The Elon-Vivek Bromance, Condé Questions & ESPN’s Valuation

Good morning,

It was another terrific week here at Puck: Lauren Sherman captured the intrigue inside Condé Nast; Bill Cohan did the pencil math on ESPN and chatted with a former SVB executive; Matt Belloni reported on Hollywood’s Israel politics, and Peter Hamby explained the Democrats’ headaches on the same issue. Meanwhile, Julia Alexander dug into YouTube’s streaming future; Abby Livington monitored the Capitol Hill shitshow; and Tina Nguyen and Tara Palmeri previewed the new guy’s fresh headaches. And, of course, Julia Ioffe recalled the halcyon days of the two-state solution.

Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it all came together.

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FASHION:
Lauren Sherman gathers the cries from the Condé Nast salt mines.

WALL STREET:
Bill Cohan provides a valuation for ESPN and gets the real story on the fall of SVB.

MEDIA:
Dylan Byers has the latest on the Bezos bakeoff at The Washington Post.
and…
Eriq Gardner ascertains whether the Trump trials will be televised

HOLLYWOOD:
Matt Belloni explains the complications of Hollywood’s Israel politics
and…
Julia Alexander details YouTube TV’s path toward domination.

SILICON VALLEY:
Teddy Schleifer inspects the Elon-Vivek bromance.

WASHINGTON:
Julia Ioffe talks to Dennis Ross, architect of the 2000 peace talks, about his memories of the two-state solution.
and…
Peter Hamby digs into the Democrats’ surprising Israel polling challenge.
Meanwhile…
Abby Livington chronicles a kooky week on Capitol Hill while Tina Nguyen previews Mike Johnson’s McCathy-esque challenges and Tara Palmeri notes the winners and losers in this brave new world.

PODCASTS:
🚨 Julia Ioffe just dropped the final episode of her brilliant limited series show, About a Boy.
and…
Matt Belloni discusses Marvel’s post-“Avengers” mismanagement on The Town.
and…
Tara Palmeri and Tina Nguyen discuss the fantasy of “MAGA Mike” on Somebody’s Gotta Win.
and…
Peter Hamby and Dylan Byers get into an epic Times misfire on The Powers That Be.

Meanwhile, I also encourage you to take advantage of our article gifting feature. You can share our work with your colleagues, friends, and family. Subscribers are entitled to 5 article gifts per month.

Washington Monuments

On Monday night, I found myself at the top of The Hay-Adams, the beautiful and historic hotel on 16th Street, overlooking the White House, the Washington Monument, and the glistening Potomac beyond. Washington D.C. is exquisitely scenic in the fall, and we had just so happened upon a perfect evening: the pink-hued sky was dotted by 737s, coming in and out of DCA, rapidly corkscrewing their way out of the D.C. airspace. It was one of those vistas both eerily familiar and yet overwhelmingly fresh all at once. As I was reminded, it was the very backdrop for Tom Brokaw’s old special events coverage back in the day. (In the era of unlimited audience and unlimited budgets, NBC News happily turned the Top of the Hay into a makeshift studio.) I closed my eyes and could conjure those images from my childhood and formative years, the landscape largely unchanged.

I was in town for the first leg of Puck’s new conference tentpole, The Powers That Be: Live—a modern twist on an event series that focuses on the best ingredients in the recipe: the featured guest, the party, and the crowd, itself. And all without requiring guests to hop on a plane. For our first go around of the series, we’re hosting events in some of our top markets, featuring newsmaking and shapeshifting guests. Matt Belloni will be interviewing Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, later this month in Los Angeles. Bill Cohan will have a conversation with David Solomon, the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, subsequently in New York. I was in D.C. to attend Peter Hamby’s chat with Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s former chief of staff.

It was a great evening for an event: there was Dr. Anthony Fauci and Christine Grady, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Debbie Dingell, Bob Woodward, Ambassador Yousef Al Otaibi, Ambassador Laurent Bili, Ben Labolt, Karine Jean-Pierre, Tammy Haddad, Col. Dave Butler, Juleanna Glover, Symone Sanders, Heather Podesta, Opal Vadhan, the White House in-crowd and more. The conversation was off the record, of course, but Klain offered unique and fascinating insights into Biden’s decision process, the election, and more. It was a swell event, thanks in no small part to the tireless work of Jane Sarkin and Matt Ullian, two of the forces behind the old Vanity Fair Oscar party, who helped pull everything off with aplomb. And thanks to our partners at Mayer Brown for their support.

Obviously, many private conversations that evening turned to the twin crises consuming the town: the local nightmare at the Capitol, where the unknown “MAGA Mike” Johnson would soon be ascending to the top of the greasy pole, and then the horror unfolding in the Middle East. Of course, these topics have been our preoccupations here at Puck, too. In Mike Johnson in the MAGA Meat Grinder, Tina Nguyen reveals the two dozen-ish McCarthy antagonistes aren’t prepared to extend a long leash for the new guy in charge, no matter the chaos it might create. (For that lot, alas, the more mayhem the better.) And in a typically brilliant piece, Julia Ioffe interviewed Dennis Ross, the man Clinton tasked with negotiating peace between Arafat and Barak in 2000—perhaps the last moment that the two-state solution seemed truly viable.

If you only have time to read one story this weekend, I’d behoove you to turn your attention to Julia’s utterly extraordinary conversation, Memories of a Two-State Solution. It’s a perfect reflection of the sort of sophisticated, nuanced version of the inside conversation that you should always expect from Puck.

Have a great weekend,
Jon

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