Tomorrow - Episode 55: Michael Shane Has No Fear

Episode Date: May 30, 2016

On this episode you will hear Josh and Managing Editor of Bloomberg Digital Michael Shane: -Find out the meaning of Memorial Day -Talk through the lifecycle of a modern newsroom -Discuss how Peter Thiel plans to shut you up -Reminisce about Starship Troopers -Complain about Apple's clunky interfaces -Discover how boring superhero movies are now -End on a positive note Is it funny? Yes. Is it enlightening? Yes. Is it passionate? Of course... but you'll only discover that by listening yourself! Open your ears, mind, and heart to Episode 55 or forever wonder about what could have been. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow, I'm your host Josh Wotsfulski. Today on the podcast we discuss backlash, the apocalypse trilogy, and saga. I don't want to waste one minute, so let's get right into it. I guess today is one of my favorite people. He's a great talker. He's a great friend. He's a great thinker. He's a wonderful, he's wonderful to all of his pets. And he's a man that anybody should feel lucky if they get to call him a friend.

They should feel lucky. I don't know if they do, I certainly do. I'm of course talking about my good buddy, Michael Shane. Hi Josh. Hi, the managing editor of Bloomberg Digital. I'm very, I do love animals. We used to spend a lot of time together, Michael. We were, we've been married. At the verge. In some states we're considered legally married. And Bloomberg, we are considered legally married still and I expect

some serious, serious payout when you kill. Oh, it's coming. I'm looking forward to and I expect some serious payout when you keel. I'm looking forward to your death so I can collect based on that. Yes, right. Just keep paying those life insurance premiums. Of course. I will. Anyhow, Michael, I always love talking to you because we can talk about anything. There's a wide variety of topics to discuss.

Now, I want to say that this is a Memorial Day podcast. People will be listening to this while they're doing a cookout with their family. They're going to be with their friends and loved ones. They're going to be celebrating Memorial Day, which of course, is we all know stands for, it is the day when our, do we know it? The Memorial Day, do you know? I'm giving you a little challenge here. days the holiday where we honor veterans of the United States military what's veterans day well I think oh here's a deal here's a deal I don't really know what memorial days for well I don't look at that right now this is this is the

thing okay people died people who died insert. This is the holiday that the song, that song was written for, the other one that I'm talking about. I don't. You know, I'll probably stand up song next to you and Defender is still today. Hmm. It's about people dying during wartime. Anyhow, you think I should just know

that I'll the top of my head, but for some reason I just blanked completely on Memorial Day So the reality is with Memorial Day, it is a little bit I mean people celebrate and they took out holiday, but it's supposed to be a somber day It's a somber is we should be we should be chill on Memorial Day I mean we should not be celebrating this is a day to remember People who have given their lives defending our country. I assume it's specifically our country. It is United States holidays You know you're not celebrating now if somebody else died defending their country. I assume it's specifically our country. It is United States holidays. You're not celebrating. If somebody else died defending their country, no party for them whatsoever.

Do not. Well, they have their own memorialists. Do not. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. But I'm telling you as an American citizen, do not celebrate them. Right. So memorial days for people who died in service, veterans days for all veterans, living dead past present. That's right. That's right. Frankly, I don't think we can have enough holidays for these people. I would agree with that. Because we'll consider this situation.

You join the military in America. And then someone's like, then John, President Donald Trump is like, hey, why don't we go over to Syria and crack some skulls? And you're like, okay, well, I'm in the military. And then you have to literally shoot people to death or blow them up or be killed yourself for because Donald Trump picked the fight in Syria. That's some fucked up shit, okay? And these guys, these men and women,

deserve a lot of credit for doing it. And frankly, listen, I'll be honest with you. I'm not saying I wouldn't do it, but I'd prefer not to, you know? Well, that's why America has, you know, an all-volunteer army, which is pretty. Why would we need nerds? You know, who's gonna work the switchboard? That's me. Call me up.

You need somebody to get some, get some fixer, a CPU, you know, get install some RAM. You're IT problems. I'm your guy. Do you want me to go get a gun and blow some people away? Probably not your guy. Do you want me to go get a gun and blow some people away? Probably not your guy. The you'd be like the doogie house or character in Starship Troopers. The Neil Patrick.

That's correct. I would be using, I would have some kind of telekinesis. Yeah. We're not telekinesis. What is it when you can, when you can? Yeah, telepathy. Telepathy. I'd have some form of telepathy where it's really sick leather

outfits, like big black leather jacket, sort of Nazi-ish, but not too Nazi. A trench coat. And I would investigate why the bugs wanna kill us. Yeah. Here's the thing, I feel bad for the bugs in Starship Troopers. I don't know if I'm the only person who feels this way,

but at the end of the movie, when they're like, this bug is afraid of us, we can tell them, I'm like, fuck that, the bugs should take out humanity, these people suck. I think that's what Verhoeven wanted. I think he wanted you to be more and more conflicted as the movie went on. I think Starship Troopers is one of the greatest movies of the 20th century.

There's no question. There's absolutely anybody who questions that statement. There's no friend of mine. Is not an American. And should not be allowed to celebrate Memorial Day, but also there's no question that Starship Troopers is one of the all Is not an American. And should not be allowed to celebrate Memorial Day, but also there's no question that a Starship Trooper is one of the all-time great films. And of course one of our Hoven's best.

Yes, absolutely. It's a sophisticated satire. It is. It's not just a Gore Fest. It's not just action for action sake. There's real thought and process in that movie. There's no question in my mind that there's so many there are so many deep layers in Starship Troopers. Yeah.

It's works on it works on a tremendously visceral action film level, but then it totally works on this other, it is tremendous attire, but it does a lot of a lot of a serious commentary about about the state of wars and politics and citizenship. What it means to be a modern person, try to fight an army of bugs. Part of the reason I think it's so disarming is because it's science fiction, it's in space, there's spaceships, and there's futuristic technologies, and it's shiny and cool, but that just gets you to lower your guard.

Right, and then when your guard is down the bug strike and they get you and they stick their thing through you and you're like, oh shit, this bug got me, and then you wake up into that and it's like, I guess I'm okay, but then it turns out you have a robotic pelvis or something. I don't really know, but the point is, the point is the bugs were ruthless,

the humans were ruthless, and at the end of it we had to question what it really means to be a citizen. In any rate, so I didn't bring you on to talking about your troopers though. God knows I could speak through online. I will talk about my special troopers any week, absolutely. I just speak right away. We haven't talked since I wrote my big medium piece about the media, and we've talked a little bit, but we haven't talked in public. No, that's true. But I think I would hope that you were appreciative of the fact that the image I used for that piece was still from the great John Carpenter film, Prince of Darkness.

Yes, yes, definitely. And in fact, I have to say, it's possible that that scene and the film was an inspiration for writing the story about the media because if you haven't seen Prince of Darkness, I don't wanna do a spoiler for you, but in all seriousness, it's from 1982, so if you haven't seen it now, or 1984, then they rate. Have you seen it? Prince of Darkness.

If you say no, I'm gonna go fucking ballistic. I have not seen it. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you kidding me? I'm gonna go fucking ballistic. I have not seen you fucking kidding me. Are you kidding me? I'm gonna see how. How can we even have a friendship? Look, I'll tell you what, how are we even relating to one another in this world?

As soon as we stop recording, I'm gonna go grab Andrea. We're gonna cook up some dinner. Now you're gonna watch Prince of Darkness. Andrea, let's just get this out of the open. Okay, Michael Shane is engaged to be married to a beautiful, lovely woman who he doesn't deserve. And you're getting married soon in July 30th, right? Yes, that's correct. Very exciting.

We're making our plans. We're very excited to celebrate your life. I'm so excited to have you. I'm going to be so blitz that you're wedding. I'm going to get, so it better not be some kind of dry wedding or whatever, because I'm going to go. No, dude. Absolutely nuts on that open bar.

It is there for you to partake. Although, in bars, they're going to be destroyed. I better not be some kind of dry wedding or whatever, because I'm gonna go absolutely nuts on that open bar. It is there for you to partake. And open bar is gonna be destroyed. They're gonna be like, we're out of alcohol, you're gonna say, what happened? And I'm gonna be like, they're gonna slide in there and be like, it was me. You won't be able to, you won't understand what I'm saying

because I'll be so drunk that the words will simply not sound like any kind of language. At any rate. So now you're gonna, you're gonna, you and Andrea are gonna watch Prince of Darkness. I'm making that commitment to you. But before my wedding, we don't want to watch the Prince of Darkness. Well, you really should do is watch the apocalypse trilogy, which is the thing you would

you see in us. Of course. Yeah. And then Prince of Darkness and in the mouth of madness, which is, which is one of John Carpenter's later, well, not later, but it's done in 95, and it's a tremendous movie. If you've been seen in the mouth of madness, I would watch Prince of Darkness and in the mouth of madness back to back, if you really want to thrill.

Okay, I'll do that. I mean, that's like four hours of your day, but whatever. You don't need anything else to do. You only live once, and so I read your medium piece, and I was sort of cheering and fist pumping silently internally. I like that you've been sitting somewhere. I like that you've been sitting in a crowded, in the crowded Bloomberg office,

secretly, quietly fist bumping at your desk. Or maybe you were fist bumping loudly, I don't really know. And I use the term desk loosely because as we all know, there's just one long desk with dividers. Yeah. Actually, I think they are separate desks. I don't know. Now that I think of it, I'm thinking in my mind's eye, I can't quite

picture it. Neither can I. It's a very strange that neither one of us at any rate. But I think the point is you're saying something that that everybody with with half a brain is is thinking. Yeah, what's weird is that most people weren't saying it. I think maybe people are afraid to say it. I don't know. You know what, I'm all about like, I'm like the no fear sticker. Right, let's go fear in the 90s.

Yeah, it was everywhere. Yeah, that's me, no fear. I'm gonna go fear sticker. Put me on your windshield. Put me on your on your driver's side window. Well, look, did you when did you read, when the New York Times put out their one year follow up to the innovation report?

Did you, did you read that? Was that the, was that the February memo about how they're gonna have the events, right? Yeah, the memo where they're like, where are we, is that the, is that the, Oh, no, it was the one before that one. It was last year, I think. No.

Anyway, maybe I did. Go find it, I'm sure. I did. But there was a lot of really stuff in there that I thought was really smart. And basically it boils down to, if you're for big news organizations, I mean, I think the way forward is to when you're looking at what products to make

where to invest your resources, you have to think about the audience, the segment within the audience you have that actually cares about you, that cares whether or not you live or die, that comes to you out of trust and out of loyalty, the audience that you've earned. And I think we're going to see more and more news and media organizations orienting their decisions, resourcing products, all of it around the audience that that cares and that and that signals that it cares Whether it's through their behavior or in the case of something with a paywall with their wallet, but either way I mean that's the audience that I think is going to sustain both newsrooms and

advertisers which are also necessary For most newsrooms going forward and that's why I agreed with pretty much everything you said. And frankly, I haven't found one person yet who is willing to say they disagree with you. No one can say they disagree with it. Here's the nice thing because it's 100% correct. And I wrote it out of just utter frustration at watching the industry act like complete assholes.

I mean, people, so many people in our industry are acting like, here's the, you know, I actually shouldn't be so harsh. Look, the reality is like, we've known this forever. Some of you actually are really funny. Some of you tweeted at me today, and they were like, they tweeted a long form podcast that I did years ago. I remember that.

And they're like, oh, Josh Topolsky still has the same ideas about, you know, quality and clickbait that he did in, you know, when he found it the version, it was like, I think maybe a year after we started or something. And it's like, yeah, I don't know any other way to be. Like, I don't know, I mean, I can understand how you can make shit, but like, I don't want to, who wants to do that? Who wants to build their life around that? I get it like, you know, the problem is like, it's like, should everybody be, should everybody be doing this? Like, how much,? How much content can humanity possibly support?

Like, I think there's a real question to ask there, which is like, can all the content make it? And I do think, you know, like, there is a good, there is a good argument we made that we can't make all the, we can't have all the content, right? There has to be some whittling down. Well, and I think for large news organizations, for me, part of the solution to that is a future that

involves a very heavy dose of personalization. In terms of product features, what news is delivered where and when at Bloomberg, my big mantra in the newsroom is write story, write format, write platform, write time, write audience. And then you have to get all five, right? And I think you're going to find, over time, especially in big newsrooms that produce a high volume of stories, I don't know if we'll see the number of stories go down as long as we should.

The size of the newsroom is about the same, but I think what you will see is that. Oh, we're going to see numbers go down as long as the size of the newsroom is about the same, but I think what you will see is that. Oh, we're going to see numbers go down. Well, maybe. But I think the key is that that five point checklist I just enumerated, I think you're going to add sort of personalization, a sprinkle of personalization to all of it, to make it all a lot more effective. Because that's the only way to deliver an audience, the audience that says they care about you, if you put out 200, 300 stories a day, the only way to make sure that every single person who's part of the audience that is loyal and cares

and is actively engaged, the only way to take care of those people at scale is really fantastic personalization. Across plastic. Well, I think that's probably true, but I would also say that we have to, we have to, and this is kind of my underlying argument about all of it.

And by the way, I just wanted to talk about the fact that I used to steal from Prince of Darkness, but I will talk about this more. My underlying question to the industry and to me and to everybody, like to myself and to everybody else is like, what size should your business be? Because I think when you talk about scale, like we don't know, we actually are very confused

about this answer. Like we're not sure what appropriate scale for a business is in media. We think because there is infinite audience or presumably infinite audience, that we should be able to maybe we should be able to get that audience, right? I mean, if you say there's three billion people

on the internet, like what's to stop me from assuming that every one of them could be, if you say there's three billion people on the internet, like, what's to stop me from assuming that every one of them could be my customer? Like, there's no barrier to them being my customer. All that to do is like, okay, maybe if you're in China, you can't get to my website or whatever, but like, just basically, you could make an argument, right? If I'm a news business, you could say, well,

we don't offer news about India yet, but maybe we should because there's a big audience in it. And we don't offer news about China yet, but we should because there's a big Chinese audience. And on and on, and that Bloomberg, of course, is a global business, so it's a little different. Bloomberg is by its nature, a foundationally, a global business. But many businesses are not, right? That's absolutely true. Many businesses are very localized, and then they're like, okay, wait a second.

So my point is, but you could also say, hey, there's 300 million people in America. How many are online? I don't know. At least half, probably more. More than that, yeah. I would hope more than that at this point. I should know this number off the top. I have it anyway. You might say every American is our customer, but is every American your customer?

And I would say this, if you really know what the fuck you're talking about, your answer is definitely not. And also like, no, way, way less than everyone. And like, in fact, a much smaller number than the one we probably have. That's what I would say. I would say is like, what I would say is like the real audience is probably smaller than the number you think it is. And that's good. If you know, if you know what to do with that audience, I think the reality is, and this is something you and I have probably talked about many times. It's really way too easy to say yes on the internet. Yes, and it's much harder to say. I just did it. I just did it on the internet. Boom, see? So it's hard. It's hard to say no and no one wants you to say no and it's like, you know, it's one of those things where it's

It's like well, maybe one more won't hurt You know, I said one more piece of you know you have you know, you get that bag of Hershey kisses Yeah, I mean like for like Halloween or Valentine's you know, you think of that bag of Hershey kisses? Yeah. I mean, like for like Halloween or Valentine's Day or something, you get the big bag of Hershey kisses. And Hershey kisses are really small, you know? And you're like, oh, you know, I'm gonna have like five. And you're like, all right, whatever.

And then you're like shit, the bag, this bag's a sitting here. And then you have, and then you have diabetes. So for a bag is gone in here, and you die. You drop dead from several horrible ailments. But you know, it's, it is like that. It is like, you don't You dropped dead from several horrible ailments, but it is like that. It is like, you don't kind of realize all you're saying yes to these things

over and over again, and before you know it, you're like, oh, why did I eat? It's like this Mexican meal that I had just before I did the podcast. We started it. We started it. I had to go out to Molybreda, which is a really delicious,

I'm sure you can imagine what it is, but anyway, I was like, look, I could have just had a few chips. I didn't. I had all the chips. And now I'm paying for it. Okay. Yeah. I mean, this conversation is pure torture for me. You have to be really rigorous about what you say yes to and what you say no to. I agree. And in a business, the bigger it gets, the more true is why. You know, there's a lot of competing pressures, but ultimately, the reason it becomes difficult to say no to things is when you have, once you reach a certain number of people involved in the business, it is inevitable that there will be different definitions of what success

is, operating at the same time. And that's when things really start to get messed up. And that's when you have disagreements over what you should say, yes, too, and what you should say no to. And so you have to sort of come together and hold hands at some point and really say this is who we are, and this is what we're about, Tard.

Wow, there's a abrupt end there. Yeah. You get distracted by an email, didn't you? No, I didn't, definitely didn't. You just tried it by a tweet. No, don't a abrupt end there. Yeah, you had distracted by an email didn't you? No, I didn't definitely didn't just try to buy a tweet No, don't even have Twitter open. I'm so I'm so objective In this conversation. I'm also jacked in we are so pure. No, we're totally untainted by the by the flow and flood of content on the internet But I've been having this conversation a lot with people. I mean, I would have I mean it's I'm sure it's very boring at this point But I do feel like it's not boring to me because I think the stakes are here,

the stakes for me, we either go in the direction that we're going as an industry, and we keep making this commodity shit, which everybody makes, almost everybody makes. I don't care what your business is. I don't care if it's like your high quality or your local, you say whatever you say, you're making most people are making commodity stuff. And by the way, sometimes you want to make like the cheap easy stuff because it's fun to do, and you're into it and you get something good to say,

I totally understand that happens. But you know, the reality is like, for me, the way I think of it is this is a philosophical issue. And my philosophical issue is if my job has to be making content for a vague idea of an audience. And the content is increasingly not useful and not meaningful and insult the intelligence of its audience. Then I don't want to be in that business.

Well, look, maybe this is just a word game, but maybe the job is not making content. The job is, who is your audience and what's your agreement with them? Are they coming to you because you've agreed that you will entertain them? Is it that you've agreed that you will inform them, that you'll edify them somehow? And that's the job, of course, to me is to meet

that agreement. There's nothing wrong with entertainment. And in that, of course, that's what you do, then by all means, but I think that we have this confused the situation that confuses entertainment and actually nothing for something meaningful. Well, I would pass this it off. I would edit, let me edit you real fast.

I would say we're in a situation where people are confusing scale with something meaningful. Mm, I couldn't agree with you more. I just finished my coffee and it was great. Worth every penny I paid for it. It's, Pete, it was a cake up. Oh, nice. Yeah, I'm not promoting Pete's.

I'm just saying that's pretty good cake up. Have I ever told you how much I like my cake up machine? No. I'm again, also not promoting curry again anyway. In fact, I think they're fairly despicable for creating a DRM version of cake ups, but But I power but a lot of people you know look a lot of people are coffee snobs. In that by the way I like a good cup of coffee. I enjoy a tasty Slowly made pour over or whatever the hot new way to get coffee is yeah, but also like I'm just trying to get some fucking coffee in my mouth, okay?

You know, I'm just trying to get caffeine in my mouth, down my throat and into my brain. Let me tell you about a new kitchen appliance I have. I'm very fond of it. By all means. I got a Breville centrifugal juicer. It's one of the juicers with a plunger, you know, and it's got the spinning thing.

Yes, it's very good. It's very good. It's like a whole apple and drop it in. That reminds me, I just thought of, you know, and it's got the spinning spinning thing. And it pulls the rises. It's very good. Take like a whole apple and drop it in. That reminds me, I just thought of you mentioning this, because I know you got a lot, you said a wedding shower, didn't you? Yeah, we did have a wedding shower. I just remembered what I got you for your wedding.

Hold on, hold that thought. One, I don't want you to tell me. I'm not gonna be surprised. I will tell you. So anyway, I've been making green juice. Check out what's in this juice. Yeah. All right, we got a lot of celery.

Yeah. A lot of kale. Sure lot of celery, a lot of kale, sure, of course, a couple of cucumbers. This is all news to me, man. You got a nice some lemon, some ginger, and some green apples. You got to put something in there like an apple because otherwise it's undrinkable. Exactly. Well, that's what the ginger, the lemon, and the apple, or make it drink my mouth water right now. That's what I need right now is a green juice to. Well, come on over. I need right now is a green juice. Well come on over I got a whole picture. I'm gonna be right there. I'm on my way right now to your house And I expect a very large cold glass of green juice. It'll be ice cold ice cold What do you do you put ice in it? Well, I keep a big frozen veggies

Well, I make a lot and so then I can fill up like a pretty sizable picture And then I just keep the picture in the fridge and I you know, it's good for like 24 hours So I try to try those go crazy in your area.. And I, you know, it's good for like 24 hours. So I try to drive it. It's like, I was going crazy in your area. Yeah, it's, you know, it's Brooklyn. It's around the white. I love it. Let's listen to the sounds. Listen to the raw sounds of New York.

Anyhow, what were we talking about? Oh, we're talking about content. Right. So we were talking about Prince of Darkness. And we were talking about the Starship Troopers. It was all very good stuff. Anyhow, the point is, we need to talk about Peter Teal. Okay.

Let's do it. I think here's what I'm doing. I think I want to take a break. All right. I think we've been going for like 20 minutes or something. That's correct. Easily. You got to monetize this. I got to monetize this content.

Okay. This content's not going to monetize itself. Exactly. So we're going to take a break and listen to a word from our sponsor, which you'll hear the words from me. Okay, and then we're going to come back with more Michael Shane. Great. Tomorrow is brought to you by Video Blocks, a video block, as a subscription-based stock media company that gives you unlimited access to premium stock footage.

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Okay, we're back with Michael Shane Michael hmm, I said we want to talk about Peter Teal. Teal, man. I'm gonna set this up. I'm gonna set this up for real quick for the people who don't know. So last week, Nick Den didn't interview with the New York Times. And he said, look, I think a billionaire,

a Silicon Valley billionaire has actually been bankrolling the Hulk Hogan trial. As we all know, G billionaire has actually been bankrolling the Hulk Hogan trial. As we all know, Gokka was found guilty in this Hulk Hogan trial. They were, get this crazy, Hulk Hogan was awarded a crazy amount of money, like $150 million or something. Yeah, I believe it was $140. $140.

And there were some unusual things about the case that sort of, I guess, led Denton to suspect that the person who was, the person who was about backing Hogan's case, Hallhogan's case may be somebody that we didn't suspect. Anyhow, so it turns out that the person backing these, that lawsuit in several others is a billionaire named Peter

Teal Peter Teal is amongst other things. He's on the board of Facebook. He's one of the PayPal founders or one of the very early investors in PayPal and a handful of other. He's not a PayPal founder is he? Information you and I both should know, but neither one of us do once again. I mean, he was part of the PayPal mafia. The PayPal mafia. That's correct. He's also behind Palantir, but he's

invested in Facebook, LinkedIn, yeah. I'm sorry, he co-founded PayPal. I was right. So there you go. Yeah, anyhow, so he made a half a million dollar investment in Facebook in August 24, sorry, 2004. Anyhow, he's a very rich guy. And he basically, so I think his, the issue with Gogger started many years ago when they wrote an article about him, essentially outing him, he's gay. Correct. And they wrote this article, which is a really stupid article,

which is like, hey, Peter Till is really gay. And I think, look, I mean, Gogger's point, and I'm not going to defend that story or many of the stories that teal and other people take issue with, because I take issue with them. Their point was sort of like, they were sort of poking fun at the idea

that there's some sensitivity in Silicon Valley with that this other investors may not be 100% comfortable with gay investors, you know, which is, I don't know if it's true or not, but that was sort of some of the, some of the notions they were putting forward in this article. I think the point is in order to have a productive sort of sensible conversation about what's going on, you almost have to abstract Gawker out of it, because Gawker is such a polarizing business. You can abstract Gawker, but it's important to say that the beginnings of Peter Teel's anger stem from what appears to be an article that was like outing him in public, just

saying, hey, this guy's gay publicly, and maybe he wasn't ready to or didn't want to talk about and felt like it was innovation or privacy. And there were more articles about him and people that he considers friends. And look, Gokker has done some really ugly reporting. There's no question. By the way, I'm so tired of talking about Gokker. They've been in the news so much lately,

but it's really important in our industry. At a moment where we're talking about the future of the media industry. And you look at these forces that are at work and here's the deal. It's really important in our industry at a moment where we're talking about the future of the media industry. And you look at these forces that are at work and like, here's the deal. So Peter Teales well, totally within his legal rights to give money to people who are suing gocker to support them monetarily. Okay.

This is called litigation finance and it's actually a lot more common than most people realize. Right. And it happens, by the way, it happens in lots of positive ways as well. There are a lot of the ACLU, for instance, funds, helps to fund lawsuits that people bring. Yeah. There are a lot of situations where this is like, yeah, you want people doing this. And I certainly, I'm not arguing that this shouldn't be legal, right? Right.

But what I would argue, what is scary and you can, by the way, you can feel this already is this idea that if Peter Teal doesn't like what you write about him, this is what he's saying. It's very clear. If Peter Teal doesn't like what you write about him, he will find any avenue possible to ruin your business. And Peter Teal has a lot more money than most media businesses, okay? He's worth like 2.2 billion or 2.8 billion. He'll, by the way, side note, Peter Teal's also backing Donald Trump, okay? So just really quickly, like just, let's stop here for a second. Let's put aside Peter Teal's grievances with Gokker and the legal right that he has to sue through other people Gokker.

I think if you're endorsing Donald Trump, there's something wrong with you. I think that you're broken in some way. And I'm not gonna poll any punches. I will say that I think people who are like, Donald Trump would be a good president. There's something, there's something that either they don't see, which every, which most I think rational people see,

or there's something they don't understand, which means there's something wrong with them. I think Donald Trump is a really dangerous guy. I think he's a shitty guy for starters, but I think in the idea of him being president, he's a dangerous guy. And so I don't know why what Peter Teal's reasoning is guy for starters, but I think in the idea of him being president, he's a dangerous guy. And so I don't know why what Peter Teal's reasoning is for backing Donald Trump, but that

makes me very scared of what kind of person Peter Teal is, right? It alarms me. Because Donald Trump's not a good guy. He's like a horrible racist. I mean, literally, there's just an article, great article, which everybody should read about the speech he gave in San Diego, where he spent an hour of his, sorry, part of his hour of his speech to an large audience. He spent 12 minutes talking about a judge in a case, a personal case against Donald Trump's school, his bullshit school or whatever. Trump

Trump Institute or whatever it's called. He's been 12 minutes talking about this guy, and he was like, we think he's a Mexican, that's fine, it's no big deal, but we think he's a Mexican. Oh yes, and he was, the person was born Indiana, born Indiana, born and raised in Indiana and went to school in Indiana, whatever. I mean, but just this is like dangerous talk, right? So I think Donald Trump's a dangerous shitty person.

I think the people who endorse Donald Trump might be, I'm not entirely sure, but might be dangerous shitty people as well. So here's the only thing I'll add to that because I think that was a pretty complete statement there. That was just a detour just to talk a little bit about where Peter Teals coming from. There was one of the professors at the Naval War College. His guy name is Tom Nichols.

He's on Twitter at Radio Free Tom. He's a professor at the Naval War College. So it's not a huge logical leap to assume that he is probably right of center. But he did a pretty short tweet storm this past week where he basically reminded people in clear, like step by step terms, that whoever is elected president has control of thousands of nuclear weapons. Weapons that could completely obliterate most of the planet in about 30 minutes. Right, and by the way, people don't remember that because it's been so long

even in the Bush era. Right. W. You know, George Bush sucked in many ways. because it's been so long, even in the Bush era, W. George Bush sucked in many ways, but I never was like, oh, he might launch a nuclear attack on somebody for no reason. I mean, you get the impression that the very least he would be reigned in by the people around him.

Donald Trump doesn't even have people around him. Right, and so obviously this professor, Tom Nichols was saying, I'm not comfortable with Donald Trump as president. But the point is that something we should all remember before we go vote, we're not just voting for the person who's going to be appointing Supreme Court justices or the person who is ultimately held responsible for the economy, even though that's kind of BS. And we're not just voting for the

person who tries to decide or influence whether taxes go up or down. We are voting for someone who can literally launch a nuclear strike. Hey, he could destroy the world. I mean, I don't think he will, but I think it's like, it's, he's shitty enough that I would be concerned about it. But, Hold on, this is just,

that's just the first thing I wanted to mention about Peter Teal's character. Right, let's get back to the gocker. Well, I want to, no, I want to give back to some other, I want to say some other things about Peter Teal. Peter Teal has character. Right, let's get back to the meet the gocker. No, I want to know, I want to give back to some other, I want to say some other things about Peter Teal. Peter Teal has voiced publicly that he feels that women's suffrage is should not have occurred in that, and that women shouldn't have the right to vote

and that it upset the balance of democracy, of a democratic society. That's all I want to say. So Peter Teal doesn't think women should have the right to vote. Peter Teal is creating, is investing in sea-steading, which is a plan to build floating man-made islands that are free from the laws of any country. Right, international waters. Yeah, so they can do whatever it is they want to do, but I assume something horrible.

We've seen the island of Dr. Moro, so you can just go ahead and imagine. Look, what I've been thinking about this week is just that there's basically no situation in which revenge is a healthy impulse. And you just have to think about the level of revenge Teal has decided he wants to, you know, exact upon Gawker. You know, what is this? Eight years in the making or something like that? And so regardless of what you think of Gawker, it's a little, I think it's a little scary. So the point is that this guy, you probably don't agree with most. If you're listening to me and you like,

you like listening to me ever, which maybe not, it will be the case for most people listening, but you probably don't, you probably would not like Peter Teele, you probably would not think he's a good guy with good ideas. But the important thing is that, here's what I get to, like here's the deal. I understand it's legal, I understand he's mad. But I know in my gut, and I'm not just saying this,

like listen, Gawker is literally the hardest fucking business to defend in the world. Like they make British tabloids look classy, okay? Like they make the worst of the worst look pretty good, right? They've done some really heinous stuff. Like they wrote this story about this conda nasi fo. They like basically outed him and wrote this story about how he is having an affair.

And it's just really ugly stuff. And this is the thing that really kind of like was the, I feel like it was a little bit of a nail in the coffin for gochers like credibility to a lot of people. But the point is like they're the hardest thing in the world to defend. And so understand that when I defend them, I'm coming at it from the perspective of a guy who's like, fuck these dudes, they're the hardest thing in the world to defend. And so understand that when I defend them,

I'm coming at it from the perspective of a guy who's like, fuck these dudes, they're doing horrible shit. Well, so the thing that the problem with teal, sorry, and then I'll let you jump in. There's, I don't have any, there's no legal, I can we can all say, look, it's his first amendment and he's freedom of speech and all this stuff. And that goes both ways, but there's something wrong.

I know it in my gut that there's something wrong that a person can do this. It's like giving, like, do I think that they have committed a crime that should be punishable by death? No, I don't. Is this some, do they commit the equivalent of journalistic murder? You know, do they slander somebody? Do they write lies that were completely unfounded in an attempt to destroy a person's life?

No, they didn't do that. I mean, most of the things, the vast majority of the things they've done have been legal. And by the way, I think that when this, if this Hulk Hogan case ever gets to the Supreme Court, which it is increasingly likely that it will given the stakes in this. And just so you know, and there's another side

that I wanna talk about a little bit, but I don't think this stands at the Supreme Court level. I don't think Hulk Hulcogan's ruling stands, okay? Well, I think you get that case out of Florida and there's gonna be a very different ruling. You get in front of a Supreme Court and they're gonna look at it very differently. I think most people at the very least expect the judgment

to be significantly reduced. Oh yeah, but I think that the precedent that it sets is very difficult for the Supreme Court to look at. Right, well look, it's interesting that you use that word precedent because that's for me and I'm not sort of saying I'm taking a side on this, but the interesting thing is that even if you believe that like, teals, motives really are like just revenge. Like there's no conspiracy.

Because remember, this is also a guy who's made significant contributions to the committee to protect journalists, right? So he's saying, I'm just going after Galker, but the scary thing is what he's done is he's revealed a playbook that any one of sufficient means of course. Of course. If they haven't already thought of the idea. So we've talked about every one.

It's a scary precedent. It's a scary precedent. That every one who feels like, you know, you listen to these guys like Chris Saka, you know, who's as far as I can tell, he means outspoken, but he seems like a fairly reasonable guy. And he's tweeting about, he's like, yeah, God burn and hell,cker. And it's like, I just don't think they understand the scope. As often as the case in Silicon Valley, what is invested in and what is done

from a technical or business standpoint is not seen through the eyes of an ethical standpoint, right? It's not looked at as an ethical question ever. It's looked at as a business or an investment or a technology question. And I think there's a really similar, I think there's something that's really similar that's going on here where it's like step back for a minute and look at the long-term impact and the message that this sends. And you're telling me that the next time there's a story that somebody has about Peter Teal that may be in the public interest for people to know and may need to be written because Peter Teal is a powerful

man with a lot of money who can do a lot of things both good and bad for the world. The next time that writer goes to write that story and takes it to their editor and their editor has to make a decision, you're going to fucking tell me that they're not thinking about their business being sued out of existence by an angry, sad, little billionaire who has to have his way, who doesn't like to be talked about badly in the press. You know, because that's the reality of the situation. Well, if it's not teal, it could be anyone else, right? It could be Chris Sacker. It could be a thousand other, or you know, 10,000 other very rich people. And by the way, like again, it's not about the legality

of it, it's about the precedence. It's also about like what Peter Teal hopes to accomplish, right? It's like destroying Gokker couldn't possibly be his sole goal, right? That couldn't be it. He wants the type of journalism that Gokar does to not exist. And you see other, by the way, other founders and other investors have tweeted about

this or talked about it publicly. And they say, yeah, you know, these guys didn't play by the rules. They didn't do journalism the way we think they should do it. And it's like, well, it's not your decision how they do journalism, right? Well, this is, did you read what Ben Thompson over at Stratekery wrote about the whole Tills situation? Uh, I think I did. It was a piece that he published what like four days ago. Yeah, Thursday.

It's called Peter T.O. Comic Book Hero. It's really, it's, it's very smart. It's very measured. Um, but he, he, in a follow up sort of post on Twitter, you know, he, he said he said, let me find this for you. The concern I have is the sense I get in the tech industry that the press is a bully to be fought against.

Wake up, tech is dominant. The press is completely subservient. Look at Teals, Slash Facebook, versus Galker with a business lens. If tech doesn't wake up to its own power, it runs the risk of doing stupid things that lead to regulation. And then he goes on because he obviously is against most regulation and tech. But the point is, I would also look at it from another

point of view, which is right now, the dynamics around Silicon Valley look a lot like they have around Wall Street in the past. And I think that Silicon Valley needs to be very careful that they don't end up on the wrong side, sort of on the wrong side of the American psyche. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, this is ugly. This is ugly stuff. And I mean, gocker's ugly,

but here's a Vinod Kostla responding to Kara Swisher about this case. Kara says, this is a tweet. In 2007, Peter Teal told me media was dead. Now he's trying to kill one media company. And here's what KOSLA says. This is of KOSLA ventures. Clickbait journalists need to be taught lessons.

Far less ethics and more click chasing in press today. I'm for Teal, right? Teaching people lessons in this way is insane. I mean, that's to say that like, that's like saying like, we need to smash the windows of the stores to, you know, make sure they, you know, they get in line, right? Looks like kneecaps and people to make sure they get in line with what we want, how we want to be covered. So by the way, so I'll say this, Pierre Omadar, who is the founder of First Look Media. I was just gonna bring him up. Yeah, I just wanna say, Superior Oman Dar who is also a former PayPal, I don't know, I guess he was an investor,

I'm not sure how this works actually, because he didn't work with Tiel. He says he's never met him actually, which is interesting. Anyhow, Pierre Oman Dar who has more money than Peter Tiel, by orders of magnitude. Well remember Oman Dar founded eBay eBay and then eBay bought this. Oh, sorry. That's what happened.

That's right. Yeah, that's totally forgot. He founded eBay. These days in model of the companies, it's almost like they came out of, like they've been there forever, like PayPal and eBay. eBay is my oldest active internet account. I've had an eBay account for like 16 years. I mean, they're so naturally part of the internet.

Now, it's like you kind of don't even you're like, oh yeah, right. eBay started at some point. Yeah. You know, like eBay didn't exist and then it did. But anyhow, Umma Djar is financing, helping Gokka to finance their legal battle against this, which I think is amazing and awesome of him.

But here's the deal. I hear what I really think. I see two, there's two really dark things that happen as they fall out to this, right? And again, I wanna stress, anybody who's like, oh, Gokersucks, they deserve to die, like I get it. But I don't think, I think that they've done some really shitty stuff. Icker sucks, they deserve to die. Like, I get it. But I don't think, I think that they've done some really

shitty stuff. I don't think they deserve to die. And I also think they've done some really important stuff. And you can say what you want, but the reality is, like, this is the presses, it can be ugly, it can be dirty. It can not always look that nice. But it is often the things that are most controversial and most hard to stomach.

Not always, but often. Those are the things that change the conversation and change people's minds, and they're really important. Goggharr has done some really important journalism. See what you will. They just broke a huge story about Facebook. Michael Nunez, who I had on the podcast a couple weeks ago, and a Katie Drummond, who are old friend, who's now the editor and chief of of his mode, I've been working on this story.

They just broke all of this news about the trending news thing in Facebook and a huge important story, very much in the same vein as this teal story. So it's like, yeah, you know what, you can talk shit all you want about Gokker, but the reality is they've done, I think they've done more good than bad, but also the things that we don't,

there's no, at this point, the reality is the Hulk Hogan verdict is the first time that a meaningful verdict has been brought and won against them in terms of the journalism they've done. And I don't know that that verdict is going to hold up in a real test and a real court. I'll be surprised if it does. Because I think they had a lot working against them in this case. There was evidence that wasn't in the Florida case. I think they had a jury that was very unsympathetic and almost every way and didn't really understand

the complexity. I mean, some of the questions the jury in this case were asking suggested that they didn't understand the complexity and the intricacies of what journalism is. They're asking if one of the female out of their slept with Nick Denton, as a question, as if it had any relevance to the case itself. At any rate, here's the deal though. I think there's two really bad outcomes from this that happen concurrently. And I think everybody should consider it. The first is that it has this chilling effect. And that it forget about the phrase chilling effect is that the first is that it makes people

think twice when they're doing real journalism. It makes them worried and scared and makes them less likely to do important journalistic work. The second is that I think this creates this idea that Ben Thompson raises about bullying, or that the press has to be fought. To me, my gut reaction is like if Peter Tiel thinks that silencing Gokker or anybody he doesn't like, who writes something about him that he doesn't like

is the way to proceed. Then I think we should, everybody should make it a big part of their job to watch what Peter Teal does, to cover what Peter Teal does, to talk about and expose as much about Peter Teal as is reasonable. But I think he becomes a bigger target in terms of storytelling. I think he becomes, I think he becomes a bigger target in terms of storytelling.

I think he becomes, I think he should be more scrutinized because if he's holding himself to the standard and saying like, this is where he draws the line, I think we need to be really clear on like, who's drawing the line. And so I worry that it becomes what happens is, and I'm not saying that people should do this, but I'm saying that what happens is you end up in this real battle between the billionaire class and journalists. And I think it can get very ugly for everybody. Well, we'll just have to see, you know, what happens going forward.

I mean, Teal can fuck with Gawker, but he can't fuck with the New York Times and the LA Times and the New Yorker and all of the people who are going to defend not Gokka themselves, but the idea that Gokka does, does, does, does to exist. You know, you may not like River Murdoch and many of his publications, but I would fight to the death to say that he deserves to have those things, you know, and he's written some heinous shit. And by the way, River Murdoch and his people who've worked for him have actually been convicted of like literally hacking into people's email. You know, you were talking about like crimes against the people they cover.

I mean, Glockert didn't hack anybody's email. They're not smearing people with lies. I mean, there's stories as much as it sucks to admit, like there is, you can probably argue there's some news value as it sucks to admit, like there is, you can probably argue there's some news value to the fucking Hulk Hogan story. I mean, I wouldn't argue it. I wouldn't want to be in that position because I would never do that story.

Right, and yeah, it's a derp. I mean, God would certainly say that there's news value and that's up for interpretation, but I think- It's up for interpretation, but it's not so cut and dry. It's not so cut and dry that you can- Well, what very few things are, but if you abstract Galker out of the equation, I think the point is,

it sets a scary precedent, and it's sort of, what remains to be seen, or whether is whether or not this opens up some kind of Pandora's box, right? Or if a line has been crossed, that can never be uncrossed, so to speak. And it's, to some extent, it's completely up to Peter Teal. So the scary thing is that only time will tell just how pervasive this will be.

Right. I mean, anyhow, it's very dark and it's very depressing and it puts everybody in the uncomfortable position of having to defend Gokker, which nobody really likes. Yeah, that's the thing. Yes, exactly. I like, I know a lot of people Gokker, I like a lot of people there.

And I really do think they do some great shit. You know, if you look at Dead Spin and Jezebel and Gismoto, and there's plenty, you know, gocker, there's gocker itself, and then there's all of these other sites, LifeHacker. I mean, I-09, just like really good Kotaku. I mean, these are like, you know, say what you will, but they've all done, at turns,

done really, really good stuff. Yes, there's great stuff. They aren't where they're at by accident. They built that over a long period of time where they were making stuff that no one else on the internet was making for a very long time. You know, as a person who competed hard with one of their properties, I can tell you like,

yeah, they earned their position by doing real journalism. Like, you know, you may not like it, but they their position by doing real journalism like, you know, you may not like it But it that they got there by doing and not just not just real journalism but new journalism and I think I Think it's easy to forget that they actually helped to pave the way for a lot of I mean look let's put this way You know without Gokka there's no end gadget. I'd end gadget. I never do this. The verge never happens.

If OxMedia probably doesn't exist. Uh, but, you know what I mean? Like, honestly, if you look at all the threads of all of the Gokker, people have gone off and created amazing things. They have foundationally built a lot of... Wire cutter. I'm wire cutter in the all. And there's on and on and on there's so many things

high and low like big and small any how the point is You know, we don't need to have a funeral for a gocker yet But I'm just saying that I think the Tillshit is is whack and and I think he's in the wrong and I think that you say what you will about it Like it just feels wrong to me like it feels wrong. I know it may be legal But what he's doing seems wrong, and I hope that it stopped. I really do. I hope that he comes to a senses.

What I'd really like is that, is that Teal says, you know what? I've brought you to your knees. You get the picture. Let's move on. That doesn't seem likely. That doesn't seem likely, but you know, it's like there's no positive end. It's not a victory if he wins.

It just isn't. And I'm sure at this point he must understand it. Well, he's, look, the guy didn't get where he is by being anything less than insanely intelligent, right? So... Oh, maybe. I don't know. I'm sure he's very intelligent. I I don't know. I'm sure he's very intelligent. I don't really know. I'm telling you. It's

that's a scary precedent. I've been a lot of very rich people know right? That's smart though. I'll say that. True. But I, you know, he, he has made, you know, he's created things. Sure. But point is, it's that's a scary precedent. And it's going to be, it's not going gonna be a boring summer. No, but you know, hopefully it will be not too bloody of a summer. Here's all I want is I just want I don't want Donald Trump to be the president of the United States of America.

Mostly because it'll be embarrassing because I won't be able to talk to any of my friends for other countries because they'll laugh at me and spit on me. All right, we have to find some of you have to end on a positive. We got to go up. We got to go up from here. This is very dark. I was going to be able to have an apple, but I don't think we should do that because that'll be that'll be also dark We tell my blackberry have I tell my blackberry with anybody I touch a little bit with Paul Miller But you haven't listened that episode. I haven't listened to that one speaking of Trump

Speaking of Trump you should listen that episode Paul's a Trump man Which is you know, not surprising. It's America, it's the great experiment. Everyone's entitled to their own game. Oh, it's an experiment. It's an experiment, all right. I do love this country, though.

It is a great country. It's the country that brought us Hamilton, the smash hit musical. Yeah, it brought us a lot of cool stuff. America rules, you know? That's the thing I don't get. People are like, make America great again. It's like, you know, I's the thing I don't get. People are like, make America great again. It's like, you know, I mean, not people, Donald Trump.

I just feel like, I don't think it's not great. I think we are empirically better off than we have ever been. Yeah, except for Gawker. They're having a stressful time. They're having a little bit of a bad moment. I don't know what else is there to talk about, you know? I did want to talk a little bit about the um I thought uh I talked I talked to this about this a bit with Paul but I think it's a really

interesting place to explore which is this idea about the future of interfaces and apples sort of lack of leadership there. And I have to say I'm I curious about WWDC and if they're going to do something. Now, do you say lack of leadership because they have, because Siri is obviously not the most powerful, the best voices that out there? No, actually, I would back up from Siri for a second and I would say what really has become clear is the lack of of intuitiveness. Now, not any mobile device is perfect, but the lack of intuitiveness in Apple's interfaces at every level is pretty striking.

Now do you feel like it earlier versions of iOS were better? Is that what you're saying? I think that we had less, I think that our needs were less sophisticated in earlier versions. I think that as services, as social networks and connected services have expanded, as we have lived more and more of our lives online and we've had more and more of our lives brought into the mobile devices in our pockets, I don't think that Apple has done a great job of keeping pace with that, with the experience devices in our pockets. I don't think that Apple has done a great job

of keeping pace with the experience of the modern consumer. And I would say like a great example is, I mean, Apple music is a place to start, right? As an example of a place where it doesn't seem to keep pace with the use cases and the natural behavior of a modern consumer, but all across their mobile

operations. But that's what you're saying specifically that you're talking. These are critiques of the interface. Well, it's interface, it's not just interface, it's services, it's interface. But think about this. Interface is increasingly influenced by predictiveness, right? There are, like my Android phone is much better making assumptions about what I wanna do. How so? How so? Okay, here's a good example.

Yeah, hit me. When you share something in Chrome for Android, you get a share sheet, right? First time you share, you get a share sheet, right? The next time you share, it get a share sheet, right? The next time you share it gives you the thing that it gives you an automatic, it shows you the icon of the last thing you shared with. So you can skip a step if you want.

So over time, yeah, what you find is like, well, I'm usually sharing to, I'm usually pocketing a story. So pockets always there. So I can skip a step, right? It's a really interesting, very minor piece of the interface that learns something about it. Whereas on iOS, you have to set the order of the share sheet.

By the way, there are different share sheets. For some reason, there are apps where the share sheet is one way, and apps where the share sheet is another way, which I don't fully understand. Have you ever seen this? I have noticed that. Where you have a share sheet in one app, and it's all set up, and then you go open a share sheet in another app, and it's not set up. But just like, yeah, I mean, even the understanding of what applications do, okay, a really good example is sending an image to hangouts or G chat as people had to call it from iOS. So I'm in my photos app in iOS.

I want to put, I want to give, send Laura a picture of Zelda, right? We talk in G chat all day long, right? So now first off, so first off, let's just say that Abel's user interface doesn't, it never assumes that I want to use anything other than their first party. Like it really doesn't want me to use, they're, it still doesn't really want you

to use any third party stuff, right? Whereas Google basically doesn't care. I mean, Google basically does not give a shit. But so let's just say for a second, that's one little thing that always comes up over and over again, which is like it wants to open Safari, it wants to open Apple Maps, it wants to open Apple Mail, it does not want to open third party interfaces or third party applications. So, hang out. So I'm sharing a picture, I'm in photos, I go, I click on the button from the share sheet. The share sheet gives me essentially a post-to-dialogue that pops up, okay? It doesn't give me a native place to put an image in.

It doesn't give me the chat with Laura. It gives me this thing that essentially looks like a Twitter share, right? Because Apple at that level sort of perceives all of these at a very binary in a very binary way. And so when it comes to saving files or opening files, it's all the same thing. You're like trying to open a file is still like you still have to do some kind of math in your head. You got to go like, all right, how do I do this? Right, let me ask you something though, because we're talking about, thing, you know, some pretty,

I don't wanna say complicated, but they're not day one user interactions. Let's see. Are the really they're not? Well, let's, let me, let me. Really, you're telling me that a billion people use Facebook and it's not a typical interaction, you know, how many people have 500 million use Instagram?

How many people use WhatsApp, a billion people, and a million? I'm thinking of getting, finally getting Instagram, by the way. Anyway, but let me, let me ask you this. If you were to hand a stock out of the box, iPhone, and a stock out of the box, Android device, clean Google Android, not crappy Android.

I'm mostly, to be honest, to be really honest with you, it's all basically the same. Now there's very few differences between stock Android and like whatever Samsung does. See, it does get better. So let's say you hand both devices to someone who is a total novice, no predisposition to either one. Do you think that Android to that user is more intuitive? Because I'll tell you what I think. And then you say, my point of view is that at the very beginning of that relationship, iOS is much more intuitive.

Yeah, but that's fine. We're posts. We're posts on. Right. And I look, I think post on. I don't care about the, I don't care about the first use. Right. But, but I think it's important. I care about the I don't care about the first use right but but I think it's I care about the I care about the hundredth use well, see it's an important distinction if you frame if you it's actually frames my argument about Apple really well, which is like They're very concerned with that first user the simplicity of this first user experience, which is fine If you're all in there if you're just doing all of the stuff that they want you to do, and you don't have any further, you really don't have any further needs. But this speaks to, but this goes into like the, yeah, you know, it's more complicated

to opt somebody into Google now, but it's also more useful when it's like, hey, you're on your way to work and there's going to be traffic on the route you normally take. And it tells you that before you ask, right? Yeah. So I have to opt into Google now and I have to understand what it is and it's not that simple. It's kind of more complicated. But, you know, we're used to using computers which are very complicated.

Simplicity is not, to me simplicity is not the solution to a problem. Simplicity is how you solve a problem, but it's not the solution to a problem. Wait, wait, what's the difference between those two things? Because I agree with you, but I feel like we need to tease this out a little bit. Simplicity can be the way that you solve a problem. What's the difference between those two things? Because I agree with you, but I feel like we need to tease this out a little bit. Simplicity can be the way that you solve a problem, but it isn't the solution. Simplicity is like what I'm saying is that's right. So you can say, oh, we made it, we simplified it, and that solved the problem because we went from six steps to three or whatever, but the solution isn't like make it more simple, right?

It's not always, that's not always the answer, and that's not always the way that fixes your issue. And so simplicity can be a tool, but it shouldn't be the end game for everything. And I think that, but it's beyond that. So this gets into that connected services thing, and this is really nerdy, but. This is good, because this is where I was sensing

that this would go, because I think, well, the right think because because okay Yeah, I'm saying that was a foundational like how do people use these things as we've grown into a more complex and In complex relationship with our technology and our applications, right? so then Then it'd be all starts to become about like well. I'm over here. I'm doing this I'm over here. I'm doing that, I get ubers, I get, you know, I'm taking trains, I have all these different things that are happening in your life, they're all sort of digitally connected.

I'm talking to friends on Facebook, I'm talking to friends on WhatsApp, I'm doing, I'm doing searches, I'm saving files, now where are my files? Okay, they're no longer on my computer, they're in the cloud because they're in their part of a service that I'm using Dropbox, I'm using iCloud, I'm using Google Drive or whatever. In my case, I'm using all three because nobody's created a really, truly integrated virtual file system that works across devices. Google Drive probably gets closest. It seems like the most natural of those. I do want to say though, I've been using an iPad Pro for work for over a month now. Anything Bloomberg is a little bit of a special case because so much of the work happens in

the terminal. So you're using an iPad Pro with a keyboard cover. And it's been, for me, at work, it's been great. I've been thinking about getting the smaller iPad Pro with the keyboard cover. I actually was typing on the other day, and I was like, this is pretty good. I mean, like, honestly, for me, the only time I really...

But would I do it that big, you're the big one? I have a big one, because that's because that's my own experience. You don't have to use nothing on the display. Well, I mean, I love being able to have Trello in one side and Twitter in the other, the terminal in one side and my camera in there. If you could dock three apps, maybe you'd be in business.

That's crazy. It's gigantic. It's pretty big, but it's good. I do want to try the smaller one. But look, I'm planning our honeymoon and I've got a big spreadsheet going. I've been working on it mostly on that. I mean, really, let me ask you a question.

Yeah. I should know the answer to this, but you're in the browser. Yeah. You're the browser open and you have Twitter open on the side. Yeah. Can you drag an image from the out of the browser and open and you have Twitter open on the side. Yeah, can you drag an image From the out of the browser and drop it in a Twitter and tweet the image. No, you see this is what I'm fucking talking about

Okay, yeah, but Andrew can't do that either. I think it can I don't think so actually I'm trying to think of what uses I'm trying to think of a if I have a device that uses split screen that I could do it And I don't usually I don't use a dandruff a tablet those are basically. But that's a great use case that every time I- By the way, why does an Apple make that possible? Well, maybe they will, maybe they're listening right now, dubbed as he is right in the corner. I hope they are, but this is what I'm talking about is, okay, you gave people this ability, but like naturally, the first thing I think is like I'm looking at like, you know, I'm looking at something I see like a great gif and then I want to tweet it.

What I have to do, I have to copy, I'm looking at something and I see like a great gif and then I want to tweet it. What do I have to copy? I have to copy the image and paste it. That workflow sucks on every mobile device. Right. And for, you know, heavy Twitter users like you and me, that's a real problem. Yeah, for heavy users.

But I'm loving the iPad Pro, honestly, the only thing is I just wish I had. I wish I had better handwriting and I could actually draw, because then it'd be even more interesting. Do you have the pen you get the whole setup? I do have the pen, because they just ordered complete sets for work.

And I have no use for the pen, so I'm just keeping it in the box and not messing with it. But I've really enjoyed using it for work, to be honest. And the only thing, I really, I mean, I'll be honest with you, though, can I just be straight up with you, Versailles? Yeah, be straight.

If I'm in, if I'm in, I want to compare these two things. If I'm in my browser on Android and I long press on an image, I could share the image directly from the image and it shares it right into Twitter. Like it's one, it's like one click basically. Right, whereas on the iOS, you only get save image and copy, right? I'm gonna see, I actually wanna see,

I guess you can copy, and then it's another step. Let's just as it, and this is not a good use of anybody's time, but I'm gonna do it just for the hell of it. Let's see here, okay, same image. I'm on Giffy by the way, great website. Everybody should check it out. You can search, you can save the image,

only the image in new tab. Okay, that's in, let me try it in Safari. This is good. I think this is a great experience for people who are listening to this podcast right now. Well, that's what we provide. I hope they're enjoying this as much as I'm enjoying it. All right, here we go.

Let me check it out from Safari. Oh, oh boy. 3D Touch. You save the image and copy that, even fewer options. 3D Touch lets me see the image. That's too pit, that was a terrible, terrible idea for an interface.

Now one thing I have in touch. Plus I'm used 3D Touch. I don't have the, I only have a iPhone 6 Plus. Oh, that's disgusting. So one thing I haven't really done much of yet is photo editing on the iPad Pro. Because that's like, honestly, I have an iMac at home, and that's the main thing I use it for,

because it's not in a closet office space, so it's away from the rest of the apartment. So I don't use it that much these days unless I'm doing a photo project. So that's one thing that maybe I could use the pencil for is photo editing on the iPad Pro. But you know, then I gotta get dongles and it's a whole to do, I don't know,

I'm getting too old for this. It's making me very, very upset just hearing about it. Dongles. Can I tell you? Dongles. Anyhow, so we should wrap, but what I'm saying is, I guess what I'm saying is, Mark Armeck wrote this thing and I don't

really usually agree with most of the things he writes. But this one I thought was smart. It was just like, what if Apple's wrong about this and they haven't really been spending time and energy getting this right? But I really do think the issue is, all this stuff has to work together and has to work together fluidly. And what bots are trying to solve and what AI is trying to solve and what at least it should be trying to solve is not like some crazy new level of interaction that we've never experienced before, but a more fluid interaction and a more predictive interaction with

the machines that we have to use every day. Well, look, if anything, now is the time for companies to figure it out. Because I think this is something you'll agree with, which is that we're in between hardware moments, right? We've talked about this before. And so I think we're in the middle of a period right now where there's going to be a lot of time for all companies to focus on software and services in as far as smartphones and mobile devices are concerned, because I don't think we're gonna see any huge leaps forward. We're not gonna see any paradigm shifts in mobile hardware for quite a while.

And I think it's all software and services now, and every company is gonna have to focus on that and figure out how to do it really, really, really well. Because that's the differentiator. Right, right, I agree. And Starship Troopers is the bomb. When can I watch this Superman Batman movie on VS Dreaming?

Batman versus Superman? Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I haven't seen it either. That's the most important thing for me to answer. I'm not gonna see this new X-Men movie because it looks absurd. And just as I'm so over it, I watched Deadpool,

it was fine. I rented it, I thought it was funny. It was fun, it was fun, it was $6. It's, I actually bought it because I was like, you know what I just want to watch something, I haven't seen something new. I haven't seen, I don't care, these are all these superhero movies are super-dakeless.

It's almost like we've had too much of a good thing. Yeah, it's, I feel like it's just a little too much content on the superhero front at this point. I mean, when I was growing up, my friends and I would talk about, oh my God, if they made a live action X-Men movie, that would be a dream come true and it could be amazing. And now it's all happened, but I think we may be overdosing a little bit. I mean, trip on this shit just for a second, okay? What was the last bad man movie made?

What was the Dark Knight Rises made? Stand by, I'm Googling the dark. I think it's like, don't wanna say 2011. Survey says 2012. Okay, 2012. Okay. It's four years later now to brand new Batman. New franchise, whole new, I mean, whole new deal.

Like what's wrong with us? Like this is so crazy to me. So much. We just did, we just did like a decade of Batman movies. And they're like, they can't keep that Batman universe going They can't it's unsustainable so they're like let's make a new this is even with a spider-man We're getting our third spider-man in like less than 15 years or something. So it was Toby McGuire, right? Yeah, and then Andrew Garfield did two of them social network guy. Yeah, and now and now it's whoever the new kid is and from the from the

work guy. Yeah. And now, and now, and now, whoever the new kid is and from the, from the Captain America movie. Look, I tell you what, why don't we end this podcast? I know, I don't know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. But what I'm really I'm trying to say is like, revenge is a dish best served called what I'm really trying to say is is revenge is a dish best served through litigation finance. Yeah, seriously. What I'm trying to say is less is more sometimes. Less is less actually is more, you know? Yeah, well look, I'll tell you what. Or more is more and just give me a fucking TV series that's decent about any of these major characters.

I want to see a Superman. No, I'm not really interested in Superman. Actually, all these people bore the shit out of me at this point. Well, you know, you know, you know, you're not always see a movie of what? Saga. Have you read saga? No. Brian K. Vaughan. Hmm. Fucking amazing series. It's interesting that you mentioned how they're all boring you, because I just insta-papered a story, a couple, within the past couple of days, basically talking about how All the characters in the Marvel University X-Men Avengers all these people the with every movie all the characters become more alike

Instead of more distinct. There's nothing. There's just nothing left for these guys to do But hold on we were supposed to end the podcast do something uplifting and I have something. Oh, you got something You know I like to end the podcast with recommendations. Yes, You know, I'm planning our honeymoon. I keep hearing about this. We're going to Japan. I love Japan. So do I. So I have reread very recently the William Gibson essay from 15 years ago called my own private Tokyo that ran and wired. Oh, I haven't I don't think I've read that. It's amazing. Google it. It's on the internet. Are you not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one.

I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm not sure if it's a good one. I'm Yeah. He just wrote a comic book.

He did. Called Arganjo. Yes. Which I'm definitely interested in. But I haven't read his last two books, so I feel like a bad fan. I feel like a bad fan. I need to, I've had the peripheral sitting on a desk.

I started, I started to read, oh, maybe that's the only one I haven't read. I started reading it, but I didn't, I couldn't, I didn't have anything. You know what else has been recommended to me recently, and this is a Thomas Houston recommendation, seven eaves by Neil Stevenson. People have been braving about this.

I almost bought it. I want to read that. Well, now it was a good time, because it just came out in paperback. It's like $11 on it. Can I recommend Saga to you? Yeah, I'm gonna. It is the most original and interesting and

thoughtful and weird comic book I've read in forever so what's the give me the two sentence version of what it's about I Mean There is no two sentence version. It's It takes place in a world that is unlike ours, but very similar to ours. And there is a war, very large, universal war kind of happening across many planets

and amongst many different races and species. And it's a love story. It's a philosophically challenging story. It's an intellectually challenging story. It has a lot to say about war and countries and nations that are constantly at war. You've sold me, and I'm going to check it out. It's really crazy. It's good. And also, there's a lot of sex in it too. Now, is it the series, is it finished or is it still writing?

No, I think it's still going. I need to catch up, actually. I'm in the issue, 20-ish. There's a couple of collections. You can buy some in like the 20 issue, 20-ish. There's a couple of collections. You can buy some collections of like the first. Yeah, see that. Of the first.

I mean, I would just read. Yeah, there's been 36 issues so far. Okay, oh, so I'm way behind. I should really catch up. And I bought some. I'm definitely going to check that out. I mean, I think reading it in hand is the best way to do it, but.

Yeah, okay, so there's the recommendation. Saga and my own private Tokyo, the essay by William Gibson. All right, I'm gonna look at the, I'm gonna look into both of those. Well, I've read Saga, but I'm recommendation saga and my own private Tokyo the essay by William Gibson All right, I'm gonna look at I'm gonna look into both as well. I've read saga But I'm gonna look into my own private Tokyo. All right, that's a good way to end it Michael Oh, this has been great as always you're a great man to talk to you bring out the best and possibly the worst in me as well Well, that's what that's what makes for a happy and healthy relationship. That's so great That's wonderful. Well, thank you for coming on again, and you've got to do it again And you will do it again, of course, because anytime Because we made that bet and you lost and then you're on the big time for life This is great. Thank you. No, thank you. Bye. Bye

Well, that is our show for this week, but we back next week with more and as always I wish you and your family the very best Unfortunately your family is now embroiled in a long, complicated, disturbing more with an alien race that they can't possibly understand. you