Episode 112

full
Published on:

6th Dec 2024

Poly News

Prediction market + news; media’s bifurcating star system; media’s management-labor divide; AI + browsers; car talk; LinkedIn cringe

Transcript
Brian:

I ran into Brian Monaghan, Brian's a big fan of the podcast.

Brian:

he particularly complimented Alex.

Brian:

He said he really enjoyed, has enjoyed Alex's emergence from, the purported reluctant podcaster to the most opinionated.

Brian:

One on this podcast.

Brian:

So Alex, kudos to you.

Brian:

I also got a message from LinkedIn.

Brian:

We're gonna be talking about LinkedIn later, but got a message on LinkedIn, saying that there needs to be awards named after you.

Brian:

So you have emerged as the star of this podcast.

Alex:

careful what you wish for.

Alex:

It

Alex:

it must

Alex:

drive

Troy:

very, I'm really, no, no, no.

Troy:

It, it, it does annoy me.

Troy:

I'll have to be, it's, uh, I don't think it's true.

Troy:

A, I think it's, it's fake news.

Troy:

I think that Alex is, You know, a likable guy, he's woke and I think that not, not true, not true.

Troy:

I think, I think

Alex:

Not in Trump's America.

Troy:

I think that, advertising people secretly cheer for Alex.

Troy:

Cause they know so much of what they do is morally, morally

Brian:

they love it.

Brian:

That's what I like about advertising people is, they have a level of self awareness, that leads into some kind of self loathing.

Brian:

It's a really, it's a nice dynamic, but one of the things, speaking of that, a great segue that he did compliment and stuck with him, you know what he brought up?

Brian:

The Curve Cafe.

Brian:

And he's like, I still remember the curve cafe.

Brian:

That is how effective that.

Brian:

Advertisement was that, you know, a year and a half later, he still remembers the curve cafe.

Alex:

you tell him about the margins you had?

Alex:

Because they must have been great because we didn't, we didn't see anything from that.

Brian:

so it's a new native advertising format.

Brian:

So anyone listening out there that wants to get your message in there, it's like kind of like an ambush, like ad format that I'm trying to, pioneer.

Brian:

So should we get

Alex:

And while while nobody from my world seems to listen, everybody from your world seems like I'm still nobody knows I'm doing a podcast, but like in the media, it's good.

Alex:

Yeah.

Alex:

So if

Troy:

It, what, what, how would you, characterize your world?

Troy:

What is your world?

Troy:

Who's in your world?

Alex:

I mean, right now it's just country folk,

Troy:

Okay,

Alex:

salt of the earth.

Alex:

I mean, I think in, in tech, like, you know, in tech in broad, in, in, in the, in the world where like, you know, having a job at Airbnb meant something, which is not everywhere, you know.

Troy:

you're a, you're a parasite in our audience, in our podcast.

Troy:

You're

Alex:

No, I, I, I see myself as a, as a visiting professor at your shitty college,

Troy:

Mm-Hmm.

Alex:

bringing wisdom.

Alex:

I don't know what to tell you, but no, no.

Alex:

I mean, I'm happy to be here.

Alex:

I'm just, I'm

Troy:

No, but I, this podcast doesn't have room for like cynical fucks.

Troy:

Like you

Alex:

I'm not the one that's cynical.

Troy:

No, but you wrote in the notes, you actually wrote in, you did two things that I

Alex:

Oh, I got prepared.

Alex:

Yeah.

Troy:

week you actually had the gall to send a monologue to us, which I found personally offensive.

Alex:

three minutes long,

Troy:

Yeah, play my

Troy:

monologue because everybody needs to hear my scripture.

Alex:

but, but you do

Troy:

they

Troy:

don't.

Troy:

need to hear it.

Troy:

No, we have a conversation.

Troy:

And the second thing is this week you wrote, meanwhile, after some thing, I was looking for input in the text feed.

Troy:

You wrote meanwhile, crypto or Bitcoin hit a hundred thousand.

Troy:

Like what does

Alex:

let, let, That was genuinely, I thought that was funny because he goes, how does full self driving change the world?

Alex:

And I went, who gives a shit?

Alex:

Bitcoin hit a hundred K that is,

Troy:

No, I said, meanwhile, Alex is selling his Tesla because you can't deal with the fact that you have a Tesla.

Troy:

You cannot deal with it.

Troy:

Your wife actually told you to sell it and you

Alex:

that's not true.

Alex:

my wife was, Absolutely fine keeping that Tesla until it burned itself to the ground.

Alex:

I wanted to upgrade my car and I wanted a nicer car.

Brian:

what did you

Troy:

What are you

Troy:

gonna

Alex:

and you know,

Alex:

it's,

Troy:

gonna buy, he's gonna

Alex:

it's,

Alex:

kind of becoming, this thing like, look, I know X is terrible, but if you don't use it, you're being woke.

Alex:

Oh, you're not owning a Tesla.

Alex:

Oh, Alex, you should own a Cybertruck.

Alex:

Otherwise you have Elon derangement syndrome.

Alex:

No, there are better cars out there, bro.

Alex:

It's okay.

Brian:

Are you getting the

Brian:

Jaguar?

Alex:

no,

Troy:

Yes,

Alex:

I'm

Troy:

car for you.

Troy:

That is

Alex:

a, I'm

Brian:

Are getting

Alex:

nicer, I'm getting a nicer car than that.

Troy:

He's

Troy:

getting a

Brian:

What do you mean the Jaguar is going to be a hundred K, the concept?

Brian:

Well, who knows?

Brian:

They didn't even release the, it was a big disappointment, I think.

Alex:

that rebrand was a, that rebrand was a big dud like to do all that and just to show a concept car.

Alex:

Like that's, give them them nothing

Brian:

just to stay on that for a minute, like they, you know, they own Jaguar only sold like 8, 000 something cars in the United States.

Brian:

Like last year, they're not even, they're not even making cars next year.

Brian:

I, it sort of reminds me of the publishing industry of these, of these legacy.

Brian:

Publishers that sort of have no future.

Brian:

So they have to do, they have to do something different.

Brian:

And with Jaguar, there's no coming back from that.

Brian:

I mean, it's an interesting business story beyond all the woke, blah, blah, blah stuff, because you know, there's no path for Jaguar.

Brian:

So people always like get into the, Oh my God, the legacy of Jaguar.

Brian:

I'm like, like, it doesn't mean anything anymore.

Brian:

They sold 8, 000 cars last year.

Brian:

Like.

Brian:

We need to move on like there's a lot of brands that need to die.

Brian:

I think they need to move

Alex:

000 car for a luxury car brand might be.

Alex:

I mean, all the Waymos I think are Jaguars here in San Francisco, which is strange.

Alex:

but yeah, no, you're right.

Alex:

Nobody, you're right.

Alex:

Nobody

Troy:

No, they'll probably have to tap the, the nostalgia in the brand a little harder and make an electric y type.

Troy:

Like, or one of those classic Jaguars.

Brian:

So the average Jaguar the average Jaguar customers in their late 50s.

Brian:

Okay, like a crusty guy

Troy:

Yeah, it's an English Corvette driver.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And so they're trying to like completely switch out their customer base for younger, hipper,

Alex:

they're seeing like these 12 year olds make bank on, pump Dutch fun, fun making coins.

Alex:

You know, right now, so they're thinking their audience is going to skew way, way, way younger.

Alex:

Have you heard about Pump.

Alex:

Fun?

Brian:

No, what is it?

Alex:

And Pump.

Alex:

Fun, oh, it is crypto y.

Alex:

It is crypto y.

Alex:

I know Troy wants to talk about full self driving, but I think that the crypto is bad.

Alex:

Back and you know, if you want to try, if you wanted something to own the libs, it could be that, you know, full self driving works, but it's also that crypto is back in full force.

Alex:

pump that fun is a

Troy:

What are we doing?

Troy:

Is this the

Alex:

in two minutes

Alex:

in

Brian:

This

Brian:

is

Troy:

happening here?

Alex:

This is non linear.

Alex:

In two minutes, it allows you to create a coin using the Solana platform and put it out there.

Alex:

And people are creating hundreds of thousands of meme coins.

Alex:

the site is generating 30 million a year and some of these coins, a month, I think, and some of these coins are popping.

Alex:

A lot of them are not.

Alex:

It's essentially just like a free for all right now.

Alex:

and there's, we're

Troy:

PVA coin?

Alex:

We could pop out a PVA coin.

Alex:

I think it only costs 2.

Alex:

And then we can pop it, we can pop it here like the Curve Cafe, and just, before everybody gets wise to it, sell it like the Curve Cafe, and we'll be, we'll be good.

Brian:

wife

Brian:

She has a coin.

Brian:

She

Brian:

has an Anna

Brian:

coin.

Troy:

We should do Brian, you

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

She did it like 2021, like right at the end and like, and, and forgot about it.

Brian:

And then it was part of her like subscription or sub stack.

Brian:

And she had

Troy:

Why don't you make a

Brian:

like, where's my Anna coin?

Troy:

Why don't you make a coin into an ad product, Brian?

Troy:

And you could add it.

Troy:

You could roll a coin into every dinner, you know,

Brian:

Yeah,

Troy:

and, and custom read and you get a free coin.

Troy:

So we've got the curve coin.

Brian:

I'm into it.

Brian:

I'm into it.

Brian:

I'll try anything.

Brian:

I want to talk.

Brian:

The first thing I want to talk about, is, is poly market and news.

Brian:

we'll move on to self driving like later.

Brian:

I think this is really interesting.

Brian:

We talked about this a little bit because I think prediction markets offer an intriguing glimpse into a possible future of quote unquote, unbiased news.

Brian:

Paki McCormick at NotBoring is a really popular, substacker.

Brian:

he started this thing, Boring News, which takes the polymarket data and, and creates what Is, you know, I guess in some ways like an unbiased news product, it's it's interesting on a couple levels.

Brian:

I think, you know, news is a really commoditized space and, unique data like these prediction markets offer a way to differentiate and also ground news in something of a shared reality.

Brian:

I don't know if it's like, truly shared, but prediction markets did really well during the election.

Brian:

and so, I found this pretty interesting.

Brian:

Troy, what did, what was your sort of takeaway from from?

Brian:

What Packy's trying.

Troy:

It made me think a lot about, I think at the same time, our friend, from Skift,

Brian:

Rafat?

Troy:

Rafat had written about formats and what's the.

Troy:

You know, he referenced, I think you and I, Brian, not Alex, sadly, in a thread on Twitter and LinkedIn, our discussion around, you know, what is, what is the new format?

Troy:

And I was thinking about it cause I thought it was really cool what he did.

Troy:

So you have the peg, which is the peg is the, is the poly market.

Troy:

you know, starting point and then you take that issue.

Troy:

So what is the chance that Pete Hagsworth gets, confirmed as defense secretary and you then take that to, an A.

Troy:

I.

Troy:

You know, so I don't know one of the several AI services and kind of like look at both sides of, you know, of the, of the bat and you turn that into a little news piece and, then automagically have it read in Paki's voice and create an audio product out of it, distributed on, you know, wherever you distribute it, YouTube and, and Twitter.

Troy:

I found it to be a very cool idea.

Troy:

but I didn't find it interesting as a product, so I didn't want to listen to it again.

Troy:

And I think that I guess that's what my takeaway was, is that when you start with format in media innovation, you miss what really matters, which is to me that format is a step later, which is how do you package something, but I'm more interested in where's the, emotional resonance, the connection to the audience, the thing that feels personal or informative or new.

Troy:

And then how do I make it as consumable in the kind of in the best possible way?

Troy:

And so I found, yeah, the news felt dry and boring.

Troy:

And it was interesting that it started with the, with the poly market peg.

Troy:

So that that's my take on it.

Alex:

Maybe the thing that's more interesting than the output of the product is that idea that, you know, we've been talking about how the fact somebody needs to make the news, somebody needs to be paid to make the news.

Alex:

And I've always said that, you know, with the right data source, like a social media supplemented by something like associated press and now things like predictive markets.

Alex:

You can get the news, you can get the news.

Alex:

You don't need CNN, you know, and then the way you repackage it is actually, it's probably, I think it would need to be more human.

Alex:

Get somebody cool and engaging that's got their YouTube show and put it on, add some commentary to it.

Alex:

And, and, you know, that's, that's a, could be a bigger show than Anderson Cooper.

Alex:

You don't need 200 people on the field to get most of the news right now.

Alex:

Right.

Alex:

Am I, am I wrong?

Alex:

Like, I mean, that's what this is telling me.

Alex:

Like, especially like, I hadn't thought about the market predictions things, but if you take like a social media feed, poly market, and you supplement it with things like DAP or Wikipedia and stuff like that, you get a pretty compelling data source that you can just read out.

Alex:

I

Brian:

I mean, I hate to bring it up, but like Grok with, you know, when you think about using Twitter too, I mean, this is the bet, right?

Brian:

That with increasingly more information is going to be, whether it's like on the blockchain or whatever, is going to be available, to be repackaged.

Brian:

And I think the unique data source of prediction markets is, is fascinating because, some of the most, like to me, interesting stuff going on is around like data journalism and I think data journalism itself was kind of overhyped in some ways.

Brian:

But my favorite columnist is, is from the FT weekend.

Brian:

John Byrne Murdoch, you ever?

Brian:

You ever read his stuff?

Brian:

I mean, it's basically a column grounded in, in data analysis and, I think we need more of that, not less.

Troy:

that's like the Steve Ballmer thing on YouTube, which I like it's this sort of data route data anchored in, you know, explainers.

Alex:

mean, I think the main thing is that much smaller, much smaller teams will be able to create the output that things with a newsroom you need to get.

Alex:

And it will be much cheaper to get access to these things.

Alex:

I don't know how valuable and unique the X slash Twitter dataset is, especially now that with, you know, 30 verse and, and, and things like blue sky, having Giving total free access to their content.

Alex:

Like all of these open platforms are giving free access to their content, to all of the, anybody who wants to build an LLM.

Alex:

So it's interesting how these things are kind of conspiring.

Alex:

Like it's, it's, it's crypto with poly market is it's federated internet with.

Alex:

With things like, like all the feeds because you can get an immense amount of information and then there's all these legacy things like the associated press and Wikipedia and things like that, which can supplement that.

Alex:

Like you, you have everything you need at your disposal right now to create, to create,

Troy:

for the warmth of, the warmth of personality and people, you know,

Alex:

Right.

Alex:

But I

Troy:

of un, unrelated, sort of related, but Alex, I have, you know how you have multi view on YouTube TV, and it's very useful if you like football, you can watch four games at one time.

Troy:

And I had it on last night and it was, it had, it, it preselects, cable stations and puts them in a grid of four and it was MSNBC, CNN, Fox, and CNBC.

Troy:

And.

Troy:

This thing that you've, that you said that makes me laugh so much, Alex, give you full credit for it is baby news.

Troy:

I love this idea of baby news because CNN is absolutely intolerable and the problem isn't whether they're centered left or right, it's that their product sucks.

Troy:

It's the product sucks and their talent sucks.

Troy:

And it's just, and what was interesting is I was bouncing between, and I guess this was maybe, There's a show on Fox called Gutfeld, which is like a pack, a pack of, Like really kind of diverse personalities sitting around kind of talking about the news, but, it's really a show about, people like it's, it's, it's like a talk show format and it's, you know, really personality heavy, like you have your sort of different archetypes mixing and talking politics and predictably right for sure.

Troy:

It was actually tolerable to watch because it was funny and it was just, you know, it was just kind of interesting, weird, flawed people talking about, you know, issues in the news.

Troy:

By the way, one of the issues was, what's her name from the Washington Post, Brian?

Troy:

they had her up.

Troy:

They hate her so much.

Troy:

Taylor Lorenz,

Brian:

Well, she's gone from there.

Troy:

on No, well, but yeah, but

Brian:

Oh, she like

Troy:

uh, she's a lit she's, she's a liberal boogie

Alex:

She's, She's, She's, incredible.

Alex:

Isn't she like doing all these like posts on threads that are just like engagement baits and like, just like super

Brian:

I think Taylor knows what she's doing.

Alex:

Yeah.

Alex:

Oh, a hundred percent.

Troy:

For sure.

Troy:

She does.

Troy:

Anyway.

Troy:

My point was, is that this personality heavy, kind of news and jokes format that Fox had has created with Gutfeld is like a hundred times better

Alex:

but I

Troy:

a, as a product, then the, then CNN stocking

Alex:

but he, but this is the, this is the, the thing that I think like, you know, how do you save CNN and all these things?

Alex:

It's like, I think they're gonna, maybe they're probably going to hold on to the grave that they are a new, like that news is their product.

Alex:

It can't be.

Brian:

Well news might not be a product.

Brian:

News is a feature.

Brian:

It's a better feature than it is a product,

Brian:

right?

Brian:

Like when you're talking about these sort of, these sort of group discussion, and we see this with the podcast, like world is the news is like a small bit of what they, they, it's part of what they do.

Alex:

It should just be compelling content.

Alex:

I mean, if you actually look at what NPR did and what the BBC did, like, I haven't seen a lot of that from CNN.

Alex:

Right?

Alex:

They went all in on podcasts.

Alex:

They, when, you know, the BBC is all, all over the place, is creating content, is reusing its talent in all different formats, has.

Alex:

Conversation shows as straight news shows as everything like, I think you just need to, you know, if, if you're, you're, you have an ability to produce content, just like make as many formats as you want, get engaging people.

Alex:

And they're just holding on to old talents and old ways of making things.

Alex:

People don't need to go to CNN to get the

Troy:

I think it's when I, when I reflect critically on what podcasts I returned to, I think it's the same formula and it's that.

Troy:

I have to learn something and I have to like the people or not like them or like hating them.

Troy:

But it's a mix.

Troy:

It's for me, it's always a mix of personality and information.

Troy:

Like, think about the podcasts that you, that you, actually prioritize.

Troy:

And yeah, I mean, I think they have to teach you something.

Troy:

I think you gotta, you gotta feel like you were exposed to something new, but really it's like, do you want to hang out with these people that

Brian:

yeah, Odd

Brian:

Lots is a great podcast.

Brian:

I,

Brian:

really like Odd Lots from Bloomberg, Joe Wiesenthal and Tracy Alloway.

Brian:

I get a great dynamic.

Brian:

I learn something regularly.

Brian:

They cover a whole variety of different topics.

Troy:

Yeah, that's one of my predictions for 25, by the way, is that Cara and Scott split.

Troy:

That he becomes so annoyed with her that there is the great podcast divorce of 2025 is Cara

Alex:

I don't know.

Alex:

I think they're kind of entangled.

Alex:

She uses his apartment and stuff like that.

Alex:

It's not, I think they have too much

Troy:

I think he secretly hates her.

Alex:

I don't know.

Alex:

I don't know.

Alex:

I think it's, yeah, I think that might be fine.

Alex:

one thing I wanted to add to that, I think the mistake could be to say everything that we make now needs to be personality and entertainment and have these likable kind of loose things that it's, I think there's Space for many formats like I have in my podcast feed.

Alex:

I have a few that are just dry, just like tech news, you know, somebody's reading out the tech news of the week.

Alex:

Some of them are very meandering, funny comedy.

Alex:

Some of them are kind of like, you know, like plain English or, what's the one with twos with

Troy:

Oh, Adam

Brian:

ones

Brian:

and

Troy:

ones

Alex:

ones and twos.

Alex:

Yeah.

Alex:

Uh, how could I forgotten?

Alex:

I mean, those are like, you know, I don't listen to them because I, I'm going to get a chuckle out of it.

Alex:

I think it's just,

Brian:

it's kind of similar.

Brian:

I mean, look, like take ones and twos, right?

Brian:

Like, I mean, Cameron Abadi, basically, this is how I understand they make it.

Brian:

He basically is just like, Oh, we're going to discuss some like random topic, like in the news.

Brian:

And then you like some, some like incredibly smart academic is going to go away and like know everything like within like a day about like,

Alex:

Well, tell us about the Bulgarian bread crisis.

Alex:

Then you're like, what?

Alex:

Oh

Brian:

a parlor trick that I'm like, I'm here for it.

Brian:

Like, let's see what this guy

Alex:

Yeah, yeah,

Alex:

exactly.

Alex:

Exactly.

Alex:

but it's not all Rogan, it's not all Rogan, right?

Alex:

It's like, it's like, there's a lot to do with it.

Troy:

I feel like I'm having a little bit of a, it's not a crisis, but it's, I have a problem.

Troy:

I'm not super organized.

Troy:

So my media kind of consumption pattern in the morning is chaotic.

Troy:

Like sometimes I, I.

Troy:

You know, go to my email.

Troy:

Some, I, you know, I often go to the New York times app.

Troy:

I flipped through the, the, the FT, so I look at, kind of, established mainstream media.

Troy:

And then I, try to digest stuff from, I guess sub stack is a big part of it, but email newsletters and stuff, but it's not.

Troy:

Structured in any way that, that I feel, I feel like it's, it's, it's really inefficient.

Troy:

And I, and I wish I had a way that I could dump in all of the sources that I care about.

Troy:

And,

Alex:

Wait, get an AI to summarize it for you?

Alex:

Is that where you're going,

Alex:

Troy?

Troy:

not just summer it.

Troy:

No, no, no, Alex isn't.

Troy:

But, but it's not just summarizing

Troy:

because I

Alex:

could read

Troy:

like.

Troy:

I feel like.

Troy:

I often want to read it.

Troy:

There's some stuff that I want to read.

Troy:

There's some stuff I want summarized.

Troy:

But I want, I want it structured, and I want to be able to put sources in, and I want it to kind of organize it for me so that I can, spend half an hour, 45 minutes.

Troy:

If I need to do it in less time, I can do it that way.

Troy:

If I want to spend more time, I can do it that way.

Troy:

There's, there's some type of tool that, that, that's missing in my life to do this.

Troy:

And the email box for me, I'm not the person that puts things in folders.

Troy:

My email box is a mess.

Troy:

And so it's, it's chaotic and it's not organized.

Troy:

And I, and I wish there was a tool to do that.

Alex:

I think those tools are coming.

Alex:

I, the thing I can't tell you is if it's going to be, integrated straight into kind of the broad chat bot, right?

Alex:

Like some sort of AI that knows you very well, because then you can kind of ask it, you can train it to deliver the information when you want it, how you want it and in how much.

Alex:

How, how, you know, how much summary detail, like it's, it's going to be, I think we're pretty close.

Alex:

We'll be able to say, Hey, every morning, can you, you know, you know, my sources go through there, fish out things that you think might be interesting.

Alex:

Highlight an art, a paragraph that I might find intriguing.

Alex:

And then through that I will figure out what I wanna read.

Alex:

I, you know, I, so I don't know if that becomes a product or if that becomes a feature of, of the chat bot or DOS, but that's definitely coming, I think.

Alex:

In, in, in preparation for that, I've been starting to clean up my, my inbox and also deleted all unsubscribed from all newsletters, every single kind of marketing thing I get.

Alex:

My inbox is a, is a dream right now.

Alex:

It's just for communication.

Alex:

It's lovely.

Alex:

sorry,

Brian:

I don't know.

Brian:

I don't approve of that at all.

Brian:

Alex.

Brian:

let's talk about the browser and search.

Brian:

because, I don't know if you guys saw the browser company, which makes the arc browser.

Brian:

they did.

Brian:

There's a big thing like in tech now where there's a lot of like demo videos for things that don't exist.

Brian:

Like, what does did people stop like shipping products?

Brian:

Like.

Brian:

When, instead

Alex:

I mean, no, that's always been, Microsoft was always famous for that.

Alex:

And the whole thing was that Microsoft would do these, here's the future and Apple would come out, which is with, here's what's what we're doing today.

Alex:

the browser company's video was different because I

Brian:

DIA, right?

Brian:

Is this DIA?

Brian:

DIA is this, cause they're, they have the ARC browser but now they're doing an AI browser too.

Alex:

Yeah, if you give me two minutes, I'll give you

Brian:

Give it to me.

Alex:

quick run.

Alex:

Uh, the arc browser,

Brian:

it in Snoop, do it in Snoop, Dogg's voice though, please.

Alex:

that would be problematic.

Alex:

the arc browser, which I think was previously a good product on the podcast is a, is a browser that was created by the, The browser company, which is a U S company, and they decided to redesign the browser.

Alex:

So it's got AI features in it.

Alex:

I use it every day.

Alex:

the reason I like it, it's got organization.

Alex:

It's, it's just a better browser.

Alex:

It's built on top of Chrome.

Alex:

but I, and they had announced that at some point they would work on our browser too, but I think what they noticed, they raised a bunch of money.

Alex:

And I think what they noticed is that there's no way to make money, building a browser.

Alex:

And also.

Alex:

You know, chat GPT changed everything, right?

Alex:

Everybody that tells you like that was the strategy all along, is lying because chat GPT changed everything.

Alex:

and so now they're looking at their next product to be something new.

Alex:

And there are.

Alex:

Hypothesis, which I think is great, is that AI is actually going to be an emergence, a reemergence of the open web as, as kind of the, the, the, power center of our digital world, right?

Alex:

Which is like you have an Ai b browser, which is essentially a prompt or an agent that has access to the open web, and that's how you do most of what you do during the day.

Alex:

and it's either by.

Alex:

You know, until we fully transition to it is either by an agent being able to probably, you know, go and use some of your apps, or access content and in the future, hopefully websites and apps would be built in a data way where in a way where the data set can communicate straight with the agent.

Alex:

So you're just saying.

Alex:

You know, do this for me, do that for me.

Alex:

A lot of the examples right now still like result revolve around writing and research.

Alex:

It's the stuff that AI can do the best, but the future is like, you know, the Star Trek computer where you say computer, the computer does the thing you want to do, that's what everybody's aiming towards.

Alex:

And these guys say that if we build.

Alex:

The interface to that, into the open web, that's the better way to do it.

Alex:

Now, I like this a lot.

Alex:

I think the only thing that's at risk is that both Apple and Google are not incentivized to make that reality because of app store fees, like they just, they still want you to download a little icon.

Alex:

Goes onto their desktop and you, now there's different business models around that, but that's what they're pushing for.

Alex:

And I'm like, I'm here for it.

Alex:

You know, the open web with federated content and agents that can go and do stuff for you, that are fully portable.

Alex:

You're not locked to any operating system or any device.

Alex:

that's the future I think I want to see.

Alex:

And that's kind of like an optimistic vision.

Alex:

So, They, they just dropped that video.

Alex:

I think mostly because they need to talk to their investors and they need to start attracting talent, that is very expensive around a vision without really saying what they're working because it's something new.

Alex:

So they created this video, it landed, you know, it was controversial.

Alex:

Some people liked it.

Alex:

People outside the industry thought they were in Ayahuasca.

Alex:

You know, it's,

Brian:

Well, there's a new, there's a new genre of these like demo videos for something that doesn't exist anymore.

Brian:

That's, that's coming.

Brian:

It seems like there is.

Alex:

this, this wasn't that though.

Alex:

I

Brian:

Is there's always like one agency in Silicon Valley that makes all these videos, right?

Alex:

yeah, I

Alex:

think this was more like a, this was more like a vision video.

Alex:

We're trying to build something new.

Alex:

We don't really know what it is.

Alex:

You come here rather than saying in the future, you'll be able to talk at your mirror and you know, it'll tell you how healthy you are.

Alex:

Like, it's not a, it's not a, like a product vision video like that.

Alex:

but yeah, Troy liked the video.

Alex:

Then you try.

Troy:

I mean, it's got to be that there's someone in their circle that has sort of cinematic aspirations, right?

Troy:

Like they, they don't want to just do a video.

Troy:

They want to, they want to do storytelling and video making.

Troy:

So their videos are cute.

Troy:

Yeah, they're fun.

Troy:

And I

Alex:

puts himself out there.

Alex:

He's a good communicator.

Troy:

yeah, he's a really good communicator.

Troy:

And I think they want to tell.

Troy:

I think they're working on a really big, important problem.

Troy:

So I admire what they're doing.

Troy:

I think what, what it made me think on, on, on a drive, on the, on a drive this morning is that.

Troy:

Something that I hadn't really considered before and it brings together that and sort of that new interface and this new, this new search, company, which, it's called Exa and what Exa tries to do is, return highly structured results from the web.

Troy:

So it wants the web to be.

Troy:

Um, and it doesn't want the kind of soft response, linguistic response that is, you know, an LLM going and looking for patterns in language.

Troy:

So it will, if you query it, it will give you a list of all of the PhDs in Silicon Valley, you know, with their LinkedIn profiles, that are working on AI.

Troy:

Stuff like that.

Troy:

Right.

Alex:

an API for people building AI tools to access the web in a more structured way for them, rather than just reading a Google search.

Troy:

And, and, but then what it made me think is that I think we touched on this last week that Google's on a bit of a rampage and in, inside of their policy group, they're trying to figure out what to do with all of the, like search is a zero sum game, right?

Troy:

Someone wins, someone loses.

Troy:

And so there's a lot of noise about.

Troy:

You know, companies that are using the juice in their, in their main domain, like a news company that has a domain and has used it to advantage, an affiliate business.

Troy:

And Google then hears from smaller, more focused companies that say, what are you doing?

Troy:

You know, space at the top of the surf to, you know, CNN or Forbes or whomever.

Troy:

And, and that layer that, that, that affiliate layer, be it in services or product is really, really important for, has become really important for publishers of all types, right?

Troy:

Because it's.

Troy:

You know, as we discussed last week, 20, 30, 40 percent of your revenue, it's your new sort of performance ad offering, et cetera, et cetera.

Troy:

And then, you know, Google is trying to say, here's what you should be able to do.

Troy:

And here's what you shouldn't be able to do.

Troy:

And they're enforcing new rules based on ownership of the.

Troy:

Service provider by who owns it.

Troy:

Does the media brand own it or is it a third party on it?

Troy:

Who's it created by?

Troy:

Is it created by freelancers that are freelancing for a whole bunch of companies creating this kind of content?

Troy:

Or is it created by staff that you pay that are focused and experts that are connected to your company?

Troy:

And third.

Troy:

you know, should you be covering this, which is the trickiest one, right?

Troy:

Like, is this outside of the purview of what your brand should be about?

Troy:

And then I, so I, I think that, that these are moves obviously very unsettling from anybody that's looking to innovate around their media brand and find new sources, of, of revenue by, by innovating, whether that's a, a sports media company that wants to do sports betting, whether that's, you know, a broad news brand that wants to participate in selling financial products, insurance, or whatever.

Troy:

And then I realized where this is going and here it is.

Troy:

It's that Google can and will become more editorial.

Troy:

They will decide what they put in their search results and what they don't put in their search results.

Troy:

And the way that we think of this, them is this.

Troy:

Sort of public service that sits at the center of the open web that has to be fair to everybody.

Troy:

And the truth is, as a private company, they don't, they can put whatever they want in there.

Troy:

So search, if search is meant to be the most sort of egalitarian on one side that tries to treat everything objectively in the middle, you're, I guess, a curator and you put in what you want to put in at the far end, you editorialize.

Troy:

And I think that what's happening to search over the long run is you're going to have As it fragments, you're going to have more decision making in what gets into search and what doesn't.

Brian:

Yeah, well, they, they, they can't hide behind the algorithm.

Brian:

They can't hide behind the algorithm anymore, right?

Brian:

I mean, they've, they've always been making editorial decisions, but hiding behind this unseen algorithm that they can't explain because then you'll game it.

Brian:

But no, no, no, no.

Brian:

It's completely neutral because it's an algorithm and algorithms are neutral and, and editors and humans are biased and it's, it's always been bullshit.

Brian:

And it's just more obvious bullshit because they're taking manual actions.

Brian:

They're deciding winners and losers.

Brian:

And that is, like you said, that, that's their privileged position as, you know, the arbiter of the open web.

Brian:

I think it's going to have downstream impacts for them.

Brian:

Like, how do you, how do you, like, what is section 230?

Brian:

Like, how do you get around the fact that they are a publisher?

Brian:

They've gotten pulled into political debates already.

Brian:

Trump claims that they disadvantaged them.

Brian:

Couldn't find the Joe Rogan interview, et cetera.

Brian:

This is a messy time for Google.

Alex:

And I think when you see tools like XR and something that I tried over the weekend, you know, like those, those coding tools, like replit and stuff like that, there's going to be,

Troy:

What is Repl.

Troy:

it, Alex?

Troy:

You put that in the feed, I don't know what

Alex:

yeah, I mean, I just,

Brian:

You can,

Brian:

like, make apps by describing them, can't

Alex:

yeah, exactly.

Alex:

I think you, you

Alex:

just,

Brian:

always see things that's like, Oh, this eight year old made an app,

Alex:

but so, so, so, here where that matters, right?

Alex:

Like, I think I was trying out these.

Alex:

there's like a lot of coding tools that help you, but, you know, sometimes they still require you to set up your environment and install all the Python stuff that you need and stuff like that.

Alex:

Something like replit, you just tell it to do something and then it's.

Alex:

It literally, like you see it happening in real time, install all the kind of scripts that you need, create a production environment for you on a server, get all that stuff, test, you know, kind of runs tests on itself and starts programming and you're just talking to it and it builds a thing.

Alex:

Now.

Alex:

you add to that, like access to API is like XR, which like gives you access to now the open web as a whole, without having to go through Google.

Alex:

and you can start really building like kind of cool, interesting media products.

Alex:

Like it's not unfathomable to, to, to think that like, you know, somebody could build that boring news poly market thing.

Alex:

just, you know, As a side project while, you know, moonlighting as a reporter for CNN, like, I think these tools are going to allow lots of people to try different things out.

Alex:

So I look forward to an explosion of types of media products around that, because we're going to be just, you know, Pulling

Troy:

Are you making something, are you making something for us?

Troy:

Are

Alex:

I am not making something for, no, no, I'm not going to make, I'm not, I've already replaced you all.

Alex:

You, you don't know it yet, but you actually are AIs.

Alex:

You're just, you're living in a simulation right now.

Troy:

are we in the manosphere?

Alex:

we're in the Manusphere matrix.

Alex:

You, there's, you only had like red pills.

Alex:

but this type of stuff, I'm trying to kind of like look ahead here, but the, the products that we're going to be using in the next.

Alex:

Maybe not two years, right?

Alex:

Because stuff takes a time, time to shift.

Alex:

but in the next five years, they're going to look very different because we have, you know, the data's there and it's open and it's accessible.

Alex:

the tools are there like in, in the infrastructure there.

Alex:

And then the tools are there to build these things very, very quickly.

Alex:

And if you look at kind of this convergence that happened during the web two boom, which, you know, we just created Uber things like that.

Alex:

It wasn't as perfect of a storm as, as this looks like.

Alex:

and I think we, we're, you know, we're, we're, we're mostly talking about like with very much a lack of imagination of how we're going to replace the entire process, and people's involvement with this, you know, like just generating podcasts that have like, you know,

Troy:

Right, but you know what's going to happen, Alex?

Troy:

Is that more and more of the feeds are going to get turned off.

Troy:

As they are now, because they're going to be paywalled.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

I mean, paywalls are coming everywhere.

Brian:

Regwalls and paywalls are gonna be the story, because

Troy:

so the product that you want to make.

Troy:

Right.

Troy:

The product that you want to make requires access, you know, free access to

Troy:

information and

Troy:

it's not

Alex:

maybe, maybe, not.

Alex:

Maybe my product is like, I really looking for a great.

Alex:

Furniture search and recommendation engine, right?

Alex:

mixed with like lifestyle magazine.

Alex:

I just want to see like, you know, and that doesn't exist today.

Alex:

And let me tell you, every furniture company wants to release their API to their product because they want to make sales.

Alex:

a lot of additional content that I want is not going to be paywall because it's like, Being freely distributed to the, to federated platforms like blue sky, which is like onboarding a million people a day, like this stuff, everything's changing.

Alex:

So if you're the verge, yes, maybe you can pay wall because you've got a product that people are willing to pay.

Alex:

I'll probably pay for it, but there'll be enough guys that there's always enough out there to do the thing you need to do, I guess, you know, there's always enough.

Brian:

maybe.

Brian:

I wanna move on and talk a little bit about media's emerging, like, star system.

Brian:

this would have been better with the first one, but whatever, we'll go with it.

Brian:

Stephen A.

Brian:

Smith, is apparently going to be signing a Do you know who Stephen A.

Brian:

Smith is, Alex?

Alex:

No idea.

Brian:

Okay, he's a very opinionated, sports, commentator, host, he was smart.

Brian:

He got out of newspapers and, and went into TV there's a lot of people who love to hate Steven and there's a lot of people who find him very enjoyable.

Brian:

I find him enjoyable.

Brian:

Anyway, he's signing a six year, 120 million deal, which is kind of, it's interesting.

Brian:

I found because we're seeing a compression on a lot of like anchor salaries, news anchor, particularly at, at, At CNN, and this, there's a bifurcation taking place of the, of the kinds of people.

Brian:

And it's always a question.

Brian:

Does the star make the brand or is the brand make the star?

Brian:

And I think this is a time where we're finding out who's real and who's not like, who is just, you know, that just so happens.

Brian:

They got put in the chair versus like, who really is, is moving the needle.

Brian:

And clearly

Alex:

Who, Who,

Brian:

on the side of moving the needle.

Brian:

ESPN, sorry.

Alex:

I

Brian:

who has been compressing the salaries of a lot of people, but not, not this one.

Alex:

I wonder if these deals are, are competing against like VC money.

Alex:

And there's probably something stupid to say, but like if he's worth like 120 million to ESPN, like.

Alex:

Couldn't you raise like 40 million from a VC to do his own thing like if he's worth that

Troy:

If he wanted to, he could, yeah, he

Troy:

probably could.

Troy:

Or he could just, he doesn't need 40 million to do it.

Brian:

It's 20 million a year.

Brian:

Why, why build a company?

Brian:

Just take the money, get on TV and scream a lot.

Brian:

It's great.

Alex:

sure.

Alex:

Yeah.

Alex:

Sure.

Troy:

But he's the sort of, you know, the, the equivalent in your world, Alex, would be he's Rachel Maddow in

Alex:

In my world, I hate Rachel Maddow.

Alex:

I she's part of baby news I mean, she's one of the worst parts, but if you listen to her, I feel like I'm a toddler being talked to

Troy:

okay.

Alex:

know, that

Troy:

Well, thought, I she, at least now you know what I'm talking about.

Alex:

No, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I saw, I saw the article.

Alex:

I just didn't know who he was.

Alex:

yeah, good for him.

Alex:

That's crazy.

Alex:

Those guys are

Troy:

But you either have this kind of an alignment, right?

Troy:

Where you need, you need people like Stephen Smith.

Troy:

If you're, you know, a captive media brand or a cable brand, that's moving into the world of having to attract people to your platforms, right?

Troy:

You need the Stephen Smith's of the world.

Troy:

And what I thought was interesting is that there's that alliance that feels right, and that, that all, like the actually media becomes.

Troy:

A lot like it used to be, which is media.

Troy:

Like if you look at magazine media as an example, it was an oligopoly because it was too expensive to get in.

Troy:

Right.

Troy:

It was really, really hard to get in because building a subscription business in, you know, in the, you know, non digital days, like building a large rate based subscription based publication was, took, you know, Millions and millions, tens, hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

Troy:

And right now, if you, you know, building, doing the hard work of building a subscription media business is really what's required to be a healthy media company.

Troy:

And, if you're reliant on advertising or events or affiliate, there's just, you know, a, Tons of vulnerabilities.

Troy:

And what we're seeing in that world is a real antagonism between labor and ownership.

Troy:

And I think that's kind of interesting, right?

Troy:

Like it's, if you look at what the, the unions are saying in digital media, that the bosses don't know what they're doing, the bosses are saying that the unions don't understand the difficult trade offs involved in the business.

Troy:

And.

Troy:

You know, and, and, and as a result, there's a, there's just, it's just like a nasty, nasty time in the business.

Troy:

there's a, you know, just a, a, a lack of alignment and the companies right now that don't have the ballast.

Troy:

Or the muscle to build subscription businesses are, I think, extremely vulnerable and will trade at very, very low multiples.

Troy:

And that's kind of where we are.

Troy:

So you get, you have a magazine

Troy:

like,

Troy:

Hurst union reacting to the decisions that managements have to make, had to make in the last couple of weeks where a lot of people lost their jobs.

Troy:

I think you have, you know, even, you know, billionaires realizing like Mark Benioff that time magazine is, you know, that it's best days are behind it.

Troy:

And it's a very difficult.

Troy:

you know, asset to own because it doesn't, it has a shrinking print subscription business and it has an event business and it has a really small digital business and a money losing TV production or, you know, documentary production business.

Troy:

These are hard businesses to be in right now.

Alex:

yeah, they, they walked out.

Alex:

they coincided to walk out With the publishing of the 30 on the 30 list.

Alex:

And I wonder if I call that a 30 on the 30, no fly list.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

You know, it's

Alex:

so many of these, so many of these photo shoots turn into mock shots on these people usually.

Brian:

So that is like an ongoing joke with, with the 30 under 30 list.

Brian:

And I don't know if it like resonates.

Brian:

Does, does that.

Brian:

I mean, I feel like I feel like it's been like 10 years too long, but like, I'm shocked that 30 under 30 has has maintained, it's importance, I guess, in some ways.

Brian:

Look, people love honorifics.

Brian:

I've been part of a lot of distressing exercises of doing this.

Troy:

Just try to say

Brian:

I mean like naming like agency of the year or like

Alex:

I mean, people, people love to

Brian:

Neil, Neil Vogel was like our like person of the year or something.

Alex:

Well, well deserved, but people, people love to love and love to hate lists.

Alex:

The nice thing about a list is that everybody can agree or disagree to it.

Alex:

It gives people a great thing to discuss.

Alex:

That's why, like, there's always, you know, you know, top

Brian:

But is it a good, is it, is it worth it when your list is synonymous, at least in some quarters?

Brian:

I don't know how broad it is with people who go to jail.

Brian:

There's people tracking this, like, of,

Brian:

because

Alex:

freed, Sam Backman,

Alex:

Shkreli was

Troy:

it.

Troy:

Stop it.

Troy:

When you have a list of hundreds of young people, some of them are going to fail.

Troy:

Some of them are going to get into trouble.

Troy:

Like, the list is like literally a hundred people or more,

Alex:

Yeah.

Brian:

No, it's, it's, 600.

Troy:

criticism.

Troy:

you go.

Troy:

Six hundred.

Troy:

You're making my point.

Troy:

You're going to have some of them that end up on the wrong side of the

Alex:

Yeah, it's funny, man.

Alex:

It's funny.

Alex:

We're allowed to

Brian:

Yeah, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Brian:

Okay.

Alex:

All right.

Alex:

That's

Brian:

I do think at a more serious note, The union strife with management.

Brian:

It can't come at a worse time.

Brian:

If you think about all of the challenges that these organizations face.

Brian:

I mean, I was talking with someone who, one of the reasons they don't want to get back into, you know, running one of these organizations is this like it is a unpleasant time and I get it from both sides.

Brian:

I try to, I try to stand up for the cubicle class.

Brian:

While I also suck up to the power brokers.

Brian:

but I.

Alex:

in school.

Brian:

Yeah, totally.

Brian:

but like, I don't like running these businesses is really difficult when you're dealing with this kind of like internal strife.

Brian:

I was trying to get to that like Fox article because this is like one of the oddities.

Brian:

It's like when you're in these like union battles, there was like, there's some like, Like, statistics editor or something at Forbes who's like, the editor in chief is like, out to lunch, has no idea what they're doing, is not, I'm like, you gotta go to work with this person!

Brian:

Like, that's nuts.

Brian:

I, I would

Alex:

I wonder also like, and I know we just like talked about two back to back pieces of news, one, which was like these walkouts and the other ones that they're paying some guy 120 million to stay on, like, that's going to be, you know, I know they're different companies, but that's, that's like such a kind of crazy reality.

Alex:

Right.

Alex:

Where like everybody's kind

Alex:

of like in the

Troy:

they're grouped.

Troy:

That's like their group.

Troy:

So, so re reimagine your understanding of the media world, which is It's, it's extremely hard to build a subscription business.

Troy:

So it's a lot like it was in the old days.

Troy:

It's expensive and hard.

Troy:

The big difference is now there's a farm leak and the farm leak is the creator economy and the difference between now and then is that you can test all of your ideas and the, you know, the attraction of your personality and your ability to package media and serve an audience and all of that for almost nothing.

Troy:

And so there's a great big farm team layer where all future media brands emerge from this group of people that are empowered or, you know, the, the, the, that can make anything they want literally, you know,

Alex:

the farm team is like podcasters and YouTubers and stuff like that.

Troy:

Yeah, for sure.

Troy:

For sure.

Troy:

There's a gigantic fart.

Troy:

Yeah.

Troy:

Sub stackers, podcasters, uh, and, and that's where media brands will emerge.

Troy:

Many of them will already have tested their proposition in building a small subscription base and, or building, you know, a sort of cult of personality or, or, you know, a, a fan base.

Troy:

largely a fan base.

Troy:

And those people like the Daily Wire, like the, you know, people on the right and the left talking, you know, like Caller Daddy will build the next generation of media businesses.

Troy:

And that's the difference between old and new.

Alex:

And,

Alex:

is it, is it, so is it smart to spend all your money on trying to retain like one person?

Alex:

I mean, like,

Alex:

not that this is new, right?

Alex:

Like Howard Stern got like half a billion dollars to stay

Troy:

Yeah, this is, this is, just materially different math in bridging the old and the new, right?

Troy:

Like you need to realize that that old system still makes a tremendous amount of money because it's stuck in a shrinking distribution paradigm and, and to kind of cross the chasm to the new media world, you need talent.

Alex:

but, but this is the thing I don't get.

Alex:

And it, and it, would segue well into the, the triple a bubble in video games, if you want to talk about that.

Alex:

But, you know, The same thing's happening in video games where those massive investments, two, 300 million investments, we're hearing multiple billions of dollars for, for Grand Theft Auto six it's not paying out.

Alex:

And, and, and, and the question I always have is like, why are you making one 200 million investment versus like 20, you know, 10 million bets, like the same thing with content, take that 120 million and, and Build an environment where you're testing out the next YouTube star.

Alex:

And rather than pumping money into a 55 year old, I don't know how old that guy is.

Alex:

You're like finding the next generation of, of people.

Alex:

I, why, why is that the bet?

Alex:

Why is the bet always like all in?

Alex:

on, you know, the, the giant 300 million movie or the getting stern on for half, half a billion dollars, rather than taking that investment and placing smaller bets.

Alex:

Cause you know,

Brian:

Because

Alex:

you don't

Alex:

get

Brian:

talked about this.

Brian:

People don't get excited by, people don't get excited by a bunch of small bets.

Brian:

People get excited.

Brian:

Why do you think people crowd around the craps table, right?

Brian:

Or like, it's, it's, you know, people like big bets.

Alex:

I

Brian:

big

Alex:

there's gotta be more to that, right?

Alex:

I don't know.

Brian:

I mean, the sensible thing, the sensible thing is to like, be really small and like, you know, nimble and it's the safest route, right?

Brian:

But like, people always take big swings.

Brian:

It's more fun, think.

Troy:

Well, while we're on the video game topic, Alex, I did think that that world labs demo was impressive.

Troy:

And it made me wonder what happens when we can take any image and make it into basically an environment.

Alex:

Do you want to,

Alex:

it's

Brian:

this?

Alex:

so, so world labs is a new.

Alex:

Yes, it's a new, it's a new, a tool that basically allows you to create, 3d worlds out of a 2d picture concept art.

Alex:

So you could kind of take a picture

Troy:

You could walk into a Van Gogh painting.

Alex:

yeah, yeah.

Alex:

I mean, The main, the thing it does is it, it uses its, its data set to kind of create real 3d models.

Alex:

Now, as a technical demo, it's very impressive as, if you put on the, the meta versus the future hat, it is what will be required to create enough content for the metaverse to exist.

Alex:

it is also, you know, to my kind of rant about, you know, AAA kind of like high end budget video games costing too much.

Alex:

It's, it's, it, this is the type of stuff where that replaces, you know, right now, every single model, unless you kind of purchase it from somewhere, needs to be created by hand.

Alex:

So if you want a chair and a fucking thing, you either need to scan it or create it or scan it and kind of modify it.

Alex:

And that takes hundreds of people.

Alex:

so having systems right now where you can say, Hey, make me a chair, or here's a picture of this house generated in 3d, is pretty incredible.

Alex:

And it's, and it's going to, I think it's going to change a lot of things.

Alex:

Now, my question is like in the age of abundance like that, right.

Alex:

It's hard for us to fathom, but the example I was giving is like, I would have probably paid a hundred dollars, you know, when the Lumiere brothers had that like train departing the station film that they were showing, you know, that the first film ever made, or one of the first films ever made.

Alex:

but now there's like, you know, 500 hours of video dropped on YouTube every minute, like where.

Alex:

Where is the value?

Alex:

Like, is it really, does it really always come down to taste when we can create anything?

Alex:

It just comes down to taste.

Alex:

that's how you stand out.

Alex:

That's how you create value.

Alex:

That's how you create content that people want to buy.

Alex:

it's going to be really interesting because that's, you know, generating real fully realized 3d worlds is kind of the last, the last bastion of like things that take a lot of time that are just a big moat, right.

Alex:

and.

Alex:

I don't know.

Alex:

I don't know.

Alex:

Culture ebbs and flows.

Alex:

So it could be, you know, we're already noticing right now that even music is kind of pulling a little away from digital and it's going into like, there's like a lot of grungy and acoustic stuff coming up.

Alex:

I don't know.

Alex:

Maybe there's a similar kind of digital pullback where people just want things made out of paper mache or something, you know, like, you know, like you need to stand out somehow.

Alex:

Culture is a peacock game, right?

Alex:

Like

Troy:

Yeah,

Troy:

I just bought a new, uh, I just bought a paper mache iPhone.

Troy:

It's pretty cool.

Alex:

yeah, I was listening to a podcast about the works of David Lynch and that, that last season of, of twin peaks, which was very strange and all his video effects look really, really good.

Alex:

Bad in a way, but they're intentional because they look different to the way of visual effects were done before.

Alex:

And that's what we was trying to do.

Alex:

I don't know.

Alex:

Maybe we're going back.

Alex:

Maybe that's going to be where we find value, but this stuff is, is, is changing everything.

Alex:

of

Brian:

we wanna do a little wait?

Brian:

Could, could, do we wanna do a little car talk before we get into to LinkedIn?

Brian:

Because that's what I'm really, that's what I've, I've been waiting to get into LinkedIn.

Alex:

sure.

Brian:

Troy, you have some car talk, right?

Brian:

I have a Nissan Altima that I lease.

Brian:

I don't, this is not my

Troy:

that's literally the worst car on the planet.

Troy:

That is an absolute hunk of junk.

Brian:

Nissan Altima.

Brian:

It's very sensible

Troy:

yes, very sensible.

Troy:

I don't know.

Troy:

I

Brian:

I I like flipping the, I

Troy:

the

Troy:

the

Troy:

the the car thing is interesting.

Troy:

Remember that, that.

Troy:

As go economics, in many cases, so go politics.

Troy:

Places like the German economy is largely built around success as being an automotive manufacturer, the game in, in America, you know, General Motors, Ford, have, you know, been the over, you know, over time, the kind of the, you know, the industrial and manufacturing backbone of the And, the game is just like utterly Like different now.

Troy:

And I think that it, you know, you're seeing, you know, Japanese car makers lose share to the Chinese.

Troy:

the Germans, that used to like VW as an example, used to have 14 percent of the Chinese market at 6 percent in 20, in 20, in 2019, it's 6 percent in 2024.

Troy:

All of these Chinese companies are stamping out cars like their Android phones, BYD, Cherry, Geely, whatever.

Troy:

And um, you.

Troy:

really interesting cars where you start to see the value prop shift from like how the seats are sewn, although, you know, interior is still important, but like, you know, you, you, you get in the car, you drop your phone on a little, you know, you set your phone down in the entire environment, reflects your personal digital world and, and then you see, you know, there's lots of speculation around.

Troy:

Is it going to be, you know, You know, Tesla's camera technology versus, you know, Waymo's LiDAR.

Troy:

And, you know, Tesla FSD 13 or 13.

Troy:

2 is where it is now is their new self driving technology.

Troy:

And it's a big story for all the nerds on YouTube, because it's not just about FSD 13.

Troy:

2, although that's an important part of it.

Troy:

It's XAI as an important sort of.

Troy:

You know, brain behind it, it's the ability to create, you know, camera based, intelligent.

Troy:

Machines, right?

Troy:

Which is whatever their what's their humanoid thing called.

Troy:

and so, you know, they everybody Yeah, every, everybody is, is, is really keeping an eye on Optimus because if Optimus works, it's probably, you know, the biggest market that you could ever target, right?

Troy:

It's a market as big as all labor.

Troy:

So it's, it's an enormous TAM and what you see with FSD 13.

Troy:

2, and there's tons and tons and tons of nerds and videos on YouTube doing it is literally you get in your car.

Troy:

You press a button, it backs up.

Troy:

This guy, you know, the one I watched, you know, was parked behind another car, pressed a button, drove him.

Troy:

And like through some complex, you know, kind of traffic situations and parked at the Chipotle.

Troy:

All right.

Troy:

Like, and you just have to wonder, like, What does that mean to everything from cars, media environment, what does it do to neighborhoods?

Troy:

What does it do to commerce?

Troy:

what does it do as importantly to the car industry?

Troy:

And, you know, The Germans are good at a lot of things.

Troy:

I don't think they're good, you know, world leaders at AI and software.

Troy:

How would the, the undermining the German automotive industry ultimately affect the political stability of a country?

Troy:

Right?

Troy:

Like the, this is like a big moment.

Troy:

And cars are, cars are, you know, a deterministic factor in,

Brian:

Well, also, I mean, you have to, like, cars have always been the test of whether you have an advanced economy or not.

Brian:

If you can make a car, you have an advanced

Troy:

yeah, to which Alex says, who gives a shit, Bitcoin hits a hundred K, right?

Troy:

So I, I, I, you know,

Troy:

this is

Brian:

In this

Brian:

house, we do not bring that energy.

Alex:

I, I, and I stand by the fact that that was a fucking funny thing to say right there.

Alex:

The, the, the, yeah, I mean, you know, we have self driving.

Alex:

cars in San Francisco way.

Alex:

Most I take that all the time.

Alex:

I have used Tesla's FSD.

Alex:

I chose not to turn it on my car because I have seen too many times that my webcams got destructed or when it rains, it imagined a truck coming towards me.

Alex:

So I was like, I'm good with the webcam thing.

Alex:

I think,

Troy:

statements you're

Troy:

making, right?

Troy:

Like if

Troy:

these are

Troy:

political statements, they're part of your condition

Alex:

Yeah,

Alex:

no, I mean, I know I

Troy:

but

Alex:

anything.

Alex:

I know.

Alex:

So, so, so, so, so, so I

Troy:

this, Alex, you clean the dirt off the webcam,

Alex:

I was going, I was going 40 miles an hour on an empty road and the thing went into a full stop.

Alex:

And I thought.

Alex:

Man, I really wish I didn't have Elon derangement syndrome now.

Alex:

So I could have a real emotion towards the fact that this thing nearly killed me.

Alex:

it is very impressive.

Alex:

I think that there are, unfortunately for self driving, I'm very pro self driving cars.

Alex:

It's going to take a while because you know, cities need to adjust to it.

Alex:

It is very dependent on weather today.

Alex:

It is, still very expensive to buy these cars.

Troy:

it's not expensive.

Troy:

They're 40, 000.

Troy:

It's very cheap to buy these cars actually.

Troy:

you know, it's getting

Alex:

I mean, yeah, I, you know, I'm, I'm selling my Tesla.

Alex:

I know how much it's going for the, the.

Alex:

The, it will definitely, it's coming, you know, self driving cars is coming.

Alex:

Now, I think in your world, you know, we have Chrome, Elon statues, like erected everywhere.

Alex:

I think it's going to happen differently across different places.

Alex:

Like we're, we're seeing what like BYD, like China has a lot of.

Alex:

Self driving cars right now.

Alex:

And it's very easy for them to turn that stuff on.

Alex:

So we're going to see it happen in China way before you see it happen here.

Alex:

America and, is, is also has like a lot of, places where, where the network just doesn't support self driving because there's no access to electricity or, or all these types of things it's going

Alex:

to take,

Troy:

What, are you talking about?

Troy:

No access to electricity.

Alex:

Charger networks, like we have, we have a grid problem here.

Alex:

Like I know we could build self driving gasoline cars, but that's not, that's not the plan right now.

Alex:

all I'm saying is this stuff is super cool.

Alex:

Super impressive.

Alex:

Tesla's self driving when it works is crazy good.

Alex:

When it doesn't, it

Troy:

haven't tried the new one, right?

Alex:

I, I, know, and I, and I know that Elon breathed into your ear says it's very good, Troy, and

Troy:

And he breathed into yours and said, we're gonna smash your car.

Alex:

no, I just, why do I need it?

Alex:

Why do I, why do I need to try this out?

Alex:

Like I,

Troy:

I,

Troy:

don't want you to try it out.

Troy:

What I want you to do

Alex:

yeah,

Alex:

I

Troy:

that it's a moment.

Troy:

It's a moment.

Troy:

And that,

Alex:

I mean, the moment's been happening for years.

Alex:

I paid an extra 10 grand to have full self driving in my car.

Alex:

I was there.

Alex:

I think that there's just

Troy:

Alex, the reason that this is a moment is because there's so much speculation about whether the Tesla solution can actually compete with LIDAR.

Troy:

That is a very big thing, right?

Troy:

And that's a thing that will determine billions and billions of dollars of stock valuation.

Troy:

It's an enormous time.

Troy:

And then what I did is I connected that to the new race in automotive technology

Alex:

and what I said is who gives a shit?

Alex:

Who gives a shit?

Alex:

Bitcoin just reached a hundred thousand.

Alex:

Okay.

Alex:

and you know what I did?

Alex:

I sold some of that Bitcoin and bought myself a new car.

Alex:

And that's how

Alex:

it all

Alex:

ties up.

Brian:

you?

Brian:

got a hodl.

Brian:

Oh, you

Alex:

No, man.

Alex:

Why would this say, but I'm buying my, I'm only on this earth for a short while.

Alex:

I'm just going to buy myself a nice car with some of my Bitcoin money.

Brian:

take back what?

Brian:

I said to you, Troy, about resenting the fact that you lectured me to get in on crypto.

Brian:

It's been

Brian:

doing really well.

Troy:

Thank you.

Brian:

LinkedIn,

Troy:

I just bought a new, I just bought a new gas powered car, by the way.

Troy:

So,

Alex:

Oh, wow.

Alex:

Why didn't you buy a Tesla?

Alex:

Troy?

Brian:

you.

Alex:

So it sounds like, sounds like, you've got Elon derangement syndrome.

Alex:

That's a political statement you just made there.

Troy:

anyway, um,

Alex:

why didn't you know?

Alex:

But seriously, why, why, wait, why didn't you buy a Tesla?

Alex:

I actually, I own, I own all the Tesla.

Alex:

I own all the Elon products.

Alex:

I have

Troy:

Because I don't want a little bitch ass sedan and

Alex:

Oh.

Alex:

Just get the X.

Alex:

Just

Alex:

get the X.

Brian:

Are you a

Brian:

coupe man?

Troy:

just the, the New York roads are hostile.

Troy:

And I already have a, I already have a wagon actually, that, that, that's

Troy:

fine

Alex:

you have an X?

Alex:

Why don't you get the X or the

Troy:

Why didn't I get that?

Troy:

Because I, I, it's not my car.

Troy:

It's not my vibe.

Troy:

It's just not.

Alex:

Do

Brian:

speaking, speaking, of your vibe,

Alex:

driving?

Brian:

speaking of your vibe, I, I want to get

Brian:

into That's, LinkedIn is our final, topic.

Brian:

I saw a study that, Shockingly, over half of the quote unquote fault leader posts on LinkedIn are now created by AI.

Brian:

LinkedIn has, has integrated AI into it and, just an unscientific, my in mail has gotten crazier.

Brian:

there are, is a ton of, if this is the future of AI, I'm not, I'm not that excited to be honest with you.

Brian:

And I think in order to combat that, some of the thought leaders on LinkedIn have brought this walk and talk selfie video, there.

Troy:

the the walk and talk thing is, is annoying.

Troy:

It's kind of gross, isn't it?

Troy:

Right.

Troy:

It's sort of,

Brian:

look, I know you guys you guys have LinkedIn derangement

Brian:

syndrome.

Brian:

I go there.

Brian:

I like, I like, posts.

Alex:

I love it.

Alex:

I love how derangement syndrome

Brian:

I

Alex:

be

Troy:

you're doing, hey, Alec, Alex, if you start doing walk and talk videos on LinkedIn, I

Brian:

it.

Troy:

we have to part ways.

Alex:

No, I'm too much of a heavy breather.

Alex:

Why not?

Alex:

It's a format, Troy.

Alex:

Why do you

Alex:

always have to sit down?

Troy:

There's some, no, no, there's something about it.

Troy:

There's something about people that do walk and talk videos on LinkedIn, which, know, No, no, it's, it usually, it's a type, it's a type.

Troy:

And usually it has no insight and it's so shamelessly self promotional and it's on LinkedIn and the whole thing is just cringe to me.

Alex:

Man, you're recording a video of yourself, of course it's a I I used I remember that I used to, when I used to work for you, Troy, I used to re receive these voicemails, where you were obviously walking, and it was just you going, So, uh, Alex, uh, I was thinking about this thing you you're doing,

Alex:

uh, I think I think I I think

Troy:

loaded with insight, delivered directly

Alex:

had to fucking,

Brian:

a great

Alex:

yeah so I have to, I have to listen to some, some person ramble and take notes to figure out what I have to do with it.

Alex:

So by the time you get to work you see the new, the new design.

Alex:

I don't know, I think, I think people are trying out formats, good

Brian:

exactly.

Brian:

So I decided like I, to go to your, both of your LinkedIn profiles in preparation

Brian:

for this.

Brian:

Alex, you and I are not connected on LinkedIn, which I didn't know you're in, you're in like a second circle.

Brian:

So I don't know.

Brian:

I might send you, I don't pay for in mail so we can't communicate via LinkedIn.

Brian:

Now Alex has a really great about section.

Brian:

because it's very to the point and concise.

Brian:

It just says previously C.

Brian:

D.

Brian:

O.

Brian:

Airbnb today making original video games at human computer.

Brian:

And then I went over to choice and he has a manifesto and

Brian:

it

Brian:

begins with

Troy:

at it in years.

Brian:

years leading changes written in the third person, 30 years leading change, growing brands, building remarkable teams and delivering results at the intersection of media, advertising and commerce.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Always finding time to laugh.

Brian:

The next chapter is being written now.

Troy:

Oh, I'm changing this.

Brian:

Troy, you can do a

Brian:

walk and

Alex:

have, you should have, yeah, you should

Brian:

you got it in

Troy:

Jesus.

Brian:

So I went to mine and I don't even have an about section.

Brian:

So I gotta like optimize my,

Alex:

I think your about sections should be, you know, me, you you know, me.

Brian:

do we have a good product outside of LinkedIn?

Brian:

Cause I think LinkedIn is a great product.

Alex:

I have a great, I have a great

Alex:

product.

Alex:

Uh,

Troy:

just wait.

Troy:

Last

Alex:

to the audience.

Alex:

Oh, sorry.

Alex:

We'll say Troy will say like fish food or something.

Alex:

What, what do you, what do you need

Troy:

Well, are you letting me have my segment?

Brian:

go

Alex:

your segment?

Troy:

All right.

Troy:

just a couple things, media things.

Troy:

yesterday I watched the, documentary about Casa Bonita.

Troy:

Do you know what Casa Bonita is?

Alex:

Uh, is it like a

Brian:

house.

Alex:

beans?

Troy:

It's a immersive Mexican restaurant in Denver that has like, you know, a waterfall and divers and little nooks and crannies that kids, you know, get lost in.

Troy:

And it, for many people that lived in Denver, it was a magical place to visit when they were growing up and it fell into disrepair and the food looked like slop and the place was disgusting.

Troy:

And Trey Parker and Matt Stone bought it.

Troy:

And they bought it for, for very little and had, the documentary is about the journey after buying it.

Troy:

And they had expected to spend like 6 million renovating in it.

Troy:

And they spent 40 and made it into a very kind of special experiential kind of environment.

Troy:

and they did it with, you know, love and their own unique kind of humor.

Troy:

And it's kind of an awesome documentary, but that's not what my good product is.

Troy:

Um, I don't know.

Troy:

It's, it's called, what's it called?

Troy:

It's,

Alex:

for the listeners.

Troy:

it's called Casa Bonita

Troy:

Anyways, it's super fun.

Troy:

I like this sub stack from John Ellis who used to work at, I think, at Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal.

Troy:

I think he used to write the daily kind of news update for Rupert Murdoch is what I read somewhere, but he has this,

Brian:

Is this

Troy:

daily thing.

Troy:

It's called news items.

Troy:

Yeah,

Brian:

up last night at dinner.

Troy:

I really like it.

Troy:

it's kind of he's got it in kind of baskets of really notable things, very short, easy to consume.

Brian:

He like gets up at 3 o'clock in the morning and reads like a million things.

Troy:

World in disarray, financialization of everything, you know, science and tech, electoral politics, foreign and domestic.

Troy:

And it's six days a week.

Troy:

It's, and it's, it's a great, it's a great product.

Troy:

I like a lot.

Troy:

It's always stuff that I, you know, it's really efficient.

Troy:

It's stuff that I don't,

Brian:

a year.

Troy:

yeah, I bought it.

Alex:

Wow,

Brian:

they got praise that like,

Alex:

it

Alex:

took you

Brian:

know, it's like he does all the

Alex:

Brian's newsletter.

Troy:

Oh, this is actually

Brian:

get up at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Brian:

Stop that.

Alex:

I have, I have a recommendation for folks.

Alex:

it's called granola.

Alex:

ai, stupid name.

Alex:

but what it does is it installs, installs itself on your computer.

Alex:

And then when you're on any calls, you can record them.

Alex:

But because it's, not recording any of the audio, it's kind of bypassing any, wire tapping laws.

Alex:

and so it just takes notes.

Brian:

Like otter?

Alex:

in, we have way, way, way, way better.

Alex:

You don't have to ask it to join your call or anything like that.

Alex:

You could just turn it on at any time.

Alex:

and the notes that it takes and the context that it gets is really great.

Alex:

And then what it does is it creates a little page for the conversation you have and has a little chat bot on the right, and you can ask it question about what happened during that conversation.

Alex:

It's kind of like a really well executed version of those, AI recorders.

Alex:

And I think it's

Alex:

much better than anything else.

Troy:

granola?

Alex:

Because all the other names were taken.

Alex:

That's

Brian:

Yeah,

Alex:

in tech.

Alex:

that's

Brian:

and fireflies and Yeah, I'm often in meetings where there are more, AI name takers than there are humans.

Brian:

I don't know

Alex:

yeah.

Alex:

Well, this one is kind of transparent.

Alex:

I've been recording us all, all this time.

Troy:

That's it for this episode of people versus algorithms where each week we uncover patterns shaping media culture and technology.

Troy:

Big thanks as always to our producer, Vanja Arsenov.

Troy:

She always makes us a little clearer and more understandable and we appreciate her very, very much.

Troy:

If you're enjoying these conversations, we'd love for you to leave us a review.

Troy:

It helps us get the word out and keeps our community growing.

Troy:

Remember, you can find People vs.

Troy:

Algorithms on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and now on YouTube.

Troy:

Thanks for listening and we'll see you again next week.

Brian:

This was fun.

Alex:

All right.

Alex:

Good to

Troy:

Right

Troy:

on, right on.

Brian:

Bye!

Alex:

okay.

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About the Podcast

People vs Algorithms
A podcast for curious media minds.
Uncovering patterns of change in media, culture, and technology, each week media veterans Brian Morrissey, Alex Schleifer and Troy Young break down stuff that matters.
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