Tech Brew Ride Home - (TWTR SPC) Metaverse? Name Change? Facebook Wither?

Episode Date: October 23, 2021

F*** it! We did it live! Chris and me and @Kantrowitz around my kitchen table! Are we in for the biggest week of Facebook's life? Check out Big Technology! Sponsors: VPLS.com/goit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. this as part of the thing. Yeah, right, right, right. All right. So do you want me to intro? Do the intro? Go ahead. All right. Well, welcome, everybody. Today is the TechMean Maritome Experience. This is a very strange and experimental process. We were actually live in Brooklyn. We've got Alex, Brian, me, Chris Messina,

and we are having beers together. Do you want one? No, I'm going to just drink. Yes. Cheers. Cheers, everybody. There is. Right. He was going to exercise or something after this too, right? That's good. I have a busy afternoon. What is today? Today is October 20th, and we are coming to you live. Can we make it clear that we're talking to Alex Cantorwitz, who is now my neighbor after, what, a month or so? That's right, yeah. I've been in Brooklyn since August, and this is my second tour of duty here in the great borough of Brooklyn with a six plus year stint in San Francisco in between.

And sweet to be back. What can I say? So we knew Chris was going to be in town. And so I was like, if we can make it happen, it would be fun just to do it in person. Then Alex and I met up in the park on Monday, and I was like, hey, we're going to do this anyway. And it turns out, coincidentally, that you're the ideal person based on the news waiting to talk to about something. So this is all working out beautifully. Nothing big tech going on at all. Right.

No. And we have, if you hear birds and whatnot in the background, it's because our windows are open. We're sitting around my kitchen table. It's because nature is healing. Yes. Yes. And it's also, you know, a little warm in here,

so we need the windows open anyway. But, all right. So let's do first things first. Let's get this out of the way. The Apple event, and we just had a perfect encapsulation of why pros need things like SD-Contin. card slots when you're trying to test your audio and you need to pull out the card to like see how the game does and all that stuff and what the waveforms look like and

okay so as we said on the show bottom line is is we got the MacBook pros that we have been waiting forever for finally and as I said on the show all they did was basically undo all of the garbage that they did to us for five years so I don't know if we should be thankful for that. Actually, I don't know, Alex, are you a Mac-Apple ecosystem person? Yeah, I'm all in on the Mac. Okay.

MacBook, iPhone, AirPods. Have you upgraded? Are you upgrading? I'm going to hold off. You are. I do think that even though I use MacBook professionally and have a Mac desktop, I'm going to make a bold statement

and say that I feel like my use case really represents what most people's uses of Apple. which is that, you know, the last set of models were pretty good. And I view this as a once every five-year investment. And I was part of the masses of people who upgraded during COVID because we realized we're going to be working at home. And we needed the, you know, the best models that we could possibly get as soon as we could possibly get it. And so a lot of people are saying, like, folks like me, you know, we've just bought these computers within the past couple of years.

are going to upgrade right away to these very expensive new models. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But I really don't think that's the case. And trust me, I do podcasting on my own with big technology podcast. I need the high download, high upload speeds, especially if I'm going to go on TV. And so these machines need to be quick and powerful for me. But even then, I'm going to be able to subsist without a problem on the previous version of the MacBook for at least another two, maybe three years. So what you're seeing is you'll have a handful of early adopters and enthusiasts. They're going to go in and upgrade right away.

But it won't be this big spike for Apple, and you'll end up seeing this continual burn. Because my upgrade's going to come in 2024, hopefully. Fingers crossed, 2023, maybe. But I'm still looking forward to getting that machine. It's just not pressing need. Like those Apple events make you think it is. Did you, Chris, pull the trigger already? I'm about to.

I feel like I learned from you that you can actually get the, I forget, it's the max of the pro, whatever the top line thing is, language again, in the 14-inch? Yes, yes. And so the fact that I almost pulled the trigger on 14-inch without getting the top of the line, and now you've said that it's possible. I think I will do that. I think to your point, Alex, I do think this is like a four or five-year kind of investment, and so amortized over that time, to me it makes sense to sort of, you know, go for like top-of-the-line,

and then it'll maintain, I hope, its resale value for some period of time. I'm rocking, like, a 2018 MacBook Pro. It's fine, but, you know, as I've shared before, I've got, like, afterburner skids on the back of mine because of the level of fan usage. So, you know, the other thing that I've been noticing and thinking about is the degree to which,

and I don't really know how to make sense of this, although I'm hoping that the combination of, you know, MacOS Monterey and the, the M1 CPUs will actually be so much more efficient in the way in which I use basically web-based applications. What I find now is that I essentially have a number of electron apps that are masquerading as native apps, but each of them is essentially running a separate web browser instance with tabs. And that's highly inefficient for the generation of Intel chips that seem to be in there. And so the way in which Monterey and M1 take more of the mobile

I think theory of computing and know how to turn things on and spin up and spin down processes just seems to be a lot more aligned with the way in which I multitask. So that's what I'm looking forward to. I just brought up the store so that we can talk the actual specs. So it's the M1 Pro and the M1 Max is the difference. I like you, I don't ever go in for the 16-inch laptops. It's just too big. Too big for me.

Who wants to carry one of those things in a backpack? I did too. Yeah. My wife does, but she's an architect, so she needs more screen real estate. But what you're looking at, this is, and I just checked it on the, about this Mac, this is an early 2015, 13 inch. And as I said, it has the ports. It has all the ports. And I souped it up.

So it was top of the line. The most storage you could get, the biggest processor you could get. And this is where the price thing will come in. in my memory, and I should look it up because I could find out, I believe it was $3,600. Yeah. So now, if I were to do the same thing, put in an M1, the highest M1 max chip, 64 gigabytes of memory, which I don't know that I need that, but you know, you never know with these things. Here's where the real kicker comes in.

You can get 8 terabytes of SSD storage now. Now, does anyone need that? I will tell you that podcast files, the raw, they're big. They're huge. And so it's not like I need to carry every episode that I've ever recorded around with me, but that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, right? So if I fully specced it out, the price comes to $5,89. I don't know that I can justify it.

And here's why I haven't pulled the trigger yet, is because, I record the show upstairs here in my house every day on an iMac, right? So what I'm, the reason that I'm hesitant now is I maybe use this machine four or five times a month. So really, if they had come out with an iMac this week, that's what I would have pulled the trigger on because that would be more valuable to me to get the faster chip. But didn't they do that over the summer? Those are just the iMacs, like the basics, the pro. what is it a 24 inch right yeah I want the 28 inch I want see I want the fast processor I want the SSD I wouldn't even hesitate to put eight terabytes of

SSD into an IMac so that's where I'm I'm stuck right now where it's like if I spent five thousand dollars and then pulled it out and used it only three or four times a month and that seems like yeah that's no way now yeah you don't need it I mean, this is what Apple, Apple is the master. I was literally thinking of us, I mean, a number of things. Buy stuff we don't need. They put out there. And I'm like, they really could sell shit.

And sometimes they have. So I did this tweet, like showing a photo of Tim Cook standing in the overgrown grass inside Apple Hallmeower. And say, hey, everybody, welcome to Cooper Tino. I am so thrilled to introduce the Apple Lawmower. And, of course, you know, this is a tweet making fun of Tim Cook. But I can't tell you how many people were in the mentions. just being like, I would buy that. Immediately.

Immediately. Can you imagine the voice assistant on the Apple lawnmower? Well, you know, they've been so slow at getting their autonomous cars to work. Maybe they should start with, like, lawn care. Hey, that's my idea. You know, if you teach the lawnmower to drive, you can eat for a night. A roaming Siri that just, you know, follows you around, like the astro or whatever from Amazon. Well, that's another thing that became parent to me in this event is that Amazon and Apple

just on a collision course. As Apple starts to build its services, businesses out, it's going to come directly in conflict with Amazon. And it's so interesting because the two builds so differently. You have Amazon that will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Hey, we have a robot for you. We have a drone that will fly around your house. We have a talking fish that has Alexa.

Exactly. Talking fish with Alexa. And Apple, refine, refine, only release when it's perfect. But the product sets of the two are just coming directly into conflict. And it was so apparent when Apple started the event. this week because it started with Apple Music, and then you had Siri, and then you had the HomePod, and then you had AirPods. And you look at Amazon, and you're like, Amazon Music, Alexa, Apple's earbuds, and, of course, the Echo. Actually, so this is something that I think you'd be really...

Oh, look who you summoned. Oh, boy. Oh, is Brian? Oh, is that Alexa? Alexa, stop it. You're not invited this conversation. So I agree with you. And one, we're moving into this world of digital services everywhere. It occurs to me that the conversation that we probably should be having right now is really about moats and about what the next five or ten years looks like.

Because it is interesting, you know, Brian, for you to, you know, for you to point out what the price point is for sort of maxing out the laptop. It feels like the price has only gone up. It's weird. It's like the MacBook pros are like Ferraris or something. And so they're not getting cheaper. They're not getting more accessible. Meanwhile, the Google event has pixel phones that are like super cheap and affordable relative to the double-priced iPhone 13 Pro Maxes or whatever.

Hold off on Google for a second because there's something about the event. You said offline that you hadn't seen it. So there's something that'll tie into that. But what we're seeing with Apple now is what their strategy should have been all along, which is that the cheaper end, it has not as many ports, has the slower chips and everything. This is sort of the ecosystem that they should have built for five years ago instead of, oh, by the way, the pro machines too have less and less and less and thin and light and whatever. Go with the thin and light on the low end for the people that don't need the pro stuff. That's fine.

Like I don't have any problem with them segmenting. And I don't necessarily, listen, I want to get my hands on this freaking Apple Silicon. Believe me. but yeah it's it's a it's a it's very expensive and essentially I would max it out just to like future proof myself again in case they go crazy again or something you know but I think what I'm saying though and this is my point to Alex is to look at like the pricing as somewhat indicative of the strategy right so as I said a long time ago Apple is a jewelry company that happens to build soft products that essentially connect to the internet.

And whether that's, you know, the AirPods or whatever, the price of their products has only seemed to go up, even as they are now building their own silicon, which you would have thought would have allowed them to lower the price. So what that means is that their margins are getting better, and they're also branching off into the services space. And so, you know, and Google is almost like squeezed, between these different things of wanting to make aspirational hardware and saying this is great

stuff and we've got these amazing computational cameras, et cetera, but Google still makes all their money from advertising. And yet at the same time, and I don't know if you reported on this, but Apple now is benefiting from all the privacy changes that it has built into its operating system in terms of its own advertising initiatives and efforts. And Amazon 2 is one of the biggest advertising companies behind Google. It's number three now, right? Isn't Isn't Amazon at this point number three in digital advertising? So I feel like the problem with our conversation is that we approach this as consumers of these products, which makes us a little bit blinded and too close to like the ass of the elephant to really see how big the thing is and like what it really, what comprises it.

And, you know, Alex, I know you've worked in advertising before too. And so I would want to be evaluating both these events that we've seen and just the series of announcements and product, you know, directions from like that ad perspective. because Apple made a number of changes to the way in which Facebook could track. So Facebook is on the verge of renaming itself and moving into a completely different untested digital environment, i.e. the Metaverse, possibly to make up for its loss of revenues and tracking abilities on the web and on mobile devices. So if that's true, like how, advertising is where so much of the money and the revenue comes from. I don't think that we can evaluate these products purely from, oh, I pay this amount of money and I get this product

out, and that's the nature of the relationship. The relationship is such that we will subsidize the hardware with the data that we're able to collect to then track and monetize your behavior for other purposes. And that explains some of the healthcare stuff and those bets that are also underway. No doubt. Apple is getting the best of all worlds, right? Because they're able to charge a premium for the laptop. Right. And now they're edging, competitors like Facebook out of the way and selling their own ads, all in the name of privacy, my dear Lord. And so it is interesting how they're now, like I mentioned,

they're going to start to come up against companies. I mean, they were already a direct competitor with Facebook. I mean, anyone who says they're not is wrong. They're obviously a competitor with Google on many fronts and a competitor with Amazon. And so what I think we've actually seen is we've gone through this period of upgrade and improvement. Like we talk about the Apple laptops. I mean, what's really changed? Like they're now going backwards.

Like Brian, you mentioned that there was, you know, they get to making them, the mantra of Apple design was make it thinner, make it smaller. That's all they were building. Well, Johnny Ives is gone now. Johnny Ives gone, but that was under I've. And it was very interesting to me how they would talk. In my book always did when I talk about how they became a. culture of refinement. Brian, I'm sure you remember this. And their vision of courage was eliminating stuff as opposed to adding it, right? Well, like the headphone jack. Why did we do this? It took

it took courage. Right. Courage. So, you know, it's very interesting how not they've now, they've sort of maxed out, you know, their inventive potential like Walt Mossberg was on Kara's podcast recently and he talked about how Tim Cook's done a great job maximizing the assets of Apple, but he hasn't had a game-changing breakthrough products. product. And so we're sort of seeing this end stage, you know, it's like the end stage where now you get to fight the bosses, right? And so Apple has kind of run out of stuff to do with the Mac. I mean, kudos to them. They built a great chip. Everybody loves it. And it's about to come into MacBooks. That's awesome. But what more can you do? It's they've refined to the Macs. And when you do

that, then you start to see the really interesting conflicts. Where do you look for growth? you look to take Facebook's business for growth. You look to take Google's business for growth. And you look to take Amazon's. You can only grow from taking from somebody else. Absolutely. And it just, it really is going to get so fun to watch because what we're seeing now is look at the valuations. You know, one and a half, sometimes two trillion dollar companies who need approved to shareholders, even in this wacky environment, that they're worth the money.

And when that happens, that's when you start to see. some of the stuff that we're watching go down. You see laptops that cost five grand. You see services business that try to cannibalize competitors. And you just see the gloves come off between the tech giants and its big tech Royal Rumble. Just the way we like it. Yeah, no. And this is why I said you're perfect for today.

If we haven't underlined it, Alex wrote a book called Always Day One about these big companies and not just the culture, but the strategy that they've all employed to this point. your newsletter, Big Technology, you cover this stuff every single week. Every Thursday. Every Thursday. Yeah, you get on Substack, Big Technology. So let me unify this. Plus the podcast. Big technology podcast.

Thank you for the shoutouts. I do appreciate it. If anyone's willing to try it out, I'm forever grateful. Thank you. Okay. Look at what a professional host I am. I'm going to hit all of these birds with one stuff. I'm going to unify what you're saying.

I'm going to make sure we talk about Google so that the Google people aren't mad at us. right yeah um you had said to us offline that you didn't uh see the google event yesterday um one of the things that they announced first of all okay the those phones look awesome um if i were in the android ecosystem there's no other phone that i would get um i even like the weird jordy la forge bar across the back that's fine um it's super interesting that they're coming in at the low end like these are you know even the higher end one is a 800 phone. We can get into that if you want. But they also announced yesterday what they call their PixelPass bundle, which is for $45 a month, not only do you get, you're paying for the phone,

which you can upgrade every two years, but you get everything with it. You get their music service. You get their video service. You get their, so this is sort of like the Amazon Prime monthly subscription, but for everything in the Google ecosystem. So this is what we're saying. This is taking a page out of Amazon. This is taking a page out of Apple for going for this services money. We're already talking about how people are fighting over ads. And all of these companies are essentially the same company now or are sort of trending in that direction in the sense that they're all doing the same things, but they're also strategically going after the same things. Yes. It's Clash of the Tech Titans. Man, do I love it. It's good. It's so interesting. First of all,

It's interesting as a person who uses these products for us, you know, folks who are consuming, like we end up, you know, getting more choice. This is good. It's funny. We talk a lot about, you know, monopoly and anti-competitiveness. It's certainly true that, you know, the tech giants are doing whatever they can to ice out the smaller guys. But when it comes to the big guys, hell, yeah, that's putting a competition. And then it's just like the most magnificent business story to watch. I mean, one, you know, when in our history have we had, you know, five trillion dollars. companies just trying to gut each other. It really feels like the Godzilla movies or whatever. Yeah. And even enormous titans. Yeah.

The guyju is going after you have Microsoft, which is the guy that runs into the tag team match with the steel chair. I start bashing everybody over the head just for the heck of it. And, you know, everyone's like, Microsoft, you're cool. Don't worry about it. And then they're like, deals off Google, we're coming for you. And I mean, yeah, it's a blast. It's a blast.

And I don't know. I do think that, you know, I had a friend who responded to me after I wrote this story in big technology about how Apple's, you know, anti-tracking moves were crushing Facebooks, just killing Facebook's performance advertising. And he wrote like something like, you know, capitalism at full blast, let him gut it out. And honestly, why not? Yeah. I mean, yeah. So this is how a market works. And it's freaking fun to watch when you do it with a little bit of distance.

Well, let's sag into Facebook then. As we said, this is Wednesday. Hold on. By the time you published this, it might be called something else. I was going to say, we might get scooped on this big on Verizon story. Yeah. Good one, Chris. So today is the day that I did on the show that Facebook is considering changing its name.

I think that we've probably heard today that this is not thinking this is coming, right? Seems likely. I mean, it would be a shock if it didn't happen. Yeah. They, you know, Facebook PR loves using Twitter to refute bad reports. And they haven't done any tweets saying, actually, we're still Facebook. So they're not. Chris, you made an interesting point earlier today, because I joked on the show today that maybe the, when Facebook went down because of the provisioning thing.

The DNS change. But that really could have been. I think that was actually like a test. I mean, you know, whether whether, if it's going to be Horizon.com, or it's going to be Metaverse.com or something that might have been it to see if, one, what happens, you know, when they make the changeover and what breaks?

And so this was actually sort of like a, what is it, a sort of poking test when you like decide if something is vulnerable. Stress test. Yes, ish. You're probing the perimeter. A probe test, yeah, exactly, right. Regardless.

I don't know of these tests. Sorry, go ahead. It's a thing. It's a, anyways. And so if that was the dry run for what's going to be launched at the F8, it's not fade anymore. The Facebook Connect reality

Labs Day, whatever it is. Anyways, whatever their developer event is. Like, there is too much to look at that says exactly what's about to happen. And I feel like so I'm just going to lay it out like in the way that I've seen it. We've talked about this. I went on and I watched, actually on the

plane out to the East Coast, I watched Facebook's developer event from the spring. I think it was June, perhaps. And there were moments where Zuckerberg was talking about the Metaverse. And then there's another case where he was launching the portal, whatever the portal, portable device was, and he was so bored. And he was, like, reading it from a teleprompter. And it was like, if I was on that team,

I would be so pissed off. But regardless, by the end, finally, he's no longer talking about this, like, silly hardware device. Now he's actually talking about the Metaverse. And he lights up. He's so excited. This is a person who decided during the pandemic that he was going to rename the company. And he's been sitting on this news since then. He got rid of Shrep, who was his VP of engineering. and he promoted Boz, who is the head of Reality Labs, to be VP of engineering or whatever. And I just noticed today, I think his name is Vishal, the guy that used to be head of product at Instagram is now head of Metaverse at Facebook. So the guy who was in charge of building out the Instagram business, along with Masseri,

now is running the Metaverse product. That tells you where the prioritization lies because you have to assume that the effort that they were making for reels to compete with TikTok is not working. And so they need a greenfield. And so the metaverse is that greenfield. And so that is the master's stroke where Zuckerberg is the only person with 51% ownership of the company that can say Facebook is dead. The production of Mark Zuckerberg is dead. And now it is something new. Well, we are changing the entire gameplay. Yeah. I see that. Another thing that's been suggested to me by people who have been in the company. I've been in the company's orbit is that, no, actually your explanation ties in very, very nicely.

And I know nothing just by what I've seen publicly. So what's been suggested to me is that, you know, first of all, I think the metaverse already exists. It exists in places like Fortnite before you're in Battle Royal mode. It exists in Roblox. Yes, right, when you're in this creator mode. So Facebook, so Zuckerberg sees where this is going. What's been suggested to me is that this is a new big vision sort of push inside the company. that is part, okay, product push, but also, you know, as important or maybe more important, a employee retention and attracting, you know, and recruitment type of thing where it's like, you know, do you want to be at Facebook? Like, I don't know about that. Do you want to be at,

you know, Metaverse, Horizon? You can work on the next, you know, big frontier of technology solve big problems. Okay, I'll take the phone call. Okay, I'll stay for another few years and see where this goes. So, and I think that's that sort of that ties in with the name change as well, where if this is all about, you know, oftentimes we see the messaging from these companies and a lot of it is geared towards, you know, current and prospective employees. And I think that might, might be what's happening here. And I do think you're literally, um, who's, who's the Bloomberg columnist that everybody reads about money? Matt Levine. Matt Levine. His, his take on it today was just that. It's like, oh, if you go visit friends or whatever, who do you work for Facebook?

Maybe you don't say that, but you would say, oh, I work for meta or whatever it's going to be. I'm no longer working with Ron Artecest. I'm working with Metaverse World Peace. Also, I would point out that when you said Greenfield, like, this is one of the few areas where their reputation doesn't necessarily precede them in a negative way. Like that portal behind me, which is a great device, I love it, but most people wouldn't put it in their homes. but okay Alex this is specifically what I wanted to ask you and I got to do a bit of a wind-up here because

I and I've said this many times on the show I got wound up by people several years ago telling me that of the big five it was Google that was in the most trouble because they were running into walls that there was only so much blood you could squeeze from the stone there were only so many ads that you could put in turns out they had two stones Listen, well, first of all, YouTube is obviously helping them, as I said.

There's a lot of blood in that stone. But also, they've had, since these people tell me that, they've had their best earnings in a decade. And growth, not just, oh, dollar figures, I'm saying return to growth again. So I'm burned by this. But I'm also hearing from people that one of the things, maybe this is Facebook is in trouble. And I said on the show today, changing your name. Is that something that a confident really firing on all cylinders company does? Or is this a company that is trying to spin its wheels?

That's when you change your name. But also, what was my point? So when people are saying Facebook's in trouble, because again, if there's one thing we know about Zuckerberg, is that he knows the data before anybody else. He does nothing but look at the data, and he has the data on all of us and everything that happens on these platforms. Facebook probably would have been in trouble five or eight years ago, but Instagram has

papered over a lot of sins. And so we've also recently seen, oh, they're going after teens because they need this growth pipeline coming in. So when I start to have people tell me, well, this is happening because they're seeing the writing on the wall, it might not be next quarter, it might not be next year, but they're seeing that they're going to hit a wall in terms of their earnings and their growth and things like that. What have you heard?

Have I been sold to bill of goods again? No. Okay. No, you're spot on here. So first of all, I don't think their earnings are going to hit a wall. You know, don't bet against Facebook's advertising prowess, although they are running into some trouble now, which I'll get to in a second. But look, I've always viewed Facebook as the most vulnerable of all tech giants.

If you look at Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, all of them have operating systems. they are something that you use to get into the internet, which gives them a heck of a lot of control over whether their products will survive. And that's what some of this antitrust stuff is getting at, like self-preferencing. Like, you know, but like take Chrome, for instance, right? If you have the browser or Android, if you have the mobile operating system, people use that as the window into the internet. So you can put search right there front and center. And you'll ensure that even if people stop typing in www. like Google.com, you're going to survive.

Facebook is a totally different beast. It's at the mercy of Apple. We've seen Apple shut down their apps in the past. It's at the mercy of Google. Both of those companies are working to constrain its ability to track on the web. So this is a serious issue for Facebook's business. Because everybody that you speak with on the performance advertising side, the people who put those ads on Facebook where it gets a large chunk of its money,

which wants you to buy right away, They told me that they're running blind. I mean, they are unable to track performance because so many people have opted out of Apple's ad tracking that they now can't see whether their ads are performing well on Facebook. And so what that's lead them to do, and even if Facebook can figure this out with some sort of, you know, advanced modeling, which I'm sure will be able to get somewhere close once it has enough data. But what this has led people to do is try TikTok, try Snapchat, you know, try Google. Maybe try a newsletter. And that's almost the worst case scenario, because then once the advertiser gets a taste for this, even if they do come back, they're also like, well, we're not going to pull back from TikTok because we figured out how to make TikTok work for us. Exactly.

Yeah. And ad professionals are smart, you know, despite all the flak they get. They're very smart people. And, you know, they know how to work these systems and learn these systems and optimize them. You know, that's how they get, that's how they're able to eat. And so, you know, if Facebook pulls back a little bit and now all of a sudden some of these systems are on par, as you mentioned, they put the effort into it. it, you know, they're not going to end up taking, you know, they were over-indexed on Facebook. So they're not going to end up taking 100% of their spend or 90% their spend and put it back on

Facebook. They'll go with what works and they'll ensure that they have a little bit of protection if there's going to be other changes. And so, you know, to bring it full circle, this is a major, major issue when you think about like which of the tech giants are the most vulnerable. Again, it's Facebook not having its own operating system. It being beholden to Apple and Google, their knee-capping company. And it does face, I'm not going to use the word headwinds, I'm not going to do it, a challenge when it comes to, you know, maintaining the level of growth that it's had in the past. Two more observations. And then Chris, please jump in.

But I'm not the only person that has said that, gee, who's been investing a hell of a lot? Well, all VCs are investing in Metaverse things right now because it's the latest buzzword. But there's a certain VC that also sits on Facebook. Facebook's board. So if Mark Andreessen has been aware for a year that Facebook is going to go in this direction, you know, there's going to need to be an ecosystem that'll grow up around whatever Facebook is going to do. So there's a little bit of, you know, Well, that's all, you know, it's also like, do we think that Facebook is capable of a paradigm changing technology experience that everybody uses right now?

I don't know. I would say no, but I know a lot of people that would say never bet against Zuck. I think Zuck will be the king of social networking. But building out into other things, it's yet to be proven. Hasn't been proven at all. Right, hasn't been proven at all. Oh, that's what I say. They should, you know, they've done a good job.

They've done a good job copying Snapchat. So, you know, maybe they should just change their name to Snapchat. Well, that was one of the jokes. is now, you know, Snap, uh, ink. Right. So maybe Snapchat is available. It's like, um, do you guys know that South Park episode where like, um, the Redskins lost the trademark to the term, you know, the Washington Redskins?

That actually happened. So the South Park kids decided that they were going to call them themselves the Washington Redskins. And then the actual football team called them and were angry that they took their traditional name and were disrespecting it. And it was very meta and beautiful. Uh, cultural appropriation is, yeah, very meta. Go ahead, Chris.

Your bed is meta, right? Or horizon. Well, naming aside, on the one hand, I have to worry about being too bullish on Facebook. But I also think that we tend to evaluate what's happening based on what's familiar and known, as opposed to, again, like, if Facebook feels cornered by Apple, Amazon, Google, in terms of advertising. And Apple is literally like throwing axes at, you know, Facebook in terms of its ability to track users.

Google has its own hardware devices and products that allow us to do all sorts of different tracking. Amazon obviously has all of your shopping data and has basically like, you know, in the competition for the next gen QVC between Instagram, Amazon, and TikTok, I would probably bet on Amazon in that case. So Facebook does, to your point, they don't have an operating system. They don't have an operating context

in which they control everything. And so that suggests that they need to build that out. They need to establish what that is. And I would also point out, if you haven't, I've listened to a few of Boz's podcast episodes, which one does not do

unless they are recruiting or essentially establishing a beachhead of content to bring people in, whether they're advertisers, whether they're movie studios, whether they're media production agencies to essentially establish a new set of concepts and verbs and actions and activities that the next generation of social media will comprise. So if we're evaluating this based purely on web page, like two-dimensional webpages,

mobile apps, and conventional news feeds, you're looking at the wrong thing. If Facebook is in decline, they're not going to like go down quietly. and Zuck is in the model of Bill Gates as a competitor. So he is going to find or invent a new operating context and environment and then bet the company and essentially get everyone to move in that direction. So the reason why I bring this up is because you ask the question is, or do you believe that Facebook would be able to generate or create a new context or paradigm for computing? And it seems to me that the way in which at least Baws is talking about this stuff from a

U-X perspective from a trying to bring stakeholders together to create or to prevent a lot of the criticisms that have happened on the conventional two-dimensional social web, they're getting ahead of those things and they're trying to create a place where people can go to work on this stuff. When you said, well, he buys things, I was going to make the point. I think that he's a real survivor. You put Zuckerberg into survival mode. And let me also say, like, he'll find a way.

The game plan or the practice of successfully copy. being Snap's innovation in stories and doing a pretty good job with Instagram. Like, I would say that it succeeded. And in terms of what Snap has been doing with the Metaverse and creating AR lenses and things of that nature, Snap is pretty far ahead. Apple has a lot of its own stuff related to augmented reality in the Metaverse. But Apple has never been able to figure out social. Apple is so behind in social.

If you look in, and I just saw this the other day, in Safari on iOS 15, You sent me a few links, and when you open up a new tab page in Safari, I will see the links from you. Now, I don't know, I forget what this feature is called, but Apple also has share play. Apple's social networking ambitions are so subtle as to be almost not-existent and not interesting, whereas Facebook is very overt and very clear. Facebook is obviously about interactions and relationships between people, and building a social network, as Google has experience, is very hard and doesn't always work. the fact that Facebook has that advantage over a Roblox and over, what's the other one,

Fortnite, suggests that they're doing the same thing that they did to Snapchat, but for the Metaverse companies. They're learning from them. They're observing them. They're building for them. And all the developers that are building for Apple or for Google are not getting a head start. And that's what Facebook has to its advantage. Yeah, but sometimes this hits and sometimes it doesn't.

Like, for instance, they... But I would look at the kids. Like young people growing up Are not spending time in feeds No, I understand I'm just saying that For Facebook when it does these Makes these big initiatives

It hits sometimes and it doesn't other than And it could have all the vision And the best design products Sometimes it just doesn't take off For take a look at Facebook dating Everyone thought Facebook dating Should crush it Nobody uses Facebook dating

Tinder and matcher And hingeer Having a field day You know they're just killing their earnings And then you know, you look at, you know, Messenger, we forget, but Messenger and WhatsApp were supposed to be the new operating systems and their whole bot thing. I don't forget.

And so that stuff hasn't worked out the way that they hope. So I don't think that they're incapable of doing it, and I agree with you that Zuckerberg is a survivor. And social media is the toughest thing to build for. It's so hard to keep people engaged. And that's probably why we see some of the bad stuff because they're really nice. Exactly. Make some sacrifices to do it. But, you know, that being said, this whole metaverse thing,

like it's a real open question to me if it's going to be able, you know, if they'll be able to snap their fingers and all of a sudden have an operating system to me, a operating system because it sounds like Messenger, that didn't work out. It sounds like the way they talked about VR and VR is still niche. So can you create a game-changing paradigm with something like the Metaverse, whatever that might be from scratch if your Facebook? I don't know. I think the odds are the odds. You know, I won't bet again, Zuckerberg, but I don't think the odds are in his favor.

So a question, though, for you, like, to ground this, I think would be, what do you think media and social media and device usage looks like in five years? Wow. Well, I think that... More similar today or different? I think that if you look at, you take the signals from Facebook, it's going to look more like TikTok does, where it's less of a follow model and more of a algorithm just tracking everything you do and, you know, learning. because, you know, and it's all-encompassing wisdom what you're interested in and serving it up to. That sounds like that's sort of social media

as it exists today, growing up alongside whatever the Metaverse thing might be. Well, you know, again, I think the Metaverse is going to exist in a fragmented way in these games like Fortnite and Roblox. One of the advantages is... Are we going to hang out in, like, Facebook Metaverse? Or are we going to still, like, you know, send texts

and stuff like that and see each other in person? Like, just that idea, send text. I don't mean it in like a, I don't know, like combative way, but it's language teaches us a bit about what we expect and what we know versus things that are unfamiliar and unknown. And if I were, you know, to think about myself being a 16 year old kid today and think about how I spend my time, it looks a lot more like roadblocks and a lot more like Fortnite. And when I expect to go hang out with my friends who disperse to different colleges or wherever it is that they go or they, you know, learn from home, it's going to be a lot more like a metaversean experience than Zoom. And the fact that the hardware that Apple is building, I mean, these things all work in conjunction in terms of building off of each other.

All of those hardware specs are designed to power more augmented reality, more video consumption, like things that are higher bandwidth, like demanding. Like 5G still isn't really here yet. People aren't building apps for that yet because it's not widely distributed. So it just seems to me that all the messages, I agree with you just because you put it out there in the press release or in the developer event, it doesn't mean it happens. But if the Metaverse is Facebook's North Star and they're willing to spend the next 15 to 20 years building that, the question is, will they be the dominant platform like Apple is today then? A whole bunch of points.

Number one, the advantage right now is that Metaverse is just a term. We, even us three sitting right here, like we don't know it. And people like Steven Sinovsky, or maybe it was Benedict Evans, has made the point that this is all sounding a lot like information superhighway, where everyone kind of knows they're feeling around in the dark because they know, they have an idea of what they want, but the actual structure of it, no one really has. I got a, but the other point I wanted to make was I believe Zuck does believe that within five or ten years, us three could record these episodes. episodes with our VR headsets on because once you get the avatars good enough that it I can already create your avatar in Instagram right right it's already built in but we're we excited to come here yeah are we doing this because the three of us can be in person and we've been doing these things on spaces in the past we have talking virtually so I i've done zooms you know and there is and

maybe I'm old school about it but there's something cool talked about this about I remember you this was one of your answers look we we are I don't know what utility or usage there is to sort of identify or generationalness, but I agree with you that it is great to come together in person, especially sort of semi-post pandemic. At the same time, I'm also, I've got a foot in like, you know, the NFT land and crypto world. And all of the people that interact there and transact business to the tunes of tens of thousands of dollars a day, they all have pseudonymous avatars. And they are operating in a world where real identity and coming together in the meat space

is the second order to the primary order, which is their digital life. And I'm not saying this is better or worse. I'm just observing it. Well, when you're money laundering, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to show your face. Listen, I saw a pitch. Agreed.

And I don't think I'm going to invest in it, but it was a pitch for a VR dating app. And I didn't think, like I said, I don't think I'm going to say too much more about it. But it did make me realize that... People have sex in the Metiverse. If you get avatars right, a dating app in VR

is insanely let me be clear there are a lot of people whose best partners are perfectly you know avatar I mean there are cultures

that grow up around the stuff like it's not that unusual and the degree to which the internet but I'm even saying like imagine if you could integrate sexting so that like if you swipe left

and you see a picture of somebody and then that picture you say I want to talk and that picture comes alive and uses machine learning to make We have the deface. And they're standing in front of you.

And you can have sex with any celebrity that you want. And the clothes, with all the appendices that you want. Alex is not like this future. Alex is double fisting face palming. It just keeps, it sounds more and more like a black mirror episode, the more that we progress.

I think this was a black mirror episode, actually. I think it is. So one more point that I want to make here, because I want to come back to this, because I think it's super important. When you said that, that they need to do this for a request, recruiting and to keep an energy around.

So the talent piece is right. Yeah, we should talk about it's, you guys remember like as late as like 2010, one of the reasons that people thought it was insane, the Facebook's valuation and things like that, was because they're like, listen, social networks are fads. Another social network is going to come along. Ah, a lot. They're fadish. Right. Right. Right.

But so maybe it's just, maybe that did, that was true. It just got delayed by a decade, that in this sense, they do need to invent what's next. They do need to keep jumping to the next lily pad because they are in a business of... Let me say just a reframing of that question at that point, because I think this is a very useful way to understand where we've arrived to with technology. And I was thinking about this the other day, and it kind of on the one hand made me sad. And on the other hand, kind of like, revealed to me what we're engaged in, which is that if you look at sports, and sports announcers. Like, you know what it was?

I was in an Uber, and the guy had the radio on, and there was some person talking about, I don't know, the sports ball, Patriots, or I think the Red Sox are in the World Series. Is that true? It may or may not be true. Check the internet.

We're a round away from the World Series yet, but they're... Playoffs. Finals? You know what? It doesn't really matter because I feel like this is like... The AL Championship series. Someone who's really into sports bowl

talking about tech and, like, not really knowing the words. Point being is that we've kind of gotten to the commentator part where, as you pointed out, the Titans are in a battle, and they will stay in a battle indefinitely, unless the government steps in and maybe, you know, throws on some regulation or something and ultimately changes the rules of the game and the sport. But technology now in the development is like sports.

And so we can talk about the needs for platforms to keep users engaged. It's no different than sports needing to figure out how to keep games interesting and exciting and maybe like shortening the innings or, you know, having only like two outs or whatever. to basically keep fans focused on what's going on because attention changes, behavior changes, time availability changes. So all this is to say that if we're evaluating these things and thinking about whether or not Facebook is going to build these things, the answer is yes. They're going to keep building new ways to keep people engaged and it's not going to be one

true thing. It's not going to be one news feed. It's going to be many things, many different types of excitement, many different types of entertainment. And that's the battle that we're actually engaged in, which is not merely about the technology anymore. Because as we posited on the World Cup of Entrepreneurs episode, the juice for Zuck is people playing his game. Exactly. He doesn't care what the game is. He does not.

Yeah. Or where it's played. As long as it's played on Facebook turf. He cares what the game is, but he's willing to make some sacrifices to keep the game going. But that's the point. The sacrifices are incidental to ultimately getting people to play the game. I mean, Boz said it himself. you're going to crack some eggs, you know, when you're building the world.

It's a social network, including killing people. And yet we connect. That is what we do. Oh, yeah. I know. I know that story. I was on it. I know.

Hey, speaking of stories that you may or may not be on, um, I keep hearing that there is a trove of new leaked Facebook documents. Yes. A bunch of, maybe 33 or so, you know, reporters are, but obviously a bunch of outlets all have them and they're coming out soon. We've got petting on papers. We've got the Facebook papers. I'm not asking you to tip anything or whatever, but this is real. That would be the chance.

Yeah, it's definitely real. It certainly appears that Facebook PR had a heads up that all 30 plus reporters were going to make fun of its new name. But what I've gathered is that this is sort of leftover stuff from the Wall Street Journal's investigation. The B-roll. The B-roll. so, you know, but it was amazing that Facebook PR was like, there are 30 plus reporters who have agreed to hold, due to, you know, after a PR firm. And it's like, you do that all the time.

When you have product announcements, there's no problem there when you manipulate the media. But as soon as somebody else is doing it, you're all of a sudden, you know, trying to turn the public against journalists. The whole Facebook approach to this has been totally insane. I mean, I was thinking about it on the way over here. Can you imagine any other company doing what they did? No, this is totally bonkers. I mean, if they would have just said every time, to every question, if they would have just said, we're doing the research so we can get better.

Sure. They would have, they could have very easily turned it. People wouldn't so bored. Oh, my God. They could have turned it from this, you know, massive glaring scandal into, you know, oh, hey, they are doing the research. Actually, I think it's pretty cool that they're doing the research. Good on them.

Right. That's a huge deal. But instead, they've now talked about how Francis Hagen has, you know, doesn't report to, and never reported to anybody. And the journalists are, you know, getting it wrong. And the data, the researchers are bad. And, you know, it's really an instance of that does protest too much. It's like, oh, Facebook, what exactly, you know, you wouldn't be doing all this stuff unless you sort of heart of hearts believe that a lot of this criticism is legitimate. So, but, yeah, again, like Zuckerberg got a good response. He's like, we're, you're, doing the research, I just like, you know, the fact that they're trying to demonize, you know, journalists for like going through, like, you know, if it was me and, you know, I don't work for Facebook comms for a reason, but I would have just been like, you know, if I felt the need to address it, you know, I would have just been like, you know, we're glad that these reporters are getting a hold of our research. We're the only one that does it. We challenge them to get research like this from any other company and to find a company anywhere close to as serious as we are to improving.

But isn't the problem, I mean, the results? I mean, what the research shows and what Facebook knew and what Facebook did or did not choose to do to address those issues with its product is the realm where it says, okay, Facebook, like, self-regulation clearly is not working because you knew these things and yet you did it anyways. Yeah, yeah. I would say that, like, you know, talking purely about the communications, that's the stuff that's bonkers. This stuff that this research found is definitely, you know, glaring and reverend. Is it surprising? No, because it's important, I think, for folks to understand that there's two, so there's two sides to Facebook, right? There's the side that wants to be good for the world,

and there's the side that we've been talking about through our whole conversation, which is the one that feels the need to grow and sees TikTok and YouTube, nipping out its heels and taking its teenage users, which are its future. And so there's a very real tension between putting, implementing the fixes, that the research organization wants them to put in and surviving. And so I call it the Facebook survival dilemma because it is something that, you know, Facebook is like, you know, in order to survive, are we going to, you know, fundamentally harm our service? And, you know, or, I don't know, like, is there a way to do this without having all these people?

One thing that people put it out, you know, is just that the system that Facebook operates within is the capitalist system. And if Facebook were grown in China, would things be different? You know, in terms of like two major different structures and experimental zones, like Facebook has had to have that sort of, you know, Gemini vibe of being both wanting to, you know, change the world and connected and make things. I don't think it's had to have that. It's been a choice. Well, that's my question, though. The choice to grow, like, I don't think that there is a choice to not grow to basically say, you know, we're good. We've got, you know, a billion people.

We're set. agree. Really? Well, I mean, if... From a market perspective? Once you go public, I mean, how do you, you're like, are we're done growing? Oh, come on.

Like, Zuckerberg is the only, you know, only important voice in the room there. You don't think that his impetus to grow comes or stems from the economic system that he, that generated him. So I do think he wants to make more money. Yeah. But do I think...

I mean, he's got so much money. I know, but do I think, like, does he have a choice? Of course he does. He has a choice. Of course. And it's something that he's hinted at when he said, we're going to have time go down on our site when we go for media consumption to, you know, what this new engagement model ended up being flawed was, meaningful social interactions. And he said, we are going to proactively choose to have people who spend less time, and that will lead to a revenue hit. But didn't it actually lead to more growth?

Well, yes. So the question is, did he know that? I think they had a pretty good idea what they were doing because, I mean, in the... In the... He said, I think that, or I know that time is going to go down, and yet they chose to go that path. I think he was spinning. And I think we have the truth now, thanks to these documents. And actually, I think of all the Wall Street Journal stories, the one about this algorithm changed to meaningful social interactions, was far and away the best.

That was the most important one. Because it showed what levers they have to make changes. But at the end of the day, it's a simple, right, right. But it's a simple answer, though, to your question, which is that, like, of course they have a choice. Zuckerberg is the, you know, the only voice that matters in that company. And so he can do it every once. We've seen it time and time again. Because it can't be removed.

Can't be removed. Can't be overridden. The board could all quit, but he would install a new board. So he has full, it is a pretty wild thing that a company with the market size, market cap, the size of Facebook is controlled by one person, but it is. And so, you know, I know that there's been like the, there's been this popular line of argument, like the one that you mentioned, that Facebook. is a product of capitalism, which yes, of course it is, but it's also, you know, it's, it's not,

I wouldn't say that its future is determined by the system that it works and because the clear truth is that the future is determined by Mark Zuckerberg and there's no other way about it. Let me, I was searching for the tweets because I'm sure I didn't actually mention this on the show. So let me just read the specific tweets that led to this. And this was from October 18th. Facebook Newsroom tweeted a curated selection out of millions of documents at Facebook can in no way be used to draw fair conclusions about us. Internally, we share work in progress and debate options. Not every suggestion stands up to the scrutiny we must apply to decisions affecting so many people.

So the argument there being, hey, anybody's internal documents are going to look kind of mean and ugly and dirty laundry. Because we're trying to make decisions in a frank and real way. And that includes, what is the downside of this? Okay, hold on. Let me read the, because this second one was the more interesting one to me. So then, this is signed by John Panette, VP of Communications. To those news organizations who would like to move beyond an orchestrated gotcha campaign, we are ready to engage on the substance.

Now, first of all, they're not ready to engage in the substance. But second of all, is this not sort of a Streisand effect sort of thing? You know more about this than either of us. Has their PR gotten really bad lately? Yes. Why? I don't know. They should be the best of this in the world because they've been doing it since day one.

They've lived in crisis land. So here's my only explanation for it. I mean, it's terrible. But not the explanation. The PR has been real bad. But it is possible that they have, okay, so look at the influences. You know, Peter Thiel is on that board. You know, Mark Entry since, you know, I've been close with Zuckerberg from the beginning.

Yeah. A lot of the engineers, a lot of the Facebook employees have been very, you know, they're keen observers of the media. And they know that there's been a pushback in the tech world to try to discredit the media and disintermediate the media. I mean, go to our favorite website, Future, andresen Zoroitz once every year blog. You know, that's sort of the idea. And so it is possible that, you know, the audience, what they're trying to do is just be like, you know, these, these, journalists have gotten it wrong and, you know, they're out to get us. You know, that's what the gotcha campaign is. And, you know, we're here to interact in an earnest way. And if they're not

going to do it, we need to let you know that they're wrong. And that, I think, might be foddered to the disintermediate the media. You know, tech journalists are a biased pack who get things wrong en masse often. And maybe that's what they're playing toward. Says somebody with a very popular substack. I mean, but, But to be fair, I'm joking. I want to say that I'm on a mission. I'm on a mission to give people an alternative to the corrupt corporate media. You know, I'm just kidding.

Look, I think we work in concert, not in concert, but it's compliments, right? Like, I'm going to write stories that the New York Times never will. The Times will write stories that I won't. It's good to have people with different perspectives covering similar stuff because you're going to end up seeing that, you know, you'll end up seeing these different perspectives. No, but okay. Like, this is a very important point, I think. And I think that, you know, Alex, you being here, you know, I don't, I can't, I don't know how or if to describe you as neutral because I don't think you are.

However, like, you have a perspective. We've talked about this. Yes, we've talked about this. And yet, out of the Wall Street Journal stories and the documents that really weren't shared broadly, to my knowledge, there were a whole lot of media stories that were written that were written in a very, you know, biased adversarial. way. And so although, you know, Facebook bears scrutiny, especially being the size that it is, the way in which you can see whatever you want kind of in the tea leaves or in the Rorschach

test of these documents allows people to spin and create stories that advance their own agendas, whatever those agendas may be. Yeah. And as a result, there is a question. Now, I'm not saying that Facebook is doing things right, but I'm saying that the challenge of being inside of the sausage factory and making the sauces itself. It makes it very difficult to know how to explain yourself in a way that is relatable, understandable, comprehensive, such that an audience that is looking for their own gotcha moments are able to stick around long enough. I mean, like, you know, you've been trying to push the angle of clear-headed, nuanced conversations for a long time. Yeah. Right?

And they're tough. It's tough. It's tough to get an audience. It's tough to, like, get people engaged. It's tough people to have them stick around for as long as that goes. So I think my question, you know, in a sense, isn't necessarily to push back on what you're saying, but if you take, and maybe they, again, don't warrant this type of credulity. Credulity.

Credulity. Credulity. I think so. Of this Facebook comms person, if you take him at his word, there is a question as to how this conversation should play out in a way where there's some sort of container that is created for the conversation and there can be a, if not raucous debate, a useful debate. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, I feel like we're just yelling at each other. And what Facebook is doing is it's going to its corner.

It's going to launch Horizon and all these things are going to be harder to talk about because the media now suddenly has to talk about it as though it's Horizon and not Facebook. And they'll talk about it as Horizon, formerly known as Facebook. And then people are going to be like, wait, what is Horizon? And then it'll be like this big squirrel moment and then we'll move on. Yeah, I mean, we also do that with, you know, I don't know with alphabet. No one calls it alphabet anymore.

Everyone calls it Google. The alphabet was like a sort of a failed rebrand. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't think that they're all that interested in the conversation that John Panette offers in that tweet. They being the media? Facebook. Oh, let's talk about the media, first of all.

Yeah. I think the point that you made is good. I think that I just listened to this podcast. I forgot which one it was. But it was a sports reporter who talked about how like, most sports reporters are, you know, just kind of cheating off the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Or they look to those publications for signals because, you know, they're not smart enough to, you know, make their own determinations about what's important in society. And so, you know, I think, like, you know, a lot of this stuff becomes pack driven when, like, your editor is like, all right, get me something in two hours.

And, you know, you just write what the Wall Street Journal said with less nuance. and repeat it without hearing anything else. Maybe, you know, there are people who might not bother to make a call to Facebook or, like, call their own sources probably because they have none. And, you know, and then end up repackaging something in a more scandalous way that gets clicks. It's a problem, you know, but honestly, like, you know, for us to focus on that versus, like, the actual issues with Facebook is kind of what Facebook wants. But, again, the media, you guys know me. Like, I've always been clear that I do believe the media needs to be introspective. We try to do it on my show all the time.

And it's something that the media can be better at. But, like, again, like, one of the things I've realized, you know, in my career as a reporter is that just like the, the, that when people don't want to try to solve hard problems, they end up just blaming the media and, you know, not actually getting to the core of the issues. So, and as far as Pennett's offer, I've had for a few weeks now. a request to get Nick Clegg on my show and, you know, and transcribe it with, you know, some publications that would get some range. And, you know, I'm not interested in gotcha stuff. That's for sure. I want to hear them out. I have some tough questions for them. But, but the offer is still in their court. So, you know, if Facebook is serious about this stuff, they should, they should, you know, instead of writing long Twitter threads, you know, demonizing the practice of embargoes,

which they engage in every day, should end up, you know, leading by action and not by words. And honestly, leading by action has been in the trouble with Facebook. And it's not, you know, we talk about their comm strategy, which, you know, come on, we can talk about that forever. It's a hilarious joke. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, Jeff Bang Gundy, who's a former coach, the Knicks, you want sports, so I'll go sports to wrap this segment. He was on, you know, he was watching, he's now a commentator and was calling a playoff game a few years back.

And there was a long discussion about like whether player X was dirty, you know, because he would always get hard fouls and stuff like that. And Van Gundy was like, look, you are what you do. You are what you do. It's simple, but it's really true. And, you know, if, again, like this can all be settled. This discussion can be settled with action and not by, not by like, you know, Facebook spinning it one way or reporters doing something the other way. And that's, you know, what it boils down to, in my opinion. Nick Clegg, it's Big Technology is the podcast.

Oh, I think he's aware. I know, but I was also, that was my way of reminding those listening. Oh, yeah, yeah, Big Technology Podcasts. We did do a show with Jeff Horowitz, who wrote the series in Brian Boland, who was a longtime Facebook executive there for 13 years. And we just went over the stories and talked about like both Jeff's reporting and then what it was like for Brian internally as he encountered this stuff. So this is sort of like The ideal Type of show that we try to do on the podcast

Where it's not just like Invective but it's actually like Let's talk to the people who've done it Let's talk to the people writing about it And see where we net out at the end of an hour To wrap it up today Chris Here's my argument for why the new Facebook name can't be Horizon Okay great

It just sounds too much like Horizon That's it. That's what I said now We did that Right but the Okay The great minds think alike Now, however, again, we remember that Zuck is the final arbiter, and if he doesn't give a shit,

it's going to be Horizon. By Verizon and buy AOL and revisit that, you know? Yeah, Trunk was a name that people suggested. Oh, yeah, that was on the BuzzFeed Quiz, Trunk. And smoked brisket, I think, was another good one. Inifred had a great tweet saying that Facebook, you know, we're glad you want to change your name. please fax us a court order and your new ID.

Right, right, right, right. Just booking on Facebook's real name policy. Anyone who's tried to change a name and everyone gets like, who does that, tries to get, ends up getting kicked off. That was nice. It was like, all right, a little bit of your own medicine. Chris, enjoy the rest of your week here in Brooklyn. Thank you.

As I always say, this is the time of year to come. Oh, my God, it's gorgeous. Yeah, yeah, it's been great. Thank you both for coming to my kitchen. Yeah, thanks for her. It's great to be here. Yeah. and then wrap it up, host.

Well, thanks everybody for joining for another episode of the TechMeme Ride Home Experience. We were happy to have Alex Cantorwitz here, along with Brian and myself, of course. We typically record on Wednesdays. Our schedule is a little bit off, but who knows. Anyways, we will be here next time to talk about all the big news in the technology world, Metaverse or Beyond. Bye, everybody. Bye.