The Vergecast - Business Hole

Episode Date: January 23, 2015

It's been quite the week, as evidenced by the fact the Dieter has been awake for a full 24 hours at this point. We've got BIll Gates, holograms, local Super Bowl ads, and a tired variation on a classic genre we like to call "lazy jazz." Join Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Chris Plante, and his Swaggesty Sam Sheffer on a journey through time and incoherence on this week's show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here's what I know. What do you know, Nealai? Here's what I know. I know that if you are a TV station in Montana and we want to come make a video about your TV station, you should probably say yes. Yep. But they just said no. That's what just happened before the show started. Wow.

I literally, like somebody said, are you ready, Neelai? And I said, I'm ready. And then my computer beeped. And it was KTVH in Montana and Helen in Montana saying no to Nealai Patel. That's what I know. Don't they know who you are? I wear cool bracelets. Wow.

Do you see that one today? Yes. Addie hit one today. It's a, it's a, like a watch bracelet made out of and leathermen made it. Braclets are in. Is that usable in all, though? Now, here's what is confusing about it to me.

To use any of the screwdriver, you have to completely disassemble it. So you're like, I'm wearing this watch. Man, I really need to tighten the. that screw. That's a sentence you would say in your day-to-day life. Sure. And then you have to stop and disassemble your watch completely. But how do you disassemble the watch? Because all your

screwdrivers are on the watch. And so... Well, presumably that problem has been... They've at least contemplated that issue. Right? Like, if you're the guy building the screwdriver watch, you don't, then... Or the screwdriver watch band? What if... You're not like, how should I attach this thing to itself? Screws! No, that's precisely...

what they did, I think. No. I think it all clips apart. No. Okay. But what if it was attached with screws and he used a screwdriver bracelet to make a screwdriver bracelet and then at the end he had just one last one that he couldn't put together because it was the one he was using to build all the rest of them. So what you're saying, the Leatherman factory is like an endless. It's like the workers' nightmare. You can only use Leathermans to build Leathermans. And somewhere in the history of the universe, there had to have been a prime leatherman. Yeah, exactly.

And that guy's revered for all time. They locked him in a tomb because he can disassemble anything. So I've been gone for a week or two or forever. It feels like forever. Is this how we introduce the Vergecast now? I've been talking. I've been talking about Leathermans. Yes, from now on, we will begin every Verge cast of the story about local TV stations

and Leatherman tools. You can hear in the distance unsubscribes. That chattering sound you hear is millions of people. clicking their mice. No, it's actually been a crazy week of Verge. So, you are, last week, I was very sleepy after a red eye. Yep. You are very sleepy after a red eye.

Right. Next week, we're sending Anna, Sam, you're just going to fly out on the country a little bit. All right, cool. By the way, this is, in fact, the Verge cast that you've been listening to for four minutes now. I was waiting for this to happen. It's a show about the verge. Sure. Yeah.

Really? Mostly about not. thing. Sure, yeah. It's like a combination of emotions, feelings. Got it. And ideas. And a very tertiary conversation about technology and culture. There's occasionally tech news, but mostly it's like, how do you feel about wearing this on your face? Which is basically what technology news has become. Just here's a thing to put over your eyeballs. Would you wear this on your head all the time? Can we do like a command F across all the verge for, well, I didn't feel comfortable and I'm very embarrassed, but it's the best. So, Deeter, you let's, we should go right into that

because I think that's the big, that's the big piece. Bigger than the reason you were on a red eye? It's all, in the end, it's all Microsoft. In the end, our entire lives are governed by Microsoft in some way. Okay. No, let's do tech news. Let's start with tech news and then we can congratulate ourselves. So Microsoft had the Windows 10 consumer by the way, no one challenged me in the idea that we would just congratulate ourselves. Yeah. All right, fine. So Microsoft had a big Windows 10 of it.

You went with Tom. Yep. Tom Warren and I and Jimmy Shelton went there. We could have brought like 10 more people and still felt like we were understaffed. There was a lot of stuff. Yeah. So the purpose of the event was to talk about Windows 10 for real this time. They had done an event like last fall. I feel like it was forever ago where

they kind of did it just for enterprises, but but we all happen to be watching because that's what we do in Microsoft holds a press conference. But they showed us Windows 10, and it looks good. Like, it looks so good that it's almost boring to me. Windows 10. Yeah, because look, like, all the things that I have been asking, hoping Microsoft would do, that's, like, within their power to just fix it themselves and do it, they're kind of doing it. They're developing in the open.

They've gotten rid of the mixed metaphors between the two different UIs. They are finally like standardizing the platform, even if it's only in name, but it seems like it's also in practice, across lots of devices. Yeah, I have a lot of questions about that. There's a lot of questions still to be answered about that. But nevertheless, there is such a thing as a universal apps. You can develop an app and work on a phone, on a tablet, on a laptop, on a giant 87-inch television. On the Xbox.

Which is near, don't believe. you. But they're doing the right stuff. They're giving free upgrades for a year to Windows 7, Windows 8 users. Yeah. They, I don't know, they've got continuum working so it switches pretty seamlessly between tablet mode and desktop mode. They've still got a couple extra ways to like alt tab and move around the UI that they

could simplify. But in general, everything is like, yeah, thank you. Like the problems are like release it. Prove to me that the details aren't screwed up. Right. and get some apps, yo. Well, so that might be the most interesting thing about it. Because get some apps, yo, sure, they should do that.

Sure. No, you should. But they also made a big, big investment into making Internet Explorer better or renaming it to Project Spark or something. And that actually, I think, has been, like, when I get a new Windows piece of the first handy of it, right? And I, like, walk away from Microsoft and there's no apps. but if they can make that browser experience work really well, there's something there that I think is really interesting.

So, okay, that's the other thing I didn't mention is Cortana. So it's built into the operating system. Seems fine. A couple of places I used it, it was super buggy. Tom used it and it was fine for him. It's built into the browser now also. Right. And you can type into it, which is great.

Which is how it should be. Yeah, right. Because you can just like, give me a thing and like talk to you, right? Give me a thing. The new browser. My dream is to yell at it. In any way I can. Just yell at a computer, give me a thing.

I need your credit card to buy those movie tickets. Give them to me. So, Spartan is code name Spartan. We still don't know what's going to be called. But Internet Explorer isn't going away, which is one of the things I wish they would do. I don't know. But it's like going to be in the background as like a utility thing. Right.

It's the desktop. Spartan is the new thing. Can Microsoft do anything in the world without maintaining its legacy of software? No, they cannot. But so Spartan, we don't know what rendering engine Spartan use. or like we kind of do, I don't know. There's a lot of details, and guess when we're going to find out about them later at Bill.

I will say there was like a top 10 verge moment when they like revealed Spartan officially, which is they put up like, they were like, look at these crazy annotation features in Windows 10. You could just draw all over the place. And then they brought up like Tom's post about the leak. Yep. And they were like, what do they say? They were like, sometimes you get it wrong, but sometimes you get it right. And they like circled the headline a lot.

I wrote this. Smiley face. I was like, all right. Like, I could see, like, Tom live blogging. He's just, like, emojis. It looks like whenever you're, like, really drunk and happy act, you've had a nice meal. And then, like, on the tip, you're, like, turning for sitting, like, a big smiley face. You're like, just so you know I like you.

Okay. You are weird in restaurants. I will say that Microsoft still doesn't know what to do with the stylus other than, like, draw things on web pages. Sam, also weird in restaurants. Oh, yeah. You write them a note. It's like thank you for your service. It was good.

Here's some money, but also here's a smiley face because I was legitimately happy with the service. What? Yeah, I relate to this. Maybe this is where I fall under hashtag teens. Like, maybe this is my true millennial moment. This is how you reveal yourself. We're profoundly uncytical people, us 20-somethings. The kindest thing you can do in that situation is not require the other human to have any emotional connection to you.

Just write down a number and walk away. This is definitely the generational guy. The kindness thing you can do is make zero emotional connection. Be your dad. They'll miss you too much. Guys, can't talk about

the Microsoft thing from a normal perspective? Yeah, because you were sitting next year. We got to finish out windows before we get to the cool stuff. Yes. No, no, no. Okay.

Well, yes. Eat your vegetables. I like the windows chin. Yeah. I liked it a lot. Here's my... I'll even talk about the Xbox stuff yet. Sure.

I'll get into that. But the Windows 10 thing. Here is my theory about a Microsoft press conference versus Apple's press conference. Okay? For whatever reason I has pluralized apples. It's called arrows and speedometers. Okay. And whenever you watch, I can't an Apple thing, it's full of fucking arrows and spenometers.

It's like, here, remember that thing? But now it's 18. times faster and you're like oh okay cool i don't know why that means anything but i guess safari is still not going to be used by me um and then and then it's like hey this is that other group arrow down but our thing arrow up and you're like yeah yeah i guess you're right it's thinner arrow down it's all it's all these like ultra simplistic visuals to let you know how great everything is right and you look at it and it hits you and you're like yeah yeah that's right that's right that's right And then afterwards, you think back about it.

And like, a normal person is like, I don't know why I gave a shit about any of that. Like, all of everything you were telling me is utterly meaningless. Here's what I want you to know about both your impression and that sense impression. So you're the voice that you chose to use. Okay. And then the sense impression that you're describing. Okay. All of it is a monster truck rally.

Yes. Yeah. But that's, that, that is an animal. Look at this thing explode. And then you leave. You're like, why? Why? Look at that.

Apple is the Clint Eastwood of technology company. It's just talking to do an empty chair all the time. It's just saying really stupid, obvious things, but with a gravitas, it makes you think that you're smart for liking it. So it's like, oh, yeah, sure. I know so much more about World War II now. It's like, no, you don't. You just watch people shut.

Like, you watch the dumb cowboy movie. You would, like, get over yourself. Okay, so tell me about Microsoft. Yeah, lots of people like those things. Everybody likes the cowboy movie. Clint Easton movies sell some of Apple Products. And I like Apple Products. Also, I'm going to be careful now that we're Microsoft

Virge. MicroVurge. We really did break a lot of people today. Yeah, it was a hard day. That's one thing. I think if they were better at essentially marketing, because I don't feel like they do these things towards normal people, Microsoft.

Yeah, yeah. That would have been a bang-up day because the features were so easy to sell to me and my pop-pop and my mom laugh. Like, it's like, you can draw and stuff? Yes. And then when they did the demo for HoloLens, which we'll talk about, and they drew on the wall, that was big. Yeah. That, like, that sort of stuff, you take something that is like, I'm going to be available this year and then connect it to the future in another demo.

And it's like, it's fantastic. But they didn't do that in the press conference. They kind of left people who are obsessive to figure it out on their own. Right. So, yeah, I'm excited for Windows 10, which is a weird. Yeah, right. Than to say. Okay.

Because it looks usable. Like that's what's exciting. It's like it makes my life look like, oh yeah, that's definitely a thing I can use. It's just windows again, honestly. It's just windows again. And like there's like, it's windows with like the extra little plug in to let you like, you know, set the divvies and like set the window widths if you want to. And then, but there's there's also going to be like weird details. Like some OEMs when you go into tablet mode will keep the status bar.

Some won't. Sometimes there's a text box for Cortana entry. Sometimes there's. not. Sometimes it's a button you have to click depending on the width of window and how the only feels that. So there's like a version, there's like a whole experience for things that are less than eight inches. Yep. And then there's a, then there's a phone experience. And there's, there's a pretty good continuity. Although I do think that the actual toggles for like the, you know, the notification center and like the system settings in that sidebar or in the notification

center on the phone just are hideous. They're just white and gray boxes. They're just white and gray boxes. And I get flat design or what. whatever we're calling it. It's just ugly. Fonds are bad. It still looks like there's a drop shadow. It's like they went back and they found like there's like a one grizzled designer who has like a bunch of like notebook sheets of what Windows XP could look like in the future. Yeah. Then he like sketched out in 1999 or something. And they're like, let's, let's use, let's use Matt's ideas. Finally! Yeah, there they are. By the way, Matt, I don't know who you are, but I'm assuming you're doing a good job. You're very nice guy. Linux side projects.

They'll never know that I'm wasting their money. You can finally shave your beard off your neck because your ideas are getting implemented. Wow. Wow. See, Dieter's been awake for 24 hours. Yes, I have. He's getting me as he might.

Okay. So, wait, but here are my questions about Windows Send. Because this is the thing. Xbox. Then we'll get there. But here's what I don't believe. Because the Xbox is like the end of my questions. The end of this chain of ideas.

Xbox. They're promising such. Everyone stop whispering. It's on the radio. Everyone stop it. Just the worst show. Like, Dieter is, like, generally the most in control here. And when you've lost Deeter, it's all over, man.

Like, John just, like, shut down the feed. This car's going off the clip. No, here's the thing. So phones run arm processors. Yeah. Tablets run any processor in the world. all the PCs run Intel processors, a little some AMD processors.

The Xbox runs a power piece. Like, you know, like, it's not. That's an Xbox 360. Yeah, like, an Xbox one is just a PC. But, like, you know what I mean? But, like, they're promising this thing that makes no sense if you just look at the architecture as well as events. I don't know what the story is with phones.

All we, we haven't, they didn't have the whole of Windows 10 on a phone. We can't call it Windows phone anymore, which is hilarious and strange. and good and whatever. Yeah. But they had like demo versions of like discrete app. So here's how the Skype integration works. Right.

Here's how the contacts app works. Here's how the map works. And here's the same map app running on a desktop and on a phone. It's the same app, we promise. But that means all Windows phones are going to run on Intel in the future? Like that can't, that doesn't seem right. Right. So it's, they're using, you know, other higher level stuff to get this stuff coded.

And I don't know how efficient that'll be long term. And, like, there's a lot of questions specifically about phones. And the biggest question specifically about phones is how dedicated to phones is Microsoft right now? Because Terry Mearsen was on stage and he, like, looked Tom Warren in the eye, Tom Warren, who gave up on Windows phone. And he said, we are going to launch a flagship soon. I will say this about Microsoft. And this is a tendential point. They have become uniquely focused on, like, calling out individual journalists.

Yeah. They do it every time. Really hardcore. They're like Joanna Stern. We made a thing for you. This time they're like, Tom Warren, we're launching flagship. It was just a very, I like it. It's feisty.

It's like we're a hundred thousand person corporation and we're picking on you. So Satcha Nadella, either the teleprompter was, you know, between me and him. Or he knows that I once took a horrendously bad picture of Steve Ballmer and feel nothing but guilt about it ever since. he looked into my eyes. I kid you not, like, 30 times when I was taking photos during the slide. No, that's just the whole time. Just, just, just, just, into my soul. Yeah.

Because when he manages Microsoft, he looks every employee directly in the eyes. It'll leave 30 times. Like, through the eyes, into the, into your brain. That's into your heart. Right. That's how you had one. That's how Nadella runs, so I don't. That's how Nadella runs Microsoft.

He looks every employee in the heart. It's really weird. Just eat something most of his time. He doesn't do a lot. Something Windows are the size to the sole Windows. Windows, I'm excited for Windows 10. Really? I grew up on Windows.

Yeah. I had 95. I had 98. I had Emmy. I had XP. Now you're just listing versions of Windows. No, I'm very familiar with the operating system. And I would own a a Windows tablet.

Yeah. Because I have no use for an iPad because I already have one. But a... Who did? Just self-burned your iPhone 6-plus. It's terrible. Wait, you don't, you're done with it? Too big?

What? It's been too... I say this every week. It's been too big since I bought it. I bought it because of the battery. That's really funny, because I remember when I exchange mine, I got a lot of shit from people. And, and now... I think what you just saw there was Chris Plant looking into your heart.

Look what I... Look what I bought. Dieter's in the club now. But this is just so big. Yeah. I mean, I was literally like, Deeter, you were at home in Minnesota and I was like texting and being like, here's this happening this week, a lot of news, blah, blah. And Dieter's like, I'm in the six plus club.

And I was like basically his only response. Like he was still emotionally handling that moment. Yeah. No, but I haven't, I haven't used a Windows machine since probably 2007, maybe six. And they cleaned it up. Everything is there. You can argue the apps. but I well no so that's the thing right and I think that's like the apps is 100 and that's why I think

Spartan is like a big deal yeah so they cleaned it like I think it is just fair to say that A Steven Sinovsky watches this show which is weird because he responds to us in real time two uh when there's eight was a fail it was just a fail yeah and so they they like walked back all the like let's compromise stuff they've at least made it I still think they should split the two things, but whatever. Split. Well, no, they have because Windows RT is not getting updated to Windows 10. It's getting a different thing.

Oh, so anyway, but they, it's still like on the mainstream PCs, which is where most people will experience Windows 10, right? It's still like, you can have a desktop or you can push this button and turn it into this other thing. That's still there, but it's more unified. So at least they've like solved this problem. Yeah. They have tried to extend the other experience across everything.

Yep. But what doesn't make any sense to me, just not at all, is how apps work, how these universal apps work. And it is unclear to me, like, almost every level. And this is how we, I think, get to Xbox. The fact that you can, like, stream Xbox one games to, like, Windows PCs is awesome. Yeah, that doesn't require, like, you to think through the processor architecture. No, but what doesn't make sense to me is you can also, like, download a Steam game and play against somebody on an Xbox One.

And they're, like, totally different games. And none of, like, all of that, to me is, like, very confusing. uses. Oh, that's logistics. I'm more concerned about the actual, like, will you be able to code apps that are, the coding language is such that it can run on different kinds of processors and still be effective. They're doing it on Android now. They've got Android and Arm. Yeah, but every Intel Android device blows. Yeah. That's true. Right? Like, that's the real thing. If they, if Lollipop were less buggy on the Nexus 9, I think that. But right now, would you say that it blows? Damn it. Like, that's the thing. Like, Intel, like, Android works really well on arm processors, particularly Qualcomm processors. Yep.

Even when you, like, take this step into the cheaper crap on media tech, it's like, huh, I can tell this wasn't made for this, right? Like, it's there. There's a problem there. I just don't know how Microsoft is going to solve that problem. When in particular, their phone stuff is weird and broken and maybe not worth it. And two, they're like, let's put Windows on Arm Project, RT, is something, something. It's basically dead.

Right? So, but I will say that the. apps running on the arm phones that they had in the demo room were good. But I honestly, I couldn't tell you if it was running on, it was on Windows 10, but like a full Windows 10, or was it like some crazy thing? I don't know. And we're going to know the actual answers to that pretty soon. Yeah, like mobile and Congress is coming up. They've got other, they got build coming up, build sold out in like an hour.

Right. So they're going to explain some of this stuff. All right. We are actually, we're halfway through a show. Say some stuff about Xbox. I don't get it. I think there's this weird hype about the Xbox to PC streaming because that's the thing, right? There's going to be an Xbox app and you're going to have like DVR functionality and you'll be able to play your Xbox games streamed to the PC or tablet inside your house. Can you explain this a little bit?

I feel like it's too simple to like what does that mean you could stream games? It means that there's an Xbox app on your PC. and you say, oh, I've got this game on my Xbox. I want to play it on my PC right here. You've got a controller paired to... Yeah, you got a controller paired to your PC. So it's just running off the Xbox and streaming... Which is like...

Super awesome. Yeah. No. Wow. Wait, hang on. You were just like, I love the PSV to fanboy in the planet. This is the same idea about the computer you already have. But you're missing.

It's going the wrong direction. The problem is when you're making a streaming connection, it needs to be where you're going to be comfortable. You want to stream from your PC to your Xbox, not your Xbox to your PC. Yeah. You want it to be, hey, I have things already on my PC, and I need a way to get them on my living room TV. That's what Steam has been trying to, like, find a better solution for.

Or I have these games on my PlayStation. I can stream them into my Vita, which actually has good controls. Who the hell is going to play their Xbox one game? on a tablet. What do you connect a controller over the Bluetooth? Is that the point? I agree that the tablet thing is bonkers. But then with a PC, the people that I can picture this serving, and this is like a fair

group of people are families that have a computer, like a personal computer that they're like kid plays Minecraftana already. And they're like, hey, we want to watch TV on this TV that has Xbox connected. Go off and play your games on the PC. sure. I think it serves that person. But I just don't see a large audience who is like great, now I can go play this on a smaller screen.

Right. Like in a more uncomfortable chair. But no, I can see... If I had a laptop, here's how I perceive this happening. You have a laptop. No, if I had a Windows laptop. Oh. Right. Wow.

My Windows laptop right now is a service for free. Look, I haven't slept in 30 hours. It was a okay joke. More than that. It was. It was fine. No, but like a laptop. Not a Surface Pro 3, which is I find impossible to use in bed.

Right? Like a proper laptop. Right? Okay. I would play the hell out of my Xbox 1 in bed on my laptop at night. And here is what my, just my personal prediction, your Wi-Fi wouldn't be able to make it work regularly. Because... No, I live in New York.

At this point, I could just run cables through all the rooms and it would be fine. I would need like a 6-meter cable. It would be great. You would be doing it directly over Ethernet. But you think the Wi-Fi would not be good enough. I mean... Any streaming experience that I've tried, whether that's the Nvidia G4 streaming thing to the shield or the PlayStation

to the Vita, literally like up my stairs, like, because my house is like tiny room, stacked out another tiny room and open stairway. And like just doing that, it's like, no,

good try. You have 300 meg internet and a night hawk, like, router. And we still can't get that to work. And like, if that's not doing it, I don't know how people who have like actual space.

space and the suburbs can do it. This is the thing. Like every, I think Xbox apps are generally bad. They're all kind of flaky. And it's for like the reason that I'm like very concerned about all these Windows apps, which is it's very clear that there's like a real Xbox operating system and then like a couple of fake ones. And these apps.

Well, there are two operating systems. There's three. Yeah. But there's like, yeah. There's clearly the one that's the real one that the games get. Yeah. And then there's the bullshit everyone else gets. Right.

Like that is just very obvious to me. And I think that's like this. idea that you're going to be able to run a streaming app somewhere else and it's going to perform like it's going to perform well and be able to stream off like I have many devices that purport to stream video from my TV to anything else that almost all of them have sucked the only one that's ever been good is a slingbox well look that's like a dedicated piece of hardware for that task wait and see like they didn't show it to us the problem with all this though they showed it they showed it on stage we couldn't actually try it they didn't have a demo for us to play with

what's frustrating about this and I really try not to be And that's like I'm trying to do in general this year about like coming at these things. But it's really hard to look at an idea like this and not see what was a very good idea stripped down to the one that doesn't involve money. Like the idea would be, hey, we have all these great games that are on an Xbox. An Xbox is already a PC. We should let Xbox games be on PC. We can't do that.

We need to prove that you own an Xbox and you own the game. Okay, we will have you buy an Xbox. We'll have you buy the games. and then we'll have you stream those things to your PC. And, well, we should have the PC go backwards. We can't do that because then you'll just buy the games cheaper because they are cheaper on PC and use the Xbox as a portal for your living room. I don't think those are like literally, like they purposely set out to be evil corporation,

but there are steps along this way where it's like, why didn't you just do the obvious thing? Like make it so I can play Forza Horizon 2 on my PC and up-res it. or make it so like I can stream from my PC to my X-Bex. Well, no, this is like the classic. Streaming doesn't work in these situations? Oh, I agree, but they're still doing it. So they're doing the worst option of the three things. No, but this is like the stuff.

I mean, we're looking at a Microsoft, and I think this is actually the gestalt of the event, which is we're looking at Microsoft that's finally like working together. Yeah. Right? And the thing that you're describing is the thing that I've always thought about Sony and Microsoft,

which is it's like watching somebody else do a puzzle, and it's just the worst. because you're like that pick up that piece that that one and then put it come oh it's the worst and that has been basically Microsoft for like a decade yeah and like finally it's like oh nadella might be good at this puzzle um but it's still it's not a long way to go it's way out and i'm still at least excited to see them making an effort like that is just that they're making this step it's like wow you get it xbox is your game division and that it's like weird Windows Live BS and like

And it seems like you're like Testing the Waters and if this goes well Maybe more things will happen Which would be great. So like It's a nice step. All right we got to talk about HoloLens. We got to get deep in. I can already tell you this show's going long. John, you're never leaving this. Well, we can talk about Hollins and just be out.

No, that's not true. We got to know many things. HoloLens. Just don't worry about it. We all just had a private moment with our audio engineer. Yeah. All right. Go ahead.

Go ahead. Talk with HoloLens. What's like to wear HoloLens? Dieter, what is Windows? What is Windows holographic? A phrase you just made up. What is Microsoft holographic? It's no.

Wait, wait. The product is HoloLens. The product is HoloLens. The platform is Windows holographic. They introduced it when they first said, the first thing they said on stage was Windows holographic. Yeah. It's, I don't know, but the software is it's software that lets you put holograms in space.

Right. So you wore the thing. Let's be clear. Yes. You're one of the tiny handful of people in the world who have put on Microsoft's headset. Right. So the, what did you, can you, can you talk about the process? No, no, no, you're about to talk about the thing.

But before you wore the thing, they were like. There was a thing that I wore. No, but they were like lock up, lock up everything. I thought that was really interesting. It's sort of like their. Oh, yeah. Talk about. the secret layer that you went there.

So in order to go and play with the prototype, first of all, they're like, guess what? We've been testing this stuff in the Microsoft Visitor Center the whole time. It's in the basement of the public's room. Oh my God. Well, that was hilarious. They refused to let us bring

cameras, audio recording equipment, phones, which have cameras on them, and are also audio recording equipment, computers, anything digital, not allowed. And so we had to bring not pads. And so I was, we might actually I'm thinking about, I might like just put my notes that are insane to read up on the site because I would go and like try this crazy thing and like try and write down the experience

because I'm used to just tapping it out. So we go down there and they've got four sessions and they just sort of like lead a bunch of journalists around to these creepy little rooms. Have you ever been in like a user testing lab? Yeah. It's like a weird living room and there's like a person that's like creepily asking you to do things and like you know that there's cameras everywhere. watching you and you're like, did I sign a release to be recorded? I don't remember. And like,

everything's super scripted and they really are like watching your reactions very carefully. It was that. And so the whole thing, in the back of my mind, the whole time I'm like, well, there's, there's some lies happening here. And the lies are about like, there's, if I go outside the lines, like things are going to break down pretty quickly. But staying inside the lines was awesome enough that I kind of don't care. Right. And that's what that, I mean, many questions about how this thing works, right? Yeah.

But tell me the fundamental experience. So the fundamental experience with the prototype is they hang a computer around your neck. And then they've got this thing with like four bands across it that they ratchet, literally ratchet onto your head. There is a couple of, you know, glass panes in front of your eyes and little projectors to project a square on it. So the field of view, I'd say it's like, 50% of your vision, the center 50%, but your periphery is still open. Was it heavy? Yeah.

Because, like, I saw a diagram where it has a fan. Yeah. It, like, has a real processor and a real GPU and a fan. Yeah, well, all that was hung around my neck. What? Yeah, and the thing that you hang around your neck. No, but there's a fan on the, there's a vent on the... Well, the problem that I had, I don't know.

They were, like, exposed boards. I couldn't touch it. I can only touch, like, what's certain part of it. They had, like, so it didn't look like the nice one that they showed on the stage? No, it looked like a contraption. It was... There were just straps and cables and solder everywhere. You're wearing like a netbook around your neck.

Oh, the Oculus looked like a, the first Oculus that we tried looked like a finished product compared to this thing. Wow. Like the thing that had like duct tape everywhere and whatever. No, this thing was. Are you saying their onstage demos were faked? No, I believe the onstage demos were real. Because they were wearing like cool. But they, like, I think they had like, they have two of those headsets working.

I think that's it. So, anyway, you put the thing on and then they, they have to measure your pupillary distance. between your eyes. I guess the final product will do it automatically. Apparently I've got a super wide head because I've got, mine was 70,

which is wider than everybody else's. Paul Therat's was, I just have a big head. Wide pupil distance. I don't know. But no, because it has to like align the hologram in front of your eyes.

And then they switch it on. And normally I think the experience is, you know, so the way it works is it's got a hollow, it's got the thing. it, you know, projection in front of your eyes. That's the holograms. But it also, the magic of it is it can detect your head motion just like an Oculus

which can to a very fine degree in space. But it has a couple of cameras on the front of it that can read the room. And so normally what you do is you turn it on and you like map the room out so it knows where all the surfaces are that I can put virtual objects on. That was already done before I got in there. Like it was just, it just worked. So when they turn it on, the first one I did. was a Minecraft one, which was the most awesome one.

You turn it on and you're looking at a coffee table, and then there's a castle on it. Yeah. And it looks like a Minecraft castle. Is it grainy? Is it like the Oculus is like a little grainy, right? Like it's a little grainy. And it's a little, it doesn't like, like you see holograms like, I don't know,

like Star Wars, like Leah, it's like v-v-v and like you see through it. Like it is brighter and sharper than that. Like you can't see past it. Wow. It looks like a digital thing in space that blocks your vision of things beyond it. How? Okay. Magic.

But it's not like, it's not as sharp, especially as a demo videos. I didn't, you know, I live blogged the demo videos on the screen, but I was doing it through a camera, so I didn't really watch them. But watching them after the fact, like Microsoft set itself up in a bad way. They should have just done something. I've heard this criticism a lot, actually. Like, if the demo videos had just looked like what it looked like, people were like, oh, it looks kind of grainy and crap. And then everybody who actually tried it, we're like, no, don't worry about it. It's cool.

Yeah. And instead, people are going to try it and be like, I was expecting like beautiful, polished, perfect digital objects. And it's not quite that. Is it like flipping? Is it like bounce on the table? No. So the, the most amazing thing about it is how well it tracks your head. Like when you, you know, move around a digital object, like you would expect it to, you would expect it to not be as perfectly, you'd like, lag.

You'd expect, I'm so tired, guys. I'm sorry. You would expect lag, and there is no lag. We broke Deeter. When I move my head around this microphone, the microphone stays here in space, right? It acts like a microphone should. And the digital objects do the same thing. They stay where you put them.

They're just there. Right. Deeter, what happens if you, like, stick your hand through the hologram? Does it go through? Yeah. Do you try? Well, they're pretty, I mean, I did it, but they're pretty. They want to keep you step back or whatever.

Right. Yeah. So here's the thing that you wrote that I thought. was really interesting, which is, so you see all the stuff, it looks real. By the way, I think this is like, this to me is, I'm not even, like, the craziest part. Like, I said you can't see through it, but they can, when you go to, like, break the table, like you do, first of all, the gesture, we'll get to that. It was really dumb, the click gesture, but you, like, hit the Minecraft pickax on the actual table,

and it looks like the table breaks up. That's awesome. And, like, the table disappears and you see a hole in the table. Like, the physical table. Yeah, the physical table gets. covered with the digital hologram and it's gone. But then if you touched, if you touched the hole, then you would hit a table. Right.

What you get into it? It doesn't, did you just ask if Microsoft's weird face helmet could remove a table? No, I'm just making sure that they were manipulating the real table. They didn't like project a fake table and broke the fake table. No, yeah, yeah. No, because they project the stuff. It also comes to two stage hands dressed entirely in black who run around removing tables very quickly.

Sam makes a good point. They haven't gotten to the point where they can project a thing that looks actually real. Nothing that they project. It all looks digital. There's not like a holograph. It's not like a holograph. I think this is a real glass. No, it always looks like a video game glass.

No, what I think is like crazy. So we were joking earlier today. Like the history of innovation is basically like companies demanding that you wear things on your face and failing. And it's what's funny. What's amazing to me is last week, Google, like, shut down the Glass Explorer program. Right.

And they gave it to Tony Fidel and said, figure this out, Tony. You think he wants it? I don't think he wants it at all. Yeah. I think that this is his opportunity to get more power to it. Okay.

What about V2 with Intel? That's like a thing, no? I thought we'll see it. Anyway, of course we'll see it, right? Like, but anyway, but the problem with glass was that you would wear it on your face and it did nothing. And you looked like an asshole.

And you looked like a jerk, but like you can pay the, you can, look like a jerk if you're going to get a benefit of it all the time. So if glass was like... Just keep the camera on Sam, by the way. If you're watching the live stream. Yeah, just keep it.

No. What do we? No, I'm saying it was awesome. John just in defiance of us. The only thing that glass was useful for, I wore it for two weeks straight. The only thing that I was useful for was sort of like what a smart watch is useful for. You get a notification. You can leave your phone in your pocket and glass is like, oh, this person text.

me, oh, I'm getting a phone call from this. It was only useful in these little chunks. Right, right. But they wanted you to wear it all the time, which is crazy. Yeah. Oculus is only useful in like little moments, but when you wear it, it's like immersive. Yeah. Your experience is something. They will buy into it. Right.

I think HoloLens is basically what normal people think glass is. Yeah. Right? They put it on and then the world around you is like full of computers. It's a dream of what, whenever we talks about augmented reality, it's always, garbage and this is the first augmented reality and they didn't really use that phrase that much. But that's 100% what it is. But that's what it is

and it's augmented reality that doesn't suck. Nilai, what is Microsoft's sell? How do they sell this to normals? Minecraft. Minecraft. Minecraft is the first video games. I think the questions are, so well, here's how they sell it to normals. This is what I think is

really interesting. I think Emily will hopefully have this on the site tomorrow. But Emily, Oshita's psyched about the entertainment potential of this, of HoloLons. more so than Oculus. Yeah. But this is a completely, people keep asking me,

is it cooler than Oculus? Is it the same thing? It's different. Hi, my name's Deeter Bone. You just, tell us how many time running smartphone experts. Deeter ran a, what was your favorite trio?

What was your favorite trio? I didn't own a trio. Just a palm. It's always the right answer. We no longer refer to that company as Palm. Only refer to it as disaster. Dieter is so tired and that he's so mad.

Like I just saw it. He's like he's that kind of tired where he can like see just that his eyes. Like if I don't stay mad, I'll fall asleep. You just see the flashes of anger desperately trying to keep his brain alive. I think every single Vergecast we hit POM and it's really sad for Deeter. I'm sorry. That's how we do it. So they say HoloLens is coming out.

And I think. They're coming out in the in the timeframe of Windows 10, which is like, live this year. But that means before Windows 10? is sunset it? Yeah, yeah. Like, what does that mean? Microsoft operating systems

last a decade. This is like a fine segue into my, my great fear of HoloLens. Yeah, which is that it's Connect Part 3. It sounds exactly like the experiencing

Project in Natal, which was Connect before it was Connect. Right. And they showed you a video and it was like, you're going to stand in front of the mirror and it's going to put magic clothes on you. Yeah, that never happened, right?

Ever? You put up a skateboard and it scans a skateboard into your game. And then you're, you're skating on that skateboard with motion. And I remember seeing that. And then they had another very similar demo,

except where it was in downtown L.A. And we went and played, we played burnout. I'm sure that embargoed was meeting this point. We played burnout Paradise on the game. And you like put your foot out and you drove. And like because it was the first time you ever experienced something like this, it was mind-blowing.

Yeah. But awful. like unacceptably bad and nothing even close to what they were showing but it felt like oh well this is just proof that it can work they're going to get to that point yeah and here's what microsoft did they took the processor out of it and they made it absolute garbage and they never fixed that problem and it's like the big problem with connect was obvious from the kekko you take the power out of it and you completely gut its potential and then you tell people like hey keep making beautiful games, but figure out a way around this big problem. And my biggest fear, because there are some familiar faces on this team, is that something like that could happen, that they'll, I think the actual designers, both behind Connect and this are some of the best people in the business. I think if they bring this to Microsoft, once all of a sudden done and say, listen,

this is going to cost $600 that they'll go, no. No, I think it's $600. they'll do it. If it's a thousand It'll be a thousand. It'll be a for you to get out. But that's my concern. And I cannot imagine what the processing power is to be able to

like... It's got a HG holographic processing in HPU. HPU. God, I'm so tired. Whatever it is. You guys. To make 3D graphics. I couldn't get the words HPU out of it. I have questions. Yeah. We got to talk about the

actual interaction with it too because it's terrible. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. That's actually the I was the most interesting about it. Yeah. Because I read Deeter's piece where it's like, you see all this real stuff and then you can't interact with it. Yeah. You have to like do all these. The fidelity of a virtual object in space is incredibly good.

Not as high resolution as you'd like, whatever, but it's incredibly good. Interacting with it is all you can do is you can move your head around to move a cursor. And that's really accurate though, right? It's super accurate, but it's super twitchy because you know what is hard to position things with? Your head. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Like, try, try, because your hands can do this. Like, no, just go ahead and just, just cut to Sam. Yeah. Your hands could do this.

What can your hands do? What can your hands do? Your hands do. You just did it on purpose. I know. You just met a gift yourself. I gave it to him. For the record,

for our audio listeners. Yeah. Sam just did extraordinarily poor jazz hands. Yeah. I mean, just like, that's good jazz. Uncommitted jazz hands.

Anyway, your neck is not as dexterous as your hands. By the way, saying, your new Gabor tag is lazy jazz. And I'm just putting it up there. But I, Dada, da, da, da, da.

Was that lazy jazz? Yeah. I thought you were going to go into, like, the McDonald's thing for a second. But, uh, da, da, lazy jazz. But, like, we know the technology exists to read hand. The only hand gesture they can read is, like, you stick your hand out with your index finger sticking straight up and then you depress it down. You hate that gesture. Hitting a letter.

Blink. No, that seems awful. Blink. Blink. Like, it's so dumb. And, you know, like, a magic leap. No. What's it called?

That's the magic leap motion. Leap motion. They can read your whole hand and really tiny movements with it. Just like, buy them, strap that to the top of this thing and let me actually reach out and grab things with my hands

and we're done and I will buy 10 of these. How long do you think Microsoft was working on this for? Oh, years. Oh my gosh. Years and years and years. Well, here's my question because there seems to be so much overlap

across these digital space teams. I mean, the fact that connect digital space. The fact that the connect people are associated with it, that when we saw that, I don't know if it's a leaked image of the magic living room, where it was like there's a connect on the TV and holograms shooting out of the coffee table and everyone's wearing glasses. Was the MO of this, I guess, like, skunk works group, make as many different versions of holographic

living spaces and find the one that is like practical and affordable? Like I have to, because I know, what is it, Boxybox has been the making, the boxal boxes of holographic displays. And there had been all these rumors that Microsoft internally was doing similar things, especially around Connect. And it feels like they were probably trying a lot of different things. And this is the one that they were like, yeah, people have to put it on their face. But it's a thousand times cheaper than like asking people to actually buy holographic displays and keeping the other one.

What was the other big thing? Aluminum. Yeah. That's another thing where it's like. Well, no, we go back to 2011. We did this tour where they had the convention. Fusion and light space. In Microsoft Labs, they put screens on things

and you could, like, move the screen around to different, and the screen's actually mapped to the surface. And so they've been, they've been playing around with detecting physical space and putting digital things on the physical space forever. The one thing about HoloLens that is like the most, it's like the most black mirror is like in the video when the guy like puts on his headset and sits down on the couch and like looks at nothing in reality. And like a fake TV screen appears and he just like watches TV.

Yeah. It's like, no, we're all doomed. Like, we're all doomed. The saddest part about that? This is like, this is when your life becomes like you, your home is nothing but like an empty white box. That's the whole. That's the Star Trek Will Crusher video game episode. And then you see like a virtual toilet, but you're really just peeing into a hole in the ground.

Right? Like it's just like, and like you see like a beautiful couch where it's really just a chair. And that's like your whole world. Wait, that's your, you're dystopic. is a couch that's just a chair. That's the most horrible thing you can imagine. No, I'm saying like, just imagine, go on this mind journey with me. Uh-huh.

Your home is a white room. And oh my God. There's nothing in that white room. Yeah. Bless you. Except a hole in the ground where you... Deficit. Yeah.

Your business hole. And then you click it away. You click it away. Goodbye, poop. And then there's a chair. It's like a stainless steel bolted to the ground chair. Yeah. But what you see in your reality is like a beautiful

home. Right. And you're kind of in a haptic suit. Yeah, right. It's like, oh, is it raining? Yeah, right? And, like, you see this like gorgeously decorating home. I'm waiting for the bad part. And, like, you're just like in this zone all the time and you're just like locked. Like, that's the matrix. What's wrong with that? That's the matrix with the minor

plot addition of a business hole. That's the world you live in now. It's just that your senses are made out of meat. It's the same thing. Every, every side. Your senses are made meat. So foul. I have you know that my business whole is well,

The business hole? Speaking of business holes and poop. The Packers. Wow. That's it. This show is over. That was a sick. You can't.

Wait, so we could segue one of two ways. We could talk about Bill Gates or we could talk about, we can talk about Bill Gates. I'm so mad at you. Wait, Eli, why are you mad? What happened? I don't want to talk about it. I'm never going to talk about it. I hate Seattle.

I hate the entire. I'm sorry, I brought it up. I hate Matt Offord. He works here. I think he should be fired. He's a jerk. You hate the fourth quarter more than anything else. Neelai's team lost the chance to play in the Super Bowl.

It was pretty pathetic from a person that doesn't even watch football. The sad thing is like it was their year too. Yeah. Everyone. Oh my God. Dieter hates Android. No, I don't actually. Now hell will come down upon you.

Deli, you know what actually would be great is playing Settlers of Catan with the HoloLens. Playing Settlers of Catan with a HoloLens. Think about it. Yeah, that's what I said in the editorial meeting today. And everybody's like,

why would you want to play a little bit more game? And I was like, because it's what you do. Yeah. I know shit about video games and board games. Well, you were, the Minecraft thing is basically a board game. Okay, not really fine. I'm not going to dig into this. I'm not.

There are some things we should talk about. Any other other HoloLens things? Are we done? No, I mean, look, I think we will find ourselves talking about the HoloLens a lot. I just get the feeling that... We're going to do a Vergecast where we're all in the HoloLens. Yeah. We're all in our pure white rooms.

Yep. Our stainless steel chairs pretending that our meat senses have finally been dulled. We're doing our business in our business holes. What? No. Like, either that's a lot. terrifying vision of the future. It's what Deeter wants. I can't tell which one it is. Both. Fine. All right. So let's talk about... Huge verge announcement.

Here's, let's talk about our huge version. First of its kind. We're bearing a Super Bowl ad. Oh, so that one's first. I don't know which one's first. We led with that. Yeah. We sort of led with it. So here is a, here's a thing that's true. I like truth. Now, let me tell the whole story of our Super Bowl moment. We're sitting back. So we are coming back from CES. Yep. Most of the things that happen,

Leverge happen when we are very tired. So I was watching the video, the Dieter, and our video team made of 257 gadgets in three minutes at CES. Which is awesome. You should check it out on YouTube.com. We should watch it.

It's literally our video team just showing off at the end of CES, which is great. And I was very tired. It was after we had partied at the end of CES. I'd gotten two hours of sleep. And I thought, man,

Super Bowl commercial. So, like you do, you just fire off an email to the CEO of the company asking for a $4 million Super Bowl commercial. Only you could do that in a lie. The answer was no. Yeah. The answer was no. But John Hunt, who is our director of marketing, said, well, why don't we buy a local one?

And then we started, like, laughing and thought that was hilarious. So we found the cheapest one in the country, which is $700 in Helena, Montana. And then we were like, what if we, like, instead of running this? Because that video is three minutes long, so we had to cut it down. So then we made what I feel is the best part of the joke that no one got. Right. Which is we made the world's most generic commercial about the future. It is so, it is nothing.

There's not a, you can't really name a gadget in that commercial. There's no gadget. There's nothing. I wrote the voiceover. It's like, at the end of it, you could have shown the GE logo. Or like the Enron logo. It's one of those commercials that you watch and you're like, what is this? What is this?

afterwards, like, what was that for? I still don't know. Chevy, like, anything, anything. Any company. You could have just shown an American flag. It would have been fine. America.

So we, like, made this commercial. And then, admittedly, what I wanted to do was run it in Montana, and then, like, the next be like, hey, we ran a Super Real commercial and then, like, have the reveal, be like, us in Montana.

Didn't work out that way, but it was hilarious that it worked. out the way it did. Yeah. Just amazing. Yeah. Everyone thought we spent four, like, the internet crazy machine just went crazy. Like, yes.

It's just instantly. So that's the best. And no one. And then people started critiquing the commercial for not being very good. And the Verge video team, John, got like super mad. He's like, don't they know if it was a real commercial, it would have been good. But it's airing, but it actually is airing. But it was just like, we did it on purpose.

purpose that way. But it is airing. I think Sam is going to go to Montana. Oh, really? There's been a lot of... I will say the emotions of the verge team about whether or not to go to Montana have been on a pendulum. The pendulum swings from, no, I don't want to go to suddenly everyone wants to go.

Look, the only reason why I watch the Super Bowl is because it's a very social event. And on that Sunday... So you want to go to a place where you don't know? Well, I mean, this is for work and that kind of thing. Like, Nilai, I watched the Super Bowl at your place last. year the year before that. I don't even remember where I was because I don't really care about the Super Bowl. But it's social and you make memories of friends.

And literally every single person is watching the Super Bowl. Hype check the Super Bowl. I don't want to go corporate Sam, but that is just a money-making machine. That's not, now you're like angry Gen X. Also, what happened to corporate Sam? Did we lose him? No, he'll be here at the end. Okay, cool.

Trust me. Here's how we get real ad. I know where he's going to show up. Corporate Sam are up. I miss corporate Sam. Have you ever seen the secret of my success? No. Okay.

I don't even know what that is. That was, it's really, is Michael J. Fox. Well, yes. Yeah. This is another thing I should watch.

Yeah. I'm a, a stand in for real Sam came in called corporate Sam. French corporate Sam told us how money works. Oh. It was, it was pretty good. I get occasional notes from Sam about really great B2B tweets.

There's a fact. That's true. That happened. Hashtag B2. It's a real. hashtag B2B. Speaking of things with bees What?

What? He was putting it up in the air. What are you doing? Well, here's what I'd like to tell the Verge audience by the Super Ludd. Hello. Hello, stranger. You can just walk, we can just walk right on by.

It's going to be fine. They probably also can't hear you. Yeah, they can't. They definitely can't. But that wave, I think. The thing about our studio is that this happens all the time. Yeah. Just people walking, if you're not, you're listening to the podcast.

This is not interesting. I'm sorry. Here's what's interesting. Yes. Here's what you know. I am not sorry. the internet believed that we spent $4.5 million in the Superwide.

I think that it is hilarious that there's so much hype around media tech companies that people think that we would blow that much money and that is the best. It's not possible. It's just too, it's just not possible. It's so much money. One day it will be, but it is the best.

It was like a Rorschark test. It was like, here's this collection of dots. What story would you like to tell? And the story was, Your company's crazy. And it was the best. And I was thoroughly entertained. And then we immediately gave up the ghost in the New York Times.

We're at about our $700. That's pretty awesome. Which is the best. So that's whatever. That was like our fake news. Our real news, which we're finally getting to. But also the Super Bowl commercials happening in Helena, Montana. It's true.

We never actually lied. Yeah. If you are listening to the former lawyer, I can tell you the power of never actually having lied. Feels good. It's good. If you live at Helena, email us. What? Not guilty.

Sure. Good. That's how it works. You say it. It's true. Not guilty. All right. All right.

All right. All right. The big real news. Let's hear it. Bill Gates, our man, Billy G. is a guest editor of the verge in February. So here's what I mean.

So the thing about guest editors in the media is that is a spectrum of things. It either means you do nothing at all or somebody shows up with like a print. magazine the day before it's published and you like look at it and you like fake approve it or you edit everything single thing to like fit your voice there's a wide range of things here's what we decided to do bill gates has a letter uh with his wife melinda the bill and malinda gates foundation about what's happening in the future um they publish it every year it's about their philanthropy and charity and what they want to accomplish and this year it's bigger than usual this year it's way bigger than usual so uh the u n has something called the millennium development goals which

just ran out like they were over. They were like, what will we accomplish by 2015? So now there's time for a new set. So his letter is basically like, what will we accomplish by 2030? So it lays out in four areas, right? Banking, health, education, and farming. Health is actually really big. It's a really big topic. He spends a lot of money donating to philanthropic causes and health. So what we said was, we'll come talk to you. We'll have a bunch of interviews with you. We'll use the, those interviews, we'll have you narrate episodes of our show the big future, which is literally a show about what, how will everything change in the longest term, right? So if you watch a show, you know, we've asked questions like, what is the future of living on

Mars? What is the future of sex? Can we conquer disease? These are all Bill Gates questions. Yeah. So perfect fit right there. So Gates is going to narrate those. And then we're going to do big features. Obviously you guys all know our big verge features. We're going to do a set of big feature. around these themes. Because Gates are editor, we have access to his resources, but we're very clear. We're journalists. We're not just going to do what Bill Gates says.

So we have access to his resources, but we're going to do our own real serious journalism against it and tell the whole story. And what's cool is that they were super excited about that. Yeah. They're like, we feel really confident that we're on the right track. Like, go get it. Like, go tell the whole story.

And we feel confident that you're going to come back thinking the way we do. So we'll see. I don't know the answer. So that's what Bill Gates' guest saturday means. What's cool about it, when I think is awesome, is that if he did that for a print magazine, you'd be like one and done, right? Right.

This is going to live forever. This is going to live forever. And like throughout the month of February, there's going to be a lot of gates around the site because of the features, because of the big future. We'll try to do more with him. We have a bunch of stuff we haven't released yet, obviously. So I'm very excited about this.

It's a first for the verge. Please let us know if you like it. If you think it's weird, if you think we're microverge now, then I have worn it. Then I have won. I have finally conquered my enemy. And you have your interview up on the site right now. Yeah, and I did a long interview.

I went to his office. It's crazy how much security there, like secret, like very quiet security there is around Gates. He is, I put it in the piece. It's like very hard to make small talk with him. Because he's Bill Gates. He just doesn't have to care. But super easy to engage on like really hard questions. And I think that's the coolest part about this.

Like he wants us to go deep on these issues that are important to him. And we went deep on a bunch of stuff. And I think over the course of February, people are going to see some really cool stuff happening on the Virgin. Yeah. Any hype check Bill Gates. He's the man. I mean, he changed the world as much as Steve Jobs did in a way.

Yeah, I will see it in a way. Man. Yeah, that's true. So I will say, no, it's true. What's really cool about this is that the staff of the Verge is very excited. our company is excited. The developers and engineers and designers who work here are stoked.

Can you talk a little bit of what it was like to hang out with him? I mean, the thing that you wrote was that you can't make small talk with Bill Gates. Right. I'll tell you this story. And this is just like, it's a tiny little slice of a story. So he comes in, he like reads the scripts for the big future. Then we go into the other rooms for the interview.

And Rondo, one of our video guys, like, micing him. And he's like, hey, let me get a level. Can I just need to tell you. a level and he asked a question that I've heard our video people ask a thousand times which is just so that you will talk so he can set the thing that he goes what did you have for breakfast and Gates just goes nothing and then there's silence and Ron is like kids you know everyone's like nerd it's Bill Gates are he's like the

richest most powerful doing the world so Ron is like um what do you have for breakfast yesterday and he's like I just needed it and Gates like nothing I don't eat breakfast And like, okay, so we like, whatever. We're just like rolling with it. Like we're done. Like we're not like two minutes later. I'm like, isn't the problem of hunger really about income inequality and shouldn't you buy foods? And Gates like is like, let me talk.

And it's like, how did you just eggs? Just say cereal. Like anything. It was amazing. Like that's, it's just that. He's like really intense and really into it and really passionate and just obviously brilliant. Right. Like I say like a lot.

I stammer. I say, um, like that's what I do. He just did it just now a little bit. He doesn't do those things. Right. Just doesn't do it. He's just ready to go. And part of it is that he is obviously media trained.

He's Bill Gates. Right. He knows how to, and he is on message. But we, we, he stays on message across a wide array of topics. Right.

That he did not grow up with, that he only became passionate about since he left Microsoft. Well, he may be passionate about before, I don't know, but like the dude's only invested, you know, deeply and personally spending his time on since that.

We did our best in those interviews to, you know, commit journalism. So, like, you know, we had our editors, like, evaluate his letter and find hard questions. And we asked really hard questions, like, really difficult questions. And he thought about them for a second and then had real answers to them. And I think if you watch that interview, like, maybe I didn't do a good enough job of knocking Bill Gates off his game. But we tried. And he managed to have, I think, good answers to all those questions. Do you think it's weird that, like, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer,

pretty much act the exact same. Like, they're just at the exact same emotional levels all the time. You're crazy. What are you talking about? It's called sarcasm, guys. You just trolled all of us. Guys, come on. Got you know.

You can't picture Gates, like, just rocking on the clipper's sideline. You're like, who-do-oo? What was, what was Bomber dancing to? He was dancing to Black-I-B's. Was he? Oh, I sure was. Because it was that series of vines had an even better vine where, uh, what's, what's her name? Fergie was like going out

onto the court and she like kind of like bounced up next to the guy who sweeps the court and he did like a full gyration like out of nowhere and then went right back to sweeping the court and I was like man LA's a weird down. It was Fergie I'm saying is I want to know like how

Balmer and Gates her best friends because that would be a great TV show. Yeah it would be amazing like what is happening? That was my volume. I'm just watching I'm watching him do his things. Well, they're just like, they're like Harvard buddies. Like, like, Balmer is the roommate, like, the luckiest roommate of all time.

Right? Like, that's his, wow. Wow. But that's it. Like, he, well, no, it's like, I only know my wife because the housing office put her next to me in the dorm. Like, that's like a, no, sure. That's a quirk of fate.

I understand what you mean. And, like, I'm sure Balmer is talented in his way, but, like, he could have just been assigned to another dorm and maybe he would have never met Bill Gates. Yeah. And I'm 100% sure that Bill Gates would have. Will you say whoever would have been there in Steve Balmer's room if he had been reassigned would be Steve Balmer now? Because that's, that's, that's mean. No, he's just saying that it happened to work out like that.

Well, that's just the way the world. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm saying like, I'm pretty, I'm fairly sure. I don't know, I think they're meant to be. They were soulmates the whole time. Yeah. I mean, Bomber is like the vicious businessman. So Gates also incredibly vicious.

I'm reading Isaacson's innovators. Oh, yeah. And so this, I'm a. obsessed with like, uh, 1950s to 1970s computer history now. Just love it all. Okay. Um, so I've, I've heard a lot of these stories before, but man, Gates was just brutal when he would, uh, negotiate these contracts with Altair and then later on with the other software companies, like, the way that he would, and even with his friends with Paul Allen, like, he just, like, I deserve more of the company. Give it to me. They're like, uh, okay. That's how you do. And he was right,

but it was also, he was just ruthless with it. So, I like the idea that like Gates is the crazy computer guy and Balmer is the ruthless businessman. Like they're pretty simpatico. Yeah. We were talking about this earlier. I mean, it's weird because jobs is obviously he passed away. But the weird thing about Gates went so like exciting about him, especially with his philanthropy, is it's so deliberate. Like he's literally made a career of saving the world.

And like it's sad that it's so unusual. There are so, I, a thing that I think about when I walk through Manhattan essentially is how many millionaires there are next to me or even billionaires. Because to own in my neighborhood where I've luckily found a government building that subsidized my living, to own in this place, you have to just have millions, millions of dollars that you can throw away. And there are, there's person after person doing that. And these people are not people who are going out and doing these things. it's weird to see somebody not only doing it but be kind of the top of its field and doing it with his time. I was indifferent to him either way before this, but like I was so thrilled to have minor sight not because of Microsoft, but because like as a philanthropist, the dude's baller.

It's like just plain and simple, it's an amazing thing to do. Most of I ask this is if anybody, there's like two or three moments in the interview. that, you know, we're going to use a lot of that stuff over the course of the months. I didn't call it out. But watch the whole interview. It's all right there on the site. But there is one question that was like, particularly, I thought, hard, right? Which is, well, shouldn't you just buy everybody food?

Because that's a legitimate tactic, right? Yeah. Like, you're just really, really wealthy, and you have a network of really, really wealthy friends, and you could just buy all the people the food. Or you even just give them the money directly. That's a tactic that people are trying, right? Right. But like the UN is like another option for this is to like it's just there, right?

It's like it's a legitimate strategy. So I asked him and he goes, well, I could have done everyone's multiplication for them to or I could have made Excel. And it's like, oh, well, that's that's literally how you're thinking about this. Like you're thinking about philanthropy is like creating software and getting multiples of value out of it. Which that I think when you're saying it's like he's going about it like a business. He's just as ruthless in this as he is want. Which you want. But I think

that's what we're going to do the exploration on. Like what are we, what strategies are we leaving behind that might be better that might not fit into this world? What strategies are different? And is this like really working? And I think we've already started doing it and we have a lot of cool answers around it and we're going to do a lot of

a lot of, we're going to do some journalism here. The other moment in the interview, which is just amazing is when I was like, when you're talking about mobile banking and I was like, couldn't Bitcoin saw all these problems instead of like building all these regular systems? And he was just like, I don't think so. And I just did a little like, did some like Bitcoin slams.

It was amazing. He's like, maybe you put your money in Mount Gawks. Then it's lost. You're like, I'll go to Bit whatever. And I was like, nah. Bit whatever, by the way, is where I trust. That's where I put all my dog coins. It was good.

Yeah. Well, that interview has like a series of like a very choice Bill Gates laughing at bad ideas moments, which. I will watch that conference. That's pretty good. Yeah, exactly. All right. I think we've gone over a little bit. Is there more stuff?

Oh, should I talk about this? No, I was making the engage gesture. Plant wrote a really interesting piece. How about it's. I want to go to bed. Yeah, we've killed Dieter. I'm really tired. Here's a thing.

I'm super duper tired. Yeah, guys. And we're killing Deeter. That's the whole thing. And if there's one thing that the Vergecast is, done for is at one host. Murdering. Every week, one host will be on a brink of death while we stretch it out for

additional additional minutes. Because we get paid by the second here at the like AOL. Oh gosh. It's the one legacy of AOL that we brought we brought with us per minute pricing. By the minute. All right. Social Sam. Engage. That is our show.

See? I told you for watching. I told you business Sam would come back. If you enjoyed what you just saw, feel free to tweet out us using the hashtag Vergecast. You can get in touch with us on Twitter as well. We are at Verge. I am at Sam Schaeffer. Dieter is at Backlont, Nelai is at Reckless, and Chris Plant is at Plant. We are also on Facebook at Facebook.com slash verge. We are also on YouTube, and I promise you will want to subscribe to our YouTube channel because 2015 is going to be one hell of a year for videos. That is YouTube.com slash the verge.

We're also on Instagram. We have at Verge there. And lastly, you should definitely be friends with us on Snapchat, because let's get real. If you're, listening to this or watching, you probably use Snapchat. And if you don't, you should. We are the real verge there. We Snapchat shenanigans in the office. Sam, how did... Corporate Sam should

never say shenanigans. Ever. Or how did... I know that I fell apart on snapping after the actual Microsoft event because I was running around. The lead-up was good. The dad jokes were okay? The dad jokes were great. If you guys saw them, you could thank Dieter for those snaps. Yeah, follow

us on Snapchat. We were at a rocket launch, too. I want to say that that was one of the only rocket launches that has ever been snapped. So that's a thing. Yeah, definitely follow us there. We're The Real Verge. Sam, can I handle the iTunes thing? Oh, yeah. I'm going to just toss the ball to play it really quickly.

And as always, if you enjoy the show, which is a funny thing to say, go to the iTunes page. Wait, because it's so, like, ludicrous as a concept. If you appreciate the effort that we put in. How about this? If you are still listening, then you deserve to get something out of the. effort you just put into the show. And you should reward yourself by going to iTunes. Yeah.

Giving us five stars. And I've gotten, I've gotten some questions about this dumb idea I throughout a long time ago called What's Tech. And I have good news. It is happening. It is happening. We have recorded the first episode. It will be a few weeks before we actually publish it. But if you have anything in the world, but let's say the technology world that you want

to know about, any topic. Post that in the review. And then we'll, like, see if we can find some good things here. This is our Chris Plant spin-off. And we can make, this is the Christmas. Finally, you can get rid of me. And we can have that on the show. No, you're definitely getting a show on FXX.

Yeah, and it's on the channel that nobody has into their DVR. But look forward to it anyway. No. And I will say this, here's. I'll end it. Okay, but I'll do it in a second. I'm going to dribble. We're basically just trying to see if Deter will collapse.

You guys. No, I'll tell you this. What's tech? Bye. What's tech? The first of what I will tell you. Oh my God. Bye.

I'm trying to do some news. Damn, man. I'm trying to break a little Verge news. All right. What's Tech the first in what in 2015 will be a series of Verge podcasts. Verge Radio Network is a thing that I want to make happen. We're going to move forward. Assuming Chris doesn't immediately blow it with our first spinoff.

Which I will. Cool. All right. And that's our show. That's our show. That's our show. That's our show. That's our show.

We'll be back next week. Have a great one. Bye. Oh my God.