Aug 26, 2026 · 1 hr 22 min · 14 segments
Jacob Soboroff has built a national reputation as a television journalist and author, reporting from the field for NBC News, MSNBC, MS Now, and beyond. But his story starts in Los Angeles. In this…
Jacob SoboroffGuest
Glenn GritznerHostTyler WellsGuest
Vishal GandhiGuestRinesh RamanathanPanelist
As our loyal listeners know, we like to do these interviews even though we're audio only for now, uh, somewhere meaningful for the podcast, and Jacob has written a book called Firestorm, which we'll talk a little bit about.
And so it was only appropriate that we try to do this interview somewhere relevant to that.
So we are sitting in front of a great restaurant that I love called Betsy in Altadena, which has had quite the journey related to the fires in Altadena.
And when I asked if I could do the interview here, I subsequently learned that Tyler Wells, the restaurateur that owns, um, Betsy, who's with us right now, is actually friends with Jacob.
So I thought, "Hey, Tyler, why don't you join us in the beginning and maybe just talk about a little bit the journey of this restaurant in this place" [laughs] where we are currently sitting.
Is it fair to say we're fire friends? I feel like we've become be- have become friends.
Um, but I feel like you and I, dude, have gotten to know each other much better in the wake of the fire.
It's been a little silver lining to this, getting to connect with you and a lot of other people and, and get even deeper into our community, which is as special as it could be, and it just continues to prove that it's the greatest, greatest neighborhood there is to me.
So for people who don't know, just tell the short version of, you know, your opening [laughs] and then not, and then reopening.
As our loyal listeners know, we like to do these interviews even though we're audio only for now, uh, somewhere meaningful for the podcast, and Jacob has written a book called Firestorm, which we'll talk a little bit about.
And so it was only appropriate that we try to do this interview somewhere relevant to that.
So we are sitting in front of a great restaurant that I love called Betsy in Altadena, which has had quite the journey related to the fires in Altadena.
And when I asked if I could do the interview here, I subsequently learned that Tyler Wells, the restaurateur that owns, um, Betsy, who's with us right now, is actually friends with Jacob.
So I thought, "Hey, Tyler, why don't you join us in the beginning and maybe just talk about a little bit the journey of this restaurant in this place" [laughs] where we are currently sitting.
Is it fair to say we're fire friends? I feel like we've become be- have become friends.
Um, but I feel like you and I, dude, have gotten to know each other much better in the wake of the fire.
It's been a little silver lining to this, getting to connect with you and a lot of other people and, and get even deeper into our community, which is as special as it could be, and it just continues to prove that it's the greatest, greatest neighborhood there is to me.
So for people who don't know, just tell the short version of, you know, your opening [laughs] and then not, and then reopening.
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3 of 12
A Fire Like No Other
He witnessed a catastrophe unlike anything before.
The Family Separation Reckoning
His reporting exposed a devastating government policy.
Reporting Through Personal Trauma
The disaster became impossible to process alone.
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