Tomorrow - Episode 1: Cosmic Horror with Paul Miller

Episode Date: April 13, 2015

For the first episode of Tomorrow, Josh invites his old colleague and podcasting veteran Paul Miller to the studio for a discussion about the tech industry, religion, Josh's hair, and the genuine hardships of returning to a normal life after having been disconnected from the internet for twelve months. After losing contact for more than a year, they both realize just how much their lives have changed since they last worked together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey, and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host, Josh with Coltsky. This is the first episode of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a brand new podcast. I did a podcast for many years with a group of people, with all sorts of people, and then I went offline on the podcast in the podcast sense for a while. I had a daughter named Zelda. I moved to a new house.

I got a new job. A lot of things happened. But I felt this incredible urge and itch to speak, to speak to people and to have conversations and to talk about what is going on in the world and what is happening next in the world. And then sometimes, actually to talk about what has happened previously and why it's important or significant or funny or weird or interesting.

And so that's what tomorrow is for. Tomorrow is a place where I can explore ideas. Tomorrow is a place where I can talk about maybe it's the news of the day or maybe it's a conversation with somebody that I find fascinating or maybe it's a bunch of people screaming over each other trying to get a point in. No, I mean, it's about technology, it's about culture, music, film, art, the weird corners of the internet that are maybe not as explored as they should be. And probably some of this will be about me, a lot of it will be about me, and my life, my upbringing, my hair, and other things.

So that's sort of it. That's sort of what this, why I'm doing this. Today's episode is a very personal one and a very important one. I was racking my brain. I was trying to think of what could I do, what would be a good way to introduce people to who I am, and also people who know who I am, who've listened to me for a long time, what would they want to hear, who would they want to hear from, and who would really be interesting

and have a great conversation with me? And so of course, I thought of Tom Cruise because he's amazing, but I didn't get Tom Cruise because he would not return any of my emails or many, many phone calls. But I did actually get some, I think, in fact something better, somebody better than Tom Cruise. Paul Miller is joining me today on the show.

And as some of you may know, Paul and I work together for many years. He was one of the founding editorial, I'm sorry, one of the founding editors of the Verge. And we have a long and very strange history together. And we haven't talked to each other in a long time, in years, maybe in years. And we're going to catch up with each other and find out what our lives are like now,

post-verge, and post lots of big life changes. But before that, we're going to have a word from our sponsor. This episode of Tomorrow is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or online store for you and your ideas. Squarespace features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, an incredible 24-7 customer support. Try Squarespace at squarespace.com and enter offer code Joshua at checkout to get 10% off.

Squarespace build a beautiful. Some of you may know who Paul Miller is and some of you may not know who Paul Miller is. I will give you the brief. If you've never heard of Paul Miller and you've never read anything that Paul Miller wrote and you don't know any of his weird story, I'm just gonna give you the biggest, most interesting thing that you probably need to know about him and then he and I are gonna talk.

Paul in May of 2012 left the internet completely for a year as part of a project that he wanted to do for writing for my website, my website the verge our website He completely disconnected from the internet no online games no text messages No really like internet no digital internet communication whatsoever and he did it for a year straight and I'm gonna talk to him about the reasons he did it, but that's the first thing you should know. And I don't know if anybody who's done it and done it to that extreme. Anyhow, he's sitting here, so I don't know why.

I just injure him. Paul, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me, John. Thank you for joining me on Tomorrow. It's funny about this tomorrow episode is that we're actually gonna talk about yesterday. That was not planned. Can I actually say something before we get started?

Yeah, please. I'm feeling stressed out right now because I spend a lot of time this morning doing my hair. I finally figured out how to use a blow dryer, which is an amazing discovery for me. And now I can get my hair to look really good, but you can't be touched by any one or anything. And there's a head, there right now there are headphones resting on it. And it's just ruining.

It's creasing. It's creating like a crease across the, a crease across the top of my head. So it's very stressful for me. So if you see me sweating or crying during this interview, you'll know why. Anyhow, Paul, thank you for being here. You got on a plane. I got you a plane ticket.

Yeah. And you flew from Washington. Really appreciate it. You flew, I appreciate it. Because there's almost nobody who would do such an insane thing. It's because I have nothing going on. Nothing going on. We're going to get to that.

You flew on a plane last night. You took a red eye. You're here today. You no longer work at the verge, which is a, if you don't know, is an internet website about technology and culture. I no longer work at the verge. And you lived in New York City. You moved out of New York City.

Tell me what you do. Tell me what's going on with you. I don't know at all. I mean, actually don't know the answer. What are you doing right now? What is your life like? I am a freelance writer. I do content marketing is the technical term where I get paid to write for a company

blog. The company's called Karma. It's like a mobile internet hotspot. I got like a like an LTE hotspot. Yeah, like a Wi-Fi. But it's like a special Wi-Fi. Because it's called Karma. It's called Karma.

All right, and you can share internet stuff. This feels like a plug. Yeah, please buy. Is it you who flies? Yeah, just to do content marketing. All right, so you're a content marketer. Yeah, and so I, but I was working for them full time and I slept in a bunch.

It just doesn't sound familiar to me. Have you ever heard this story? To people who don't know this, Paul, you know, Paul worked for me for a long time, then with me, and he, on a regular basis would call him in the morning, multiple times, also known as war dialing to wake him up. Is that what you call it?

It's war dialing. Well, it's actually not what war dialing is. War dialing is an old term for when you would select a batch of phone, possible phone number combinations, and when you had a modem, and you would dial down the line until you found modems. Oh. Because I knew war driving with Wi-Fi. I don't know what that is.

That's where you try to find an open Wi-Fi. Similar idea. Similar idea. So anyways, I lost my full time position at Karma. Okay. But I freelance for them. Right. And I live with my parents in Washington state.

And we do a lot of bluegrass. You play bluegrass. You play bluegrass? My parents are big in the bluegrass scene. They're actually big in the bluegrass scene. Like if I went to a bluegrass in the tension. Like in the local area, my dad is like the president of the bluegrass club

that puts on a local Bluegrass Festival. So he's like a Bluegrass Concert organizer? Yeah. Okay. So you live in Washington, where in Washington? Eastern Washington. Eastern, you don't want to say specifically where? The Tri-Cities.

Ken O'Quashins. I don't know where that is. I'm not sure that you're, you know, maybe making that. The desert? There's a river. But so you moved from New York, so a year ago, when did you move? A month ago. I moved to Washington a month ago.

Oh, recently. Yeah. I didn't know that, because we haven't really been in touch. We have. We've fallen out of touch, because you've moved to another job and another place I moved to.

I had a baby, I moved to. I didn't even know you moved. I just found that out. I moved to the suburbs. So we're both, both out in the country. Suburb and we're both country living, into country living. We're both country-live-in into country-live-in. So, and also I think we're exactly the same

in many other ways. But, okay, so let's back up here a little bit. You left the internet in May of 2012. This is the thing, this was like a huge thing. So I don't know, some of you know this, of course, but some of you don't. This was a big deal. You left the internet and then people like CNN

and ABC and people like they wanted to talk to this crazy man in 2012 who had left the internet. We actually thought this will be a cool experiment but I don't think anybody was like people are going to freak out about this and think it's really important because it was really a personal thing. I mean why did you want to leave the internet in the first place? I think it's kind of almost the same reason I just moved to Washington. Like, I was actually thinking about moving home with my parents to like be able to not work and like read and like study on my own, maybe write a book or something like that.

And I just figured the internet was taking up all my time. So if I quit the internet too, I'd have this unlimited free time. So if I quit the internet too, I'd have this unlimited free time. I love the idea that was the goals unlimited free time. I mean, we were still paying you at the time. You were still, well, that was a crazy thing as I told you. Yep. I was going to quit the verge. That's right. And you thought maybe it was something I could do for the verge. Yeah.

Is that how I don't remember who had the idea originally, but because I told you I thought maybe I'd write a book about it or something like that. Yeah. And then you set me up with a book published, or not a book published like an agent. I talked to them, they said, well, you should write about it for the verge.

Right. And so then I brought that idea back to you. And we thought that was a great idea. Crazily enough. And you wrote some amazing, very weird things. Yeah, I don't think I was that productive during that year, but I'm really, really proud of it. Like, I, I, I,

You were not that productive, I can tell. I was not that productive. I can tell you there were a lot of people, wrote to myself, included, saying, It's insightful. Well, he doesn't have anything else to do. Deep, touching pieces. But what happened was,

this is the weird thing. You thought that like, you had, you felt like you had issues. The internet was a distraction. I think this is actually, I don't want to be a nerd and bring this back to what's going on in the world today, but I think that when you look at the Apple Watch and Google Glass, things like Google Glass and all the stuff people are telling about, which is in the distraction, every time a being distracted by their devices and trying to make things that will make

you less distracted and make you more in the moment. But your complaint was actually, I feel like I'm distracted by all this. I'm, my attention is drawn in a million different ways. I can't focus, I can't, I'm not learning, I'm not deeply thinking about things. And you thought that the solve for that was, get rid of the internet, like clear it out and that will fix this problem of distraction that you had.

I hope to do something like that. And in some ways it really did. And I mean, in a nutshell, I did get this longer attention span. I was able to think about kind of deep ideas. I was kind of in the moment. At the same time, I just basically became ostracized from civilization.

You don't think you were a part of society. And I don't feel like I've found society since then. You think that you're still not a part of society? I feel like I kind of fell out of sync and I like forgot kind of how to keep in touch with people. And now I don't really keep in touch with anybody. It's really sad. I don't have any like depressing touch with people and now I don't really keep in touch with anybody. It's so really sad.

I don't have any like depressing. How does that make you feel? Well, it's kind of nice that I move back to the Washington because at least I see my parents all the time. I hang out with my little brother we're playing through the Lego Lord of the Rings game. Honestly. Okay.

And we go to the Bluegrass jams. Right. You play. I play the Yuc-Base. Yeah. What is that a Yuclele-Ly based? It's a Yucle-Ly based. Okay.

This is so strange. Do you think this is very strange because you were... I feel like it is really strange, but it's like I... What was... I came back to the internet in March or May 2013. Yeah. May 2013? Yeah, May 2013. I actually was just reading the story. A little rewind after I came back from the internet,

worked for the verge for a little while. I wasn't going great. Because it was just really overwhelming as a lot of work. The verge was a very different place when you came back. We had just really gotten started when you left. We launched in November of 2011. And when you came back, we had the staff had doubled and there were all sorts of new people. If we could talk just a little bit less about me

and maybe this can touch on something you could do whatever you want. When I came back, especially because I spent this time with these bigger ideas and these big books that I really respected, the Odyssey Odyssey and like Play-Doh and stuff like that, that's not one book, it's a series. I had this kind of really high-minded thought of what journalism could be or should be, and I really felt like what I was capable of writing wasn't quite journalism.

I'm really enjoying, I think I'm pretty good at like a personal experience I say, but I really wanted there to be journalism and I was trying to do journalism and I was really back there. And we had, I think we had gotten to a place where we were much more journalistically minded than even when we started I think. We were chasing big, you know, kind of messy stories. Yeah, and journalism, there's a real burden. And I felt like this, even I did some longer form pieces.

I was off the internet, I wrote something about this big robotics thing in Mexico City. I also did this big piece on Photoshop. And so I'd interviewed these people and I'd become very emotionally attached to trying to tell their story the way they wanted it said. And I felt like I could never do justice to it, especially if I was trying to be this fair and balanced and then if I was trying to do it under, you know, 5,000 words, I feel like I couldn't really get,

so when I write a personal essay, I feel like, well, whatever ends up there, it's like, well, I put it there so it's fair. But when I'm writing about somebody else, I really feel this burden to try to be fair and to really tell their story, and I couldn't quite do that. And so, it's also bad for journalism.

What? I mean, because, I mean, yes, you want to be fair, but also the stories you get when you're working on the story are all often differ in that. One person says one thing and one person says it was another way. I hated that tension of feeling like, well, I know the truth or what I think is the truth. It's not what this person said.

And when I published this piece, I'm publicly going against. So I don't, I feel like there's this huge burden. Yeah, this huge burden on journalism and journalists and it's a really hard thing to do, and I didn't feel like I could do it. I feel like a lot of people suck at it. But I think that's true, let's do something.

I especially didn't really feel like I could do it. So, right, and you left the verge. And I went to Colorado to help my sister-in-law with the kids while my brother was deployed. Right, the Air Force. In Qatar. Yeah, I don't know why I remember that detail. Because that's cool.

But I do. It's cool to say. It's cool to say. But that was cool, because it was a different, like, I had a different perspective on life. And so I could do something that it wasn't about my career. It wasn't really a smart idea. But it was like the right thing and good for my family. And so I was able to do that. It wasn't really a smart idea.

But it was like the right thing and good for my family. And so I was able to do that. I really liked that perspective, but that even put me even further out of touch and out of sync with my New York type of the scene. To me, you just started to, I mean, you disappeared when you went off of the internet. I mean, for all intents and purposes, as far as I was concerned, I only saw you once in a while. You didn't come into the office that much. I think this is the strange thing.

I don't think you can, I think you have to disappear if you leave the internet. I think if you're not on the internet. I don't think you can be part of, I think you're right about society, is that it's there now. Yeah, and how do you reappear? Right.

Well, you reappear in a really interesting way. I mean, in my, like, so if you go back, there's a piece that Paul wrote, it's called, I'm still here, and it's about, and there's a beautiful video that goes along with it, which is actually very depressing and very sad. Like, when I watch it, I got choked up. I cried a little bit when I watched the video because it made me feel like that your experience was really bad. I mean, in many ways that you, many ways, or at least the experience of coming back, you didn't fix the thing you thought you'd fix. And you felt in some ways disconnected in a whole different way than not being on the internet.

And it's a beautiful piece of people should read it. But so do you think this was a natural that you were always going to end up moving? I mean, how would you know? You're 29. Did you think that you were always going to move back in with your parents at some point? Or does it seem like?

I think so. That's what I mean. That's not your destiny though, is it? No, I don't know. I just feel like I'm really bad at life. And quitting the internet was amazing. Awesome, crazy thing that I got to do. And I got a lot. I got a great 15 minutes out of it. I just feel like I'm really bad at life and quitting the internet was amazing, awesome, crazy thing that I got to do and I got a lot,

I got a great 15 minutes out of it and some interesting perspective, but it didn't fix my life and I'm still really bad at life. And so hopefully someday I could get better at life, but I haven't figured that out yet. Okay, so there's some other things I wanna talk about. I wanna actually wanna take a break, quick break, for an advertisement.

I want to talk about us too. That's actually what I want to get into because there are other things about you that are you and I are two of the most opposite people in the world, I think, on almost every major social issue of our day. That's true. And in terms of many other things,

anyhow, I don't want to give it away, but I want to talk a little bit about that and just talk about life as it is right now. So we're going to take a break and we'll be right back. Let me introduce you to our sponsor, Zero. That's X-E-R-O. Zero is beautiful accounting software, which is great because you know accounting software is typically disgusting. And it's built to help small businesses be more productive and successful. Zero is easy to use. You can send invoices online quotes to your customers, pay your employees, manage your cash flow, expenses, and even your inventory with zero. It's in the cloud so you

can access and manage all of your business accounting on the go. And it does what desktop software does and more. Plus you can use it anywhere at any time, even from a mobile device. For example, if you're working in traveling, you can send invoices easily on the go and clients can pay online instantly. Sign up for a free 30-day trial at zero.com slash podcast. That's xero. com slash podcast. Xe ro zero is beautiful counting software built to help small businesses be more productive and successful. We're back and I am speaking to Paul Miller, my old friend, old coworker, and a human being, above all. You agree with that, you are human.

I hope. I've been a lot of organizations and assumptions based on that, that you are human. And if I think I've gone really wrong, actually a dog turns out. So I alluded to this before the break. Paul and I are when we have actually been I think very close. I mean I'm actually close. I mean we obviously have

not been close for a while now because we don't work together and I'm a lazy friend. If I unless I am I'm an lazy friend unless I work with you or I you are I employed by me or you have to call me to wake me up or have to call you to wake me up. Or after I call you to wake you up every morning, then we're just probably not going to see each other that much. I don't leave the house, especially now that I live in the suburbs, where it is blissfully quiet and devoid of people. Can I tell people my formative memory about you?

Yeah. And this is a good segue. I know I can check it. I think, well, so you walked into, I was in AOL. At AOL. Paul and I met each other. Paul and I should At AOL. Paul and I met each other. Paul and I should be should say,

Paul and I met each other. We both worked, I went to work, he was working at AOL at a site called EnGadget, which was a tech blog, and I went, I started freelance writing there and eventually took a full-time job. You were there for an interview with this cool mirror shades, and I was like, who's this cool person?

And apparently, you thought I was just really rude. Yes. Because I was just so distracted. I don't remember. You were blogging. You were busy blogging. You were like, please don't talk to me. I'm writing a, there's a, you were probably writing like about a router.

Yeah. Or what are the kinds of things we used to cover? Like, MP3 player. And MP3, a PMP, which was a personal media player, which sometimes all that. So it's like MP3 player that could play video on a bad course. Yeah, we used to call, anyhow, you were furiously blogging to do. And then, like, I don't know, it's just a few months after you started, we went to EFA together.

We went to EFA, if you don't know, is a large technology trade show in Germany, in Berlin. So this was the hardcore gadget blogging days, where you storm the show floor and you'd find the gadgets. And it was just you and it was just the two of us. Yeah, and I think we found a Samsung PMP, and we were gonna do a video about it because it was so cool, such a good PMP. Oh yes, I remember this.

And you were super camera shy. I was trying to get this funny because I think you love love being on camera now. I love when the camera's on me. No, I don't know. Here's the thing about that. I don't want to talk about you, but we'll just talk. I like being on camera when it's happening,

everything leading up to it. Like when I go on the tonight show, I'm always backstage thinking, why am I doing this? This is gonna turn out bad. You feel like butterfly, like performing? Yeah, I do, I have less than less than now that I've done it a bunch, but then I go out

and I go into like autopilot. I just don't even think, I'm not even thinking. When you're, if you ever watch those, and I say something that sounds completely like off-color and terrible, it's because my brain isn't on. It's because it's autopilot. It's actually something I've always envied you, because we've done these podcasts for a long time.

We did the InGaGa podcast, and then this is my next podcast, and then the Verge podcast. We do a lot of podcasts. InGaGa is shown on the Verge. Lots of stuff. I'm not trying to criticize you, Josh. That's fine.

I have to think. I have to almost write a whole sentence in my head before I can start saying a whole sentence. Yes. I think you're able to start talking before you come up with a whole sentence. They are correct about it. And that's why you're the host, Josh, and I'm the guest.

That's, you're damn right. And don't forget it. And the other thing I remember in the, you're in the guest season is, as some terrible restaurant in Germany, debating with you whether there was a historical Moses. And that's what I think. That was my argument that there was no Moses.

I think you didn't think that there's a really a Moses. I think I was leaving open the possibility that Moses was a creation of many authors. Okay. But like shakes. But I remember what I remember, and we're gonna get into this. So here's, let me just say some things about you

because people don't know. You're an evangelical born again Christian. Is that correct? You are in terms of politics, you're extremely, would you say right wing? I prefer conservative. Conservative, but you're at the extreme end of conservative thought, would you say?

Relatively, yes. Right. I mean, you're not racist or anything. No. But like we would disagree on very fundamental, we disagree on fundamental things. Yes. Like, things that I believe are, are absolutely, if I met you and we disagreed on them as our first conversation, we would, you and I would never speak again.

Right. But, but, but also, also, and I don't know, I'm going to talk about this and you tell me if I've gone too far. Okay. When I met you, you were, how old were you? I don't know. I'm gonna talk about this and you tell me if I've gone too far. When I met you, how old were you? 12. I don't know. 20, you were young.

Over 20. 20X, but very young. Yes. Because you started working in the end-guides when you were 18 or something, right? Or 19. Yeah. Before I could drink, so yeah.

So you were like 22 when it maybe when I had you. Probably. I'm bad at math, so. You were a virgin. Are you still a virgin? Yeah. Okay, because of your religious beliefs. Yes. You would also never kiss to girl. No. You had to. Yeah, I think when we met, you would never kiss to girl. Have you kissed a girl? Yeah. Okay. So, you're 29 now. Uh-huh.

Okay. So, but we started talking about, and this is the kind of thing I think this is maybe why we became friends and close, because you were very open about talking about things that normal normally people would be uncomfortable about and I am very open about asking people things that they are uncomfortable about and we start to masturbation because I was trying to figure out if that was okay, if that was like part of, you know, because you're not having sex, but you're a man, a human, as we think, as we believe. And so we started, I remember we had a very candid conversation about masturbation, about whether you did it or not. Oh, we were also, I should say we were sharing a hotel room. Remember, we had to share a hotel room.

Well, this was the Eiffet Trail. Yeah, the Eiffet Trail. I'm getting back to the Eiffet Trail. Okay, yeah. I think that was where we, I didn't remember talking, but yes, so this is very early. We bonded on that trail. Over masturbation.

We bonded over masturbation. No, but we were sharing a room. It was just you and me against the world at this thing. We talked about a lot of really deep stuff, like the biblical Moses over dinner. I think we had a winter restaurant I had borscht. Probably. I think we had went to a restaurant I had borscht. I think we both had borscht. And we also talked about, we talked extensively

about masturbation as to whether or not you did it. Right. Which you at the time did. Right. And you still do. Right. I mean, I don't know. That was actually a big topic when you came back. Well, that's actually you wrote about that

when you were off the internet. I did. About how difficult it was. That was, that's a, okay, that's a hard, I think, just too personal. I better talking about it on the page. No, that was really, it was harder to write than it is to talk about it out loud.

Yeah. It's still pretty hard to talk about it out loud. Well, it's very uncomfortable. I can't believe we're talking about it, frankly. A little background on that. Yeah. Before I published that, and by the way, my parents are definitely listening to this podcast right now. Great. Hi. Before I published that, and by the way, my parents are definitely listening to this podcast

right now. Great. How I published that, hi guys. I had to tell my parents about it. Yeah. Before it. Do they know about your, so they know now, well I think they've not since I published it, but they didn't know about like that side of me.

They didn't know you had a cycle. It was like really hard on them. Yeah. I don't know. Well of me. They didn't know you had a cycle. It was like really hard on them. Yeah. I don't know. Well, of course. Not they must have been. It wasn't about masturbation, it was about porn. That's really what the article is more about too. Right. But your explanation for it was really interesting to me because I don't know. I didn't really know that much about Christianity. I still don't, frankly. I know Jesus is involved. That's true. And the new testament is a big, big in Christianity. But you were saying, you were saying, you were saying, had this, this, this, the system of sin, the sin system, where

we've all sinned, right? Right. And so, like, you get some leeway on sinning, which, would you consider masturbation sinning? Then not necessarily. That's hard to. Interesting. The, the, the sin would be, like, lust after somebody who's not necessarily really that's hard to interesting the Sin would be like lust after somebody who's not your wife checking out the porn Yeah, that's the sin. What if you don't have a wife? Stout you very yes, no, she's not your wife if you know if you don't have a wife No, there is no wife. That's what I'm saying. There's no wife. So it's all less. What's the sin? I don't get it. Oh, the lust.

All right. All right, I say. But lust for the wife, no problem. But the idea of Christianity, just for those who don't know. Yeah, for the uniniti- uninitiated. Is that everybody's sinful? Right.

Everybody sinned. Yep. Uh, and then Jesus died. Yeah. To cover sin as like a sacrifice. Right, I say. He's like, I'll take the bullet. Yes.

And so then if you trust in Jesus to cover your sin, yeah, you are covered. You're going to have it. And then the plan is, and so that's when you're justified. It seems complicated. Right, that's when you're justified. And then there's this process called sanctification where you try to get better while you're still on the earth.

And then you're perfected, which is called glorified. Yeah. When you go to heaven. I feel like Al-Ran Hubbard ripped a lot of this off for Scientology. I don't think so. Did you watch that documentary? What was it? Going clear.

No. Do you have HBO in Washington? I don't have HBO. There's no HBO there. My dad actually put a TV tuner on the roof. Oh really? It's like great quality. You know, like cable or like, especially satellite TV. Yeah. My dad actually put a TV tuner on the roof. Oh really? It's like great quality.

You know like when you get cable or like, especially satellite TV and you see the bit rate. Like, yeah, it's art of fact. Over the air, HTTV is so beautiful. It's great, I think it's almost good as Blu-ray. It feels like we're going back into a more traditional kind of podcast for us, which is just talking about technology.

So anyhow, so we're very different people, but we've got a background together. And we had somehow found some common ground because there are other things that we, like music. I feel like it was a common ground for us that you're very into music, or at least you were. It was. You still into music?

I haven't done a lot of music. I played you some of the songs I was working on, like one of the last times I hung out at your house. I played you some of the music I was working on, like one of the last times I hung out at your house. I played you some of the music. Did you remember what you said? This could be horrible, isn't it? It was really horrible. It was really horrible, but it was really great.

What was it? You thought I had like an affectation to my voice. I was like affecting some sort of like Bruce Springsteen type of thing, and it wasn't natural. And so it was hurtful when you said it, but it really helped me grow. Really? And so I actually really like my voice now because I, I put

you dialed back the effect. Yeah, I dialed back the affect. Well, I found my, and I found my, what can I say? I have an amazing knack for giving great feedback to great artists. Like, here's a segue. Yeah. What do you do at Bloomberg?

What do I do? Oh, you want to know what I do? All right, I'm going to tell you what I do at Bloomberg. We're going to take a break. I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about an advertiser, a sponsor, and then we're going to come back, and I'm going to give you the answers that you want. And I think that everybody wants in the world

who's listening to this. Paul, have you ever used Squarespace? How? What did you do with Squarespace? My sister and her friends started an online magazine for young, well-educated, Christian women. Really? And they designed it in Squarespace. And you helped them.

I helped her a little bit, but she did most of it herself. When it comes to creating a website, I'm absolutely. You know, the thing is, I understand the web very well. I know nothing about actually creating the things that go on the web, which I think Squarespace is kind of an amazing product. It's simple, it's powerful, it's beautiful, they have 24-7 support via live chat and email,

and it's eight bucks a month, and you get a free domain if you buy Squarespace for the year, which I think is terrific. It's responsive design, something that I think is incredibly crucial in our current age of having multiple screen sizes and multiple ways of getting content. And you can try it right now. If you're listening to this, you can start right this second. You don't need a credit card, and you can start building your website today.

Just sign up at Squarespace.com, use the Out-Offer Code Joshua and get 10% off your first purchase to show support for the podcast. And you know, to make something beautiful on the internet. So thank you Squarespace for your support of tomorrow. Squarespace, build it beautiful. Okay, we're back. And I'm going to answer the question you've all,

you had to listen to that sponsor message You listen to the whole thing because you're just like what is this he do? I'm gonna finally gonna find out so I'm the I'm the editor of Bloomberg Digital and the chief digital content officer of Bloomberg Media What it what it really means is I'm making I'm doing the I'm doing like the web news on the web for Bloomberg. I'm doing the, I'm doing like the web news on the web for Bloomberg. I'm editorially overseeing it. I'm building, helping to build brands there within the news organization. I'm helping to get people more web centric and thinking about the web and to make products that are appropriately modern for the modern web.

And also content, right, I hate the word content, by the way. It's one of my all-time least favorite words, but to make stories and experiences that are the kind of thing that if you're a reader in you're on the internet, you would actually want to see versus just like what people have done for a very long time. So I love the design direction Bloomberg. I'm sure it's all credits, Josh, to post you. Thank you. It's really cool. I wouldn't even call it web-native I'm sure it's all all credits to Josh the Post. Thank you. It's really cool. I wouldn't even call it web native as much as it's just forward thinking. It's just weird and different.

It's really cool. It's very weird. So what is the process? How does the process, are you like an editor in chief? There is just a lot of difference. There is an editor in chief of Bloomberg news that oversees all of the editorial for it's weird because there's, I mean, in a way you can consider me sort of a deputy to that editor and chief.

There's also Josh Tieren-Gelhu who was the editor of Business Week and still is, but is also sort of overseeing a lot of the content at all of Bloomberg. Because, you know, Bloomberg has a huge news team, like 2,500 journalists around the world. Yes, this is the one of the things the reason I went to Bloomberg is because I didn't realize I knew business week which I love as a magazine and in fact when

people would talk about who do you think the verge compete with or who somebody that you think is doing a great job in this space, you know, not in everywhere, not in every department, but business week was always the thing I would say, you know, but the idea that you could take the aesthetic and the humor and the smartness of something like business week and apply it to a much broader range of news. Obviously, a lot of it is focused on business readers and business consumers, but a lot of the stories are, they're good for business people and they're also great stories for the world. Like, we did a story recently on the guy who started, what is the game called, a game of

war, which is that they have the Kate Upton ad during the Super Bowl. It's this online game, you know, world playing game that's just raking in money, which is a great story. So, but the idea is you can take all these resources, all these great resources, and they are making news for the terminal, you know what the terminal is. I've heard of it.

Right, so the terminal is, it has 330,000 customers, they pay $24,000 a year for a terminal. It's this huge vault of information as every possible metric, every data point on commodities and on industries and it's insane, right? Very difficult to use, very complicated to use. Really meant for bankers and traders and people who are dealing with, who have to actually deal with moving that stuff around. Masters of the universe.

When you publish to that, are you publishing like plain text to it? Largely, it's largely plain text. There are links and there are photos and video and things, but it's not like the web. It's not like the web. But the idea that there are, you know, we have people in Iran, there's people in Korea, there's people in Mumbai, you know, all over the world and we have teams of reporters and teams of journalists working on doing really important stories. They are business stories often, but sometimes they're just big world geopolitical stories,

stories about conflict. We do a lot of stories, personal, very personal, small stories too. Any idea that you could unlock that and make it show it to people on the web and make it part of their daily news habit, sort of one of the things that attracted me to the business. So what I do there is a lot, like what I did at the verge, but it's broader. I mean, there's more topics. There are more teams. There are way more people.

And I'm working much more collaboratively with lots of other editors from other areas of the news business. How's that for you? I feel like this sounds very boring on paper. Well, let me say something that you'd be offensive. Offensive. Sure. Sometimes you don't get along with with authority.

Authority figures. How is it being part of a part of a corporation? I think you're right about the authority thing. I think it is not nearly as insane as I thought it would be and horrible. I mean, I did think if there's gonna be one part of this, it's horrible, it's gonna be all of this corporate stuff and all of these people who are my boss.

There's a lot of people there who are effectively, Mike Bloomberg is one of them and it's a person that every once in a while I'll see and talk to and he has opinions about what we're doing and so it's kind of an insane situation. It's actually been awesome. I mean, here's the thing. There's a difference.

I think it's hard. Trouble with authority is tough when they don't value your opinion and don't understand what you do. I think that there is a tremendous, I feel that my opinion is tremendously valued and that they understand what I do. And that's the difference between, I think if you look back at AOL, I think our biggest frustration there. And I think the frustration of many people who are kind of bucking against authority is that you're not listened to and that you're not understood. And I don't feel that way. There are other things that are frustrating because it's a huge corporation. Like

the security is very high there. You know, you can have a car to swipe in and they have, you know, if you pat down. If you forward something to your Gmail account, you'll once in a while you'll get somebody from security saying, we notice you forwarded something to a Gmail account. What's up with that? But other than that, it's actually kind of awesome.

I actually really learned that like, because we would disagree about a lot of things. Many things. I loved to disagree with you because I you wouldn't pretend like you heard what I was saying but you did hear what I was saying and it would factor into your decision making process at some point yes but at the same time having authority like you was a buffer for I could have a crazy idea and I knew you'd say no if it was really a bad idea right but you'd hear it if it was a good one. I'm open to all, any and all ideas.

I mean, I think, I think, I mean, I don't know everything, I don't know anything really. What do I know? You don't know what I know, but I will tell you that I don't know that much. You don't know a lot about Moses. I don't know. I don't know much about the historical Moses.

I know a lot about the character in the Bible. The character. And also the character played by one of my favorite actors, Charlton Heston, and reprised by one of my least favorite actors, Russell Crowe. Did he play Moses in that movie? Is that maybe about Moses? Oh, it was a Christian bail.

Oh, it was a Christian bail? No, no, no. Russell Crowe's in gladio. No, no, Russell Crowe's also in a movie about Moses, isn't he? They just made it. It's about the arc. Am I making this up?

Ridley Scott just did a Moses movie. No, yes. No, that was with Christian bail. Right. But isn't there a Russell Crowe movie? Does Moses have the arc? Oh no, I'm thinking of somebody else. Noah. I think you've Noah. Noah. Russell Crowe plays Noah. Moses gets the arc in the covenant. Right. The arc in the covenant. That's where I got confused. No, Noah is the dude with all the animals in the ark. Right. Russell Crowe plays Noah. Did you see that movie?

No, I don't watch any of those. I don't watch any biblical epics. Right. Because if I want to, cause you're a strict textualist. If I want to read a great story, I'll open, crack open my copy of the Old Testament and take it for a spin as I want to do.

Anyhow, that was that may not, I don't know, I even know what we're talking about at this point. What were we talking about just before we started to make Roswell crap? What are you thinking? Authority figures, like God. Anyhow, so yeah, so it's been great. If the authority figures are not an issue for me.

I'm glad you like it. So, are you doing any writing? I'm doing a little bit of writing. I'm doing, you know, the Apple Watch review. I've just written. 10 out of 10. Well, we don't do a number, we don't do a number. 10 out of 10, we don't do a thousand dollars.

We don't do a number scoring system. For sure. But it would be a 10, no question. Apple, occasionally, not really. I mean, I don't get a chance to write. I mean, I always think I want to write about things get a chance to write. I mean, I always think I wanna write about things. I wanna write about a movie that I love. But that's actually one of the reasons

I'm doing this podcast is because I need an outlet for the weirdness, the weird things that I think and like and the people that I think are interesting. And I don't have, that's a thing that is not, I think, part of my day now, the way it was at the verge, where I would, oh, I love this movie, Life For Us, let's write an article about it,

but that actually has been a tremendous, I feel like a burden has been lifted from me, in that at the verge, everything was always, now I'm just talking about myself, everything was always about everything that I ever thought or liked or was interested in was suddenly, like potentially fodder for an article or a story, some kind of like we should do a video on this or whatever.

And it was actually, I realized after leaving and doing this new job where I could compartmentalize like my job part and my life part that it was sort of unenjoyable at times that everything that I did, if I was watching Saturday Night Live, it was 12, 15 on a Saturday, Sunday morning, and I would see a sketch that I thought would be great

for the site, and I'd immediately scramble online to say somebody should hit this, somebody should cover this. That's an insane way to live, right? I mean, I have this burden, I feel like as a writer, or I think I've got this really great ideas, really great at writing. You are great at writing.

You are great at writing. Anything I think about that I don't ever write down and publish for people is almost like a waste of thought. And maybe that's not a healthy way to live, but I feel like that a lot. Right. Well, I have lists and lists of ideas, which I find I'm never gonna do them.

I have all these ideas for TV shows and short stories, things that I wanna write about. And then I think about there are just things I'd like to write about. Like I wrote something for the verge about John Carpenter's Apocalypse trilogy. Do you remember that? It's about cosmic horror.

Should I make it with cosmic horror? No. Well, it's kind of the idea that it's not exactly supernatural horror. It's horror about things that are of a nature unknown to us, which could appear supernatural. In fact, you may be interested in checking out his film, Prince of Darkness, which is part of the apocalypse trilogy, which is about Satan returning to Earth

to bring about the end of days. And I think if you haven't seen it. That's not like cosmic core. It's cosmic, all right. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. I'll watch that. It's pretty cool. It's also terrifying.

Also Alice Cooper is in it. And I know you love Alice Cooper. And his music. He's the only idea about you. I remember I think the first name of Alice Cooper schools out. Schools out. You know that song, right?

Yeah, it's a forever. Schools out for summer. Schools out. It's like forever. It's like there's a bin diagram of like being an Alice Cooper. That's right in the middle. Schools out is right.

Is it Magnus? Is it schools out? Is it do you know? Okay. And now people can't hear this, but there was a person named Magnus talking to me schools out? Is it, do you know? Okay, and now people can't hear this, but there was a person named Magnus talking to me, who was my producer. So we actually, we're probably getting pretty close to the time that we have to wrap up.

And, and I don't know, I'll be honest with you, I've enjoyed this conversation immensely, and I think that we could have spent a lot more time talking. I have just so many things. And I don't know, and what I really don't know is, was this a success or not? Was this good or bad? What did you think about this conversation?

Five stars. Really? Out of how many stars? Five. That's the highest award if you give it. I just feel like we got a lot more to talk about. What do we not talk about? Should he hit some topics really quickly here?

I spent all my time, most of my time, programming. What do you mean, programming or just regular programming? Regular programming. Okay. What do you program it? Like nothing. Like a really bad at it and I'm always learning. Like you know when you're making an app.

I want to make an app for my little brother. He can't talk and but he can write. And so I can make something he can type something out and then would speak it out loud. That app doesn't exist. There's this app called like ProLoco or something like that. This is really common for like people with developmental disabilities. It's like $400.

So you just have to get out of pain. So it happens this you just don't want to pay for it. I think we bought it in the way they called. What is it called? ProLoco. The people who make that ProLoco, if you have any decency at all, you will send Paul Miller a gift card for your app Immediately if you're even if you even could be considered decent people and if you don't Who knows who knows you're not gonna get into heaven?

They use the broader topic is it so it's really interesting to be able to make make stuff. All right What else and to damn people randomly The other thing I do is gonna be damning people to hell of this podcast. I'm so inspired by your religion. You know what we didn't say is that because people, I think people who've heard me before know this, so I didn't actually make this clear. I'm an atheist. I don't believe in a God.

You don't necessarily, but you think we're living in the matrix, right? I don't, I wouldn't rule it out. I think there's like pretty good, are you going to be made? Are you very strongly from the position? I'm not saying that's how we, that is our, but it does once you start to think about it. I actually, and we said this before, but if you start to think that we do live in the matrix,

it actually is a better argument for religion because then the argument could be this matrix was programmed to the rules of Christianity, therefore, because if it's a simulation, they can make it do whatever of the simulation, they want the simulation to do. Right. They, the, the therefore, because if it's a simulation, they can make it do whatever the simulation, they want the simulation to do. They, the programmers, they made our matrix civilization after a few red bulls. What are some of their hot topics we can speed through here

at the end? I just feel like I do a lot of stuff in my head that never gets out there. Like why? Here's your chance. This is my chance. Do it. I might write a book.

Are you gonna write a book? One of the things you're supposed to write a book. I've been threatening to write a book. Are you gonna write a book? But one of the things you're supposed to write a book. I've been threatening to write a book forever. Here's a new idea though, about the ethics of technology. Now that sounds like I would read it maybe, or I've very least a blurb about it. Would you read a blurb about the ethics of technology? Well, if it's good, it's a good blurb.

I think I'm right, like, because I'm really into philosophy. And I think people don't think much about philosophy. People just do and they don't really reflect on what they do or how they live. I think that's true. I think it's becoming easier and easier with the rise of atheism. That's true. Well, you're book be religious. Well, you're book be religious.

I think about me slightly religious. Don't do it. Make it non-religious. I think it's hard to do an A-religious ethics. I don't know. Depends on what you're really talking about. Okay, I think we've got to wrap up. I really appreciate you having me on the podcast.

I'm glad, I'm so glad. Congratulations. Thank you. Tomorrow. Yeah. Thank you. I'm so glad that you came and I'm so glad you did this. And now after this, we're probably going to talk more

and all the stuff we're gonna say is gonna be amazing and we're not gonna capture it. That's it for this episode of tomorrow. We will be back, actually, we're gonna be back on Monday, the 20th of April with our second episode and then every following Monday until the sun burns out in all life on the earth freezes. And so that's a pretty, that's gonna be a pretty grueling schedule for us.

Paul, thank you for joining me. And thank you, the listener, for hitting play and letting it play all the way to the end. And I have to say, I really appreciate the time and effort you've put into this. And I wish all the best for you and your family, even though we both know what's going to happen. you