The State of Tech Journalism with Kylie Robison and Mike Isaac

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Alone media, nobody say anything weird.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Than me.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hello, Ande, Welcome to Better Offline. This is the second
episode of Better Off Live, the life to tape show
that I do whenever I travel, and I pick up
wonderful people like my good friend Mike Isaac from The
New York Times, who joins me today, and of course
Kylie Roberson, the one for Kylie Robison from The Verge.
Thank you both for coming, thanks for having me, Thank you.
And today is and I'm definitely checking the date on

(00:46):
my phone Friday, the nineteenth of July. So nothing big
has happened today other than everything breaking. So for those
of you listening, this is likely going to come out
after the CrowdStrike episode. I had to write the moment
I got back from breakfast until the moment I left
for this episode, and there will be a full explainer there.
I'm not going to do this, and again this will
be after it. So I don't know why I'm even
saying that we're in a weird time in the tech industry.

(01:09):
It feels like we are watching, at least I think,
the end of the world. On some level. We're watching
the institutional failures that are just creating more and more problems.
And then also we're watching open AI on the other side,
just like every two days, Like yeah, there's five levels
of reasoning and we are on number one, which is
just a very annoying chat bot that sometimes those things,

(01:32):
and level two will be when it's a smart computer,
and then level five smartest computer of all time or
without like an actual product people really care about. It
just feels strange. I feel weird right now, and I'm
pretty weird anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
I'm just waiting for them to be useful. Does that
make sense or like, like I don't know, Like it
feels very I mean you tell me, like we're like
super steeped in it, but like it feels very like
everyone I have decided this is the thing we have
to build, or this is the thing we're moving towards,
and like the utility of it almost comes later, like

(02:08):
they're sort of like ahead of themselves.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
A little strange.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
I'm surprised, but I'm also steeped in it, and I
try to get my friends to use it to see
if it's helpful. My civil engineer partner has started using
it for seismic projects, which is very very niche thing,
but obviously it's not accurate.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, no, orever, that's not ever. That's the thing though.
They keep saying, well, it hallucinates now, but it won't
in the future. And then you say why and they go, oh, sorry,
how even and they go, well, we will get to that.
Yeah after right, answer this phone call in the other room.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
So it's like five miles down the road.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Because watching the last few years with the metaverse and
Crypto and all this, this is kind of beginning to
look like I realized there's a product. No, but I
remember back in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, there
were these roadmaps you get. You get the roadmap for
like the Border Yacht Club, and it would be like
the first thing would be whatever they launched, and no,
you're a big investiment.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Please don't try. That's a joke. Just to be clear.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
New York Times editorial part. If they do, it's my joke.
You have these roadmaps, it would be like, yeah, step one,
we released the apes. Step two, we will have a
special chat room for the apes. Step eight.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Step one release the apes. Good you can swear, okay,
just check.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
This is a cuss fill podcast. You can say fucking
shit and all the words, okay, but on the rub
and then step eight would be like a real life
club in Miami for apes, And I'm actually being serious
that is on the roadmap, and they've promised this like
metaverse where you can play as your apes in the computer,
and all of that seems more real than steps two

(03:48):
through five of the open AI reasoning thing. But it's
almost like to your point, it's like everyone is just
committed to this bit now.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
I feel like for me a lot of the time
and I'm thinking about it just feels like constant fomo
across the industry and like always keeping your eye on
like what your.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Competitors are doing.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
And like part of this I think may be legitimate
because of people are always like, oh, we missed the
smartphone right, or we missed like the next platform play
that we shouldn't have and that's instructive and because Google
really cares about this, we should too. And like like
with with self driving, if you remember, like everyone was
all in on self driving cars and all these companies

(04:31):
spun up and they're all like falling out and it
just I don't know, like maybe there's some sort of
there's there is a logic to it, but to me,
it just feels like a cart before the horse a
lot of the time when when I'm trying to grasp
like what do we with generally do with gen Yeah,
that's a good distinction, like jen AI versus like AI

(04:52):
being like because AI is not also like not a
new thing, right, Like it's not. You can't just speak
about it as like, Okay, this is just happening.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Me and Edward just talking about this about the generative distinction. Yeah,
I don't know. I do kind of buy the hyphe
a little bit. I guess I don't know it's good.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
Ed knows this.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
But did you guys see the lighter model. Do you
guys have some opinions about that.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I don't have opinions that tell.

Speaker 5 (05:21):
Me, oh god, the lighter model is cheaper.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
Uh. They say it's smarter, but technically it's supposed to
be you know, less computing power for cheaper, so people
can build whatever shit they want that they couldn't because
it was way more expensive with a larger and more
capable model. And you don't need to like build a
shitty little bot with like a giant model anyways, a
little model exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Okay, I get the sense in that.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
Yeah, so but they did that because you know all
of these Mistral just released a lighter, tinier model, Anthropic
has a tiny model, Google has a tiny model, and
people developers are more likely to go to those models
whether I build something, and Chat did not have anything
of the sort.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
So yeah, So my biggest problem with that is everyone
is racing to the bottom, and a race to the
bottom is not traditionally something associated with good outcomes. And
so it is good that it's cheap or whatever, but
also this company is still not profitable. This company is
still not particularly useful, and so you've got this situation

(06:26):
where everyone's like, well, on top of not being profitable
and on top of not being super useful, we're also
all having to make the thing cheaper. It is not profitable, yes,
and it's just and also that will surely increase usage,
which will not fix the sustainability problem. It just feels
like we're accelerating towards a wall in the tech industry
and I feel a little bit crazy.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
No, I'm really interested in that. I mean, there's the
was it six hundred billion dollar problem, right, yes.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
And then the trillion dollar Goldman Sax problem.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
It does feel that way that there it's just like,
let's just keep dumping money into this thing that it's
it's not useful now, we hope it'll be useful in
the future.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
You know. It all just feels kind of disingenuous as well,
because they're not even dumping six hundred million dollars into
AI because Google has had AI initiatives. In fact, Google
deliberately avoided the metaverse. Yeah, incredible one move by Sun
Dar Well done, mate, But they've been piling money into
AI like over a decadic quite deep mind every time,
but like this is the one you put the money into,

(07:25):
like this is this is your king and it's just
it's just artly confusing as well. But I also think
it puts the tech media in this really weird position. Yeah,
where I get and I'm not putting anyone on blust,
including you. I get why people have to say humor this.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, oh I get it.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, I get why people have to say, like, oh yeah,
the five magical layers of reasoning, even though the logic
with that and by the way, for the listeners and
just skipping over a thing you should I should have
told you about. There was a story that came out
in Bloomberg and it was saying open AI now has
five levels of reason, of steps towards of artific intelligence
towards superintelligence, and step one is like chat bop. Step

(08:04):
two is like agents agents, and it's just very vague.
In the story from Bloomberg was like completely flat faced.
She's like, yep, this is perfectly reasonable. But the logic
is it's like saying I'm a man and I'm on
step one of becoming Spider Man, right, And it's just
I get why we have to mine Max Journey from

(08:25):
Royer's sorry Max, well, actually Max Rocks he put he
put it to me quite well, and he was saying,
it's open a eye is important, though we have to
cover them even and I mean, what are you gonna do?
Just say this is bullshit and he's right. And Bloomberg
especially like and even like the Times as well. It's
not like your opinion writer, it's Kylie. You can get
a bit into the opinion. And we talked about it

(08:47):
also in your GPT four, oh mini piece you even
talk about the problems associated with there. But it's weird.
It's this weird situation where what happens if this is
all bullshit what happens now, and it's been like three
cycles of bullshit.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, crypto is instructive, I think there. But I totally
agree with you that it it sort.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Of becomes a self fulfilling or like it it becomes
like weighty because of the attention it gets, and it
gets more attention because of that. I do think that
like there is a way of covering it, and hopefully
a way that media learned from a lot of the
bubble around crypto, A lot of the bubble around I

(09:31):
think self driving again is like another instructive case, just
because like everything was five years away for twenty years basically,
and I I think it's like I think you're right.
I think we're stuck in like a dilemma of you
can't ignore it because more like all like half of
VC is going into AI right now. I literally like

(09:52):
those are the numbers, and so so you have to follow, Yeah,
what was it an ass?

Speaker 2 (09:56):
I need to read my own pero, but.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
I really don't read my own bo But but so
you can't ignore the money. But at the same time,
I do think you can. You can at least introduce
a level of which I hope we're getting better at,
which is like, Okay, this is like a thing. Everyone
thinks it's the thing, but like, can we please take
the temperature down a little bit? And I do think
that like Goldman, Sachs and Sequoya notes that you're referencing,

(10:20):
which poor at least some cold water on it is
getting there is moving us towards that.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Sekoya one though, because he's just like, yeah, it's no
real problem being solved, super expensive and yeah, but you know,
I still think it's good.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
It's just the way you gotta talk to your book.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
There's a great bit in it as well where he
was saying like, yeah, the new the new B one
hundred processes man video that they're like twenty five percent better,
but only like twenty five percent more expensive. It's not
like he's saying, look more efficient, because that's if video
came up with something which Jensen Wong is incapable of doing,
that was more power efficient rather than more powerful, that

(10:59):
would actually be significant because look, I would hate to
do this. I would be so mad. I just want
to be clear. If I'm wrong about generative AI, I
will look like such a bell end. I'm gonna look
like the biggest twat in all the world. Everyone's gonna
laugh at me. I'm going to point you idiot, but
I'm not wrong, and I'll disappear if I am. But

(11:23):
it's just all of these things keep coming out, and
it feels like, because to your point, sure the media
got taken by crypto and the metaverse, I don't think
they're not being taken. I think you two are you
do you guys? You're doing the right thing.

Speaker 5 (11:38):
Because we're in front of Mike's.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
But also I wouldn't have brought you on here if
I didn't like it that otherwise I would just be
like in trouble, you fucking But it's it feels like
the rest of the media is kind of flubbing it
as well, because there is a level on buff you
do this whis good. There's a lack of context any
of this shit, the sheer amount of money this costs,

(12:04):
and the way that people look at the tech industry
outside of pech is souring so badly because of this,
because it's kind of like politics. It's people are souring
because the media, in the chasing objectivity becomes even more
subjective because when you don't subjectively apply reasoning to open AI,
for example, you end up in this weird situation where

(12:26):
it's like you're actually just parroting their talking points.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
It's really important to have that distinction. And this is
a really good advice that I got from one of
my favorite podcast hosts, is that you should write about
You should write about what you're what they're doing today
and not what they're saying they're going to do later.
And I think that's a really important distinction and really
really hard because most of the conversations you're having with
them is stuff what you're going to be doing with

(12:49):
this technology, not really stuff we're doing today.

Speaker 5 (12:52):
Most of today's kind of.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
Boring research safety mechanisms that they're deploying and very like
tiny tiny, tiny little steps to the large language model.
But it's not like we're going to solve the climate
crisis and also destroy the climate and physics.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
Yeah, it's it's wild.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
I feel like some of the problem around coverage and
I don't think everyone does this, but I think like
this is all happening at the same time the media
is getting destroyed as and so like institutional knowledge goes
out the door a long time. Like I feel like
I mean, just speaking for myself, I feel lucky that
I've had a tech job for fourteen years or covering

(13:31):
tech for fourteen years, so like still like a drop
in the bucket as far as like the history of
the valley, but like I've.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Been through a few of these cycles, so I can
at least.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Rattle off shit that I know, like from whatever. And
I feel like when Google is no longer servicing news
in the same way it is, Facebook has pulled out
of news completely, like it's it's killing everyone, but the
like really big players and even the really big players
are getting hit.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
So I think it's just like it's not there are
a few things going on there. I guess what I
would say, Do.

Speaker 5 (14:02):
We think that the Perplexity incident changed anything?

Speaker 1 (14:04):
So the Perplexity incident for listeners is.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
For me, it's no I have.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, I have wonderful listeners who are not in the
tech indust trying to learn from me. Your mistake, not mine.
This is the Perplexity AI. They're a company that lets
you search using the power of AI. When they first
announced it was like ship this is Google's dinner being
eaten in front of them. Wow. And the latest thing
they did was they do article summaries, which is just

(14:33):
otherwise known as stealing, and they ripped an entire Forbes
article I believe it was from and it was fantastic writer. Seriously,
like Forbes has got its problems with several fucking rocks.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
But tech tsk is great.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
And so you have this thing where it would generate
this story and just rip it off. And they ripped
off the Forbes story. And then when Forbes complained, John
Pachowski is John and he just ripped them public and
so Perplexity's answer was to add citations at the top
to four or five places that had aggregated.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
The yeah story.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
And it's just like, this is the thing. I do
not understand why the tech media is not more antagonistic
to these people, because fucking how, come on, man, don't
steal my shit. You've already been doing it. Yeah, And
it feels at this point like some of the tech
media are kind of like trying to kick that football
at Charlie Brown. Yeah, they won't screw us over this time,
And then they do and it's even worse than before.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
But I don't know if it's like a level of
complacency though, it's just like, I don't know. It just
seems like people are so tired and everyone's getting fired
and things are We're so over, you know, we're so cooked.

Speaker 5 (15:41):
It's like it's like, what do we do ever been
so bad? So I feel like that's a bit of
it as well. At least that's what it feels like
to me, is people are like this sucks. I don't
know what to do.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Also, what's weird as well is everyone's acting like tech
isn't fun anymore, and it isn't. When you look at
what's in the tech media now there is. I'll send
this to Max zep from tech Crunch. Lovely Fella used
to be a Gizmodo. I was talking to him about
this and it's like, take is this industry when you
look at it that combines the best of sports journalism,
financial journalism, entertainment journalism, and gossip. There's all sorts of

(16:13):
weird freaks, strange little weirdos like Sam Altman in this
weird broken house. He's like, I don't know why my
house is so sharing, like ship into the yard a coyotes.
By the way, Samman is currently suing the people who
sold him a house.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
In diligence on as well, because he.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Did no inspection and like a coyote took up residents
in his backyard, bloody to his house. It's like, I
can't believe I lost money as he drives like a
five million dollar ugly assed car.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Like, oh yeah, I didn't even know. I've never even
heard of that car in my life. I mean, I
saw THEE.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
I'm not saying anyone should do this, but if someone
let out the tires, very funny.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
No comment.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
No, I'm not saying anyone should do it, but if
it happened unrelated to me, especially legally speaking, take picture
easy better offline dot com, email me THEE.

Speaker 5 (17:05):
I did say he was busy this weekend, so that
makes sense.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah yeah yeah, and it's it's definitely not just hanging
out with my friend and drinking a bunch of beers.
But the thing is, like that is great gossip journalism,
Like that's just fun.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
She gives a shit.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Katen the Topless BI has done a really good job
at this as well, Like there's so much fun in
this industry. I just bought this weird little thing called
a GPD Win four and it's like a thousand dollars
little computer. It looks like a PlayStation VT. You can
run Windows on, it's playing Diablo four on it. That
shit's fun. And you've got this weird crap being made
in China. Now we can't possibly touch it compossibly. Weve

(17:39):
got to talk about Sam Mortman's magic broken API. Thing
kind of sucks. And it's just I think that.

Speaker 4 (17:45):
Tech journalists touch a lot of I mean, I think
that's like a narrow vision of what we're talking about.

Speaker 5 (17:51):
It's the most popular stuff.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
I don't even know if it's the most written about. Though.
It feels like we've gotten away from the time when
we talked about the fun shit. Yeah when it talks,
because it's like the money isn't there, and I think
that that really is it. Like the money to your point,
we have to cover open AI to some extent because
even if they are building nothing, they're taking a lot
of money to do so, and they're making potentially one

(18:12):
hundred billion dollar deals with Microsoft to build a supercomputer.
But it feels like the funds just kind of got
like we're not enjoying I don't everyone I talked to
is kind of just like to your point, kind of
like tired, yeah, and everything so on fine, Like I
think the I would like it if open Ai actually
did what they claim they were doing. That would be interesting.
I don't want jobs to go away, but I'd love

(18:33):
like the computer to be smart. I love my phone
to work sometimes like intelligence Intelligence Tim cooked and he.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
I don't know if.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
It was an episode, but it's just it's frustrating because
there is real joy and really interesting ship, like even
in the Valley. But it feels like there's less journalists
in San Francisco these days. They still are here, but
there's not as many. It's not like twenty fourteen twenty
fifteen when you had weird indie go go freaks and hackathons,
which is still happening. But they're not getting me attention.
I wonder what is I think.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
I don't know the people in San Francisco. The journalists
I know.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
I have like a twenty twenty five people deep group
chap just young tech journalists, well not all tech, but
journalists in San Francisco.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
People in one chat yeah whatever the sms or.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
Like wha, yeah, it's just a bunch of wack.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
There you go.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
But they exist.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
I think they're still figuring it out and you know,
but not to plug my own company. But it's the
reason I went to the Verge is because it's just like,
will you pay me to write weird shit? And that's
all they do. I mean, they just did a bunch
of posts on Legos the other day, like.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
The yeah oh that I saw that ye yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
I literally this morning and I work slack.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
I was like, I sort of miss blogging, like it
was very it's very yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
Posting just let me just let me say whatever, and
they do, like I can really just go at it
with any I love blogging. That's why I got into
tech reporting.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
So I feel like that is actually text salvation.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Hm, it's blogging.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
Save the blog.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
I'm not serious, because it's the thing I wrote today,
which will become a script and you're gonna read it
and then you're gonna hear it. You'd be like the
newsletter and the podcast was similar, and you fucking do
an episode anyway. But writing that up and being able
to go at it, and I'd realize them in a
different position to you too. But it's like opinion journalism,

(20:28):
even just even if the opinion is I like it
and it's good something some life all things digital when
there and some great writers came out of There's a
Beast and once again I'll apologize missread Ronny stories and
made a snarky tweet. You have my ass forever. You've

(20:51):
got to get give them wrong. But that's the thing.
It feels like TECK has got so rigid and it's
turned into almost different aberrations of Bloomberg type things. But
then you occasionally get something out of the journal and
that's very presient where it's like the training date ya one.
It just yeah, it doesn't feel like tech journalism is
given the freedom it needs to actually deal with the tech.

Speaker 5 (21:10):
Industry totally, totally.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
I haven't had that experience of writing analysis until I
came to The Verge, and it was kind of beaten
out of me in a sense, is that you're really
not supposed to have an opinion, and you're really supposed
to be, you know, just just very very neutral. And
then I found a lot of the people who follow
my work really liked when I said what I thought
about a specific topic, which is I know, silly and

(21:35):
kind of a given for many people, but I think
it's it's valuable.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
You know, did you come up in traditional orgs.

Speaker 5 (21:41):
I came.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
I started at BI so that was I was a
software developer culture reporter. So it was like this software
developer built this project and they're doing this ye know.

Speaker 5 (21:51):
Which which was so fun.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
But then it was like scoop City, Peloton stuff, so
that's very you know, and then it just and then
I came to Fortune and then it was all Twitter
Fortune Magazine, so it was all Twitter reporting the implosion
ex Twitter, and so then that wasn't so fun. I mean,
it was really fun as a journalist, and then the
audience is like, I'm really tired of hearing about this, honestly,

(22:15):
So yeah, now I get to do more of the
like analysis.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
Just what sticks out to me is when you really
take a step back, this entire industry is just what
did Sam Oltman get up to you today? Oh my goodness?
And he had a bit of that with what with
w w DC. You have people taking a photo of
him and then he did nothing, which is I love
that Tim Cook humiliated him. I didn't see it that, no, no, no,
he didn't say anything about him. Sam Wilton was there
and everyone was posting pictures of so yeah, and then

(22:40):
no mention of s going to get up, and says
Tim Cook, And there was a picture of Eddie Q
talking to Samueltman and he looked like he was kind
of ripping him.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
It was great.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
I'm sure it was like a normal conversation, but I'd
like to believe.

Speaker 6 (22:53):
It was like okay here and I said, sit at
the back, Samuel, I did I have heard more of
the It's actually really interesting because like there was this
period of like, let's I mean, this is in my head,
but I feel like there was the like heyday of
tech where it was like guys and hoodies and everyone
was like, ooh, this is aspirational.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Then we went through like a correction of like more
accountability journalism and like everyone's going after X company or whatever,
and like I think that exists to some degree now
still in a big way. But I also feel like
there's maybe a push from some folks with the sentiment
that you're giving, which is like can we is there

(23:35):
like fun or interesting or aspirational things that we can
write about or think about again that we miss hearing about,
which I've.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Been I've been thinking about a lot more.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
It's like it's weird, like to like historically I feel
like I've done a lot more of the like critical stuff,
but I like there are interesting things going on that
maybe we could focus on. But it's also not like
an either or you know, like I still feel like
you can do both of those things. It's just figuring
out who can do that and who wants to do that,

(24:05):
maybe totally.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
And it's advice that so both Kylie and I share
the same mentor the wonderful Matt Weinberger. I see enough
to this the guys sen say bloggers. And one of
the things he said to me, and I'm sure he
said to you is people come to you for your voice.
And it's true, and it sucks because you have so
many people like you, Mike. I'm not saying anything's wrong

(24:28):
with the times, but it's not like your style comes
through there is.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
It's like a house style. Yeah I have to sort
of yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
But also an interesting fucking fellow and it doesn't get
to come through. And Fard we need far haadback.

Speaker 5 (24:41):
Mike's sweets for sure.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Far had He did the thing about men not washing
their asses, and I was like.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
God, that was a good If you've not heard of him,
he is a writer, is a Slate.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
He's at the New York Times, and he would just
a lot of his articles have just him going like
the American Adrian chills, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Adrian Childs, Yeah, guy who writes like I have a.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Urinal in my house and my guests are upset far
had did and kind of what Kate in the Topless
is doing business inside it. And I swear to God
that is where tech finds its salvation because all of
this financialization of everything is just fucking boring. I'm sorry,
I will do I do my episodes about it, but
I'm pissed off for many reasons at all times. But

(25:29):
a lot of it is cutting through the financial stuff
to say, what's actually happening. Why did Google Search get worse?
It wasn't because like the computer got unplugged. It's because
of organizational issues. Why does that happen? It's a cultural issue.
It's the push of management. But it's when you incentivize
an entire assystem to growth. Goh blah blah blah blah.
Everyone's heard those rants. But the actual fund is the
weird ship being built. It doesn't have to be perfect.

(25:51):
When I had Alex Krantz in the Verge on for
an episode the very first Better Off Live. She was
talking about these gaming the same like the gpd wan
for these weird gaming things, and she's like, it's kind
of shit, but I love them. Yeah, I feel like
that is tech to me more than anything. It's these weird,
quirky things. Like the first gadget I ever really am
is like a creative nomad CD player sized MP three players.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
Wait, it was that huge chunky I had that too,
because it was like a fat piece of shit.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
But it could hold five thousand song.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
It's all good. Five thousand at the time is incredible.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Love that and it's weird.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
It's like tech doesn't have to be perfect, but it
has to do something. But the tech industry right now
feels like it's not perfect, but it's also not good totally.
It's just we need to get back. We need crunch
gear back crunch gear. Crunch gear was the tech they
did the gadget thing Neving called away. Legend met him
in Canada about a month and a half ago. Legend
just why about any old ship and it's fun and

(26:45):
it's interesting. I feel like I will say that Bloomberg
when it comes to financial coverage, is actually excellent and
also Ed Ludlow is for Bloomberg TV. Surprisingly he is everywhere. Yeah,
but it's I feel like we lean less financial for journalism.
We don't no one's getting anything. It's all people. This
is not putting anyone on blast his specifically, but no

(27:07):
one's getting an actual scoop about open AI right now.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, all the like real meaty stuff is kind of
I mean, well, I think they have a lot at
stake because everyone's sort of locked down and shut up because.

Speaker 5 (27:18):
It's and they're making a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Exactly, Like why would they they talk shit when they're
gonna make it?

Speaker 7 (27:24):
But open ai isn't know, but I think the verticals
the reason so I actually I think about this a
lot is like how can we how does coverage like
change or how can like big.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Companies or big institutions like mine or like whatever like
do that, And like a lot of it is down
to Okay, a business desk needs a beat reporter for X,
Y and Z companies because this is how you is
how you do it or this is how we do it,
and like it's a business desk, so it has to
have like some form of financial angle. But at the

(27:57):
same time, like over the past few years, are we
doing more accountability stuff or does this have nothing to
do with the business, you know, And like a lot
of the times, it can feel very just sort of
confused to me, confused.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
On what the what is the mission here?

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Are we saying this is a bad business because it's
not making money? Are we saying it's a bad company
because it's bad for the world in X, Y or
Z way, you know, And the stories kind of feel
schizophrenic or like at odds with one another, and like
I don't know, I don't know if that's a you
have to define that.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And then like just also like I can just speak
with the times.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
It's like very like this is what a reporter is
versus an opinion person. And like coming from like blog land,
I have less I like blurring those lines a little
bit more. But I also work here, so it's one
of those things, you know.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
Yeah, Fortune was very much like that, where it's a
very specific tone and we had discussed this before and
at the verge it really is. I mean, like I
just I barely get edited. It's just whatever I'm writing
at any given time.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
Which is fun because it feels like a personal thing.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
And that's why Misato, for example, she rucks why she
has been the one person getting se O right. Mea
open invite to the show. Fantastic look at Misto the Verge,
because she is one of the only people who actually
got se O right, and she got it right like
a year before everyone else, including myself totally Like she
whipped my ass on that one. I've had to site.
It works so much, it's great. That's because of the

(29:26):
open remit of The Verge. Now I have my critiques
of The Verge. You're not going to bring up to
day because next episode write me. But that kind of
open format reminds me of all things digital, which for
listeners who didn't know it was like a kind of
a predecessor to the Wall Street Journal's Tech desk. And
Kara Swisher, who I will rip to ship on another episode,

(29:47):
is pretty good at mentorship though and team building.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Who's great a talent.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
She helped me a lot, and that's the thing, Like
I go on Carrot a lot and I'll continue to
do so come on the show, Carl, let's work this out.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
That would be great, Actually, I would love it.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
She not responded to my emails. I can't imagine why.
But the one thing she did was she can't let
you guys go loose. And that's why you had like
Jason Delray, who was one of the best e commerce reporters.
He's a fortune now Fantastic News. I didn't actually know that.
And you, Mike, you got your start there, Jowski, I
believe as well.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Like Pat's great. I can't remember, no it.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Was, but you he was a plastic writer early, one
of the best mobile reporters. And also Kara Swisher was there.
And but what made that good was it was kind
of messy. People just went at some ship and it
was good. It was and it was actually at the

(30:46):
right time. It was not critical enough. But I don't
think that that was. No one was critical at that time.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
That's right. I think that. I think that.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
I so, yes, A, I think Kars was really good
at spot. I mean, just take myself out of it.
I think she was good at like she did this
recode later just like figure out who's hungry, who's like
not been around and jaded for long enough and wants
to like hit it hard and then go back to
them and like fortunately I was twenty three at the time,

(31:15):
so I had more energy than I do now, but
or no, twenty five. Fuck, I don't know, but maybe
twenty five. But I that is I think about that
a lot, just in the like actually Cope used to
tell me this a lot, which was he was like
in a lot of places, you're asked to like do
a story and then go get an analyst who can like, yeah,

(31:37):
put like pat quote in you know or whatever, and like, look,
there's there is they can say a thing that and
sometimes when I call these people they do give me
actually like good er original insights, but like you can
also just say what you think based on your expertise
of the matter and like it like assuming you know
what you're talking about or whatever, just have done the

(31:58):
reporting in the background to get to a point where
you know where you're talking about. Like people respond to that,
you know. And I think Twitter has been like my
hack or work around for a long time until before
it like fucking broke. But like I think that, yeah,
that just sort of I'm trying to think of like
where that exists really now?

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, I mean besides what you guys do all.

Speaker 5 (32:22):
Things decreated some like just monster reporters and to.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
Hear that you guys got that kind of freedom really
early on, and like early in your career too, to
be like, dude, you know this, you spend all your
time working on this, like say what you think here
in Yeah, And I think.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
These conditions also created. And I'm not saying it's anyone
in the media's fault, because it's not the media's job
to stop them running shitty companies. But I believe that
that period where and it's like the really the late
twenty tens where the media just kind of was like,
we trust these guys, right, and then we couldn't like
we like And I'm not even trying to be nihilistic

(32:58):
saying you can't trust the single te fun but I
don't know. I wouldn't have trust Mark Zuckerberg. He's a
very damn looking guy as well. But trusting these companies
was a mistake. But also when the whole industry was
trying to be enthusiastic because it was fun. Mid twenty
tens were a lot of fun.

Speaker 5 (33:15):
I watched Silicon Valley recently, and Cara's on that.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
It really stands up by the way it's really good.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
I actually disagree.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Oh, I thought it was so good.

Speaker 5 (33:24):
It was shocking.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
I watched it and all I could think, and this
is because pr person I'll watch it went it feels
like people only like it because it's like they're taking
me seriously. I'll take lunch disruptors in it.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
That real they did, Yeah they did.

Speaker 5 (33:39):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
But that's the thing. I watched it, and I was
just I think I was just an early cynic. Yeah,
just like fresh off my first divorce, just like, fuck
these people, but it's my first. But also it's funny
because things have soured so quickly that I don't think
anyone's had time to adjust the irony ears. I think

(34:01):
kind of to your points as well. The adjustment that
was made to not trust these companies was to have
less opinion that a lack of object sorry, a lack
of objectivity was what the problem was, when actually, I
think we need more I think we need more people.
Peter Kafker over at Business Inside of former All Things Digital,
he has had some of the most presient things and

(34:22):
business Insider. I can't believe I'm saying this. I do
work there occasionally has somehow got ahead of everyone with
the discourse columns.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Oh yeah, totally good at that.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
But we need more. We need more of the verge.
We need more of this stuff. We need more four
o four.

Speaker 5 (34:35):
But four or four rocks, four or four rocks.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
But also, come on, let the freaks out, let them
dogs out. You've got you got Cobler over there, you
got you got, you got coal, You've got all these
people who can have just the most ass opinions.

Speaker 4 (34:52):
Yeah, there's also like this insane distrust in media as well.

Speaker 5 (34:57):
Come on with it.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
So like if you've seen like you have an opinion,
or if you vote a certain way or anything, it's like, oh, well,
they're just like a plant.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
I actually had someone ask me. I won't say who.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
I'll tell you guys after the podcast, but who asked
me if I believe that there's like Chinese spies.

Speaker 5 (35:13):
And media, I'm not even kidding me.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Damn, you guys.

Speaker 5 (35:15):
Definitely know who this is. But anyways, I actually.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Don't have Actually, so.

Speaker 5 (35:24):
Anyways, there's like this crazy distrust.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
And so when I was coming onto the scene, I'm like, okay,
like I don't want anyone to think that I'm going
to Jesus Christ. But yeah, so I think it's really
banged into you at that point. It's just like, Okay,
everyone kind of hates us and doesn't trust us, Like,
so why should we get to have an opinion?

Speaker 3 (35:43):
I do think there's some So I have to be
careful anyways, just because of where I work and because
I will get a handslap if I go too far.
But like so I kind of know where my internal
line is, if that makes sense. But like there is
some element of strategy in holding back sometimes if it

(36:03):
makes If that makes sense.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
Like you have to say it.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
You can let the reader like show them, you know,
and let the reader have that opinions.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, well I.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Just think that. Like, look, I think there's two ways.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
There's a few ways to go about just from a
reporting sense, Like I know reporters who are very outspoken
of their point of view, and that works as a
sourcing tactic, right, Like they'll be like, okay, people will
come to me because they really I'm not talking about
the writing side. It's more like a like for me,
like just in reporting, I'm like, all right, I can

(36:36):
get a range of folks if I'm it's not really
fence sitting. But I just I I have thoughts that
I don't always put out there, if that which makes sense,
and I think it works to an extent, you know, like,
but also there's different strategies.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I know guys who are just like yeah and whatever.

Speaker 5 (36:54):
That's also a strategy.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, yeah, totally it is.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
But also I don't get done Like it's not like
you get random people from Google being like you should
hear the ship. I'm like, great, what do I do
with this?

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Use it? Man?

Speaker 1 (37:10):
I have with other people and went by the way,
if I send you a story and you don't pick
it up. Some exceptions there, of course, I will remember
I'm not talking about anyone in this room, just to
be clear. But the thing is, I think that there
is a kind of a fallacy there, which is if
you don't have an opinion, if you're objective, people are

(37:32):
still going to say you're not objective. They're still going
to be like, well, reading between the lines here, what
you think is like, no, I wrote this, I know
what I think, Well, why is it said this because
of the editor? And they're like, well, so they are
also in the pocket of China or someone else. And
it's just it it almost feels like there's not enough

(37:52):
solidarity between the tech media writ large, but also on
the editorial the higher editorial side. There's not really a
back the fucking or forever, right.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
I do think that putting each we all are very competitive,
and like, one thing that actually really bothers me is
when companies use this to their advantage and like play
us off of each other, and like plant they know
X Person's about to write this, so they're going to
go to why person and plant it, and or like god,
there's one person who I won't name, who does this

(38:23):
a lot and gets spun by a different company to
go after reporter stories, which is another great tactic that
companies use. But it's to your thing about like the
solidarity and press should be more of a thing.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
Well, so if someone is doing that, honestly the best thing.
And I know that no one would actually do this,
but I'm a gremlin, so I would. If I heard
that happening, I would just tell everyone. But that would
that's the way to stop that.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
That's how it all works. I don't think it's just
it's not just one person.

Speaker 5 (38:52):
It's how it all works.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, sure, yeah, the oppositional stuff. It's difficult. And I
think the part of the reason I brought you in
here was I kind of want the listeners to understan
than the chaos of this stuff and how multi lad
the problems are at the media face in tech because
it's such a weird time and it's you've got tech
crunch under new management. You've got fortune under basically old

(39:15):
business inside of people at time a fortune.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Mink still owns fortune, right is that not even Jesus,
let's get you up to dig.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah, but that's the listeners. This is important to know.
These are lets are being built and.

Speaker 5 (39:31):
Sold owns time now.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
And by the way, did you too read the Time
And I'm doing air quotes listeners. Article about Ariana Huffington
and Sam Ormond's new health.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
I didn't read it, now. How is that he really.

Speaker 4 (39:48):
Liked it, Charlie Warzaw, I haven't finished the article, but
he like lee paragraph.

Speaker 5 (39:54):
Have you read his read up?

Speaker 1 (39:55):
I have?

Speaker 4 (39:56):
Okay, I'm sorry of your opinions. Yeah, I read like
the for two paragraphs. It feels like he rips them.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah, paper Machette thinking of But it's good article and
he also has a smart point about the belief and
I'll include links. Don't worry listeners, Jesus Christ. But the
problem with that was was he was in front of
Sam Altman and asked him the limpest questions I've ever
heard in my fucking life. Charlie, go for the fucking throat,

(40:24):
choke him out. Maybe he likes it, don't know. But
it's this article, which was a press release.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Or something.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yeah, dog shit, it was a joint written between Arianna
Huffington and Sam Ortman and the secret version of chat GBT.
That's even worse, and it just sucked. And it was
all of these made up things about how like AI
and healthcare will into play, and it was a disappointing
moment for me in the media. Though Charlie did a
great job doing what he did, and there was a

(40:53):
guy at Slater also did a good job, but everyone
was just there was a bunch of other people just
reporting this thing, just blandly. And I don't think that
people realize how terrible it is for trust with the media,
because what a normal person and I know, like I
put a past plint my hairdresser and shit, like I'm like,
look at shit. And it was like regular people like, yeah,
this sounds fucking stupid. Yeah, But this whole financialization of

(41:16):
the tech media, this whole situation where the money is
kind of controlling things. Is just leading to this point
where these things are going past, and at some point
I worry that we're going to have the equivalent of
what's happened in politics. I say, this is someone who
will stand to benefit if this happens, So I apologize
to everyone. But the distrust in the media is going
to come to tech, and I think, and we'll get

(41:38):
to it after the ad break coming up. The whole
thing with CrowdStrike, for example, Everyone's kind of reporting what's happened,
but not why, and I think the why is what
people really need. Right now. Everyone's seen years years of
the tech industry kind of fall on its face and
break its dick off and look terrible everywhere, while also

(41:58):
being told these people are richer than ever while the
products get worse. And I feel like we need as
the industry as the media industry, which I guess I'm
kind of in right.

Speaker 5 (42:09):
You're fully in it. You have a podcast.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
It's just I don't think people realize at some point
a racist tech publication is going to pop up. Pirate
Wires is not going to get be it because it's
so poorly written. Do not read it is so bad
unless you want to laugh, and also turn on ad blocker,
don't subscribe, don't give them any data. But at some
point this whole techno fascist movement into the whole techno optimist,

(42:36):
which just means fascist when you're quoting Nick Lan, Fuck
you andresen. But that's my opinion. I guess it just
feels like we're in this point where tech media needs
to grow up, grow up, or just grow in a
better direction, because otherwise there is going to be a
competitor and it's going to be so much worse. I'm
just worried. I'm just a bit worried about the consequences

(42:58):
of the lack of trust in media. It's gonna happen.
When are we gonna do something.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
Very curious if they can You remember Andrews and Horwitz
put that put publication together, Yeah yeah, and then it
no one published because like they really realized that, Like
I mean, getting people to write is hard, getting them
to like commit to do it and have like a
regular cadence on doing it, and like turn in your
copy is hard, and like I think they.

Speaker 5 (43:26):
Media is hard. Yeah, Like I think.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
They got ahead of their schemes on that. Like people
can riff or whatever, but like it's just I am
waiting to see what that looks like. And I think
that's why they bet so big on substack, because their
whole thing is like, all right, if we don't do
an in house thing, then maybe we'll get a legion
of people to do it on their own, and then
like they can sort of like aggregate that in like

(43:50):
however subtect does. But like, yeah, I'm I'm, I'm I'm
wondering if it's like less an institutional publication and more
like random bloggers who everyone sort of subscribes to and
to your point, like just sort of like a fasci
version of what tech coverage would look like becomes more
of a thing.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
So let me ask you a question. What is a podcast?
Miserable little pile of secrets? But nevertheless, how about you
have an ad break and we're back. We're back with
Better Off Live episode two, which is like episode thirty

(44:34):
two of this show, Good Lord, And of course today
is the crowd strike situation, and there's an episode about it.
We'll get to it, but this feels like to me,
at least, we're not gonna get into the technicalities don't worry,
because I am certainly not prepared. Right with the crowd
strikes situation, it feels like the beginning of something more

(44:54):
than the end. It feels like the final punishment of
the move fast and break things generate. And my biggest worry,
and I raised this in the newsletter, is how do
people think this is going to improve? Because so the
very basic level is an update that went through CrowdStrike
that's in basically every Windows machine, especially the enterprise ones,
fucked everything up, did a massive kurdl panic and everything. Sure,

(45:16):
by the time I say this, there's already a tweet
out there that proves me wrong. But nevertheless, put it again.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
On rad this is where we are.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
It feels like we're in a situation where organizations just
fire and hire people so goddamn much that this has
to happen again, Like there's something something like this is inevitable,
especially when you've got generative code, You've got more less
software engineers generating more code, and the people above and
below them are being fired at random. It's the first

(45:45):
time I felt scared in this industry. And I moved
to America in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Wow, yeah, good time.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to do
with it. And also I mean other than the three
thousand word news but it's I'm just a bit scared
because it feels like every tech company is wrung just
in this very messy way, like they're still in the
startup mode but also huge.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
I don't know if it like I don't know the thing.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Maybe this is naive, but like I often like think
about things in the window of what is it called
Handlan's razor, which is like, don't attribute to malice, which
could be more often chalked up to stupidity or incompetence, right,
And like I feel like there to be clear, there
are very many bad people in the world doing bad things,
but like a lot of the time it's just like

(46:35):
dumb shit. Someone pushed like a thing to production instead
of the test code environment or whatever, and now you
took down half the fucking world.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Right, So like I don't I don't know.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
I don't know if that's like better or worse than
people maliciously doing things.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
But if I'm sound it, I don't think someone at
CrowdStrike was like, right, I'm gonna crash every window computer.
Excellent bit that would be I mean a good bit. Yeah, yeah,
just to see what I was doing a bit. No,
I think that the problem is Hanlan's razor here is
that just tech companies like we must grow, we must grow,
and if something breaks, will fix it. Right Mmm, totally,

(47:18):
except they don't seem to have fixed it yet still broken,
might still stuck at the airport.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
I'm glad you flew in early, I guess, yeah, and I.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Was nearly delayed due to thunder in Vegas. I don't know.
But also this feels like a situation where the tech
media is going to have trouble covering it because it's
so complex.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yeah, I bout out early this morning.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
I no, I mean, I do think that's where tech reporters,
if they're super into it, can like shine. And I
don't think cybersecurity reporting is like as much of a
specialty at mainstream publications. It's like like it's like random,
Like the guy Brian Krebs is like his independent dude
who he used to work at the Post but now

(48:02):
he's just a hardcore security researcher guy who has his
own blog and everyone in the security industry trust him. Basically,
and like but yeah, like that, I mean, yeah, yes,
who's great Joe Cox, Joe is awesome. Uh So, like you,
there's a version of this that could shine. But I
think you're I'm very curious. There are already like things

(48:25):
blaming well, actually you might have a different take on this.
There are things that are blaming Microsoft that are uh
there was like a headline that was like Microsoft fucks
up the whole world or whatever, right right, and like,
technically it wasn't their fault, but your your position is
ultimately it is their.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Fault, yes, because they Microsoft runs Windows. But also the
reason the CrowdStrike managed to fuck up so much is
because Microsoft could have built this themselves and indeed have
a competing product, a Falcon. There was a whole exlusive
explanation for that, but it kind of sucks, and they
were like, we could save money just giving it to
this other giant public company who was only worth eighty

(49:06):
nine billion, and is both of their thoughts, but this
is a situation where and what was it I was
reading the other day We just had him on the show,
an economist called Darren Usimoglu. I'm probably saying his name wrong.
Mit just interviewed him. I should know it better by now,
it's been a long day down but he said that
there should be criminal prosecution. CEOs will actually fully fucking agree. Yeah,

(49:31):
I know this sounds crazy, but if you break half
the world's computers, you should go to fucking prison. Satcha
in cuffs today, hot take to have sounds hit that
I'm only fifty percent joking because if your direct decisions
and neither I know both of you don't want to

(49:51):
touch this with.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
A we can talk about it in an abstract.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
But also just giving it making it clear that I
can say the crazy shit. But it feels like that aren't.
And Duron's argument is not put them all in chains.
It's these consequences should exist.

Speaker 5 (50:08):
And consequences should exist.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yes, the back of them is why these things keep happening. Because, Okay,
an FDC find that finds Facebook four billion dollars is
bad for the homogenous lump. That is meta, but it
isn't like Mark Zuckerberg has any fear there.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
And it was pretty good when he had apologized to
the families stood up in court.

Speaker 5 (50:28):
But I don't think that's real consequence, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Slightly embarrassing for the man without feelings and it's it's
just Sachy Nadella should have a criminal a criminal inquiry here.
There should be an actual Department of Justice investigation into this.
With both CrowdStrike and Microsoft, there will not be. I
had one hundred percent of they might be a Senate
hearing if we're lay. But it's all of these CEOs.

(50:51):
They operate in this weird kind of bubble where oh,
it's a corporate thing. We don't get angry at people
for corporate things. But if I went around because I
was the Flash I assume, and smashed every like five
hundred thousand computers with a big crow bar, if they
could catch me, but I'm the Flash, they couldn't. They
would put me in jail. Have to be I don't know.

(51:13):
I'm talking about the raft from Spider Man of mixing
up my Marvel and DC right now. But nevertheless, it's
like this person who smashed a bunch of computers would
go to jail, but the person who's direct decision making
was the reason that all of these computers went down,
they're fine. And it's like, it feels like that needs
to have there needs to be some regulation of this.
But also where are the consequences. It's why Sam Altman's

(51:36):
accumulated all this power, it's why all of these Steve
Jobs horrible man, but he the crimes he committed that. Well,
the California DA came after him for welfare. That was
a form of consequence, and it was extremely effective. He
went from being a deadbeat father to a shitty one,
which is progress from mister Jobs. And it's just what

(51:57):
I'm very much trundling towards is it doesn't feel anything's
gonna change as a results of this, right.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
I think that's right.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
I think that the fines point is really important because
I think they just price it into their budget.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
You know, there was a great Times article about training
data and how these like meta executives in their boardroom were.

Speaker 5 (52:18):
Like, we that was so good. I talk about it
all the time. These have you seen this?

Speaker 4 (52:22):
I have not these meta executives in their boardroom or wherever.
They were like, we need training data and we don't
care if we breaked a law because we need to
be first.

Speaker 5 (52:31):
And it's so explicit, like we don't care. It's priced in.
We need to be.

Speaker 4 (52:35):
First, and we don't care if we're stealing content, which
is crazy.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
And I will say this, that's where The Times did
their job the best.

Speaker 5 (52:44):
That was a really great article people, But the fact.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
I didn't read it is my fault. But also that
should have been fucking CNBC TV every day. That should
have been a bigger story. The fact that these companies
can operate not just without concern for safety, but basically
being like, oh, it's not a fine, it's a fee.
M it's insane. But if Mark Zkapa could go to prison,
I mean I wouldn't lost a day.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
I do think a lot of the.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
I have frustrations just because of how I wonder how
deep you can go in a mainstream publication on pretty
technical stuff before losing people, and like even like i've uh,
I've been super interested in the open source debate, which is, like,
you know, in short, just like should all the code

(53:32):
for these things.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Be out there or not?

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Some people believe it's very dangerous, some people are I
think that's over exaggerating it.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I don't I don't know which one is.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Right, by the way, is why I've not done an
open source episode, right, I don't know, And.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
Yeah, well it's yeah, and like I find that whole
thing very interesting, and like I've been trying to write
about it a lot, but like I'm like, a lot
of this ship is very dense and very and heart
not just for and there's no like actual answers to
a lot of it and trying to like get that
out to a mainstream audience while saying, here's why it's important,

(54:11):
here's why you should care about it, here's why you
should read this article in the first place. I think
gets stopped a lot of the time compared to some
things that might be easier to grasp.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
But I don't, you know, and that's not to insult
the general public.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
It's just sort of like these things that require a
lot of attention and reading just to like break into
where the argument starts.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
I've been cut I don't know how many times from
writing articles because they're too technical or and a thing
I've had to do lately.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Which is so funny.

Speaker 4 (54:42):
I'm like, okay, if it's really highly technical or just
kind of a waste of space, like tokens, how much
does this model cost for input output tokens? And I
didn't include it in a Verge article recently, and the
comments were like, well, how much does it cost? I
was like, God, durmit guys, so I replied, I was like,
I will add it next time, but like, who cares
about the tokens anyways.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
I actually see where the readers are coming from.

Speaker 5 (55:03):
If they want it, I want to deliver it to them.

Speaker 4 (55:05):
But if they don't want it and it takes up
space in their mind and they can't comprehend the material,
then it's not helpful. So like figuring that out for
readers can be hard well.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
So as someone went, like the average better offline and
listener is like most of their days taking up like
holding people up at gas stations, stealing Catholic converters stuff
in that and these people, I'm so sorry. But what
I've found is because my listeners are because of I
think iHeartRadio because of the way they is. I get

(55:36):
a lot of people who aren't the traditional listeners, and
I do love them. And you don't steal Catholic converts
unless you do.

Speaker 5 (55:43):
And shout out them.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Shout out to the wrong.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Uns are cadmium.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
It's it's what I'm funny is that people actually want
things explained more, even the technical stuff. Robert Evans, Surphie
Lichten and wonderful people run calls. The all thing is
to like break it down. Whatever you think is too simple,
go simpler. And I think people in the media for

(56:08):
good reason overestimate how difficult something is to get. And
I because when you start explaining stuff and planning, it's
just like tokens, for example, very confusing and offuscated things.
But it's just isn't it just one token? A word?

Speaker 4 (56:25):
Yeah, exactly, a character? So it is it's it is
very simple. But how many times do I explain that
per article? Every time? I'm like these you know, it's
kind of a it's like algebra that you have to
do when you write so many of these articles. If
the audience wants me to do it, that's you know,
that's what I told them. I will do it. But
it's you know, something Weinberger told me is like, if
you can't explain it simply, then you don't understand it,

(56:48):
you know. And I think about that all the time
because I feel like I see that all the time
with tech reporters. No shade is that like you're seeing
something really complicated, probably because you don't understand it. And
that's fine, but it's really it's really hard to break
these complex topics.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Down early days of the newsletter. I'm just gonna admit
that definitely happened.

Speaker 5 (57:06):
I did that when I was a young reporter. I
still am a young reporter, but.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Still still though it's and I think it's because it's
just media is kind of hot and take. You do
actually have to understand a lot of shit. Y Yeah,
like especially with the general Avai I said. And it's
funny because as much I bang on about people not
doing it right, it is extremely annoying to explain yes.

Speaker 5 (57:25):
Every single time.

Speaker 4 (57:26):
It feels like you have to include so much context
and it's like when is this helpful for the reader
and not kind of like X formerly Twitter all the
readers really please just stop saying formally, Twitter.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Stop my epic based website, Please stop stop dead naming.
I do feel like.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
It's it's very I think they're a different challenges.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
Okay, Like I'll explain it just in terms of like
the Times challenge, which is like who are you trying
to reach? Who's reading this? Uh, what is the like
format for what you're writing sort of thing? And like
I I like to what you were saying, I definitely
don't I think readers are can be smart and curious

(58:08):
about what's happening in the world, and I don't think
treating them like idiots is the right way to go.
I do think it's like, how do you present that
in a way that doesn't either derail the story you're
trying to tell or make your story three times longer
than it might need to be, or whatever, which I
think as like a tangent like length is often equated

(58:30):
with quality, which I don't think.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Is always the case.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
Yeah, Oh, I think in the media industry, like someone's like,
we dropped a five thousand word piece, and I'm like, eh,
I think they could be like a two thousand word
piece throught that, but like, and that's not always a case,
but like, I just think that you can probably do
it in different like formats or different like story packaging
ways that that I don't know that and but it's

(58:54):
like a challenge for me constantly because I'm like, all right,
who am I talking to? Am I talking to someone
in New York who is never used a computer? Or
am I talking to like someone in the valley who's like,
don't explain this to me for the fifteenth time, And
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
It's every time I don't explain something, one of the
listeners I assume, in between holding a knife to a
granny is will be like, you didn't explain that clearly enough,
And actually I like that. I like explaining it because
also this whole thing about like word counts, I do
not have that problem with my newsletter. I put on
even thousand words.

Speaker 5 (59:30):
Just like just like completely go at it.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Yeah, just fuck it. But also people get so.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Angry when they're like Jesus christad in all.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
The funniest one was I did like a four thousand
word one and someone sent me an email being like, yeah,
that was too long, And the next one was eleven
thousand words and.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Relationship your audio, I know.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
He was planning to bomb.

Speaker 5 (59:59):
A bank, like thousand words quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Yeah, this helpd me up.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Your general if a I think was a great soundtrack
to me chasing a man down the street with a hatshit.
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 8 (01:00:11):
I know you guys on all criminals, just a large majority.
Maybe it's funny because you've really crystalized the problem here,
which is what the fuck does the tech media actually do?

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Like what is the actual job here? And it doesn't
even feel like the various bulkanized outlets.

Speaker 5 (01:00:29):
No, can I say what I think it is? I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
I am the most junior person in this room. Let
me say extremely good thank you. But I think you
do more work than I do, so you guys, But
I think like what I want to do is bring
information that they want or didn't have, like love a
good scoop, Like, look, I'm giving you information you've never seen,
and I want to give it to you in a
way that's like that's helping you understand the world better.

(01:00:54):
And that's kind of why I joined The Verge too,
because they had like crazy multimedia team and I really,
I really love podcasts because it's an easy way for
me to consume stuff. And I think there's a younger
generation who is not consuming stuff like you know, five
thousand words. So like, however, you can get that information
to people to help them, you know, whether it's podcasts
or you know, newsletters, any of that, I think that's

(01:01:17):
our job.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Yeah yeah, look on oh, I.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Was like, I fully agree. I think the thing that
I really enjoy too is just like it makes me
feel good when someone who may be like intelligent but
unfamiliar with a topic came away from a piece that
I wrote and says that was interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
I probably wouldn't have read about that before.

Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
But like now, I like, even if I don't dig
it into it anymore, I enjoyed reading about that. Yeah,
you know, and like that's ideal for me, just in
some form of like why are we doing this?

Speaker 5 (01:01:54):
Why are we doing this?

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
And I think it can be really corroded by so
many things, money and egos and like any other business,
And that's what I think we see, like kind of
that pressure at the top for a lot of us
journalists and maybe why they're really tired. But I think,
you know, the best journalists really just want to do
their job for the reader the best that they can.

Speaker 5 (01:02:13):
You know, it's not but it's not easy, and we're tired.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
We need more fucking nerds.

Speaker 5 (01:02:19):
We do need more nerds.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
I agree with that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
We need more little goblin freaks like myself like that.

Speaker 9 (01:02:27):
Yeah, And it's enough about my festival for nerding out
on this stuff is good, Like it's just like you
understand the topic, you want to get in the weeds
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
That's a good thing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
But also a list that is in between brewing poisons,
they love it though, and the crimes explained of your audience. No,
but in no serious my non criminal listeners and indeeds
some of the criminals. They like the fact that so
my last Step episode that went out and it's a

(01:03:01):
weird timeline when I'm recording this. But the episode that
I think really changed my show was did you read
this paper? Chat GBT is bullshit?

Speaker 5 (01:03:09):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
It s there's this paper by these three academics in
Glasgow called chat gbt's bullshit? But it's based on the
Frank thirty and definition from on bullshit defined bullshits. Oh
I remember that, and so I cannot remember what the
definition is. Just bullshitting myself, I guess. And I get
on the call thinking this is going to be like
three starchy academics and they're cracking beers and they're having

(01:03:31):
a good time and we had the funniest chat for
an hour and I came out there being like, it's
one of the best episodes ever. But also I think
people want more of that. In take, everyone knows the
Opening Eye is fucking everything up. Everyone's going to know
about the crowd strike situation. Everyone's going to know all
of these things, and they're all dominated by bad news,
good news, weird news. But we need to get back.

(01:03:53):
We need to get back to talking about the weird
shit again because of me earlier stuff Kylie. In business
you were talking to weird random device.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
I loved it so much.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
I went into weird communities. And I think the tech
right now is saturated by stories about everything and everyone
for good reason. By the way, just with sympathy here
there is everyone wants it, everyone wants the traffic. You
have to write, Kylie about the jupt for Minie like
h Everyone has to cover these things because it's your beat,

(01:04:26):
but it's getting in the way of the weird fun shit.
Like I ran a pr from at day job and
I write like eighteen thousand letter words I don't know,
can't speak newsletters every week. I should not be the
one finding the weird shit and talking to them. I am, though,
because I'm paid to. But I just feel like there's
so much magic in this industry. There's so much like

(01:04:47):
as doom and gloom as I can be on this show.
The joy of sending a weird picture of some dumb
shit I found on Twitter to someone on someone yesterday,
it was this picture of doctor Robotnik in a forklift
it said, you're too late, Sonic. I'm for Forklift certified,
and that made my day. It's still magic to the Internet,

(01:05:10):
and there's still fun and people are fucking mad about
the Internet, but they're still such good in there. People
are always saying, in between reading the Unibomber's manifesto, my
listeners will say I got something there. I don't know
if I want to know, but in between various crimes,

(01:05:31):
just gonna summarize that. My listeners, they also will say
I want something positive, and then I respond, I'm sorry,
you need to find you download another podcast. I'd say
download it all in.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
But too far, too far.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Jason Jason calacanis very damp anyway, dampness aside. The positivity
is that and I myself have found myself falling into
this kind of I don't want to say doomerism because
I think it's a fucking stupid term, but the doom
and gloom that everything, and we do need to cover
these companies messing up. But I think what the problem
is and where my anger comes from, and I think

(01:06:13):
you'll share this is all of the bad stuff's getting
in a way of some really funny shit TikTok and
all of this needless cinophobia. But like, yeah, it's like
we've got to ban TikTok because they're stealing data. They're
like using data with our our users. We only let
American companies do.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
That, right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
TikTok has given birth to some of the funniest and
sweetest posts. There is a growing community of zoos on
TikTok and Instagram, whereas just they put like a camera
on a spoon and I feel like worms to and
it's like there is still magic, there's still joy within
this industry. And I think that the return to blogging

(01:06:53):
that I am so sivorously suggesting and the wider head
zychron empire that I dream of one day is genuinely
like a return to this, a return to this kind
of not seeing the movie. It's a return to this
thing where we kind of need to stop mining this
shit again. We need to get back to finding the
quirky little startups that might die but they're doing something interesting. Yeah,

(01:07:15):
the weird I think less the meme stuff. I do
think people who just cover memes all day should get
real job. Sorry, Uh, someone's gonna be angry at that.
I get it, but like there's about Internet culture and
more just about the things being built there the course,
the fact that you've still got a shit ton of
open source software people who are just like. One of
my early joys in tech was PlayStation portable and the

(01:07:39):
PlayStation Vita and the homebrew communities on them. Ray Wong,
formerly of Imbers got laidoffs. Bullshit. Ray Wong's great. He
was talking to me the other day about the PlayStation
portaborn hacking that thing. It was so much fun, the
earlier iPhones with Sita, the helm brewing community, and I
remember g O Hot has now become a very weird guy.

(01:08:00):
I mean he was before. Oh he did like an
autonomous cast start up. Okay, but these, I feel like
are the more worthy stories than everyone pursuing the same thing.
And I again, you're in a weird position.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
I get No, I do think that there's an element
of I mean, honestly, there's corollaries and tech of like
oh this person dropped this story or like this is
I mean, Twitter and media probably played into it for
a while, but like I heard mentality, mentality around what
people should be caring about or writing about, and like

(01:08:33):
that actually like even though I have a I guess
I have a beat, but also like I get away
with pitching a lot of non beat stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
But I think the the thing that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
Maybe that keeps it interesting for me, but also I
think can probably help just my job and maybe my
career is like trying to zag when other people are
going after zigging or whatever line it's very is that,
oh god, I sound awful, really like genuinely watch where
everyone's going and then like go pursue not just for

(01:09:10):
the sake of it, but because there's something interesting there,
you know, And like I think that can really it
can distinguish you just from a career perspective, but also
just like find like shit that's different, because people get
tired of like reading the same yeah, the same article
from five different publications that are saying the same thing.

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
Yeah, no, totally.

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
The reason I know ed and Weinberger shout out is
because I tweeted when I was in college I want
to read about weird software developer culture shit, and then
he hired me that way, and then that's when I
wrote a bunch of I wrote a bunch of weird shit.

Speaker 5 (01:09:44):
I wrote about furries. That was awesome. Yeah, I love
those like niche communities.

Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
Oh my first article, one of my first articles was
about tech talk. So it was just like all of
these technologists. It was a bunch of develop helpers who
like software developers who make informational or like parody tiktoks
about software development. It was very tech talk, Yes, tech
talk like TikTok. It was actually in my pitch like
when I was my my exam. When you get hired. Anyways,

(01:10:15):
Uh yeah, I think that's really important to find those
like fun stories.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
Well, and like I, I, I imagine everyone in this
room and maybe if you are really into caring about tech,
probably there was probably at least some time and maybe
still now like where you enjoyed being a part of
it or enjoyed understanding it or right like I, I
definitely consider myself like a nerd at heart and like

(01:10:40):
grew up building computers. I don't know if I could
do it now, but like I used to and like it.
I'm sure it is, like I'm sure with like even
more now with fucking YouTube's the youtubes.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
That are but a double past is just that me?
Was that say again, thermble pace you could just get
could you have it?

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Just like.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
Ummy, but like there has to be an element of
like caring about this stuff, enjoying this stuff, Like there's
a reason why I still enjoy fucking around on the internet,
Like like, yes, there's I have criticisms of maybe like
the homogenization of how products develop because other companies are

(01:11:22):
looking at how this person is doing it and we
should have to do it like that. But you can
still have fun on there and you can still find stuff,
and like I agree that, like trying to find more
of that is not a.

Speaker 5 (01:11:35):
Bad thing totally.

Speaker 3 (01:11:36):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
I think The Times is going to bring back bits.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Dude. That's where I started in twenty Do you know
what bits is? Oh dude, twenty joined twenty fourteen, and
we used to have long before my gosh, ten years
in June it was ten years.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
I'm a millennial, so I should be hopping around jobs.

Speaker 5 (01:11:55):
But it's good.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
I know now I can't leave, but I but we
It was a blog. It was literally The Times had
a tech blog called Bits and it was it was
kind of a function of like everyone's blogging at the time,
and like, you know, we need to be blogging. And
I'm not sure they got rid of it because I'm not.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
I don't really know why. The exact reason is probably
because it doesn't they Yeah, I think now.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
I think now it's like and even now they're still
in like a transition period where they're like, we do
either huge heaves or now they do like live blogs
on like the big breaking thing they do, and like
this sort of in between sort of.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Things are going away, is what i'd say.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
The like, yeah, five hundred to seven hundred word articles
they don't care about as much. And there's probably internet
traffic reasons for that. There's probably just like what readers
want from a Times article. But Bits was amazing because
it was a blog where I could just dump random
shit that I that we found interesting and bits.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
And the funny thing is, I'm sure of the arguments
that be well real reporting. That's where we get right
except if you remember, and I do because I'm nine
hundred years old in like Mike's age, there was this
little guy called Evan Spiegel who Nick Bilton, in a
remarkable act of journalism, wrote about for the first time

(01:13:19):
in Bits. It was like one of the first one
of the first Snapchat articles. Wasn't bits that's funny and
It's like, guess what, when you have that flexibility, when
you have a bit of fun with it, you find
weird little NEPO baby freaks who make insanely unprofitable software.
Being an asshole here obviously, but that is an example

(01:13:39):
I think where the verge can do well. The Virtus
also had one of my favorite articles of all the time,
which is one about the Internet cables.

Speaker 5 (01:13:45):
Oh my gosh, yes, yes, that was before I started.
That was so good.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
Didn't get back to me what I mean, very very hurtful,
very unfair. I actually forget his name and will now
look it up like when I'm talking. But it but
stories like that, But that one's slightly different because that
was a heavily report. So yeah, but it was good
because it was dear. It's a bit weird. Yeah, I
want and I hope someone does a story about an airport,

(01:14:08):
like a regional airport that got shut down by CrowdStrike.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
Oh yeah, look something like that.

Speaker 5 (01:14:13):
Free story idea right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
There, free story is Actually it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
Go for it please, because it's like that is what
the big failure I think of the tech media. The
biggest is assuming that tech is not and Taylor Renz
made this point as well, that tech is not.

Speaker 5 (01:14:29):
Real life, that it's not a human problem.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
Yeah, that it's just the thing that happens. The Internet
is over here and the real people are over here
for sure, when it's not been that for like fifteen years,
and it's just the stories like this, I think, like
the free story idea of giving away because I do
not have the time, but like a regional airport that

(01:14:52):
got fucked up because of the Windows update, that.

Speaker 5 (01:14:54):
Is the reas' going to talk to the humans.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
Yeah exactly. And also this is the practical implications of this.
We talk about tragicta what have you, but like, when
you get down to it, what does this actually do
for real people? What's an actual fucking thing happening? And
I want like I want bits.

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
Back my boss?

Speaker 1 (01:15:13):
Who's your boss? Email them now?

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
I actually don't talk to.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
Year mister. That's it with your news prepper fuck ship now.
It's it's frustrating as well. And the joy of this
show is the I get to do a bit of that,
but even then I don't get to go like I
don't have the time. If they bade me like three

(01:15:41):
million dollars a year, which is what I demand. No,
but if I had more time, it would be like
sending people out to do that. It could happen here,
which is a sister show a better offline. I guess
we're a sister show of it. They do great work
because they go out and find these weird fucking stories,
and I want more of that about like, I want
more of the weird because we already know how bad
of Google is and I'm going to keep doing it.

(01:16:03):
Sorry everyone, but it it feels like everyone being tired
is the problem. And also not talking about any specific outlet,
but gearing coverage towards conferences has become the other problem,
where it's like, well, if we do this, we'll get
the guy to speak on stage and say the same
thing he said in the press release, and then we

(01:16:23):
will get the money. The writers will not get the money,
because that's not how this worked, but they will do
the labor. And perhaps I'm saying that the people who
run these publications haven't written a fucking word of meaning
in maybe ten or fifteen years, or maybe their entire lives,
and perhaps these publications need to be run by people
who actually fucking write stuff instead of these goddamn management
consultants who don't know what the fuck they're doing. But
that's just one thing I had.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Well, I feel like that the.

Speaker 3 (01:16:46):
It's funny because there's like models. That's the thing about
media now that I feel like is being hauled out
is like either there's the big players who have a
very specific model of like, Okay, these are our reporters,
these are our opinion people.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
Reporters go out and do this.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
There's a lot of overhead in that because reporting is
expensive and you're not going to produce for weeks or
a week or whatever, and then you have the one
or two person shops or whatever on substack or something
that can riff.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
But like.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):
Either, ay, you need to produce like regularly to live, no,
and you don't have the bandwidth to like fly to
to Wyoming and talk to you know, the airport that
got fucked or just like or it's not your thing
and like you do a different sort of thing. And
I'm like it would be ideally, And I think The
Times even did a push for this where they were

(01:17:45):
doing like a newsletter when everyone when everyone in media
was doing like a newsletter thing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Funny, the idea is like, all right, now.

Speaker 3 (01:17:51):
We can sort of everyone gets subscribed to a newsletter,
it can riff or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
I don't I don't know where we like net out there,
you know, like I just don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
It was like a classic manager who doesn't write thing.
It's just like, why is this newsletter big? Because it's
a newsletter, right, Like, damn, that's so smart. Let's pay
a million dollars in salaries to people to do the
same thing they're already doing, which we were already emailing people.

Speaker 5 (01:18:17):
I can get a million dollars just in emails.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
It was just the aggregate spend there. And I think
the problem is that it's I go back to my
point I just clunkily made, which it's like the people
at the top are not fucking writing, They're like pell whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:18:33):
This is what I was going to say, is that
when I came to the verge, as you're going to say,
like I did not expect he is like really in
the newsroom and he is writing all the time, like
we have this little thing that says like someone published
an article this in the articles have been published today,
And he is always on there publishing.

Speaker 5 (01:18:47):
Stuff, which I've never had that at a newsroom, which
is crazy for him. I know he's a unit.

Speaker 1 (01:18:53):
He is and I have my problems with him, and
one day we'll hash it out. But otherwise he's going
to come on, I know, love that yet to email
me back either. I don't know why. It could be
the things I say in all seriousness is the Verge
is actually a great example of Yeah, the top person
should be writing all the time, because if you're not writing,
how the hell do you know what writing is? What

(01:19:15):
do you don't even know what good writing is? You
don't even know where You can't even have the same
struggles as a reporter. And when a reporter, I don't know,
I could we talk about anyone says something very rude
in your publication, you fire them the next day for
pissing off tech bros could be talking about anyone. You're
not building solidarity and you're definitely not supporting actual reporting.

Speaker 5 (01:19:35):
Yeah, the Virgin Boxer fire at this.

Speaker 4 (01:19:38):
Sorry to say gen z terms, but they're really really good.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
They're busting. Moment came out of my mouth. I was like,
oh God, don't worry. When I say it, it sounds.

Speaker 5 (01:19:52):
No cap.

Speaker 4 (01:19:56):
But I think, like, that's that's why I came is
because they let you write weird ship. They give their
weird writers like all the bandwidths to do whatever they want,
and Neili is in the trenches with you writing. He
actually was the one who pointed me towards the Google
glue story. He was like, this is fucking crazy, and
it was like my first week and he's just got like,

(01:20:17):
I'm sorry, I agree with that's fair enough.

Speaker 5 (01:20:21):
Stay out of it.

Speaker 4 (01:20:21):
We don't know it's too much you write.

Speaker 5 (01:20:25):
You remember Google AI overviews. They if you say, oh
the pizza thing, yes, fuck yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:20:33):
Blue story, and that was like, yes, that was awesome,
but yeah. So having someone who's like in the trenches
with you is so cool because you get to learn
from them and he can tell me like, hey, like
there's a story over there.

Speaker 5 (01:20:47):
I know it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
You know. It's one of the reasons Wineburger was so great.
He didn't write once, and I'm gonna just chotting at
Matt Weinberger the entire show. By the way. He did write,
he did a little, he didn't write enough. One of
the greatest he was running so much, which is a
great tech story but also a classic Weinberger story, is
he did a review of the latest Madden at the
time without understanding the rules of football. So the whole

(01:21:09):
thing is just to be like, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
Why is this very funny?

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
But honestly, I actually think that kind of stuff's extremely
It's good. I would love to like get like a
line cook chat, GPT and just record what their thoughts,
like someone just disconnected for whose regular job is a
real job which actually like sucks and like involves them
having to deal with people like not like a.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
Party, I actually but again free.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Ideas the whole show. I would love like a We're
currently in a big studio and I would love like
a tech like a tech radio show, and I could
live in here be very damp keyword damp and no cap.
But also that's in the site. By the way, the

(01:21:56):
Internet cable story is Josh Diseaser dz I easy a.
I will put that in the notes as well. Incredible
story and also scary that the Internet is run by
a bunch of cables. Good break. It's I feel like
what we're discussing here though, is the same thing of
we're discussing how people actually interact with tech, and I

(01:22:19):
feel like too much writing is about how people they
think people interact with tech. We're writing for tech enthusiastics
rather than how people experience the world. One thing I've
been thinking about, and I don't know how to fucking
do this podcast is and by the way, the listener,
the listener who keeps bugging me about this, singling you
out without naming you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
What crime do they commit?

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
I was actually just thinking of what guy currently writing. No, no, no,
no no. It's a fair thing. They say, I'm not
critical enough of Apple. But the one story I want
to do, and I think this is one that everyone
needs to be honest. Have you used the app store recently?
It's extremely bad. It is so bad, It's so very bad.

(01:23:07):
The apps that chart in some sections are just flat
out dog shit, ad filled nonsense. The discovery on there
is nakedly corrupt. The people in the app store editorial
fuck you if you're listening. Okay, not really, but no
cap no cap. Seriously, the apps tore editorial people is
so nakedly corrupt. Right now, I don't mean fuck you.

(01:23:29):
Please don't punish any podcast other than mine, punish me.
But then they just feed the richest people. They're featuring
popular things. They feature popular apps like why do I
need to feature Facebook. I'm actually gonna load this shit
up right now. I'm fine, I hope I'm not wrong.
I'm gonna look like a real toss pot. Okay. The
top thing on here is tour Monopoly goes Amazing Destinations.

(01:23:52):
Monopoly Go makes billions of dollars. Why is that what
Apple is surfacing?

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
That's weird. That's like a featured thing and not like
a charting.

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
It is the first thing when you open the apps.
Next Amazon Music, Top apps right now, TikTok Max, Disney Plus, Snapchat,
Amazon Music. Next one.

Speaker 5 (01:24:11):
I went to one of their south By Southwest parties
and sud Group love there. That's my only the.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
Most useful part of Amazon Music.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
It was, Yeah, the most useful part of Amazon Music
is an offline. Next thing up is Toka Bocal World.
That's a they make at least one hundred million dollars
a year. Next one up Squadbusters, which is a game
by super Cell Multimer millions of dollars. Every single thing
on here is just making the rich Richard. The next

(01:24:40):
is Bluey, which is literally worth billions.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
Isn't that a dog?

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
I saw?

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
I saw Bluey at a Clippers game. Drunk Off is asked,
leering at the cheerleaders. They kicked him out for being
too drunk. Didn't even make it to the half anyway.
Jokes about blueish side. That's a that's a real problem.
That is a real algorithmic problem that everyone is facing.
But everyone's kind of in the tech media for good reason.
Folks in the open AI focused on AI AI AI AI.

(01:25:08):
It needs to be this when the real problems are
sitting in front of us, and those are the ones
that people actually are affected by the fact supercell is
rich because Apple is helping them get rich because Apple
wants thirty percent, Why not send that traffic to someone else,
send it to small developers. It's too much like hard work.
And it pisses me off because well everything pisses me off.

(01:25:30):
I guess it pissed me off because it doesn't feel
like the tech media is currently built to handle this.
And I don't think it's even the fault of the writers.
There needs to be an app store reporter. How do we.

Speaker 5 (01:25:43):
What they would get?

Speaker 4 (01:25:46):
I mean, there's no fifty there's no infrastructure. I mean,
tell that to the media executives. That's what I'm trying
to say.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
I'm not saying you're wrong, like what you know, what
you're describing is the actual problem. These executives don't want
to invest in that. But if the argument is what's important, yeah,
then this is important. It's more important than anything else
like Google search, app stole, These are the things that matter.
But it feels that the media is engineered towards clicks,

(01:26:15):
which is then engineered towards pleasing Google, who is currently
fucking up the news media. It's just we're in this
weird cycle now. I don't even think real paper wrong over.

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):
It's really funny because I would always, like very vociferously
fight back against the like clickbait sort of argument, but like,
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
I think it's harder to depend against these days because
of how how traffic has declined and how like I
do think metrics play a role across Like every outlet
has an SEO person who is like paying attention to
what is trending or whatever, you know, and I don't.
I don't think it's and and I'll I will make

(01:26:55):
the distinction that I don't think are outlet and I
don't think most out it's our only driving traffic as
the primary reason. But I do think because like, look,
you have a mission, you have like a thing that
your north star of coverage should be. But like there
is more awareness than there was ten or fifteen years
ago of like what is happening traffic wise and what

(01:27:17):
you should be thinking about. And that's a real thing.

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
And you know what's also happening. Immediately after I stopped talking,
You're going to hear an advertisement. And when you hear
that ad, you're going to be like, damn, that is
so thematically relevant. Everything it says that wasn't embarrassing to
add ed didn't feel really annoyed. It didn't make a
specific rule on his reddit so that people don't talk
about it. That ad was so well placed. An eye,

(01:27:40):
a new customer of this perfect company will love it.
So please enjoy this extremely relevant ad and we're back.

(01:28:00):
So the whole traffic thing's funny because clickbait is not
is part of it. And actually I think Bi's done
really well with keeping clickbait going but actually doing good
shit in the topless She's actually found the middle ground,
which is like straight up like clickbait, but the inside's
so good but.

Speaker 3 (01:28:17):
You like it, right, Yeah, Like m Coca actually has
riffed one this before is like that the idea of
like you made that headline for people to only click,
like you want people to be interested in your story,
like there's gonna be. There isn't an art to it, right,
It's not all.

Speaker 5 (01:28:32):
A thousand words and you know a couple of words.

Speaker 2 (01:28:34):
You gotta figure that out totally.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
Yeah, And it's funny as well because I actually think
that the take media really needs to realize that other
than chasing clicks. It's like tech stories get a shit
ton of traffic. That alone should be a sign that
there's magic to be found here. And it's not from
doing the same thing, and it's from I think that
there is a way of dressing up like software communities.

Speaker 4 (01:28:57):
Oh that's what That's what I did for almost two years.
That was my job, was talking about software developer communities
and it was rad.

Speaker 5 (01:29:05):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:29:06):
I think The Verge is actually the first time I've
worked at a publication where there are no KPIs or
like traffic goals or sub schoals. No, no, no one
bothers me about that. So it's it's sick, yeah, because
you know a lot of people experience that, and people
get yelled about that, like you you you could get
fired over not reaching traffic. So I don't have to
worry about that, which is great, and I think that's

(01:29:27):
really healthy for writers. I wish more writers had that experience.
But unfortunately, like where where we're at.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
It's does the times have stuff like that?

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:29:38):
No, I mean, like I think it's like general vibes, right,
like if I fucking didn't put anything out in a month,
then like whatever, then I might get a phone call.
But like, as far as I can tell, or at least,
I don't get called about it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:52):
But I don't. I don't wait, like I've never seen
yeah exactly, but I which time, yeah, short time.

Speaker 3 (01:30:01):
I do think that like yeah, I do think there
is more attention to paid to like metrics now, but
like and I, oh god, I'm just thinking back on
like my super earliest days of writing, and they.

Speaker 5 (01:30:14):
Have screens back then where they showed like ranking authority.
I heard that when I first started journalism.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
I was like, what, you have a tyrodactyl that used
to do the typing for you and turn to your
living Mike is the same age exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:30:30):
Sorry, I know I get to be resident old guy
but like it now. Even then, you know, I was
still having to churn out more, but now it's just
gotten like ten times worse. I am totally like all
the folks who I won't like mention outlets, but like
I just have colleagues or friends who work at different
places and have you have to do this mini a

(01:30:52):
week or like this is your quota, and like even
when I was starting out, it was like I had
to do at least one a day, which I could
do when I was like twenty four or whatever however old.
And now I'm thirty nine and I'm fucking I can't
even think about that. Yeah, you know, so like it's
just a very yeah, I don't know, it's super depressing.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
I'm trying to complain about it too much.

Speaker 4 (01:31:17):
I was in the trenches when I was in college,
so I would I was doing all my college classes,
and then I was also writing for BI and they
have famously and well publicized very stringent goals about what
you're supposed to reach. And I was in the trenches,
but at least I was writing stuff that was really fun.
And also it was my first job in journalism, so
I thought that was the norm.

Speaker 5 (01:31:37):
Just get them all through.

Speaker 4 (01:31:39):
But I think, like speaking to why isn't the tech
media getting stuff right? They have really really, really really
rich and powerful people who own their company, and then
trickles all the way down to people breathing down your
neck and like, have you written ten stories this week?

Speaker 5 (01:31:52):
The Messenger is a great example of this.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
The poor messenger gone, I forgot all about that.

Speaker 5 (01:31:56):
Now company forgot until just now, Horri.

Speaker 1 (01:32:00):
You're not dead yet, which is not an actionable threat,
but the Messenger is a great example. I think of
a problem that faces the tech media, which is, again,
the people making the publications aren't really the ones touching them.
Fink le Stein, formerly of The Hill, a hundred million
dollars off selling The Hill to I assume a private
equity firm. I did say it in a previous episode.

(01:32:22):
I forget everything I say the moment I say it,
and it's it's frustrating. But also at some point I
think that the tech media could look more like a
bunch of four h four medias. I wish I think
it's going that way, because look, the biggest fallacy of
all of these tech pubs is are you can't do
them profitable without a bunch of trap. Fuck you, you can
make them super profitable if you don't have fifty people,

(01:32:44):
if you have focused people. My granded dreams turn newsletter
in a thing where I just have a bunch of stringers, freelancers,
free idea for anyone to copy. You just have to
be able to write three thousand words in an hour, bitch,
but it's two. But nevertheless, it's I think that that
is where it's going because four or four has done

(01:33:05):
probably the best Internet culture reporting.

Speaker 5 (01:33:07):
I love them so much.

Speaker 4 (01:33:09):
It's so cool to get to see them succeed in
the way that they have and just completely smash it
and deliver the best fucking reporting.

Speaker 1 (01:33:17):
What Samlely, Cole Cobbler. They're all fucking brilliant, and they're
brilliant because they're all Internet weirdos. Yes I mean that affectionately.

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
Yes, Well, on the Motherboard DNA exactly, Sarah Derek, they
all used to work on Motherboard and that was like
mother Board was one.

Speaker 3 (01:33:30):
Of the real good and weird internet sites before Vice
killed it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
But yeah, all those people at the top.

Speaker 5 (01:33:39):
Host I wanted to be them so bad.

Speaker 1 (01:33:41):
They're great too, super great, No, seriously, like one of
my heroes Edward im Guiso Junior.

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
Yeah, good guy.

Speaker 1 (01:33:49):
I wish he wrote more. I love his work, but
also another I don't know. He's a logic. I believe
now he's gonna be on the next Better Off Live.

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
Oh that's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
He's so cool.

Speaker 5 (01:33:59):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:33:59):
But it's it's like guys like that having an opportunity
a place like Motherboard is so good. I want to
see like more of these clustered publications because if you
really look at the old school tech Crunch, and I
know people have fairly very negative views about Michael Arrington.
I'm not talking about him as a person because all
of that sucks. However, the original days of tech Crunch

(01:34:21):
resemble four oh four media so much more than they
do tech Crunch today in that it was a bun.
It was Michaelarrington, and there's a big myth that it's like, well,
tech Crunch is very dry. It was be like Mike
Clownton going, You'll never believe who I saw the melt.

Speaker 3 (01:34:36):
I forgot the creamery like a black or the ghost
of it is a black from here and he.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
Would just like hang out. They'd be like, you'll never
believe what I And it's great This is why I
say gossip.

Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
Because this is what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
Is what it was in the oldest, Like ooh, I've
heard that Inside Partners is going to do this. It's
inside Partners. Is that one of the VY people, one
of the big vcs, he'd hear some ship and and
that would be an even poor cars dirty but even
he did the same thing. Sarah lazy but it's okay,
that's a bit me and she did some good ship.

(01:35:09):
But nevertheless, she.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):
Did a really good book, actually the once You're Lucky
Twice You're good. You should read that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
That's the thing, shouldn't.

Speaker 5 (01:35:16):
I need to learn way more about this old school.

Speaker 3 (01:35:20):
I mean, we've fought a lot over the years, but
she has ship. Some of her reporter is really good.

Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
But also, this is what my longer term vision I'm
just saying it on the pod is. I want to
rebuild solidarity within the tech media. It's a very lonely industry.
Everyone's very much an island. Even the Virgin which I love.
The Virginal podcast is the Virgin people talking to the
Virgin power stuff every four and four. Same deal. I
love four and four, but the same deal, and it's

(01:35:46):
everyone's bulkanized a bit, but also it will allow for
delicious beefs and gossip, and I think that people love that.
I think people like it's like, oh, you'll never believe.
Oh they're angry at each other again. People love this shit.
It's low stakes drama. Oh you got the scoop on grumbus.
I had the scoop on grumbus. You aggregated my grumbus.

Speaker 5 (01:36:08):
I just had this conversation today. Actually, grumm.

Speaker 3 (01:36:12):
I do think that we It's like journalists can be
often very catty and insecure, and that is.

Speaker 5 (01:36:19):
Like the biggest culture shot. Getting into this.

Speaker 4 (01:36:21):
I was like, fuck, this is like like throwing elbows.
I feel like I got like literally elbowed in the
teeth so many times by people.

Speaker 5 (01:36:28):
I'm like, fuck God, but it isn't.

Speaker 3 (01:36:31):
Yes, sorry, I was more agro I think when I
was younger, and I get it, Like I think I'm
also like because I work at the times, there's a
whole weirdness around that and like people often with good
reasons in the past, like we didn't used to like
not link a lot. Now I think we're way I
will spend time that. Yeah, I mean I get it

(01:36:53):
all the time. But I think I was trained, probably
because I came up and blugging to like link and
like credit and I think our desk is very good
about it now. But like everyone is just like I
described this a lot, like I feel like journalism today
is a lot of like very insecure overachievers, and everyone's
kind of like looking over their shoulders and trying to

(01:37:14):
compete and trying to like make their mark or whatever.
And I think getting your I have a fucking ego,
but trying to get yeah, exactly, try trying to tamp
that down as much and just like keep it and also,
like people, one thing I've tried to do, even though
it's hard, is like people like really remember when you

(01:37:35):
pay them compliments on us totally like just doing a
nice posting like that was a great story.

Speaker 2 (01:37:42):
I think it's a nice thing.

Speaker 1 (01:37:43):
That's something I do with lots on this show, because
like I really am, I've got and it's.

Speaker 2 (01:37:48):
Easy to like shoot on someone's stuff and then they
fucking they'll remember that, right. I remember, you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:54):
Can't do one you have to do like, okay, you
can't do just being nice. I realized that is an option.

Speaker 4 (01:37:59):
That I it's down here on the low road.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
You think I've gone lower, I will, but there is
a degree here of like, of course I'm like, I
will criticize Jesus, fuck that word up. But there's so
much good there and I think the like four or four.
The reason I bring them up so much is they're
the're fucking like they are, Like, I love sharing their work. Yeah, Defecto,
which Irillas is outside of tech David Roth. Most people

(01:38:27):
like Ray Rato, like you've got really like specialized reporters,
and that's sports, I realized. But that model of Hey
defined voices that people really love, that love for who
they are. Drew McGarry covering Ship. People aren't going there
just to hear about sports. They're going because Drew has
a thought. Same with David. And I think that model
in tech is something that the verge has done a

(01:38:47):
good job on. I think they can go further, but
it's something that was in bits. It was something that
had Man'd you do?

Speaker 2 (01:38:55):
Did I think that The Times is uh? This is
my personal view.

Speaker 3 (01:38:59):
I think that they can be ambivalent on personalities, like
in one way, like it serves them a lot to
have columnists who like people will go for you know,
this is a different generation. But like David Brooks or
Tom Friedman or these folks who have been coming there

(01:39:20):
and drive a lot of traffic or talk to the
president and like are important in some capacity. But at
the same time, I think Times folks are Times. People
at the top are always like the brand is first, right,
it's a New York Times. It's not Mike Isaac at
the New York Times some thing right, And like, I.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
Do think there's a tension there.

Speaker 3 (01:39:40):
But in this one thing that I think have expressly
said outwardly is like in an age of Ai producing
mountains of bullshit, one advantage we might have is knowing
that our reporters are people and explaining that they have
expertise and like going into them. So like it, I
do think there's like a tension there. I would love
if they let us be a little more free.

Speaker 5 (01:40:03):
But like that is the tension, and we all see it.

Speaker 4 (01:40:07):
And I think that's kind of what you give up
for the Times, is what it seems like as the outsiders, like, Okay,
if you want to work for the Times, you're gonna
have to give that up. And that's it's not just
the Times. The it's like you know, like a lot
of of the top publications. You you're not gonna have
that voice because of what they do.

Speaker 5 (01:40:24):
It's different.

Speaker 1 (01:40:24):
What's funny, though, is I'm old enough to remember that
this was the model. David Poge at the New York Times,
Eric Benderoff, I think it was at the Tribune here
was a bray. I think at the Boston Globe you
had tech colonists and they were insane. You still got
like Jim Rossman, I think that that was morning use
mixing up with someone. Nevertheless, you have a few, but
regional tech columists used to get paid insane money. M

(01:40:49):
there was a rumor. There was a rumor that, like
I think seen it, tried to pay Nick Bilton a
million dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
I remember that. I don't even remember.

Speaker 5 (01:40:58):
I've heard Felix Salmon stories.

Speaker 4 (01:41:01):
This is like passed down from older journalists to me
through generations.

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
So the Fusion days, Oh that was great?

Speaker 1 (01:41:09):
What was this? We need to tell you?

Speaker 2 (01:41:10):
Oh my god, Well do.

Speaker 3 (01:41:11):
You remember the Fusion Do you remember Fusion?

Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
Does that?

Speaker 5 (01:41:13):
I remember? Like the logo?

Speaker 3 (01:41:16):
I mean you shouldn't because it was literally like a
production of Telemundo that wanted to do is tech company Olsen.

Speaker 1 (01:41:25):
Or h ship.

Speaker 3 (01:41:27):
There was a bunch of cash Hill there. Kevin Russ
work there, and what they did was uh uh And
they hired Felix Oh like just magical. So what they
did though was like come in and throw like money
at everyone. I fucking rude the day that I didn't
try to get a job there because my salary would
be like four x what it is nice but right, right, right,

(01:41:50):
But I think the rumor was I'm not going to
say exactly what it was, but just there were rumors
on how much people were getting paid and we all
should have done that great and that the company went
out of business like two week years later. No, no,
they bought got bought by Gizmoto, which then fucking I
don't even know what.

Speaker 2 (01:42:07):
No, Gizmoto got bought by Telemando.

Speaker 5 (01:42:10):
Media is not just fun anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:42:12):
Fucking human centipede of shit that is media industry.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
Again. I will have drinks every city I'm in. Everyone
will get drunk together, and then everyone will be mad
at each other and then we'll have stuff like this.
But it's I think it is partly also the remote
work movement.

Speaker 5 (01:42:26):
And I've only been a remote journalist, which is crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:42:28):
You're are going to an office.

Speaker 5 (01:42:29):
I will, but like, I've never had a newsroom never.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
Oh that's a that's a bummer.

Speaker 5 (01:42:36):
Whenever I say that, people who are journalists before COVID
or like that sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:42:39):
I feel like, also though that is somewhat romanticized though, because.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
You're because you're anti you're anti.

Speaker 1 (01:42:45):
Oh, it's not even a remote work thing. It's just
the newsroom of Future Publishing when I work there. Eight shit,
don't live in England anymore. Future Publishing there was there
was just a mood of depression in that books. It
was a depressing place to work run by us White.

Speaker 3 (01:43:00):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:43:00):
And so then you go into the BBC one or
the Bloomberg one, you're like, Okay, I fucking get it.

Speaker 4 (01:43:06):
Like I would be, oh, yeah, the Bloomberg one sounds awesome,
but the BBC one, at least the old one.

Speaker 1 (01:43:10):
I haven't been into the Big Tower too, And I
feel like that it'd be cool if a tech newsroom
exists like that. It just in the world, just practically speaking.
But also I don't know if one. I guess all
things that you kind of had one.

Speaker 3 (01:43:23):
I mean, we had like a we were like weirdly
remote hybrid. We had like a work space or something
in Soma, but I think that like, like, look, it's
we are romanticizing it. But I do like and I
fucking work from home literally all the time. But but
my the thing that I miss about working at headquarters

(01:43:44):
in New York was just like you walk around run
into people bullshit.

Speaker 1 (01:43:48):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:43:49):
I actually do sometimes come up with interesting things or
like share tips and whatever just because you saw someone.

Speaker 2 (01:43:56):
And I do think there's.

Speaker 4 (01:43:57):
Value there, No, there is, there is definitely. And I
was to say box as a New York office business
insider does fortune does.

Speaker 5 (01:44:04):
I just have always lived in California my entire lifests
and I'm not moving to New.

Speaker 1 (01:44:08):
York updated long term a heads that I was recently
releasing the psychiatric Ward for example, That's where we met
those people. Like they may remember, I was very pro
remote work and I still am. I've never been his
anti office at all. Yeah, and that is like the
reason I do these in studio ones is because remote

(01:44:29):
is fine. But this is cool. This is energy, Yes,
each other. We can be focused, and I think the
I do it's the real dumb startup guy thing in
my house, like we should have a coworking splost for
the tech media. That's like a really good twenty eleven
asked Idea.

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
Right, Well, I think the thing that gets lost from
like again, I'm older than you and like I came
up in like where remote work was not a thing,
not really, and like now I am very much a
remote per in a lot of the time.

Speaker 2 (01:45:01):
But like I do at least appreciate the.

Speaker 3 (01:45:04):
Time that I had in I think it means something
very different when you're when you're younger in your career
rather than you're older in your career, and I forget that.
Like I was in the Times headquarters from twenty fourteen
twenty sixteen, and that was super valuable for me because
like just the whole like fucking face time with who

(01:45:25):
you should know or what everything is real? You know?

Speaker 1 (01:45:27):
And I will like again, I'm like missed the remote work.
But my first job was at Pcson Magazine with Future,
and as miserable as that place was, it was because
of the management, yep, not because of people like Will
Porter and Steve Hogatine, people I work with who were
there to tell me to stop playing World of Warcraft
during work. And then I would say to them, no,
I've done all my work, and then they would say, no,

(01:45:49):
you haven't, and then I would say, yes, I have
go check and then they would be really pissed off
and tell me to stop playing anyway. Jokes aside, having
Will redline my shit in person broke my spira.

Speaker 5 (01:46:00):
Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
But actually it was really valuable because I then went
and had coffee with Steve Hogerti, who then said he's
right though, and that also hurt. But it was also
the fact that I could go back to Will and
actually have a conversation about what the fuck he meant.
He's a wonderful edity, genuinely like and having that experience
and then kind of like having the moment being like,
oh my spirit, but not having that on my own

(01:46:23):
at home, separated from the world, I actually think was
quite valuable. It's just I keep coming back to this
solidarity thing. I think it's just.

Speaker 5 (01:46:31):
We have that solidarity.

Speaker 4 (01:46:33):
I think, like physical physical I have adapted as a
journalist just fine. I would have loved a newsroom that
would be great, but I adapted. I went to tons
of events, I've met tons of and then I've also
like reached out to like more established journalists a ton
I'm like, hey, can I get your advice on this?
All the time, and people my age, I think, like

(01:46:53):
I definitely have that as harsh as it is, like
especially in San Francisco, like, for instance, people on my beat.
Rachel met at Bloomberg. I see her at events. We
talk all the time, like having those people who are
more established who can be like hey, like, we still
have that, I think, but younger generalists have to know
to reach out for that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:11):
I guess maybe it's more defined. I'm just trying to find,
like an excuse to throw a party.

Speaker 2 (01:47:16):
I think I would go to your party.

Speaker 1 (01:47:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:47:19):
The last time I saw Mike at a party actually
there was a thing in December.

Speaker 1 (01:47:24):
But let's wrap this up though. So I've really enjoyed
having you both here. Thank you so much. Mike. Where
can people find you?

Speaker 3 (01:47:38):
I mean, I'm writing occasionally at The New York Times,
where I work for my full time job, and then
on Twitter, but more on Instagram too now just like
google my name and then you can find on my show.
So I wrote a book which if I would love
to plug. It's called super Pumped The Battle for Uber

(01:47:59):
And if you don't like reading, you can watch the show,
which is on Netflix.

Speaker 2 (01:48:06):
Right off the show, Thank you very cool.

Speaker 4 (01:48:10):
Yeah, I'll just say I love that show so much
because I had such a huge crush on Jesseph Gordon
Levitt was growing up. And then I also didn't know
Travis Kalenick was such a dick. That show is awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:48:23):
J g l is also a lovely human being, but.

Speaker 5 (01:48:25):
Oh my god, I love him, so you.

Speaker 2 (01:48:27):
Can be yeah, doubly secure.

Speaker 1 (01:48:30):
And problem with that show was it felt like they
cost the wrong guy as Travis. There's a guy who
just looks exactly like Travis Kalenick who plays like coming.

Speaker 2 (01:48:39):
Oh yeah, it was funny.

Speaker 3 (01:48:41):
A lot of super employees were like, they should have
Kyle Chandlers.

Speaker 5 (01:48:46):
So good. I ate that up.

Speaker 4 (01:48:47):
Okay, you can find me on Twitter x at Kylie Bites.
I'm on threads at Kylie dot Robinson not Robinson with
an N in the middle, no en And then I'm
right the Verge full time about AI and tech stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:49:02):
And you can find me, of course on the Better
Offline podcast. Ask your parole officer to listen to you
one podcast. I'm so sorry, I promise I don't think
all of you are criminals. I love you all. I'm
saying it like I love you all, like the menu
if you remember that. Don't know if they let you
watch that clink, but thank you so much for listening everyone,
Better offline dot com. You'll then get the same liner

(01:49:24):
that plays off every episode. Thank you for listening, 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 A T T O s O

(01:49:48):
W s ki 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 chatt
your ed dot am to visit the discord and go
to our slash Better Offline to check out I'll Reddit.
Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 5 (01:50:08):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 4 (01:50:10):
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

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The State of Tech Journalism with Kylie Robison and Mike Isaac

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}1. Stuff You Should Know

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The State of Tech Journalism with Kylie Robison and Mike Isaac

1. Stuff You Should Know