2023's biggest tech stories
01:41:55 Share

Support for the verge cast comes from strike. Strike is a payments in billion platform supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like uber, B, M W and door dash. Striping has help countless startups and establish companies like reached their groth goals, make progress on their emissions and reach more customers globally. The platform offers a sweet of specialized features and tools to fash track growth like stripe billing, which makes IT easy to handle subscription based charges, invoices and all reactions ring revenue management needs. You can learn how stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at stripe dot com that striped out com to learn more, right, make progress.

Support for the show .

comes from service. Now the AI platform for business transformation. You've heard the big hype around A I, and the truth is A I is only as powerful as the platform is built into service. Now is the platform that puts A I to work for people across your business, removing frustration for your employees, super charging productivity for developers, providing intelligent tools for your service agents to make customers happier, all built into a single platform you can use right now. And that's why the world works with service now is a service now can flash A I for people to learn more.

Hello, walking in the verge chest, the flagship podcast, the twenty twenty three, the whole year when you think of twenty twenty three, you should think of the first chest and you should tell your friends to think of IT that way. I know the people have been doing your interview packages. We've done them as well. All of them are wrong because the only thing that happened in twenty and twenty was of our chest is that right? Is sure that is .

absolutely correct. The verge cast wrapped is the thing that doesn't exist. But well, in twenty twenty four, I from.

I don't I don't want to know, my friend, you like that, David, alex x hands is on vacation. Well deserved vacation already. Uh, our holiday wishes to her, but Richard lawler is here to fill in.

Harry should hey.

good to be back, right? So this is our year and review show. Unfortunately, the technology has decided to chaotically fire out news at the end of the year. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to do, uh, what David is titled the year and apple chaos lightning round. Then we're going to have an actual news focus lighting round and then we're going to go through our biggest stories of the year, which uh when we get to to explain how we decided what they were, it's surprising um but that our structure on the shooter.

I think the news is a lot like I just want to before. Can everybody stop please? Like the last time we had a holiday, same old thing got fired.

Like it's about to be Christmas. Can we just not like from now on? Can we just not for like two weeks please.

every yeah, just shut IT down to this. This is the problem with working from home. Alright for crane man, home now are right. Stop working. Stop doing things. No more calls.

Shut the left. Go to the fund s screen, not the work screen. It's .

alright .

on that.

Richard. I've never seen Richard actually turned all the way off. I've known Richard for a very long time.

All the way off is not setting, but I think exists virtual collar, right? Let's start with the year and apple case. There is a lot of year and apple chaos.

Uh, I think the biggest, most material bit of year and apple chaos news is whatever is going on with the apple watch at the I T. C. Yeah, David quickly run us through .

this short. So the basic thing that is happening is apple lost a long running fate against the company called mamo, which makes medical devices about a sor for a blood oxidizing in the apple watch. There's a lot of history there that we can talk about, much of which I think is very interesting.

But what IT amounts to is that, uh, apple lost. And the I, T, C, the international trade commission put in a an import ban, which would mean that apple could not import and then sell apple watches. All recent apple watches since the apple watch series six, except for the S E, would be covered.

So basically no new apple watches for apple into the united states. Apple had sixty days since that ruling in october to either, like, come to a deal with massimo to get this done and sign a licensing agreement or convinced president by divide the order that expires december twenty fifth, which is Christmas, and then on december twenty six, the import being takes effect. At this point, anything could still happen, but pretty much everybody seems to think that by a mile, the most likely outcome is that come december twenty sixth, apple is no longer going to be allowed to sell most of its apple watch models in the united states.

There is a few things to unpacked you, which I think are interesting. One is the long history between apple and maxim. What we can talk about. The second, which people have directly asking you about is pat nuri.

So that's why we had to do this here, walk on the verge, cast the flexi podcasts.

passes what i'm here. So I mean, just i'll just do this part very quickly because it's not actually that complicated. This time you can feel how we want about the pattern system, but in this case of a small U.

S. Company that developed and technology got some patterns on IT. Then there's a monkey bx with apple, which we get into. But you have a small us. Company made some products, got some pants.

The thing that has become the trend in patent lawsuits, especially between tech companies, over the last decade, is you file two patent, lose its when you're mad. One is a right old patent fring case in federal court. The other is a patent infringing case at the international trade mission, which is an executive agency that regulates what comes into the country.

In the reason you do that, the reasons popular is because we don't make a lot of things in america. That's just the truth. And so if you are apple suing samsung or samsung sewing apple back in the day, you are running this fast track parallel petn litigation at the I, T, C.

To ban your competitors phones for mentally united states, because that's going create a lot of leverage for you in a settling or a negotiation or whatever. So that is the trend. Every time you see a pat in france last year, especially in one of the companies involved or both, the companies also have a big offshore manufacturing presence.

They need to import goods. And the that says the I T C gets involved. So nose and google I T C.

involved. Famously, apple and samsung idc was involved in. Samsung actually won at the I, T, C. Against apple, was gona prevent hypos from being imported. And the obama administration stepped in and said, now we're going to be to this one and in that case, you see there's like a national stick in pull play you an american company of a quean company. The way that is like we're going, american company went.

In this case, something is very different as you have a small american company and you have a giant american IT does not seem like the bide administration wants to pick sides here. It's like not an easy win, like no one's weighing a flag when you let apple crush the small company. That just doesn't doesn't seem like this to happen.

So that's the great just the shape of IT, right? The icc is this place where a lot of parallel pat motivation happens because it's faster and because you can quickly get to a very damaging result, which is banning imports, which creates a lot of average. And now national has that left?

The itc is not a legal system. It's not like rating laws and judges at the innovation. It's just like a, it's just like a bunch people who make a decision that has this train to effect talking about.

But it's not like it's a administrative court. It's a different kind of court. You can get all way down.

It's a real loss of stuff. It's not court in the judicial brands and administrative court, and they work a bit IT differently. It's a court IT does that thing.

So that's that's what happened here, right? There's been this pat motivation. I'm sure the sort of federal court pat motivation will continue to wind this way through the court system.

But master wanted he says that basically the policy and say so we don't allow people to import goods infringing ing the patterns of companies that Operate and and its site okay, like you understand ady patent system, you understand why that's the polite you want to punish people for violating patterns, especially people who might be manufacturing or goods of sure not paying off. I like you see where that's coming from, okay? The apple has to contend with that.

And it's what's amazing to me about this. And David, I think, is where the back stories are interesting. They haven't just paid the money to messina. They haven't just bought the company or paid the licensing fee. They've been wagging war against a small country for like a decade.

And this goes back to twenty thirteen. Ah and the the very short version in the backside is when apple decided I wanted to start doing the blood oxygen stuff in the apple watch IT contacted mass mode as as a possible partner uh and both sides agree that that is a thing that that the two companies talk to each other and then from their massive m argument is essentially apple hired, I think, IT was their chief medical officer and a unch of our employees and a bunch our engineers, and essentially just ripped off our technology hoog and put IT to the apple watch.

Apple's version is we met with mass mo, decided that IT wasn't gonna what we wanted IT to be. They weren't close enough to consumer device. So we went a different direction and that higher mathematics ef medical officer and engineers and staff and built a very similar versions of this technology.

So the sides are like far apart in a certain way, but not that far apart in a certain way. And IT seems like what has happened at this point. I was actually want to interviews with jokey on his mama C.

E. O. And he is like brought in on this idea that apple is not an innovative company and needs to be shown to the world to be the non innovative company that IT really is. And apples also having this fight with a live core about some of the ekg stuff that was going on.

And he is out here being like, I have spent sixty million dollars over a decade on this litigation and I am going to win to prove to the world that apple is not the company that he claims to be. Apple, meanwhile, is the largest and most resource company on planet earth and uh the general consensus of the reason that no one at apple side has come to the table here is that apple doesn't want to give people incentive to sue them. And if if you can sew your way in the getting bored by apple or getting paid off by apple, people will do IT. And I think those if if you take those two things, there's just no space in between them, just none.

There's a little bit of space, is there? There's a little bit space, but is that not a ton of space? And I i've covered apple pat mediation for a long.

In many ways, apple song is the new story that helped the verge become the verge. Like IT was, IT was the thing that drove a lot of our early traffic and interest. So i've seen a lot of time covering apple patent stuff and talking apple folks.

They are religious, that they don't steal anything, that everyone else is a bad actor, and everyone wants money and the apples. When and I get IT, I really get IT. And you can see how this gets expressed in all kinds of waste.

Apple hate squirm. They hate this company. And it's because caucus run a monts of pat lensing schemes.

They on all the pants to five g apple doesn't to pay where they shoot each other. The lawsuits are really snippy. Apple went out and bought and tells a motive divisions. So you get away from. That is an incredible .

that the apples apple has like whole billion dollar or divisions of its company that are just set up as .

petty counters to a fAiling divisions. Like if you remember, intel failed to build a five g motion in bought the failed modem division from intel on the theory that they would just manage those people Better. That's crazy.

You only do that here like blinded by petty rage and someone else believing the day invented something that you need IT. And so that's quon. And I think people look at their attitude towards samon or quand know these are giants fight.

What are they doing yet done of the smaller companies who feel aggrieved? And apple runs the same playbook. I think IT comes out looking very differently, right? We met with the small company.

We saw our technology. We went, and instead of having to pay a premium by the company, we just paid a premium for all the people. I think one of the stories joky on, he says the cheap onic officer, like the triple, is paid air something.

So they just spend a bunch of money on people. They took the company away from him and they took a psycho ology, and he's been fighting, had lost. And apple's belief is that I can just win in court over, over, over again.

And this is a story that started to tell about big companies all the time.

every day, every company. Yeah, I look at this and I look at apple getting all the way to this moment where they have preemptively announced they're not going to sell the apple watch. The ban isn't affected just the week before Christmas.

They should be selling every apple watch they can the way apple anounced. Super weird, super weird. If you're apple and your is Christmas, and the apple watch is one of you is like the ultimate apple Christmas gift, right? You need to sell many washes as you can.

This is extremely material information that your q four results will be impacted by not having the ability to sell the apple watch. That is that should be a press release that should be in eight k file with the S, C, C, right? You should be informing investors in the biggest, most official way you can.

And apple into that. They gave a background quote to nine five mak, which is great. I love nine to five mac. My all of my criticism here is for apple.

Yeah, that is an in saying way to announce this news, in my belief, is an outside that way because they don't want to see important. They wanted to raise the pressure about administration. They wanted this veto.

And I don't think they're going to get IT and they're going to have to contend with the apple watch not being on sale unless they buy this company, pay a settlement whose premium is rising every single day, every day the apple watch is on sale is a day that mo is like winning, right? Like the Price increases for a mathematic everyday apple watches on sale. And what's even crazier about this? Um joe from us keeps saying this, never anything he keeps saying IT takes two to tango, which is just an amazing thing like i'm willing like I will accept the money they have to show up and offer a greney and they they won't and I I think apples just backed itself and to a weird kind of corner here where they should have just bought this company ten years ago and we no one we've ever heard about any of this.

And I think your explanation of that being religion is the only one that makes sense here because you think about IT, how could apple have possibly have left IT this far IT just IT just IT ables my mind to think that they didn't take her this before, that they didn't deal with this. Whether you're worried about being suit by other the companies or who else might follow president, anything like that, they are getting suit. All attack that is already happening. There's just there's no reason to do this logically.

Yeah, he does not like there is a certain version of this set of events that IT never gets to this, right, like the part of the region. This is so shocking is that we went through all these steps and and Richard, one of the exam cares about is how much you've been sort of aware of this story over the last twelve months because it's been lingering for a long time like we've been fighting about this for a decade.

And yet I personally was fully out of the blue, shocked by the news that this was happening. Because every time you turn around and it's like H A companies doing apple, apple will eventually write them checking, will never hear that again. This is what happens over and over. The fact that anybody talked about at all is surprising and then every step is a little more surprising. But eventually, it's like there they're are going going to write a or settling in some other way and along with on with our lives.

So to me, it's like it's the fact that ah the fact that I came out of nowhere, even though IT absolutely did not come out of nowhere, is what's so telling to me that is like of this is so such an unusual outcome of an incredibly commenting that I think if I am apple, I bet nobody at apple thought I would get this far up to winning potentially including the day of the ban. I bet most people at apple are like IT. IT will win. IT will be.

And I think you're exactly right. That's pretty much how I was thinking about that. I was aware of I just like I was aware of a number of other losses that are winding their way through the system involving apple.

You have all the class action losses. You have all the patent losses that you have. Everyone ever saying that they invented the action button before you got IT on your iphone of dan pro.

yeah. But IT IT never .

turns into anything, or very rarely turns into anything. And then this one just dropped one day like, oh, by the way, uh, if you want an apple watch, you should get IT. So yeah.

my favorite conspiracy theory about all this, by the way, is that is everybody saying, like, if this is actually going to be awesome for apples q for because everybody's gonna rush out to buy an apple watch before.

what a vote of no confidence. And I was business development or legal teams. If you're like this will improve sales because everyone will rush out.

You're like because apples lawyers will continue to lose this fight. Tim cook won't just write the check I didn't meet. It's a weird story.

Every part of IT is weird. IT was weird ten years ago. It's weird because apple's religion is weird. People sue apple every day, right?

You're not by settling the one case where is merit or will get this far from the serano on merit. It's not like you're going to encourage other people to show up. They're already there.

You're already the richest company in the world like you're the fattest target there is yeah. So it's it's a weird dynamic to think more people wanted see like there's no one left. They're already suing you.

If you wake up one day, you know like you know what, I maybe a patent til today, the first thing on your mind is how do you sue apple and that is faulty. And like whatever, it's part of the system. But there there comes a point where you had sixty days to negotiate a cynthy for the thing wouldn't on sale and you banked IT on. But biden showing up in having an opinion on whether the apple watch should be so I don't like if you you can pay attention to the stood like doesn't seem like like yeah .

it's weird like bikes .

that they are giving interviews on whether president trump did an insurrection. They're like to like even if you think he's checked in, whether the apple watch on sale is on his list of things we would pay attention to, far down any list that anyone would make the things the president, I say you paying attention to at this moment in time. So I the whole thing is weird.

Yeah, batman and apple chaos. Anyway, it's Christmas. Go by an apple launch before.

Yeah, bank. He doesn't listen to the show. I bought SHE. Got a new one for Christmas.

And I will tell you this, one of the the funny things I should, they got because he has six. She's a serious five or series six. It's dying with the battery science. And several years old I bought a new, I about to nine, and I, oh, this is just not different. No.

they are remarkably as to the point where I had to take mine off and look at IT today to remember which one that I had. This is just where .

we are and what's actually funny, a Victoria song. This point is over, over in our coverage, the blood action in central air watch is not that useful.

No.

he just doesn't do a lot. So but if .

you have an old one, you should keep IT around just in case it's useful .

for message later. Let's get to that.

A keeper. Eventually you're going have to jail break. Uh, iphone, no, eventually you going to have to jail, break an apple watch and where to underneath to use people. That's that's where we go on. David.

what's going on here? This sounds me so sad. So we've been covering the the bieber versus im message thing for the last few weeks. And uh I think at this point I feel pretty good about pronouncing IT over.

Um so if ever said at the beginning of this week that they had yet another fix for the imessage blue bubbles on android thing, the table working on and announced the fix and IT is so ridiculous as to be more or less sort of unusable for most people um basically the way that is working is is by connecting to a device. Uh, you can register uh you can register your phone number as an imessage number if and only if you have an iphone or a mac, which I would point out is actly how IT already worked. And so we've just kind of come all the way back around to where we were.

And a their solution is literally like it's got to the point with those. They are saying, ask a friend who has an iphone to give you the registration code so that we can get into their system because that's the unique number that we need. They won't have access to your I messages, but every once in a while, they are going to get a new code to keep the registration going and they going to have to give you or you can have an older iphone, which i'm sure tons of android users have around or and this is the best one, you can rent an iphone from beeper, which is a thing that they're considering doing like this just IT just doesn't work, right? Like beeper lost.

And and you can feel about that, however you like to feel about that beeper loss. And I think. It's very clear now that what be pushing towards is being like a marder for a greater cause of fighting against apple and eric commission.

Cosy, the C. E. O was on, I forget one of the morning shows talking about the same thing that was cbs this morning talking about this. A A, A bunch of congress people wrote a letter about, you know, the anti trust implications of I am message. So there is this like political fight starting that I don't think is actually going to go anywhere, because I don't think the merits of this particular case are particularly strong.

But uh, one of the first time I talk to erick about this, I asked him, like, is there a version of this story where you become a murder for a greater cause? And are you okay with that being the end? And he he's like, that's not what's going to happen. And I was right that happened. And sorry.

I read that letter. You know, I want to have a high opinion over government because as a citizen of america, I I truly want to believe that we can get back to having an effect of government. I read that letter and I like, have you and if you ever used the computer, do do you have them? Or are you are ever turn on on to see out like they're using apple computers with that permission, right? That's what's going on here.

It's not this is pretty straight forward. And you can believe that apple should make a message more interactive. I believe that you can believe that Green bubbles and blue bubbles are causing an epidemic of weird buying in american schools.

I believe that you can believe that that loves a moral obligation to allow for encrypted messaging between iphone users and android users without, you know something something like go use what's happens that like you you can believe all these things. Ages ago, before deader went to work for google, while he's he wrote a story for us called the moral case to bring a message. Android, right? You can believe all of those things. That's a great piece. You are you, and .

everything he said is still true.

You can believe all these things. You do not have to believe. That requires apple to let people have their systems like IT or find these workers. And like there's just something in there that the moral argument for letting beeper work in the way that beeper works is just weird, right? It's it's a little too uncomfortable beyond we should puts some pressure on apple to make the system more unapproved.

But if what you're pegging IT on is they found a sixteen year old kid, found a hack like you're just you're just an dc territory from the jump. And by the way, I really do believe apple should make my message. And overall, I think everyone should be interpreted, but it's just this one is like its apple resolved IT without a lawsuit that that's actually the most notable thing here.

They just catch a mouse people out of the game without ever sending the mean letter, which based on we are just document, is a very admirable. Yeah, they did not use. I assumed we will get a computer fraud abuse act letter, but they just shut IT down.

Richard, what do you make of this? I feel like I i've touched myself in circles now for like three weeks about, I think deeper is right about everything except whether IT is and should be allowed to do what it's doing and ultimately that the only thing that matters to me. But I am super curious what you think having followed all of this.

that is the stickiest part about this, is that what beepers is actually doing. They're pretending to be iphone or max. They figured out a way to do that and apple figured out a way to undo that.

And I don't think either party is wrong. It's it's great that they try to do IT, and apple is certainly their right to say, hey, this device that is on our messaging system is not actually an iphone or mac that has been activated. IT shouldn't be allowed to do that.

And the kind of the solution theyve come to where you are actually using an iphone or mac is probably one that I guess apple doesn't really have a way around and they they could use, but is so ridiculous. This is not what anyone wants. This is not a service that people want to pay for as they were suggesting IT. And ultimately, I think everyone's unsatisfied being an android user never happen in head iphone. The most surprising part of this whole news is when I opened up my ipad and found out that I have nine imessage message is .

in order somehow .

and I don't know how that happened. Um so that that is a mystery that still has not dissolved if anyone to be ever like.

I don't know how to say this, but i've been using your ipad to spoof .

I message for some .

time that should have known, that should have know that that explains a lot of weed messes happen.

And you know, funny thing that this is apple, you know, they cave to europe. They're gonna do R C S. They've talked about doing encrypted.

R C S. They've talked about other extensions. R, C, S, to make rich messages with video and photos Better. We're very close to getting what you want out of apple here, right? To what end is actually making eye message itself, like forcibly in our Operate with just one APP accomplish very much.

Again, I think that would be great. I like beeper as a user experience a lot. I I was I piped in like ten different in boxes into keeping.

And IT is like a senor way to message. It's great. No one is obligated to support that. And I that's fine. And and I think you're right.

Like if you boil american beepers like moral argument all the way down, what they say is SMS is bad technology, and apple is doing its users a disservice by relying on IT. I think that is absolutely true. And I think R, C, S is the correct solution to that problem, not beeper, which is the problem, right?

Like even the case beeper wants to make doesn't end in. And the right solution is deeper IT ends. And the right solution is this Better technology that we've invented that works for everyone. Yeah.

no. The right solution is to take you back to when we had that one APP that had ms. n. Messenger and A L inter messenger and I R C we have I think yes, trulia, that's that is location that .

is where we need to trillium audio pigeon.

What a world. None of them could spell any words correct that they had.

right? So our .

condolences to keeper. Hopefully one day, boobs, everyone, till that time you can buy and use, keeping on your hundred phone. We got there. You want again to cook.

You craft the devil other a little bit apple news, lots of a smoke and no fire yet on a vision prolonged in february, potentially like january. This makes sense. Just if you think about the next few weeks here, it's going to be, see, yes, very soon, a terrifying reality.

A apple loves to disrupt. S, so saying, we're gonna have an event in late january or the february during the second week, jane, when C S. Is going.

Very pretty good timing for apple. Uh, and then they have said early twenty four for the vision province, the very beginning. So we'll see, I think, does this thing have a killer? I have a apple figure out with the vision propose for yet .

the answer seems to be a space al video, right? Like, I feel like this is the been the most interesting thing about the last month. So as we've seen, this trickle of stories come out from people who have tried shooting space al video and on the iphone, and then seeing IT up on the vision pro.

And that, just at least from apple's perspectives, ves seems to be overwhelmingly the first thing apple would like to tell you about division pro. I am very sceptical. I mean, some of the headlines you see a absurd people, like I was moved to tears by seeing my photos in the vision. It's like a bit, I pray not that's probably just like the screen resolution being off and .

hurt your you like now you haven't had emotional experiences with technology before. That's possible.

I I don't know. I'm not convinced that that is the killer APP. You just never had a feeling in your life, man.

And I cried when I watched the movie best to the best with Julie, Robert s. brother. Like, i'm confident this thing is going to bring me to tears.

Like the first time I tried IT on, I ve started shoot. I will say because know of husband that this is very controlled. Apple has been weird. The press, I am not just going to say this. They did the the apple watch thing in this weird background statement to one out like, that's weird. There's just weird on face um we're going to talk about the car planners cement car play also wasn't a press release that gave that to G Q and cool what what do we do in um and this weird thing we're like some people get to do this facial video diamond and some whatever even the keeper .

stuff to like call a win for us. Weird which IT also was the bieber stuff which apple never a million years have talked about. We spent week trying to get them to talk. They gave me one quote and have never answered red another question about .

IT what that we're in the ecosystem. Yes, sometimes you know the light of the sun shines upon us. Yeah, i'm just turning out in general, it's a weird a weird sequence of statements and not statements, whatever.

But the the vision pro one is to me is like classic apple, where they just want people to be talking about other people's experiences which are good, which is fighting, and like again, people, companies are the apples run the most successful playbook in this in world history. Keep doing IT. But the idea that you're going to put on the headset and have an immediate set of emotional experiences is what apple definitely want you to think about now.

Yes.

now it's what you should think about. Having an emotional experience to the screen is the best thing. pass. I mean, think about IT. What would you rather do? Use your real eyes to look at your children in three dimensions, or look at them inside an apple screen in three dimensions?

Well, they're not.

I think, will be a answer here.

I think like is actually they are around.

They're tapping you on the shoulder right now as you're wearing the headset. Looking at.

I just say, is a parent of the five. There are definitely moments from like I wish, like I just really in the clock, whatever you knew that right now and experiences you a couple of .

weeks ago and you can within apple vision project is only thirty five hundred dollars. How do you not bought one already?

I started a guy, started shooting's and social videos just so I have them. Like, i'm very curious about this. My my broader point is not positive or or negative.

It's just you can see when I say what is the killer APP for this. IT is not something that is useful. IT is something that is emotional yeah that's what we are being steer towards.

You're going to have a series of emotional experiences with the technology, which is probably the right thing. Dd, sarcasm and aside, probably the right thing. right? Here's the thing that's going to help you relieve some memories. Here's a thing that's going to blow your mind.

Here's the thing that's going to be memorable that you gna want to talk about, that you're going to be excited for buying the more affordable version when that comes out. Not here's a thing that helps you get Better at work. So you tell your boss to expense a thirty five, our headset, which is where meta was going with the quest pro, right? And I just no one could get there like no one is like this is may be more productive.

It's kind of what apple learn from the watch, right? Apple framed the watch as very much a successor to the phone, and that didn't work. Then apple found out a thing, the watch was good at that. The phone was not, which was all the healthy and wellness and fitness stuff, and just leaned really hard into that. And so I OK, you need this service because he does things are other devices can do.

And I think the problem all the headsets have had so far is they not really have any of that, right? They yell about like it's more immersive and they talk about like the games you can play. But fundamentally, it's like stuff you can do on other screens, just different and potentially cooler.

And that fish doesn't actually work all that well, at least not at the scale you need to work if you're apple, but with something like you're talking about lake, three hundred and sixty videos feel like you're living inside of your memories. Like there IT is not a thing real or not. Like that is, that is a thing I can't do on my phone. Whether, like I have more screens is not.

And in world where most of people don't have actual access to these devices is a story that you can tell over and over and over again and they'll be interested in until you can keep the Price down in the manufacturing up and actually sell them an affordable heads that yeah two and half years from.

I'm just gone into one that many, many years ago before this information and fake news was a threat to democracy. We ran a fake super bol ad. We put out a press release saying we are gonna N A super blab.

This got picked up far White. We did IT to punk the haters. I want to be very clear.

There was like three reporters that specifically I wanted to tweak and we got a all. We also unfortunately got the. So this day has a story there said that says, like the verge plan superbad .

no really true. IT was true.

We bought a super able we bought air time in hello in montana for like seven hundred dollars ah and we ran out a very local super bad. We sent a reporter to the buffo wild wings montana to watch our super bad and see what people are reacted. And I I don't need to tell you that the patrons of the buffalo wild things in how montana during the super bowl were not moved by our super ball, our traffic did not go up on that day.

But in that ad there is a shot of former verge editor ross milla shutting a tear inside of V R headset. And that is the thing that most people seized upon, is being uteri insight like the joke. Insight of our joke was that the verge thought people would cry in the r and like, here we are.

It's twenty, twenty four and apples. Like here's you're going to do. You're going to whip like a little baby in our handset like we weren't so wrong.

I'm excited. Like I said, I already started shooting the videos of max in specific video just because I don't want to look at someone else's kids. I said I made me cry. I don't look at David kid.

Yeah, whatever, he sucks.

We should. actually. That's that's okay. This is a part of the review. We're going to send each other videos of our children and see if one of our children can make. Yes, that's cool. I am going going to cry like a baby no matter what happens of kids. At last one, Richard, I feel like you got you got to take us to the corporate situation because this is ridiculous.

Last year in twenty, twenty two of you can remember at helping conference, apple said that we were gonna get a new next gencer play would take over every screen in your car and they were going to announced the vehicle news by the end of twenty, twenty thirty IT is we've got a few days left in twenty twenty three and my family said it's coming in some poor in astern marton next year maybe and we've got two mock up display yed of the kind of car play equipped supercars.

And what you see is the car plays screen across even even in the the dash port right in from the driver with the spatula eu, the tacoma ter, whatever you want is in the center, or maybe it's on the left. IT styled with their logos, with their colors and with their thing portions, hound tools, house tooth pattern that they usually have on their seats is now in the screen. I'm not sure if it's any Better than what you already have in your car or something you actually aspire to.

But the idea is that if you are a porch owner in your using car play, you'll get a special car play experience that someone doesn't get in you know me handle or together or something like that. So so you don't have to deal with that anymore. And i'm not sure really where we're going with this. I just buttons are still Better. We we had dials and needles and that was fine to show up your speed in your company.

So a couple of things. One, a totally reasonable headline on the story could have an apple announced photoshop .

yes um .

because these things are not real, I believe they're rut. They are what these pictures are not real. So the the smart one in particular is the interior an assortment D B twelve.

Ah and IT is just a bad photoshop shop like the the car play display has not been secured correctly onto the screen of the estimated D B twelve. Then I know this because I broke my brain and I put IT on threads and people started noticing the lines aren't parl. It's it's just weird.

So that's one thing. I the porches, a little more confusing and not one hundred percent. I assumed he was a can IT doesn't look like if even if you just look at that.

So if you have any, the ask Martin, is they took over the infotainment with just regular old car play. Unclear why they had to photoshop this badly. That's just car play on that center string .

is not what they showed less is not what they .

showed in twenty twenty. Yeah, i'm just it's just car play in the center train. And the car play has A A handful of climate controls baked into IT.

What's particularly funny about that is there are hard buttons in the D, B, 12 client work right below them。 So we've accomplished a lot, but you ve got a little bit of a climate control in car play that's a big and an you will obviously got the special effects. The but corporate today can access the center screens of certain cars like pull stars.

So we just very little has been accomplished in the estimated screen shot, the poor screen shot. Again, if hears to just be photoshop, you look at IT, you know, like why would you want this? Like why first of all, the porch is going to two hundred and five kilometers and uh, which is one hundred and twenty seven thousand hours sick while on a phone call with a calendar open on the passenger display.

So like, this is the most dangerous office environment in world history. I don't do this. I think .

that you misunderstand porch .

customers like that's IT. And then all of the screen real state is again to my eye, just like not being used for anything, right? So you've engage clusters, you've got a biometry, you've got a row of icons, you've a launcher, you have a giant map instruction that to stay on this road, you have call controls. And then over on the right, that massive passenger display, you've got two calendar entries, A A media controller, which why is that all over there? And then more map information, and then the weather .

perfect. I don't think it's .

like there are what is all this like? Is this are people crying out for the lowest information density possible in the driving while you're going one hundred and thirty miles an hour?

I I am so torn on this because on one hand, I think, uh, IT continues to be true, that car play is Better than everybody else. Is software in cars? Yes, the way and you know I don't .

think it's good, but I will agree with you. I didn't say for testing and potentially revision.

Sure fine. Maybe um it's it's Better than portion would build on its own is a thing I believe very strongly.

Ah that said, why do we want any of this? Like my favorite thing that happened here was this came out like right at the same time that vw did an interview where IT was like we're bringing button back to our cars because everybody wants button and we tried to do other things and we moved everything around, said stop IT give us button here so they bring back buttons. That's like a thing that happened.

And so i'm like, okay, if this is where cars are headed, I kind of don't think it's the worst idea to give all of the two companies that actually know how to build software. I'm not sure the right answer is apple, but it's like if if all of my car is going to be as a bunch of screens, I would rather have apple program those screens. Then whoever makes my car, just as I would rather have a car company make my car than apple ah but I what if we just didn't do any of this? What if we just rewilded this idea back like six generations ago and just made cars the Better way?

Yeah and we we did our best to to put software are in the made sense .

or just less software like i'm i'm almost on the nei team of like the amount of soft I need in my car is a mount for my phone.

Maybe that's IT like when we were at the part where I was just blue tooth controlling, the APP on your phone is playing the podcast and you could just press the same play button in place but deposit or whatever. We were pretty good there like that. That's what you want. Mostly I am out and your phone on a mountain .

of google fooled. So again, I think the s marton screen shot is A D B twelve, almost one hundred percent. It's sure of that.

IT has to be if only car notes um well, no.

they imagine any cars. This is an important part of the announcement. They didn't announce any actual cars. They didn't announce any actual features. They announce two screen shots which our photoshop theyve end two quotes from people who work at astern marmaris n. push.

So I could not they told current driver that IT should be in the the system that is coming next year in the D B, twelve in the valente OK current driver has and poor said something they're like have more information when they reveal the the mark on how we say that the other ctrip card.

okay. So this is the interior of .

the mon of you think because that .

is not the current interior of the and me, yes. So a new electric mccan will have this. Okay, right? That makes sense to me. I'm just saying why a apple could have just been late, right? They promised IT by the end of this year, they would have some announcements we'd heard. I've heard over, over, over again from all kinds of car companies except for portion estimation, which foolishly I did not think to consider uh that no one's going to do this because everyone thinks the future of their cars is recurring revenue in the cars.

You can go listen to the CEO volto on decoder just recently talk about how he's doing IT differently, but he still wants to require ing revenue just for like car insurance like everyone thinks that controlling the in interface is a big deal and letting apple undifferentiated their cars is a big deal. So you can see this middle step is apple so going around on the software but poor kids to skin IT or asked Martin, get to skin IT a little bit, okay, but they are not actually cars. Like why not waiting to have an actual car? What was the rush? Yeah to get IT out before the end of the year like no one thought I was coming.

They could have done like a line on the page where they talk about the next to car play that says, oh, and it's coming in the porch and asm .

march next year but we inside we have to answer .

you think apple, I like some lawyer at apple, came like running into tim cooks office and was like, the watch is getting banned and tim was just like released the photoshop just has them ready whenever we need to drowned out bad news will just show people weird carly stuff.

I'm excited. I'm excited for us to have giant screens full ever done to information surrounding us and cars. You know, it's great to my drive night is having bright meli d screen at you just in middle nowhere.

Yeah, all right. That's the end of the apple chaos. We got to rap this support and come back when you were very fascinating around.

Then we're going to do a year in a view. It's gonna great. We'll get back.

Support for this show comes from the aclu. The aclu knows exactly what threats a second Donald trump term presents, and they are ready with a battle tested playback. The acu took legal action against the first trumpet administration four hundred and thirty four times, and they will do IT again to protect immigrants rights, defend reproductive freedom, safeguard free speech and fight for all of our fundamental rights and freedoms. Join the A C L U today to help stop the extreme project twenty twenty five agenda. Learn more at a lu dot org.

Hey, islam, from decoder with neither to we spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buy? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in A I space, why are so many big players in tech deciding not to acquire and instead license can hire away co founders? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with the law presented by strike. You can listen to the coder whatever you get your podcast.

Back we have to do a very fast lighting round fast the notice for me, i'm the one to makes the struggle, David take off for .

this late round. I have six things no minds, very short um it's that bird the once flying scar company is cooked steal from just weather red on our team bird filed for chapter living bankrupcy. The company has been like all bit dead for a pretty long time and just seems to have completely given up.

This company was worth, I want to say, like two or three billion dollars just a few years ago. I confess I was all in on this like microwave able future. I still kind of think that could work.

That like what we need is Better public transit, but we also need is cool ways to get around cities that are in cars. And like, I think the e bike revolution is really interesting. I think school is really interesting.

All this bird like really started this trend in a really big way. I just sort of dropped scooters in every city in the world, made a ton of money, raised ed, a ton of money, really did the uber playbook. IT was run by a travis enters in, or who was a former uber executive, took over in a huge way, flew to close the sun. And I are, I peeped .

that I was .

just in.

well, we don't talk about, warn about, it's coming anyway. Disclosure, our nefert show, I was nominated pyne ei, and I went to any awards, which was crazy. And I SAT behind the production team for the Kelly Clark and show. And they loved the party. They were just woop in IT up and statue for days over the collections show was sadly we did not win.

We lost to show about italian pbs which you know when you're in the educational informational program category, the daytime and is you kind of think you're going to lose the show the yeah so it's to go with one with a team. But I amis downtown. I like streets are full of scooters.

And what struck me was everyone, if you will remember, bird in line. They started with, just like consumer scooters. They are like ordering from my aliexpress.

Yeah, that massive costs. And they were breaking in people extra a river and they're like, we're going to engineer the scooters. You're Better once they taken off and they've done that. And the bird scooters in particular now look like some mad max shit, like aluminum, like totally armored, like there is like an imposing thing. And it's like, these are the least .

of cuts now yeah they wait like a thousand pounds too yeah and this is the problem. All those things became totally commoditized and everybody was like, either, you know, we're going to win and then we're going to be able raise Prices like CoOperate or we're going to figure how to make the new economics works so that they stick around all the and then some combination of everybody growth, you fast. And there was a global pandemic.

Nobody won side for a year, uh, just crushed everybody and like cools to live in a couple of others that have kind of managed to stick IT out and continued to keep on keep in on. But uh, this this was always coming for bird. IT was either going to IT really was IT was either going to just completely destin ate everybody and take over the world or IT was going to run through all of its money really faster and die. And that seems to be what happened.

Yeah so IT was less open and more we work.

did exactly .

all soft angulation fund investments. Yeah, it's speaking of, uh, things that are doomed. Richard, I believe you of a landing and item for us.

yes. Ah the news broke through multiple outlets in in the last year so that Warner brother's discovery and paramount executives are in discussions for a max mergers that was a korean headline.

of course, of my god because .

we might get paramount plus max max plus or something like these companies are allowed to come back because we have two fAiling giant entertainment companies that can't really support themselves under their own weight. The only solution that their executive can think of is to combine them yeah which I don't know what else you could do, but they're probably going to try and find out if this if this is the solution.

you could try to make good movies. One option that is does not seem to be invoke, but it's just just a thing you can do. You can make compelling television show for your the youth rebranded as max.

You could stop trying to be netflix.

Yeah that's really fun.

Um like, I mean, this is the thing, right? And we've been talking about this for years now that IT was always going to be so expensive and so complicated to compete that there were always only going to be a few winners. And then they get this point.

Netflix is one of those winners like I I think I don't I don't see how netflix falls apart at any point in the near future. Disney one of those winners, but is in kind of a weird place. And there's probably not room for many more like apple TV and prime video get to live on because their companies have so much money that those things are like not material.

This is the real problem, but all these executives will tell you is that they're competing against cost centers for tech companies that have massive profits. So apple TV plus is just a cost center.

yes, like lunch for employees and apple TV plus.

And again, in my theory, apple TV plus in particular is the make IT so that when they talk about services revenue, they don't want to talk about Candy crush wales because all their service is revenue is the thirty percent cut than that purchases on games. That is, apple services revenue, amazon as prime and they spend a toner money. And you know what you might describe as a produced thursday night football game, it's not the best produced, but it's produced there is an uh because that stuff keeps primm subscribers around IT, that is the attention they know IT, but it's still a cost center, right like the lifetime amazonia, they run the math like the lifetime value of primary describer stays on year years very high. And we can take some margin out and produce this TV show because that will inspire more people to stay for one.

I mean, they did a black friday football game like I don't know. You need a clear indication of where the money here is for amazon.

right? If you're Warner brothers, you don't have some other thing that's making all the money. You just have to go make the thing. And I would just remind the audience that Warner brothers is the most current company in world history. When I comes to mergers like .

that might be true.

Uh, the time I know I don't know this person like once times the time had a very funny piece on because of the very sort of Normal times business writing, like there is ample business logic for the deal and then they like list all the reasons you might want emerge. And it's like, you know, every time any company merges of one of brothers, that ends in disaster. Like the A L.

Time Warner merger is the most failed merger in history. The A, T, and t time Warner merger is a close second. Like the only thing that merger accomplish was a massively of a ship load of debt in a grey scale for three snider cut.

That's IT. That's what you ve got out of that big nothing else. Like what are we do in your the water brother's .

discovery merger hasn't failed yet.

I don't know. I think um how's your how's your bad girl going? No, I think I mean, the problem is the word the discovery thing was never gona work.

IT has so much debt, so much so many holes to tag out of that. It's like since the minute this company existed, people have been asking, who are they going to match with, uh, which was I was just never gonna work. And the answer, I think, I mean, people have seen this coming for a long time, brightly. These are two companies that we're never going to compete with, the handful of giants that are out there. But combined maybe combine the combined to .

do what yeah exactly .

right like honestly .

combined to do what to have more content. It's not more content to people. No one's running around being like I don't enough content, right? I really like that.

Like I just implies like being showed gurd in your take the content like just do IT it's another time cruise mode you will have IT. There's a more reality television. I think what people are what what you are looking to hollywood to do is make really good stuff that is a little bit more scarce.

But if you want stuff with youtube production values, boy, is there youtube for you. You know, if you want stuff at hollywood protection are is there's actually not a lot and IT is just seems like there's a race to the bottom here because of all of the debt the in particular, Warner has had to take on through its sequence of disastrous mergers. I don't I don't know, like these companies aren't not going to make a great APP with a great user experience that makes you feel good about using IT that's full of really great stuff that inspires you to pick over tiktok. And like that's what the really competing against is tiktok on your phone.

And I think that's the biggest problem for them is that when you look at the supposed winners in the space, netflix, are they are they winning because they're probably going back to race their Prices again. They do every six month or so. Anyway, they're throwing one games.

They're trying to find some other way to get you to pay more for a slightly bigger bundle until they actually do recreate cable disney. What is disney more? Is that going happy? S.

P, is that going to be something else? We don't even know. So i'm not even sure what the model for Victory is for them. They are chasing kind of nothing.

It's mergers and old party. It's let's be very honest, by the way, having not done the full disclosure, comcast, the minority investor, no conchas but why haven't done the full disclosure? Conchas nbc universal division is a minority investor and fox me, the vertiginous company, I promise you not a lot of love from contest floating our duration. Um by the way, one of the the other line was like this would in the times's one of the other line in the time seas was this will give them leverage and negotiate cable rates with contesting chargers like the dying stars ah the thing that people are quitting in goodnight and discoveries .

who are now negotiating by saying we don't need TV anymore because the only place we make money to internet .

service a perfect by the way they just like lead the last for some security dies of everyone who has internet service maybe .

so anyway so come restaurant company we made in flix show it's not in front m it's about the future we you go watch IT. We, our company makes other T, V shows. You know this, I have a disney account.

I just want to a dissing world. I do. I can.

I think the magic an is like new liberal fantasy y okay. That's good. Okay, last one.

Um this is mine. I think I think this is actually faster and two. And so paton, you know they are new CEO.

They through they also went through a big pandemic over higher. They bought a precor, they bought factories and then they went through a pandemic crash. When people are, they could go back to gym. So they're like reorganizing your business to have two pale ones, kind of the same one, I think, in interesting ways. The first, if you have pelt on harvard in your house and you have the subscription, which is the plus tier, the subsequent you now don't need the hardware SHE can now welcome to any renel that supports a bluetooth protocol called f tms and use the palon APP with that trial, which is like pretty interesting .

and you will like keep track of the same data about how you're running and .

yeah and your incline, speed, pace and distance in the APP, which will check IT with the rest of helfand stuff. This is fascinating to me like just they're just d bungling their thing. You obviously need the more expensive description, which are very much implies you have the hardware, but they are debug ling IT.

And then you know, there's a weird little blue hue standard for people to argue out and figure out what supports what because IT hasn't really been important yet and that polton's to make this very little blue and important next to that. They're oldest by are twenty fifteen, two thousand and sixteen. They are in very old.

And so they are going they are no longer supporting the android versions that run on those bikes tablets. So they will give you a five hundred credit to buy a new bike, which is very expensive. Also, those bikes are always on sale, so it's nothing or this is really interesting. They all just sell you a new tablet for these books. The tablet is really less expensive.

So it's it's like I ve done bike with a smart TV and uses replace the smart .

TV yeah like there's there's a thing happening in palestine world where they're realizing the sort of computer part of IT like can be fully disagree gated from the bike part of IT or the tread al part of IT. And so in the one sense, they're actual hardware. There is upgrading the hardware. And there are some other events in our comments and elsewhere about whether the Price that upgrades to hides, it's Normally three hundred and seventy five dollars, but if your bike is expiring, it'll give you fifty occurs. So three hundred and twenty five dollars like a lot to buy a new time and it's a lot for like a what is not the world's greatest ander tablet on .

top of the very expensive thing that you were already bought and have been made for a for a long time. Yeah.

that's a is a lot, but IT is interesting, right? You can just put a new computer on IT and then on the on the other side of IT, you can just get a trial that supports this lute thread. Al, buy the more extensive resumption and use you're tablet.

So you got to to see the the nature of this company's relationship to hardware, software subscriptions is changing a little bit in a way that you you can get you a place. You are paying too much money for a pale on description, and you have neither. Their tread, igor, their tablet and their APP is just talking to your travel on your ipad and that's like, ah now it's a totally different .

company IT just feels like would patton always should have been kind of been add on that they didn't need to be the new exercise bike company. But I assume that they were probably correctly that if they tried to launch with something like this, either the technology wasn't ready at the time, which I can believe to extent, or if they did deliver IT and did work, that one of the big bike companies would just make their own version and they would get froze out. But we had to go through this whole ten years of waste.

It's interesting to put IT in the context of the streaming conversation, like python's real differences, as its instructions res, right? They vote, they put on a show, the shows have communities around. The instructors are people, the hardworking good we beg.

He has a palatine tribal. I have a palestine bike. They are really good. We use them a lot. Um I can see how having them integrated is a superior experience to if I was like copying the other and ipad was something else than like needing a blue tooth proto called the world yeah I .

mean anyone who who's ever pick tried to pair their phone to the tread minute, the gym like that. That experience can suck real bed.

But what's faster at this is Richard, your point is they could have just made IT all about the content and maybe that would have been Better. But I think you need something to sell like apple fitness plus. This is all about the content.

I don't think it's nearly as successful spells on. And I know like apples like you just bring your own bike and no one does. No one cares.

So there's something in there that I think is just next history and conversation. A palon sort of debating itself in this way is like fascinating. And there is a monkey blue standard, which is something that become more important.

you, I can say, with the p this spectacle for the time. Blue, you, no, I think anything this is like, Richard, I think that are you described is like exactly what palatine should have done and potentially was always going to do like no one at palatine, i'm sure, was like, we can sell eight hundred dollar bikes to every single person on earth. We're going to sell these bikes to as like the luxury item.

And that's where we start. And then we become a content business to the rest of people. Uh and that all would work just fine except they absolutely lost their mind in the middle pandemic when everybody bought pellet on. And so suddenly they were like, oh, maybe the market is bigger than we.

And what IT actually was was just that they did the ten years of business they were ever going to do in like three months, and suddenly they were instead of there are being ten times as many people who might buy a pile on, which is what they decided was the case. IT was actually just that everyone who's ever going to buy a plant had already bought pelton. So if they had shifted right then and then like, okay, we've hit the group now we're going to be a content because this patton might be in a really different place. But instead, like you said, and I bought factories and bought companies and was like.

we're going all in on weird hardware. And what's really interesting with that is along the way, a, the C E, O of how time got pushed out for making those decisions. And they brought in the new guy there, mirtha x netflix, who is now running a netflix like by disabling gating the service in the content from the hardware. If IT was we're talking stream as of this pile, there's something right there that's the same thing.

The difference between them instream ing is the pellets also released a trad milk that killed a child. This is probably say .

that there the rest is true that that was oddly dangerous, like too dangerous and one way. And now on their website, you can pre order the new one, which is the same and them very confusing. I'm that, uh very darkness think you Richard, when to take a break, we're come back. We're going to do um what I think we'll very.

And here we have travellers in the natural habitat enjoying guaranteed four P M checking of fine hotels and resorts. Book through m max travel, and they do even see what's coming at them.

We're in, we got the table.

P we'd reza priority notify. They were loaded when hot to get reservations.

open up reservation for two.

Say the best for last. Thanks to I makes platon. The lost day vacation brings yet another experience that's a powerful backing of american in american.

This episode is brought to you by google german I with the german I APP. You can talk alive and have a real time conversation with an A I assistant. It's great for all kinds of things, like if you want to practice for upcoming interview, ask for advice on things to do in a new city, or brainstorm creative ideas.

And by the way, the script was actually read by geri. Download the gami APP for I O S and android today must be eighteen plus to use gamine live. At back.

So David had an idea to just go through all of our top stories for the year. But then this idea got complicated by the idea of how you would make such a st. David.

what? yeah. So I when I raised that, I wanted to do some kind of end of the year thing, I was like, how do we sort of pick out the biggest stories here? Do we all come with our ideas for the biggest stories to be? Come up with the listen, try to rank up.

And you were just like, what if we just like took the top posts on the first com and went through the mall and decided like where those actually the top stories here as that cool sounds fun. Uh, horrible idea. We're going to do IT but was a horrible idea.

Uh, so we went through and basically two ways that we measure traffic on the verge. T com. Are through google analytics and through a tool called day IT. Turns out how very different ideas about how much traffic a page is getting.

So what I ultimately did was look at both of them, and then I sort of triangulated a list of the most popular verge stories of twenty twenty three. But in order to do that, you have to get rid of all the stories that are just like, obviously successful because people search for those things all the time. right?

Uh, piece of fun inside baseball that the single most popular verge U R L, after our home page in twenty twenty three was our rounds up of the best wireless earbuds. sure. And there's tons of those, right? We do buying guides.

They are really good. They're really helpful. Lots of people find them, lots people have.

It's great. Uh, then we have things like explainers. Uh, we have an N F T explainer from like two years ago. I think, yes, that is still lingering as one of our most type of their stories.

The best part about that explaining, by the way, is a mital Clark and and IT is based a reason why no one should buy an ant .

is also the reason mital Clark left the verge and like, move to the woods.

It's like I need to walk around the west coast for a long time and he's been .

doing never since. Yeah and yeah and then there were like some random things that we just left off because they're popular for reasons that are not news worthiness like a sort of one off story that James vince on on our team wrote about deep fake nudes that, for reasons I don't need to explain, but are very obvious, was very popular in the heart net all year. Uh, so point is, I went all this sound into, I think imperfect, but like directionally useful list of the most popular stories on the verge, that com in two and twenty three.

my the list of best laptops .

minus the list of best laptops.

which is a great list.

Oh, time of good stuff. And I I highly recommend google in all those things and clicking on the verge links many times so that they keep being part in twenty four. And so what I want to do with each of these is just go through.

And basically, I want to decide for each of these, does this belong, unlike biggest stories of two thousand twenty three list, because a lot of these, they have their moments. People are very excited, like there's a huge sort of Spike and interest in traffic, and then they die. Others live much longer.

So I want to go through and see, like, does this, mr. IT, a list of the best, biggest stories of twenty and twenty three. And the first one start, and again, i'm going in a peer list of popularity.

This has no no judgment. Uh, the first one is a big future. We wrote about inside elon mosques extremely hard core twitter.

And there are few others on this list, including the one where elon must predicted that actual replace banks, he gave employees a year to replace bank yet. And then there was the whole zuckerberg on musk cage match chAllenge. So i've just boiled all of this down to musk twitter x SHE. Yes, the one thing .

I point out, just having voted the list, you know, I don't often think about our U R L slugs and the zoo berg versus muk slug had the word world starting IT.

which is just the funding .

IT was like musk zuker b cage match world star. And I just did numbers and now now I ve learned an important lesson about twenty more to world star all over headlines. Uh, I see why this is, this is the biggest here. IT deserves to be here right?

bright. I mean.

we've talked about this time length. They've one a huge package on IT like this thing catalyzed a reordering of the internet. Maybe you think i'm going too far. I really think that that's true.

And the only thing that i'm missing when I said that is also the whole AI google search dilema is like great next to that, but this thing just catalyzed a rethinking of the social internet in big ways. That threads is the number one APP on the door massed on is growing. Interesting activity.

Public is growing, but it's going to do active, like all of that massive citi zed by island's purchase, twitter, the next that you know that story, extreme hard court in the verge level. We co produce that story with new york magazine. IT was on the cover of york magazine ah we made that story with casey and soe, a platformer and alexa th and our team.

So that was just like, just for me personally, like a lot of people had to work together in a way of people immediately and often work together to make something really great. That's really, really great. And IT is the story of a culture change inside of a company. And what I was like in those early days, tones and tons and tons of reporting and that immediately LED to not like just reflection of of the interest, but a bunch of other companies being like, what if we were a little bit more hard core and you just immediately saw, yeah that's pink corner .

and the culture here, there was that brief moment where everybody was taking a page out of musk book and being like that was like how a lot of people excuse bringing people back to the office there. Really, it's time, time to get serious. Like stop being. So as employees.

we're going to lay off a bunchy IT was like a real thing that happened in the wake of you on but what if we had fifty percent less people and then a bunch of companies like, oh, that wouldn't work and was like.

what if we did IT again? Well, we're going to get to the left in a minute here but Richard, you sit in the news all day. This is this is the bigger story. Yeah right.

I was at holiday party um from of the other day and I was telling them kind of what it's like to work in this job. And this year, really for last few years, a lot of IT has been oh even on just did a thing over and over and over again. If you are tired of reading the news, I am tired of thinking about writing IT and talking about IT.

The number of stories that we did not write is much longer than another story that we published are that we considered and is one of the the things where in that I think you extremely write about all the things that recovered, but IT was even more than that. IT was security. IT was policy.

That was international. Even the layoff s how they happened in different countries across different continent were affected by different laws. We had the loss. We had the whistle.

Le blower, who came back and said, the twitter was while the insecure before, and talked about the things that the previous administration was doing. We had the woman who was sleeping in our cubicle, who then got five later, got fire. IT was a momentary star.

We had, there were just so many things that happen. I can't remember all of them, even one tenth. I think yeah yeah I think that's right.

I think which is impressive actually because that means elan musk is the story the year two years in a row because all of the chaos of the acquisition was very much that thing in two. Ah so here's hoping we don't make IT a three people on that. No let's move on next on the list. I would not have put this second, but i'm not surprised that actually here is the vision pro um are just in initial announcement post was number two and nei your hands on getting to trace on your fear face on uh was also on this list to not surprising to me that this is the gadget of the year.

right? Yeah, it's the newest, most impressive thing. IT has the biggest ideas that had the flash est launch.

Its its apple apple always going to be on that list. I i'll just do a spoiler wait down on this list. But in the top, whatever fifty five and fifteen pro like it's it's just there I get. And also people are just really curious. It's like a new hardwork category from apple.

What are they going to be Better than everyone else? I think that some of that interest will Carry through the actual launch, but would surprise me as the hands on did as well because I was as I was writing IT as like there's no way to convey what's actually happening yeah like you just need i'm dancing with architecture like i'm doing the thing here. We're like I can take a picture of IT I can show to you. I can just write about IT around around IT .

yeah I was sitting one table over from you at apple park in their visitor center while you are reading the story and you came out and you were just like, I think I just have to write about all the things that happened in a row and I think that's all I can do and I like kay. I think that's what you can do so he did to know how people like that worked out great yeah right. Number three on the list um was, uh I believe this is liza poto on the last day of the same bank free trial. Her headline was some bank man free gambled on a trial and his parents lost but I think to something said, a this is a terrific piece uh, but b was the the summary of the S P F F T X trial which Richard like definitely belongs on this, this strike.

Biggest stories of the year, surely over the last year, we saw this kind of coming at the end of twenty twenty two as F T X collapse sand back when figuring on a massive media tour.

And then he was arrest, right?

Like you do, very a string sequence of arrest in extradited from the bahamas. And then we had the trial and IT all kind of wrapped up with any year. And I think the verdi came in.

A year to the day after coin desk publish this kind of expose of what turned out to be just one of their baLance sheet, showing some really serious problems within F. T. X.

But this, I thought that in particular, this piece dug into the personal side of IT, of who saving and freed was, and what is meant for him to view the world in the way that he did, and how that resulted in both the growth of F, T. X, the way that the investors and the people who backed IT were kind of drawn into IT, and they've saw an opportunity in in this person and in this company. And then what happened after IT all fell apart after he was on trial. And why, why someone would go to trial on this, why they would risk of this when we all saw IT when we already and we were like, yeah, he's going to be found guilty, right? And he was, yeah, but how how we got there.

But I would think that the tag and for the virtues, how technology makes us feel, you know which is like IT doesn't work in at beings like that's where you need tagger um what what side the future, whatever. But this one to me is like a perfect and capsule tion of that. Like we're not a financial publication.

We're not really a business publication. So means I think we're like a secret business publication. Um we cover tech really closely, but we cover like this very human part of IT.

We spend a lot of time on that thing and to me was just found that line in this trial. Her cover is trial through through his amazing, but this one we just made IT sad like, yes, he's kind a lot of people out, a lot of money. Yes, all the stuff.

And there is just a sadness to IT. And if you even read the comments or like to people posted threads, whatever, people caught that sadness and really resonated with them. Like if you're disappear IT and your kid has a big belief and he's on the rocket, right?

Like you're you're just not motivated to be like, well, my kids are sitting yeah and there's just something in there is is worth reading and just like really sitting with because lives caught IT like exactly. And he was in a quarter member day and he was just watching this happen to these people. And there's something in that that I think is really powerful. It's like literally what I want to work at its best, even though as a tribute and scams yeah.

yeah I will say IT, this is a totally unfair thing to say, whatever six and a half weeks after the trial. But there has been less ongoing fallout from the F, T, X. Trial than I expected. I'm sure there's a lot of brewing, but when the trial ended, IT felt like a lot of people, kind of you wipe their hands and IT moved on with their lives.

There was like, no here. Here's one thing I know. Richard remembers the people who I remember.

everyone who ever tried to sell them enough. I will follow them forever.

I will never be forgotten when I was.

There actually has been some for that. We've seen several other executives, and we ve and started the entire run against T. X.

They have had a guilty plea to criminal charges. Their C, E, S in america, in canada leave because he is a flight risk there. There are still things going on. I think we're we going to see these echoes just can kind of continue throughout cypher, throughout the financial industrial.

Yeah right. Next one. This is, uh, just, you know, take you further inside the parsely google analytics. On google analytics, this was, I think him like the top three most popular sources of the year and I was nowhere on partially so I don't know what to make of that. So I just put IT in here.

This is je toy story about amazon opening up its sidewalk in network to give any gadget free low speed data. I remember being very surprised at how well this story was doing at the time. It's a good story. But like, I was shocked to that many people care about sidewalk as a thing.

I'm convinced that the words free data.

or the thing that's .

interesting, right, any gadget free data, you get IT there, I immediately understand, are out there in the streets with their trumpets.

And there was also a sort of weird discussion that popped up around this, where people would like, oh, your echo is suddenly going to give away your internet capacity to whoever wants to. You change the short .

and in your rain cameras, a bunch of stuff has said walking able. The idea is, is that you can build stuff like amazon as tracking ers, like tile and air tag, competitive tracking er and stuff their pet tags. And so you need to build this like big meshed network and you would participate in IT. I don't think that this has really come to pass s right. There's not a lot of sidewalks out.

This is the first story on the list that I like. This doesn't really belong on the biggest stories of twenty twenty three list uh which is no slate to jane. It's a great story uh but yeah I think sidewalk is a longer term super interesting thing. This idea of like these local machine network is really fascinating, but is not like in people's lives .

in brain. Zon has a page. It's like amazon sidewalk k edits on amazon 点 com and it's a long list of like FAQ questions and we can use and the only products you can buy， our bridges that you can buy, echo devices and rain cameras. And there's not one thing that you can do IT connect .

on your stuff. Do I will say this .

discovery age map is looking a lot more filling if you looked to their page compared to the version that we have in here. So it's still going, but they've also had an executive change change. So I don't know what the priority will .

be for this going forward that truly panis pena runs devices .

and services on free data for everybody. Let next up, SONY portable playstation portal l launches on november fifth, one nine nine and nine nine. This is the single most surprising thing to me in the list, mostly become the portal is stupid. Well.

nobody knows that you've done that. See, you do this for long enough. You get traded. You get, you know you got you got to stand that off if you got ta look at this with beginer's eyes, David, you people like there's a new playstation i'm super hype about crazy.

Life is so simple in August.

right? Like IT looks crazy. It's got this weird and handle controllers like IT could also be a battering.

It's only one hundred ninety nine dollars. I haven't been told about the particular limitations of this device. I understand where people click on the story two hundred places you .

can tell you you're IT .

also only works in your head .

yeah how to buy the portal, not on the popular list. I'll tell you that. Yeah, yeah, I know you're right.

This was exciting at the moment, and I felt interesting. Cloud gaming was the thing people talked about all year. I was like, there was like going on. I can see that .

put put ted, that re media eternity. The the difference between the verge and everything thing else is we're excited about technology often because i've watched this cycle a million times where people are going to be excited about the playstation moral and like I know, I know right, kind like harsh, survive writing to beget everyone else like this stupid technology, stupid. When I can do that, we're here for you. We're onna. Talk about U, S, B, C for a full hour.

And if you want to Carry around an L, C, D screen to play P, S five games on, we here for you. Yeah, I support, I personally support your choice. But technically.

we're not here for you because you have to be in your house and we have to be we can actually be here for you. Really sorry for you.

I would say the next .

one on your list is exactly the same stories I was just about to say.

Speaking of cool promises that vastly under delivered, google announced the pixel fold t wap. what? Yeah, I go. great. I wanted to .

love the pixel fold.

I have a pixel of fold sitting right here. And I still look at IT and like, why aren't you Better?

Yeah I mean, I I would say all of the hardware we saw, the pixel tablet was also a kind of a disaster that year yeah yeah last year. I like this past year, the pixel four.

I think what people were hoping, yeah, this is vibes based analysis, but I think what people were hoping was that google would have gotten IT right in a way that simple has not gotten right, or IT will be cleaner in a way that a semester device is is just a cocooning of capitalism. Uh, and maybe you know go right. But I also just like not more useful than a regular pixel phone yeah yes .

where we landed was like this thing is eighteen hundred dollars and doesn't make a particularly good case for itself yeah ah the thing that always amazes me is like it's just heavy. It's just a big chunk y brick of a thing and I still have high hopes for the fault too not and IT doesn't even run .

deck and I right like if you could take a if you can take a pixel fold and turn to into a proper chrome book, what's fuck you know, i'm talking to let's talk.

which brings to me to my next story. I love decks by dansey. Er not just .

the other problem with the pixel fold is that is both massively expensive. And several months just a few months later.

they brought out a Better phone.

yeah, that wasn't fallible and was cheaper. So you don't have the new hardware in the new A I capabilities in the new pixel. It's just faults. And so so pay all this money, you know, have the best phones is just the wrong wrong makes of thing.

I really I think the the verge audience wants to love the pixel maybe more than IT wants to love any other individual. And like there's a lot like about the pixel, but the pixel continues to be more loved than IT deserves among our audience, I think, and by among our staff in a lot of ways. I love the pixel despite the fact that like samsung jeckell.

I can't IT to get to the one same song I give you away now. But there's only one yeah we keep with IT.

So the next one is vw beat tesla to the punch and unveils and affordable electric vehicle. This was from march, uh, when vw announced to the the I D, to all one of the worst names of all time. Yes, like when you look at a name and you think, oh, that has to be a table, I should fix that.

You did a bad I D capital, I capital d dot space. Number two, lower case. A, L, L did what? That's nothing.

Yes, great. nothing.

This is crazy. This is not alone in the list. Great headline. Exciting time. Have line, does not have .

an car.

Yeah V W make baLance that's good to make cars.

I just realized just no time per truck whipper coverage on this list, and I don't know what we're doing here. Guys.

I got we had to go. I should have mentioned I took all cystic cybernetic cover just because just dominated the whole list. And who has the time? Ah next one pretty recent piece of news.

Sam altman fired as C. E. O OpenAI. This one I like very much because this is both extremely deserving as one of the bigger stories of twenty twenty three and extremely not deserving at the same time .

a day which almost nothing happened at the end.

right? But he was captivating in a way that I think no other single news event in our world of twenty twenty three was, I can't think of another moment like that.

This year I maintained a list of tiktok that should be P. H. D.

Theses in media studies. One going to publish the entire list. And a lot of them were tiktok ers. Just like reading our stories about opening a drama and the imposing, like their own tiktok tram and narratives on them, which was, I was just like I the thing that interests me about that is like IT was a story that could be everything to everyone. Like no matter what you thought or how you felt, you could take this.

Like, guy got fired, employees like guy, guy comes back and you could just it's like the heros journey, man, it's like put any any story you want onto that foundation and they did what you what happened there is actually really meaningful, right? Like microsoft is involved. They were taking a back.

There's a lot of reporting now that comes out. It's like maybe sam was lying to the board, but the board can point any specific instances investigation. But here, right in the moment, I was captivating. IT was also thanksgiving ving with literally nothing else was going on. I think you tell us, I think this is one of those moments when, like governance of ai, like jumped all the way to the top of people's minds for a minute, at least means the next time we have to talk about IT, everyone is initiated in the vocabulary.

which is good. We like have a shared reality of A I chaos now, which is used.

The thing that struck me about this one is is the landsat ity story for this, the one that came completely out of nowhere. Um I think one of things that that hits me when we have big stories, when I think and we should have seen that coming, we should be more prepared to have something ready. Did not see this one coming at all. Could not have seen I just dropped in the deal of the day and suddenly we're reading IT all together where I wait, he's fired yeah, that just have IT also, as you mentioned, happened when nothing else has happened.

So yeah, also for me personally, working on a service oxide while at disney world, truly one of the most surreal, surreal .

moments of the year, potentially, if were to a sports that weekend.

i'm just going to I know i'm the two things happened to me, the outer rain bar, the disney contemporary or resort one. Uh, I talked to alex about the story of bunch, which is just weird, right? And my family is a disney world, like Mickey singing or whatever micky's doing in the restaurant.

And i'm like talking about opening. The second is I went to the bar after my conversation and set down, and I was informed that there are regulars of the outer rain bar at this, his contemporary resort. And a bunch of regulars were there to wash football, and many of the regulars travel for hours to come to this bar.

And i'm like looking around. I mean, it's not it's just like like with one of those holes or the the middle like White open and you could see into the brunch spot where like Mickey was seeing and like, you all come here and like, we love IT here and I was like, I need to get out of florida. Like, I need to go away.

If you stay longer than six days.

you'll never leave. Speak, I don't and there other cities yeah .

there are other television people.

But I keep in mind this is what was happening to me while we are doing the open eye reporting. I'm like a dead certain some of that .

blood into the open got more chaotic over time, which feels right for for your situation.

Get out of a metaphorical and literally uh.

next of analyst is fdc versus microsoft. This is the story's. Am that tom warna mostly did a during the ftc versus microsoft. Al.

and the fun fact, the activision trial, what this is.

the activision deal, yeah, the activision trial. The fun fact about this one is that this is the only story on this list for which google was not the top prefer. Basically, any story that's going to like, have a long life on the internet end up getting a lot of traffic from google, because that's just how people find things.

Google discover a google news, like google is sort of the long tail of internet traffic. This is the only one on our most popular. This really number one traffic refer was the verge 点 com， which meant that people typed in the verge 点 com to go find times news about an activision trial。 And I think that kicks us also.

I think if the year wasn't ending now, shans coverage of google vers epic, I think have a similar traffic curve, which I just happened to us into the year. The microwave cases earlier in year also know exhibition as well.

This was a little sexy deal, I think in the corcus was more was revealed A I think well, one thing that I have taken away from all the child covers this year and it's like a lot of IT, it's overwhelming even for me and I love IT is boy, there's just a lot of back room shame, man, against at all these company ah we think these companies is short, like Operating in the marketplace. And they are not like they are constantly thinking of like every possible way they can turn every single deal into an advantage. And that's yeah microsoft is one this one to took our activision.

The tc is appealed with sea cos. But now I think microsoft people's perception of microsoft ged after you, I read a bunch their internal emails. But how this will happen.

yeah, this was a really interesting when I feel like this is the kind of thing that just kept being interesting day after day after day after day. Like so many, these trials have sort of absence flows. But F, T, C, R S, microsoft, very impressed that happen very quickly and a ton of stuff happened.

And we also learned that, like microsoft, to thinks that would be cool to an intendo. And IT became a whole fight about call of duty. IT was just like all of the like, biggest sexist names and gaming and entertainment just yelling at each other.

IT was great. Next of the list. Buckle up.

Because lenie is almost here and it's going to get hot. Maybe the best headline we published this year. I has a theory about .

any hawkins are translation. Every time we run a bucked up headline, those numbers, he just says people love buckling up, which is totally true if you put bucket up in the headline, people like, I love to buckle up. I need to know what what's going to happen.

Our climate coverage is surprisingly ly well, I think we Young audience people love IT. People like being able to share the stories like they're skeptical friends and family generally, there's a sense that like this is covered just talking the audience of itself. But just seen our client reporter and andy, who is her editor, did you a really good job .

of making mistakes real yeah I think really good job of covering climate stuff. Regular people just living their lives day to day, which is call. Okay, next up we have the iphone 6 and pro max launch。

I'm actually surprised this was this love. Just get the iphone like, I don't know. The verge is like founded on the iphone being a big deal.

It's iphone.

It's true now the iphones, sour phones, our early days are like this motor phone.

Did I put U. S. C. On IT? And and that's that's most of what we have to say. I wonder if we .

made this list over along after your time. For every year, we could track the sort of dominance. Cy, I M, by how high or low IT is in the list because my sense is that is trending down.

H, that's interesting, right?

Like the the newest typhoon is no longer the most important techniques. The year has not, and that has been the case for a while now. There was a case, there was time when I was the most important .

technical of the year. It's still big. Like I think to something stand is interesting. It's the only equal device on the list. Everything else is like a sort of brand new in some meaningful way.

This is the fifteen thie phone like the galaxy twenty three did not make the list. You know. I mean, the pixel IT didn't make the list. So it's it's definitely in illegal IT in that way. But I do think it's true that I bet IT has sort of fAllen down the scale on google analytics over the last whatever twelve years of the verse existence dim.

The flip side of that is that people are still really interested in the iphone, which yes, again, if you're going to look at the brother press or the conventional with them and the culture, there's a sense that people are over IT. And then we look at our listeners like h this is still very high. Us like, yeah, being up on the verge ous traffic list represent a lot.

The numbers on all of these are enormous. I should just say, okay, the next one, we have a couple more to do. Get this is microsoft new disco s expert serious x design with a lift to wait controller, which this is another ftc vers microsoft thing. Wasn't there was that run where we got accidentally ally a bunch of .

cool league s right? Yeah, I document was posted, I think, from microsoft that accidentally didn't reduct a bunch of things in IT and that revealed some of their future planet. And this is what we saw of the the cynical back series ex successor that maybe we'll see someday, maybe we won't. Their plans for a future controller, what they want for the series s but more for game pass, all these things. And this is this, the second time that we've seen these kinds of plans for microwave was a four legal .

leak years ago. No.

yeah and people just love these. I I don't think there was anything that absurd about the no kind of revealed in these these documents, but just seeing a council that they haven't known yet and who knows maybe they never will, was was ridiculous yeah and .

full when I had to put out a statement, he was like, now this is a thing. We tried everything. He was just like, he was very sad about IT. The thing looks good.

I will say that looks great. IT does. And the thing I I continue to be very excited about the idea of a console that is actually just inside of a controller, and you just connect the controller to a screen and you can play that way like that. The future give me that said that I was right about everything .

in one of the things we learned is that microsoft, looking at a that way too, they found they, I think the phrase was that the controller is the hero and like, o, you know, you can plug your ex box controller into whatever and play .

every game happen my life right last one.

And Sonia was like, the P. S. Five is weird than ever.

Do you like expired man here? some?

This can only be you can never put this on its side.

Don't even try. Weirdly, no one had uh, issues with us reporting on this .

one because he was in the trial. I mean that just like whatever it's like .

um right we're going that we have one more on the list but first day to read you a handful of honorable mention ons OK. We had stories about layoffs that were huge this year. We had a story about the steam deck that sean wrote that was very good um ironically, he wrote IT before the new steam deck came out um but IT was a big year .

for the steam deck, shown the steam deck in the version of com. It's just beautiful like just all comes together IT belongs together .

to just jesus piece inside the A I factory about like the real human labor behind A I was hugely popular really really good story. It's been in a bunch of like best things of twenty twenty three lists seen recently. Go to bad if you haven't a Chris persons think about mother his sodium um was really high on the list something and then made of chicago.

O Lewis is very recent story about seo experts, which pissed off the whole seo community. Thank you for reading our story. Love that. But the last one in the list of the biggest stories of twenty twenty three and one that I think absolutely deserves to be here, samsung g caught faking zoom photos of the mood.

What is a photo? I'm doing that I think this .

is proof forever that we get to talk about this as much as we want.

Yeah, here's what i'm going to say. And I I look, isn't only half truth, right? I lovely and our producer.

But any good podcasting needs tension. You need to be fighting against someone who won't let you do what you want to. And liam is one to says, I can talk about what is a photo for an hour every week. That's that we're sicking into the man. Every click on a what is a photo article .

is a photo against liam.

No, liam is wonderful. No, just i'm just joking. But you need need attention, big contents. And to hold me down, I actually love this .

story because IT, is that what is a photo story which was genuinely like an ongoing new story all year? It's an a eye story. It's a like transparently and what we understand on the internet story. It's like, what are your gadget supposed to do for you? Sorry, it's like a kind of has everything all in one fake photo .

of the moon and also the best thing about IT is IT as you to understand that every photo of the moon is the same photo.

which is genuinely kind of mind bending .

like the thing about IT that is the most interesting to me is like the stakes are zero because you can never take a different photo of the moon. So like IT you, I could fake a photo the moon today by just copying in a picture of the moon. I haven't liked you because the moon definitely looked like that at that time. I love IT what to start right for another .

where now we have to go.

That's my list. This has been duggin in twenty twenty one IT. IT was a story that came back around and we a yeah, there was a feature from twenty twenty one we are input magazine talked about the fake detailed moon photos and they kind of explained IT in, but they didn't explained IT enough. And that was why we had to do this all over again.

Yeah that but I will say like a lot of people try to give Samson out. You know it's not really faking. It's like made on a cent.

Samsung is taking the longest possible out to putting a clip art moon in your photos. You don't need all the C I just just feel like it's the moon, right? Here's a selection of photos of the moon that you can have because they're all the same photo. Your stupid eyes and dumb Cameron required for this, put out this photo I really .

love that is a product that is like every time music, a crappy picture of something, your phone is just like it's just like looks in the internet. It's like, here's a Better photo of .

what you just would you like this one instead?

So close to IT fireworks. Ts.

I feel tired, just like somebody already did this. You're good.

But the thing is the the difference with the moon is that no one in the world can take a different photo of the moon. Like the apple time, like the other I was. I was changing.

There's like dusty air. There's people around. There's french people.

Wasn't by with brains and cigarettes. The mood is the other man. It's been the same. Just give people A.

I love IT. Every time you take a picture of the moon, your printer starts and a picture of the moon comes out. It's amazing, right? That's IT. That's my list biggest stories of twenty twenty three.

Good dear. Yeah that was a pretty good dear and the verge I on yeah to get one thanks. I really for listening to our show, which has been going on now since twenty eleven.

And then before that even longer, we've went a lot of notes recently about how many people listens to whole time. Tell your children to initiate a new options. It's gonna great.

now. We had a great year. Uh, sap was great. The verge persist. We've got a huge year coming, both in terms of what we want to cover, what we want to do, the features on the site we want to release.

I really do think that there is like a new internet coming, and I want the verge to be ready to front of IT. So i'm really excited about next year. Happy to work with these guys.

I miss alex. I had a crime. You see her gala venting around the skies, amErica on sana sly. And I said I would have IT. That's for just.

And that's a rap for verge cast this week. Hey, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at eight, six, six verge one one. The verge cast is a .

production of the verge in box media, podcasting in network. The show is produced by Andrew marino and liam James. The episode was mixed, edited by ander ads, and that's IT. We'll see you next week.

Support for this episode de comes from A W S. A W S, generate A A, I gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced cloud. Hey, its' from decoder with neither top, we spend a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in deciding not to acquire and instead license can hire away co founders? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with light detail presented by strike. You can listen to decoder whatever you get your pocket.