Big Technology Podcast - Zuck's New Mojo, Elon's New AI Company, Striking Actors' AI Fears

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Ranjan Roy of Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the week's tech news. We cover: 1) The revitalization of Zuck’s image 2) Twitter’s payments to creators 3) Whether Threads has staying power 4) Microsoft, Activision & the FTC’s failure to reign in Big Tech 5) Elon’s new AI company, xAI 6) OpenAI’s Code Interpreter plugin 7) SAG-AFTRA actors joining the writer’s strike, fearing AI's impact. -- 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/ Questions? Feedback? Write to: [e-mail]

A new image for Mark Zuckerberg, the Microsoft Activision deal is going to go forward, and actors in Hollywood are going on strike and warning whether machines will replace them. All that and more coming up on this live edition of Big Technology Podcast right after this. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, Friday edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed format. We have so much to talk about. Ranjan Roy is here. Ron John, I know you have a lot of thoughts about threads. We've been talking about threads a lot on this show, but we're going to talk a little bit about where it leaves Mark Zuckerberg and what's going to happen in the battle between threads and Twitter going forward. That's our A-block. And from there, we're going to

move on to Microsoft Activision and plenty more. Ron John, welcome. It's good to be back. I've missed you, Alex. There's definitely, there's been a hole in my heart, especially as this thread story has unfolded and myself, and we've had people on threads writing me saying we'd love to hear what Ranjan has to say about this. So today we'll finally get our chance, but let's start with the revitalization of Mark Zuckerberg's image. So this is coming from the Wall Street Journal. It says Elon Musk has done the once unimaginable. He has helped revive Mark Zuckerberg's Silicon Valley mojo. That was evident as tens of millions of people signed up for Zuckerberg's alternative to Musk Twitter. After more than eight months of turmoil under Musk on Twitter, a certain glee

erupted from those who said that they were tired of the chaos and sometimes nastiness of his particular digital clubhouse so much that they signed up for threads overlooking the typical privacy anxieties that come with meta here's the question okay is this so obviously we know why people are going to threads right um because they just don't like twitter anymore but the deeper question is did people give mark Zuckerberg too much of a hard time previously did they give him too much of a hard time. They're certainly not now. People are thirsting over Mark Zuckerberg shirtless next to two other UFC fighters on my threads when I open it up and will definitely get into Threads app itself. But I'll admit myself, when threads has come out, it's the first

time in a long time. I didn't look at meta slash Facebook with total fear about what are they doing and what are the implications of this. And I'm actually ready to give it a chance. And I think that is the greatest, I mean, short of shooting rockets into space and, you know, electrifying the vehicular system, I think Elon Musk making me be okay with Mark Zuckerberg, launching a new app that grows at unimaginable scale. I think that is quite the accomplishment. And then this, so this is a moment, and some have called a moment that should be more, the press and the detractors of Zuckerberg should be more introspective. I'm curious what you think about that. Oh, well, was this again like okay here's here's the argument and i think it's important to address it the

argument is that the press and commentators always need a villain and the fact that they've moved from zuckerberg to musk and now zuckerberg is a hero we talked about this a little bit last week with alexeath but i really want to hear your perspective so they say that that's a little bit you know intellectually dishonest what's your perspective yeah and as someone who has certainly tried to shine light on meta's practices and what how mark Suckerberg operates a business, I would say in terms of being introspective, it's a reminder, because the way threats has come out, and we can definitely get into it, and it relates to the Microsoft Activision News, in terms of market power and what meta still is able to do thanks to

its size and its interwoven apps and business lines, I actually think Mark Zuckerberg is getting an incredible free pass right now, and I think it's not going to last too long. So I think, yes, It's nice right now, Zuck versus Musk in the cage and shirtless Zuck and threads blowing up are all great. But I think, like, people are going to look pretty carefully at how did Facebook slash meta, you know, actually launch threads and how did they get it to grow so fast? And is this a good thing. And when you had Alex Heath on here talking about how threads is not launching in the EU, and for listeners, I'm actually sitting in Paris right now. And I was able to download threads from the U.S. App Store and try to use it. But I actually think it's a reminder that, like, they are still, the company is still not willing to play by rules around data privacy.

They're not launching the app and they're trying to use it. And both of you guys were in agreement that it seems to be that users will be angry at regulators for not allowing threads. But I feel it's a reminder that Facebook is still not, you know, trying to suck up as much data, trying to not respect any rules around data privacy as possible. So I think this is a nice little. honeymoon that I hope Mark enjoys, but I don't think it's going to last for too long. Right. So, well, this is the thing that I've been thinking about, which is that it does come down a product in some ways. Like, even though like Facebook and Google were doing the same things as, you know, in terms of like recommending content that made people outraged and making the

sort of discussion much more emotional versus thoughtful, people like Google's products more they gave Google a pass and all the outrage went to Zuckerberg and it's like a similar well let me finish so this is like a similar thing here where actually the the face and the because people didn't like the Facebook product the now people don't like Twitter the product and it's almost as if that is a conduit through which like they say okay this person is like you know a vector of badness all right all right I'll agree with you that Mark Zuckerberg from like let's say 2016 to 2019, maybe 2020, did become the face of why is Donald Trump the president? What happened to our privacy? What are this algorithmic media? All these different issues that

everyone started to understand and realize and realize what had happened. And I completely agree that YouTube itself has all the same underlying problems as Facebook Blue or Instagram or whatever else and you know like sundar definitely does not take the public hit on that susan wogiski how do you pronounce her my name yeah wajiki yeah she uh she was not a kind of publicly flogged villain so yeah i agree mark Zuckerberg became the face and i think Elon musk right now perfectly represents a lot of what's wrong with the tech industry much more than mark Zuckerberg how outspoken he is kind of like embodying Twitter VC tech billionaire evil guy. I think, yeah, he presents like a better embodiment of the things that are make people are unhappy about that Mark Zuckerberg at this moment does not

as much. So yeah, he's he's a cleaner story and villain than Mark Zuckerberg was. Whereas again, data privacy, having like the messages from back in college, like screw the users in their privacy. Like, Mark Zuckerberg very well painted those issues perfectly into a picture for journalists. And, of course, like the media, everyone having like a central character like that makes telling that story easier. Exactly. And one thing I'll say is, so first of all, I don't think Mark Zuckerberg is an angel. I think that a lot of the criticisms of him are completely mirrored. And it is kind of a stunning about face in terms of like the way that the public and especially the press are treating him now versus before.

that being said um you know i think that there was a point where there was no penalty for saying something bad about Zuckerberg it was almost like you know a gratuitous like take your pot shots for free zone even if they didn't have much of a like they they stemmed away from the critical thinking criticism to just a free for all and to me i do think that that it did get a little bit out of not to say I mean I was you know I full full you know full disclosure like I definitely was part of the Zuckerberg criticism in the past I mean I said some good things about him as well but it is just an interesting thing to me to kind of grapple with as we start to go from you know these no but I have to disagree

because there was also a time when he was that on the cover of Time magazine in 2010 to like I think he's going to like maybe he was person of the year or maybe he was yeah I remember holding that issue There was many years where he could do no wrong. And that's why ignoring all of the underlying issues that Facebook was creating, giving him an eternal free pass and he was the Wonderkind and the boy wonder and all that. So all of these things kind of ebb and flow. And yes, there was a time where that reputation,

because it was so unquestioningly positive that it went unquestioningly negative, and now it's kind of probably back somewhere in the middle, whereas Musk is the same thing. You know, he was going to change and save the world, and now the real Musk comes out, and now definitely people have a more critical eye on him. But I think the idea that there is some necessary fault, I think that's just how stories in the world work,

not to get too philosophical, but like I think, you know, like a clean narrative always travels better than a messy one. and for a while he was the I mean he's been at the top he's at the bottom now he's kind of in the middle maybe maybe a little higher than the middle when I was sitting down with Nick Clegg for the podcast in Davos last year just a fun sentence to say he's the VP of global affairs Alex with the Davos flex have to drop it when you can yeah VP of global affairs at Facebook or I think he's the EVP there basically he's running you know policy and public relations there and I asked him Well, it was just when Elon had closed the deal. And I asked him, so are you happy. And the smile that he gave was pretty indicative, even though he, even though he was very politically correct about it. So let's talk a little bit about Twitter's counterpunch.

This week, Elon Musk and Twitter started paying creators, sometimes above $20,000, obviously the top tier. But they've been paying them an ad share for the, you know, they've been paying them an ad share for the ads that appeared in the replies to them. People are saying, well, this is the counterpunch. It's going to get some of the more interesting creators to stay and invest even more on Twitter and is like the perfect defensive move against threads.

What do you think about that? I mean, I think that's not even necessarily big news because every platform, I think TikTok at some point launched. They said it was like a billion-dollar creators fund, YouTube, has been very successful at both using monetary, rewards and using engagement rewards for creators and to build out their own creator community. So I think every platform actually is very strategic and smart about giving money to creators. I think Twitter probably has been the worst at it or it's been non-existent.

So to me, that's not as interesting. I did see, though, like, I mean, the questions are raised, though, who are these high-profile users? And I think it's going to be pretty interesting to watch or try to understand who, he's paying. But in some ways, think about when Substack, the launched and who they chose to give the advances to, again, Substack, the newsletter platform famously paid some people, you know, in the hundreds of thousands, even maybe over a million dollars to come to the platform. And again, it was successful. It did what it had to do. It was essentially in advance. And then they would

start taking a cut of their subscription fees going forward. So I think that strategy, when executed well, it can work, but it also helps define exactly what you want that platform to be because who you choose to pay will be exactly what that platform will become. So the narrative has been that all the Musk's payments have actually gone to right-wing influencers. But there's all the other side of that is that like anybody on the left has left, right? If they've declined their use, they don't want to brag about getting paid by Musk, they're on blue sky, they're on threads. So like, Is it a choice by Musk or is it a user choice of exit? Yeah, no, no.

That's why to me, again, like, when a platform chooses to pay creators, it's like no different to me than a magazine choosing who to hire to write there or who the New York Times choosing who to give space to for their opinion. Wait, so you think this is editorially driven and not algorithmically driven? Of course it is. I mean, come on. They're not paying their. Twitter is not paying like.

half of its vendor bills the choice to actually pay a specific creator of course will be editorially driven i mean i think that it's i think it's been much i don't think that twitter said let's go pay all the right wing influencers because that just turns it into true social i think they they probably paid across the board but some of the people on the left or even the center had a feeling that if they tweeted like even brian crassersstein i think he's a left guy he tweeted No, no, no, he's, I think he has been the perfect symbol of like the horseshoe theory of engagement where, yes, he was like the ultimate resistance tweeter for a long time, but now he's come pretty much around just responding to Musk being friendly with Musk. So I think he actually represents, okay, right versus left wing, I think is less relevant than engagement thirsty, willing to kind of like respond to Musk for the engagement. And that's a cop out. Come on. Like, if he's coming at it from the left, he got paid. He's shameless enough to tweet his, his Twitter payout.

There's, okay. All right. Anyway, it's, yeah. I'll just say this. I think that like, that the people on the traditional left who got those payments from Musk and there must have been some, they're not publicizing it. Like, it just does, it's not going to show, it's not going to show what they wanted to show. All right. I'm okay with that and understanding that. Because, yeah, it would not be a badge of. honor at this point to say you took 20k from musk so what do you think so so now we can take a little bit of time and we'll just do it quickly but i i've been eager personally to hear about your thoughts about threads you actually texted me you know from romania saying that like this is the biggest tech story of the year so all right what makes it that this has been so incredibly fascinating for me to watch both while I am on vacation and like trying to keep up with it. But so first when you download it, the fact that to me, it blew my mind.

And again, talking about how Mark Zuckerberg's image has been rehabilitated, but then in terms of like pure Facebook, like, you know, marketing power, my Instagram, it's already loaded up, ready to sign in. I don't actually have to sign up. I still don't know whether it's already created the account because it basically signs in. Automatically, it's even populated my Instagram profile. Then my entire Instagram feed, it's trying to nudge me to follow all of them, even though when I signed up, it was like right at the moment it was available.

I knew my wife at the top was not on threads. So clearly, you know, it's taking advantage of that social graph. Then I end up on the feed. And oh, my God, it was like the perfect manifestation of just brandy, influencery awfulness that like what I have loved Twitter because it is not. Literally the first thing was like Paris Hilton tweeting to Taco Bell, like, good night hunt or something like that. And then like that annoying is like Spotify saying I am music.

I don't know. Like all these like annoying memes and brand social media managers having to. you know, like they were told by their senior managers get on threads. You've got to be involved here. So to me, the feed already, and this is before I followed a single person, but clearly it's, and it was clear they are taking the algorithm. I had some sports highlights. I had like, it was clear they were taking the, using my Instagram following to build my

algorithmic feed, which again is pretty smart and masterful and scary. but again for them to build a product and get past the zero start problem where you join a new network and you have no one to follow you have no feed it's brilliant from their side but then you know a few days later it's the same thing it's recycled stuff from Twitter and Reddit it's brands trying to be funny which gets old which is good in like short spurts but is not that engaging over time So yeah, those are my initial thoughts. Do you think it has stank power? This is what's, so this is what's interesting to me.

I think the brand and advertising side of this is brilliant. I think this is an existential threat to Twitter's business. I think Mark Zuckerberg did win the cage match metaphorically already because like every brand, it is the perfect place for brands. It's this like saccharine, simple, moderated, brand-friendly place. So every advertiser already is salivating over the platform and will continue to. And the moment they ask for monetization, they have a better monetization engine than anyone else in the business.

And the second they turn it on, every brand will be running to get there. So Twitter's Linda Yakorino, God help her like, I mean, for this to happen after her joining. and then meanwhile, Elon is posting Dick Measuring Contests with Zuck and whatnot. Like, I think from a business standpoint, it has huge staying power. I think you made one of the smartest points of, and it's rare that I'll say that, but. I'll take it when I can get it. To me, this, but from a user standpoint, this more likely replaces Instagram than Twitter. Because Twitter for me, slash, I would put Blue Sky as a bigger potential long-term threat to Twitter, because when I'm on Blue Sky, it's the same thing as Twitter.

It's some of the same people I'm interested. It's people I don't really know for the most part, but people I find very interesting, saying interesting things. That is as far from what Threads is for me, but threads seeing some brand, especially the more and more the feed does feel visual, seeing some nice. photos and meme videos and stuff from people you know like that is interesting that that but that's more what I would use Instagram for whether they can get people to actually post like their life on it the way Instagram the purpose that currently serves that will be interesting and I'm curious because like I still think back when Facebook first launched stories when Instagram first launched the Snapchat clone of stories, I remember how like aggressively they push people towards it.

When they started Facebook stories on Facebook Blue launched and wasn't getting enough engagement and people basically getting tricked into if I post an Instagram story, it will repost onto Facebook Blue Stories. Like the way they work all this stuff together, I think at some point they could easily just turn on like post to Instagram, auto post to threads. And that suddenly that can become like the place you go to to see what people are up to in life. And I would much rather see what my friends and family are up to in life on a threads-like format than the current Instagram app has gotten more and more convoluted with reels and stuff like that. So I think overall bigger threat, and I don't even know if it's a threat.

They have shown an ability to, you know, like allow Instagram to become the premier destination and let Facebook blue decay a little bit. So maybe they will be okay, making threads the new hot place. Yep, I agree. I think that's what's going to happen, that it's going to largely take from Instagram, but it could take from Twitter too. And your point about this being a great place for advertising is spot on.

In fact, just the second that we finished recording this, I'm about to send out a big technology newsletter where chief revenge officer Doug and I spent the week speaking with, advertisers. And the quotes that they give are really unbelievable in terms of how eager they are to advertise on this platform here. I'm just going to read a couple of them for you. I'm just going to pull it up here. I also will note that I love that Doug has officially become chief revenge officer and it's stuck. So for those listening, Doug is our intern on big technology. This summer, he's coming from NYU journalism. He's very talented. And yes, we've just promoted him to chief revenge

officer. And do not mess with Doug. No, you can't. You can't. Okay. So here's, Here's some quotes from advertisers. I'd for sure start to test immediately because it's meta, generally trust them in every placement they have. This is another one. They're always making updates to improve targeting and placements and ad optimization.

Another, they already have better ad technology from a marketer's perspective than Twitter. Facebook's ads, technology, and interfaces are much better than Twitters. And one more. We'll be ready to jump in as soon as meta rolls out advertising on threads we are communicating, with them currently about launch many of these folks are saying you know what like we think that

this is going to come by the fourth quarter and I mentioned this on the last pot I think that's spot on I think Zuckerberg said listen like we are going to wait till we're on track to hit a billion users you can already make the argument that they're on track to hit that billion and they're publicly traded company Wall Street's going to want its returns so I think but the real question is can they build audience outside of Instagram's current audience I think you hit on it perfect because if they can't, then it's just another way to buy Instagram ads and on a product that's not as sophisticated. They really do need to pull Twitter's audience in order to make this work from a money standpoint. I think there's already evidence that they're doing some of

that. But that's really where the rubber is going to hit the road for meta in this product. Well, let's talk about the user growth because there's a couple of points on it. Again, fastest to, I think it was 100 million users in five days. And to me, the kind of most comical as Mark Zuckerberg said, we did that with no promotion. So let's unpack that a little bit. Because first of all, to me again, how aggressive that sign-up flow was as an existing Instagram user, the moment you download the app, everything works very perfectly in an aggressive way from your existing feed.

So getting a new user when you have the entire 3.2 billion users using your product, I think, on a daily basis, 100 million is not. that exciting or impressive. But to me, what's more interesting, this is, I'll get go a little bit out there on this one, is I've talked about this a few times in the past. There have been these moments where when meta slash Facebook decides we want to make something happen, suddenly the entire world is talking about it. After they've renamed themselves to meta and went all in on the Metaverse, suddenly NFTs become a huge thing, crypto price boom. When they control the narrative, they controlled a media.

Like what article, if I write about threads, will it land and get traction on Facebook and Instagram? They control the algorithm. They control the algorithm. And to me, I don't even say that as a conspiracy theory. I say that as normal business practice, like juice up threads a little bit in the Instagram and Facebook algorithm. then every writer will be happily covering the story again we're talking about it right now i recognize

that but like they control the narrative so also getting it to a point where everyone in the world is talking about it they can turn the dial on that like even i remember after the ticto hearings and i was pretty disappointed the new york times wrote about this almost as though it was this organic surprising thing that the ticot i remember this yeah yeah the ticot CEO went from like 5,000 to like 10 million followers on TikTok, yes, they can do that, like they can and suddenly became kind of like a heartthrob and all these TikTokers are like praising him. Yes, they can control what videos get seen and which accounts to push. So again, the idea that threads organically grew without any promotion, I think is a bit disingenuous. And I actually, to me, the one thing that could

kill its staying power is I actually think it was a mistake to grow this fast because you get all the hype, you get the users and you get the energy. But to me, a social platform requires some kind of community, some kind of like vibe to use the word that like, you know, and maybe blue sky it's been annoying how closed off it's been, but still it's actually been active among the people I know who use it. It's still a place where it has like a very specific thing I go to for it. like think about do you remember facebook bulletin yes okay did you ever use it or did you ever see one in the wild it for good it was their substack competitor i subscribed to one i subscribed to one so bulletin is like their newsletter uh uh knockoff yeah and they had like malcolm gladwell

malala i think was writing a news you know they had these big name launches and it just went nowhere because they went too big too fast i always actually think about like linkedin when they started with Barack Obama's ghostwriter in 2013, when they're trying to launch the more like post-oriented efforts, I think, again, rather than getting homegrown organic stars, YouTube was the best at this. And Twitter, in fact, was also great at this as well. It's like people who weren't big elsewhere, they grew the platform. They created a voice. They created a way of speaking. That's what made the platform interesting. And right now, again, I think, I think threads getting that big that fast being such a brand focus.

That's why it's just like Spotify and Netflix and Taco Bell and Wendy's on my feed, trying to be funny and then a bunch of recycled meme. Well, you've got to build out your follower graph. I think the one thing, the one counter argument to this is that they have a built-in community, which is a good chunk of the Twitter community that's come over to try it out and has liked it. So the one last thing I'll say about threads is there have been some people asking for for podcast recommendations on it and multiple of you, multiple of our listeners have shared that big technology podcast

is something that you listen to and you recommend to others. I wanna say thank you. I appreciate that. It really made me feel good to see big technology in the mix. And we love it when listeners advocate for the show. So thanks for doing that. We're gonna head to break, but on that note, I do wanna say if you have the Spotify or Apple app open

and you wanna show some love, if you give us a five star rating on either of those, maybe review also that would be really helpful would help us rise the ranks and get some more great guests so that's always helpful on the other side of this break we are going to talk about Microsoft Activision whether bipartisan opposition to big tech is still exactly the way that it was when it seemed like there was a united front in both parties we're going to talk about Elon Musk's new AI company if we have time and we're definitely going to get to the SAG after a strike and whether machines are going to play replaced

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And we're back here on big technology podcast with Ron John Roy. Ron John writes margins. You can get at readmargins.com. Great newsletter. Definitely recommend you check it out. Ron John, what do you think about the fact that Microsoft's Activision is about to close effectively and that like this big challenge that the FTC brought to try to block that merger? Just kind of flopped.

Yeah. It is about to go through. Currently, the FTC has appealed the, I believe, preliminary injunction, the legal specifics, like specifics. I'm not going to probably butcher, but the deal, I believe tonight is the deadline that if the FTC does not win this final delay, the deal will definitely go through on the 18th. So it looks like, for all intents and purposes, it is going to happen. And this is raised as someone who has been very keen on the antitrust topic and followed it very closely for many years and has thought that the market concentrated market power is a huge problem. I mean, it's been a bit disheartening to watch. But on the other hand, it's also been crazy to watch the, you know, like the backlash against Lena Khan, how a lot of people seem very kind of like not consistent in terms of their positions in terms of.

how they feel about certain things that a meta or a Google or an Amazon do, but then when it comes to just the FTC taking power, everyone reverts back to kind of like tech versus government and we're on the side of tech. So I think this is a pretty important moment because where, how optimistic I was a year to two ago, I definitely am not that optimistic that things will change. And again, anyone, if you just on the big technology podcast, if you look at the big tech company stock prices over the last year, even on over a three-year basis, they are crushing all mid to small size tech. So I think like, and when you think about what they've done with artificial intelligence and

how things are getting concentrated again, I think, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it is not an optimistic time for those who are hoping that things would become a little fairer. Right. Without these seven big tech companies, which is like the typical Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, you have Nvidia in there, maybe another. maybe one more um what is the seventh one do you know the seventh it would have been they're calling it the magnificent seven it would have been Netflix in the past but but i think it's also been very interesting to me to watch how coordinated because even the new york times had a piece so it was like

very disappointing where it was like is the other one of course oh yeah sorry elan sorry elon um the new york times had a piece where it was like uh oh yeah f tccc chair faces criticism in congressional hearing. And it's talking about like they're talking about basically tech lobbyists, former Google longtime executives who now are saying like, you know, speaking as though they're kind of neutral parties, criticizing the FTC, talking about how they're losing over and over again. And we had Matt Stoller on here a couple of weeks ago who did lay out the case that the FTC has been doing a good job. And I think this is, it's like the narrative, the FTC is in danger of losing control. Like I definitely feel everyone is like, why are they

losing? They're getting creamed. They're losing everything that, you know, they're not going to be able to do anything. But from an actual like reality standpoint, again, they have, they have had wins. It's just on these very big cases. They are not winning. Okay. So I happen to have some sourcing inside there. And you saw some of this stuff come out in the congressional hearings where they were asking Lena Khan, are you bringing cases? You know you can't win. And she said, no, of course not. But the truth is that she has been sloppy in bringing cases and they haven't been strong. I don't think the organization has been run very well. And you can speak to the people inside there and many. I mean, we've seen a lot of exits. And that's why this backlash is coming and that's

why she's losing cases. Personally, I just think that that's what's happening. That it's like she's losing for a reason these agencies now there's a balance right the agencies usually don't like to bring cases they aren't sure they're going to win which is a problem because they've been sheepish and feeble because of it however like you still need to come out the gate like really prepared for victory and the case and just the proof isn't the pudding it hasn't been what's happening and i wonder yeah but yep go ahead go i did two things on that one yes i like i think that was the problem that for so long, the idea that we could not, like the FTC could not win against big tech regulators could not. So instead, they went after middle or small company, midsize and

small companies. And then that only allowed big companies to further concentrate power. So I think that was the exact wrong thing. And then it's not just the FTC, it's Congress as well. Because remember, there was three large bills that were brought up two years ago in the House. I think they got through the Senate committee, but never received a vote because Chuck Schumer prevented it. Chuck Schumer, whose kids work at big tech. Well, this is a thing, you know. And then, wait, wait, wait, and then the judge, this one blew my mind. This, the judge who just made the decision on Monday or Tuesday night that really

pushed the Microsoft Activision deal through, her son works at Microsoft and she did not recuse herself from the case. How that was not the, a blaring head. line. It's insane. Like, that's, come on, forget Clarence Thomas or whoever else. I got nothing else to say on this topic. I mean, geez, like, there's nothing you can say. Yeah, go ahead. To me, that's the second part is it's a, has been such a reminder of how entrenched a lot of the power is that like how far the web runs that like the FTC is trying to battle. And at that point, I still actually think that going like making these big cases and at least this. stuff coming more to light and at least these battles having to be fought is still better

than if they just went after like a bunch of small mergers we never would hear about if they went after like small companies that where they would necessarily win and no one ever cared and like the overall climate of how companies operate didn't improve i actually think it's still better this way well you have to be smart about it you have to like sort of you know who you're going after right And I think that, like, resources and energy probably could have been used more effectively. But it is interesting. Like, it is one of the things that this has sort of proven to me, not this court case loss, but just like the general, like, petering out of energy in Congress is that, like, all those

tough talking senators and Congresspeople grilling Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey just were there for YouTube and not for, and not for, like, the actual reasons of doing their job, which is sort of emblematic of what's happened inside Congress recently. pushback because even I was little, there's like I saw these headlines of GOP attacking Lena Khan, the bipartisan antitrust is broken. If you watch the hearing of Lena Khan just yesterday, like it's still bipartisan, but the GOP loudest members like Jim Jordan going after her very aggressively, that is a very specific wing. But even surprisingly, Matt Gates was like talking about the ring from Amazon and the data privacy problems it implicates. Ken Buck.

who's a Republican, who's been at the lead with David Sissolian around antitrust, was very aggressively pro-FTC anti-Big Tech. So I think, like, there actually is still, surprisingly, out of all issues out there, this is still a bipartisan issue. Again, the problem is, and this is, like, it's the narrative, it's the headlines, it's the way this is, the FTC has lost control. Maybe they just need better PR or something, but, but, like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, That's been the most disappointing part to me because, again, it's still bipartisan. There's stuff still moving. It's still like it's not that all is lost at this point and even more important.

To me, the most important story was the judge's son worked at Microsoft and they did not recuse himself. But none of that makes it to the, yeah, that should be the blaring headline on CNBC and it's not. Okay, that's good nuance to the story. So I think we've really, that's important to share. So Elon has a new AI company. It's going to be called XAI. It's a chat GPT alternative.

This is coming from the financial times. He secured thousands of high power GPU processors from Nvidia. Do we think that we're going to like now see, like, is it like Elon's like, you know, non-woke chatbot? I mean, what do you think is going to come of this? And of course, we're speculating here. We don't know what the guy, but go ahead. Well, what do you think is coming out of this?

Because for me, whenever Musk launches a new company, I try to wait and see. I think like what the main company he has is the X company, right? And that's going to be the universal app, super app that that's Twitter. But this is a separate company from Twitter, but it's going to rely. It's going to partner with it. Here's my perspective on it. You know, I think that like, you know, Elon is running a ton of companies. I mean, from the story, you know, it talked about how he's running, you know,

you know, he's got Tesla, he's got boring company, he's got SpaceX, he's got Twitter, he's got, you know, uh, Neurlink and now he has XAI, like how does one person handle all this stuff? The one, and so of course, you know, my instinct is to be skeptical of it, but the one thing I'll say is the guy did found open AI. I mean, so you can't really count it out here. He did. He did. I mean, he has the resources to buy the computing power and the talent necessary to make this work. And he has people that have come from, uh, deep mind and and Microsoft and Tesla and the University of Toronto, like, I would not count this out. I don't know what it's going to do, but I mean, I would not count this out.

I mean, that's the key constraint in AI right now is computing processing power and talent. And with Elon's resources and with the shine of his name, which still exists in the tech world, right? He can get both of those things. And he has gotten both of those. So it's definitely something I'm going to keep watching. All right. Let's make a bet two years from now, open AI evaluation or XI evaluation? which is higher open I think open still they have a they have a head start so okay you

never know so you you have another AI story that you've been watching well I mean okay for everyone out there go pay open AI 20 dollars and get become a chat GPT plus subscriber enable plugins and enable the code interpreter plugin this has been one of the most mind-blowing things I've seen like you can upload I uploaded a a CSV and not to get too nerdy here, but there's 350,000 lines. It was like it broke Excel every time I use it. And I say this someone who has not learned to code in Python is still an Excel person. And what it did is I could natural language query, I could be like, okay, how many times

does this show, what this term show up, like account function across the entire thing? It actually writes the Python code to query it. It even shows the work. You can like unfurl show work, see the code written. and it will run this process. You can make graphs out of it. You can make data visualizations out of it. You can do actually much more complicated data analysis,

things that you would have to have spent years like I have with Excel to understand how to try to do. You can literally tell it to do and it will write Python code and it will do it and return it to you in natural language. To me, it was like it was one of the, it probably was as like magical as the first time I used chat GPT. I think out of all the AI hype and all the things I've seen, because again, all the text generation and image generation still lives in this very contenty place. Like for me as a writer, for you as a writer, for marketing people, it's crazy. It's amazing.

But suddenly you're like, okay, this now it's for everybody. This is like every part of any business anywhere to be able, the fact that this can do this, that you can do complex analysis on massive data sets that would have required a. programmer in the past and it can just work and it worked on my first try. Usually these things feel like they can be a little buggy. And again, not to be an open AI salesperson here, but like this blew my mind in terms of most exciting thing for me with any of this generative AI stuff since first using chat GPT. And this is the thing like people have been asking like, well, is this the, um, are we, have we seen the end of innovation and are we like at like, you know, the end of the S curve here, right? And was like chat GPT. and, you know, these generative models like the innovation and we're not going to really

press forward. But it's the application of this stuff that's going to really get interesting, which leads me to believe it. There's just so much more to go here, despite the shortcomings. But it is a generally exciting moment in the technology world, no doubt about that. Yeah. No, that's where, like, you know, are we in another bubble? I don't believe this is a bubble.

I think certainly like risk management and assessment by investors of companies. with AI in their name is probably not as rigorous as it should be. But to me, again, like when I, this is where, when I use stuff like that again, and I just see that happening and it feels like pure magic, that convinces me. We have a long ways to go in terms of this stuff, transforming things. Maybe I'll even have to give Andresen a little AI, we'll save the world credit on this. No, I don't know. I take it back.

I take it back. So let's let's so so will it replace actors because it's kind of interesting that one of the core items in this SAG afra strike has been the machines and the potential for AI to replace actors and and and people in film so let me just you know give give you know a little bit of an indication so first of all I don't know if you watched Fran Drescher's talk but one of the lines that she had in there as she was she's the president of the actors union and she said if we don't stand tall right now we're going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and there was a story in the verge that went into even more depth which was really interesting so first of all the alliance of motion picture and television producers which is on the other side of this said they included a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors digital likenesses for the members of the union okay now they asked the union well what is the actual agreement here this is where it really got interesting they said they proposed that I that their background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day's pay, and then companies that own this, and their companies will own the scan, their image, and their likeness,

and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want with no consent or compensation. I mean, this is, by the way, this is happening everywhere, where the AP just signed a deal, I think, with OpenAI to allow it to train on their material. I had a photographer that I know post on threads. He's like, hey, an AI company wants to train on my photos to learn my editing style. Should I do it?

And I'm like, hell no. And then this is going to become a thing, right? Where you can, we already have digitally recreated actors. You can have AI versions of people on screen. And I mean, that statement really just goes to it. Scan once, use in perpetuity. So I'm curious, like, obviously, like, it's going to be a very painful strike for the actors here. but but do you think that it's merited especially on this AI claim okay so two things one

i think they should stick with it because this is a very important moment of the the precedents that are set now will define the next 10 years of the industry in kind of labor versus capitals let's say so i think it is important i think like probably from the labor and union side like they understand versus the last 10, 15 years, especially with, you know, like with online and streaming not being as aggressive and seeing what happened. I think it is important. But also that's the second point. Like to me, the AI part of it almost is kind of like a figurehead of the conversation. But the stream, the broken economics of streaming to me, it's also a reminder just whenever you see the numbers of how many billions were lost or are being lost in

streaming that the entire model was created in a broken way and then writers will suffer you know disproportionately as that's right yeah and writers i mean they had the orange is the new black actors they're getting like 10 cents and residuals outside of like a handful of them for like one of the most popular shows in Netflix history that is yeah versus like imagine tv residuals like i think like you know people the friends cast or whoever else for years or decades keep just minting money with those shows versus the pennies for streaming. So I think it's an important reminder that the entire way the streaming model developed was completely broken. But during that process, I think the actors, writers, that side just kind of went with things and just let it

go and just kind of the assumption. And probably a lot of them were making a lot of money that was possibly unmerited or just kind of the result of like companies making huge bets. and low interest rates, of course. But now I think it's important that, yeah, of course. But now I think it is more important that on the onset of whatever this technology does and isn't five to 10 years, I think them being much more aggressive really does matter. And it's the right decision.

Yep, this is, but this is gonna hurt. It will definitely hurt. And it is interesting, like, you know, it's like when you are a union and you go to bat on something and it's not making a lot of money to begin with, like it's very difficult to like, Like what you really need to do, what the company really needs to do is change the business model or figure out a way to make it work. And, you know, it's, I don't know.

I think it's just kind of tough to like try to get real wins when just the pie is smaller than, you know, than you'd like it to be. No, that's a good point. Like, fighting for a broken business model is maybe actually not, or yeah, it's a tougher strategy. I mean, I hate to say it. It reminds me exactly of the union fight inside BuzzFeed News where like they unionized when I, was there and i was like guys like we're losing a ton of money what are we i mean you know by by all means like do the union but like that's not going to change crazy fights over like you're a cause center so anyway i'll end i'll end with this um so this is what the um actors union folks

cannot do um they can't do tours personal appearances interviews conventions fan expos festivals for your consideration events panels premieres and screenings award shows junkets podcast appearances poor one out there social media and studio showcases and someone quoted that tweet from variety and said that it looked like a Jonah Hill text at all the restrictions that they have but I that's very tough boundaries boundaries yep it'd be tough to have solidarity on all those restrictions so you know podcast come on I mean no podcast come on I mean no Like, yeah, I'm, I'm with them, but no podcasts, no social media. What are they going to do?

What's going to work? They can't even, can they thread? Well, they can thread on their, wait, sorry, the AI cannot thread. No, this is just for the humans. The union people are agreeing not to do. I mean, I guess you don't thread on behalf of your work, but you just thread on behalf of your personal space or ideas. I don't know.

That's an interesting. want to try to battle yeah ron john another great one hope you enjoy the rest of your time in europe thanks for being here with us all right thank you thanks so much thank you to our chief revenge officer doug for hanging here with us thank you ron john roy thank you lincoln for having me as part of your podcast network thanks to all of you listeners thanks for those to those on our live stream we had a very nice lively group of folks here today plenty of comments um thanks to folks like Pierre and Joffrey and Walrott for coming in and showing up and contributing. We really appreciate it.

We see your comments and thank you for those. Again, if you're listening here on the feed, we do these every Friday live on LinkedIn and YouTube. You can check those out, find my LinkedIn page, Alex Cantorowitz, and tune in there. And then we also post them on the podcast feed if you're listening there. And then Wednesdays, we do our flagship interviews. another one of those coming up this upcoming Wednesday. You don't want to miss it. And that's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.