Speaker 1: Doesn't it feel like we're hostages in our own country
Speaker 1: that were hostages to this vocal minority, this woke mob
Speaker 1: that are trying to dictate how we live our lives,
Speaker 1: what we can talk about, what's acceptable or not. And
Speaker 1: of course they virtue signal without having any virtue or
Speaker 1: morality themselves. We're at a really weird place in society today,
Speaker 1: and I'm interested in finding out and talking to someone
Speaker 1: in this episode. Jennifer Say, who actually was a cancel
Speaker 1: culture victim who was forced out of her job at Levi's.
Speaker 1: She was the brand president. She was on track to
Speaker 1: be the Genes company CEO, but she was forced out
Speaker 1: for simply just raising questions about COVID. You know, she's
Speaker 1: got kids. She was worried what school closures would do,
Speaker 1: what impact that would have on her children, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know what, you got to shut up or ship out,
Speaker 1: and so she chose to resign as opposed to taking
Speaker 1: money and musling herself. So she experienced this woke mob
Speaker 1: both as just a human being in today's society during COVID,
Speaker 1: but also as an executive at a major corporation. So
Speaker 1: I want to talk to her about that and then also,
Speaker 1: what does this mean for society with gen Z, this
Speaker 1: TikTok generation, What is her workforce going to look like
Speaker 1: in the future, And how much control the CEOs really
Speaker 1: even have when they're seemingly being held captive by these
Speaker 1: justice warrior employees. So that conversation and more. She's also
Speaker 1: the author of a new book, Levi's and Button. It's
Speaker 1: an autobiography of her time at Levi's. She's also the
Speaker 1: author of a book called Chalked Up. It's an autobiography
Speaker 1: of her time as an elite gymnast. And she was
Speaker 1: a producer of athlete A, a documentary on the Larry
Speaker 1: a Star scandal at USA Gymnastics. The film ended up
Speaker 1: winning an Emmy as well. So interesting background, interesting story,
Speaker 1: and we're going to get into all of it with
Speaker 1: Jennifer Say. Well, Jennifer, it's so good to have you
Speaker 1: on the show. You know, I want to obviously get
Speaker 1: into what led to your resigning from Levi, But I
Speaker 1: mean that track to get to the position a brand president,
Speaker 1: to be on the CEO track, I mean you put
Speaker 1: in a lot of sweat equity. It's a major company.
Speaker 1: Talk about sort of that journey to get to the
Speaker 1: point where you were before you left. Yeah, I thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. First of all, I spent the
Speaker 1: better part of my adulthood at Levi's Climbing Climbing the Ladder.
Speaker 1: I started there in nineteen ninety nine. I was not
Speaker 1: my first job, but certainly very early in my career.
Speaker 1: I was an entry level marketing assistant. I didn't even
Speaker 1: really know what I wanted, but I loved the brand
Speaker 1: and I loved the product, and I'd warned the product
Speaker 1: since I was a young child, you know. I'd tell
Speaker 1: a story in the book that I wrote, Levi's I'm Betton.
Speaker 1: I traveled to Moscow in nineteen eighty six for the
Speaker 1: very first good Will Games, which was sort of this rogue,
Speaker 1: you know, Olympic style competition, and I brought ten pairs
Speaker 1: of Levi's five O ones to trade with the Russian gymnasts.
Speaker 1: I mean, they were part of my life, and they
Speaker 1: represented rugged individualism and sort of the best of American values.
Speaker 1: And I loved this company. So I started there in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, worked my way up the ladder, which
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly easy as a woman in the nineties and
Speaker 1: two thousands, it was a pretty inhospitable environment to women,
Speaker 1: I would say, and I think, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: testament to how far we have come that it is
Speaker 1: much better now. It was very male dominated, you know,
Speaker 1: you spend time at sales meetings with drunken sales guys
Speaker 1: trying trying to avoid you know, advances and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But I climbed my way up, and in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen I made it to cheap Marketing Officer, which
Speaker 1: is a really big and public facing role that helps
Speaker 1: to steer the direction of the brand and the company
Speaker 1: and the brand. The company wasn't doing well, you know,
Speaker 1: we were near bankruptcy in twenty eleven, the storied iconic brand,
Speaker 1: and eight years in the role as CMO, I helped
Speaker 1: bring it back and helped us to an IPO. We
Speaker 1: went public in twenty nineteen, very successfully. And I, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just I was disciplined, curious. I took pride
Speaker 1: in being a leader and helping people build careers, you know,
Speaker 1: at the company. But in two and twenty, when the
Speaker 1: schools shut down and we went into total lockdown in
Speaker 1: San Francisco and across the country, I was alarmed and
Speaker 1: I was reading the data that showed that children were
Speaker 1: at no risk, and I was very outspoken. I have
Speaker 1: four children, all public school students, and I was outspoken
Speaker 1: about all of the restrictions to children from the outset,
Speaker 1: you know, right from March thirteen, twenty twenty. And by outspoken,
Speaker 1: you know on social media, I wrote off as I
Speaker 1: was on a local news and eventually, in the late
Speaker 1: fall of twenty twenty started leading rallies to try to
Speaker 1: get the schools open, and it was a conflict internally.
Speaker 1: I was told repeatedly I needed to stop, that it
Speaker 1: was upsetting to people. I did not stop for two years,
Speaker 1: and eventually I was told there was no longer a
Speaker 1: place for me at the company. Now, during this two years,
Speaker 1: I was promoted as you indicated to brand President, which
Speaker 1: is you know, next in line for CEO, and I
Speaker 1: think a testament to the fact that I was performing
Speaker 1: in my duties. But what I was doing was quote
Speaker 1: unquote upsetting to people and it went against the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party narrative. And I was told I needed to leave,
Speaker 1: and I was offered severance. Did not accept it because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to sign a nondisclosure agreement. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to speak out about the censorship and
Speaker 1: the liberalism. And so here we are and I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you. So how did they approach you? Were they
Speaker 1: just you know, kind of what were those conversations like
Speaker 1: when they were obviously identifying things that they weren't happy
Speaker 1: with in terms of you know, what you were saying
Speaker 1: about COVID. It didn't start for about six months, so
Speaker 1: I think the first call that I, you know, noted
Speaker 1: was in September of two and twenty. And you know,
Speaker 1: as I was tweeting and writing staff and you know,
Speaker 1: I kept thinking, well, if someone called me, I'll you know,
Speaker 1: think about it. But you know, no one's saying. I
Speaker 1: didn't really have a very large follow and I'll just
Speaker 1: keep going this is too important. But in the fall
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, I got a call from our head
Speaker 1: of corporate communications and that role. You know, I think
Speaker 1: she would define it as protecting the corporate reputation, you know,
Speaker 1: of the company, and I think she saw what I
Speaker 1: was doing as potentially harmful to the reputation of the company.
Speaker 1: Though I never identified myself as an employee, you know,
Speaker 1: I was speaking as a mom and a citizen, and
Speaker 1: she said, people are noticing people are upset with what
Speaker 1: you're saying. And I said, okay, I understand that, but
Speaker 1: I think it's the right thing to do, to stand
Speaker 1: up for children. And at this point, you know, it
Speaker 1: was the fall of twenty We knew so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: we knew so much in the beginning, but we knew,
Speaker 1: you know, that the median age of death was in
Speaker 1: the eighties. We knew that children were mercifully protected. We
Speaker 1: knew that European schools had been opened, and we knew
Speaker 1: that the private schools in my city were about to open.
Speaker 1: And this woman was about to send her children back
Speaker 1: to in person school while telling me I could not
Speaker 1: advocate for the same for the low income children of
Speaker 1: San Francisco. So, you know, she said, people are upset.
Speaker 1: You need to probably think about it and stop. And
Speaker 1: I said I don't. I don't want to. And I said,
Speaker 1: are you telling me I have to? And she said, no,
Speaker 1: I can't do that. I don't know if she meant
Speaker 1: because you know, legally she can't, or because she was
Speaker 1: a peer and she didn't have the authority. And I said,
Speaker 1: then I'm not going to and she said, will you
Speaker 1: hold the line? And I didn't really understand what that meant.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, I'm not going to identify
Speaker 1: myself as a Levi's employee. I'm not speaking on behalf
Speaker 1: of the company. That's what I will offer you. And
Speaker 1: we hung up, and from then on, every two weeks,
Speaker 1: I'd get a call from somebody else, you know, from
Speaker 1: the head of legal, from a board member, and the
Speaker 1: conversation pretty much went the same way. It didn't start
Speaker 1: to accelerate and kind of escalate in intensity in the
Speaker 1: spring of twenty one, after I appeared on Fox, which
Speaker 1: is a no no apparently, And of course you're right.
Speaker 1: We knew the entire time that you know, the remote
Speaker 1: learning was not going to be good for kids, that
Speaker 1: you know, kids have been set back so far in
Speaker 1: terms of their learning and their development. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really just been tragic what they did to kids. Why
Speaker 1: did you make the decision? You know, you said that
Speaker 1: you decided not to sign the nondisclosure you didn't want
Speaker 1: to be muzzled, which essentially that's what it would have done.
Speaker 1: And what was that decision making, like to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to walk away from this company. I've spent
Speaker 1: all this time working my way up. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the decision was whether or not to take the money
Speaker 1: and muzzle myself. I mean I was being pushed out,
Speaker 1: you know, a job for me was no longer an option. There.
Speaker 1: The question was, you know, did I take the money,
Speaker 1: give myself a quote unquote soft landing and walk away
Speaker 1: and not talk about it? And honestly, it took me
Speaker 1: all about, you know, a few seconds to decide. And
Speaker 1: people ask me all the time, why why did you
Speaker 1: throw it all away? Why was this the hill that
Speaker 1: you were willing to die on? And my response is
Speaker 1: always why weren't you? I mean, if we if we
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to live in a country where we can't
Speaker 1: express our opinions, where we can't stand up for our families,
Speaker 1: and where we're expected to further lies because it's what
Speaker 1: our tribe tells us to do. That is not a
Speaker 1: free country. And if we had been able to have
Speaker 1: a conversation, a societal conversation about this particular issue, you know,
Speaker 1: and all the other ones having to do with COVID,
Speaker 1: but this particular issue, I think we would have gotten
Speaker 1: to a very different answer and we wouldn't be experiencing,
Speaker 1: you know, the patastrophic harms that are playing out in
Speaker 1: terms of, you know, how our kids are doing. And
Speaker 1: so I just I couldn't silence myself, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean it all started with me just sort of being
Speaker 1: dogged and standing up for children. But as it progressed
Speaker 1: over the course of two years, what became more and
Speaker 1: more alarming was the censorship and the manufacturing of this
Speaker 1: false consensus and the lack of any ability to kind
Speaker 1: of have open debate and dissent around this issue. And
Speaker 1: that almost became more important and more central, because that
Speaker 1: affects every issue right in the country. If we can't
Speaker 1: talk about these things, that we can't get to any
Speaker 1: reasonable common sense solution. And so I just wasn't going
Speaker 1: to give up my voice. It seemed too hypocritical, and
Speaker 1: I felt like, Okay, this is a hill. I will
Speaker 1: gladly die on the hill for freedom of speech and
Speaker 1: the well being of children. I can't really think of
Speaker 1: a higher purpose than that. It's more important than my job.
Speaker 1: And you know, I decided quickly that I was not
Speaker 1: going to take the money. I respect that because you know,
Speaker 1: we're like minded in that way. I was actually interviewing
Speaker 1: for the view for the Conservative Sea and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: get vaccinated, and so you know that there goes that,
Speaker 1: right and then and then of course they'll they all
Speaker 1: end up with COVID regardless. But you know, no one,
Speaker 1: of course, no one ever admits you were right about stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, But I want to ask you, you don't
Speaker 1: know you had mentioned that when you were starting at
Speaker 1: Leva and you're working our way up, you felt like
Speaker 1: this company represents the best of America. Do you still
Speaker 1: feel that way? I would assume not. No, Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean I think the brand does in people's minds.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean when I when I
Speaker 1: say the best, Like Levi's has never been a brand
Speaker 1: that used flag imagery for instances in its advertising, but
Speaker 1: I think the brand has very much stood for rugged individualism,
Speaker 1: for progress and optimism and inclusion. Like you think about
Speaker 1: who wears Levi's, right, everybody wears Levis Farmers and carpenters
Speaker 1: and minivan moms and hipster kids and bee boys and
Speaker 1: like everybody like that is that's kind of the promise
Speaker 1: of America, right, that we're like united in our difference.
Speaker 1: We all wear this brand because we can be ourselves
Speaker 1: in it and wants something that unite us, that we
Speaker 1: want to be ourselves, we want to express ourselves as individuals.
Speaker 1: And I always thought that was so cool about Levis
Speaker 1: And I think while people may not express it that
Speaker 1: way like I just because they didn't spend twenty three
Speaker 1: years working on the brand, I think people have that sense.
Speaker 1: I mean I know they do, because I've talked to
Speaker 1: people around the world, and people around the world love
Speaker 1: that about Levi's. And I think that's why my story
Speaker 1: has resonated, because this is not a company that people
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, or like a giant company that
Speaker 1: you don't really know what they do, like Salesforce. You know,
Speaker 1: this is Levi's. Everybody has a pair in their closet
Speaker 1: and has some sense of it as representing that promise.
Speaker 1: And so to see this play out is alarming to people,
Speaker 1: right And so no, I don't. I think it's anything
Speaker 1: but inclusive. And I think they've trespassed their own stated
Speaker 1: values and an effort to see to carry water for
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. You know, there's this collusion between corporate
Speaker 1: America and kind of woke activists and and the actual
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and the press, by the way, who just
Speaker 1: prints you know, the press and journalists have completely fallen
Speaker 1: off course and they print you know, government issue talking
Speaker 1: points and corporate issue talking points from Fiser as journalism,
Speaker 1: and that's not journalism. There's this total collusion. And so no,
Speaker 1: I don't think they embody those values anymore. I think
Speaker 1: they pretend to, but clearly my story is evidence of
Speaker 1: the fact that they do not. It feels like we're
Speaker 1: all hostages to the woke mob. We're all being held
Speaker 1: hostage by them. Talk about how beholden our corporations to
Speaker 1: the woke mob these days? And how did that happen?
Speaker 1: I mean, they don't have to be, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean they are because why yeah, why do you think
Speaker 1: they are? Though? Well, I think it's a couple of things,
Speaker 1: you know. I think the price one, I think these
Speaker 1: leaders are. They lack courage, They lack moral courage, They
Speaker 1: don't know what they think. You know, I used to
Speaker 1: think when I was younger, I want to get in
Speaker 1: that room where the smart people are, the executives who
Speaker 1: are making tough calls. And I got in the room
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, that's not what's happening here.
Speaker 1: You know. They looked to their left and they're right
Speaker 1: before uttering a word, and they don't speak authentically, and
Speaker 1: they don't speak in their own voice, and I think
Speaker 1: right now, you know, it's an attempt to profit off
Speaker 1: of gen Z and millennial activism to say kind of
Speaker 1: we share your value to buy our stuff, rather than
Speaker 1: talking about we make this great product that you're going
Speaker 1: to like and focusing on product excellence. It provides a
Speaker 1: shield from scrutiny because the press eds it up and
Speaker 1: then they failed to kind of scrutinize these businesses. You know,
Speaker 1: I think someone like Sam Bankman Freed is a great
Speaker 1: example of that. Right. He championed all these woke causes
Speaker 1: pre pandemic planning and environmentalism, and they put them on
Speaker 1: their covers of Forbes and Fortune, and they never did
Speaker 1: any basic due diligence in terms of looking at the
Speaker 1: financial fundamentals which would have revealed that he was a
Speaker 1: fraud from the beginning. That he was celebrated for years
Speaker 1: and enabled, you know, that enabled his theft and frauds.
Speaker 1: So it's a shield from scrutiny. They like being celebrated.
Speaker 1: It's not cool to be rich anymore. You have to
Speaker 1: disavow your privilege and greed is not good. So even
Speaker 1: though they're still greedy and want to make a ton
Speaker 1: of money, they take these stances so they can be
Speaker 1: celebrated in all the ways that their egos require. And
Speaker 1: you know, lastly, they're afraid of their young employees. They
Speaker 1: want to impress their own kids. They don't understand social media.
Speaker 1: And so when they have their HR lead and their
Speaker 1: corp common league coming to them and saying you have
Speaker 1: to be very afraid of this very vocal, punitive minority,
Speaker 1: they are, and so they cater to them. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, Lisa, I just don't think
Speaker 1: it would be that hard to stand up to them,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it would not be that hard
Speaker 1: to do. For instance, what Ted Sarandos at Netflix did
Speaker 1: when he said, look, I know you want me to
Speaker 1: take this off the platform, but we appeal to a
Speaker 1: lot meaning Dave Chappelle's the Closer, But we have a
Speaker 1: lot of viewers that like a lot of stuff. If
Speaker 1: you don't like it, don't work here. That was it.
Speaker 1: It was over quick commercial break more with Jennifer Say
Speaker 1: on the other side. Well, see, that's the thing they
Speaker 1: don't understand is when you do see companies stand up
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, we're not going to do this.
Speaker 1: The mob goes away and finds another, you know, they'll
Speaker 1: find their next victim. They do that, they target. It's
Speaker 1: like a swarm of bees. You know. You wrote in
Speaker 1: the New York Post, which I love this, you wrote,
Speaker 1: these twenty and thirty somethings are ideological terrorists, policing their
Speaker 1: peers and elders relentlessly. I mean, social media has really
Speaker 1: empowered this mob, you know. I mean it's really empowered
Speaker 1: these young people. You know, I think a majority of
Speaker 1: our population to have so much control over you know,
Speaker 1: dictating sort of this fake morality and virtue signaling to
Speaker 1: the rest of us, and holding these CEOs and companies
Speaker 1: captive as well. Yeah, they absolutely are. And I really
Speaker 1: honestly believe it's a very vocal, impunitive minority. I think
Speaker 1: it's you know, under ten percent. I think the vast
Speaker 1: majority of people are applying basic common sense and at
Speaker 1: the very least are open to people having you know,
Speaker 1: debate and theos. But the majorities stay quiet because they're
Speaker 1: afraid of the minority. And that's what puts people like
Speaker 1: me in this you know, zone of being able to
Speaker 1: be targeted as fringe and you know, crazy and dangerous
Speaker 1: because the majority, the majority stay silent. You know, they're afraid,
Speaker 1: and you know, everything I faced over the course for
Speaker 1: two years. In some ways it was you know, behind
Speaker 1: closed doors, but in some ways it was also very public.
Speaker 1: You know, we had these virtual town halls because we
Speaker 1: of course we're working virtually. It was too dangerous to
Speaker 1: go in the office and people would just call me
Speaker 1: terrible names, and honestly they didn't have to use their names,
Speaker 1: you know in the chat. You know, can you please
Speaker 1: address what why Genza is here? She's a racist, she's this,
Speaker 1: she's a fat pope, she's the anti trans Like I was,
Speaker 1: you challenge one aspect of the platform, one tenant, and
Speaker 1: then you get lumped into this. She's a fringe psychopath,
Speaker 1: QAnon insane lady. And it was happening very publicly. People
Speaker 1: knew what was happened, and so they make the choice
Speaker 1: to stay quiet themselves. You know, nobody would even say, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't agree with her, but she has the right
Speaker 1: to say it. And fifty thousand public school children are
Speaker 1: at home, we can have this conversation. Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: do that because so the sixty seventy percent stay silent,
Speaker 1: and you have this battle between you know, the angry,
Speaker 1: woke mom and it is real. I don't care what
Speaker 1: the left says. It was real. They got me outted
Speaker 1: from my job. And then you have the people sort
Speaker 1: of brave enough to stand it and say, hey, can
Speaker 1: we talk about this or I'm not going to further
Speaker 1: these lies. All of this the school close. It was
Speaker 1: the premised you know this online. It was premised on
Speaker 1: the lie that we were all at equal risk. It
Speaker 1: was premised on the lie that virtual learning was school.
Speaker 1: It was premised on the lie that kids were resilient
Speaker 1: enough to endure this isolation and come out unscathed. And
Speaker 1: I wouldn't further a lie, but that minority, you know,
Speaker 1: you asked a great question. I don't understand why we're
Speaker 1: also afraid of that when if we stood together, we
Speaker 1: would be the mature. And you're right. I mean what
Speaker 1: they do is they smear you. You know, I've literally
Speaker 1: raised questions about one vaccine and like my entire professional
Speaker 1: career about the COVID vaccines because you know, they were
Speaker 1: produced in less than a year. Are most vaccines have
Speaker 1: five to ten years of safety data and I'm not
Speaker 1: at risk because I was like, sorry, I'm not getting it,
Speaker 1: and they labeled anti vaxx or that this is what
Speaker 1: they do. They try to silence you through smears. I
Speaker 1: worry about you know, this sort of TikTok generation gen z.
Speaker 1: You know these overly you know, sensitive but incredibly hostile
Speaker 1: group of young people. Isn't it very sensitive but very hostile,
Speaker 1: Like with our leaders wanting to fly private while telling us,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to do something about climate change
Speaker 1: and you're just like, none of it makes sense and
Speaker 1: any of this, you know, we live in a clown world.
Speaker 1: What does this mean for the future generation of our
Speaker 1: country or workforce? I mean, I worry that we're not
Speaker 1: producing the best and that comparatively speaking to other countries,
Speaker 1: we're going to be left behind because you know, we're
Speaker 1: producing a bunch of you know, cry baby victims who
Speaker 1: think they deserve everything without ever happy to work for anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting observing, you know, it's slightly tangential,
Speaker 1: but like you know, San Francisco where I used to live.
Speaker 1: I moved to Denver during all of this, but has
Speaker 1: the lowest return to office occupancy rate. And you know,
Speaker 1: at the time of my leaving Leavis in spring of
Speaker 1: twenty two, they had reopened officers sort of in the
Speaker 1: soft way, and the highest occupancy on any given day
Speaker 1: was like fifteen percent. Like people were just refusing to
Speaker 1: come back. And I will tell you they're not doing work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can tell you from managing a team
Speaker 1: for two years that was virtual. They're not. You know.
Speaker 1: They say it's flexibility. They say they want, you know,
Speaker 1: more flexibility, which I always allowed for anyway. I never
Speaker 1: told people that be in their seats from nine to
Speaker 1: six every day, you could pick up your kid, just
Speaker 1: get your work done. But yeah, they're not. They're not
Speaker 1: doing work, and they're they're demanding, you know, everything on
Speaker 1: their terms. I think at the end of the day, though,
Speaker 1: it's going to have to I'll say, from a business perspective,
Speaker 1: business is not good. It's going to get back to
Speaker 1: brass tax at the end of the day, they're going
Speaker 1: to have to get back to product excellence, you know,
Speaker 1: aspirational marketing and treating employees fairly but holding them to
Speaker 1: account to do the work that they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: They're not going to hold the reins forever. And I
Speaker 1: just I think they're gonna these businesses. I think that
Speaker 1: CEOs are hungering to get back to business, to stop
Speaker 1: with all the extraneous stuff, to stop listening and being
Speaker 1: terrorized by these young people who and it's not all
Speaker 1: young people. I had amazing young people that worked for me.
Speaker 1: I just want to say that, but by this minority
Speaker 1: of people who are bringing their proselytizing to the workplace,
Speaker 1: Go work somewhere else. Go work in a nonprofit, Go
Speaker 1: do advocacy. If you want to work in corporate America,
Speaker 1: work on delivering a great product improves people's lives, and
Speaker 1: you know, you know, doing it in a way that
Speaker 1: is collaborative and people enjoy and marketed aspirationally. That's what
Speaker 1: a business is. And I just I think that it's
Speaker 1: just going to be necessary, and I think eventually corporate
Speaker 1: leaders are going to have to do it out of necessity.
Speaker 1: But someone needs to counsel them and give them the words.
Speaker 1: They don't know how to stand up, they don't know
Speaker 1: how to say the simple thing that Ted Sarandos said.
Speaker 1: They don't know how. So some smart person has to
Speaker 1: start to consult with them and tell them how to
Speaker 1: do it, because I think they're hungry to get back
Speaker 1: to it. Well, I was watching they like there's all
Speaker 1: these videos circulating when Elon Musk took over Twitter and
Speaker 1: it was like the day in the life of you know,
Speaker 1: Twitter people, and they're like, I went to yoga and
Speaker 1: then I went and got by a lot to like
Speaker 1: I went to like my safe space. Like you're like,
Speaker 1: what I think. This is not I'm thirty eight and
Speaker 1: that's not the world I grew up and you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of working, I mean, I've had to work
Speaker 1: my butt off. You know, I don't understand this, like
Speaker 1: the work culture these days. And I don't think COVID
Speaker 1: helped either, because you know, everyone basically was told to
Speaker 1: stay home and they got paid from the government. And
Speaker 1: I think we're this really weird era from a work
Speaker 1: perspective of just laziness. To be perfectly honest, Well, it
Speaker 1: starts in the universities. You know, it's like effort not results.
Speaker 1: I mean, remember the story I don't even know how
Speaker 1: long ago it was at this point about the NYU profs,
Speaker 1: the humbioprof or some some premedge prof who got fired
Speaker 1: and the complaints from the students were that he didn't
Speaker 1: account for the effort they put in to their work.
Speaker 1: He didn't account for how hard they were working. No,
Speaker 1: it's about mastery, not effort. And and you know, we
Speaker 1: live in a world where it's been determined that you know,
Speaker 1: a result's focus or merit driven approaches is called racist.
Speaker 1: But you know, at the end of the day, I
Speaker 1: don't think people want doctors who just worked hard. They
Speaker 1: want doctors who have mastery of the subject matter. Now
Speaker 1: we can put the whole doctor conversation aside, and as
Speaker 1: far as how you know, many doctors kind of moved
Speaker 1: through the COVID regime. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it has to be about results in business in every sector.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're not providing adequate patient care, you
Speaker 1: don't get to be a doctor. If you're not delivering
Speaker 1: results in a business, you don't get to have that job.
Speaker 1: But we're not allowed to say that anymore. But again,
Speaker 1: these corporate leaders, they still at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: care about making money and results. They're just sort of
Speaker 1: wrapping it in these works dances now. And that's what
Speaker 1: I take issue with, is the lie at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. They still want to make money. The
Speaker 1: board wants them to make money, the shareholders need them
Speaker 1: to make money. That's their fiduciary responsibility. So let's be
Speaker 1: honest about that. Let's be honest about how did you
Speaker 1: you could do it and treat employees well. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to have misogynistic work cultures, you don't
Speaker 1: have to be unfair and the way you pay people,
Speaker 1: But get back to basics. I just think we're going
Speaker 1: to have to. I mean, it's not going to be
Speaker 1: without effort from people like us. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, we live in the real world and
Speaker 1: boards and shareholders are not going to accept declining profitability
Speaker 1: because companies aren't requiring employees to go to work and
Speaker 1: all they do all days talk about their feelings when
Speaker 1: they do well. I also think saying, like the people
Speaker 1: that say a merit based society is racist, I think
Speaker 1: that is actually a racist thing to say, because you're
Speaker 1: saying that certain types of people cannot rise to meet
Speaker 1: those merits and that's not the viewpoint I have. So
Speaker 1: I think it's actually you know, demeaning and belittling to
Speaker 1: and racist. Quite frankly, this equity point of view is
Speaker 1: actually a racism in a nutshell. So you were an
Speaker 1: elite gymnast. You also worked you're one of the producers
Speaker 1: of Athlete, a documentary on the Larry Nasar scital at
Speaker 1: the USA Nastics documentary one an Emmy, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: I wanted to just ask you before we go, you know,
Speaker 1: what did you learn if you can kind of give
Speaker 1: us a preview about what you learned from being a
Speaker 1: producer on that documentary. Yeah, Well, I had an elite
Speaker 1: genesis as a child, and I was the nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: six national champion, and I wrote a book in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight about the abusive culture, which is and
Speaker 1: I was sort of canceled in a smaller kind of
Speaker 1: pterview for that because I said things that no one
Speaker 1: else had said yet about how abuse of the culture
Speaker 1: was physically emotionally. And yes, there are sexual predators rampant
Speaker 1: in the sport, and they were protected and we were sacrificed.
Speaker 1: So you know, I am well acquainted with the ways
Speaker 1: that adults can sacrifice the well being of children. Eventually,
Speaker 1: when the Naster story broke, which was about ten years
Speaker 1: after I wrote my book, I was redeemed and everyone
Speaker 1: who dragged me and said I was a grifter and
Speaker 1: a liar suddenly said they had always stood with me.
Speaker 1: So in about twenty seventeen eighteen, I decided I thought
Speaker 1: that it would be a great idea to make a
Speaker 1: film that connected the crimes of Nasser to the broader
Speaker 1: culture of abuse. He's not happening in isolation. He's happening
Speaker 1: because this culture allowed for him to happen. Because this
Speaker 1: culture allowed for the abuse of young children and beat
Speaker 1: them down to the point that they would accept any
Speaker 1: and all manner of abuse. That's why it happened. And
Speaker 1: so I actually concept of the film, and I had
Speaker 1: worked closely with the lawyer, the lawyer for most of
Speaker 1: the Nasser survivors, so I knew a lot of the
Speaker 1: young women. And I think the most important thing for
Speaker 1: me it was again to not make it this like
Speaker 1: salacious story about Nasser specifically, but to connect it to
Speaker 1: that broader culture of abuse. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: we were able to do successfully. And there is a
Speaker 1: movement that has started around the world within gymnastics and
Speaker 1: other Olympic sports where athletes are saying, no more, we
Speaker 1: make the sport we decide we are not going to
Speaker 1: accept this kind of mistreatment on behalf of code, you know,
Speaker 1: from coaches and the governing bodies of the sports, and
Speaker 1: so the athletes are rising up to demand better, which
Speaker 1: I think is amazing. I'm super proud of that. In
Speaker 1: terms of what the film was able to accomplish. You
Speaker 1: had mentioned that people after the fact are like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was there all along. We see that a lot
Speaker 1: with COVID too, where it's like, you know, they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. You know, I'm against lockdowns. I was against
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't think the record states that, but whatever,
Speaker 1: it's made interesting they'll say it when all the records
Speaker 1: states opposite, Like there's video, there's tweets like, how do
Speaker 1: they just lie like that? I don't understand it. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Unfortunately, we're not gonna, you know, solve all
Speaker 1: of the world's problems here. Well, Jennifer, I appreciate your voice.
Speaker 1: I appreciate what you've done and just taking a stand.
Speaker 1: And it seems like you had mentioned kind of being
Speaker 1: on the front end of calling out what was happening
Speaker 1: in gymnastics, and then also with there seems to be
Speaker 1: a pattern with you so I respect it. We need
Speaker 1: more of that and then today's society. So Jennifer, I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and everyone go check out author of Chalked
Speaker 1: Up and then more recently Levi's Unbuttoned as well, which
Speaker 1: is not a biography of your time at Levi's. So
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining the show. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate your boys. That was Jennifer say, interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: You know. I love people like her who speak out
Speaker 1: and are unafraid. I really think the only way we
Speaker 1: can turn this country around and escape from this clown
Speaker 1: world we're living in is to just have more people
Speaker 1: speak up and re brave like her. So I appreciate
Speaker 1: her time. I appreciate you guys as always for listening
Speaker 1: to the show every Monday and Thursdays when we do
Speaker 1: new episodes, but of course you can listen throughout the
Speaker 1: week or whenever you want. I want to thank John Cassio,
Speaker 1: my producer, for putting the show together. Feel free to
Speaker 1: leave us a review, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Until next time, Thanks so much,