Acquired
00:30:16 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[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 Rosenthal
[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 Gilbert
[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 Rosenthal
[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.
00:34:57 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[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. [00:35:03] S1: Totally. Totally. Okay. So the deal. What's the deal? Why is it so valuable? How much is NBC gonna gonna pay these guys? Well, actually, NBC isn't gonna pay them anything directly. Because at the time, NBC could not legally own the show. Thanks to rules from the FCC at the time, broadcast networks were prohibited from actually owning the content that they broadcast on the networks a set of rules called financial interests in syndication or FinCEN. [00:35:43] S0: Yes. So time for a little history lesson, listeners. So today, you know about these, like, media conglomerates. But before that, the TV networks were entirely separate companies than the production studios. So NBC was its own thing, totally separate from Universal. CBS, just a broadcast network, nothing to do with Paramount. ABC, separate from Disney. So the networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, right when TV production started in the fifties, they need to hire the production studios to make stuff for them to broadcast on their networks. Some of these studios were very large, like Paramount or Universal or Warner Brothers or Disney. Some of them were really small, like MTM Entertainment, which is named after the Mary
00:35:43 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[00:35:43] S0: Yes. So time for a little history lesson, listeners. So today, you know about these, like, media conglomerates. But before that, the TV networks were entirely separate companies than the production studios. So NBC was its own thing, totally separate from Universal. CBS, just a broadcast network, nothing to do with Paramount. ABC, separate from Disney. So the networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, right when TV production started in the fifties, they need to hire the production studios to make stuff for them to broadcast on their networks. Some of these studios were very large, like Paramount or Universal or Warner Brothers or Disney. Some of them were really small, like MTM Entertainment, which is named after the Mary [00:36:25] S1: Taylor Moore Show. Yep. Or Desi Liu of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Yes. Interestingly, the big guys, the big Hollywood studios getting into making TV, talked about on our Disney series. It was Walt Disney that started doing that. Originally, the Hollywood studios kinda boycotted TV because they were worried about it as a threat to the film business. Walt was the first one who was kind of the visionary. Said, no. No. No. These these broadcasters, there's so much money that's gonna be made here as television sweeps the nation, and we're gonna be the best arms dealer for them. [00:36:57] S0: And if we flash all the way forward, way more money was in TV [00:37:02] S1: than Way more. Way more money in TV.