Better Offline - Better Offline CES 2025: Day 3 - Pt. 2

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Venetian with an attached open bar where reporters, experts and various other characters bring you the stories from the floor. In the second episode, In this episode Ed Zitron is joined by David Roth of Defector, reporter Edward Ongweso Jr., Ed Niedermeyer of the Autonocast, and tech freelancer Jared Newman to talk about the consequences of spending days at the Consumer Electronics Show, how a show gets away with having so many booths that don’t actually seem to sell things to consumers, and an idea for generative AI that I deeply apologize for. David Roth: https://bsky.app/profile/davidjroth.bsky.social Jared Newman: https://bsky.app/profile/advisorator.com Ed Ongweso Jr: https://bsky.app/profile/bigblackjacobin.bsky.social Ed Niedermeyer: https://bsky.app/profile/niedermeyer.io The Autonocast: https://www.autonocast.com/  --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host, Ed Zittron. We are still at the Consumer Electronics Show, due to events beyond my control. We are recording at like 8pm, which means we're all feeling great. But thankfully, thankfully, we're now joined by David Roth of Defector.

Hi, how's it going? Yeah, he's loving the show, by the way. Yeah, I'm sorry, is this too much energy? I can take it down if I'm, like, blowing the monitors out. Little much. if I wanted that. This is always a problem with you. So you all are feeling weird

because you've been at CES for a long time and I'm feeling weird because I've been at CES for like five hours. Yeah, that's all it takes. Yeah. I mean, maybe you, what is it? Like you acclimate, right? Like eventually at some point you're just kind of like,

wow, I really, I'm glad you've got AI in that. So what happens is that you get really sleep deprived. You're on your feet all day and then you don't sleep and you don't eat properly. And so like your brain just, kind of like slowly shuts down on the last like yeah oh cool so it's like it's like dying but it kind of

like awakens in a weird way you know you like you tap this part of the belt right it's actually like an undeph like an undying so when you go like in 2001 like you go through the Stargate you encounter yourself in a weird room and it's like an old version of you or a baby

yeah and then at the end yeah the the Star Child turns to regard you so just just to introduce the other characters we've got with us and then you get a product I'm by giving away too much in 2001? There's a whole lot. There's like two and a half of hours. Okay, let's just say who you are, though.

Ed Niedemeyer. Hello. Wonderful auto journalist who joined me on a previous episode here in Las Vegas, Nevada. Good to see you again. Good to see you. Jared Newman, freelancer. Wonderful to be here. Great to be here. Thank you.

Correct. Now, the effect that David is describing is actually remarkable because it is true. CES veterans generally experience what I'm experiencing right now. I'm in like the cocoon stage. which is you go through the valley of the shadow of death and look at your life and you sit there and you go

I'm dying and then you get tomorrow like halfway through you just get a second and third win wind even and that's when you fully joker and everything becomes

darkly funny you know oh AI's and everything wouldn't it be bad if that would happen so I'm jocifying the next three episodes which is going to be great but David it's great to have you here

because not only are you you at your first CS, you are not a tech journalist. You cover sports. No, I had to say that to somebody earlier today because I was playing around. I was down there with our friend Jesse Farrar, who I was on, I believe, with you this afternoon. No.

Oh, did he just came in to say hi? Well, do you not remember? You haven't been on the microphone yet, man. No, I don't know. I wasn't on with him. I don't know what you do back here. Oh, no, he was on the show. Sorry, I thought you were suggesting you forgot the...

Anyway. No, no, so I saw Jesse and we walked around for a bit and we were playing with a device, I guess, was designed to give a pleasing jet of air to your pet. It was a pet massager. It was an air pet massager.

Okay, I think I saw them as well. Was that the one with the spike at the bottom with the pet is allegedly meant to rub against them? No, yes, it's the same company, but this was a different product. And I was messing around with this one, and they were fine with it.

And a lady was kind of trying to sell me on this. And even though I told her, I was like, I have a turtle. And I don't have a dog. I don't think the turtle like it. I don't think the turtle really likes anything that I do. I hadn't eaten, so I did tell them about the turtle. That was unnecessary. I was wasting their time. And at some point, she was like, well, I can see that you, she looked at my... Okay, man, the turtle shit is over here. My lanyard,

and it's a, you know, defector, which nobody knows what the fuck that is. And if they did know, they'd be like, oh, yeah, the one with the, where Ray Rado makes fun of the Raiders. Yeah. Like that website. And so she's like, I can see that you're, you know, it's just a, so you work in design. And I was like, ma'am, I'm a sports writer. And that was more or less enough because you're basically saying like first of all I'm an idiot which you've already observed second of all like I'm not like rich either and I already told you I don't have a dog so like we really don't have very much left to talk about they tried to sell me a 15,000 baseball simulator which was very cool earlier dude I was ready to buy that no it was so cool

like those are the only honest people in this entire show there was a guy in there with one of the best of the like if you guys like played softball at all or do you like are you familiar with this is like an aesthetic of like a slow pitch softball body type. And it is like you can be a really good softball hitter with a body that would not seemingly be suited for any sport. Was he just crushing it? Crushing it, a sweet, left-handed swing.

And it's like a simulator is like a golf simulator. Yeah, yeah. So it's like showing you where in Yankee Stadium the fucking tank shot that you just hit was. And he was just launching them into the batter's eye, but he was shaped like the grimace from McDonald's. And I could have watched him do that all day. I mean, maybe that's more of like a day four of... To be clear, I was there earlier.

And they were like, oh, you should try it. I'm like, I'm really bad. I'm really bad. And they were like, oh, come on, come on. I'm like, no, I'm really bad. And I stopped short being like... This British guy is being modest about how good he is at baseball, I'm sure. I'm a British man who knows what KBO is.

Yep. And then they were like, no, go on. I'm like, I'm really bad. And then I was, I fucking missed it. Oh. It is a stationary object. And I, like, barely, like, grounded out to the... middle field.

And I was like, I told you. And they were like, yeah, okay. We should have believed you. I'm sorry. My version of this was a few years back. I stopped by the 9 bot booth. When they had all of this, it was like his proliferation of various like small electric, like one wheel or like little skate roller skates and whatever all kind of electric

and whatever. And people kept, product specialists kept being like, oh, these are easy. Anyone can do these. And I would get on these various like, you know, things that we, like, one wheel, the unicycle, and then the one on each, and like, every single, I just kept falling down and falling down. I'm not doing that shit. I'm that kind of a close. That sounds like how I would die.

Yeah. No, if I told my parents, if they, my parents found out, I mean, that I died getting on like a cheap unicycle at a consumer electronic show. My parents would not. They would just be like, oh, yeah, that, sure, I fully believe that. Where can we find the body? Is it still on the floor? Yeah, I could see, that was my, I mean, the real trepidation with the swing. thing was that there were other people around. But the idea of me

like going down with it, like six to eight weeks with an oblique strain within my first, like I haven't showered here yet. Do you know what I mean? Like a Ging Carlo Stanton's style injury. Oh, it's tough. His whole, like he's torso fenestrated, we've never seen it. You need to train next year.

Yeah. You know, like, make sure you, yeah. Yeah, that's the bit of advice that everybody's giving me about CES. They're mostly people are like, here's where you can get drugs. And then they're also like, you've got to stretch. It's Robert Evans. He's just saying the gas station. The gas, the mushrooms. Yeah, I, before...

Did he offer you the mushrooms? I mean, he was very gentlemanly about it. Various things. Yes, he had just like... How does he still have more? Pulling stuff out of his bag. I imagine it's like what seeing carrot top is like. Have you done an episode like that's like the guided tour of the Nevada gas station?

Like the one, all the wonders? Because I had no idea like, I had no idea that these things exist in Nevada. Gas stations? Yeah, so he got... You don't have those where you're from. But we do, but we don't have like, baking mushrooms. Yeah, you can't get... mushrooms there.

Well, I don't think they're real. Yeah. I mean, mushrooms are real. These were, they've had a lot of words on them. Yeah. But the packaging looked like Big League chew. On the back, it said, this is not an authorized product. Yeah.

It was like, that's terrific. Like, looking for the union label, like being like, all right. Well, this isn't, this doesn't have anything in it, right? Well, Robert then, he would say that like a point of pride, though. He'd be like, this is not a proof. Yeah. Hey. Not for human consumption.

That's right there. But I enjoyed about that. It was your friend Garrison. Like, yeah. Like, call me. That was like,

you just get a stomach egg. Like, it's not going to like, I'm going to like, I'm going to blow your mind or anything like that. Yeah. It also had a list of other ingredients, but it didn't say like what the,

the main ingredients were. Yeah. Just said other ingredients. Moshua. Wait, was it just like miscellaneous. Yeah. Natural flavors.

Like, they're not, they're not purporting. to tell you that there are hallucinogenic mushrooms in there, but it has niacin. And it was made in a facility that processes tree nuts. It's just all the allergies. Yeah, right.

We put penicill in there somehow. Okay, so Ed, you cover autos in general, and you follow Elon Musk around. What are you here for? Is there a big mobility section here? Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean that dismissive. No, no, you didn't ask me.

He was just like, I don't know, you just... I brought... Well, yeah, you brought... brought me here. You were staying with me. Yes, it's true. But anyway. No, so like a few years ago, well, I guess quite a few years ago, actually before I started coming, um, uh, basically like car shows are this antiquated thing, right? It's like a hundred year old plus tradition, uh, you know, as the auto industry sort of matured, the juice has gone out

of it. Like once upon a time, like, car shows were, like Detroit was Silicon Valley and car shows were there. What was the purpose of the, having not been to any and seen them kind of from distance, what is the actual purpose of a car show? Is it? Yeah. Is it to sell cars to consumers or is it hot, like, is there? Yeah. So, so, well, so now it's like all bifurcated, right? So, so the ones that have survived are mostly like small regional ones and it's literally just like, here are the cars that are for sale now and you can go and sit. It's actually like a useful thing.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So consumer facing. Yeah, but like, so like originally it was, it was like, here's introducing new models, introducing new technologies. And then also like, again, like Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the 20th century. So it'd be like a lot of concept cars? And just like these whole futurist visions and like entertainment and like, you know, celebrities, it was a show. My dad used to take me to the one at the Jacob Javitt Center in New York City.

And it was like, as a, you know, whatever, 10, 12 years old, like, that was the coolest shit I'd ever seen. Yeah. Because the concept cars, like, looked, I mean, they just, I mean, none of them, as far as I can tell, like, came to market. Like, it wasn't the sort of thing where it was like, oh, yeah, I saw him playing rookie ball. It was like something where they were like, yeah, it's got a nuclear reactor in it. And I got to sit in it and be like, sick. And that was it. But that was the last anyone saw of it.

Yeah, yeah. So they'll show these concept cars to sort of like, sort of, sort of, sort of, sort of signal like the future direction that the styling's going to take and judge the sort of response to it and whatever. And again, like there's a long tradition of like pageantry that sort of has like faded out over the years. Right. Like I'm one of the things Elon Musk does, not to throw that in there. But like he's bringing that back. He's like kind of a throwback to this old school showbiz version of what. But it also sucks. Well, and so these car shows were losing their steam as cars were becoming these like anonymous, interchangeable appliances. Right.

It was these were, this was a connected trend. And then tech started happening and cars, they had someone had the great idea that cars could be or really should be devices. And with that, CES became actually the most important. And when in RAM was that? Like 20, I'm going to get called out for not knowing the exact date, but it was like 2014, like mid-2010s. Yeah, yeah. Like, you don't have to know stuff on the show, don't worry. Actually, it was a little earlier than that, I think.

Cool. But so what's the distinction with devices? Is it basically, is it like a Teslaification of the, like where it's like touchscreens and applications. And is it the designs are standardized as well? So yeah, so it's a lot of things. So it's it's so really what it comes down to is tech sort of thinks everything should be like

it and it looks at cars and it sees a platform. And it says we need to take this platform and make it like us. And you know, some good things have actually come along with that like electrification, right? Like electrification is good for completely other reasons. Tech and tech money like it because, you know, the idea of replacing, what's it replacing electrons or atoms with electrons

is like this sort of core ideological thing that everyone texts like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, anytime you make something more digital, more controllable, more computerized, that's just like this intrinsically good thing. Electrification fits in with that. It makes cars literally more like computers and more like smartphones to the extent. And like Tesla is, the interesting thing about Tesla is that it really just exists. exemplifies this in this visual way. Like I talked about in my book the touchscreen, right?

And like it's like tail fins in the 1950s. In the 1950s, the other big technology was airplanes and rockets. Like that was the hot, that was the pinnacle of high technology. And cars were already starting to lose. And there were sort of two ways you could go with that. One was you could put a rocket engine into a car, which the destroy companies absolutely did, including with like taxpayers dollars and like all kinds. But it was a dumb idea and it never went anywhere.

What the smart approach was put tail fins on, make the cars look like airplanes, appropriate the aesthetics and associate with this other technology. And so, like, that's what Tesla has really done in a lot of ways. They call it the iPhone of cars. It's a purely aesthetic thing. The screen and the UI are more like a smartphone than anything else. Whether or not that is a good thing for how you operate a car never gets questioned. They also took advantage of the fact that when the first testers were coming out, most cars had yet to really modern. in that level, right?

Yeah, yeah. No, they were... Like, it was good. It was good in comparison to most car U-I's. I think that's like still an open question. No, I had a Volvo S-60 in 2012.

That was my last car. I had a Tesla for a few years. It was a big jump. It was more, like, I could do the things I wanted to do in a way that made sense because the way they had buttons work was kind of like the devil made them.

Yeah. The problem is now Volvo is the best electric because it just works normal. I realize I've basically talk myself into a corner here, so please continue. No, no, I mean, well, I think for me, the open and unresolved question is, like, what makes a car good? And I think as time goes on, right?

Like, when I look at this stuff, people like it because they think the iPhone is the best product that we've seen in a lifetime. Like, every, if you pick one good product, the iPhone is, like, the one that changed everything. And associating with, like, this looks and feels like an iPhone, it must be good. But again, like, when you're driving a car, you know, being able to, like, to reach over and there's a knob there that's always there and you could just change the volume. And, you know, for me, like, I enjoy driving and, like, I take, I kind of get engaged with it, choose

to engage with it. And so less distraction, like more just sort of direct engagement with a car's mechanical device for me is good. And then the big thing is robustness. Because when you add these screens, right, so like the screen, the model S that changed everything. It was like, this is what the future is going to be. The reason they were able to put a bigger screen in that car than anyone else. And in fact, I don't know. I'm sure there's bigger screens now, but it took a really long time for there to be a screen as big as the one in the Model S.

And it was because Tesla simply didn't use an automotive grade screen. So to put, yeah, so there's this whole thing, there's consumer grade, there's, like, industrial grade. And really what these are is you take the device and you put it through a series of, like, mostly thermal testing. And automotive grade is, like, the highest one. And, like, this is what the auto industry does well, is they make things that are robust. So that every time you go out in the car, whether it's in freezing,

weather or hot weather or rain. It just always works. All things I associate with Tesla. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. There's like a kind of an ominous bit of foreshadowing their team where they were just like, well, we'll just put it in. To be clear, I had a tester in like 2014 to 2016. Listeners are going to absolutely beat my ass in the comments, which I don't have on the podcast. But so just to get past the good, bad thing, let's just say everything's a tradeoff. Right. And so what we're doing as cars become more like devices is, yeah, they're connected, they're interactive, now they're software to find. You can change. how your car looks over there, updates,

all these things have opened up, but you've lost the robustness of the core, you know, function of the car, which is driving around and getting you from point A to point B. And is this something that's affecting more than just Tesla? Yeah, yeah. So what Tesla has done in this, right, it is legitimized what the car companies have always wanted to do,

but we're afraid to do because they thought consumers would, there would be backlash to it, which is cut quality. And with Tesla, it's not, just, but by putting everything on a screen, then you don't have to have switches,

you don't have to have buttons. Those are the things that the car companies are copying because it saves them money. It feels like we're in the take the piss era of society. Just like, it's like every company's like testing boundaries. Yeah. Tesla's not here at CES, right?

Tesla has never done, yeah, that's actually one of the things that I think was good with sort of how they've done the brand building stuff is they don't do that. They don't show concepts, right? If they show you a car, they've released concepts.

This has changed. Okay, yeah, this has changed more recently. But, like, historically, when they were building the brand, it was like they would show you a car. It would change maybe a little bit to production. But basically, they were showing you the car

that you were going to be able to buy. You wouldn't be able to get it at the price. You know, there would be all kinds of other things that would happen by the time you got it. But visually, that was really important. They didn't show you something that they had no intention of making, which every other car company does.

Come on. What? Again, this has changed. Okay, so like the roadster, the semi, yeah. I mean, yeah, the roadster, the classic product they launched. I'm talking about Tesla during the period where they were... Sorry, I don't know why I'm bagging on you like you were in Elon Musk's then. I'm so sorry.

No, no, no. I mean, it's a good point. It's actually an interesting gradual thing with them. There was a point when they said stuff and then it happened. Yeah. Yeah. And they were doing new things, as you say, they were doing things that to you were really, you were like, this is good. This is...

But I feel like also Tesla's just didn't change after a certain point. they just got worse in different ways. Yeah. Well, that's what you... I gather that that's what you meant by the sort of like the taking the piss. Yeah, that's... You develop a product that, like, people like, and then the game becomes trying to see how much worse you can make it.

And they'll continue to describe it. Yeah. Right. But, like, yeah, basically every... It's just... It's... It's like... In the toilet, baby.

Private equity buying newspapers. It's also, like, you know, all the other shit. I need to find, like, some rich people to help me buy the Washington Post. Mm. like that would just be the best thing I will run it you're going to become the first tech journalist to try to buy the Washington Post

yeah yeah the first ones I'm wear aviators too buy the Washington Post yes no that would that's one of those ideas that I'm going to start saying and I think what's great about it is it could never happen

but saying it enough people will be like maybe this could and that really upset them which is really most of my bag moving the Overtin window yeah I'm moving the Overtin window oh yeah you gotta move that window

You've got to move it. Yeah, open it a little bit. So, Jared, this is, how many, yeah, just getting you. How many CES is for you? How many have you done that? I think this is 13 or 14. Oh, my God, Jesus. How many of them have they had?

It's too many CES. The history goes back to before it was called CES. It was like Comdex or something. Computex? No, is that one in time? I think it was Comdex. I don't know. People are going to be mad that I don't know the history of.

Why would, if anyone gets mad at you, I'll set my picks on them. So before we were recording people, you were part of this conversation about like legendary CES fuck shit moments. The yo party was the one that people were talking about. But like, I wasn't cool enough getting by it. All my friends went. Given that everybody here was just talking about being like, I've been here since Monday and I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. 13 years? The funny thing is that I don't end up going to a ton of parties, but I do, I was talking about this earlier.

A few years ago, maybe it was like five, six years ago. I had been here for a long time, maybe four or five, six days or something. It was my last day. And I knew there was like, there were a few things that I like still wanted to see. And I was going to leave later in the day. And so I got on the monorail and I went to the convention center. And I got off the monorail and they started walking into the convention center. And I kind of just had like a physical reaction, like the closer I got.

I don't know how to describe it, so I just turned around and left. Yeah. Way to practice self-care. Yeah. But it was basically your body telling you that you've had enough consumer electronics. I think I just rejected Vegas. If I walked away every time I felt like that, I wouldn't move. Yeah.

The thing is like, so Vegas itself is one of those places where it's like, wait, if you hit three days. Like, even if you're trying to have fun, like, you just cannot do more than about three days. Yep. And then with CES, you add all of. the everything else on top of it, the absurdity, like the and the walking. I mean, I'm going to say, that's the other thing. So, I think a lot of people, when they're doing, like,

excess in Vegas, they're not taking, like, 15,000 steps. That is, so, so, coming here. Actually, not true. Really? Oh, you get enough dipship bachelor party ones, and then you get lost. You all walk in three miles, baby. That makes some sense. I did get lost a good amount

today, but I also, like, I mean, whatever, I haven't done, hardly done Vegas as an adult at all. And so the idea of, like, the bit of today that I liked was that like my legs feel a little bit sore now. You know? Like it's 25 degrees in New York City right now. Like I legit did not leave my apartment on Monday. I got shin

splints I'm working on like. It feeds into that like tapping a well of energy that you... So we have a small announcement David, do you mind turning your microphone to Phil? So it has been 8cS's Phil? Yep, I've been here. This is my 8CES to join you. Hi, I'm Phil Broughton again. The bartender, a health

physicist. So every time I come here, the charge for Getting one of my drinks, as a journalist, as an attendee of CES, is you need to tell me if you've seen something dangerous, something that scared you, something that left you with discomfort such that you think an illegality might be happening. I'm, I'm not going to say proud, but I'm shocked to say nothing on the floor of CES has concerned someone enough to tell me such that I needed to call the fireman. Marshall to get an exhibitor removed or at least their exhibit shut down. So I don't, again, congratulations. Congratulations, CEA. We did it.

We did it finally. We've purged the throat. And actually, there is something in line with this that I want to say it did feel like going down to Eureka Park, which is the nether regions. The dankest area. It really is. It's the games. The normal place they put dangerous things.

It wasn't as bad this year, but there have been years. where it just smelled like feet. Yeah, it smelled crazy in there. No, games journalists listening, all 12 of you, think of Kentia Hall during E3. I get that reference. Yeah, it's like a place where you'd go and if you had a journalist badge on, you'd have to run.

I can smell this comment. Yeah, Kentie's fucked up. But yeah, so I really just felt like Eureka Park is usually like the place where you go to see the people working on multiple stages of fraud. That's where the MRI was that year That shouldn't have been on the floor Yeah, that's where the lasers have been

Now it's all people like At the earlier stages of fraud Where it's not as fun Less whimsical No one even brought radioactive materials That anyone told me about Shit, they barely brought anything that existed That's happened to them

Yes Turn the microphone Okay I'm gonna go go bake more drinks now Have fun everyone Thank you Phil Before you go I'm just gonna say that

I mostly came here to see you So yeah I will say though Eureka Park 2 You do sometimes go And meet like two guys in a folding table and then like next year all of a sudden they have some massive thing

and then the next year like they've like taken over like the biggest company in their space like the year that you discover them as two guys in a folding and there's something interesting about that that was the bit that so I it's funny that you mentioned dankness funny that you mentioned tankness

well everything that I had been sort of like not just Ed either like I go on Tuesdays I do like a little standing bit with a ESPN radio station in Las Vegas, and I mentioned that I was going to be at the Consumer Electronics Show, and they mentioned that it was going to be, like, sweaty and wet. Everybody is always using words having to do a dampness to describe this shit.

In a very dry place. And in a very dry place, indeed. And so the idea that there's, like, a sub-basement that's basically just... It's a part of the expo where the ceilings are too low. Yeah, like, basically, like, most of the action in the movie aliens is what I'm imagining. Like you're kind of walking around something comes up out of the floor and spits acid in your face or whatever

But see that's the thing though It's better than it used to be though You weren't here during the Indiegogo Well I was expecting that Was that when it was in the Yurika Park Was in the sands? Because it used to be It is the same place

Oh it's in the same place But it was basically Every company was crowdfunded And the shit people would say So is Eureka Park Like the rookie ball of this? It's the cheapest It's the best

unfiltered stuff. All right. I've had demos with companies that later, like, graduated to Eureka Park. So I don't know what that means. Like, made more money. Like, where were you before?

I also, outside. Yeah. Yeah, we're outside the Cromwell. Like, we're part eight outside of the strat. Yeah.

I mean, like, there's a lot of big fraud, like a lot of fraud, right? Like, getting a lot of money to do fraud is, is actually not that hard these days.

And so actually in the big North Hall and stuff too, like I mean, there have been plenty of companies that have these. In fact, a lot of times during certain periods of like, you know, big trends in investing in, you know,

whether it's like LIDAR or this or, you know, some of these other specific technologies, you would see sort of certain names in the space would have these huge things. And, you know, right, the point of this is to market, we're here,

we're this big deal. But like if you follow the space, you know, like, the companies that invest in that stuff are the ones that don't have the good, right? Like a lot of times, not exclusively. But a lot of times the biggest splashiest booth in the biggest, in the big thing is where the fraud is.

And sometimes the smaller thing in the kind of jumble of startups is actually, that can be cool legit stuff. That totally scans to me because that's like, again, from my sort of understanding of this as somebody who's interested in the space but not covering it or not like, it doesn't have a professional interest. I'm just kind of fascinated by everything that's kind of scammy and scuzzy in our culture. But this is the thing. It's so emblematic of this industry that we're just like, yeah, no, the big frauds are the ones with the big. Right. The big scare. But it's like there's so many lies here.

And that's what I think what it is, I think this is why by Saturday I'm going to be like, I'm just going to wake up and the Joker make up is because I've never talked about CES this much. And I realize that I say this putting on an actual pop-up radio show during CES that that would be inevitable. Talking about it, I'm like jokifying again. Jared and I talk about the Joker a lot for many reasons. But like, I thought I had fully become the Joker, but now just like, as I, fresh new CES people, they have the exact same. And it's just like this place is just very strange. Well, but it's strange, but what I was saying is I expected, because I've only been to the, so we are recording in the Venetian.

Beautiful Venetian. To the big open exhibition space in the Venetian. Right. But I haven't been to the convention center yet. I got in here today at like 3 p.m. So what I saw, I expected to go down there and it was just going to be carnage. It was just going to be like a super soaker that yells at you in the voice of Sir Peter O'Toole and has an AI aspect for some reason. You know, and what it was instead was like there were like you were saying it.

There's like people down there that there was like a dog door that like Jesse and I were very taken by. And the people were like, yeah, we were here last year and like we'd been, you know, we'd set up this thing. If you hit it with a sledgehammer once, it got all screwed up. So, like, we went back and we changed the metal. And now we've had, you know, it's like 650 blows from this, like, you pull a rope and a sledgehammer swings into the dorm. We haven't even dented it. It's like a good product. If I had a dog and a house and I have neither of those things.

But if I had both, I'd be like, you know what? Like, this might be worth $399. And I didn't expect to see a single thing like that. The great paradox of CES is that it's kind of, it's like a place to get. cynical, but yeah, joker-fied. Yes. But also, like, de-joker-fied at the same time. It, like, pulls your brain in these two opposing directions.

Because there is a lot of that. And then there's also, like, the stuff that, like, reminds you why you like you like technology in the first place. And it's hard to balance those two things. Like, I was, like, pulling for a lot of the people. Not all of them. The ones that, when we were talking about, like, the things that you saw that, like, fucked you up or made you want to, like, ask Phil to call the, you know,

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was one that, Ed, Edward was. flagged. I just saw he had posted it earlier that was like a germ detection thing with very strange vibes. Was this the germ pass? Oh yeah, yeah, so chosen by God perfected

by science or something like that? Yeah, that's me. So yeah, that's all hey, you know what? Yeah. I think it's all of us. But before we go any further, we're now going to do an outbreak. So David, where can people find you? Defector.com's the website. The Distraction is the podcast I do

with Defector and I do a podcast about Hallmark movies called It's Christmas Town that is not affiliated with any other website because it's about Hallmark movies. Okay, is there a link they could go to? No, for those. I'll put them in the... Well, yeah, Defector.com's the thing.

It's Christmas town. It's like, I don't know, like, do that. Look it up at the home podcast or something. Yeah. Mr. Neidemite, where can people find you? Needermire.io on the World Wide Web and Blue Sky. And Atonacast.com, the Atonacast is my...

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So I want to get back to something we were talking about earlier, which is the reason that CES grinds you down and then you have a new justification and get your powers back is because if you're only here, the ideal amount to be here is like three or four days. And I don't mean this for General Vegas. I mean specifically for CES because you get to see the show floor enough that you're like, I have a full concept of this. I couldn't have missed anything. You can then come to an opinion.

And then you meet the other people who were there too long. The other people who didn't live in two days. And you get a kind of like a trauma bonding experience, which is what this podcast is going to be for the next few days, by the way. Everyone who's left is just like, I just want to see my family again. And David, you're going to get, you're arriving at CES during this period. Yeah. So this is what I want to ask just again from the perspective, to bring an idiot's perspective,

to bear. Well, I'm here. Well, I know, but I mean, this is a different. It's more of an East Coast flavor. Like, who are these people that you're talking about? Who's staying here? So what it is? Tomorrow it's like the general public income in, right? I actually haven't. I don't know either. It's probably worth clarifying that like we're at the point of the show because it's open on Tuesday. Yeah. Today's Wednesday. But people will hear like Sunday. So when you go to booths tomorrow and talk to people, they're all going to hate you. Yeah. Because they've been here. They've been here. They don't want to be here anymore, and you're going to be asking them a lot of questions about their products and stuff.

And they're not going to like that. No, you get like the unvarnished booth experience. You get the big from Samsung who are just like, I don't fucking kidding. Also, I think tomorrow you do get the general public. Is it really they allowed that? Yeah, so it's two days, I think, of sort of media and sort of controlled access. And then it opens up to the public. And then you get to see the technology fans.

Yeah, the people who want to be at CES is terrified. His identity is fans of technology and a lot of that. Just technology as a concept. Like anything. Like the Roblo NFL has. Right, exactly. That's what I was going to say. It's just like, I love robots, all kinds of robots.

Actually, the robot is cool. If only that was what CES was. Well, like, the version of robots here is just being like, it's a thing that it mows your lawn and it also cleans your pool. It is $7,000. Right, yes. But so this is the bit that I'm kind of, because this felt like everyone I saw today,

and then also everyone I saw on the street when I was walking around, like, they just leave the lanyard on. Yeah. Like, it's not a thing where they, I mean, it's like, no one wants to, I guess maybe they don't want to send the message, like, I'm here to party. They're like, no, I'm here to. Yeah, so they want to send the message that they're at a conference. Right.

I'm here. Right. No fun, please. I do like the people with the lanyard and then the people with the big plastic cups. Like that contrast is a beautiful thing. Yeah. And so the idea of those people being together that there's going to be like someone that's got like a thing on that's just like, you know, like, Shenzhen Zendro.

robotic corp. And then there's also just another guy that's wearing like a Tebow Broncos jersey. Autistic and ready to bow. But what's great is you are actually describing what happens tomorrow, which is, Thursday is the day when Vegas and CES truly combined. Because it's the general public, but it's also the people that come to Vegas on Thursdays. And they are a rich tapestry of people. They are a beautiful creation. Sadly, the football season is over because had this happened, have we had like the Chargers Raiders game. You've got like a team and I say this as Raiders fan. I don't know if there are Raiders fans who listen to this podcast, but it gets better for other teams. Now, I wish the Raiders fans and the various transient fan bases that come in greater number than Raiders fans here,

I wish they'd have met, but really just people coming to Vegas in like the first working week of January meeting with the people made to come here due to job is it's going to be great. You're going to see a very special kind of Vegas. I can't wait to hear. I had a nice experience of just kind of like drifting by the sports book earlier today. And it's still. Which one? The Asian one? Yeah, just the one because I was, you know, wandering around the floor. There's a lot of, you know, this is, again, hadn't eaten very much. There's like a bunch of really name brand Italian restaurants in this hotel. Unfortunately, there's also 80,000 people attending this conference. So it wasn't like, you can't walk into Jalina and be like, I'd love to eat at the bar.

You can tell them that And they'll be like, that's great. A lot of people would love to eat at the bar. So would I. Yeah. But the sports book area was like, that felt like a CES free zone. Yeah. The only things that you can watch right now are like,

it's Big Ten conference play basketball. It's like USC and Maryland. Yeah. And also, there is not a single person going to the consumer electronic show who can do anything to any of the guys in the sports book who are there. Specific, like the day traders. the ones were like, okay, NCAA men's football. I've got my mortgage payment for this month on this one.

You come and talk to him about the computer, he will punch through you. He'll do a fist on the North Star thing on you. A robot that cleans your pool, doesn't that beat all? Unfortunately, if Bowling Green doesn't score 71 points in this Ohio Valley conference game. Is it really possible for a person to really fully be both a sports fan and a technology fan? I feel like, at the end of the... I am that. Yeah, yeah.

I love baseball. You identify as a technology fan. I'm doing a baseball prospectus column about the Mets. You don't know. Oh, really? Yeah, I probably should have told you. Getting a place in New York. Anyway, we need to talk.

Yeah, no, that I know. Okay, cool. But no, it is possible because they actually both have some similarities, obsession with weird numbers, obsession with weird guys. And in general, a complete lack of progress, despite it's seeming like there should be one. Right, the more sophisticated it gets, somehow also the dumber and worse it gets.

Yeah, actually that makes sense. But also the problem is they start in very different neighborhoods. It's very rare that someone who's a big tech person, and you start that usually because you haven't got any other options. And then there's the sports people who usually get into that because they can move at speed or do things with their hands. Those are two different points. I only came there because I'm magnificent. But it is a very different thing. Nevertheless, one of the reasons I brought David here was,

I believe it's a similar... I think the skill set for sports journalism applies very well to tech for that reason. Well, certainly it depends on what kind of version. Because I think that's an interesting question of like, can you be a fan of both? And I think that... I am a sports fan.

You know, I don't know that I would say that I'm like a technology fan, but I am... I find both of them interesting in the same sort of ways because they all sort of like point back to the same human aspirations and then also like frailties, bloopers, so on and so forth.

But being interested in something and being a fan to the extent that that is the defining characteristic of your personality. Oh, okay. These are different. And I think that's the bit that I wanted to kind of like try to figure out because I think there's people that are fans of like... What is a fan of technology? Go to the show tomorrow and people, you will see them. That's what I'm... You will hear the things that they say and they're not the things that normal people say.

That's something that I've been kind of like struggling with again from my like, you know, everybody, that is online or that reads too much or, you know, cares too much about too many stupid things or whatever. Like, I have had to think about technology a lot like everybody else. And yet, like, the thing that was interesting to me about the, like, the Adrian Ditman saga, for instance. I don't know. I know that there are people that are, like, not just, you know, that they think that Elon Musk is a cool guy or they like that he's, you know, dedicated to finally telling the truth. about minorities. But I think that there's also something to it

where there's people that like are fans of him the way that like people yelling like, it's in the whole when like Tiger Woods hits the ball. Like people that are fans at that level. Where they basically are like, they've removed a lot of the higher level stuff from their brain and they're just cavemen at this point. Just explain the Adrian Dittman thing if you don't know.

Don't do it. There is no explanation. Can you? There is a guy. who sounds just like Elon Musk and appears to have all his beliefs and talk exactly like and then occasionally say he is Elon Musk

who is not Elon Musk he is potentially a weird strangely jacked German man and this account is called Adrian Dittman and I don't even know what to believe anymore but nevertheless it appears that it's just a strange man like a Walloigi situation apparently Waluigi is not actually like related to Wario

like he's just a weird guy that met Wario. Again, I'm not saying Wario correctly. Someone's going to fucking say that and I have to deal with the piss. These are related things though. What you're talking about, about Tesla fan, right? So I feel like a lot of people who are sort of recently coming to this, Elon Musk is a bad guy, kind of coming in with the sort of political, you know, approach to it. What you've missed was many, many, many years of this incredible online movement. And like, I followed it very closer because I had never seen anything like it in cars. Like it's just people are passionate about cars.

People like when the bailout was happening, I was sort of my first story. And people would be like, you hate General Motors and we're General Motors family. And like there was some of that stuff. But this was totally different because it, you know, it was the seed of the personal cult of Elon Musk. But then there were all of these sorts of like techno, ideological sort of neo-modernist, you know, kind of ideology that was just sort of. of all wrapped into it. And what was interesting is that it really pulled together people from

both sides of, that was really interesting to me. Both sides of the sort of culture war and sort of partisan divide in the country could find things about that that they liked. And it wasn't until Elon Musk decided to pick one side or the other that all of a sudden people were like, holy shit. And so like, so if you go to like Tesla subredits, for example, now. Yeah, no, I know, what normal person would. But you don't, you don't see, you don't see this old time religion anymore. The only place you really see it online is the SpaceX ones. The space people are kind of like insular and they, they don't, like politics don't touch them. Like they just ignore, it doesn't matter to them. But, but with the Tesla one, we've just exited this really

fascinating period where, you know, this cult, and again, it's not just a cult, it was a stock pumping thing. And there's all these damage, I won't go into all the details of it. But, but the important thing was like there was this moment where people woke up and, and realize, wait, holy, holy shit. I have a trans kid and I just supported like one of the biggest trans people. Like not just supported. Went online every single day, found anybody making any criticisms of Tesla and spending all day attacking them. Like I endured like years and years and years of just this like relentless. And like they would take shifts and it would come in waves and a new guy would decide this was going to be his thing.

And he'd build his little crew and go out wrecking. Like a whole lot of stuff happened online. And, you know, people shouldn't have paid attention to it. But it's really important context. because it shows that, like, the dynamics that people can point to as being bad in a partisan sense, they fall prey to them when you strip away that partisan framework that allows you, that gives you that sort of, like, moral, you know, compass. But the thing I've noticed about these kind of techno enthusiasts is they don't seem to enjoy the computer.

They don't like the computer. They don't have any joy out of even a faster phone or a new graphics card. This is actually a problem I have with the technique. So what's the appeal, then? Is it a stock price thing? It is, I think what it is, is it's an identity thing. It's like the game- That's another type of sports fandom, too.

It's basically GM stand stuff. I think it's- Where you're like excited when your team gets under the salary cap? Wait, but is there a- No, no, no, I think what it is, is the, it's an identity thing. It's when GamerGate and things of that nature happened, what I know. And I've been a gamer since, like, way too yet, like 10. And I love gaming.

I fucking, I, in my darkest times, I play like Hades or something. And I just put a few hours and I genuinely feel better. It's like engaged in my mind. It makes me feel some industry. I think a lot of people listening to this feel the same way about games. And then there are people who were just like, well, gaming was my fucking thing. And now the women's are in it. And now the wokeness is in it.

Because they don't really give a shit about the actual gaming. It's just an identity thing for them. It's just this is a thing that made me special. And now someone else is weighing in. I don't really believe in anything. Yep. And so there are people who are Tesla stands who I just think are just like, wow, it's my it's a sports team it's a i don't even watch the games i go on esPN and i click on the box

score and then i actually there's a great tweet about this where it's just like going on esPN and looking at the box score and arguing with people which is funny but i think these people are like well Elon Musk is the kind of guy i want to feel i want to be like that guy i want to stand from like nothing but be very angry and rich all the time and believe in nothing because Elon Musk seems completely fucking joyless yeah this is a half-formed thought and it may be bad but um this never stopped me me so i guess you know you would think like

fandom of a a tech company you're an apple fanboy or Tesla fanboy and they've been around a while yeah analogous to uh sports team fanboyism but then there's Elon Musk fanboyism

or Steve Jobs' fan is that's a person is there an equivalent to that in sports like are people fanboying out over a person yeah i mean To a certain extent. Although I think that it depends. I mean, I think that like there's individual sports. Yes, there are people that like, I mean,

one of the things that I remember being struck by when I, we go to the US Open most summers when we can figure out how to do it. When Roger Federer was still playing, that there's like a hat that you can wear that just has RF on it, like an interlocking like the Dodgers logo. And they're just like people that they're basically wearing like a Roger Federer, like just Roger Federer pajamas to the Roger Federer match. Or he's not even playing,

but they're wearing their Roger Federer. hat because they just, that's when they think of tennis, they think of Roger Federer. It's like I saw a guy in a Cowboys jersey at a Raiders game. Yeah. Cowboys were not playing. Yes. And that is, I mean, that's a classic Cowboys fan move to. Well, I mean, not in the sense that like.

They just kind of show up and loud. Yeah, you're correct in assessing that as being like a fucked up thing to do. But it is also, yeah, but it is also, it's Cowboys fan stuff. But I think that that's an interesting distinction because the idea of being like, there's all these different ways to be stupid about sports, right? that there's like, and a lot of it does sort of have its own political valence even if it doesn't

fully land. Like you know that one of the things I've been thinking about this because the college football playoffs are going on that the SEC conference, which you know, you know, like is in the southeast of the United States. So it's like kind of these like super

red states with a college football as a big part of their identity. Oftentimes these are states that don't have professional teams in them. And it was a thing for a while, less the case this year, because the SEC weirdly had a super shit year and is basically like done for the college football season. Great.

Where if like, if Alabama was beating Illinois, fans would not, and Alabama fans were there, they would not necessarily do a Bama related chant. They would chant SEC, which is basically like their way of being like, you're getting your asses kicked right now by a state that is like, Republican trifecta in the legislature like Tommy Tuberville is our senator

like that's the bit that I feel like there is like an identity politics aspect of it where they're lording it over it like it is a regional thing is there a red versus blue like tech company divide oh that's a good one now it's red versus darker red I think so no there was a point when I think people thought Apple was the nice one

and they are by comparison now which is not a good thing I think Facebook is the one that weirdly people thought was blue but was redder than all of them combined. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just a Google, Google was the nice one for a while. They did the, it gets better thing. Yeah. And now they do it gets worse.

And I gather they were also like all in their way like culturally, like it was like they were good employers. They were inclusive or whatever. And it really is were. Yeah. But I think it's still pretending. I mean, I think so fandom, it gives you it sort of like

personality prosthetic, right? Then a sense of community. And I think those are like universal across most fandoms. I think what tech offered. And I just use Tesla as the example of that. And it may not be as broadly, you know. But what it gave, what it added to that basic fandom package was two things. There is, there was a growing social capital to be gained from being someone who could speak confidently about like this is what the future is going to be.

And like Elon Musk gives the patron saint of that, right? He's shown how much power just doing that has. Even resembling him. Yeah. And people realized all they had to do was copy, just repeat what he said and say it with the same confidence. And people would be like, whoa, this guy knows what he's talking about. And, you know, Elon Musk said so.

And you get a couple of other little facile arguments to go along with that. The third thing, and this, I'm curious if this is maybe where these things are converging. The other thing is the stock thing, right? where you could buy the stock and then now you have financial incentive to go out and proselytize and attack people, critics, pump the thing, you know, repeat the narrative.

And I wonder if gambling and like the rise of gambling is is maybe starting to add that into the sportsman. I think there's an aspect of that. I think the bit that is interesting to me about when you were talking about how like once you are a Tesla like

stockholder, that like the idea that that is functionally now like a meme stock with Elon as the load-bearing meme at the center of it and the fact that the cars are, you know, decreasing in quality and maybe also decreasing in popularity and sales. Yeah. It kind of doesn't matter that like if the stock stays high, you're doing all right. But in that case, it's like you're actually, in some ways, like when you're going out there

and, you know, spending your leisure time being a fucking online shooter for Elon Musk, you're also advocating for yourself in some ways. Like, that's your portfolio. In the really early days of what we're talking about, we're talking about, you're talking about, talking about this Tesla online sort of phenomenon, there was really one website, a forum, an old school forum that we all know and love, that was really, so it was the main Tesla Motors Club, and it was like kind of the main one. There was a subreddit, but it started out really small. This was the place. And a lot of the website, you know, they were like, talk about the company,

talk about Elon, you know, and then as cars came out, you know, and the ownership was sort of the main part of the thing of the site, at least if you look at, you know, the list of all the subforums. And so people were on there and they wanted an open exchange of information because they had problems with their cars and they wanted to understand them and what the fix was and what Tesla was doing about him. And that was the main activity of this community. It was helping each other out and as consumers. Now, there was another, a subform of this that was the Tesla investors subforum. And that was, it looked small. It looks like one little thing. But you went there and it was so, so, so active. And it had its own radicalizing

internally like radicalizing culture. And then there was this key point where I and others started to write stories based on the other part of the, where it's owners wanting this free exchange of information and saying, we have this problem. Tesla's not really dealing with it. Did that bring them into conflict with the investors where they were like, can you just keep that in-house? Exactly what happened.

Oh, man. And it's a fascinating thing because Tesla became this fandom that bridged not just like sort of political partisan, but like on a fundamental, level, the divide between capital, like between management and consumer, right? As a consumer, you want certain things. If you're a fan of, you want the product to be good, you want certain things. As an investor, you want other things, right? You want the quality to be as low as possible and the margins is high, and that comes at the expense of the consumer. You don't necessarily mind if the product is good, but it's not as important to you as the other. So these two

parts of the relationship of any company came into conflict because it had to be one community. and Capital One. And I think it's a really interesting thing. And this is why Tesla became, it went from a company, is one of the reasons, that it went from being a company that was sort of rooted in

really trying to surprise and delight customer. Like that was a really fundamental thing. Over time, you've seen the cynical, the cynical stock pumping part of it has just completely consumed. And like people who were like, who were fans of the company

are like, wait, where is the stuff that I was a fan of? And it's because that relationship was, they want Capital One and the consumer loss. So this is why, sorry, so this is why you have people who's like cars have blown up and then they do the interview and they're like, I still love Elon Musto. Yeah, that's exactly right. That all goes back to that.

And that's where they diverge from sports fans. Well, to a certain extent though, because I think that that still is the kind of thing where there's like an element of that where like there's different ways to be a fan of a team, right? But that I think that there is this aspect over it's like Auburn loses by five touchdowns to Florida. Right. And it's like, you want to fire the coach, but at the same time, you're not like, I'm given up. Like, war eagle no more. Like, no, it's the sort of thing where, like, that's when you do the, like, the super psychotic fan stuff where it's like, well, now I'm going to poison some plants on their canvas. Or like the Kobe Bryant, like, I'm willing to overlook some stuff. Yes, exactly. Can I say one bit, though, too, because I, and you made an interesting point about the gambling aspect of it that I wanted to speak on, because I think that that has, both of you were talking. about it, I guess, but the

idea of like, gambling as a type of fandom, I think, is like way more... There's like a way for... If you're a fan of a team, right? Like, you're giving some bit of your leisure time as a person to this thing that you can't control.

It's not a smart decision. Nobody does it because it's smart. You know, you do it because it's fun and because it's like kind of like a way to fill other spots in your life that might otherwise be quiet, noise, which is reasonable. Like, what are, what are any of us doing? Who is listening to this that is not doing that? But there is also this other part of it, where it's like, it's an emotional commitment. It's like, it's a thing about caring. And I think that gambling to me feels more,

uh, like, for one thing, you are, the people that are doing that, I think it is more of like what you were talking about in terms of the, like, the Tesla investors part of the forum, where is basically like it and everyone that gambles on sports pretty much everybody loses the people that are professionals the people that are down in the sports book like if they're really really really good they still lose 46% of the time or whatever you know and the people that are just flushing $300 down the draft king's app every sunday are not good at it but they're like that aspect of it is not it's the opposite of fandom to me of course if you're ESPN or you're the or your NFL you know,

executives, their money spends the same. It doesn't really matter. If they're watching, they're watching. If they care, they care. Like,

and, you know, the money that you're getting from your partnerships with Draft Kings and stuff, that also spends the same. But I think it's the opposite of fandom in,

like, in an emotional sense. That it is like, it's not just transactional, but that it is sort of taking all of the stuff that you would have cared about in this sort of more communal way

and making it about, yourself, your experience of it. And that like, and that, like, goes, and that, you know, I think there's a whole sort of like newish thread of that in the culture that has been enabled by technology, not just in terms of being able to gamble on your phone, but that's, to me, that's cryptocurrency speculation. It's the same mindset. I think they all come back to a fundamental point, which is a lack of control that we all feel over our lives. The idea that we can now gamble, like, anywhere. And we're going to have a refus on from a 60-minute drill. my podcast on football, which I've never talked about. They love this. So it's this thing of like,

oh, I can have some control over my destiny. I can now gamble like the gamblers in the same way that people use the e-trade and then lost a shit ton of money. So we go to sports books. The idea of opening sports books up at this scale, the only thing worse than it is the thing that Robin Hood did, which was opening up the idea of options trading to everyone. But I think it activates the same thing where it's this desperation for control in the least control in a way in a situation where you're being obviously controlled in the same way those odds are so precisely calculated in the same way that like whatever pricing you're getting on options is going to be calculated by the hedge funds that are extra millimeters closer to the stock exchange that they can activate that trade and it is like it's the

opposite to fandom you don't give a shit about these companies you give a shit about money and go up and you feel like you have control because you're smart and you're allied with the right side. But they're not selling it as gamble because you like money. And this is like a pretty critical thing. They're presenting it as a way and mind. It's like, I've been looking at ads actually around.

There's so many sports gambling ads. Yeah, that's going to say. And they're all sort of like, you're watching sports anyway. You enjoy this anyway. Yeah. Enjoy it just a little more. Get closer to the experience.

It's a little enhancement to your fan. And yeah, it's an enhancement to the core fan experience. And what I think is, in common here with the Tesla thing is that Tesla's whole pitch was these contradictions can all work together, right? Not just the consumers

and investors are both going to benefit at no cost to each other, right? There's no trade-off there. But then also, like, you know, venture capital can fund environmental transformation. And there's no trade-offs there. You know, government doesn't have to get involved. I think it's not getting too complex. I think it's just invest in the future. With both of them. The lesson

out of all of it is that people desperately want to believe that you can have your cake and need to that fundamental tradeoffs aren't. And in both of these cases, the tradeoff that always wins is the money. Whatever it is that you think you can reconcile with some kind of financial incentive, over time, it's like drugs or something else. Like over time, the financial incentive, not with everybody, but like over the aggregate, it wins. And that's what we've seen with Tesla.

And it's being framed as freedom, though. It's like you can do this. You're already doing sports watching. Why not make sports money? Just make it a little better. Right. It's a hustle. And you won't lose anything.

And that's what you identify. I think you do lose something. But I think the overarching theme of both is, it is selling you the idea of a con, that you will have industry over something, that you are actively being controlled. And you are being fucked with, and you're like,

I'm fucking back. And you're not. You use the draft king's code. There is not a better offline one. I'm terrified of gambling. Yeah. Well, the aspect of it, too, that is like the other bit of it

that it seems like inimical to like the fun part of being a fan is that like when you see, people talk about it, like that the, or generally like the discourse surrounding like gambling is that it makes

you like sports less because you're liking them in this different way, because you're participating in this. And this is something that I, you know, we have a couple of stories out at the fact of being written, not written yet, that are basically about like the way that athletes absorb

this new sort of obsession with gambling. Like opening that up has and by making it possible for people to, you know, whatever, put money on whatever, like somebody getting more or less than one and a half assists in an NBA game, like just building a parlay around the performances of bench players. In some ways, like, you know, like obviously technologically, I suppose it's a feat to make this possible because you used to have to literally come to Las Vegas to do that sort of thing. Traditionally call those boundaries.

Yes. And then, but what's weird about it now is that like by sort of putting, in play everybody and every game in all of these different ways. There's a lot of people that, you know, like you're a professional athlete, like you're a public figure anyway.

Like people are going to recognize you just because you're like taller and more buff than anybody else in the, you know, a restaurant that you're in. But there's a lot of these dudes that like otherwise would be more or less getting left alone that are just sort of like

when you miss that free throw, you fuck me out of $2,500. And I'm coming to your house and I'm going to push your kids around. And like, that's happening to like, people in like minor leakers Tom Hackamer, you were on the staff cast recently, they told me he had friends

that had that experience happen to him in spring training games in baseball because you get like the real degenerates can bet on stuff like that. And there's probably like a shame barrier when you had to come, even if you could come to the casino, like you wouldn't roll up and be like, yeah, put this parlay with Blake Quorum

and Samaj P. Ryan. Yeah, exactly. What are you doing? And then when they fuck up, you're like, somebody knows bull. Yeah, but then you're like Google. like where does Samaji Pryan live? Like how fine? You know, like that's not like at this point.

It's like you can find them online. You place the bet online. Like you can do all you do like three or four totally sociopathic things from your couch. And if you are looking to do one of those, we will have some advertisers after this. But David, where can people find you? Defector.com. The website. The distraction podcast also affiliated with Defector. Mate, you're going to be saying that a lot on this trip. I can't wait. I would not get exhausted. You were just at the beginning. Ed Niedermeyer, where can they find you? Niedermeier.io and the Atonikas.com. Mr. Newman. Go to Jaredneumann.com and sign up for my newsletters.

Go to Google. Type in ways to give Ed Zichron money and then click every link. There isn't actually anything. Type in Blake Corum House Photos. I want to see the AI summary of that one. Okay, so just to be clear, playing Madden, I've been feeding the draft classes in. I always take like Corum. But also, Trey Benson was way better, and it'll, anyway, I need to stop this right now.

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your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of of I Heart Women's Sports. Okay, so we've now returned to the third section of this part of the podcast, and it's important to add I have started to experience CES brain myself, which means that I'm just thinking because Jared said it, the phrase Google Juice. So just think and say that for a while. We're of course enjoyed, Jesus Christ.

We're once again joined. We're enjoined. Just keep it, Matt. I'm sorry. By Edward on Grasso, Jr. we now have three ads on one podcast. Not good. We're growing more powerful by the goal.

Any other ads at CES? You won't just join us. Let's Voltron. Let's go. Ed Voltron. Jesus. You should do an oops all-edged segment. Is that a reference to something like?

Oh, you know, like in the crunchberries. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, okay. Yeah, somebody. Someone's going to email this to me. I'm going to look bad. David Roth of Defecter who's joining us. And of course, Ed Niedemeyer, the car expert.

Hello, my man loves wheels. Jared Newman, freelance journalist, tech journalist. I love being here. Advisor. Oh, thank you for calling that out. You could have also, when I asked you what you do. Now... Sorry.

I mean, I'm sorry for you. Let's be honest. But the reason I bring up CES brain is because there is something very conclusive about the consumer electronics show. And part of the reasons I did. this other than the fact that I love podcasting is because there is a defined effect of this show. And it doesn't matter whether you've been here 100 times or two times or no times. You experience the same thing because there is just something about this place where you come in

and you're there ostensibly for something real and then you go onto a show floor where most of it isn't or might be. And you think, wow, all that latent potential. But if you've been here enough times, you know that isn't potential. just lies. This may not be what you're talking about at all. Yeah, it's fine. But like, you know, in swimming, there's like the thing where you, like, you know, you

train with, like, heavy stuff on. Right. Like broccoli in the room. Yeah. And then you, like, you like, shear all of that and, like, shave all your, don't ask me how he knows. You know, and you feel like you're like in the, in the clear. Okay.

But when I, on this podcast and when we've hung out after, you know, later in CS and previous, You know, I'm not really a big partier or I don't even drink caffeine during the show. And then I come here and I have a drink that Phil is made with Blackblooded the Earth. And it's like the, I guess it's like the opposite. The opposite of what? Of like preparing for a meat and like tapering down and being ready to. It's like making yourself feel worse. No, no.

Okay. This actually leads to it. Does this make sense? I don't know. No, no, it does. There is also something very. like self-harmie about CES in the sense that like last year last time I was at CES I always find a playlist to like drive myself insane now this year was just like trapped's headstrong but there was

one year where I went and all I listened to for hours on the LVCC floor was um party rock anthem by LMFAO and other world from the Final Fantasy 10 soundtrack that's when you fight Jeked anyone any listeners you love Final Fantasy 10 you are trying to dissociate I, yeah, I don't really tend to associate when I get here, so just like, it's just the pain begins. But I think that there's just something weird about the show, and I realize I've now described at length just the way I terrorize myself. We're just coming here, you're not, like, you're there for a job, but you're surrounded by shit where, like, people are like, my job is kind of lying. My job is kind of suggesting I might do something, but, eh. So I actually, what I like about, say, I'll put the positive spin on this.

What I like about CS, the value I get out of it is that, like, Like when you do, if what you're trying to do is discern between what might be real and what might not be in technology, right, in emerging tech, you don't have a lot to go on. You're dealing with companies that control information like crazy. Yeah. And that's what you need to go on. On the internet, they have so much control over that. It's what, you know, when you come here, you have an opportunity to exercise like your human faculties of like in person, right? you get the vibe of like companies and people and things.

And to me, because a lot of times that's all you have to go on. Like, that's a dirty secret. Yeah. And you have to like develop this skill of just like, does this, do these people,

how they talk about the product, how they talk about the company, how they talk about their plans. Is this feel like something that's like real smart people? And like the more you talk to people, the more you engage with stuff, the more you talk to, again, both the smart people and the frauds.

You have to talk to the frauds. You have to engage with them. You have to look at them. And in a lot of ways, coming here for me is the only way to actually exercise and develop this, this ability to, like, kind of intuitively discern. And again, it's horrifying that journalism kind of depends on that in a fundamental way in this. But I don't feel like CES covers this in that way, though.

The coverage is so rarely reflects that, that kind of situation. There's just like, here's the 10 fucking things I saw at CES. There's the AI fridge and the other AI fridge and the bachelor dishwasher. But it's basically impossible to just show up. look at this thing and say yet, like you have to really develop this skill over time, right? It's training data. Well, you're just collecting training data. It doesn't mean you can immediately say this is real, this isn't.

You have to build it up over time. There's a weird thing where, you know, especially if you're press and you're going to see, you know, an exhibit or something and somebody will talk to you about the product. And there's always this like moment where you're trying to figure out like, okay, was this a person that was paid to be at the booth and was told a bunch of stuff? or is it a marketing person or is it a product person? And you're on the spectrum of like how much does this person actually know about the product? And can we have a real conversation versus like you're feeding me bullshit for 15 minutes?

I'm also curious for you guys who have been here times before. Do you feel like there's any correlation between the boundaries of hype and technical capabilities? Like do you think that if you're coming in here, expecting and seeing, a lot of it is hype, a lot of it is bullshit, that a lot of that is inspired by people looking at tech that we have now and hoping that they can have some sort of application later, and then the boundaries of that hype grow as the technical capacity you could conceivably fib grows,

or are these like delusions or hype or narratives that persist independent of what actually is developing? Yeah. Oh, boy. I think it kind of gets to, like what I was saying earlier, about being pulled in both directions, right? Because it's like my job being here is to, like, try to ignore that stuff, which there's a ton of.

We didn't really talk about it. But, like, I feel like it's like AI gaslighting here. Please elaborate. Yeah. Because, like, everybody is, like, saying AI, but then you go and, like, look at the demonstrations, and it's nothing. Like it's just

It's stuff that hasn't been delivered Like, okay, I'll give a specific example, like Intel, right? They had a big thing last year about AIPC. AIPC, we're putting natural language or natural processing units in PCs. We're going to have all these like local on-device

AI. It's going to enable all these like low latency, amazing private applications that you couldn't do with AI in the cloud. It's going to be amazing. That was last year. And now I come back this year and they're like still talking about AIPC, but nothing has changed. It's all the same, like, there's no applications yet. And I was like, what, what, what have you been doing? And it's like that when you go everywhere, like, you go to

Samsung's booth and they're talking about AI and TVs and AI and this and that. And it's like, not really anything. And it's definitely, like, half of it is not like LLM generative AI, which is supposed to be the big thing. It's just AI slapped onto regular algorithms that they've been using. And so it's just like very disorienting to try to figure out what is, what is, What is real AI? And there's just really hasn't been that much of it when you get down to it. That's been my experience of AI in general from the outside of it where there's like it just because you do hear it a lot. Like AI gaslighting I think is like the condition of the American consumer in this particular moment.

And yet at the same time there's something about like when you see it in like in an ad, you know, where they're telling you that's like also it has AI or it's like, you know, common walking around like telling you about like, you know, it's like it's out our finger. tips now. AI is, so that's great. We got that going for us. Whatever. Any of that shit, like, I discount it because I don't think that I've seen an application of it that works or does anything cool. But then I've also never been in a position where someone has to like, like, another person who's like in a human body that's in the same space as me has to like look me in the face and be like, and it has AI in it. And that makes it better. And so that part of it is like, I'm kind of looking forward to that aspect of it tomorrow.

Please talk to everyone. Much of what I saw on the floor here was like inventions, you know, or it was somebody just being like, it's a COVID test, but it only takes 10 minutes to tell you the results instead of 15 or whatever, you know, all, which is like, to me, that shit's cool. Like, I think it's great to invent stuff. It's not exciting, but. I mean, it's exciting to me in the sense, but it's like, just in, you know, like, again, like, I'm far enough outside of it that it's like, it feels less like tech and more like

you made a thing and you want to try to. to sell it, which, you know, that's neat. But then the, I, but I haven't been to, like, the Intel room or, like, the big, like, Amazon Hall or whatever. I'll give you another example. Well, one thing, I must say something that happened to me. So regular listeners might know about something called the Smiling Man. If you look up Google. It's not real. He can't hurt you. So I, when I got my CES badge done, I put the Smiling Man on it because they'll let you put anything on it. And while walking into the Amazon room, the woman who's doing,

in the security goes, wow, so hot. Which if you look up this image is not an appropriate reaction. Was that not what you were going for? I don't know what the hell I was going for that image, mate. Anyway, that happened to me. I had a PR person tell me I was

extremely fancy. I don't even understand how to parse that. You were in your giant... I'm wearing what I'm wearing now. You're asking them like a bunch of questions. They're like, hey, you are fancy. I didn't know. I was talking to a fancy guy.

This tech is not elegant. You get these like weird other worldly interactions, you know, interactions. It's hard to. And Jared, you look great, but you're also in like a light blue button down on like blue jeans.

Yeah, you're wearing the blogger uniform. That's how I dress. That's what it was. It was the blogger. And I don't think it was even like a remark on my clothes. I think it was,

I don't even know what it was. You're like twirling a cigarette in your fingers. What was the example you were going to give them about? Yeah, sorry. Oh, Yeah, okay. So like Lenovo, right? Like every other PC vendor, like all their stuff is like AI.

And you go to their booth and like they're showing you their new computers. But on the new computers is like these half-baked like on-device AI applications. Cool. That are right, not cool. No, no. But the computers are cool as hell. They have a laptop where the screen like rolls out to become a larger. Which is so much cooler than AI.

That's cool. Like why. And then you're talking about AI. like talk about how cool your screen is. Like that should be the focus. That's like a totally reasonable conflict for me. I mean, obviously you're much more expert in this stuff than me. But to me it's like you made a thing that is cool that didn't exist before.

Yeah. Like why do you feel compelled also or even to lead with this thing that is like it's not vaporware because it like is, you know, you burn an acre of old growth forest every time you generate an image of like wario's pussy. It's like, that's real, you know? Like, but. Oriole's pussy is real. It's very real. It can hurt you. I didn't try it at the booth, so I don't know if that's what they're letting you do.

I just, to me, though, it's like that bit of it. We're moving on. We're moving on from Woossey. No one's saying Wussy. This is a serious podcast and I have a serious question. You want to have any remarks on? Put that into the prop. So what we've been talking about CES brain.

and I think one of the things that we have to make sure that we let people know in case, because clearly like there's some symptoms on display here. I've done ACES, like never broken like this before. The thing that's important for people to understand, it's not just we've been talking to the absurdity and the weirdness and like trying to figure out what's real and what's not. And like a fundamental part that colors all of that is just the physical exhaustion bit. That's what makes that stuff all so hard.

Yeah. And I'll tell you, you get a unique perspective on this. And I think is really like an interesting way to think about the whole show. if you cover mobility. Because you come here every year and you hear all these... Fuck, you move. Brand new things about how the way we get around

is all going to fundamentally change. And like those things are different all the time. Sometimes, you know, micro- little electric bikes are the thing and sometimes it's autonomous cars and sometimes driver assistance. And, you know, it's always different. It's all these different things.

Everyone is promising that this technology is going to fundamentally change how you get around. And yet every time you come here, it's getting around, getting around Vegas periods. It sucks. On the Vegas strip, there are three separate rail lines, none of which are connected. Yeah. Just on the Vegas, just on a few blocks of the Vegas strip.

And really, for me, like, the lesson, and it's a really important one I think for CES is that, like, this whole thing is this festival of stuff that's promising to fix things. And yet, the structural issues are what matter. This is all stuff that doesn't address the structural issue. The only way to make getting around Las Vegas easier is to fix how it is on a structural level. is a car place. You go to the city center. I love the city center on the Vegas strip. They built this thing that's supposed to look like a little downtown.

And there is no way as a pedestrian to engage with it. Go check it out. It's probably like the aria and the cosmopolitan are. It's this amazing like American symbol of a city where visually it's there and it looks cool. But it's all these like things so cars can go down to the parking lot. It's a city for cars. And again, like we were talking about what's real and what's bullshit and that's all fascinating. at the end of the day, like, it's kind of all bullshit compared to, like, how we really experience things comes down to structural things that tech a lot of times.

Sometimes it can change it in fundamental ways, but 99.9% of the time, it's just some little layer on top of these. Well, it can't be, like, enough individual product experiences and engagements that suddenly makes a city, you know, like pedestrian-friendly or capable of, or makes it, you know, possible for you to get around a city without a car or whatever. Like, that's a state level intervention. That's not the sort of thing where, like, if you give everybody an e-bike, suddenly Las Vegas makes sense if you're not in a car. But also, none of this matters because Vegas is functioning exactly as it needs to, which is in much like the tech industry. You're trapped within the product and you'll follow its fucking rules. Which is why this is the place where we've pioneered the, you know, most innovative and transformative form of public mass transit, which is human-driven Tesla's in a tunnel. Yeah.

where you need to have like three people at the station to make sure that when the drivers pull up they're not running over people when I was in that. Have you guys, if you haven't experienced that, go, oh,

oh, no, no, no, do 100% absolutely. David, I actually need you both to go, please. Yeah, yeah. How do you do it from here? It's for free. Yeah,

no, it's, like, resorts world or like around the, but look for the stations and go anywhere, go anywhere and then come back, but just experience it because it's so stupid. And it's such a classic example of like, of technology, you know what it?

Yeah. I think what you're kind of like hitting on is in technology, like this fundamental frustration that I have, and probably other people knows as well, is like, you know, everybody's going after like the flashy, like AI, for example, like the thing that attracts shareholder excitement or whatever, but there's all these like structural things.

Like I want to pay less for cloud storage. Like I don't want every photo I take to hold me hostage. Somebody should figure out how to like, compete with Google Photos or whatever. Or even have like hardware storage. Yeah, like nobody's nobody's doing the unglamorous shit that needs to be fixed because

there's this other shiny thing in the corner. The rock corn bubble is the fact that they need everything to grow it at all costs and they're running out of them so they're getting crazier. And for many years you would come here and people, the pitch from a lot of these mobility technology kind of companies would be we are going to

move past the car. We're going to unlock. It was this weird, you know, this weird moment where tech and sort of progressive urbanist aspirations, there seems to be some alignment around it. And the reality is, is cars are a structural thing. And that, again, like, when the more tech solutionism, right, tries to tackle structural things, the more it's sort of revealed to the lack of power. Like, we're surrounded by so much technological power, but you see sometimes the limits of that. But this is actually the principal dichotomy of better offline itself, which is that you have companies that ostensibly sell the idea that they're

fixing problems, but fixing actual problems might make them less profitable. And they certainly won't if they start fixing those problems grow forever. So CES, yeah, CS is selling the hype. And I think for, and I say this, for CES was 2011. So back then, you could kind of with a straight face, believe it. You could think the tech industry was going to fix some shit, right? Maybe there were more cynical people back then, but back then, at least in the media, I was a bit of PR baby at the time, you just were like, oh no, the tech industry will work out. It was the early days of Facebook. You're like, they're not completely evil. You just didn't know at that point. And I think that CES has never really graduated from it. It hasn't really tried to adjust to the fact that I think

more people are like, I don't know about the tech people. And I have to wonder how CES changes as a result. Yeah, there's a, there's a weird disconnect between. like the image that CES puts forth and like what you have to then go and try to find as a journalist covering it. So what it's putting forth is basically like here's the future, this is what it's going to look like. Is that the idea? Ideally. Do you remember, well, I don't know if you're going to say it or a lot,

the CES slogan was all on? I don't remember that. Okay, so the CES slogan last year was all on, which I guess is a play on all in. And like all the imagery that they had was like extremely obvious AI faces. Oh yeah. That's so fun. All of the things now are AI. And so like that set the tone, right?

Like there's this obviously like unhinged thing that they're putting forth and then you have to go and find things to actually be maybe excited about but that are not that. I don't know. It's over the years just dodging just the made up shit and before you would just accept more of it. I don't know. Well, that's what I'm trying to sort of figure out how, because again, I haven't been to, Edward, you went to the convention center today, right? Yeah.

So you saw the weird stuff. I mean, yeah, it was... Is this your first go-round, too? This is my first one, too. And the convention center was filled with a lot of things that exist already without AI, but you had people assuring you that they've reached a new level because of the AI. There's more. Yeah.

You've unlocked its potential. And I think, like you were saying, I was actually kind of struck by that because when I was in, the Expo, like you said, there were a lot of gizmos, and they were talking about AI, but they wouldn't actually focus on AI like they were in the convention center. They would actually be like, you know, here's a problem. Like even that CGM thing, which, you know, which we talked about, which it doesn't work. Which was that one? This was the, well, they said it was not a CGM.

It was a healthcare management device. Continuous glucose mod. Yeah, continuous. Continuous glucose monitor. I could not say a word. Great stuff. So it monitors glucose. It's also supposed to monitor other metabolic indexes for you based off shining infrared on your skin.

Right. And here that's an interesting development because it's not invasive. And you can use it ostensibly to monitor things that you might actually have to get a medical device. You might have to get something more invasive to monitor. but then you, you know, you dig a little bit, and then you get the other problematic features. Oh, we're going to, you know, we're privacy oriented and we're rewards oriented. So we're going to put it on the blockchain and we're going to tell your insurance company everything. And how does that difference from the main show, though, the main LVCC?

So at the LVCC, it felt like it was less like here is a bit of an improvement or like an issue that we want to offer an innovative fix for whether or not you agree with the fix. And here is this thing that you have that probably works, but with AI you can access substantially more potential. It's more craving. That's a function of, you know, LVCC, especially Central Hall being like, that's where the big companies are, right, LG, Samsung, whatever. Whereas, you know, Venetian is kind of these smaller companies.

And so, and South Hall, even to some extent, this is very CES, I'm sorry. No, it's true. I'm interesting. There's north the central. It's useful for me, man. I should explain this hours into the CES coverage. So there are two areas.

There's the Venetian Expo, which is connected to the Venetian and Las Vegas Convention Hall. And there is the central north and south hall. Excellent time to explain that at the end of like the fourth hour. Anyway, Tara, please continue. Yeah.

So, you know, you have big companies like Samsung and LG that are trying to show that they are doing something big and flashy. Because what they really have is like our OLED display. is like a bit brighter than it was last year, which again, I think is cool. Like that makes more difference to me

than this like AI stuff that they're throwing on top. But that's the stuff that they have to, you know, focus on to get. So why is that? I guess. Like this is, maybe that's a naive question. But is that like basically, because I feel like if you are pointing this at consumers and you're basically like, we solve the dog door. It's better now. It's never going to let it.

like, you know, a raccoon or like, whatever. Like, you know how you keep having like beavers from the neighborhood let themselves into your kitchen? You ever notice that? No. No. Yeah. It's worth clarifying.

Like, this show, despite being called like consumer electronics show, it's not for consumers, right? That's what I was going to say. The primary purpose of the show historically, that's probably true now, still, is for buyers of technology for retailers to go around and see what they want to put, you know, how much they want to buy of a TV or a whatever to figure out what they're going to stock this year. And so...

But even in that case, wouldn't... If it's for those people, wouldn't the selling point be the OLED screen is a little bit brighter? He's left one important detail out, which is it's also for conning journalists. Yes. No, I was going to get to that. Oh, sorry. Pardon me.

Continue them. No, yeah. So I mean, I think in both cases, it's kind of like, that's a more attractive story to tell, especially if you're not, you know, it's hard at CES and a lot of people aren't looking at stuff super deep, right? And so they want just the easy story. And so easy story is like, look at the AI we're putting into our TV versus like we made our TV a little brighter. It's just not as attractive if you're not really like paying super close attention. But also, it's very hard to write an exciting story about something. and getting slightly better. That really... I think that's what I'm trying to say, but you'll say it better. That makes sense.

Because if the idea is that you're trying to generate some sort of heat around a product, the idea of like... There's just something strange about that. I mean, I guess we're probably going to wind up returning to this often. Oh, we will. The next few days that, like,

because AI is not real... Yeah. Like, in a meaningful way. I'll accept that. Yeah. That, like, the idea that you have to... In order to make this an... interesting story, you have to be like, not only is it a better screen than it was last year,

something that we had, like, actual... Something that helps you. Yes. Something that, like, improves your experience. Not only is that, but also we added... It's a whole new way to consume television. Yes. When it's not.

You get it in your home, and you're like, I'm glad it's a brighter. So there's two things. Your intuition that, like, this stuff is not... Like, stuff that consumers are screaming for... So there's two factors. One is that, you know, post Steve Jobs, everyone... is obsessed with this idea of like people don't know what they want until you show it to them.

That is a huge factor in a lot of these things. The other thing though, you're right, like a lot of this stuff isn't for consumers in a fundamental way in that a lot of this is performance for investors. That's the bit that I was curious about. Your AI is for like, you're showing out for like

the quarter zip, the VCIAs. Because they're the ones that care about that. Patagonia provost. You're showing you're on trend. You're showing like there's this almost like theater often of like how you position yourself relative to your competitors they have a little booth you have a big booth like there's there's all of these sorts of things and a lot of them are about especially for the kind of earlier stage companies and like which which happened more in the

in the hype cycles right so like you saw this a lot in like you know evs and avies and stuff like these tiny little companies had no revenue no business but they had these massive massive things it wasn't for consumers because they didn't have anything to sell consumers but they're there and they were years away from having something it's for investors I think also... It makes sense with EVs, too, because it's like, it's fucking hard to make a car. It's also about attracting partners from the ecosystem. I think also, like, just to put a finer, maybe a little more specificity with AI, like, AI tends to demo well.

So if you are a buyer or investor or a journalist, like, you look at these things and they show you for two minutes the canned demos that they have. And you're like, oh, wow, this is really, this is interesting. I mean, it's only when you actually... Like the way that Elon's robot can, like, pop and lock. Yeah, exactly. It's a jewel between two parties that don't really understand. It's only when you try to use it in a regular way that you're like, oh, this doesn't actually work.

I feel like we're entering this, like, nexus of what happens when you spend 10 fucking years in the tech industry building it for people who won't use it by people who don't care? And so you're at this point where it's just like selling nothing to nothing. I always had this thing with Google Home, Google Nests, whatever device. Where I felt like nobody at Google was using. No, the Google Home app is like an Escher painting. It's like, oh, I need to go... Like Sundar Peach High doesn't use those?

No, he doesn't... None of these people do. I just... And it's funny, we keep... We've done hours of this now. And it really keeps coming back to this theme of just everyone going, what is this shit? Yeah.

You don't know what it is. As somebody who's like really just... I read about it, but I don't consume a lot of this stuff. Right. Our apartment is effectively in 2005 and probably always will be. But there's a lot of the... I remember this, especially with a lot of the, like, the metaverse stuff on Facebook. Uh-huh.

Where there's a part of it where, you know, like, Zuck coming on with his fucking perm, being like, would you ever want to attend a meeting on your computer? And it's like, I do it all the time, dude. It sucks ass. But also, like, yeah, it's, like, totally possible. Like, I don't need to be, like, a plush bear when I do it. You know? A legless bear.

But there is, right. A legless, kind of, like, weirdly sad-looking, like, sorrowful eyes. 30 minutes at Freddy's. But to me with that, it's like, so where did you get this idea? Because I don't know what, like, Mark Zuckerberg's life is very different from mine, obviously. No, no, it's someone making up what they think happens. It really is that simple. They're just like, what the fucking people do?

People have jobs, right? They've got cats? So that means meetings. Yes, what happens at job? If you're a CEO of a multi-trillion dollar company, meetings. right if you don't do any real work that's what you think work is so you jokerize on meetings as a CEO and then you're like what if I just became a bear yeah it's also important

this is why it's important to pay like the attendees are as much a part of the show as as the exhibitors and and it's because they like listen to what people say listen to it it's really fascinating because there is this core around you know of people who around this tech business who are like conditioned and part of their identity is to assume that anything new that they see at CES is good and better and something that they can buy and then get social capital out of saying, you know, I have this and you don't, I'm on the cutting edge, I'm more on the cutting edge and you are. Like this is a really important part of our culture now, is technology.

And what's fascinating here is, you know, we were talking earlier about how the vibe is changing around tech, right? Like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, like attitudes towards this were very different. there still are these people who are stuck in that old like sort of tech is all unconditionally good it's all progress it's all making things better and you'll see you're just going to be there tomorrow they're just going to be like wow

these people are there's a lot of cyber trucks in the parking lot so we're sadly at the end now we're letting you go listeners Jared Newman where can people find you go to Jaredneumann.com slash newsletters and I will give you some great tech advice all the time Mr. Niedemeyer where can people find you

Niedermeyer.io and the Atonicaast. Mr. Rangrazo, Jr. Techbubble.substack.com. And then Big Blackjack have been on Instagram, I mean, not on Instagram, on Blue Sky and Twitter. Mr. Roth. Defector.com is the website. Distraction is the podcast.

I do with that. It's Christmas Town is the Hallmark podcast. And I'm also, David J. Roth on Blue Sky. I should actually check how that's punctuated. Hang on. everybody's gonna love this this is the good stuff hold on just a moment i have to get my phone out i have to think of like a slightly sardonic way to refer to myself so that's yeah david jroth b skyd social um that's that's how you can go into google take the biggest idiot in tech and i

pop up not really i'm the smartest man in tech ed zitron i'm the first person to wear aviators and cover technology you've been listening to a podcast i'll be apologizing for for a while But you'll be thanking me. Thanks for listening, everyone. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Mattosowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattisowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-S-K-I.com.

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