The Vergecast - Ivy Ross (Google’s VP of hardware design) and Rishi Chandra (Google’s VP of home and Nest)

Episode Date: October 30, 2018

Google's Ivy Ross and Rishi Chandra discuss the evolving and increasingly human design language of Google products, the future of devices like the Home Hub in a world that demands privacy, and — yes — the infamous Pixel 3 notch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of The Vergecast was brought to you by Hilton. Restaurant and room service, what would the boss do? Either way, the boss would choose Hilton Hotels and Resorts to get down to business and a little pleasure. Check out Hilton Hotels and Resorts and travel like the boss. Hey, everybody, it's Naili from the Vergecast. This week on the interview episode, I am very excited about this. We have Ivy Ross, who is Google's VP of design, all hardware design, and Rishi Chandra, who's the VP of Home and Nest.

So Google just had a big event. They put out the Home Hub, the new pixel phones, the pixel slate. I talked to Ivy about Google's design language, how it's evolved where she wants it to go, how she wants it to be more human. We did talk about the notch just a little bit, had to do it. And then Ivy had to go, and Rishi and I hung out. We talked about the Home Hub, how it works, privacy issues, what platforms he's running, the future of these devices in the home, where he thinks it's all going. A super interesting conversation. I've known Rishi for a long time, so that was really fun.

Ivy is a true delight, so smart. I think you're really going to like this. It's kind of in the weeds, but it's a good time. check it out. Okay, I'm here with Ivy Ross, who is VP of hardware design at Google, and Rishi Chandra, who's VP of Home and Nest. I'm super excited to you both are here. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I want to talk to both of you about a lot of things. Rishi, I'm just going to tell you right now we're going to have a long conversation about Google Cast versus Android things, which I know you're going to enjoy so much. Google just had an event. You announced a

bunch of hardware products, and Ivy, I want to start with you because the design of Google products, which you oversee, has matured so rapidly over the course of the past two or three years. And I really want to get a sense of where you picked it up as you took over that group, where you think you are, and where you think you're going. So just give me a quick history. How did you come to Google and how did you end up in charge of all of Harvard Design? I started when the hardware group was formed. So all of last year's launches and this year launches was under my watch, so to speak.

So when the hardware group was formed and Rick came on, that is when I got the role to be in charge of design. And my team and I created a design language for Google product, which didn't really exist. I mean, previously there have been some hardware products, but they were designed as one-offs, not with the vision of an entire collection of products. Yeah, and that seems like the most Google thing, right? previously, Google's known for doing lots of different things at once, different teams get to be creative and runoff and do their thing, and the design org kind of felt that way. Have you actively tried to bring that into a more cohesive hole? Oh, for sure.

So now all of, I mean, when this division started, anyone in their title who had, you know, UX or ID for anything related to hardware, joined my team, and then we added from the outside. So it was very much intentional that we come up with a design language. Now that we want to be offering Google hardware for many years to come across many categories, one needs to have a design language that is informed by what I believe is our place of differentiation in the market. And so that was one of the first things that we as a team really thought about is what should it look and feel like when you, hold Google in your hands. So how big is that portfolio? Is it phones and, you know, the new pixel slate and the home hub and that's it? Is it all the new Nest stuff now that Nest is part

of Google? Is it self-driving cars? Is it expansive? Is it? No, it's, you know, it's phones, it's pixel slate. It's all of the home products going forward now that it's come into part, it be part of Google. Just as Rishi has, you know, Nest and home on the product side, we will be one United Design Team. And then anything going forward, you know, we had some VR, which was done under my watch as well. Yeah. So that's a pretty expansive portfolio. And you said, what does it like to hold Google in your hand? So what unites that entire portfolio for you? What are the kind of ideals you're pushing forward? Yeah. So we really use three words to inform that design language, human, optimistic, and bold. And that may sound simple, but it came from a long

exercise of a cross-functional team representing marketing, the product folks, design, really looking at what is uniquely Google and how might that come alive in hardware. And then what does that design language look like that delivers on these words? So human, you know, I think we have always been for everybody and are much more accessible. Optimistic, you know, comes from our sense of fun. I mean, what other brand changes their logo every day on the browser. And then bold, because we do bold things as a company, I mean, i.e. driverless cars. And so, you know, we felt those are three elements of our DNA that we wanted to make sure came through in our hardware design language. And do you think that's, does that start from the design?

of the actual hardware itself, the technology inside of it, or is that you saying, we're going to do pops of color and fun fabrics at the end? Well, so when I say design language, I think as a group, and, you know, my team does the industrial design, color materials finishing. We work collaboratively with the PMs and the engineers, and the PMs really come up with what the product function will be, and then our job is to work together. to bring that to life through the physical product. So it is materials, color, finish, form, interactions.

That's what my team is responsible for. But I think there are certain things for sure that overlap. I mean, the fact that we create our hardware to be helpful to people, I would say is definitely a human trait. They're very relatable. They're not isolated. So that's something I think is very much on the entire hardware. where divisions mind is how, you know, we have a history of delivering helpful software.

And for us, you know, we want to be able to deliver the best hardware that leverages our software AI. But at the end of the day, is helpful. Because if it's not helpful to us humans, it won't stay around. Yeah. And, you know, I think a good example of that, you know, the new pixel phones have the selfie camera on the front and the wide angle, which actually solves a constructive need, which I think is, as I've shown the phone to people is that's the thing that they're most proud about, which is kind of remarkable. Yeah, no, it's a small thing, but it's really fun, and you're right. That's a great example of

seeing a problem that exists out in the wild and being able to solve it. Okay, so that was a setup to the big phone has a really large notch in the front. So was that shown to you? Was that you were in a meeting and everyone was like, how are we going to integrate all this stuff and make the screen extend? And, you know, you saw a bunch of mockups. Was that you or was that something that you had to deal with as you were designing the rest of the phone's design? It is always a trade-off, and that's what design does. It's a trade-off between the function that we all align on. We want the phone to be able to deliver, and then design working within those boundaries

to solve problems as best as possible. So it is not – it's something that we knew from the beginning and worked through. We knew from the beginning in terms of what – why the cameras, why the front speakers, and then said, you know, let's solve it as best we can. Yeah. So when you were looking at sort of options for that, what were the things that led you to this particular design? You mean the fact that there is a notch? Well, the fact that there is a notch was to accommodate the things that we wanted to fit in there, i.e. the front facing cameras. and then really thought about, is there enough room on either side of that notch that can provide useful screen space to deliver some software? Otherwise, we wouldn't do the notch.

You know, we would just have a bigger forehead. But it became clear that actually there was enough useful space on either side of the notch. and especially for someone that has a bigger phone wants that space to be utilized as much as possible. Yeah. I mean, that's the answer that we're hearing from everyone. Having somebody who's actually designed a phone, being able to ask it directly is a unique moment.

So I was eager to ask you. So I have another question, which is a little bit more philosophical. As phones get bigger, they become all glass, they get more anonymous, everybody puts them in a case. Does that affect how you think about designing them? Do you think that, well, everyone's just going to put this in a case anyway, we might as well just optimize it for that use case, or are you just not thinking about that at all? No, we think about it.

You know, what's interesting is we've actually done some research and people, because that would be the easy way out. And we would just do beautiful cases. But it's really interesting because there's an emotional choice, because we even tested this idea of, you know, do you do one color phone and a whole lot more cases because you cover it anyway. but there is an emotional initial moment when you're picking your phone to literally say, oh, I want this color versus that color, even knowing that you're going to cover it. And so people go through great lengths to get the color they want. So it's not that simple. It's something it's fascinating to me, but it's even knowing that underneath that case, you know,

it's a different color. And it really is at that initial moment of reacting to the phone that people still, still want choice. Yeah, I think that's super interesting because I never see people without cases anymore. And I'm always curious if you guys think about that, if, you know, we have to have X many colors because we know that will drive a sale versus we could just have cases. Yeah, no, we thought about it and it really, it takes the emotion out of it. Yeah.

What's up with it? And there are some people, especially here, a lot of us walk around without cases because we love the way the phones look so much. Well, you have access to more of them if you drop one, I think. It's probably the, is that a fix-in? Because that's why I have a case is I'm clumsy. I know I'm going to drop this thing. So I do.

Well, have you seen we also make nice cases. I do. I have one of your cases on my pixel right now. That's great. Tell me what these color names, and especially not pink, which seems like you want to avoid saying pink for some reason. It's a beautiful color. Why go with not pink?

Well, the truth is it really isn't pink. I mean, in fact, you know, internally among the designers, we were calling it sand or flesh tone. I mean, really, pink has a lot more red in it. So what we love about it is it's this almost beautiful new neutral color that has just a hint of the pink tone. And, you know, again, going back to the fact that we're a fun and optimistic brand, I mean, calling it not pink to let everyone know that it really isn't a pure pink. But if you want to live dangerously, it's got a little bit of that. How do you pick color names? Do you all sit around a room with a whiteboard and tell jokes until you land on them? Or do you just decide one day in your car? Like, how does that go? No, the marketing department actually picks the official names. So we designers have our own names when we are in development. But then marketing picks the color names, which I actually love. And I think, you know, I don't know. I've seen a lot of press and some bloggers that are playing with that idea now.

They're unpacking it and going, not pink. Wow, it looks good with my pink t-shirt, but it's not quite pink, but it looks good with. And so it's really, I think, achieved what marketing had hoped for is be playful with it. And we didn't want to turn off. I mean, the truth is, we did color testing. A lot of guys like that color. So what I got. I got that one.

Yeah, I was going to see. Well, you know, I love the orange button, and I will literally chase the orange button to wherever it takes me. Yeah, because we should just. took off his case. It's like taking off his clothes and we saw everything and he's got a not pink phone. But so, you know, so it was also a fun thing like, you know, if he called it pink, I mean, I don't buy into pink is for girls and blues for boys. I absolutely don't.

But, you know, with the stereotype, I think if we had listed it as a pink phone, guys may not have even looked at it. But calling it not pink gives you a second chance. Yeah. Here's my sort of bridge question between the two of you. You know, we've got these phones. They're getting bigger. They're in our hands.

with us all the time. They're demanding piece of technology in your life. You have to care for them. You have to charge them. And then there's what's happening in the home. It's getting more and more subsumed into other devices that are plugged in all the time. You don't have to worry about them. Eventually, we're just going to have microphones hidden everywhere, right? How do you think about home products, the future of their design? Is it going to recede or are they going to become more like furniture? Are you going to put yet more fabrics on them? Well, I think our, you know, our vision is I think when technology first arrives, it comes out kind of shouting and being its chest in big black boxes. And then once us humans see the value in it, and it's here to stay, which I think it is,

it's really about wanting to live with it in our environment. And it doesn't need to be a big black box. It needs to fit in with your interior. And so the idea of doing fabric, which also has a function in terms of sound and loud. light made a lot of sense to us in that especially with our speakers, you know, you want to be able to place it in many different rooms in your home, and people want, have different colors. And the fabric makes it feel like it makes it feel like part of the furniture of your living room as opposed to this piece of technology. So I think that was intentional. And I think it is

true, the more technology we have in our home, the more we're going to want it to blend in versus standing out. Two more points on this. I think are really interesting of how our team really does design. One is it's, I think fabric is obviously the expression of the products today, but I think the team does a great job of looking all types of materials that are in the home. It's not saying that everything has to be fabric. I think fabric is a very popular type of material, but there's so many different types of materials that exist in the home today that we just want to make them feel naturally that they complements other other type of materials. And so, you know, we're doing a lot of explorations about what are other types of materials that actually just

makes sense and feel really natural and everything we do. The second piece that I thought was a really strong kind of opinionated point of view that Google came out with was you'll see, actually, our products are not heavily branded. We intentionally did not put like a big logo. Like you'll see consumer electronics is very, very strong about putting a logo and everything. But when you think of furniture, that's not the design essence of. how furniture works. There's not logos all over your furniture that you have. Nor accessories, like vases. I mean, that's what I think of these things as accessories to your home. That's right. And you would never want to put something with a logo out there.

And it's very intentional, right? It's about really feeling like it's a natural part of the home. And I think it was a great design expression that we put into every one of our products. And I think it's something we want to keep doing. But again, it's just a different statement I think we're trying to make with our design center is that it is about being respectful of the home. And also the shape. I mean, the shapes being softer and more natural, I think also helps fit into the warmth of your home. Yeah. So there's a lot of intentionality and everything that was put in place in front of all the products. Yeah.

How do you think about unifying, you've got a big portfolio again? How do you think about unifying what you've got in your portfolio with, you know, being more human and helpful and rounded shapes? Like, will we just see more and more generations of that from, say, Nest and the, I don't know, the current. Chromecast team in the home? Is that all going to start to look the same over time or are they going to branch out? Well, I don't think, in fact, we made a commitment and I think we did a good job of, you know, we're going to do what's right for each product, but it needs to lather up to a family. And so it's almost when we lay out the products, we say, you know, you could see it came from the same mother-father in terms of DNA, but you don't know, you know, where it really

sat or who's related to whom. And so there's absolutely kind of these design principles that we believe in, that will be part of our DNA going forward. And of course, then we will evolve over times, as Rishi says, as new materials come on board, new ideas, but with the same principles of wanting to fit in and not stand out, wanting to have a little bit of fun and optimism, and trying some bold things. I mean, one of the bold moves in terms of VR piece

using fabric instead of plastic, our panda phone last year, you know, that orange but. was a bold move. I mean, there were a lot of people in the company that questioned it, and now it's kind of a cool identifier. Yeah, you should just have them talk to me. All the buttons should be orange. I want to be very clear about this. I love that the most. You know, that was the whole reason we developed this design language was so that, because

also we want people to accumulate where it makes sense for them, different products that will sit in the home together all from Google, so they need to feel like a family. This episode of Virchast brought to you by Hilton, work, travel. Do you stay by the airport or the city center? Client dinner or room service, should you pack your swimsuit? Just ask yourself, what would the boss do? The boss would choose Hilton. For modern meeting spaces to amazing pools, Hilton hotels and resorts, is everything you need to get done to business and a little pleasure. Check out Hilton hotels and resorts. Travel like the boss. Hey, everybody, I want to tell you something really cool that the Verge is doing. It's called Better World. Everything today is so dark. The news is dark. The movies are dark. The superheroes are dark. The TV show.

are grim. So we're trying to clear all that away with a project we're calling Better Worlds. Basically, we hired, this is true, 10 science fiction writers to write us positive science fiction, to imagine Better Worlds. It's a huge project. So we have 10 stories on the site. We have a bunch of animated videos that will go up on the YouTube channel. And most excitingly, we're having those stories read to us on a new podcast feed, the Better Worlds podcast feed. You can check it out. It's 10 stories, positive science fiction. Calling it Better Worlds. It's going to go on for the next few months, check it out. All right, so Ivy had to step out.

Thank you so much to Ivy for joining us. It's just me and Rishi now. You ready, man? Let's do it. Let's talk nitty-gritty of platform specifications. No. Of course we are. Let's start bigger.

Tell me about the Home Hub. It has maybe the best display Google has ever shipped, in my opinion. The collar temperature is super right, the ambient light sensor and the room light sensor. It just looks amazing. How did you make that work in that small? I mean, it's not like a super high-res screen. It just looks great. How did you guys engineer that?

It's actually just a great example of this AI plus software plus hardware kind of mantra that we have inside of Google, right? The magic of it is not the actual display. Like, your point is actually totally valid of the resolution's not like crazy high resolution. Obviously, the pixel and all these cameras will have much higher displays. And I'm sure there's actually other smart displays that have much higher resolution as well. For us, it was about how does display fit in your home?

And so it's about being thoughtful about, okay, well, what impacts how displays look in your home? Well, lighting is kind of the key thing. Like the home goes through many different lighting configurations over like in the morning. There's a different type of lighting configuration from the evening, from incandescent lighting to obviously when things are turned off. And so that's where we spend our time. We really spend our time, how does it feel like it's matching the ambient lighting and color temperature of the room itself? And that's what makes it look amazing. It's nothing like specifically magical about the screen.

I mean, obviously we spent time making sure we felt like we had a screen that was flexible enough to make sure that from different viewing angles, it actually looked great. But, you know, we're taking kind of off-the-shelf screen technology to be quite honest to Google Home Hub and replying our heuristics and kind of magic of the software around it. So it was, again, most of it's actually just being thoughtful about the environment it's in and making sure that it looks great in those environments. And that's what we delivered. I'm super excited about what we were able to get out the door.

What's the AI piece of that, right? I mean, doing a room light temperature sensor and a screen is pretty common. What's the AI component that gets you in the middle? Yeah, to be honest, actually, in this case, it's mostly software. So it's actually mostly a tuning exercise that we've gone and done around different types of ambient lighting conditions, different placements inside the home, and then matching a variety different type of color temperatures. And to be honest, one of the examples we used on this, you know, the first exercise we went through was we literally had a product manager take a real photo frame. and the Google Home Hub and show the same exact photo on both

and say, how do we actually adjust this? So it feels like a photo frame. A photo frame looks great in people's houses because it's like an actual photo and actually is how you actually, you're mentally expecting a photo to look. And so that was kind of the first exercise I went through.

And obviously we did a whole bunch of iterations on top of that. But that was kind of the design principle is like it should feel like as natural as a photo frame feel like a real photo frame feels. And can we get with software to make that feel natural as well? So I think the price point is extremely aggressive. It's 149. Do you think people are just going to buy it as a photo frame as a Google Photos integrated photo frame and then you just happen to have an assistant device there? Or do you think people are going to buy an assistant device and think it's a pretty great photo?

I think, look, I think it will be all of the above. You know, here's my view. I think, you know, any type you have a new type of category device, you know, if you look at smart speakers, for example, the core use case of smart speakers, the magic that really got people to, adopt it was the notion of I could use my voice to play music. And the moment you do it, it's like, oh my God, this is how I should always listen to music. And that's why I think you're seeing across the full smart speakers category like music adoption and music usage is skyrocketing, right? Because it's just a much more natural interaction paradigm to listen to music versus, you know, the old way of Bluetooth or cast or whatever might be, right? Like you don't, you just, anyone can in the house can just start playing music and the music they want. I think for displays, I think you need a similar analogy. Obviously, you can play music on it.

But in our mind, the other use cases that we see, and we think Photos is one of those moments. Photos is like there's a magical moment, the moment you set it up and you just start seeing these incredible pictures that you've already taken. You know, the amazing thing is we all have these amazing photos because smartphone cameras have been awesome for the last four or five years, right? It's not like there's like some new technology.

I mean, the cameras have been amazing. And you bring some AI to it, like what Google Photos does. And all of a sudden, it just is a magical experience of like, every time I walk by the hallway where I have this thing, it's a positive moment for me. And it's hard to find a product that could actually do that, right? I think similarly, like I think the YouTube experience of rethinking, just like we had to rethink the music experience, rethinking YouTube in the context of the home where it can help you in those interesting moments, whether it be in the kitchen or helping you understand seeing the highlights of the sports game,

what have you. We think those are the types of use cases that are really going to drive adoption of the product. And then, of course, it does all these other things, which is kind of, again, how small, smart speakers got a lot of traction. I got it for music, but wow, I can do timers and alarms and do my home automation, all these great things. And I think you'll see something similar with smart displays as well. So people were tweeting me this week when I said, hey, it's a great price for a photo

frame. I mean, people are just going to buy it to run Google Photos. And everyone said, I would do it, but I don't want Google spying on me in my house. And I know there's a mic switch on the back. Does that mic switch physically disconnect the mic? It is. It's a hard switch. It's a straight up hard switch.

the microphone is completely cut off. There's no software mechanism to turn it back on. So for those who are obviously incredibly privacy conscious, yeah, we do, that's exactly the purpose of that mic switch. It's a hard switch. And so that leads me obviously to the fact that it doesn't have a camera. Yes. And when I saw you at the event and I saw some of the other folks

at Google at the event, it was very clear that you had decided not to put a camera on it. Just walk me through that a little bit. My strong belief is you have to have a design center of what are you trying to design the product for? and then product decisions come out of that. We really do feel adding a display to a Google Home product actually significantly enhances the ability of the product, right? You can do much more.

I mean, smart speakers are great. I think they really simplify the voice interaction piece of it, but they're not always the best way to actually communicate back. And so we really felt that adding a display significantly makes our products better, particularly when you think about all the assets that Google can bring, from calendars to maps to photos to YouTube, what have you. And so we really felt that this can be a game-changing product. And one of our goals from the outset was how do we make sure that people feel comfortable in putting in any room in their house?

And so when you think of all the design elements, so the camera is obviously one important part of the design element. The other side of it was the form factor, the size, the materials they used. All those pieces were just optimized and designed around how do we make sure that people can put this in any room in their house and they feel comfortable, it feels natural to put it there. So that's why he made it small. A lot of first impressions, which is the same first impression when we built it was like, wow, it's much smaller than I thought because we were intentional about having a small footprint where you put in the bedside table, the coffee table, the kitchen table, it doesn't feel overwhelming. The camera is obviously a key part of it. I mean, the truth is

we know that, you know, based off research, isn't that surprising, is that people are uncomfortable with cameras in every room in their house. Certain rooms they might be comfortable, but they're not going to be comfortable in every room in their house. And so, you know, either you can fight it or embrace it. And for us, we felt like embracing it. Like, let's go prove, we can build an amazing product, which does not have a camera on it, but can still offer immense value to a lot of consumers. We really felt like we can do that. We debated it, but it wasn't like a hard decision.

The core use cases that we are thinking through, we think are super compelling without the camera. So for us, let's offer the consumer the choice on it. And of course, there are other products out there which have the camera, including Google Assistant products. So people who do want to get a product for video calling, they have a choice to do it, which is great. I think from Google's standpoint, then we're giving choice. For us in our design center, we felt like the best decision was not to put one in.

So you brought up other Google Assistant products with a camera. I'm assuming you mean the Lenovo smart display. Lenova and JBL also has one. Which walks me right into this thing I've been threatening you with since we first started talking today. Yes. Which is... The thing that no consumer cares about except you. Let's go.

And the Vergecast audience, man. These are my people. That's what... This is my tribe. It's strong. You have... You have like multiple platforms going on, right? now in like a classic Google way. So this one is running on cast, which is like your baby,

right? That was your team that developed in Chromecast. And the cast sort of platform keeps expanding and now it has this. But then the other ones, the JBL and Lenovo, run on a different platform called Android Things. Why are they different? There's a couple reasons for it. So one is that we actually think that the history here is actually what was the optimal development platform for the speed at which we want to work against. So most OEMs, like when we think of the third-party ecosystem, they're incredibly familiar with Android, right? This is like the development platform they've been using for a whole host of devices. It's not just in phones. It's actually in many, many different devices. And so when you

look at what's the easiest for a OEM to actually go build a new product, for them, Android is the platform. It's a development platform which they bring all the types of new hardware. And so for them, Android Things is a perfect match for that because Android Things is optimized around iot devices and actually makes it easy for any oem to actually bring get it up and running for us on on the first party side you know we've done a lot of optimization on the cast platform we've uh spent a lot of investment as you said on making sure that we can tune it and optimize it and to the hardware kind of specs that we see are important for our products and so for us it's just easier to build on the cast platform because of the history of where we've always come from it's not it's not a statement

against or for and or things or the cast platform the truth is like we've always been developing on the and the OEMs have always been on Android Things. And so we're just providing the platform for the ecosystem that makes the most sense for them, which is what Android Things is intended to deliver, and which allows us them to build great product experiences like they have done. And over time, we are finding ways that we can align these platforms. So from a, you know, this is internal Google, like how we can develop things easily that go across both.

But you'll see the experience that is across both of them is inconsequential, meaning like it's the exact same experience. You just don't have to care. That's kind of the intention. Like, you know, our goal, again, in every product we build, every product category you build, is that we want to have a great first party story. And that's what the made by Google program is. But of course, we want to support the ecosystem. And we felt like this is the best way to do it.

Like, let's not force a decision that doesn't make sense is not natural for the OEMs or for us. And so that's why we ended up in where we ended up. I think some people do care. And I think the concern is always that the first party platform will do better and be better supported and gain more features faster. I mean, just look at the pixel phones, right? Like, Google controls that experience. You don't have to worry about whether or not Samsung and Verizon are going to get together and deliver an Android update to you.

So there's always a concern that as the platforms peel apart, the first party one will be a better choice. I think maybe most consumers don't know that, but I assure you, Vergecast listeners are aware of that. So do you worry about that? We have learned some of the lessons, right, from the mobile side. So one of the things you'll notice on Android Things is actually the updates are controllable.

by Google. So the alignment is much stronger in terms of the capability set and like how we develop features. In fact, as we are building features, we build them together. The platform team and my team are building them together so that they actually can deploy in multiple places. And you'll see like, you know, some of the features that are cast specific features, we are intentionally bringing to the third party. So multi-room support was enabled on the Lenova device and the JBL device. And so you're totally right, given the history, I think, of what's there. But we're architecting this program with all that in hindsight, knowing what the tradeoffs were. And so we're being thoughtful about making sure that we're doing it the right way this time. So I think you'll see a much bigger

convergence here than I think you have seen in the past. And, you know, our goal is to make it super transparent that no consumer should care which, which one they're going to get. Outside of, obviously, they choose what they think is the best hardware device that they're trying, you know, that they think is best for their home. Are you going to let the third parties do, like, skins and special features and customize the interface? Or are you saying this is ours? As of right now, we're taking a stronger position of what the user experience will be, and that'll be driven by Google. Okay. So speaking of CAST, there was a new version of the Chromecast that came out, but you didn't talk about it at the event at all. We didn't make any fanfare about it. What is going on with the Chromecast?

So Chromecast continues to do incredibly well, and so we haven't refreshed the product in three years, and so we thought it was important to actually refresh the product. We did improve the performance of the product, as well as started adding some new capabilities around it. We're thinking about how you can do multi-room with different types of, you can bring the T-E, into a multi-room scenario. So I think one of the pieces of feedback that we obviously heard is most people have their best audio systems connected to the TV. So let's make sure when we think of multi-room audio, we can actually incorporate that as part of the product experience.

And we're continuing to update it as we go. You'll see actually there's a big convergence that's happening when we think about how Chromecast is built and bringing the TV as part of this overall assistant experience. So, you know, the first thing we ever launched with Google Home two years ago was the ability use Netflix, use your voice to play Netflix and YouTube on the television. And that was a kind of big enhancement. That was kind of a changing, a big step-up and experience around not even have any remote control at all, not even a handheld remote, a fully far-fueled experience that I can actually enable media consumption. And so we're trying to bring Chromecast more into and Google Home

together, much closer together so we can start enhancing the experience without adding complexity. And so I think for us, Chromecast continues to be a super important investment. and this is not meant to be a major kind of redefinition of the product. To be honest, the product is really simple. And I think that's the advantage of the product. Like, I don't have to reinvent the wheel, to be honest. I think part of it is just making sure that we're continuing to upgrade it in terms of like obviously the design pieces of obviously we upgraded as well and putting the latest kind of connectivity stacks on it. So we're still seeing tons of momentum there. We think there's a lot of opportunity to connect it with the Google Home ecosystem of devices, connecting

with Ness devices. And so we're continuing to invest in the, mostly in the software side, because From our standpoint, the hardware of Chromecast is fairly basic. The magic has always been on the software and how you connect to other devices. So you actually brought up Netflix, which was a question. I forgot to ask you about the Home Hub. You cannot play Netflix on the Home Hub right now. So it's a cast endpoint, but you can't cast Netflix to it. And you certainly can't ask it to play Netflix.

What's going on with that? You know, I think this is a discussion we're having with Netflix right now. I think Netflix is taking a reasonable approach in this sense. They want to understand how these devices are going to be used and where they're going to be used before they're going to commit themselves to a new type of device type. And so they're being conservative on this. And, you know, I think for their business, I think that's the right decision. I think they want to wait and see and how this actually plays out.

You'll notice they haven't committed to any smart displays. It's not just us. I think they're being cautious on it. And, you know, I can understand they're a very focused company. Whatever they go into, they focus and really and nail whatever experiences they want to go, whenever they go into something. So we're talking with them. I think a lot of this will be sharing the information and data we get around,

and hey, here's what's going on. Here's where people are placing them. Here's how, you know, different types of usage that are happening on the device. And, you know, hopefully they'll join in soon. But I think for us right now, we still think the value proposition, obviously you can cast all the other content.

Many of the other content partners haven't taken the same stance. And we enable voice casting for the same set of partners we enable for Chromecast, we're enabling for all these other partners as well. So I think this is just the nature of new device categories. Different companies are going to take different stances on them. And over time, it'll resolve itself.

Yeah. So let's talk about TV broadly because the first time I ever talked to you was like eight years ago when you were in charge of Google TV. That's right. You don't make a standalone Android TV box as part of your portfolio, I don't think. No, we do not. But Sony ships it obviously inside of their TVs. They're very popular. Other companies do it.

Why doesn't Google make the sort of Apple TV competitor that runs Android TV? You know, our view is that when you look at the TV landscape, there's kind of four big types of devices that people get their smart TV capabilities from. So the biggest and most vastest smart TVs, right? That's actually where a majority of, that's the biggest installed base, that's the majority of way that actually people consume over the top content. Then you have the game consoles. Then you have set-top boxes, right? Traditional set-top boxes. So there's a major change going on in the kind of traditional operator model. Before they used to have these proprietary boxes that they'd have, like, you know, examples would be Comcast and DISH and Direc TVs. All these guys used to have

their own proprietary boxes. I think what they're recognizing is that one, those box, proprietary boxes don't allow over the top content, which is a problem. I mean, obviously, if they're going to be an integrated aggregator of content, not having Netflix and YouTube on, there's a problem. But also, they're fairly expensive. And so that's kind of the third category. There's a big transition happening of how those boxes are getting replaced. And the fourth is these over-the-top boxes, like the Chromecast and the Rokos and the Fire Six. What Google strategy has been is like really focusing on the smart TV and the set-top box category. because actually we think that's the easiest place

to actually get wide penetration of our services and our platforms. So that's why you'll see we focus on the TVs, and we have a ton, a ton of different operator relationships right now, which are either being deployed or already have been deployed. And for us, on the over-the-top category, you know, we have Chromecast, it continues to perform really well. And so we haven't seen a huge need that, like, we had to fill a gap there. And there are devices that come with Android TV,

like the Xiaomi box is a device that I think launched just recently where they're offering the Android TV. platform. Android TV is a great platform for a lot of different OEMs out there. And so that's where we're putting our investment. We think actually that's a bigger payoff for users and for Google. I like to just shout out all the people who are currently tweeting the words Nvidia Shield TV at me right now. Yeah, there you go. No, exactly. In Video Shield is another example of a set top box that, sorry, an over-the-top box that is built on Android TV. And that's getting, you know, deployed by different partners. Yeah, I mean, they're definitely still going to tweet at me that I forget

about it. Just insist that I forget. It's there. I have one. I apologize. So that's like the living room, right? You've got a smart speaker. You've got a TV. You can use your voice to control your TV platform there. What about the other rooms of the house? Is that just where to stick home hubs and Google Home minis in those rooms? Where should the microphones go? Are they all going to go in the light bulbs and the radiators? Are you going to stick them in nest devices? It seems like they should go, they should become more invisible, not more visible. I think a couple of things. One is I actually don't think it's sensible to put microphones in all the different types of products. I think you will have products that have intelligence plus the microphones together.

And, you know, putting microphones in random arbitrary products like washing machines and, you know, in the walls and stuff like that, I think has a couple of disadvantages. One is right now we're very early in what the evolution of voice technology is going to be. And I think embedding, you know, I get the question of like, why don't we embed microphones all over the, the, in the walls, and so it's like complete transparent. And my view is in three years, the experience is going to be so much better that it doesn't make sense in my mind to actually start embedding into fixed devices that are going to last like 10, 15 years right now. Yeah. What's much better is in this earliest part of the life cycle, like, we're going to keep improving the products every couple years, right? Every couple of years, you're going to get major

improvements of the product itself. And so in this phase, I do think you will have a some sort of smart speaker or smart display in every room. And that will be the microphone. And also, that will be more and more increasingly the on-device intelligence. And the goal should be to connect with all the different devices. Instead of putting intelligence in every device out there, just put a lightweight connectivity stack, which makes it easy for me to connect the light bulbs, connect the thermostat, connect the microwave, whatever it might be. And that's how the home should be architected. It's just a more flexible model given the life cycle we are in today. Maybe in five years and maybe in 10 years when the technology is maturing, then it makes more sense to embed it in other ways

inside the home. But I just think it's too early to do that, to be quite honest. And I think the evolution, I mean, you just see what's happened. It's still crazy. We launched Google Home just two years ago. And how much we've improved the product and change the product and added features and capabilities, it's like, wow. So I can only imagine two years from now where the technology evolution will be. So that's my point of view. I just don't think it makes sense, particularly at this point in time, to put microphones all over the place when the technology underlying everything is moving so fast. All right. So you've gone way over time and I appreciate it.

So let's just do a quick lightning round. I'll let you get out of here. When you have the whiteboard of features for your products, for the home products, where on the list is changing the wake word from, hey, Google? Is it the first thing on the list? Is it the last one? Just where on the list is it? When you guys come in, it's obviously the first.

Do you think about it? Look, yeah, yeah, we've definitely thought about it. Trust me, we've heard you. We've debated it for a long time. We continue to believe, though, that this is about Google. This is the future of what Google is going to be. And that I will argue to you this, that the noise that comes from it is actually going down. And actually, I still think it's actually a very small set of the population that has an issue with the hot word.

you guys are two of the, you and Deeter are two of the, two of the 50 I'm not referring to you right now. That is very loud about it. But I think, you know, things like improving it from go, okay, Google to hey Google has significantly improved it. And I think it's becoming just a part of the natural way that people are speaking to the devices. So I do think over time, it's becoming less and less of a big deal. The noise has definitely gone down from when we first started. And I think for us, like, you know, building a a completely separate brand because look when you when you come with a new hot word it's a new brand you're effectively carving out a new brand for what this assistant thing is and for us that's that's

we believe fundamentally that this is about google this is about bringing all the capabilities and and and assets that google can can bring and separating as a brand just doesn't make sense to us and so we do think that this will this will do into a way and hopefully you guys will eventually forget to ask me one time we'll see i'm waiting i'm waiting for it like everyone has dreams man what's going on with the button on top of the Google Home Mini, you have to disable it, are you ever going to reenable it? Are you just going to put out a new version and it'll be fixed and reenabled? Once we made that decision, we're going to stick with it from our standpoint. And again, it hasn't been a huge user problem, to be honest.

It's a gap that I would like to address in future versions. Yeah, we have no plans to change our decision we made before. Sure. People already are talking about a larger Home Hub because they want to use it as a picture frame. Is that something you guys who talked about? Yeah, there's lots of things on the whiteboard. I've got to find this whiteboard. Right.

It's right next to the Hague, changing the hot word. No, just kidding. But yeah, no, one of those things is on the reality column, and one of them is on the like screw with Neelai column. No, look, you know, we do think that there's a lot of opportunity for smart displays inside the home. I actually do really believe that once people see the immense value that a smart display can bring, particularly things like photos and YouTube, increasingly, that's what the expectation of any, you know, the smart speaker will evolve you more and more into the smart display.

and I think there are opportunities for multiple types of cues. And so, you know, of course, we're always looking at it. But at this point, I think it's really key for us to make sure we help users understand the value of obviously what we just launched. And so we'll go from there. But yeah, I think there's lots of runway, to be honest. I think, again, I actually think this will be a fairly big moment in the narrative of the whole smart display, smart speaker kind of category.

I guess the ambient computing or assistance in the home, I think smart displays will be a major pivot point in where the technology is going to go. That's my guess. Very cool. Okay. This is the last one. I'm going to tell you up front. I have no idea what this means. It's from Dieter. Oh, God. He just submitted a question. I'm just going to read it to you. It's not even a question. It's a demand. Okay. It just says, do not let Rishi out of the room until he tells you what the ever-loving shit is going on with multiple Google accounts. Oh, okay. Deeter always comes with two things. So you know. So you know. It's the ever-loving shit.

means. Oh, I definitely know what this means. Yes. Deeter's complaint is that right now we do not support G Suite accounts on the device. I've given the same answer. I'll give it to him again. That the, I literally, when you said, Deeter's question, I'm like, I know this is going to be. The question is, why don't G Suite accounts work with Google Home Hub? Like, you can't get your calendar information on it. The truth is like, so G-Suse accounts are designed for enterprises. They're designed for companies. And companies have a ton of tight security controls about how their information is protected inside of Google.

And so for us to build, you know, the Google Assistant is obviously a very consumer-oriented application in terms of like how we're building it and how we're using it with like from a feature set standpoint. There are a lot of obligations that we have to meet to make sure that's meeting all the security requirements that meet an enterprise customer. And we've done all that stuff, obviously, on things like Gmail and Google Docs over the last many, many years. We're working on it to get the assistant, because we do think the assistant can actually be totally helpful inside a workplace as well. But then we have to work with all those safeguards and data protection services that we have for those enterprises. And so while Deeter is not a enterprise, and I understand why he believes he's an exception to this policy, we still have a policy in place, obviously, to protect the data of many of our corporate customers. So that is why it does not work.

But it is well understood that this is something we'd like to fix. All right. So we'll just add it to the whiteboard of questions that we ask every time. Yes, that's exactly right. I'm going to say to have a Dieter whiteboard. I'll just keep it up all the time. How about that? Perfect. All right, Rishi, thank you so much for sticking on and going deep on this stuff with us.

I really appreciate it. No problem. Talk to you later. Thank you to Ivy Ross and Rishi Chandra from Google. A great conversation. I am really interested in hearing who you want me to interview next, how you think these are going. so just tweeting me. I'm at Reckless on Twitter.

Would love to hear from you. We'll see you again next week. Hey, everybody, one more time. I want to remind you, go check out the Better Worlds podcast feed. It's where we've been posting all of our stories from our Better World's positive science fiction project.

It's so cool. Go subscribe to that feed right now. You can find it. All of our stories, we're going to have them read in that feed. It's going to be really neat. Check it out.