00:00:25.580It is smart, sharp, and always worth the listen.
00:00:28.860I think you're really gonna like it. I love dropping new things in your feed. I haven't
00:00:32.480done it lately because my brain has been, you know, just like being pulled in a thousand
00:00:37.180different directions, which you get. But we're back. We're back, baby. And I'm bringing you
00:00:41.920all the Sunday nice things. And sometimes it'll be an episode of a podcast you haven't listened
00:00:46.080to before. Sometimes it'll be me getting a little drunk and watching the new Bridget Jones movie.
00:00:52.500You never know what's going to happen on a Sunday. In this episode, Meredith is chatting
00:00:57.440with Carrie Sun about her memoir, Private Equity. It's like, if The Devil Wears Prada and Succession
00:01:04.880had a baby or a crossover episode, I think you're going to like it. You can find all these specific
00:01:12.000wherever you get your podcasts. If you like this show, go find more of them. All right,
00:01:15.500You're awesome. Thanks for being here. Happy Sunday.
00:01:25.020Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Oddly Specific. I'm your host, Meredith Lynch,
00:01:30.320and we have a jam-packed podcast for you today. First, I have my interview with Carrie Sun,
00:01:35.480whose memoir, Private Equity, which is about her being the sole assistant to a billionaire
00:01:41.980private equity firm founder. I couldn't put it down. It's a compulsive read. It is shocking and
00:01:48.120well written. And I think you're really going to enjoy the conversation that we have. And then
00:01:53.280I welcome on Van, host of Best Week Ever pod. Maybe you've heard me on that. You might have
00:01:59.720heard some friends of the pod on that. And I invite Van on because we are going deep on what
00:02:05.420truly was one of my favorite social networking platforms, MySpace. Anyway, I'm really excited
00:02:12.040for this episode. I think you're going to really like it too. And without further ado,
00:02:15.340let's get Oddly Specific. Hi, everyone, and welcome to Oddly Specific. I am so excited for
00:02:23.240this conversation. When I saw there was a book entitled Private Equity that wasn't going to
00:02:29.680just be finance stuff that I will never understand because if you are a longtime listener, you guys
00:02:36.740all know that I got an E in algebra too. So the fact that I've been able to learn as much as I
00:02:43.620have about private equity is sometimes shocking to even me. But I saw that there was this memoir
00:02:49.680that was coming out of a personal story. And I thought we have to talk to this author. So I'm
00:02:57.680very excited. We have Carrie Sun with us today. Carrie Sun was born in China and raised in
00:03:03.320Michigan. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the New School. Her first book, Private
00:03:09.200Equity, was named a most anticipated book of 2024 by NPR.org, Oprah Daily, Town & Country,
00:03:18.120The Millions, Financial Times, and many more. The memoir chronicles Carrie's experience working as
00:03:24.660the sole assistant to a billionaire hedge fund founder. Keri's role, while well-paying and
00:03:30.420exciting, comes with trade-offs to her physical and mental well-being that make both Keri and
00:03:36.000the reader question, what does it truly mean to succeed and achieve the American dream? Keri,
00:03:41.780thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much, Meredith, for that introduction. I'm
00:03:46.860delighted to be here today. Are you scared to know that people can get E's?
00:03:51.720great question actually i when you actually said that i thought it was like a b c maybe d or and
00:04:01.200then f but yeah so i was not actually certain there was an e possibility so fun fact i actually
00:04:07.840once got a c and that was actually in math because it was in the first semester of freshman year of
00:04:15.600high school and i actually i think for some reason didn't think the homework was important
00:04:20.980and I just did not do the homework and I got to see mid semester and I was like okay I have to
00:04:25.820turn this around I did turn around but um seeing that letter was a shocking to me um I don't know
00:04:32.280why I thought not maybe I thought the homework was optional I have no idea what happened and
00:04:36.020this is why I have nightmares about forgetting to do work oh my gosh I still have high school
00:04:40.280nightmares and now like work nightmares too like old jobs you know we'll get into it a little bit
00:04:46.980more, but I could see how a couple of the memories from your time would would stick with you.
00:04:52.260Yeah, high school and and work are traumatizing in many ways.
00:04:56.880Well, for my listeners, you know, we talk, this is, as I say, the only podcast that covers
00:05:02.980everything from private equity to Pete Davidson. And I just wanted to find because in in the book,
00:05:09.360a lot of what Carrie refers to is hedge funds, because that's sort of what seems to be the
00:05:15.340bread and butter of the firm that you were working at at the time. So I want to just define hedge
00:05:21.820funds versus private equity. Private equity firms typically invest in private companies and see
00:05:28.060returns on investment by improving the company's profits. On the other hand, hedge funds use
00:05:34.440complex investing techniques like hedging and leveraging to see returns on investments in the
00:05:40.160market via securities like stocks, options, and futures. So I think when I think about it,
00:05:45.960listeners, it kind of comes down to the private and the stuff that's being publicly traded.
00:05:50.600That's the easiest way that I can think about it as someone who, as we have established,
00:05:54.920didn't really do well in algebra two. That is a merit of that. That is a very
00:05:59.480succinct and accurate description. And that's how I think of it too. Like most, well, hedge funds,
00:06:04.340The first hedge fund started as a long, short equity strategy investing in the public markets.
00:06:11.160And so, of course, they do do very complex kind of investing and many in less public and less liquid markets.
00:06:19.320But by and large, like I do think of that distinction as hedge funds more, a lot more in the public markets and beyond equity.
00:06:28.200And usually private equity is obviously private and not just.
00:06:32.120And they also have other distinctions, like private equity is a lot more illiquid. But both of them try to deploy capital, usually on behalf of large institutional investors or people who have money. They help people who have money make more money. And that's basically all you need to know.
00:06:53.640Yes. Well, that kind of brings me right to our first question, which is, and I know this is
00:06:59.000going to seem like maybe a strange question to some people, but I need to know how you came to
00:07:03.060the title private equity. I think the title did confuse some people, but I think Meredith,
00:07:08.720hopefully after reading the book, I think you hopefully understand that the title by the title,
00:07:13.700I do mean the industry and where I was working because, you know, as you say,
00:07:19.280I worked at in a book started off as a hedge fund, but they very quickly started a private equity
00:07:24.700arm to kind of their holistic strategy and portfolio strategies. And so I do mean that
00:07:30.960industry and asset class, but mostly I really need private equity in the sense of private,
00:07:38.680in the sense of self and equity in the sense of fairness and justice. So what I'm really asking
00:07:43.940is this question of self investment. What is our investment in ourselves? And I think that,
00:07:50.620you know, the concept of financialization in our daily lives, I think has also been taking over
00:07:58.420the English language. When we think of words like venture, security, we often have a financial
00:08:06.000connotation first. And I think like unicorn, you know, it's a mythical bee, but really we think of
00:08:12.380startups first, you know, these billion dollar startups. And so financialization has been
00:08:16.700completely taking over the English language. And I think private equity as well, when we think of
00:08:20.820private equity, we immediately think of, you know, layoffs and, you know, big money, not, not,
00:08:25.940not being kind to employees, workers, and squeezing people for efficiency, do more with less. But I
00:08:33.800want to reclaim the term private equity for my meeting, which was more literary and personal
00:08:39.360and internal one, which is all about what is our private equity in ourselves, our self-investment,
00:08:44.900how do we end up living the lives we want to become the people who we want to be. And also,
00:08:49.880you know, my book has all sorts of different relationships. Primarily, the primary one is me
00:08:55.740and my boss, but also there's me and my mom and me and my ex partner at the time. And there are
00:09:02.960all these relationships founded on, you know, different class status, race, gender, and how
00:09:09.820do you negotiate an equitable relationship in these private situations between two people?
00:09:16.600And I think my book tries to answer that certainly at the workplace, but also more,
00:09:20.600more broadly and personally. Yes, I completely agree with that. And it's interesting because
00:09:27.640the word equity actually has like a very positive connotation, right? Gretchen Morganson
00:09:32.620talks about this sometimes, but also the word private is that so much of what happens in this
00:09:38.740financial world is private and behind the scenes. And you go on these websites, you're interviewing,
00:09:45.980you can't find that much about this place to even do the preliminary research. And so I have this
00:09:51.840question for you, which is you're first interviewing for this job and you go on countless rounds of
00:09:57.300interviews. And the reference check was like, you know, I would call it unhinged. And, you know,
00:10:05.160they literally cherry pick people that you know, on LinkedIn and say, like, we want to talk to
00:10:09.920these people, like almost like just pulling up someone's Instagram and going, okay, I want to
00:10:13.520know them. And you're like, do I even still know them? And so that all happens. And now as you as
00:10:18.860you sit from where you are, is there a moment that stands out from that interview process for you
00:10:24.680that you're like, Ooh, red flag. Great question. Because the red flag started immediately. And
00:10:32.780if from the interview process, and I ignored all of them, for example, you know, talking about this
00:10:39.440concept, I think often about time and time equity. And when they, when I, you know, put my name in
00:10:47.900the proverbial hat in the ring, and I went on, you know, I said, like, yes, I would like to go
00:10:53.560through this process. They asked me to come in in two hours for an in-person interview. So
00:10:59.420I already had plans. I had lunch plans to meet someone who was so important to me, to me,
00:11:05.120actually the person who helped me and my family immigrate to America and to help my parents and
00:11:10.640me achieve or try to achieve our American dream. I canceled on her. She was on her way to meeting
00:11:16.740me and I canceled on her in order to go on this interview. And that tells me, I mean, I could have
00:11:21.460said no to their like immediate asking of my time. But I didn't feel like I could say no. I felt like
00:11:28.940if I said no, the opportunity would go to someone else. So I had to say yes. And so that kind of
00:11:34.400shows me the kind of unilateral control that employers have over our time, and how we can't
00:11:41.320say no, they tell us when they tell us how. And then to extend on the same concept, even during
00:11:47.540the interviews I was at the time taking a fiction writing workshop at NYU they asked me for my
00:11:53.320availability for interviews and I gave them like I said anytime during the week except for the two
00:11:59.720hours that I have class two days a week they scheduled interviews exactly during those hours
00:12:05.060so what did I do I chose not to go to class class that I paid for class that was that I I hoped
00:12:12.280would help me develop my craft and get me closer to my own personal dream I sacrificed all of that
00:12:17.760and then I just went on the interview you know and I think it's definitely telling something
00:12:21.780about my character at the time but but also I think it's a very universal thing where we feel
00:12:26.900like we can't say no because we feel so insecure about our lot in life no matter where you are
00:12:32.880this is across I think industries and jobs and no matter you know how secure your job is I think
00:12:41.200at the American capitalist system that has made us feel insecure about our financial status,
00:12:48.920about our working conditions. And we feel like if an opportunity comes, we kind of have to say yes
00:12:55.260and drop everything. And so those are all the red flags. And that was even before day one of the
00:13:00.260job. It kind of reminds me that, you know, I hear this all the time of when you are interviewing
00:13:06.400for a job, you're also interviewing them. And you should be paying attention to just the interview
00:13:13.580process itself, because it will be, it's sort of a preview of what perhaps the experience might be
00:13:20.620like. But I think when you are, you know, the age that you are in this, I also started a job around
00:13:27.020that exact same age that was a very sort of big step for me. And it was very exciting. And the
00:13:32.820interview process was nothing like carbon, but there were flags that after I got older and
00:13:41.620cleared my head a little bit about it, I realized, oh, that was just indicative of what the experience
00:13:46.180was going to be like. Exactly. Totally indicative. And just back on this time angle, they were not
00:13:52.020respecting my boundaries when I told them, I need this. Everything else you can have, but I need
00:13:58.700this and you know they were like well that thing that you need for yourself that doesn't belong to
00:14:02.860you either that belongs to us and we're not even paying you yet yeah exactly and i you know and i
00:14:09.460jumped at that you know and right i rather than and i went on this journey of like self-blame
00:14:16.060criticism and and then it was like i felt so bad of how i how could i have jumped so wholeheartedly
00:14:23.220into the situation but then i realized it's the it's the system system that makes you feel like
00:14:27.560you have to, in order to get to the next step, to get to the next, yeah, step on the corporate
00:14:32.160ladder or whatever ladder you want to be on, you know? And so now I'm hoping to be kinder
00:14:37.220to everyone who's been through this experience, but also my former self, you know, and because
00:14:42.560we only know what we know. And I tried my best during the interview process. And I just,
00:14:47.120it was just a whirlwind from completely the beginning. Oh, totally. And, you know, you start
00:14:53.580the role. And there's this thing that really jumped out at me, right? This is a company
00:14:58.040that has this, I was kind of jealous of the state of the art fitness facility. Okay.
00:15:03.640You guys, they're, they were fully stocked with Lululemon leggings and like workout stuff so that
00:15:09.340you could literally change their, throw it in the hamper and then it would just get clean and
00:15:14.100you know, whatever you never have to buy yoga pants again, which that's perk. Uh, but you know,
00:15:19.240you're you're in this place and it has all of these incredible things food and kitchen and
00:15:23.980they'll door dash you before anyone's even door dashing but they don't have hr so what do you
00:15:30.040think the impact of not having human resources it was in your experience and how common do you
00:15:37.420think that is in places like a carbon that is a such a insightful question because i think it's
00:15:46.000showing, well, I try to show him my book, a firm who is so detail oriented to the very,
00:15:53.260very last detail of every luxury you need. But I think the luxuries that were provided to us
00:15:59.240were to kind of keep us at work working. And it was all in service of an optimal worker,
00:16:06.960because then you think, well, why is there not HR? Well, I think that where the firm spends
00:16:14.520their time and money because time and money are resources and where we all have actually you know
00:16:22.20024 hours in a day they did not think spending any time dealing with the people side of work
00:16:29.780the people the human side of the experience of work mattered that it was it was as simple as
00:16:37.040that and they thought why would anyone need hr because people just solve their problem like
00:16:41.680immediately, because people are, you know, working all the time. And if you are just
00:16:46.140committed to maximizing efficiency, increasing your productivity, and making money, why would
00:16:53.500you have any people issues? Because obviously, the right, you know, the right decision or
00:16:58.800solution to anything is just the one that maximizes profit. So there doesn't need to be
00:17:04.040human resources, you know, and I almost think, I mean, what kind of blows my mind is I don't even
00:17:09.260think they were necessarily nefarious at all in their intentions it was just like well why would
00:17:15.720there need to be hr because there doesn't need to be hr because we you know we are a small family
00:17:21.120of workers who are all dedicated to the same profit maximizing goal and you know i i i drink
00:17:29.980that kool-aid and i believed in that too and i was like well yeah there doesn't need to be hr
00:17:55.780because we have different personalities, you know?
00:17:57.760And we should be hiring in a diverse way
00:18:02.100that is not just finding the same personality, you know, the lacrosse player from, you know,
00:18:08.460Duke, who, you know, is also majored in economics, you know, I'm just saying, like, you know, we
00:18:14.020should be broadening our profile. And therefore, we disagreement is a good thing. And there,
00:18:19.760it just kind of showed me if there is not an HR department, they're just not, they're not only
00:18:25.720not providing an avenue for anyone to resolve actual like human resource issues of which
00:18:32.840there definitely are our problems that arise and occur but also that you know when when something
00:18:38.080does happen it's just not given the attention and um import that it really like deserves because
00:18:45.880i mean i think i think money i i think money cannot cover up what bad feelings at work if
00:18:52.880you're if you feel like you're treated unfairly in some situation and I think you know more than
00:18:58.500anything I actually think people do want to work hard I actually think people do like work they
00:19:03.220just want their work to mean something to matter and also be treated like a human you know and I
00:19:08.340just think many many many corporations don't don't do that and and I think it's especially
00:19:14.940meaningful in the context of private equity because I think private equity has been owning
00:19:20.340more and more of America, just all, you know, businesses from hospitals to single family homes
00:19:28.760to, you know, I was just reading something about Michigan and mobile parks. Private equity is
00:19:35.120owning more and more of America. And so how the culture of private equity and the workplace
00:19:41.260culture of private equity, there are the people, their private equity investors are the people
00:19:45.740many workers in America have to answer to. And it's where their efficiency ultimately is going
00:19:51.660to end up benefiting in terms of profits. And so I think it matters to take a look at how people
00:19:58.020in the industry of private equity, but also hedge funds and finance, Wall Street in general,
00:20:03.460are working. Because I think it's an unfortunate metaphor of how we're working across America.
00:20:10.420Yeah, it's sort of a trickle down effect, isn't it? So if even if the private equity firm is, you know, in I'm just going to make it up in Los Angeles and they have, you know, a small deli chain and in Florida, the way that they're that they function, I think, can also even just from not having HR, like that's sort of the mindset of of that can have a trickle down effect.
00:20:37.160You mentioned when you were just talking a little bit, and I'd love to expand on this.
00:20:42.480One of the things that struck me when I was reading this is that in almost all of the top roles where you're working, or even when you go to other places, it was primarily men.
00:20:52.580And a lot of what I could gather and a lot of what I see, and this is my own non-backed research, is that overall these firms tend to be white men.
00:21:02.340But in your book, the supporting roles are almost all women.
00:21:15.660I will say that when I was graduating college, there were and there were and there continue to be many wonderful programs to help women, especially to get on the investment side of both.
00:21:29.180I mean, I call these firms on the on the buy side, but also in an investment banking and consulting, you know, I think even though the firm I was at definitely I would I would say they definitely did not have any explicit or implicit sort of, you know, codified bias against women or or people of other marginalized groups.
00:21:52.060I would say, though, that the firm I was at, and this is representative of so many other
00:21:58.620places at work, really care about something called cultural fit.
00:22:03.100In their recruiting process, fit, and especially cultural fit, personality fit.
00:22:08.740I mean, so how do you even define that?
00:22:12.020But if you're looking for fit, I think you're looking for other people like you.
00:22:16.060So if you start with, you know, someone who founded a firm who happens to be white and male, then they're looking for other people who fit their profile.
00:22:27.660So it ends up being a rather closed loop and a closed network that you're kind of recruiting from, even though you're maybe not consciously doing it, you know?
00:22:37.960And so I'll give you a perfect example from my, I went to school at MIT, my MIT days where I was friends with this fraternity and I would see kind of what I think about the chain migration of like the fraternity onto Wall Street.
00:22:54.940And so what happened was like the older brothers of the fraternity would get hired onto a desk at Goldman Sachs, a trading desk.
00:23:03.840And then they would just next next year during recruitment season, summer internships, they would just like all their younger brother in the fraternity to come do an internship.
00:23:15.480And so, you know, it's not, you know, they weren't explicitly like, no women, no, you know, I don't. But, you know, they were just trying to recruit like minded people. And so it was just, you know, I think, I think so many of my friends in that fraternity went directly from MIT to Goldman Sachs on that same trading desk. And I think that kind of process writ large is what happens in on on Wall Street.
00:23:45.000Yeah. I mean, to me, the one that always dings is Wharton. I see it's like Wharton is like that is, and that doesn't mean that somebody is inherently bad or somebody isn't qualified. It just, like you said, it's about cultural fit, which, you know, often can have bias, even if you don't mean it to.
00:24:11.500So that's, yeah, that's, thank you for answering that with such a really sort of, I think,
00:26:04.380And if other people are doing this, we have to remain competitive with the other firms
00:26:09.560that are, you know, on these like best of list, best returns, biggest hedge funds, biggest
00:26:15.200private equity firms, you know, and all the public firms have had their public, you know,
00:26:19.940to shareholders really to answer to the public. Right. Of course. Also. Yeah. So, you know,
00:26:25.320they have a fiduciary duty to maximize, you know, their profits and give returns to shareholders.
00:26:32.600And so, and so there, I do see people actually wrestling, you know, with this moral issue of
00:26:39.740the human side of the equation, but they always come out on the side of making money. So that
00:26:46.100tells me something else. It's like, yes, you think about it. But I'm a materialist in a sense that
00:26:51.860like, how are you mature, materially making worse or making better someone's life or society? And
00:26:59.500really, so yes, it is nice that you, you know, have some heart and care about the people that
00:27:07.000your, you know, corporate decisions are affecting, but at the end of the day, you're still making
00:27:13.400that cup decision to, you know, worse in their lives. So materially, you are making worse other
00:27:18.680people's lives and enriching the pockets of, you know, who are the investors in private equity,
00:27:24.560they're usually already rich people. Yes, there are pension funds and, you know, foundations,
00:27:30.000and that's all, you know, wonderful. But ultimately, it's making the rich richer and
00:27:36.080at the cost of Main Street. And so while I think I see people considering the human side of it,
00:27:45.560the money side always wins. So that I think that that is the problem.
00:27:52.800Yeah, no, that that makes sense. And I think it's really great to have your perspective on that. And
00:27:59.420it actually gives me a little bit of hope to know, like, at least it's a conversation in the room
00:28:04.160sometimes, right? Switching gears, you have this lovely friend that you meet about a quarter of a
00:28:11.060way through the book. And she really becomes your wing woman, I think in a lot of ways. And I guess
00:28:18.440I'd just love to know, what do female friendships mean to you as an adult? And do you have any tips0.61
00:28:24.900on maintaining these friendships as you know, we go through careers like the one you went through
00:28:31.640or life transitions? I think female friendships are so important, both at work and outside of
00:28:39.640work. And actually, just to focus on my book for one second, at the start, the start of the story
00:28:48.440is when really my recruiter, a random recruiter reaches out to me and kind of presents me with
00:28:54.760this opportunity. And I think, I'm pretty sure, but I think the first text message that I include
00:29:00.060if anyone is from, is from my recruiter. My book ends on my final day at work with a whole string
00:29:06.600of text messages. And they're, they're not about work. They're not from men. They're not from any
00:29:10.820recruiter, but my female friends, both at work, outside of work, because they are the people who
00:29:16.760really got me through the most difficult time of, of my life. And you know what, they were going
00:29:22.920through the same things I was going through, you know? And so was I on my best behavior? No, I made
00:29:28.160many, many mistakes, many of which I detail in the book, but you know, they, they were also
00:29:32.900struggling with their own burnout, their own feeling lost in life. And, you know, my friends
00:29:39.340at the workplace also, you know, we had some ups and downs, you know, some people were less than
00:29:46.140willing to help me, but when I was burnt out and needed some help, but you know, at the end of the
00:29:53.100day, and this is what I discovered writing the bar of my book and that friendship is still there
00:29:57.380and important because um they were also i think going through the same issues and i think even if
00:30:04.320some of them maybe didn't recognize it at the time or or even now i'm not sure but we're all in this
00:30:11.180together especially women and especially women who are often in roles in which they are the ones with
00:30:17.680less power and less less you know equity in the situation as it were and so all i want is for
00:30:25.200women solidarity to really try to make the working conditions and friendship conditions
00:30:31.760that are all around and so my friend as you mentioned in the book a quarter of the way1.00
00:30:36.300through the wing woman parmita she went through so many crazy just insane recruiting processes
00:30:42.360processes as well and like one of her she also had a crazy um what was it like a reference process0.89
00:30:49.720Right. Like they contacted her job when she was still interviewing. I was like, oh, come on.
00:30:56.480Like, listen, I was really rooting for her in this. I really just loved this. Anytime in the
00:31:02.000book when it would be like, okay, we decided to like go away for a long weekend. I was like,
00:31:04.980oh, thank God. Thank God those two are getting the hell out of Dodge. But yes, she was dealing
00:31:11.940with a lot of the same stuff that you were dealing with. Yes. Yes. And one of the places
00:31:19.320she was interviewing at called her references on Thanksgiving day and then asked her like,
00:31:25.020Hey, why are your references now returning our phone calls? Because that is showing how they
00:31:29.620don't like really believe in you or something. It's like, no, it's Thanksgiving. I'm sure they're
00:31:34.140with their friends or something, you know? And so it's all just part of the theme of how, um,
00:31:40.040these workplaces, they think they kind of own our lives and all of our time. And what we deem
00:31:47.240personal time is not really personal at all. It's actually they feel like they kind of own 24 hours
00:31:53.360of our lives. And I just think that is that just blatantly not okay. So I think it is upon, you
00:32:00.120know, women to really band together, form these friendships, because what what private equity
00:32:06.240wants, what these these workplaces want is for us to turn on each other, be individuals and feel0.65
00:32:13.560this competitiveness and kind of kind of um siloed existence you know and i i'm trying to dismantle
00:32:20.620that yeah i think that's such such a good metaphor also too that the way that private equity operates
00:32:25.980is that it's so quiet there's so much mystery behind it and that's to kind of keep communication
00:32:32.420quiet and that's kind of i think what a lot of times they want to happen at work because when
00:32:38.580we band together as women, we are so much more powerful. I have two last questions for you. And
00:32:46.140one of them is, you know, in the book, you are the sole assistant to a billionaire. And I know
00:32:51.160that there are many moments of kindness from him. And there's kind of this ongoing debate in the
00:32:57.380world right now of can billionaires be ethical? And so there's that. But I have another question,
00:33:03.080which is like do you feel that billionaires need to exist in general no absolutely not no i don't
00:33:12.200um no i think they should be taxed way more i i probably i mean i'm giving away my politics here
00:33:19.080but no i i am like i am a bernie oh the forward supporter i am fully on the left high i i just
00:33:27.560think high taxes now actually so here's the thing i mean i'm going totally out of left field here but
00:33:33.700i i i actually think high taxes if the loopholes were taken away and everybody had to do it i mean
00:33:39.420the billionaires would kind of um complain a lot and you know obviously try to not make that happen
00:33:46.220but at the end of the day i don't think they will care because actually what they care more than
00:33:50.260anything is just their placement in life so everyone's wealth went down and they were still
00:33:55.520at the top but like you know so i think we should just um i believe in the wealth tax um i also
00:34:04.540believe in just just obviously closing the uh private equity um carry interest loophole and
00:34:11.840i i just believe in a fair world and i think i think the people who right now are billionaires
00:34:18.520they they can still we can still give them some of their win in that like you know they do some of
00:34:24.740do build companies of great value with, you know, may be cars that people like to drive and
00:34:31.280products that, you know, people use to text. And, you know, and I think that's great. And so they
00:34:36.260should be, you know, rewarded, but just not at the level that they have been in the last,
00:34:42.760I would say, several decades. Right. Like we look at someone like a Mackenzie Scott,
00:34:46.660who is, you know, taking her wealth and putting it to such great use. And I have this moment of
00:34:53.200like, okay, well, Mackenzie Scott can be a billionaire. Exactly. Yes. And then my last
00:34:58.920question for you is so much of this memoir made me think about burnout, rest, and how important
00:35:06.940that is. And it feels to me like perhaps your relationship to that has changed from what you
00:35:15.260thought rest looked like in the beginning of the memoir when you first started working at Carbon.
00:35:19.420And I was just wondering, especially writing this book, it must have brought up a lot because there
00:35:24.520is so much more in this memoir, y'all. Like I need you to read this because I want to talk to all of
00:35:28.480you about it. There's so much more that I think everyone here will get something out of it. But
00:35:33.640what does rest and self-care look like to you now? So what's interesting about rest and self-care
00:35:42.360is primarily my understanding currently in 2024 of breast and self-care is primarily centered upon
00:35:51.140control and control as a necessary ingredient of the quality of my hours so in in uh Meredith you
00:36:01.360just mentioned in writing this book so when I was in the active drafting phase of this book and in
00:36:07.340the last several months and the publication process like I have been working so so so so
00:36:12.340so much and actually I was just doing the math like um you know I wrote this book by working
00:36:18.140seven days in a week at least like approximately about 10 hours a day you know and so in terms of
00:36:25.060hours I was actually our just in pure quantitative terms I was working more in terms of hours than I
00:36:32.880even was working at this job but the main difference and about self-care is that I have
00:36:38.400I have more or less control and agency and freedom over how I spend my time and my days.
00:36:47.460And what was really not working for me at this former job is that I did not have any say over
00:36:56.560my day. If I got, and I mean, this is in the book, but like, if I got an email, I had to respond to
00:37:02.560it immediately. Even if it didn't have a question, if it was not a personal topic, I just had to
00:37:06.960respond to everything immediately and so you know I could be in the middle of a vacation or you know
00:37:13.460or just having a day and on the treadmill right on the in the middle of yoga class yeah and I had
00:37:20.280to respond immediately so you don't have any time to yourself it feels like but more than that you
00:37:26.480feel like you were constantly you're playing second fiddle to your own like your own journey
00:37:32.880your own story. You're not the main character in your own story because you all, all your time is
00:37:37.220spent in service of someone else and someone else who is trying to enrich his or her or their
00:37:43.020investors. And so in terms of self-care now, what I ultimately have is, you know, I still love
00:37:49.320writing. So I do love, I love work. You know, I, I still in some, in many ways, I'm workaholic,
00:37:54.960but I have agency and I have freedom of choice over how I spend my time. And when,
00:38:02.380when I work and what I choose to devote my energy on. And that I think is, is priceless for me and
00:38:10.260something that, um, I really will not give up and, and, and how that manifests in terms of rest is
00:38:17.040I'm able to then choose exactly when I'm off and when I'm on. Whereas before when I'm off and when
00:38:24.120I'm on was completely decided by my, by my work. And even if I had time off, it was only when my
00:38:30.920boss told me I could have that, I'm off. And so, yeah, my current relationship with rest and self
00:38:39.300care is really one founded upon personal agency and freedom. And I hope that's what other people
00:38:49.840can find in their lives as well and devote more time to finding those pockets of what I think is
00:38:58.400private equity where you can really have control over your day.
00:39:04.740That's beautiful. Thank you. And I'll, I'll leave everyone with just this tip from Carrie's memoir
00:39:10.420is that, you know, at this time when, cause I know people are like in it and they're like,
00:39:13.720I can't get out of this job for X amount of time, whatever, Meredith, you started making like
00:39:18.080appointment sort of stuff. Like, okay, I'm buying tickets to go to the ballet or I'm go. So it was
00:39:24.780like put a little investment into something to set yourself up for a, to have a little bit of
00:39:29.260control, to have some joy, like make an appointment for something that you can't cancel. So that I
00:39:35.740thought was such a great little pro tip when you're in it. But Carrie, I am so grateful for
00:39:40.600all of your time. Where can people find you? I am. I don't do a lot of social media, but I am
00:39:47.780on Instagram at Carrie. He is my middle name. Why I, and other than that, I have a website,
00:39:54.920Carrie fun.com and I will, yeah, I think I'll probably periodically update my Instagram with
00:40:00.940any sort of career related news, but also I'm working on a few new and exciting projects that
00:40:08.760I can't publicly share yet, but yeah, I hope to share. So amazing. Well, we'll put your website
00:40:14.620and your Instagram and the show notes. Thank you, Keri, so much for being with us today.
00:40:19.440And everyone go out and get private equity, a memoir. I know you're going to love it.
00:40:25.480Thanks so much. Hi, everyone. And welcome back to my favorite part of the episode. It's where
00:40:32.120we get oddly specific about something. And I'm excited because we have Van with us today from
00:40:37.620the Best Week Ever podcast. Y'all know this one. I've been on it. A lot of the friends of the pod
00:40:42.340have been on it. Molly's been on it. Emily Rose has been on it. And what I love about this podcast
00:40:47.740is it harkens back to the VH1 show that I used to love back in the day, which was best week ever.
00:40:55.420And you would talk about just the pop culture moments of the week. And then you would determine
00:40:59.880who had the best week ever and the worst week ever. And Van is doing that for us now in current
00:41:06.560times where it feels like, I mean, I guess there's not more things happening, but everything is just
00:41:11.300so accessible now do you think they should resurrect that show definitely but i feel like
00:41:17.480they would even get so much judgment onto like what topics they would probably talk about just
00:41:23.340because of how much news is accessible today i mean like i feel like i'm missing on things as
00:41:30.540where we're recording and it's a bummer because i by the time it's the following week it's old news
00:41:36.820and there were some great people on that show do you remember some of the people who were on there
00:41:40.640Oh, yeah, I feel like Paul Scheer was just like, because he was on Watch What Happens Live. And I was like, I remember seeing you on Best Week Ever, just you having your comments. One of my favorites was Jesse Klein, who does like Big Mouth. And she's like a stand up comedian as well. And her story just I've talked about it so many times, but her story being involved with Best Week Ever is that she was just hanging around. And they were like, hey, do you want to just
00:42:10.360be a talking head in this episode and yeah she was fed what was given and she like talked about
00:42:18.500it in her own manner and like I wish we had that now for stand-up up-and-coming comedians because0.99
00:42:25.600there's just so many right now like it's and there's a lot of female comedians nowadays too
00:42:32.620that we can highlight in a show like that yeah I know I think it was kind of a breakthrough way
00:42:38.920for people to get their name out there and to have a credit, etc. And we there, you know,
00:42:44.840listen, I'm out here slinging my Matt Lauer jokes to anyone who will have me but I am I posted on
00:42:52.120Instagram asking if people remembered MySpace or if anybody was a MySpace enthusiast because
00:42:57.580last week, there was the ban heard around the world, which is that I got my TikTok account
00:43:03.800band. And I was really bummed about it. And if people want to hear the nitty gritty of it,
00:43:10.940it is on the Patreon. And just trust me, once you hear it, you'll be like, okay,
00:43:15.260that's spicy enough to keep it behind the paywall. But I was laughing because when it happened,
00:43:21.720I was really bummed because I love TikTok. But I did say to someone like,
00:43:28.020the funny thing is if i had lost my myspace back in the day i think my reaction would have been
00:43:35.280more severe than losing my tiktok which you know tiktok is kind of it's not my full-time job i have
00:43:40.560a full-time job but tiktok is sort of my part-time job and i love it and it's so fun and it's like
00:43:45.220how else do i have direct access to paris hilton it's like that's the only way even though we don't
00:43:49.780talk but like you know if if we could it would be there i just you know i was bummed but it really
00:43:55.940did remind me how addicted I was to MySpace. And so I don't know if everyone is familiar with
00:44:02.800MySpace, but MySpace was a social networking platform. It launched in 2003. And it was
00:44:10.380actually a competitor to Friendster. Did you ever have Friendster? No, I was like too young to have
00:44:16.660Friendster. I always thought it was like a Gen X kind of a app. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't have Friendster
00:44:24.740either i remember my roommate had had friendster before she got a myspace and i remember thinking
00:44:29.440that was like really cool but it was founded by tom anderson and krista wolf and tom you might
00:44:35.460remember he was the person who would always pop up as your first friend on myspace when you would
00:44:40.140make an account and i didn't know this but tom was actually a child hacker when he was 13 he hacked
00:44:46.580into chase bank and made it through like multiple levels of getting people's credit card information
00:44:53.020and then he like trained a bunch of kids in his neighborhood also how to hack how is he not
00:45:00.100working for the fbi right although i was thinking about it and it was 1984 when he did this and i
00:45:06.240was like i feel like i could hack chase bank in 1984 like you know i mean like they were just
00:45:12.020getting started like the passwords were probably people's like dog's name with an exclamation point
00:45:17.440at the end or one, two, three, four. Yeah. I can totally see that, especially in a workspace,
00:45:22.660but that's still so smart of him to do that. And I wonder how it started there and then ending up
00:45:30.880in my space. I know. And I know that he and Krista Wolf were working together for some type
00:45:38.980of like internet company. And so I'm sure you're like around a lot of these ideas. You see something
00:45:43.120like Friendster and you're like, okay, how can we make it better? Right. And so they, they start
00:45:50.060MySpace and it gains popularity almost right away because it's really customizable. And that's one
00:45:57.420of the things that people love. You can put music on your page. You can have photos. It's one of the
00:46:01.900first places that I really found out about blog posts. I remember you could have a blog within
00:46:06.560your MySpace and it becomes a really major platform for emerging artists, especially musicians
00:46:12.000to kind of share their work and connect with their fans. And it was the largest social networking
00:46:17.920site in the world from 2005 to 2008, before being overtaken by Facebook. And what I think
00:46:25.740is so interesting about this is like, I know people say the internet is forever, like, don't
00:46:30.520get me wrong. And you know, kids, like, don't put up things that you wouldn't want to be found 20
00:46:35.320years from now. But like, the fact that like, MySpace doesn't exist anymore in the sense in
00:46:40.420the way that it did like I can't get my old profile like the internet lasts forever but it
00:46:44.620also like doesn't last forever what how do you feel about that no it's upsetting because I
00:46:49.560there's two websites myspace and a picture trail I don't know if you remember it's like one of
00:46:55.440those photo websites where you would just see people's pictures like I feel so old explaining
00:47:01.380that to people but yeah but I think you and I are like the same age like a community web shots
00:47:06.160right yeah exactly and like I would kill to have those photos back I there was no way I was saving
00:47:14.880them I thought having it on the internet because we were told that this would be like forever I
00:47:21.600would wish to go back and have those albums I know community web shots for people who don't remember
00:47:27.500they could really cause some of the biggest friction with your friends because usually one
00:47:33.340person owned a digital camera in your friend group. And I can tell you right now, it was never
00:47:38.040me. One person would own one. They would control everything. They really controlled the social
00:47:43.480dynamic of the group because they would be the ones to put the photos up after you went out at
00:47:49.220night. So you would go out and then the next day you would wake up and you would wait for someone
00:47:54.920to upload the pictures onto community web shots. And I still remember the girl who had the digital
00:47:58.780camera she would get so mad at us and sometimes the photo album title would be like hosting these
00:48:04.440because they won't stop annoying me that is so oh my god you just took me back to a time where
00:48:13.280yeah I remember having a digital camera was such a big deal and uploading it like
00:48:18.940indie sleeves time era of just like having those uploaded yeah it was it was a fun time too because
00:48:28.540that was also how you found out what was going on with other people because then you could put
00:48:33.080what you would do kids is you would put your community web shots photo link into your AIM
00:48:40.400profile and then people could click on it and see you know your pics so in your away message
00:48:48.480I would do that I'd be like hey pics from last night like now when we say that it does sound
00:48:57.400so unhinged that we would like we would like go to like grab brunch with our friends and we would
00:49:03.700put up a link of photos so everyone could see our photos from last night but that's essentially what
00:49:08.960you do with Instagram yeah yeah it's just a little bit more Instagram is a little bit more of a that
00:49:17.800was a little bit more of an opt-in because you had to actually click on the link and be committed
00:49:21.820and I just have this flashback to do you remember you could also put up a link and it could just
00:49:27.500say something like pics on it and then really it would take you to like a landing page that would
00:49:34.340be like your your username so people would know if you were clicking on their link I used to have
00:49:40.160yes it was like an extra link that you would put while you were coding to put this link where
00:49:45.240people would yeah click on and that used to be my favorite thing because it would show you how many
00:49:49.800times they have viewed it as well. And it's like pre-stalker me in my teens, like seeing how many
00:49:58.440times this boy I liked clicked on my photo link. Yeah. And like, you know, I know we worry about
00:50:05.120kids today and we're going to talk about this a little bit. I know we worry about kids today on
00:50:09.060the internet and stuff, but like, trust me when I say that like 18 years ago, when we were all
00:50:15.040kicking around on MySpace. It was not good either. It was not healthy either. And look at me. I'm a
00:50:20.760fully functioning adult woman who is sitting here at three o'clock in the afternoon, desperately
00:50:26.800needing to take a shower talking about MySpace. Like I'm fine. So don't worry. If you have kids
00:50:33.020and you're worried about their time on the internet, don't worry about it. Yeah, no, the
00:50:36.900best thing I can say is that we grew up with YouTube, like the early days of YouTube compared
00:50:42.720to like nowadays I yeah I feel like the kids nowadays don't know what we had to come through
00:50:49.980oh my gosh yes and do you remember joining MySpace and what was that like for you
00:50:57.100yes um I was in high school it was a big deal it was like pre like a graphic design dream
00:51:04.060just learning how to code putting your favorite song putting like a cute little bio I felt like
00:51:09.560the bio was such a big deal because it would just be a paragraph about yourself and yeah and then
00:51:15.320your top friends which was just so like high school you would put like your top there was a
00:51:22.220top three as well I feel like later in the later year of the popularity of myspace but yeah it was
00:51:29.940just great to connect with friends while and like uploading photos of what you were doing in the
00:51:36.140summer like what you were doing that weekend plans of like getting together for me my space was like
00:51:42.540a huge music escape escape them as well just finding out certain bands like i found out one
00:51:49.680republic in my space that's how i remember them in my wow just like my aunt showing me like you
00:51:58.360gotta hear this song i found them in my space and then like i started following them and like
00:52:02.560now today they're like what making tracks with Timbaland right well also too it's the idea of
00:52:09.320like and you can relate to this too and I know that a lot of people listening can is like your
00:52:13.260aunt telling you about this thing so it means you have to sit down at the computer and just listen
00:52:17.640to the song like you don't sit down at a desktop and you'd be like I'm gonna listen to like I
00:52:23.040remember I'd be like I'm gonna sit down and listen to music and like I would just sit at the computer
00:52:27.200like music playing at me like that is now I can't imagine that I'm like I gotta sweep the floor at
00:52:33.800least but like that is what people did yeah no we definitely had like the me time of just having an
00:52:41.440hour being online and definitely music was part of it while I was on my space yeah I don't feel
00:52:47.840like people listen to music probably when they are on the internet now because most people I feel
00:52:53.020like are probably on their phones more than anything else right so you're not blasting one
00:52:57.740republic while you look at instagram because there's all these like music and video and images
00:53:01.520hitting you so you have a you have a myspace you have a top eight how do you go about designing
00:53:08.720your top eight because for for the gen z's at home the top eight was essentially just like think of
00:53:15.080instagram and that you'd have you know tons of people that you would friend on there and like
00:53:19.020I think more similar though to Facebook, the way that MySpace worked was like, it was kind of
00:53:23.980mutual. So like, if you friended someone on MySpace, it meant that like automatically you
00:53:29.820were friends back and forth, as opposed to like Instagram, you can like unfollow. And you know,
00:53:34.680that's a whole other thing that like, sometimes I don't know about you, Van, but there are people
00:53:38.500who like, I don't even click on their profiles. Like I don't even look at certain things because
00:53:42.400I'm so afraid that they unfollowed me like it hurts get that feeling yeah it hurts to be
00:53:49.380unfollowed it does the top eight was like a huge deal I remember it was like a friendship contest
00:53:55.600I remember putting like my best friend and then uh the boy that you like and then it always ended
00:54:03.880with like what I was listening to so it was like Riley Kylie or like Paramore like it was just
00:54:11.520very that emo kind of a lineup for my top eight all the time because what you could do is you
00:54:20.240could basically it was like scrapbooking it like you could order your people eight of your people
00:54:25.240eight of your friends so you might have 200 friends on there but you could order them
00:54:28.200in positions one through eight on your profile and yeah like there was kind of a pecking order
00:54:34.400that was like not healthy and I also remember like there would be fights and people would
00:54:40.660take people out of people's top eights and the drama that would go down i remember two most
00:54:47.000popular girl in high school having a fight and like waking up to myspace and seeing their
00:54:52.800friendship just like they're not even in rated in that top eight and that's when like gossip would
00:54:59.440start yeah that was like a huge deal and i also remember i feel like just the graphic of like new
00:55:06.480message new friend like of the envelope was so addicting you know and you would also get message
00:55:14.320when you were part of a person's profile of tops eight like you got moved to top like number three
00:55:20.060or blah blah blah it's like it was such a big deal like myspace made it a huge deal if you were like
00:55:26.060someone's top eight on their profile oh yeah it was like a dopamine rush to find out that you were
00:55:31.960in someone's top eight. Like, I mean, that I guess it was basically like the kid, the teen
00:55:39.280version of being a bridesmaid or something at the time. So I spent a little time prepping for this
00:55:47.200episode. And one of my favorite things that I found was the different celebrity my spaces,
00:55:54.260Because at the time, you know, celebrity culture was so different back in 2004, 2005.
00:56:01.700And I also feel like celebrities were both more accessible and then also less accessible.
01:09:54.680or so i wonder if he's still friends with the friends he had on myspace because the inspired
01:10:01.980to connect is so him well i feel like he's gotta you gotta acknowledge it right like you have to
01:10:09.400acknowledge that you were part of this thing that really and truly like if you had told me0.99
01:10:15.220in myspace's heyday that myspace wouldn't survive i would have been like fuck you and also do you0.96
01:10:22.720know what time road rules is on yeah because like it just it was so big but it does remind you that0.91
01:10:31.820like these social media platforms like they sometimes do have an expiration date and it's
01:10:37.140kind of amazing that instagram has lasted as long as it has facebook as well i mean the fact that
01:10:46.100it's funny you lose them how you get them right the fact that myspace started because they kind
01:10:50.700of like made a better version of it from Friendster and then MySpace got obsoleted just because
01:10:57.700Facebook made it more of a better platform than MySpace so like and then Facebook just like stayed
01:11:05.040of course there was Instagram but now Facebook owns Instagram so we're still kind of wait I'm
01:11:11.480still waiting for that new app I know people love TikTok but that's its own kind of like
01:11:16.320controversial like I don't even know what's happening there and like I've heard some friends
01:11:21.220saying it's not how it used to be because of like the time that we had when it came out in the
01:11:26.380pandemic but yeah I'm still waiting for like another kind of a MySpace maybe I don't know
01:11:32.780MySpace was like it just reminds me of the days of like LiveJournal and like Zynga I remember
01:11:38.820reading part of that and I was like yes I do remember Zynga before MySpace like we're just so
01:11:44.420in our desktops like our laptops now we're just on our phones yeah and like being on your desktop
01:11:51.740I think was a much more present experience because you were usually trying to accomplish
01:11:56.180something you didn't really like mindlessly sit on your desktop because it wasn't that comfortable
01:12:01.500right like so interestingly enough there is a very current tie-in to what ends up happening
01:12:08.360to my space and i had almost forgotten about this almost as much as i had forgotten about
01:12:15.420william rast jeans do you remember william rast jeans they were justin timberlake's jeans
01:12:20.060no he had a denim line i i remember nelly's apple bottoms but i don't remember justin
01:12:28.940like i feel like i remember that era of just like celebs in their fashion lines
01:12:34.720yeah I mean honestly it's interesting because clothing is so expensive to make that I am
01:12:42.140surprised that so many celebrities tried to have clothing brands you know there's but if you're
01:12:48.200Justin Timberlake you know what what do you do like it's hard to do a beauty line you can maybe
01:12:53.120do a skincare line but that men's skincare wasn't really a thing back in you know 2010 or something
01:13:00.620So anyway, Justin always wanted to diversify.
01:13:04.500In 2011, Justin Timberlake, along with specific media group, jointly purchased MySpace for approximately $35 million, which is interesting to me because I'm like, so then Justin Timberlake bought all my 2005 data.