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Amazon, Google, and crypto are on trial

2023/10/4
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Welcome to the verge gas at the flagship podcast of the sherman into test act of eighteen ninety. I'm from from David piers and I am currently in the whole way outside of courtroom ten at the e bett pretty in united states courthouse in washington, dc.

Inside court and ten is where USB google, one of the most important tech trials in the last two decades and probably the biggest antitrust trials since the microsoft trial in the late many, is currently going on. I'm here in the building today because sattin adella, the city of microsoft, is taking the stand to talk about search engines being A I apple ChatGPT. And who knows what else there's a lot to talk to that guy about.

This trial has been weird and complex and important, and today should be more at the same. And that actually this is a big part of what I am talk about on the show of day. Yes, there are tons of gadgets coming out and lots of news to cover, and we're going to get to all of that, don't you worry.

But we also three very different lawsuit happening that could all change the way the tech industry works. So we're going to talk about USB google and what we learned so far about the future of search. We're also gona talk about the ftc lawsuit against amazon, which could be the next big tech trial.

And we're going to talk about the trial of sam bank min freed, the former CEO of F, T. X. And for a long time, the golden boy of the whole Crystal world, and now is on trial in new york.

And in some ways, honestly, IT feels like the whole cypher industry is on trial with him. So there's a lot to dig into there as well. All that is coming in just a sec, but the proceedings here are just about to start.

And if there's one thing i've learned about the U. S. District court these last few weeks, it's that they are sticklers for puntuated that and they never seemed to able to get the screens in the court room to work.

But I aggress goto run. This is the verge quest. Seems sec support for the show comes from crucible moments, a podcast from scope capital. We've all had turning points in our lives where the decisions we make end up having lasting consequences. No one knows this Better than the founders of some of today's most influential, incredible moments. Let's listeners in on the maker break events that defined major companies like dropbox, youtube, Robin hood and more told by the founders themselves, tune in the season two of crucial moments today. You can listen at crucial moment, stop com, or every listen podgers.

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Welcome back. Alright, come home. Sa nadella testimony is over. He said some really wild stuff about why being cm compete with google and why it's kind of apples fault.

IT was a lot, and I have a lot of thoughts. So actually, let's just start there today like a mention. We have two big anti trust trials in progress now.

One at the very beginning of the process, which is the government's case against amazon, and one very much in the middle U. S. First, is google.

These two cases are very different in some ways, but I think they also have a lot in common, and the combination of them is going to tell us a lot about the future of the tech industry. So I called the virtuous edi Robertson and mechanical Kelly to help me dig into the differences and similarities and where we go from here. Addy, hello, hi.

Mechano, hello, hi. So okay, we have basically two big trials to talk about and like very different versions of the process. And I want to talk about the ways in which they are the same.

But let's just sort of catch up on both of them first. And let's start with U. S. V.

Google because i've been in the courtroom bunch add and I have been talking about this nonstop for like two weeks s so IT is like deep in my mind addy, where are we in this trial right now? Like what what's your sense we've talked to a bunch about kind of the stakes of the search engine and like what that means to be a defauts were now what? Three weeks in, almost four weeks in, where do you feel like .

we are so pragmatically in the course of this trial, we're at the where the justice department is getting close to having made its argument for why google is an unlawful and oppoi, which gives this kind of a skilled view of IT that right now we're hearing all of the bad stuff about google and after this, there's going to be some states attorney generals making their case for why it's add businesses also a monopoly, and then we're going to get google for bottles. And I think that's going to probably bring out some details that cast the current case in a new light.

right? Yeah, I kind of don't care about the advertising part of this. Is that okay? And my love is not be interested in the advertising piece of this case. I get that it's relevant. I just cannot make .

myself care about IT. I think yeah, even in one sense, this is all about ads because ads, how search makes money and adds is also if you're going to treat this as their consumers and they are harmed, maybe to raise Prices. This is where you get the Prices, but it's a lot of IT is, I think, less juicy.

yeah. And so to your point about the the sort of side of IT that we've seen so far, what's your sense of how much of a preview of google S A given we've actually gotten because you're right that google has spent most of its time responding to different allegations from the dog and judgment line. Google's lead council is like spectacularly good at his job and has done a very good job of like being mad at various people for a lot of reasons. But google defense always seem to be no, google is very good and that's not illegal, and that's certainly been the case so far. Do you think there's going to be sort of a different turn once google actually have to take the stand here?

IT seems like what were probably going to get is more people testifying in more detail about how google is good. And the flip side of this is how being does the same things in google's estimation as google. But being is bad and therefore does not succeed. Yeah.

being being bad is like we've been saying. The crux of the entire IT also .

seems like this is maybe when google tries to poke holes in some of the more serve embarrassing things that the justice department has brought up.

what's your sense of how the D. O, J. Side of this is going? I was in court on monday for a adela, and before they got society, they spent about time on scheduling stuff.

And IT came up a couple of times that google stance on how the D. O J is doing is that the D. O J is taking a long time, not moving its case forward, and just sort of mucking around without actually proving its point.

Of course, google is going to say that loudly and on the records many times as I can. But what's your sense now, a few weeks in, does that feel like the D. O, J is doing a good job of making the case, is trying to make yeah .

google's cases sort of just the D O J is wasting a bunch of time throwing google dirty laundry out. But it's also not necessarily clear to me that this case is not partly about google study laundry and the judge meet is not interested in potentially embarrassing things that google executives said. But it's also I think it's often pretty hard to tell how judgers are going to rule, and you should probably not read too much into them.

And I also I don't think that meta has said a lot of incredibly pointed things. He's asked questions, but I think it's a little bit hard to tell. And there was a hot mike moment where he was talking about how frustrating this all is with another judge because it's so complicated and there is not like there's not DNA evidence .

of interesting. I didn't know that .

that was not his words. That was the the other judge believe. But IT seems like he's a little bit frustrated with a lot of this case, but it's hard for me to tell how that translates into a ruling.

Do you think that because of the way the case is going or because of the actual sort of stakes of the case, like we've been talking from the beginning, that it's not even necessarily super obvious what the boundaries of the fight are here? Everybody's kind of arguing these nebula things that are good or bad, right? Yeah.

you have to argue. okay. So if there's consumer harm, who are the consumers? What does harm mean? Is that enough to say that google just isn't as good as IT could be even if it's the best thing the market? Or is that unfair? And then there's been this are this whole set of meta layer to the trial about how much can be fairly disclosed.

And so they've been a lot of arguments about how much of any of this is vital to the D O. jays. And I think that has been his own source of frustration .

for a lot of people. Better that has .

Better mechano.

My first question for you, if i'm remembering this correctly, we've been waiting for this case for what feels like hundreds of thousands of years. What actually made this case happen? Like how did we finally get to the point where we have like words on paper about what the ftc is bad about maxon?

yeah. So the investigation into amazon on the anti trust grounds has actually been going on since the trumpet administration. The former ftc church o Simons kicked IT off.

Of course, a lot happened. H in tech under the trump administration as well. Cambridge oec, a bunch of other ftc stuff with that company. And so instead pursuing the amazon case, Simons kind of designated the ftc is very meager resources.

They've gotten more in recent years towards like facebook and metal, but of course, in twenty twenty one, husban biden nominated a on to be the Cherry of the ftc. Leana on, of course, is famous for a somewhat viral legal paper. Amazon.

the only one ever.

yeah, the only one ever called the amazon anti trust paradox. And in IT, SHE kind of talks about basically how common anti american antitrust doctor in the way that we approached anti trust law for decades, doesn't really apply too well to big tech company. So kn gets into office, she's confirmed. And then SHE designates, you know more of def T C resources to that case. And so it's been know probably about five years that the company has been under investigation for anti competitive behavior.

The thing that strikes me about this case, and I want you to kind of lay out the basics of what the ftc actually thinks that amazon is doing wrong. But one of the things that that strikes me big picture is that, like you said, lin icon knows Better than most that it's very hard to bring an anti trust case against a company like amazon, right? We talk a lot about how do you prove consumer harm.

Typically, these things are like monopoly plus race Prices equals bad is like the legal framework for a lot of this stuff. And that's very hard to do when products get cheaper and when, in many cases, they're free. Like cool search. What IT seems like they tried very, very, very hard to do in this case is make a case about how amazon has raised Prices. And part of me wonder if that case, which is very different from like the big sort of heady argument about amazon being too powerful that the icon is making a bunch years ago, now we're in this place where she's like, I get the sense SHE tasked up onto people with saying we have to make an argument about amazon being bad for customers because things are getting more expensive that a fair way to look at what's happening here?

Yeah I I mean, that's how the U. S. Anti trust of us have long approach. Anti trust law is whether or not a company, the behavior that is engaging in is driving up Prices, lowering them.

And i'm sure people on this forecast have heard you for so many years, the consumer welfare standard. So SHE has been losing a lot. We've talked about the microsoft activision merger, not so hot there, the ftc and when um of course, like meta in the within acquisition, they didn't really when they are.

And so with the case so monumental, like this amazon case, the ftc really needs to show that IT can take these companies on for the first you know, a couple years of a ten year. IT hasn't quite been working out. And so trying to make those arguments, you know about whether amazon is raising Prices is might just be the only winning argument that the ftc can find under current antitrust c trend. yes.

To walk me through that case of IT, like what are the sort of specific accusations that the government is making against?

sure. So I don't want to make IT seem like the ftc isn't looking at structural parts of the amazon A O as well because really the heart of the case to say that amazon, for as long as they spent around hazard making sizable investments in its company, creating a zon prime prime video, it's basically a fashion designer uh, has logistics info l filming. Amazon is a behemoth.

And by reinvesting all of this that would be profit back into the company, it's been able to grow immensely and have a lot of control over individual sellers and then also being very competitive against other you know big box stores like walmart, target. And other companies like that. And so because of that structural you know power that amazon has created over decades, the ftc is making the argument that IT has a lot of control over requesting you know that some third party sellers put their products on amazon at a significant lower Price than they would on other platforms, also requiring basically requiring their party sellers to buy ads on amazon.

You search when you go into type product in order for that product to even be seen while amazon is selling. So you know, amazon basics products, which are competitors IT, has that control over the infrastructure in order to create a Better system for its own products and services compared to those of its competitors, which you have some a lot like the case he is talking about a little bit. Yeah I mean.

that's the thing, right, that we're in this weird place where just the overarching question is like are these companies too powerful? And IT feels the amazon version of that cycle, at least the way the government describes, is of unusually tight and seek where it's like you can actually explain the whole cycle of how things get more expensive because of amazon. I don't know whether that's true. Amazon obviously like vociferously denies that IT is responsible for the Prices is going up all over the internet. But it's like the the government sort of lays out this case where it's like, okay, amazon forces sellers to use the fulfilled by amazon things.

Those fees are super high and also amazon prevents them from offering cheaper Prices anywhere else because IT has these mechanisms to figure out what you're pricing around the internet and then they either like bear you in search results or they get rid of the byo x i've like learned so much about how the amazon website works through this case, which is really but I amazon has all these little knobs that can turn to just read your business. Amazon, if IT feels like IT. And so what you do is you raise all the other Prices elsewhere in order to not run a foul of amazon's increasingly expensive process.

And that is like an actual case of consumer harm. Like if that's true, that is the most like straightforward. This is bad for consumers and you are argument against the tech company. I feel like i've heard in a long time yeah.

there are a lot of figures in the lawsuit that were reduction that I I would have a love to see like the percentage of you know how many people subscribe to prime, how many people over other websites order stuff threw amazon because of prime. I think those figures would really, really say a lot and help us to drive that point home if we had them. But of course, we don't.

Yeah, that complaint was very rejected. Like there was one thing that keep coming up, this thing called project nessy, which you can tell is this like various exciting internal program at amazon that does something and every time you to get to reveal anything, there's just like two full lines rejected. Do you know anything about project nessy? what?

What is the story here? IT is just as elusive as the lockers monster, that is, namely, dr. I have not been able to find too much information on IT. And I bet, you know, I hope that when this case, if this case, right, because I means I could still settle all, if that will happen. Not entirely sure it's very hard predict right now. But in a couple of years, you know, if this case actually goes to court, i'd be really excited to see what else you know comes out of that complaints, those pieces of data, more info know, and all these things that we haven't really seen, but kind of vegan know about h because of, you know, the text.

And I assume if I remember right at a, the first version of the google case was super reduction, just like the amazon case was. And then we got another version of IT that was much less reacted, which is when we learned all the actual information about the case.

more memory that right? Yeah, I think that we've gotten this is kind of typical in a lot of these cases that you'll get very heavily reduction versions and then they slowly get exposed as the trial gets closer OK.

So we might get nessy information at some point here in our future. I just wanted know about project nessy. That's all I want to know in the whole world. I don't care about anything else, just want to know what project nessy is. If you know, please email me tavie at the verge.

I comments all I want to know add my my question for you is like these two cases sort of ryme to me in the sense that they are like they're happening at roughly the same time, which is either really interesting or a total coincidence. And i'm curious you guys see a one way of the other, but IT also feels like if you if you sort of oil that all the way down, the question of like is IT illegal to be wildly successful feels like the question of both of these things. And where are is being wildly successful in protecting all of that success tip into monopolist practices? Like do you see similarities between these two cases at there? Or they more different than i'm giving them created for.

It's definitely not a coincidence that this kind of aggressive enforcement is happening under the by administration, which is nominated people who are very strongly probe, and I trust watchdogs. So on that side, like the big tech investigations have been going on for years. This is sort of just this finally coming to fruition.

On the other hand, I actually think that there are some levels of difference in the case, at least the allegations that google case so far, the trial has been all about. Look, google is legitimately good. There are downsides that we haven't gotten into the really the arguments for like privacy, but google really IT knows what you want. IT uses its data to produce a product that actually genuinely good. The amazon case, at least from the parts that we've seen the allegations, are basically amazon's terrible.

Amazon forces Prices up IT, throws ads all over everything and forces sellers to buy them, which is part of the goole case too, but has not really come up as much yet that there all of these cases where their argument is that people don't even necessarily want to be signed up for prime is a part of a separate case. They're just getting signed up accidentally. That IT really feels like the argument in the ftc case is that amazon sucks and there's no alternative. The deo j case against google, at least so far in court, has been google's really good. But it's bad that no one else can be that good .

because is that you're read too. Like do you think that the amazon is bad case is part of this? I have gone back and forth on this because on the one hand, some of the things they're talking about, like it's super easy to buy stuff and you get things really fast, is like those are good things and and those are things people like, right? Like lots of people did sign up for prime on purpose.

And really fast shipping is one of the things that people really like, amazon. I do think it's true that the amazon shopping experience has been on a pretty fast decline for a pretty long time. And I wonder if now is the moment where it's like the the cases. Amazon used to be good and then got really big and has gotten worse for everyone involved. And there's nothing you can do about that.

I mean, to be clear, people make that case about google to all the time outside the court there like this isn't necessarily about the reality of the of the actual platforms right now, but it's sort of the cases that sides are making.

Yeah, I think that's totally there. H, I think when IT comes to similarities between the two really becomes IT really comes currently the consumer experience and how that feels for the consumer. So I when I buy cat food, right, I Normally buy my cat food for amazon.

I have to wade through so many listings and often it's not the same seller that i'm buying the same cat food from and it's really confusing. It's a different Price. Often times it's like, it's like IT sucks, but like my cat needs food and I know it's gonna here in two days because I have prime, right? So you know you weight the cons, the benefits in the cons over that and then i'll see, you know, similarly with google, it's using that service, using that search bar and how the company controls that search bar that plays a really key role in the case.

Yeah, I am very curious to see, especially in the amazon case, IT doesn't seem like in the google case, we're going to have the google has gotten worse argument IT would be interesting if we did, but I just IT just doesn't seem like were going to get there are google certainly not is not going to argue that google is the worst product then IT once was.

But IT does seem like amazon worked for a long time because I was good and now it's bad and there's nothing you can do about IT is like that part of how you win this. Everything is getting worse and more expensive case. Like if you're the in a con, you can have to make that argument.

Yes, I think that's really the argument that the case looks at the most. And I mean, when you look at also like IT comes down to like what does he have to see one as well. Now lindon has been very like tight lipped about the exact remedies that they're looking for.

But in the press release, IT says, like structural remedy, that is a break up, right? What keets broken off, what goes where who buys? But i'm not entirely sure, but it'll be interesting to see you know how that pans out over the next two months and years.

Yeah I do do the theory. If you you're going to break up amazon, how would you if you're linkin and you you have to figure out how to spill up that company.

Well, the really cheap answer is that you split up amazon. The it's not always called amazon basics now, but the equivalent of amazon's White label products.

It's many, many, many, many in house brands that you don't realize. Our amazon brands, in many cases.

especially because there are specific anti trust allegations around that. There's the argument that they use all of their consumer data to see what selling well and then they clent. Um I don't know if that's necessarily where the ftc thinks IT would be most useful to split up amazon, but that's just the obviously .

which point yeah personally for me, I think the place where if we most beneficial for the case to break up amazon would be the logistics and film film inside because that really is what adds that additional competitive ess. Like we're saying that knowing that the proof is going to come in two days, right to you. So instead of like amazon having know its own fulfilment services are having to. With like A U P S or a fat x more often than that. Not, I think, would really if not, if that's not the only thing that gets broken up, I imagine that would be a really intimate focus of the actors as well.

Yeah and that would obviously be a huge, huge, huge blow to amazon. I think really basically you could get rid of the in house brands and like a bunch people that amazon would be like our shocks and they they all move on if you split off the logistics inside of eas on, you have like fundamentally changed that company, which I suppose is if you're the ftc, the goal. So i'd IT will be interesting to see how big that swing turns out to be.

Last thing before that you guys go. I have been trained over the years that are we're going to talk about tech anti trust. We have to argue about market size because all they argue about is market size.

And i've been sitting in the court room of google where everybody is arguing about what a general cert engine is and no one seems to know, and it's very complicated. And there's vertical search engines and general search engines. And tiktok is neither of those, but it's something else.

And everybody just sort of spins out of control about whether google just compete with being or competes with, like every other site that exists on the internet. Amazon, I feel, is about to go through exactly the same thing, right? Amazon's case has been, we compete with every store on planet earth and were actually like a pretty tiny minority of the retail market. The ftc is going to have to make a different and much harder case now, right?

yes. So in the case of amazon, the fc basically defines the market as the online marketplace um industry, which is a really interesting way to define IT as I think honestly, I don't think amazon would really even like that because he wants you to think that IT competes with the big box stores with target and walmart and all the anti trust hearings and all this stuff that we paid attention to over the last couple years.

You always have the amazon rabs pointing to you know the way that IT arrange es products and search to the way that a one r our target arranges products on a shelf. So in order to define as the online marketplace, I don't think I would be really happy with that. And I imagine they are going to chAllenge that in court. Just looking at like the way that it's defined, IT really has to do with like online store friends. And I I imagine that will get kind of shaken out a bit more as time goes on.

IT seems kind of even more complicated because stores like walmart have gotten more like amazon, that if you go to walmart dot com now, you can get a bunch of third party storefronts of items.

But even this is really, is really heavy for me, right? I think like amazon has the competition is everyone who sells anything in anyway, anywhere in the world, right? I would argue that is a reach. But also if the ftc has its way, it's like companies that allow other companies to set up store fronts inside of your store front on the internet, which is a much, much smaller thing that amazon and to like a lesser extent, walmer, because walmart was a third party stuff. But you can't really have a store on walmart dot com in the same way that you can kind have your own store on amazon dot com. So it's like that T E tiny thing is probably too small because I don't know that like if you're a real person on the internet, you're not thinking like go on and to go to the storefront on amazon A A can't year just like shopping for things on amazon. The answer seems to be, I mean, it's somewhere in the middle there but IT does feel like even where like if you go sixty forty on one side of the other, that can end of being really important in this case.

Yeah, what are the competitors? Because the thing that I was at sea, for example, very small company in comparison and like shop fy sort of.

but it's it's a slightly different thing. Alibaba aba is a good one. Instagram is setting up .

a bunch of like ways to buy products in like store friends, which I guess are essentially people's accounts now. And then also like tiktok shop maybe, but that's like really, really new. So you know other than like to think about the competitor, is that mostly you know these kind of smaller companies compared to like I guess, like meters stuff and like tiktok up, which is really still very decent and that people are not going to instagram to buy things.

And also then you add the whole distribution logistics change that you mention to that really none of these competitors have that, that it's fairly unique. None of the small like meat and tiktok don't have that at this point.

The only company doing amazon things is amazon, which is, I suppose, a strength of the argument here, but also gonna a make IT a chAllenge to figure out like, who are we? Who else are we arguing about here? Is gonna be weird in this case, where is like, at least google has one real honest to god, like apples to apples commentor, which is why the google trial has become so much about being because like why isn't being good is like a central question. But on the way, you can't quite ask the same question about walmart and and get the answers about amazon, it's going to be it's going to be very strange to see how we talk about this because there just isn't any company out there remotely like amazon anymore.

And we are also not even touching amazon's media business. The fact that IT runs prime, which is its own very powerful player in its market yeah like prime movies.

IT has loured the rings now, right?

Yeah there's like although that sucks. So I suspect that will not come up on anybody. Siders are well.

there's the mgm acquisition.

Yeah all these things to bolster prime like in a lot IT doesn't m like this. Going back to like is this raising process things like is the is the ongoing push and existence of prime good or bad for consumers is a big part of the question here. And amazon has spent a long time being like it's cheap. We keep giving you reasons to make a Better. And the ftc is going to be like, no, actually what it's doing is like building ever higher while gardens through which I can screw by sellers .

and customers a solution to a problem I create .

and essentially get right, right. And has made more and more expensive to solve overtime with any sense of the timing on the amazon trial like the google thing took what almost three years to actually go to trial from that first complaint is, is that a roughly good guide for the amazon one?

I think yeah, I think that's probably fair justice, smooth very slowly in this country on all fronts. But I do imagine it's going to be quite a bit of time. And while people interested, I think we just to continue following IT before we have like a gage when arguments could take place when things start right now, it's just IT could be anyone's guess.

We also don't really know what's going to end up going to trial like even the google case that went to trial is somewhat suddenly different than the one that was filed.

Yeah, that's a true well, listen, as long as project nessy doesn't go away in this process up.

okay o which is a cooler name project nessy or jet blue.

they're both very good. But project nessy for something that is heavily reduces is perfect yeah like it's the scotches like they should just have secret names for everything and then just redacted them all like that's what I want .

to they all have crypt names.

All right. Thank you about very much for being here. We got to take a break, and then we're going to come back and talk about a very different trial, about a very different industry with very different stakes. It's crypto time. You all will be a pack.

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Welcome back as you're hearing this on wednesday, it's day two of the trial against sam bank man fried, who's Better known as S P F and is also known as the former founder and C T O of F, T X, which was for a while, one of the hottest companies in crypt up IT was huge. Now of course, crypto has taken a dive, and so have S P, F fortunes. And the two things have a lot to do with each other.

Actually, there are a lot of folks out there who think this trial, which is essentially ly just about S B F, is going to have huge ramifications for the whole crypt to universe as new formation comes out about how the industry actually works. It's a complicated trial and an important one. The virgins is lapo is covering and for us, and I suspect write this second, she's probably in a court room. So we cut up a couple of days ago before things really like that going highs. A David .

wasn't going OK. So I realized .

I was prepping for this. And like you and I have both been following this pretty closely for a long time. You merciful ly more closely than I. You have a high terrorist for this nonsense than I do, I think.

But I realized after all of like the chaos of the last however many months it's been, i've sort of lost track of what same bank man free is actually on trial for so in a weird way, I just started like absolute ground level here. I think there are a lot of layers and a lot of things to talk about. But like, what does this man actually being accused of and on trial for?

Well, conveniently, David, I brought something to the recording and IT is IT is a copy of the supercede ding. This is what he's on trial for. I love IT.

And there are seven counts in IT OK. And they are wire fraud and conspiracy to convert. why? fraud? Mostly OK.

So count one is wide fraud on the customers of F T. A. Count too is conspiracy to commit wie raud on the customers of F T X. This is pretty straightforward.

Just want to pause here and talk about how you prove this because this is part of what's exciting part of IT for a wide flood. You have to show the bank transfer happened. That's boring.

But then you have to prove that people were defrauded, that some backman freed knew he was lying to the customers of F, T. X. And so this is something where we might hear testimony from actual customers, you know, who are talking about what he told them. Um it's where we might talk about what he was saying in front of congress is where we might talk about what he's you, what the super bol ad said. Those kinds of things are this all comes in delay.

right? And this sort of base underlying thing is that he used customers money, basically funded IT to this. His investment ARM, called aloma, was an aleta .

capital alea research, alto research, but also used IT to buy himself real estate and to make some investments. It's a straight forward. The accusations are straightforward. It's a, is a very old fashion. See.

this is why this is useful because I feel like this is all in all spins in so many directions about like the crypto industry and tax fraud and all this stuff. But ultimately, IT is just like he used money that wasn't his to do things you're not allowed to do with money that isn't yours. It's like it's it's pretty simple.

Okay, all right. So that's the first two. What else we get.

So we have count three wire fraud on lenders to altimeter research. So this is a script trading ARM. And they had borrowed money.

And now the allegation is that he defrauded the people he borrow money from. And then count for is conspiracy to commit wie fraud. Again, you you see where this is going.

You want to do IT, then you do IT. yeah.

And then count five is conspiracy to commit securities fraud on investors of fx. So that's different. And that's the one where we might see VC testimony.

So the people who were investing were given bad information and begin freed had reason to know that was bad information. That's the allegation, right? You might see somebody step up on the stand and say, hey, this is what the documents that I got said.

Here is what sam said. And here's the do diligence we did. Here are a due diligence documents, and again, you have to prove that he knew what he was saying is wrong because like, being an idiot isn't illegal, right? So that's count five. And then we have count six, which is conspiracy to commit commodity fraud on customers of fd x.

See a trend .

here is yeah, let's well, we're going to get to the conspirator ors in a minute. And then count seven is conspiracy to commit money launder ing. okay.

So that's that's what we're gonna hearing from. And part of the reason I wanted to go through those things specifically is that there's a bunch of other stuff that's going on around this. There are so many things going on. There's like an c lawsuit, there's a cfc lawsuit. There's another trial actually that's going to be happening is scheduled for next march, uh, for a number of counts we aren't going to be hearing here. So I wanted to make sure we knew which counts we're dealing with because some of the allegations around like campaign finance stuff, for instance, while they mike show up in this trial, uh, they are not the charges that are being brought against him here.

Yeah and you've kind of eluded to this. But one of the things I think is important and sort of complicated understand is what's different about what happened in F, T, X. verses.

What has happened in some of these other crypto masses we've talked about on the show over the years? And I think about like everything from, you know the luna deb acco, where a bunch of people lost a lot of money to like what happened at axy infinity, where a bunch people lost a lot of money IT seems like there's one thing that is like crypto gone bad, and that seems to have all gone a kind of gone one direction, and this has gone a slightly different direction. Like how do you explain the difference between what all those things are, where a lot of people lose a lot of money and what this has become?

啊, 好吧, so tell luna was a project that I think was badly conceived from the jump. And there were a number people who predicted that that death spiral would happen, and exactly the way that I did.

And now there are, you know also some and that are being brought against the quin about um the last I saw was that he might have been falsifying some trading k but as far as I know, and I am saying this now, we may we may see something else in the future as far as I know, doc on did not tip his hand into the till and actually take money. Okay, great. And when you talk about lake, the various script failures of things like three arrows capital, again, like they have loans that went bad and they couldn't make good on them.

There is a difference between making bad bets and actually taking people's money. So like that's kind of what we're looking at. And there are people within the cypher industry, by the way, who are very happy to see some bank man free go down because they want they want the rodd sters out of the industry.

They really do think that this is something that's big and real and important. And so clearing out all of the villains, if U. L. Is a positive for critter, I think that they are a little confused about what the general public understands about crypt a because I think once you're in IT, like there's a lot of stuff, that there are a lot of subtle ties and nuances is kind of like an onion, right? Like there's just always more and down there, yes, but sandberg freed was really, really successful at marketing and really, really successful at promoting himself and really, really successful and making himself synonymous with cripes in the united states.

He was the good guy like not only he was ma ville and he was like the deshi vel good guy of cyp to who like wasn't trying to sell you a bunch an intense, he was the other one, right?

And so that makes you a lot hurt for anybody who says, hey, we wanted be regulated s because, you know who else said that was same backman free, right? So there's a like sort of a lot of a tint here, I think, for people who are not directly involved in crypto o and one of the sort of long term goals of crp dose, I think to get a lot of people involved. And I think potentially this kind of trial and the associations was some batman freed as a very public phase of crypto could be bad for the entire industry um as far as like recruiting new customers goes.

Yeah I was thinking about this. I we watched the big short movie relatively recently. I love you very much, but there's this character in Michael burry who was like one of the first people to see that the housing crisis is coming and that the way we've propped up more responsible as a disaster.

And he is like the voice of reason. He's also like a maini ACC. And I had this moment of reading about sandbank man free in the run up to this trial, thinking he's both trying to be like the city of goldman sax, setting up these systems that are a disaster.

And the Michael berry saying, this is all a mess and is all going to come crushing down. He, like, tried to do both of those things simultaneously, and sort of play all sides depending on who he's in the room talking to, and did IT really well for a surprisingly long period of time. He was like, this is the future.

Also, we need to be regulated also. IT might be nothing, but it's possibly everything. And like, IT worked until IT didn't.

Well, I have I have a couple thoughts about this. And there there's something that i've noticed when I explain cyp do to people, which is i'll explain that to them and i'll say, oh, is that is that all and it's like, yeah, that is all that is IT no. And they think that must be much more complicated than that actually is.

And know there are like a bunch of there's a bunch of complicated math and there, you know but conceptually it's actually not that difficult to understand. And so as soon as you explain like an nf t to people they're like, but I thought I thought this was supposed be sophisticated. It's like, well, the math is sophisticated, the programing is ophite ticad.

But like the concept, pretty simple. And I think one of the things that people like and beg and freed really benefit from is the assumption of technical complexity. And that if you think that sounds.

Know half baked. Maybe it's just you don't understand that. Maybe you're just not smart enough to understand that. And bank man feeds background um as somebody who went to M I T worked on gene street, know math is makes IT easy to sell something like that.

Part of what's really striking to me about all of this is actually running the casino is a pretty profitable business. And if he had just run F, T, X, and like that alumina fail, I think he would be fine. The problem here is that he wanted to propped up alameda research, which was the reason he founded F, T.

X. In the first place. If you go back to that um that profile from sequoia capital that they like deleted because I was embarrassing.

But there is the internet. Go read IT. Can you talk about, you know, other exchanges being rickety and allied, ta having losses because the exchanges weren't good enough. And so he wanted to build an exchange that was good enough for what he wanted to do.

And again, you know, there are moments in that profile where the the VS are like, well, we assumed he wouldn't need money, but here he is and it's like, that's an alarm bell for me right there. You there might be a good reason to go get V, C. Money even if you don't need IT just because IT lets you expand faster, for instance, lets you do more things.

But in retrospect, that does seem like a striking thing in the profile where they like go. We assumed he was just maintain money hand over her fist. But here he is asking us for some, you know.

if you .

read the S A, C complaints, they say F, T, X was a fraud from the jump from the very beginning, know customer funds were being misallocated. And so i'm partially curious to know a sort of like the timeline of all of this, because the way that F T xx was exposed was particularly chaotic. And we found out about the most appropriated customer funds after a different kind of chaos that is not on trial.

Explain that really quickly and then left again. There are many more ten ticals of this story. They are going to come out over time.

But I do think that part is important because you, it's not on trial. But IT is like central to what happened to F, T. X. So just explain that chaos.

profest. sure. So clam desk gets a hold of alone. Eto researchers, baLance sheet and the baLance shit is weird.

Easiest way to put IT. There's an awful .

lot of this token F T T. That's mainly by F T X that's propping up the baLanced and backing up their loans. That's like if saa were to go out and get loans based on the beauty insider points, which they determine the value of o.

that's good example. I like that.

Yeah and so there's something like weird happening here. And sabeg man fried has a long running rivalry with the head of binoche. z.

And C, Z happens to have a lot of F, T, T, tokens because C, C was an early investor in fd x and say i'm bottom out and gave him F T T tokens to do IT. And so C C essentially announced he's going to dump his tokens. And at that point the market panics.

Um and so people there's there's a rutten people are trying to get their money out there, you know dumping tokens left right center. F T X is lah we're up for sale finances like oh will buy you and then buy ice lake after a day. Like just kidding, we're not buying this. And then after that there's bankrupcy and it's in this period of time post bankrupcy that these details start to emerge that get weirder, you know like the sort of like funny accounting of valuing yourself by a token that you get to assign the value of yourself. Like that's not great in enough itself, yeah, but the customer fund of stuff that comes up afterwards where it's like there's this hideous baLance sheet of terrorists, the financial times gets a flat like it's still up there. Like if you want to go look at that terrible express sheet like IT gives me panic attacks, but like, go look, there is, you know just like a whole just eight billion dollar hole, billion with A B, that's when everybody was sort of like, okay, well, where's the money? Where's the money about sky?

Well, so this is where the F, T, X trial and this sort of relatively specific set of of allegations against samba and freed becomes the trial about crypto, right? And you you wrote a sort of run up to the trial getting out a lot of this that there is there is a sense in the industry that actually what about to happen is a lot of evidence is going to be introduced and a lot of testimony is going to be given, not just about sam, but about the crypto world. And this is both a IT seems like both a prosecution tactic and the defense tacti C2Basically mak e the who le cry pto wor ld loo k rea lly, really, really, really bad. Yeah.

that's right. I think there is a lot of danger here without knowing the specifics of what's going to be said. We're going to find out during opening arguments what we've got is an or exchange that is doing something that would be illegal in the united states. You can't run both your own trading firm and your own exchange like that's an obvious conflict of interests.

We have laws about that.

Ah IT turns out yeah it's in the bahaa. So and you know as we ran through the charges, I think it's worth thinking about what kind of evidence IT takes to prove each one these charges. Like there's the boring part where you show the wire transfer happens, like that's gonna en. There's like some chain of custody stuff about like text messages also boring, but that has to go in the record but then it's like you have to demonstrate what was actually said by sand bank man fried and what sam ekman freed knew and those might be too entirely different things and so you think about like, okay, what kinds of text messages were there, what was going on and slack, what conversations were happy happening. We know that there are a couple of his coffee spirituals who plead guilty and our CoOperating will most likely testify, including his x girlfriend, Caroline ellison, who was one of those CEO of alamito research.

you know, who was in a position to know everything about what happened here.

exactly. And there is a recording of her contemporaneous sly explaining what happened. Like you can say, you can make an argument maybe to try to take her down. Oh, well, you know, she's trying to print IT all and say and because he wants easier sentence but like if you have that contemporaneous evidence of for explaining what happened, that's a much harder thing to make. You can't make IT stick if he said IT before he thought he was gonna cut, you know so there's a lot of stuff that is going on that I think we could potentially hear about.

But one of the things that I want everybody to sort of remember, because there are so many moving parts in this case that is easy to get lost, is that right before sand bag freed was arrested in the bahamas, he was going to testify before congress and we had his prepared testimony which included uh group chat of crypt to exchanges where um he was being sort of school did by cz. And I wonder one, if we're going to see more of those exchanges, especially broadening by the defense and to what they will say because, you know, this is the sort of thing we're like. I don't think it's unusual for crypt to exchanges to have conversations with each other.

I'm sure that happens all the time 是 if only because you know everybody y's trying to be like, okay, so what's the s going to do next? But I am interested in you know what kinds of evidence might be brought forward potentially either to try to get the not guilty verdict or to try to get simulator sentence. Because you have to keep in mind the defenses doing about three things that wants, first and foremost, they want him not guilty, sure.

But should that fail, the second, want to make sure that sentencing is relatively light. And third, want grounds for appeals. So that means there's a bunch of evidence that they're going to be stuff in the record with that may not necessarily be directly relevant to the verdict itself, but might for incidents be helpful for those other two goals.

OK and IT seems like if you are his defense, the only two moves I can think of are you either have to make the case that he didn't know what was going on, like you said, that being added, that is not illegal. And so they either have to make the he's just sort of a dumb figure head case or make the everybody in cyp du is economy sams not worse than everybody else case. Is there is there a third version of the defense that you've heard about?

yes. So one of the things that the the sort of a joke and White collar crime is either you're too small to be responsible or you too big to be responsible.

And there you go.

You're too far down the food chain to be responsible for the crime, or you're so high up the food chain you had no idea what happened.

Is like a baby with democratic, hopefully who how I possibly known what was on that.

Ah so I expect that we're going to he was too far up the food chain to know the specifics of what happened. But I also think that based on the reporting i've seen, there is going to be an advice of council defense. He's basically going to say that is going to layers is going to say, the lawyers told me this was the best way to do things.

So I did IT their way. I don't know how much water that's going to hold. I'm very curious about what kind of evidence you might present in order to make that defense, particularly because a there seems to be a lot just like a mountain of evidence here in terms of like chats and recordings and press moments in the press, all of these things, just a mountain of stuff that he said. So I am very curious about what could possibly be brought forward in order to show that he was acting at the advice of council, that he was doing what his lawyers told him to do, and IT wasn't his fault.

Just from a trial perspective itself. How do you think this is gonna? Have to say, the eliza homes trial.

Would you also covered very close? That one was just like a nonstop spectacle, right? There were people cosplay as elisa homes outside of the course. Do you think this one's gonna sort of a show in the same way? I honestly have no idea.

I think they're going to be a lot of people from the egypt to industry who are going to pop by to watch. I ve certainly poke of people who. Expressed an interesting in doing so just out of curiosity in the same way that like you know, I I think a lot of us are very curious about the certainty.

I am curious that's why i'm going. One of the things that i'm interested in is now with a lot of the sort of like crypt of bankrupcy proceedings, there are investors who show up. And so i'm curious if we're going to see people who are F, T X customers who are going to show up to see what happens.

And you know the other thing that's like worth keeping in mind here is we've been talking about the sort of boring financial side of all of this. But there is this salacious human element that I am now going to talk about because I think that's one of the things that people are really interested in questions about recreational drug use. A lot of the people within F, T, X were dating each other.

I mean, Caroline ellison is sam begon freeze exco for. And do you know and like someone who is likely to testify and who was already plead guilty as his childhood friend from map camp, like right, there's some Operatic stuff going on. So I think that there is like I don't know if we're going to see necessarily people showing up dressed a sandbag freed or in F T X year, although we might, who knows? But I do think that there is a very, very high likelihood of like real fireworks. If you think about like David, you've worked at to start up to if you think about what people are like when you're you're working at startups, like especially because you're working these long hours and everybodies in their twenty years and like you don't know what you're doing, just the case there are sAnitas and these are chinese that are now going to be in the court room. And so like you can imagine, in an attempt to discrete a witness, you might bring up some dumb stuff they did in the office yeah.

Or in an effort to discredit the defendant, you might bring up a lot of their own personal tion against. And I do I think you're right that there were a lot there are a lot of seating and we know about because especially like since the man went on house arrest, he he had the most public house arrest of all time and just happy he told anyone who asked about all the channel against going on, going on A, F, T, X. And the I have a feeling there is a lot more to come. How long is this trial, sport?

It's scheduled for about five weeks. IT may run a little longer, a little shorter, but I I will be in new york city for all of october in the first couple weeks in november. I'm actually turning forty well in there.

Ah happy almost birthday very excel sam. That he this is how i'm celebrating. Yes, it's feels very fitting for you as actually is about to celebrate. This is just right.

But yeah, no, I think that there's there's a lot to come and I really can't wait to find out what kind of evidence i'm going to see because there is a lot of stuff that as a reporter, I just love being another people's business. I am a huge gossip plague. That's just the truth of the matter.

Like I was that before I was a reporter, I grew up in a small town. Gossip was a context for, like, this is like a game I love, and the government can get a hold of so much more juicy info than I can. Like, I would love to see the due diligence that quiet did.

Like I would love IT. I never got to see that stuff. So this is the kind of thing that I really hate for.

IT is a really underrated thing. I had this experience being in the the courtroom for USB google for a couple of the sort of bigger named people, the people who a never meet with reporters, most of the sam back free to sort of unusual, and that he love talking reporters, but most of the time of these people either never tell the truth or never meet with reporters in general, but just watching them sit there and there is like, oh, they have to tell the truth now and they have to say IT out loud.

And I get to just sit here and listen to IT. It's the best IT rules. Sometimes it's very boring and procedure IT IT takes a long time, but eventually they have to answer the question .

it's kind of create.

right? We're going to check in a bunch over the course of this trial. Like you said, it's it's long.

I suspect if I had to guess, I would take it's onna kind of ebn flow. There's going to be a lot of really want key talk about how money moves around to put them. We're going to get a lot of chinese and we're going to chicken both of those things.

I'll tell you what, David, because I don't know how many of our listeners are aware of lake the sort of the reporting that goes on. But because there's a limited amount of people that just a limited physical number of bodies that can fit that, i'm usually like for something like this, i'm going to be standing outside the leg and a holy hour in the morning.

And so if there are sands, I have some time where i'm doing nothing standing on the streets of new york city. And so yes, I will be calling in. You'll get to hear the cell phone report .

really like the right baseless because I can can .

see all right by David.

right? We're going to take one war break and then we're going to get to the vert hot line. 我不要 带。

Hey, it's lee from decoder with the liao, 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 do you 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're listened 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 themselves.

And what is actually going on with this acquisition this year, especially you mean A I space. Why are so many big players and tech deciding not to acquire and instead license tech and hire away cofounded ers? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems.

You'll hear all that and more this month on decoder with your life presented by strike. You can listen to decoder, whatever you get. Your podcast.

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Welcome back. Let's answer a question from the verge cast hotline as we do on this show every week. As a reminder, the hot line number is eight, six, six.

Verge one one call and ask all of your best test questions. No question too big, no question too weird. The weird are the Better if i'm being honest with you. We've gotten some amazing questions recently. Thank you for all of your most monk thoughts about all things technology oh, and if you don't want to call or can't, you can always email us verge cast at the verge dot come that works just as well. Today's question comes from zack.

Hi, this is jack. I'm in malocca was contain my daughter is a vacuous reader, very proud. Bad IT also means SHE just goes through time to library books. Basically, in time we go to bookstore, she's picking up something. I kind of don't know where to go as far as a electrode aor.

This feels like a really natural how would a gift? But I just go for the ipad because it's got the most access to, especially things like cool, love things to work with the local uh library system. I don't want to really get super locked into into the ecosystem.

But on the other hands, like if you go with the e and that can use for anything else, it's just going to defer for reading. But then he doesn't access to those those libraries and and we're out back to square one, spending you know in ten to fifteen hours for every single block, especially books. You will breathe once I don't know what the correct answer is so light of the uh, crayon signal and get me the best preparation you've got.

Thanks asking you shall receive. We let up the koreans signal x creations is here.

Hi alex. hi. Oh my god. This is a great question.

right? There are so many layers to this question in that I find so very interesting. So let me just try and like lay the land for you here and see if you think about this the way that I do.

Okay, there's like a hardware and a software question here. I think we can immediately rule out buying a kindle. Yes, because we don't want to tether to one ecosystem, right? fair.

Yeah on that. okay. So I think we're basically in one of three places now.

We can either teller bodies act to buy an ipad, we can tell our friends act to buy a different ec ebook create, which is I I know you're going to have several thoughts about certain brands that mayor may not exist in amErica but are possible to find, or you can buy a different android tablet. Those seem like the three category. And I missing anything. I I think .

that's exactly right OK. Because the kindle kindle can work with some libraries, but I only works with libby and an overdrive. And that's not like the only library ecosystem out there.

It's kind of wanted ated. They have been a job kid like .

it's very involved and cobo is kind of build itself as like, oh, you can use IT for your library books and all these other kinds of reading. I can think it's got pocket belton or used to. It's also not really great because again, it's really limited to overdrive and otherwise you're going to be like teaching your daughter how to sit load stuff and that is a great skill SHE should have.

Like, I highly encourage you doing that. I don't know if this is the time you want to do that. Yeah so I don't want to get into your parenting like you teach .

your kids to sid loaded when ever fus right?

Yeah, that's a very personal moment for you and your daughter. So yeah, I really is like, okay, do you want to go ipad? And you know, it's more likely to shun crack and break IT and and make IT more difficult to use, a lot easier than a lot of either devices.

But IT is very, very flexible. But also like you could catch plain road blocks on IT or watching youtube, like there's a lot of things I could happen there or you can go with something like probably the best brand. Dave really knows what to say.

which is books B O O X we say yes B O O X and .

they're probably the best at like andrey tablet and a little hesitant to say go that right just because he is child and like IT can be a little complicated and so you probably still have to teacher the sidelining situation, but also a whole bunch of other things. And like if you want your daughter to be really, really understanding of how technology works, the books is the best way to go. If you don't want to also be participating in that educational activity, the ipad, or like an android tablet, like a traditional android tablet.

feels right. Yeah, my heart wants books to be the answer. Because in theory, that combination of its almost exclusively reading device.

But I also need all the other apps because there are a lots of places you read, not just in the one e books system, right? Like, yes, what an incredibly common use case that no one has fixed. I want books to be the answer, but I I do agree. I think for most people, the book's version of android is just like somewhere between one and five text, too complicated to really work.

I'm using like that the most recent color one and it's got the most recent software on IT and differently comforting verses yeah like the google play store built in now. So you can just start using the google play store before you had you would have had to teach her daughter about patients and and waiting for twenty four hours for google to register the device after you register IT.

Now you can just start using IT so that IT hasn't improved a lot. And and there's some pretty affordable ones. There's some, I think like the pokey three is like with one hundred and fifty dollars, maybe it's it's a little more affordable.

I definitely would look into IT then have a serious conversation with your cell on how much you are willing to trouble shoot things because I think it's still gonna require IT even with a software update. There's still gonna more hand holding them with an ipad, but it's probably going to get you closer to that experience you're looking for. So yeah, this depends on like how offered you when I have to answer take questions for .

your doctor here. Can I throw one range here that I not a hundred percent sure I think is a good idea, but I think might be a good, which is one of amazon's tablets. My hesitation with all tablets, whether they run android or IOS, is that they have all the apps.

That's true, but buying stuff on those devices is a gigantic pain in the ass because of the way that google and apple run those platforms. You can buy kindle books in the kindle APP. You know where you can buy kindle books in the kindle b and by other things in other apps is on the fire tablets.

And those tablets aren't like amazing hardware. But like the fire hg plus eight inch has a decent screen. It's pretty rough and tumble. You're not really gona break IT.

If you be IT up, they make a kids version that even more and it's seventy dollars like I cannot explain enough how much more expensive every other tablet is. This one is not a great tablet. But if if truly all you want is a reading device, this feel like you might be enough IT might .

be I think you'd have to double check on what apps will work with IT because it's still like amazon thing and they want you to buy their books. They don't vote. This is like they might make IT difficult. I I don't know the state of like the libby APP on on a fire tablet or or the hopper, whatever. So you probably would you need to do just to touch a research there because I haven't used one a little bit.

It's definitely significantly more open than the kindle, but significantly less open than like full android. You're still getting amazon spin on android.

That's definitely true. yeah. But if it's got the apps, it's probably like the most affordable and like easiest to use of IT. IT just requires like quarterback checking that the APP is available for IT. Also, it's like a hundred box and to return so if he doesn't return IT, buy books, buy an ipad and you'll be happy yeah I will .

say I think we're probably a line on this one that like if money is no object and your not worried about like breaking the thing, the ipad mini is the correct answers, right? IT is like objectively the best device of all these devices.

yeah. I, I, I tried to switch between my my eraser and my ipad mini a lot. And I all often times I find my like my ipad.

Many just doesn't more stuff, so I use IT more. But I love having my my e atr. I love being able to do IT outside. I love IT for just focus. And I think for a kid, this problem that might actually be a good thing in some cases, right, like they got to focus on the reading and not just go off on a tair being like, I wonder, like when you read a chapter in a book and you like all that's interesting and immediately go google IT on your ipad that's easy on your your e reader, use away and do IT later. And that's kind of nice because then you just keep reading right.

either a future or a bug depending on how you look at IT. And I think that has a lot to do with IT. So I think rely on that. I would say if you're feeling ambitious, zc, buy a books device, see how that feels my son to be IT will immediately be obvious to you if it's more and more work than you want, right? Like you're going to take the thing out of the box, turned on IT on and immediately to be like, nope or you're going to all this solves all my problems, right? That seems IT IT will not be unclear.

I wouldn't say I will not be unclear. You're going to know really, really quickly. And generally speaking, the new the new Operating system, the new version we've rolled out has been really, really good. They are very good about like getting the latest version of android on things you just can't use seventy percent of a android because it's not meant for a pleasant White yeah it's tablet so you can .

watch youtube about IT don't if you yeah it's a specific kind of torture trying to watch youtube. But so my other question for you is where do you buy your e books? I realized in prepping for this that I accidentally just became sort of amazon exclusive like a million years ago.

I love the kindle and had a bunch of kindle books. And now that all my books are, so I have kept buying kindle ooks. And like, am I here to tell you that the calibre APP exists and does a really good job of stripping D R M from your kindle x so that you can use them on other devices? No, that's not what i'm here to tell you.

It's true. And the APP is free and open source and IT stripped D R M for my e vox so you can use them on other devices. That's not the point. My question for you is, where do you get your e books, if not from amazon?

I ginning start with luck. And then I found caliper and made the switch to amazon and took my whole note library with me, which is really, really nice. And then I was an amazon for a while, and then I was like, I feel weird being in this one ecosystem.

So I switched back to you and brought all my books back via calibre. And so now I usually like I attend to go no, but i've got a couple like there's e books stock com. There's a couple of other ones and all kind of look around because sometimes the stories, the selection is different.

And on esty, amazon has a ton of books. It's gotten so big with self publishing that a lot of like self publish books, somebody to say. So you got to see this is really good. It's only available at amazon, which is super frustrating. Um and also sometimes just buy IT directly from the the publisher and the author gets more money that way so that if you really are supporting an author buying IT directly from their population available best waited by the books yeah and you can usually.

if you know what you want to buy, if you just google the title and e book, you can pretty quickly find that publisher website usually and and get the book that way. That's a good trick. What I wish existed like bookshop ed at org, which is this amazing website for my physical books from, like, actual bookstores that are Better citizens of the publishing world than your amazon. I love that website, and I wish ed something like that existed for e books. IT feels like e books that come as like .

kind of that but not quite e books of do that uh, liberal FM does that. But it's almost exclusively audio books. It's been like fifteen dollars a month there.

And IT gives me one book credit and that's nice. And I know i'm supporting of an author and i'm supporting my local bookstore like feels great. You can also find your local bookstores. A lot of them actually will have partnerships with booksellers online and be like, oh yeah, you can go here and buy an e book from us at this. They often will have garbage websites, but if you want to support your local bookstore, that's way to do IT IT, just unfortunate, requires more work than logging into amazon.

The only thing I would add to your list of websites, which is, which is very good, and I just am going to go sign up for liberal and right now is there is a website called books bob B O O K B U B 点 com and its whole thing is just spectacular deals on e books from around the internet。 And so it's like not a place to go if you're like I want to read this specific brand new book but if you're just like, I like spy novels, let me know when I can get a spy novel for a dollar and ninety nine as an e book ah they send emails and IT has become my like most quickly click email every week because it's just nonstop e book deals and it's great and I use IT all the time, so highly recommend.

I'm doing that as soon as we're done with this forecast.

I think we've helps right this this feels zack. Let us know what you end up doing. I think your instincts are good.

And if you, if you buy a books and you love IT, IT will warm alex this heart. So let us know. I will. I will. alex. Thank you. Appreciate your eyes.

oh.

right? That's IT for the verge cast today. Think everybody who came on the show today and thank you as always for listening. As ever, there is lots more from everything we talked about, the verge shock com recovering all of these trials pretty closely. So we'll put some links in the shoots, but also we're posting all over the verge dot comm as everything happens.

So keeping up on the website also, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings or tips on how to improve my handwriting because i'm not allowed to have electronics in the court room, you can always email us at verge, cast at the verge dot com, or keep calling the hot line. It's six six verra one one we love hearing from you. Send us all your thought, questions and ideas for what we should do on the show.

We do at least one hot line question every week, so please keep coming. This show is produced by the marina and the m. James spoke matters is our editorial director of the casts is verge production in part of the vox media, a podcast network? Mei alex, now i'll be back on friday to talk about the pixel event, the best in vegas, the sad fate of the seventeen thousand dollar apple watch, and all of the rest of this week, new will see that rock on.

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