Big Technology Podcast - TikTok Sale Or Ban Moves Forward In U.S. — With Mike Solana

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Mike Solana is the chief marketing officer at Founders Fund and editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the potential forced sale or ban of TikTok as the U.S. congress voted to pass a bill requiring it. Join us for an in-depth discussion of the arguements for and against banning the app, and how big money is influencing some of the key players. We also talk about Elon Musk, the state of X, Temu and Shein, the power of social media algorithms, and Devin, the first AI software engineer. --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology Premium? Here’s 40% off for the first year: https://tinyurl.com/bigtechnology Questions? Feedback? Write to: [e-mail]

Mike Solana from Founders Fund and Pirate Wires joins us as the U.S. House of Representatives votes on whether to force TikTok to sell itself or be banned. We'll discuss the push, the rationale, and the results right after this. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. We have a great show for you with a great guest. Mike Solana is here. He's the CMO at Founders Fund and the editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires. And we're going to talk about this potential TikTok ban from the House of. of representatives as Congress votes. This is the first time. We're going to actually do a podcast

with C-SPAN open in the second window. It's very exciting. And I'm thrilled to open. I'm thrilled to welcome Mike to the show. Mike, welcome. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. So obviously a big vote seems like it came out of nowhere, but reading pirate wires, it seems like there was actually something that happened that's been really under discussed that you pointed out that I think we should begin with that sort of precipitated this whole event. So you write, last week following a classified hearing with officials from the FBI and the Justice Department, which we still know almost nothing about, for which a bipartisan group of lawmakers resurrected Trump's attempt at TikTok divestiture. So, yeah, lead us into that.

Well, we don't know much about it. We do know that it happened. And this was like, but the people who first sort of went forth with the information included this one straight piece of information, which is accurate and no one knows really anything else about, which is that there is some kind of intelligence thing happening. that has been shared with lawmakers, which triggered the entire thing, which should have been shared. I believe there was more information. I'm not sure in the exact timing, but there was another brief today with the Broadhouse. I'm not sure how much was shared, maybe part of the classified information, maybe none. Who knows? Again, like, this is like wildly underreported and nobody. I've not been able to get my hands on the information. All of my contacts in Washington

know that that had a major part of the triggering. And then someone else pointed out on Twitter that like the entire thing coincided with a handful of high profile spy cases um in one in tech one was the google AI guy who got taken down but all of this within like a few day period uh regardless of what was shared with them we know that ticot has had this data problem for you know years and all the way including including after project texas it just that wasn't enough to really i think get the democrats going and then suddenly it was something happened and it was and all of this came together within a week. Yeah, the timing is incredible, especially there was a Wall Street Journal story talking about how TikTok leadership basically went

back to China and said, all is clear, Joe Biden is on TikTok and I think we've made it past some of the big hurdles. And then I guess just happened. That was the Super Bowl, right? That was like not long ago. Yeah. And then clearly they didn't understand something and it does sound like this intelligence briefing probably, I mean, must have triggered it. So you mentioned data, right? there was this project Texas that was supposed to handle the data, partnership with Oracle, that Oracle secures the data. And I wonder, so, you know, this is something that's been known for a while, like the way that the data is going to be stored. So I'm just trying to think about like the possibilities of this intelligence briefing, like what could have sent this off.

Now, maybe it was mishandling of data, but it also, I mean, we have an election coming up. And I think the biggest fear for me and others around TikTok has just been like it's a black box algorithm. Yeah. We have no idea of the people there are controlling culture. here. And I'm curious if you think it's more of that that precipitated this. I mean, I know we don't know or a data thing. The crazy thing about, and I think the problematic thing about the TikTok, the pro argument for TikTok investment is that it seems to be driven by people with a million different reasons for wanting it. Like there are no shortage of reasons for people to not like TikTok. And they're not really all in agreement.

on just the American user data going to China, even though that seems to be the reason that the bill is happening. And so I want to give, I'm pro-devestment, but I want to give the anti-devestment people, especially the sort of anti-devestment people, suspicious of government power in general, a little bit of grace here, because the truth is, it is like very chaotic. And as you mentioned, there are arguments totally focused on the propaganda component. And that does seem to be one of the major motivating, uh, motivating forces here. I think there's, from what I've seen, there is less proof really on that side. There is no like smoking gun where we do know the data has been sent over. But surely both of those are being used, both of those reasons are being

used to justify, um, forcing domestic. And on the propaganda side, it's kind of like, we don't know, but also why on earth would we take a risk like that? Um, then of course you get people. who say, well, our own companies do that as well. And we also don't know what those algorithms look like. And I think that's a fair critique, to a certain extent. Like, I just am not personally moved by the argument that Mark Zuckerberg is a greater threat or an equal threat to Xi Jinping. And I do genuinely see people making that argument. And it, I guess again, And, like, that's something they, like, I maybe understand coming out of the last election, but I just, yeah, it's tougher for me. I'm not, I'm not sold completely.

Right. And even Trump is making that argument. We'll get to that in a minute and Facebook in a moment. But I think it's important just to sort of set the table here and talk a little bit about what this bill is. And, you know, obviously the House of Representatives should be voting on it momentarily. And, oh, they're voting now. So. Okay. So we'll talk about the result as were on air, but the bill is not, you know, TikTok has referred to this bill as a bill to ban. It's not exactly a bill to ban. So can you describe exactly what the bill says? Right. And what happens if it makes out of the House of Representatives? So it's a divestiture bill, which means that TikTok's going to be forced to sell and not even

necessarily to an American. It just has to sell to someone that's not one of our, what is it, adversarial powers or whatever. I forget the exact phrasing they use in the bill. But that's an actual, that's like a, you, like, there's a list of four countries that have been determined by Congress to be, you know, these adversarial powers. So if you're not controlled by one of those four powers, you know, you can buy the, you can buy the app. I think that that is honestly also a bit of a pickle for TikTok. It's forced to sell. Like, who do they sell to? Um, you know that like Lena Collins not going to allow Facebook to buy it or TikTok. God, no, is Elon Musk going to be allowed. I don't even know that Elon could buy it right now, but like it doesn't even

matter. It's a moot point. It'll never be allowed. So there's a question of who has to buy it. But certainly the letter of the law of this bill is if you are a company, an app specifically maybe also has a website and you are controlled by one of these four powers and there is a national security risk as determined by the president. And like that's kind of a wishy part where it's like, I don't know. That seems like a problem. to me to give that much power to the president. But you have these powers, too. So it's not super broad. It's not nearly as broad as the detractors are saying. If these things light up, divestiture can be forced. That means they have to sell. They have six months to do so. I believe

it's six months. I'll have the double check. And then it would be removed from the app stores and things like this and shut down. But you have six months to sell and there are no shortage of buyers. It's just a question of, I do wonder who is going to buy it. Right. And Biden has said that he'll sign it if it comes to his desk. We still don't know what the Senate's going to do. So yeah, I mean, from what I've heard, that's a slam down. It's just like they're going to pass it. Um, so if it, if it, if it, if it, if it, the vote in the house works, it'll go to the Senate where I've heard it's much more likely to pass. Right now, this boat, I think I've been, it seems like it's going to pass, but you, you never really know in the house. And, um, from what I was just watching before we started, there seems to be, it's interesting to see bipartisan support and bipartisan, um, opposition. We rarely see things like this, where it's like, Like, it's not, it seems to be, I don't know, cross ideological and in both directions. Right. And it's right now 457, yay, in terms of passing. So it has to get two thirds, but we've got 11 minutes left. So we'll see how it goes. But early lead to ban, which is wild. We'll obviously keep you posted through the episode. You probably already know the results. The divest. The band thing is, this distinction is important, I think, because a ban really is, that's way more aggressive. That's like.

like, you know, we don't want this thing to exist. And when we talk about reasons that people are supporting divestment, and I say, you know, the two big ones are certainly the reason that it's being argued in today's hearing is the information and we hear a little bit of the propaganda. But there are a million reasons. And one of them is people just don't like the app, right? There are a lot of people who are just like, I fucking hate TikTok and I want to ban it. And that's crazy and wrong and not a good reason to ban something. And, and then there are people who are like, you know, they want more control or they want less control or things like this. There are people who just think it's degrading society. Again, not a good reason to ban

something. There are people who think it's digital fentanyl and addiction, which, I mean, maybe, but so is, you know, that obviously implicates every social media company to a certain degree. And also, I think, like, television, you know, granted, this is television that lives in your pocket, so it's much worse. And it's designed to find exactly what you want to see and give it you, but these are things that, these are questions where, like, we don't really have good answers yet in terms of what it's doing to you. And I think that you need more information before you act like this is cigarettes or something. I don't know that we really know that. No, I totally agree. And I, you know, so I said ban. I must have slipped because it sort of leads into my next question,

which is whether this is going to be a de facto ban and whether it is what that says about the whole TikTok operation in the first place. And that, of course, is, you know, it comes to China and whether they actually are willing to divest. Right. So first of all, a CNN story from 2023 says an outright divestment isn't in the cards, not least because the Chinese government views TikTok's technology as sensitive and has taken steps since 2020 to ensure it can veto any sale by its Beijing-based owner, bite-dance.

And then as we get closer to the vote today, you have a someone who used to be, basically is a Chinese government propagandist. He used to work for China state media. he's actually kind of an interesting follow on X. His name is Hu G. Jin. He writes, I support TikTok's tough response. Either it is bite dances TikTok or the government might as well shut it down. But ask the 170 million TikTok users first, do they agree?

Basically, he's saying if you're going to force the divestiture, we're going to just shut this thing down. And a lot of people have pointed to this out, like, that's kind of a tell. Like, that's interesting. I'm curious what your response is to the fact that this is a couple of the position. Yeah. So it's interesting for a couple of different reasons. The first one is bite dance TikTok comes is going overdrive saying that this has nothing to do. This app has nothing to do with China, no control.

Like, it's all misinformation. And then you mean to tell me that China is like whatever Xi Jinping wants is how this is going to go. Like if Xi Jinping doesn't want to sell, then it can't be sold. then they're in fucking control. Like, what are we talking about here? Like, it's just a complete lie that they're not in control. But let's table that. And then I think you're getting at something very interesting,

which is why wouldn't they want to, why would you want this to go to zero? Right. It's such an important, it's like a huge, successful company. Like, why zero? And it's because you don't want people to find out what is there. We all lived through what happened when Twitter changed ownership. and how much information was released and what was revealed.

And I think that is the reason. I think it's like it's worth $80, $100 billion to China to not, to not reveal anything. It's just, it's like an easy, it's like an easy, it's an easy buy for them. Like they're buying secrecy. And that again, yeah, I agree. It's a tell. It's like that alone, just like it's just a crazy thing that they wouldn't, that they would rather go to zero than sell. But, I mean, it's crazy until you think about what must be hidden.

And then it's like, okay, well, that makes sense. And it's another really good reason to force divestiture. Now, the one thing that I'll say is it could, first of all, it seems like a red flag to me. I mean, it's definitely a red flag. It could just be positioning, like basically like, you know, saying, all right, if you're going to ban us, we're going to shut down. And then there's going to be political consequences for you. And I do want to ask you about the political consequences because what do you, so. People do love TikTok.

What do you think happens to the party that ends up banning or the politicians that vote to ban TikTok? Because we did see their offices flooded with all these calls from kids and maybe parents saying don't ban the app. You got a lot of mentally ill teenagers who TikTok encouraged to call Congress. That did happen. I think... Well, come on, there's definitely mentally non-ill teenagers that also called. it's true that people use TikTok we see that like four hours a day it's clearly i mean i said we don't know that it's an addiction i think we should definitely look into the effect of social

media on people um i think that people want to be able to afford rent and i think that like that is the thing that people are going to hold on it's going to be the economy it's going to be rent it's going to be probably things like abortion and stuff really motivates people i think these are the things that persistently move people to the polls. It's very hard to mobilize people on this tech stuff unless it really impacts their life. I saw a vote on. The last time I saw this was maybe the closest comparison would be like the California anti-ride sharing bill and that was shut down by voters, but it cost so much money to get people to vote. vote in a way on that bill that would lead to Rideshare apps kind of remaining in operation.

And I, that's something that people use every day. That's an app that actually makes their life easier. They maybe need to get to work or whatever. This is entertainment and it will be very interesting. I highly doubt. I think people will be really upset and like yell about it. And then it's like, well, where are they going to yell about it? If TikTok's actually banned, where are they going to yell about it? And I don't think they're voting on it. I don't they're voting on like, oh, this one streaming app is gone. Meanwhile, they, they, they, do you have YouTube shorts? You have Instagram. You have, uh, you know, whatever else emerges. And again, that's if it, that's if it, if it, if China shuts it down, which yeah, at that point, who

cares? If China is so willing to shut it down that like, there's something to fairy, you're like, confirmed something to fair going on. Then it was definitely the right choice. I don't care how upset they are. And I think the average American will care either. Exactly. We have a, uh, uh, CNN story that just showed up. TikTok content creator says the bill that could ban the platform would influence her vote on election day. Like you might get some influencers who will make their vote based off of that. But I doubt it will extend, although who knows? It's interesting how people will make their choices. One other thing is that TikTok's going to influence the vote on election day one way or the other. Whether it's whether they are forced to divest and they choose to be banned instead,

or they go live and the content continues to shape the electorate in ways that we don't understand for years to come. Like there is a certain amount of shaping that is, to be honest, and fair, true of all social media platforms, right? Like, our opinion is being shaped. We just don't know how. And the question now is like, do you feel comfortable with it being shaped by someone in Beijing? And I personally do not.

Right. All right. Three and a half minutes left. it's currently 137 yay 22 nay so we still have 273 votes that are about to come in but the vote to divest is is leading right now all right so let's actually talk about tic Tac's uh official response to this uh this is from semaphore tick tock says the concerns are baseless it notes that about 60 percent of the company is owned by global institutional investors including financial giants saskohana international group in black rock it also says there are

three Americans on its five-person board, and it spent more than a billion on a plan that stores sensitive U.S. user data domestically on servers operated by Oracle. Is that convincing at all to you? And yet one man and one man only is able to decide if the company divests or not, and that man's name is Xi Jinping. So, like, what are we talking about here? It's just, it's very silly to even entertain it for a second. If what they're saying is true, this wouldn't be an issue. Let's talk also about the First Amendment, right? Because that's going to be, so let's say they do, you know, we go through the whole process, they voted, the divestiture bill goes through.

Tick-Tock's obviously taken it to the courts. And they're going to say it's a First Amendment issue. And you know what's been interesting is that I think there has been, you know, obviously debates bipartisan, but people who I've like been surprised on the Democratic side have basically said First Amendment shouldn't apply here. Here's Tim Woo. He says TikTok while I'm using is also a national security vulnerability hiding in plain sight. basically a foreign-owned spyware installed in millions of phones.

I think Congress would be right to direct investiture from bite-dance on pain of an app ban. The idea that the First Amendment would stand in the way of a directed sale of TikTok in the USA is unsurious and would take an already overstretched amendment into new territory. The First Amendment is not the right to spy on people nor a suicide pact. well I agree and as someone who kind of came up in anarcho-capitalism and like hardcore libertarianism there is a principle I do see some principled push back on an extremely liberal interpretation of the First Amendment which is you know basically maximum not only freedom of speech but freedom of association like to the point where you know if I want to be spied on by the Chinese

government and you know I want to opt into a situation where I'm I it doesn't matter that let's say that Xi Jinping is openly running he's got I mean he's running the algorithm himself right is like a little laptop open and he's just sounding exactly what we see there is a certain kind of libertarian who would say well that's my right I am allowed to be have my opinion shaped by you know 150 million Americans are allowed to have their opinion shaped by Xi Jinping specifically they're allowed to spy on us we're allowed to spy for them um I think that this argument could also be applied to literal spies. Like, they have a freedom of association.

Americans should be free to send trade secrets from different companies or whatever information they pick up from the U.S. government to China. Like, you should just be allowed under, I don't see how that argument is much different. And I just am, like, there are tradeoffs everywhere that you look. I actually, I do acknowledge that there is a slight tradeoff to. sort of libertarians maximum concept of liberty here you are there is some some tradeoff whether or not the app successfully divests it's just that I am comfortable with that

tradeoff in this case I'm comfortable with trading off some amount of freedom of association when it comes to national security yeah which is like there are there are always exceptions to the rules right and and this sounds like it might be a reasonable one There's also the question of retaliation or like our values, right? So this is from Anupam Chander from Georgetown. He's a professor there. He goes, he says on X, for those supporting the ban on TikTok, that the Chinese get it right decades ago by banning Twitter and Facebook.

And should they not also ban Apple and Microsoft under the same reasoning? I mean, that's, I think the second part is interesting. Like if this does go through or let's say this, the bill fails, but we still, I mean, that's another possibility is the bill fails, but we still. still have this persisting in the US. There might be, you know, there might be retaliation at some point. For instance, we already know China's encouraged like government employees to go away from iPhones and towards Huawei phones and Apple iPhone sales have dropped 24% in the first six weeks in in 2024 in China while Huawei is up 63%. So what is the risk of blowback here? Well, I would say

that first, you know, we've done this before. This is not an alien and concept. Grinder was forced to divest and for good reason. Um, like you do not want the Chinese government to have access to like every American's weird sexual stuff. Um, it's like it's like a like obviously blackmail waiting to happen. Um, but on the question of retaliation, like in a sense, this would be like like in a set, if you want to talk about just the business, the trade dynamics of this, if they're already banning all of our social media apps, this is reciprocity. This is like Like, yes, we're doing it too. There you go. If they want to escalate beyond that and, you know, really get into a trade war and you're talking about, well, you know, Apple's going to take a hit. Probably Elon Musk is going to take a hit. I think these are the dangers probably that a lot of people are thinking about. And we can really sort of judge their public opinion on this bill based, I think, into some extent on how much people have to lose if China and the U.S. get into a real trade war. And I think that like for some people who have have a lot of manufacturing over there, it would be very bad. For the average American consumer

would mean really expensive iPhones probably. Like we're talking $10,000 plus more. It'll be exorbitantly cost for a while. Meanwhile, for China, if they want to get into a real trade war, and we just, they lose all of the U.S. business and, you know, food trading and things like this, it's like we are at risk of very expensive phones and they are at risk of starving their entire population. Like, their entire economy is built on trade. I don't think they really want an all-out trade war, I would be very surprised if they went to that length. And if they did, we would survive it and they would have a hard time surviving it. Right. And India, I mean, you're right, because like she was just in San Francisco speaking with Biden about, you know,

potential economic deals and giving us the panda backs. Very, very important. We need those pandas. So did it happen? I know that we asked. I wasn't sure that actually they are. Yes. I think they're kind of, they are either already in San Diego or I are on their way. It's interesting, the D.C. Zoo really where it hurts, right? There's no pandas there anymore. And the whole zoo is just pandas, you know, panda pancakes and panda everything. So yeah, you can feel the ire right in the nation's capital. So, you know, it's also interesting to think about, oh, well, one other point about that is that India did ban TikTok and everything seems to be fine on that front. Yep. People get on with it. It does not matter. I think that if they ban, the, there's like a maybe. broader thing here where like I think about social media in general not just TikTok I think about you know what if Twitter was banned how would I feel I'd be

outraged on First Amendment grounds if the government came in and just shut it down because they hate it whatever obviously that's a clear massive violation of our First Amendment and that is like it's a US company it's a US it's under US control it's clearly political that's crazy but if you could separate the politics from it and like just get emotional about it like how would my life

change if I no longer have access to Instagram and Twitter. And I would be happier. I think that probably most people would be happier. And that's what places it in a very different context and something like if Amazon Prime were banned or ride sharing were banned, things that actually improve your life. Social media does not do that. You can make really abstract arguments for its importance, which I do agree with on information sharing and learning the truth about things and individuals investigating stories on their own and all of this stuff is true but on the other hand like just emotionally it is it's these they these digital spaces suck and they suck the life out of you certainly me someone who

writes professionally and is like very involved in the media like I would love a break and I think on some level probably most people will this is why I find it kind of very unconvincing that people are going to be so outraged if this happen if she forces uh the band to take place. They'll be so outraged that they're what, who are they going to vote for? Which, which side are they going to vote for? They're both sides supported. Who are you voting for? Exactly. And not to, not to mention, I mean, we have, like, they're not as good, but we have competitor products on Instagram, for instance. And, you know, it's, it'll suffice. If we're left with reels, I think that we'll, we'll be able to get, you're like you said, get along with

it. So, I want to talk to you about Trump. Trump obviously, like, was for the ban. He pushed a ban, really, or he pushed a divestiture when he was president, did this whole thing. Now, now he is anti-divestiture. And he was on CNBC this week. He said, frankly, there are a lot of young people on TikTok that love it. And there are a lot of young kids that will go crazy without it. And banning it would give a leg up to Facebook.

And Facebook is the enemy of the people. And you called his flip-flop on this an incredible scandal. So talk a little bit about what's happened with Trump on this issue and sort of the money circulating in the background that's influenced his position and some others. Right. So the man's name is Jeffrey Yass, and this is a billionaire Republican daughter. He's very important and very influential in Washington politics. He is also a major, enormous investor in bite dance. this, I've tried to figure this out. There's a range of estimations from like 22 to 35 billion

dollar stake that he has in ByteDance, which presumably could go to like close to zero if she forces the ban. And so he's, and that's like most of his wealth is tight. I think I'm pretty sure. So back check me on this. I'm pretty sure most of his wealth is tied up in this at this point. so he is all in naturally on preventing this divestiture from going through and in a way that I think is I'm almost grateful that it's just like an understandable motive it's like a clear money motive I was in DMs with people who are all trying to be like these are they're like Chinese assets and they're being run by the government it's like it's just money you just like just look at the money look at the financial interests.

Like Jeffrey Ass has an interest to keep this alive. So he's been lobbying hard. He has a standard set of people who he's lobbied for in the past, including like Rand Paul, who is one of his favorites. But then you have Trump, who he's been at war with for months and months and months. He was like a, you know, never Trumper kind of person. And now about a month ago, that relationship started to thaw. and the very week

that the TikTok divestiture dropped he Trump spoke before Club for Growth which is Jeffrey Ass's super PAC they became friends

Trump talked about them bridging all bonds so like within days it's like that happens TikTok divestiture drops a couple days later Trump comes out

and and in and he equivocates on the issue of TikTok which is a divestiture that he kicked off in the first place there is clearly he's getting paid he's like clearly taking money

from Jeffrey ass and that is clearly influenced his new I would say you know pivotish on this issue my sense now while there are some that are clearly all in on stopping divestiture who are getting money from Jeffrey asked

Rand Paul is one of them Vivek is one of them while there are a bunch of points on Vivek and your story are just amazing. I mean, the Vivek stuff is crazy, but it's like he's obviously less important than the others. You have people in Trump's sort of circle who are now working for bite dance or close to bite dance, including like Hope Hicks most recently. You have, what's her name?

Isn't she working for Sheehan or she's also working for Byte Dance? Maybe was it she? Okay, sorry, I might have gotten that wrong. Then Marjorie Taylor, Marjorie, not Marjorie Togreen. Kelyan Conway is working, not working, she's getting paid now by Club for Growth. Again, this is like the Jeffreyass connection. So like you're not getting money from- America first people.

Yes. And I do want to talk about that. I just want to say I want to give Trump something here really quick, which is that Trump could, I think Trump could have really turned like the entire Republican Party against this bill. He could have gone all in. He could have done sort of what he did during. the immigration bill and just really put weight behind this. Instead, he kind of, his statements have been ambivalent to a certain extent. They're clearly not supportive. They're clearly drawing false

equivalencies between Facebook. He's clearly saying, you know, we don't want Facebook to have more power or blah. He's calling it a ban, which is a propaganda sort of talking point. But he hasn't done as much as he could. And I think he's trying to sort of have it both ways, kind of correctly understanding that he doesn't have to make a decision right now. This is in Biden's court. But yeah, these are the America First people. And that brings us to, I think, a point that has been raised quite a bit in tech, which is like, let's get rid of the question of the First Amendment. Let's get rid of the question of the data sharing or the espionage or the propaganda or whatever. Like, if you table all of that and you just talk about the trade issue, which is a sort of nationalist America First issue.

This is a major thing that Trump and like Bernie Sanders have talked about, just like there should be reciprocity. We shouldn't have these crazy trade deals where we're getting screwed. This is classically one of them. This is one where, like, we have products that we cannot sell in China, that they have the sort of comparable products that they're selling into our market. And that just doesn't make any sense. That's not an America first position. That's like a populist right wing position.

It is a position that you could only really have if you were like a principled libertarian, which is not what the sort of globalist national or anti-globalist nationalist people are. or you're getting paid. Those are the two reasons that you would change, that you pivot on this issue. Yeah, I just want to jump in quickly to say the bill's passed. So it's a landslide right now. There's still 26 votes left to be counted, but they matter only to the extent of the margins. It's 343 to pass this divestiture bill to 63, nay, and one present, which is remarkable.

Your reaction to that? That's more than I thought. Same here. I thought it would pass, but especially while watching this morning, there were a lot more nays than I realized. Maybe they just really wanted to talk, and the others were like, I don't need to talk, shut it down. But I am surprised, and I think it will be passed by the Senate, and I think that divestment is coming, and TikTok's going to have to sell. Pretty big margin. I mean, you're right.

The people against were very loud, like the Vivex, the Trump's, Marjor Taylor Green made a big speech in passion in favor of. keeping TikTok on, well, in Chinese hands. Sorry? Let's talk about her reason. Yeah. It was interesting because she gave like kind of like the Democrat reason. But yeah, you go ahead. Yeah.

Well, she set her first. I don't know that she did. It's interesting. I mean, there are so many different reasons on the on the on the on the nays side and the yay side. But on the nays side, what she said, she opened with, I was banned from Twitter. That's where she opens. So Twitter, years ago, run by someone else, did something to me that I didn't like. That's where she started.

And then she said, you know, this should affect like, oh, you say you care about China, but then like, why are you allowing the Chinese to buy U.S. farmland, which is a, that's true. We should not do that either. Like, that's another thing that should not be allowed. Whenever they're like, you're not serious about China, I'm like, try me. How many things do you think that I want to be divested? Because I would like broad divestiture on anything critical. Like, you should not be owning seaports. You should not be owning seaports. You should not be owning. I don't think that you should, if you're a Chinese citizen, U.S. citizens are not allowed to buy single family homes in China. If you're a Chinese citizen and you're not like a dual U.S. citizen or something like that, why are we allowing you to come over here and buy property? Like, like doesn't make any, none of those things make sense to me. So try me, Margie. But she certainly, you know, she's saying shit. It's like she wants to draw some kind of then false equivalence between U.S. tech and, uh, and TikTok, which her, the Democrat from California immediately followed with a more explicit parallel drawn he was like you know this bill should affect all tech companies

which of course it does it's just facebook is not run by china so it like it does affect them um but what he really meant was like this other thing is on the table that democrats really want which is some kind of like i mean it's there i i feel the left especially has been pushing for some kind of quote content moderation or like truth monitoring and some way making sure there's like that facts are facts and things and that of course is just i mean in my perspective like completely insane it's obviously an attempted censorship and um we already saw what their version of like the truth looked like over the past few years some people agree some people disagree the point is we shouldn't even have to have conversations like this uh and um that's where i saw

like Democrats kind of opposing wanted more. They wanted they were like, you know, we got to go after all of them. And Republicans opposing were a mix of libertarian principle and just like clearly paid off by Jeffrey S. In my opinion, don't sue me.

Yeah. So I got to ask you about Elon. Elon has also come out against this. Yeah. This is from Semaphore. Elon Musk, whose firm Tesla could be collateral damage in a U.S. China commercial conflict came out against the bill on X Tuesday. This is a law. This law is not just about TikTok. It is about censorship

and government control. If it were just about TikTok, it would only cite foreign control as the issue, but it does not. This kind of puts you in opposition with Elon, which it hasn't happened very frequently recently. So talk a little bit about it. It happens all the time. People just don't listen. People don't read me. You got to read my, go to piratewires.com and subscribe. I do about where you and Elon are in conflict, so I want to talk about that. But okay, so let's talk about this one, at least. I think he's wrong. And I think that he is, I think he is like one of the most important entrepreneurs in American history. I think that he is a force for, despite like, whatever you think about his tweets, I think he himself has done something tremendously important to

the discourse by having a different set of rules on one of our major speech platforms. I think he's opened the Overton window in such a way as everybody is having a harder time censoring now. I think he's really beaten back on something that I found to be very frightening under COVID when you couldn't talk about things like COVID, for example. I am a huge believer in what he has done so far, like the actions that he has taken over the past few years. In terms of what he'll do in the future or whatever else, who knows, on this issue, I think he's wrong. I think that I give him grace to a certain extent because he's done so much good in the world. I think that it doesn't really matter fundamentally what he says. It matters what our politicians have to say about

this. And I think that when you see huge tech people opposing this, you just kind of have to look to where they do business and what they need to survive and you got to take it with a grain of salt, I think. I think it's unfortunate, but also, I mean, what do we want him to do? Do we want him to say, fuck China and then Tesla goes to zero? Like, this is like, we forget how everybody, China, it wasn't like for 10 years we've been talking about China. For our entire life up until a few years ago, we were supposed to work with China. You know, the relationships were thawed and manufacturing China was great and yay globalism. And then COVID happened and we realized how at risk we were and how vulnerable we were because of the manufacturing, outsourcing

and things like this. And not just in terms of it's great when we manufacture. at home, but just national security risk innate of exporting all of your manufacturing. And I think everybody's struggling to catch up. And there are some big tech players that are. And yeah, that's all I'm going to say about it. He's just wrong about the issue. But I'm not going to like beat him to death because of it. I'm focused on the politicians who are actually in power. Yeah, we just had Gruber on talking a little bit about how Apple is kind of in a similar position where they also put a big investment into China. And now, I mean, I'm sure both parties regret it to some extent because it does box you in i mean what are they going to do it's exactly no that's what i'm saying

there's a crazy situation for them yeah okay so let's end this segment with a couple of big questions that i have you know now that we've seen that the uh the house has banned or it's not banned sorry voted to divest a tic-tok or forced the ticot divestment um what do we okay so rich greenfield we talked about this on the friday show rich greenfield uh put a tweet out last week uh showing that the top, three of the top five apps in the U.S. were Timu Sheehan and TikTok in the free charts. What do we do with Timu and Sheean? Do you do the same thing? I believe that there should be reciprocity. And I think that we should. Yes, I do. I think that, I think that, I mean, this is controversial, but I just, I really have changed. I'm not a libertarian.

anymore. I don't believe in a, so separate from this national security piece, the trade piece is very compelling to me. I don't believe in a world in which U.S. companies are not permitted to compete in China, but the entire world is permitted to compete in America. It's never made any sense to me. It has not made sense to me for years. And kind of once I think that question bubbled up in my head, I've not been able to let it go. I've never heard a compelling reason that we should persist in this in this state uh and i think china specifically is dangerous and so i think certainly we you start with the like the the sort of giant social media type things um and then we see probably i think maybe you wait and see what how china how china reacts to that but like

generally i am i'm in favor of divestment okay Big question number two. This finally seems like an admission that social media algorithms really do shape the discourse and can influence politics. So do you think the press is right now to focus so much on the political influence that social media companies can have behind the scenes with their algorithms? Well, who didn't, who, I wouldn't say it was a press argument. I would say that was like, who didn't agree that these things were super influential? And so that was the entire motivating argument behind, if you think back to like the right wing pushback under like the sort of dark years like 2020, 2020, 2021, it was all these giants have total control of what we're seeing. And like I agreed it was bad then. I agree it's bad now. I think the press has wavered on what they think is bad depending on who is in power. Right? Like you hear more of it. now that Elon has some very small say, by the way,

comparatively, when you compare it to how much traffic like Facebook is getting. But, yeah, I want to be, maybe that it's not a problem in a world where lots of people have lots of different algorithms that are clearly run in lots of different ways. It's a problem when everybody agrees, and you have a de facto sort of giant censorship apparatus. But some insight into how these things work and what we see and why we see it, I think would be great.

I would like to know more about why we're seeing what we're seeing. Mike Salon is here with us. He is the CMO at Founders Fund and the editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires. At the other side of this break, we're going to talk a little bit about Twitter, and then we'll see what else we can get in before we have to go. All right, back 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 two million professionals read the Hustle. 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 Hustle Daily Show and your favorite podcast app, like the one you're using right now.

And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Mike Solano. We're talking tech talk. Now we're going to talk a little Twitter. Okay. So first question for you about Twitter. Just a broad question about Elon. It seems like Elon can clown on everyone, but then when people clown on Elon, there's a lot of sensitivity around it. It's the kind of, he's the toughest person to talk about because, you know, if I praise Elon or say something negative about Elon, I know there's going to be like one segment of society that's going to like freak out.

So, but I want to ask you specifically about why is it so out of balance for people to criticize Elon's and make jokes about him? Like it feels like there's a real sensitivity among him and his supporters. around that stuff. I don't know. I don't think there is. I think that you can criticize Elon and everyone should be allowed to. In fact, I've seen him say that himself. Like, yeah, maybe I just disagree slightly with the premise. Obviously, his fans, I mean, you're talking about fans of Elon. Elon has fans the way like Beyonce has fans or Taylor Smith has fans. So like those people are, yeah, they're going to react to it. But like celebrity, like fans of celebrities react that way. In terms of like the ethics of it, I just don't, I don't disagree with you. People should be

allowed to criticize anybody. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about his handling of Twitter. You mentioned that Elon has sort of loosening the speech rules on Twitter and sort of press the issue with a bunch of other companies that I agree. We're too quick to take content down. I'm curious what you think about the way that the product is working because, and I'd love to run through like some of the issues that I have with it. I do think that the product has degraded under him. And I just wish that there was like a broader focus on the user versus the sort of political aims of the ownership. I don't actually see any like I would need proof that he has some kind of like actual active political aims. I think that you see there's a product that

is very open now where people can talk about things that previously they were not allowed to talk about that are and that and that's politically disadvantageous to people who are really benefiting from a culture of censorship. And then there's Elon's own personal opinions, which people find, some people, especially the left, seem to find extremely distasteful. And that has led them to this belief

and this like conspiracy in which he is making certain kinds of content. He's amplifying certain kinds of content in a way and opinions that we never would have seen. But in fact, that's just like American opinion. And it's been silenced for a while and people got really used to a state of censorship. So that's like a, that's a separate question.

just don't agree with that. I think that it's not true. I don't see any evidence that he is shaping the algorithm the way that's changing people's opinions. I think we're seeing people's actual opinions now. Right. But what I'm saying is that there was like a political purpose to buying the app. He's not, he didn't buy the app for a business reason as far as I know. Like he didn't like buy Twitter because it was a great investment that was going to like 10x with his ownership. It was more of an ideological. He wanted to change the way of the platform. I think it was partly It was, you know, I think my read of it is that that seems to have been a big part of it, the fact that he wanted the openness. But also he's always had this ambition to do X.com and the everything app or whatever. I think it is this like younger. He had this from when he was very young. He wanted to do something that would just be, quote, everything. I think that was maybe part of the motivation too. But yeah, I think probably when you do something for ideological reasons, it's always going to be a little bit of a misconduct. mistake and the reality of on the product side is, I guess it depends on what you think the product

of Twitter is. So for me, to be able to share my opinions without fear of being erased is a good part of the product, but the actual use of it, so links for me are like way worse now. And as a writer, obviously, that's important. And none of the products offered in place of that have even come remotely close to what I was able to do previously and in fact it doesn't seem to be something that the product team really cares about improving beyond those first early initiatives like the enthusiasm's gone but the links are still fucked because whatever for whatever reason on their side they learned that keeping people on the app was really important and so they're sort of like you know robotically pursuing that goal which i would say doesn't actually make twitter

an outlier, it makes Twitter the same as every other social media company now. And I just happened to personally really hate those other companies and really like using Twitter for both personal and professional reasons. That's like the big product change. It's just that it's more like Instagram in this respect now. And I just don't like that personally. And it's not useful to me personally. Yeah. So, okay, so here are some things that I've noticed that I've changed under him. And I'm curious what you think about about this list. So the removing of headlines under the article on articles has made it difficult for me to find links. And in fact, like, I think Elon's response when headlines went away was like, you trust these people.

Like it was clearly like kind of motivated by a dislike of the press. He's also banned substack, which is like, I don't know, sort of, I mean, I understand they were competing with the newsletter product that he shut down. But like to me, that just seems like, again, it's going to, it made the degrade. the user experience, which is not, not ideal. So he didn't ban substack. He dramatically reduced the rate at which you would see links from substack, and that has since been applied to every link. So I'm not on substack anymore.

We have our own sort of CMS, and we publish from piratewires.com, and there's been no difference from the move for me and all in terms of how links are affected, which is something that I hate. and the article thing that you're saying is also something that I really hate but I don't think he says it's like oh like you can't trust the media I think the truth is just that

they're looking at what happens when people leave when people leave the app and they're losing money because of it and he's trying to get to profitability and they're they're stripping away the thing that I personally found valuable there. And it's slowly becoming a place that I find less useful professionally, but still very useful in terms of like learning about, you know, kind of what's going on. But yeah, I mean, I hate those

things. I really hate those changes. I don't have insight into what's happening on the back end that would motivate those changes. And so and I, and my sense is it's really a very strong business motive. Right. And I guess like that's also sort of that that feels to me less timely now. Like the algorithm seems further behind. I remember the San Bankman-Free conviction, and it was like trying to find news on Twitter was real tough for me. I think it's improved a little bit.

But if you add, like, the fact that they've, we have a dispute on verification, but remove verification from reporters that they have, you know, buried the headlines, killed links, made the algorithm a little bit slower, seemed to have favored chat GPT influencers over like, you know,

what's happening in the moment. It's a big shift not only in terms of like the type, of speech that you are going to allow or remove, but also just the function of the app. Like one of the things that I think Jack Dorsey actually did well when he ran Twitter, and it's not a huge list, but he said, we're a news app, move the app from social media to news, and sort of it was growing under him, again, both in terms of users and in terms of revenue. So that's to me the thing that I've mostly noticed. The first is the Sam Begman-Fried story was broken by autistic.

capital on Twitter. So like all of the early report, everything that I knew about that story started on Twitter under Elon. And then, you know, I think about October 7th and the Hamas stuff and then all of the Harvard president gay stuff. Like these are just off the top of my head. I'm sure if I went back and looked at others, I would find more. But those cases, like, I would not have known what the actual story was if it were not for Twitter. What you're, I agree that what you're it is very bad at now is finding um like a link to a thorough story on something once you kind of know once it's the story is established but when it comes to like what is immediately happening today there is still nothing better than than that app and that's why I think we're

all living on it still and why we're all still addicted because we do know that like that's where things are happening live it's just that it's like that well put together thoughtful analysis type stuff it's the reporting it's like the long longer form record of things is harder to find, much harder to find on Twitter. And then 200 Jack, I would say like, yes, there was a switch to news type stuff and it was growing. I don't have the numbers for me. I'm just taking your word for it. I believe that makes sense to me. That was also under Trump when everything news related was growing. People were just obsessed with it. It was like Trump. It was COVID. It was like it was news. We were living inside looking at the

news. I don't know where that company would be today. I know that they're out of product has always sucked. It sucks today. It really sucked then. It's been a, it's just never been nearly as good as its competitors. And it was facing a lot of problems separate from any of the ideological things. And you can't run the experiment twice, so you don't know. But in general, yeah, I mean, I prefer, I want to agree with you. Like, I preferred it for me, uh, when you were, it was easier to link to your work is the main thing that I'm going to get. And as a user to find find work, but I don't know. Well, our users, I think that what we don't want to listen to. Well, we don't want to believe, what I certainly don't want to believe, as someone who writes

long form content is that people don't want it. But I think the revealed preference, like, people are kind of robotically following the revealed preference of users, which is for shorter form jokes and pieces of information and headlines and pictures and things. Like, the average person just doesn't want this other thing. And that sucks, but that is maybe just what people, people are. But if that was the case, usage would be up. And usage according to most third-party data, including some that I reviewed, show that it's down anywhere from 13 to 20 percent since Elon took over. It could potentially be like a post-Trump hangover. But also, you know, if he's moving towards the content form that people want, wouldn't there be a bigger bump? Is readership like

up on all the other things? Like readership on Facebook or readership on the New York Times or things like that. So you're right. I mean, news sites have definitely dropped as well. I'm asking. I don't actually know the answer. I think it's, I have no idea. I bet that I think that there probably is some amount that you say, I think there's some amount that probably has taken a hit because of Elon and some amount has taken a hit because of just like COVID years were different and people we forget, I think, how super plugged in people were. But on the Elon side, there is also, like it's undeniable that he's taken a hit based on the ideological perception. of Twitter, which I would say, I mean, I followed this very closely. I wrote about it every step

of the way. There was a concerted effort from the second that Elon took over before he even had control. He just showed up with that fucking sink. The stories were like, this man is propagating, you know, hate speech. Hate speech is up X amount since Elon took over. He had not even taken over, right? Like, there is a huge drive to say, this is the right-wing app. And, but, Really, what he was doing was allowing very sort of what I think left-wing journalists believed to be very unsavory types of people back on the app. Many of whom I also, by the way, can't stand. Like, there, I see horrible things now all the time. I'm like, oh, God, like, disgusting.

Like, I don't want to see this shit. That's kind of a hit that you're willing to, someone like I was willing to take for ideological reasons in a more open environment. But many people are not. And, uh, and they have gone elsewhere, you know? I think that there's been some amount of that. I think there's been some amount of just general information disinterest. Yeah, okay. Last thing, we're running out of time.

I feel like we could do this for hours. I'd love to bring you back also and have you debate, like someone with one of these new Twitter books. That would be fun. But yeah, let's just talk about one thing, which I found was super interesting and just came out today. I'll put a tech hat back on. There's this company called Cognition.

They have introduced this thing called Devin, which is the first AI software engineer. It's completed real jobs on Upwork. It's past practical engineering interviews from AI companies. It also uses its own shell code editor and web browser. It seems fascinating. Look, it's a tech podcast. We've talked a lot about content and stuff like that, but I have to end here because it's such a fascinating story.

I'm curious, like, is this the next step you think AI is going to take is being able to complete code in this way? it seems fascinating and quite promising, but also somewhat scary technology. I hope. I really hope. I mean, I think it's ironic that people who are in jobs that are not working are told as a pejorative to learn to code. And now engineers are being replaced potentially, a certain kind of engineer. There's always going to be room for really advanced people, but a lot of the sort of bricklaying type stuff.

I want it. I really want it here. I really want it in a place like law, you know, being able to get help, legal help for very small amount of money. I think this stuff flattens the landscape in a way that I think this empowers people broadly. You know, anything that removes a barrier of entry to people producing things or defending themselves or creating companies or whatever I'm in favor of, I think that it will have a huge effect. it's just unclear. I don't, I hate making predictions like this. This is a big one too. This is like a world altering. I think nobody, the truth is just that nobody knows how any of this stuff is going to shape the world, which is why so many people are so frightened of it, because people just generally fear the unknown.

And you kind of, when you don't know anything, you're, I think the evolution of this is we've, we've grown to expect danger because that's what helped us survive. And so that's, the fears are just metastasizing right now. But I think, generally speaking, great thing. I do think it will have, I think it will work. And I am excited about a future where people have access to these tools for not a lot of money. Yeah. One last thing, though, I had to note that there was this tweet that you put out about someone.

They were, there was a headline about people talking about AI extinction risk and how it was coming and very scary. And you know, the messaging is insane. What are you guys doing? I agree with you on that. I think the doomer. I mean, look, there's real reason to be concerned about this technology. Any powerful technology has downsides. But this like one-to-one brain of like, oh, AI can talk to us.

Therefore, nuclear, you know, incineration by bot is imminent. Has always seemed a little bit nuts to me. Well, all this comes from the rationalist community, which is. I'm not saying they're rationalist, that's what they call themselves insanely. And their overall point is like, this is an X-risk conversation, existential risk. So if there is even a 1% chance of human extinction, that's a huge risk. That's an insane, incalculable, like you should never take a one-and-a-hundred chance that all of humanity is destroyed.

they would say that probably for a one in a thousand and a one in ten thousand like it just that's too big of a risk um and i think that you have to take risks to grow and if you don't grow you die and everything good in the entire world is a risk um i think that's just the cost of living in an age of wonder is like you're taking risks technology is risk yes everything changes um but it's the only way that you grow and it's the only way that you progress and that's the only way that you can create a better world. You have to take risks. I don't think, I just happen to not think that the risk is as big as they say. But then again, I'm not a rationalist. So could be wrong. Mike Salana, great having you on. Thanks for being here. Everyone. You too. All right,

everybody. You heard it here first. Tick-Tock bill passes the House next stop Senate and then potentially the president's desk. We'll be back on Friday talking about it and more on our news recap show. And see you next time on Big Technology Podcasts. Thank you.