January 11, 2025 • 63 mins
Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar where reporters, experts and various other characters bring you the stories from the floor.
Phil Broughton and Ed Ongweso Jr. join Ed Zitron for an epilogue on the Consumer Electronics Show and the 12+ hours of audio we've recorded - and what we're planning to do next.
Ed Ongweso Jr.: https://bsky.app/profile/bigblackjacobin.bsky.social
The Tech Bubble Newsletter: https://thetechbubble.substack.com/
Phillip Broughton: https://bsky.app/profile/funranium.bsky.social
https://www.funraniumlabs.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
A Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to the final episode of Better Offlines coverage of
the Consumer Electronics Show. I love you all, all right,
(00:26):
so we've made it everyone, we're on. The final day
is Saturday, January eleventh. We have all we conferenced ourselves
out a bit. We had a wonderful positive masculinity day,
went out and got brunch, we went got massages. Tonight
we're going to go get dinner. But we're here for
kind of a kind of an epilogue episode because yesterday
(00:47):
I thought was going to be less of a close,
but it turned out to be a real finale. So
really this is just about what we've learned at the CES.
So Phil, what have you learned at the CS? What
is it?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's an ergonomics thing.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So we just got massages, and man, I feel so
much better than I did five days standing on my
feet on marble in my multi decade career of gambling
in this fine city, and it's many beautiful slot machines
that we've previously discussed. I've gotten a sample a lot
of rooms, a lot of decor, and one of the
(01:25):
things that I've picked up is the more high end
your room is, the less carpet you get, so you
get a lot of marble to stand on, which is
awful on your feet. And I came back and I
earlier today I went looking at the pit bosses and
the dealers and realized they're standing on marble too. I
(01:45):
cannot imagine trying to work an entire day standing on
that outside.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So what was the lesson you learn?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Though, Auci, the richer you are, the more you're going
to hurt for style.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Hm hmm. Yeah. The problem is people keep thinking about
rich and hurt a little too much at the moment,
and I don't really want to fuel that conversation. So
the thing is more comfortable shoes. I guess you need. Possibly, Yeah,
we need to get you like a little kitchen pad.
Actually that might I'm saying that facetiously when that actually
(02:21):
might be the solution to the problem. Because Phil has
been tending bar. If you're for some reason choosing the
epilogue episode to start with, right, you're my kind of freak.
By the way, I am joined by, of course, health
physicist and bartender Phil BroadOn, who has been I think
you've served well at least one hundred drinks this week.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Oh well, based on the stacks of my cups well more,
we're probably in the two hundred range.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, and you've seen most of the tech media. It's
been lovely. Phil has been working his ass off and
we're all very grateful. And most of the tech media
is grateful. I say that as if some of them
wouldn't be, And well, maybe.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Like at eighty six from my bar, if they were.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, that's true. I don't think that's the case. We've
had like an unrelenting horde of very pleasant, lovely people.
And talking of that, mister Edward and Grazo Junior joins
us for our last day here. Hello, Hello, how you
feeling ed fighting the itis? You got the itis?
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I mean, I have an unconscionable amount of food in
my belly.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, we fed, we fed. Just to be clear, I
fed the boys up being gorged and we're only doing
more of it tonight.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
This morning and more. Yeah, you can do it. Did Yeah.
I woke up with heartburn in a slightly collapsed look
to inflate again.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
But other than that, you know, average better offline lessener,
just one step closer to the end. I just want
to be clear, by the way, I feel great. My
Masseuse told me that my body is actually doing pretty
well and that I need to keep doing yoga. So
the answer here is that the more you speak on
the mic, the better you feel, more powerful you become,
the more power you accumulate over it over the course
(04:06):
of this. But I think it's been a very It's
been my favorite CS ever, and Phil at this point
has been to eight with me. It's the eighth YEP.
And I think what was really fun about it, other
than the fact that I got to just do a
weird radio show for like thirteen hours, is that it's
given me a lot of hope about the tech media.
And not that it was like blackpilled or anything, not
(04:27):
that I was like, oh, this is all bad, but
you talk to people, the people d Gadget. We have
three people from n Gadget or that Max Journey from
Reuter's and all of these people who are like so
passionate and actually rave. They gave a shit, and they
gave a shit, and they were strategic about how they
gave a shit and the way they talked about it.
And I think you listeners can kind of agree with me.
It's it's really heartening to hear others talk about this
(04:48):
because I feel like the byelines that some people arounder
they kind of rob them with that passion.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
The actually some of the best talks talks interviews for
our reporters that came to visit to talk about the
things where you I'm not going to say you crowbarred
out of them for tell me the best thing you saw,
the thing that made you happiest when you were on
the floor. The thing they saw that invariably made all
(05:15):
of them happiest seemed to be when they found a
presenter on the floor with a booth who also gave
a shit. Yeah, so it's not people do love tech.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
If you have come here and you hate what you're offering, uh,
we're gonna notice.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And we're going to talk about it and we will
talk about it.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
But we love tech, yeah they if you're selling it,
you need to love tech.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And I think it's easy to give into the kind
of cynicism of the moment because the people run in
the tech industry and no edge. You feel this strongly.
It's like the people running it don't give a shit
about tech. Mark suck Book doesn't give a shit about Facebook.
He's talking about how oh yeah, we need more masculine energy,
just mescalin, mask escaline. I'm sure masculine.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Pushing mescaline down there.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And it's just sad because it's this kind of repressed,
toxic masculinity where it's about dominance, even though his platform
only dominates by being a monopoly of sorts. It's just
very sad, and I realize we've been very male weighted
this week. It's like it's been positive masculine experience. We've
had good friendships here, but also just people have all
genders who have been here. I've had a great time
because it's been about hanging out and actually talking about
(06:26):
the stuff that intrigued or made you happy or made
you very angry of course, and I think that it's
cool that we got to encapsulate that. It feels like
collecting years of cs into one.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So traditionally, everyone who's come to get a drink, I've
always asked them, tell me the thing that scared you.
Tell me the thing that you thought was dangerous to
see if I needed to call the fire marshal or
more likely, in the case of this show, drop a
line to the FDA. But the thing that I had
never asked, and I'm glad you were asking everyone on
(07:02):
the podcast is what what made you excited? What made
you happy? Because that's something I never did, and I
realized that may have been not great energy I was
bringing to the bar in past years.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I think within the and as the real ED heads, No,
the real Zitron Law people, they'll know. But the previous
form of this was a p offen thing. Me. Look, Kevin,
what we'd come out here, would have journals over, wouldn't
do any pitch in, but we'd have them in and
have a good laugh with this. It felt like we
were actually building something cool and so Ed you had fun?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Right, mm hmm?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah? Did you actually like finding? And it's okay if
the answer is no, Did you actually find anything that
gave you any hope? No, that's fun, I mean no,
But talk to me about that, because there's nothing wrong
with that. Answers just yeah, what was it?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I mean?
Speaker 4 (07:53):
I think you know, I am not the market demographic
for a lot of these things. I have little to
no interest in filling my home with gizmos, gadgets or toys.
I'm not really Also, as a result of that, in
need of souping up the grid in my home, the
(08:17):
appliances right, adding smart layers to them. I'm not too
interested in healthcare management. I mean, most of the things
that I like and I'm interested in there are things
that like I can make myself hands on, don't really
require the intervention of smart or algorithmic enabled.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Wi Fi, various apps and such, you know, and so
on that front, I'm not too interested.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
And then there's the other you know, there's a part
of me that though, is very interested in tech just
to see what is being developed and offered to other people,
especially people who are in need of things, people who
are disabled, people who are makers, people are inventors, right,
they are just interested in creating something and offering it
to other people.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Cool.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
But you know, I think CS is also not the
place for me to find hope, and that because of
how much of the tech either it simply does not
exist or is in a prototype form that, as I
talk to more people, is synonymous with like perpetual delay
(09:25):
and times not even like a not even a release
or release in a pair of back form. So I
feel like it's more so I come here. I didn't
come here looking for magic. I am surprised by how
much offered just did not connect with.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Me, right because you weren't coming in here just as
a po height. When we talked about this rich and
that you were like, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Yeah, I literally didn't like you know. I was like,
I was like, okay, is the ces. How much of
CS is, like here's an actual product I can pick
up try, and how much of it is like we
are selling so that another business can notice and buy
it from us, or an investor can back us. And
so learning that the division and the amount in which
(10:08):
any many of these tech products fell or the category
in which many of these tech products fell was interesting.
I mean the best part was for me just like
conversations with people as a chance to both reflect on
what we were being seen or what we were being
shown and what we saw on the floor and one
had been seen by other writers, and then also just
talking about the tech industry and media coverage in general.
(10:30):
I feel like that was the part that actually having
analogously gave hope in the sense that it's affirming to
hear other people, even if they are excited about things
that I'm not talk about the limitations of the shortcomings
of something that you know, when I was presented it
(10:51):
as an object, felt like something that was like a
staple in the industry that everyone loved and came to
and understood, had its own integral role that was not
to be two nice too much.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah, you know, it's a weird show as well, I
imagine for the first time, because it's like when you
don't know this format, this place is kind of insane.
Just to map this out for the listeners. So we're
in the Venetians, so we have one of the best
places to be as far as the regular show goes
in that we have a hotel, the Venetian that has
the connected Sans ex Post Center, which is now called
(11:22):
the Venetian Expost Center. This is where a chunk of
it is. Then to get to the LVCC, you have
to either take an uber and then walk a mile.
When your uber guy goes, I'm not dry, I'm not
gonna wait, man, it's gonna be two hours. You then
walk probably a quarter of a mile to a door
and at that point you realize it's the wrong door,
so you have to then walk another probably point one
(11:44):
miles to the badge person who will then tell you
now you make it's the other badge person inside. Then
so at this point you spent like an hour and
a half getting there, and now you can get your
badge of other places. Perhaps you arrived with it. Well,
now you can walk through like a what's probably about
three miles of walking a day just minimum in the
main hole just.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
To no, it's three miles walking just to get to it.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And then yeah, okay, but I mean like just spending
the day in there. And so after this you just
see like either the largest television or the biggest lie,
depending on the room you're in. And it's I imagine
it's kind of strange for me.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
I think I'm just.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Kind of numb to it at this point.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Do you remember the advice that I gave you for
you asked you've been You've done this before. I feel
what should I go look for? And I haven't done
this in a while, But just one of those when
you see the hall of TVs unless you really want that,
know that you've this is nothing but that keep moving
through to look for something else. Because a giant TV
(12:44):
is a giant TV. And we've talked about a human
who exists only to wave behind the transparent one but
the odd take us back to erconomics. The thing that
Robert Evans said to me at the bar for the
best thing about the TV pavilion was not the TVs
with incredibly cushy floor so that he could actually rest.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
His feet from a pile carpet is pretty sweet. But
just to give you an idea, if you have never
done this before, a good.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Chunk of it feels like being in a best Buy
on Black Friday.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yes, that's actually it. But if no one's shopping, they're
just loitering. Yes, yeah, and it's so weird as well.
But I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. It's
just interesting to see cees bounce off of someone, not
because they're not trying, but because they've realized the edifice
of cees, which is, hey, check out all the stuff
we won't make.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
I would have driven a test off the bridge if
I had to come here myself with.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
With like an outlet, yeah, you know, like a real person.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Oh my god, Especially because the mode of engagement to
be much more different. I mean here had felt like
I got the chance to kind of drift around each day.
I felt like I was focusing on a different part
of the floor based on what I did or didn't
get to do, based on conversations I have with people,
(14:08):
They're like, oh, I actually was really interested in this,
and I think coming in with less preparation than an
outlet might have had for me in the sense that
like wasn't honed in and hunting for and prepping over
how to how to think about and how to engage
with like the fintech. It was more like I stumbled
(14:29):
upon them. Oh, what a pleasant surprise. Oh they're talking
about AI agents. Let's talk for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
It was it felt like I got to experience it
both as like maybe a consumer might and also a
bit as in my capacity as someone who's wondering, Okay,
if the presentation of this is for the consumer, then like,
if you're walking around in it and you happen to
know a bit about the industry or various products, what
(14:56):
would you think about it if you're also if your
if your intention is not just to like reported back
to consumers so that they can get like a repackaged
form of what's been presented here.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
This is one of the things I was really excited
to hear yesterday from Cherylyn about the process that n
Gadget does for how they prepare to go to the show,
which right, it's fun with clean eyes to have none
of that just to encounter it face first, smack into
the wall. But that process from any gadget very cool.
(15:31):
Y I had no idea, and I'm happy I heard it,
and I'm happy that.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
The listeners had it as well, because gone back to
the black pill thing, like, it's very easy to get
cynical about the tech media, and I have been extremely
critical of the tech media, but then you look at
the people we've brought in. We had Kyushanod from Las
Vegas some for example, such a delightful surprise, that guy,
young guy. But also getting into the labor stuff, the
(15:57):
fact you've got someone who writes about tech because they're
not because they're a tech report. But then you look
at and Gadget, a place that people myself, it was
just a gadget blog, and they actually really tried, and
it's interesting to see them. There's so much personality in
the tech media that just we had no I really
I knew some of these people, but I didn't know
how bad they cook. A lot of them, like all
of we didn't have one bum guest.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Also in terms of the eight years we've done this
from my point of view, in terms of providing respite
two journalists journalists, and indeed it's sketching, had journalists getting
respite in the suite for a chance to breathe.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
For the first time in all these years, I had
had people one saying I'm so happy to be back.
I'm so happy to get another drink for you. The
five years of COVID, I've missed you. And also Gere just.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Relaxed and get I just want to say I can get.
Evis is just insanely talented. I am so happy we
got them on so many episodes.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I saw geras fairly high energy you might have noticed
from some podcast, But I watched Garrett just sort of
take a breath and slump into a chair for a moment.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
They could be off and I think that's nice, and
I think of better Offline is such a bizarre podcast.
Looking at Mattasowski's like, yeah it is. My producer heard
one from Mattasowski. It's funny. This show started off as
a joke and then it became something. You know, It
started off as a thing where I was talking about
(17:38):
how pissed off I was about wet brothers like the
winkle Uses or the rot economy and everything. But as
we get to see, well, well, well if it isn't
the winkle Us brothers, but it's it's interesting how it's
growing because I've been thinking about CEOs quite literally for
a year. So Robert Gare and I were sitting around
at Spego where we were actually going tonight taking my
(17:58):
boys out. Got to treat them. That's the one thing, like,
I'm lucky enough to have this podcast. I've been treating them,
treating everyone. It's lovely. But in all seriousness, I was
sitting there with ROBERM and Get and just kind of
like slightly worried both about the podcast. But I got
that done. We don't need to belabor that. I really
should stop repeating that. In fact, anyway, I sat there
(18:19):
and like, shit, how am I gonna do? Cees? And
I spent the year in phil and I have talked
about this many many many times, and the thing that
I think that we needed to do, which I think
we mostly did, was not just be like, hey, here's
all the shit that you see at the show. Your
hogs but it also try and capture, even though people
kind of hate it, try and capture the fact that
there is a week long thing in the tech media
(18:42):
where everyone comes to one place kind of parties together.
Then does journalism ostensibly, but like there's this whole thing
that's been virtually uncovered. It's just this is like Aspen
for tech media, except you. Really, I don't think as
many dark thoughts when I think of it, and it's
and I think we successfully got that. And listeners, I
(19:03):
would love to hear you feedback. You've been quite generous
with it so far. Nineteen nine percent of it loved it,
one percent Calm down. But it's in I think we
have successfully captured phil what we have always captured here,
which is, hey, here's just one fucking place you can
sit down and like try and like process the things
you have been hit with over the last week.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Oh yeah, Also, I just remembered it as I took
a sip of black Ludden Energy courses through me Again.
I want to take a moment to give special thanks
to someone who almost never gets thanked, that has made
sure that this suitet worked.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Mothers give it up.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Thanks mom, But also twenty eighth floor housekeeping staff at
the Venetia and Venetian. Big up, particularly Alice. Alice, you
have made sure that I've been able to keep the
filthy pig style that I keep making of the place
and people walking through look nice. I could not have
(20:03):
done this without you, Alice.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Alice is that who wrote the note?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
No, that was okay. There was a note in here
that said their old dead head run and that would
be Robert Evans the the like like the tricks to
God that I work for, mister Mixey is the world? Yeah,
actually yes, Robert has missed the world exactly like a
Crisp and Glover figure that shows up to be like
(20:29):
podcast time.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Now.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Alice is the one who gave me the extra ice bucket.
Alice gave the welcome note to this room.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Okay, because it said because I noticed it, it said Alice.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
That's because I wrote her name down, okay, to make
sure I did not forget right.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Please don't kill me, Alice. But in all seriousness, now
the Venetian's been lovely. It's been so weird as well,
just like standing up this thing. I don't know if
everyone listening to this is like, look at my Instagram
or my Blue Sky. I hope you have I need attention,
but also I want you to know how great this
setup has been. We've had this recessed area in the
Venetian and honestly, it's just been extremely heartening for two reasons.
(21:10):
One having some solidarity in this fucking tech media. It
has been such a rough year for so many people.
Twenty twenty four was an insane year. But also right
now the tech media feels and I say this having
done a thing where I yelled at them, but Lord almighty,
I've never seen less solidarity, but I kind of saw
it this week. Everyone seemed happy to see each other
(21:31):
when they got on the mic together. They were generous
with their time. They were excited to vibe off of
each other. There was no like vacuous competitiveness or anything
like that. Everyone was so giving with their time, not
just with me, but with each other. They were shooting
the shit. They were happy to see each other. It
was great, And I think that this is a time
where as things get a bit rough with big tech
(21:52):
and within society, this is the time to pull together.
And I'm happy that whatever this week has been, which
is insane, by the way, just the entire idea. I
hope that that has created that, and I hope that
you the listener have heard that. And I was about
to say, you appreciate that, I don't believe. I mean,
I hope you've got that vibe.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So you you talked about the vibe people together here,
talking and happy. So effectively, I'm with the bar, I'm
running the green room for what you're getting to hear
over here. When people leave here and the next crew
rotates in for your listening pleasure, the old crew does
not immediately bolt for the door. They actually sat down
with each other and they enjoyed each other's time.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I did notice that, And it's cool when we like
cycle out people like ed like you go back to
have a chat with them, and I realized, like, you've
been like somewhat unimpressed with the actual stuff, but you
seem to have had a good time with everyone.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Oh yeah, I had a great time with everyone. Yeah,
I had a great time with the people.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah. And I think that it's it's about the people,
but it kind of is like I'm here to see
the dude AD's gizmos and the apps. No, it's to
pull together the tech media to have a conversation with
people and try and actually talk about what happens here,
because as of what was kind of getting earlier, this
place like Vegas is a fascinating place in and of itself,
so we see us even if the stuff is kind
(23:19):
of the same as last year, even capturing that mood
is kind of important and bringing you fresh was I'm
really happy.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Yeah, No, I'm really happy you brought me in. I mean,
this was definitely an imprint experience. It's definitely left its
mark on me.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Would you have even dreamed, coming into the getting on
a plane coming to Las Vegas that you were about
to meet the cryt readers for two of your favorite authors.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
No, a lot of crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, that was.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
That was such a wild turn of events for listener
who don't know they are. Father Gabriel and Phil are
krit readers for Christopher Rock Casino and Charles Strauss, who
are two of my you know, favorite writers right now.
Charstrusta sci fi Christopher Rock Casino does is doing like
(24:13):
a science fantasy series Sun Eater, which you should definitely
check out if you are interested in romans in space. Yea,
but yeah, space romans that are in the deconstruction of
Dune and Star Wars, and also without like the turgent
pros of Foundation and the Foundation series.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
These are the happy surprises that happened when you just
sit down start talking.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
There was a great moment where Robert Evans and Father
Gabriel and Edim graz So Junior was sitting around for
like twenty straight minutes and they were having the They
were like, yoh, but hegel and they were like, no,
naming all these philosophers. And I was just sitting there
and I think I understand what Babo my cat feels
like when I can talk to it, because I was
(25:01):
just looking at it, just like wow, I know these names,
but they're connecting them in ways that clearly involve knowledge.
And then after twenty minutes, I just said, fuck, is
this what is like? What's it like being smart? Anyway,
that's the experience I bring to the sweep. But honestly,
it's been kind of fun watching everyone just talk. I
want this to be and I want you the listener,
(25:23):
to be pulled into this and to kind of feel
this because putting aside the very obvious and well documented
side of CS of that it's full of shit that
never goes anywhere, and everyone's kind of annoyed. The taking
full of people. It's also full of people sorry for
you were there. No no, no, I'm yeah. Ed is
a well drank and well fed as we all are.
(25:45):
But also we have had five straight days of just
like our brains being punished.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
No really, I think this might be a massage recovery
as all the tensions holding me together, they removed it.
And I'm feeling real.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Good being my stomach for five hours and I was
rubbing into thought you.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Were just accumulating wealth.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I ran to this like the Buddha booth. I mean
I ran to the sweet last night because I was
gonna because.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
No, there was a crisis. It had to be addressed.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Moving on, we're talking about how nice the solidary where no, no, no, no, no,
there was solidarity there.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
No, I will not.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I was just about to do a whole thing about
how like We've had a bunch of guys in the suite,
and I think for the most part we've done good
positive masculinity without talking too much about our bowel movements.
I've got in his way talk beginning and then the
beginning with the vulnerable. I'm glad that we've got rotors
quotation on the Horny check like, but also I'm tired
(26:49):
of people on the Reddit asking to well for one,
but I think for the most part, we've I hope
we've shown like a bunch of guys hanging out have
don't don't have to be like nasty assholes. Just we've
not been tearing each other down. And I want this
because this industry is very male dominated, and something we
do want to do better next year is I want
more woman in this more diverse voice is like this thing.
(27:11):
And I know some of you have brought this up,
and it's a fair criticism we had. We really only
had like three woman on there, and it's not enough.
And so we're going to do a much better job
next year. And we've already like making plans for this
twenty twenty six. We are going to improve this show
on that level. But also I think we are going
to try and in as much as we can sync
(27:31):
up on coverage with these outlets and actually bring them in.
Because the big thing is is like better Offline's pretty big.
Now I can't even say how big because I am
told not to, but it's big. We have a real
audience now. And the thing I think we can do
with this show is, first of all, show you, the
wonderful listener, what's going on in the tech industry. And
what's going on in the tech industry is not just
the thing you see on the page. Even people have
(27:52):
criticized those people behind the byline are held by these
restraints of editorial bullshit. But on top of that, there's
only so much do If you're like writing about laptop,
how much we know about that person. So I want
this show to be that now. And when it comes
to things like CES, I don't know where else they go.
I'm not going to.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
South By, No, yeah you will. You gotta do it.
You gotta see how Crypto's taking it over.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Don't want to That sounds awful, It is awful. My
friends aren't there. It's the people.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Wholly white will go.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Maybe Molly White's great, but I would rather just like
fly to Boston or whatever. Yeah, but nevertheless, this show
is important to the tech industry. Yeah, and yet it's
completely uncovered what actually happens here. There's a lot of
stuff about this robot does this, and this vacuum has
an arm now, but not the actual vibe, not the
(28:43):
actual feel, and it's interesting to finally capture that and
put it in a bottle. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
No, that's interesting because when I was trying to look
over covered to get a sense of what to expect,
it really was just people talking about past products and
not like actual morale, energy, enthusiasm, lack thereof impact too.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Larger society and programs.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
As well, But even then, the tech industry and the
tech media, it's full of these weird, wonderful people we've
had all week. And I feel like, and if you
the listener disagree with this, please let me know, but
it feels like people have responded really well to just
hearing the people behind these bylines and actually talking about this,
and that.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Those people got a chance to expand on what they
saw and what they felt in a way maybe they
even constrained from doing for a while, and not.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Even for malevolent reasons. It's just that, Yeah, if you
are writing a gadget blog and you write about gadgets,
there's not really much space for editorializing someone. We didn't
get on with. Michael Fisher, one of my favorite YouTubers,
and he has done a really good job of expanding
his YouTube I sound one hundred years long. He's got
one of those YouTube channels with the videos now Utebliss.
(29:57):
One of the light boxes captures his form. But he
was here. Sadly missed him going to see him for dinner.
I think next week. Nevertheless, he has done a really
good thing of explaining kind of the effema around his travel,
how like travel weighs upon him, how there are emotional
contexts to places he goes, the societal parts. He did
a great thing where he was in India talking about
the smog, for example. You can do more with this medium,
(30:21):
and I think that there's so much more interesting things
that we could do even with this show, because let's
be honest, you've got I don't actually know how many
actual reporters are here because the list includes every single
possible person who could ever mention words. But I would
say there's at least one hundred members of the tech
media here, like died in the Wall, actual tech media.
And the fact is there isn't a damn place where
(30:42):
other than like Twitter and Blue Sky, whether actually you're
actually able to get to know these people. I want
better offline to be that on some level it's not
just going to be that it's not just the kind
of mix of stuff, but I think it's a helpful
function of what the show could be in the future.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So something I've while I don't go to the floor
because I'm attending something that I do get to do
at Defcon and at Photonics West is watching for governmental
entities that are actually attending the show as well. And
it's a tradition at Defcon to play the game spot
(31:19):
the Nark, which is if you can find the member
of a given government agency and they've started playing with
it and actually having official booths and saying, can you
guess which agency.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I work for?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
If you do, they'll give you a challenge coin or
a pin. But conversely, the deaf Con people will give
them a shirt for the narc Right to wear. But
our governmental agencies, our regulators are actually just like me,
interested in what's coming that I should be prepared for.
I like finding them and seeing what are you looking for?
(31:58):
If I could find on one willing to represent the agency.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
That we talk to the FEDS inside here, though we
don't let them in here. I mean I will not
allow we're not having the government agencies in here. I
will not You can talk to them outside. But if
you if you remember, if the Feds, please don't come
to my show. I don't think that's going to be fun. Now,
if they turn up, I'm gonna have a word with
(32:23):
them and then say please don't, please, don't keep me well.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Actually, the hard part is the ones that are actually
doing the things that are of interest. They can't talk.
They're constrained by a public affairs office.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Perfect, wonderful. Then they have no reason to be here then,
but but.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Their their interest is actually the public interest.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I should listen to the show. Then they do.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Well and are generally happy.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Okay, I hope they are, because at least the ones
I talked to, I really don't want to get a
put in the goo lag, but putting aside the FBI's
clearly active interest than me, that's a great phrase to
say out loud. I do want this place to be
without the feeds, an actual place where journalists come. And
I know that there are some people who've reached out
(33:12):
to me and they've said they weren't able to make
it as such, We're going to remove We're going to
move stuff around next year. I want to make sure
there's more room for people, and mister Anguezo Junior sounds
like he will come back.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Yeah, I would love to.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Mister Roth will as well. I will be here and
Phil is stuck with me. But I think that the
thing I want to do differently as well is I
want to really plan out the groups because and I
must be honest to the listeners how much of this
came together in real time. But also I think you'll
indulge me because what an insane thing I did here
(33:43):
like this has been very crazy and I cannot believe that.
I cannot believe how well it worked, and it's thanks
to you guys, And of course i'll produce in Matasowski
who built this whole setup. But it's interesting because something
like this could actually be useful for people to understand
the mechanism power within tech, because I want people to
realize how much of it's bullshit. Sure, but how You've
(34:04):
got journalists coming out here who are actually trying to
find a way to cover it within the boundaries of journalism,
which can be quite difficult because most people can't come
on here and say, yeah, most of the shit I
saw was bullshit and that was broken and this is
shit not necessarily because of the byline, but also how
do you write that story? How do you actually put
(34:25):
that together? How do you actually say CS was full
of dog shit?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
And please read the rest of my words after this.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And I'll tell you the way you don't do that.
Being sponsored by Delta Airlines, I will I will voice
my displeasure about mister Nilla, mister Nilla Pattel.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
He is a dirty, dirty man.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Some management questions aside, Nill had a chance to do
something interesting at CES and somehow I did the more
interesting thing, which is disappointing. But also if you're being
if you bother SEO of Delta Vacations, who what are
you doing? Like? Or sorry, you're interviewing them to what end?
To what point? And I feel like the people covering
this show have got such a shit deal. But the
(35:09):
ones with the largest microphones other than my own don't
seem to be.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Full disclosure as a Platinum medallion member for Delta Man.
Those are the emails the delete the fastest.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It's just frustrating because people at the Verge. And I'm
not attacking the writers because Victoria's song was amazing on
this it feels like the people covering this show. Some
of them have potentially given up a little. The Verge
should not have a live show where the summation of
it starts with a fucking interview with the CEO of
the worst part of the Delta experience.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
The Mini CEO.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
And I saw people covering the Delta stuff just blandly,
and it's.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Like, did you check out the interview? What was the
interview itself?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
I have not listened to the Verge cast in some time.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Well, I think, how you can cover that excitedly?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I think that No, actually, let me check my notes.
I did listen. It was let's see, it was James Tayklett,
the CEO of Lockheed Martin and who said that I
love the Verge. It's my favorite publication. And then they
were surprisingly joined by Handword chairman Sung and Kim, who said,
(36:21):
how the Verge is the best place to find out
about bombs. That is all the joke. I apologize, but nevertheless,
it's I've had that written down for a week. It's
just frustrating because it's like Leapatel, he can fucking do
a better job, And honestly, they could be better things
done at CES. The thing we've proven in the last week.
Not trying to put myself on the back or anything,
(36:41):
but I don't even need to say that. The people
who have come on have been really interesting, and I
think there's more that we can do. I don't even
know what whether to call myself part of the tech
me You're on a fucking pr film during the day,
write a newsletter where I regularly make typos that really
shouldn't be there. I just I don't know, man. But nevertheless,
it's like, there is more to be done, and there's
(37:03):
more to be done in the next year. And I
think the way everyone needs to go right now is
this move towards the question we've been asking a week,
which is why does this have to exist? Who is
it for? Why is why? And I think ed your
frustration with this place is that question is so often
not answerable somehow, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Yeah, deeply so. I feel like or it is a
constructed individual that's not necessarily real as the tech industry is.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Like so far, Yeah, they're solving for an imaginary or
are that.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Search for an investor? The product is them?
Speaker 4 (37:40):
I mean, I think you know, the the tech industry
has got and better in the years of constructing the
constructing the image that there is the person that wants
what they are offering. I mean, I think the most
recent example of this that was pretty bloigant was the
construction of the crypto voter, as facilitated by fair Shake,
(38:02):
and they're pretty massive lobbying campaign to punish any candidate
that seemed remotely anti crypto, to resounding success. I think,
like almost like a ninety plus percent hit rate for
winning races where they put up ads against or against
anti crypto or obstensibly anti crypto or insufficiently pro crypto candidates.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
And that latter one is the really dirty one. You
don't love us enough, kiss the.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Boot in the imaginary customer, and.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
The imaginary customer there's this is the idea of a
crypto voter. Someone who is motivated by a desire to
have a safe home for their crypto assets. They wanted
bank with, they wanted in a bank that they would
typically use. They want their dollars to be more easily
transferable between or to these things. They want to have
(38:58):
more assets that can be you know, that they can
trade in their dollars or their tokens for right. And
I think similarly, sometimes when I see, you know, I
think about, like especially the Global Pavilion for Crypto right
where it's like these people are sitting here talking about
how you know, for your brand, one way to increase
its authenticity has objectified, the company said, is to offer
(39:23):
a limited edition goods that will add an air of
rarity to your brand.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yah.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, they're all tokens right and you know these The
idea here is also when you listen to them closely,
they're not saying like they're not actually saying there's any
use value. What they're saying is that we realized we
have a use case for justifying our service, which is
that you can make it more your thing, more exclusive
in partnership with us if you cut us a fee
(39:55):
and you generate a useless token. I feel like there
is a lot of this where, you know, solution in
search of a problem, or a business in search of
an opportunity to cut to extract a.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Fee rather than solving a need.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Someone once asked me if I was willing to do
limited n F n FT coded release labels on Black
Blood of the Earth bottles so that they could have
someone could have their very own NFT run of Black Blood,
and that would be an email I would delete it.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I would I would take such pleasure from watching you
enter the blockchain.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
That was the point they wanted black block, black blockchain, coffee.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Block, Blood of the Earth.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I hate you.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
So slightly different, slightly different direction. Do you actually like
any technology? I don't mean this in like anything. You
seem to enjoy your phone and such, like you enjoy
connecting with people.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Yeah, I mean I like, I like my phone, computers, screens.
But most things I'm just like, I'm not really a
cool Yeah, trains are cool. I mean if we're talking about,
for example, non digitally mediated, I mean, of course we're
talking about digitally mediated. I really have to be because
(41:19):
I'm not interested in like productivity hacks or saving time
person Yeah, you know, for me, like it's like the
things I'm interested in software and programs you know that
have helped me. I'm interested sometimes in you know, I
have a friend who I you know, I have a
friend who I learned coding with the you know what
(41:41):
was in there like maybe ten years ago. What in like, Well,
I don't talk about it because I don't like, uh
doing it, because I don't really care for much and
because of the reason I don't talk about it is
because it's always fun when I have when a tech
and gets a little mad at me, and I was like,
(42:02):
why is this guy who doesn't even code? And I'm like,
what about me makes you think? I can't tell me?
That's cool though, So, you know, especially with the more
the more recent wave of tools of generative tools for
(42:22):
coding supplements, I mean, you know, I've kind of been
inspired by like writing from like Brian Eno and you
have getny more is off to try and create like
small applications that help us learn other languages because I've
been trying to learn Mandarin for a long time, right,
you know, And so stuff like this is fun and interesting,
like little trinkets, little little you know, short desktop apps
(42:45):
or you know, all small little programs that helped me
in my daily life. But I do I'm not really
interested in like some overhaul.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
It feels like what you're describing is the purest form
of technology, which is why do we use the computer
to connect with people or connect with ourselves a bit
more to actually true love what we want to do
more to enhance ourselves. Because the reason I'm asking these
questions is because there are some fucking idiots I'm just
gonna skip to that part. Who would just be like, well,
(43:12):
it's just a hater. Yeah, and I've got the same
thing as an heir to his hatter m Otherwise, can
I say a terrifying that he might finish his point
and then we'll get to you. Don't worry I am
a hater in that.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
I think that a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
The greatest hate is love. Yeah, right, please continue.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
When someone is talking to me or trying to convince
me to integrate some algorithm or digital program into my life,
what they're usually talking about is a way to like
offload some of the cognitive burden and not actually cut
through a stupid task or to not come up for example,
like you know, me and my friend we've you know,
(43:51):
you've getting more is an inspiration for this what he
talks about in one of his essays about how he
uses generitive tools to try to create a group of
language programs so that he'll try to talk in another
language or answer questions another language, and then based on
the weaknesses, it will generate kind of questions and exams
(44:12):
and stories that will test what he has shown a
deficiency in.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
You know, there's like elements of how one structure is
a sentence.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Maybe, yeah, grammar, sentence structure, ambiguities of descriptive language. I mean,
and this is stuff that interest us more than the
way in which we typically have been trying to learn
the languages, especially you know, because I'm doing I'm trying
to do Swahilia as well, so Swahili and Mandarin, and
(44:42):
he's doing Spanish and Pastrin, and so it's like there
are a lot of the apps that are offered in
a lot of the programs, a lot of the methods,
or we simply either don't have the time to do them,
or the the gamification that's presented is bullshit.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Will do a lingo style, you know.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
So I'm if you can figure out a way to
do it that is more closer resembling how a human
human interaction does it without trying to convince me that
I need to offload onto some sort of platform and
or some ecosystem. Sure, I mean, I'm interested, right, but
most of the time you have to make you have
to make the case, and it has to be a
convincing case for why an algorithm needs to be introduced
(45:24):
into something that I'm interested in using. And I think
that most of times, if you actually spend time talking
with the people about it and interrogating it, it doesn't
past the sniff test.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
This is where the solving the language problem and the
human interaction level. This is where I have to say
the terrifying words. I love Uber mm hmmm, because it
did one thing that they are not proud of, that
they do not tout as a thing they can do.
(45:57):
In general, Uber is tals and to regulated right environments.
It destroys taxi networks, never mind adoption of tech technology
that taxi should have done to approof service. Uber obliterates
that good ecosystem. However, in unregulated markets or ones that
(46:17):
are highly corrupt and barter based where I don't know,
such as such as Ukraine and most of Eastern Europe.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Now your experience with this was pre war, though right.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
It was pre war in Kiev. I do not speak Ukrainian,
although my feeble language skills of I speak English. I
have technical Spanish, I can have commerce Spanish, but don't
ask me to talk about poetry and art.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
If you make two Spanishes, I call back to another anyway.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
But when I got done playing in the Great Patriotic
War Museum, and it was snowing, the first snow of
the season in Kiev, and I did not feel like
doing my normal thing of walking all the way across
the city just to enjoy and absorb the city and
on international data rates. I downloaded Uber on the principle
(47:16):
of I just want to get back to my hotel.
Uber was able to, within its app allow me to
arrange a ride negotiate. Well, I didn't even negotiate set price.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yeah, then negotiating for you.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
It negotiated for me for a set price that is firm,
and get my destination correct with a driver. Neither of
us spoke each other's language, and it was seamless. That
is a thing they never tout, they are not proud of,
but they do everywhere in the world, and with time,
(47:56):
I did that in twenty sixteen. Their language translation on
either end of their app has only gotten better.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
But the problem is that you're completely right, except for
the fact that Uber also had a bigger opportunity they
didn't do, which was if they'd have grown sustainably and
set real labor rates and demanded benefits, Uber could probably
be a fifteen trillion dollar company.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Oh you mean, actually be profitable.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
No, I mean beyond that. If uber had slowly grown
and done it more than minimum wage and use their
scale to actually commit themselves to getting real benefits rates
for employees and grown like that, they could have actually
grown to be probably the largest employer in the world
and actually given people benefits. So they chose the other.
(48:41):
And what sucks is that the reason they did what
you just described, which is genuinely good, is so that
they could find new people that spoke other languages to
extract from.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
That was the first time I called an uber of
my own.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
I remember, and it sucks that they didn't do it
to make sure that you could do the thing you did.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
It was just like we had to get that extracion.
Fuck it makes me mad with the sign of the
simultaneous You made a human experience I couldn't have otherwise had.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
But is this not CS A lot of ideas that
are made up that could could be for ostensibly good reasons,
But I've really done for the investor, for the theoretical customer.
Everything we've describing that's good here is about actually connecting
the smart cane as glib as I might have been
about it. People genuinely will find good in that I'm
(49:35):
excited about.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
The medical devices. These are all good. And I mean,
and we've also you know, we've talked before about huh.
There are lots of algorithmic things I have nothing to
do with the consumer that are helpful, you know, that
are on the back end of helping test things or
discover or do trials for various compounds. Right, as long
(49:56):
as you don't put you know, I'm very skeptical of
the generative tools that are being deployed for this, but
you know, more traditionally, when they're done for this, this,
you know, is something that's interesting. I mean, there's a
host of applications that we wanted to sit down, we
could talk about. But you know, for me, the thing
I don't hate, I mean, the thing I don't like
and the stuff I just like kind of informs my
(50:16):
my antipathy towards it. My ludism is like, you know,
usually when we have a venture capital firm, a private firm,
or well capitalize individual, hedge fund, whatever pushing a certain
type of technology innovation, it's because they're interested in prioritizing
the startup form, which itself already closes a lot of
(50:38):
doors because you have to adopt a certain product, you
have to adopt a certain value structure so that you
can pay the software tax or the you know, the
cloud tax, or you have to you have to figure
out a way that you're going to you know, organize
labor so that you can have contractors and employees and
all of these limitations. There's more energy being spent on
(51:01):
or the barriers to maximizing potential valuation and profitability in
market share instead of the actual technological innovation itself.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
So we are at the end, I'm afraid, And yesterday
you got my kind of teary goodbye to everyone, and
to give you an idea of what the room was
like yesterday, it was full of people and everyone was
yelling and it was very fun. That's where you got
the yes chef from. We have had an insanely cool
crew of people, of course led by mattis Houski, our
producer here, but we've really gone through a lot of
(51:45):
the tech media and the thing I'll say for next
year is I'm going to have more of them. We
had twenty guests on this damn show, including the people
in front of me as well.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
I have more liquor to serve.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Indeed he does, and it's fun. It's also it seems
like the listeners. I want this to be an active
conversation with you. You're on the redditch, you email me.
I love it. Please get in touch on Blue Sky,
you get in touch on Threads. I am not listening
like I just want to be clear, like I look
down on you, Instagram, DMS, Absolutely, Threads not so much
(52:16):
why I'm a hypogram. Anyway, this has been an amazing
show and I want to hear from you. But next
year we're going to be a bit more structured, but
also it's probably going to be the same format. We're
going to have what diverse voices, and we're also going
to get into more definitive subjects. I think the one
thing I could have done, but there are a few
things I could have done better. One thing I could
(52:36):
have is subject matter and having the subject matter experts.
We have people like Max Cherney and Da Vinda Hardware
who really knew their chips, for example, we can wrangle
that coverage far more specifically. But also there was something
fun about having the Slop of the Week just kind
of wash over us because I wanted all of you
listening do kind of get an idea of how obtuse
a conference is. And I know some of you go
(52:59):
to a weird conference is and such and thus you
have this experience. But Phil, thank you for being up bartender,
thank you for serving everyone. I'm I really treasure your
hard work. And let's do nine next year.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Hell Yeah's something I'm very proud of that I started
trying to kick in the sixth and seventh time we
did this was making sure I had non alcoholic options
available for people. I had more than ever available this year,
and I'm glad I got to give it to people.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Who yeah, because this is not a place where you
have to drink.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Because most people who don't drink can't drink.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
They usually feel very asked out when they go to
events at conventions like this, and I want people to
feel welcome.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
And you are here, like, I don't care if you
don't have any substances. Maybe you don't even have food.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
You don't need even gas station mushrooms.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Want to say thank you Robert for the gas station
mushrooms you bought. And I didn't take them because I
don't just eat food.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Off the floor or gas stations.
Speaker 4 (54:02):
I mean, but it was that I introduce you to
some of my friends. Yeah, I drug of freakins. We
would call some of them.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Okay, that's that's a new term. That is a series
of words that I will be unpacking for some time.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
But a pleasure. It's real fun.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
And this is kind of the I was about to say,
the end of the rope. It's quite the opposite, the
beginning of something cool, because Phil and I have been
doing this for so long and some of you have
got in touch and like asked, it's this was a
sweet where we brought our friends in from the tech media,
and now it's turned into something really cool that I
look to grow and turn into something weird and fun
every year. If you're a remember of the tech media
(54:39):
who was not on here listening to this, get in touch.
If you're in New York, for example, we will be
doing what you heard this week very regularly. Every other week.
I would say, get in touch. Maybe it's not the
next episode, but I want a chunk of the tech
media on there. I want I want this. The tech
media is full of such insanely fun and weird and
(55:01):
wonderful voices, tons of people so good on the mic
that you wouldn't know. I want to help with that.
I want this to be something Phil.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
And if you're coming to the Bay Area for some reason,
I'm always happy to give the Phil Broughton Tour where
I point at Manhattan Project things that aren't there anymore.
Speaker 4 (55:19):
Oh you're on the bay.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
Yeah wow, wait died how many hours and we just
didn't reveal that?
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Oh yeah, well yeah, I live in the Bay Area
and I work at a university that is somewhere in
the Bay Area.
Speaker 4 (55:31):
I'll be I'll be there twenty eight to thirty first. Also,
if you're in the Bay Area twenty to thirty first,
you should come to my co host Jathan Sadowski's book
launch at City Lights.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Jathan Sadowski, of course, the inventor of the Habsburg AI term.
Speaker 4 (55:45):
Yes, I got the air appand of the Absburg embardy
yell at him and say this is a stereotype.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
A man. I am so jealous of that that happened.
I am so upset that I've not had like AI
and and AI very nice. Those are my two favorite kinds.
Right but also ed on Gwaiso Junior, thank you so
much you have battled through this week for your first
(56:14):
ces in. I would say the conditions have been chaotic,
but I made it. He made it.
Speaker 4 (56:21):
My stomach made it.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
He cooked. But also you're going to see in the
next year exactly how much mister Gwayso Junior does. He
is incredible and we've been so lucky to have him.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
Thank you. I got to meet one of my favorite writers.
Speaker 4 (56:36):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
I've been enjoying your work for so long.
Speaker 4 (56:38):
I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
It's been awesome.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
And I will say this as I say every time
when I meet you. Man, I also got to have
drinks some of my favorite writers. Thank you so much
for your time. It's been a genuine pleasure, I imagine
for the listeners, but selfishly for me mean too.
Speaker 4 (56:53):
I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. Guys.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
Hell yeah, and this is the thing, like this has
been very guy way too. But also I want all
the fellows to listen to remember that you can love
your male friends and talk about how fucking rockin they
are and how much they've supported you all week. You
don't have to be so fucking self conscious. You fucking
cowards compliment each other. Also, Ed is like the best
dressed man I've ever fucking every fucking day. I'm just
(57:18):
swearing too much. Ed looks just amazing. I look pretty
good too. Don't say it jealous of a suit. Yeah,
he actually has like the most wonderful I wish I
was this cool, but nevertheless, we've had an incredible crew
of people. I want to start by thanking Jared Newman
the Freelancer, Henry Casey of CNN underscored Ednie Demeyer of
the Autono Cast, Father, Gabriel Mosher of course of the Church,
(57:42):
Jesse Ferra and Michael Hale of your Kickstarter Sucks, Tom
McKay of It Brew, of course, David Roth of Defecta,
Matt Binder of Mashable, Max Journey of Reuters, Gara Davis,
and Robert Evans of course if it could happen here,
Phil Broughton, who's sitting across from me, of what I've
just written as miscellaneous, Devendra Hardowa, Carissa Bell and of
(58:03):
course shirln Lowe of ng Gadget Victorious Song of the Verge,
Kyl Shnard of the Las Vegas Sun, and of course
Mattasowski are incredible. God damn producer, you have been an
absolute legend this entire time. We couldn't have done it
without you, but we also could not have done it
without iHeartRadio, Sophie Lichtermann and of course Ian Johnson, who
(58:26):
has been He is literally dealing with the wildfires at
the moment, and he is we like, we didn't hear
from it. It's like, oh crap, shit, And actually I
want to do a shout out to Miles Gray of
the Daily Zeitguy's the iHeart Radio show. He literally lost everything.
I'll be dropping a link in there. Don't feel obligated to,
like many people going through many things, but if you
(58:46):
can donate, please do and thank you for me. This
has been a very personal podcast, a little too personal,
and I have no idea if it's good or bad.
I really don't know. You seem to be happy, but nevertheless,
this is you've all kind of witnessed my own personal
journey with technology and technology has been part of my
love since I was ten. I think and you've all
(59:09):
been wonderful, and I think you like this and I
like doing this. I love doing this. We will be
back in a year, and I'll get to that in
a second. We'll also be back next week. We're going
to have better offline radio in New York. I get
on a plane to New York on Sunday. It's going
to be a complete nightmare, but no exciting. It's an adventure,
it is, and I just love cooking. I could probably
(59:29):
do another hour of podcasting, but you're thinking, please, please,
no more, no more. So we've had too much. But
in all seriousness, we're going to be back immediately with
Paris Martineau and of course Jeff Jarvis of twit and
their various associations. But we are going to be back
in a year. And I've learned so many ways to
do this. But the biggest lesson I've learned, and that's right,
(59:50):
it's friendship, is that everyone came together to support this show.
Every single goddamn person who walked into this suite walked
in here in ten I'm actually discussing what happened, and
everyone was so fucking wonderful. And I think now, of
all times, it's really easy to be kind of cynical
and definitely pessimistic about the tech industry and say that
(01:00:12):
there's nothing to redeem it really and everything is growth
of all costs. But I think that's reductive. I think
it's something where you can look at the most powerful
people and the things being talked about and lose the magic,
which is as fucked up as the algorithms are making
things as detached as we might be from whatever social networks.
(01:00:32):
This week has proven, at the very least, that there
are human beings that truly love the computer and love
the things that they can do with it and the
people it connects with. I hope I've given you something
in this week, and that's proof of solidarity with your
fellow human being and seeing that within this extremely boring,
arduous show, at times where most people are lying to
(01:00:54):
you or thinking about ways they could put you in
a position to lie to you more egregiously, there are
people coming in here who are slightly excited or very
excited about a smaller laptop because they're able to use
the computer in a different place, so they're able to
do more with their lives. And as Ed said, the
algorithms he used it he could potentially use for more
accurate linguistics, he could learn more about a language. There
(01:01:15):
are many wonderful things that technology can do. And I've
been quite emotional, and I think you like it, and
I fucking love him, but I'm emotional because I'm surrounded
by people who really give a shit. Emotional because every
single person that's come through this door, that people running,
even the people visiting, have shown that there's not a
single half asser in them. There's not a person that
(01:01:37):
I've spoken to who has not deeply and meaningfully cared
about something in technology. And there's nothing wrong with you
if you truly love what technology has done for you.
Nothing about this podcast is about trying to fracture you
from the things that you love about it. If you're
pissed off, I'm with you about the way it's being done.
But what I hope I've shown you in the last
(01:01:58):
week is that there are people that care as much
as you do, if not more, people that love it
as much as you do, and people who share your
frustration with the way things have gone. We will be
back next week, and we will be back in twenty
twenty six for the Consumer Electronics Show. If you listen
this long, I do love you all, and I'm so
(01:02:19):
grateful for you listening to Better Offline. Thank you for
listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the
Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. You can check out
more of his music and audio projects at Mattasowski dot
com m.
Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
A T T O.
Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
S O w Ski dot com. You can email me
at easy at Better offline dot com or visit better
offline dot com to find more podcast links and of
course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to
chat dot where's youreaed dot at to visit the discord,
and go to our slash Better Offline to check out
our reddit. Thank you so much much for listening.
Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For
more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
A Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to the final episode of Better Offlines coverage of
the Consumer Electronics Show. I love you all, all right,
(00:26):
so we've made it everyone, we're on. The final day
is Saturday, January eleventh. We have all we conferenced ourselves
out a bit. We had a wonderful positive masculinity day,
went out and got brunch, we went got massages. Tonight
we're going to go get dinner. But we're here for
kind of a kind of an epilogue episode because yesterday
(00:47):
I thought was going to be less of a close,
but it turned out to be a real finale. So
really this is just about what we've learned at the CES.
So Phil, what have you learned at the CS? What
is it?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's an ergonomics thing.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So we just got massages, and man, I feel so
much better than I did five days standing on my
feet on marble in my multi decade career of gambling
in this fine city, and it's many beautiful slot machines
that we've previously discussed. I've gotten a sample a lot
of rooms, a lot of decor, and one of the
(01:25):
things that I've picked up is the more high end
your room is, the less carpet you get, so you
get a lot of marble to stand on, which is
awful on your feet. And I came back and I
earlier today I went looking at the pit bosses and
the dealers and realized they're standing on marble too. I
(01:45):
cannot imagine trying to work an entire day standing on
that outside.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So what was the lesson you learn?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Though, Auci, the richer you are, the more you're going
to hurt for style.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Hm hmm. Yeah. The problem is people keep thinking about
rich and hurt a little too much at the moment,
and I don't really want to fuel that conversation. So
the thing is more comfortable shoes. I guess you need. Possibly, Yeah,
we need to get you like a little kitchen pad.
Actually that might I'm saying that facetiously when that actually
(02:21):
might be the solution to the problem. Because Phil has
been tending bar. If you're for some reason choosing the
epilogue episode to start with, right, you're my kind of freak.
By the way, I am joined by, of course, health
physicist and bartender Phil BroadOn, who has been I think
you've served well at least one hundred drinks this week.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Oh well, based on the stacks of my cups well more,
we're probably in the two hundred range.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, and you've seen most of the tech media. It's
been lovely. Phil has been working his ass off and
we're all very grateful. And most of the tech media
is grateful. I say that as if some of them
wouldn't be, And well, maybe.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Like at eighty six from my bar, if they were.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, that's true. I don't think that's the case. We've
had like an unrelenting horde of very pleasant, lovely people.
And talking of that, mister Edward and Grazo Junior joins
us for our last day here. Hello, Hello, how you
feeling ed fighting the itis? You got the itis?
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I mean, I have an unconscionable amount of food in
my belly.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, we fed, we fed. Just to be clear, I
fed the boys up being gorged and we're only doing
more of it tonight.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
This morning and more. Yeah, you can do it. Did Yeah.
I woke up with heartburn in a slightly collapsed look
to inflate again.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
But other than that, you know, average better offline lessener,
just one step closer to the end. I just want
to be clear, by the way, I feel great. My
Masseuse told me that my body is actually doing pretty
well and that I need to keep doing yoga. So
the answer here is that the more you speak on
the mic, the better you feel, more powerful you become,
the more power you accumulate over it over the course
(04:06):
of this. But I think it's been a very It's
been my favorite CS ever, and Phil at this point
has been to eight with me. It's the eighth YEP.
And I think what was really fun about it, other
than the fact that I got to just do a
weird radio show for like thirteen hours, is that it's
given me a lot of hope about the tech media.
And not that it was like blackpilled or anything, not
(04:27):
that I was like, oh, this is all bad, but
you talk to people, the people d Gadget. We have
three people from n Gadget or that Max Journey from
Reuter's and all of these people who are like so
passionate and actually rave. They gave a shit, and they
gave a shit, and they were strategic about how they
gave a shit and the way they talked about it.
And I think you listeners can kind of agree with me.
It's it's really heartening to hear others talk about this
(04:48):
because I feel like the byelines that some people arounder
they kind of rob them with that passion.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
The actually some of the best talks talks interviews for
our reporters that came to visit to talk about the
things where you I'm not going to say you crowbarred
out of them for tell me the best thing you saw,
the thing that made you happiest when you were on
the floor. The thing they saw that invariably made all
(05:15):
of them happiest seemed to be when they found a
presenter on the floor with a booth who also gave
a shit. Yeah, so it's not people do love tech.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
If you have come here and you hate what you're offering, uh,
we're gonna notice.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And we're going to talk about it and we will
talk about it.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
But we love tech, yeah they if you're selling it,
you need to love tech.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And I think it's easy to give into the kind
of cynicism of the moment because the people run in
the tech industry and no edge. You feel this strongly.
It's like the people running it don't give a shit
about tech. Mark suck Book doesn't give a shit about Facebook.
He's talking about how oh yeah, we need more masculine energy,
just mescalin, mask escaline. I'm sure masculine.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Pushing mescaline down there.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And it's just sad because it's this kind of repressed,
toxic masculinity where it's about dominance, even though his platform
only dominates by being a monopoly of sorts. It's just
very sad, and I realize we've been very male weighted
this week. It's like it's been positive masculine experience. We've
had good friendships here, but also just people have all
genders who have been here. I've had a great time
because it's been about hanging out and actually talking about
(06:26):
the stuff that intrigued or made you happy or made
you very angry of course, and I think that it's
cool that we got to encapsulate that. It feels like
collecting years of cs into one.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So traditionally, everyone who's come to get a drink, I've
always asked them, tell me the thing that scared you.
Tell me the thing that you thought was dangerous to
see if I needed to call the fire marshal or
more likely, in the case of this show, drop a
line to the FDA. But the thing that I had
never asked, and I'm glad you were asking everyone on
(07:02):
the podcast is what what made you excited? What made
you happy? Because that's something I never did, and I
realized that may have been not great energy I was
bringing to the bar in past years.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I think within the and as the real ED heads, No,
the real Zitron Law people, they'll know. But the previous
form of this was a p offen thing. Me. Look, Kevin,
what we'd come out here, would have journals over, wouldn't
do any pitch in, but we'd have them in and
have a good laugh with this. It felt like we
were actually building something cool and so Ed you had fun?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Right, mm hmm?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah? Did you actually like finding? And it's okay if
the answer is no, Did you actually find anything that
gave you any hope? No, that's fun, I mean no,
But talk to me about that, because there's nothing wrong
with that. Answers just yeah, what was it?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I mean?
Speaker 4 (07:53):
I think you know, I am not the market demographic
for a lot of these things. I have little to
no interest in filling my home with gizmos, gadgets or toys.
I'm not really Also, as a result of that, in
need of souping up the grid in my home, the
(08:17):
appliances right, adding smart layers to them. I'm not too
interested in healthcare management. I mean, most of the things
that I like and I'm interested in there are things
that like I can make myself hands on, don't really
require the intervention of smart or algorithmic enabled.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Wi Fi, various apps and such, you know, and so
on that front, I'm not too interested.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
And then there's the other you know, there's a part
of me that though, is very interested in tech just
to see what is being developed and offered to other people,
especially people who are in need of things, people who
are disabled, people who are makers, people are inventors, right,
they are just interested in creating something and offering it
to other people.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Cool.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
But you know, I think CS is also not the
place for me to find hope, and that because of
how much of the tech either it simply does not
exist or is in a prototype form that, as I
talk to more people, is synonymous with like perpetual delay
(09:25):
and times not even like a not even a release
or release in a pair of back form. So I
feel like it's more so I come here. I didn't
come here looking for magic. I am surprised by how
much offered just did not connect with.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Me, right because you weren't coming in here just as
a po height. When we talked about this rich and
that you were like, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Yeah, I literally didn't like you know. I was like,
I was like, okay, is the ces. How much of
CS is, like here's an actual product I can pick
up try, and how much of it is like we
are selling so that another business can notice and buy
it from us, or an investor can back us. And
so learning that the division and the amount in which
(10:08):
any many of these tech products fell or the category
in which many of these tech products fell was interesting.
I mean the best part was for me just like
conversations with people as a chance to both reflect on
what we were being seen or what we were being
shown and what we saw on the floor and one
had been seen by other writers, and then also just
talking about the tech industry and media coverage in general.
(10:30):
I feel like that was the part that actually having
analogously gave hope in the sense that it's affirming to
hear other people, even if they are excited about things
that I'm not talk about the limitations of the shortcomings
of something that you know, when I was presented it
(10:51):
as an object, felt like something that was like a
staple in the industry that everyone loved and came to
and understood, had its own integral role that was not
to be two nice too much.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah, you know, it's a weird show as well, I
imagine for the first time, because it's like when you
don't know this format, this place is kind of insane.
Just to map this out for the listeners. So we're
in the Venetians, so we have one of the best
places to be as far as the regular show goes
in that we have a hotel, the Venetian that has
the connected Sans ex Post Center, which is now called
(11:22):
the Venetian Expost Center. This is where a chunk of
it is. Then to get to the LVCC, you have
to either take an uber and then walk a mile.
When your uber guy goes, I'm not dry, I'm not
gonna wait, man, it's gonna be two hours. You then
walk probably a quarter of a mile to a door
and at that point you realize it's the wrong door,
so you have to then walk another probably point one
(11:44):
miles to the badge person who will then tell you
now you make it's the other badge person inside. Then
so at this point you spent like an hour and
a half getting there, and now you can get your
badge of other places. Perhaps you arrived with it. Well,
now you can walk through like a what's probably about
three miles of walking a day just minimum in the
main hole just.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
To no, it's three miles walking just to get to it.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And then yeah, okay, but I mean like just spending
the day in there. And so after this you just
see like either the largest television or the biggest lie,
depending on the room you're in. And it's I imagine
it's kind of strange for me.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
I think I'm just.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Kind of numb to it at this point.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Do you remember the advice that I gave you for
you asked you've been You've done this before. I feel
what should I go look for? And I haven't done
this in a while, But just one of those when
you see the hall of TVs unless you really want that,
know that you've this is nothing but that keep moving
through to look for something else. Because a giant TV
(12:44):
is a giant TV. And we've talked about a human
who exists only to wave behind the transparent one but
the odd take us back to erconomics. The thing that
Robert Evans said to me at the bar for the
best thing about the TV pavilion was not the TVs
with incredibly cushy floor so that he could actually rest.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
His feet from a pile carpet is pretty sweet. But
just to give you an idea, if you have never
done this before, a good.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Chunk of it feels like being in a best Buy
on Black Friday.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yes, that's actually it. But if no one's shopping, they're
just loitering. Yes, yeah, and it's so weird as well.
But I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. It's
just interesting to see cees bounce off of someone, not
because they're not trying, but because they've realized the edifice
of cees, which is, hey, check out all the stuff
we won't make.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
I would have driven a test off the bridge if
I had to come here myself with.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
With like an outlet, yeah, you know, like a real person.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Oh my god, Especially because the mode of engagement to
be much more different. I mean here had felt like
I got the chance to kind of drift around each day.
I felt like I was focusing on a different part
of the floor based on what I did or didn't
get to do, based on conversations I have with people,
(14:08):
They're like, oh, I actually was really interested in this,
and I think coming in with less preparation than an
outlet might have had for me in the sense that
like wasn't honed in and hunting for and prepping over
how to how to think about and how to engage
with like the fintech. It was more like I stumbled
(14:29):
upon them. Oh, what a pleasant surprise. Oh they're talking
about AI agents. Let's talk for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
It was it felt like I got to experience it
both as like maybe a consumer might and also a
bit as in my capacity as someone who's wondering, Okay,
if the presentation of this is for the consumer, then like,
if you're walking around in it and you happen to
know a bit about the industry or various products, what
(14:56):
would you think about it if you're also if your
if your intention is not just to like reported back
to consumers so that they can get like a repackaged
form of what's been presented here.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
This is one of the things I was really excited
to hear yesterday from Cherylyn about the process that n
Gadget does for how they prepare to go to the show,
which right, it's fun with clean eyes to have none
of that just to encounter it face first, smack into
the wall. But that process from any gadget very cool.
(15:31):
Y I had no idea, and I'm happy I heard it,
and I'm happy that.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
The listeners had it as well, because gone back to
the black pill thing, like, it's very easy to get
cynical about the tech media, and I have been extremely
critical of the tech media, but then you look at
the people we've brought in. We had Kyushanod from Las
Vegas some for example, such a delightful surprise, that guy,
young guy. But also getting into the labor stuff, the
(15:57):
fact you've got someone who writes about tech because they're
not because they're a tech report. But then you look
at and Gadget, a place that people myself, it was
just a gadget blog, and they actually really tried, and
it's interesting to see them. There's so much personality in
the tech media that just we had no I really
I knew some of these people, but I didn't know
how bad they cook. A lot of them, like all
of we didn't have one bum guest.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Also in terms of the eight years we've done this
from my point of view, in terms of providing respite
two journalists journalists, and indeed it's sketching, had journalists getting
respite in the suite for a chance to breathe.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
For the first time in all these years, I had
had people one saying I'm so happy to be back.
I'm so happy to get another drink for you. The
five years of COVID, I've missed you. And also Gere just.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Relaxed and get I just want to say I can get.
Evis is just insanely talented. I am so happy we
got them on so many episodes.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I saw geras fairly high energy you might have noticed
from some podcast, But I watched Garrett just sort of
take a breath and slump into a chair for a moment.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
They could be off and I think that's nice, and
I think of better Offline is such a bizarre podcast.
Looking at Mattasowski's like, yeah it is. My producer heard
one from Mattasowski. It's funny. This show started off as
a joke and then it became something. You know, It
started off as a thing where I was talking about
(17:38):
how pissed off I was about wet brothers like the
winkle Uses or the rot economy and everything. But as
we get to see, well, well, well if it isn't
the winkle Us brothers, but it's it's interesting how it's
growing because I've been thinking about CEOs quite literally for
a year. So Robert Gare and I were sitting around
at Spego where we were actually going tonight taking my
(17:58):
boys out. Got to treat them. That's the one thing, like,
I'm lucky enough to have this podcast. I've been treating them,
treating everyone. It's lovely. But in all seriousness, I was
sitting there with ROBERM and Get and just kind of
like slightly worried both about the podcast. But I got
that done. We don't need to belabor that. I really
should stop repeating that. In fact, anyway, I sat there
(18:19):
and like, shit, how am I gonna do? Cees? And
I spent the year in phil and I have talked
about this many many many times, and the thing that
I think that we needed to do, which I think
we mostly did, was not just be like, hey, here's
all the shit that you see at the show. Your
hogs but it also try and capture, even though people
kind of hate it, try and capture the fact that
there is a week long thing in the tech media
(18:42):
where everyone comes to one place kind of parties together.
Then does journalism ostensibly, but like there's this whole thing
that's been virtually uncovered. It's just this is like Aspen
for tech media, except you. Really, I don't think as
many dark thoughts when I think of it, and it's
and I think we successfully got that. And listeners, I
(19:03):
would love to hear you feedback. You've been quite generous
with it so far. Nineteen nine percent of it loved it,
one percent Calm down. But it's in I think we
have successfully captured phil what we have always captured here,
which is, hey, here's just one fucking place you can
sit down and like try and like process the things
you have been hit with over the last week.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Oh yeah, Also, I just remembered it as I took
a sip of black Ludden Energy courses through me Again.
I want to take a moment to give special thanks
to someone who almost never gets thanked, that has made
sure that this suitet worked.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Mothers give it up.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Thanks mom, But also twenty eighth floor housekeeping staff at
the Venetia and Venetian. Big up, particularly Alice. Alice, you
have made sure that I've been able to keep the
filthy pig style that I keep making of the place
and people walking through look nice. I could not have
(20:03):
done this without you, Alice.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Alice is that who wrote the note?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
No, that was okay. There was a note in here
that said their old dead head run and that would
be Robert Evans the the like like the tricks to
God that I work for, mister Mixey is the world? Yeah,
actually yes, Robert has missed the world exactly like a
Crisp and Glover figure that shows up to be like
(20:29):
podcast time.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Now.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Alice is the one who gave me the extra ice bucket.
Alice gave the welcome note to this room.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Okay, because it said because I noticed it, it said Alice.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
That's because I wrote her name down, okay, to make
sure I did not forget right.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Please don't kill me, Alice. But in all seriousness, now
the Venetian's been lovely. It's been so weird as well,
just like standing up this thing. I don't know if
everyone listening to this is like, look at my Instagram
or my Blue Sky. I hope you have I need attention,
but also I want you to know how great this
setup has been. We've had this recessed area in the
Venetian and honestly, it's just been extremely heartening for two reasons.
(21:10):
One having some solidarity in this fucking tech media. It
has been such a rough year for so many people.
Twenty twenty four was an insane year. But also right
now the tech media feels and I say this having
done a thing where I yelled at them, but Lord almighty,
I've never seen less solidarity, but I kind of saw
it this week. Everyone seemed happy to see each other
(21:31):
when they got on the mic together. They were generous
with their time. They were excited to vibe off of
each other. There was no like vacuous competitiveness or anything
like that. Everyone was so giving with their time, not
just with me, but with each other. They were shooting
the shit. They were happy to see each other. It
was great, And I think that this is a time
where as things get a bit rough with big tech
(21:52):
and within society, this is the time to pull together.
And I'm happy that whatever this week has been, which
is insane, by the way, just the entire idea. I
hope that that has created that, and I hope that
you the listener have heard that. And I was about
to say, you appreciate that, I don't believe. I mean,
I hope you've got that vibe.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So you you talked about the vibe people together here,
talking and happy. So effectively, I'm with the bar, I'm
running the green room for what you're getting to hear
over here. When people leave here and the next crew
rotates in for your listening pleasure, the old crew does
not immediately bolt for the door. They actually sat down
with each other and they enjoyed each other's time.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I did notice that, And it's cool when we like
cycle out people like ed like you go back to
have a chat with them, and I realized, like, you've
been like somewhat unimpressed with the actual stuff, but you
seem to have had a good time with everyone.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Oh yeah, I had a great time with everyone. Yeah,
I had a great time with the people.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah. And I think that it's it's about the people,
but it kind of is like I'm here to see
the dude AD's gizmos and the apps. No, it's to
pull together the tech media to have a conversation with
people and try and actually talk about what happens here,
because as of what was kind of getting earlier, this
place like Vegas is a fascinating place in and of itself,
so we see us even if the stuff is kind
(23:19):
of the same as last year, even capturing that mood
is kind of important and bringing you fresh was I'm
really happy.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Yeah, No, I'm really happy you brought me in. I mean,
this was definitely an imprint experience. It's definitely left its
mark on me.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Would you have even dreamed, coming into the getting on
a plane coming to Las Vegas that you were about
to meet the cryt readers for two of your favorite authors.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
No, a lot of crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, that was.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
That was such a wild turn of events for listener
who don't know they are. Father Gabriel and Phil are
krit readers for Christopher Rock Casino and Charles Strauss, who
are two of my you know, favorite writers right now.
Charstrusta sci fi Christopher Rock Casino does is doing like
(24:13):
a science fantasy series Sun Eater, which you should definitely
check out if you are interested in romans in space. Yea,
but yeah, space romans that are in the deconstruction of
Dune and Star Wars, and also without like the turgent
pros of Foundation and the Foundation series.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
These are the happy surprises that happened when you just
sit down start talking.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
There was a great moment where Robert Evans and Father
Gabriel and Edim graz So Junior was sitting around for
like twenty straight minutes and they were having the They
were like, yoh, but hegel and they were like, no,
naming all these philosophers. And I was just sitting there
and I think I understand what Babo my cat feels
like when I can talk to it, because I was
(25:01):
just looking at it, just like wow, I know these names,
but they're connecting them in ways that clearly involve knowledge.
And then after twenty minutes, I just said, fuck, is
this what is like? What's it like being smart? Anyway,
that's the experience I bring to the sweep. But honestly,
it's been kind of fun watching everyone just talk. I
want this to be and I want you the listener,
(25:23):
to be pulled into this and to kind of feel
this because putting aside the very obvious and well documented
side of CS of that it's full of shit that
never goes anywhere, and everyone's kind of annoyed. The taking
full of people. It's also full of people sorry for
you were there. No no, no, I'm yeah. Ed is
a well drank and well fed as we all are.
(25:45):
But also we have had five straight days of just
like our brains being punished.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
No really, I think this might be a massage recovery
as all the tensions holding me together, they removed it.
And I'm feeling real.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Good being my stomach for five hours and I was
rubbing into thought you.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Were just accumulating wealth.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I ran to this like the Buddha booth. I mean
I ran to the sweet last night because I was
gonna because.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
No, there was a crisis. It had to be addressed.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Moving on, we're talking about how nice the solidary where no, no, no, no, no,
there was solidarity there.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
No, I will not.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I was just about to do a whole thing about
how like We've had a bunch of guys in the suite,
and I think for the most part we've done good
positive masculinity without talking too much about our bowel movements.
I've got in his way talk beginning and then the
beginning with the vulnerable. I'm glad that we've got rotors
quotation on the Horny check like, but also I'm tired
(26:49):
of people on the Reddit asking to well for one,
but I think for the most part, we've I hope
we've shown like a bunch of guys hanging out have
don't don't have to be like nasty assholes. Just we've
not been tearing each other down. And I want this
because this industry is very male dominated, and something we
do want to do better next year is I want
more woman in this more diverse voice is like this thing.
(27:11):
And I know some of you have brought this up,
and it's a fair criticism we had. We really only
had like three woman on there, and it's not enough.
And so we're going to do a much better job
next year. And we've already like making plans for this
twenty twenty six. We are going to improve this show
on that level. But also I think we are going
to try and in as much as we can sync
(27:31):
up on coverage with these outlets and actually bring them in.
Because the big thing is is like better Offline's pretty big.
Now I can't even say how big because I am
told not to, but it's big. We have a real
audience now. And the thing I think we can do
with this show is, first of all, show you, the
wonderful listener, what's going on in the tech industry. And
what's going on in the tech industry is not just
the thing you see on the page. Even people have
(27:52):
criticized those people behind the byline are held by these
restraints of editorial bullshit. But on top of that, there's
only so much do If you're like writing about laptop,
how much we know about that person. So I want
this show to be that now. And when it comes
to things like CES, I don't know where else they go.
I'm not going to.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
South By, No, yeah you will. You gotta do it.
You gotta see how Crypto's taking it over.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Don't want to That sounds awful, It is awful. My
friends aren't there. It's the people.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Wholly white will go.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Maybe Molly White's great, but I would rather just like
fly to Boston or whatever. Yeah, but nevertheless, this show
is important to the tech industry. Yeah, and yet it's
completely uncovered what actually happens here. There's a lot of
stuff about this robot does this, and this vacuum has
an arm now, but not the actual vibe, not the
(28:43):
actual feel, and it's interesting to finally capture that and
put it in a bottle. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
No, that's interesting because when I was trying to look
over covered to get a sense of what to expect,
it really was just people talking about past products and
not like actual morale, energy, enthusiasm, lack thereof impact too.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Larger society and programs.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
As well, But even then, the tech industry and the
tech media, it's full of these weird, wonderful people we've
had all week. And I feel like, and if you
the listener disagree with this, please let me know, but
it feels like people have responded really well to just
hearing the people behind these bylines and actually talking about this,
and that.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Those people got a chance to expand on what they
saw and what they felt in a way maybe they
even constrained from doing for a while, and not.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Even for malevolent reasons. It's just that, Yeah, if you
are writing a gadget blog and you write about gadgets,
there's not really much space for editorializing someone. We didn't
get on with. Michael Fisher, one of my favorite YouTubers,
and he has done a really good job of expanding
his YouTube I sound one hundred years long. He's got
one of those YouTube channels with the videos now Utebliss.
(29:57):
One of the light boxes captures his form. But he
was here. Sadly missed him going to see him for dinner.
I think next week. Nevertheless, he has done a really
good thing of explaining kind of the effema around his travel,
how like travel weighs upon him, how there are emotional
contexts to places he goes, the societal parts. He did
a great thing where he was in India talking about
the smog, for example. You can do more with this medium,
(30:21):
and I think that there's so much more interesting things
that we could do even with this show, because let's
be honest, you've got I don't actually know how many
actual reporters are here because the list includes every single
possible person who could ever mention words. But I would
say there's at least one hundred members of the tech
media here, like died in the Wall, actual tech media.
And the fact is there isn't a damn place where
(30:42):
other than like Twitter and Blue Sky, whether actually you're
actually able to get to know these people. I want
better offline to be that on some level it's not
just going to be that it's not just the kind
of mix of stuff, but I think it's a helpful
function of what the show could be in the future.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So something I've while I don't go to the floor
because I'm attending something that I do get to do
at Defcon and at Photonics West is watching for governmental
entities that are actually attending the show as well. And
it's a tradition at Defcon to play the game spot
(31:19):
the Nark, which is if you can find the member
of a given government agency and they've started playing with
it and actually having official booths and saying, can you
guess which agency.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I work for?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
If you do, they'll give you a challenge coin or
a pin. But conversely, the deaf Con people will give
them a shirt for the narc Right to wear. But
our governmental agencies, our regulators are actually just like me,
interested in what's coming that I should be prepared for.
I like finding them and seeing what are you looking for?
(31:58):
If I could find on one willing to represent the agency.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
That we talk to the FEDS inside here, though we
don't let them in here. I mean I will not
allow we're not having the government agencies in here. I
will not You can talk to them outside. But if
you if you remember, if the Feds, please don't come
to my show. I don't think that's going to be fun. Now,
if they turn up, I'm gonna have a word with
(32:23):
them and then say please don't, please, don't keep me well.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Actually, the hard part is the ones that are actually
doing the things that are of interest. They can't talk.
They're constrained by a public affairs office.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Perfect, wonderful. Then they have no reason to be here then,
but but.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Their their interest is actually the public interest.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I should listen to the show. Then they do.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Well and are generally happy.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Okay, I hope they are, because at least the ones
I talked to, I really don't want to get a
put in the goo lag, but putting aside the FBI's
clearly active interest than me, that's a great phrase to
say out loud. I do want this place to be
without the feeds, an actual place where journalists come. And
I know that there are some people who've reached out
(33:12):
to me and they've said they weren't able to make
it as such, We're going to remove We're going to
move stuff around next year. I want to make sure
there's more room for people, and mister Anguezo Junior sounds
like he will come back.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Yeah, I would love to.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Mister Roth will as well. I will be here and
Phil is stuck with me. But I think that the
thing I want to do differently as well is I
want to really plan out the groups because and I
must be honest to the listeners how much of this
came together in real time. But also I think you'll
indulge me because what an insane thing I did here
(33:43):
like this has been very crazy and I cannot believe that.
I cannot believe how well it worked, and it's thanks
to you guys, And of course i'll produce in Matasowski
who built this whole setup. But it's interesting because something
like this could actually be useful for people to understand
the mechanism power within tech, because I want people to
realize how much of it's bullshit. Sure, but how You've
(34:04):
got journalists coming out here who are actually trying to
find a way to cover it within the boundaries of journalism,
which can be quite difficult because most people can't come
on here and say, yeah, most of the shit I
saw was bullshit and that was broken and this is
shit not necessarily because of the byline, but also how
do you write that story? How do you actually put
(34:25):
that together? How do you actually say CS was full
of dog shit?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
And please read the rest of my words after this.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And I'll tell you the way you don't do that.
Being sponsored by Delta Airlines, I will I will voice
my displeasure about mister Nilla, mister Nilla Pattel.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
He is a dirty, dirty man.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Some management questions aside, Nill had a chance to do
something interesting at CES and somehow I did the more
interesting thing, which is disappointing. But also if you're being
if you bother SEO of Delta Vacations, who what are
you doing? Like? Or sorry, you're interviewing them to what end?
To what point? And I feel like the people covering
this show have got such a shit deal. But the
(35:09):
ones with the largest microphones other than my own don't
seem to be.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Full disclosure as a Platinum medallion member for Delta Man.
Those are the emails the delete the fastest.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It's just frustrating because people at the Verge. And I'm
not attacking the writers because Victoria's song was amazing on
this it feels like the people covering this show. Some
of them have potentially given up a little. The Verge
should not have a live show where the summation of
it starts with a fucking interview with the CEO of
the worst part of the Delta experience.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
The Mini CEO.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
And I saw people covering the Delta stuff just blandly,
and it's.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Like, did you check out the interview? What was the
interview itself?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
I have not listened to the Verge cast in some time.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Well, I think, how you can cover that excitedly?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I think that No, actually, let me check my notes.
I did listen. It was let's see, it was James Tayklett,
the CEO of Lockheed Martin and who said that I
love the Verge. It's my favorite publication. And then they
were surprisingly joined by Handword chairman Sung and Kim, who said,
(36:21):
how the Verge is the best place to find out
about bombs. That is all the joke. I apologize, but nevertheless,
it's I've had that written down for a week. It's
just frustrating because it's like Leapatel, he can fucking do
a better job, And honestly, they could be better things
done at CES. The thing we've proven in the last week.
Not trying to put myself on the back or anything,
(36:41):
but I don't even need to say that. The people
who have come on have been really interesting, and I
think there's more that we can do. I don't even
know what whether to call myself part of the tech
me You're on a fucking pr film during the day,
write a newsletter where I regularly make typos that really
shouldn't be there. I just I don't know, man. But nevertheless,
it's like, there is more to be done, and there's
(37:03):
more to be done in the next year. And I
think the way everyone needs to go right now is
this move towards the question we've been asking a week,
which is why does this have to exist? Who is
it for? Why is why? And I think ed your
frustration with this place is that question is so often
not answerable somehow, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Yeah, deeply so. I feel like or it is a
constructed individual that's not necessarily real as the tech industry is.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Like so far, Yeah, they're solving for an imaginary or
are that.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Search for an investor? The product is them?
Speaker 4 (37:40):
I mean, I think you know, the the tech industry
has got and better in the years of constructing the
constructing the image that there is the person that wants
what they are offering. I mean, I think the most
recent example of this that was pretty bloigant was the
construction of the crypto voter, as facilitated by fair Shake,
(38:02):
and they're pretty massive lobbying campaign to punish any candidate
that seemed remotely anti crypto, to resounding success. I think,
like almost like a ninety plus percent hit rate for
winning races where they put up ads against or against
anti crypto or obstensibly anti crypto or insufficiently pro crypto candidates.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
And that latter one is the really dirty one. You
don't love us enough, kiss the.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Boot in the imaginary customer, and.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
The imaginary customer there's this is the idea of a
crypto voter. Someone who is motivated by a desire to
have a safe home for their crypto assets. They wanted
bank with, they wanted in a bank that they would
typically use. They want their dollars to be more easily
transferable between or to these things. They want to have
(38:58):
more assets that can be you know, that they can
trade in their dollars or their tokens for right. And
I think similarly, sometimes when I see, you know, I
think about, like especially the Global Pavilion for Crypto right
where it's like these people are sitting here talking about
how you know, for your brand, one way to increase
its authenticity has objectified, the company said, is to offer
(39:23):
a limited edition goods that will add an air of
rarity to your brand.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yah.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, they're all tokens right and you know these The
idea here is also when you listen to them closely,
they're not saying like they're not actually saying there's any
use value. What they're saying is that we realized we
have a use case for justifying our service, which is
that you can make it more your thing, more exclusive
in partnership with us if you cut us a fee
(39:55):
and you generate a useless token. I feel like there
is a lot of this where, you know, solution in
search of a problem, or a business in search of
an opportunity to cut to extract a.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Fee rather than solving a need.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Someone once asked me if I was willing to do
limited n F n FT coded release labels on Black
Blood of the Earth bottles so that they could have
someone could have their very own NFT run of Black Blood,
and that would be an email I would delete it.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I would I would take such pleasure from watching you
enter the blockchain.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
That was the point they wanted black block, black blockchain, coffee.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Block, Blood of the Earth.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I hate you.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
So slightly different, slightly different direction. Do you actually like
any technology? I don't mean this in like anything. You
seem to enjoy your phone and such, like you enjoy
connecting with people.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Yeah, I mean I like, I like my phone, computers, screens.
But most things I'm just like, I'm not really a
cool Yeah, trains are cool. I mean if we're talking about,
for example, non digitally mediated, I mean, of course we're
talking about digitally mediated. I really have to be because
(41:19):
I'm not interested in like productivity hacks or saving time
person Yeah, you know, for me, like it's like the
things I'm interested in software and programs you know that
have helped me. I'm interested sometimes in you know, I
have a friend who I you know, I have a
friend who I learned coding with the you know what
(41:41):
was in there like maybe ten years ago. What in like, Well,
I don't talk about it because I don't like, uh
doing it, because I don't really care for much and
because of the reason I don't talk about it is
because it's always fun when I have when a tech
and gets a little mad at me, and I was like,
(42:02):
why is this guy who doesn't even code? And I'm like,
what about me makes you think? I can't tell me?
That's cool though, So, you know, especially with the more
the more recent wave of tools of generative tools for
(42:22):
coding supplements, I mean, you know, I've kind of been
inspired by like writing from like Brian Eno and you
have getny more is off to try and create like
small applications that help us learn other languages because I've
been trying to learn Mandarin for a long time, right,
you know, And so stuff like this is fun and interesting,
like little trinkets, little little you know, short desktop apps
(42:45):
or you know, all small little programs that helped me
in my daily life. But I do I'm not really
interested in like some overhaul.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
It feels like what you're describing is the purest form
of technology, which is why do we use the computer
to connect with people or connect with ourselves a bit
more to actually true love what we want to do
more to enhance ourselves. Because the reason I'm asking these
questions is because there are some fucking idiots I'm just
gonna skip to that part. Who would just be like, well,
(43:12):
it's just a hater. Yeah, and I've got the same
thing as an heir to his hatter m Otherwise, can
I say a terrifying that he might finish his point
and then we'll get to you. Don't worry I am
a hater in that.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
I think that a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
The greatest hate is love. Yeah, right, please continue.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
When someone is talking to me or trying to convince
me to integrate some algorithm or digital program into my life,
what they're usually talking about is a way to like
offload some of the cognitive burden and not actually cut
through a stupid task or to not come up for example,
like you know, me and my friend we've you know,
(43:51):
you've getting more is an inspiration for this what he
talks about in one of his essays about how he
uses generitive tools to try to create a group of
language programs so that he'll try to talk in another
language or answer questions another language, and then based on
the weaknesses, it will generate kind of questions and exams
(44:12):
and stories that will test what he has shown a
deficiency in.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
You know, there's like elements of how one structure is
a sentence.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Maybe, yeah, grammar, sentence structure, ambiguities of descriptive language. I mean,
and this is stuff that interest us more than the
way in which we typically have been trying to learn
the languages, especially you know, because I'm doing I'm trying
to do Swahilia as well, so Swahili and Mandarin, and
(44:42):
he's doing Spanish and Pastrin, and so it's like there
are a lot of the apps that are offered in
a lot of the programs, a lot of the methods,
or we simply either don't have the time to do them,
or the the gamification that's presented is bullshit.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Will do a lingo style, you know.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
So I'm if you can figure out a way to
do it that is more closer resembling how a human
human interaction does it without trying to convince me that
I need to offload onto some sort of platform and
or some ecosystem. Sure, I mean, I'm interested, right, but
most of the time you have to make you have
to make the case, and it has to be a
convincing case for why an algorithm needs to be introduced
(45:24):
into something that I'm interested in using. And I think
that most of times, if you actually spend time talking
with the people about it and interrogating it, it doesn't
past the sniff test.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
This is where the solving the language problem and the
human interaction level. This is where I have to say
the terrifying words. I love Uber mm hmmm, because it
did one thing that they are not proud of, that
they do not tout as a thing they can do.
(45:57):
In general, Uber is tals and to regulated right environments.
It destroys taxi networks, never mind adoption of tech technology
that taxi should have done to approof service. Uber obliterates
that good ecosystem. However, in unregulated markets or ones that
(46:17):
are highly corrupt and barter based where I don't know,
such as such as Ukraine and most of Eastern Europe.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Now your experience with this was pre war, though right.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
It was pre war in Kiev. I do not speak Ukrainian,
although my feeble language skills of I speak English. I
have technical Spanish, I can have commerce Spanish, but don't
ask me to talk about poetry and art.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
If you make two Spanishes, I call back to another anyway.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
But when I got done playing in the Great Patriotic
War Museum, and it was snowing, the first snow of
the season in Kiev, and I did not feel like
doing my normal thing of walking all the way across
the city just to enjoy and absorb the city and
on international data rates. I downloaded Uber on the principle
(47:16):
of I just want to get back to my hotel.
Uber was able to, within its app allow me to
arrange a ride negotiate. Well, I didn't even negotiate set price.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Yeah, then negotiating for you.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
It negotiated for me for a set price that is firm,
and get my destination correct with a driver. Neither of
us spoke each other's language, and it was seamless. That
is a thing they never tout, they are not proud of,
but they do everywhere in the world, and with time,
(47:56):
I did that in twenty sixteen. Their language translation on
either end of their app has only gotten better.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
But the problem is that you're completely right, except for
the fact that Uber also had a bigger opportunity they
didn't do, which was if they'd have grown sustainably and
set real labor rates and demanded benefits, Uber could probably
be a fifteen trillion dollar company.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Oh you mean, actually be profitable.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
No, I mean beyond that. If uber had slowly grown
and done it more than minimum wage and use their
scale to actually commit themselves to getting real benefits rates
for employees and grown like that, they could have actually
grown to be probably the largest employer in the world
and actually given people benefits. So they chose the other.
(48:41):
And what sucks is that the reason they did what
you just described, which is genuinely good, is so that
they could find new people that spoke other languages to
extract from.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
That was the first time I called an uber of
my own.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
I remember, and it sucks that they didn't do it
to make sure that you could do the thing you did.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
It was just like we had to get that extracion.
Fuck it makes me mad with the sign of the
simultaneous You made a human experience I couldn't have otherwise had.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
But is this not CS A lot of ideas that
are made up that could could be for ostensibly good reasons,
But I've really done for the investor, for the theoretical customer.
Everything we've describing that's good here is about actually connecting
the smart cane as glib as I might have been
about it. People genuinely will find good in that I'm
(49:35):
excited about.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
The medical devices. These are all good. And I mean,
and we've also you know, we've talked before about huh.
There are lots of algorithmic things I have nothing to
do with the consumer that are helpful, you know, that
are on the back end of helping test things or
discover or do trials for various compounds. Right, as long
(49:56):
as you don't put you know, I'm very skeptical of
the generative tools that are being deployed for this, but
you know, more traditionally, when they're done for this, this,
you know, is something that's interesting. I mean, there's a
host of applications that we wanted to sit down, we
could talk about. But you know, for me, the thing
I don't hate, I mean, the thing I don't like
and the stuff I just like kind of informs my
(50:16):
my antipathy towards it. My ludism is like, you know,
usually when we have a venture capital firm, a private firm,
or well capitalize individual, hedge fund, whatever pushing a certain
type of technology innovation, it's because they're interested in prioritizing
the startup form, which itself already closes a lot of
(50:38):
doors because you have to adopt a certain product, you
have to adopt a certain value structure so that you
can pay the software tax or the you know, the
cloud tax, or you have to you have to figure
out a way that you're going to you know, organize
labor so that you can have contractors and employees and
all of these limitations. There's more energy being spent on
(51:01):
or the barriers to maximizing potential valuation and profitability in
market share instead of the actual technological innovation itself.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
So we are at the end, I'm afraid, And yesterday
you got my kind of teary goodbye to everyone, and
to give you an idea of what the room was
like yesterday, it was full of people and everyone was
yelling and it was very fun. That's where you got
the yes chef from. We have had an insanely cool
crew of people, of course led by mattis Houski, our
producer here, but we've really gone through a lot of
(51:45):
the tech media and the thing I'll say for next
year is I'm going to have more of them. We
had twenty guests on this damn show, including the people
in front of me as well.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
I have more liquor to serve.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Indeed he does, and it's fun. It's also it seems
like the listeners. I want this to be an active
conversation with you. You're on the redditch, you email me.
I love it. Please get in touch on Blue Sky,
you get in touch on Threads. I am not listening
like I just want to be clear, like I look
down on you, Instagram, DMS, Absolutely, Threads not so much
(52:16):
why I'm a hypogram. Anyway, this has been an amazing
show and I want to hear from you. But next
year we're going to be a bit more structured, but
also it's probably going to be the same format. We're
going to have what diverse voices, and we're also going
to get into more definitive subjects. I think the one
thing I could have done, but there are a few
things I could have done better. One thing I could
(52:36):
have is subject matter and having the subject matter experts.
We have people like Max Cherney and Da Vinda Hardware
who really knew their chips, for example, we can wrangle
that coverage far more specifically. But also there was something
fun about having the Slop of the Week just kind
of wash over us because I wanted all of you
listening do kind of get an idea of how obtuse
a conference is. And I know some of you go
(52:59):
to a weird conference is and such and thus you
have this experience. But Phil, thank you for being up bartender,
thank you for serving everyone. I'm I really treasure your
hard work. And let's do nine next year.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Hell Yeah's something I'm very proud of that I started
trying to kick in the sixth and seventh time we
did this was making sure I had non alcoholic options
available for people. I had more than ever available this year,
and I'm glad I got to give it to people.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Who yeah, because this is not a place where you
have to drink.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Because most people who don't drink can't drink.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
They usually feel very asked out when they go to
events at conventions like this, and I want people to
feel welcome.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
And you are here, like, I don't care if you
don't have any substances. Maybe you don't even have food.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
You don't need even gas station mushrooms.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Want to say thank you Robert for the gas station
mushrooms you bought. And I didn't take them because I
don't just eat food.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Off the floor or gas stations.
Speaker 4 (54:02):
I mean, but it was that I introduce you to
some of my friends. Yeah, I drug of freakins. We
would call some of them.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Okay, that's that's a new term. That is a series
of words that I will be unpacking for some time.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
But a pleasure. It's real fun.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
And this is kind of the I was about to say,
the end of the rope. It's quite the opposite, the
beginning of something cool, because Phil and I have been
doing this for so long and some of you have
got in touch and like asked, it's this was a
sweet where we brought our friends in from the tech media,
and now it's turned into something really cool that I
look to grow and turn into something weird and fun
every year. If you're a remember of the tech media
(54:39):
who was not on here listening to this, get in touch.
If you're in New York, for example, we will be
doing what you heard this week very regularly. Every other week.
I would say, get in touch. Maybe it's not the
next episode, but I want a chunk of the tech
media on there. I want I want this. The tech
media is full of such insanely fun and weird and
(55:01):
wonderful voices, tons of people so good on the mic
that you wouldn't know. I want to help with that.
I want this to be something Phil.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
And if you're coming to the Bay Area for some reason,
I'm always happy to give the Phil Broughton Tour where
I point at Manhattan Project things that aren't there anymore.
Speaker 4 (55:19):
Oh you're on the bay.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
Yeah wow, wait died how many hours and we just
didn't reveal that?
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Oh yeah, well yeah, I live in the Bay Area
and I work at a university that is somewhere in
the Bay Area.
Speaker 4 (55:31):
I'll be I'll be there twenty eight to thirty first. Also,
if you're in the Bay Area twenty to thirty first,
you should come to my co host Jathan Sadowski's book
launch at City Lights.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Jathan Sadowski, of course, the inventor of the Habsburg AI term.
Speaker 4 (55:45):
Yes, I got the air appand of the Absburg embardy
yell at him and say this is a stereotype.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
A man. I am so jealous of that that happened.
I am so upset that I've not had like AI
and and AI very nice. Those are my two favorite kinds.
Right but also ed on Gwaiso Junior, thank you so
much you have battled through this week for your first
(56:14):
ces in. I would say the conditions have been chaotic,
but I made it. He made it.
Speaker 4 (56:21):
My stomach made it.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
He cooked. But also you're going to see in the
next year exactly how much mister Gwayso Junior does. He
is incredible and we've been so lucky to have him.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
Thank you. I got to meet one of my favorite writers.
Speaker 4 (56:36):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
I've been enjoying your work for so long.
Speaker 4 (56:38):
I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
It's been awesome.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
And I will say this as I say every time
when I meet you. Man, I also got to have
drinks some of my favorite writers. Thank you so much
for your time. It's been a genuine pleasure, I imagine
for the listeners, but selfishly for me mean too.
Speaker 4 (56:53):
I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. Guys.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
Hell yeah, and this is the thing, like this has
been very guy way too. But also I want all
the fellows to listen to remember that you can love
your male friends and talk about how fucking rockin they
are and how much they've supported you all week. You
don't have to be so fucking self conscious. You fucking
cowards compliment each other. Also, Ed is like the best
dressed man I've ever fucking every fucking day. I'm just
(57:18):
swearing too much. Ed looks just amazing. I look pretty
good too. Don't say it jealous of a suit. Yeah,
he actually has like the most wonderful I wish I
was this cool, but nevertheless, we've had an incredible crew
of people. I want to start by thanking Jared Newman
the Freelancer, Henry Casey of CNN underscored Ednie Demeyer of
the Autono Cast, Father, Gabriel Mosher of course of the Church,
(57:42):
Jesse Ferra and Michael Hale of your Kickstarter Sucks, Tom
McKay of It Brew, of course, David Roth of Defecta,
Matt Binder of Mashable, Max Journey of Reuters, Gara Davis,
and Robert Evans of course if it could happen here,
Phil Broughton, who's sitting across from me, of what I've
just written as miscellaneous, Devendra Hardowa, Carissa Bell and of
(58:03):
course shirln Lowe of ng Gadget Victorious Song of the Verge,
Kyl Shnard of the Las Vegas Sun, and of course
Mattasowski are incredible. God damn producer, you have been an
absolute legend this entire time. We couldn't have done it
without you, but we also could not have done it
without iHeartRadio, Sophie Lichtermann and of course Ian Johnson, who
(58:26):
has been He is literally dealing with the wildfires at
the moment, and he is we like, we didn't hear
from it. It's like, oh crap, shit, And actually I
want to do a shout out to Miles Gray of
the Daily Zeitguy's the iHeart Radio show. He literally lost everything.
I'll be dropping a link in there. Don't feel obligated to,
like many people going through many things, but if you
(58:46):
can donate, please do and thank you for me. This
has been a very personal podcast, a little too personal,
and I have no idea if it's good or bad.
I really don't know. You seem to be happy, but nevertheless,
this is you've all kind of witnessed my own personal
journey with technology and technology has been part of my
love since I was ten. I think and you've all
(59:09):
been wonderful, and I think you like this and I
like doing this. I love doing this. We will be
back in a year, and I'll get to that in
a second. We'll also be back next week. We're going
to have better offline radio in New York. I get
on a plane to New York on Sunday. It's going
to be a complete nightmare, but no exciting. It's an adventure,
it is, and I just love cooking. I could probably
(59:29):
do another hour of podcasting, but you're thinking, please, please,
no more, no more. So we've had too much. But
in all seriousness, we're going to be back immediately with
Paris Martineau and of course Jeff Jarvis of twit and
their various associations. But we are going to be back
in a year. And I've learned so many ways to
do this. But the biggest lesson I've learned, and that's right,
(59:50):
it's friendship, is that everyone came together to support this show.
Every single goddamn person who walked into this suite walked
in here in ten I'm actually discussing what happened, and
everyone was so fucking wonderful. And I think now, of
all times, it's really easy to be kind of cynical
and definitely pessimistic about the tech industry and say that
(01:00:12):
there's nothing to redeem it really and everything is growth
of all costs. But I think that's reductive. I think
it's something where you can look at the most powerful
people and the things being talked about and lose the magic,
which is as fucked up as the algorithms are making
things as detached as we might be from whatever social networks.
(01:00:32):
This week has proven, at the very least, that there
are human beings that truly love the computer and love
the things that they can do with it and the
people it connects with. I hope I've given you something
in this week, and that's proof of solidarity with your
fellow human being and seeing that within this extremely boring,
arduous show, at times where most people are lying to
(01:00:54):
you or thinking about ways they could put you in
a position to lie to you more egregiously, there are
people coming in here who are slightly excited or very
excited about a smaller laptop because they're able to use
the computer in a different place, so they're able to
do more with their lives. And as Ed said, the
algorithms he used it he could potentially use for more
accurate linguistics, he could learn more about a language. There
(01:01:15):
are many wonderful things that technology can do. And I've
been quite emotional, and I think you like it, and
I fucking love him, but I'm emotional because I'm surrounded
by people who really give a shit. Emotional because every
single person that's come through this door, that people running,
even the people visiting, have shown that there's not a
single half asser in them. There's not a person that
(01:01:37):
I've spoken to who has not deeply and meaningfully cared
about something in technology. And there's nothing wrong with you
if you truly love what technology has done for you.
Nothing about this podcast is about trying to fracture you
from the things that you love about it. If you're
pissed off, I'm with you about the way it's being done.
But what I hope I've shown you in the last
(01:01:58):
week is that there are people that care as much
as you do, if not more, people that love it
as much as you do, and people who share your
frustration with the way things have gone. We will be
back next week, and we will be back in twenty
twenty six for the Consumer Electronics Show. If you listen
this long, I do love you all, and I'm so
(01:02:19):
grateful for you listening to Better Offline. Thank you for
listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the
Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. You can check out
more of his music and audio projects at Mattasowski dot
com m.
Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
A T T O.
Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
S O w Ski dot com. You can email me
at easy at Better offline dot com or visit better
offline dot com to find more podcast links and of
course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to
chat dot where's youreaed dot at to visit the discord,
and go to our slash Better Offline to check out
our reddit. Thank you so much much for listening.
Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For
more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Ed Zitron
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