any airtime or their material on the show. So back to this night here in early November nineteen eighty eight when Jerry goes looking for Larry at Catch a Rising Star, this is what's on his mind. Hey. My buddy Larry has experience writing this kind of stuff, Fridays, SNL. He's been on TV. He can help me flesh out what we can do with this opportunity. So he finds Larry. They go out for a walk together. Jerry explains to Larry what's going on, and they stop at a Korean deli there in the Upper East Side, Lee's Market, which is right near the comedy club. And when they're in the deli, they can't help themselves. These are two comics together. They start making jokes about all the products here on the shelves in this Korean deli. Larry makes a quip about Korean jellies, and Jerry looks at some fig bars and says, it looks like somebody made these in their basement. And the words come out of Jerry's mouth, and Larry turns and looks at him and says, this is it. This is what the show should be. This is the kind of dialogue that we should do on the show. You know, two guys just just talking like this. They're both excited, inspired by this. They said, okay. Okay. Great. Let... Let's meet up again tomorrow night after our sets. So the next night, they meet up again. They go to the Westway Diner on 9th Avenue. It's around midnight. And Jerry says to Larry, you know, I've been thinking about what we came up with last night. You know, the number one question I get asked, I'm sure you get asked too, you know, be in stand ups is, where do you get your material? And Larry says, bingo. That's how we set up the show so we can do that kind of dialogue on the show. The premise will be how do stand up comedians get their material? Jerry says, yes. Yes. Great. They... The the comedians, they get their material. They they do this. And he's just gesturing with his hands to themselves there at the table in the coffee shop, hanging out with his friends. And at that moment, Seinfeld is born.

00:29:13 · Ben Gilbert, David RosenthalPlay from here

[00:29:13] S0: Which you'll notice nowhere in there did David say the words, a show about nothing. That has nothing to do with how the show Seinfeld is born. Later on in the show, this is... Seinfeld is so meta. Yes. They would do a season arc where Jerry and George are creating a show called Jerry and pitching NBC about the show. That is a show about nothing. And then, of course, that gets co opted to be like, oh, Seinfeld in real life is a show about nothing. But... [00:29:42] S1: No. No. No. The premise is the show is about how stand up comedians get their material. [00:29:46] S0: Yes. And so this leads Jerry to believe, k. Whatever format this takes, I'm playing myself. And I'm not just playing someone named Jerry. I'm playing someone with my sensibilities, with my observational humor about the world. I'm not gonna cast myself into a character that is super different. I don't wanna do that. I'm not acting. I'm... I mean, we all know Jerry can't act. So [00:30:10] S1: Yeah. Roseanne Barr, the comic who did Roseanne. Like, she's not playing Roseanne Barr on Roseanne. She's playing a sitcom character. [00:30:16] S0: It's a slightly different Jerry Seinfeld. I mean, the version on the show is in a little shoebox apartment, and this guy was making a million dollars a year flying around. So there there are differences, but still, it's it's pretty true to personality. And, again, you can see how this all takes shape because nobody's thinking about a sitcom here.

00:30:16 · Ben Gilbert, David RosenthalPlay from here

[00:30:16] S0: It's a slightly different Jerry Seinfeld. I mean, the version on the show is in a little shoebox apartment, and this guy was making a million dollars a year flying around. So there there are differences, but still, it's it's pretty true to personality. And, again, you can see how this all takes shape because nobody's thinking about a sitcom here. [00:30:33] S1: This is a one off special that they're gonna do. Right. So that brings us to the next month, December 1988, when Jerry returns to NBC in Los Angeles to meet again. This time, bringing both a pitch for the idea, for the script, and a partner, Larry. And NBC, as you might expect, doesn't exactly like either of them, or especially at least doesn't like Larry. But nonetheless, the two of them, Jerry and Larry, walk out of that meeting with probably the most valuable TV deal that has ever been made in all of television history. But before we tell that story, now is a great time to thank our brand new presenting partner this year, Sierra. [00:31:19] S0: Yes. All of the leaders of the world's most important companies today are wrestling with the same question. In a world where everyone has access to the same intelligence, what is my competitive advantage, and what is the right way to turn AI into revenue for our company?

00:31:19 · Ben Gilbert, David RosenthalPlay from here

[00:31:19] S0: Yes. All of the leaders of the world's most important companies today are wrestling with the same question. In a world where everyone has access to the same intelligence, what is my competitive advantage, and what is the right way to turn AI into revenue for our company? [00:31:37] S1: That's where Sierra comes in. First, your customer relationships are your competitive advantage. When you deploy Sierra's AI agents, every interaction adds to your understanding of that customer, deepening the relationship and generating insights that compound over time. Second, you should pay for outcomes, not tokens, like an insurance claim paid or a sale closed or a customer retained. Sierra's pricing model is quite novel in [00:32:04] S0: that way. Sierra is already the leading platform for customer service agents, everything from account sign up to troubleshooting, subscription management. They work with over 40% of the Fortune 50, one in three of the world's leading banks, and five out of the 10 largest health care companies. And their agents can also handle complex workflows that generate revenue too. So think about appointment booking in health care or refinancing a loan in financial services, things that can take weeks or months and span across voice, chat, email, and WhatsApp conversations. And they just introduced a new product, personas. Instead of [00:32:40] S1: every AI agent sounding the same, you know, polite but slightly robotic, you can give your agent a distinct voice and personality, tailoring its tone, humor, even the rhythm of how it speaks

00:32:40 · David Rosenthal, Ben GilbertPlay from here

[00:32:40] S1: every AI agent sounding the same, you know, polite but slightly robotic, you can give your agent a distinct voice and personality, tailoring its tone, humor, even the rhythm of how it speaks [00:32:51] S0: to your brand. And great brands should have a recognizable character to them, and your company's agents should match that same character that you have worked hard to create. [00:33:00] S1: How an agent speaks impacts customer trust, and Sierra told us that one of the largest telecommunication companies in the world just introduced a new voice and persona for their Sierra agent. And the rate it solved customers' problems increased by nearly 50%. Five zero. So to find [00:33:18] S0: out how you can build standout customer experiences that grow your business with AI, visit sierra.ai/acquired, and just tell them that Ben and David sent you. So, David, Jerry and Larry, they've got a TV deal. Right? There's a show? [00:33:34] S1: Well, right. So Jerry and Larry have this TV deal that would go on to become, you know, arguably the most valuable television deal in history. But NBC isn't sure about the idea, and they definitely aren't sure about Larry. Why on earth do they go through with this? Well, one, as we talked about this whole, you know, comedians crossing over into television is currently hot. So they're motivated to do it. It's part of their corporate strategy, which he [00:33:59] S0: In general, you're probably gonna get eyeballs if you bring in a a brand name star or a star in a show. Yep.

00:33:59 · Ben Gilbert, David RosenthalPlay from here

[00:33:59] S0: In general, you're probably gonna get eyeballs if you bring in a a brand name star or a star in a show. Yep. [00:34:05] S1: Young male comic. You want your young male audience, you know, in urban areas, etcetera, etcetera. Great. But two, more important, at the end of the day, this is just a one off ninety minute special that they're talking about here as a commitment. This is not a big deal. Like, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. They decide in the meeting, great. Okay. Fine. Let's call this thing Seinfeld's stand up diary. [00:34:30] S0: I never caught this. Yeah. Oh, before that's the name before the name. [00:34:34] S1: That was the original working name for the show when it was still in this conception as a one off special that was gonna be about how Seinfeld got his material. And then the the premise was gonna be at the end of the special, you would see him on stage doing his stand up material Ah. That he got throughout the episode. [00:34:53] S0: Ah, okay. What's the name again? [00:34:55] S1: Seinfeld's stand up diary. [00:34:57] S0: Okay. This is so fun to see how, like, all the rough edges get sanded off so it eventually becomes the thing we know.