WEBVTT - What the Tech Happened? Part Two 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.680 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, jonvan Strickland. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.680 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:23.440 tech Are. Yeah, welcome to my penultimate episode of hosting 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.960 tech Stuff. I mean, you know, second to last normal 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:30.760 tech Stuff. Anyway, I might occasionally host a special episode 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:33.400 that drops into the feed now and then I'll still 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.760 be around at iHeart Podcasts. I'll just be executive producer 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.720 rising for the most part. But anyway, we're going to 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.800 continue what we started in our last episode and talk 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:46.000 about some of the biggest tech stories that have unfolded 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.160 since tech Stuff first launched in mid two thousand and eight. 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.080 And in our last episode, I went through the second 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.720 half of two thousand and eight up through twenty fourteen. 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.840 Today we're gonna go twenty fifteen up to present day. 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.800 So that's more in years and I wrote more. So 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.320 this is going to be one of those long episodes. 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.600 But hey, I'm hanging up my boots, so you won't 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:10.360 be having to put up with me for too much longer. 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.680 So let's just go on this journey together, shall we. 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.279 So we're up to twenty fifteen. That's when Apple first 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.959 introduced the Apple Watch, and it would take a bit 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:24.160 of time, no pun intended to get momentum on this 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.480 product compared to other Apple products. But these days it 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.240 is the most popular brand of smartwatch here in the 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.160 United States and it holds like a thirty percent of 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.800 the market share globally. Wearables and smart watches had been 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.400 around for a while. It's not like Apple invented them. 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.199 And though Apple created a popular smart watch, I would 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.800 say that it didn't have the same sort of Cinderella 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.000 energy as the original iPod, or the iPhone or even 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.920 the iPad, at least not initially. So just as a reminder, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.200 Apple didn't invent the smartphone, it didn't invent the MP 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.960 three player, it didn't invent the tablet computer. But it 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.200 did succeed where everyone else had not in that it 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.200 was able to create products that appealed to a wide 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.880 audience and not just like a narrow tech geek niche. 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.720 So there was every reason to expect that they would 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:18.519 do the same with smart watches. It would just take 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.079 a little bit longer for those to really become popular, 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.400 And I honestly don't know how popular they are in 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.960 comparison to Apple's other product lines. But another innovation that 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.480 was introduced in twenty fifteen was Tesla's autopilot feature. That's 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.760 the not really self driving mode that has made headlines 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.960 many times, often for tragic or unfortunate reasons. This year, 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.240 Miles Klee of Rolling Stone Magazine wrote a piece titled, 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.520 Tesla has highest rate of deadly accidents among car brands, 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:54.000 study fines. That's not great news. Meanwhile, President elect Trump's 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.919 transition team has recently recommended that the new regime in 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.720 the US repeal a rule that otherwise requires car companies 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.720 that have self driving technologies incorporated into their vehicles to 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.560 report on car crashes. So yeah, now the team is saying, hey, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:11.959 we should get rid of that rule. And you know, 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.280 Elon Musk also happens to be heading up one of 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.840 the government departments in the new administration. So I suspect 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.840 this is just the beginning of a lot of these 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:26.359 kinds of arguments that are are designed to remove restrictions 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.680 and regulations and accountability to allow businesses to operate with 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.120 little to know oversight. In other news, Google did a 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.880 big old corporate restructuring by creating a company called Alphabet, 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.160 which acts as a holding company for Google and its 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.960 various spinoffs like YouTube and Android. In space news, Jeff 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:52.320 Bezos's private space company, Blue Origin successfully launched and landed 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.600 a reusable rocket called New Shepherd. SpaceX at that point 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.320 had not yet managed to do the same thing. They 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.240 had launched some spacecraft, but the landing had not really, 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.200 they hadn't stuck the landing. I guess it's safe to 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.440 say like sometimes their landings could be a little exclusive. 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.360 But obviously SpaceX would catch up to Blue Origin and 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.480 then like leave Blue Origin in the dust as far 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.520 as private space industry stuff is concerned. I mean, you're 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.960 going to see way more stories about SpaceX than Blue 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.000 Origin typically. But the big story that I want to 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:30.160 highlight from twenty fifteen came to be known as diesel Gate, 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.240 and it involved the car company Volkswagen. So in September 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.920 of twenty fifteen, the United States Environmental Protection Agency or EPA, 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:45.120 accused Volkswagen of violating the US Clean Air Act through trickery. Essentially, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.480 the issue was that Volkswagen was using software, you know, 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.640 software technology in order to fool emissions testing equipment regarding 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.800 its diesel engine vehicles and the emissions that they put out. 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.440 So here's kind of how it worked from a very 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:04.680 high level. When a Volkswagen diesel vehicle detected that it 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.760 was being put into testing mode, it would artificially limit 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.640 the output of the engine so as not to exceed 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.720 emissions standards. Now it would look like the engine was 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.120 operating at normal capacity, but in fact it was purposefully 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.560 holding itself back. Once it detected it was out of 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.440 testing mode, the engine would switch back into normal operations, 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.000 at which point the vehicle would be emitting more than 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:34.120 restrictions would legally allow. So the investigation had actually been 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.120 going on for a couple of years at this point. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.680 It started with some researchers at West Virginia's University and 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.119 they were finding some pretty odd readings with a couple 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.880 of Volkswagen diesel vehicles. Now they were using testing equipment 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.080 that allowed for on road tests. That meant the vehicle 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:52.279 was actually in use on roads at the time it 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.440 was traveling. Most emissions tests are done with a vehicle 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.039 that's stationary, it's not actually on the road, So the 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:02.000 researchers were seeing unusually high emissions ratings on the two 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.680 Volkswagen vehicles, and that merited further investigation because you know, 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.920 when they were routinely tested in normal emissions testing facilities, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.080 they were under the limit, So something was going on here. 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.960 Their findings found their way to regulators at both the 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.640 California state level and the US federal level, and ultimately 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:24.160 led to the EPA accusing Volkswagen of deception. Other countries 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:28.159 subsequently investigated the matter and found similar results, and Volkswagen's 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:33.559 stock prices plummeted. The CEO resigned, and the company apologized for, 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.359 you know, essentially defrauding everybody. The gambit turned out to 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.920 be a costly one for Volkswagen. Estimates put the total 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.919 cost at nearly thirty five billion with a B dollars. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.360 That's a hefty amount of fines and legal expenses and 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.120 replacement costs and that kind of thing. But beyond that, 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:56.600 there were some considerable non financial costs. In fact, they 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.919 were incalculable. For example, you can't really to fy the 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.600 amount of damage that was just done to the environment 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.800 or people's health, right like. That certainly was a factor, 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:09.960 but we don't really have a way of putting a 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.000 number on it. All in all, Diesel gait was an 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.960 example of corporate subterfuge and greed. And here's a fun 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.120 thing to think about. It's possible that organizations like the 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.960 EPA here in the United States are going to face 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.640 some pretty drastic cuts in funding or possibly even dissolution, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.119 setting the stage for companies to pull similar stunts without 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:32.440 having to worry so much about being called to answer 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.240 for transgressions, you know, the way that Volkswagen did back 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.000 in twenty fifteen. If there are no regulatory agencies out 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.600 there to oversee it, then it's almost like you're not 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:46.520 doing it at all. Moving swiftly onwards to twenty sixteen, Okay, 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.480 twenty sixteen was a huge year for tech news. In 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.080 most of these years, when I was looking back, I'd 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.040 be like, oh, there's like two or three stories that 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.280 are contenders. But twenty sixteen just it was like the 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.080 year that just kept on giving. It was an election year, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.360 and that was part of it here in the United States. 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:09.680 But in twenty sixteen, we got an early smart watch 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.160 that had been boosted through crowdfunding and boasted an e 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.720 ink display that maximized battery life. It kicked the bucket. 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.960 In twenty sixteen. This was the Pebble smart Watch, which 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:27.400 was an ambitious project, independent project. Ultimately it was not 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.360 able to succeed as a business. That was a bummer 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.520 for me personally. I had actually backed it after the 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.640 kickstarting campaign was already over it had already successfully completed 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:39.920 the Kickstart campaign. In fact, it was one of the 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:44.640 most successful campaigns at that time, and I had held 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.200 back on backing it. But then I went to Cees 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.280 and I saw a presentation about the Pebble smart Watch, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:52.679 and that convinced me to put in a pre order, 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.400 and even though I got in too late, I ended 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.680 up getting a Kickstarter edition watch. It's one of the 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:03.120 red ones. I'm guessing that the people who were backing 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.760 it didn't order as many of the red ones, although 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:07.719 I thought the red one was really striking, which is 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:09.959 why I got it, so I guess that's why I 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.679 got a Kickstarter version. Anyway, I thought it was nifty, 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.920 but Pebble ultimately didn't have staying power and it folded 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.120 in twenty sixteen. Other notable tech stories from twenty sixteen 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:25.520 included the tragic reveal that a Tesla vehicle operating in 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.040 autopilot mode was involved in a fatal car accident that 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.760 would sadly not be the last time we would hear 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.559 something like that happening. The Hyperloop One company was plagued 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:41.000 by a crazy power struggle and various legal battles, which 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:44.760 meant we were not getting any closer to the science 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.800 fiction vision that Elon Musk had laid out a couple 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.800 of years earlier. If you don't remember what hyperloop is, 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.600 the concept is it's a transportation system meant to go 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.520 between like cities there may be a couple hundred or 0:09:57.600 --> 0:09:59.800 few hundred miles away from each other, and it can 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:05.920 cysts in its original form as a tunnel that has 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.400 had most or all of the air pumped out of it, 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.040 so you have very very very low air pressure inside 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.800 the tunnel. You've got a magnet system or air bearings, 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.400 one of the two, or maybe both. It allows a 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.680 train to essentially hover above the floor of the tunnel 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.560 and travel with very little friction, so very little resistance, 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.839 and it allows the train to reach incredible top speeds 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.720 and thus make the trip in pretty short order while 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.240 being more efficient and less costly than air travel, less 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:45.000 environmentally pollutive, I guess than air travel as well, but Unfortunately, 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.240 hyper Loop one, because of this big battle, ended up 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:53.559 kind of getting again not to use a pun, but derailed. 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.199 Hyper Loop one would stick around, but would severely cut 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.480 back on its vision as far as what it's setting 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:05.360 out to do. Another big story that happened in twenty 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:10.640 sixteen is the explosive and that is intended controversy around 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.800 the Samsung Galaxy seven Note smartphones. So there were multiple 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.800 reports that detailed how these smartphones would spontaneously burst into 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.520 fire and explode. It led to lots of restrictions on 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.520 the phones. There were airlines that said, you cannot board 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:27.280 a plane if you're carrying one of these. You have 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:29.640 to leave it here. You can't take it on board 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:35.319 because these things had proven to be unstable. And it 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:40.040 turned out that the battery manufacturing process, which was actually 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.520 being carried out with two different companies and had two 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.560 separate issues, but they resulted in the same problem in 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.920 that they created short circuits inside the battery that would 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.240 lead to thermal runaway, meaning the battery would heat up 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.360 and heat up and heat up until it ultimately failed 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:58.000 and would explode. This was huge news, obviously, and it 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.480 cost Samsung millions of dollars in recalls and lawsuits. It 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.319 was a big story in twenty sixteen. There's so much more. Though, 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:07.760 Yahoo admitted that it had been the victim of a 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.559 massive data breach that year. That breach affected hundreds of 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.520 millions of people. We would find out later it essentially 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:18.240 affected anyone who had a Yahoo account at that time, Like, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.520 even if you hadn't used it in a while, you 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:25.200 were affected. Also another cyber warfare kind of story, hackers 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:28.400 brought down a domain name server host in the fall 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.840 of that year, which in turn affected numerous major websites 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.920 and services like Netflix and Amazon, so they were unavailable 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.360 on again and off again in October twenty first, twenty sixteen. Like, 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.120 that was just a bad day if you were one 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:45.360 of those companies. That's just the tip of the iceberg. 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.120 A ton of stuff happened in twenty sixteen and tech, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.400 but none of that is what I wanted to focus 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.800 on in this episode. Instead, for me, the story that 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.800 caught my attention most in twenty sixteen was kind of 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:04.640 the official beginning of the end for the biotech company, Thearrahnose. 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.120 It was literally the end of Therahnose that year. But 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.200 then the beginning of the end for the freedom of 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.600 the people who are leading Therahnose. So this was a 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.839 company that was founded by Elizabeth Holmes, and it was 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.120 a company that aimed to democratize medical testing. The idea 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.800 being that you would end up with a device the 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.960 size of a desktop printer that would allow the average 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.280 person the chance to screen themselves for more than one 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:33.200 hundred different diseases, all while just parting with the tiniest 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.840 micro drop of blood. Because Elizabeth Holmes said she was 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.080 scared of needles, and that was one of the reasons 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.760 she didn't, you know, she would kind of avoid medical checkups. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:45.400 But she thought, said, well, if you could do it 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.160 where you could only need the smallest drop of blood 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.400 and you could run, you know, potentially hundreds of different 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:53.920 or more than one hundred different medical tests on that 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.240 little drop of blood, on a device that could sit 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:58.520 on top of your desk and find out you know, 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:03.600 what you need to look out for and what you know, 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.640 what your health was, and maybe if there were any 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:07.839 lifestyle changes you needed to make in order to live 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.120 a healthier life. It would open up options for people 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.319 that otherwise never would exist. That was the dream. When 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.960 we come back, I'll talk about the problem that dream 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.400 had when it came to meeting up with a thing 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:22.760 I like to call reality. But first, let's take a 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:35.080 quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay, we're back. So 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.960 I left off talking about twenty sixteen and Fairhos. So 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.280 here's an issue. This company's story was kind of the 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.200 stuff of Silicon Valley fairy tales, Like it was the 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.760 sort of thing that investors really get excited about. So 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.880 Holmes had been attending Stanford University before she dropped out 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:57.320 to create her company. She courted various investors, including really famous, 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.240 high profile ones like Oracle found under Larry Ellison was 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:06.600 one of them. The media conglomerate owner Rupert Murdoch was another. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.760 And so she had raised hundreds of millions of dollars 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.840 to make her dream of becoming an iconic tech leader 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:14.720 come true. And I want to be clear about that. Like, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.440 the technology was something that she thought would be really cool. 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.160 She seemed to be pretty passionate about it. But my interpretation, 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.720 which I admit is fully biased and I could be 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.280 entirely wrong, was more that she was interested in being 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:34.040 an icon than really, you know, having a belief and 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:37.760 knowledge about this technology. She wanted to be another Steve Jobs, 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.360 you know, be on the cover of magazines and be 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.440 talked about as like this visionary leader. The trouble was 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.840 her idea proved to be much less attainable than she 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.760 initially thought. In late twenty fifteen, Wall Street Journal's John 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:56.000 Kerrieru whose name I always butcher anyway, he broke the 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.560 story that Darrenos the company was actually built. On top 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:04.359 of this, that the company's supposed demonstrations of its technology 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:09.160 were in actuality frauds. They were relying heavily on existing 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.360 blood analysis technologies from other companies, so actual machines made 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.440 by other companies that did standard blood tests. They were 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.080 using those, but then claiming that the results came from 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.880 their own technology, and that they would take tiny blood 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.080 samples larger than a micro drop but still you know, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.920 pretty small. Then they would dilute those samples and then 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:37.520 run tests on them using these other companies, you know, machines. 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.400 Then they would pass off whatever the results were as 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.480 their own work, while desperately trying to get their technology 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.880 to operate properly. The story didn't end there either. There 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.160 got worse, Like it unfolded that there had been advisors 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.680 who had told Holmes early on that her idea was 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:59.080 unrealistic from a technological and biological perspective, that just because 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.160 she wanted it to work doesn't mean it would work. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:03.760 So essentially it turned out to be kind of an 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.959 Emperor has No Clothes situation, and the company would totally 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.960 unravel throughout twenty sixteen. In the process, Holmes, who had 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:16.240 developed a reputation for extravagance and peculiar habits, found her 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.480 net worth plunge to zero. She went from being one 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.199 of the wealthiest women on the planet to having no 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.960 net worth at all. The SEC opened an investigation into 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.120 the company. Holmes and her business partner and on again 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:34.560 off again romantic partner, Ramesh Malwani, would ultimately stand trial 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.320 for multiple criminal charges of fraud and related crimes. Holmes 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.520 then would be found guilty and sentenced to eleven years 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:45.320 in prison, although that did get reduced a couple of times. Currently, 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.639 I believe she will be eligible for release in the 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.120 summer of twenty thirty two. Balwani would get a similar 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.240 sentence of nearly thirteen years for his part in the 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.639 deception and the reason I wanted to highlight therahos in 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.520 this episode is because I think it really shines a 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.040 light on some real issues in tech in general. So 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:10.000 Issue one, companies overhype the capabilities of their technologies just 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.080 par for the course. Here. Some folks refer to this 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:17.560 as marketing. I call it lying. Issue two. Their nose 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.360 really strips bear the dangers of the fake it till 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.200 you make it philosophy that you know, folks will assume 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.320 that if they can imagine it, that it's actually possible, 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.120 and they'll build a business idea or an actual business 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:35.000 around this concept before finding out if it really is 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.840 possible or not, and by then it's too late. So 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.400 you sell yourself on this idea, and then you scramble 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.520 to try and make the idea actually work in the 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.800 real world. It is not a good approach. I mean, 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:50.440 when it works, it's great. It just very rarely works. 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.640 Issue three, and this is relating to the last one. 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.119 It reminds us that while technology is incredible and it 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.960 can let us do stuff that previous generations would have 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:04.520 thought was impossible, technology is not without limitations. It's not 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.920 some sort of magic get out of jail free card 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:12.520 for all situations. Issue for the trappings of the tech 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:17.959 icon identity are really tempting, you know, from wealth or 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.040 influence to the public perception that you're someone who's just 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.960 really innovative and savvy. There's a lot to envy there, 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.679 so you can understand why someone would want to be 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:33.240 in that category. Issue five. Investors can sometimes propel a 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.879 bad idea into the world despite the fact it's a 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.680 bad idea, and that wouldn't be an issue except that 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.280 in the course of things, other people who are innocent 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.800 can end up suffering as a result of this. So 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.240 with the Theradouse case, that included patients who were relying 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:55.040 on what ended up being unreliable medical results. So they 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.120 are like actual people, sick people who were you know, 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:02.119 making use of this supposed tech and there's a chance 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:04.119 that some of the stuff they got back was not 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:08.439 at all reliable, which that's life endangering. That's terrible. So 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:10.960 I think Fraans is going to be a case study 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.639 for many, many years. It's a lesson on what not 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.240 to do and how not to do it, and I 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.360 hope a lot of people take that to heart and they, 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:23.240 you know, they learn from those mistakes. Let's move on 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.200 to twenty seventeen. Holy cow, this is taking forever. It's 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.760 almost as long as living through those years in real time. Anyway, 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:35.400 twenty seventeen, mega venture capital fund company soft Bank invested 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.480 hundreds of millions of dollars into a company that was 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.760 portrayed as if it were a tech company, but it 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.639 really wasn't. In reality, all it was doing was little 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.560 more than subleasing office space to clients, and that company 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:53.200 was we Work. Now, over the following years, soft Bank 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.200 would increase this investment to the point where it's spent 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:01.200 around sixteen billion with a B dollars on work, not 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:04.600 just in investments, but you know, overall. We Work meanwhile, 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.800 would prep itself for an initial public offering or IPO 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:14.320 in twenty nineteen. Unfortunately, that public offering imploded before it 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:18.679 could happen. It was kind of an absurd situation, like 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:23.280 there were corporate documents that just read like new age, 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:29.320 you know, ridiculous meaningless babble. Anyway, we Work did not 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.080 go public, and it then started to go into a 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.840 period of decline and actually went into bankruptcy protection in 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.920 twenty twenty three. And it didn't go away, It didn't 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.680 go out of business. It did go into bankruptcy, but 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.280 it's still around. Some view we work as sort of 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:50.000 a cautionary tale about the startup ecosystem, and as crazy 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.000 as that story is, it's still not the one I 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.920 picked to focus on this episode. Other things that happened 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.320 in twenty seventeen. There were a lot more data breaches 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.680 that year, including equa Fax, which is a credit reporting 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.360 company that was huge like bad bad news. I mean, 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:10.600 you expect an institution like a credit reporting company to 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:15.880 have really strong security measures because that's incredibly sensitive information 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:18.400 that affects millions of people, Like we're all lumped into 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.640 that system here in the United States. You know, everyone's 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.560 got their credit rating and everything, so having that information 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:29.400 get breached very damaging. The Yahoo breach I mentioned earlier 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:34.720 would end up becoming more clear in twenty seventeen. That's 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.119 when we learned that essentially everybody was whoever had a 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:40.800 Yahoo account was affected by it. And it also had 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:45.359 a huge impact on an acquisition because Verizon was buying Yahoo, 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:49.680 and it ended up affecting that acquisition deal by knocking 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.760 off around three hundred and fifty million dollars off Yahoo's 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:57.080 sales price. So yikes. Facebook's mark Zuckerberg was called to 0:22:57.080 --> 0:22:59.760 face questioning from Congress, and not for the last time, 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:04.200 after Facebook had served up political ads that turned out 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.720 to have been paid for by Russian groups, and these 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:10.199 were political ads for the United States, so they were 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:13.320 intended to sway Americans who were voting in the twenty 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.480 sixteen presidential elections, and this started up a conversation in 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:20.600 America about how to protect against foreign interference in American elections, 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:25.159 something that hadn't really taken like the headlines by storm 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:28.520 in previous years, but this time it really was. Fortunately, 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:31.400 we have all of that sorted out today and there's 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:36.440 no more problem. That was me being sarcastic. Cryptocurrency boomed 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:39.560 in twenty seventeen and Ethereum became more of a known 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:44.000 quantity and introduced the possibility of other blockchain based cryptocurrencies 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:47.639 based off the Ethereum blockchain. At this point, Ethereum was 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:51.760 a proof of work cryptocurrency, just like Bitcoin is, but 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:54.320 would later turn to be a proof of stake, but 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:57.280 that would take a few years. Arguably this was really 0:23:57.320 --> 0:23:59.960 when proof of work currencies began, making it very hard 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:03.840 for non crypto customers to get hold of graphics processing 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:08.160 units or GPUs, particularly in the video game space. GPUs 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.639