Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to what Future. I'm your host, Joshua Zapolski.
Speaker 1: So for many weeks I've been talking about thinking about
Speaker 1: skirting around and perhaps even delving into the issue of Twitter,
Speaker 1: which is ever present in the minds of all people
Speaker 1: who are on Twitter and it's new owner, Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: and all of the madness that has been sort of
Speaker 1: unleashed on the general population. I have touched on it
Speaker 1: here and there, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Sometimes I wasn't
Speaker 1: touching on it at all, and you just thought I
Speaker 1: was because you're a very confused person. But there's so
Speaker 1: much that has happened with Twitter, the social network, and
Speaker 1: its owner, Elon Musk, and the users of it that
Speaker 1: it felt worth exploring in a more direct and sort
Speaker 1: of plain manner. And I would say just in the
Speaker 1: last week, just in the last few days, there have
Speaker 1: been things that have been happening that are just seemed
Speaker 1: totally surreal at this point. For instance, Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: tweeting a Tim Cooke, the CEO of Apple, about how
Speaker 1: he's going to go to war with Apple because they
Speaker 1: don't want to advertise on Twitter, because Twitter is now
Speaker 1: full of Nazis and racists again. They're no longer going
Speaker 1: to flag COVID misinformation or even attempt to stop the
Speaker 1: spread of misinformation on the service as it relates to COVID.
Speaker 1: No other social network in the world is doing that.
Speaker 1: Everybody's trying to stop the flow of and stem the
Speaker 1: tide of miss info. They're like, no, we're not doing
Speaker 1: that anymore. They fired all of the team that was
Speaker 1: tracking child sex abuse on the platform, or most of
Speaker 1: the team. Bloomberg's headline was they decimated the team tackling
Speaker 1: child sexual abuse. So just really normal stuff for a
Speaker 1: social network with two million users, it just becomes such
Speaker 1: an ongoing, rolling story. I thought, you know who, who
Speaker 1: can you talk to you about this? Who really understands
Speaker 1: the inner workings of it, And immediately I thought of
Speaker 1: Casey Newton, who is an amazing journalist and writer and
Speaker 1: has been, along with his partners Zoe Schiffer, has been
Speaker 1: writing to Scoop after Scoop in the last few weeks
Speaker 1: about what's going on inside of Twitter, and they broke
Speaker 1: a ton of stories. I think they broke the story
Speaker 1: about all these people quitting Twitter. They've broken all of
Speaker 1: these stories about these panicked emails that Elon Muskus send
Speaker 1: him because nobody can write code there anymore. And just
Speaker 1: it's been an amazing kind of example of what I
Speaker 1: would say is the finest journalism around this topic and
Speaker 1: kind of exposes the the chaos and the insanity of
Speaker 1: this moment inside of Twitter. And so I thought, let's
Speaker 1: get Casey on the show. Let's talk to him about
Speaker 1: what the state of play is at Twitter. And so
Speaker 1: that's what we did. Okay, let's get after it. As
Speaker 1: Chris Cuomo used to say before he was canceled and
Speaker 1: fired from CNN. Sorry, it's a dark memory from just
Speaker 1: the recent past. The Cuomos, they didn't fare too well
Speaker 1: as the pandemic was closing up. They really didn't knock
Speaker 1: it out of the park. Okay, but we're not here
Speaker 1: to talk about their weird bad behavior. We're here to
Speaker 1: talk about the weird bad behavior of another guy. Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: who's not a Cuomo Elon Musk So okay, So first off,
Speaker 1: you cover this, you are a top of the class,
Speaker 1: top shelf. I can't think of anything but a top
Speaker 1: sort of you know, you're a top when it comes
Speaker 1: to coverage. I can't speak on to every subject for you,
Speaker 1: But when it comes to coverage of the Internet and
Speaker 1: internet companies, in particularly Twitter, you're the best. You're You're
Speaker 1: on top. What thanks man? Thanks? You have many many, many,
Speaker 1: many sneaky ass sources screring around whatever remains of Twitter
Speaker 1: h Q delivering truth bombs to you on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: Would you say this is all accurate? The thing is,
Speaker 1: I have never really thought of myself as as a
Speaker 1: great reporter, But in that case, I don't believe that. Well, look,
Speaker 1: I think I'm a good writer. I think it was
Speaker 1: a pretty good thinker, But like, I've never been the
Speaker 1: scoopiest guy. But with this particular story, Josh, I'm not
Speaker 1: kidding when I tell you, like, for two or three weeks,
Speaker 1: I would wake up and every single day I would
Speaker 1: just open up Signal and people were like, here are
Speaker 1: like four more things that no one has reported yet.
Speaker 1: There's just so much going on at that company and
Speaker 1: it just kind of needed to go somewhere. So it's
Speaker 1: been an amazing month, the reporting that you've been doing.
Speaker 1: And you and Joe Schiffer. Am I saying that right?
Speaker 1: Is that the correct pronunciation? Yeah, my colleagues, She's wonderfully.
Speaker 1: You all have been doing some great, great reporting. It's
Speaker 1: made me. I've been glued to Twitter kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think do you have a Master Dawn account yet?
Speaker 1: Are you on that? Dude? I'm in it, but I
Speaker 1: just look at that thing and I just feel like
Speaker 1: it's dead on arrival. No, dude, Taylor Lareen's already has
Speaker 1: sixty thou followers on Massadotic. You need to catch the
Speaker 1: funk up by day. Okay, I'll see what I can do.
Speaker 1: She's like, actually, I don't even know, like maybe she
Speaker 1: has box. I'm not really sure. Are there sixty people
Speaker 1: on masted on. I'm not entirely sure. I've heard they
Speaker 1: have like eight million almost. No, it's kicking as I
Speaker 1: love it. I think it's terrific. But anyhow, it's that's
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that at another point in time. So
Speaker 1: so let's talk about Twitter for a second, okay, And
Speaker 1: we don't have to recap all of the Twitter news
Speaker 1: because obviously I've been talking about it here and there
Speaker 1: on the podcast, and and I think the people who
Speaker 1: are listening to this, the sick, sick people who listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast have heard, you know, some something about
Speaker 1: what's happening on Twitter, but you know you're hearing from
Speaker 1: people who are currently working there, correct, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: want you to I don't want you to to give away
Speaker 1: any sources, but let's just say people who are very
Speaker 1: very close to the inside mechanations of Twitter. Is it
Speaker 1: as crazy to them or does it feel as off
Speaker 1: the rails to people who are actually working there as
Speaker 1: it does to human beings like us that are on
Speaker 1: the outside. It absolutely feels off the real You know,
Speaker 1: people will tell me some things, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: that they won't tell me, and instead they'll say, like,
Speaker 1: I will tell you the real story in like three years.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like once enough time has passed that
Speaker 1: you know what I feel like. But they're like, it's
Speaker 1: crazier than you can even imagine. Yeah, So there's obviously
Speaker 1: the people on the ground. There's Twitter, there's people, a
Speaker 1: lot of people have been laid off, there's people who
Speaker 1: have quit. There's like four people who currently work at
Speaker 1: Twitter now and one of them Ze lot Mosque. But
Speaker 1: I assume you're also talking to your have you spoken
Speaker 1: to like vcs and investors and people who are outside
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, I get this weird impressure. Then maybe
Speaker 1: a lot of them are like, Ellen is showing everyone
Speaker 1: how it's done. Do you is that what's going on
Speaker 1: out there? Yes? Yeah, some people are so excited about
Speaker 1: what Ellen is doing because over the last ten years,
Speaker 1: tech workers gained so much power, right, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of competition for the best engineers. The companies were
Speaker 1: printing money, they were making you know, like a million
Speaker 1: dollars plus off of every single employee that they had,
Speaker 1: and so workers just had all this freedom and they
Speaker 1: you know, they had to serve them lunch, and they
Speaker 1: had to give him great perks, you know, backrubs, laundry.
Speaker 1: Then it actually give them backrubs. That's actually illegal. I
Speaker 1: think that that it would have been happened not the manager.
Speaker 1: They would bring people into get back. They would bring people,
Speaker 1: they would bring in professional Okay, they're getting them backrubs
Speaker 1: and lunch in the backrubs. That's a date. A BackRub
Speaker 1: and lunch is like, that's a thousand dollar date. And
Speaker 1: that's what it was like to work in Airbnb. So
Speaker 1: you know, this all is going on. But instead of
Speaker 1: saying thank you, my capitalist master, what do people do?
Speaker 1: They say, like, well, we should also make this place
Speaker 1: more diverse, right, Like we should improve the working condition.
Speaker 1: We should actually treat our contractors as well as we
Speaker 1: treat the full time employees. And this drives the CEO
Speaker 1: is crazy. And so the moment that the economy starts
Speaker 1: to turn and Elon takes over Twitter and just starts
Speaker 1: slashing and burning, there are a lot of CEOs and
Speaker 1: b c saying this is the way we need to
Speaker 1: remind these workers what their true places. And that's licking
Speaker 1: our boots. Wow. I mean to me, there's sort of
Speaker 1: something about the Twitter stuff that is obviously it's Trumpian
Speaker 1: in many ways because of Elon's I think Lawn's personality
Speaker 1: on Twitter has become increasingly more trump like. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: actually a lot of people have said to me recently,
Speaker 1: they're like, can you believe this is the guy you're
Speaker 1: asking about? Like, you know, are we living in a
Speaker 1: simulation like not that long ago? And it is funny
Speaker 1: because I used to think about Ellen and like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: he's a little weird. He's kind of got some like
Speaker 1: edge lord equalities, but not really. He's more just like
Speaker 1: a super interesting guy and he's doing really interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's like so we're now so far afield from
Speaker 1: this other version of Elon Musk that I used to
Speaker 1: think of him as, and it he does increasingly have
Speaker 1: more in common with like a Trump character. Like Trump.
Speaker 1: It feels like this is one of those situations where
Speaker 1: is he just gonna do all of the things that
Speaker 1: are terrible and bad and everybody's like, that's the worst.
Speaker 1: This is terrible and just nothing is going to stop.
Speaker 1: But no reality can intersect with his like master plan.
Speaker 1: So reality has already intersected with him in the form
Speaker 1: of many of his advertisers pulling up and running out
Speaker 1: the door, right is you know, Apple was his biggest
Speaker 1: brand advertiser. They're spending like forty eight million doll it
Speaker 1: was a quarter. They're just gone now, and he needs
Speaker 1: that money, like you know, they saddled this company up
Speaker 1: with something like thirteen billion dollars in debt. They have
Speaker 1: to pay a billion dollars a year just an interest
Speaker 1: on the debt. Twitter is making about five billion a
Speaker 1: year before all of this happened, and now they've lost
Speaker 1: a significant amount of their advertising. We reported this week
Speaker 1: that in Europe their ads are down like forty nine
Speaker 1: percent week over week, So that's reality for him. I mean,
Speaker 1: how many advertisers have actually pulled out do you know
Speaker 1: the dollar amount? Well? Sadly they don't text me when
Speaker 1: they do it. You know, what we've what we've heard
Speaker 1: is that it is just many, many, many millions. You
Speaker 1: said Apple was their biggest advertiser. Is that? Yeah, their
Speaker 1: single biggest brand advertiser, because apparently Apple doesn't advertise on Facebook. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting apples like increasingly finding no friends in the social
Speaker 1: media landscape, which is like kind of makes sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: given their business model and what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1: But if Apple was their largest and they're doing you
Speaker 1: said forty eight million a quarter, yeah, I mean, sure
Speaker 1: there's somebody who's working on the back of the envelope
Speaker 1: math on this. But I the thing that I always
Speaker 1: thought was most striking in the early days of the
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is gonna buy Twitter conversation? I think I
Speaker 1: want to say, maybe Mike Isaac, maybe it was a
Speaker 1: group of people did a story at the Times that
Speaker 1: was like, here's what musques like plans are, or maybe
Speaker 1: it's just a reblog of your story. I don't I
Speaker 1: never never know these days, But did you get those
Speaker 1: I think I think they broke up. They broke some
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm willing to admit that maybe someone else
Speaker 1: is broken news, but they were like one of the
Speaker 1: parts of the plan was like he's going to eliminate
Speaker 1: the reliance on advertiser revenue. He's gonna have it by
Speaker 1: five or something, and the other you know, revenue is
Speaker 1: gonna be derived from like subscription and payments and all
Speaker 1: this other stuff. But the company's revenue, right I believe
Speaker 1: is the number is derived from advertising in two, like
Speaker 1: in the Year of Our Lord two. So if that
Speaker 1: goes away, do you know what happens? Do you have
Speaker 1: any ideas anybody spoken to you on like what that
Speaker 1: looks like if suddenly he can't afford to pay people
Speaker 1: and can't keep the lights on. Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 1: just looks like a company going out of business, right,
Speaker 1: you know, one must but more sifically, what must took over?
Speaker 1: He was like, we we can't rule out that this
Speaker 1: company is going to go bankrupt. You know. That was
Speaker 1: sort of his opening pep rally to the troop was
Speaker 1: like we're fun. He's like, I'm glad, yeah, But but
Speaker 1: what's amazing is that after telling everyone that instead of
Speaker 1: being like, you know, here's my my five point plan
Speaker 1: to return as to profitability, he was like, We're going
Speaker 1: to piss off all the advertisers, We're going to restore
Speaker 1: sixty accounts from the worst Twitter users of all time,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna start a fight with Apple, which we
Speaker 1: literally call it a war. Right, So, I mean, the
Speaker 1: man is not making rational decisions. See, that's what I believe.
Speaker 1: But then you've got these like weird Mr Mosque people
Speaker 1: who are like, who are like that is truly what
Speaker 1: they are is the Mr must people. They're like, either
Speaker 1: don't understand the long game he's playing, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, my dude, I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to play a long game that doesn't
Speaker 1: look this stupid. Like isn't it so amazing too that
Speaker 1: that is an exact replica of how people treated Trump, right,
Speaker 1: because it was always you know, Mr Trump, you know
Speaker 1: you're here to say no matter what, like the cree
Speaker 1: easiest ship that Trump ever did, there were always people
Speaker 1: there to tell you that it was nine dimensional chess. Listen.
Speaker 1: I hate to say this, but I think people need
Speaker 1: Christ back in their lives. That's what this podcast is about, right,
Speaker 1: this is actually a pro evangelical Christian podcast to Jesus people.
Speaker 1: But there is an argument. I think, doesn't it feel
Speaker 1: like the climate out here is you've got these people
Speaker 1: who are so like devoted. I mean, Elon Musk Today's
Speaker 1: abstractions on the devotion to this guy is crazy. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, it's is sort of like the Trump thing
Speaker 1: where Trump, you know, early in his campaign, was like
Speaker 1: I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they'd love
Speaker 1: me for whatever. It's like, yeah, you were right, Like
Speaker 1: I hate to admit it, but I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, you like his car, maybe you
Speaker 1: bought some stock, you know, you want to go to Mars.
Speaker 1: Like that's all fine, those all our normal things that
Speaker 1: people may engage in. But like when it's so clearly
Speaker 1: the guy's blowing it, it's like Kanye, Like he reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot of Kanye right now. And in fact,
Speaker 1: I ironically d m you on Twitter about this, but
Speaker 1: I was like, haf has met. It's like it kind
Speaker 1: of one of those situations where it does seem like
Speaker 1: it's so far afield from like the Elon Musk character
Speaker 1: that proceeds this, even for the other stuff that he's done,
Speaker 1: even for the Peto the Peto guy comments or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was like a sporadic sort of flare up. Now
Speaker 1: he's like, here's my weird nightstand with diet cokes on it, caffeine.
Speaker 1: You know who I know who drinks caffe free diet coke.
Speaker 1: My parents drinks caffee free dico. They're like, we love
Speaker 1: to taste of diet coke, but we hate the energy
Speaker 1: it gives us. So yeah, we we don't want to
Speaker 1: be all hopped up after three pm. What's he afraid of?
Speaker 1: Like I thought, he's the guy who like sleeps on
Speaker 1: the floor at the office, and he like sleeps one
Speaker 1: hour a night, and like you would think he'd want
Speaker 1: the regular diet coke. He's like, I need every chemical,
Speaker 1: but the one that actually will help me stay awake,
Speaker 1: Like that's just how happen. So that's how I've got
Speaker 1: to roll. Also, the one that's actually natural. I don't
Speaker 1: want that. We're all watching the car crash, right, we're
Speaker 1: like kind of rubber neck and like I just looked
Speaker 1: at my feed and I can't even think of anything
Speaker 1: to talk about on Twitter anymore except Elon Musk being dumb,
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's like I don't there's no other
Speaker 1: topic that seems interesting, and like people like little world Cup.
Speaker 1: I'm like, who cares. We're watching the World Cup of
Speaker 1: Guys flaming out right now? You know? Yeah, he really
Speaker 1: does feel like not just the main subject but sort
Speaker 1: of the only subject sometimes, and he'll tweet literally anything.
Speaker 1: You know, He'll just be like I put tooth raised
Speaker 1: on my toothbrush and people will be like, uh, oh well,
Speaker 1: I hate to tell Elon Musk, but and then you know,
Speaker 1: go on with a ninety part thread or they're like
Speaker 1: by by cryptos get yes exactly, here's an of the
Speaker 1: tooth brush, but this idea that it's like, oh well,
Speaker 1: it turns out I'm a little bit smarter than Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm gonna quote tweet him and just
Speaker 1: let my followers know that I've got him clocked, buddy,
Speaker 1: Like low does yourself steam have to be for you
Speaker 1: to want to stunt on Elon Musk? On the timeline?
Speaker 1: Have I done this? Everyone has? I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: the only person who hasn't. At this point, you have
Speaker 1: to maintain the credibility of a neutral reporter. You need
Speaker 1: to be able because if he decides to grant an
Speaker 1: interview with somebody, Casey, don't tell me you haven't been
Speaker 1: thinking about it. If you decided to grant an interview,
Speaker 1: it'd be such a nightmare. The John he's gonna grant,
Speaker 1: He'll grant an interview with the Daily Wire. That's who
Speaker 1: he's going to grant an interview that is going to happen. Ye. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's not gonna be talking to me anytime soon, I imagine,
Speaker 1: although you know, Elon, if you're listening, call me. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, like those interviews suck. If every single
Speaker 1: question is it like, tell me about like this genocide
Speaker 1: that you directly cause people are like you are a
Speaker 1: simple you know you're you're keeping from this guy, and
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, like I just hate being in
Speaker 1: that position, So I'm fine to not be doing that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. My opinion is like I am stunned
Speaker 1: at how insanely bad this looks like. I'm not like
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is a total idiot. I think he's smart
Speaker 1: in some ways, sure, but there are so many ways
Speaker 1: this could have gone better. I believe in every intersector,
Speaker 1: every you know, crossroads he got to it was like, well,
Speaker 1: you could have driven down the road and made it
Speaker 1: not so horrible, but you decided to hit this off
Speaker 1: ramp for reasons that honestly, only edge lords can explain.
Speaker 1: And the only way they can explain is like, you
Speaker 1: don't get he's playing chess in nine D chess or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. It's like it's fucking bizarre. So okay,
Speaker 1: what happens. You're an expert in this field, you have
Speaker 1: a doctorate in Internet studies, ellen ology one oh one
Speaker 1: and one oh two. How does this play out? Give
Speaker 1: me your like, you know, well, look, I don't think
Speaker 1: Twitter is gonna get banned by Apple anytime soon. Be
Speaker 1: pretty cool if they did that, right, I mean, that
Speaker 1: could happen maybe like a sick if Tim Cook was
Speaker 1: just like you know what, I'm Tim Cook, like, I
Speaker 1: could buy your company twenty five times over. It's not
Speaker 1: unimaginable to me. But I think you know, it would
Speaker 1: create political and pr problems for Apple then it would
Speaker 1: rather not have. Like Twitter is going to continue to
Speaker 1: be on the App Store, but if they keep going
Speaker 1: down this road, they're gonna lose way more of their advertisers,
Speaker 1: which means that Twitter is just gonna keep losing money.
Speaker 1: And then Ellen is going to have to decide do
Speaker 1: I want to make a bunch of really obvious decisions
Speaker 1: that would bring advertisers back, or do I want to
Speaker 1: be a free speech crusader who just sort of you know,
Speaker 1: captains the ship as it sinks into the ocean. And
Speaker 1: at this point it seems like he's much more in
Speaker 1: the latter camp. We'll see if you know, losing yet
Speaker 1: more billions of dollars changes his mind. But there's a
Speaker 1: potential like right off for right down situation here, right like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if he really tanks it. Some people have suggested to
Speaker 1: me that, you know, maybe this whole thing is a
Speaker 1: bit of a ploy to put the thing into bankruptcy
Speaker 1: and then restructure the debt and you know that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, um and which I guess as possible and
Speaker 1: then what continue to own it? Uh yeah, or you know,
Speaker 1: like sell it to some telecom somewhere. You know, it
Speaker 1: does sort of feel like one potential, like a terrible
Speaker 1: but hilarious outcome of Twitter, Like do you mean to
Speaker 1: like Verizon is what you're saying? Well, exactly, It's like
Speaker 1: a subdivision of Yahoo, you know, subdivision Twitter Holy on
Speaker 1: every other tweet is just an ad for like one
Speaker 1: weird trick to remove your belt. It's the chum boxes
Speaker 1: is in the feed now, I know, I love that
Speaker 1: beautiful idea. Have you been talking people at other major
Speaker 1: tech companies? Is there nobody who's looking at this as
Speaker 1: an acquisition, as like an opportunistic like Google? Google doesn't
Speaker 1: on Twitter. The thing that the social networks camp by
Speaker 1: anything right now? Like Facebook tried to buy a gift
Speaker 1: search engine and the UK told them absolutely not. They
Speaker 1: said that would ruin competition in the market. So you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that Facebook would require Twitter, I think is
Speaker 1: just totally out of the question. Okay. I mean I
Speaker 1: don't think I don't see Facebook, But you don't think
Speaker 1: Google would be interested? Um? I think you know, Sooner
Speaker 1: is such a like chill, laid back guy that I
Speaker 1: think the prospect of owning Twitter would just probably give
Speaker 1: him hives. You know, there's just kind of too many problems, right, Microsoft, Microsoft,
Speaker 1: they wanted to buy Discord so bad, right, they want
Speaker 1: to pay ten billion dollars for that thing. If they
Speaker 1: could pick up Twitter for like a billion dollars, Like
Speaker 1: I could see them wanting to do that. I don't
Speaker 1: think a billion, it'll be more than a billion, right
Speaker 1: by the time Musk is done with this, Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it depends if he drives away every single advertiser on
Speaker 1: the platform except for the my Pillow guys. Right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Does it feel that way to you though? Right now?
Speaker 1: I mean, all I can tell you is like the
Speaker 1: direction that we're going in right, Like, nothing has happened
Speaker 1: in the past several weeks that have made me feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's starting to get it. It's like it's exactly what
Speaker 1: you just said. Every time he's been presented with an
Speaker 1: on ramp that would lead him to a more rational,
Speaker 1: profitable path, he has chosen the other path. So he
Speaker 1: could choose a different path and it would change everything,
Speaker 1: but he's only been choosing one sort of path. M
Speaker 1: You know, it does seem like kind of impossible that
Speaker 1: you can just lose all of these people and not
Speaker 1: have something eventually down the road, like just simply break.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like it's broken yet, but like, does
Speaker 1: it feel like there's something like that on the horizon.
Speaker 1: Do you have any sense from people that you're talking
Speaker 1: to who are there that like there's gonna be some
Speaker 1: kind of catastrophic mom because all these prognosticators like the
Speaker 1: day that happened, where like I've been in the industry
Speaker 1: thirty years and it's only a matter of time before
Speaker 1: it puts one lot of code in and the whole
Speaker 1: thing goes down. I believe those people like I do.
Speaker 1: I was like pretty early to saying I think there's
Speaker 1: probably gonna be like a major outage of Twitter. It
Speaker 1: could last like a day or more. I still think
Speaker 1: we could see it. People d M me now and
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, like my notifications are only showing September,
Speaker 1: or like they're sending me videos of tweets jumping all
Speaker 1: around their timeline. So I do think little stuff is
Speaker 1: starting to break. Maybe the engineers who are still there,
Speaker 1: we'll be able to get it under control and it
Speaker 1: won't be a problem. There's also this question of like,
Speaker 1: you know, every service relies on these SSL certifications, but
Speaker 1: you need like dozens of them for all the different
Speaker 1: micro services that run your company. And I've been told
Speaker 1: by people tech companies, like at every tech company, one
Speaker 1: of these services just stops working because it didn't make
Speaker 1: it onto a spreadsheet, and somebody forgot to renew it,
Speaker 1: and the teams that were responsible for managing these spreadsheets
Speaker 1: on Twitter no longer exist. So you know, that's why
Speaker 1: I think that we are likelier than not to see
Speaker 1: a multi day outage. But you know it's not a guarantee, right,
Speaker 1: Do you know how many people still work there? Do
Speaker 1: we have a number? I think it's like probably around
Speaker 1: two thousand, maybe a little bit less. And how many
Speaker 1: people are working there when he took over. That's that's
Speaker 1: got to be like a record or something, right like
Speaker 1: in terms of like reduction and workforce. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty huge drop. Yeah, there is a lot of like
Speaker 1: engineering talent and otherwise out in San Francisco right now
Speaker 1: or the West coast generally for Alan. If it starts breaking,
Speaker 1: is that the point where we know like it's real
Speaker 1: because it feels all this stuff feels like the six accounts,
Speaker 1: for instance, like has he done the thing? Has he
Speaker 1: opened the floodgates? As he released death Con three or
Speaker 1: whatever they're calling been told that they have started to
Speaker 1: restore some of those accounts. I do you think it's
Speaker 1: gonna take? Sometimes these are people like Milo right, Milo
Speaker 1: yan Monopolis. I'm definitely mispronounced his last name. So I
Speaker 1: don't know that accounts specifically, but that that certainly seems
Speaker 1: like an account that would be included yet like something
Speaker 1: that might have been banned for like rampant transphobia, or
Speaker 1: for like hate speech or um, I don't know, mobbing behavior,
Speaker 1: things that like Twitter typically banned for. You know, if
Speaker 1: you had the wrong opinion about the president, they would
Speaker 1: ban you. If you didn't like Trump, shadow ban you
Speaker 1: all those people. Yeah, but they're not totally restored yet,
Speaker 1: not not totally yet, but it's it has been decreed
Speaker 1: that they will be. Have you felt any change in
Speaker 1: your feed in what you're seeing? I mean because as
Speaker 1: I do tweet about what Elon Musk does, I do
Speaker 1: get a lot of the Mr Musk guys in my replies,
Speaker 1: and I have to say, there isn't actually this perfect meme.
Speaker 1: Have you seen this meme? It's like from the Simpsons
Speaker 1: of somebody jumping Okay, so I think it's a I
Speaker 1: think it's a Pooh or somebody's chumping in front of
Speaker 1: a pool. Somebody's like trying to shoot him, and the
Speaker 1: way it's labeled is it's essentially like weird. It's labeled
Speaker 1: weird nerds are jumping in front of Elon Musk to
Speaker 1: take a bullet from him. It's like it's like, I
Speaker 1: think the person with the gun is like reasonable feet
Speaker 1: it's like valid criticism. And then see Elon Musk and
Speaker 1: then there's like like weird nerds, you know, defending Elon
Speaker 1: Musk or whatever, or we're just we says weird nerds. Yes,
Speaker 1: I have seen and and shared the meme. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: am not much of a meme sharer generally, but man,
Speaker 1: when a Mr. Musky shows up, it's so satisfying to
Speaker 1: drop it because it truly like there's nothing they can say.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, they really are just there to defend
Speaker 1: a billionaire for no. No, It's it's so strange and
Speaker 1: like they do have their own by the way, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've seen them. They have made their own versions
Speaker 1: of the meme that counter they add some stuff. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to describe it here because
Speaker 1: we've already described far too much of an image for
Speaker 1: the listener, But yes, they have their own sort of
Speaker 1: reverse attack. Simpson's mean but doesn't really land the way
Speaker 1: that one does, which is I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: thing that is, you know, we talked about this a
Speaker 1: little bit before, but this whole idea of this, like
Speaker 1: the cult of Elon Musk, Like I find it somewhat inexplicable,
Speaker 1: and I think partially the pandemic and everybody being alone
Speaker 1: and online a lot kind of like created more of
Speaker 1: this energy. Clearly, like the Internet is home to the fanboy.
Speaker 1: And I will say, I don't want to like, you know,
Speaker 1: miss gender all of the fans or whatever, but there
Speaker 1: are they are mostly boys. I mean, let's just be
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. Like they present as very well,
Speaker 1: they present as presenting is very masculine. That's what ELSE say.
Speaker 1: But the Internet is the home of the fan boy.
Speaker 1: And like I think, like you know, you listen, you
Speaker 1: have a long a long history of covering technology companies,
Speaker 1: and so you've seen at intervals this kind of fan
Speaker 1: boyish behavior fan behavior. But it does feel like this
Speaker 1: is such a you know, I don't know, it's like
Speaker 1: it feels so personal to people, and I don't fully
Speaker 1: understand the psychology of it, And you know, I wonder
Speaker 1: how much that contributes to his actions, Like does it
Speaker 1: feel like he's almost in some way doing some of
Speaker 1: these things to get the reaction. Yeah. So one way
Speaker 1: that I think Elon Musk is just like you and me,
Speaker 1: is like it's exciting when a lot of people like
Speaker 1: your tweet and retweet it and and like make you
Speaker 1: feel like you're a really smart person who's made a
Speaker 1: clever observation. It turns out that if you're a billionaire,
Speaker 1: like that feels just as good. You know, then if
Speaker 1: you're a common person it should It shouldn't though, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we can agree that if you
Speaker 1: and I were billionaires, we would not be on Twitter,
Speaker 1: right I think. I mean I'm actually I disagree. I
Speaker 1: think I would be. And here's why. I think, once
Speaker 1: you reach a certain level of power in this world,
Speaker 1: Twitter is the only way you can feel like a
Speaker 1: human again. Like you you It gives you just a
Speaker 1: sense of danger, right, the idea that I could ruin
Speaker 1: my entire life. You know, people are just thrilled by
Speaker 1: the idea that it could get canceled, you know, so
Speaker 1: they like flirt with it. I love this concept, Like
Speaker 1: it's just like it's like, you know, the only way
Speaker 1: I can feel anything is that's that's what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think if you're a billionaire, there are lots of ways. One,
Speaker 1: there are lots of ways you can get canceled and
Speaker 1: you don't have to go on Twitter. How would you
Speaker 1: do it? How would you do it? Well, it's funny
Speaker 1: you should ask. I have been thinking a lot about
Speaker 1: this lately. Maybe it's just that the negative feedback is
Speaker 1: actually what he's looking for, you know, like he must
Speaker 1: never hear no from the people around him. So I
Speaker 1: was talking with somebody who worked with him a lot,
Speaker 1: like after the acquisition, and this person was just saying
Speaker 1: that their theory about why he is the way he
Speaker 1: is is because of his media consumption diet, which is
Speaker 1: mostly Twitter. It's mostly sort of you know, right wingers
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and he's just sort of like fallen head
Speaker 1: over heels from them. And of course they're telling him like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're so right about everything, while they sort of you know,
Speaker 1: gas him up. They're also being like, oh, and also
Speaker 1: like do these like horrible things, because like it's the
Speaker 1: only way to protect free speech and civilization, and he
Speaker 1: falls for it. It's weird, though, because that seems dumb.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's obviously not the world's smartest man. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just be clear. I don't think but have we
Speaker 1: decided who the world's smartest? I don't know like that.
Speaker 1: The Binance guy seems pretty, he's he's like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's great. He seems smart, though, I think yeah, maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe the FTX guy might be the Yeah, he would see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't haven't read much about him lately, but you know,
Speaker 1: as of two months ago, he seemed really smart. He
Speaker 1: seemed really smart up until about two months ago, um
Speaker 1: or a month. It hasn't been that long term. It's
Speaker 1: been two fucking weeks there or something. It's like, that's
Speaker 1: how what's going on with the timeline? Yeah, we haven't
Speaker 1: figured out who the world smartest man is, but I
Speaker 1: think we can all agree Elon Musk is not that person.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that he has to agree with like
Speaker 1: whatever the alternate opinion is like on the left about
Speaker 1: some of these things. And I'm not saying that some
Speaker 1: of the things that the right wing thinks about Twitter
Speaker 1: that they're completely baseless. There are probably some pockets some
Speaker 1: places where they either have made bad decisions or overstepped
Speaker 1: or whatever they had employees who were kind of off
Speaker 1: doing their own thing, and it was like not well regulated. Sure,
Speaker 1: like a well regulated militia. Twitter does not have one
Speaker 1: of those. Uh not, Yeah, you must working on it,
Speaker 1: Elon muskeet Um, it's fucking dumb bedside see sorry to gross.
Speaker 1: It's just such a gross bedside scene. It's really like
Speaker 1: there's so many things that could be there. But anyhow,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't know who these people are that
Speaker 1: cheering them on, Like it seems like he might be
Speaker 1: able to see through some of like their rhetoric and
Speaker 1: be like these guys seem actually seem kind of dumb,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean this is a guy who's talking
Speaker 1: about and he believes in climate change, right Ellen, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that was his whole thing. He's like, let's
Speaker 1: save the planet or whatever. You know, does he now
Speaker 1: like climate change maybe isn't real? Like is that what's
Speaker 1: going on? That's kind of how it feels. I mean,
Speaker 1: his views on a lot of things just seemed very malleable,
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't think there are a lot
Speaker 1: of fixed points there. I like how I'm like Casey explained, Elon,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been writing a lot about this and
Speaker 1: like that is sort of the number one thing that
Speaker 1: I think people want is like explain Elon Musk. And
Speaker 1: what I have found over the past month of writing
Speaker 1: about him almost every single day is that there is
Speaker 1: not a sort of logical through line that I can
Speaker 1: draw for you that explains the guy. He's a whim
Speaker 1: based person. He's a w BP baby. That's something you
Speaker 1: can order. Okay, So what's the future here? What? First off?
Speaker 1: Should Twitter die? Is? That is because you end every
Speaker 1: interview I say, I don't always do that. I actually
Speaker 1: have never said that, and so, but thank you for
Speaker 1: pointing it out. I think it'd be a fun little segment.
Speaker 1: Note to Adam and Lyra, we want to leave that
Speaker 1: moment in that's very authentic and real. Um No, what
Speaker 1: is the now? You've got me very self conscious about
Speaker 1: using the phrase with what in future in it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like what is the future hold here? It should
Speaker 1: Twitter die? First off? Let me ask you that, and
Speaker 1: you're opinion, I think it's still a little bit too
Speaker 1: early for me to say, like I think Twitter should die. Also,
Speaker 1: I'm very self interested in the continuation of Twitter, Like
Speaker 1: you know, it's been an incredible story for my business.
Speaker 1: And too. I use it to talk about a lot
Speaker 1: of things. I learned a lot of things. I still
Speaker 1: had a lot of value from Twitter. So you know,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily want it to die. I certainly don't
Speaker 1: want it to die before there is a good replacement
Speaker 1: for it. I don't think there is a good replacement
Speaker 1: for it yet. Yeah, there's a lot of people competing
Speaker 1: for that. Do you like any of them? So I
Speaker 1: looked at High and it was absolutely terrible. It's empty,
Speaker 1: I mean empty, but also just random porn stuff that
Speaker 1: was like not even good, not even just you know,
Speaker 1: like if they had been really high quality porn that
Speaker 1: I wanted to see, how might be. Like I'm sticking
Speaker 1: around here, I'd love to see a resurgence of Tumbler.
Speaker 1: I think Tumbler is such an expressive and fun I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not perfect. All of them are bad in some way,
Speaker 1: but um, do I like any of them? I mean
Speaker 1: I like mastered On a lot. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: I think the problem with masted On is it has
Speaker 1: a lot of the qualities of Twitter. The onboarding is
Speaker 1: terrible and confusing, and when somebody simplifies that to a
Speaker 1: place where it's as simple as sign up for a
Speaker 1: Twitter account and you get to see all the things
Speaker 1: you want to see. I think there's that's the closest
Speaker 1: I've seen to something that is both feels like Twitter
Speaker 1: but also feels different than Twitter in a way, like
Speaker 1: feels like it's doing something or trying something new. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be a while before everybody can adopt it because
Speaker 1: there's no good you know, there's no good on ramp
Speaker 1: to it if we can use our on ramp metaphor.
Speaker 1: I look, I wrote about Masses on Twice seventeen. When
Speaker 1: it first came out. It was like having a moment
Speaker 1: and I wrote a piece and interview the guy and
Speaker 1: seems like an interesting guy and he's kind of kept
Speaker 1: going all these years, just sort of like this, ain't it? Man?
Speaker 1: Like you just like pull it open. It just it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel alive the way that the Twitter feels. I
Speaker 1: guess you could get there, but it's just not I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be a defender. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: a massive on defender. I haven't heard people say this,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a debate going on and I
Speaker 1: think there's some big issues with it. I mean, one
Speaker 1: is like that it's a small group of people. It's
Speaker 1: a very specific for people. It's a pretty white group
Speaker 1: of people. That's one thing that's that's for sure. It's
Speaker 1: a very eurocentric group of people in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: What it is It's like, it's like if all the
Speaker 1: people who said that they were going to move to
Speaker 1: Canada when Trump became president started a social network, Like
Speaker 1: that's what Mason is. That is definitely a vibe. Though
Speaker 1: I think it's changing daily. I feel like I can
Speaker 1: see a progression again, I don't. I'm not like Mr Mastedon.
Speaker 1: I will say that of all of the things I
Speaker 1: messed around, I haven't tried post yet because I've signed
Speaker 1: up for the waitlist and I have I've heard nothing
Speaker 1: but bad things about it. Does not seem great to me.
Speaker 1: I also think, like, what is interesting about massed On
Speaker 1: and why it's worth exploring as a potential successor is
Speaker 1: this top down approach. I think right now we're experiencing
Speaker 1: the most problematic version of the top down sort of
Speaker 1: social network ownership. And I think all of our social
Speaker 1: network issues are like very much linked to the fact that,
Speaker 1: like the control for the user is removed and it's
Speaker 1: just kind of the whims of Mark Zuckerberg wants to
Speaker 1: change your feed tomorrow, He's just gonna do that, or
Speaker 1: if Elon must decides like the Nazis are back and
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do about it except just ride
Speaker 1: the fucking wave. And I think that, like there's something
Speaker 1: to be said for a version of this. I think
Speaker 1: the decentralizing. I hate to say it, okay, I do.
Speaker 1: I hate to use decentralized in this way, but this
Speaker 1: idea of a decentralized social network where all of these
Speaker 1: different places can talk but they're not all controlled in
Speaker 1: the same way. He's really interesting. I don't see anybody
Speaker 1: else trying, like what's the next thing? Like are you
Speaker 1: a TikTok user? Yeah, but I don't. I don't post,
Speaker 1: you know, just sort of like check out the vital
Speaker 1: dances because you're a grown up, you're not posting. Come on.
Speaker 1: My specific criticism of TikTok is it so much of
Speaker 1: it is amateur comedians taking seventeen cracks at the same joke,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Where it's like you got
Speaker 1: the selfie cam and they have the little premise and
Speaker 1: they're like, here's like every um coffee in San Francisco
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then it's just that for like four
Speaker 1: and a half minutes. Is it the thing where it's
Speaker 1: back and forth and they're like one of them is
Speaker 1: like like one person is the coffee and then it's
Speaker 1: the it's the same person, but it's a person like
Speaker 1: drinking the coffee or whatever. I love the actions hilarious.
Speaker 1: But you're also an improv guy. I mean we should
Speaker 1: say you're a big You're big improv dude. Your second
Speaker 1: job is your profashional improv person. The second job is
Speaker 1: to make people laugh. Jo. You love to live, laugh
Speaker 1: and and love. Really, the only trinity of life is
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. I'm living laughing. You do you do
Speaker 1: do improv? I do do improv. That's like sort of
Speaker 1: my creative outlets. So you're seeing a lot of bad
Speaker 1: comedians on there because the algorithm is leading you to
Speaker 1: these comedians. Like the truth is, that's like once TikTok
Speaker 1: figured out I was gay, it started showing me a
Speaker 1: lot of like Broadway and like theater kid content, and
Speaker 1: like I do actually enjoy it, but I don't enjoy
Speaker 1: it to the like degree that TikTok shows it to me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, there has to be something that is not
Speaker 1: like high school musical that I can watch right now.
Speaker 1: But TikTok's algorithm is sort of like, you spent two
Speaker 1: seconds extra on this one video, and now we think
Speaker 1: this is it for you. It's like you know, which
Speaker 1: like sometimes it very much is. And I think taketok
Speaker 1: like somebody changing the channels for you. If you're just
Speaker 1: sitting there watching TV and you don't know what's gonna
Speaker 1: come up and act, and it's sort of like, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll keep waiting, maybe something really good it's gonna
Speaker 1: show up. It's a slot machine, man, Like. I think
Speaker 1: that's why it's so powerful, is just the idea that
Speaker 1: maybe a good video will will happen next. But TikTok
Speaker 1: can't replace what Twitter does. Facebook is not going to
Speaker 1: come back, right, No young people are gonna be joining
Speaker 1: Facebook anytime soon. I don't think so. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the demo of Twitter is. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's that young, to be honest, I mean I feel
Speaker 1: like it's all right. I mean like that's why the
Speaker 1: media is obsessed with this story, is like this is
Speaker 1: the only social network that any of us were actually
Speaker 1: good at right Well, I think actually a big part
Speaker 1: of the story is the the perceived importance of Twitter
Speaker 1: versus the actual importance of Twitter. And I actually had
Speaker 1: Gia Tolentino on the show and we talked about this,
Speaker 1: which is, like, it feels real important to us, and
Speaker 1: there's like two million people or something on it, which
Speaker 1: is not a lot of people by comparison to other
Speaker 1: social networks. But there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are in media who decide on, like what the headline
Speaker 1: is for tomorrow's paper, who are like writing stories that
Speaker 1: are going to inform this larger sort of piece of culture.
Speaker 1: And for some reason, we all think and Elon Must
Speaker 1: seems to agree, and I think he's kind of wrong
Speaker 1: that like it is as important as everybody thinks it is.
Speaker 1: You know, talks about you know, it's gonna save humanity
Speaker 1: and civilization and all that. Like I don't I don't
Speaker 1: see that as being an outcome for Twitter. Like it
Speaker 1: it's as a sort of media politics sports app with
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of entertainment thrown in. And I
Speaker 1: think you could build a hugely valuable business around that,
Speaker 1: but you gotta make some different decisions your Instagram is
Speaker 1: one of my bright spots in my day because it
Speaker 1: can I can I tell you that that you post
Speaker 1: Casey if you don't follow him on Instagram, I don't
Speaker 1: even know if your ship is public, but like everybody
Speaker 1: should follow him. It is every day, And I don't
Speaker 1: know where you find the time to this, To be
Speaker 1: honest with you, like, maybe you do it quickly. You
Speaker 1: follow the right accounts. Every day. He'll put funny tweets
Speaker 1: that he finds on his Instagram, which to me is
Speaker 1: like how I would like to experience Twitter, to be honest,
Speaker 1: like a highly curated experience of the best stuff on there,
Speaker 1: and I like will regularly at the end of my day,
Speaker 1: I sit down. I have this lounge chair, I sit in.
Speaker 1: I'll have a drink, maybe a little cigaretta, which I
Speaker 1: like to smoke. I'll setting the scene here, the lights
Speaker 1: are down low, maybe there's a fire roaring in the fireplace,
Speaker 1: and I'll just I'll whip open Install Graham and just
Speaker 1: open up Casey Newton's fucking feed his stories and just
Speaker 1: ride just joyous waves of Twitter comedy. I just say, Josh,
Speaker 1: I put stuff that's like extra gay and sexually explicit
Speaker 1: on my close Friends story, I could add I want
Speaker 1: to see everything. I want to see all of it.
Speaker 1: And as you know, I'm an ally, so I'm ready
Speaker 1: for whatever. As you know, an ally what all of
Speaker 1: the allies are saying all over the place, It's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's so good and and and like all the time,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there just giggling, and Laura's like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing, I'm like, Okay, Sy's feed is so good.
Speaker 1: Well nice to me to say. Okay, So two things.
Speaker 1: So one all that, so I have an alt account.
Speaker 1: I followed some like funny people, some gay people, like
Speaker 1: the Outgruth just serves me that stuff. So it's really
Speaker 1: mostly just Twitter algorithm that is sharing that stuff for me. Um.
Speaker 1: But to that is the other thing I love about Twitter.
Speaker 1: Twitter was the only funny social network. You think I
Speaker 1: ever laughed looking at Instagram? No, like, but it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, and I guess TikTok every once in a while,
Speaker 1: but it's like, you know, I'm not. I'm not laughing
Speaker 1: looking at most stuff. You never laughed reading Facebook. So
Speaker 1: that that's what I love about you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: TikTok has a little bit of comedy and some of
Speaker 1: the some of the comedians aren't bad. Some of the
Speaker 1: stuff is quite inventive. But I tweeted about this like
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, and I'm like, the thing I
Speaker 1: think if Twitter does implode, ultimately the thing the number
Speaker 1: one thing I will miss the most. It's not breaking
Speaker 1: news or people arguing or can you believe what Trump tweeted?
Speaker 1: It is like there is a type of written comedy
Speaker 1: that grew out of Twitter that could only exist on Twitter,
Speaker 1: that only functions on Twitter. Really, I guess it kind
Speaker 1: of functions if you throw out your Instagram feed, But
Speaker 1: it only functions because I know the language of Twitter,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes these things funny. I will say
Speaker 1: not to not to go back to Mastodon, but I
Speaker 1: have seen and experienced things like that I Mastodon, which
Speaker 1: has given me a tiny glimmer of hope that it
Speaker 1: could exist elsewhere. You've laughed at a mastodonto, so I think, yes,
Speaker 1: first off, let's get they got to change that terminology,
Speaker 1: but I think they Unfortunately the app that I have
Speaker 1: been using predominantly to and interface with Mastheton is called two.
Speaker 1: So it's a real problem for me personally. Are you
Speaker 1: okay there's are a breaking news story going on right now.
Speaker 1: I saw you looking to the side. Oh no, Brooke
Speaker 1: Hammerling is complaining because it's okay, So whatever the story is. Basically,
Speaker 1: when we started our podcast, they gave us Harra Swisher's
Speaker 1: old feed and it became a thing. What was the feed?
Speaker 1: It was was say feed podcast, but the Times gave
Speaker 1: us the Hardwork feed. And so now some people are
Speaker 1: seeing hard Fork in their Spotify wraps even though they
Speaker 1: were really sway listeners, and they're having emotions about it
Speaker 1: and so anyway, so that that was what I was
Speaker 1: looking at. And Brooke Camerling is yelling at you on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, she said, no offense to the guys who
Speaker 1: hosts at and White Times. That's me at me next time.
Speaker 1: But she goes out of her way to say she
Speaker 1: hasn't listened to Hard Work, So um, that's where she's at.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it's it's two guys. Two guys
Speaker 1: guys are over. It was guys are extremely We're done
Speaker 1: with you. We don't need any of us anymore. She says,
Speaker 1: the two guys on a podcast right now, turn us off.
Speaker 1: Are you still listening to the off? They can't help themselves.
Speaker 1: But it's for you know, it's for the like of
Speaker 1: private by guys. I mean honest, So there might be
Speaker 1: at some guys listening. Um, you know, you know he
Speaker 1: had a strong woman reporter, the best in her space,
Speaker 1: one of the best all time, legend, she'd a great
Speaker 1: fucking podcast, And these two white guys come steamrolling into
Speaker 1: the feed exact classic, honestly classic guy behavior. How many
Speaker 1: timeff In a way, it's like a kind of a
Speaker 1: very long you interrupting her when you think about like
Speaker 1: a very big, like technically difficult interruption for ultimate. Really
Speaker 1: it really is. You're like, here's how a podcast should
Speaker 1: actually sing kara. But yeah, I get I understand her argument. Um,
Speaker 1: but I do love that podcast that hard Fork. Wait
Speaker 1: wait bit, you're you're doing this podcast for a company?
Speaker 1: Oh I would? I was like, can I get Ben
Speaker 1: Shapiro's feet? Can we slide me in there instead of
Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro? I think that would. I think the fans
Speaker 1: is what that's what they're looking for to another one
Speaker 1: from one Jewish guy another They won't even notice. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I would love to be split into somebody's feed. My
Speaker 1: dream in life is for somebode like we have this
Speaker 1: dormant feed. It's got like a hundred thousand subscribers. Do
Speaker 1: you mind if we just put your podcast on it?
Speaker 1: Like they somebody should sell those that should be a business.
Speaker 1: Should be a business. They should be they should be
Speaker 1: dealing those out, you know, like a like a drug
Speaker 1: dealer for the highest bidder. Why isn't go Daddy invest
Speaker 1: in your service that sells podcast feed? This is I'm
Speaker 1: just a free fucking idea, honestly, and that's why so
Speaker 1: poor to listen to pockets. You never know when you're
Speaker 1: gonna hear a billion dollar idea on this podcast. Thank you?
Speaker 1: All right, so listen, we're probably running. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: gone through a lot here today, but we should probably
Speaker 1: do a little plug time for you, which I feel
Speaker 1: like it is what was what people want. And we
Speaker 1: we have touched on hard fork, which is the name.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of questions, but I know I
Speaker 1: understand what it is. My impression is that if you
Speaker 1: were a stranger coming to the name hard Fork, you'd
Speaker 1: have a lot of confusion. Tell us about in a
Speaker 1: hard fork. Your your listeners are very sophisticated. They probably
Speaker 1: already know what a hard fork is, you know, a
Speaker 1: hard fork does not want to explain it. You're like,
Speaker 1: I actually don't know, Like actually I was hoping you
Speaker 1: knew what it was, because no, here's the deal. We uh,
Speaker 1: when we pitched the show, it was you know, last fall,
Speaker 1: and we were like, well, obviously crypto is here to stay.
Speaker 1: And so it's like a good kind of crypto term.
Speaker 1: And in crypto, a hard work is where something has
Speaker 1: gone disastrously wrong and they sort of have to rewind
Speaker 1: the blockchain back and start over. Right. Yeah, it's also
Speaker 1: a coding thing. I mean, I think most of your
Speaker 1: listeners have probably forked code at least fifty times. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're forking and forking over here, playing on forking several
Speaker 1: lines of code after this before you fork your code. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's that's what it is. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're six episodes in. We're having a good here's
Speaker 1: the Here's what I'm gonnae peop about the show because
Speaker 1: it's very low concept. It is two people talking, but
Speaker 1: it is just like this, it's kind of like the
Speaker 1: other other. It's like that we don't interrupt each other
Speaker 1: as much as you do on this show. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a little more chill. But what I will say
Speaker 1: is there's a lot of like tech podcasts out there,
Speaker 1: and we are truly trying to have a good time.
Speaker 1: We're not here to doom and gloomy about the end
Speaker 1: of the world. We're gonna try to make you laugh
Speaker 1: while you're listening to the show. And it turns out
Speaker 1: if you just do that, you're separating yourself from the
Speaker 1: vast majority of all tech podcast I hear you, actually
Speaker 1: and I and I love that for you and for
Speaker 1: Kevin Ruce, your co host. Heaven is wonderful listen. I've
Speaker 1: listened to many, to several at least one episodes. I've
Speaker 1: enjoyed all of them. And well, you know what's the
Speaker 1: funny thing is it just appeared in my I was
Speaker 1: I had subscribed this way, it just showed up. I
Speaker 1: like that you got that. I like that you made
Speaker 1: that point about me interrupting it is a problem that
Speaker 1: I have. Well, that's like I like coming on the show. Also,
Speaker 1: by the way, you know I used to work for you.
Speaker 1: I know you a great exeative gratitude. You hired me
Speaker 1: at the Verge and it really set me up for
Speaker 1: an amazing things, So of course I would talk to
Speaker 1: you about anything. But when I when I first joined,
Speaker 1: I was so intimidated by you because you held my
Speaker 1: my very fate in your hands. And so I'm excited
Speaker 1: to come on your show and like, actually, I feel
Speaker 1: like I can interrupt you back and not be the
Speaker 1: end of my life. So for yes, you know, I
Speaker 1: was raised now I'm I'm I'm a atheist basically, but
Speaker 1: I was raised in the Jewish ow And as you know,
Speaker 1: our love language is interruption. Um to me, it's anti semitic.
Speaker 1: If you're like mad about interruptions that, let's say that.
Speaker 1: And we we have to stand by our Jewish friends
Speaker 1: during this moment. We really do. It's not just. It's
Speaker 1: not just when it's really big stuff. Sometimes it really
Speaker 1: small stuff, Like if you don't like me interrupting you,
Speaker 1: that's you're saying my culture is not valid. Uh, And
Speaker 1: so I think it's important to just put that out there.
Speaker 1: But I did hire you at the Verge, but only
Speaker 1: because you're a brilliant genius who's amazing at what you do,
Speaker 1: and to not hire you would have been so obviously
Speaker 1: a mistake. I think I've read one good story when
Speaker 1: you hired me at the Verge. You you you you took
Speaker 1: a risk. It was do you remember the story? Yes,
Speaker 1: so the story that I broke about Twitter. It was
Speaker 1: about Twitter. It was literally out. It was they had
Speaker 1: bought this music company and we're making a standalone music app.
Speaker 1: And it was like, they do that, and they did
Speaker 1: that and it didn't go great for them, and they
Speaker 1: shut it down called Twitter Music. Oh oh, Twitter Music.
Speaker 1: I would subscribe to the Twitter music like account for
Speaker 1: a while and they would post like music. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: they put they posted music. Yeah, maybe maybe you want
Speaker 1: to bring that back. I mean, I gotta try something,
Speaker 1: okay real quick before we go. You're protected, of course
Speaker 1: by your your various jobs that you do in the
Speaker 1: world of journalism odd jobs. Yeah, I mean you are,
Speaker 1: technically speaking still you were still a member of the
Speaker 1: Verge staff craft. I'm a contributing editor there, you know.
Speaker 1: And you also have platform Er. Yes, so my main
Speaker 1: job as I read a newsletter called Platformer, which you
Speaker 1: can find a platformer dot news. Um. But yeah, is
Speaker 1: it a substack. That's a substack. It is on the
Speaker 1: sub stack platform. Yeah. Yeah. How are you feeling about
Speaker 1: that relationship? You feeling good? About Substack. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I think it's fine. I think when you look
Speaker 1: at what the other platforms take from their creators in
Speaker 1: terms of just raw cash, like sub stack actually is
Speaker 1: the most generous. You keep ninety percent of it, you
Speaker 1: know before you're a little stripe fees. So I feel
Speaker 1: okay about it. But you know, nothing is forever is
Speaker 1: sort of how okay? You heard it here first, casey
Speaker 1: and taking platform or off sub Stack shocking stuff. You
Speaker 1: heard it here first. The ephemerality of all fairs. It's true, though,
Speaker 1: every time I think about joining anything, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: like could end up like Twitter. You know you never could.
Speaker 1: I could go sideways. I was gonna say, you're protected
Speaker 1: by your many many jobs in journalism. One do you
Speaker 1: worry about your blue check mark going away? I plan
Speaker 1: to keep it. The thing for me, like the r
Speaker 1: O I on my use of Twitter is insane. It's like,
Speaker 1: you can't I can't compare myself to any other Twitter
Speaker 1: user because I tweet about the ongoing destruction of Twitter,
Speaker 1: and every day people pay me to read more about it.
Speaker 1: So it's like I will pay eight dollars for a checkmark.
Speaker 1: I'll pay you. You will pay eight dollars to check,
Speaker 1: because the last thing I wanted somebody impersonating me. Josh.
Speaker 1: Imagine an impersonating Casey Newton. Come on it, I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't that isn't, But won't I still be able to
Speaker 1: impersonate you as long as I put like quotes around
Speaker 1: my name, you impersonate me. I will come for you, Josh.
Speaker 1: I would love for you. I should maybe I should
Speaker 1: do that. I shouldn't start in casing an impersonation account.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Listen, Casey, this has been so fun,
Speaker 1: so wonderful. I don't know if we got anywhere, learned anything,
Speaker 1: but I do feel like we had I hope not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope we had a blast while doing it. When
Speaker 1: does Hardfork come out? Hard Fork comes out every Friday morning.
Speaker 1: You know, it's here's what I say about my job.
Speaker 1: It's I write newsletters that are like very serious emails
Speaker 1: you get during the week, and then on Friday you
Speaker 1: get to have a drink with your friend Kevin and
Speaker 1: Casey with hard work. So you know you can chase
Speaker 1: this with hard Fork. I recommend subscribing right after you
Speaker 1: get done listening to this episode, even during if you
Speaker 1: can multitask and then you're you're doing your newsletter. How
Speaker 1: often are you doing that? We do it. It's a Monday, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: and Thursdays. Okay? And do you have any bombshells coming
Speaker 1: on Twitter anytime soon? Look look through the last month
Speaker 1: of stuff, like with Joey Scheper. We have broken more
Speaker 1: news in the past month that platform has like probably ever.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there are more more scoops are coming. I
Speaker 1: love it. I love it, and I love you Casey.
Speaker 1: You're the best. You're the best of what you do
Speaker 1: and you're a wonderful human. And thank you for joining
Speaker 1: us on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Josh is great.
Speaker 1: There you have it. What more can be said on
Speaker 1: the topic of Twitter, I mean probably more, and we
Speaker 1: probably will say more, but I think I feel like
Speaker 1: we have exhausted all possible angles and I and I
Speaker 1: feel better for it, honest I feel cleansed in a way.
Speaker 1: So that is our show for this week. We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with more what future And as always,
Speaker 1: I wish you and your family the very best.