Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Patricia Neilson and I'm Alex Barker. We're journalists
Speaker 1: for the Financial Times. We write about business, but over
Speaker 1: the last year we found an amazing financial story in
Speaker 1: an unexpected place, the porn industry. No one really likes
Speaker 1: to talk about porn. We're embarrassed to even though most
Speaker 1: of us have watched it at some point, and there's
Speaker 1: a contradiction at the heart of it. Porn relies on
Speaker 1: performers to literally bear it all, yet information about the
Speaker 1: people and businesses who run the industry is kept like
Speaker 1: a state secret. I am so exposed, and the people
Speaker 1: who really own these tube sites get to be reclusive
Speaker 1: and not publicly held to account. Obviously, it's not a
Speaker 1: fair that the person who get the least, say, get
Speaker 1: the most money. That is so unfair. I don't like it.
Speaker 1: Who are these secret owners? We wanted to follow the
Speaker 1: money and workout who really controls online porn. It was
Speaker 1: who's got the largest penis here kind of thing, and
Speaker 1: they hate each other. So it was all about that
Speaker 1: people with nefarious backgrounds and companies that are hidden, who
Speaker 1: are not part of the industry come into the industry.
Speaker 1: Make a lot of money in the industry. On our mission,
Speaker 1: we met directors and adult performers, plus people with real power,
Speaker 1: tech pioneers and Wall Street billionaires. You probably who are
Speaker 1: a catalyst for one of the biggest takedowns of media
Speaker 1: content in the history of the Internet. Like when nine
Speaker 1: million videos ever been taken down overnight? That felt good
Speaker 1: about it. The survey episodes will be taking you inside
Speaker 1: the porn industry. So this man who is getting very
Speaker 1: nervous about us standing around and recording here, he chased
Speaker 1: me up the stairs and he very politely escorted me
Speaker 1: off the premises. Do you have regrets on how you
Speaker 1: handled it? Looking back, For a lot of people, it
Speaker 1: was it's like being cut down at the knees telling
Speaker 1: you about the rivalries, the power battles. You can make
Speaker 1: a choice in business to be friendly competitors or you
Speaker 1: can be enemies. And I think that that was just
Speaker 1: the decision that was made between the two of them
Speaker 1: to be completely antagonistic. We were surprised by what we
Speaker 1: discovered and by who's really in charge. There is two
Speaker 1: players on this planet that can kill porn online, and
Speaker 1: they can literally kill it, and if they decide to ally,
Speaker 1: it's Dead. This is Hot Money, a show about power
Speaker 1: and finance, coming June seventh from Pushkin Industries and The
Speaker 1: Financial Times. Listen Wherever do you