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Speaker 1: A Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Better Offline, your most punished podcast.

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Speaker 2: I am your host ed Zeitron today I'm joined by

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Speaker 2: one of the single best people in the tech media,

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Speaker 2: Jason Kebler of four h four Media, regularly requested by listeners.

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Speaker 2: But I punish you too, Jason. Thank you so much

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Speaker 2: for joining me.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Wow, I did not know that

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Speaker 1: that inflates my ego already always necessary.

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Speaker 2: I experienced ego death around episode seven, so I feel

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Speaker 2: nothing anymore. But we were just talking before this about

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Speaker 2: Facebook effectively Mark Zuckerberg effectively admitting that aislop was good

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Speaker 2: for the platform. I think it's good for you to

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Speaker 2: just walk me through that story. It's a four oh

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Speaker 2: for me story. Won't me through because it's a good

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Speaker 2: scene setup.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so, as meta does all the time. I still

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Speaker 1: hate calling the meta, but yeah, at this point I do,

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Speaker 1: because they have so much fucking stuff going around that

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Speaker 1: it I want to be clear when I'm talking about

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Speaker 1: Facebook and when I'm talking about the other stuff. Had

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Speaker 1: its third quarter investor call on Wednesday, and you know,

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Speaker 1: people ask questions of Facebook executives, and I feel like

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Speaker 1: it's a real mask off moment. Where they sort of

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Speaker 1: have to say, like, here are our plans, here's what

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Speaker 1: we think is working, what's not, And very often it's

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Speaker 1: like full of pie in the sky nonsense. But in

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Speaker 1: this case it's like Mark Zuckerberg said straight up that

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Speaker 1: the AI slop and spam that has taken over Facebook

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Speaker 1: but also Instagram and increasingly Threads is the strategy, like

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Speaker 1: that is part of the long term goal of the company.

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Speaker 1: He talked about adding like a separate AI generated feed,

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Speaker 1: which when Facebook has added separate separate feeds, they call

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Speaker 1: them separate feeds, but they always end up just like

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Speaker 1: integrating in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, being the dominant fit dominant feed, Like you can

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Speaker 2: select a chronological feed on the Threads if you solve

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Speaker 2: three riddles, click seven buttons.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and fix it every three seconds.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yes, it is so. And I still saying to

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Speaker 2: you beforehand, I get people saying I'm a cynic a lot,

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Speaker 2: but then I read stuff like this, and I just

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Speaker 2: don't understand how people aren't more cynical because it feels

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Speaker 2: like this stuff feels actively dystopian, that Facebook is no

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Speaker 2: longer the world's biggest social network but just the world's

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Speaker 2: shittiest television channel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that we get blamed for being like doomers.

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Speaker 1: You always have been. Like I've been a journalist for

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Speaker 1: twelve thirteen years at this point, and I used to

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Speaker 1: be back at Motherboard over a vice and now at

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Speaker 1: four or four Media, and sometimes I would have to

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Speaker 1: like look up and just be like, Wow, the last

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Speaker 1: ten stories I've written have been incredibly depressing. They've been

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Speaker 1: like really like horrible harms from technology. They've been you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't even think they're negative. I think they're realistic

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Speaker 1: and accurate of like what our future is. But you know,

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Speaker 1: our future sucks very often and are are present often

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Speaker 1: is bad too, and I think that that is at

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Speaker 1: the this is because of centralized power in tech and

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Speaker 1: over the internet. And so I also get called a

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Speaker 1: cynic all the time, but I feel like I'm actually

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Speaker 1: quite an optimistic and realistic person and there's lots of

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Speaker 1: things that I'm excited about, just none of it is

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Speaker 1: coming from big tech, Like none of it at all.

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Speaker 2: And what kind of things you're excited about, Let's balance

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Speaker 2: this out.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm very excited with like grassroots type new technology,

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Speaker 1: like open source technologies. I think that people sort of

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Speaker 1: like gesture at like the fetever and like this sort

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Speaker 1: of decentralized Twitter alternatives, if you will. And I think

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Speaker 1: that that's been promised for quite some time, yes, and

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Speaker 1: I think that it's taking a really long time to

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Speaker 1: sort of come together. But I do think that that

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Speaker 1: is something that we should be like working toward as

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Speaker 1: a society where instead of having your audience, if you

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Speaker 1: are a publisher, like we are, having it all tied

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Speaker 1: up in you know, the number of Twitter followers you have,

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Speaker 1: or the number of like Google ads you can sell,

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Speaker 1: like you kind of own your audience. And by that,

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Speaker 1: I mean you own the list of people that you

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Speaker 1: can kind of like transport that around the Internet. I

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Speaker 1: think that's really important. I think that for a while,

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Speaker 1: I was very excited about community Internet, like nonprofits where

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Speaker 1: cities and towns were building their own fiber lines and

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Speaker 1: still are and then sort of doing like getting really

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Speaker 1: fast internet to the home sort of divorced from Comcast

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Speaker 1: and your spectrums of the world so on and so forth.

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Speaker 1: And there's like a lot of kind of like individual

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Speaker 1: people building stuff that are very cool, like proofs of concept,

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Speaker 1: and the big problem is always like scaling that up

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Speaker 1: or getting people to stop using Facebook or Twitter or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Amazon is a big one. It's like, stop using Amazon,

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Speaker 1: stop using Prime. It's very hard to get people to

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Speaker 1: change their behaviors. And yet I feel in some ways

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Speaker 1: like we're gonna talk about indie media. But I think

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Speaker 1: that the journalism industry, despite the sort of disaster disastrous

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Speaker 1: situation that's been going on in the last few years,

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Speaker 1: I think it's in a better spot now than it

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Speaker 1: was two years ago.

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Speaker 2: I kind of agree in the sense that I think

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Speaker 2: there are places where it got worse. In the sense though,

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Speaker 2: and this is my own opinion you don't have to

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Speaker 2: agree with, because it's not going to be a fun

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Speaker 2: one to agree with. I think things like Platforma have

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Speaker 2: actually been detrimental to the tech industry. I think Casey

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Speaker 2: Newton has dressed up Platformer as a kind of independent

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Speaker 2: outlet where nothing where it's all just like, oh, we're independent,

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Speaker 2: we're not bought off by big corporations, then writes two

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Speaker 2: fucking fan fiction pieces about anthropic I think that is damaging.

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Speaker 2: I think it's actually just spreading the problem. But even

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Speaker 2: when you look at legacy media, the verge, which I have,

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Speaker 2: I have tons of criticism for Nil Patel. The Verge

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Speaker 2: has actually done some really incredible in depth journalism. They

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Speaker 2: had that wonderful piece about underground cables, and it feels

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Speaker 2: like even at the Journal they have some of the

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Speaker 2: best investigative reporters now Mike Isaac's on open Ai, which

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Speaker 2: is terrifying for them. I think that we're seeing more

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Speaker 2: a lot more investigative stuff than we ever have before.

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Speaker 2: I wish it had happened a few years ago, but hell,

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Speaker 2: I'll take it now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I think that you know, you can

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Speaker 1: name a sort of like newsletter writers and independent outlets

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Speaker 1: that are doing really amazing work, and there's always been

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Speaker 1: some of that, but I think that what we're seeing

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Speaker 1: now is like ten years ago when I got into it,

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Speaker 1: there were like five big tech websites, and they were

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Speaker 1: all bad, in my opinion, Like they were all doing

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Speaker 1: the sort of like, uh, there's a new feature on

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Speaker 1: the iPhone, here's the new emojis that dropped, and it

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Speaker 1: was just like tons and tons and tons of that.

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Speaker 1: You'd dump it on Facebook, you'd hope it went viral,

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Speaker 1: and you would have people just writing like four or

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Speaker 1: five stories a day, and then you had a bunch

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Speaker 1: of sort of like I say this as a descriptor

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Speaker 1: not as like a like you had, like your nd gadgets,

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Speaker 1: your vices, your buzzfeeds, the sort of like middle tier

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Speaker 1: of digital website where they're not the New York Times.

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Speaker 1: They're not like this gigantic, gigantic media conglomerate. They're sort

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Speaker 1: of like middle sized things, and all of them have

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Speaker 1: done great work, but they were all kind of doing

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Speaker 1: like the same thing more or less. And I think

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Speaker 1: that like the VC business model where we're just going

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Speaker 1: to chase traffic and ad revenue has failed terribly. It's

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Speaker 1: like not working, and I think it's going to be

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Speaker 1: very hard to be in the middle where you are

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Speaker 1: like your website with a staff of like fifty. I

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Speaker 1: think that it's something where you can have independent, subscriber

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Speaker 1: funded publications that are doing increasingly good work because the

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Speaker 1: infrastructure needed around journalism is not so much anymore. And

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Speaker 1: then you're going to have your like New York Times

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Speaker 1: is and your Washington Posts and you're like, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: c net or something like just gigantic websites that are

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Speaker 1: going to be like, you know, middling. I don't like

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Speaker 1: have a ton of love for the gigantic players, but

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Speaker 1: I think that they serve a purpose of some sort.

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Speaker 2: There is there is a certain purpose for the your phone.

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Speaker 2: Now does this media like people read that stuff for

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Speaker 2: a reason.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I read that stuff as well, and

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Speaker 1: I but I do think that like all the stuff

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Speaker 1: in the middle has died and is going to keep dying.

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Speaker 1: But I think that the years where those publications were

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Speaker 1: propped up by VC but like weren't making money, weren't

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Speaker 1: investing in their newsrooms because they were just trying to

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Speaker 1: stave off layoffs. Like I think that was the dark period,

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Speaker 1: because the vibes were terrible at all of them, because

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Speaker 1: there was a hatchet around the corner constantly, like there

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Speaker 1: were always gonna be mass layoffs or some the sites

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Speaker 1: were going to die at any moment because they were

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Speaker 1: these like bloated organizations where executives made tons of money,

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Speaker 1: the journalists made almost nothing, and like it just wasn't

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Speaker 1: a there was no sustainability there. And I think that

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Speaker 1: I know that I'm rambling at this point, but I

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Speaker 1: think I think that it's possible for like a bunch

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Speaker 1: of small newsrooms like ours to thrive a bunch of

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Speaker 1: independence reporters to thrive, a bunch of you know, newsletter

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Speaker 1: writers to thrive, and then you know you'll have your

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Speaker 1: gigantic news organizations that are going to continue to exist.

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Speaker 1: And I think that that that leads to probably some

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Speaker 1: fracturing in the media ecosystem where there's not like the

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Speaker 1: same people really like this dream that Jeff Bezos is

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Speaker 1: pointing out in his recent op ed where it's like

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be down the middle and we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: everything to everyone. It's like that that's dead. That never works.

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Speaker 1: That sharing out before gone, No, it never worked. It

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Speaker 1: perhaps worked when there were three television channels, like forty

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Speaker 1: years before I was born, but I don't even know

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Speaker 1: if it worked then.

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Speaker 2: And I think part of the problem is, sure it's

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Speaker 2: this sense of doing everything for all things, but it's

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Speaker 2: also the need to scale that I don't think has

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Speaker 2: ever worked. Like I love. I love the idea of

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Speaker 2: tech crunch, and there are right as there I really love.

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Speaker 2: But I think as an organization, TechCrunch is just in

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Speaker 2: the situation it's tech crunters disrupt while we're recording this.

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Speaker 2: I think the pressure and probably the money that comes

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Speaker 2: from Disrupt as event as a kind of venue is

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Speaker 2: so hard. I think every there's this thing where newsrooms start.

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Speaker 2: You've got stories, someone gets a big scoop, it gets

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Speaker 2: some traffic, gets some notes, and then they're like, shit,

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Speaker 2: what's next, Let's do a conference. And now we're doing

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Speaker 2: the conference. We see the conference makes way more money

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Speaker 2: than the journalism, So how do we engineer one to

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Speaker 2: feed the other? And the actual answer there is to say,

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Speaker 2: make them entirely separate. The answer, however, is never the

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Speaker 2: one you'd listen to. So you do the thing where

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Speaker 2: it's like, how do we change the content to appeal

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Speaker 2: to more sponsors for the conference, and how do we

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Speaker 2: make it so that we don't piss off people that

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Speaker 2: we want to speak at the conference. I'm not even

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Speaker 2: saying this is exactly what happened with Disrupt, but you

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Speaker 2: see it with like the Information and Venturely and all

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Speaker 2: these publications where and this really is inside baseball, but

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Speaker 2: now the podcast is free. It's it's frustrating because you

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Speaker 2: could have a really good tech conference if you just

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Speaker 2: all agreed to not be cowards. Like I respect Devin

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Speaker 2: cold Away from tech Crunch so much because he asked

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Speaker 2: the perplexity CEO on stage.

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Speaker 1: To find that was really good.

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Speaker 2: He punted personally. I would have kept asking until he

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Speaker 2: hit me. I could take him a reven I'm not

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Speaker 2: threatening you come on the show. But it's like it's

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Speaker 2: frustrating because there is and this is actually a good

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Speaker 2: point as well, and maybe kind of a question. It

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Speaker 2: also doesn't feel like there's any solidarity in the tech media.

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Speaker 2: There's some it's tenuous, but when it comes down to it,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like it's there.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a hard thing to build.

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Speaker 2: It's like, I also should say, this is not a

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Speaker 2: condition created by intention. I don't think people like I

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Speaker 2: don't give a shit about others but keep going.

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Speaker 1: Sorry, no, I mean I think it's really tough. And

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Speaker 1: it's like I don't live in New York anymore, but

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Speaker 1: I lived in New York for a long time and

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Speaker 1: WECE was in Brooklyn, and then like all of the

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Speaker 1: other publications were in Manhattan, like more or less. And

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Speaker 1: this is not Illuminati vibes. It's very much like there

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Speaker 1: was a generation of journalists who were sort of all

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Speaker 1: the same age, all living in the same place, and

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Speaker 1: all knew each other from Twitter and they were like

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Speaker 1: hanging out all the time because that's I don't know,

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Speaker 1: that's how people made friends. And it always felt like

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Speaker 1: wece was separate literally because we were on the other

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Speaker 1: side of the river, and so like the happy hours,

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Speaker 1: you had to go at like out of your way

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Speaker 1: to get to them and things like that. And I

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Speaker 1: just feel like there's people ask me what I read,

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Speaker 1: Like people ask me, like, what other tech publications do

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Speaker 1: you read? And it's like, I have a lot of

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Speaker 1: respect for a lot of other tech publications, but I

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Speaker 1: don't have time to go read all of them all

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Speaker 1: day every day because there's so much going on on, right,

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Speaker 1: And then I'm not like sharing other people's stories that

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Speaker 1: often for that reason, because I just feel like the

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Speaker 1: time has passed where you can like consume all of

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Speaker 1: the Internet at once, right, And I feel like that

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Speaker 1: when you say there's not solidarity, it's like I have

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Speaker 1: a lot of respect for other tech journalists and I

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Speaker 1: like a lot of their work, but I will sometimes

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Speaker 1: go weeks where I'm like, I actually feel like I

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Speaker 1: haven't read the Internet because I've been heads down in

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Speaker 1: my own stuff, and then you look up and it's like,

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Speaker 1: oh cool, Like Ed did a really great piece, like

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Speaker 1: Brian Merchant did a really great piece. There were like

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Speaker 1: ten great articles in The Verge, and then it's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: should I like go tweet their work now two months

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Speaker 1: after they published it? Like so, I don't know. I'm

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Speaker 1: just speaking from my own perspective on that, but I

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Speaker 1: feel like it's very hard to have like cross publication

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Speaker 1: good vibe, not even good vibes, but like it's just hard.

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Speaker 1: It's just hard to keep up with everything. I feel.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think like one happened a week or

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Speaker 2: two ago. And this is not a criticism of anyone specifically,

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Speaker 2: but Sam Altman he claimed something Kylie Roberson of The

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Speaker 2: Verge wrote about the next model coming from Open Ai,

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Speaker 2: and he said fake news and she got dog piled

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Speaker 2: for it. And see a single fucking journalist in her mentions. Now,

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Speaker 2: this is not about you, Jason, not talking about you.

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Speaker 2: I didn't see a single one though, and that really

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Speaker 2: turned my stomach. I went after the little bastard. Fuck you,

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Speaker 2: Sam Moltman, O, huh, I'll keep right what I fucking

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Speaker 2: want about you, But it's it's frustrating. But now that

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Speaker 2: you said it, it does feel like almost a remote

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Speaker 2: work effect, but also the detritus of the New York

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Speaker 2: waiting because I remember in like the early twenty tens

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Speaker 2: how cliquey it was, yeah, and how the how you

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Speaker 2: got I'm not, I like not saying othered in perhaps

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Speaker 2: that way, but you were kind of in the in

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Speaker 2: group or the outgroup, and you kind of still see

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Speaker 2: it within internet culture reporting. Yeah, like New Yorker guys

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Speaker 2: that talk to the same people yeah, all the time.

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Speaker 2: And it's frustrating because I think four or four has

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Speaker 2: proven this. There's so much cool shit you can do

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Speaker 2: in tech journalism, especially when you talk to more varied

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Speaker 2: people than just the six people in front of you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it really felt. I mean we talk

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Speaker 1: about things like Twitter, main character, so on and so forth,

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Speaker 1: and it's like that was a real phenomenon where it's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: here's the one thing that everyone on the Internet is

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Speaker 1: talking about right now. And I feel like this is

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Speaker 1: a It probably has to do with Elon Musk fucking

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Speaker 1: up Twitter and like the fracturing of social media. But

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Speaker 1: if you like ask me what is happening on the

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Speaker 1: Internet today, I could name a bunch of different things

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Speaker 1: and you might have a totally different list of things

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Speaker 1: that you are seeing, and I think that that is

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Speaker 1: a big change.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I also think that that's something that leads to

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Speaker 2: the failure of internet culture reporting, because if you I

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Speaker 2: actually don't think that what there's been articles about this too.

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Speaker 2: I don't think the main character was actually a social

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Speaker 2: media I think it was a It is a thing

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Speaker 2: that happened, But I don't think it tells us anything

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Speaker 2: about internet culture, and I think a lot of internet culture.

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Speaker 1: I think it tells us something about how internet publications

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Speaker 1: were in because there was like a while where Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump's Twitter was being called like the assignment editor for

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Speaker 1: the front page of the New York Times or whatever

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Speaker 1: or whatever, and that, I mean, it's true, and Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk was the same way, and to some extent is

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh, Elon Musk tweeted that he's going to

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Speaker 1: print humans on Mars, and then there would be like

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Speaker 1: eighty five articles about it. And I think that that

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Speaker 1: was a function of like publications, not all publications, not

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Speaker 1: all journalists, and like certainly not all editors. But there

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Speaker 1: is like a when you're getting into this industry, there's

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Speaker 1: a period of time where you were asked or were

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Speaker 1: for a long time to the news just like hit

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Speaker 1: five stories a day, whatever it is, and like the

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Speaker 1: things that you saw going viral on Twitter, that was

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Speaker 1: something that you could go and write about and you would,

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Speaker 1: you know, either win a Google or Reddit lottery or

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Speaker 1: a Twitter lottery and you would get a lot of traffic.

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Speaker 1: And so almost every publication like had five people doing.

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Speaker 2: That, like a kind of an ultra normalization.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it sucks because it's I think four or four

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Speaker 2: has done. They're just gonna lavish you with praise. Here.

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Speaker 2: Four or four had my favorite text story of the

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Speaker 2: last year by far, and it was about the Indian

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Speaker 2: guys who are just scamming Facebook. And it humanized it

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Speaker 2: as well, because I think that there is also a

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Speaker 2: degree of xenophobia towards Indian guys online. There definitely is that, like,

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Speaker 2: and it doesn't help the fact that a lot of

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Speaker 2: Indian guys ran insane mindset Instagram accounts. But nevertheless, I

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Speaker 2: loved the way you humanized it because it was like,

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Speaker 2: here's the actual way that this is happening. This is

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Speaker 2: Internet culture. Internet culture is being changed. But the fact

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Speaker 2: that Facebook is incentivizing matching the like playing slop tetris

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Speaker 2: where you kind of match the bullshit to the other bullshit,

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Speaker 2: so the algorithm puts out and I feel like.

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Speaker 1: It's also it's also the thing that I really liked

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Speaker 1: about that story was that the like Indian tech bro

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Speaker 1: hustle guys were talking amongst themselves about what they perceived

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Speaker 1: us internet culture to be, which was like very interesting,

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Speaker 1: Like they were sort of talking to each other about like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know what, like Americans and British people fucking love

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Speaker 1: their dogs, they love pets, and then they were talking

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Speaker 1: about like other things and it's like, yes, like this

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Speaker 1: is a stereotype. But it was interesting to see what

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Speaker 1: they thought American internet culture was and then how they

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Speaker 1: tried to reverse that engineer that into viral content.

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Speaker 2: And I think the problem as well is that Internet

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Speaker 2: culture is just culture now, and also internet culture is

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Speaker 2: the nature of the algorithms fucking with us every day.

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Speaker 2: Is not really anything, it's what the algorithm. So you

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Speaker 2: wrote that wonderful piece about Mark Zuckerbog's mask off moment,

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Speaker 2: I went back to one of my Facebook pieces I wrote,

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Speaker 2: and it was a thing I worried about, which is

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Speaker 2: what is viral? I don't mean does viral exist. I

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Speaker 2: mean what is actually famous? And the answer is we

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Speaker 2: as people no longer decide that, in my opinion, and

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Speaker 2: I think that that is also what it goes back

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Speaker 2: to the tech media. It goes back to everything we're

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Speaker 2: talking about, because it's what's the biggest news of the day. Well,

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Speaker 2: whatever we think will get a bunch of traffic, what

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Speaker 2: gets a bunch of traffic. Whateveryone's writing about what's important, Well,

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Speaker 2: it's the thing that will get us traffic. Elon Musk's tweet,

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Speaker 2: I actually believe that the media contributed to the rise

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Speaker 2: of Elon Musk in a way that's actually more egregious

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Speaker 2: than Donald Trump. I think that if we did not

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Speaker 2: have a tweet every time Elon Musk farted for a decade,

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Speaker 2: and it was not recent, it was a decade putting

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Speaker 2: a site, even the pandering to him, we would not

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Speaker 2: have him at the scale we did. Like he would

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Speaker 2: still be insanely rich, but he would not have the

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Speaker 2: power he does because he wouldn't be able to create

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Speaker 2: news cycles. But on top of that, pointing a side,

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Speaker 2: even the criticism, everyone just did the same thing. They

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Speaker 2: kind of still do, but they really really did like it.

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Speaker 2: I think that that's one way it's definitely got better

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Speaker 2: because it used to be every site did exactly the

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Speaker 2: fucking same thing, just crazy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know what, I wrote a lot of

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Speaker 1: articles about Elon Musk's tweets, and at the time, I

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Speaker 1: was like, this guy is really interesting, like that what

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Speaker 1: he is doing is very oh yeah, And it took

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Speaker 1: a while for me to be like, oh, but he's

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Speaker 1: like this is like very bad, very bad situation. But

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Speaker 1: I remember, like Ashley Vance, who's a reporter at Bloomberg,

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Speaker 1: wrote the first biography of Elon Musk, and it came

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Speaker 1: out like before Elon Musk was a fucking asshole and

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Speaker 1: very bad in that book, but he was not. He

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Speaker 1: was seen as like someone who cared a lot about

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Speaker 1: climate change and was like yeah, like blah blah blah.

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Speaker 1: So I got an early copy of that book and

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Speaker 1: I read it and I was like, whoa, there's like

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Speaker 1: lots of crazy details in here. There was like one

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Speaker 1: section for you was this. I think it was like

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Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, like it was. It was pre Trump, definitely,

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Speaker 1: it might have even been earlier than that, like twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 1: twenty fifteen something like that, and I had Ashley Vance

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Speaker 1: on Motherboards podcast, which I was like hosting at the time,

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Speaker 1: and we were like, Wow, this is like a super

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Speaker 1: interesting guy. He's like in charge of Tesla and SpaceX,

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Speaker 1: Like that's nuts. And I remember I wrote a specific

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Speaker 1: article where he and I believe his name is Craig Venter,

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Speaker 1: who is like a DNA He's like a DNA sequencing guy,

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Speaker 1: like from the early We're going to sequence the human

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Speaker 1: genome days. And there's this anecdote in the book where

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Speaker 1: Elon Musky and Craig Venter had this crazy idea to

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Speaker 1: print humans on Mars, like sending a large three D

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Speaker 1: price they were joking. I literally was not like that's

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Speaker 1: a story that I wrote, And I actually don't think

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Speaker 1: that that particular article was bad, but it always like

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Speaker 1: sticks out in my mind because I talked to like

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Speaker 1: actual scientists being like, is this what is it? What

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Speaker 1: are they even talking about here? Because there was a

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Speaker 1: big period in like the early twenty tens where three

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Speaker 1: D printing like pig organs to transplant them into human

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Speaker 1: It was like a huge thing, Like we had millions

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Speaker 1: of stories solid decade.

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Speaker 2: Before Better Offline existed. There was like, I don't know

434
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:53,800
Speaker 2: if anyone listening remembers this when three D printing was

435
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 2: everywhere and there was just the assumption kind of like AI,

436
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 2: that we would just no longer build things, we would

437
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:00,880
Speaker 2: print them using a machine that we both.

438
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:02,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like, Oh, you're not even going to

439
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:04,399
Speaker 1: like use Amazon. You're gonna have like a three D

440
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: printer here in your house and it's going to print

441
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 1: like hamburgers and also televisions. Like it's really insane. It

442
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: was so cool. Yeah, But anyways, it's like I wrote

443
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of stories about that, about Elon Musk saying

444
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 1: he was going to do crazy stuff because like every

445
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 1: once in a while he would do something kind of interesting,

446
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:26,679
Speaker 1: like uh, you know, put self not even like an

447
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 1: autopilot into cars without it being tested properly and like

448
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: kill a bunch of people and be like WHOA, that's

449
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 1: that's nuts. But trying to figure out in my head,

450
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 1: like when do we stop enabling this, Like when do

451
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: we stop letting Elon drive what we are covering as

452
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 1: a publication. I think that's something that like probably every

453
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:52,719
Speaker 1: journalist has had to think about at some point, and

454
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: that that's something that people did with Facebook. They did

455
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 1: it with Apple, they did it with every big company

456
00:24:57,800 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: when they had.

457
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 2: Did they have they They still write about every Facebook thing.

458
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: I'm not sorry they have not stopped, but a lot

459
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:11,400
Speaker 1: of the ones that did it have died. And then

460
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:13,400
Speaker 1: there's a lot I would say, there's a lot more

461
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: like variety. If yes, look for.

462
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 2: I love that. I will absolutely give that. And I

463
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 2: also want to be clear, though I'm critical here, I

464
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,439
Speaker 2: think that there are really fundamental logistical reasons this is

465
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 2: the case. So first of all, there's no mentorship at

466
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 2: all in journalism or in the workplace in general. But

467
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:34,160
Speaker 2: I think that there are so many people, young people

468
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 2: who start aren't this industry and just go straight into

469
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 2: it and no one educates them, and they don't educate

470
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 2: themselves on how any of this shit works, because it's

471
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 2: quite difficult. I mean, I'm not perfect, but I have

472
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,160
Speaker 2: to pick up shit constantly, both from a PR job

473
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:52,120
Speaker 2: and for this and learn stuff without getting it wrong.

474
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,199
Speaker 2: Asking people you yourself, what doing your research? I imagine

475
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 2: you bullshit test you own stuff. It's time consuming, and

476
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 2: at the same time I'm being told, all right, three blogs,

477
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 2: shi ahead, I want to see three blogs today. I

478
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 2: need to know chat GPT as search. Now I need

479
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 2: you to write eight hundred words about why this is

480
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 2: going to change everything. And so when you get to

481
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 2: the point when I think you meant to say, trying

482
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 2: to think critically about this, when right.

483
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: Or when are you going to like learn the intricacies

484
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:23,120
Speaker 1: of how this technology even works. And when you can't

485
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: lose the intricacies, then you use company press releases or

486
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 1: you sort of like use these shorthands where it's like, well,

487
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,640
Speaker 1: this VC said that this is how it's going to work,

488
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: and like, I don't even know how to find someone

489
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: who is an academic who can like criticize this in

490
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: a coherent way, of which I think like millions and

491
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 1: millions of them. But I'm just saying, like, if you're

492
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: a new reporter, you might not know how to do that.

493
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,199
Speaker 2: I have I mean, do you ask, yeah, seriously, like

494
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 2: how do you find out?

495
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:59,159
Speaker 1: Right? So that's this is I'm going to try to

496
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: say this in a the as least of bragging way

497
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,919
Speaker 1: as possible. But that was one of my favorite things

498
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: about being the editor of Motherboard is that we were

499
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 1: able to bring in people who were new to the

500
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 1: industry and then and who had like deep interests in

501
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: specific things and kind of teach them how to do

502
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: reporting and how to think about technology technology. And to

503
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 1: be very clear, it's like every single person who came

504
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: through there or that I've ever worked with has done

505
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: the work. But I think something like very cool is

506
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: like Edward Angueiso, who is amazing, like amazing, amazing, he.

507
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:40,360
Speaker 2: Is joining us by the way for the bedrough line

508
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 2: cees coverage.

509
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. Yeah. It's like he came to Motherboard

510
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: and he had he had a huge, huge knowledge about tech,

511
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: labor and tech, and he had written a thesis about

512
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: Uber and how Uber was emmiserating its drivers, but he

513
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: did it or like his college thesis, but he didn't

514
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: really know how to report when he came to Motherboard.

515
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: But because he was so interested in that, it's like,

516
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: did you know everything about Uber? Just work just write

517
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: about Uber for a little while, like use your expertise,

518
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: like get to know it. And it's like he did

519
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: it all of it on his own in terms of

520
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 1: becoming the amazing reporter and writer that he is today.

521
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: But I think that it like I'm proud that we

522
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: were able to give him the space to do that

523
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: and sort of like the guidance of here's how you, like,

524
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: here's how you go fucking hard on uber without like

525
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: libeling a million people, and like, here's how you stay

526
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: out of lawsuits and things like that, which doesn't mean

527
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: pulling punches. It means making sure all your stuff is

528
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: like very buttoned up and legally defensible and so on

529
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: and so forth. And I think that not just with Edward,

530
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: but like many of the best reporters on the Internet

531
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: these days are like I've worked with them in some way,

532
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: shape or form, and that's something that they've always had

533
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: in common, is having a deep interest in a specific

534
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: topic or beat and like really specializing in that versus

535
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: trying to write everything about every possible topic that there is,

536
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: because when that happens, that's how you get like these

537
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: surface level articles that are all the same.

538
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 2: I think it's I agree fully, and I think, just

539
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 2: pondering this as you speak, there is another level that

540
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 2: I've found with the show, which is to do this

541
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 2: job right, you also have to be like a business

542
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 2: and financial like Ed's Eden Guaiser Juni is one of

543
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 2: the most gifted writers I've ever worked with. I'm so

544
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 2: fucking happy to have him a CES because he is

545
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 2: very good on socioeconomics. He is able to look at

546
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 2: something and go, this will affect real people like this

547
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 2: that is not just the skill. It's like an actual

548
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 2: talent that can be fostered. But it's tough because you

549
00:29:58,200 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 2: have to start looking at the world in just this

550
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 2: complete different way. I know a lot of listeners and

551
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 2: I'm just the scritical of the media as well, have

552
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 2: this thing where they look and like, how could journalists

553
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 2: write like this? How could how could they just eat

554
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 2: up the slob. It's because we'll, what twenty years into

555
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 2: tech journalists being educated to believe these guys, and we're

556
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 2: finally breaking that down and saying, oh, could Elon Musk lie?

557
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 2: Would Sam Olman?

558
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 3: Lie?

559
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 2: Would they? And I think that's it's weird because in

560
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,719
Speaker 2: almost every other, every other journalist field, you're kind of

561
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 2: built like them.

562
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like I woke up one day and

563
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm like old now. Then by

564
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: that it's like every day for me. Yeah, I mean

565
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: I and I think that because I was always kind

566
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: of like I always looked at myself like, oh, I'm

567
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: kind of new to journalism, like I'm just feeling things out,

568
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: like I'm I'm asking people what experts should I talk to?

569
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: How should I do this? Blah blah blah. And I

570
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: would say around the three D printing bubble that we

571
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: were just talking about is when I realized, I'm like, oh, wait,

572
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: these like hype cycles where every VC, every company, everyone

573
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 1: does the exact same thing and says it's going to

574
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: be the future of everything, and there's like tons of

575
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: money thrown into it. It doesn't always come true like

576
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: it it. Yeah, And so like you know, there was

577
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: like VR and then there was three D printing, and

578
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: then there was you know, Crypto, and then there was

579
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 1: the metaverse and there's again and VR again and blah

580
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 1: blah blah. And like at some point I was like, oh,

581
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: I have been doing this long enough to now understand

582
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: this cycle where the cool new thing is not going

583
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: to change everything. It's gonna be or even happen or

584
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: even happen, and it's it's gonna be full of fucking grifters.

585
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: All of them are full of grifters. And it's under

586
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: like understandable why that is because many, many people have

587
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: made a lot of money by rushing into a technology,

588
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: hyping it up, selling their company or whatever, and you know,

589
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: living in a mansion for the rest of their lives.

590
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: But I think like as a journalist, I was like, oh,

591
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: once I understood that that was the cycle, that that is,

592
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: that was really helpful for my own work, I guess,

593
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying.

594
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 2: I think for me it was kind of crypto, But

595
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 2: I think it was remote work. I think remote work

596
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 2: was the thing that fully jokefied me because I had

597
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 2: a few articles. I had an article turned down by Jilopnick,

598
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 2: like twenty fifteen where I was like, hey, eat Al

599
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 2: Musky's lying like it was actually kind of president. He

600
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 2: was like, look, he said this about the model X

601
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 2: didn't happen, isn't happening? Completely different said this about autoparlor

602
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 2: hasn't happened. And even then I wrote like a positive

603
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 2: piece about auto public. What's kind of cool, Like that's

604
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: the thing. If they didn't over promise, they could point

605
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 2: to things to people be like, shit, this is really cool.

606
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: But I think it was remote work because you just

607
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 2: got to see this schism between reality and journalism. But

608
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 2: for real, it was crypto. It was the twenty twenty

609
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 2: one crypto craze where just people were lying. It wasn't

610
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 2: even like they were half true. They would just straight

611
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 2: up like we will do this, and what they were

612
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 2: saying was not possible, like not even and then they

613
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 2: never did it, and then the companies were just dumping

614
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 2: money and all these people were getting rich for nothing.

615
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 2: And I watched this quite a lot of genalists just

616
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 2: kind of wrote it up because they were like, well

617
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 2: money good, yeah, money, money, lodge money, good money real.

618
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: I think also crypto. I've edited many stories about crypto,

619
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: and I've written a handful of them, and it's fucking complicated.

620
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,600
Speaker 1: It's like if you want, and it's because it's so complicated,

621
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: it's a space for tons of grifters. And I guess

622
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is like when you start

623
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: talking about things like smart contracts and like dows and

624
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: like blah blah blah, all that stuff, it's a really

625
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 1: hard thing to parachute into and understand the lingo and

626
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 1: like what people are talking about at all. And then

627
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: you go try to write an article about it because

628
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: your editor says, this company made three billion dollars in

629
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: the last two days, Like what's going on here? Go

630
00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: write about it. It's like the amount of brain poison

631
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: that you need to be to understand what they are

632
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 1: attempting to do here, whether they were attempting to or not,

633
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: but like to explain why it is a fraud was

634
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:23,399
Speaker 1: like a very difficult thing, and I feel like only

635
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: a few journalists were ever, like very good at doing that.

636
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:31,319
Speaker 2: But even then, the thing that got me to be

637
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 2: clearly completely right I was writing about it at the time,

638
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 2: and writing about it was occasionally exhausting because you'd spend

639
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 2: the first court of the art being like, okay, this

640
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 2: means this, this means that, this also means this. Okay,

641
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 2: now you've learned all of this bullshit, I can get

642
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: to the thing I want to write about, right. I

643
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 2: think that the other thing is is it was when

644
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 2: I realized so many journalists assumed that all of these

645
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 2: people had good intentions. That was when I that was

646
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 2: what cracked it for me. It was the caven Rue's

647
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 2: Slatecomers Guide to Crypto, or the article about Helium and

648
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 2: all of these things where it was just like, oh,

649
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 2: they said they got this partnership, did you fucking check? No? No,

650
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:13,399
Speaker 2: why would I They wouldn't lie to the New York time.

651
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 2: Yes they were. They did. They literally lied, They literally lied,

652
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 2: and they all lied all the time, and they're still

653
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 2: kind of doing it. And I think that I definitely

654
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:27,319
Speaker 2: had the experience of waking up and feeling old as well,

655
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 2: because I've been doing pr from since two thousand and

656
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:31,800
Speaker 2: I've been doing prs since twand and eight, since twenty twelve,

657
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 2: and thus I've been the hype man. I still am

658
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 2: some extent, but even then, in like mid twenty tens,

659
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 2: with the indie go Go craze listeners and if you

660
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,720
Speaker 2: don't remember this time, there was a time when Indie

661
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 2: Go Go and kickstarted started out and it was like

662
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 2: every single company that on their got press, regardless of

663
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 2: whether it was real or not.

664
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 1: That was one of my That was one of my

665
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:57,439
Speaker 1: favorite types of articles to write, because not like, hey

666
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 1: there's a new Kickstarter, Hey this kick sorry that raised

667
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 1: like three million dollars and was written about in like

668
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: eighty publications, didn't make the thing, didn't try to make the.

669
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 2: Try like or they made it. It was just completely

670
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 2: fucking broken. But I remember at that time also saying

671
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 2: to new new business things like how are you making money?

672
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 2: And they were like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

673
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 2: we are, and that's never well you don't want to

674
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 2: hear someone being like yeah, sure a little bit and

675
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,760
Speaker 2: you're like, are you profitable? No, you're going to become profitable.

676
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 2: But I remember even having clients that were like would

677
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 2: go to journalists. I'd take into journalis even and I'd

678
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, they're profitable, and they'd be like who cares,

679
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 2: like just not necessarily as good, but they'd be like whatever, yeah, whatever,

680
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 2: everyone's scaling. And then over time, thankfully I've got clients

681
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 2: that are mostly profitable because suddenly journalists like, huh. If

682
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,359
Speaker 2: a company makes more more money than it spends, that's

683
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 2: a good thing, and if it loses money, well that's

684
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:17,399
Speaker 2: a bad thing unless it's open AI. And I think

685
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 2: that's That's the other thing that's frustrate me as well.

686
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,240
Speaker 2: It's like, maybe you can actually give me an idea

687
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:24,839
Speaker 2: of this because I have a few thoughts, But why

688
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:26,959
Speaker 2: do they keep fucking falling for it so many times?

689
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,399
Speaker 2: It's like three hype cycles straight and this AI one

690
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 2: is insane.

691
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the So we we've been painting with a

692
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,879
Speaker 1: very broad brush. You've added some specifics I've definitely been

693
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: painting with a broad brush, and I'm just like, oh, yeah,

694
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: like the industry, I apologize, No, it's fine. I'm just

695
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:50,359
Speaker 1: saying that I think with AI journalists, the ones that

696
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: I read are like more skeptical than any technology that

697
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: we've seen in a long time. However, the question is

698
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: how many people are they like actually reaching and what

699
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: is that reach? And then you sort of have like

700
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: some of these Kevin Roos's articles that we talked about

701
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 1: in The New York Times where it's like I was

702
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: seduced by an AI or like whatever, yeah, things like this.

703
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 1: It's like those are really really harmful articles and they

704
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: go out to like a lot of people, and I

705
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: think that it's just like it's really tough because I

706
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 1: think on balance, journalists have been like really tough on

707
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 1: AI companies, the ones that I read and the ones

708
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: the ones that I like where I'm like, oh, like,

709
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: Brian Merchant, you're really good on this topic, right at Zittron,

710
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: you're really good on this topic. Kylie Robison, You're really

711
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 1: good on this topic. So on and so forth, and

712
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: then but then I start thinking, oh, but like the

713
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: New York Times often isn't very good on this topic,

714
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: like the Wall Street Journal often isn't very good on

715
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: this topic. And these are the sort of like mass

716
00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:00,839
Speaker 1: market publications that whose audience sized dwarfs us.

717
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 2: I have to wonder if there isn't some degree of

718
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 2: like them wanting to seem positive because they have a

719
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,839
Speaker 2: broad audience. I just don't know why. Yeah, like they

720
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 2: want to be excited about the tank.

721
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that I have not worked at a

722
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: big publication like that, but I know I know a

723
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: lot of people who have, and I've like seen free

724
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 1: like people I know of freelance for them and things

725
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: like that. And I think that a lot of these

726
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 1: publications have many, many, many levels of like bureaucracy and

727
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,399
Speaker 1: legal and like so on and so forth. And I

728
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of articles get a focus grouped

729
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 1: to death. Like I don't know what I'm linking on

730
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,279
Speaker 1: the term, but it's where there's like eighty people are

731
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:51,759
Speaker 1: looking at a thing, and then by the time it

732
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:54,479
Speaker 1: comes out, it's like, oh, this is like a quote

733
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,799
Speaker 1: unquote this in the middle it's like, yeah, you're just

734
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,399
Speaker 1: giving publicity to whatever, and it's like, oh, okay, this

735
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 1: is not actually Like I.

736
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 2: Have to wonder if it's also a solidarity issue again,

737
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 2: because Swisher, for example, the reason they'll find us a

738
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 2: loathsome is that she pretends to be what she actually

739
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:17,479
Speaker 2: should have been, which is if everyone nearly Patel, Johanna Stone,

740
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 2: who I love in general, Kara Swisher, who I find

741
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 2: the testable, Casey Newton, who I find almost is the testable.

742
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 2: The problem isn't that they're not getting these interviews. It's

743
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 2: that when they have the person in front of them,

744
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 2: they don't ask them the questions they get. They ask

745
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 2: them do you train with YouTube data? And they go eh,

746
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 2: and it's like, okay, that's an answer for me versus

747
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 2: and the British media has a litany of problems, but

748
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 2: one of the things they do very well is harass Powell.

749
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 2: And I think that there could just be this most

750
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 2: subtle change in the world. When you get Sam Wrtman

751
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 2: in front of him, don't accept whatever answer gives you immediately.

752
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 2: Don't be like, well, seems reasonable to me that you

753
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 2: have no answer. So for revenue or how this stuff

754
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 2: will become agi, I'm just going to keep going. But

755
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 2: it's also if everyone started doing that, they would have

756
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 2: to start answering that simple that if the only option

757
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,399
Speaker 2: they had was to get like Devin Cole, and I'll

758
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 2: give them credit, Devin coldweight TechCrunch disrupt actually fucking answering

759
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:25,239
Speaker 2: the question to Aravin, the CEO of Perplexity about plagiarism,

760
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 2: could have pushed hard or whatever. We can. We can

761
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 2: quarterback that later, but nevertheless, the fact the question is

762
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 2: getting asked is so phenomenal, and Devin fucking respect to him.

763
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,439
Speaker 2: If everyone did that, these worms would have to run. Yeah,

764
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 2: if everyone just fucking and it doesn't even need to

765
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 2: be rude. You don't have to be a dickhead, you

766
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 2: don't have to be as I would be very rude. Well, okay,

767
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 2: I actually I take that back. I will get one

768
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 2: of these people and you'll be shocked by how not

769
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:55,439
Speaker 2: rude I am, because that actually doesn't get results. Ask

770
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 2: them questions, right, what does that mean?

771
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: I think that So I don't like listen to every

772
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 1: episode of Neli Patel's podcast, but I think this is

773
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: something that he started to do a lot better. He

774
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: like talked to the CEO of into It the other

775
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: day and was like, uh, you know, badgering him on

776
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:18,760
Speaker 1: into Its lobbying about like why why we still fucking

777
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: have to use turbo tax more or less year they've

778
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: spent millions and millions and millions of dollars doing.

779
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 2: And then pushed him on lobbying as well.

780
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 1: And I think that, uh, I mean, I thought that

781
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: that was a good example. I think that I just

782
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:33,720
Speaker 1: wish he'd have done that with with Sundar. He did

783
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: give him his phone. That was.

784
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 2: It was.

785
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 1: I didn't listen to the whole thing.

786
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:43,880
Speaker 2: The Google CEO is touching my phone, ask him compound

787
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,359
Speaker 2: questions the whole way down. Now, I'm not gonna I'm

788
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 2: not gonna I'm gonna pull that back a bit, though.

789
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:51,720
Speaker 2: The intuit thing was the exact example of what everyone

790
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:54,880
Speaker 2: needs to do. He wasn't rude at all. He just

791
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 2: kept asking the fucking question, and that's why it rocked.

792
00:42:58,280 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 2: That's why it was good.

793
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: Well, So what I I was gonna say is I

794
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think that what has happened is

795
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: you have fucking like Mark Zuckerberg going on Joe Regan

796
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: and going on Lex Friedman and going on like all

797
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:19,400
Speaker 1: these other podcasts and pretending like they're like the media

798
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 1: is a problem. And I agree with what you're saying.

799
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: I also think that tech PR has gotten a lot

800
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,439
Speaker 1: smarter in the last few years in like keeping their

801
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 1: executives away from anyone who will ask them hard questions. Yeah,

802
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:35,759
Speaker 1: and that's very calculated.

803
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 2: And I also I also think that I think you're

804
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 2: completely right. I don't know if I'll ever say that

805
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 2: PR people are getting smarter based on any of them,

806
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:47,360
Speaker 2: but I will say I think that they have just

807
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 2: learned the lessons from celebrity PR because the tech media

808
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 2: has allowed these people to be treated like celebrities like

809
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:58,240
Speaker 2: that is I think I'm very critical of Daylight Patel,

810
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 2: but really the intuit one was great, but because he

811
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 2: treated him like a businessman, he treated Sandapashy like a celebrity.

812
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 2: And I think that the problem is, and this is

813
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 2: me like genuine empathy. For a while, they were for

814
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 2: a while we laugh about the twenty fifteen Indiegogo era,

815
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,760
Speaker 2: but it was fun. Things were happening these people. Elon

816
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 2: Musk wasn't just an inveterate racist. He wasn't post like

817
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 2: talking about the fourteen words he loved the most. He

818
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 2: wasn't he wasn't just retweeting active Nazis. He was just

819
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 2: like posting my lunch rocket go bum cargo fast and

820
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 2: everyone was like cool, even I was, and I can

821
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 2: understand why everyone kind of oriented themselves in that way.

822
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 2: But these people aren't celebrities. They're fucking business people.

823
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was something about So I've seen Elon Musk

824
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: speak a couple of times while I was reporting, Like

825
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,839
Speaker 1: I went to the Gigo factories opening and sort of

826
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:58,840
Speaker 1: covered that when they started making batteries in Nevada and something,

827
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: and I thought I did a good piece. Actually this

828
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: was now many years ago, but I wrote I think

829
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 1: the article is called like the Cult of Elon, and

830
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: it was about his like very cultish fans who are

831
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: just fucking obsessed with him even then. And he's a

832
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: horrendous public speaker.

833
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 2: He's really he's not gifted.

834
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 1: He's not gifted. He's very awkward up there. And for

835
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: a while that that was actually quite alluring is the

836
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:27,160
Speaker 1: wrong word to me, But I was like, Wow, this

837
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: guy must be really smart, because he's so bad at

838
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: talking that he might he must just and yet he's

839
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 1: still like the CEO of all these companies and a

840
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 1: billionaire and blah blah blah. And I was like but

841
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,920
Speaker 1: he can't string two sentences together really on stage, so

842
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: he just must be like engineering behind the scenes all

843
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: the time, like building rockets himself. And I think that

844
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 1: we really did a very bad job, not just with Elon,

845
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 1: but with like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and all

846
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: these people, treating them as geniuses who did all of

847
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: this stuff themselves from a garage and not as businessmen

848
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:10,359
Speaker 1: who had thousands of people working for them, Like building on.

849
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 2: The backs of any of us would have combined, yeah.

850
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: And building on the backs of like a million other

851
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: inventions by a million other people. And it's like fine,

852
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: Like you built the smartphone, like cool. I use the

853
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: smartphone all the time. That's very cool. But like Steve

854
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: Jobs is not the inventor of the smartphone there there,

855
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 1: or the iPhone. It was like thousands of people at

856
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: Apple leveraging like thousands of years of you know, not

857
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 1: thousands of years but many years, yeah, dozens of years

858
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: of you know, like Wi Fi chips and touchscreen stuff

859
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. And I think that in treating

860
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs as a singular inventor of the iPhone, which

861
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:46,760
Speaker 1: is it's the subject of my friend Brian Merchant's book

862
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: The One Device, like all the sort of stuff that

863
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: went into it. We made these people celebrities. We made

864
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: them celebrities because we're like genius inventor vibes versus likes

865
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: ruthless businessmen and did like made big company in subsidies.

866
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 2: And I've written about this quite a lot. It's a

867
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 2: little easier to swallow that way. When you see someone

868
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 2: who's so otherworldly, rich, who's so powerful, who can do

869
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 2: all of these things in their normal life that we

870
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 2: never would, not about them being smart or good, just

871
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:24,399
Speaker 2: that they have that much money and power. It's much

872
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 2: easier to look at them and say, damn, they must

873
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,279
Speaker 2: be so much different to me. They must be they

874
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 2: must know something I don't. And I think what we're

875
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 2: seeing in the media now, as this kind of cynicism

876
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 2: feeds in, is people beginning to realize that was never

877
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 2: fucking true. Wasne The Act was a genius is a

878
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 2: genius like Jobs was a great marketer and a good operator.

879
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 1: I mean, whilst the Act also like I don't know

880
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: him personally, but he strikes me as like quite humble

881
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 1: relatively speaking, and like still like.

882
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 2: I ran into him once and The thing that he

883
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:07,320
Speaker 2: talked to me about for half an hour was a

884
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 2: twenty year old browser called like I Cab I Cab

885
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 2: think it was yeah, the taxi Fata. It's some like

886
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 2: low face like it's the only one I use. And

887
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 2: it was adorable. And he seems to like tech. And

888
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:23,839
Speaker 2: maybe that's the greater thing that I don't know how

889
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 2: many people who were popular and in the industry actually

890
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 2: like technology you talk to yourself about, like you're excited

891
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 2: about some things, like there is still tech that excites you.

892
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's as common within the industry

893
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 2: as it should be, both in the executives and some

894
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,240
Speaker 2: members of the media. And I want to be wrong,

895
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 2: because I think if everyone was actually excited about AI,

896
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 2: if like that was really driving them, then that would

897
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 2: be cool. That would be interesting. We would have some

898
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,200
Speaker 2: interesting shit come out of that. I just don't even

899
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 2: think it's about it. It's like, I'm excited about what

900
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 2: everyone else is excited about.

901
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: Well, it's very interesting that the crypto to AI, crypto

902
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: to web three to AI pipeline of like, oh, this

903
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: is going to change the world. Wait, no, Metaverse is

904
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: going to change the world. Wait no, AI is going

905
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: to change the world, and it's like, okay, cool, like

906
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: you're into the thing that's going to make you a

907
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: lot of money regardless. Yeah, I don't. It's funny you

908
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: say that I'm not that into tech. And at Motherboard

909
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,840
Speaker 1: we were a website of people who were super skeptical

910
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 1: of tech and.

911
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 2: Didn't which I think is fine, by the way.

912
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I'm just saying that I am not.

913
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 1: I'm not really excited about tech. I think I'm excited

914
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:43,759
Speaker 1: about what some people are doing with technology. I'm very

915
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 1: interesting community, I guess, and diving into those communities of

916
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:53,200
Speaker 1: people who are excited about things like I recently wrote

917
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:55,720
Speaker 1: about the people who are taking the red Box DVD

918
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 1: kiosks home from Waldgreens and I'm like sitting in their

919
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,560
Speaker 1: discord watching figure out how this thing works and like

920
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:06,560
Speaker 1: flashing new software to it and stuff, and it's like

921
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 1: that is very exciting to me, not because it's going

922
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 1: to change the world, but because I like seeing their

923
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: excitement about learning how this like obsolete device works. And

924
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a part of that community

925
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 1: myself because frankly, just like I don't know, I feel

926
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 1: like I'm a busy guy, don't I don't like and

927
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 1: I have very like short attention span for hobbies. I

928
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,280
Speaker 1: would say like, I don't want to reverse engineer KIOSK,

929
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 1: but I want to watch you do it from afar

930
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:40,800
Speaker 1: because you are finding out lots of like weird stuff

931
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: about it, and I like writing about that sort of thing.

932
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: And there's many, many, many like micro communities around the

933
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,719
Speaker 1: Internet still that are very exciting to me because they

934
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 1: are so they found a place on the Internet or

935
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,720
Speaker 1: using technology that is not so fucked up and terrible

936
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:58,439
Speaker 1: all the time. And I like looking at that. That's

937
00:50:58,440 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 1: what makes me optimistic.

938
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 2: And I still think that that is a I still

939
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 2: think that that is a perfectly valid thing to be

940
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 2: excited about, and that is still being excited about tech.

941
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:13,320
Speaker 2: Some of my favorite moments in tech have been Sidier

942
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:17,360
Speaker 2: and the original homebrew community and the iPhone. The homebrew

943
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:22,160
Speaker 2: community around the PlayStation portable was fucking cool. I don't

944
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 2: even mean the piracy, which may or may not have

945
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 2: been cool. I wouldn't know even then. Going back to

946
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 2: like two thousand and six, are their homebrew community with

947
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 2: the Xbox, the shit, the people that you could like

948
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 2: just rip games and games you wont to the Xbox

949
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 2: and they would run faster play Deaf Jam, the fighting game.

950
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 2: There is still cool shit like that happening, and I

951
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 2: feel like that does give me hope as well that

952
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 2: people are still doing this shit, like why are you

953
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:49,960
Speaker 2: ripping up a red box thing? Because I can.

954
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And I've written a lot about like rights

955
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: for repair and people you know, trying to fix their

956
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:57,520
Speaker 1: iPhones and so on and so forth. And the thing

957
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:01,200
Speaker 1: that's been really interesting about following that world is that

958
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:05,360
Speaker 1: the the like guy at the mall who puts the

959
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:08,840
Speaker 1: the iPhone screen on when you break it, he knows

960
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: more about how that fucking iPhone works than probably most

961
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:14,319
Speaker 1: people who work at Apple. And I find that to

962
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 1: be really interesting. There's been like a couple massive Apple

963
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 1: scandals that have broken because these like repair people who

964
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:25,880
Speaker 1: are just looking at a bunch of broken iPhones have

965
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: realized there was like an engineering flaw that Apple mess

966
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 1: something up on and it's like that's cool, Like this

967
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 1: is just some dude who works at the mall in

968
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: a kiosk and he has just like discovered a flaw

969
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 1: in the iPhone that is gonna in a just world

970
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:43,920
Speaker 1: cost Apple billions of dollars. In the real world that

971
00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 1: we live in, everyone gets like a fifty dollars refund

972
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 1: maybe lucky, Yeah, for lucky. Or they'll be like a

973
00:52:51,680 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit where you get twelve dollars and fourteen years.

974
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: But I like that kind of thing too.

975
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 2: So as we wrap this up, and this could be

976
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 2: the final question, what is next for four or four?

977
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 2: What do you actually get? Are you going to scale

978
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 2: it much further? Are you going to do a conference

979
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 2: like is that in the cards? Or are you going

980
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:14,320
Speaker 2: to keep it small?

981
00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: We're going to do conferences, We're going to do whatever,

982
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:21,439
Speaker 1: We're going to pivot to video, We're gonna speed run. Yeah,

983
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:24,440
Speaker 1: no for real. So four or four Media has been

984
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 1: around for a little over a year. It's me, Emmanuel Meiberg,

985
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: Sam Cole, and Joseph Cox. I personally wanted to do

986
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,319
Speaker 1: it because I spent a lot of time editing the

987
00:53:36,360 --> 00:53:38,279
Speaker 1: last few years of my life, and I really wanted

988
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:42,319
Speaker 1: to get back to writing. And I've really enjoyed doing

989
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: my own reporting and writing again, Like it's been amazing

990
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:50,360
Speaker 1: for my brain. I feel I would like the company

991
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 1: to get bigger, Like I think that we probably will

992
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 1: hire people at some point. But I think that the

993
00:53:56,719 --> 00:54:00,759
Speaker 1: tricky thing for me is if we do that, will

994
00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 1: we have time to continue doing our own work? Like

995
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 1: how will that work? And so that is, you know,

996
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 1: that's stuff that we talk about sort of like behind

997
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 1: the scenes, Like right now we are the four of

998
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:17,799
Speaker 1: us doing everything in terms of just like we're doing

999
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 1: our socials, we're doing the business stuff, you know, if

1000
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:25,319
Speaker 1: we're talking to our lawyers and I'm printing merch and

1001
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,280
Speaker 1: like mailing it myself, and I really like that hands

1002
00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: on aspect to it. But I think I'm trying to

1003
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:34,879
Speaker 1: think like if we grow, will that give us more

1004
00:54:34,960 --> 00:54:36,799
Speaker 1: time to do the work or will it give us

1005
00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:39,879
Speaker 1: less time to do the work because we're then sort

1006
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:43,440
Speaker 1: of like managing other people, which is a blessing in

1007
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:47,720
Speaker 1: many ways because the company is starting to get close

1008
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,239
Speaker 1: to a place where I think that we could financially

1009
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 1: justify hiring more people, but it's also does that fundamentally

1010
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:58,279
Speaker 1: like sort of change what we're doing on a day

1011
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 1: to day basis doesn't itself? Does that work and doesn't

1012
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 1: make it better? Is that what our readers even want?

1013
00:55:03,719 --> 00:55:05,799
Speaker 1: And I think that like any people that we would

1014
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 1: bring on would have a similar ethos to us and

1015
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 1: would be able to cover like I'm sure they would

1016
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:15,919
Speaker 1: be fantastic at whatever they're reporting on. It would allow

1017
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:19,720
Speaker 1: us to have like more breadth of topics on the site,

1018
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 1: which is something that we want because you know, I've

1019
00:55:22,680 --> 00:55:25,320
Speaker 1: written a million articles about Facebook's AI and there's like

1020
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:27,400
Speaker 1: a lot of fuckery going on that we should be

1021
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:31,920
Speaker 1: covering across many topics. But sort of like what does

1022
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 1: that look like? I think is something that we talk

1023
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:37,720
Speaker 1: about a lot. But the good news is it's going well.

1024
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:43,600
Speaker 1: I think that we will grow at some point. We're

1025
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:48,840
Speaker 1: being very careful about it because we worked Advice and

1026
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 1: they hired a bunch of people and it seemed like

1027
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,959
Speaker 1: they had money, and then you know, they did something bad,

1028
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:59,480
Speaker 1: Like nothing specifically bad happened. It's just like grow this way,

1029
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:00,920
Speaker 1: grow that way, and then it's like, oh shit, we

1030
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 1: don't have no money and we're bankrupt now. So yeah,

1031
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:08,320
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's been very hard to

1032
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: plan long term, I would say, because I'm very heads

1033
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 1: down most days, just like interviewing people and writing articles.

1034
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:21,120
Speaker 1: But we want to do more, like we want to grow,

1035
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 1: we want to be bigger, but we want to do it,

1036
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:24,040
Speaker 1: like very very.

1037
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 2: Slowly, and also do you even have to?

1038
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:31,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is a big That's another question

1039
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:34,879
Speaker 1: that we ask ourselves because I do think that we've

1040
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:37,439
Speaker 1: been able to do impactful work with just the four

1041
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: of us, and there's many people that I would love

1042
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: to work with more and again and in addition to

1043
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's like, is that something

1044
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:53,160
Speaker 1: that I want to bring on ourselves, not because it

1045
00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:57,400
Speaker 1: would be bad, but because it would be additional. It's like,

1046
00:56:57,520 --> 00:56:58,959
Speaker 1: there's only so many hours ahead.

1047
00:56:58,960 --> 00:57:02,319
Speaker 2: It's more shit to manage more personalities. Yeah, where can

1048
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:03,360
Speaker 2: people find you? Jason?

1049
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:06,520
Speaker 1: So we're at four or four media dot Co. We're

1050
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:08,239
Speaker 1: subscriber funded publication.

1051
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:09,879
Speaker 2: Give them money.

1052
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:12,319
Speaker 1: I paid you, give us money. Thank you. We really

1053
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:15,160
Speaker 1: do appreciate it. And then you know, I'm on every

1054
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 1: fucking social media platform. If you search my name, you'll

1055
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:19,520
Speaker 1: find me.

1056
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 2: And then it will be in the episode notes. Jason,

1057
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me. You've been listening

1058
00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:26,760
Speaker 2: to Better Offline, I'm at Zetron, you know all the

1059
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:29,120
Speaker 2: shit to find me. It will be following this with

1060
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 2: a really nice, non acerbic little speech. Thanks for listening.

1061
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening. To Better Offline.

1062
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:45,040
Speaker 3: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song

1063
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 3: is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music

1064
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:51,439
Speaker 3: and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T

1065
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 3: T O S O W s ki dot com. You

1066
00:57:55,920 --> 00:57:58,440
Speaker 3: can email me at easy at better offline dot com,

1067
00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 3: or visit better offline dot com on more podcast links,

1068
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:04,320
Speaker 3: and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you

1069
00:58:04,320 --> 00:58:06,479
Speaker 3: go to chat dot Where's youoead dot am to visit

1070
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 3: the discord, and go to our slash.

1071
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 2: Better Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so

1072
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:12,320
Speaker 2: much for listening.

1073
00:58:13,160 --> 00:58:15,840
Speaker 1: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For

1074
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:18,600
Speaker 1: more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1075
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:22,040
Speaker 3: Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.