May 14, 2024 • 62 mins
In episode 1675, Jack and Miles are joined by host of Better Offline, Ed Zitron, to discuss... The Decline of Google Search, Enron Musk and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
I used to like soccer growing up, but then I've
just grown out of it now and hearing a bunch
of Americans be like, Hi man now Arsenal, that's my
best American accent.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yay, you found him.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I just I don't like it. I don't like hearing it.
I don't need any Americans talking about west Ham.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Oh Man forever blowing bubbles? Mate, you know what I mean,
that's what we're saying. I remember catching them at the
Bowl in ground playing. You know, did that other team?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So yeah, there we go.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Now that's someone who knows football. Yeah, unless they're like that,
in which case they're an expert. Right, Hello the Internet,
and welcome to season three thirty eight, Episode two of
der Day's I Guys Say production of iHeartRadio. This is
(00:56):
a podcast where we take a deep dive into a
Erica's shared consciousness.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
And it is.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Tuesday, May fourteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You're of our lord.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I just realized on yesterday's Weekend Trending episode, I said
I gave the days that are actually today, so you
already heard what today is. It's National Decency Day and
National Biscuit Day and National.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Dance like a Chicken Day.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Could we just be decent to each other and stop
yelling on college campuses?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Did you see that guy Richie Showjack on Netflix The Gentleman.
I saw the first couple.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, I was just more a bunch of British people
trying to wait.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, very believable, very believable.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
But the I just was thinking of the guy how
he had to dance like a chicken for the Liverpool
gangster guy. Yeah yeah, and just doing indeed more and
more cocaine to be able to believe be a chicken.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You got one thing, right, and that's the chicken thing.
But the decency. No, in fact, those two things are
in no position to each.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Other, right right right.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
I used to have to do so much cocaine before
the chicken dance came on. At my middle school dances.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I used to have to get.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Fucking jack to the You start hearing that Poka band
warm up?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Oh man.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
I still fart whenever I hear Poka music. Man my
Bonny Water Fountain. Ye, Well, my name is Jack O'Brien aka.
Here comes the story of Harry Kane.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
A soccer player with an amazing name and though I've
never seen him run, jack Obe said he was the
one who makes him scream and the Zeit game Baby's agreed.
That is courtesy of hanahamic View on the discord about
my favorite phrase in the English language, Harry Kane massive,
(02:49):
I'm sure I guess esus Christ completely unoffended and uh yeah,
just headed to the Harry Wow. Wait am I home? Anyways?
I'm a thriller to me joined shout out to hanarhamic
view though one of the greats uh throw to be
joined as always by my co host mister Miles.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Grasty aka Slithering and Fishing and big toothless smile heroin
addict with Lebron James hair style.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
The video game was a horrible thing.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Gollum's my new favorite Lord of the Ring singular reference
to that apology letter from the people that made the
Gollum video game.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And couldn't apologizing.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah it was should have. Yeah it was terrible. It
was absolutely terrible. And the first thing was like, we're
so sorry about Gollum Lord of the Ring, and everyone's like,
the fucking you don't even have.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
The name, you can't even get that.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Yeah, no, not at all so on the discord that
was from Blink.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, shout out to you, thanks for that one.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Yeah yeah, Wait is there fishing in that game?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Is that what? Or did we just think that might be?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
I think because he just needs to From my understanding,
he just lives off of just fit whatever from the stream.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
The chickens as well.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I think he eats. I think McCallum is an omnivore.
I think it's safe to say he would eat a
tin can if pushed back.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
The chef like a goat.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
I've only seen the first of the Lords of the
Ring and I was very high for so I don't
remember much of it.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So the first first time I saw the second one,
Two Towers, I was in a Less the Square movie
theater in London and was there with a few friends
with quite a few drinks. And then it says Lord
of the Rings on the screen, and one of the
guys on which goes, oh fuck.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
I thought, this is Harry Potter and a bunch of
really like exactly the kind of people you thought would
be there opening night for this movie, shushing him.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Then we I think it said like Lord of the
Rings and then took a bait and then said the
two towers because immediately he goes, you're wiz it, Harry,
and look the people punned around, very clearly wanting to
say something, not realizing that this guy was huge. Yeah,
he was just a giant guy.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, it was a total that.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, that's good for happy Gilmo, my god.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Gilmore Billy Madison reference.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
In two days, he would have punched them on fire asunder.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Right right, I like it. Well, that voice you hear
is not Harry Kane. We are thrilled to be joined
by one of our favorites, the tech journalists and writer
behind the newsletter Where's Your ed At? Where's Your ed
dot At? This podcast with cool Zone Media Better Offline
is a must listen one of my favorite podcasts that
(05:45):
launched in the last year, so good go check it out.
It's head Dry.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Welcome back to podcast.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
The podcast voice the entire time, I don't even know
what that is. You're in the pot, you're in the
rock with the casters. Man didn't start on college radio,
So what were you?
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Were you playing music or were you just doing like
I was.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I was playing music, but I was talking and I
just bring random people in. Yeah, and my favorite thing
to do was when I got crank calls from people
is I'd find the number and call them back. I'd
be like, we got cut off somehow. Right, most of
the time, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, man, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
You're on radio. Whoa, it's interesting to.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
See that kind of troll energy. Were like, I only
meant it for to go in one direction. The second
you acknowledge as a person, it all falls apart a conversation.
Speaker 7 (06:45):
Yeah, but I was born on the Internet. I was
ready for this, like right exactly. Oh man, who was
that one dude who did those crank calls in the UK?
That comedian I remember, like they went viral over here
in the internet era.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Hmmm, it was like crah my, god he would do
never mind, I'll find the thing.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
It was like boys you're thinking of, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Jerky boys, the Jersey Boys. I think that's a musical.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yea, look, my brain's not working all right.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
That makes three of us. That's right, two five well ed.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
We're thrilled to have you on. We're going to talk
about some of the stuff you've been covering over on
Better Offline. Why we got a little more detailed. I
think the first time you were on We talked a
little bit about Google Search being an example of the
rot economy, but we have a better idea of kind
of the specifics of how it got so bad, So
we're going to dig into that and other companies that
(07:46):
are being ruined by this, like management class.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Of people, the McKenzie elite.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
McKenzie elite, You do your time at McKenzie and then
go ruin the.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Techste run any business you like into the ground. They'll
pay you so well.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
For and then you'll fail upwards. We'll talk about that,
and there's some also some interesting stuff on Elon Musk,
who you referred to as n Ron musk ra Musk.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That was the best pun I've made.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
There is a direction, there is a path that this
could go down that's like really really like obviously, like
anyone who's been paying attention, it is like this guy's
kind of full of shit, right, But some of the
stuff with Tesla and the self driving car stuff, granted,
this being the version of America we existed, it's probably
gonna be fine, But there's a version in a sane
(08:38):
world where this whole house of cards collapses.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
What's Tesla is just such a peculiar company like the
cyber trunk alone. Right, it's just insane that that thing
is going on about like nearly chopping people's fear, like
some guy put his finger in the drunk thing as
it closed. Yeah, and like broke.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Harper truck trunk.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Honestly, we've also on you yes on unite. Yeah, especially
when you're going to stick your finger in that. But
also these things keep breaking someone's broke because he put
it in a car wash.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I saw that one too.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
They seem to just perpetually get stuck in situations that
a nineteen eighty six Camra would carefully navigate. Yeah, and
I think though to some extent, that's also they used
to just make things better but easy. We're getting into globalization.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
But the Mackenzie person hadn't come in and given them
the analysis that yeah, exactly in a couple of years
actually makes it helps with turn over.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
It could save us thirteen cents per car, but the
cause will last five years less and the meaning they
need to buy a new one.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Boom.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Just the prank call thing I was reverending earlier was
phone jacker, phone jack tracker. Yeah, Cavon Novak, who's the
guy who's on what we do in the shadows. He's
like this English comedian. He'd had this whole prank call
website that me and my friends. It was like a
show that was on I forget what channel.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I missed a branding opportunity in elementary school. Apparent I
could have been the phone jacker, could have been the
phone jack.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Now I want a Yeah, I want a title with
Jack in it.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
In elementary school.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah if Jack, cause you don't pick up just so
you know, it's weird on the other side, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I tried to steer clear of that as much as possible.
But before we get into all that stuff ed, we
do like to ask our guests, what is something from
your search history or what is something that you've recently
screen grabbed that is revealing about who you are.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I've been very much enjoying this weird side project called
them Crooked Vultures Queen. It was the Queen's the Sage
front man bassist from let Zeppelin and Dave Groll on
drums also but also that and Peeping Tom, which is
another great name to say. But also it was a
Mike Patten, So Mike Patten in the face no more.
It is him Razel Who was this guy who does
(10:55):
beat boxing with his mouth. Yeah, from the roots weird
weird bundled Trio, which was to upstep but done with
the band, and then I forget what the woman was
calling it, but the DJs were called the Executioners. It's insane.
It was like a one off album. It's fantastic. I'll
be listening to it sit outside. The weather's getting nice here,
so I'm just sitting outside having a frosty diet coke
(11:18):
listening to music. It's delightful.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Wait. What was this group again that had the Executioners
in it?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, Peeping Tom. Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I mean I used to watch their like scratch videos
because they're.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
They like they was excellent, Like the whole band's excellent.
You got to check them out.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Wow. Okay, Yeah rec in Peace Rock Radar.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
I remember he passed away in two thousand and something,
but yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I'm definitely gonna look into that.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, it's such a weird band, but it's great, and.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
I think the first time you're wrong. Your search history
was also something related to the Queens of the Stoney.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, that's because I'm a huge Queens of the Stone
Age fan. I've now seen them sixteen times. But I
realized that there's actually something not Queens of Snage I
could bring up, which is Peeping Tom, which I don't
think has any connection to the band, which is unusual
for music to me.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Wow, look at you spreading, spreading.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Out, spreading out. Now I listened to two bands.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, have you been to the ORB at all?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
To the ORB? Yeah, I have. So I don't know
how much you know about this thing, but it's really weird.
They tell you to come in at a time, but
then there's like an hour in this very strange lobby
with these ai ai quote unquote humanoids that will respond
to things you say. So you're there for an hour
and it's crowded than the food sucks and it's awful.
(12:35):
But also these these robots will talk back to you.
But I've heard rumors that there's not actually robots, that
there's a bloke who's just talking.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
If I ever come across the truth behind this story,
you're here on better offline for sure. But I went
to see Aronofsky's Postcards from Earth. One of the things
I was up the very high seats, which were the
cheapest ones, making them one hundred and thirty bucks apiece,
which ridiculous for a movie. Those seats. I have never
(13:03):
felt such powerful vertigo. I have a fear of heights,
and I thought I was going to die at the
whole time. My kid was there. He was fine, totally fine.
That was like ah. But the movie itself is so
peculiar because the beginner it's set in space, and it's
like these people being woken up in cryo sleep cry asleep,
(13:27):
and they have this whole, very belabored thing, and the
whole thrust of the movie is that they remind them
who they are and where they're from and all this,
and the suggestion is that Earth has been destroyed by
global warming. All that stuff, except one big problem. The
space stuff is not actually filmed in the aspect ratio
of the sphere. So you've just got this huge screen
(13:49):
with this tiny picture like you can see it. But
it looks terrible, right, it looks like ass But the
actual main thing is genuinely really cool as the most
impressive spatial audio I've ever seen. The screen is a
it has depth to him. Yeah, you can hear a
guy shout from the front of the screen to the
back of the screen. It's very cool. It looks amazing
(14:12):
for the amount of money it costs. It's a bloody
joke though, right right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
The yeah, we've talked about there, just like being there
from the outside with the like high death weird.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Like the ads of Salesforce Einstein.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Are they doing heads now? When we were there the
NBA Summer League and there's just a big basketball and
it was just the surreal there being like a high
definition basketball on the like hazy skyline, but then it
would turn into that eyeball. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm
good on that. Yeah, but but now it's like ads.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
It's adds. Yeah, well, just like a miscellaneous image just
purple for some reason, right, just anything, Right. I do
think they should just have a big eye the whole time. Yeah,
And they should, and it should very aggressively focus on
one point.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, I feel freaked out.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So like one guy who's just coming off whatever he's
on is.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Like, no, God abound me, and.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
And it's just there's a TikTok where someone did that
where it's just his face going searching for perverts or
something like that. I do think that they should do
that as well. They should have a pervert.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Watch what's what's do you think is underrated?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So let's see yoga. I know this is a weird one.
I'm changing. I know I'm changing a bit, but yoga
yoga recently, and I'll tell you I've been doing it
a few months. You want to know. I started off
really bad, and I think I'm worse, but it's very good,
Like I feel good after it, not during it. I
(15:53):
feel very bad, but also I'm intimately aware that my
body is fragile and terrible, but there's something quite fun
about it. And I do it on my own. Don't
want to done a few classes with people height it. Yeah,
I don't want to be around people. I look and
sound awful. I make these terrible noises I smell. And
that's even before I do yoga. Not just kidding, but
(16:13):
it's I I love it. And also the amount of
big strong men I know who have just been like, yeah,
Yoga's it's like, you know, it's baby stuff. It's like, no,
this is incredibly hard. Yeah, it's more of a challenge
than anything else I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
For sure.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Mobility is such an underrated aspect of being healthy I
think people don't understand is like just the ability to
like turn your back in the shower without stressing your muscles.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Uh yeah, being really put in my back out trying
to like wash my ass crack the other morning, and
I was like, I gotta fuck it.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
I have to really stretching.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah, it gonna save me from washing my ass crack
in the shower.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Is the twenty first century, I shouldn't have to do
it anymore.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, And what my explaining to me as rigid as pass.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
This isn't the future. I should be able to be good.
I should be in a perfect L shape at all
times and still able to wipe my arms. Exactly where
is it, sam Ortman? Why can't I do that?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Come on answers?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Just like the idea of yelling at sam Ortman about
a bid day. Sorry, Yeah, what's something you think is overrated? Croissants?
Speaker 4 (17:25):
M hmm.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I've got a croissant this morning. I was looking forward
to our beer and it's everywhere, it's all over me
and wearing a black shirts covering croissant barely got any
matter to actually eat. It's very pissed off about this.
I originally told you that getting up early was my
overrated thing, and I still stand by the but croissants
today I'm taking them down. No, I'm not going to
(17:46):
tolerate this crap anymore. They're messy, there's not enough food
in them.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
There's only a bunch of hard They're just dissolve into
a bunch of crumbs.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
They're like those are costs, like those Costco peanut bars
that you just bite them and they combust. You get
like two bites before the whole thing is just right.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, isn't that like what?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Because I feel like the jank Costco Kirkland signature croissant
is the opposite, like it has no crumbs because it's
just so like just poised, yeah, versus like I guess
a good one is supposed to be that flaky version.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I'm like, man, give me the mushy, give me the cramp.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, I need, I need the cramp. Put the crap
in my hull.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Put the crap in my whole new album new album
from the Tongues and the Jack Peeping to Phone Jacker
featuring Phone Jacker and Top in My Home.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
It is one of the hardest foods to eat on
the go without just covering yourself, making yourself look like
a backyard in autumn. You know, you're just like covered.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Looking back out, and I'm not quite love that.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Just nothing but crumbs all the way down. I'm already
like I'm not the not the neatest person.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So it's that makes two croissans.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
French people eat it with their hands. It's not a
forking knife job, right, a chroissant, are we like completely.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Depict I think you meant to like slice it and
like put barter on it versus how I do it,
which is just like just kind of like put it
in my mouth bite and then it explodes everywhere.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Right, that's why you gotta take it down with one bite.
I sold your problem, duck.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, they say customarily you eat it with a napkin,
but you eat it with your hands rather than utensils.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Okay, I try that, Yeah, try maybe like.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Tear off a little pieces and they dip it maybe
into coffee.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, it's like all right, Yeah, I don't know. All
I felt was disappointment, though.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Yeah, crumb cake is less crummy than fucking croissants.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
If I can eat the crumbs grape, it's all the flights.
They're horrible.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, all right, great, overrated, underrated. Let's take a
quick break and we'll come back and talk about the
tech industry and why tech is underrated. And we're back.
(20:20):
We're back, and sort of recap. Google search used to be.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Good.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
It was good, and I remember a time that that
was like the tech breakthrough that everyone was.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Like, fucking believe this shit, It's like magic.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
They feel like it was a slow bun. Yeah, but
then it just was so ubiquitous at some point that
it was just like people just assumed it would always work.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah right, Yeah, there was like a time in the
late nineties early it's where people were like it's it
was cool. People are like here, let me google that, right,
or it was like you were like a verb or
like you knew how to use it too. It's like
you got to use quotation marks or got to use
signs between Google.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
That's why I use Alta Vista.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Actually that's what someone say Google foo and sometime that's
a certain kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
But I mean, like, yeah, Ed, we've when the last
time you were talking, we were talking about the rotten economy,
and I know we've made mention of just how Google's
become just worse and worse, and then your recent episode
about how Google just became an absolute, just unusable basically
ad service just because as some of the words I understood,
(21:39):
and I was I was right there with you other
times conceptually I knew where you were going, but I
couldn't quite put it all together intellectually.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
So could you?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Would you mind explaining just sort of this shift from
this like code yellow change that occurred, or this code
yellow moment into this basically glorified ad server we have now,
But please explain it as if I am an ignorant
person that was distracted by a toddler while.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
They were listening. No problem. So the episode I wrote
and the news accompanying newsletter was about in two thousand
and I'm now going to put it up slide eighteen
or eighteen correct, because the dates are important. Yes, So
in twenty nineteen there was a low called Ben Gomes
who is the head of Google Search. Ben Gomes had
been at Google since nineteen ninety nine, so basically the
(22:28):
beginning he worked directly with Soga and Larry. He is
and there are tons of articles about him where everything
he talks about he's talking like a Renaissance painter. He's like,
I believe the connectivity between dating, like he's so romantic
about it. So on February fifth, twenty nineteen, he gets
through a connection of events something called a code yellow,
which is an internal Google thing that says there is
(22:48):
a problem that's significant. There are higher codes, but they're
extremely rare. Code yellow itself is actually pretty rare. So
what happened was this code yellow was the revenue and
ad side of Google saying Google Search, you are not
making us enough money. You need to make us more money.
And also, and this is very important, the amount of
queries going into Google is not growing enough. Now, little
(23:12):
side note for you. Queries in this case is referring
to the amount of times that people search. Now, if
you think about it for just a second, is that
necessarily connected to how good Google is? Not necessarily. In fact,
if there are less queries, maybe Google's better anywound what
they were looking for, right, yes, which does not work
(23:35):
for Google. So Google is then in this little futz
of the code yellow, and between Ben Gomes and some
other guys, there's a conversation where he says, Hey, guys,
I feel like Google is getting too close to the money.
Google seems to only care about growth. And after about
a month they resolve the code yellow, and there's a
(23:55):
big email thread and there's a ton of emails that
I'm just leaving out, but I'm sum racing as quick
as possible. There's also on the sidelines this guy called
Jerry Dishler, who was one of these noxious VP types,
who was kind of like, yeah, guys, we need to
make more queries and we need to make more money,
so could you just do that? So the code yellow
comes to an end, and it turns out that the
guy behind it is a guy called Prabagar Ragavan, who
(24:18):
was then the head of Advertising it head of ads
on Google, and Ben Gom sends out a thing to
a bunch of people who are all congratulating each other,
saying we got through this great job everyone. Prabaga responds saying, yeah, actually,
engineering did that. You didn't do it. He didn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So so these emails came out through a Department of
Justice is antitrust hearing, and I realized this is a
lot of history. In twenty twenty, Brabaga becomes head of
Google Search and then goes he takes over Google Search
from this ideal from the idealist who worked on Google
Search from the beginning, right, so he came in, he
(24:57):
was basically meshed him out. And also, to be clear,
this queries metric is insane. Having more queries means nothing.
And in fact, these emails kind of detail that he
takes over in twenty twenty. Now, if you really think
about it, Google started to get really bad in like
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, and has got significantly worse constantly
(25:17):
since twenty twenty. End of twenty nine, well, mid twenty
nineteen they added this to mobile, but they put it
fully on to desktop as well. In twenty twenty, they
maybe changed to make it harder to tell when something
is an AD on bribble now.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely noticed that change.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
They made a bunch of changes to make Google worse.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Yeah, he used to be pretty easy. There was like
a background. It seemed like pretty clear that they had
a internal discussion and we're like, well, we don't want
the product, we don't want to be actively tricking people into.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Well they they it was funnier than that. They were
just like, yeah, we need to see the numbers go up.
Please make number go higher. Now, line go up now, yep.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
But yeah, like during the two thousands, like it was
like there was a balance of like, we need this
to be a product, a product that people want to use,
and we need to make money off of ads. But
they've hit a point where they don't really give a
shit if it's a product that people want to use.
(26:23):
It seems like it's that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And also within these emails, and again this is from
the Department of Justice, is suit against Google for monopoly.
So right, hey, what monopoly could they have?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Right?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And what's really stark about it is what mister Rugavan's
previous job was. So can you think of a what
would the worst job that could be previously held by
someone running Google Search? Just think about it for a second.
You might not get it, but just think what is
the worst company he could have worked for that isn't
like I don't know deffinctively. Yeah, different companies, Like one of.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
The worst would be Google, as they're like, wait, driving revenue.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Company within this period be not good at their job.
I'll skip to it. Mister Ragavan ran search at Yahoo
Watch two thousand and five to twenty twelve. In that period,
they went from I think like a thirty three percent
market share versus Google's thirty six percent to literally doing
(27:24):
a deal where bing would power Yahoo. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Yea, let me just say in fact check you real quick,
let me go Yahoo that Nope, never said.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
And she says he's great and has a huge dick. Crazy. No,
but it's crazy because you read this thing, and you
read this story, and you read the emails, and I
was writing it and I was like, is this someone
messing with? This is ridiculous, right, because the emails are
so grim. There's one with this guy is enginey called
(27:54):
Shashi Saka, who's like, can we tell Sundhar Pushai about
this and stop this? Two that's the CEO of Google
and his former job was Mackenzie.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
They're on the right side of a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I was gonna say, bread prices, Oxycrton Yeah yeah yeah.
And it's wild because you read this story and you're
like it couldn't be this obvious, could it? And the
timeline is just perfect, and I will I will actually
say something. I'm previewing, something I'm working on. The Only
time I've ever seen worse than this story is in
(28:29):
my next newsletter. About Facebook. Yeah, well you don't have
emails in this chain where someone is like, yeah, actually
it's good. The product sucks, right, I actually like this,
this is good. I've got documents where there's someone writing, yeah,
here are the changes we've made at Facebook to increase
engagement that made Facebook worse.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, right, worse for the.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
User and it And guess who guess what COO of
Facebook Sheryl Samberg until twenty twenty two McKinsey.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
The people that run Facebook right now, or product managers
or growth people. This is the this is tying it
back to Google. The people in charge are management concerns,
ads people, revenue people. They're not the people who build anything.
They are parasites.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah, it's sort of like what yeah, private equity does
to like any other business, Like, we don't know this
business innately at all. We just know how to make
the line go up. And if that means everything falls apart,
like then great, well.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
They're going to do.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
We have the monopoly right right. What was the way
that search human was making ads before or making like
generating revenue before the ads or they're just saying we
need to.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Blas them so Search But to be clear, at this
point in like twenty nineteen, Search was making them tens
of billions of dollars. Sure, it wasn't like it was
a fledgling business and they were like, oh, we got
to grow up everyone. This was a business printing money.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It was a beloved product that everybody used that everyone
was like, Man, I'm glad that Google exists. I'm glad
that Google isn't bad, right, And it was almost kind
of magical. You just find everything now because the people
in charge are thinking, how do we keep people on
Google more? How do we make people use Google more?
Versus how do we make Google good? Yeah, it sucks,
(30:17):
and it's across almost every tech platform you look at.
This is because I spoke about the rock economy last time,
but since then I've done a lot of work actually
covering the actual rot. Because you can speak big picture
and you can say, okay, yeah things are bad, thing,
bad people bad, look at bad person. But when you
see in start writing how these people act and the grimness,
(30:41):
the craven nature of the way these people work, it's
it's stomach churning, turning. I forget which one it is,
and it's just it's disgraceful. But also, these people have names.
I genuinely think that just by saying Propagar, Ragavan, sun
uppershy all them, Sheryl Sandberg, last Batch, like all of
these people have names. I'm not saying do anything. I'm
(31:03):
just saying that I genuinely think that they will stop
doing quite as many bad things if we keep saying it,
right because Probaca for a man who runs an one
hundred billion dollars a quarter, I think revenue property just
Google Search. He is very very quiet. No one had
really heard of it. He'd be mentioned as a Wired
(31:23):
art call. There was a ZDNA art call that called
him Yahoo's search master, which is one of the funniest
things considering how bad Yahoo got afterwards. But these people,
I'm not saying anything should happen. I'm just saying talk
about them. Saying their names will shame them, and perhaps
they won't feel much shame. But the more that these
people are called out for these specific actions, I think
(31:45):
change can actually happen. And also Google's in a real
pickle right now, like they they have buggered search up
quite horribly. If I'm honest, Yeah, Like I've never seen
a product get destroyed this badly other than Facebook.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yeah, I mean I think like if ads are the
guiding principle, I guess it, does that mean it's bad
for people looking for information? If if if part of
it means they're getting the best deal on the one
of those indoor silent basketballs.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
You know, just being serviced to them.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I'm trying to find the good and the bad. Yeah,
but that's the thing. So advertising itself is not evil,
and for a while it wasn't perfect. I mean, anyway, it's.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
An ad in a second, but.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I mean I definitely can't with ads on ads on
better offline. Sorry, everyone, there's a lot of them. I
don't control it. But advertising has always been a problem
for search. In the original Google paper written by Sergey
Brin and Larry Page, they literally say that advertising can
(32:51):
create the wrong incentive for Google.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Yes, it's the main Yeah, it's the main conflict at
the center of the entire business. Like, this is not
coming out of nowhere. This is like a long held
battle where they had people in positions of power who
were just who knew this was the battle. They were like,
there's going to be add people money, people who are
(33:14):
going to be constantly pushing us to decrease the quality
of the service we provide customers so that we can,
you know, make our ads more effective at getting them
to click right. Like that's basically what it comes down to.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
I think what it is is that, Yeah, there was
always going to be some profit incentive. I don't think
that's possible to avoid, but it was a fairer trade.
It felt like it wasn't so oddly craven. Yeah, but
that's the thing. It's when you look at how they've acted,
especially in these emails, and it's where's your head? Look
(33:55):
for the man who killed Google Search? To listen to
the podcast these emails, the people fighting against this are
saying things out of a disaster movie. They're like, I'm
afraid that all we care about is growth. Money. Is
the money is getting too close to search? Ads are
getting too close to search? Is there any way we
can stop this? I'm not signing up to this kind
(34:16):
of thing. This will create bad incentives. All of the
warnings of that, and then some guys like noh, kram it,
you're gonna works. And now Ben Gomes is SVP of Education,
you know Google's education, Like that, sure, we all have
interfaced with Google's education problem. I'm on the island from
the prisoner. He's gone. This man has been put in
(34:38):
a box, probably because they can't fire him, and he's
much more valuable in the corner than he is out
there talking to people like me. Yeah, right right, because
I would absolutely I would be on a plane to
go and talk to her. But like, hey, Ben goes.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
But it's the same thing. We've talked about this with
Dei and you know other you know, with environmental policies.
When companies are asked to pay attention to the environmental impact,
it will be popular and it will be entertained by
them for a while, you know, like for Google it
(35:12):
lasted almost an entire decade, But like that was the
main battle that's happening within Search is like, Okay, we're
trying to make this product better. The money people are
trying to you know, take it over, and eventually it
just they wear you down because Wall Street is ultimately
the thing that the people at the very top end
(35:33):
up getting kind of inundated with to the point that
it's like what you know, it's their entire incentive structure.
So just feel like, yeah, the whole thing is just
management people and above conjugating the desires of Wall Street
down through the people who are actually building products that
customers use. And you know, basically that is the conflict
(35:57):
that we're seeing happen over and over again. And the
people who care about the quality of the product, or
care about the initiative to make their company more diverse,
or the people who care about the environmental impact of
their company like that eventually always seems like it gets
(36:17):
drummed out by Wall Street and gets treated as unrealistic
and idealistic and childish by Wall Street, who ends up
only caring about, you know, profitability.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And what's crazy is Wall Street loves plenty of very
bad companies. Tesla is a garbage company, but it's a
meme stock now. It does no connection to reality, right,
Meta as a company has burned like fifteen billion dollars
I think, or something like that on the metaverse, which
is never happening. But also they have made Facebook and
(36:47):
Instagram borderline unusable, and Wall Street loves them because they
print money. What's insane is all these companies had to
do was provide a decent service and just make them better,
and they could just print money run them like a casino,
like just we don't want to mess with the winning formula.
That's why casinos look the way they do for so long,
(37:09):
because they have a supply and demand thing and they
work it very nicely, but they know touching that little
balance canno the whole thing off. And it's crazy. It
makes me feel a little bit crazy like it does
because as I mentioned earlier, when I wrote The Row Economy,
I had a few public things and I looked at
and I was like, yeah, this makes sense. This is
this is a strong theory. It's backed up by things
(37:30):
I've read. Seeing it in action, really and I'm already
kind of pissy. I'm kind of a pissy missy by
defare but reading what they're doing, and like some of
these Facebook things I've got coming as well. That company.
I used to think that Google was the worst one,
but Facebook is Mark Zuckerbok's genuinely evil, as are all
the people and gLite and Schultz and all these other people.
(37:52):
There are so many people at Facebook who are just
do not care. They don't care about the user. I
kind of admire that there are people at Google who
do right, and I think that only makes what Probaga
Ragavan did more evil because he's just like, no, Na,
don't listen to the bloke who built this crap. No,
make more money, now, make money, now, make money, now,
(38:15):
make money for the machines. So I could make the
search engine worse and get more money now what. And
all they had to do was just kind of leave
it alone. But guess what, that doesn't create eternal growth
in the street. Also, the real change was twenty fifteen
when Sundar came men McKenzie boy and the mckinziye people.
The moment they touch it, they got the the brown
midas touch Yeah, turns everything to poopy.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
It sucks.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
It sucks so bad. Because they didn't have to do this,
they could have. Still Google would probably if they left
it in a good condition and didn't really touch it
for seven years, probably still print like sixty seventy eight
billion dollars a quarter. Because it's so ubiquitous. They pay
Apple like ten billion dollars. Yeah, I think right to
(38:58):
make it exclusive on I as well. It's just insane.
It's really insane. And I think the especially given what
I've seen of the Facebook stuff, much of it already
out there, is I reckon behind the curtain. There's a
lot of companies like this. I wouldn't be surprised if
the Boeing stuff is going to reveal a lot more
like this as well. But within the tech industry, this
(39:19):
is what is happening, and this is what happens when
you don't have the people who build stuff running software
or hardware, you just get McKinsey scam artists who crap
up everything forever.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yeah, it's like the same thing that happened that's happened
with the film industry, where people in the marketing accounting
departments displaced the actual creatives who are developing films, and.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
They're like, no, no, no, no, no, these are the movies
that make the line go up. Do we know anything
about movies or storytelling?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
You no.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Let me give you a good example. Microsoft, they just
shut down a number of studios, including the one I
forget what the name, Tokyo based studio called that made
a game called Hi Fi Rush, incredibly successful first party
title eclusive to Xbox NPC. Of course, great game. They
shut down the studio and a bunch of other ones.
Then immediately the next day, and I think the Verge
(40:09):
had this one as well. It was like Microsoft says
they need to make more games like the one that
the studio they shut down. Mate, Like they were like,
we need smaller indie games that people love, right, And
it's like you just killed the company that did you
And it's so obvious, and it's so obvious. And also
I'm not even sure it's good business, right, I'm not
(40:32):
sure they're actually making or saving more money.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Well, Google, yeah, they're definitely making money handover. This same
thing with Facebook, but these things with game studios in particular,
and the same with entertainment. It's like, you're not actually
making money off of this. You're just like, I gotta
I'm gonna get find fifty million dollars somewhere. Can we
just kill that movie we filmed exactly? We just not
release it. Can we take that off tax return? The
(40:56):
other rush should close that loophole, by the way, that's
if I can't deduct a boat, they shouldn't be able
to deduct Wiley Coyote and His Courtroom Drama.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Not the other movies.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
But also the other thing is I think all these
tech companies don't realize at some point people are not
going to care anymore. They're going to stop using these
products and they're not going to come back, right, But
the actual user churn is going to happen.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
So that would require them to no longer be a monopoly.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
It feels like that's the thing that like the actual
anti trust lawsuits need to like come through and actually
make it so that they don't have these enormous.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
I mean, that's never going to happen, right. However, the
thing that will I think is not what people are expecting, is, oh,
they'll stop. They won't stop using Google because they need
a search engine unless they don't, right, unless people just
change their habits to move away from search engines. Now,
search engines are bad if they don't use Facebook anymore.
(42:05):
Like you've used Facebook recently, I'm sure it's terrible. You
can't even see the people you want to see. Same
with Instagram. I mean you run an account for the
daily Zeitgeist. I'm sure you know you put it out
and you're like, of the thousands of people that follow you,
like twelve see it. Because of the algorithm. At some
point people just go go, I don't care, I just
(42:26):
won't use that. Facebook has already had churn they've had
over the last ten years, a decent amount of churn.
They've picked up new users, but it can go the
other way. And the problem that these companies have is
none of the people who built any of it, with
Facebook being the exception, they're just a completely different animal.
For the most part, the people who built these companies
(42:47):
aren't there anymore, or they've been shoved in the corner
and going out to the public and saying, hi, guys.
So Google Search blue. It was so bad, but it's
good now people are gonna be like, yeah, sure, mate.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Domino's Pizza. We understand our product has been bad. That's
because we're trying to save money, right.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, it's just very depressing. The whole thing makes me
very angry. But hey, it's it's broadcast, baby.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Yeah, all right, let's say, let's take a quick break
because I do want to talk about and Ron Musk
and what's going on over there.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
We will be right back.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
We're back.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
And so this is something that's kind of intersected with
our show in you know, the sense that we all
know that Elon Musk is lying shithead and doesn't really
know what he's doing. When he starts takes over a
massive company. And then we also covered the video they
made early that showed a self driving car like driving
(44:00):
from the Tesla headquarters to somebody's house or whatever.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
It was, the fraudulent one.
Speaker 4 (44:05):
Yeah, and then the we we covered it when it
was revealed last year that it was just bullshit, like
they they had used three D mapping on a predetermined
route from a house in Memo Park to Tesla's then headquarters.
Drivers intervened to take control and test runs. When trying
to show the Model X could park itself with no driver,
(44:26):
a test car crashed into a fence in Tesla's parking lot. Yeah,
in the in their own part, So that that was
like an impressive lie. But then there's also these stories
that keep coming out about the autopilot, like leading to
people's deaths and you know, horrifying fatal car accidents. And
(44:51):
so you recently had an episode where you kind of
went through what's been going on behind the scenes, and
it started with this investigation from the NTSB and that
and now it's gone over to NITZA because so NTSB
are the they're the National Transportation Safety Board, I think,
(45:13):
and they they're the one. They're like the hard asses
from the plane crash movies.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Right, Yeah, I think like I think the I think
knits is the one that can take action that stuff is.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Yeah, so NTSB was like, hey, you should look into
this Tesla thing like years ago around the time of
that video, and then National Highway Traffic Safety Administration KNITSA
started an investigation at that time, and they started collecting
data from Tesla but also across the industry with like
other cars that had some sort of autopilot function, and
(45:47):
eventually we're like, okay, so we found that this Tesla
autopilot feature is causing fatal car accidents, and the problem
is unique to Tesla, Like it's actually a problem that
the rest of these other companies are not having because
(46:08):
they're being more careful with it.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yes and yeah, So the big thing was that this
Knitzer rapport that basically found that Tesla was It's actually
kind of a gift for personal injury lawyers. The autopilot
gives people a full sense of security, but also it
doesn't Sometimes when people try and disengage the autopilot to
make a move on the road, it doesn't disengage, which
(46:36):
causes another accident. There are multiple times where the existence
of autopilot made an accident worse. The Tesla has also
really horribly marketed this as autopilot, autonomous, all these other things,
when it really is just and I'm going to eat
ed Nita Meyer, who is also on that episode, that
it's kind of like watching a teenager drive but not
(46:56):
being able to control it quite as well. Right, And
what's remarkable about this report is it just details how
unsafe this tech was. And there's two different things. There's
full self driving, which is the one where you allegedly
give it a location, it drives and puts itself there,
and then this autopilot, which is the auto lane keeping thing.
In both of these cases, they're both unsafe, and they're
(47:19):
unsafe in a way that Tesla has made worse by
the fact that I don't think they even save or
the telemetry data. But there was a data collection issue,
which I realize sounds weird. But if you don't collect
good data on each crash, how do you avert another crash,
especially when your car is doing things autonomously and AI
(47:39):
requires training data. I don't know, and neither does Elon,
And it's so bizarre because any other company in the
world this report would have killed them, but because Tesla
is this otherworldly shit pile where just Elon Musk has
so much money to prop it up, it's kind of like,
what is it going to take here? But also any
(48:00):
personal injury attorney will just be able to go after them.
It's a terrible report for Tesla then, because it's both
as epic as it is based. He fired most of
the team behind the supercharger network, which is Tesla's network
lets you charge fast, and they've also opened it up
to other cars, and it's a big thing. They fired
(48:21):
almost everybody. Elon Musk has now claimed, oh yeah, actually
we're putting half a billion dollars into this, like that's
actually it's actually fine. But for the most part, there's
a bunch of coverage up for around the time when
they announced it a couple week or so ago, where
there were people saying, I can't find someone at Tesla.
There was someone on a YouTube or watch where a
guy was talking about how a power utility could not
(48:44):
find someone at Tesla to work with to install a
new supercharger. All their people were gone, and it's so weird.
It's just very weird because on one hand, this company
could keep chugging along for a while. On the other hand,
he could also fall apart in the next few years.
It's not really obvious. They no longer have any real
(49:06):
growth trajectory. Autopilot is incredibly incredibly unreliable, right, just it's
not safe.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
They may, in a way, if they may, fundamentally fuck
up their entire business model exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
And Edniamier mentioned as well that autopilot is actually a
fairly amazing business for Tesla. Most cars are very low
margin businesses, but autopilots entirely margin. It's a Tesla thing.
They effectively have monthly and annual recurring revenue from cars.
It's genuinely great. It's a good business unless it gets
made legal. Then it's not right. And on top of that,
(49:44):
the cyber truck sucks. It's a bad truck. It's a
bad car, it slices people's hands, it gets stuck in
like a one inch bed of sand. It's not a
good truck. So that's gone. That's not saving this company.
And then he did this thing where he said, oh,
we're going to do robotaxis. Now that's kind of in
the crapper because of the autopilot thing. So his only
(50:04):
other thing is, oh, yeah, we're going to make the
Model two and it will be twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Oh good, Yeah, a cheaper, a cheaply made Tesla.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Tesla at this point is kind of insane, like if
he could pull it off, it would be huge. But
at the same time, the Model three, which is the
cheapest car right now, actually nearly bankrupted the business. Yeah,
and on top of all of this, there was a
class action suit against against the Tesla board about how
(50:37):
the board had greenlit this fifty six billion dollar pay
package for Elon Musk that got thrown out in Delaware courts.
So they have to now reincorporate the board and add
some people who are independent of mister Musk. Now, mister
Musk is trying to get around this. However, if he can't,
he's in real doodo because an independent Tesla board will
(50:58):
probably try and fire him because he's a terrible CEO.
He goes on his website he bought, he posts a
bunch of was I racist and actually racist stuff, and
then he promises a bunch of stuff which pisss off
everybody because he doesn't deliver it. And also he's a
very annoying asshole. He's not fun. No one enjoys. He's
(51:21):
not fun to work. He thinks he is Tony Stark.
He's actually the Riddler, and it's just very he's a
very divorced riddler. I think that that's the best riddle
this Batman. Yeah, where are my kids? About the count?
Speaker 3 (51:42):
That shareholder call though, that you know where the profits
were down fifty five percent, like even worse than analysts
had thought. Yeah, And I always thought it was strange
when he did the things like nah ah or not
even an automotive company, if you thought that you're so dumb,
or actually like a rope AI or what is it
automation botics company?
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Is what he said, Tesla.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
I love that shit, Like no one's actually gonna get
Like if that was actually your business and you stop
selling costs, your company would shut down immediately.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
And that's just part of what his shell game essentially
to try and be like, okay, man, we've definitely hit
the wall there with the cyber truck. We're hitting the
wall here with autopilot. I just need to say something
that gives people a certain amount of like opium copium
to pretend that this thing isn't completely just shitting the bed,
which it seems like that's what is happening.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
And now the fifty four minutes ago, Tesla's head of
cyber truck manufacturing is out.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
I'll fix it.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
God damn it. That's the best guy they had. Oh
is it really not?
Speaker 4 (52:43):
Is there a world where the AI self drive?
Speaker 8 (52:48):
It?
Speaker 4 (52:48):
Like just this whole bubble burst, Like it seems obvious
that all these massive companies that when you talk to
people who pay attention to the market, the US economy,
which is you know, what they describe the stock market as,
but like they talk about how it's being propped up
by all these massive tech companies, and it feels like
(53:11):
that it's a lot of like smoke and mirrors. You know,
there was a time when people were over investing in
technology that wasn't ready yet, like the original dot com
boom and bust like before like you know, decade before
the internet was capable of doing the things that it
(53:32):
wanted to be and that people were investing in. Like
I'm wondering if that happens with AI or what do
you think the future looks like? Because it also feels
like maybe people are just too like there seems to
be an overall thing where Wall Street has recognized like
they can just insulate themselves from the from reality a
(53:55):
little bit by just pretending and investing.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
So you mean AI writ large right outside of Tesla
as well. Yes, So right now we're in maybe month
three of like a six month to nine month horizon.
I'm saying where AI has to start making money, right,
It has to start making money, and it needs to
start making profit because Google put and Amazon both put
(54:20):
several billion dollars into Anthropic compared to Open Ai. Microsoft
get thirteen billion dollars to Open AI, primarily in cloud
credits to make the thing work. But also, who gives
a shit? What has AI actually done? And that is
the overwhelming feeling I'm having. And also, all of these
magical promises have been made of AI and then you
look at what they've actually done, it's kind of wank. Yeah,
(54:43):
it's not very good at all. So right now we're
in kind of the exciting hype cycle where it's like, oh,
I can say AI and stock go up, but give
them another quarter or two and things are going to
start falling apart. So Adobe actually got hit very bad,
Like They're stock kind of tumbled when they said they
weren't sure when a revenue was coming out of AI.
(55:05):
But the big ones to look at, like Microsoft and Google,
who have both put billions of billions into AI, if
they can't start, if they can't show real growth there
and at even revenue, not just profit. Revenue would be fine.
The street would be happy. But at some point they're
going to say the hell is going on?
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Like what like is this do anything? Yeah, You've got
the Rabbit R one, which is this two hundred dollars
box that claimed it would control your apps with AI,
and it turned out it just connects to like very
weird scripts that barely work. All of these promises are
coming to a head. All these people have said they're
going to do all these things. It's going to be magical,
it's going to change our lives. I think that there's
(55:46):
going to be a market term. But I think there's
a sietal one as well. Yeah, because Apple's talking about
putting open AI in Syria and that's fine whatever, but
do you think people are going to use that and
be like, Wow, I love chat GPT Now Well, they're
just gonna be like, oh, Siri works, Yeah, okay, Siri works.
By what all these billions have gone into AI, I
(56:09):
can't name a single goddamn thing that this AI boom
is done for me other than give me a lot
of things to cover, which is very useful.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
I mean the most is I've had fun with some
of the music making AI things, and even then it's
just fun. It's it's like a party trick. It's a
video game at best, where it's like, hey, man, just
try and make it to do a reggae song about
RFK Junior's brain worms, it's like it kind of did
a shitty job, and that's where it kind of ends.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
That's AI. Hey we've got a really expensive machine to
do a shitty job. I'll do that for way cheaper.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
You watch someone half fast something. Ah, I'm the Michael
Jordan of half passing right exactly.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
And it's like, now I see like Sam Altman is
talking about like raising like trillions of dollars from like
the Middle East, Like what the fuck is going on?
Is that him trying to say like, well, no, there's
there's something coming, there's something coming.
Speaker 4 (57:02):
I'm getting the Petro States to fucking buy into this thing.
Speaker 1 (57:06):
Now. Yeah, he's going through a country associated with chopping
up a man and American resident. I believe that was great.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Yeah yeah, evil shit.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
So on top of that, what he's asking there for
is he wants to create a more efficient chip so
that AI will do something, because no one seems to
really be filling in that part in the media doing
a really bad job about this. He's like, yeah, I
need seven trillion, and he's kind of walked it back
a bit. He's like, I didn't mean exactly seven trillion,
but I need a lot of money to do this.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
That's five. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
He's like, AI is inevitable, will be like a smart
person that knows everything and does everything. Please let me
build new chips so that I can prove it. Yeah,
And you'll notice he did an announcement today for some
new GPT four thing and it's funny. There was a
big run up to it and everyone there was a
physical event and it's like, okay, we've got a new
(58:01):
chat is chat GPT four. Oh. The O stands for omni,
which offers greater responsiveness to voice prompts as well as
better vision capabilities. Yeah, okay, Just to be clear, computer
vision the ability of computer being able to see something
and say that is a strawberry or whatever you find
it in like farming gear for example, been around for
(58:21):
a decade happening before there's been AI that can understand
voice and generative AI is slightly it's a bit faster
on things like translation and voice stuff. But even then, okay,
right now, what now? Do something?
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Do something with it?
Speaker 3 (58:38):
Do something, do something one thing right. The most I
feel like that they can do is be like, we're
terrible for the climate. You guys like that if the
centers are everywhere and we're like, yeah, I don't see worse.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
Is this good fit you?
Speaker 5 (58:50):
Like?
Speaker 3 (58:50):
This must be profitable then, and like to your point too,
no one wants to pay for it, Like I would
never pay for some like stupid goofy songwriting AI. Like
it's free, So I'm like, yeah, whatever, this is fine
for five minutes. But to the point where you're like,
all right, now do you want to get a subscription?
Like hell no, I don't need a fucking subscription of
this shit.
Speaker 1 (59:10):
Also, the other thing with the AI boom that no
one seems to want to talk about is not only
is it making no money, it's also costing a lot. Yeah, right,
and everyone's putting it into stuff for some reason. Opening
Eye makes a billion or more in revenue, and everyone
kind of reported that being.
Speaker 8 (59:28):
Like yeah, look, huh, and then no one seems to
have asked the question of any profit, because if they
make a billion dollars in revenue and they don't make
a profit, that is a problem, not a solution, right.
Speaker 1 (59:40):
Right, Yeah, yeah, and it's yeah, I feel crazy. I
feel crazy, man.
Speaker 4 (59:46):
Yeah, it's a it's a crazy world. Well, thank you
for taking us into it. Of course, where can people
find you? Follow you all that good stuff?
Speaker 1 (59:55):
Fuy me on Twitter, ed zitron edz it r awa
and you can find me on blue Sky zytron best guy,
don social, I want to say, And then you can
find newsletter and podcast betrofline dot com. Shoot me an
email easy at betrofline dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
Amazing And is there a work of media that you've
been enjoying.
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
I just rewatched Seven Psychopaths as a classic green movie
is by the guy who did him, Bruce. He's got
Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, Christopher Walken, all the greats,
fantastic movies. It's also a beautiful hour and fifty minute
long hot damn.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
How about that?
Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
Miles? Where can people find you? Is there a working
media you've been enjoying?
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Find me on Twitter and Instagram and the like at
Miles of Gray.
Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
If you like basketball, check Jack.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
And I out on Miles and Jack Got Mad Boosties.
And also find me talking about ninety day fiance on
four to twenty day fiance. A tweet I like is
from at lord rat Squirt. I like big butts and
I cannot lie. My friend here likes big butts and
cannot tell the truth. You may ask us three questions.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Amazing, that's very good.
Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Robert Jones at Stanton Underscore Jones make up your mind
tweeted one of the great things about being a dad
is how easy it is to launder my own desire
for ice cream through my children, and that is that.
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien,
you can find us on Twitter at daily Zeitgeist. We're
at the Daily Zeikeeist. On Instagram, we have a Facebook
(01:01:31):
fanpage and a website Daily zeikeist dot com. Or post
our episodes and our footnotes, we link off to the
information that we talked about in today's episode, as well
as a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles,
what song do you think people might enjoy?
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
This is a new band I stumbled upon called Karmachine
and they are from London and it's, as they describe it,
a mashup of Hindustani classical, fuzzy sixties rock a la
Jimmy Hendrix and soon the inspired lyricism. And yeah, it's
it feels like this. It's exactly that. I gotta say,
(01:02:06):
that's a very good description of their music. And it's
very it feels like old school but very new at
the same time, and I just think it's yeah, really dope.
So this track is called Without You and it's by
Karma Sheen s h e N.
Speaker 4 (01:02:19):
All right, we will loick off to that in the footnotes.
The Daily z Eeitgeist the production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to
do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to
tell you what is trending, and we will talk to
you all then, Bye bye.
I used to like soccer growing up, but then I've
just grown out of it now and hearing a bunch
of Americans be like, Hi man now Arsenal, that's my
best American accent.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yay, you found him.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I just I don't like it. I don't like hearing it.
I don't need any Americans talking about west Ham.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Oh Man forever blowing bubbles? Mate, you know what I mean,
that's what we're saying. I remember catching them at the
Bowl in ground playing. You know, did that other team?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So yeah, there we go.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Now that's someone who knows football. Yeah, unless they're like that,
in which case they're an expert. Right, Hello the Internet,
and welcome to season three thirty eight, Episode two of
der Day's I Guys Say production of iHeartRadio. This is
(00:56):
a podcast where we take a deep dive into a
Erica's shared consciousness.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
And it is.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Tuesday, May fourteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You're of our lord.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I just realized on yesterday's Weekend Trending episode, I said
I gave the days that are actually today, so you
already heard what today is. It's National Decency Day and
National Biscuit Day and National.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Dance like a Chicken Day.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Could we just be decent to each other and stop
yelling on college campuses?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Did you see that guy Richie Showjack on Netflix The Gentleman.
I saw the first couple.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, I was just more a bunch of British people
trying to wait.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, very believable, very believable.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
But the I just was thinking of the guy how
he had to dance like a chicken for the Liverpool
gangster guy. Yeah yeah, and just doing indeed more and
more cocaine to be able to believe be a chicken.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You got one thing, right, and that's the chicken thing.
But the decency. No, in fact, those two things are
in no position to each.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Other, right right right.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
I used to have to do so much cocaine before
the chicken dance came on. At my middle school dances.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I used to have to get.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Fucking jack to the You start hearing that Poka band
warm up?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Oh man.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
I still fart whenever I hear Poka music. Man my
Bonny Water Fountain. Ye, Well, my name is Jack O'Brien aka.
Here comes the story of Harry Kane.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
A soccer player with an amazing name and though I've
never seen him run, jack Obe said he was the
one who makes him scream and the Zeit game Baby's agreed.
That is courtesy of hanahamic View on the discord about
my favorite phrase in the English language, Harry Kane massive,
(02:49):
I'm sure I guess esus Christ completely unoffended and uh yeah,
just headed to the Harry Wow. Wait am I home? Anyways?
I'm a thriller to me joined shout out to hanarhamic
view though one of the greats uh throw to be
joined as always by my co host mister Miles.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Grasty aka Slithering and Fishing and big toothless smile heroin
addict with Lebron James hair style.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
The video game was a horrible thing.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Gollum's my new favorite Lord of the Ring singular reference
to that apology letter from the people that made the
Gollum video game.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And couldn't apologizing.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah it was should have. Yeah it was terrible. It
was absolutely terrible. And the first thing was like, we're
so sorry about Gollum Lord of the Ring, and everyone's like,
the fucking you don't even have.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
The name, you can't even get that.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Yeah, no, not at all so on the discord that
was from Blink.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, shout out to you, thanks for that one.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Yeah yeah, Wait is there fishing in that game?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Is that what? Or did we just think that might be?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
I think because he just needs to From my understanding,
he just lives off of just fit whatever from the stream.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
The chickens as well.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I think he eats. I think McCallum is an omnivore.
I think it's safe to say he would eat a
tin can if pushed back.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
The chef like a goat.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
I've only seen the first of the Lords of the
Ring and I was very high for so I don't
remember much of it.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So the first first time I saw the second one,
Two Towers, I was in a Less the Square movie
theater in London and was there with a few friends
with quite a few drinks. And then it says Lord
of the Rings on the screen, and one of the
guys on which goes, oh fuck.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
I thought, this is Harry Potter and a bunch of
really like exactly the kind of people you thought would
be there opening night for this movie, shushing him.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Then we I think it said like Lord of the
Rings and then took a bait and then said the
two towers because immediately he goes, you're wiz it, Harry,
and look the people punned around, very clearly wanting to
say something, not realizing that this guy was huge. Yeah,
he was just a giant guy.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, it was a total that.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, that's good for happy Gilmo, my god.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Gilmore Billy Madison reference.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
In two days, he would have punched them on fire asunder.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Right right, I like it. Well, that voice you hear
is not Harry Kane. We are thrilled to be joined
by one of our favorites, the tech journalists and writer
behind the newsletter Where's Your ed At? Where's Your ed
dot At? This podcast with cool Zone Media Better Offline
is a must listen one of my favorite podcasts that
(05:45):
launched in the last year, so good go check it out.
It's head Dry.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Welcome back to podcast.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
The podcast voice the entire time, I don't even know
what that is. You're in the pot, you're in the
rock with the casters. Man didn't start on college radio,
So what were you?
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Were you playing music or were you just doing like
I was.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I was playing music, but I was talking and I
just bring random people in. Yeah, and my favorite thing
to do was when I got crank calls from people
is I'd find the number and call them back. I'd
be like, we got cut off somehow. Right, most of
the time, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, man, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
You're on radio. Whoa, it's interesting to.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
See that kind of troll energy. Were like, I only
meant it for to go in one direction. The second
you acknowledge as a person, it all falls apart a conversation.
Speaker 7 (06:45):
Yeah, but I was born on the Internet. I was
ready for this, like right exactly. Oh man, who was
that one dude who did those crank calls in the UK?
That comedian I remember, like they went viral over here
in the internet era.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Hmmm, it was like crah my, god he would do
never mind, I'll find the thing.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
It was like boys you're thinking of, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Jerky boys, the Jersey Boys. I think that's a musical.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yea, look, my brain's not working all right.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
That makes three of us. That's right, two five well ed.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
We're thrilled to have you on. We're going to talk
about some of the stuff you've been covering over on
Better Offline. Why we got a little more detailed. I
think the first time you were on We talked a
little bit about Google Search being an example of the
rot economy, but we have a better idea of kind
of the specifics of how it got so bad, So
we're going to dig into that and other companies that
(07:46):
are being ruined by this, like management class.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Of people, the McKenzie elite.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
McKenzie elite, You do your time at McKenzie and then
go ruin the.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Techste run any business you like into the ground. They'll
pay you so well.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
For and then you'll fail upwards. We'll talk about that,
and there's some also some interesting stuff on Elon Musk,
who you referred to as n Ron musk ra Musk.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That was the best pun I've made.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
There is a direction, there is a path that this
could go down that's like really really like obviously, like
anyone who's been paying attention, it is like this guy's
kind of full of shit, right, But some of the
stuff with Tesla and the self driving car stuff, granted,
this being the version of America we existed, it's probably
gonna be fine, But there's a version in a sane
(08:38):
world where this whole house of cards collapses.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
What's Tesla is just such a peculiar company like the
cyber trunk alone. Right, it's just insane that that thing
is going on about like nearly chopping people's fear, like
some guy put his finger in the drunk thing as
it closed. Yeah, and like broke.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Harper truck trunk.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Honestly, we've also on you yes on unite. Yeah, especially
when you're going to stick your finger in that. But
also these things keep breaking someone's broke because he put
it in a car wash.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I saw that one too.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
They seem to just perpetually get stuck in situations that
a nineteen eighty six Camra would carefully navigate. Yeah, and
I think though to some extent, that's also they used
to just make things better but easy. We're getting into globalization.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
But the Mackenzie person hadn't come in and given them
the analysis that yeah, exactly in a couple of years
actually makes it helps with turn over.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
It could save us thirteen cents per car, but the
cause will last five years less and the meaning they
need to buy a new one.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Boom.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Just the prank call thing I was reverending earlier was
phone jacker, phone jack tracker. Yeah, Cavon Novak, who's the
guy who's on what we do in the shadows. He's
like this English comedian. He'd had this whole prank call
website that me and my friends. It was like a
show that was on I forget what channel.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I missed a branding opportunity in elementary school. Apparent I
could have been the phone jacker, could have been the
phone jack.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Now I want a Yeah, I want a title with
Jack in it.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
In elementary school.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah if Jack, cause you don't pick up just so
you know, it's weird on the other side, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I tried to steer clear of that as much as possible.
But before we get into all that stuff ed, we
do like to ask our guests, what is something from
your search history or what is something that you've recently
screen grabbed that is revealing about who you are.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I've been very much enjoying this weird side project called
them Crooked Vultures Queen. It was the Queen's the Sage
front man bassist from let Zeppelin and Dave Groll on
drums also but also that and Peeping Tom, which is
another great name to say. But also it was a
Mike Patten, So Mike Patten in the face no more.
It is him Razel Who was this guy who does
(10:55):
beat boxing with his mouth. Yeah, from the roots weird
weird bundled Trio, which was to upstep but done with
the band, and then I forget what the woman was
calling it, but the DJs were called the Executioners. It's insane.
It was like a one off album. It's fantastic. I'll
be listening to it sit outside. The weather's getting nice here,
so I'm just sitting outside having a frosty diet coke
(11:18):
listening to music. It's delightful.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Wait. What was this group again that had the Executioners
in it?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, Peeping Tom. Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I mean I used to watch their like scratch videos
because they're.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
They like they was excellent, Like the whole band's excellent.
You got to check them out.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Wow. Okay, Yeah rec in Peace Rock Radar.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
I remember he passed away in two thousand and something,
but yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I'm definitely gonna look into that.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, it's such a weird band, but it's great, and.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
I think the first time you're wrong. Your search history
was also something related to the Queens of the Stoney.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, that's because I'm a huge Queens of the Stone
Age fan. I've now seen them sixteen times. But I
realized that there's actually something not Queens of Snage I
could bring up, which is Peeping Tom, which I don't
think has any connection to the band, which is unusual
for music to me.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Wow, look at you spreading, spreading.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Out, spreading out. Now I listened to two bands.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, have you been to the ORB at all?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
To the ORB? Yeah, I have. So I don't know
how much you know about this thing, but it's really weird.
They tell you to come in at a time, but
then there's like an hour in this very strange lobby
with these ai ai quote unquote humanoids that will respond
to things you say. So you're there for an hour
and it's crowded than the food sucks and it's awful.
(12:35):
But also these these robots will talk back to you.
But I've heard rumors that there's not actually robots, that
there's a bloke who's just talking.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
If I ever come across the truth behind this story,
you're here on better offline for sure. But I went
to see Aronofsky's Postcards from Earth. One of the things
I was up the very high seats, which were the
cheapest ones, making them one hundred and thirty bucks apiece,
which ridiculous for a movie. Those seats. I have never
(13:03):
felt such powerful vertigo. I have a fear of heights,
and I thought I was going to die at the
whole time. My kid was there. He was fine, totally fine.
That was like ah. But the movie itself is so
peculiar because the beginner it's set in space, and it's
like these people being woken up in cryo sleep cry asleep,
(13:27):
and they have this whole, very belabored thing, and the
whole thrust of the movie is that they remind them
who they are and where they're from and all this,
and the suggestion is that Earth has been destroyed by
global warming. All that stuff, except one big problem. The
space stuff is not actually filmed in the aspect ratio
of the sphere. So you've just got this huge screen
(13:49):
with this tiny picture like you can see it. But
it looks terrible, right, it looks like ass But the
actual main thing is genuinely really cool as the most
impressive spatial audio I've ever seen. The screen is a
it has depth to him. Yeah, you can hear a
guy shout from the front of the screen to the
back of the screen. It's very cool. It looks amazing
(14:12):
for the amount of money it costs. It's a bloody
joke though, right right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
The yeah, we've talked about there, just like being there
from the outside with the like high death weird.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Like the ads of Salesforce Einstein.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Are they doing heads now? When we were there the
NBA Summer League and there's just a big basketball and
it was just the surreal there being like a high
definition basketball on the like hazy skyline, but then it
would turn into that eyeball. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm
good on that. Yeah, but but now it's like ads.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
It's adds. Yeah, well, just like a miscellaneous image just
purple for some reason, right, just anything, Right. I do
think they should just have a big eye the whole time. Yeah,
And they should, and it should very aggressively focus on
one point.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, I feel freaked out.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So like one guy who's just coming off whatever he's
on is.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Like, no, God abound me, and.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
And it's just there's a TikTok where someone did that
where it's just his face going searching for perverts or
something like that. I do think that they should do
that as well. They should have a pervert.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Watch what's what's do you think is underrated?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So let's see yoga. I know this is a weird one.
I'm changing. I know I'm changing a bit, but yoga
yoga recently, and I'll tell you I've been doing it
a few months. You want to know. I started off
really bad, and I think I'm worse, but it's very good,
Like I feel good after it, not during it. I
(15:53):
feel very bad, but also I'm intimately aware that my
body is fragile and terrible, but there's something quite fun
about it. And I do it on my own. Don't
want to done a few classes with people height it. Yeah,
I don't want to be around people. I look and
sound awful. I make these terrible noises I smell. And
that's even before I do yoga. Not just kidding, but
(16:13):
it's I I love it. And also the amount of
big strong men I know who have just been like, yeah,
Yoga's it's like, you know, it's baby stuff. It's like, no,
this is incredibly hard. Yeah, it's more of a challenge
than anything else I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
For sure.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Mobility is such an underrated aspect of being healthy I
think people don't understand is like just the ability to
like turn your back in the shower without stressing your muscles.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Uh yeah, being really put in my back out trying
to like wash my ass crack the other morning, and
I was like, I gotta fuck it.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
I have to really stretching.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah, it gonna save me from washing my ass crack
in the shower.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Is the twenty first century, I shouldn't have to do
it anymore.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, And what my explaining to me as rigid as pass.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
This isn't the future. I should be able to be good.
I should be in a perfect L shape at all
times and still able to wipe my arms. Exactly where
is it, sam Ortman? Why can't I do that?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Come on answers?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Just like the idea of yelling at sam Ortman about
a bid day. Sorry, Yeah, what's something you think is overrated? Croissants?
Speaker 4 (17:25):
M hmm.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I've got a croissant this morning. I was looking forward
to our beer and it's everywhere, it's all over me
and wearing a black shirts covering croissant barely got any
matter to actually eat. It's very pissed off about this.
I originally told you that getting up early was my
overrated thing, and I still stand by the but croissants
today I'm taking them down. No, I'm not going to
(17:46):
tolerate this crap anymore. They're messy, there's not enough food
in them.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
There's only a bunch of hard They're just dissolve into
a bunch of crumbs.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
They're like those are costs, like those Costco peanut bars
that you just bite them and they combust. You get
like two bites before the whole thing is just right.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, isn't that like what?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Because I feel like the jank Costco Kirkland signature croissant
is the opposite, like it has no crumbs because it's
just so like just poised, yeah, versus like I guess
a good one is supposed to be that flaky version.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I'm like, man, give me the mushy, give me the cramp.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, I need, I need the cramp. Put the crap
in my hull.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Put the crap in my whole new album new album
from the Tongues and the Jack Peeping to Phone Jacker
featuring Phone Jacker and Top in My Home.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
It is one of the hardest foods to eat on
the go without just covering yourself, making yourself look like
a backyard in autumn. You know, you're just like covered.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Looking back out, and I'm not quite love that.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Just nothing but crumbs all the way down. I'm already
like I'm not the not the neatest person.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So it's that makes two croissans.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
French people eat it with their hands. It's not a
forking knife job, right, a chroissant, are we like completely.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Depict I think you meant to like slice it and
like put barter on it versus how I do it,
which is just like just kind of like put it
in my mouth bite and then it explodes everywhere.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Right, that's why you gotta take it down with one bite.
I sold your problem, duck.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, they say customarily you eat it with a napkin,
but you eat it with your hands rather than utensils.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Okay, I try that, Yeah, try maybe like.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Tear off a little pieces and they dip it maybe
into coffee.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, it's like all right, Yeah, I don't know. All
I felt was disappointment, though.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Yeah, crumb cake is less crummy than fucking croissants.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
If I can eat the crumbs grape, it's all the flights.
They're horrible.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, all right, great, overrated, underrated. Let's take a
quick break and we'll come back and talk about the
tech industry and why tech is underrated. And we're back.
(20:20):
We're back, and sort of recap. Google search used to be.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Good.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
It was good, and I remember a time that that
was like the tech breakthrough that everyone was.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Like, fucking believe this shit, It's like magic.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
They feel like it was a slow bun. Yeah, but
then it just was so ubiquitous at some point that
it was just like people just assumed it would always work.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah right, Yeah, there was like a time in the
late nineties early it's where people were like it's it
was cool. People are like here, let me google that, right,
or it was like you were like a verb or
like you knew how to use it too. It's like
you got to use quotation marks or got to use
signs between Google.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
That's why I use Alta Vista.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Actually that's what someone say Google foo and sometime that's
a certain kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
But I mean, like, yeah, Ed, we've when the last
time you were talking, we were talking about the rotten economy,
and I know we've made mention of just how Google's
become just worse and worse, and then your recent episode
about how Google just became an absolute, just unusable basically
ad service just because as some of the words I understood,
(21:39):
and I was I was right there with you other
times conceptually I knew where you were going, but I
couldn't quite put it all together intellectually.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
So could you?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Would you mind explaining just sort of this shift from
this like code yellow change that occurred, or this code
yellow moment into this basically glorified ad server we have now,
But please explain it as if I am an ignorant
person that was distracted by a toddler while.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
They were listening. No problem. So the episode I wrote
and the news accompanying newsletter was about in two thousand
and I'm now going to put it up slide eighteen
or eighteen correct, because the dates are important. Yes, So
in twenty nineteen there was a low called Ben Gomes
who is the head of Google Search. Ben Gomes had
been at Google since nineteen ninety nine, so basically the
(22:28):
beginning he worked directly with Soga and Larry. He is
and there are tons of articles about him where everything
he talks about he's talking like a Renaissance painter. He's like,
I believe the connectivity between dating, like he's so romantic
about it. So on February fifth, twenty nineteen, he gets
through a connection of events something called a code yellow,
which is an internal Google thing that says there is
(22:48):
a problem that's significant. There are higher codes, but they're
extremely rare. Code yellow itself is actually pretty rare. So
what happened was this code yellow was the revenue and
ad side of Google saying Google Search, you are not
making us enough money. You need to make us more money.
And also, and this is very important, the amount of
queries going into Google is not growing enough. Now, little
(23:12):
side note for you. Queries in this case is referring
to the amount of times that people search. Now, if
you think about it for just a second, is that
necessarily connected to how good Google is? Not necessarily. In fact,
if there are less queries, maybe Google's better anywound what
they were looking for, right, yes, which does not work
(23:35):
for Google. So Google is then in this little futz
of the code yellow, and between Ben Gomes and some
other guys, there's a conversation where he says, Hey, guys,
I feel like Google is getting too close to the money.
Google seems to only care about growth. And after about
a month they resolve the code yellow, and there's a
(23:55):
big email thread and there's a ton of emails that
I'm just leaving out, but I'm sum racing as quick
as possible. There's also on the sidelines this guy called
Jerry Dishler, who was one of these noxious VP types,
who was kind of like, yeah, guys, we need to
make more queries and we need to make more money,
so could you just do that? So the code yellow
comes to an end, and it turns out that the
guy behind it is a guy called Prabagar Ragavan, who
(24:18):
was then the head of Advertising it head of ads
on Google, and Ben Gom sends out a thing to
a bunch of people who are all congratulating each other,
saying we got through this great job everyone. Prabaga responds saying, yeah, actually,
engineering did that. You didn't do it. He didn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So so these emails came out through a Department of
Justice is antitrust hearing, and I realized this is a
lot of history. In twenty twenty, Brabaga becomes head of
Google Search and then goes he takes over Google Search
from this ideal from the idealist who worked on Google
Search from the beginning, right, so he came in, he
(24:57):
was basically meshed him out. And also, to be clear,
this queries metric is insane. Having more queries means nothing.
And in fact, these emails kind of detail that he
takes over in twenty twenty. Now, if you really think
about it, Google started to get really bad in like
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, and has got significantly worse constantly
(25:17):
since twenty twenty. End of twenty nine, well, mid twenty
nineteen they added this to mobile, but they put it
fully on to desktop as well. In twenty twenty, they
maybe changed to make it harder to tell when something
is an AD on bribble now.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely noticed that change.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
They made a bunch of changes to make Google worse.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Yeah, he used to be pretty easy. There was like
a background. It seemed like pretty clear that they had
a internal discussion and we're like, well, we don't want
the product, we don't want to be actively tricking people into.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Well they they it was funnier than that. They were
just like, yeah, we need to see the numbers go up.
Please make number go higher. Now, line go up now, yep.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
But yeah, like during the two thousands, like it was
like there was a balance of like, we need this
to be a product, a product that people want to use,
and we need to make money off of ads. But
they've hit a point where they don't really give a
shit if it's a product that people want to use.
(26:23):
It seems like it's that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And also within these emails, and again this is from
the Department of Justice, is suit against Google for monopoly.
So right, hey, what monopoly could they have?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Right?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And what's really stark about it is what mister Rugavan's
previous job was. So can you think of a what
would the worst job that could be previously held by
someone running Google Search? Just think about it for a second.
You might not get it, but just think what is
the worst company he could have worked for that isn't
like I don't know deffinctively. Yeah, different companies, Like one of.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
The worst would be Google, as they're like, wait, driving revenue.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Company within this period be not good at their job.
I'll skip to it. Mister Ragavan ran search at Yahoo
Watch two thousand and five to twenty twelve. In that period,
they went from I think like a thirty three percent
market share versus Google's thirty six percent to literally doing
(27:24):
a deal where bing would power Yahoo. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Yea, let me just say in fact check you real quick,
let me go Yahoo that Nope, never said.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
And she says he's great and has a huge dick. Crazy. No,
but it's crazy because you read this thing, and you
read this story, and you read the emails, and I
was writing it and I was like, is this someone
messing with? This is ridiculous, right, because the emails are
so grim. There's one with this guy is enginey called
(27:54):
Shashi Saka, who's like, can we tell Sundhar Pushai about
this and stop this? Two that's the CEO of Google
and his former job was Mackenzie.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
They're on the right side of a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I was gonna say, bread prices, Oxycrton Yeah yeah yeah.
And it's wild because you read this story and you're
like it couldn't be this obvious, could it? And the
timeline is just perfect, and I will I will actually
say something. I'm previewing, something I'm working on. The Only
time I've ever seen worse than this story is in
(28:29):
my next newsletter. About Facebook. Yeah, well you don't have
emails in this chain where someone is like, yeah, actually
it's good. The product sucks, right, I actually like this,
this is good. I've got documents where there's someone writing, yeah,
here are the changes we've made at Facebook to increase
engagement that made Facebook worse.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, right, worse for the.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
User and it And guess who guess what COO of
Facebook Sheryl Samberg until twenty twenty two McKinsey.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
The people that run Facebook right now, or product managers
or growth people. This is the this is tying it
back to Google. The people in charge are management concerns,
ads people, revenue people. They're not the people who build anything.
They are parasites.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah, it's sort of like what yeah, private equity does
to like any other business, Like, we don't know this
business innately at all. We just know how to make
the line go up. And if that means everything falls apart,
like then great, well.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
They're going to do.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
We have the monopoly right right. What was the way
that search human was making ads before or making like
generating revenue before the ads or they're just saying we
need to.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Blas them so Search But to be clear, at this
point in like twenty nineteen, Search was making them tens
of billions of dollars. Sure, it wasn't like it was
a fledgling business and they were like, oh, we got
to grow up everyone. This was a business printing money.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It was a beloved product that everybody used that everyone
was like, Man, I'm glad that Google exists. I'm glad
that Google isn't bad, right, And it was almost kind
of magical. You just find everything now because the people
in charge are thinking, how do we keep people on
Google more? How do we make people use Google more?
Versus how do we make Google good? Yeah, it sucks,
(30:17):
and it's across almost every tech platform you look at.
This is because I spoke about the rock economy last time,
but since then I've done a lot of work actually
covering the actual rot. Because you can speak big picture
and you can say, okay, yeah things are bad, thing,
bad people bad, look at bad person. But when you
see in start writing how these people act and the grimness,
(30:41):
the craven nature of the way these people work, it's
it's stomach churning, turning. I forget which one it is,
and it's just it's disgraceful. But also, these people have names.
I genuinely think that just by saying Propagar, Ragavan, sun
uppershy all them, Sheryl Sandberg, last Batch, like all of
these people have names. I'm not saying do anything. I'm
(31:03):
just saying that I genuinely think that they will stop
doing quite as many bad things if we keep saying it,
right because Probaca for a man who runs an one
hundred billion dollars a quarter, I think revenue property just
Google Search. He is very very quiet. No one had
really heard of it. He'd be mentioned as a Wired
(31:23):
art call. There was a ZDNA art call that called
him Yahoo's search master, which is one of the funniest
things considering how bad Yahoo got afterwards. But these people,
I'm not saying anything should happen. I'm just saying talk
about them. Saying their names will shame them, and perhaps
they won't feel much shame. But the more that these
people are called out for these specific actions, I think
(31:45):
change can actually happen. And also Google's in a real
pickle right now, like they they have buggered search up
quite horribly. If I'm honest, Yeah, Like I've never seen
a product get destroyed this badly other than Facebook.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yeah, I mean I think like if ads are the
guiding principle, I guess it, does that mean it's bad
for people looking for information? If if if part of
it means they're getting the best deal on the one
of those indoor silent basketballs.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
You know, just being serviced to them.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I'm trying to find the good and the bad. Yeah,
but that's the thing. So advertising itself is not evil,
and for a while it wasn't perfect. I mean, anyway, it's.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
An ad in a second, but.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I mean I definitely can't with ads on ads on
better offline. Sorry, everyone, there's a lot of them. I
don't control it. But advertising has always been a problem
for search. In the original Google paper written by Sergey
Brin and Larry Page, they literally say that advertising can
(32:51):
create the wrong incentive for Google.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Yes, it's the main Yeah, it's the main conflict at
the center of the entire business. Like, this is not
coming out of nowhere. This is like a long held
battle where they had people in positions of power who
were just who knew this was the battle. They were like,
there's going to be add people money, people who are
(33:14):
going to be constantly pushing us to decrease the quality
of the service we provide customers so that we can,
you know, make our ads more effective at getting them
to click right. Like that's basically what it comes down to.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
I think what it is is that, Yeah, there was
always going to be some profit incentive. I don't think
that's possible to avoid, but it was a fairer trade.
It felt like it wasn't so oddly craven. Yeah, but
that's the thing. It's when you look at how they've acted,
especially in these emails, and it's where's your head? Look
(33:55):
for the man who killed Google Search? To listen to
the podcast these emails, the people fighting against this are
saying things out of a disaster movie. They're like, I'm
afraid that all we care about is growth. Money. Is
the money is getting too close to search? Ads are
getting too close to search? Is there any way we
can stop this? I'm not signing up to this kind
(34:16):
of thing. This will create bad incentives. All of the
warnings of that, and then some guys like noh, kram it,
you're gonna works. And now Ben Gomes is SVP of Education,
you know Google's education, Like that, sure, we all have
interfaced with Google's education problem. I'm on the island from
the prisoner. He's gone. This man has been put in
(34:38):
a box, probably because they can't fire him, and he's
much more valuable in the corner than he is out
there talking to people like me. Yeah, right right, because
I would absolutely I would be on a plane to
go and talk to her. But like, hey, Ben goes.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
But it's the same thing. We've talked about this with
Dei and you know other you know, with environmental policies.
When companies are asked to pay attention to the environmental impact,
it will be popular and it will be entertained by
them for a while, you know, like for Google it
(35:12):
lasted almost an entire decade, But like that was the
main battle that's happening within Search is like, Okay, we're
trying to make this product better. The money people are
trying to you know, take it over, and eventually it
just they wear you down because Wall Street is ultimately
the thing that the people at the very top end
(35:33):
up getting kind of inundated with to the point that
it's like what you know, it's their entire incentive structure.
So just feel like, yeah, the whole thing is just
management people and above conjugating the desires of Wall Street
down through the people who are actually building products that
customers use. And you know, basically that is the conflict
(35:57):
that we're seeing happen over and over again. And the
people who care about the quality of the product, or
care about the initiative to make their company more diverse,
or the people who care about the environmental impact of
their company like that eventually always seems like it gets
(36:17):
drummed out by Wall Street and gets treated as unrealistic
and idealistic and childish by Wall Street, who ends up
only caring about, you know, profitability.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And what's crazy is Wall Street loves plenty of very
bad companies. Tesla is a garbage company, but it's a
meme stock now. It does no connection to reality, right,
Meta as a company has burned like fifteen billion dollars
I think, or something like that on the metaverse, which
is never happening. But also they have made Facebook and
(36:47):
Instagram borderline unusable, and Wall Street loves them because they
print money. What's insane is all these companies had to
do was provide a decent service and just make them better,
and they could just print money run them like a casino,
like just we don't want to mess with the winning formula.
That's why casinos look the way they do for so long,
(37:09):
because they have a supply and demand thing and they
work it very nicely, but they know touching that little
balance canno the whole thing off. And it's crazy. It
makes me feel a little bit crazy like it does
because as I mentioned earlier, when I wrote The Row Economy,
I had a few public things and I looked at
and I was like, yeah, this makes sense. This is
this is a strong theory. It's backed up by things
(37:30):
I've read. Seeing it in action, really and I'm already
kind of pissy. I'm kind of a pissy missy by
defare but reading what they're doing, and like some of
these Facebook things I've got coming as well. That company.
I used to think that Google was the worst one,
but Facebook is Mark Zuckerbok's genuinely evil, as are all
the people and gLite and Schultz and all these other people.
(37:52):
There are so many people at Facebook who are just
do not care. They don't care about the user. I
kind of admire that there are people at Google who
do right, and I think that only makes what Probaga
Ragavan did more evil because he's just like, no, Na,
don't listen to the bloke who built this crap. No,
make more money, now, make money, now, make money, now,
(38:15):
make money for the machines. So I could make the
search engine worse and get more money now what. And
all they had to do was just kind of leave
it alone. But guess what, that doesn't create eternal growth
in the street. Also, the real change was twenty fifteen
when Sundar came men McKenzie boy and the mckinziye people.
The moment they touch it, they got the the brown
midas touch Yeah, turns everything to poopy.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
It sucks.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
It sucks so bad. Because they didn't have to do this,
they could have. Still Google would probably if they left
it in a good condition and didn't really touch it
for seven years, probably still print like sixty seventy eight
billion dollars a quarter. Because it's so ubiquitous. They pay
Apple like ten billion dollars. Yeah, I think right to
(38:58):
make it exclusive on I as well. It's just insane.
It's really insane. And I think the especially given what
I've seen of the Facebook stuff, much of it already
out there, is I reckon behind the curtain. There's a
lot of companies like this. I wouldn't be surprised if
the Boeing stuff is going to reveal a lot more
like this as well. But within the tech industry, this
(39:19):
is what is happening, and this is what happens when
you don't have the people who build stuff running software
or hardware, you just get McKinsey scam artists who crap
up everything forever.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yeah, it's like the same thing that happened that's happened
with the film industry, where people in the marketing accounting
departments displaced the actual creatives who are developing films, and.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
They're like, no, no, no, no, no, these are the movies
that make the line go up. Do we know anything
about movies or storytelling?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
You no.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Let me give you a good example. Microsoft, they just
shut down a number of studios, including the one I
forget what the name, Tokyo based studio called that made
a game called Hi Fi Rush, incredibly successful first party
title eclusive to Xbox NPC. Of course, great game. They
shut down the studio and a bunch of other ones.
Then immediately the next day, and I think the Verge
(40:09):
had this one as well. It was like Microsoft says
they need to make more games like the one that
the studio they shut down. Mate, Like they were like,
we need smaller indie games that people love, right, And
it's like you just killed the company that did you
And it's so obvious, and it's so obvious. And also
I'm not even sure it's good business, right, I'm not
(40:32):
sure they're actually making or saving more money.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Well, Google, yeah, they're definitely making money handover. This same
thing with Facebook, but these things with game studios in particular,
and the same with entertainment. It's like, you're not actually
making money off of this. You're just like, I gotta
I'm gonna get find fifty million dollars somewhere. Can we
just kill that movie we filmed exactly? We just not
release it. Can we take that off tax return? The
(40:56):
other rush should close that loophole, by the way, that's
if I can't deduct a boat, they shouldn't be able
to deduct Wiley Coyote and His Courtroom Drama.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Not the other movies.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
But also the other thing is I think all these
tech companies don't realize at some point people are not
going to care anymore. They're going to stop using these
products and they're not going to come back, right, But
the actual user churn is going to happen.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
So that would require them to no longer be a monopoly.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
It feels like that's the thing that like the actual
anti trust lawsuits need to like come through and actually
make it so that they don't have these enormous.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
I mean, that's never going to happen, right. However, the
thing that will I think is not what people are expecting, is, oh,
they'll stop. They won't stop using Google because they need
a search engine unless they don't, right, unless people just
change their habits to move away from search engines. Now,
search engines are bad if they don't use Facebook anymore.
(42:05):
Like you've used Facebook recently, I'm sure it's terrible. You
can't even see the people you want to see. Same
with Instagram. I mean you run an account for the
daily Zeitgeist. I'm sure you know you put it out
and you're like, of the thousands of people that follow you,
like twelve see it. Because of the algorithm. At some
point people just go go, I don't care, I just
(42:26):
won't use that. Facebook has already had churn they've had
over the last ten years, a decent amount of churn.
They've picked up new users, but it can go the
other way. And the problem that these companies have is
none of the people who built any of it, with
Facebook being the exception, they're just a completely different animal.
For the most part, the people who built these companies
(42:47):
aren't there anymore, or they've been shoved in the corner
and going out to the public and saying, hi, guys.
So Google Search blue. It was so bad, but it's
good now people are gonna be like, yeah, sure, mate.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Domino's Pizza. We understand our product has been bad. That's
because we're trying to save money, right.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, it's just very depressing. The whole thing makes me
very angry. But hey, it's it's broadcast, baby.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Yeah, all right, let's say, let's take a quick break
because I do want to talk about and Ron Musk
and what's going on over there.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
We will be right back.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
We're back.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
And so this is something that's kind of intersected with
our show in you know, the sense that we all
know that Elon Musk is lying shithead and doesn't really
know what he's doing. When he starts takes over a
massive company. And then we also covered the video they
made early that showed a self driving car like driving
(44:00):
from the Tesla headquarters to somebody's house or whatever.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
It was, the fraudulent one.
Speaker 4 (44:05):
Yeah, and then the we we covered it when it
was revealed last year that it was just bullshit, like
they they had used three D mapping on a predetermined
route from a house in Memo Park to Tesla's then headquarters.
Drivers intervened to take control and test runs. When trying
to show the Model X could park itself with no driver,
(44:26):
a test car crashed into a fence in Tesla's parking lot. Yeah,
in the in their own part, So that that was
like an impressive lie. But then there's also these stories
that keep coming out about the autopilot, like leading to
people's deaths and you know, horrifying fatal car accidents. And
(44:51):
so you recently had an episode where you kind of
went through what's been going on behind the scenes, and
it started with this investigation from the NTSB and that
and now it's gone over to NITZA because so NTSB
are the they're the National Transportation Safety Board, I think,
(45:13):
and they they're the one. They're like the hard asses
from the plane crash movies.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Right, Yeah, I think like I think the I think
knits is the one that can take action that stuff is.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Yeah, so NTSB was like, hey, you should look into
this Tesla thing like years ago around the time of
that video, and then National Highway Traffic Safety Administration KNITSA
started an investigation at that time, and they started collecting
data from Tesla but also across the industry with like
other cars that had some sort of autopilot function, and
(45:47):
eventually we're like, okay, so we found that this Tesla
autopilot feature is causing fatal car accidents, and the problem
is unique to Tesla, Like it's actually a problem that
the rest of these other companies are not having because
(46:08):
they're being more careful with it.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yes and yeah, So the big thing was that this
Knitzer rapport that basically found that Tesla was It's actually
kind of a gift for personal injury lawyers. The autopilot
gives people a full sense of security, but also it
doesn't Sometimes when people try and disengage the autopilot to
make a move on the road, it doesn't disengage, which
(46:36):
causes another accident. There are multiple times where the existence
of autopilot made an accident worse. The Tesla has also
really horribly marketed this as autopilot, autonomous, all these other things,
when it really is just and I'm going to eat
ed Nita Meyer, who is also on that episode, that
it's kind of like watching a teenager drive but not
(46:56):
being able to control it quite as well. Right, And
what's remarkable about this report is it just details how
unsafe this tech was. And there's two different things. There's
full self driving, which is the one where you allegedly
give it a location, it drives and puts itself there,
and then this autopilot, which is the auto lane keeping thing.
In both of these cases, they're both unsafe, and they're
(47:19):
unsafe in a way that Tesla has made worse by
the fact that I don't think they even save or
the telemetry data. But there was a data collection issue,
which I realize sounds weird. But if you don't collect
good data on each crash, how do you avert another crash,
especially when your car is doing things autonomously and AI
(47:39):
requires training data. I don't know, and neither does Elon,
And it's so bizarre because any other company in the
world this report would have killed them, but because Tesla
is this otherworldly shit pile where just Elon Musk has
so much money to prop it up, it's kind of like,
what is it going to take here? But also any
(48:00):
personal injury attorney will just be able to go after them.
It's a terrible report for Tesla then, because it's both
as epic as it is based. He fired most of
the team behind the supercharger network, which is Tesla's network
lets you charge fast, and they've also opened it up
to other cars, and it's a big thing. They fired
(48:21):
almost everybody. Elon Musk has now claimed, oh yeah, actually
we're putting half a billion dollars into this, like that's
actually it's actually fine. But for the most part, there's
a bunch of coverage up for around the time when
they announced it a couple week or so ago, where
there were people saying, I can't find someone at Tesla.
There was someone on a YouTube or watch where a
guy was talking about how a power utility could not
(48:44):
find someone at Tesla to work with to install a
new supercharger. All their people were gone, and it's so weird.
It's just very weird because on one hand, this company
could keep chugging along for a while. On the other hand,
he could also fall apart in the next few years.
It's not really obvious. They no longer have any real
(49:06):
growth trajectory. Autopilot is incredibly incredibly unreliable, right, just it's
not safe.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
They may, in a way, if they may, fundamentally fuck
up their entire business model exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
And Edniamier mentioned as well that autopilot is actually a
fairly amazing business for Tesla. Most cars are very low
margin businesses, but autopilots entirely margin. It's a Tesla thing.
They effectively have monthly and annual recurring revenue from cars.
It's genuinely great. It's a good business unless it gets
made legal. Then it's not right. And on top of that,
(49:44):
the cyber truck sucks. It's a bad truck. It's a
bad car, it slices people's hands, it gets stuck in
like a one inch bed of sand. It's not a
good truck. So that's gone. That's not saving this company.
And then he did this thing where he said, oh,
we're going to do robotaxis. Now that's kind of in
the crapper because of the autopilot thing. So his only
(50:04):
other thing is, oh, yeah, we're going to make the
Model two and it will be twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Oh good, Yeah, a cheaper, a cheaply made Tesla.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Tesla at this point is kind of insane, like if
he could pull it off, it would be huge. But
at the same time, the Model three, which is the
cheapest car right now, actually nearly bankrupted the business. Yeah,
and on top of all of this, there was a
class action suit against against the Tesla board about how
(50:37):
the board had greenlit this fifty six billion dollar pay
package for Elon Musk that got thrown out in Delaware courts.
So they have to now reincorporate the board and add
some people who are independent of mister Musk. Now, mister
Musk is trying to get around this. However, if he can't,
he's in real doodo because an independent Tesla board will
(50:58):
probably try and fire him because he's a terrible CEO.
He goes on his website he bought, he posts a
bunch of was I racist and actually racist stuff, and
then he promises a bunch of stuff which pisss off
everybody because he doesn't deliver it. And also he's a
very annoying asshole. He's not fun. No one enjoys. He's
(51:21):
not fun to work. He thinks he is Tony Stark.
He's actually the Riddler, and it's just very he's a
very divorced riddler. I think that that's the best riddle
this Batman. Yeah, where are my kids? About the count?
Speaker 3 (51:42):
That shareholder call though, that you know where the profits
were down fifty five percent, like even worse than analysts
had thought. Yeah, And I always thought it was strange
when he did the things like nah ah or not
even an automotive company, if you thought that you're so dumb,
or actually like a rope AI or what is it
automation botics company?
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Is what he said, Tesla.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
I love that shit, Like no one's actually gonna get
Like if that was actually your business and you stop
selling costs, your company would shut down immediately.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
And that's just part of what his shell game essentially
to try and be like, okay, man, we've definitely hit
the wall there with the cyber truck. We're hitting the
wall here with autopilot. I just need to say something
that gives people a certain amount of like opium copium
to pretend that this thing isn't completely just shitting the bed,
which it seems like that's what is happening.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
And now the fifty four minutes ago, Tesla's head of
cyber truck manufacturing is out.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
I'll fix it.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
God damn it. That's the best guy they had. Oh
is it really not?
Speaker 4 (52:43):
Is there a world where the AI self drive?
Speaker 8 (52:48):
It?
Speaker 4 (52:48):
Like just this whole bubble burst, Like it seems obvious
that all these massive companies that when you talk to
people who pay attention to the market, the US economy,
which is you know, what they describe the stock market as,
but like they talk about how it's being propped up
by all these massive tech companies, and it feels like
(53:11):
that it's a lot of like smoke and mirrors. You know,
there was a time when people were over investing in
technology that wasn't ready yet, like the original dot com
boom and bust like before like you know, decade before
the internet was capable of doing the things that it
(53:32):
wanted to be and that people were investing in. Like
I'm wondering if that happens with AI or what do
you think the future looks like? Because it also feels
like maybe people are just too like there seems to
be an overall thing where Wall Street has recognized like
they can just insulate themselves from the from reality a
(53:55):
little bit by just pretending and investing.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
So you mean AI writ large right outside of Tesla
as well. Yes, So right now we're in maybe month
three of like a six month to nine month horizon.
I'm saying where AI has to start making money, right,
It has to start making money, and it needs to
start making profit because Google put and Amazon both put
(54:20):
several billion dollars into Anthropic compared to Open Ai. Microsoft
get thirteen billion dollars to Open AI, primarily in cloud
credits to make the thing work. But also, who gives
a shit? What has AI actually done? And that is
the overwhelming feeling I'm having. And also, all of these
magical promises have been made of AI and then you
look at what they've actually done, it's kind of wank. Yeah,
(54:43):
it's not very good at all. So right now we're
in kind of the exciting hype cycle where it's like, oh,
I can say AI and stock go up, but give
them another quarter or two and things are going to
start falling apart. So Adobe actually got hit very bad,
Like They're stock kind of tumbled when they said they
weren't sure when a revenue was coming out of AI.
(55:05):
But the big ones to look at, like Microsoft and Google,
who have both put billions of billions into AI, if
they can't start, if they can't show real growth there
and at even revenue, not just profit. Revenue would be fine.
The street would be happy. But at some point they're
going to say the hell is going on?
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Right?
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Like what like is this do anything? Yeah, You've got
the Rabbit R one, which is this two hundred dollars
box that claimed it would control your apps with AI,
and it turned out it just connects to like very
weird scripts that barely work. All of these promises are
coming to a head. All these people have said they're
going to do all these things. It's going to be magical,
it's going to change our lives. I think that there's
(55:46):
going to be a market term. But I think there's
a sietal one as well. Yeah, because Apple's talking about
putting open AI in Syria and that's fine whatever, but
do you think people are going to use that and
be like, Wow, I love chat GPT Now Well, they're
just gonna be like, oh, Siri works, Yeah, okay, Siri works.
By what all these billions have gone into AI, I
(56:09):
can't name a single goddamn thing that this AI boom
is done for me other than give me a lot
of things to cover, which is very useful.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
I mean the most is I've had fun with some
of the music making AI things, and even then it's
just fun. It's it's like a party trick. It's a
video game at best, where it's like, hey, man, just
try and make it to do a reggae song about
RFK Junior's brain worms, it's like it kind of did
a shitty job, and that's where it kind of ends.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
That's AI. Hey we've got a really expensive machine to
do a shitty job. I'll do that for way cheaper.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
You watch someone half fast something. Ah, I'm the Michael
Jordan of half passing right exactly.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
And it's like, now I see like Sam Altman is
talking about like raising like trillions of dollars from like
the Middle East, Like what the fuck is going on?
Is that him trying to say like, well, no, there's
there's something coming, there's something coming.
Speaker 4 (57:02):
I'm getting the Petro States to fucking buy into this thing.
Speaker 1 (57:06):
Now. Yeah, he's going through a country associated with chopping
up a man and American resident. I believe that was great.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Yeah yeah, evil shit.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
So on top of that, what he's asking there for
is he wants to create a more efficient chip so
that AI will do something, because no one seems to
really be filling in that part in the media doing
a really bad job about this. He's like, yeah, I
need seven trillion, and he's kind of walked it back
a bit. He's like, I didn't mean exactly seven trillion,
but I need a lot of money to do this.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
That's five. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
He's like, AI is inevitable, will be like a smart
person that knows everything and does everything. Please let me
build new chips so that I can prove it. Yeah,
And you'll notice he did an announcement today for some
new GPT four thing and it's funny. There was a
big run up to it and everyone there was a
physical event and it's like, okay, we've got a new
(58:01):
chat is chat GPT four. Oh. The O stands for omni,
which offers greater responsiveness to voice prompts as well as
better vision capabilities. Yeah, okay, Just to be clear, computer
vision the ability of computer being able to see something
and say that is a strawberry or whatever you find
it in like farming gear for example, been around for
(58:21):
a decade happening before there's been AI that can understand
voice and generative AI is slightly it's a bit faster
on things like translation and voice stuff. But even then, okay,
right now, what now? Do something?
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Do something with it?
Speaker 3 (58:38):
Do something, do something one thing right. The most I
feel like that they can do is be like, we're
terrible for the climate. You guys like that if the
centers are everywhere and we're like, yeah, I don't see worse.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
Is this good fit you?
Speaker 5 (58:50):
Like?
Speaker 3 (58:50):
This must be profitable then, and like to your point too,
no one wants to pay for it, Like I would
never pay for some like stupid goofy songwriting AI. Like
it's free, So I'm like, yeah, whatever, this is fine
for five minutes. But to the point where you're like,
all right, now do you want to get a subscription?
Like hell no, I don't need a fucking subscription of
this shit.
Speaker 1 (59:10):
Also, the other thing with the AI boom that no
one seems to want to talk about is not only
is it making no money, it's also costing a lot. Yeah, right,
and everyone's putting it into stuff for some reason. Opening
Eye makes a billion or more in revenue, and everyone
kind of reported that being.
Speaker 8 (59:28):
Like yeah, look, huh, and then no one seems to
have asked the question of any profit, because if they
make a billion dollars in revenue and they don't make
a profit, that is a problem, not a solution, right.
Speaker 1 (59:40):
Right, Yeah, yeah, and it's yeah, I feel crazy. I
feel crazy, man.
Speaker 4 (59:46):
Yeah, it's a it's a crazy world. Well, thank you
for taking us into it. Of course, where can people
find you? Follow you all that good stuff?
Speaker 1 (59:55):
Fuy me on Twitter, ed zitron edz it r awa
and you can find me on blue Sky zytron best guy,
don social, I want to say, And then you can
find newsletter and podcast betrofline dot com. Shoot me an
email easy at betrofline dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
Amazing And is there a work of media that you've
been enjoying.
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
I just rewatched Seven Psychopaths as a classic green movie
is by the guy who did him, Bruce. He's got
Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, Christopher Walken, all the greats,
fantastic movies. It's also a beautiful hour and fifty minute
long hot damn.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
How about that?
Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
Miles? Where can people find you? Is there a working
media you've been enjoying?
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Find me on Twitter and Instagram and the like at
Miles of Gray.
Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
If you like basketball, check Jack.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
And I out on Miles and Jack Got Mad Boosties.
And also find me talking about ninety day fiance on
four to twenty day fiance. A tweet I like is
from at lord rat Squirt. I like big butts and
I cannot lie. My friend here likes big butts and
cannot tell the truth. You may ask us three questions.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Amazing, that's very good.
Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Robert Jones at Stanton Underscore Jones make up your mind
tweeted one of the great things about being a dad
is how easy it is to launder my own desire
for ice cream through my children, and that is that.
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien,
you can find us on Twitter at daily Zeitgeist. We're
at the Daily Zeikeeist. On Instagram, we have a Facebook
(01:01:31):
fanpage and a website Daily zeikeist dot com. Or post
our episodes and our footnotes, we link off to the
information that we talked about in today's episode, as well
as a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles,
what song do you think people might enjoy?
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
This is a new band I stumbled upon called Karmachine
and they are from London and it's, as they describe it,
a mashup of Hindustani classical, fuzzy sixties rock a la
Jimmy Hendrix and soon the inspired lyricism. And yeah, it's
it feels like this. It's exactly that. I gotta say,
(01:02:06):
that's a very good description of their music. And it's
very it feels like old school but very new at
the same time, and I just think it's yeah, really dope.
So this track is called Without You and it's by
Karma Sheen s h e N.
Speaker 4 (01:02:19):
All right, we will loick off to that in the footnotes.
The Daily z Eeitgeist the production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to
do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to
tell you what is trending, and we will talk to
you all then, Bye bye.
The Daily Zeitgeist News
Hosts And Creators
Jack O'Brien
Miles Gray
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