Speaker 1: Hey, Brad, Welcome to the show. Thanks Hockey for more
Speaker 1: recent subscribers to the show. Red Stone, tell us who
Speaker 1: you are. Well, I'm a I guess I'm a former
Speaker 1: Decrypted host, helped run the Bloomberg technology team, and I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of the show. You and I were the
Speaker 1: original co host of Decrypted, UM, and you took a
Speaker 1: break from hosting this last season, and I invited you
Speaker 1: back because we have an announcement we do. Do you
Speaker 1: want to do the honors? Sure? So this is a
Speaker 1: very special episode of Decrypted. It's actually our last episode
Speaker 1: after what has been three or four years, I think
Speaker 1: three years and three months and over episodes, which qualifies
Speaker 1: us for syndication. I believe that one of the old
Speaker 1: uh F channels, if they still do that anymore. UM,
Speaker 1: But this is our last episode of Decrypted to make
Speaker 1: way for something new and exciting. Yeah, that's right. So
Speaker 1: after three amazing years, we're gonna be winding down the
Speaker 1: show to make room for a new show UM led
Speaker 1: by our executive producer Sean Wyn and I think we'll
Speaker 1: be announcing more details on that show next spring. And
Speaker 1: our listeners should say subscribed to this feed to get updates. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have gotten so much positive feedback from
Speaker 1: our listeners over the years where we just have so
Speaker 1: much gratitude how they have stayed with us in these
Speaker 1: turbulent times for technology, and there is exciting stuff ahead. Yeah, definitely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you. You know, it's
Speaker 1: been um, such an amazing three years. I've loved going
Speaker 1: to conferences and just meeting new friends and then being like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I listened to the grypt did when I
Speaker 1: think back to and those first episodes we did. The
Speaker 1: first episode was about fab dot com. It was a
Speaker 1: kind of dot com disaster story, but it felt like
Speaker 1: an outlier then. And you can really chart the evolution
Speaker 1: of the show and see really the evolution of the
Speaker 1: industry and how how bad things have gotten for tech,
Speaker 1: how public perception and media perception has changed, right, And
Speaker 1: we've covered all those stories over the years. You just
Speaker 1: I've been looking back at our back catalog and you know,
Speaker 1: so many of the episodes we've covered have been about
Speaker 1: that shift in perception on the industry. So if we
Speaker 1: go back and look at or listen to some of
Speaker 1: those early episodes, uh, do they hold up hockey? I
Speaker 1: think I've a little I think it a little too
Speaker 1: scared to listen to those first few ones. I feel
Speaker 1: like we were learning. We were That's a very gentle
Speaker 1: way to put it. Um. But yeah, I mean I've
Speaker 1: I've loved all the episodes that we've done, all the
Speaker 1: stories we've done. I've learned so much through the process.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it is with a little bit of a
Speaker 1: bitter sweetness that we say goodbye to our listeners. So
Speaker 1: when long running sitcoms wrapped up, they often did the
Speaker 1: greatest hits episode and they revisited some of the earlier episodes.
Speaker 1: Should we do that now? Yeah? I think so. Let's
Speaker 1: do it. Okay, So let me play you a clip
Speaker 1: from a relatively recent episode and see if you remember it.
Speaker 1: There's a kind of an intensity that comes along with it.
Speaker 1: You feel kind of a little more alert, a little stronger,
Speaker 1: a little more in the present. Uh. And there's also
Speaker 1: a little bit of a buzz that can be too much.
Speaker 1: Kind of sounds like you're explaining in adrenaline rational most
Speaker 1: it's very much like that sticey smiling bread. Yes. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, the giveaway is that very distinct Australian
Speaker 1: accent or sorry New Zealand accent from the one and
Speaker 1: only Olivia Carville. And this is the amazing episode about
Speaker 1: the plasma injection startup, right, the company that was trying
Speaker 1: to make people feel younger. That's right. Um. So when
Speaker 1: we ran this episode, the FDA had just sent out
Speaker 1: a statement telling consumers that transfusions of blood from younger
Speaker 1: people is not proven to make you healthier, and even
Speaker 1: noted that it could be dangerous. And so Ambrosia, the
Speaker 1: blood transfusion startup, had closed. But have you followed the
Speaker 1: story over the last few months. I have not, but
Speaker 1: I have to say, from Olivia Kerville's amazing work on
Speaker 1: the article and on the podcast, that company, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess it was not going anywhere so amazingly publicly.
Speaker 1: A publication called one zero reported last month that Ambrosia
Speaker 1: resumed their blood transfusion service despite the letter or the
Speaker 1: statement from the f D. A. So the blood is
Speaker 1: coming from Donor's sixteen. They're charging eight thousand dollars for
Speaker 1: one leader transfusions and twelve thousand dollars for two leader transfusions.
Speaker 1: If you could excuse me for a second, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go sign up right now. A few thousand dollars rolling around,
Speaker 1: and you know the end of the year is making
Speaker 1: you feel a little old, all right. A reporter who
Speaker 1: worked on the original episode, Olivia Carvil, emailed the company
Speaker 1: for comment. The CEO, Jesse Karmazine, I think that's how
Speaker 1: you pronounce his name, who's still running The company confirmed
Speaker 1: that Ambrosia this is the blood transfusion startup, is in
Speaker 1: fact up and running again. He wrote, quote, I've consulted
Speaker 1: with a number of lawyers who are experts and f
Speaker 1: D regulations and feel confident I have a legal right
Speaker 1: to continue offering this treatment. Please note the announcement did
Speaker 1: not mention ambrosia, and furthermore, it contains no requirements on companies.
Speaker 1: I should just say here, Bloomberg and Bloomberg decrypted bloomber
Speaker 1: tect does not condone or doors the use of plasma injections. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's move on to the next one. We know
Speaker 1: that the title has to be tilted. We know that
Speaker 1: we have to exclude the facts because if we say
Speaker 1: anything good about the opponent, then people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're liberals, your closet liberals. So there is no room
Speaker 1: to be objective, there is no room to deliver quality.
Speaker 1: The market has always responded, Now give me garbage, give
Speaker 1: me outrage, give me you know, a click fait. Do
Speaker 1: you recognize that brand? That's our freak News episode. That's right, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. So Sarah and I went to go
Speaker 1: meet this young in net news entrepreneur named Cyrus Musumi
Speaker 1: who built this huge business around hyperpartisan, misleading content off
Speaker 1: of Facebook. And Facebook crackdown on sites like his right
Speaker 1: after the elections. And I keep coming back to this
Speaker 1: episode because it turned out to be just phase one
Speaker 1: of Facebook's battle to clean itself up. Facebook has gone
Speaker 1: so much further now, um, and I mean, looking at
Speaker 1: Facebook today, it feels like a totally new sight to me.
Speaker 1: Something tells me, though, that our fake news purveyors doing
Speaker 1: just fine. So I reached out to Cyrus the other
Speaker 1: day to see how he's doing. Um. If you remember
Speaker 1: when we ran our episode, he had already shut down
Speaker 1: his hyperpartisan conservative website Mr conservative dot com, but kept
Speaker 1: the site's Facebook page up and running and shifted his
Speaker 1: focus to this hyperpartisan liberal site called truth Examiner. So
Speaker 1: the update is, last year, Facebook deleted the Facebook pages
Speaker 1: of Mr Conservative and truth Examine are as part of
Speaker 1: a purge of site he owns um and a Facebook
Speaker 1: spooks person told BuzzFeed that Facebook deleted the pages because
Speaker 1: their administrators were using fake accounts and violating Facebook span policies.
Speaker 1: I wrote to Cyrus a few days ago and he
Speaker 1: told me, quote, Facebook destroyed five million dollars of my
Speaker 1: assets and fictitiously claimed I was a robot. But he
Speaker 1: also said he's figured out a way to quote ghost in.
Speaker 1: Those were his words and quote, I will be participating
Speaker 1: in the next election. I wish them the best of
Speaker 1: luck in hunting me. Why do I feel like it
Speaker 1: about two decades we're going to see Cyrus as like
Speaker 1: the chairman of a campaign. So yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that's just further proof that Facebook is continuing to
Speaker 1: crack down on all this toxic content that we've all
Speaker 1: become so disgusted with, although of course Cyrus determines to
Speaker 1: keep testing. Are just not going to give up, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's move on. In the next episode, I sat
Speaker 1: there paying with your kids, and every day I want
Speaker 1: to get to church, and uh, you know, I started
Speaker 1: seeing conn Edison trucks parked out from in front of
Speaker 1: my building, people hiding in vans with paperwork peeking at me.
Speaker 1: This is about we don't know what Pool is doing,
Speaker 1: but you know something's not right, but nobody could tell
Speaker 1: me specifically what it was. These little girls, I cannot
Speaker 1: allow them to go on to force to care. He said, Okay,
Speaker 1: well you're maasing these crimes. We have to charge you
Speaker 1: with these climes. Ah. So have you heard that I
Speaker 1: was a gaunter. I was dead, you know, I was done.
Speaker 1: Surrid to see you nodding, Hockey. I believe that is
Speaker 1: your very special friend, Sabu. Yeah, that's right. So this
Speaker 1: is the episode about the former anonymous hacker Hector Monsiger,
Speaker 1: about how he stumbled into this world of hacking as
Speaker 1: a kid, how he ended up leading these very high
Speaker 1: profile attacks, then got caught in secretly cooperated with FBI,
Speaker 1: and how he was now trying to rebuild his life
Speaker 1: after all that. I remember he had started a cybersecurity
Speaker 1: business and was consulting. How how's he doing that? So
Speaker 1: he was um he started working for a cybersecurity consultancy
Speaker 1: UM back then the founder of that company was the
Speaker 1: only person who would give him a chance because he
Speaker 1: was a convicted felon. So I caught up with him
Speaker 1: just this morning. We spoke for about half an hour.
Speaker 1: He left that consultancy just another month, and now he's
Speaker 1: kind of at a crossroads. You know, he's trying to
Speaker 1: figure out if he wants to strike out on his
Speaker 1: own and start, um, just go the consultant route, or
Speaker 1: if he wants to work for a different company. Now.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's built up so much more experience, so
Speaker 1: as a result, he's had a ton of offers, um,
Speaker 1: and he just kind of needs to decide what he
Speaker 1: wants to do next. Maybe he can go and find
Speaker 1: the d n C servers in Ukraine that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has been so interestingly, he's also kind of built out
Speaker 1: this like career as a speaker. Um. He's given twenty
Speaker 1: plus speeches this year, um to talk about his life
Speaker 1: and the lessons he learned having gone through everything. Was
Speaker 1: that our only two part episode? That's right? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was probably the most ambitious story that we've tackled.
Speaker 1: If you have not listened to that two part episode,
Speaker 1: you should go back. It's a great one. Please do. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go into the next one. We are tired, We
Speaker 1: are really tired because it's a sixteen months that we
Speaker 1: fight every day to found the two to try to
Speaker 1: to understand what he's happened there. We tried to involve
Speaker 1: all journalists in Italy, but the nine people sent of
Speaker 1: the media and the journalists in Italy they don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about this story so familiar. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to confess it doesn't. But I was cheating. I
Speaker 1: had to do some some fast googling, and um, that
Speaker 1: is the excellent story and podcast that are cybersecurity reporter
Speaker 1: Jordan Robertson did about the African country of Mauritania. That's right. Um,
Speaker 1: so it was based on this wild story he tracked
Speaker 1: down and involved this shady cyber weapons dealer from India
Speaker 1: who promised to sell the government of Mauritania software to
Speaker 1: spy on his own citizens. Right, so sort of the
Speaker 1: seed the underbelly of the cyber security world. And now
Speaker 1: remind me because there was a very sympathetic character, a
Speaker 1: bodyguard I think, who went there and was imprisoned. Right. So,
Speaker 1: this shady cyber weapons dealer from India was supposed to
Speaker 1: meet with Mauritanian officials and ahead of that meeting. Had
Speaker 1: hired this bodyguard from Italy to go ahead and set
Speaker 1: up that meeting. The cyber weapons dealer ended up never
Speaker 1: showing up, but the bodyguard went right, That's what happened.
Speaker 1: He was already there, UM, And because the cyber weapons
Speaker 1: dealer never showed up, the Mauritanian government took him held
Speaker 1: in hostage in a prison for more than a year.
Speaker 1: His name was Christian Provision. So about half a year
Speaker 1: after we ran our story, UM, Mauritania finally released Christian
Speaker 1: the bodyguard. UM and Jordan and I got to talk
Speaker 1: to Christian over the phone, and we ran in a
Speaker 1: bridge version of that interview on our show. But it
Speaker 1: was really hard to edit it, you know, because it
Speaker 1: was clear from the conversation that he's still so traumatized
Speaker 1: by what he went through, and he was really struggling
Speaker 1: to form even just basic sentences and stay on topic.
Speaker 1: So how's he doing now? So I asked Jordan to
Speaker 1: reach out to Christian's brother, Maurzio. That's the guy you
Speaker 1: heard from UM in that clip that we just played,
Speaker 1: And unfortunately it sounds like Christian isn't doing very well.
Speaker 1: He tried to see the man who sent him to
Speaker 1: Mauritania and Italy's courts, but that went nowhere. He's no
Speaker 1: longer together with his girlfriend, who can paigned for him
Speaker 1: to be released. He lives with his parents, and his
Speaker 1: mother still has trouble sleeping after all these years. So
Speaker 1: let me read you what Christian's brother more reads your
Speaker 1: wrote to Jordan's I told him to forget the story.
Speaker 1: We live in Italy and there is no justice for
Speaker 1: people like us. But I can understand how my brother
Speaker 1: feels inside his heart. I believe in God, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure these people cannot escape him. Maybe they can escape
Speaker 1: Italian justice, but not him. Wow, we'll be right back, Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's move on to the next clip. So his
Speaker 1: first question, UM was he said, UM, so we've noticed
Speaker 1: that you've been doing some government related searches. And I
Speaker 1: didn't say anything to that. And then he said did
Speaker 1: anybody tell you to do that? And I said, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to answer that question. And then he said,
Speaker 1: well you're terminated effective immediately. Um and then long awkward pause,
Speaker 1: and then he said do you have anything to say?
Speaker 1: And I said, um, I have some personal litems. My
Speaker 1: desk ashould grab and then he has card to get
Speaker 1: that stuff and then out of the building. How did
Speaker 1: you feel after that? Were you said? Did you cry?
Speaker 1: Were you angry? I was? I was angry, like my
Speaker 1: my heart was pounding. Um, mainly angry. Where were you angry?
Speaker 1: That was unfair? Like you can't terminate? What's a blower
Speaker 1: like that? I see no adding bread? Right? A couple
Speaker 1: of clues here. First, the malifluous voice of our long
Speaker 1: lost friend Adam Sicariano, who is now a reporter at
Speaker 1: the New York Times. And the whistle blower. This is
Speaker 1: Rothenberg Ventures, the guy who blew the whistle on what
Speaker 1: was a sort of ongoing and profitably get party at
Speaker 1: a high profile venture capital firm. Right. Um, so the
Speaker 1: clip you just heard that is Francisco Reordan. He worked
Speaker 1: for Rothenburg Ventures, that capital venture capital firm you just
Speaker 1: talked about. While he was there, he found some improprieties
Speaker 1: that he ended up reporting secretly to the SEC and
Speaker 1: he spoke publicly about that for the very first time
Speaker 1: on our show. And then things didn't go that well.
Speaker 1: If I heard a call for Rothenburg Ventures, that's right.
Speaker 1: So when our story ran in twenty seventeen, the SEC's
Speaker 1: investigation was still ongoing, but in August last year, the
Speaker 1: SEC formally charged Mike Rothenburg with misappropriating seven million dollars
Speaker 1: that his firm raised from investors, and then the SEC
Speaker 1: and Rothenberg reached a settlement that involved Rothenburg stepping away
Speaker 1: from his firm UH and being banned from the investment
Speaker 1: advisory business, but they hadn't decided on a financial penalty
Speaker 1: yet with the settlement, and over the summer, after a
Speaker 1: deeper audit, the SEC came back and claimed that Rothenberg
Speaker 1: misappropriated a lot more money than was initially thought, more
Speaker 1: than eighteen million dollars, including three million dollars of which
Speaker 1: Mike Rothenberg allegedly transferred to himself and with interest in
Speaker 1: also civil penalties that SEC is demanding Rothenberg pay a
Speaker 1: total of about thirty million and penalties, and Rothenberg is
Speaker 1: now fighting that. So the case has continued. You know,
Speaker 1: I was on the phone with Francisco the other day
Speaker 1: and he said he was a little stressed and frustrated
Speaker 1: that the case is still ongoing after all these years. Um,
Speaker 1: he's still waiting for that sense of closure. But if
Speaker 1: you remember when we ran our original episode. Francisco worried
Speaker 1: that coming out to the world as a whistleblower would
Speaker 1: just brand him as the big troublemaker, right and scare
Speaker 1: potential employers away. Um. When I talked to him the
Speaker 1: other day, he said, that hasn't really transpired in reality. Um,
Speaker 1: he stayed in the tech industry. He's working for a
Speaker 1: new company as a web developer, and he's doing really well.
Speaker 1: Good for him. Okay, let's go onto the next one.
Speaker 1: You're doing great. Zone four. I can see the red
Speaker 1: that's from d This is the hardestful way to go nice,
Speaker 1: is he smiling? Yeah? I had hoped to never listen
Speaker 1: to that again. Okay, so this is going to take
Speaker 1: some explanation. But somehow, several years ago, you got really
Speaker 1: into fitness trackers and fitness gatchets. You decided you were
Speaker 1: going to rank them all, and then you had somehow
Speaker 1: convinced me to strap a was a move it or
Speaker 1: move I haven't used it since. And we that was
Speaker 1: a workout session where animals had a heart attack. Well,
Speaker 1: I tried to remember. I tried to get you to
Speaker 1: do it in a conference room downstairs, went to the
Speaker 1: gym and it's funny because that thing is still in
Speaker 1: my bag. I've never I haven't in my gym bag,
Speaker 1: and I haven't used it since. It's funny. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember you asking me for a link for it and
Speaker 1: like buying it in front of me. I'm disappointed though,
Speaker 1: that you didn't use it, never used it. So I
Speaker 1: bought my own two after that story, and I continued
Speaker 1: using it. Um. I just used it the other day. UM.
Speaker 1: It's been pretty great now. As I recall, in addition
Speaker 1: to reviewing all these fitness gadgets, you also to sort
Speaker 1: of find a control group. You you hired an actual
Speaker 1: human personal trainer, right, that's right. So they do was
Speaker 1: to compare these gadgets to having a human personal trainer
Speaker 1: and see which one was better. Whatever happened to her,
Speaker 1: So she's still around. UM, I talked to her the
Speaker 1: other day. She's doing really well. At the time of
Speaker 1: our story, she was transitioning to launch her own company
Speaker 1: running outdoor fitness classes called Public Recreation. They've now raised
Speaker 1: one point three million dollars in seed funding and they're
Speaker 1: about to roll out a new app. So now, several
Speaker 1: years later, what's your verdict, person or gadget I still
Speaker 1: think it's person Actually, um, you know, I would never
Speaker 1: be able to afford a trainer like her. I mean
Speaker 1: she at the time she charged more than a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars per hour. But uh yeah, like you, like we
Speaker 1: talked about in the episode, the robotrainer just doesn't quite
Speaker 1: motivate you in the way that a real human can.
Speaker 1: Are you a fan of peloton I actually am. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had one in um our old apartment. UM. I
Speaker 1: got really into it. I think the classes are pretty great,
Speaker 1: but once again, probably too expensive for me to pay
Speaker 1: for on my own. So, Brad, there's so many more
Speaker 1: episodes that we could go through, but that would take forever. Um.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna be posting links to the episodes we
Speaker 1: just talked about in our show notes. I want to
Speaker 1: zoom out a little bit and speak a little bit
Speaker 1: more broadly about this moment that we're in in the
Speaker 1: history of the tech industry. I'm still relatively new to
Speaker 1: tech cover, but you've been covering text since then nineties, right,
Speaker 1: that's right, Thank you, ACKI get any of their Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've seen a number of media cycles, um. And
Speaker 1: during the ninety nineties, you know, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of hagiographic coverage. People were very enthusiastic of the tech
Speaker 1: companies whose fortunes seemed to be soaring right along with
Speaker 1: their stock prices. And then things got tempered a little
Speaker 1: bit during the dot com bust and it seemed like
Speaker 1: things were falling apart um and the coverage turn negative.
Speaker 1: And then slowly but surely things that became more upbeat
Speaker 1: with the I p o s of Google and Facebook,
Speaker 1: and and then these incredible startups like uber um, you know, lift,
Speaker 1: Airbnb um now more recently with we work in jewel Um,
Speaker 1: the election in two sixteen, introducing concepts like fake news
Speaker 1: into the ecosystem, you know, skepticism, hard scrutiny is really returned,
Speaker 1: I'd say more so than the dot com bust. So
Speaker 1: it really does feel like a different moment now compared
Speaker 1: to three and a half years ago when we first
Speaker 1: launched this show. Certainly, I mean, I think tech now
Speaker 1: is almost equated with you know, fairly or not. Industry
Speaker 1: is like tobacco or petroleum, you know, or maybe financial services.
Speaker 1: These are the status quo establishments that kind of govern
Speaker 1: our lives. And I think the media now probably quite
Speaker 1: rightfully is bringing some very tough scrutiny to bear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been a really fun time and really great time
Speaker 1: to be a technology journalist. And it's been it's it's
Speaker 1: all coincided with the rise of podcasts, which is it's
Speaker 1: made it so fascinating to just explore this new medium.
Speaker 1: It's actually one of the reasons why we're retiring Decrypted.
Speaker 1: We're not giving up podcasting. We've decided next year to
Speaker 1: just go a little bit deeper into a couple of
Speaker 1: stories that we're passionate about. So we'll be announcing more
Speaker 1: details on that next spring. Yes, and I can't wait
Speaker 1: to get started. Well, for everyone who listened to the
Speaker 1: very end, thank you so much once again for listening
Speaker 1: to the show all these years, and please stay subscribed
Speaker 1: to this feed because we'll be announcing the team's new
Speaker 1: show here next year. You can continue to reach out
Speaker 1: to me on Twitter at Akito seven. Brad You're at Bradstone,
Speaker 1: Is that right? Derpted's executive producer is Sean When this
Speaker 1: very last episode was mixed by Ethan Brooks. Francesca Levie
Speaker 1: is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. Have a great holiday
Speaker 1: and you'll be hearing from US next year,