Big Technology Podcast - Meta & Snap's New AR Glasses, Perplexity's Ads, Google's Work Ethic

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Alex's trip to the Balkans 2) China's influence in the region 3) Meta and Snap AR glasses battle 4) Are smart glasses stylish enough 5) Perplexity's plan to run ads 6) Eric Schmidt's disparaging remarks about Google 7) Is Google really behind on AI? 8) Will the U.S. government really break up big tech? --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack? Here’s 40% off for the first year: https://tinyurl.com/bigtechnology Questions? Feedback? Write to: [e-mail]

Meta and Snap have augmented reality glasses on the way. Perplexity is about to introduce advertising. Google's work ethic is under question from a former leader, and will the U.S. government break the company up? All that and more coming up on a Big Technology Podcast Friday edition right after this. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday edition where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format. We have so much to talk about this week, including potential new AR glasses for Meta and Snap,

a new business model for artificial intelligence. And of course, Eric Schmidt's comment is saying that Google is behind in the AI race because they're not showing up to the office. It's going to be a fun addition. Joining me as always is Ron John Roy. Ron John, welcome. Great to see you. Good to see you again.

Excited to hear about your travels. Yes. So I think just to address it off the start, last week we tried and failed to record an episode. So, and that's on me. I apologize. We didn't have a Friday episode for you. We attempted Friday. We attempted Saturday morning.

I've been traveling in the Balkans, and I expected to have decent internet, but, alas, I could not find it. So here we are. We're going to do a super episode today covering some of the new stuff, some of the stuff that we were attempting to cover last week. And I'm just thrilled to be back. And thank you, Ranjan, for rolling it and rolling with it and good to see you again. So how have the travel's been? I don't think I've ever been to the Balkans. So I think the Balkans is one of the most underrated parts of the world.

I do have a friend from Kosovo or a couple of friends from Kosovo, and I came here three years ago. And this year we decided, my wife and I decided, you know what, let's go ahead and see some more of it. So we've been to Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. And I do think nobody knows about North Macedonia, but that country blew me away. It's so beautiful, beautiful lake, an amazing capital city. And I think, I mean, it's, yeah, it's just overall, very, very, very beautiful place. When did North Macedonia become a country or what's the, do you know the story if I'm putting you on this spot? Because that's one of those countries that I still don't, it suddenly happened and I never quite, quite got the whole story.

So asking me to go through Balkan's history is probably going to hurt my credibility with listeners. let me tell you one of the interesting things that I saw and I figured it was worth bringing up is that a lot of the roads here are really rough and I'm going to apologize in advance to our friendly rental car folks for what we're going to return to you guys but then some of the roads are absolutely beautiful and it turns out that many of the roads in the Balkans are funded by China to the tune of tens of billions of dollars and in fact on the way over here I did have some time to do some research. And this is from a Balkan's research agency. China has been linked to 136 projects in this area of the world worth up to 32 billion euros. And that's

from 2009 to 2021. So it is very interesting to see the country's influence here. And I'm curious, Ranjan, from your perspective, I know that you have connections to Taiwan. What do you think the point is of China spending all this money and doing all this development in regions of the world like this one? They also have projects in Africa. Well, no, this is the Belt and Road Initiative was launched in 2008. So this is interesting because I haven't heard that much about it recently. But again, this was this massive undertaking launched in 2008 to invest in emerging economies all over the world and help them build infrastructure. This is kind of amazing that you literally saw roads, because I know a lot of it was like ports and other types of critical infrastructure, but you actually saw that they're building roads in emerging economies.

So that is kind of amazing. I do know that it slowed down the pace of development because of economic concerns in terms of like the amount of debt that was undertaking or even a lot of the debt that was issued. people have complained that was a bit onerous in terms of what they were, you know, imposing upon these economies. But that's kind of amazing on the road reporting for the Belt and actually seeing it in action. I mean, the influence of China and the U.S. is like definitely impossible to escape here. You see these Belt and Road initiatives projects that China has been undertaking. And then we walked into the library in Pristina, which is the capital of Kosovo. and the first thing you see when you walk in

is the American wing and you walk in there and there's like a section for great American authors and different books of the US and like literal books like talking about democracy and this is funded by the State Department so soft power battles

it's still going and I will say during this time I was able to look why I was confused about Macedonia is I remember there was the country Macedonia, but then when everyone's, when you're saying North Macedonia, that's what confuses me. Apparently, in 2019, they had to change the name. The country was founded in 2012, and in 2019, they had to change the name for Macedonia to North Macedonia, because apparently Greece objected to the name Macedonia, and they finally had to give in. And this was brought to you by a quick perplexity search, and that is not a sponsor, this is not a sponsored segment.

for perplexity, but we are going to talk about perplexity ads in just a little bit. Definitely. Yeah, and the North Macedonia thing also threw me for a loop, but I think basically they're trying to enter the EU and Greece is like, oh yeah, you want in? You can't use the name of our region, Macedonia. So pick something else.

I think that's unfair. I think they should be allowed to be called Macedonia. But definitely absolutely beautiful country. Okay. So speaking of great power struggles, or one power telling the other power what to do, meta and Snapchat are about to do their new AR glasses and I was sort of surprised seeing this story

it's from the verge that Snapchat is even continuing to build spectacles but the big news here I think is the meta glasses which are going to be called Orion and these are not just like the ray bands where you can film and speak to AI but they're actually going to be augmented reality glasses. And to me, this is simply just like the obvious next iteration of what the metaverse is going to be. I think meta season limit with the VR goggles. And they realize that if they're able to create an AR device, that might be something that has the potential to bring this metaverse vision mainstream. Will it succeed? I don't know. I don't think this version will, but I'm curious to hear what you think about it. I think this, so I saw this headline too.

And I think this is actually going to be one of the most interesting stories in the next year or two. And there's a couple of reasons for it. So first, glasses in general is something that I think has been an underrated story because one, Snap was the one that launched spectacles, I think, like seven years ago, eight years ago. I remember it was pretty splashy when they launched it. And it looked kind of cool. And again, these were glasses that could basically record and post not do anything else. else. And then meanwhile, I've talked to so many people who are obsessed with Meta's Raybans. I mean, I'll admit, I kind of want to buy them. I've come close to pulling the trigger a few

times. And to Zuckerberg's credit, if a few years ago you told people that I would be wearing a Facebook device on my face that is constantly able to record people even without them knowing it, you would think that that kind of device would have just been completely panned and yet i've seen so many people who i trust and respect proudly wearing them talking about them saying they're amazing even the the audio i think it's bone conduction so it's not directly in your ear so for biking around for running for these kind of things it's it's just a lot better than having something directly in your ear so so glasses in general they're battling and snap is behind the fact that spectacles now ever launch. Then you start to think about the AR glasses. The Vision Pro, clear that it's not

ready for mass adoption just yet, if it will be. So maybe glasses will be the form factor that really deliver augmented reality to the masses. And I have to think, to me, the one major competitive advantage, if any, snap has over meta, is augmented reality. They're the OG. They're I mean, they basically invented the entire field at the mass level with their lenses. They still, I think they're very smartly. I've been seeing at sports stadiums and the Olympics, they're really leaning into lenses in bigger situations. Like on the kiss cam and stuff now, they'll have augmented reality lenses. Yeah, sponsored by SNAP very clearly.

So I think if the battle becomes layering augmented reality into the real world and everyday situations, kind of like Pokemon Go all the time or whatever that it might look like. I think Snap is probably positioned better. They've always shown that they can deliver augmented reality in a fun, simplistic way, not some like immersive world, but just let me layer a bit of AR and make it fun and accessible. I think they have a chance here. So I'll talk a bit about the Rayban stories because I have a pair. First of all, I think you should definitely get them.

I do have one. All right. I'm literally after. should do it. I'm going to... I've had some really fun moments where I've been able to use them. I was wearing them in a triathlon that I did with my wife and a friend a couple weeks ago. And I mean, not in this one part.

Alex, with the subtle triathlon flex here. I mean, it was a sprint triathlon. It was basically like a baby could do this triathlon. It really was not very long. But I did have those glasses. They were really fun to wear in the bike part of it and the run. and just like that's not a place where you really want to have your phone out too often but to use those glasses it's great we also did a hike a couple days ago into like the mountains here in the Balkans and like it started to pour it was like ridiculous it was a true like ready to die moment massive thunderstorm in the mountains and I just hit record and just like you can see the video of us just like walking through and the thunder and lightning all around us and like again not a point. You obviously want to keep your footing at that moment. So it's not a point where

you want to take your phone out. And that's where this stuff really works well. And the speaker, by the way, it's not bone conduction. It's a bunch of different speakers pointed like toward your ears from the brim of the glasses. So it's actually like a mini speaker. It doesn't go in your ear. And the sound quality is like absurdly good for the technical specifications I just laid out. So they are very cool. Is it weird? If it is, a storm and rainy and thundering to be where the guy wearing sunglasses that's my only concern here it's like if i want to be recording am i going to just put on sunglasses at odd times and just be that guy well they actually so they are responsive to the sun so when it's not that sunny out

they look like clear glasses and then when the sun comes out they go uh sunglasses tint but i will answer your question. It's always weird to wear them. Absolutely. I wore them onto an internet week panel and I think a lot of people were like cool glasses. It's very difficult to tell that their actual Facebook glasses with cameras in them. And even though they have the light on, I recorded the end of this session and people had no idea that I was recording. So all the thing is a little bit odd. And I don't wear glasses usually except when I'm like looking at the screen and I'm riding. It's definitely a thing that's going to take getting used to. And they're definitely like, even before we went on the hike this past weekend, I was like,

am I going to look like a tool if I wear these? And the consensus was, yes, I was going to, so I didn't wear them. And I only took them out mid thunderstorm because I just like really wanted to get the shot. But I think over time, over time they are going to become, I think, more accepted and more normal. And maybe not these AR glasses though, because they, they, they look like a cross between I mean Zuck has shown some of the model already they look like a cross

between the meta rayband stories and a VR headset with like stuff on the side like obviously you need more computing and people are really going to tell you're wearing those but that being said they're going to be less awkward to wear in public than the Vision Pro I don't know if you've been in a public

situation with somebody wearing the Vision Pro yet but I have and it just takes all of the attention in the room and not in a good way. Yeah, I think I was looking at the, the renderings of the snap upcoming AR spectacles. And they do, they don't look completely insane. They definitely look like, kind of like I was thinking, you know, like Kanye Yeezys went for shoes versus regular sneakers. Like they look a little crazy. But they don't look like a completely different form factor or just like you are actually a crazy person.

You're just, maybe you're a little stylish. But actually, I think, I mean, the smartest thing Meta did in this arena was partner with the Rayban and make them look like the standard wayfarers because making them look okay and reasonable so you're not in the, are you a tool or not a tool to wear these, I think is actually the most important consumer adoption question versus is the Yeah, the reaction that I've gotten has largely been cool glasses, man, and not what the hell are those. And I think that might be partially people being polite, or maybe these just look good on my face, which I think is probably most definitely the case. Obviously.

Obviously. But I do think it's an achievement to make a pair of smart glasses, quote-unquote, that do look good. Now, here's a question. Snapchat? So first of all, let's put this all in perspective. Snapchat's going to make 10,000, less than 10,000 units of its new spectacles. And meta is going to make even fewer of these Orion glasses. So obviously, you know, while I think they're pretty stoked at what's going to happen with these Rayban stories, like the current set of smart glasses, they understand there's going to be an adoption curve for the AI glasses. With Snapchat, is it a wise move

for that company to continue to invest in this product line given that they don't have the excess billions of cash to throw off in a way that meta does. What do you think? I think absolutely. And here's why I think the future of SNAP is going to be something around innovative AR membership subscription because one of the things that's like gone under the radar and we've talked about it here and there. But every quarter, Snapchat plus subscribers, $3 a month, it's now, I think, $11 million. It is the biggest consumer-facing social media subscription service. I mean, X certainly has not landed it. Facebook had tried some stuff over the years.

So I think coming up with these kind of like cooler experiences, having people pay for them in different ways, because direct response advertising, they still have not cracked. And one of the biggest limitations for Snap always has been that it is not as like, you know, data extracting a platform as meta. So that changes the way advertising works. People use it more for messaging and actually connecting with friends versus just seeing celebrities and whatever else on a feed. So I think this, I actually think it's really important that they invest in stuff like this

because this is where they've always been better. They've always been first. They've actually learned how to figure out. Even the subscription service, a lot of is around, like, fun little AI generative AI experiences. And I think you had said it. Snap is quietly, like, next to ChatGPT might have launched the biggest consumer generative AI service that no one is even talking about. So I think this is actually, it's not just, you know, questionable.

I think it's incredibly important that they're investing in things like this. I'm with you. See it through. The technology is getting better. It's getting cheaper to make. And you're right. They do have this, I won't call it an edge, but certainly a knack for making these products work. So it's going to be tough coming up against meta because for all the science, this has always been the problem with Snapchat, right?

For all the innovative work they do and all the science they can put into their products, Meta can clone this stuff in about a half second, and they will. But you have to do it if you're not, because you cannot basically continue to rely on a business model that hasn't worked very well, although one that seems to be improving. Agreed. So speaking of companies trying to do new business models, this is something you highlighted. Perplexity is thinking about rolling out cost per a million view, cost per a thousand views. advertising. So they're going to do advertising, but I think notably it's not going to be

search style advertising that looks at your intent, or maybe it will be, but it's not going to be cost per click. It's going to be cost per impression. What do you think? Is this the right way for perplexity to go about trying to make money off of its business? It's a tough one because on one side, trying to get cost per click advertising is always a lot riskier because then you have to actually deliver the click to monetize and that's tough and they might come up with an idea around it and it'll totally bomb versus CPM advertising or view based advertising. All you have to do is just deliver the view and do it reliably. I do think it's so I think it's smarter to start there. Advertisers will be curious because if you think about it, I mean everyone is talking about what does the next

iteration of search look like. Like I now, and about a year and a half ago, I think we had talked about searching in a generative AI platform for like, you know, best shoes for with a summer wedding or something like that. And I was like that, I don't think that'll ever be the use case. I've started doing more product-oriented search in perplexity, actually. And then that basically I still start with Reddit everywhere, but otherwise I'll go to perplexity, I'm not using Google search for any kind of product and shopping-related search.

So once I'm in there, marketers being able to reach me in different ways makes a ton of sense. So I think whatever they do and what exactly it looks like, I think will, I don't know, they need to be creative. They need to come up with something new. One thing I actually saw, it was Mike Molotso, his newsletter, which is really good on these kind of like marketing focused topics. He had written, you know, perplexity asks follow-on questions and how powerful it would be for marketers to be able to get into the follow-on questions that already it's a ton of insight around what are

the follow-on questions. Like if you ask for what are the best pairs of shoes to wear for a summer wedding, then the follow-on questions would be like, you know, can I match this color of shoes with this color of suit or whatever else? But then being able to actually sponsor follow-on questions would be something completely new, different, really focused on information that's valuable to a consumer. So I think whatever they do, they need to be creative rather than just sticking a display ad that's like traditional in the current interface. Yeah, it does look like they're going to do traditional display ads. And I wonder if this leads to a compounding of some of the problems that they've already run into regarding copyright. Because I do

think that generative AI companies that are content-based, which is what perplexity is, are just going to hit very murky ethical grounds when it comes to, let's say, repurposing other companies' content and then slapping a display ad next to them, which is what most other content companies use to make money off of their stuff. And I just thought it was so interesting to read the lead-in on this story on CNBC. So this is how CNBC describes perplexity. It says, perplexity AI, the artificial intelligence startup that has been embroiled

in controversy due to accusations of plagiarizing content from media outlets, plans to start running ads on its search app in the fourth quarter. And it's going to be a cost per thousand search model, and it'll be more than $50

per thousand ads, where like if you think about the typical cost per thousand display ad, it's around $3. Right? So just think about the the controversy that might emerge the next time some publisher like Forbes

material shows up on perplexity maybe not word for word but summarized whereas like the sources of this material are scrambling to make three bucks for every thousand views of this and perplexity is now going to make 50 and I know it follows

like the path of the internet from time and memorial that this is just how it goes but I also think that like this seems like it's going on a path that's quite dangerous for perplexity. And I know we both like the product. We're kind of perplexity heads here. But I do think that it is a risk and it's dangerous for the company to choose this as a way to make money off of its technology.

What do you think about that? I disagree because the idea that just because a, so, well, I agree with the idea with the idea that they should not, they need to be a lot more careful. The Forbes examples that were pulled out where they took paywalled content and summarized it already, they need to just kind of clean up the act there and like really focus on making sure it's not repeating anything verbata, making sure it's only publicly accessible information. But the idea that a media site because like Forbes of all publishers, I mean what they did to that site for years. It's improved over the last couple of years, but just the amount like Tabula and Outbrain style advertising or just

really, you know, insulting the reader with the way the advert, full page takeovers of like auto play video. These kind of things are what a lot of these publishers did to their own sites for so long. So coming up, if perplexity can deliver. a genuinely valuable premium advertising format that doesn't exist now, I support it. Anything that can make advertising better on the web, because especially in publishing, it's gotten to just a complete hellscape over the last number of years, I think that's a good thing. Here's my even harder take, and that is that this really isn't going to matter in the broad

scheme of things, because perplexity isn't going anywhere fast. And I wrote about this last month, but in the whole scheme of like Google's going to lose out degenerative AI search and perplexity being its biggest challenger. And again, like I like what they're doing, but it just hasn't caught on in the way that a lot of people have expected. And in the search I did in terms of trying to figure out where perplexity sits on the app store, given the amount of buzz, I was like, all right, maybe it's number like 30 or 40 in terms of all apps on the app store.

Actually, it's number 60, and not on all apps, just in productivity apps. And here's what I have found ahead of perplexity on the app store. Six generative AI chatbot wrappers, a bunch of VPNs, and a printer app, all outranked perplexity. So I guess my broader message here is, go ahead, perplexity, take all you want, run the display ads you want. It's not going to matter. you have lost to Google already

and we're just counting out the days until you fault. See, I agree mass adoption is going to take some time and maybe that printer app is really good but I have got that is for sure not the case. I have gotten to the point

like when I see someone doing just a regular old fashioned Google search, it's kind of like in New York when people were you saw someone hailing a taxi and you're like you could just call an Uber. I uh it's just it's so much better it's just so much better that when you're like for certain informational things if it's just light years ahead of traditional Google search and where

that is right now that I think whether they are the ones that win whether search GPT from open AI actually turns into a real thing I think whether Google's AI overviews end up being the thing. I think this way of searching is going to be the future, and everyone's going to be doing it pretty soon. When you see people using Google, do you feel like you have a responsibility to tap them on the shoulder and being like, someone looking over your shoulders, watching what you're doing? I feel a responsibility to tell you that this is truly a mistake that you're making. I think, I could have a good conscience, allow you to use old-fashioned blue-length search, knowing there's something better out there. If you're listening, and I know the Perplexity CEO was on,

here a few months ago. I think in terms of viral marketing, sending people to coffee shops around the country and just going up and tapping them on the shoulder and just giving them a little bit of a nudge saying there's a better way. That's the idea. This would be an absolutely an amazing advertisement for perplexity. We're like literally you have Ron John walk into a coffee shop in a trench coat. See somebody Googling, taps them on the shoulder, opens up, a flap to reveal a QR code and it just says perplexity. Can I interest you in something better? I think the big technology agency has just been launched.

Let's go. I do think we can make good ads for these companies. Maybe if this podcast flops, you know, but our listeners won't let that happen. So listeners keep us from having to launch an ad agency for flagging generative AI startups. Share this podcast with a friend. Rate us five stars. We need your help not to end up becoming this agency. Because we do have a strong work ethic.

We do. We do. I mean, folks, you should have seen what we were trying to go through to get you an episode last week, I promise. Unlike what Eric Schmidt has said about his old colleagues at Google. That's right. So Eric Schmidt has talked about how Google is losing the AI battle because it's employees are not showing up to the office, and then he walked it back, and Ranjan and I have

some differing opinions on what this all means, and I think we're going to debate it a little bit right after this. Hey, everyone, let me tell you about The Hustle Daily Show, a podcast filled with business, tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending. More than 2 million professionals read The Hustle's daily email for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news. Now, they have a daily podcast called The Hustle Daily show where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines in 15 minutes or less and explain why you should care about them. So, search for the Hustled Daily Show and your

favorite podcast app like the one you're using right now. And we're back here on Big Technology podcast Friday edition. We're recording. The Wi-Fi is strong. The vibes are good. It's a summer Friday. And that means it's time to talk about work ethic. Because at a Stanford talk a couple weeks ago. Former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was asked by a friend of the podcast and former guest, Professor Eric Berniovson, why OpenAI seems to have a lead on Google. And his response was none other than the people at my former company are just not working hard enough. And by the way, I don't even think he realized he was being recorded, but he said this. Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.

And the reason startups work is because people work like hell. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is, if you all leave the university and go found a company, you're not going to let people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete against other startups. And why is it losing the lead in AI to Open AI and Anthropic? I asked Google CEO sooner but try this. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer. Maybe you have a sharper, more objective explanation of what's going on there. So what's your perspective on Eric Schmidt's assertion that Google is losing the AI

war because there's not enough butts in the seats in Mountain View? I think he's right. I honestly think he is correct about this. And here's the reason why. In the whole work from home return to office debate, I, it's a nuanced one. However, I do think if you're a company that culture has not been built from the ground up to be distributed, I think you have to be back in the office. I think there's some companies that really have figured out a way where everyone works in sync, even when

they're distributed. It doesn't make a difference. And, you know, they figured it out. And it's people who are like distributed working native, let's call them, versus I think a Google, it's this is a company that was not built like that. And so already when the company is not built like that, you just don't have the workflows and processes and tools and culture to actually deliver on it. But then you get into something as complex and just constantly changing as the generative AI wars right now. That's something where you need to be sitting together. Like, if you think sending a Slack message, waiting for an email, having to schedule a meeting versus just being next to each other as you're testing stuff and coming up with

ideas, this is where people sitting around a table with a whiteboard. This is where I honestly think it's the battle is won. And I think it's, you can see it in the way a lot of stuff has been launched. And again, Google is moving incredibly fast. And I think it's a good thing. And they're taking more risk than I ever would have imagined they would, and that's a good thing. But I still think that it's something that they need to push, and they are pushing. But I think overall, the teams that are more in sync will win. And I think it's just a natural thing that teams where people are side by side are more in sync. It doesn't have to be the case 100% of the time.

But I think that's where if you're betting, the probability is the teams that are sitting next to each other. will win. I fully disagree with this, and I think Eric Schmidt's answer is just so completely wrong and it really goes to show how out of touch he is with that company. Let me make the argument. So I think the accurate answer here is, yes, Google allowed Open AI to take the early lead in generative AI because the company was so safety for. focused, its product pipeline was effectively paralyzed. They didn't want to, they had the chatbot,

they didn't want to release it because they were afraid of what it might do. And they didn't release it. And then opening I released chat GPT and took this lead in the eyes of the public. And then you would say that Google really isn't behind at all on the technology. That would be the argument, at least I would make if I was someone in touch with trying to talk about the company's position. But the question is, how fast do you roll this stuff out? Do you roll it out 100% on day one and upend your search business? No, you have to be careful about it. But you can still do it and you do need a time it right. Meanwhile, Google's cloud business is growing. It hit $10 billion in a quarter for the first time last quarter just because of its AI business is growing.

and if you think about it, they are benefiting just as much from generative AI as the others. They remember, we talked about how their stock was floundering, but it recently hit an all-time high. It's outperformed Microsoft over the past year, and I think it has nothing to do with the fact that people are not coming into the office. I think that's the, that is the answer that Schmidt should have given.

And instead, talking about this, they're not working hard enough. Mumbo Jumbo, to me is just, that's what he should have apologized for not because he insulted the work ethic and he might have a point there but because he just has no idea why Google has performed the way it has because there are other factors I play here all right that that's fair I think that in for okay for the question of Google specifically and what's made or broken them over the last year and again there's I think their comeback in the generative AI story has actually been pretty impressive. And they're still pushing hard and delivering.

So I'm not taking anything away from them. I think more than just in the general, which type of work culture will win in this battle. I think as a more general statement, I think it's the teams that are sitting together. I was thinking about that statement again, though. You know the Olympics? Did you see the commercial where Google had launched around Gemini writing a little girl wanted to write a letter to her favorite athlete so the dad asked Gemini to write it for them yeah Eric Schmidt should have let Gemini write his response for him would have done better no no but but I remember thinking because like I saw someone uh someone had written like you know there needs to just be one person whose only job it is to

review ads and be like what a normal person how would they respond to this like literally just the average guy just sits in up in the office in the corner and sometimes you just got to go by and be like, hey, what do you think of this ad? Derek. And he's just like, no, no. I mean, but this is the kind of thing that I could actually see if people were in a room together, someone would be like, like you would, they would see physically see each other's reactions being uncomfortable. Like you would look around and people, because even the first time I saw it, I'm like, oh, this is a little weird. Like this is literally everyone imagines a little girl's like a child's handwriting and backwards letters. And like that's what makes it beautiful and this is just weird. But I could see this is the kind of thing. If you're distributed, someone looks at it. You don't want to be the one to have to post the message or send the reply all email saying, hey, everyone, this is weird.

But if you're all in person, you would see that reaction viscerally in a physical setting, even if it's unspoken. So I think that's the kind of thing that gets solved when people are sitting next to each other. And I don't know whether or not they were sitting next to each other and it still got through,

which if that's the case, that's problematic. But yeah, I think that's one example for me that stood out that maybe people need to be next to each other. And it's not working harder. It's just having more common sense. And I don't look, I don't know why I'm so in the can for Google in this episode. episode, but I'm just going to keep rolling with it. They did recently announce their new

pixel phone. And you think about all the, you know, going to this question of like, is Google really behind on AI? The pixel really, I mean, think about this. If Apple made these announcements for its Apple intelligence, do you think this would have been a better announcement than Apple actually made for its Apple intelligence launch? So they have this Google phone. It has Gemini built in. It has this thing called Gemini Live, which is a voice assistant, which you can talk to, similar as you can talk to

GPT-40. It has an image creator. You can take a picture of the fridge that will give you a recipe. It has then these really cool photo features, best take, which basically allows you to take a bunch of pictures, and then you kind of can tap through the people's facial expressions

and, like, compile the best take of everybody. It has a magic photo editor. You can change people's positioning in photos, you can reimagine pictures, you can change a scene like you can remove trees or remove a house or turn a road into a river. It has something called AdMe, which will put a person in a picture that if you don't have the person standing next to you, you could like take a couple of shots and it will merge them. I mean, this type of stuff, if you think about it compared to the reputation that the company has,

it would just lead me to believe that they're they are winning in certain very important areas in AI that just have not been talked about enough what's your perspective I think I think as we're talking I'll say the Eric Schmidt statement was juicy because it like it allows you to have yeah no no but it's also it allows you to move to the debate not even talking about Google specifically but just in general work from home versus return to office, which is a fun charged debate to get into. But I think specific to Google, I will say they're not losing. They're definitely not losing.

They're right in there in the mix. And you're right because we've certainly talked about Apple intelligence. And maybe Apple's strategy is to make our expectations so low that whatever they end up delivering in a couple, of months is actually going to blow us away. I doubt it, but we'll see. I will leave the possibility open to it. And I'm actually reading that I've been reading for a while, the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson. It's such a great book. And I'm pretty sure I have a hot take column from when I'm back from this break. And that's going to be that Apple should make iOS an open system and not keep it

closed to the iPhone and that they're so reliant on services and so reliant on AI right now and less reliant on selling new phones or at least increasingly less as they're trying to diversify their business and grow services that Apple should just take iOS and say if you want to build a phone with it you can do it I think that would be bold pretty cool move well so one thing that I'm an iOS user I'd used a pixel for a couple of years but my mother-in-law is in town from Taiwan and I was talking to her about chat GPT and she has an Android and she went to download it and downloads something that the logo is exactly the same. It says chat bot powered by chat GPT and instantly tries to force a subscription that's expensive and weekly. And I'm like, I don't think

that's chat chat GPT. I know there's, I mean, I have subscribed to it myself. And then it looked and it was a complete clone that tries to make itself look exactly like ChatGPT and pushes you into a subscription instantly. And I was like shocked and just imagining how many people fall for it. But then also, this is where iOS, the closed nature and anyone who's ever built an app and gone through the app store approval process, it's quite annoying. But it was a reminder of the wild, wild west of Android than Google Play and what's going on over there that made me for a moment a little happy at Apple protecting me. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I think, I just think that it might be the right time for Apple to take iOS and make it available to device manufacturers

to build devices with iOS on it as opposed to Android. Okay, I see, I see. You're saying not open source iOS itself, but actually make it available. just for other devices. Yes. Oh, actually, I guess I would have just made the case even more for that with that little anecdote. Yes, exactly. It seems like it would be the move.

But more discussion for that on a later day. And it would help them on the antitrust front as well, probably, or not? Yeah, no, no, no, no longer ties the two together. It no longer ties the operating system and the device. Okay. And they would make good money on it. Okay, I want to end on this in terms of the antitrust situation because we do have some news that the Justice Department has been thinking about asking for a full breakup of Google. Now, this was in the antitrust case, and the fact that this is going to be on the table as a remedy for the government in its case where the U.S. judge has ruled that Google is a monopoly.

is pretty interesting to me. Now look, I think it would be a massive overkill for them to try to break Google up because you could simply just prohibit this deal that they have with Apple and you've sort of washed your hands of the problem that you found them guilty as a monopolist for.

But I'm curious what you think. Do you think there's any plausible chance of the U.S. government breaking up Google and we'll end on this? I think there's still a chance of separating out business units. I think one of the big tech companies is going to be the first, whether it's AWS and Amazon.com, whether it's YouTube from Google's proper search business or Android from

Google or, I don't know, we used to talk about Instagram from Facebook, but maybe like WhatsApp from the meta ecosystem. Someone is going to be the example for what actual big tech breaking up or spinning out looks like. And I think it could be this. It could be like Android from Google, but basically maybe it's Apple music from Apple or something random like that, like just to start or Apple services business from the rest of the Apple ecosystem. But I think one of the big tech companies will be the first.

And then it'll, because there has to be some kind of threat and enforcement to prevent the like tying that happens. which creates more monopolistic behavior. Because honestly, if you just look at Apple and like, or I mean all these companies, but how they use the overall size and market power of each different business unit to strengthen the other one, or Amazon can lose money on its entire e-commerce business

because it's funded from profits from AWS. So yeah, I think it will happen, and this could be the one, especially if they're talking about it concretely. we don't even know what it looks like it sounds so crazy and like impossible because it hasn't happened in so long but yeah i just don't see how it solves the problem like the problem was basically google paying apple for the default position in search so for your answer to then be yes now we're going to break the company up like what you know just prohibit the deal

no no but that's just one part of the entire lawsuit i mean that was like the kind of figurehead of what is illegal and what's no longer going to be allowed. But yeah, I think it's all of these, even there's still the outstanding massive lawsuit from against Amazon. I think at some point, again, one of these, there will be some action taken against one of the companies. And I mean, and even if we're going to end on politics just a little bit, I mean, I think clearly who wins and whether it's Kamala Harris or Donald Trump and which Kamala Harris like

and how whether she continues the Biden approach towards antitrust or whether she moves back more towards the Obama approach. I think that's going to determine just how intense this enforcement is. Yeah. Look, and I just hear break up big technology and I get nervous because if someone tries to sever our podcast and our ad agency, because they're just too good, that will really, you know, keep me up at night. I think the big technology podcast market power is definitely concerning. And Lena Khan, if you want to come after us, we're not afraid. Yeah, look, if you know, Khan decides to come after big technology,

I'm just going to continue this operation from the Balkans, and that will be that. Actually, yeah, he's not coming back. From Tehrana, Albania. It's been a great speaking of. you again, Rod John. We made it. The Wi-Fi held. Are you back in New York next week? No. I'll be broadcasting our next few weeks from Germany and then back in New York mid-September. And we're going to do a studio show. Folks, I think this is the plan. It's when we're finally reunited in the same city. We'll actually get together and talk in person and record it and then

share it all with you. And I'm very excited about that. So this has been fun. It's good to be back on the horse. It's good to be back and let's do it again next week. I'll do it again next week. All right, everybody. On Wednesday, I have an interview with Eric Markowitz. He's an investor, long-term focused investor who got a diagnosis that he was likely to die within a few months and live to tell the tale. And he's going to come on and talk about it. And if you haven't caught it yet, my interview with Fire Festival founder, Billy McFarland, is up on the feed. So I do encourage you to check that out. That was a fun one. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Ron Jun.

Thank you to the Wi-Fi here in Tirana and to the fine folks in Albania. We'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.