Speaker 1: I remember my best friend's older sibling like drove up
Speaker 1: in a car. We're like freshman in high school and
Speaker 1: they're like, try it. This is like the new thing.
Speaker 1: Try it and we're like, wow, this is so cool.
Speaker 1: You know you can puff it whenever. Um. And then
Speaker 1: the naked sine so concentrated. You know, everyone has one.
Speaker 1: It's very accessible, and they think you just start doing
Speaker 1: it and I can't stop. I guess that is what
Speaker 1: I would say. They're talking about Jewel, the e cigarette
Speaker 1: that took the nation by storm just a few years
Speaker 1: ago and has become ingrained in youth culture, even spawning
Speaker 1: viral YouTube hits like this, Hey, have you guys seen
Speaker 1: my jewel? I like literally just had in my hand,
Speaker 1: Like you gave it back to me? Right? I thought
Speaker 1: you hit my jewel and then you gave it back
Speaker 1: to me. You didn't take it, did you. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: do that to me. Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the podcast
Speaker 1: about purpose washing, the gap between what companies say they
Speaker 1: stand for and what they actually do, and what they
Speaker 1: would need to change to practice what they preach. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Time Montague, and I've spent over a decade
Speaker 1: helping companies define what they stand for, their purpose and
Speaker 1: help them to use that purpose to drive transformation throughout
Speaker 1: their business. Unfortunately, at a lot of organizations today, there's
Speaker 1: still a pretty wide gap between word and deed. That
Speaker 1: gap has a name. We call it bullshit. But, and
Speaker 1: this is important on this show, we believe that bullshit
Speaker 1: is a treatable disease. So when the bullshit detector lights
Speaker 1: up up, we're going to explore things that the company
Speaker 1: should do to fix it. In this episode, we're going
Speaker 1: to take a look at Jewel. The company's mission is
Speaker 1: harm reduction. They want people to stop smoking cigarettes and
Speaker 1: start using Jewel, which they claim is a potentially life
Speaker 1: saving alternative. Here's how co founder Adam Bowen put it
Speaker 1: in a promotional video. fIF the years from now, nobody's
Speaker 1: gonna be smoking cigarettes. They're gonna look back and think,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I can't believe people used to do that,
Speaker 1: and now I think it's actually gonna happen much faster,
Speaker 1: in large part because of the progress that we've made.
Speaker 1: It sounds revolutionary, but is it actually true. To tell
Speaker 1: Jewel's story, we have to start with a quick history
Speaker 1: of the industry that Adam and James wanted to disrupt
Speaker 1: big tobacco to Bacco used goes back thousands of years.
Speaker 1: It grows wild in the Americas and has long been
Speaker 1: valued by indigenous peoples as a sacred and medicinal plant.
Speaker 1: In the Taino people of the Caribbean gave Christopher Columbus
Speaker 1: some dried tobacco. Soon, smoking was all the rage with
Speaker 1: Europe's elite, who apparently just loved that sweet buzz. In
Speaker 1: the sixteen hundreds, English colonists set up big tobacco plantations
Speaker 1: in the southeastern United States, which also fueled the demand
Speaker 1: for enslaved labor, and by the late eighteen hundreds, big
Speaker 1: companies like Philip Morris, now Aultria and American Tobacco began
Speaker 1: to dominate the market. Mass production made cigarettes popular, and
Speaker 1: so did ads that portrayed smoking as a pleasurable, glamorous habit.
Speaker 1: Some of them even featured doctors played by actors in
Speaker 1: white lab codes. Time out for many men of medicine
Speaker 1: usually means just long enough to enjoy a cigarette, and
Speaker 1: because they know what a pleasure it is to smoke
Speaker 1: a mild, good tasting cigarette, they're particular about the brand
Speaker 1: they choose. More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette.
Speaker 1: A lot of doctors did smoke back in the forties
Speaker 1: when this ad was made, but Big Tobacco specifically used
Speaker 1: this kind of messaging to counter growing concerns around health.
Speaker 1: By the mid sixties, though the evidence was clear. Tonight's
Speaker 1: CBS reports begins with this historic announcement by the Surgeon
Speaker 1: General of the United States on January eleven, nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: It is a judgment of the committee that cigarette smoking
Speaker 1: contributes substantially to martality from certain specific diseases and to
Speaker 1: the overall death rate. Big Tobacco knew this. They'd also
Speaker 1: discovered that the key ingredient in their product, the thing
Speaker 1: that gave you that sweet buzz, was nicotine, so they
Speaker 1: optimized for tobacco plants and cigarettes that delivered more of
Speaker 1: the drug into the smoker's lungs. And they knew that
Speaker 1: it was addictive. Tobacco executives admitted that at least as
Speaker 1: far back as the early sixties, according to internal company documents,
Speaker 1: but publicly they claimed otherwise, hoping to steer clear of
Speaker 1: the f d A. After all, if your product is
Speaker 1: addictive and it causes cancer, why should regulators allow you
Speaker 1: to sell it at all. Finally, in the hammer Fell,
Speaker 1: this is an historic hearing. For the first time ever,
Speaker 1: the chief executive officers of our nation's tobacco companies are
Speaker 1: testifying together before the United States Congress. The truth is
Speaker 1: that cigarettes are the single most dangerous consumer product ever sold.
Speaker 1: The Master Settlement Agreement that came out of these hearings
Speaker 1: put strict limits on the sale, advertising, packaging, and distribution
Speaker 1: of tobacco products. Some would say Big Tobacco got off easy,
Speaker 1: but for sure the days of easy money in the
Speaker 1: tobacco industry were over. Flash forward to two thousand and
Speaker 1: five when two young smokers, Adam Bowen and James Monsey's
Speaker 1: were grad students in Stanford's prestigious product design program and
Speaker 1: they kind of hatched their idea and became friends over
Speaker 1: cigarette breaks outside of their classroom at Stanford University. That's
Speaker 1: lauraenett Or, an investigative reporter who's covered the Jewel story
Speaker 1: in depth. So when you're at Stanford, you're always looking
Speaker 1: for what are the products in the areas that are
Speaker 1: right for innovation, and the cigarette was right for innovation.
Speaker 1: It's not the nicotine that kills people, it's the combustion.
Speaker 1: So they thought to themselves, if there was a way
Speaker 1: that we can just get people the nicotine that they
Speaker 1: want and that they're addicted to, but in a safer way,
Speaker 1: we should be able to make a huge public health
Speaker 1: contribution by transitioning people away from the deadly dirty cigarette
Speaker 1: to a safer, cleaner nicotine. They could save millions of
Speaker 1: lives and probably make some money doing it. But it
Speaker 1: turned out that solving this problem was a lot harder
Speaker 1: than it looked. James and Adam hammered away at it
Speaker 1: for a decade until when they finally launched their revolutionary product, Jewel.
Speaker 1: Jewel delivered the kick that smokers crave, but it was
Speaker 1: also everything a cigarette wasn't. It was sleek, modern, easy
Speaker 1: to conceal, It produced no smoke, so it could be
Speaker 1: used in secret, even indoors, and its pods came in
Speaker 1: a variety of tasty flavors like mango, mint and krimboulet.
Speaker 1: So Adam and James went off to work marketing Jewel
Speaker 1: to smokers who tend to be older and less affluent.
Speaker 1: They made it abundantly clear that young people and non
Speaker 1: smokers should stay away because nicotine in any form is
Speaker 1: highly addictive, and their goal was getting people to stop smoking. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: actually that part is completely made up. They didn't do
Speaker 1: any of that. In fact, they did exactly the opposite,
Speaker 1: and the results are almost comically catastrophic. So get out
Speaker 1: your BS detectors, folks, and hang on tight, because this
Speaker 1: one is quite a ride. Jewel says that its mission
Speaker 1: is harm reduction. Is that true or is it just
Speaker 1: a bunch of bullshit? To learn more about where Jewel
Speaker 1: went wrong, I called up Lauren Eder, who you heard earlier.
Speaker 1: She's a reporter at Bloomberg News and the author of
Speaker 1: the Devil's playbook, Big Tobacco, Jewel and the Addiction of
Speaker 1: a New Generation. I guess I want to start up
Speaker 1: by asking what was it that initially captured your attention?
Speaker 1: Why did you write this book? So? I'm always looking
Speaker 1: for interesting stories about companies that are making an impact
Speaker 1: on our lives in one way or another. And as
Speaker 1: the youth vaping epidemic was skyrocketing, where suddenly all these
Speaker 1: teenagers started showing up in the emergency room with shortness
Speaker 1: of breath, would appear to be burns on their lungs,
Speaker 1: and then it looked like it was tied to vaporing
Speaker 1: of some kind. I was fascinated that there was a
Speaker 1: very high flying Silicon Valley start up in the middle
Speaker 1: of a public health crisis. Can you talk about their
Speaker 1: pitch to early investors, like, how did they tell the
Speaker 1: story of what they were trying to do. It was
Speaker 1: both an innovation pitch and a public health pitch. On
Speaker 1: the innovation side, it was, here's this product that one
Speaker 1: billion people use in the world. Thirty four million Americans
Speaker 1: smoke cigarettes. So the cigarette is literally the same, essentially
Speaker 1: as it was a century earlier. It's essentially paper with
Speaker 1: shredded tobacco leaf rolled up inside of the paper. You
Speaker 1: light it on fire, and you inhale the smoke. So
Speaker 1: if there isn't a product that's right for innovation, I
Speaker 1: don't know what. The public health pitch was really interesting.
Speaker 1: They thought to themselves, why are so many people still smoking,
Speaker 1: and why is it still killing them? And how can
Speaker 1: this be happening. There's got to be a better way
Speaker 1: to get people what they really want in a cigarette,
Speaker 1: which is the nicotine. They sold that story and they
Speaker 1: sold it very well. Yeah, and it seems to me
Speaker 1: that the mission that this company had from the very beginning,
Speaker 1: it's fundamentally a good one, essentially harm reduction. Right. How
Speaker 1: serious do you think they really were about that mission.
Speaker 1: I think that they were very serious about that mission.
Speaker 1: I think they truly believe that they could have a
Speaker 1: public health impact. But they also realized that there was
Speaker 1: a huge market to be tapped. We'll get to what
Speaker 1: eventually happened, but I think those balances got a little
Speaker 1: bit out of whack. So what was the key technical
Speaker 1: challenge that they had to solve in order to actually
Speaker 1: achieve this mission to create a safer alternative to smoking.
Speaker 1: One of the first challenges was very rudimentary, how do
Speaker 1: we heat up the tobacco? So the first iteration of
Speaker 1: their product was essentially a little tube that heated up
Speaker 1: tobacco pods. So it was a very poorly designed device.
Speaker 1: It was almost like a lighter. You snap it and
Speaker 1: it would kick on the butane heater that would heat
Speaker 1: the tobacco. It was shocking people. It was literally on
Speaker 1: the lips now and you look for it in a
Speaker 1: relaxing smoke white, you just get a little joelt. They
Speaker 1: were presenting it to a potential investors, And there's a
Speaker 1: couple of scenes in my book where they go to
Speaker 1: pretty high level people presenting this thing and it like
Speaker 1: zaps them on the lips, and it's super embarrassing. For
Speaker 1: Adam and James, who pride themselves on design. They went
Speaker 1: to the d School, This is the pre eminent design
Speaker 1: school in the world. They eventually included a battery, but
Speaker 1: the challenge with just heating tobacco was that it didn't
Speaker 1: satisfy smokers in the way that cigarettes did. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're not getting the nicotine, there's no way you're
Speaker 1: going to get somebody to quit smoking. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: all about the nicotine. It's only about the nicotine. It's
Speaker 1: all about the nicotine. And let's be clear, high doses
Speaker 1: of nicotine are not a health treatment. According to the CDC,
Speaker 1: using nicotine and adolescence can harm the parts of the
Speaker 1: brain that control attention, learning, mood, and impulse control. However,
Speaker 1: e cigarettes did have the potential to create a far
Speaker 1: safer alternative to cigarettes, and the tobacco companies knew this.
Speaker 1: In fact, because they knew their cigarettes were killing people
Speaker 1: and their backs were against the wall. Tobacco companies spent
Speaker 1: decades and billions of dollars on developing safer products, which
Speaker 1: included vaporizing technology. This was a huge moment for Adam
Speaker 1: and James. They realized that there was an archive containing
Speaker 1: millions of documents that the tobacco industry had made public
Speaker 1: as a term of their settlement with the Attorney's General
Speaker 1: and with the Department of Justice, and so they got
Speaker 1: a lot of their ideas for innovation from these tobacco documents.
Speaker 1: They realized that they could use chemistry to create a
Speaker 1: nicotine solution that was as satisfying as a cigarette. Okay,
Speaker 1: so these two young kids from Stanford finally build a
Speaker 1: little machine that looked like a thumb drive that heated
Speaker 1: nicotine salts or heated nicotine in a way that it
Speaker 1: could deliver as much or more of a hit than
Speaker 1: a cigarette. I mean, this is a pretty amazing breakthrough,
Speaker 1: isn't it. It was a huge breakthrough. Adam and James
Speaker 1: now have Jewel all teed up and are ready to
Speaker 1: go save lives by convincing smokers who are primarily older
Speaker 1: to switch from smoking cigarettes to using a jewel. But
Speaker 1: their very first higher was Kurt Sandrager, a marketing guru
Speaker 1: from Red Bull, a company that pretty clearly targets young people.
Speaker 1: I really think that they found Kurt because he was
Speaker 1: kind of in the area and at the time, it
Speaker 1: wasn't easy to attract people to come work for a
Speaker 1: tobacco startup. I think that they just needed somebody who
Speaker 1: understood marketing, which he did, and I think that they
Speaker 1: did have this kind of initial idea of like, how
Speaker 1: can we frame it as a product that will be
Speaker 1: interesting to people and that might have a little bit
Speaker 1: of cool factors, and of course, being a Silicon Valley company,
Speaker 1: that's a key part of the equation. So Kurt Sandragger
Speaker 1: left the company pretty early and the founders on their
Speaker 1: own went out and hired their first outside marketing partner,
Speaker 1: a company called The Cult Collective run by Chris Neeland,
Speaker 1: and it seemed like they really seemed to understand this
Speaker 1: premise that Jewel was on a mission to be a
Speaker 1: harm reduction company. You know, I'm a former ad guy myself,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I was looking at it with
Speaker 1: my ad guy eyes, and the idea for the first
Speaker 1: campaign that they showed to James and Adam seemed like
Speaker 1: at least the right strategy to me. Basically it went
Speaker 1: directly against cigarettes, comparing cigarettes to old anachronistic technologies boom
Speaker 1: boxes and atari joy sticks and a position jewel is
Speaker 1: the modern alternative, and the tagline was the evolution of
Speaker 1: smoking with the double like jewel. But basically it went
Speaker 1: directly at smoking and knocked it as old fashioned. Why
Speaker 1: didn't James and Adam buy that direction? I don't think
Speaker 1: Adam and James looked at what Chris Nelan did and said,
Speaker 1: this is not the direction we want to go. The
Speaker 1: board of the company at the time was really saying
Speaker 1: we should probably bring in our own marketing person. They
Speaker 1: brought in a new team. This new person Richard Mumby, Right,
Speaker 1: Richard Mumby joined as the CMO midstream, and he had
Speaker 1: his own ideas about what direction the marketing should go.
Speaker 1: So it was evident almost immediately when Richard Mumby came
Speaker 1: in and he had an art director. He brought with
Speaker 1: them a guy named Stephen Bailey. They initially just thought
Speaker 1: that Chris's vision was missing the boat. It wasn't elevating
Speaker 1: the product enough. Well, it also wasn't very cool, right.
Speaker 1: The message I keep getting is these guys somebody somewhere,
Speaker 1: whether it was James and Adam or the board, somebody
Speaker 1: wanted this company to be cool. I think Richard Mumby
Speaker 1: was really driving a lot of that. So Stephen Bailey,
Speaker 1: who is mostly from the world of fashion, did campaigns
Speaker 1: for Gap and hype Beast and Benobo's. He comes up
Speaker 1: with a campaign that became known as vapor Rised, which
Speaker 1: is sort of inspired by his buddy Terry Richardson's look
Speaker 1: that kind of gritty sexy models, jeweling, and it's sophisticated
Speaker 1: and cool and just perfectly out of reach of teenagers,
Speaker 1: who of course will want it. And the Vaporized campaign
Speaker 1: when I look at it today, I look at it
Speaker 1: and go these are exactly the same marketing techniques that
Speaker 1: had been used by Big Tobacco for years, this sexy
Speaker 1: lifestyle imagery. Now absolutely certainly Adam and James were aware
Speaker 1: of these marketing kind of strategies and the problems related
Speaker 1: to them. I don't actually believe that Richard Mumby and
Speaker 1: Stephen Bailey sat down, looked at the tobacco archives and said,
Speaker 1: how can we recreate this tobacco industry playbook? I really don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how knowledgeable. Richard and Stephen were really
Speaker 1: of the tobacco stuff. I mean, it was all happening
Speaker 1: very fast. They like did the photo shoot and the campaign,
Speaker 1: the mock up in a very short period of time.
Speaker 1: So I really believe that the Vaporized campaign was the
Speaker 1: best work product that Stephen and Richard could come up with.
Speaker 1: It wasn't necessarily a nefarious way to get young people hooked.
Speaker 1: It was a way to make their product cool. I agree,
Speaker 1: And I just think the whole notion of trying to
Speaker 1: make the product cool is where they fell down. It
Speaker 1: was their undoing that was their original sin was the
Speaker 1: marketing campaign and not reading this highly addictive drug with
Speaker 1: enough care, which they should have done right. So they
Speaker 1: do a big launch party at Jack Studio, is a
Speaker 1: super cool place in New York. Four young people models
Speaker 1: and photographers and young fashionistas and punky looking skateboarders, and
Speaker 1: they hire a bunch of young influencers to push the
Speaker 1: event and jewel on social media and spoiler alert, it works.
Speaker 1: Their brand got out there in a very important way
Speaker 1: where I think people definitely started seeing it as almost
Speaker 1: this what is this thing? Nothing on their advertising set
Speaker 1: it was addictive, nothing on their advertising said that it
Speaker 1: contained nicotine. It was just this cool, flashy device that
Speaker 1: you could have as a fashion accessory. So eventually teens
Speaker 1: started becoming interested. Gas stations start running out of it,
Speaker 1: people start posting on Twitter desperately, when are you going
Speaker 1: to restock Jewel? Right, So they can't make them fast
Speaker 1: enough and they're having scaling problems and then Q Scary music.
Speaker 1: Parents start to wake up to this growing issue with
Speaker 1: their kids and they start to freak out. What were
Speaker 1: the first signs of that, Like the first sign of oh, Houston,
Speaker 1: we may have a problem pretty early on I mean principle,
Speaker 1: as we're finding Jewel and not even knowing what it was,
Speaker 1: and parents were finding it and backpacks and in bedrooms
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and so there's this kind of
Speaker 1: like percolating kind of controversy, and the Tobacco Control Group
Speaker 1: they really started sounding alarm bells. They started calling on
Speaker 1: Congress to regulate this industry because a key part of
Speaker 1: this story is that at the time that Jewel launched,
Speaker 1: there was no regulation on the sale of electronic cigarettes.
Speaker 1: Regulation or lack thereof, is a key point in fifty
Speaker 1: two State and territory Attorneys General signed the Master Settlement
Speaker 1: Agreement with the four largest tobacco companies to settle dozens
Speaker 1: of state lawsuits and to reduce smoking, especially in youth.
Speaker 1: From there on out, tobacco companies have legal marketing obligations.
Speaker 1: No more obscuring health risks, no more billboards sponsoring team
Speaker 1: sporting events, cartoons of any kind, and on and on.
Speaker 1: The Master Settlement Agreement turned out to be incredibly effective
Speaker 1: in reducing teenage smoking, but when e cigarettes and vaping
Speaker 1: came onto the market, they were not covered under that agreement,
Speaker 1: so they were allowed to advertise wherever they wanted, including
Speaker 1: homework sites for middle schoolers and even on Nickelodeon. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: so they did advertise on these places. They explain it
Speaker 1: by saying that they used a third party marketer and
Speaker 1: they didn't have control over that, but they did. And
Speaker 1: they actually sent dual representatives into schools to teach about
Speaker 1: addiction and how you shouldn't use nicotine. It was this crazy,
Speaker 1: weird reverse psychology that the tobacco industry had used for years.
Speaker 1: Don't smoke, it's not cool. But then it turns out
Speaker 1: that their marketing was actually attractive to youth. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and at the same time those people went into schools
Speaker 1: and said, well, you shouldn't use it, but it's perfectly safe. Right.
Speaker 1: It was really bad look and it was not good. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: all the tobacco giant formerly known as Philip Morris had
Speaker 1: been trying to buy a steak in Jewel, and as
Speaker 1: the company came increasingly under fire, that offer started to
Speaker 1: look a lot more attractive. Altria makes Marlborough cigarettes the
Speaker 1: number one selling cigarette in America, and inside Jewel they
Speaker 1: saw it as a way to from the inside take
Speaker 1: their harm reduction plan and use Altrea to really give
Speaker 1: them a huge sales advantage and access to customers. So
Speaker 1: the deal was done in December two thou eighteen, and
Speaker 1: it was like the worst timing ever. There's new regulations
Speaker 1: on the industry, the cigarette industry. At least the pod
Speaker 1: makers had to take off all of their flavored products.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jewel kind of did this voluntarily and anticipation
Speaker 1: of the FDA going in this direction. The FDA is
Speaker 1: now decided whether or not Jewel will continue to be sold,
Speaker 1: whether or not will be legal for Jewel to continue
Speaker 1: selling its product. When do we hear about that? Towards
Speaker 1: the end of the year. So this is really literally
Speaker 1: Julius hanging by threat, and the FDA is holding the threat.
Speaker 1: They either will get the go ahead to continue selling
Speaker 1: their product or they won't. This story made me a
Speaker 1: little sad, I have to say, because it seemed like
Speaker 1: this is a company that was born with a great
Speaker 1: quest to take down big tobacco and save the world
Speaker 1: from cigarettes. They had the breakthrough product to do it.
Speaker 1: They just spiked the ball on like the five yard
Speaker 1: line and marketed it to the wrong people, to teenagers.
Speaker 1: Is that too kind or to mean? Like? Is that fair? Well?
Speaker 1: I feel the same way. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: that Adam and James set out to addict five million
Speaker 1: teenagers on nicotine, right, unintentional? Right, But you really do.
Speaker 1: As businesses, and particularly in Silicon Valley, I believe you
Speaker 1: have a responsibility for how your product is marketed and sold. So, Lauren,
Speaker 1: I have a question that I asked all of our guests,
Speaker 1: so I will ask it if you are will just
Speaker 1: a bunch of bullshitters? I don't know. Is there like
Speaker 1: a scale or something? Well, yes, yes, that's where I
Speaker 1: was going. We have a thing called the bullshit scale.
Speaker 1: So on a scale of zero to one, zero being
Speaker 1: zero bullshit the company means everything that it says and
Speaker 1: being just complete bs. Where would you rate Jewel? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that you can't discount their past and like
Speaker 1: a set at their original sin. So I think that
Speaker 1: gives them a lot of points on the bullshit meter. Honestly, Um,
Speaker 1: so that puts them to fifty. I think that they're trying.
Speaker 1: I think that they do have a valid harm reduction mission,
Speaker 1: but again, the youth threat just lingers out there. So
Speaker 1: I would say that between zero and a hundred, I
Speaker 1: would put them at about a sixty. Yeah, that's fair
Speaker 1: and by the way, that can move. What is the
Speaker 1: one thing that you think Jewel should have done or
Speaker 1: still should do to solve their problem? Well, I think
Speaker 1: that they should have treated their product more carefully. They
Speaker 1: should have treated it less as a fashion accessory and
Speaker 1: more as a pharmaceutical grade product that is designed to
Speaker 1: help people quit smoking. They should have been more boring.
Speaker 1: But listen, we all acknowledge and know and realize that
Speaker 1: in no world in Silicon Valley would a boring company
Speaker 1: achieve a thirty eight billion dollar valuation. There's some fundamental
Speaker 1: flaws in the way that Silicon Valley is structure, and
Speaker 1: I think that that's also a big part of the problem.
Speaker 1: Very interesting. I completely agree with that. All right, thank
Speaker 1: you very much for joining us today, Lauren. That was amazing.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Fun to talk to you. So
Speaker 1: is Duel really transitioning the world's billion adults smokers away
Speaker 1: from combustible cigarettes, eliminating their use and combating underage usage
Speaker 1: of our ducks? Like they say on their website. Based
Speaker 1: on what I've heard so far, I'm calling bullshit. But
Speaker 1: after the break we'll hear some concrete ideas to get
Speaker 1: Jewel back on track from two more experts on the
Speaker 1: vaping industry. Welcome back on calling bullshit. We don't just
Speaker 1: curse the darkness. We want to light some candles too.
Speaker 1: So I've asked two vaping industry experts to propose some
Speaker 1: concrete things that Jewel and their current CEO, Casey Cross
Speaker 1: the Way could change to actually do their story of
Speaker 1: harm reduction. First, I'd like to welcome Jamie Douche, arm
Speaker 1: author and journalist. Thanks so much for having me so.
Speaker 1: I am a health correspondent at Time Magazine and my
Speaker 1: first book is called Big Vape. The incendiary rise of Jewel,
Speaker 1: and it tracks Jewel from its very origins up until
Speaker 1: more or less the present day, going into many of
Speaker 1: the decisions they've made over time and how they got
Speaker 1: into the hot water that they find themselves in. Now.
Speaker 1: It's a great book. I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you.
Speaker 1: We're also joined by Greg Connolly, and Greg, thank you
Speaker 1: for being here today. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about your background. I run a nonprofit called the
Speaker 1: American Vaping Association. It's a five oh one c four.
Speaker 1: It advocates for pro vaping policies with the end goal
Speaker 1: of maximizing the number of smokers who use these products
Speaker 1: to quit smoking and improve their health. Back in law
Speaker 1: school at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, I was
Speaker 1: a dedicated smoker, and in two thousand ten I saw
Speaker 1: these things called the cigarettes. I quit with them, and
Speaker 1: I found that there were activists out trying to ban
Speaker 1: these products while leaving combustible cigarettes entirely untouched. That didn't
Speaker 1: set right with me, so I spent about three years
Speaker 1: as a volunteer consumer advocate with the US's largest consumer
Speaker 1: association for users of smoke free nicotine products, and the
Speaker 1: a v A has been going for around eight years
Speaker 1: and we've been fortunate enough to to do a lot
Speaker 1: of media, get some attention to this issue, and work
Speaker 1: with a lot of great public health people who have
Speaker 1: come around on this issue as well. Thank you, Greg.
Speaker 1: So let's get into ideas for positive actions that Jewel
Speaker 1: could take Jamie in two minutes or less? What is
Speaker 1: the number one thing that Jewels should do to solve
Speaker 1: the mess that they're currently in. Basically, what it boils
Speaker 1: down to for me is that Jewels should just do less.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is throughout the company's history,
Speaker 1: it has made so many unforced errors that have made
Speaker 1: it really difficult to support the company. I think the
Speaker 1: flashy marketing campaign that they came out with is one
Speaker 1: great an example. I mean, they didn't have to partner
Speaker 1: with Instagram influencers and buy a Time Square billboard, but
Speaker 1: they chose to because at that time they were kind
Speaker 1: of operating as a trendy start up more than they
Speaker 1: were as a company that straddles the line between tobacco
Speaker 1: and public health. They didn't have to go into schools
Speaker 1: and pitch schools on an anti vaping curriculum. That they developed.
Speaker 1: But they did that, they didn't have to just recently
Speaker 1: buy out an entire issue of a research journal to
Speaker 1: promote their own research. So really, what I'm getting at
Speaker 1: is that the problem for Jewel has always been less
Speaker 1: about its product, which actually is a good product that
Speaker 1: works well and can be effective for adults. So, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, if they just stripped away kind of all
Speaker 1: of their external activity and paid less attention to marketing
Speaker 1: and trying to be a thought leader an innovative company,
Speaker 1: and just sold their product and did the research that
Speaker 1: they need to do and listen to what the FDA
Speaker 1: was asking of them, I think they would be in
Speaker 1: a far better position than they are today. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that makes a ton of sense. It's put the shovel down,
Speaker 1: just stop digging. Thank you, Jamie, Greg your turn in
Speaker 1: two minutes or less. What's your idea to get Jewel
Speaker 1: back on track? There are two different ideas popping around
Speaker 1: my head. First is rather simple. There's a process at
Speaker 1: the f d A beyond the pre market tobacco application
Speaker 1: known as the m r t P process. Yes, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of acronyms in this field. M RTP
Speaker 1: stands for modified risk tobacco product, and there are at
Speaker 1: least two products, General Snooze, which is a T bag
Speaker 1: shaped thing of tobacco that goes in your upper lip,
Speaker 1: as well as a Philip Morris product called KOs that
Speaker 1: heats tobacco and does not burn it. They have gotten
Speaker 1: approval through that m R t P process at the FDA.
Speaker 1: It allows them to make health based claims in marketing,
Speaker 1: and I think with so many people in America, the
Speaker 1: vast majority inaccurately believing vaping could be just as deadly
Speaker 1: as smoking, going through that m R t P process,
Speaker 1: I think is going to be essential to regaining public
Speaker 1: trust and actually correcting misperceptions not only among the general public,
Speaker 1: but among doctors, among regulators, among state legislators. And the
Speaker 1: second is there are still tremendous amounts of knockoffs of
Speaker 1: Jewel and products that are heavily inspired by Jewel that
Speaker 1: may not infringe on their patents, but nonetheless are either
Speaker 1: on the market illegally or on the market to the
Speaker 1: gray market where it's not technically illegal, but it is
Speaker 1: something that the government could take action on. Jewel being
Speaker 1: more aggressive going to more governments and saying look, we
Speaker 1: did the right thing. We went through the process. We
Speaker 1: are regulated by the FDA. These people aren't, and we
Speaker 1: need your help. That could in some way bring about
Speaker 1: more legitimacy. But really, this is a multi year fight
Speaker 1: for Jewel to regain any Lauren puts it in her
Speaker 1: book Permission to Exist. It's a long fight for them ahead.
Speaker 1: So in a way, you're advocating for them to become
Speaker 1: an active this in the space, advocating for saner regulation
Speaker 1: and maybe fewer cowboy companies. Not so much with being
Speaker 1: an advocate for better regulation, but more pointing out that
Speaker 1: they make products that are tightly regulated by the f
Speaker 1: d A, presumably they will have authorization from the f
Speaker 1: d A. And meanwhile, yes, there are these cowboy companies
Speaker 1: out there, and I think they can be even more
Speaker 1: aggressive on that point without risking any reputational damage except
Speaker 1: from people like me who just wants adults to be
Speaker 1: able to vape. Yeah, that makes also a ton of sense,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Greg. Okay, my turn. Now. I think Jewels
Speaker 1: in a pretty deep ditch, and so I think it's
Speaker 1: going to take some fairly radical action to get them
Speaker 1: out of it. But I think that this could actually work.
Speaker 1: They sold out to big Tobacco by taking a huge
Speaker 1: investment from all Tria, and so I think the hatred
Speaker 1: and mistrust that it created really destroyed the brand, and
Speaker 1: so I think they need to rethink their whole model.
Speaker 1: I think Jewels should be a medical device. I think
Speaker 1: they should go to the pharmaceutical industry instead of the
Speaker 1: tobacco industry. Go to Fiser or g s K, who
Speaker 1: both have smoking cessation products in the market, and see
Speaker 1: if they can get those companies interested in the underlying technology.
Speaker 1: These are both companies with really deep pockets and the
Speaker 1: patients to guide a new medical technology through the regulatory process.
Speaker 1: They also both have the necessary army of salespeople who
Speaker 1: know how to sell a new medical technology through to doctors,
Speaker 1: and so it becomes a prescription medical device that doctors
Speaker 1: can prescribe to their patients who smoke as a way
Speaker 1: to reduce harm. And that market is still massive and
Speaker 1: with some grown ups at the wheel, the former Jewel
Speaker 1: could finally live up to its true and very positive promise.
Speaker 1: Any thoughts on that? Is that crazy talk? I don't
Speaker 1: think it's crazy talk. I do think the huge benefit
Speaker 1: of what you've just described is that it would solve
Speaker 1: a lot of Jewels use issues. I think the drawback,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure Greg would point out if I didn't,
Speaker 1: so I'm getting ahead of it, is that if you
Speaker 1: make something a prescription product, you're guaranteeing that fewer people
Speaker 1: will have access to it or will choose to seek
Speaker 1: out access to it. So I think it's a two
Speaker 1: sided coin where yes, you'll prevent a lot of teenagers
Speaker 1: from using it, which is great, but you'll also lose
Speaker 1: out on some of the adults who might use it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and as Jamie noted, we live in a country where
Speaker 1: about of Americans do not have a primary care doctor,
Speaker 1: and with cigarette smokers being of lower socio economic status
Speaker 1: on average, you're probably more looking at thirty smokers without
Speaker 1: a primary care doctor. The prescription model is problematic for
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. Visor and g SK both place
Speaker 1: great value in their relationships with the tobacco control community,
Speaker 1: with the people who are trying to ban jewel, and
Speaker 1: the problem is that campaign for tobacco free kids, the
Speaker 1: American Lung Association American Heart Association. If there's any hint
Speaker 1: of FISER or GSK partnering with an Altria owned company,
Speaker 1: a cigarette company, they won't stand for it. There's a
Speaker 1: recognition at the FDA that long term usage of smoke
Speaker 1: free nicotine can be a public health benefit, but under
Speaker 1: the farmer route, there really is no way to get
Speaker 1: a product approved for long term nicotine replacement. Smoking cessation
Speaker 1: is kind of a misnomer. It's really about nicotine cessation.
Speaker 1: At the f D a center for drug evaluation and research.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of problems with that route. Certainly,
Speaker 1: Jewel may one day decide we need to do this,
Speaker 1: especially if FDA denies them. I just don't think it
Speaker 1: be with Visor or GSK for reputational reasons. Well that
Speaker 1: makes sense, you know way more about this, not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: and if they're the wrong partners, then so be it.
Speaker 1: But one of just to pursue this for a sect.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think got Jewel in
Speaker 1: trouble was this hurry up offense, like they were in
Speaker 1: a hurry to get big fast deliver value for their shareholders.
Speaker 1: And I think some patients is needed, and I completely
Speaker 1: agree that it would reduce dramatically the sales in the
Speaker 1: short term to go to a prescription model. And what
Speaker 1: I'm arguing is that's a good thing. That will give
Speaker 1: them time to have a business of some kind for
Speaker 1: a period of time while trust is healed, because trust
Speaker 1: has been broken. And so following that threat, I want
Speaker 1: to go back to a couple of your ideas, I mean, Jamie,
Speaker 1: the idea of doing less, I think is very interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of the story of J and J. I
Speaker 1: don't know if either of you know this story because
Speaker 1: it was quite a while, like it was back in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties, but there was a psycho who
Speaker 1: started poisoning Thailand All in the Chicago area. Three people
Speaker 1: died and Jay and Jay's response was to pull all
Speaker 1: of the thailand All bottles off every shelf in America.
Speaker 1: And they did that because they understood that their entire
Speaker 1: reputation as a business was on the line, and that
Speaker 1: if they didn't immediately swallow that very bitter pill, no
Speaker 1: pun intended, they would be deemed to be part of
Speaker 1: the problem in the court of public opinion. And it's
Speaker 1: actions like that that build trust for people. Do you
Speaker 1: think there's a world in which Jewel would take more
Speaker 1: dramatic action, Jamie in keeping their product out of the
Speaker 1: hands of young people. Yeah, I mean, I actually do
Speaker 1: think it was fairly dramatic for them to take all
Speaker 1: their flavored products off the market. As I said before,
Speaker 1: that was a huge part of their revenue stream. So
Speaker 1: I think that was a dramatic action. But my perception
Speaker 1: of this company is just that they sort of can't
Speaker 1: help themselves. Like at several junctures when I was reporting
Speaker 1: my book, it seemed like they were on the right track,
Speaker 1: or they'd gotten the right advice from health experts, they
Speaker 1: had all of the tools to make good decisions, and
Speaker 1: then they just veered left and did the complete opposite thing.
Speaker 1: So in my view, it's maybe at this point less
Speaker 1: about making further dramatic actions and were just about doing
Speaker 1: the things that people have told them for years will work.
Speaker 1: I mean, they already have market share, they already have
Speaker 1: name recognition. In my eyes, there's not a whole lot
Speaker 1: they have to do except stop getting in your own way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. I agree Greg your idea about Jewel
Speaker 1: essentially pivoting to pin a star to their own chest
Speaker 1: and become the sheriff in the space. I think the
Speaker 1: idea of pivoting to be a more activist brand that
Speaker 1: is pro vaping but anti smoking and anti Cowboy eight
Speaker 1: companies would be another way to potentially heal trust. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's something that they have the stomach to do. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: They have a very large team of attorneys. They have
Speaker 1: a lot of influence from Altria, which has never shied
Speaker 1: away from being in the courtroom and going after their
Speaker 1: competitors with a great deal of fury. So I think
Speaker 1: that is a potential pathway. Yeah, is the Altria ownership
Speaker 1: steak a conflict of interest? There? Would they ever say, no,
Speaker 1: we want to buy ourselves back. We're going to go
Speaker 1: find a big rich friend, somebody who is not a
Speaker 1: tobacco company, and we're going to buy your steak. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure Altria would be thrilled to be rid of
Speaker 1: the albatross that has become Jewel. But ultimately, I think
Speaker 1: Altria wants to stick around. I think they see value
Speaker 1: in the brand. But you never know. Silicon Valley is
Speaker 1: a place, as aultre to learn, where you have crazy
Speaker 1: valuations and people can sometimes bring out the check book
Speaker 1: in unexpected ways. The Ultria investment brought so much bad
Speaker 1: press and just further scrutiny and Jewel, but at this
Speaker 1: point they have so many lawsuits coming at them that
Speaker 1: I think they sort of need Aultrea's support at this point.
Speaker 1: And the FTC is actually trying to unwind ur suing
Speaker 1: to unwind that investment. So potentially this will be out
Speaker 1: of their control and will happen whether they like it
Speaker 1: or not. But I think at this point Jewel is
Speaker 1: a little vulnerable and kind of needs that. Jamie brings
Speaker 1: up a very good point with the lawsuits against Jewel,
Speaker 1: because what you will likely end up with is you
Speaker 1: now have multidistrict litigation. There's already been a settlement in
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and there's likely to be a very large,
Speaker 1: substantial settlement with all of the states school districts, local
Speaker 1: governments that have sued Jewel, And so I think Jewel
Speaker 1: recognizes that part of their path way forward is to
Speaker 1: enter into a multidistrict settlement that restricts them in ways
Speaker 1: that they are already restricting themselves. So I think part
Speaker 1: of Jewels strategy is eventually we're gonna have to settle,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to cut a big check, and Altree
Speaker 1: is going to be helpful with that legal strategy, but
Speaker 1: they see the settlement as their path to that permission
Speaker 1: to exist in the future. It strikes me that there
Speaker 1: is more that the company could do to keep its
Speaker 1: products out of the hands of young people that would
Speaker 1: have potentially symbolic value. One is biometric locks. And you know,
Speaker 1: although the gun industry has its own issues and has
Speaker 1: been slow to actually implement ideas like this, there are
Speaker 1: biometric locks that make it impossible for anyone to fire
Speaker 1: a gun if they're not the owner of that gun.
Speaker 1: That might be possible in the dual device as well.
Speaker 1: Do you think about doing something like that. There's great
Speaker 1: potential in that idea, and Jewel has already explored it.
Speaker 1: When they entered the marketing Canada. They attempted to do
Speaker 1: a system where people would have to log in and
Speaker 1: upload a copy of their driver's licensibly for their product
Speaker 1: to be able to work. Then they ran into the
Speaker 1: problem that the app stores for both Apple and Google, Android, etcetera.
Speaker 1: They have banned all vaping product apps. But you need
Speaker 1: to keep in mind with these tech options. The places
Speaker 1: with the highest smoking rates in America West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama.
Speaker 1: These are states that do not have in some places,
Speaker 1: consistent internet connection. These are places where some people live
Speaker 1: without the Internet, without a phone with four G enabled
Speaker 1: from their home. So you can't forget about the lower
Speaker 1: socioeconomic smokers who if you make it too techy, they
Speaker 1: may just decide, you know what's really easy lighting up
Speaker 1: a Marlborough right? What about treating it like cannabis and
Speaker 1: making dispensaries. You know that we're just making it harder
Speaker 1: to get at. I do think you'd run into some
Speaker 1: of the same access problems we were talking about with
Speaker 1: the prescription products. But you know, at the same time,
Speaker 1: this is the huge issue for both jewel and the
Speaker 1: vaping industry as a whole. So I do think to
Speaker 1: your earlier point, dramatic action might be in the long run,
Speaker 1: a better path for them. It's an interesting idea and
Speaker 1: maybe something they should think a little more seriously about,
Speaker 1: a sort of a short term drop in profits in
Speaker 1: pursuit of fixing this long standing problem. I would prefer
Speaker 1: if you're going to do it, you do it legislatively.
Speaker 1: We're not just vaping products, but cigarettes as well. Get
Speaker 1: restricted to age restricted stores, and there is some form
Speaker 1: of geographic limitations where if a population is not X
Speaker 1: then there are less restrictions. Because we want people. It's
Speaker 1: not like cannabis, where you go to a store once
Speaker 1: every two weeks to get what you need. People are
Speaker 1: used to going in and buying their pack of cigarettes
Speaker 1: in the morning, every day or every other day. Okay,
Speaker 1: is there anything else that you think Jewel ought to
Speaker 1: consider doing in order to get themselves out of this ditch?
Speaker 1: One idea I've heard. I don't know if I necessarily
Speaker 1: I haven't processed it fully enough to know if I
Speaker 1: even agree with this, but I'll just throw it out
Speaker 1: there because it's something i've heard that I find interesting
Speaker 1: is the idea of actually redesigning what the Jewel device
Speaker 1: looks like, because a lot of the criticism the company
Speaker 1: gets is that the product is so techy and looks
Speaker 1: like a flash drive, and it's easy to conceal um
Speaker 1: and to use discreetly, like you know, in a classroom
Speaker 1: or even in a home, you wouldn't necessarily know that
Speaker 1: someone's using it. So I have heard it said that potentially,
Speaker 1: if Jewell wanted to really take a dramatic action which
Speaker 1: would set off a whole separate process of needing to
Speaker 1: file new FDA applications, they could think about making the
Speaker 1: device look less appealing. Yeah, I like that. I think
Speaker 1: that is interesting, Greg, anything else, I don't think that
Speaker 1: is a bad idea at all. Ultimately, to go back
Speaker 1: to Jamie's earlier point, I think Jewel just needs time
Speaker 1: not being or not volunteering themselves to be the center
Speaker 1: of attention. Adult smokers know they exist, the vapors that
Speaker 1: are using the product, no, they exist. And I think
Speaker 1: the farther you get away from the controversies of and
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen when the company was being run by tech
Speaker 1: bros in Silicon Valley who actively resisted hiring people from
Speaker 1: the tobacco industry that knew what this fight was about
Speaker 1: and how dirty it could get, the better for Jewels.
Speaker 1: So I think we need, as Jamie said, less big
Speaker 1: ideas and more just functioning as a company and seeing
Speaker 1: their youth usage rates drop even lower than they are now.
Speaker 1: That's great. So I want to thank you both for
Speaker 1: being here today. This was a great discussion. To wrap
Speaker 1: it up, I want to ask each of you to
Speaker 1: give Jewel a B S score. So on a scale
Speaker 1: of zero two, one being the worst total b S
Speaker 1: and zero being the best zero bs, what score would
Speaker 1: you give Jewel? Jamie, you first, So I think my
Speaker 1: answer to this question very much depends on the time.
Speaker 1: I think for many of jewels early years, the score
Speaker 1: would be pretty close to the top of the scale.
Speaker 1: I think now they have made some steps in the
Speaker 1: right direction. They have basically stopped advertising their behaving more
Speaker 1: like how you would expect a company in this space
Speaker 1: to behave. So this is a long way of saying
Speaker 1: now I would put the score maybe closer to fifty.
Speaker 1: I think there's definitely room for improvement, that they have
Speaker 1: also made some positive movements. Fair enough, I I accept that.
Speaker 1: And Greg, what do you think about this? What's your score?
Speaker 1: So similar to Jamie in the early twenty nineteen, it's
Speaker 1: more of a fifty. Perhaps Ultimately, when you look at
Speaker 1: the scope bad behavior by American corporations, spilling oil in
Speaker 1: the ocean, killing people with bad drugs, etcetera. Jewel never
Speaker 1: did any of that. Jewel has never killed anyone. Jewel
Speaker 1: has really never done physical injury to anyone. They had
Speaker 1: a bunch of very tech minded people that did not
Speaker 1: think they were in the tobacco industry, that thought everything
Speaker 1: was gonna be okay, that they could out and grow
Speaker 1: their problems, and they've failed, so during that time period,
Speaker 1: maybe about a fifty. Today I would put it more
Speaker 1: as a twenty because they are being more run like
Speaker 1: a tobacco company. Their CEO as a former Altrea executive.
Speaker 1: They know how to stay out of trouble, which is
Speaker 1: one important thing for Jewel to rebuild trust. Okay, fair enough,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. I appreciate you both being here. Sure,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me, absolutely and thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. Okay, it's time to give Jewel my official
Speaker 1: BS score. As you've heard from our guest today, this
Speaker 1: one is complicated. Jewel was definitely a huge bullshitter in
Speaker 1: the early days because they screwed up their marketing big
Speaker 1: time and wound up appealing to young people. But since
Speaker 1: then they've made some important moves in the right direction.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give today's Jewel a forty nine. To
Speaker 1: weigh in with your own score, visit our website Calling
Speaker 1: Bullshit Podcast dot com. We'll track Jewel's behavior over time
Speaker 1: to see if they can bring that score down. You'll
Speaker 1: also be able to see where Jewel ranks on bullshit
Speaker 1: compared to the other companies we feature on this show.
Speaker 1: And if you're running a purpose led business, or you're
Speaker 1: thinking of beginning the journey of transformation to become one.
Speaker 1: Here are three things you should take away from this episode. One,
Speaker 1: your purpose, once you've defined it, should be used to
Speaker 1: determine all of the actions that you take as a business,
Speaker 1: including your marketing. Jewel forgot this and paid a steep
Speaker 1: price for making a product that should have targeted adults
Speaker 1: and then marketed it to kids. Two. Once you've gotten
Speaker 1: off track, all is definitely not lost. You just have
Speaker 1: to get your actions back in line with your stated purpose.
Speaker 1: In Jules case, we've heard suggested actions like changing the
Speaker 1: physical design of the product to be less appealing to
Speaker 1: young people, or becoming an activist in the vaping space
Speaker 1: to try to get the whole category realigned toward adults.
Speaker 1: Your actions would undoubtedly be different, but the key is
Speaker 1: finding things to do that are iconic, i e. Dramatic
Speaker 1: actions that rebuild the trust that's been broken. And Three,
Speaker 1: there's a huge difference between managing shareholders and managing stakeholders.
Speaker 1: If your shareholders are happy but your broader stakeholders aren't,
Speaker 1: you're gonna need to make a change in your approach.
Speaker 1: In Jewel's case, parents and the FDA were major stakeholders
Speaker 1: that Jewel did a really poor job of managing and
Speaker 1: it hurt them badly. And Casey cross the way, CEO Jewel.
Speaker 1: If you ever want to come on this show to
Speaker 1: discuss any aspects of this episode, you have an open invitation.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us today, Lauren Edtter, Jamie Douche, arm
Speaker 1: and Greg Connolly. You can find their social media handles
Speaker 1: on our website, Colling Bullshit Podcast dot com. While you're there,
Speaker 1: check out Lawrence book The Devil's Playbook, Big Tobacco and
Speaker 1: the Addiction of a New Generation and Jamie's book Big Vague,
Speaker 1: The Incendiary Rise of Jewel. I have an idea for
Speaker 1: a company or organization we should consider for the show.
Speaker 1: You can submit it on the site too. That's Calling
Speaker 1: Bullshit Podcast dot com. And if we hooked you today,
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Calling Bullshit Podcast on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: And thanks to our production team, Susie Armitage, Amanda Ginsburg,
Speaker 1: ds Moss, Andy Kim, Hannah Beale, MICHAELA. Reid, Lena Beck, Silison,
Speaker 1: Jess Fenton and Basil Soaper. Calling Bullshit was created by
Speaker 1: co Collective and is hosted by Me Time Onto You.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, Be and Gree