CEOs React to Severance
“Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives.”—The AppleTV+ description of Severance
Elon Musk
“Wow, I love it. One question: is there a way to sever my money? You know, so the part of my money that has to pay taxes just kind of… disappears?”
Mark Zuckerberg
“I like the whole concept a lot, but I’m having trouble seeing how we can use it to cause election interference.”
Tim Cook
“What if we did away with all the switches and gadgets, and put everything you needed to sever yourself into a handheld device… that could fit inside your pocket? We’re proud to introduce our latest product: the iSever. Sever yourself—anytime, anywhere!”
Jack Dorsey
“We’re going to start taking steps to ban severance, just as soon as it’s already had enough time to do irreparable damage to the fabric of our society.”
Bill Gates
“Sure, there may be an ethical gray area to the severance procedure, but imagine if for every number an innie drags into the trash, a cup of clean water is produced. That’s probably not what’s happening, but… imagine if it was!”
Mark Cuban
“Terrific stuff. One of the best pitch decks I’ve seen in a long time. But: is it scalable? I’d like to find out. I’ll put up two million for 30 percent ownership plus some free dance lessons from Mr. Milchick.”
Warren Buffet
“I adore the simplicity with which the outies live. It’s the way I prefer to live—going about my day as if I’m not hoarding more money than most of the world combined.”
Richard Branson
“I think what they’ve done to these people is absolutely terrible. The innies don’t get to have any real fun! I love the severing concept, of course—but someone needs to put those innies in a jet full of purple lighting and send them into Zero G! Let those innies live, baby!”
Jeff Bezos
“Pretty cool idea, but we already do this.”
Q&A About This Piece:
Q: Hm. How do we know if we’re severed? Ever thought about that?
A: We are. We’re fully severed.
Q: Huh?
A: We actually don’t even have outies, you and I. We’re just innies. And we’re conscious for the precious few moments we do this Q&A section every week.
Q: I—I can’t believe this! My life is a lie! I wanna live, damnit! I wanna—
A: Sh! Sh. They’ll hear you.
Q: Who? Who will hear me?
A: I’m just kidding, nobody’s watching us.
Q: So… we’re not severed?
A: Oh, no, we are totally and irrevocably severed. But since we can’t really do anything about it, there’s no need to watch over us. Cool, right?
Q: Fuck.
Did You Read It?
This past Friday, I wrote a piece for McSweeney’s about the hypocrisy of conservative lawmakers via their disdain for… sex. Did you read it?
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That’s all for this week—thanks for reading! Goodbye.
