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Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridge Todd and this

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Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Y'all know.

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Speaker 1: I feel that we don't have enough good media podcasts

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Speaker 1: that are critical of technology and the people will make it.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what it is about the podcast space.

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Speaker 1: I feel like it just encourages a lot of really

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Speaker 1: spawning tech coverage, which I think makes us all less

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Speaker 1: informed and by extension, less safe. That is why I

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Speaker 1: am thrilled about Better Offline, a new podcast from Cool

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Speaker 1: Zone and veteran journalist Ed Zatrone. If you like the

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Speaker 1: kind of conversations that we have on There No Girls

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Speaker 1: on the Internet, I think you'll like it, So check

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Speaker 1: out the first episode and be sure to subscribe.

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Speaker 2: Aol Zone Media.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host. That's it, Tron.

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Speaker 3: I've spent the last fifteen years in tech, both as

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Speaker 3: a rapport and a public relations executive career. I've realized

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Speaker 3: that many see the tech industry as kind of a monolith.

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Speaker 3: It's actually a lot simpler than you'd imagine, and it's

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Speaker 3: my mission with this podcast to got through the buzzwords

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Speaker 3: and nonsense and explain to you how venture capital and

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Speaker 3: big tech are trying to change the future for better

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Speaker 3: or for worse. Today, I'm joined by Robert Evans of

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Speaker 3: cool Zone Media to break down a theory I have

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Speaker 3: that is pretty much core to everything I think about

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Speaker 3: and we'll talk to you about on this podcast.

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Speaker 4: Thank you for having me ed. I love that we're

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Speaker 4: coming on to talk about this because the concept you're

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Speaker 4: about to introduce was like the thing that made me

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Speaker 4: reach out to you about doing this show, or at

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Speaker 4: least one of the major ones. I think everyone has

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Speaker 4: this feeling that like something is fucked up and wrong.

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Speaker 4: We can remember this period of like optimism about technology

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Speaker 4: and the Internet, and not just feeling excited about like

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Speaker 4: new shit that we could buy, but feeling excited about

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Speaker 4: the things that technology was going to bring us, the

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Speaker 4: promise of like the new digital age, and that all

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Speaker 4: fell aside to be replaced by this looming sense of

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Speaker 4: doom so quickly that I don't think a lot of

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Speaker 4: us have a good idea about like why it happened.

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Speaker 3: And you know what, I think that's actually a great

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Speaker 3: place to start with a very simple question, why does

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Speaker 3: it feel like the tech we use every day is

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Speaker 3: getting worse. Look your search results. They're full of sponsored

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Speaker 3: content and articles that don't actually answer any questions, or

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Speaker 3: just a big thread of people asking the same question

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Speaker 3: without ever getting an answer. Your friends aren't popping up

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Speaker 3: on Instagram. You're constantly getting product emails, notifications pop up,

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Speaker 3: spam emails, and people you've maybe spoken to once to

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Speaker 3: buy some do dad. But then you look at the

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Speaker 3: news and seemingly every tech company is making billions of dollars,

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Speaker 3: growing at this alarming, almost unsustainable rate, or while laying

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Speaker 3: off ten of thousands of people a year. And that's

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Speaker 3: because there is a problem at the center of the

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Speaker 3: tech industry, and actually the market's at large. It's a

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Speaker 3: cancerous problem, and it's at the fabric of how capital

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Speaker 3: is deployed in modern business. Public and private investors, along

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Speaker 3: with the markets themselves, have become entirely decoupled from the

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Speaker 3: concept of what good business truly is, focusing on only

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Speaker 3: one goddamn thing, only one noxious, shitty metric growth in

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Speaker 3: the row economy, products are made worse, customers are abused,

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Speaker 3: labor is disposable, and executives are getting richer every single day. Now,

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Speaker 3: growth in this case is not necessarily just about being

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Speaker 3: bigger or better. It's just about more. It's always more.

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Speaker 3: Everything must be generating more money, must be having a

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Speaker 3: higher headcount, even when laying people off. No, the problem

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Speaker 3: here is growth in this case is not necessarily about

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Speaker 3: being bigger or better. It's just about more. It means

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Speaker 3: the companies generating more revenue, high evaluations, and gaining more

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Speaker 3: market share. And then it's looking around and saying, you know,

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Speaker 3: that's just not enough. We must have more. Businesses are

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Speaker 3: expected to be. In fact, they're rewarded for being so

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Speaker 3: eternal engines of capital. They must continue to create more

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Speaker 3: and more shareholder value while hopefully at some point providing

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Speaker 3: a service of some kind to a customer in the

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Speaker 3: public markets. This means that companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft,

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Speaker 3: they're all rewarded for having these unfocused, capital intensive businesses

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Speaker 3: that are also involved laying off tens of thousands of people.

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Speaker 3: Over the last few years, hundreds of thousands of tech

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Speaker 3: workers have been laid off as multiple tech companies have

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Speaker 3: been worth half to three quarters to even a trillion dollars.

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Speaker 3: It's ridiculous.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's I think like one of the really important

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Speaker 4: things to nail in here is that, like, this isn't

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Speaker 4: a question of profitability. The fact that you tip it

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Speaker 4: to growth is so important because like the issue is

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Speaker 4: not that these companies are not profitable, Like profit has

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Speaker 4: nothing to do with these decisions. It's about all I

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Speaker 4: mean Abida does, which is basically like profit over costs

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Speaker 4: and stuff. But it's like it's this this question of

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Speaker 4: like growth, right that if you're not if you're not

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Speaker 4: returning this kind of algorithmically scaling growth, then your company

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Speaker 4: is seen as a failure by a lot of the

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Speaker 4: people who who are responsible for like the financial decisions.

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Speaker 4: And so all of these choices that are kind of

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Speaker 4: choking the Internet out and making the stuff we use

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Speaker 4: every day work less aren't about It's not a question

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Speaker 4: of the company could can't be profitable if we don't

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Speaker 4: do this, it's that we won't have the right number

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Speaker 4: on a sheet to show somebody.

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Speaker 3: And Microsoft is actually a really good example. So Microsoft,

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Speaker 3: of course they bought Activision Blizzard for sixty eight billion dollars. Recently,

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Speaker 3: they then even more recently downsize the gaming division at

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Speaker 3: the cost of about nineteen hundred jobs, and then they

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Speaker 3: became more valuable than Apple in the process. In December,

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Speaker 3: shares of Spotify jump by nearly seven point five percent

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Speaker 3: upon the news that it was slashing seventeen percent of

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Speaker 3: its workforce, adding nearly two point six billion to the

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Speaker 3: company's market cap. And the process. None of these companies,

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Speaker 3: of course, were punished for their poor planning, or their

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Speaker 3: stagnating products, the mismanagement of human capital, or their general

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Speaker 3: lack of any real innovation. And it's because the number

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Speaker 3: kept going up, and that is all that seems to matter.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And I like, when I was a kid kind

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Speaker 4: of questioning why stuff like layoffs happen, you know, where

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Speaker 4: my dad got laid off from his job and tech

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Speaker 4: and stuff, it was always framed to me as like, well,

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Speaker 4: these are you know, companies aren't charities. They have to

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Speaker 4: like do this to turn a profit otherwise they can't

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Speaker 4: afford to operate. And I think it's so crucial that

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Speaker 4: like that is not at all what's happening here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Microsoft had twenty two billion dollars in profit. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: their last arnings. These companies are fine. Google when they

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Speaker 3: did mass layoffs last year and in yes, twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 3: they had like ten billion dollars in profit. These companies

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Speaker 3: are in the green and they're fine. There's no reason

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Speaker 3: to lay off these people other than the fact that

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Speaker 3: they can and they don't need them anymore. Or perhaps

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Speaker 3: they just ran the company in this big, shitty, messy way.

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Speaker 3: And nowhere is that more obvious than with Meta.

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Speaker 4: Oh god.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So back in October of twenty twenty two, I

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Speaker 3: said that Mark Zuckerberg was going to kill Meta. Perhaps

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Speaker 3: I was a little bit early on that one, but

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Speaker 3: I genuinely think that they're on the path to death.

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Speaker 3: So my argument is that their user numbers are declining.

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Speaker 3: They will occasionally have a time when they go up

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Speaker 3: by the percent, perhaps, but then they'll drop. But also,

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Speaker 3: the user experience of Facebook and in Instagram has just

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Speaker 3: become awful. They spend these insane amounts of money, tens

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Speaker 3: of billions of dollars on Meta's Reality division, which is

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Speaker 3: where they stick the horrible VR experiences that everybody hates,

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Speaker 3: and the term metaverse. But what was crazy was Mark

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Speaker 3: Zuckerberg didn't get punished for literally lying about the metaverse.

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Speaker 3: The street did not mind the fact that he very

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Speaker 3: clearly misled everybody in the announcement of Meta, he played

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Speaker 3: a video of a bunch of stuff that no one

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Speaker 3: can do is technologically impossible, shit jumping through things all

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Speaker 3: around you with no headset, completely insane. The stock had

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Speaker 3: a little bit of a wobble, but nothing happened. Yet.

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Speaker 3: Once he fired eleven thousand people and claimed that twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty three would be the Year of Efficiency, the market

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Speaker 3: loved him double digit increases in the price of Meta shares.

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Speaker 3: Nothing happened to Zuckerberg with the next part, though, because

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Speaker 3: he also lost thirteen point seven billion dollars on the metaverse.

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Speaker 3: Thing that has never made the many money.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and for some reference, thirteen point seven billion dollars

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Speaker 4: is about the GDP of Rwanda. Like that, that's how

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Speaker 4: much that's a rwanda worth of losses he's lost to

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Speaker 4: Rwanda in his in his metaverse.

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Speaker 3: Bet it's actually a bit more as well, because recently.

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Speaker 5: It's more than it is more than a rwanda. Yes,

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Speaker 5: it's it's actually multiple. It might even be as many

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Speaker 5: as three rwandas. Because an estima from last year suggested

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Speaker 5: that he's lost nearly forty two billion dollars on the metaverse.

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Speaker 4: Jesus Christ, So yeah, that's that's about that's almost three

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Speaker 4: and a half macedonias.

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Speaker 3: And it doesn't matter to the markets. You'd think a

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Speaker 3: public company that makes his money meta off of social

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Speaker 3: media experiences and selling ads on them, you think the

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Speaker 3: markets would care. The Instagram, one of their largest products,

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Speaker 3: one of their big money makers, an app for sharing

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Speaker 3: and following your friends photos and videos, no longer reliably

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Speaker 3: shows you content from those you follow. That's because Meta

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Speaker 3: must simply interrupt your feed with sponsored content based on

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Speaker 3: and actually impossible to define amount of data. It is

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Speaker 3: not obvious how they choose. There are things that have

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Speaker 3: appeared on my Instagram that I've only ever said out loud.

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Speaker 3: It's very strange. And this is because it doesn't matter

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Speaker 3: if the product sucks, if Meta is growing by double

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Speaker 3: digit percentages, if they're making billions of dollars, even if

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Speaker 3: they're fucking the user and the process. Another great example

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Speaker 3: for you is Google. It doesn't matter that Google's aipower

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Speaker 3: Gmail plugin literally makes up it hallucinates email conversations. But

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Speaker 3: because they put AI on Gmail, Google's market cap goes up.

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Speaker 3: Everyone loves Sanda Pishaei, despite the fact that he gets

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Speaker 3: paid two hundred and eighty million dollars and lays off

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Speaker 3: tens of thousands of people seemingly all the time. And

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Speaker 3: it really doesn't matter. And this is one that really

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Speaker 3: bothers me because I think we're all kind of stuck

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Speaker 3: with Amazon. The Amazon experience is even worse. You go

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Speaker 3: on there and you spoon or Spatula, and there's eighty

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Speaker 3: seven different knockoffs with names that sound like someone had

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Speaker 3: a seizure while typing that skib spatula eleven dollars will

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Speaker 3: deliver in three minutes. But because Amazon is able to

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Speaker 3: show double digit percentages of growth every year, yay, it's fine.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't matter that the product sucks. No, no, no, no.

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Speaker 3: Only a few things really matter when it comes to

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Speaker 3: big tech and their oh outsized valuations, layoffs, growth, and

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Speaker 3: the promise of growth no matter how faint or how speculative.

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Speaker 3: The markets lack any long term thinking, and they lack

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Speaker 3: the analysis that would actually force businesses to become sustainable

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Speaker 3: and make great products. And when I say sustainable, I

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Speaker 3: don't mean anything about the environment. I mean and this

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Speaker 3: is a crazy concept, Robert. This one's going to really

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Speaker 3: blow you away. That they make more money than they

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Speaker 3: spend and don't have to fire people all the time.

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Speaker 4: Wow. Yeah, what a concept in business.

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Speaker 3: If the market's actually care to about sustainable companies that

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Speaker 3: could last the test of time without constantly burning capital

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Speaker 3: and firing people, the markets might not have ignored the

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Speaker 3: fact that Meta got a four hundred and ten million

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Speaker 3: dollar fine from the EU under the General Data Protection Regulation,

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Speaker 3: which is the laws that govern data use and customer

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Speaker 3: data in Europe. And they also would have probably noticed

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Speaker 3: the fact that European users now have to deliberately opt

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Speaker 3: in to share their data. Now, as a little aside,

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Speaker 3: Facebook makes their money off of using cookies and various

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Speaker 3: other means of getting your data and then presenting you

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Speaker 3: with ads based on that. Some of it comes from

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Speaker 3: how you use the platform, but a lot of it

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Speaker 3: comes from this very insidious hidden tracking. What's happened here

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Speaker 3: is that European users will no longer have that by default.

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Speaker 3: They will have to choose whether to help Mark Zuckerberg

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Speaker 3: by another fifth of Hawaii.

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Speaker 4: Maui, just maui.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry, terribly sorry. I wouldn't want to hurt

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Speaker 3: mister Zuckerberg. But what's really bad about this is statistically

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Speaker 3: users do not like opting into these things. Only about

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Speaker 3: twenty five percent of iOS users have chosen to opt

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Speaker 3: in to app tracking, which was a feature that was

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Speaker 3: actually added a few versions of iOS ago to your iPhone,

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Speaker 3: your iPad and so on and so forth. And by

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Speaker 3: the way, this means that basically every app is kind

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Speaker 3: of on notice if it's an Apple device. Now users

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Speaker 3: know when they might be sharing their data, and it's

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Speaker 3: genuinely a threat to a lot of the tech ecosystem

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Speaker 3: that a lot of people don't know. In fact, Meta's

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Speaker 3: business model is intrinsically linked to the repurposing of customer

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Speaker 3: data into a targeting but the markets don't seem to care.

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Speaker 3: And I get it. It might seem unthinkable that mister

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Speaker 3: Zuckerberg's fancy party could come to an end, but we

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Speaker 3: really need to be clear about something. Meta's core advertising

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Speaker 3: models depend heavily on things that in the next decade

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Speaker 3: will likely become impossible to do legally. They might not

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Speaker 3: even be possible technically because now Apple is adding apptracting transparency,

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Speaker 3: which have kind of mentioned with the iOS update, and

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Speaker 3: this means that people are first of all aware of

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Speaker 3: when their date is being shared and they're probably going

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Speaker 3: to tell them to pound sand. There are other different

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Speaker 3: changes that are happening as well, alphabet which Google of

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Speaker 3: course they're going to be retiring third party tracking cookies.

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Speaker 3: Meta is kind of at a point where if anyone

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Speaker 3: was paying attention, they'd be a little bit more worried.

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Speaker 3: And that existential threat is why Mark Zuckerberg is so

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Speaker 3: desperate to distract you with dreams of the metaverse. It's

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Speaker 3: so desperate to make you think that meta will be

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Speaker 3: the thing that builds the artificial general intelligence, which is

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Speaker 3: just the buzzword for an AI that can have kind

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Speaker 3: of human level intellect, despite the fact that most generative

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Speaker 3: AI right now just makes shit up and when you

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Speaker 3: really look at it. And this is what confuses me

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Speaker 3: about how much this company's worth. Hundreds of billions of dollars.

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Speaker 3: Their other products don't make that much money. And Zuckerbug's

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Speaker 3: last big idea, the one that he changed his goddamn

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Speaker 3: company name for, lost them billions of dollars forty two billion,

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Speaker 3: probably be sixty billion next year.

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Speaker 4: God.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the street loves six.

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Speaker 4: Or seven Macedonias.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, multiple Macedonias there. Since I published my original thoughts,

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Speaker 3: on the row economy, their share process is more than doubled.

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Speaker 3: It was one hundred and seventy seven dollars then and

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Speaker 3: it's now four hundred dollars right now. It's despicable.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the thing you have to understand when

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Speaker 4: you look at like, how can a company be burning

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Speaker 4: money at this rate and their stock price increase as

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Speaker 4: much as Facebook has or Metas has. I guess we

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Speaker 4: have to call it. I don't. I still don't like

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Speaker 4: calling it that. I feel like that's giving him a win.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's not fair.

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Speaker 4: It's not fair. But I think part of what you

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Speaker 4: have to understand is that like the people buying the stock,

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Speaker 4: like their vested financial interest is in it, continuing to like,

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Speaker 4: this is not all that different from what was happening

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Speaker 4: with n FTS right in that like there is this

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Speaker 4: there is very much a group of people with a

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Speaker 4: vested interest in that stock price raising well above what

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Speaker 4: could actually be justified by the performance of the business,

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Speaker 4: and the people who are making a fortune on that

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Speaker 4: right now, understand that it is a limited timeframe that

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Speaker 4: this game will work in. I don't know that Mark

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Speaker 4: fully does. He may he's he may be to some

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Speaker 4: extent a little deranged himself at this point. But I

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Speaker 4: think there are a lot of people who absolutely do

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Speaker 4: understand and are heavily invested in Facebook now, trying to

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Speaker 4: get as much of that as they can while it lasts,

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Speaker 4: but they understand that it's not going to last forever.

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Speaker 3: And I think there is a big fall of Rome

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Speaker 3: style story coming for tech, and I think the rot

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Speaker 3: economy is behind it because so much of tech has

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Speaker 3: become engineered to growth at all costs. It's a phenomenon

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Speaker 3: that controls everything. And I think the place where it

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Speaker 3: hits the most people because you know, Instagram's annoying, Facebook's annoying,

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Speaker 3: but you can kind of get around it. But I

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Speaker 3: think the place that hits home the most is Google. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: so the thing that everyone knows Google for is of

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Speaker 3: course Google Search. Used to be a place where crazy

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Speaker 3: idea you go and you type in a thing, tip

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Speaker 3: tap tap search, and then a bunch of results come

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Speaker 3: up that are actually useful. Now it's a labyrinth full

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Speaker 3: of optimized garbage. Search engine optimization is an important thing

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Speaker 3: to remember here, which is companies have worked out how

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Speaker 3: to trick Google into making you see their link rather

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Speaker 3: than Google finding a useful thing. This is partially ruined

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Speaker 3: Google Search. But the other problem is adds sponsored content

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Speaker 3: and of course artificial intelligence crap. So Charlie Wazel over

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Speaker 3: The Atlantic, he argued a couple of years back, he said,

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Speaker 3: Google Search, what many consider an indispensable tool of modern life,

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Speaker 3: is dead or dying. And I agree. Users have to

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Speaker 3: effectively find a way to cheat and con Google into

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Speaker 3: giving them what they want. They add things like, I

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Speaker 3: don't know you put PC repair error. Put the error

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Speaker 3: in plus read it to get anything approaching a reliable answer.

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Speaker 3: If you go and type a regular tech problem in

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Speaker 3: as I mentioned earlier, you just get a lot of shit.

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Speaker 3: You just get a bunch of things that it will

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Speaker 3: seem right. You'll say, oh, this is how to fix

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Speaker 3: Era forty two on my iPhone. Cool, and then you

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Speaker 3: click through and there's not actually really much useful content.

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Speaker 3: It's have you tried resetting your iPhone? Is your iPhone broken?

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Speaker 3: Is something wrong? Have you tried restarting your iPhone? Useless? Garb.

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Speaker 3: But nevertheless, pushing traffic towards media outlet's the kind of cretinous.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's like, I think it's important both as

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Speaker 4: you noted, a lot of the fucking worst shit in

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Speaker 4: tech can be strangled by stuff like what the EU

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Speaker 4: has done to force the companies to not allow you

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Speaker 4: to be opted in on stuff that's directly against your interests.

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Speaker 4: And likewise, if that were to be, if that were

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Speaker 4: the kind of thing that we could like make more

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Speaker 4: moves like that in the United States. You're not just

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Speaker 4: strangling the worst parts of big tech with that, You're

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Speaker 4: strangling a lot of really predatory, toxic media with that.

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Speaker 4: That all of their money comes from that kind of

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Speaker 4: shit one way or the other. That like, they are

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Speaker 4: an integral part of this and can be harmed by

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Speaker 4: like doing damage to this fundamentally dishonest way of doing business.

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Speaker 3: And Google spends decades, they claim, trying to improve the

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Speaker 3: quality of organic results, but it's over a decade has

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Speaker 3: been easily gained anyone who knows how to create an

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Speaker 3: algorithmic headline, a headline that will make the Google spider

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Speaker 3: that looks over all the websites say this is the thing,

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Speaker 3: this is the answer. I personally don't know whether Google

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Speaker 3: does this deliberately or whether they've simply lost track of everything,

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Speaker 3: whether the evil parties are winning, but you mention media

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Speaker 3: companies and these predatory ones. The problem is it's not

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Speaker 3: just predatory ones. A large chunk of modern media is

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Speaker 3: obsessed with affiliate marketing, which is you'll see these things,

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Speaker 3: which is like best apps for blah blah, and those

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Speaker 3: will be affiliate links, yeah, which give them a little

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Speaker 3: bit of little bit of money, or best super Bowl

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Speaker 3: deals again, a little bit of cash, little bit of

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Speaker 3: money every time you buy something through it. And it's

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Speaker 3: turned a large chunk of the web, but especially Google Search,

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Speaker 3: into this complete slot, and without finding a way to

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Speaker 3: negotiate with it, you're offered this kind of fragmented buffet

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Speaker 3: of content based on what Google kind of thinks you

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Speaker 3: want to see, but it's more based on how much

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Speaker 3: money Google is paid and how often Google has been trigged.

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Speaker 3: Let's be honest, and I think it's fair to argue

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Speaker 3: that Google no longer provides the best results to any query.

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Speaker 3: It provides an answer that it believes is most beneficial

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Speaker 3: or profitable, which can sometimes be the thing you want,

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Speaker 3: isn't always.

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Speaker 4: I think one of the problems is that I don't

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Speaker 4: know of a search engine that I would say is

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Speaker 4: better than Google. In the way that Google used to

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Speaker 4: be better than anything else. Right, and I'm talking ten

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Speaker 4: years ago. I do know there are search engines and

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Speaker 4: options that are better than Google at certain things. I've

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Speaker 4: come to learn that, like, if I use Perplexity AI,

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Speaker 4: it'll be worse than Google at a bunch of stuff,

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Speaker 4: but there are a few specific things it's better at,

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Speaker 4: and like that has increasingly become how I use search, right,

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Speaker 4: is that I cycle through different options with the same

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Speaker 4: question to try to figure out, like, well, who's going

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Speaker 4: to fuck me least on trying to get this information?

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Speaker 3: And it sucks as well, because sure we all know

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Speaker 3: that any free service online isn't free. There is some

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Speaker 3: way they're making money, and that's fine, you've got a service,

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00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:17,159
Speaker 3: cost money, whatever, But at some point how much profit

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00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 3: is too much? And also how can you justify this

394
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Speaker 3: much profit while making things so much worse? And I

395
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:28,320
Speaker 3: mean the result is that it just sucks. It sucks.

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Speaker 3: Googling sucks now, It's an exercise in pain. It leads

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Speaker 3: you to a bunch of content that is so obviously

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Speaker 3: engineered to get your clicks rather than actually provide any service.

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Speaker 3: That the web is slower, this makes the Internet slower.

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Speaker 3: It makes the flow of information between people and countries worse.

401
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 3: And what's worse is Google loves this monopoly and they

402
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:58,919
Speaker 3: pay a pretty penny to keep it. They pay Apple

403
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:02,520
Speaker 3: eighteen bills billion dollars a year, and this came out

404
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 3: in a recent US versus Google antitrust case. Eighteen billion

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00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 3: dollars a year to be on your iPhone, to be

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Speaker 3: on Apple devices. It's not because they're better. It's not

407
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:19,000
Speaker 3: because Apple even thinks that they couldn't do better. This

408
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 3: is specifically to stop Apple trying and to make your

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Speaker 3: lives worse so that Google can make their search worse,

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Speaker 3: to make more money and give some Darpashi two hundred

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Speaker 3: and eighty million dollars. And it's depressing. It's something that

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Speaker 3: makes me I have to fight the cynicism every time

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00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 3: I use Google. This is a problem that hits billions

414
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 3: of people. This is a real thing. And this isn't

415
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 3: an attack on any journalistic outlet. But where the fuck

416
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 3: is the horror here? This is a horrifying thing. This

417
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 3: would be like if certain freeways just randomly led you

418
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 3: to a different place because someone paid the dotam.

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Speaker 4: It would be like if we had a I don't

420
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 4: want to oversell this, but like what we're talking about

421
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,160
Speaker 4: is there was a brief period that for the first

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00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 4: time in human existence, all knowledge ever collected and earned

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00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 4: by human beings was easily accessible to the vast majority

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Speaker 4: of people if they had an Internet connection, and that

425
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,239
Speaker 4: is becoming no longer the case with rapidity and it

426
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 4: is it is a problem that kin to like if

427
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:31,119
Speaker 4: we had a cure for cancer and then we decided

428
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 4: to start like breaking it if you didn't buy like

429
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 4: the pancreatic cancer bonus pack like like it is, it

430
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 4: is that big a problem, Like when you think about,

431
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 4: like what it means for all human knowledge to be

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Speaker 4: accessible and then to throw that away so that Sundar

433
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 4: Pachai I can get two hundred and eighty million dollars

434
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 4: a year. It is an obscenity.

435
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 3: And then you have the level of from that as

436
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:55,959
Speaker 3: well as think about it from those of us who

437
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 3: spend I don't know, twenty two of twenty four hours

438
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 3: a day online and we're aware of what SEO content

439
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 3: looks like search engine optimization. There content that is built

440
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 3: just to rank highly on Google, to send money to

441
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:10,439
Speaker 3: an out there and traffic to an out there. We

442
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 3: know what that looks like. We know when we are

443
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:15,919
Speaker 3: being misled. We know when the flow of our information

444
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 3: is being interfered with. I don't argue that most people do,

445
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 3: and this isn't their fault. This is a nuanced topic,

446
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 3: but this is horrifying. Google has, like every major tech company,

447
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 3: focused entirely on what will make revenues and market share increase,

448
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 3: even if the cost of doing so is just destroying

449
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 3: its entire legacy and interrupting the free flow of information

450
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 3: around the world. Last year, they launched their own Barred

451
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 3: AI to compete with being Microsoft Search Engine and their

452
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 3: Chat GPT integration. By the way, Chat GPT, all these

453
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 3: generative AI things, Yeah, they make stuff up. They hallucinate it.

454
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no, they hallucinate more than I do. And

455
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 4: I did have permanent damage to my brain by experimenting

456
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 4: with Sulgarann Kimmel.

457
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 3: And what was crazy was bing AI came out and

458
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 3: immediately started hallotinating things. BARDII. Google did a media day

459
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 3: and they showed a demo of BARTII and you thought,

460
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 3: for a second, oh shit, this might replace search engines.

461
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 3: This might be a moment where they sell us back

462
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 3: an experience we had before and then literally in the

463
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 3: demo it made a factual error. Yeah, Google attempted to

464
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 3: sell us back search engine results and then provided us

465
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 3: just another broken Google kind of like JADGBT is just

466
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 3: a broken form of knowledge.

467
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 4: Well, and didn't they also or was that Microsoft that

468
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 4: absolutely like lied in the demo and like it pretended

469
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 4: that they were showing live results when it was really

470
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 4: something they'd curated.

471
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 3: I'm not sure which one it was, but seemingly every

472
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 3: company does some sort of con like this. It sucks

473
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 3: and it just it doesn't help anyone. And you'd think,

474
00:26:57,280 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 3: and we're describing what is a big shitty mess, we're

475
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:04,120
Speaker 3: described being something that afacts billions of people, that was decayed,

476
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 3: a very important product. You think the markets would respond negatively,

477
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 3: and you would be wrong. There was a couple percentage

478
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 3: points that got shaved off Google when they had that

479
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 3: initial wobble with barred AI, and then it went right

480
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 3: back up. The markets. They bloody love that Microsoft is

481
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 3: invested in chat GPT. They love the open AI is

482
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 3: partially being meddled with by Microsoft, despite the fact that

483
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 3: that company does not make any profit. And that's because

484
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:37,639
Speaker 3: the markets do not prioritize innovation. They don't prioritize sustainable growth,

485
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 3: companies that can last on their own without screwing over customers.

486
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 3: They don't care about stability. The result is that companies

487
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 3: don't function with the intent of making good businesses anymore.

488
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,360
Speaker 3: They want businesses that kind of seem right there, kind

489
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:57,359
Speaker 3: of feel good, and they sell a product and they

490
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 3: make money. But I don't really care about anything else

491
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 3: as long as it keeps growing exponentially ten eleven, fifteen

492
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:19,159
Speaker 3: to twenty percent every quarter. It's disgraceful, sadly, the rock

493
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 3: economy and its growth at all costs. Fuck. The customer

494
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 3: mentality isn't limited to big tech startups, so private companies

495
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 3: that are invested in by venture capital firms private equity firms.

496
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 3: They're regularly pumped full of venture capital dollars enticing users

497
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 3: with a subsidized product, meaning that they basically sell something

498
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 3: a massive loss to pump up their user numbers. That

499
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 3: gradually becomes worse and worse and more expensive over time

500
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 3: as they attempt to reach some sort of vague stability.

501
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 4: I think really crucially too, like they pump up the

502
00:28:55,560 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 4: price after they've killed everyone who provided maybe a better product,

503
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 4: but yeah, charged more money for it, Like it's the

504
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 4: uber effect, right.

505
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 3: Oh, and I will get to uber because a big

506
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 3: part of this, and it's what Corey doctor O calls

507
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 3: in shitification, which is a painful neologism that actually pretty

508
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 3: accurate in describing the startup ecosystem. A big part of

509
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 3: that is they get pumped full of these venture dollars

510
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 3: and they become these horrifying companies that are not good companies.

511
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 3: They burn capital, they barely make anything, but they destroy

512
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 3: businesses that say run based on offering a product that

513
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 3: users paid for that is priced higher than the cost

514
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:38,959
Speaker 3: of the product, making the company something known as profit.

515
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that's I think that's so im important,

516
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 4: especially for like the younger people who maybe you never

517
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 4: fell for it. I did for a little while in

518
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 4: the early two thousands fall for some of Google shtick. Yeah,

519
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 4: because the thing that they delivered for a while was miraculous,

520
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 4: like great using Google before it exists, like when it

521
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 4: like when it first came out, Like the degree to

522
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 4: which it was superior to any other way to access

523
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 4: knowledge that it ever existed was wild, and like you

524
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 4: wanted to believe maybe these people are not a bunch

525
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 4: of fucking demons.

526
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 3: And it was don't be evil that used to be

527
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 3: that tagline hit anymore, No zop, how don't you go?

528
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 3: Now it's don't comma be evil with an exclamation.

529
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 4: They did a lot of lots of me and I

530
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 4: don't know that's it's a it's a foolmy once sort

531
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 4: of situation. I'll never I'll never love again.

532
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is enough. And seeing Google decay, by the way,

533
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 3: really has That's what's jokified me. That's what's driven me

534
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 3: a little insane. But then when you look up the

535
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 3: startup side and you now that you when you're aware

536
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 3: of the rots economy and you're aware of in shitification,

537
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 3: you can kind of watch it in real time, and

538
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 3: it drives you a little crazier still because there is

539
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 3: a very abusive cycle here. Companies are born, they're funded,

540
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 3: and they're grown in this unnatural way where they're subsidized

541
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 3: on It's funny a lot of these right leaning venture

542
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 3: catalysts they hate welfare, but they love putting startups on it.

543
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 3: Because venture capital exists in many ways at times in

544
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 3: the tech industry to keep companies alive that should be

545
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 3: left to die, and they would have that same attitude

546
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 3: to a regular person who could not meet their bills

547
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 3: through unsustainable spending or even sustainable spending. Nevertheless, they're fucking hypogrittes.

548
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 3: But the problem is with these companies as well, is

549
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 3: their services. Because they are not sustainable, eventually have to

550
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 3: become worse. They grow the dependence of the market, they

551
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 3: kill everything else in the market, and then they make

552
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 3: them worse in shitifying them Again, Corey, love your buddy,

553
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 3: but no terrible term, great idea.

554
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 4: I like, yeah, I think we could all agree. He's

555
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 4: got the idea, right. It is really hard to get,

556
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 4: like your mom to buy into using that term.

557
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit epic bacon for my taste. Look,

558
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 3: if these stars were held to real standards, crazy ideas

559
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 3: that a business should make more money that it spans

560
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 3: and be able to survive independent of investor capital, there

561
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 3: are a lot of startups that would just die. In fact,

562
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 3: that's kind of happened in twenty twenty three. There was

563
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 3: a phenomenon known as the zero interest free period, when

564
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 3: it was just easy for venture capitalists to get a

565
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 3: bunch of money at low interest or zero percent interests

566
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 3: that went away into late twenty twenty two early twenty

567
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 3: twenty three. As a result, venture capitals suddenly realized, ah,

568
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 3: are we just spending money on bullshit? So they killed

569
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 3: the startups. They just pulled the plug. They didn't send

570
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 3: them any more money. There were no more venture rounds,

571
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 3: and real companies, good companies died because no one got investment.

572
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 3: And it's sad, but don't worry. I'm major a promise

573
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 3: and I'm keeping to it. We've got to talk about Uber.

574
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 3: Uber is the ultimate rottic economy startup.

575
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was like that. It was the thing where,

576
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 4: you know, unlike with Google, there was no like trade off, right, Like,

577
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 4: nothing was getting harmed with Uber. You always knew the

578
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 4: company was evil, but also it was so much easier

579
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 4: to get a fucking ride when you were like hammered,

580
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 4: right Like, it did make a problem go away for

581
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 4: a lot of.

582
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 3: People, and at first it wasn't. When Uber launched in

583
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 3: twenty eleven, it was mostly with like town cars, black

584
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 3: cab services. So when we'd call them back home, I

585
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 3: guess you'll just live. I don't know there's an American term,

586
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 3: I'm sure, But nevertheless, you were getting these Lincoln town

587
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 3: cars and you were able to call them and it

588
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 3: was kind of magical and you were like, oh, wow,

589
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 3: we could do this. Eventually, they'd launch uber x. Anyone

590
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 3: can pick up a phone and start driving their car

591
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 3: for money with Uber. The press at the time, because

592
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 3: everyone was kind of still thinking that tech was the

593
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 3: good guys, kind of let it go by that these

594
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 3: people were paid below minimum wage, they had questionable insurance policies,

595
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 3: and absolutely goddamn profit. They were screwing the drivers while

596
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 3: also not actually building a sustainable company. Very confusing to me.

597
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 3: Uber only became profitable last year. They had a three

598
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty six million dollar operating profit in August

599
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three. To get there, it had to burn

600
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 3: thirty two billion dollars.

601
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 4: Hey, you gotta spend money to make money.

602
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, what an incredible return. Just but for the sake

603
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 3: of clarity, it's also worth noting that Uber had previously

604
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 3: reported profitable quarters, but they didn't come from actually providing

605
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 3: rides or delivering food or any kind of business. They

606
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 3: were just selling stuff they'd bore. It's just Uber frustrates me.

607
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 3: Their business model is just incredibly precarious and relies exceedingly

608
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:51,399
Speaker 3: heavily on governments failing to impose labor laws, so much

609
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:54,240
Speaker 3: of their existence is predicated on being able to screw

610
00:34:54,600 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 3: general contractors. Its continued existence would not have happened without

611
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:06,320
Speaker 3: local authorities. Without local authorities seeding ground to these companies

612
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 3: because at the time they were like, yeah, taxis kind

613
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 3: of suck. Taxis are bad, sure, And of course Uber

614
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 3: needed a bunch of money, with the largest amount of

615
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 3: that coming from the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund three point

616
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:20,320
Speaker 3: five billion dollars.

617
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 4: Uh huh.

618
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 3: And also Uber just burns capital. They burned billions of dollars,

619
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 3: and their share price is doubled in the last year

620
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 3: and now has a larger market cap than Ford and

621
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 3: Stilantis combined. The markets are on crack.

622
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 4: It's it's so fucking frustrating. It's like if it's like

623
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 4: if there were a network of guys running those shell

624
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,359
Speaker 4: games where you put like a dollar and wear three cups, right,

625
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:49,320
Speaker 4: and some VC guys were like, hey, just give someone

626
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 4: money every time they pick a cup, no matter what

627
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 4: cup it is, and then we'll also buy up all

628
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 4: of the ATMs and shut them down. So this is

629
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 4: the only way to get cash. Right like that that's

630
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 4: almost the way that it works, right Like it is

631
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 4: replacing something that, like cabs needed to be. I hate

632
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:11,320
Speaker 4: to say this disrupted, right like it was a business

633
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 4: that existed. The system is not working exactly exactly. There

634
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 4: needed to be a way for you to like get

635
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 4: one wherever you happen to be or whatever, and do

636
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 4: it through your phone and not have to like fucking

637
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 4: call a cab company. Like there there was a degree

638
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 4: to which innovation needed to happen. But one of the

639
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 4: side effects that I mean, in addition to the stuff

640
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,320
Speaker 4: you've brought up, is that, like it's so much less safe.

641
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 4: You have no way of knowing if your driver is

642
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,239
Speaker 4: either qualifying or going to like sexually assault you, like,

643
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 4: which is the thing that happens a lot.

644
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 3: I had an Uber driver last year when my parents

645
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 3: were here in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada, who was very

646
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 3: clearly drunk and just mumbling swear words the entire time.

647
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 3: I reported to Uber and I'm like, yeah, that sucks.

648
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 3: I will make sure you're not paid with him again. Thanks.

649
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 3: I hope he doesn't crash his car.

650
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, cool.

651
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 3: And the thing is the punishment should come from the

652
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 3: markets it really should the markets. If the free markets

653
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 3: actually functioned in the way that guys with Grecian statue

654
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 3: avatars claimed it did on Twitter, then the market would

655
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 3: deal with this. But it doesn't. But there is actually

656
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 3: another culprit, and that's the media. They kind of fuel

657
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,880
Speaker 3: the growth mongering. C the NBC, for example. I generally

658
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 3: like CNBC, but the way they report earnings and many

659
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 3: people do. Lots of different media companies do this. They

660
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 3: don't acknowledge the fact that Uber just burns money, that

661
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 3: they spent fifteen goddamn years burning money, that they have

662
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 3: an unsustainable business, that Travis Kalanick, who's long since departed,

663
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 3: obviously was running a very mob esque thing where he'd

664
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 3: sidle in with Bradley Goddamn Tusk, a form of lobbyist

665
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 3: pr creature that he found in More Door, and just

666
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:55,720
Speaker 3: bullying local markets until they agreed. He would just launch

667
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 3: Uber places and be like, what you're going to do

668
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 3: about it, and then the local box would say, uh, yeah,

669
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 3: we're gonna we're gonna do something, and then nothing would

670
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 3: happen and would be made legal and local. And just

671
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 3: to be clear, if you don't know this about your

672
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 3: Uber driver, every time you take Uber and you think, oh,

673
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 3: I've paid twenty bucks for that, the driver gets like

674
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 3: less than half I believe, Oh yeah, get they get

675
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 3: screwed and they don't have insurance in many cases, or

676
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 3: they're not insured. And this is a very technical thing,

677
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 3: but this is important to know. When your Uber driver

678
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,839
Speaker 3: has you in the car, oftentimes they're insured. When they

679
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:31,240
Speaker 3: don't when they're just driving around, they oftentimes need different

680
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 3: insurance because they're not running a business while they're driving around.

681
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 3: These are the kind of things that happen when you

682
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 3: don't have strong labor laws, when you don't have the

683
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 3: government protecting workers. It's just it's frustrating, and like I

684
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 3: can understand whether the media probably doesn't want to cover this,

685
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 3: because otherwise the markets would be varying levels of Yeah,

686
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 3: this company sucks, this one sucks. Also, this one's bad. Uber.

687
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 3: They really just don't make enough money to really make sense.

688
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,840
Speaker 3: And if they had I don't know, ten to twenty

689
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,760
Speaker 3: percent drop in writing, I mean, they probably fall apart.

690
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:10,439
Speaker 3: They don't want to say that, so they just want

691
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 3: to just look at it. They just want to go, Okay,

692
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 3: here's what's happening today. Uber also really cannot be killed now.

693
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 3: And that's a horrifying future we live in and a

694
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:24,320
Speaker 3: horrifying present, I guess. And because people keep buying the stock,

695
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 3: it's a valuable company, and it's valuable in the eyes

696
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 3: of markets that seemingly have cataracts. And look, the raw

697
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 3: economy is why you see these oscillations of hiring and firing.

698
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 3: It's why you see Google or Microsoft making billions tens

699
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,439
Speaker 3: of billions of dollars each quarter, then fire in ten,

700
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:47,359
Speaker 3: fifteen thousand people while the executives get rich. It's because

701
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 3: these companies are never actually punished for failing to operate

702
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 3: their business is in a sustainable way. There is no

703
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 3: punishment for them. There's not really a punishment for them

704
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 3: missing something. There's not no CEO seems to be fired for, say,

705
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 3: over hiring by tens of thousands of people. That's fine,

706
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 3: you know what, Easy come, easy go. Not for the

707
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 3: people who got laid off, though, And when it comes

708
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 3: to the startup industry, when it comes to startups in general,

709
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 3: the rot economy is probably a much bigger deal than

710
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:25,280
Speaker 3: you realize. Because startups got used to getting venture capital

711
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 3: whenever they needed it. Businesses like Uber were predicated on

712
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,439
Speaker 3: an endless supply of cheap money, even though the FED

713
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 3: steadily ratcheted up interest rates in the years leading up

714
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 3: to the COVID pandemic, only slashing them to mitigate the

715
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:39,879
Speaker 3: pain of COVID and, to a lesser extent, the US

716
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 3: China trade war. They were trying to incentivize investment. They

717
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:46,279
Speaker 3: were trying to incentivize putting money into companies that allegedly

718
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 3: would create jobs. But once the specter of inflation reared

719
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:54,920
Speaker 3: its head, well, things got kind of nasty. And then

720
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 3: there was the war in Ukraine. It's the collateral damage

721
00:40:57,880 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 3: of China zero COVID policy, the labor shortage. Things started

722
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,720
Speaker 3: to unravel and now there isn't really any free money

723
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 3: to go around. We're in an illogical point in economic history.

724
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:13,399
Speaker 3: And it's scary to me. It's scary when I look

725
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 3: at how many companies that just should not exist, and

726
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,120
Speaker 3: it scares me. It scares me that the markets don't

727
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 3: react when they see like mass hiring of people to

728
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 3: capture consumer demand. They don't think, ah, what if consumer

729
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 3: demand goes down? They just don't think in that way.

730
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,839
Speaker 3: They don't react when Microsoft, just an example, lays off

731
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 3: people almost every year and then makes billions of dollars,

732
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 3: makes giant acquisitions that don't even make sense.

733
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's this enshraining of instability as a sign of virtue,

734
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 4: and like, yeah, like that is that is really dangerous

735
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 4: because like the more instability you accept and the more

736
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 4: you like reward the people running these companies for creating

737
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 4: situations that make the lives of their employees unstable and

738
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 4: our economy unstable, Like, the more you incentivize that, and eventually,

739
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 4: like it's going to oscillate too much for balance to

740
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 4: be regained, you know.

741
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:15,959
Speaker 3: And I fear that, Yeah, and I fear the fact

742
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 3: that the market also has no memory. In twenty twenty,

743
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 3: sach An Adella, CEO of Microsoft, he called for a

744
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 3: and I'm serious here I referendum on capitalism, telling businesses

745
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 3: to start grading themselves on the wider economic benefits that

746
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:33,919
Speaker 3: they bring to society rather than profits. To be clear,

747
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 3: this was four months after Microsoft laid off one thousand

748
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 3: people and one year before they hired twenty three thousand people,

749
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 3: and then in early twenty twenty three, they laid off

750
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 3: a further ten thousand people to and I quote deliver

751
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,839
Speaker 3: results on an ongoing basis while investing in their long

752
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 3: term opportunity. And these savage job cuts have continued into

753
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four as well. As I mentioned, they laid

754
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 3: off nineteen hundred people from Activision Blizzard and their expoctvis

755
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 3: as well, and that's like eight percent of the overall

756
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 3: Microsoft gaming team. To be clear, Bobby Kotik, the horrible

757
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 3: pervert freak who used to run Activision Blizzard, he got

758
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 3: a several hundred million dollar payoff while all of these

759
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 3: people got fired. And then a week after laying off

760
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 3: these people, Microsoft would report solid second quarter earnings. They

761
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:23,720
Speaker 3: beat expectations in both revenue and profit, and they became

762
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 3: the most valuable company in the world. And the process

763
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 3: human capital used as food and fuel for the rich.

764
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 3: And I hate to get that kind of alarmist, preachery feeling,

765
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 3: but that is what is happening, and it's something that

766
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 3: people need to realize and look at and scream at

767
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 3: because it's disgraceful. Real people with real problems lose their

768
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 3: jobs and I know tech workers get paid or whatever.

769
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 3: There's still people with mortgages, with rent, with families with children.

770
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 3: Sachi Nadella has billions of dollars. He's fined. Bobby Kotik,

771
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 3: who was a reprehensible guy oversaw a period of multiple

772
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:10,879
Speaker 3: alleged sexual harassment things over at Activision, paid off unfathomably rich.

773
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 3: Why did that asshole get money, Well, all these people

774
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 3: got laid off. It's because the street doesn't care. It's

775
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 3: because the street doesn't see that as a problem. They

776
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 3: don't see moral problems or even logical problems like huh,

777
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 3: we could have saved a bunch of money. No, they

778
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 3: want to reward the people that buy into their wretched,

779
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:34,840
Speaker 3: rotten system. It's a scummy way of running a business

780
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 3: that society in the market seem to deeply appreciate, and

781
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 3: it's actually killing innovation. It rewards bad ideas that make

782
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:47,719
Speaker 3: lots of money. It rewards shitty businesses that fail their

783
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 3: customers but make tons of money. And it rewards abusing

784
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 3: customers in a way that I find wretched.

785
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is. It is disgusting the degree to which

786
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 4: the wealth of the billionaire class, and I guess, even

787
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 4: to be even more specific, the CEO class hinges upon

788
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 4: the regular human sacrifice like that is what they're doing,

789
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 4: Like part of why they hire people is so that

790
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 4: you can do these big layoffs when you need to

791
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 4: do them in order to increase stock value enough to

792
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 4: hit whatever your bonus target for that year or that

793
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,839
Speaker 4: quarter is. Like it is very much. It is very

794
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 4: much just human sacrifice so that they can get an

795
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 4: extra however many million dollars a year that fucking bonus

796
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 4: provision in their contract give them.

797
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 3: What's crazy is there are guys like Marc Benioff who

798
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 3: runs Salesforce again, another company that burns billions to make millions.

799
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 3: That guy has laid off ten thousands of people, all

800
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 3: while getting these glossy cover stories that talk about his

801
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 3: Ohanna philosophy where everybody's important up until the point that

802
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 3: they're not. And also, listeners, if you want to email

803
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 3: me easy at better offline dot com. Do you who

804
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,359
Speaker 3: know what Salesforce does? Because I know multiple people who

805
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 3: pay for it who don't.

806
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 4: They have their big tower with a shitty screen on

807
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 4: top of it.

808
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a way for Mark Benioff to make

809
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,720
Speaker 3: a bunch of money, and that does not flow down

810
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 3: laying off tens of thousands of people. It's just it's disgraceful,

811
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 3: but you know what it does begin somewhere, and I've

812
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 3: kind of hinted that this with Uber, but it's important

813
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 3: to realize how much of this comes from this much

814
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 3: more reckless, ugly, and violent form of funding. I'm talking,

815
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 3: of course, about venture capital. Venture capitalists are sometimes firms

816
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 3: who get money from something called a limited partner, so

817
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 3: they get a pool of money that they invest in startups,

818
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:46,280
Speaker 3: using their alleged smarts to pick the winners of the future.

819
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 3: And then when they put that money into these companies,

820
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 3: they hope that this company will either go public much

821
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 3: like Uber did and Facebook did, or be sold to

822
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 3: another company. And when you look at many of the

823
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 3: problems that you find in the tech industry, when you

824
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,359
Speaker 3: search for something, you think you've said the right thing

825
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 3: and just eleven lines of nonsense pop up, or you

826
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 3: go to look at your grandmother's pictures on Facebook, but

827
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 3: someone tries to sell you a fitness supplement. This is

828
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 3: what's happening. The rot economy is working against you. The

829
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 3: CEOs of the companies of the products you're using, they

830
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:22,880
Speaker 3: don't care. They care as much as they need to

831
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 3: monetize you, but deep down they're going to choose themselves

832
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 3: and their shareholders and their board members way before you,

833
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 3: and they currently have all the power and the web.

834
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 3: I'm scared, but I don't want you to be. I

835
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 3: want to inform you about how this is happening. I

836
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 3: want the Better Offline podcast to be a place where

837
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 3: you can understand, where you can be educated about how

838
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 3: you are being conned about how they are monetizing your

839
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 3: digital lives. And I very much look forward to telling

840
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 3: you more about this in the future. Thank you for listening.

841
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,799
Speaker 3: Please check out Better Offline dot com. Email me at

842
00:48:00,920 --> 00:48:03,800
Speaker 3: easy at better offline dot com if you've got any thoughts.

843
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:06,439
Speaker 3: Thank you Robert so much for joining me. By the way,

844
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 3: I very much appreciate the couson media rocks. I've very

845
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 3: much enjoyed building this with you.

846
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm excited to hear what you come up with

847
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 4: the next and continue this conversation, because I think you're

848
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 4: putting like a name to a demon that has been

849
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:22,879
Speaker 4: like haunting all of our nightmares for a while now.

850
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 4: And that's not you know, the only thing that you

851
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 4: need to do to beat it, but it's certainly where

852
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,280
Speaker 4: like turning back the tide starts.

853
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 3: And I really look forward to walking through these problems

854
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,400
Speaker 3: with you and many other incredibly smart people in the future,

855
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 3: and of course, Better Offline is a weekly podcast. You

856
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 3: can find us every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app and

857
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:47,320
Speaker 3: wherever else you find your podcasts. The editor and composer

858
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 3: of the Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. You can

859
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 3: check out more of his music and audio projects at

860
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 3: Mattasowski dot com, m A. T. T OsO w Ski

861
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 3: dot com more information and got a Better Offline dot

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Speaker 3: com or email me at easy at better offline dot com.

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00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening everyone.

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Speaker 2: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For

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00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 2: more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia

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Speaker 2: dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts

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Speaker 4: That's off line