WEBVTT - The Cult of Failing Upwards 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:08.080 All Zone Media. Hello and welcome to Better Offline, Cool 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:20.400 Zone Media's happiest podcast. I'm your host ed ze Tron. Well, 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.680 as I've run through in the last two episodes, managers 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.360 have poisoned taxability to innovate with a degenerative capitalism known 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.640 as the rot economy, pushing growth at all cost metrics 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.000 on companies you love will isolating and removing those that 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.600 don't agree. And by the way, they're the same people 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.360 who actually build things and make good products and use 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.840 them as well. Nowhere is this more obvious than Meta, 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.519 a company with leadership completely removed from any meaningful interaction 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.720 with their products or any value to society. Since two 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.240 thousand and nine, Facebook's core products have reliably become more 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.840 profitable and exactly the same rate they decay, with every 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:08.080 founder behind every product that Zuckerberg has acquired, including Instagram, Oculus, 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.840 and WhatsApp, leaving the company and almost immediately talking about 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.760 how much they hated working there. According to a New 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.039 York Times piece from twenty eighteen, Kevin Sistrom, co founder 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.120 of Instagram, only chose to quit the company after Mark 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.480 Zuckerberg became jealous of the app's success, Taking the spotlight 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:28.000 away from that of Facebook itself, an appy kind of 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.160 stole from the Winklevosses. Sistrom allegedly didn't really want to 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.400 leave Facebook, but felt that Zuckerberg was depriving Instagram of 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.280 resources and now and I quote seemed to want Instagram 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:41.560 to use its momentum to help the big Blue app, 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.440 which is an annoying way of describing a situation that 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.080 feels a convenient time to reveal that this was a 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:52.240 Kara Swisher piece. Despite Swisher's bloviating, it took tech Crunch's 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.000 Josh Constein to reveal the real reason that Sistram had left. 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.680 Facebook had replaced Instagram's VP of Product Kevin will who 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.720 everybody loved, with the former VP of Facebook News in 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.160 May twenty eighteen. You know that great year for news, 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:13.680 and that man was named Adam Masseri. He would take 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.360 over and over the next six years he would absolutely 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.679 destroy everything that Sistrom and his co founder Mitchell Krieger 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:27.040 had built. According to Constein's reporting, Sistrom had also clashed 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.240 with Chris Cox, Facebook's chief product officer at the time. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:35.040 Constein described Masseri as a Zuckerberg loyalist who was and 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.040 I quote, disappointed that he didn't get the head of 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.160 Facebook gig that went to Will Cathcot, who now heads 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:46.080 up Whatsam. Over time, Massi and Zuckerberg moved to erode 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:50.160 Sistrom and Instagram's independence from Facebook, and eventually, I guess 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.919 it all became too much to bear. Sistrom was there 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.200 to oversee the most damaging change to Instagram, though, which 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.079 was the introduction of the algorithmic feed in Due twenty sixteen, 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.680 two years before he left. That horrified users who feared 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:06.840 that they would now not see posts from their friends, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.880 a thing that almost immediately happened on both Instagram and Facebook, 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.600 which made a major change to its newsfeed algorithm in 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:19.960 twenty fifteen. Wait, wasn't that when Adam Masius? Oh my god. Anyway, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.480 a few months later, Instagram would try and clone the 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.000 functionality of Snapchat, a company that has had quite literally 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.360 one profitable quarter in its history, with the release of Stories. 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.600 By the way, that's exactly what it was called on Snapchat. 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.080 They just didn't anyway. This move was illustrative both of 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.240 the lack of creativity within Instagram and Facebook, but also 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.400 of its future direction, with Story serving as yet another 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.360 touch point for advertisers, and yet another thing that Mark 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.960 Zuckerberg would rip off from people who actually build things 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:56.680 and have ideas. One Systrom left, Masseri became the head 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.680 of Instagram, turning it into one of the most profitable 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.080 business units in history while destroying its basic functionality is 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.480 an app that showed you photos and videos from people 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.480 you chose to follow, doubling down on the algorithm's ability 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.080 to interrupt and annoy you and stop you from seeing 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.880 things that you want to see, pushing ads and sponsored 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.280 content seemingly at random. But the one thing you can 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.440 rely on is it would do it a lot. Since 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.599 taking over Instagram, Adam Massei has, with the direct approval 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.320 and support of Mark Zuckerberg, turned the app into a 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.080 glorified ad network, devoid of any ability to innovate with 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.440 products like IGTV and Threads. By the way, not the 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.719 social network. It was a camera app built to compete 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.000 with Snapchat, which has also been shut down. Neither of 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.760 them found traction, and every change under Massi seems to 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:49.280 be a direct copy of either snap or TikTok. It's 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.800 also important to remember and know what Adam Massari is. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.600 Adam Massari is not a creator. He's not an engineer. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.080 He's not a founder. He's a designer that found his 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.760 way into product manageer, escaping the doldrums of actually doing things, 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:10.520 into the beautiful pantheon of wearing suits and yelling at people. Okay, okay, 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:12.640 I don't know if Adam yelled at people, but he 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.400 definitely annoyed them. And in late twenty twenty, he made 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.159 arguably the worst change to Instagram yet, launching Reels, a 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.320 fifteen second video format for Instagram built to compete with 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:29.080 the ascendant rise of the extremely algorithmic TikTok. Reels quickly 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.240 became the dominant form of content on both Facebook and Instagram, 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.880 flooding your feed with fifteen and eventually sixty second clips 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.480 that automatically players you scrolled by, each one engineered or 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.720 paid to get in the way of things that you 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.680 actually want to see. And I really want to be clear, 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.840 though there are people who are going to say, well, surely, 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:52.400 surely ed the fact that Reels was such a runaway success, 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:58.119 Well that's proof that it was good, right, wrong, horribly wrong. 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:04.240 Facebook's algorithm controls everything with Instagram and Facebook. Now, Systram's 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.440 worry and Kevin Systrom, the founder of Instagram. His worry 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.440 was that Zuckerberg was trying to just turn Instagram into 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.560 an arm of Facebook, kind of a feature app, Like 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.640 you went on Instagram to do things with your Facebook account. 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:22.120 This is exactly what has happened. Instagram is just Facebook, 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.799 but with more visual media. It has the same logins, 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.640 it has the same problems. It also has no customer 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.159 support of any kind, like every social network. But don't worry. 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.640 Thanks to Adam goddamn Massari, you can now pay fifteen 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.839 dollars a month for verification on Instagram and Facebook, which 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.640 will also get you access to customer support. Great goddamn idea, 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.680 Adam burn in hell anyway, I'm not the only one 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.400 angry with Adam Assei. He's also one of the least 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.560 popular tech executives in history. And I'm not kidding. I 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.360 have been reading the tech media very deeply. For Jesus 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.039 coming up on sixteen years bloody hell. Anyway, I've never 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.320 seen someone this unpopular other than maybe Elon Musk, and 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:08.520 even then, Elon Musk, who's a loathsome individual, has far 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:13.920 more riars than Adam Massearri, who mostly spends his time apologizing, No, seriously. 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.600 Since taking over Instagram, he's had to apologize for an 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.360 update that made Instagram's feed mood sideways and I'm not 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.000 kidding about that one. He's had to apologize for Instagram 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.920 censoring pro Palestinian content. He's had to testify before Congress 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.880 about Instagram's harm to young people, and he said to 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.920 tell people that Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app. 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:37.960 What does the Graham eh? Anyway, He's overseen so many 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:42.640 deeply unpopular changes that Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, who 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.800 between them have over six hundred million followers, had to 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.920 beg him to stop Instagram from trying to be TikTok, 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.520 to which he responded that more and more of Instagram 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.040 is going to become video over time, and claim that 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.120 it had cut back on recommended content, something I think 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.880 we can all agree was a blatant, fucking lie. I 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.760 find Adam Massari very annoying as well, because when you 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.600 watch his videos, he's always going, hey, guys, yeah, so yeah, 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.920 So the reason that Instagram's bad now is because, uh, 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:13.840 and you can see him in real time trying to 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.960 come up with a reason why it sucks. That isn't 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:18.600 just well, it makes it. It makes us so it 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.320 may it may have made me so rich. I have 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.720 a house in Kensington, now I'm so rich. Is so good? 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:27.600 He's just he's worm like. He and I want to 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.720 get into personally inside. I take that back. Adam Massari 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.440 is not wormlike. He is a coward. Though he is 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:37.239 the reason that Instagram sucks. Now he is the architect 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.840 of the destruction of one of the most dominant places 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:45.040 on the web. These are his decisions. Massari, like many 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:47.640 of the most powerful men in tech, is a glorified 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:52.320 management consultant, incapable of creating anything of note. Massari has 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.560 already anounced that Threads metas dollars stor clone of Twitter, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:09:00.640 is not for news and politics, making news organizations kind 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.160 of hesitant to invest in a platform that was made 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.520 by a company that has a rich history of screwing 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.480 over news organizations. Also, what the hell do I talk 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.600 about in social networks? Then, Adam, No, nothing that's happening 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.560 in the government of words. Well oh wait, let me 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:20.000 answer that. On threads, what people talk about is whatever's 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:24.040 making them angry that day, without much form, more feature, 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:26.880 and they still talk about politics and news. It's just 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.760 not supported by the algorithm. It's just it's the kind 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.920 of thing that you would make if you had no 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:38.120 idea how social networks worked, but you knew product management. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.480 If you were like, all the people, what do we 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.040 want to see out of a social network? We want 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.280 to see lots of clicks, we want to see lots 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.240 of scrolling. Yeah, we definitely want people interacting and engaging. 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.839 That's what makes good social networking, right. And I think 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:54.439 we can all agree at this point that Twitter was 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.839 a mistake. It was like a text based platform. I 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.800 don't think Bisstone and Jack Dorsey are particularly gifted product 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.000 peace people, but they were smart enough to leave it 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.880 the hell alone. If you look at the Twitter files, 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.640 which by the way, are very funny because they Matt 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.280 Taybe sold is sold to Elon Musk, the most deceptive 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:17.240 man alive other than Donald Trump. It rocks didn't think 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.520 the leopards would eat your face, did you, mate? Anyway? 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.720 The Twitter files, all you can see in there is 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.440 Twitter's executives just being like, Oh, I don't want to 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:27.160 touch it, mate, I don't want to know. I don't 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:28.839 want to if we mess with it it's going to 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:30.800 make it bad. It's going to break. Everyone will be 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.960 so angry if we do anything. We shouldn't ban this person, 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:37.199 we shouldn't change this threads is this weird, hyperoptimized, hyper 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.040 algorithmic crapfest. And all the people on there are people 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.800 who write comments on Instagram it sucks, and there are 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:46.880 some good journalists on there. I'll pop in for that. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.360 But it's a bad social network. And it's a bad 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.320 social network because it's made by a guy who doesn't 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.360 build products, unless you think of products as like financial vehicles, 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.840 in which case Adam Massei maybe the most gifted man alive. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:06.200 But let's be honest. Nowhere is Adam Massari's consultant mindset 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.600 more obvious than in his suggested plan to deal with 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.840 Instagram's hundreds of thousands of underage users by creating a 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.960 new type of family centered account in Instagram that would 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:22.360 permit Meta to upsell Instagram to children under thirteen, a disgusting, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.560 loathsome program that was planned as an alternative to instituting 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:31.040 stricter registration procedures, according to a lawsuit against Meta filed 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.560 by the Attorney General of New Mexico, Yeah, Adam I 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:38.200 won't come without a link because I'm scared anyways. This 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.480 is the man running one of the most important tech 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:42.959 platforms in the world, a man bereft of morals or 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.680 qualifications or even ideas, a walking, talking figurehead that exists 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.760 only to spout vague platitudes about what social media can 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.360 or will do, as the profits of making it harder 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:57.079 to communicate with friends and family make him unfathomably rich. 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.520 He comes out every so often bab about how social 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.559 is important, how the changes he's made that make Instagram 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.760 worse are actually good, and then disappears up his own asshole. 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:10.559 One time he responded to something I wrote on the information, 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.680 and he responded with a bunch of typos, which is 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.280 very funny. But he also responded saying that Facebook planned 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.959 no layoffs and Instagram planned no layoffs. They laid people 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.640 off on six months later. It's just this is the guy. 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.679 These are the guys in power now. Well. Much of 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:30.240 the blame for the state of Instagram and Facebook can 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.920 obviously be laid at the feet of Mark Zuckerberg. It's 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.520 important to remember Mark sucks, and Mark is the reason 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.040 he did the original Facebook after he stole it from 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:43.319 the Wet Brothers. But nevertheless, it's also important to understand 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.360 the sheer level of damage that Adam Massei has done 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:51.360 to the world. Instagram is now a truly awful product. 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:55.440 It's terrible, and Massari's only response to the pain and 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.280 frustration of his users is to tell them that he 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.880 intends to make it shittier. That was his actual response 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.720 when Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian said, hey, stop making 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.320 Instagram like TikTok, he said, I'm actually gonna make it 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.360 more like Tiktel. Your fucking assholes. Okay, that's not exactly 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.120 what he said. He just said there'd be more video. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.200 They've claimed their rolling things back, but it's all nonsense. 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.640 It's all lies. And this is the management consultant mindset 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.960 that dominates tech. They trap users in these terrible experiences, 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.000 and they do so because they have giant monopolies, and 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.440 then they make their products worse and worse and worse 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:31.600 once they know that their users can't or won't go 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:37.360 anywhere else. And what's insane about this is Instagram could 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.000 have probably made Facebook tens of billions of dollars without sucking. 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.720 There are honest ways to do a business like this 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.640 if they really actually invested in algorithms. And I kind 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.320 of hinted this in previous episodes and made it so 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.000 it was just very good at showing you things you like. Hell, 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:59.120 they'd make TikTok. Why do you think TikTok has done well? 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.760 Because it's our algorithm, while extremely weird and unsettling, is 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.040 actually very good at showing people things they'd find interesting. 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.120 It's invasive, it's weird, it's bad. But guess what Matt's 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.880 worth hundreds of billions of dollars. They're putting tens of 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.760 billions of dollars into the metaverse. Still, Reality Labs is 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.280 still burning what ten fifteen billion dollars a quarter or 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.120 a year. It's an insane amount of money. How about 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.360 feeding that into the algorithm so your experience doesn't suck us. 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.560 I'm being vulgar, and I've been quite vulgar in this episode, 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.760 and I apologize, I really do. I shouldn't swear so much. 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:34.920 My mother tells me this, my father tells me this, 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:39.960 shrink tells me this. But anyway, I just find this 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.680 all so annoying. I find it frustrating because the bad 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.120 guys keep winning and the reason they keep winning is 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.360 nobody points at them and says how bad they are, 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.720 or at least they don't do it enough. Really, people 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.280 should walk out of Instagram, and we should stop using 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.080 Instagram and Facebook. I think I use it Instagram like 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.200 once every cup day's look at my friend's very fat dog, 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.360 which I do enjoy. I might just text him and say, 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:06.960 can you just send me picture of site of your dog? 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.640 But that's kind of weird. These apps have become part 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.640 of the social fabric, and people like Adam Masseria are aware. 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.400 Same with Mark Zuckerberg. They know exactly how well they've done, 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.760 and they have. They are a success story. An evil 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:26.360 success story, but they're a success story. You are on Instagram, 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.560 you are on Twitter, you are on email. You are 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:35.320 on these platforms because that's where people exist online. There 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.000 are people that I can only speak to on Instagram. 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.920 They're just bad at text, but they love Instagram, and 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:42.920 it sucks. I don't want to use these platforms, and 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.440 imagine you don't want to EVA, which is why it's 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.040 important to talk about who mess them up. It's important 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.720 to say Adam Masseri a hundred times and keep saying it. 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.800 That's the only way that history will know who has 0:15:55.880 --> 0:16:01.520 done this damage. And these management consultant types they're everywhere, 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.840 They're everywhere, and they're inspiring people to be like them, 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.480 to be ruthless assholes, to be terrible product developers, but 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.880 excellent businessmen. And there is a middle ground, a sustainable ground, 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.720 one which doesn't involve burning cash or burning customers or 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:23.280 in the case of Instagram, shortly adding generative AI to everything, 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.320 to Facebook, to Instagram. And by the way, here's a 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.840 crazy story for you. Recently, a generative AI on Facebook 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.480 responded to a group saying that it had a gifted child. 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.200 And you may think I'm mistaking something. No, no, it 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.640 said this whole thing about having a gifted child. This 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.440 is what happens when people who don't know product, who 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.440 don't build anything, who don't understand anything, get the keys 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.560 to the kingdom. They fuck it up and they'll keep 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:56.920 doing so, and their massive success only seeks to inspire 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:02.160 generations of useless founders with creating profitable pain boxes over 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.479 useful products. And as we speak, the most quirked up 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:09.360 loathsome one of the more is rising to power. I'm 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:22.159 talking about Sam goddamn Altman. Now if you don't know 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:25.200 who that is. Sam Altman is the CEO of open Ai, 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:30.680 which is a very unprofitable revenue generating company building software 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.800 to do something, and Generative Ai might do something. You 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.000 should go back and listen to the episodes about that. 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.240 But I want to tell you how Sam Altman got started, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.800 and I want to let you know how shit Sam 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.919 Altman has peen at his job in the past. In 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.320 two thousand and five, Altman, a Standford dropout, co founded 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.200 a company called Looped. That's loopt, that's what companies were 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.800 called back then, and they were a location based social 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.240 networking app that raised over thirty million dollars from taking Hiba, 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.680 y Combinator, and vcs like Sequoia Capital and NEA. Seven 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.879 years later, Aortmand would flog Looped to a publicly traded 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.800 financial services company called green Dot, best known for their 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.679 prepaid cards, for remarkable forty three point four million dollars, 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.879 despite the fact that the app didn't find traction or 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.880 revenue ormand got quite rich from the Loop deal, despite 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.080 the fact that a group of senior employees urged the 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.560 board on two separate occasions to fire Aortmand for what 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.359 they described as deceptive and chaotic behavior. According to The 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.840 Wall Street Journal, Ormand would almost immediately become a partner 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.119 at y Combinator, surprising a lot of people after working 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.320 there part time before being made president by co founder 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:46.560 Paul Graham in twenty fourteen. Yet, behind the scenes, according 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.679 to reporting by Elizabeth Dwaskin and Natasha Tiku of The 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.000 Washington Post, Aortmand was well known for and I quote 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.439 for an absenteeism that rankled his peers and some of 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.840 the startups he was supposed to nurture. Ortmand was also 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.120 double dipping in y combine at startups by investing through 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.120 Alt Capital, a venture firm founded with his brother Jack, 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.639 with one source quoted by the Post describing Aortman's tenure 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.800 as the school of loose management that's all about prioritizing 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.680 what's in it for me. Aortmand became wildly rich during 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.800 his tenure at y Combinator, using his connections and his 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.040 cult of personality to make early investments in companies like 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.199 Gusto and optimizedly, which was acquired in twenty eighteen for 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.240 one point one six billion dollars, and Patreon and Asana 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.640 and Reddit probably made a couple hundred million red air 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:39.360 really depressing. In twenty fifteen, he founded OpenAI, at the time, 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:44.400 a nonprofit organization dedicated to building responsible artificial intelligence applications. 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.240 Yet it's really important to note that Aortman is not, 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.160 and was not ever an engineer or a technologist. He 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.240 did code, but he was, in every case, from what 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.159 I can find, a figurehead and a fundraiser that was 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.719 able to convince actual academics and engineers like Dirk Kingman 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:06.120 and we'll check Zaremba and Iliasidskava to do the actual 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:08.800 work at open AI, while he sent master ptory emails 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.679 to Elon Musk, who only ever donated fifty million dollars 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.359 of the one hundred million he claimed he'd invested in open AI. 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:17.640 You know what the thing is, Sam, at the very least, 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:19.679 can you make sure that Elon Musk pays up? Are 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.440 you that much of a count anyway? I really want 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:25.879 you to remember that Sam Mortman was an absentee parent 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.760 for the first few years of open AI. He split 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.840 his efforts in actually a way that was very similar 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.159 to Elon Musk, across multiple other investments and enterprises like 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.439 the two funds he'd built inside of Y Combinator for 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.639 him to run. In twenty nineteen, according to reports at 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.840 the time, Alltmond would step down from Y Combinator amid 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.760 a series of changes at the accelerator, a story that 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.720 much of the industry press just simply chose not to 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.639 look into. Though I will give Eric Newcomer some credit 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.560 for calling people out for this kind of in vain. 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.399 Yet the Washington Host's reporting revealed that Y Combinator found 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.000 a Paul Graham, best known for writing extremely annoying tweets 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.840 and very long and quite boring blogs. That's my job, Paul. Anyway, 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.679 he flew from the United Kingdom to Francisco to personally 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.359 kick Sam Altman out, though he blamed his wife for 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.360 some reason, and anyway due to Altman continuing to focus 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:24.280 on his own personal projects and press over his thing 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.440 at WY combinetor This is the story of the man 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.680 whom New York Magazine called the Oppenheimer of our Age 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.440 in a meandering piece that frames Altman's vagueness about AI 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.080 as some sort of big secret, a hidden truth, when 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.879 I think the truth might be far simpler. Sam Altman 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.760 is yet another fucking management consultant. In a piece published 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.840 in early twenty twenty one, Sam Altman proposed the concept 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.520 of Moore's law for everything, referring to the principle that 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.040 the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles approximately 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.600 every two years, leading to a linear increase in computing 0:21:57.640 --> 0:21:59.680 power in the process. And if I got that wrong, 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.760 I just I think it's okay anyway. Moore's Law for 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.840 Everything is, in essence a utopian take on the impact 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.320 of AI, noting that as machines usurp the roles of 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:13.199 humans in the supply chain, the prices of goods and 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.360 services and thus the cost of living will go down exponentially, 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.280 something that has been proven wrong by a lot of history. 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.280 The problem with this piece is it's kind of like 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.439 Sam Moultman in that it's a deeply complex bucket of nothing. 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.600 It's an extremely verbose screed that says things like AI 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.240 will lower the cost of goods and services because labor 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:34.560 is the driving cost at many levels of the supply chain, 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.120 and suggests things like that we should tax capital rather 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:40.919 than labor by creating an American equity Fund where companies 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:42.600 are forced to give up a percentage of their shares 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:45.480 to a nationally incorporate adventure fund, an idea that makes 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:47.720 sense if you're in the business of flogging private companies 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:52.200 to public companies. Moore's law for Everything is a remarkably 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.520 telling piece in that if frames Aortman's worldview as one 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.120 where the only thing that can save mankind is startups, 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.080 and those should be funded in the way that Sam 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.840 Ortman likes, and this piece feels a lot like everything 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:09.960 in a Ortmand's universe. Endeavor actually connects Moore's law to anything, 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.600 which I should add isn't so much of a law 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.239 as an observation as long ceased to be relevant as 0:23:15.280 --> 0:23:18.480 the shrinkage of transistors as slowed in the recent years. 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:23.200 In many respects, this comparison is actually ierially prophetic given 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:25.840 the slow down and even regression of improvement we've seen 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:30.080 in large language models like chat GPT, And much like 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:34.480 chat GPT, Ortmand is capable only of loosely approximating the 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:38.240 output requested, because that is core. He lacks any kind 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.879