Better Offline - The State of Tech Journalism with Kylie Robison and Mike Isaac

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

In the second live-to-tape episode of Better Offlive, Ed Zitron is joined in-studio by the New York Times' Mike Isaac and The Verge's Kylie Robison to discuss the current state of tech journalism. KYLIE: https://x.com/kyliebytes https://www.threads.net/@kylie.robison MIKE: https://x.com/MikeIsaac https://www.threads.net/@mike_isaac?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/mike_isaac Newsletter: wheresyoured.at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/betteroffline Discord chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials - http://www.twitter.com/edzitron  instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/zitron.bsky.social https://www.threads.net/@edzitronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Than me. Hello and welcome to Better Off Line. This is the second episode of Better Off Live, the live to tape show that I do whenever I travel, and I pick up wonderful people. Like my good friend, Mike Isaac from the New York Times, who joins me today, and of course Kylie Robeson,

the one for Kylie Robeson from The Verge. Thank you both for coming. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you. And today is, and I'm definitely checking the date on my phone, Friday the 19th of July, so nothing big has happened today

other than everything breaking. So, for those of you listening, this is likely going to come out after the Crowdstrike episode. I had to write the moment I got back from breakfast until the moment I left for this episode. And there will be a full explainer there. I'm not going to do this. And again, this will be after it, so I don't know why I'm even saying that. But we're in a weird time in the tech industry. It feels like we are watching, at least I think, the end of the world on some level.

We're watching the institutional failures that are just creating more and more problems. and then also we're watching Open AI on the other side just like every two days, but yeah, there's five levels of reasoning. And we are on number one, which is just a very annoying chat bot that sometimes knows things. And level two will be when it's a smart computer

and then level five, it's smartest computer of all time. Or without like an actual product people really care about. It just feels strange. I feel weird right now. And I'm pretty weird anyway. I'm just waiting for them to be

useful. Does that make sense? I don't know. Like it feels very I mean you tell me like we're like super steeped in it but like it feels very like everyone has decided this is the thing we have to build or this is the thing we're moving towards and like the utility of it almost comes later like they're sort of like ahead of themselves. It's so strange. I'm surprised but I am also steeped in it and I try to get my friends to use it to see if it's helpful. My civil engineer

partner has started using it for seismic projects, which is very, very niche thing, but obviously it's not accurate yet. No. Whatever. That's the thing, though. They keep saying, well, it hallucinates now, but it won't in the future. And then you say why, and they go, oh, sorry, how even, and they go,

well, we will get to that after I answer this phone call in another room. It's always like five miles down the road. Because watching the last few years with the Metaverse and and all this. This is kind of beginning to look like. I realize there's a product.

I know, but I remember back in like 2021, 2021, 2022, there were these roadmaps you'd get. You'd get the roadmap for like the board ape yacht club, and it would be like, the first thing would be whatever they launched. I know you're a big investor. I'm kidding. Please don't trash.

No, that's a joke. Just to be clear, New York Times editorial board. I hope they don't listen. That's a joke. If they do, it's my joke. You'd have these roadmats. It would be like, yeah, step one, we release the apes. Step two, we will have a special chat room for the apes. Step eight, of course.

Step one, release the apes is really fucking good. You can swear all you fucking one. This is a cuss-filled podcast. You can say fucking shit in all the words. But on the road. And then step eight would be like a real life club in Miami for apes. And I'm actually being serious. That is on the road map. And they've promised this like metaverse where you can play as your apes in the computer. and all of that seems more real than steps two through five of the open AI reasoning thing. Right.

But it's almost, like, to your point, it's like everyone is just committed to this bit now. I feel like, for me, a lot of the time when I'm thinking about it, just feels like constant fomo across the industry and like always keeping your eye on like what your competitors are doing. And like part of this I think may be legitimate

because of people are always like, oh, we missed the smart. phone, right? Or we missed like the next platform play that we shouldn't have and that's instructive. And because Google really cares about this, we should too. And like with self-driving, if you remember, like everyone was all in on self-driving cars and all these companies spun up and they're all like falling out. And it just, I don't know, like maybe there's some sort of, there's, there is a logic to it, but to me it just feels like a cart before the horse a lot of the time when when I'm trying to grasp like what are we

With generative? With gen. Yeah, that's a good distinction. Like, Gen. AI versus like AI being like, because AI is not also like not a new thing, right? Like it's not, you can't just speak about it as like, okay,

this is just happening. Me and Edward just talking about this, about the generative distinction. Yeah, I don't know. I do kind of buy the hype a little bit, I guess. I don't know. Oh, good. No, that's good.

We can push off each other. Um, Ed knows this, but, uh, did you guys see the lighter model? Do you guys have opinions about that? Oh, I do. You know, I don't have opinions. Um, what is that? Tell me, tell me five seconds. Oh, God. Uh, the lighter model is cheaper. Uh, they say it's smarter, but technically it's supposed to be, you know, less computing power for cheaper. So people can build whatever shit they want that they couldn't, because it was way more expensive with a larger, more capable model. And you don't need to like, build a shitty little bot with like a giant model anyway. You'll the shitty one with a little model. Exactly. Okay, I get the sense in that. Yeah, so, but they did that because, you know, all of these,

mistral just released a lighter, tinier model. Anthropic has a tiny model. Google has a tiny model, and people, developers are more likely to go to those models when they're going to build something. And Chad HPT did not have anything of the sort. So, yeah. So my biggest problem with that is everyone is racing to the bottom. And a race to the bottom is not traditionally something associated with good outcomes.

And so it is good that it's cheaper, whatever, but also this company is still not profitable. This company is still not particularly useful. And so you've got this situation where everyone's like, well, on top of not being profitable and on top of not being super useful, we're also all having to make the thing cheaper that is not profitable. And it's just, and also that will surely increase usage, which will not fix the sustainability problem. It just feels like we're accelerating towards a wall in the tech industry and I feel a little bit crazy. No, I'm really interested in that. I mean, there's the, was it, $600 billion problem, right?

Yes. And then the trillion dollar Goldman Sachs prop. Yes, exactly. It does feel that way that it's just like, let's just keep dumping money into this thing that it's not useful now. We hope it'll be useful in the future, you know. It all just feels kind of disingenuous as well because they're not even dumping $600 million into AI. Because Google has had AI initiatives. In fact, Google deliberately avoided the Metaverse.

Yeah. Incredible, one move by Sundar. Well done, mate. But they've been piling money into AI for like over a decade. Like, over a decade. Very long time. But like this is the one you put the money into? Like this is, this is your king.

And it's just, it's just utterly confusing as well. But I also think it puts the tech media in this really weird position. Yeah. Where I get, and I'm not putting anyone on blast, including you. It's like, I get why people have to. say humor this. Yeah. Oh, I get, yep. I get why people have to say like, oh yeah, the five magical layers of reasoning.

Even though the logic with the, and by the way, for the listeners, I'm just skipping over a thing you should, I should have told you about. There was a story that came out in Bloomberg and it was saying Open AI now has five levels of steps towards, of artificial intelligence towards super intelligence. And step one is like chatbot. Step two is like agents. Agents. And it's just very vague. And the story from Bloomberg was like completely flat face. She's like, yep, this is perfectly reasonable.

But the logic is, it's like saying, I'm a man and I'm on step one of becoming Spider-Man. Right, right. And it's just, I get why we have to. And my, Max Cheney from Royers, sorry, Max, well, actually, Max Rocks. He put it to me quite well, and he was saying it's, Open AI is important, though. We have to cover them, even, and I mean, what are you going to do?

Just say, this is bullshit. And he's right. Yeah. And Bloomberg, especially like, and even, like the times as well. It's not like your opinion, right? It's Kyle, you can get a bit into the opinion. And I did. And we talked about it as well. Also in your

GPT-40 mini piece, you even talk about the problems associated with it. But it's weird. It's this weird situation where what happens if this is all bullshit? What happens now? And it's been like three cycles of bullshit.

Kirto's instructive, I think, there. But I totally agree with you that it it sort of becomes a self-fulfilling, or like it becomes like weighty because of the attention it gets and it gets more attention because of that. I do think that like there is a way of covering it and hopefully a way that media learned from a lot of the bubble around crypto, a lot of the bubble around, I think self-driving again is like another instructive case just because like everything was five years away for 20 years basically. and I think it's like I think you're right I think we're stuck in like a dilemma of you can't ignore it because more like all like half of VC is going into AI right now like literally like those are the numbers and so so you have to follow yeah what was it in time? I need to read my own paper but I really don't read my own paper but but so you can't ignore the money but at the same time I do think you can you can at least introduce a level of of which I hope we're getting better at which is like okay this is like a thing everyone thinks it's the thing but like can we please take the temperature down a little bit and I do think that like Goldman Sachs and Sequoia notes that you were referencing which

pour at least some cold water on it is getting there is moving us towards that I let the Sequoia one though because he's just like yeah it's no real problem being solved it's super expensive and yeah but you know I still think it's good and it's just the way you gotta talk your book There was a great bit in it as well where he was saying, like, yeah, the new B-100 processes from Nvidia, they're like 25% better, but only like 25% more expensive. It's not like he's saying, look, more efficient because that's, if Nvidia came up with something, which Jensen Huang is incapable of doing, that was more power efficient rather than more powerful, that would actually be significant. Because, look, I would hate to do this. I would be so mad. I just want to be clear. If I'm wrong about generative AI, I will. look like such a bell end.

I'm going to look like the biggest twat in all the world. Everyone's going to laugh at me. I'm going to point. Everyone's going to be like, you fucking idiot. But I'm not wrong. And I'll disappear if I am. But it's just all of these things keep coming out. And it feels like, because to your point, sure, the media got taken by crypto and the

metaverse, I don't think they're not being taken. I think you two are, you do, you guys, you're doing the right thing. I hope. Because we're in front of mics. I'm just giving the room. I'm just giving the finger. No, but also I wouldn't have brought you on here if I didn't. Totally.

Otherwise, I would just be like in trouble. Fuck this guy. You fucking idiot. But it's, it feels like the rest of the media is kind of flubbing it as well. Because there is a level in, but if you do this, so it's good, there's a lack of context with any of this shit.

The sheer amount of money this costs. And the way that people look at the tech industry outside of tech, is souring so badly because of this, because it's kind of like politics. It's people are souring because the media, in the chasing objectivity, becomes even more subjective. Because when you don't subjectively apply reasoning

to Open AI, for example, you end up in this weird situation where it's like you're actually just parroting their talking points. Yeah, it's really important to have that distinction. And this is a really good advice that I got from one of my favorite podcast hosts is that you should write about what they're doing today and not what they're saying they're going to do later. And I think that's a really important distinction

and really, really hard because most of the conversations you're having with them is stuff what you're going to be doing with this technology, not really stuff we're doing today. Most of today is kind of boring research, safety mechanisms that they're deploying and very tiny, tiny, tiny little steps to the large language model, but it's not like, we're going to solve the climate crisis and also destroy the climate and physics.

Yeah, it's wild. I feel like some of the problem around coverage, and I don't think everyone does this, but I think like this is all happening at the same time, the media is getting destroyed. Yes, yes. And so like institutional knowledge goes out the door a long time. Like, I feel like, I mean, just speaking for myself, I feel lucky that I've had a tech job for 14 years or covering tech for 14 years. So like still like a drop in the bucket as far as like the history of the valley. like, I've been through a few of these cycles so I can at least rattle off shit that I know,

like, from whatever. And I feel like when Google is no longer servicing news in the same way it is, Facebook has pulled out of news completely, like, it's killing everyone but the, like, really big players and even the really big players are getting hit. So I think it's just like, it's not, there are a few things going on there, I guess is what I would say. Do we think that the perplexity incident changed anything? So the perplexity incident for listeners is perplexity AI is an AI powered it's this oh no I have to I have to explain these my partner was yeah yeah I was gonna say I have wonderful listeners who are not in the tech industry and trying to learn from me your mistake not mine uh so the perplexity AI they're a

company that lets you search using the power of AI when they first announced everyone's like shit this is Google's dinner being eaten in front of them wow and the latest thing they did was they do article summaries which is just otherwise known as stealing and they ripped an entire Forbes article, believe it was from. Yeah, Sarah. Yeah. And it was... Sarah Emerson.

Yep. Fantastic writer. Seriously, like, Forbes has got its problems with Sarah fucking rocks. But... Tech desk is great. And so you had this thing where it would generate this story. And just rip it off. And they ripped off the Forbes story.

And then when Forbes complained, it John Pachowski is it? Yeah, John. And he just ripped them publicly. And so perplexity's answer was to add citations at the top to four or five places that had aggregated, the film story. And it's just like, this is the thing, I do not understand why the tech media

is not more antagonistic to these people because fucking hell. Come on, man. Don't steal my shit. You've already been doing it. And it feels at this point like some of the tech media are kind of like trying to kick that football, Charlie Brown.

Like, oh yeah, they won't screw us over this time. And then they do. And it's even worse than before. I don't know if it's like a level of complacency, though. It's just like, I don't know. It just seems like people are so tired and everyone's getting fired and things are, we're so over. You know, we're so cooked. It's like, it's like, what do we do?

We've never been so bad. So I feel like that's a bit of it as well. At least that's what it feels like to me is people are like, this sucks. I don't know what to do. Also, what's weird as well is everyone's acting like tech isn't fun anymore. And it isn't when you look at what's in the tech media now. There is, I'll stand this to, to Max Zheff from TechCrunch. Yeah.

Lovely fellow. Used to be a Gizmodo. I was talking to him about this. And it's like, tech is this industry when you look at it that combines the best of sports journalism, financial journalism, entertainment journalism, and gossip. There's all sorts of weird freaks, strange little weirders. Like Sam Altman in this weird broken house. He's like, I don't know why my house is so shitty.

Pouring like shit into the yard around. A coyote. So just for the list of this, by the way, Sam Altman is currently suing the people who sold him a house. They did no diligence on as well. Yeah, because he did no inspection. And like a coyote took up resident. in his backyard. His pool

flooded his house. He's like, I can't believe I lost money as he drives like a $5 million ugly-ass car. I like the coyote. Oh yeah, I didn't even know. I've never even heard of that car

in my life. Did you see it? I mean, I saw the tweet. I'm not saying anyone should do this, but if someone let out the tires, it'd be very funny. No comment.

No, no, no. I'm not saying anyone should do it, but if it happened unrelated to me, especially legally speaking, take a picture. Easy, a better offline com email me the page. Ed did say he was busy this weekend so that makes sense.

Yeah yeah. Yeah. It's definitely not just hanging out with my friend and drinking a bunch of beers. But the thing is like that is great gossip journalism. Like that's just fun. Like who gives a shit? Kate Natopoulos at BI has done a really good job at this as well. Like there's so much fun in this industry. I just bought this weird little thing called a GPD Win 4 and it's like a thousand dollar little computer. It looks like a PlayStation Vita. You can run Windows on it. It's playing Diablo 4 on it. that shit's fun and you've got this weird crap being made in China no we can't possibly touch it can't possibly we've got to talk about sam ointman's magic broken API thing kind of sucks and it's just

I think that tech journalists touch a lot of I mean I think that's like a narrow vision of what we're talking about it's the most popular stuff I don't even know if it's the most written about though it feels like we've gotten away from the time when we talked about the fun shit yeah when it took because it's like the money isn't there and I think that that really is it like The money, to your point earlier, Mike, we have to cover Open AI to some extent because even if they are building nothing, they're taking a lot of money to do so. And they're making potentially $100 billion deals with Microsoft to build a supercomputer. But it feels like the funds just kind of got, like we're not enjoying.

Everyone I talk to is kind of just like, to your point, kind of like, tired. Yeah. And everything's so on fun. Like, I think that I would like it if Open AI actually did what they claimed they were doing. That would be interesting. I don't want jobs to go away, but I'd love, like, the computer to be smart. I'd love my phone to work sometimes. Apple intelligence.

Tim Cooked. And he, um... Tim Cooked. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but I was an episode title. They all love it. But it's just, it's frustrating because there is real joy and really interesting shit, like, even in the Valley. But it feels like there's less journalists in San Francisco these days. They still are here, but there's not as many.

It's not like 2014, 2050. when you had weird indie go-go freaks and hackathons, which are still happening, but they're not getting the attention. I wonder why that is. I think, I don't know, the people in San Francisco, the journalists, I know.

I have like a 20, 25 people deep group chat, just young tech journalists. Well, not all tech, but journalists in San Francisco. 25 people in one chat? Yeah, whatever the upper bound is. Wait, was like an SMS or like a Slack. Holy fuck, that's too many. It's just a bunch of young people.

There you go. But they exist. I think they're still figuring it out. And, you know, but not. to plug my own company, but it's the reason I went to The Verge is because it's just like, will you pay me to write weird shit? And that's all they do. I mean, they just did a bunch of posts on Legos the other day. Like they rocks. Yeah. Oh, that was good. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Yeah. I literally this morning in my work slack, I was like, I sort of miss blogging. Like, it was very, it's very, yeah. Just let me, just let me say whatever. And they do. Like, I can really just go at it with any. I love blogging. It's why I got. into tech reporting so you know i feel like that is actually tech salvation hmm it's blogging save the bloggers i'm like 90% serious because it's the thing i wrote today which will become a script and you're going to read it and then you're going to hear it you'd be like the newsletter and the podcast was similar and you fucking do an episode anyway but writing that up and being able to go at it and i've realized

i'm in a different position to you too but it's like opinion journalism even just even if the opinion is I like it and it's good. Something, some life. All things digital, where Mike used to... Oh, man. There was some good shit there. And some great riots came out of there. Kepka.

Kafka's good at BIA. Kafka's a beast. And once again, I'll apologize. Peter Kaffka, I miss read one of your stories and made a snarky tweet. You have my ass forever. Rats. You've got to give them, where you're wrong? But that's the thing.

It feels like tech has got so rigid and it's turned into almost different aberrations of Bloomberg type things. But then you'll occasionally get something out of the journal that's very prescient, where it's like the training data one. It just doesn't feel like tech journalism is given the freedom it needs to actually deal with the tech industry. Totally. I haven't had that experience of writing analysis until I came to The Verge. It was kind of beaten out of me in a sense is that you're really not supposed to have an opinion. You're really supposed to be, you know, just very, very neutral. And then I found a lot of the people who follow my work really liked when I said what I thought about a specific topic, which is, I know silly and kind of a given for many people, but I think it's valuable, you know.

Did you come up in traditional orgs? I started at BI. So that was, I was a software developer culture reporter. So it was like, this software developer built this project and they're doing this. Which was so fun. But then it was like Scoop City, Peloton stuff. So that's very, you know. And then it just, and then I came to Fortune and then it was all Twitter,

Fortune magazine. So it was all Twitter reporting. The implosion. The implosion X Twitter. And so then that wasn't so fun. I mean, it was really fun as a journalist. And then the audience is like, I'm really tired of hearing about this, honestly. So, yeah, now I get to do more of the, like, analysis stuff.

Just what sticks out to me is when you really take a step back, This entire industry is just, what did Sam Altman get up to today? Oh, my goodness. And he had a bit of that with WWDC. You had people taking a photo of him, and then he did nothing, which is I love that Tim Cook humiliated him. God, I didn't see it.

No, no, no, he didn't say anything about him. Sam Alton was there and everyone was posting pictures of Sam Alton. And then no mention of Sam. Everyone said he's going to get up and say. Tim Cook just... Tim's a boss, man. And there was a picture of Eddie Q talking to Sam Mortman, and it looked like he was kind of ripping him.

It was great. I'm sure it was like a normal conversation, but I'd like to believe he was like, you got your own. I said sit at the back, Samuel. I have heard more of the, it's actually really interesting because like there was this period of like,

let's, I mean, this is in my head, but I feel like there was the like heyday of tech where it was like guys in hoodies and everyone was like, ooh, this is aspirational. Then we went through like a correction of like more accountability, journalism and like everyone's going after X company

or what. whatever and like I think that exists to some degree now still in a big way but I also feel like there's maybe a push from some folks with the sentiment that you're giving which is like can we is there like fun or interesting or aspirational things that we can write about or think about again that we miss hearing about which I've been I've been thinking about a lot more it's like it's weird like to like historically I feel like I've done a lot more of the like critical stuff but I like there are interesting things going on that maybe we could focus on their or but but it's also not like an either or you know like I still feel like you can do both of those things it's just

figuring out who can do that and who wants to do that maybe totally and it's advice that so both kiley and i share the same mentor the wonderful matt weimberger who I'm seeing off to this my my le the guy sensei the bloggers love you and one of the things he said to me and I'm sure he's to you is people come to you for your voice and it's true and it sucks because you have so many people like you mike i'm not saying anything's wrong with the times but it's not like your style comes through there is i mean it's like a house style yeah i have to sort of yeah but also you're an interesting fucking fella and it doesn't get to come through and far had man we need far had back i think back through mike's tweets for sure oh far had he did the thing about men

not washing their asses and i was like god that was such a good one i didn't see this oh my god So this guy Farhead Manchu, if you've not heard of him. He is a writer who is at Slate, he was at the New York Times. And he would just, a lot of his articles are just him going, hmm. Yeah, yeah. What's it? Kind of like the American Adrian Chiles. Yeah.

Oh, Adrian Chiles. Yeah, yeah, the British guy who writes in Sting. He just writes like, I have a urinal in my house and my guests are upset. But that's kind of what Farhad did. Yeah. And kind of what Katie Nautopoulos is doing business inside. Yeah. And I swear to God, that is what.

where tech finds its salvation because all of this financialization of everything is just fucking boring I'm sorry I will do I do my episodes about it but I'm pissed off for many reasons at all times but a lot of it is cutting through the financial stuff to say what's actually happening why did Google search get worse

it wasn't because like the computer got unplugged it's because of organizational issues why does that happen it's a cultural issue it's the push of management but it's when you incentivize an entire system to growth of all costs blah blah blah blah everyone's heard those rants but the actual fun is the weird shit being built. It doesn't have to be

perfect. When I had Alex Cranston the Verge for an episode, the very first better off live, she was talking about these gaming, like the GPD WM4, these weird gaming things and she was like, it's kind of shit, but I love them. I feel like that is tech to me more than anything. It's these weird

quirky things. Like the first gadget I ever really on was like a creative nomad. CD player sized MP3 player. Wait, it was that huge chunky. I had that too because it was like a fat piece of shit, but it could hold 5,000 So good. And 5,000 at the time is incredible.

Yeah, yeah. God, I love that. And it's weird. It's like, tech doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to do something. But the tech industry right now feels like, it's not perfect, but it's also not good. Totally. It's just, we need to get back. We need crunch gear back.

Crunch gear. Crunch gear was the tech crunch. Oh, they did the gadget thing. Yeah. Evan Coldaway, legend. Me in Canada about a month and a half ago. Legend. Just write about any old shit.

And it's fun and it's interesting. I feel like, I will say that Bloomberg, when it comes to financial coverage, it's actually excellent. Sure. And also, Ed Ludlow is, for Bloomberg TV,

surprisingly, he is everywhere. Yeah. But it's, I feel like we lean less financial journalism. Sure. We don't, and also,

no one's getting anything. It's not like people, this is not putting anyone on blast here specifically, but no one's getting an actual scoop about Open AI right now. Yeah, all the, like, real meaty stuff has kind of,

I mean, well, I think they have a lot at stake because everyone's sort of locked down and shut up because it's, And they're making a lot of money. Yeah, exactly.

Like, why would they, they talk shit when they're going to make a tonne? But open AI isn't. I don't know. But I think the verticals, the reason, so I actually, I think about this a lot is, like, how can we, how does coverage, like, change? Or how can, like, big companies or big institutions, like, mine or, like, whatever, like, do that. And, like, a lot of it is down to, okay, a business desk needs a beat reporter for X, Y, and Z companies, because this is how. you is how you do it or this is how we do it. And like it's a business desk. So it has to have like some form of financial angle. But at the same time like over the past few years, uh, are we doing

more accountability stuff? Or does this have nothing to do with the business? You know? And like a lot of the times it can feel very just sort of confused to me confused on what the, what is the mission here? Are we saying this is a bad business because it's not making money? Are we saying it's a bad company because it's bad for the world in X, Y, or Z way, you know? And the stories kind of feel schizophrenic or, like, at odds with one another. And, like, I don't know. I don't know if that's a, you have to define that. And then, like, just also, like, I can just speak for the Times. It's, like, very, like, this is what a reporter is versus a opinion person. And, like, coming from, like, blog land, I have less, uh, I like blurring those lines a little bit more, but I also work

here so it's one of those things you know yeah fortune was very much like that where it's a very specific tone and we had discussed this before and um at the verge it really is i mean like i just i barely get edited it's just whatever i'm writing at any given time which is fun because it feels like a personal thing and that's why uh mea sato for example yeah she rocks why she has been the one person getting sceo right mia open invite to the show fantastic look up mea sato the verge because she is one of the only people who actually got sceo right yeah and she got it right like a year before everyone else, including myself. Totally.

Like, she whipped my ass on that one. I've had to cite her work so much. And it's great. That's because of the open remit of The Verge. Now, I have my critiques of the Verge. I'm not going to bring up today because it would be shitty to do you. Do it in the next episode. Come in, L.A.

bite me up. But that kind of open format reminds me of all things digital, which, for listeners who didn't know, it was like kind of a predecessor to the Wall Street Journal's tech desk. And Kara Swisher, who I will rip to shit on another episode. is pretty good at mentorship, though, and team building. She was great at talent spotting. She helped me a lot.

And that's the thing. I don't want Kara a lot, and I'll continue to do so. Come on the show, Kara. Let's work this out. That would be great, actually. I would love to you guys. I would love to see that, actually. She's not responded to my email for some of it.

I can't imagine why. But the one thing she did was she can't let you guys go loose. And that's why you had, like, Jason Delray, who was one of the best e-commerce reporters. At Fortune, though. He's at Fortune now? Fantastic news. I didn't actually know that.

Yeah. And you, Mike, you got your start there. Oh, yeah. Javsky, I believe, as well. Look, Patrick's, yep. Was it, he's a great guy. Can't remember. No, it was, uh, yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense. Um, yeah. But you have, Inna, Inna, Freed. Yeah, she was a fantastic writer. Ena rocks. Early, one of the best mobile reporters. And also Kara Swisher was there.

And, but what made that good was, it was kind of messy. Oh, yeah. People just went, ah, some shit. And it was good. And it was actually at the right. time was not critical enough but I don't think that that was no one was critical at that time. I think that's right. I think that I think that I so yes. A. I think cares was really good at

I mean just take myself out of it. I think she was good at like she did this at recode later just like figure out who's hungry who is like not been around and jaded for long enough and wants to like hit it hard and then go out to them and like fortunately I was 23 at the time so I had more energy than I do now. But, or no, 25, fuck, I don't know. But, uh, maybe 25. But, um, uh, I, that is, I think about that a lot just in the like, actually, Kafka used to tell me this a lot, which was, he was like, in a lot of places, you're

asked to, like, do a story and then go get an analyst who can like, yeah, put like, pat quote in, you know, or whatever. And like, look, there's, there's, they can say a thing that, and sometimes when I call these people, they do give me actually, like, good or original insights. But, like, you can also just say what you think based on your expertise of the matter. And, like, assuming you know what you're talking about or whatever, just have done the reporting in the background to get to a point where you know where you're talking about, like, people respond to that, you know? And I think Twitter has been, like, my hack or workaround for a long time until before it, like, fucking

broke. But, like, I think that, yeah, that just sort of, I'm trying to think of like where that exists really now. I mean, besides what you guys do. All things decreated some like just monster reporters. And to hear that you guys got that kind of freedom really early on early in your career too to be like, dude, you know this. You spend all your time working on this. Like say what you think here.

And yeah. And I think these conditions also created. And I'm not saying it's anyone in the media's fault because it's not the media's job to stop them running shitty companies. But I believe that that period where, and it's like the really late 2010s, where the media just kind of was like, we trust these guys, right? And then we couldn't. Like, and I'm not even trying to be nihilistic to say,

you can't trust the single tech firm, but I don't know. I wouldn't have trust Mark Zuckerberg. He's a very damp-looking guy as well. But trusting these companies was a mistake, but also when the whole industry was trying to be enthusiastic, because it was fun. Mid-2010s were a lot of fun. I watched Silicon Valley recently and Kara's on that. It really stands up, by the way.

It's really good. I actually disagree. Oh, I thought it was so good. It was shocking. I watched it and all I could think, and this is because of the PR person, I watched it, went, this feels like people only like it because it's like, they're taking me seriously. Oh, TechCrunch Disruptors in it. That guy, that me for real.

They did the, yeah, yeah. They did. That was great. But that's the thing. I watched it, and I was just, I think I was just an early cynic. Yeah. Just like, fresh off my first divorce, just like, fuck these people. But it's...

Fresh off my first divorce. But also, it's funny because things have soured so quickly that I don't think anyone's had time to adjust. The irony is that I think, kind of to your points as well, the adjustment that was made to not trust these companies was to have less opinion. Yeah. That a lack of objectivity was what the problem was when actually I think we need more. I think we need more people, Peter Cathgar over at Business Insider, former All Things Digital, he has had some of the most prescient things. And Business Insider, I can't believe I'm saying this, and I do work there occasionally,

has somehow got ahead of everyone with the discourse columns. Oh yeah, totally. They're very good at that. But we need more. We need more of The Verge. We need more of this stuff. We need more 404. Oh, 4-4 rocks.

4-4 rocks, but also, come on, let the freaks out. Let the freaks out. Let them dogs out. You got cobbler over there, you got, you got coal, you got all these people who can have just the most rip-ass opinions. Yeah. There's also like this insane distrust in media as well, coupled with it. So like if you seem like you have an opinion or if you vote a certain way or anything, it's like, oh, well, they're just like a plant. I actually had someone ask me, I won't say who, I'll tell you guys after the podcast, but who asked me if I believe that there's like Chinese spies.

and media. I'm not even kidding. God damn. You guys definitely know who this is. But anyways. I actually don't have maybe an idea. Yeah. So.

Anyways, there's like this crazy distrust. And so when I was coming onto the scene, I'm like, okay, like, I don't want anyone to think that I'm going to. You're a Chinese spy. Jesus Christ. But, yeah, so I think it's really banged into you at that point. It's just like, okay, everyone kind of hates us and doesn't trust us. So why should we get to have an opinion? I do think there's some...

So I have to be careful anyways just because of where I work and because I will get a hand slap if I go too far. But like, so I kind of know where my internal line is, if that makes sense. But like, there is some element of strategy in holding back sometimes if I make... Sure.

If that makes sense. You don't have to say it. You can let the reader, like, show them, you know? Yeah. I understand what you're saying. I disagree. Yeah. Well, I just think that, like, look,

I think there's two ways, there's a few ways to go about just from a reporting sense. Like, I know reporters who are very outspoken of their point of view, and that works as a sourcing tactic, right? Like, they'll be like, okay, people will come to me because they really share. Oh, as a sourcing tactic, it makes sense. I'm not talking about the writing side. It's more like, uh, like for me, like just in reporting, I'm like, all right, I can get a range of folks if I'm, it's not really fence sitting, but I just, I, I have thoughts that I don't

always put out there if that makes sense and I think it works to an extent you know like but also there's different strategies I know guys who are just like yeah and whatever that's also a strategy yeah yeah totally it is but also I don't get any sources like it's not actually no right right right I get random people from Google being like you should hear the shit I'm like great what do with this but use it man yeah use it publish it now or send it our way yeah I have with other people and by the way, if I send you a story and you don't pick it up, some exceptions there, of course, I will remember. I'm not talking about anyone in this room, just to be clear.

But the thing is, I think that there is a kind of a fallacy there, which is if you don't have an opinion, if you're objective, people are still going to say you're not objective. They're still going to be like, well, reading between the lines here, what you think is, and like, no, I wrote this, I know what I think. yeah well why is it so this because of the editor and they're like well so they are also in the pocket of china or someone else and it's just it it almost feels like there's not enough solidarity between the tech media writ large but also on the editorial the higher editorial side there's

not really a back the fucking reporters forever right i do think that putting each we all are very competitive and like one thing that actually really bothers me is when companies use this to their advantage and like play us off of each other and like plant they know X person's about to write this so they're going to go to Y person and plant it and or like there's one person who I won't name who does this a lot and gets spun by a different company to go after reporter stories which is another great tactic that companies use but it it's to your thing about like the solidarity and press should be more of a thing also if someone is doing that Honestly, the best thing, and I know that no one would actually do this, but I'm a gremlin, so I would.

If I heard that happening, I would just tell everyone. But that's the way to stop that. But that's how it all works. I don't think it's just, it's not just one person. It's how it all works. Yeah, sure. Yeah. The oppositional stuff, it's difficult.

And I think that part of the reason I brought you in here was I kind of want the listeners to understand the chaos of this stuff and how multi-led the problems are that the media face in tech. Because it's such a weird time. And it's, you've got. a cronge under new management. You've got fortune under basically old business inside of people. A time? A fortune.

Time ink still owns fortune, right? Is that not even... Did they sell it? Let's get you have to date. But that's the thing. Listeners, this is important to know. These outlets are being bought and sold at random.

Benioff owns time now. And by the way, did you two read the time, and I'm doing air quotes, listeners. article about Ariana Huffington and Sam Orton's new health. I saw it. I didn't read it. No, how was that?

I'm assuming you really liked it. Charlie Warzal, I haven't finished the article, but he, like, lead paragraph. Have you read his read-up? I have. Okay. I'm sorry if you have opinions. I read, like, the first two paragraphs. It feels like he rips them.

Yeah. That was a good point. It's not an age. I have. Paper machete, I'm thinking of. But it's... Good article, and he also has a smart point about the belief. And I'll include links.

Don't worry, listeners, Jesus Christ. But the problem with that was he was in front of Sam Altman and asked him the limpest questions I've ever heard in my fucking life. Oh, they interviewed him. Yeah. Charlie, go for the fucking throat. Choking him out. Maybe he likes it.

I don't know. But it's this article, which was a press release. And I did- make it an exclusive or something? Yeah. It was just dog shit. It was a joint written between Ariana Huffington and Sam Altman. And the secret version of Channel.

that GBT that's even worse. And it just sucked. It was all of these made up things about how like AI and healthcare will interplay. Yeah. And it was a disappointing moment for me in the media though. Charlie did a great job. Yeah. Doing what he did.

And there was a guy at Slate also did a good job. But everyone was just, there was a bunch of other people just reporting this thing just blandly. Totally. And I don't think that people realize how terrible it is for trust with the media. Yeah. Because what a normal person. And I know, like I put a past my hair dresser and shit.

Like, I was like, look at this shit. And it was like, regular people like yeah this sounds fucking stupid yeah but this whole financialization of the tech media this whole situation where the money is kind of controlling things yeah

is just leading to this point where these things are going past and at some point I worry that we're going to have the equivalent of what's happened in politics I say this is someone who will stand to benefit if this happens so I apologize to everyone but the distrust in the media is going to come to tech and I think and we'll get to it

after the ad break coming up The whole thing with CrowdStrike, for example, everyone's kind of reporting what's happened, but not why. And I think the why is what people really need right now. Everyone's seen years, years of the tech industry kind of fall on its face and break its dick off and look terrible everywhere, while also being told these people are richer than ever while the products get worse. And I feel like we need as the industry, as the media industry, which I guess I'm kind of in. Right. You're fully in it. You have a podcast. I don't think people realize at some point a racist tech publication is going to pop up. Pirate Wires is not going to get beer because it's so poorly written. Do not read it. It's so bad unless you want to laugh.

And also turn on ad blocker. Don't subscribe. Don't give them any data. But at some point, this whole techno-fascist movement in tech, the whole techno-optimist, which just means fascist. When you're quoting Nickland, fuck you, Andreessen. That's my opinion, none of my guess. It just feels like we're in this point where tech media needs to grow up, grow up or just grow in a better direction

because otherwise there is going to be a competitor and it's going to be so much worse. I'm just worried. I'm just a bit worried about the consequences of the lack of trust in tech media. It's going to happen. When are we going to do something? Very curious if they can,

you remember Andreessen Horwood's put that publication? together. Future? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it, no one published because, like, they realize that, like, I mean, getting people to write is hard, getting them to, like, commit to do it and have, like, a regular cadence on doing it and, like, turn in your copy is hard. And, like, I think they... Media's hard. Yeah, like, I think they got ahead of their skis on that. Like, people can riff or whatever, but, like, it's just, I am waiting to see what that looks like, and I think that's why they bet so big on substack because their whole thing is like, all right, if we don't do an in-house thing, then maybe we'll get a legion of people to do it on their own. And then like they can sort of like

aggregate that in like however substack does. But like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, would look like becomes more of a thing. I don't know. So let me ask you a question. What is a podcast? Miserable little pile of secrets. But nevertheless, have at you.

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it feels like the beginning of something more than the end. It feels like the final punishment of the Move Fast and Break Things generation. And my biggest worry, and I raised this in the newsletter, is how do people think this is going to improve? Because, so the very basic level is an update that went through CrowdStrike that's in basically every Windows machine,

especially the Enterprise ones, fucked everything up, did a massive kernel panic and everything. I'm sure by the time I saw, say this, there's already a tweet out there that proves me wrong, but nevertheless, I'm putting on record. This is where we are. It feels like we're in a situation where organizations just fire and hire people so goddamn much that this has to happen again. Like there's something, something like this is inevitable, especially when you've got generative code. You've got more, less software engineers

generating more code and the people above and below them are being fired at random. It's the first time I felt scared in this industry. And I moved to America in 2008. Wow. Yeah. Solid time. Good timing. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what to do with it. And also, well, I mean, other than the 3,000 word newsletter, but it's, I'm just a bit scared because it feels like every tech company is run just in this very messy way. Like, they're still in the startup mode, but also huge. Totally. I don't know if it like, I don't know. The thing, maybe this is. naive but like I often like think about things in the window of what is it called hand lends razor which is like don't attribute to malice which could be more often chalked up to stupidity or incompetence right and like I feel like there to be clear there are very many

bad people in the world doing bad things but like a lot of the time it's just like dumb shit someone pushed like a thing to production instead of the test code environment or whatever and now you took down half the fucking world, right? So, like, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if that's, like, better or worse than people maliciously doing things. And that's where I'm sat on it. I don't think someone at Crowdstrike was like, maha, I'm going to crash every Windows computer. Excellent bit.

That would be, I mean, it was a good bit. Yeah, just the CEO, I was doing a bit. No, I think that the problem is Hanlon's razor here. It is that just tech companies like, we must. grow. We must grow and if something breaks we'll fix it, right? Totally. Except they don't seem to have fixed it yet.

Still broken. My mate's still stuck at the airport. I'm glad you flew in early, I guess. Yeah, and I was nearly delayed due to thunder in Vegas. I don't know, but also this feels like a situation where the tech media is going to have trouble covering it because it's so complex. Yeah. I bowed out early this morning.

I don't know. No, I mean, I do think that's where tech reporters if they're super into it can like shine and I don't think cybersecurity reporting is like as much of a specialty at mainstream publications. It's like

it's like random like the guy Brian Krebs is like his independent dude who he used to work at the post but now he's just a hardcore security researcher guy who has his own blog and everyone in the security industry. Trust him basically and like

but yeah like that I mean for a media. does it. Yeah, yes, who's great. Joe Cox. Joe is awesome.

So, like, there's a version of this that could shine, but I think you're, I'm very curious. There are already, like,

things blaming, well, actually, you might have a different take on this. There are things that are blaming Microsoft that are, there was like a headline

that was like Microsoft fucks up the whole world or whatever, right? Right. And, like, technically, it wasn't their fault,

but your, your position is, is ultimately it is their fault. Yes, because they, Microsoft runs Windows, but also the reason that CrowdStrike managed to fuck up so much is because Microsoft could have built this themselves and indeed have a competing product to Falcon. And there is a whole sort of explanation for this.

But it kind of sucks and they were like, we could save money just giving it to this other giant public company who was only worth $189 billion. And ultimately is both of their faults. But this is a situation where, And what was it? I was reading the other day. We just had him on the show.

An economist called Darren Osamoglu. I'm probably saying his name wrong at MIT. He just interviewed him. I should know it better by now. It's been a long day, Darren. But he said that there should be criminal prosecution. Whoa. CEOs.

And I actually fully fucking agree. Yeah. I know this sounds crazy, but if you break half the world's computers, you should go to fucking prison. Satya, in cuffs, today. Hot take. Brom!

do I have sound sent I'm only 50% joking because if your direct decisions and neither I know both of you don't want to touch this with a I can talk about it in an abstract but also just making it clear

I can say the crazy shit but it feels like they aren't and Daron's argument is not put them all in chains it's these consequences should exist yeah consequences should exist And a lack of them is why these things keep happening.

Because, okay, an FTC fine that fines Facebook $4 billion is bad for the homogenous lump that is meta. But it isn't like Mark Zuckerberg has any fear there. It was pretty good when he had to apologize to the family, stood up in court, but I don't think that's a real consequence, you know. It's slightly embarrassing for a man without feelings. And it's just, Satchie Nadella should have a criminal inquiry head. There should be an actual Department of Justice investigation into this with both CrowdStrike and Microsoft. There will not be.

I'm 100% sure there might be a Senate hearing if we're lucky. But it's all of these CEOs, they operate in this weird kind of bubble where, oh, it's a corporate thing. We don't get angry at people for corporate things. But if I went around because I was the Flash, I assume, and smashed every, like, 500,000 computers with a big crowbar. If they could catch me, but I'm the Flash, they couldn't. They would put me in jail. It would have to be, I don't know, I'm talking about the RAF from Spider-Man

and mixing up my Marvel in D.C. right now. But nevertheless, it's like, this person who smashed a bunch of pubes would go to jail. Right. But the person whose direct decision-making was the reason that all of these computers went down, they're fine.

And it's like, it feels like that needs to happen. There needs to be some regulation of this, but also, where are the consequences? It's why Sam Altman's accumulated all this power. It's why all of them. of these. Steve Jobs, horrible man, but he, the crimes he committed,

well, the California DA came after him for welfare. That was a form of consequence, and it was extremely effective. He went from being a deadbeat father to a shitty one, which is progress from Mr. Jobs. And it's just, what I'm very much trundling towards

is it doesn't feel like anything's going to change as a result of this. Right. I think that's right. I think that the fines point is really important, because I think they just price it into their like budget now. There was a great Times article about training data and how these like meta executives in their boardroom were like, we, that was so good. I talk about it all the time.

Have you seen this? I have not. These meta executives in their boardroom or whatever, they were like, we need training data and we don't care if we break the law because we need to be first. And it's so explicit. It's like we don't care. It's priced in. We need to be first and we don't care if we're stealing content, which is crazy. And I will say this

That's where the Times did their job the best That was a really great article People, but the fact that I didn't read it is my fault But also, that should have been fucking CNBC TV every day Like that should have been a bigger story The fact that these companies can operate Not just without concern for safety But basically being like

Oh, it's not a fine, it's a fee Yeah It's insane But if Mark Zuckerberg could go to prison You wouldn't last a day Definitely gets more I do think a lot of the I have frustration just because of how I wonder how deep you can go in a mainstream

publication on pretty technical stuff before losing people. And like even like I've I've been super interested in the open source debate, which is like, you know, in short, just like should all the code for these things be out there or not? Some people believe it's very dangerous. Some people are, I think that's over exaggerating it. I don't, uh, I don't know which one is right. Which by the way is why I've not done an open source episode.

Right. I don't know. And I know you're so mad at me. Yeah. Well, it's yeah. And like, I find that whole thing very interesting and like I've been trying to write about it a lot. But like, I'm like, like a lot of this shit is very dense and very, um, and hard.

Not just for. And there's no like actual answers to a lot of it and trying to like get that out to a mainstream audience while saying here's why it's important. Here's why you should care about it. Here's why I should read this article in the first place. I think gets stopped a lot of the time compared to some things that might be easier to grasp. And that's not to insult the general public. It's just sort of like these things that require a lot of attention and reading just to like break into where the argument starts.

Totally. Does that make sense? I've been cut, I don't know how many times from writing articles. because they're too technical or and a thing I've had to do lately which is so funny I'm like okay if it's really highly technical or just kind of a waste of space like tokens how much does this model cost for input output tokens and I didn't include it in a verge article recently and the comments were like well how much does it cost? I was like goddam it guys I replied I was like I will add it next time but like who cares about the tokens anyways I actually see where the rate is coming from but if they want it I want to deliver it to them but if they don't want it and it takes up space in their mind and they can't comprehend the material, then it's not helpful. So, like, figuring that out for readers can be hard. Well, so as someone went, like, the average better offline listener is, like,

most of their days taking up, like, holding people up at gas stations, stealing catalytic converters, stuff like that, but then they listen to the podcast. And these people, I'm so sorry. But, though, what I've found is because my listeners are, because of, I think, I Heart Radio, because of the way they, is, I get a lot of people who, aren't the traditional listeners. And I do love them and you don't steal Catholic converts unless you do. And shout out them.

Shout out to the wrong uns of cadmium. But it's, what I'm funny is that people actually want things explained more. Even the technical stuff, Robert Evans, Safelylickam and wonderful people who run cool zone. Their whole thing is to like break it down or whatever you think is, it too simple, go simpler. Totally. And I think the. people in the media, for good reason, overestimate how difficult something is to get.

And I, because when you start explaining stuff in plain English, like tokens, for example, very confusing and obfuscated things, but it's just, isn't it just one token equals a word? Yeah, exactly, a character. So it is, it is very simple, but how many times do I explain that per article? Every time I'm like, these, you know, it's kind of a, it's like algebra that you have to do when you write, so many of these articles, if the audience wants me to do it, that's, you know, that's what I told them. I will do it. But it's, you know, something Weinberger told me is like, if you can't explain it simply, then you don't understand it, you know? And I think about that all the time,

because I feel like I see that all the time with tech reporters, no shade, is that, like, you're saying something really complicated, probably because you don't understand it, and that's fine. But it's really hard to break these complex topics down. Early days of the newsletter, I'm just going to admit, that definitely happened. I did that when I was a young reporter. I still am a young reporter, but still. Still, though, it's, and I think it's because, media is kind of hard in tech.

You do actually have to understand a lot of shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, especially with the generative AI said, and it's funny because as much I bang on about people not doing it right, it is extremely annoying to explain. Yes, every single time it feels like you have to include so much context, and it's like, when is this helpful for the reader and not? Kind of like, ex-formally Twitter.

All the readers were like, please just stop saying formally Twitter. I'll stop my epic-based website. Please stop dead naming. I do feel like it's very, I think there are different challenge. Okay, like I'll explain it just in terms of like the Times challenge, which is like, who are you trying to reach? Who is reading this? What is the like format for what you're writing sort of thing?

And like I, like, to what you're saying, I definitely don't. I think readers can be smart and curious about what's happening in the world. And I don't think treating them like idiots is the right way to go. I do think it's like, how do you present that in a way that doesn't either derail the story you're trying to tell or make your story three times longer than it might need to be or whatever, which I think as like a tangent, like length is often equated with quality, which I don't think is always the case.

Really? I never heard that. Oh, I think in the media industry, like, someone's like, we dropped a 5,000 word piece. And I'm like, eh, I think that could be like a 2,000 word piece to read that. But like, and that's not always the case. But like, I just think that you can probably do it in different like formats or different like story packaging ways that, I don't know. But it's like a challenge for me constantly because I'm like, all right, who am I talking to? Am I talking to someone in New York who has never used a computer?

or am I talking to like someone in the valley who's like, don't explain this to me for the 15th time? And I don't know. Every time I don't explain something, one of the listeners, I assume, in between holding a knife to a granny, is,

we'll be like you didn't explain that clearly enough. And actually I like that. I like explaining it because also this whole thing about like word counts, I do not have that problem with my newsletter. I put out 11,000 word newsletter. Just like, completely. Go at it. Yeah, just fuck it.

But also, people get so angry. When they're like, Jesus Christ, Ed, reined in. Well, the funniest one was I did, like, a 4,000-word one, and someone sent me an email being like, yeah, that was too long. And the next one was 11,000 words, and I emailed it to them.

Jesus Christ. I love your relationship in your audience. I know. They're going to steal your grandma. Yeah, he was planning to bomb a bank. He was just like, ah, I'd write 11,000 words quickly. Yeah, this held me up.

Your generative AI thing was a great soundtrack to me chasing a man down the street with a hatchet. I'm so sorry, I know you guys aren't all criminals. Just some. A large majority, maybe. But it's funny, because you've really crystallized a problem here, which is, what the fuck does the tech media actually do? Like, what is the actual job here? And it doesn't even feel like the various balkanized outlets, no? Can I say what I think?

think it is. I don't know. I am the most junior person in this room, let me say. You're extremely good. Thank you. But I think like, it means you do more work than I do. No, so, you guys. But I think, like, what I want to do is bring information that they want or didn't have, like, love a good scoop. We're like, look, I'm giving you information you've never seen, and I want to give it to you in a way that's like, that's helping you understand the world better. And that's kind of why I joined The Verge too, because they have, like, crazy multimedia team. and I really I really love podcasts because it's an easy way for me to consume stuff and I think there's a younger generation who is not consuming stuff like you know

5,000 words so like however you can get that information to people to help them you know whether it's podcasts or you know newsletters any of that I think that's our job yeah yeah oh I was I like I fully agree I think the thing that I really enjoy too is just um like It makes me feel good when someone who may be like intelligent but unfamiliar with a topic came away from a piece that I wrote and says, that was interesting. I probably wouldn't have read about that before. But like now I, like, even if I don't dig it into it anymore, I enjoyed reading about that. Yeah. You know, and like that's ideal for me just in some form of like, why are we doing this?

Why are we doing this? Yeah. And I think it can be really corroded by. many things, money and egos and like any other business and that's what I think we see like kind of that pressure at the top for a lot of us journalists and maybe why they're really tired. But I think, you know, the like best journalists really just want to do their job for the reader the best that they can, you know, it's not, but it's not easy and we're tired. Yeah.

We need more fucking nerds. We do need more nerds. We need more little goblin freaks like myself. Get the goblins out. I don't know about that. Yeah. And it's Enough about my first of all

But nerding out on this stuff is good Like it's just like You understand the topic You want to get in the weeds of it That's a good thing But also My list is in between brewing poisons They love it though

And they Further and further crimes Being explained of your audience No but in all serious My non-criminal listeners And indeed some of the criminals They like the fact that so my last episode that went out

and it's a weird timeline because of when I'm recording this but the episode that I think really changed my show was did you read this paper Chat GBT GBT is bullshit? No. So there's this paper by these three academics in Glasgow called Chat GPT's bullshit

but it's based on the Frank Furtian definition from on bullshit where it defined bullshit is Oh I remember that And so I cannot remember what the definition is just bullshitting myself I guess And I get on the call thinking this is going to be like

three stodgy academics and they're cracking beers and they're having a good time and we had the funniest chat for an hour and I came out that being like, that's one of the best episodes ever but also I think people want more of that in tech. Everyone knows the open AI is fucking everything up. Everyone's going to know about the

crowd strike situation. Everyone's going to know all of these things and they're all dominated by bad news, good news, weird news. But we need to get back, we need to get back to talking about the weird shit again because

some of your earlier stuff, Kylie, and business inside, you were talking to weird random development. I loved it so much. He went into weird communities. And I think the tech right now is saturated by stories about everything.

And everyone, for good reason, by the way, just with sympathy here. There is, everyone wants it, everyone wants the traffic. You have to write Kylie about the GPT form mini. Like, everyone has to cover these things

because it's your beam. But it's getting in the way of, the weird fun shit. Like I run a PR phone at day job and I write like 18,000 letter, word, I don't know, can't speak, newsletters every week. I should not be the one finding the weird shit

and talking to them. I am though because I'm paid to. But I just feel like there's so much magic in this industry. There's so much, like as doom and gloom as I can be on this show, the joy of sending a weird picture of some dumb shit I found on Twitter to someone.

I sent one someone yesterday. It was this picture of Dr. Robotnik in a forklift. It said, you're too late Sonic. I'm forklift certified. And that made my day. Jesus Christ. There is still magic to the internet and there's still fun. And people are fucking mad about the internet, but they're still so good in there.

People are always saying, in between reading the Unabomers manifesto, my listeners will say. I was like, where is he going with this one? I got close to say something there. I'm like, I don't know. No, but in between various crimes, just going to summarize there. My listeners, they also will say, I want something positive. And then I respond, I'm sorry. You need to find another show.

Download another podcast. I'd say download it all in, but... Oh, too far, too far. Jason, Jason Calacanissa. Very damp. Anyway, dampness aside. the positivity is there and I myself

have found myself falling into this kind of I don't want to say doomerism because I think it's a fucking stupid term but there's doom and gloom that everything

and we do need to cover these companies messing up but I think what the problem is and where my anger comes from and I think you'll share this is

all of the bad stuff is getting in a way of some really funny shit TikTok and all of this needless cynophobia but like yeah it's like

we've got to ban TikTok because they're stealing data they're like using data with our our users. We only let American companies do that. Right. TikTok has given birth to some of the funniest and sweetest posts.

There is a growing community of zoos on TikTok and Instagram whereas just they put like a camera on a spoon and they feed like worms to leave. Oh, I've seen that. These are good. And it's like there is still magic. There's still joy within this industry.

And I think that the return to blogging that I am so severously suggesting and the wider Ed Zichron empire that I dream of one day is genuinely like a return to this a return to this kind of not seen the movie it's a return to this thing where we kind of need to stop mining this shit again we need to get back to finding the quirky little startups that might die but they're doing something interesting yeah the weird I think less than meme stuff I actually think people who just cover memes all day should get a real job sorry um someone's gonna be angry

I get that. I get it. But like, it's less about internet culture and more just about the things being built there. The cool thing, the fact that you've still got

a shit ton of open source software people who were just like, one of my early joys in tech was PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation Vita and the homebrew communities on them. Oh, hell yeah. Ray Wong,

formerly of Inbus, got laid off, bullshit. Ray Wong's great. He was talking to me the other day about the PlayStation portable and hacking that thing. It was so much fun.

The earlier iPhone with Cidia, the Helmbrimming community. Oh, sure. I remember Geo Hot has now become a very weird guy. I mean, he was before. Oh, yeah. He did like an autonomous car startup. Okay.

But these, I feel like, are the more worthy stories than everyone pursuing the same thing. And I, again, you're in a weird position, I get. No, I do think that there's an element of, I mean, honestly, there's corollaries in tech of, like, oh, this person dropped this story? or like this is uh i mean twitter and media probably played into it for a while but like a herd mentality around what people should be caring about or writing about and like that actually like

even though i have i guess i have a beat but also like i get away with pitching a lot of non-beat stuff but i think the um the thing that maybe that keeps it interesting for me but also i think can probably help just my job and maybe my career is like trying to zag when other people are going after zigging or whatever. It's very, is that a fuck? Oh God, I sound awful now. You want to zoom when everyone's zag. Really like, like genuinely watch where everyone's going and then like go pursue not just for

the sake of it, but because there's something interesting there, you know? And like I think that can really, A, it can distinguish you just from a career perspective, but also just like find like shit that's different because people get tired of like reading the same yeah the same article from five different publications that are saying the same thing yeah no totally the reason i know ed and winberger shout out is because i tweeted uh when i was in college i want to read about weird software developer culture shit and then he hired me that way and then that's when i wrote a bunch of i wrote a bunch of weird shit i wrote about furries that was awesome um yeah i i love those like niche communities. Oh, my first article, one of my first articles was about tech talk. So it was just like all of these technologists. It was, what was this? It was a bunch of developers who, like software developers who make informational or like parody TikToks about software development. Oh, talk to you. Okay. Tech talk. Yes, tech talk. Like TikTok. It was actually in my pitch like when I was my exam when you get hired. Anyways, yeah, I think that's really important to find those like fun stories.

Well, and like I imagine everyone in this room, and maybe if you are really into caring about tech, probably there was probably at least some time and maybe still now, like where you enjoyed being a part of it or enjoyed understanding it or right. Like I definitely consider myself like a nerd at heart and like grew up building computers. I don't know if I could do it now, but like I used to. And, like, it would, I'm sure it is. Like, I'm sure with, like, even more now with fucking YouTube's, the YouTube's everywhere. But, uh, but, uh, thermal paste is just that's what got me. Say again? Your thermal paste, you could just get, oh, you could just like, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But, like, there's, there's, there's has to be an element of, like, caring about this stuff, enjoying this stuff. Like, there's a reason why I still enjoy fucking around on the internet. Like, like, yes, there's, I have criticisms of maybe, like, the homogenization of how products develop because other companies are looking at how this person is doing it and we should have to do it like that. But you can still have fun on there and you can still find stuff. And I agree that like trying to find more of that is not a bad thing.

Totally. I think the times is got to bring back bits. Dude, that's where I started in 20. Do you know what bits is? No, I was like joining 2014. and we used to have long before. In the Times in 2014? Yeah, I did.

Ten years in June. It was ten years. I'm a millennial, so I should be hopping around jobs. It's good. Ten years at times. I know, I know. Now I can't leave. But it was a blog.

It was literally the Times had a tech blog called Bits. And it was kind of a function of like everyone's blogging at the time. And like, you know, we need to be blogging. And I'm not sure. they got rid of it because I'm not I don't really know why the exact reasons probably because it doesn't really fit their they were yeah I think now I think now it's like and even now they're still in like a transition period where they're like we do either huge heaves or now they do like live blogs on like the big breaking thing they do and like this sort of in between sort of

things are going away is what I'd say the like 500 to 700 word articles they do don't care about as much and there's probably internet traffic reasons for that. There's probably just like what readers want from a Times article. But Bits was amazing because it was a blogger. I could just dump random shit that I, that we found interesting. And the funny thing is I'm sure one of the arguments would be well, real reporting. That's where we get. Right.

Right. Except if you remember, and I do because I'm 900 years old, like I think Mike's age. There was this little guy called Evan Spiegel. who Nick Bilton in a remarkable act of journalism wrote about for the first time in bits. It was like one of the first Snapchat articles was in bits. That's funny. And it's like, guess what?

When you have that flexibility, when you have a bit of fun with it, you find weird little nepo baby freaks who make insanely unprofitable software. Being an asshole here, obviously. But that is an example, I think, where the verge can do well. The Virges also have one of my favorite articles of all time,

which is the one about the internet cables. Oh my gosh, yes. Yes, that was before I started. That was so good. You didn't get back to me when I mean. Very, very hurtful, very unfair. Who wrote that? I actually forget his name, and I will now look it up while I'm talking.

But stories like that, but that one's slightly different because that was a heavily reported piece. That one was so good, yeah. But it was good because it was different. It's a bit weird. Yeah. I won, and I hope someone does, a story about an airport, like a regional airport that got shut down by CrowdStrike. Oh, yeah. Like something like that.

Free story idea right there. Free story idea. That is actually pretty good. That is pretty good. Go for it, please. Because it's like, that is what, the big failure I think of the tech media, the biggest is assuming that tech is not, and Taylor Lorenz made this point as well, that tech is not real life. That it's not a human problem.

Yeah, that it's just a thing that happens. The internet is over here and the real people are over here. Yeah, for sure. When it's not been that for like 15 years. And it's just, the story. like this, I think like the free story idea I'm giving away, because I do not have the time.

But like a regional airport got fucked up because of a Windows update, that is the real And go talk to the humans, yeah. Exactly. And also, this is the practical implications of this. We talk about Chad GPT or what have you. But like when you get down to it, what does this actually do for real people? What's the actual fucking thing

happening? And I want, like, I want bits back. Just tell my boss. Bring bits back. Hey, who's your boss? I'll email them now. Actually, don't talk to my blog. Please, God.

Dear Mr. Times, I have been so... I heard from Mr. New York Times. That's it. With your news prep. Fuck shit. No. It's frustrating as well. The joy of this show is that I get to do a bit of that.

But even then I don't get to go. Like, I don't have the time. If they paid me like $3 million, as a year, which is what I demand. Yeah, sure. No, but if I had more time, it would be like sending people out to do that. It could happen here, which is a sister show of Better Offline.

I guess we're a sister show of it. They do great work because they go out and find these weird fucking stories. I want more of that about tech. I want more of the weird shit. Because we already know how bad Google is. And I'm going to keep doing it. Sorry, everyone. But it feels like everyone being tired is the

problem. And also, not talking about any specific outlet. But gearing coverage towards conferences has become the other problem. It's like, well, if we do this, we'll get the guy to speak on stage and say the same thing. He said in the press release. And then we will get the money. The writers will not get the money. Because that's not how this work, but they will do the labour. And perhaps I'm saying that the people who run these publications

haven't written a fucking word of meaning in maybe 10 or 15 years, or maybe their entire lives. And perhaps these publications need to be run by people who actually fucking write stuff instead of these goddamn management consultants who don't know what the fuck they're doing. But that's just one thought I had. Well, I feel like the, it's funny because there's, there's, there's, there's, the thing about media now that I feel like is being hollowed out is like either there's the big players who have a very specific, um, model of like, okay, these are our reporters, these are our opinion people,

reporters go out and do this. There's a lot of overhead in that because reporting is expensive and you're not going to produce for weeks or a week or whatever. And then you have the one or two person shops or whatever on substack or something that can riff. But like either, A, you need to produce like regularly to live, you know, and you don't have the bandwidth to like fly to Wyoming and talk to, you know, the airport that got fucked or just like, or it's not your thing and like you do a different sort of thing. and I'm like it would be ideally and I think the Times even did a push for this where they were doing like a newsletter when everyone when everyone in media was doing like a newsletter thing yeah um so funny the idea is like all right now we can sort of everyone gets subscribed to a newsletter can riff or whatever I don't I don't know where we like net out there you know like I just don't know it was like a classic manager who doesn't write thing it's just like why is this newsletter big it's because it's a newsletter right I'm like damn that's so smart. Let's pay a million dollars in salaries to people to do the same thing they're already doing, which we were already emailing people. I can get a million dollars to send emails? No, it was just the aggregate spans there. And I think the problem is that it's, I go back to my point. I just

clunkily made, which is like, the people at the top are not fucking writing. Like, Nile Patel, whatever problems I may have. This is what I was going to say is that when I came to the verge, as you're going to say, like, I did not expect he is, like, really in the newsroom, and he is writing all the time. Like, we have this little thing that says, like, someone published an article. This many articles have been published today, and he is always on there publishing stuff, which I've never, I've never had that at a newsroom, which is crazy. Good for him.

I know. He's a problem. He's a unit. He is, and I have my problems with him, and one day we'll hash it out. But otherwise he's got to come on. I know. I would love that. He's yet to email me back either.

I don't know why it could be the things I say. in all seriousness Nillet is the verge is actually a great example of yeah the top person should be writing all the time because if you're not writing how the hell do you know what writing is you don't even know what good writing is you don't even know where

you can't even have the same struggles as a reporter and when a reporter I don't know could be talking about anyone says something very rude in your publication you fire them the next day for pissing off tech bros could be talking about anyone you're not building solidarity

and you're definitely not supporting actual reporting. Yeah. The Verge and Fox are fire at this. Sorry to say Gen Z terms, but they're really good. They're busting.

I knew at the moment it came out of my mouth, I was like, oh, God. Don't worry. When I say it, it sounds worse. No cap. The verge is on fire. But I think, like,

that's why I came is because they let you write weird shit. They give their weird writers like all the bandwidth to do whatever they want. and Neli is in the trenches with you writing. He actually was the one who pointed me towards the Google glue story. He was like, this is fucking crazy.

And it was like my first week. And he's just got like, what is it? I'm sorry. Oh, when Google's. Really bad at reading the news. That's fair enough. Stay out of it. We don't know.

It's too much. You just write it. You remember Google AI overviews? Yes. They, if you said, oh, the pizza thing. Yes. Fuck. Yeah.

That's so good. Blue story and that was like... And then Katie ate one. Yes, that was fucking awesome. But yeah. So having someone who's like in the trenches with you is so cool because you get to learn from them and he can tell me like, hey, like there's a story over there. I know it, you know?

It's one of the reasons Weinberger was so good. He didn't write once. And I'm going to be just shouting out Matt Weinberger the entire show, by the way. He did write. He did. Yeah. A little. He didn't write enough.

One of the greatest things... He was running so much. Which is a great tech story, but also a classic Wineberger story is he did a review of the latest Madden at the time. Yep. Without understanding the rules of football. So the whole thing is just him being like, okay, why is this? Very funny.

But honestly, I actually think that kind of stuff's extremely instructive. It's good. I would love to like get like a line cook, chat GPT and just record what their thoughts. Like someone just disconnected for whose regular job is a real job. Yeah. Which actually like sucks and like involves them having to deal with people. Like not like a podcast. good idea actually. But again,

three ideas, the whole show. I would love like a, we're currently in a big studio and I would love like a tech, like a tech radio show and I could live in here, be very damp. Keyword damp. In felons. No cap.

And also I'm sorry. Sorry. Just real. As in the side, by the way, the internet cable story is Josh Deziza. D-Z-I-E-Z-A. I will put that in the notes as well. incredible story. Yeah.

And also scary that the internet is run by a bunch of cables. Mm-hmm. Good break. But it's... I feel like what we're discussing here, though, is the same thing of... We're discussing how people actually interact with tech, and I feel like too much writing is about how people, they think people interact with tech. Like, we're writing for tech enthusiasts.

Yeah. Rather than how people experience the world. One thing I've been thinking about, and I don't know how to fucking... do this podcast is and by the way the listener the listener who keeps bugging me about this I'm singling you out without naming you what crime do they commit yeah I was actually just thinking of one arsonists right now I'm currently writing no no no no no no it's a fair thing they say I'm not critical enough of Apple but the one story I want to do and I think this is one that everyone needs to be honest have you used the app store recently it's extremely it's

Extremely bad. It is so bad, it's so very bad. The apps that chart in some sections are just flat out dog shit, ad-filled nonsense. The discovery on there is nakedly corrupt. The people in the App Store editorial, fuck you if you're listening. Okay, not really. No cap. No cap.

Seriously, the App Store editorial people is so nakedly corrupt right now. I don't mean fuck you. Please don't punish any podcast other than mine. Punish me. But they just feed the richest people. They're featuring popular things. They feature popular apps. Like, why do I need to feature Facebook?

I'm actually going to load this shit up right now. I'm going to find out. I hope I'm not wrong. I'm going to look like a real toss pop. Okay. The top thing on here is Tour Monopoly Go's amazing destinations. Monopoly Go makes billions of dollars. Why is that what Apple is surfacing?

That's weird. That's like a featured thing and not like a charting thing? It is the first thing when you open. the app store. Yeah, interesting. Next, Amazon music. Top apps right now. TikTok, Max, Disney plus Snapchat.

Who uses Amazon music? Next one, Tokoboko World. I went to one of their South by Southwest parties and saw Group Love there. That's my only association. The most useful part of Amazon music. It was awesome. Yeah, the most useful part of Amazon music is an offline thing. Next thing up is Tokaboka World.

They make at least $100 million a year. Next one up, SquadBusters, which is a game by, super sell multi oh i remember them millions of dollars every single thing on here is just making the rich richer

the next is bluey which is literally worth billions isn't that a dog I saw him I saw bluey at a clipper's game drunk off his ass leering at the cheerleaders they kicked him out for being too drunk

then even make it to the half fucking arse anyway jokes about bluey's side that's a real problem that is a real algorithmic problem that everyone is facing, but everyone's kind of in the tech media for good reason. Folks in their open AI, focused on AI, AI, AI, AI, AI.

It needs to be this. When the real problems are sitting in front of us. And those are the ones that people actually are affected by. The fact, Supercell is rich because Apple is helping them get rich, because Apple wants the 30%. Why not send that traffic to someone else? Send it to small developers. It's too much like hard work.

And it pisses me off because, well, everything pisses me off, I guess. Right. It pissed me off because it doesn't feel like the tech media is currently built to handle this. And I don't think it's even the fault of the writers. There needs to be an App Store reporter. How do we... What? They would...

I mean, there's no... It's a $50 billion. There's no infrastructure. I mean, tell that to the media executives, is what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying you're wrong. Yeah. Like, what you're describing is the actual problem. Yeah.

These executives don't want to invest in that. But if the argument is... what's important than this is important it's more important than anything else like Google search app store these are the things that matter but it feels like the media is engineered

towards clicks which is then engineered towards pleasing Google who is currently fucking up the news media it's just we're in this weird cycle now and I don't even think real people are on the way it's really funny because I would always like very vociferously fight back against the like clickbait sort of argument, but I don't, I think it's harder to defend against these days because of how

how traffic has declined and how, like, I do think metrics play a role across, like, every outlet has an SEO person who is like paying attention to what is trending or whatever, you know, and I don't, I don't think it's, and I'll, I will make the distinction that I don't think our outlet and I don't think most outlets. are only driving traffic as the primary reason. Sure. But I do think, because, like, you have a mission, you have, like, a thing that your North Star of coverage should be.

But, like, there is more awareness than there was 10 or 15 years ago of, like, what is happening traffic-wise and what you should be thinking about. And that's a real thing. And you know what's also happening? Immediately after I stopped talking, you're going to hear an advertisement. And when you hear that ad, you're going to be like,

damn, that is so thematically relevant to everything Ed says. That wasn't embarrassing to Ed. Ed didn't feel really annoyed. Ed didn't make a specific rule on his Reddit so that people don't talk about it. That ad was so well-placed, and I, a new customer of this perfect company, will love it.

So please enjoy this extremely relevant ad. Other podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my...

guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation.

The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One erection.

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traders, and we're gearing up for the season finale of Survivor. So yeah, now we're experts. I know we annoyed a lot of our listeners by our severe lack of survivor knowledge. That is the point of the show. I'm just going to remind you. I have watched some survivor. I obviously haven't watched enough. Did people not like it?

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Listen to PodMeets Twirled on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So the whole traffic thing's funny because clickbait is not, is part of it. And actually I think B.I.'s done really well with keeping clickbait going, but actually doing good shit. Haynitinotopoulos. She's actually found the middle ground, which is like straight up like clickbait, but the inside's so good. But you like it, right? Yeah.

Like, hmm. Kafka actually has rifted on this before is like, the idea of like you made that headline for people to only click, like you want people to be interested in your story. Like there's going to be, there is an art to it, right? It's not all.

It's a thousand words and, you know, a couple words. You've got to figure that out. Totally. Yeah. And I, it's funny as well because I actually think the take media really needs to realize that other than chasing cligs, it's like, tech stories get a shit ton of traffic.

that alone should be a sign that there's magic to be found here and it's not from doing the same thing and it's from I think that there is a way of dressing up like software communities in a more interesting way that's what I did for almost two years

that was my job was talking about software developer communities and it was rad yeah I don't know I think The Verge is actually the first time I've worked at a publication where there are no like KPIs or like traffic goals or subs goals

no no no one bothers me about that so it's sick yeah because, you know, a lot of people experience that and people get yelled about that. Like, you could get fired over not reaching traffic. So I don't have to worry about that, which is great. And I think that's really healthy for writers. I wish more writers had that experience. But unfortunately, like, where we're at.

Yeah. It's, does the Times have stuff like that? No. No. I mean, like, I think it's like general vibes, right? Like, if I fucking didn't put anything out in a month and, like, whatever, then I might get a phone call, but like, as far as I could tell, or at least I don't get called about it, but I don't, I don't, like, I've never seen like, uh, yeah, exactly. They don't call me up. But I, uh, George times. Yeah. George time. I do think that like, yeah, I do think there's more attention to paid to like metrics now, but like, and I, I'm just thinking back on like my super earliest days of writing and, and they have screens back then where they showed like rank. author ranking.

No, no, it was like, gocker. Yeah, it was like, I heard that when I first started journalism, I was like, what the fuck? You have a teradactyl that used to do the typing for you and turn to you and go, it's a living. Mike is the same age. That is exactly. I know, I get to be the resident old guy.

But like, it now, even then, you know, I was still having to churn out more, but now it's just gotten like 10 times worse. Totally. Like all the folks who I won't like, I won't like mention outlets, but like I just have colleagues or friends who work at different places and have, you have to do this many a week or like this is your quota. And like, even when I was starting out, it was like I had to do at least one a day, which I could do when I was like 24 or whatever, however old. And now I'm 39 and I'm fucking, I can't even think about it. Yeah. You know, so like it's just a very.

Yeah. I don't know. It's super depressing. I'm trying not to complain about it too much. I was in the trenches when I was in college. So I was doing all my college classes. And then I was also writing for BI. And they have famously and well-publicized, very stringent goals about what you're supposed to reach.

And I was in the trenches. But at least I was writing stuff that was really fun. And also it was my first job in journalism. So I thought that was the norm. Just get them all through. But I think, like, speaking to wise and the tech media getting stuff right, they have really, really, really, really rich and powerful people who own their company, and then trickles all the way down to people breathing down your neck and, like,

have you written 10 stories this week? The Messenger is a great example of this. The poor Messenger. God, I forgot all about that fucking company. I forgot until just now. Oh, me. Horrible. You're not dead yet, which is not an actionable threat.

But the Messenger is a great example, I think, of a problem that faces the tech media, which is, again, the people making the publications aren't really. the ones touching them. Finkelstein, formerly of the Hill, made a hundred million dollars off selling the Hill

to I assume a private equity firm. I did say it in a previous episode. I forget everything I say the moment I say it. And it's frustrating, but also at some point I think that the tech media could look more like a bunch of 404 medias.

I wish. I think it's going that way because look, the biggest fallacy of all of these tech pubs is you can't do them profitable without a bunch of trash. Fuck you.

You can make them super profitable If you don't have 50 people, if you have focused people. I agree that. My grander dreams turn newsletter in a thing where I just have a bunch of stringers, freelancers. Free idea for anyone to copy? You just have to be able to write 3,000 words in an hour, bitch. But it's, eh, too. But nevertheless, it's, I think that that is where it's going.

Because 404 has done probably the best internet culture reporting. I love them so much. It's so cool to get to see them succeed in the way that they have. just completely smash it and deliver the best fucking reporting. Like Sam Lee Cole, Cobler, they're all fucking brilliant and they're brilliant because they're all internet weirdos. Yes. I mean that affectionately. Yes.

Well, the motherboard DNA. Yeah, exactly. Sarah, Derek, they all used to work on motherboard. And that was like, Motherboard was one of the real good, weird internet sites before Vice killed it. But, like. Corey Hike. Yeah, all those people at the top of her stupid. I wanted to be them so bad.

They were great. Me too. Super great. No, seriously, like, one of my heroes, Edward Omqueso, Jr. Go Ed. Yeah, he's a good guy. I wish he wrote more. I love his work.

Is he editing? I don't know. He's a logic, I believe, now. He's going to be on the next better off live. Oh, that's cool. He's so cool. That's rad. But it's like, guys like that having an opportunity at a place like motherboard is so good,

I want to see, like, more of these clustered publications, because if you really look at the old school tech crunch, And I know people have fairly very negative views about Michael Arrington. I'm not talking about him as a person because all of that sucks. However, the original days of TechCrunch resemble 404 media so much more than they do TechCrunch today. It was a bunch. It was Michael Arrington and Pete, there's a big myth that it's like, well, TechCrunch is very dry. No, it wasn't it? It'd be like, Mike Clarendton going, you'll never believe who I saw at the melt.

Oh, I forgot. No, the creamery. The creamery, there we go. Like a block or the ghost of it is a block for me. here. And he would just like hang out and he'd be like, you'll never believe what I hurt. And it's great. This is why I say gossip, John's because this is what it is. It's what it was in the oldest. Like, ooh, I've heard that Insight Partners is going to do this. Is Inside Partners? Is that one of the VVP? Yeah. Is it? Like one of the big VCs, he'd hear some shit. And like,

and that would be, and even Paul Carr, what I think's, dirty. But even he did the same thing, Sarah Lacey, but it's, okay, that's a bit mean. She did some good shit. But nevertheless, She did a really good book, actually. Once you're lucky twice, you're good. You should read that. That's the thing. I need to learn way more about this old school. Oh, yeah.

No, really good. I mean, we've fought a lot over the years, but she has should, some of her reporting is really good. But also, this is what I, my longer term vision, I'm just saying it on the pod, is I want to rebuild solidarity within the tech media. Probably because it's a very lonely industry. Everyone's very much an island. Even the verge, which I love. Yeah. The verge podcast is the verge people talking to.

the verge stuff. Oh, 100%. 4.4, same deal. I love 404, but the same deal. And it's everyone's balkanized a bit. I agree. But also it will allow for delicious beefs and gossip. And I think that people love that. I think people like

it's like, oh, you'll never believe, oh, they're angry at each other again. People love this shit. It's low stakes drama. Oh, you got the scoop on grumbus? I had the scoop on grumbus. You aggregated my grumbus. I just had this conversation today. actually.

I'm kidding. The grumbus story. I do think that we, it's like, journalists can be often very catty and insecure. That was like the biggest culture shock getting into this. I was like, fuck. Like, this is like, like throwing elbows. I feel like I got like literally elbowed in the teeth so many times by people. I'm like, fuck that.

But it isn't. Yes, sorry. You were going to say. No, no. I was more agro. I think when I was younger and I get it. Like, I think I'm. also like because I work at the times there's a whole weirdness around that and like people often with with good reason in the past like we didn't used to like not link a lot now I think we're way I will defend it about that yeah I mean I get it all the time but I think I was trained probably because I came up in blogging to like link and like credit and I think our desk is very good about it now but like everyone is just like I described this a lot like I feel like journalism today is a lot of like

very insecure over achievers and everyone's kind of like looking over their shoulders and trying to compete and trying to like make their mark or whatever and I think getting your I have a fucking ego but trying to get your ego out of it yeah exactly don't me try to tamp that down as much and just like keep it and also like people one thing I've tried to do even though it's hard is like people like really remember when you pay them compliments on a story oh totally like just doing a nice post saying like that was a great story I think it's a nice thing that's something I do a lot on this show because I'm a hater sure like I really am like I'm a

and it's easy to like shit on someone's stuff and then they fucking they'll remember that right I remember someone insults my you can't do one you have to do like okay you can do just being nice I realize that is an option that I'm not be taking it it's nice down here on the low road you think I've gone lower I will But there is a degree here of like

Of course I'm like I will criticize Jesus fuck that word up But there's so much good there And I think the Like 4-04 The reason I bring them up so much Is they're the fucking Like they are like

I love sharing their work Yeah And like Defecto which I realize is outside of tech David Roth Oh he's great People like Ray Rato Like you've got really like Specialized reporters

And that's sports I realize But that model of Hey Defined voices that people really love that laugh for who they are. Drew McGarry covering shit. People aren't going there just to hear about sports. They're going because Drew has a thought.

Same with David. And I think that model in tech is something the Verge has done a good job on. I think they can go further. But it's something that was in bits. It was something that Farhad Manchu did. I think that the Times is, this is my personal view, I think that, like, they can be ambivalent on personal. personalities. Like, like, in one way, like, it serves them a lot to have columnists who, like,

people will go for, you know, this is a different generation, but like David Brooks or Tom Friedman are these folks who have been coming there and drive a lot of traffic or talk to the president and, like, are important in some capacity. But I, at the same time, I think Times folks, or Times people at the top are always like, the brand is first, right? It's a New York Times. It's not Mike Isaac at the New York Times or something, right? And like, I do think there's a tension there. But in this one thing they, I think, have expressly said outwardly is like, in an age of AI producing mountains of bullshit, one advantage we might have is knowing that our reporters are people and explaining that they have expertise and like going into them. So like I do think there's like a tension there.

I would love if they let us be a little more free. But like, I don't know. and we all see it and I think that's kind of what you give up for the Times is what it seems like as the outsider is like okay if you want to work for the Times you're going to have to give that up

and that's not just the Times it's like you know like a lot of the top publications you're not going to have that voice because of what they do it's different what's funny though is I'm old enough to remember that this was the model David Pogue at the New York Times Eric Benderoff I think it was at the Tribune

Here, Walter Bray, I think, at the Boston Globe, you had tech colonists, and they were insane. You still got like Jim Rossman, I think, at Dallas Morning Years, mixing up with someone. Nevertheless, you have a few, but regional tech columnists used to get paid insane money. There was a rumor. There was a rumor that, like, I think CNET tried to pay Nick Bilton a million dollars. I remember that whole cycle. I don't even remember how much it was. I've heard the Felix Salmon stories.

This is like passed down from older journalists. to me through generations. Oh, the fusion days. Oh, that was great. Wait, wait, what was this? We need to tell the... Oh, my God. Well, do you remember the fusion?

Do you remember fusion? Does that bring a... I remember, like, the logo. Well, I mean, you shouldn't, because it was literally, like, a production of Telemundo that wanted to do as tech company. Pami Olson or...

Oh, shit. There was a bunch of Cash Hill work there. Kevin Ruse worked there. And what they did was... and they hired Felix. Oh, Electric's Magical. So what they did, though,

was, like, come in and throw, like, obscene money at everyone. I fucking rue the day that I didn't try to get a job there because my salary would be, like, Forex, what it is. Nice.

It's like I'm going to work in Dubai. Right, right, right. But I think the rumor was, I'm not going to say exactly what it was, but just there were rumors on how much people were getting paid. And we all should have done that grift. And the company went out of business

like two years later. No, no, no. They got bought by Gizmodo, which then fucking went. I don't even know what. No, Gizmoto got bought by Telemundo. Media is not this fun anymore. This is how many of the fucking human centipede of shit that is the media industry. And again, I will have drinks every city I'm in.

Everyone will get drunk together and then everyone will be mad at each other and then we'll have stuff like this. But it's, I think it is partly also the remote work movement. I've only been a remote journalist, which is crazy. You know, I've gone to an office? I will sort of, but like, I've never had a newsroom. Never. Oh, that's a bummer. Whenever I say that people who are a journalist before COVID are like, that sucks.

I feel like also, though, that's somewhat romanticized, though, because... Oh, you're, because you're anti-office. No, no, it's not even a remote work thing. It's just the newsroom at Future Publishing when I work there. Eat shit, don't live in England anymore. Future publishing, there was just a mood of depression in there because it was a depressing place to work run by arse-wife. Sure. And also, then you go into the BBC one or the...

Bloomberg one, you're like, okay, I fucking get it. I would be, oh yeah, the Bloomberg one sounds awesome. But the BBC one, at least the old one, I haven't been into the new one. The big tower. Oh, God, that's such energy to it. Beautiful. And I feel like that, it'd be cool if a tech newsroom exists like that. It just never well, just practically speaking.

But also, I don't know if one, I guess all things did kind of had one. I mean, we had like a, we were like weirdly remote hybrid. We had like a work space or something in Soma. But I think that like, the way, Like, look, it's, we are romanticizing it, but I do, like, and I fucking work from home literally all the time. But, but my, the thing that I miss about working at headquarters in New York was just like, you walk around, run into people bullshit. I know. I want that.

And, like, actually do sometimes come up with interesting things or, like, share tips and whatever just because you saw someone. And, like, I do think there's value there. No, there is, there is definitely. And I was going to say, Vox has a New York office, Business Insider does, fortunately. does, I just have always lived in California my entire life, so I'm not moving to New York. Upday in my prior. The long-term Ed Heads, those recently released in the psychiatric ward, for example. That's where we met.

Those people, like, they may remember I was very pro-remote work, and I still am. I've never been his anti-office at all. And there is, like, the reason I do these in-studio ones is because remote is fine. But this is cool. This is energetic. We can see each other. We can be focused. I agree.

And I think the, I do, it's the real dumb startup guy thing in my head's like, we should have a co-working space for the tech media. That's like a really good 2011-assed idea. Right. Well, I think the thing that gets lost from, like, again, I'm older than you. And like, I came up in like where remote work was just not a thing. Totally. Not really.

And like now I'm very much a remote person a lot of the time. But like I do at least appreciate. the like time that I had in. I think it means something very different when you're when you're younger in your career rather than you're older in your career. And I forget that like I was in the Times headquarters from 2014, 2016. And that was super valuable for me because like just the whole like fucking FaceTime with who you should know or whatever thing is real.

And I will like again, I'm like Mr. Remote Work, but my first job was at PCZone magazine of the Future. miserable as that place was, it was because of the management. Yep. Not because of people like Will Porter and Steve Hogartee, and people I work with who were there to tell me to stop playing World of Warcraft during work. And then I would say to them,

I've done all my work. And then they would say, no, you haven't. And then I would say, yes, I have, go check. And then they would be really pissed off and tell me to stop playing anyway. Jokes aside, having Will redline my shit in person broke my spear up. Oh, that's awesome. But it actually was

really valuable because I then went and had coffee with Steve Hockerty, who then said, he's right, though. And that also hurt. But it was also the fact that I could go back to Will and actually have a conversation about what the fuck he meant. And he's a wonderful editor. He genuinely, like, and having that experience. And then kind of like having a moment being like, oh, my spirit.

But not having that on my own at home separated from the world. I actually think was quite valuable. It's just, I keep coming back to this solidarity thing. I think it's just. We have that solidarity. I think like I have adapted as a journalist just fine. I would have loved a newsroom that would be great. But I adapted.

I went to tons of events. I've met tons of, and then I've also reached out to like more established journalists a ton. I'm like, hey, can I get your advice on this all the time? And people my age. I think like that I definitely have that as harsh as it is, like especially in San Francisco. Like, for instance, people on my beat, Rachel Metz at Bloomberg. I see her at events.

we talk all the time like having those people who are more established who can be like hey like we still have that I think but younger journalists have to know to reach out for that I guess it needs to be maybe it's more defined I'm just trying to find like an excuse to throw a party I would go to your party

The last time I saw Mike was at a party Actually there is a thing in December But let's wrap this up though So I've really enjoyed having you both here Thank you so much Mike where can people find you? I work. I mean, I'm writing occasionally at the New York Times

where I work for my full-time job. And then on Twitter, but more on Instagram 2 now, just like Google my name. And then you can find all my show. Also, I wrote a book, which if I would love to plug, it's called Super Pump, the Battle for Uber. and if you don't like reading,

you can watch the show which is on Netflix. I love the show. Right on. Thank you. Very cool. Yeah. I'll just say I love that show so much because I had such a huge crush

on Joseph Gordon-Levett when I was growing up. And then I also didn't know Travis Kalanick was such a dick. That show is awesome. Thank you for watching. That show is awesome. And JGL is also a lovely human being. Oh, my God. I love him so.

Oh. You can be, yeah, doubly secure in your crush. My only problem with that show was it felt like they cast the wrong guy as Travis. Oh, I know. I remember yours. There's a guy who just looks exactly like Travis Kalanick who plays like, oh, yeah. It was funny.

A lot of Uber employees were like they should have Kyle Chandler as. So good. I ate that up. Okay. You can find me on Twitter X at Kyliebytes. I'm on threads at Kylie. dot Robinson, not Robinson with an N in the middle, no end. And then I'm right for the verge full time about AI and tech stuff.

And you can find me, of course, on the Better Offline podcast. Ask your parole officer. They'll allow you to listen to you one podcast. I'm so sorry, I promise I don't think all of you are criminals. I love you all. I'm saying it like, I love you all, like the menu, if you remember that. Don't know if they let you watch that. Click.

But thank you so much for listening, everyone. Betteroffline.com. you'll then get the same liner that plays after every episode. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Rosowski. 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.

You can email me at E-Z at Better Offline.com or visit Better Offline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat. to visit the Discord and go to our slash better offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media.

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