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Speaker 1: Also media, we could happen. So wow, Okay, we're just

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Speaker 1: both doing the intro, all right.

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Speaker 2: I wanted to be the intro. I was saying that

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Speaker 2: wokness has won the Super Bowl.

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Speaker 1: Ah because yeah, okay, okay, hold on, this is my

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Speaker 1: this is this is my moment. I've got the soapbox.

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Speaker 1: This is it could happen here. Everyone has the Taylor

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Speaker 1: Swift conspiracy wrong. Taylor Swift is completely uninvolved in the

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Speaker 1: NFL's conspiracy to make sure Patrick Mahomes wins every fucking game.

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Speaker 1: All of these fucking all these fucking bogged chuns or

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Speaker 1: fucking Johnny come Late doesn't care about football fans. Real

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Speaker 1: fans know that if you look at every fourth quarter

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Speaker 1: of every fucking Chiefs game before Taylor Shift got involved,

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Speaker 1: it looks exactly the same. All right, this is been

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Speaker 1: It could happen here. We may or may not cut that.

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Speaker 2: I can't believe that the liberal Taylor Swift, Joe Joe

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Speaker 2: Biden's puppet Taylor Swift and Travis Peiser Kelsey stole the

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Speaker 2: Super Bowl from the Christian people of San Francisco, the

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Speaker 2: only bashtate of conservatism left in this country.

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Speaker 1: It is so incredibly funny, Like, okay, so it's so

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Speaker 1: credibly funny to me A that they're not mad at

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Speaker 1: Patrick Mahomes and b that somehow, okay the Chiefs, like,

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Speaker 1: imagine you're a Chiefs fan, right, you have been for

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Speaker 1: like thirty years racist, you have been doing its called

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Speaker 1: and I quote the tomahawk chop, like you are the

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Speaker 1: most racist person in your entire small town. And then

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Speaker 1: all of these fucking dip shits online, all these fucking

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Speaker 1: right wing dipshits immediately like all of you guys are

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Speaker 1: like fucking pussy woke libs. And it's just like, like,

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Speaker 1: imagine being that racist for that long only to be

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Speaker 1: immediately tossed aside.

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Speaker 2: It is kind of baffling that, in like the country's

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Speaker 2: national divorce overwokeness, somehow the liberals get to keep football

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Speaker 2: like this that is that's so busy? Are that that

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Speaker 2: now football is seen as like a liberal cuck thing

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Speaker 2: to enjoy among the largest swaths of of Republicans, at

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Speaker 2: least at least online Republicans.

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Speaker 1: It's really funny, fascinating this this is how we're going

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Speaker 1: to beat them in the fucking civil war, because we're

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Speaker 1: going to take the college campuses, which means that we're

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Speaker 1: going to have the only watchable footballs. These bastards are

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Speaker 1: going to be reduced to watching fucking high school games.

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Speaker 2: Like speaking speaking of watching football.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so the thing this episode is actually about is

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Speaker 1: if you watch the Super Bowl or like, God help you,

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Speaker 1: you've tried to use YouTube without an AD blocker, a

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Speaker 1: thing I do not recommend at all. You have seen

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Speaker 1: ads for Temu. W it's Timu or Temu Temu temo. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it has the absolute, the absolute Oh good god, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this this app this one. This one's bad, folks, This

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Speaker 1: one's I I went insane and have been spiraling for

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Speaker 1: like two weeks now writing this, so you know. So

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Speaker 1: it has the absolutely dogshit tagline shop like a Billionaire.

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Speaker 2: Wait that's its tagline. Yeah, Oh that's weird.

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Speaker 1: It's funny. The everything is they only have one ad, righty,

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Speaker 1: it's not just super Bowl like it's It's been on

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Speaker 1: YouTube for like ages. But yeah, so this begs the

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Speaker 1: obvious question, what on earth is this thing? And the

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Speaker 1: answer is that Temu is the American version of a

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Speaker 1: Chinese shopping gap called Pindadu. You will hear people pronouncing

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Speaker 1: it pin Duo duo. That's because they're hacks and frauds.

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Speaker 1: So but I'm just gonna call it so. The the company,

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Speaker 1: the parent company for both Temu and Pinda Doua, changed

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Speaker 1: their name to PDD, so I'm just gonna call it that.

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Speaker 3: So.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, PDD is China's worst tech giant. They have worked

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Speaker 1: multiple of their employees to death. They probably also use

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Speaker 1: slave labor. Those are unrelated stories. So today, welcome to

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Speaker 1: the abyss. This is the story of Tamu. I have

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Speaker 1: stared into it, and now you motherfuckers are coming with

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Speaker 1: me and staring into it some more.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's more like we're listening into it because it

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Speaker 2: doesn't really.

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Speaker 1: Have a visual No, no, you're staring into it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you will get visuals. I will say to this bullshit.

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Speaker 3: I will.

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Speaker 2: I will start hallucinating in my office.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So, Timoo is the American version of PDD. PDD

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Speaker 1: it roughly translates to together more savings.

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Speaker 2: Together, so it's like a co op.

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Speaker 1: Actually, it probably sells stuff from co ops.

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Speaker 2: Okay, huh.

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Speaker 1: So PDD is the second largest shopping app in China

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Speaker 1: behind Ali Baba. Ali Baba is is like version of Amazon. Basically,

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Speaker 1: they're the second largest app. Ali Baba reportedly has eight

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty sixty three million users per year.

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Speaker 2: That's a lot of users.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's multiple us is. PDD has been claiming

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Speaker 1: that they have seven hundred and forty million monthly users.

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Speaker 1: It's unclear if that's exactly true, but it's probably around there,

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Speaker 1: which again, that is twice the entire population of the US.

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Speaker 1: So this is a fucking unbelievably massive company. And to

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Speaker 1: understand what this what this company is, and how it

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Speaker 1: became probably the worst of the Chinese tech giants, we

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Speaker 1: have to go back to the very beginning. And the

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Speaker 1: very beginning is this guy named Colin Huang. Huang is

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Speaker 1: a weird guy. I don't know, he's he's he's he's

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Speaker 1: the Chinese version of the American tech bro. So he's

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Speaker 1: you know, he's he's a recognizable like asshole who started

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Speaker 1: a giant company, but he's not zactly the same. So

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Speaker 1: he he So he graduates from like college and China

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Speaker 1: and in the early two thousands he goes to the

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Speaker 1: University of Wisconsin to get a master's degree in computer science,

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Speaker 1: which it like it should be illegal for anyone to

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Speaker 1: get degrees in computer science. Uh, terrible stuff, zero out

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Speaker 1: of time. I should know how to use computers.

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Speaker 2: I can't believe you'd be believe in the status legal

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Speaker 2: system to prevent people from learning fin social sanctions.

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Speaker 1: We're going to make it morally illegal. We're going to

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Speaker 1: get chased out by people with the rocks on the

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Speaker 1: street if you try to type something, get do a computer.

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Speaker 1: So okay. So he's at the University of Wisconsin, and

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Speaker 1: while he's there, he basically like posts his way into

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Speaker 1: becoming the pro basically the protege of Chinese tech billionaire

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Speaker 1: Duan Youngping. This is an interesting relationship. Duan is like

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Speaker 1: a very very influential Chinese tech tech billionaire. He gets

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Speaker 1: every single article calls him the Warren Buffett of China.

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Speaker 1: I don't fucking know, but like, you know, for like foreacta,

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Speaker 1: like how big this guy is. Like Vivo and like

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Speaker 1: the one plus company of the mixed phones those are both

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Speaker 1: like spin offs of like things that he built. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you know, so this is this is an interesting

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Speaker 1: relationship for Huang because and it's also interesting because like

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Speaker 1: the narrative around Huang and PDDs that they're like these

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Speaker 1: like hungry upstarts like clunging their way up from nothing,

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Speaker 1: and they can like go after Ali Baba and the

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Speaker 1: Chinese like tech market wars because they're like they're ferocious,

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Speaker 1: they have like nothing to lose. I'm like they're rich

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Speaker 1: and fat Alibaba and like nah, Like this guy has

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Speaker 1: had the backing of like a bunch of really powerful

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Speaker 1: Chinese tech guys, like from the absolute beginning. Another part

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Speaker 1: of like the Huang lore is that Duan like took

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Speaker 1: him to this really famous dinner where Warren Buffett was

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Speaker 1: offering if if you donated like six hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars to charity, he would like eat dinner with

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Speaker 1: you and like talk with you about like finance stuff.

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Speaker 1: And so Dwan like buys this thing to go to

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Speaker 1: dinner with Warren Buffett and brings Huang with him, and

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Speaker 1: he Huang who's who's Huang's the founder of PDD Again,

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Speaker 1: so he gives him credit for like this this like

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Speaker 1: financial wisdom that he got here. Here's just from an

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Speaker 1: interview with Side Jim. This is a Chinese outlet. What

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Speaker 1: Buffett said is actually very simple and can be understood

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Speaker 1: by my mother. Perhaps what this meal meant most to

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Speaker 1: me was that I realized the power of simplicity and

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Speaker 1: common sense. Human thoughts are easily polluted. When you make

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Speaker 1: a judgment on something, you need to understand the backgrounds

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Speaker 1: and facts after understanding it. What you need is not wisdom,

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Speaker 1: but whether you have the courage to use reason when

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Speaker 1: facing facts, use common sense to judge. Common Sense is

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Speaker 1: obvious and easy to understand, but our various biases and

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Speaker 1: personal interests form due to growth and learning blind us.

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Speaker 1: So this is like entrepreneurial bullshit. But you know this

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Speaker 1: is apparently this is like a big formative like things

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Speaker 1: like ah, he like got the wisdom of word Buffett

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Speaker 1: and he listened to it. It's just like what. There's

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Speaker 1: the thing I think is more interesting is that he

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Speaker 1: talks about what in the same interview what Dwan taught him.

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Speaker 1: Swan also taught me a common sense thing. In business,

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Speaker 1: price fluctuates around value. The price will definitely fluctuate, but

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Speaker 1: as long as your value increases, the final price will

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Speaker 1: be close to the value. This common sense allows you

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Speaker 1: to focus on increasing the intrinsic value of the company

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Speaker 1: and not be overly concerned about price fluctuations in the

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Speaker 1: capital market. And this, to me is fascinating because the

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Speaker 1: first half of that is like orthodox Marxist price theory,

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Speaker 1: like in like in Marxist price theory. Right, The whole

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Speaker 1: thing about it is that price is determined by value.

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Speaker 1: The value of a commodity is determined by like the

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Speaker 1: number of the amount of labor hour is socially necessary

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Speaker 1: to produce it, and eventually, like price sort of like fluctuate,

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Speaker 1: the price can change. It's not price isn't like identical

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Speaker 1: to like socially necessarily like labor time, but it like

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Speaker 1: fluctuates around it. And so that's like the first part

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Speaker 1: of it, which is the Marxist thing, except this is

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Speaker 1: like China, like modern like twenty twenties China. So Marx's

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Speaker 1: value theory has been degraded to like make your company

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Speaker 1: valuable and don't worry about stock prices and market fluctuations.

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Speaker 1: It will work out in the end.

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Speaker 2: So true, so true based based.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the funny thing is this is actually better,

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Speaker 1: like you get the advice than like most of the

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Speaker 1: shit that like American CEOs use. But it's also, oh god,

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Speaker 1: what has happened to my poor value theory, my beloved,

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Speaker 1: my beloved theory of how capitalism works has been turned

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Speaker 1: into this weird tech bullshit tragedy. So meanwhile, back in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and four, Duan convinces Hwang to turn down

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Speaker 1: a bunch of these jobs. So he's he's like a

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Speaker 1: computer science graduate, right, and he's being headhunted by like

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Speaker 1: a bunch of the sort of like mainstream tech companies

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Speaker 1: at the time, like Oracle, Microsoft, and they're giving they

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Speaker 1: want to give him like an enormous amount of money,

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Speaker 1: but his mentors like, no, no, no, don't take this

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Speaker 1: tech job. Take the Silicon Valley tech job. Joined Google.

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Speaker 1: And so he joins Google, and this is this is

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Speaker 1: another like very famous thing. It's like, ah, he wanted

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Speaker 1: to join the like up and coming, hungry tech startup.

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Speaker 1: But here's the thing. So Google. He joins Google in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and four, which is kind of early, but

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Speaker 1: Google also goes public that year, so you know, this

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Speaker 1: is up working really well for him because he gets

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Speaker 1: a bunch of stock options that those stock options are

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Speaker 1: worth millions of dollars. That's a lot of Also some

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Speaker 1: of the startup capital for like the later companies he

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Speaker 1: founds comes from that, and Huang really quickly like works

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Speaker 1: his way up the ranks. But he so he gets

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Speaker 1: put in charge of like launching Google in China, and

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Speaker 1: this is a fiasco, does not work at all. Huong

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Speaker 1: blames like too much oversight from people at the senior

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Speaker 1: leadership at Google, which I can get, but I mean

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Speaker 1: it just doesn't work at all. Like he starts as

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Speaker 1: at two thousand and six, by twenty ten, Google has

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Speaker 1: pulled out of trying to entirely like they're not they're

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Speaker 1: not trying to push the fucking search edge because nobody

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Speaker 1: uses it. So okay, Having having like unbelievably bombed out

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Speaker 1: of his first tech job, he he does the like

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Speaker 1: entrepreneur thing. He starts like a couple of these like

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Speaker 1: shopping like online shopping companies. They do like fine, and

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Speaker 1: he sells them, but they don't like do incredible and

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Speaker 1: so okay. So this is the part that a lot

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Speaker 1: of the accounts of him leave out, like the sort

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Speaker 1: of like fawning accounts leave out. Is the next thing

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Speaker 1: that he does, which is he sets up this like

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Speaker 1: really shitty game studio and they make like a bunch

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Speaker 1: of like absolutely unbelievably weird and horny mobile games. So

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Speaker 1: they make like Mafia City, Joy Spade, Texas, Hold'm Poker.

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Speaker 1: They have this game called Girl ex Battle that is

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Speaker 1: like you you assemble a harem of girlfriends and then

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Speaker 1: have them fight other people stuff Like absolutely.

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Speaker 2: Have you played any of these?

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Speaker 1: Oh no, absolutely not, I refuse. I think I've actually

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Speaker 1: seen Mafia City ads before, but it's like, like it's

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Speaker 1: the absolute most dog shit like bargain basement. I guess

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Speaker 1: they're kind of pre gotcha games.

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Speaker 2: I was just wondering how far your dedication to research

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Speaker 2: went here, but.

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Speaker 1: Not far enough. Look here's the thing. My dedication of

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Speaker 1: research went exactly far enough that I refuse to install

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Speaker 1: any of these apps for reasons that we'll get into

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Speaker 1: next episode. I was like, absolutely not. In fact, this

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Speaker 1: doing this research actually caused me to uninstall chaw Bus,

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Speaker 1: which is like a Chinese food delivery app, because I

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Speaker 1: realized that it was constantly running in the background to

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Speaker 1: like to drive up. It's like user engagement metrics.

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Speaker 2: That is completely fair, Although if you were even more dedicated,

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Speaker 2: you could have bought a burner phone to download all

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Speaker 2: these apps onto and tested on that.

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Speaker 1: So that's true, but I no, I refuse to let

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Speaker 1: that shit connect my internet. Like, under no circumstances.

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Speaker 2: You can go to a Starbucks, you can go to

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Speaker 2: his See I've just thrown out options here.

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Speaker 1: I probably could have done this, but no, absolutely not. Actually, well,

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Speaker 1: it's actually really hard to download the Chinese version of this,

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Speaker 1: for reasons that we'll get into the next episode. All right,

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Speaker 1: all right, but okay, So, like he's running this shitty

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Speaker 1: game company and he has a genuinely brilliant and terrible insight,

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Speaker 1: which is that she sees how addictive like mobile gaming

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Speaker 1: and how addictive like micro transactions are, and he goes,

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Speaker 1: oh shit, what if I put this in a shopping gap?

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Speaker 1: Except that okay, so that's the reasonable way to explain it.

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Speaker 1: But like, the thing he actually did was like why

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Speaker 1: are Okay, his thought his actual thought process was why

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Speaker 1: are we not selling game? Games are all like advertised

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Speaker 1: in men, right, like these the apps that he's making

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Speaker 1: are like weird, horny stuff for guys. Why are we

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Speaker 1: not making games with women? Which is reasonable, But then

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Speaker 1: his follow up was U, effectively women be shopping, and

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Speaker 1: he was like, so trying it will make a shopping

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Speaker 1: thing it's just like, we'll make we'll make we'll make

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Speaker 1: an app to make shopping into a game. And so

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Speaker 1: one of the things he's he's also been doing one

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Speaker 1: of the like the kind of like search engine optimization scams,

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Speaker 1: where like he just keeps making different shopping like shopping

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Speaker 1: websites and hoping that one of them will like climb

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Speaker 1: in the search rankings. But eventually he hits on a

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Speaker 1: like a combination of using the like dog shit like

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Speaker 1: addictive mobile gamification stuff from his mobile games in a

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Speaker 1: like in an online shopping app, and he hits on

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Speaker 1: that as the idea for a new shopping app. And

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Speaker 1: this is what turns into PDD. Now do you know

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Speaker 1: what didn't turn into PDD and is in fact better

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Speaker 1: Hopefully these ads that are.

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Speaker 2: Not for tebou we better not get a fucking temo ad. Hopefully, I.

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Speaker 1: It's actually possible. It's oh god, well, careful what you

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Speaker 1: wish for. And we're back. So PDD doesn't start in

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Speaker 1: the way that normal tech app things do, which is

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Speaker 1: to say that PDD starts as an online fruit vendor. Now, okay,

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Speaker 1: if you know anything like a.

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Speaker 2: Like a farmer's market online like what what yeah, okay,

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Speaker 2: So if you know anything about how like Amazon worked, right,

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Speaker 2: So Amazon goes from books to a bunch of stuff

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Speaker 2: to food.

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Speaker 1: PDD does this backwards. They start in food. Now, this

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Speaker 1: is very weird. And the reason this works, and the

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Speaker 1: reason that PDD starts as a marketplace for rural farmers

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Speaker 1: and self roofs and vegetables like directly to consumers is

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Speaker 1: because unfortunately of the structure of the Chinese agricultural mark,

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Speaker 1: which we have to talk about a little bit. So

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Speaker 1: something I talked about. God, I don't know how many

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Speaker 1: years ago this was now, but like a while back

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Speaker 1: I did an episode about this company that poisons like

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Speaker 1: three hundred thousand babies by making poisoned milk in China,

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Speaker 1: and one of the things, though that was a Bastard's episode.

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Speaker 1: Of the things I talked about in that episode was

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Speaker 1: how the Chinese agricultural market is incredibly fragmented. We don't

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Speaker 1: have time to do a full history of rural decollectivization here,

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Speaker 1: but the upshot of it is that it results in

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Speaker 1: a lot of farmers working really small plots of land

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Speaker 1: who are forced to sell their goods to a series

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Speaker 1: of middlemen who make the actual profits. And because these

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Speaker 1: farmers have like a tiny amount of land and grow

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Speaker 1: stuff on or they have like two cows, right, they

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Speaker 1: don't have the financial leverage to negotiate with like the middleman.

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Speaker 1: The middle bank can just set prices on them. And

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Speaker 1: the product of this is you have a really really

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Speaker 1: fragmented market where there's just like all of these like

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Speaker 1: unbelievably large numbers of these really small sellers and part

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Speaker 1: of and you know, and and and this and this,

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Speaker 1: this locks all of these people into the middlemen. The

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Speaker 1: middle man can set the prices. The middlemen set the

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Speaker 1: prices incredibly low, and they're locked in because they don't

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Speaker 1: have another distribution method because the only thing they can

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Speaker 1: do is sell to these like agricultural middleman companies. The

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Speaker 1: companies like above them, like your grocery companies are like

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Speaker 1: actual milk company who packages the milk. They love this

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Speaker 1: stuff because it means that they don't have to like

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Speaker 1: pay the farmers. They can just buy like the goods directly.

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Speaker 1: They don't have to deal with like employment stuff, and

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Speaker 1: they don't have to deal with quality control too, because

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Speaker 1: they can pass that on to the middlemen. Now, something

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Speaker 1: else we talked about in our anti work Lying Flat

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Speaker 1: episodes like three years ago, is that China has these

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Speaker 1: like far like rural influencers. That was it was like

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Speaker 1: a huge wave of these people that sort of like emerge.

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Speaker 1: You might actually have seen you've seen the videos of

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Speaker 1: just like someone in rural China like cutting wood or something.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, totally, totally yeah.

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Speaker 1: So those those things were We're like, Okay, the US

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Speaker 1: catches up the stuff on the Chinese internet like usually

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Speaker 1: several years after like happened there and that makes sense. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the next thing in line after the original sort

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Speaker 1: of rural influencer waves was these like was this wave

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Speaker 1: of like farmer influencers and these people they're using like

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Speaker 1: a different Chinese like it's like another it's like another

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Speaker 1: tick dot clone basically, and they're doing the thing that

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Speaker 1: they're doing is okay. So you you know, you have

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Speaker 1: your regular influencer who's trying to sell you like the

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Speaker 1: image of rural life, right, and then you have the

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Speaker 1: farmer influencers who are trying to sell you the image

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Speaker 1: of rural life and also their potatoes. And this is

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Speaker 1: this is like the marketing strategy. This is this is

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Speaker 1: this is this is how you can skip the middlemen

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Speaker 1: and like actually sell your fruit is by becoming an influencer.

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Speaker 1: Which it's so cursed. It's so cursed. I hate it

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Speaker 1: so much.

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Speaker 2: That is kind of dystopian, and it's just the constant,

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Speaker 2: the constant performance.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. But the problem is that the alternative to it

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Speaker 1: is even worse because PDD really is this. They're looking

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Speaker 1: at these markets and they're like, hold on, these farmers

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Speaker 1: are already selling their goods for like next to nothing.

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Speaker 1: If we come in, pay them a bit better, use

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Speaker 1: our text or like our tech money to ourex startup money.

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Speaker 1: They have an enormous amount of tex startup money. If

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Speaker 1: we use that tech startup money to give them rebates,

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Speaker 1: we can do things that like you know, we can

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Speaker 1: not charge them commission, right, And if we can do this,

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Speaker 1: we can turn around and sell these fruits for like

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Speaker 1: zero dollars a zero dollars is this l like exaggeration,

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Speaker 1: but when I like, they're selling these fruits for an

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Speaker 1: are unbelievably cheap, Like we are talking ten mangos for

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Speaker 1: a dollar and thirty nine cents, which is like a steal, outrageous, right,

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Speaker 1: And you know this is this is incredibly successful. What

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Speaker 1: they're doing basically is a giant version of the Amazon gambit. Right,

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Speaker 1: they're eating shit and taking losses to sell all of

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Speaker 1: this stuff, although they're losing less money than you'd think,

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Speaker 1: like the actual price of these goods is already so low,

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Speaker 1: and we're gonna come back to that too, because that

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Speaker 1: that's an aspect of what's so messed up about this

380
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Speaker 1: whole thing. But you know, so they eat shit, it

381
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Speaker 1: takes some losses, but they really really quickly build market share.

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Speaker 1: So this is a very very short smart strategy because

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Speaker 1: it's not just in the sort of real market. China

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Speaker 1: has a shit ton of like small and medium sized

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Speaker 1: producers that make a whole bunch of things, or like

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Speaker 1: guy with one factory person doing like craft production stuff.

387
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Speaker 1: And pdd's plan is to pull together all of these

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Speaker 1: sellers like this, this whole all all of these people

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Speaker 1: from different markets into just one giant, like one giant

390
00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:39,639
Speaker 1: like market that they control now importantly unlike Amazon, And

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Speaker 1: this is unlike ali Baba too, because Ali Baba works

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Speaker 1: on a fairly similar model to well, okay, in a

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Speaker 1: lot of ways, is a similar model to Amazon. It's identical,

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Speaker 1: but Unlike those two companies, PDD doesn't run their own

395
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Speaker 1: logistics network. It's all it's all third party. Like the

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00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 1: shipping and all that shit is done by is done

397
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Speaker 1: through third party logistics stuff. So like their shipping companies,

398
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 1: they don't own warehouses like that stuff, you know, what

399
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,560
Speaker 1: they're What they do instead is they use the shipping

400
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Speaker 1: companies and warehouses that were developed in like the earlier

401
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:13,359
Speaker 1: parts of the Chinese tech boom, and they're able to

402
00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 1: just use that infrastructure to you know, to to ship

403
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:19,159
Speaker 1: all their stuff around. And this means that the company

404
00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 1: is extremely lean in the sense that like they don't

405
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:25,040
Speaker 1: have a lot of physical assets like they know, and

406
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:26,760
Speaker 1: this means they don't have to deal with labor costs

407
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:29,119
Speaker 1: or like the logistics problems of actually having to like

408
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 1: you know, of actually having employees packing boxes and making things.

409
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Speaker 1: They're just an app. It's it's it's well, they're they're

410
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:39,640
Speaker 1: like the original model of Uber in some sense, right

411
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Speaker 1: where like you don't like Uber doesn't fucking own or

412
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Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to be owning cars. I mean, I guess

413
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Speaker 1: Uber's a bad example because they were trying to do

414
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Speaker 1: the automated car thing. But that was a fiasco. But

415
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Speaker 1: you know, the thing that PDD makes is just an app,

416
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 1: but it's it's an incredibly addictive app, like it's it's

417
00:22:56,640 --> 00:23:00,080
Speaker 1: it's a shopping gotcha game, which is like maybe the

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Speaker 1: worst sentence in the history of the human language.

419
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Speaker 2: And this was like this was around the time, like

420
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Speaker 2: I want to say, like tennish years ago, give or

421
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Speaker 2: take a few years, where like micro transactions were becoming massive,

422
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Speaker 2: like all, like it took over gaming, It took over

423
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Speaker 2: so many parts of just being online, It took over apps,

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Speaker 2: like it just it just infected everything, and we luckily

425
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Speaker 2: kind of pushed back on some some of that. We're

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Speaker 2: still not all of it, but like there was definitely

427
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 2: some some degree of like, oh, well, we are simply

428
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Speaker 2: not going to be buying all of these games if

429
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 2: it's just full of micro micro transaction bullshit. And then

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Speaker 2: Fortnite took over and we're back and how again, but whatever.

431
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Speaker 1: Actually it's it's pretty funny. China kind of recently the

432
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 1: Chinese government like did a crackdown on like loop boxes

433
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: and stuff because they were some of some of the

434
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:54,440
Speaker 1: some of the regulations they put in place are nuts,

435
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,640
Speaker 1: but some of it was like, you can't sell loop,

436
00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 1: you can't sell gambling the children. Yeah, and this caused

437
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:02,920
Speaker 1: like it's funny because they're kind of walking it back

438
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 1: now because it hurt their gaming market so much. They're like, well, shit, okay,

439
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 1: we have to we need those yeah, like that's the

440
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 1: only way to make money. Yeah. But you know, but

441
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,199
Speaker 1: PDDs like brilliant. They're sort of like the the the

442
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,439
Speaker 1: absolutely evil shit that they realized is like, we can

443
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:21,399
Speaker 1: just we can just do this for shopping. And so

444
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 1: like the moment you log in, right, there's like these

445
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 1: flash deals, and there's these group deals, and this is

446
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:28,320
Speaker 1: the thing that the group deals are, the thing that

447
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 1: that PDD is based around. So the way it works

448
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 1: is you get these group deals, and so you get

449
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:35,919
Speaker 1: a link and you send it to people, and the

450
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 1: more people click on the link to buy the thing,

451
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: the cheaper it becomes. So and then you send the

452
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 1: links over we chat, which is the curve of like

453
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 1: catch all Chinese messenger or like social media app that

454
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:49,159
Speaker 1: everyone uses to like talk to their boomer parents. And

455
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: so the thing that your boomer parents are doing is

456
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 1: they're sending these shopping links to each other, and you know,

457
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:58,160
Speaker 1: and the the the more like the more people click

458
00:24:58,160 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 1: on these links, the cheaper the good becomes. So when

459
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: the more people are buying it, the more people you

460
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:04,479
Speaker 1: rope into buying stuff from this app, the cheaper it is,

461
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 1: and the more deals you get you get things like

462
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:10,159
Speaker 1: they'll just like give you like quote unquote free money

463
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 1: if you spend enough money, basically like in the same

464
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: way that like micro transaction works right, where it's like,

465
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 1: you know, in a game, it's like if you play

466
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:19,959
Speaker 1: the x number of games, will give you like in

467
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 1: game currency, whereas this is just like will literally give

468
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: you money. We're like send things to you.

469
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 2: God, that sounds like hell, it's awful.

470
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:32,159
Speaker 1: It's so bad and very importantly right, It's this giant

471
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: loop that it not only gets people to spend money,

472
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: but it gets people to bring their friends in because

473
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 1: you have to bring your friends in to get the

474
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: group deals, so everything gets cheaper and cheaper, and the

475
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: tactics they use are absolutely wild. They get in trouble

476
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one for this promotion called Bargain for

477
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,439
Speaker 1: Free Goods, where you'd get a link and the claim

478
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 1: was that if enough people clicked it, you would get

479
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,199
Speaker 1: the good for free, and so this guy tried to

480
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:55,880
Speaker 1: do it, but he could can only get it two

481
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: point nine percent of the cost. So we sued them

482
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 1: for false advertising, and the claim got thrown out, but

483
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: the company had to pay him like money, So like

484
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:09,879
Speaker 1: this is the kind of shit that they're doing. Rechat

485
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: actually like blocked their links for a while because, you know,

486
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 1: because like some enormous portion of messages suddenly we're just

487
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 1: like these people sending these spam links to like every

488
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 1: single person they know, trying to get them to buy

489
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: like a fucking toothbrush so that your toothbrushes can be cheaper. Right,

490
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 1: But eventually we Chat kind of like you know, WeChat

491
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 1: gives up and they start like allying more with PDD.

492
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a whole there's a whole complicated story

493
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into here about like the

494
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: like China's really really ferocious like tech company wars because

495
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: like in the US, you know, like our tech monopolies

496
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:49,679
Speaker 1: are relatively stable, right, Like they've sort of portioned up

497
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: the Internet into and like distribution and stuff into just

498
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 1: like basically like local monopolies. Right, Like like Google is

499
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,159
Speaker 1: like the only search engine company there's there's basically no

500
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: competition there, right, Like there's some competition in terms of

501
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:05,680
Speaker 1: social media, but even then it's like and it's not

502
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: like the Chinese version words like unbelievably ferocious competition and

503
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: sometimes they cooperate, but yeah, you know, it's it's really fierce.

504
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:17,360
Speaker 1: And PDD. You know the thing that they do, right

505
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 1: is they pair this app stuff with direct to consumer sales,

506
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 1: and PDT is really the pioneers of this. She In

507
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: and okay, so i I she In is that fucking

508
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 1: fast fashioned clothing company. I learned today that it is

509
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,160
Speaker 1: actually pronounced she In because the name of the thing

510
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 1: is she In, like s a she she and then

511
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 1: she's like she's in. Yeah, I hate it so much.

512
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:51,880
Speaker 1: I'm so sad. I I mean, I feel slightly better because,

513
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: like I kept trying to read it in Chinese. It's

514
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 1: like this doesn't make any sense, Like it's just baffling.

515
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: It doesn't and it's like, oh no, it's because it's

516
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:05,120
Speaker 1: in English. Yeah, but PDD is the precursor of Shean's

517
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: like strategy, right, like they're they're the originators of this,

518
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,360
Speaker 1: except they're you know, they're what they're doing basically, it's

519
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 1: it's a fact. It's kind of like drop shipping. But

520
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,479
Speaker 1: you know, the sales are being pushed by these these

521
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:19,479
Speaker 1: sort of gamified app stuff, and this means that they

522
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: have this like real time supply management system that tells

523
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,959
Speaker 1: producers like like they can like they go down and

524
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 1: like tell their sellers like what to produce more of

525
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: based on like app sales. So you know the way

526
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 1: it works is you start off with a small it's

527
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: like a small number of things, and then you get

528
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: ads to push that those like fucking toothbrushes or whatever.

529
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: And then as like sales ramp up, you ramp up productions.

530
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: You can ship people more toothbrushes. Now do you know

531
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: who else will ship you toothbrushes that will probably be

532
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: better quality than the PDD tooth pressure. No, we can.

533
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,479
Speaker 2: We can guarantee all of our sponsors have only the

534
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 2: top quality toothbrushes. That is, that is what we call

535
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 2: the cool Zone Guarantee. Go do toothbrush dot com and

536
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 2: put in the keyword MIA for a ten percent off

537
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 2: on your top of the lines.

538
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: Please don't do this, so all right, D and D

539
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: just it takes rural China by storm.

540
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 2: Sure it sounds convenient, Like yeah, yeah for some.

541
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: Pan and it's really really cheap, is the thing, right,

542
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: And the thing about rural China is you're dealing with

543
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: a level of poverty that like is like almost like

544
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: it's not unimaginable in the US, but it's like unbelievable,

545
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: Like it's something.

546
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 4: That like like we don't really have it in the

547
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 4: same way because Okay, so like an example of the

548
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 4: kind of stuff we're dealing with, right, Like, so, China's

549
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 4: GDP per capita in like the sixties was lower than hades, Right,

550
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 4: this is an unbelievably poor country.

551
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: And there are there are places in real China that

552
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: are still like basically not quite that poor, but are

553
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 1: like unbelievably poor in ways that like, you know, we're

554
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: talking about people who are like people who are doing

555
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: kind of well in these regions are making seven hundred

556
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: dollars a month. Like that's like on a good month, right,

557
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: they're making seven hundred dollars a month, which is that's

558
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: eight four hundred dollars a year, and that's that's that's

559
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: if you have twelve good months, right, if you have

560
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: normal months, it's more like six thousand dollars a year,

561
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: and so you know, and when when when when you're

562
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: in a place where people are using stuff like this,

563
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: And again that's someone who like has a job full time,

564
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: is making like six thousand dollars a year, and so

565
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: people use PDD to shop because it's incredibly cheap and

566
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: it's also addictive. And when I say cheap, like we're

567
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: talking like two dollars for a pair of genes cheap, right,

568
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: and like that's that's also like cheap and you on too.

569
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: It's like unbelievably low prices.

570
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 2: I mean this, this kind of this kind of reminds

571
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 2: me a little bit of that recent Tucker Carlson Russia

572
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 2: is great actually media stunt. Oh yeah, look, all of

573
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 2: these groceries only cost one hundred dollars in American currency.

574
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 2: And it's like yeah, because they're getting paid like two

575
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 2: hundred dollars like a week, Like they're not they're not

576
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 2: taking home very much money, so all of the costs

577
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:36,719
Speaker 2: like slide very differently, Like you can't just compare this

578
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 2: one to one.

579
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, Altho, The thing I will say about about PDD

580
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: is that their prices are unbelievably low by Chinese standards,

581
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: Like this is a This is also why they look

582
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: so low by America standards too, is that these are

583
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: these are low by Chinese standards, and because they're so

584
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: low by Chinese standards, like people, people buy stuff from it.

585
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: The cost of this is that the stuff they're selling

586
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,160
Speaker 1: is really cheap. I mean, the other is the unbelievable

587
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: exploitation of the Chinese working class. But you know, we'll

588
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: get to that. We'll get to that next episode. The

589
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: main cost of the stuff being cheap is that the

590
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: stuff they buy like sucks ass like literally literally this

591
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: only the CEO talks about is that their gambit is that, Okay,

592
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 1: we'll ship you ten mangos for for like a dollar

593
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: thirty nine. Two of them will be rotten, but that

594
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: means you still get eight mangos.

595
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 2: That we're still an unbelievable like.

596
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 1: That's the thing, and like, you know, the stuff that

597
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: they get like sucks. Here's from the Chinese media outlet

598
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: sixth Tone, which has done a lot of good coverage

599
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: of PDD. They they used to be better. They're like

600
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: the kind of like left e like say media outlet.

601
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: They used to be better and then their staff got

602
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: run out because they they went they walked too close

603
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: to the line. So but here's here, here's what. Here's

604
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: they They've done a lot of they because the most

605
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: of the PDD coverage came from before their people got

606
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,959
Speaker 1: run out, so quote following the IPO, a number of

607
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: purchase series is allegedly bought from PDD. We're shared online,

608
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: including a hair dryer that broke out in flames after

609
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: it was switched on and a part bake.

610
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 2: Hey, that also happens in America. Don't worry, you know,

611
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 2: you're like, I know, you're like, oh, I'm missing out

612
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 2: on all these great deals, all these great products. Not true.

613
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 2: This could also happen in the States.

614
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 3: Yep.

615
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: There's another one where they had a power bank and

616
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: someone ordered it and they came and it was just

617
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: four triple A batteries and a container.

618
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 2: That's funny. That's good. That's a good bit. That's yeah,

619
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 2: that's pretty good.

620
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 5: You know.

621
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: There's stuff like like one of one, like sixth time

622
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: was interviewing people in real areas you bought off and

623
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: they were like, yeah, I brought it. I bought a

624
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: fishing rod for like two bucks and it was broken.

625
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: I bought a pair of shoes and it literally fell

626
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: apart after three days.

627
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 2: So I have complicated feelings on this because I think

628
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 2: there is a place for gambling in purchases. If if,

629
00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 2: for example, on Amazon, if every fourth product you bought

630
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 2: there was a completely like defective, like purposely like lower

631
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 2: quality version, I think that would be a good for

632
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 2: the world. We would have problem, we would have less

633
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,400
Speaker 2: people using Amazon, and you would kind of get slightly punished.

634
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 2: So I think this actually could be a good thing

635
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:21,240
Speaker 2: if used correctly, where we where we purposely sabotage every

636
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,399
Speaker 2: like fourth person who buys anything online.

637
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: But the problem is that people fucking love gambling. Like

638
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: that's that's just gonna make people do more because now

639
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 1: there's more of a downside if we're trying to get

640
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: your fucking deal. So I mean, and this is the thing, right,

641
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 1: Like you're rolling the dice every time every time you

642
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: take a.

643
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 2: You order like an election generator online and they send

644
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 2: you a double a Oh my god, it'd be so

645
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:47,760
Speaker 2: funny funny.

646
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:50,720
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, now, hey, you too can now shop

647
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: on Temu, you too can experience getting shipped just fucking bullshit.

648
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 2: You order some nice Hawaiian coffee and they send you

649
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 2: some like camameal, Oh god devastating.

650
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 1: So this this whole thing of you buy stuff that

651
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: sucks or doesn't work. And the fact that PDD starts

652
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: in rural China means that like initially there's this like

653
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: real class element about how who uses PDD. It's seen

654
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 1: as like the site for poor and gulibal people who

655
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: don't care about quality.

656
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:22,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's the place where lower class people shop.

657
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, yeah, And well that stops being true kind

658
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: of because everyone starts using it. But Comma, the other

659
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: problem they have is that it is absolutely rife with

660
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: Kinterfit products. Right after they go public in twenty eighteen,

661
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: there's like a Chinese state investigation into the sale of

662
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: their Kinterfit products. And pdd's response is like, well, we're

663
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:43,839
Speaker 1: just a marketplace. Anyone can sell on it. How are

664
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: we supposed to control who makes counterfeit stuff? But this

665
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 1: is this is actually like it gets to a kind

666
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: of like cultural thing where you know, what is one

667
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:53,479
Speaker 1: of the things that happens in world trying This happens

668
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: in a lot of places where like almost everyone is

669
00:35:56,440 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 1: wearing like clothes that are like knockoff brand stuff because

670
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: it's just the cheapest clothes and like that's that's the

671
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: kind of clothes that's being made that you can afford

672
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: if you're you know, like you're you're trying to sort

673
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: of make it like in World China, so you get like,

674
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:13,439
Speaker 1: you know, you have like entire villages where you walk

675
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: in and everyone's wearing like like niaky and like a

676
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:23,280
Speaker 1: dietis or something like it's like nice. This stuff gets

677
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: really wild, really fast. So here's from that that sedging

678
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:32,360
Speaker 1: interview with Colin Huang. Again, so here's here's a catching.

679
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: It's a Chinese media outlet, so they're their interviewer. One

680
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:38,320
Speaker 1: of the best selling products on PDD is a bottle

681
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: of affidisi at priced at twenty seven point eighty on

682
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 1: that is like three almost four dollars, with a total

683
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 1: of four point seven million orders sold. Do you think

684
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: this medicine might be real? Here's the CEO. First of all,

685
00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: medicines are healthcare products sold on pdd's platform must have

686
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 1: national certification marks. Secondly, the gross profit margin of healthcare

687
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 1: products is already extremely high. Just like facial mass. Do

688
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 1: you think the two hundred yond facial max is useful?

689
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 1: So again, again, what is happening here is that like

690
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: they have sold like one point four point seven million

691
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: orders of of like a fake afrodisiac, And when the

692
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 1: CEO is asked about his response, it's like, well, but

693
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:31,879
Speaker 1: who could really say if any health products work?

694
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 2: Like wooo, that is a pretty funny bit. I mean,

695
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 2: it sucks that people, the poor people are losing money,

696
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:41,240
Speaker 2: but well, I to be fair, to be fair, pretty

697
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 2: fine bit.

698
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 1: If you are trying to like buy an afrodisiac, I

699
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: don't really care. Sure, sure yeah, but like you know,

700
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: so part of it, like they're selling like fake hack medicines.

701
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 1: This is like the Chinese version of the American like grift,

702
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:56,720
Speaker 1: like right wing grift like supplement market.

703
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's the brain pills to help libido

704
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 2: or whatever.

705
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this also gets a lot darker. One of

706
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: the there's one of the stories that kind of like

707
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,240
Speaker 1: made the rounds Chinese social media that six Tone reports

708
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:15,720
Speaker 1: on is that people found PDD like advertising like sleep

709
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: medicine as date rate drugs. Ah yeah, fucking bleak. There's

710
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 1: like fuck And that's the thing. There's like no fucking

711
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 1: content moderation on this, right, so people just do that

712
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:32,320
Speaker 1: shit and it really sucks. But on their hand, none

713
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 1: of the constant bad press like stop pdd's rise, right,

714
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 1: and now it is time to leave Colin Huang behind soil.

715
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 1: Until about phil twenty twenty, pdd's rise was synonymous with

716
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: its CEO, Colin Huang. But in mid twenty twenty, Huang

717
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: resigned as the CEO and kind of like exited public

718
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: life effectively, like not entirely, we kind of like he

719
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 1: like took he like he resigned as CEO, and then

720
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one he resigns as like a chairman of

721
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: the board and he's like, you know, he's doing this

722
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: like philanthropic stuff instead, and he's you know, he's doing

723
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: his like post CEO life thing, right, And we've never

724
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,719
Speaker 1: gotten a good answer as to why he stepped down.

725
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,800
Speaker 1: But I have a theory, and I think my theory's

726
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,440
Speaker 1: pretty good. And also it goes into have I Garrison,

727
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 1: have I explained to you the thing about I don't

728
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:23,879
Speaker 1: remember if I've done it on this show, I talked

729
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: about the Chinese payday loan app thing.

730
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:29,359
Speaker 2: H I don't think.

731
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:34,200
Speaker 1: So okay, So all right, we are now going to

732
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: do We're going to close this episode out on one

733
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 1: of the most absolutely insane moments of Chinese internet history.

734
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 1: So okay, one of the things that happens in the

735
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 1: Chinese tech market in the late twenty tens and early

736
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: twenty twenties is this mass proliferation of app base payday loans.

737
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,959
Speaker 1: This is one of the worst things I have ever seen.

738
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,320
Speaker 1: What effectively happens is at around like twenty fourteen twenty fifteen,

739
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: a bunch of Chinese tech companies, especially like delivery companies

740
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: like sort of like China's version of grub, Public Door,

741
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: Dash and Ali Baba, they're like Amazon equivalent gets in

742
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: it too, and these people realize that they can start

743
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 1: their own payment platforms. So basically like all these companies

744
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 1: are making their own version of PayPal. But then they

745
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: realize that they can use these platforms to give out

746
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: payday loans, so that you can in one app take

747
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: out a paid a loan to order delivery, or you

748
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: can in one app take out a payday loan to

749
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,719
Speaker 1: buyshit from Amazon with the payday loan. Ten Cent gets

750
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: in on it, so you can buy Mitro transactions with

751
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:37,879
Speaker 1: your payday loans. This, as you might expect, Spiral's out

752
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:41,800
Speaker 1: of control. Immediately on. The interest rates on these loans

753
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 1: are enormous, and this means that they make an unbelievable

754
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: amount of money, and so apps just start like shoveling

755
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: these loans in people's faces the momently long onto apps.

756
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:53,239
Speaker 1: But the thing is, like this doesn't stop with just

757
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 1: like the big shopping apps right by twenty nineteen. It's

758
00:40:57,800 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: not just you know, like when I say this is

759
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: going to apps right like you're fucking Like imagine if

760
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: Twitter was trying to offer you payd A loans.

761
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:09,720
Speaker 5: Like that's the main point of that that might happen,

762
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:13,879
Speaker 5: but that might actually maybe based on the plans for

763
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 5: the Twitter to become the banking app.

764
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's actually the funny thing. So so Elon

765
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,919
Speaker 1: Musk really really likes China. And part of the reason

766
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:25,240
Speaker 1: for this is that, you know, a bunch of Tesla

767
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: factories are in shing John. Part of the reason for this,

768
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: like he's trying to like recreate the like weed chat environments,

769
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: but everyone doesn't right, Like people don't actually like it.

770
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: But the thing is the other thing that he really

771
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: loves is the number of hours that you can get

772
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: people to work in China that you can't really in

773
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: the US, So we'll get to that fucking next episode.

774
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:45,280
Speaker 1: But you know, okay, so like like your your fucking

775
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: Twitter is trying to see you paid a apps. But

776
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: then it gets the point where your fucking flashlight app

777
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: is trying to sell you, trying to get you to

778
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 1: take out payday loans, like your like photo app, like

779
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: every fucking app on your phone is trying to sell

780
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: you pay loans. That sounds incredibly at this and this

781
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: is one of these things, right that like, okay, like

782
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: as bad as like American apps are, right, like it

783
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: is as bad as like the version of capitalism that

784
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: we have in the American app ecosystem, Like the wildest

785
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: shit is always going on in the Chinese tech market,

786
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: which is like even more insane than the American tech market.

787
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: And this is the thing, like we don't actually have

788
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 1: this here, and I've I've been trying to figure out

789
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:29,320
Speaker 1: why it never happened here. I think it has to

790
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 1: do it partially with banking regulation and partially with like

791
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 1: the fact that like the actual American payd A loan

792
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: companies don't want other companies to like cut in on

793
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 1: their business. So I think that's what's happening, but like

794
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 1: in China, it's literally like and this is happening in

795
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: like like like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one,

796
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: that this stuff is happening, so you know, and it's

797
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:53,799
Speaker 1: an all and this this gets I mean, it turns

798
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,920
Speaker 1: into just a fucking nightmare because you know, obviously, like

799
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: this turns into this giant wave of people who got

800
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 1: it in over their heads and can't pay their loans

801
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: back because they took out a payday loan with thirty

802
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: percent interest. And also, and this is one of the

803
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: fun things, companies just straight up lie about their interest rates.

804
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of examples of the companies saying

805
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: we have a nine percent interest rate, and then you know,

806
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: in the contract it says nine percent interest rate, and

807
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: then when they try to get you to pay it back,

808
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:20,319
Speaker 1: it's like thirty percents, right, Like this is like you know,

809
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 1: and sometimes they're they're even they're you know, you're getting

810
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 1: up to like one hundred two hundre percent interest. Like

811
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 1: he's like organized crime levels of interest. And you know,

812
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: like Alli, like the tech giants are all into it,

813
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 1: Ali Baba isn't quite as big into it. As like

814
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: some of the other companies, but like they're doing it,

815
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: like they absolutely are doing the payday loan shit. And

816
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: I mentioned Alibaba here because in late twenty twenty, Jack

817
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 1: mob who's the founder of Alli Baba, just like disappears.

818
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: He's just gone for like several months, nobody, nobody knows

819
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 1: where he is, and then he reappears in like twenty

820
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: twenty one, but he's not doing tech ceo stuff anymore.

821
00:43:55,400 --> 00:44:00,760
Speaker 1: He's doing like weird public education tours and like rural China.

822
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 1: And this causes like a huge, a huge like kind

823
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 1: of thing in the American press because what they're reading

824
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 1: it as, and they're kind of right, is that there's

825
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 1: this in twenty twenty one, there's this enormous raft of

826
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: financial regulations on tech companies, and this GUS interpreted is

827
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 1: like a crackdown on chech companies, Like the CCP is

828
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: trying to bring the tech giants in line, like they

829
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: disappear Jackmaw and you know, one of them. This is

830
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: something something that a story that gets lost in this

831
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: in the American press is that like one of the

832
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: big things they're trying to do is stop is stop

833
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 1: all of these fucking companies, I'm turning their apps to

834
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: THEO ped alone factories. And you know, like I'm I'm

835
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,879
Speaker 1: not like a CCP fan, Like it is well known.

836
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:51,719
Speaker 1: Like it's like my dislike of the CCP is so

837
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: large that like a non insignificant number of people in

838
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: the US think I work for the CIA, right, But

839
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: like this is like those fucking companies they were like

840
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: they were like like on the edge of completely annihilating

841
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 1: the Chinese economy. They were very they got very very

842
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 1: close to just like reducing like enormous swaths of the

843
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: entire Chinese population and to like peer at based debt pionage.

844
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 1: It was a fucking disaster. And this is part this

845
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 1: is a big part of why this like tech crackdown

846
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 1: came in because the CCP was like, holy shit, if

847
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:28,359
Speaker 1: you guys do this, like you're actually going to like

848
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 1: like you're you're gonna you're gonna fucking nuke the Chinese economy,

849
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:32,800
Speaker 1: Like we cannot allow every single fucking app to be

850
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:35,920
Speaker 1: a paid a loan like service and things. I mean,

851
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: it's still not great now, but it things have gotten

852
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 1: a lot less bad in the in the pay a

853
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: loan like thing since then. But you know again, like

854
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: it it. It had to get bad enough that your

855
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: flashlight were trying to get your take out of payd

856
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 1: a loan for the CCP to actually like go after

857
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: their like tech giant darlings. And I think what happened

858
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: is that I I think what happened is that Colin

859
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: Huang like saw which way the wind was blowing and

860
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:09,760
Speaker 1: he was like, Okay, there's gonna be a giant crackdown

861
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: now now two wits credit. This is the only time

862
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: I will give PDD credit for anything. PDD actually didn't

863
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:18,280
Speaker 1: do the payday loan shit, I think because Colin Huang

864
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 1: was just like was like smart enough to be like,

865
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: this is a fucking terrible idea. Like if we try

866
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 1: to get our like rural customer base hooked on payday loans,

867
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 1: all these people are gonna just be completely broke in

868
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:34,879
Speaker 1: like nine months. So PDD doesn't do it. But he

869
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:37,919
Speaker 1: takes this moment like he picks twenty like July twenty twenty,

870
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:40,760
Speaker 1: which is like a couple months before Jack modest speers,

871
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: and he just fucking nopes and he's like I'm out

872
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: and yeah, like things, you know, and he picked a

873
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 1: good time and this meant that, like, you know, he

874
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: never really faced any consequences for you know, he wasn't

875
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,240
Speaker 1: really caught up in the crackdown. He got out fine,

876
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 1: and you know, he he picked, he picked the time

877
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: to do it, and pdd's future in America was still

878
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:06,279
Speaker 1: ahead of it. But when the Chinese media began to

879
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 1: uncover the dark side of PDD in twenty twenty one,

880
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: Colin Kwang was nowhere to be found. And that is

881
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:16,320
Speaker 1: what we're covering tomorrow. We haven't even gotten to the

882
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: bad stuff yet.

883
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 2: I haven't even got to Temu proper.

884
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, well the thing about Temu, and we will get

885
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:27,480
Speaker 1: to ten me next episode. But Temu's like a twenty

886
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 1: twenty two thing, right, so it's really recent. It's only

887
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: been around for like two years, which means that if

888
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this, ninety percent of it

889
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 1: is going to be PDD because PDD is like nine

890
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: years old. But yeah, tune in tomorrow for a bunch

891
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 1: of absolutely harrowing shit. Yeah, this is this is, this

892
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:48,879
Speaker 1: is it could happen here.

893
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,399
Speaker 2: We love dude, so exciting. I love learning about new

894
00:47:52,440 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 2: harrowing shit. It could happen years.

895
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:02,799
Speaker 3: A production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from

896
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 3: cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com or

897
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 3: check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

898
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 3: wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources for

899
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 3: It could happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com

900
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 3: slash sources. Thanks for listening.