Disney’s big bets on sports, streaming, and Fortnite
01:18:12 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.

Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of multi state holder media companies. I'm a friend day with peers. New life tel is not here, but we all are, which is very exciting. Outcry is here. Hi.

i'm your friend who is ready. Do a Victory a second.

It's come in. It's ky. Everything here, I add, we have a lot to talk about this week.

There is a bunch of streaming news. Uh, did y did just all the things talk about that bunch vision pro stuff? This is like the first week that regular humans got vision pro, and I got role.

Weird with that blue sky stuff, bunch of other, other stupid laming round. But let's start with disney, right? If we have to serve with this thing.

I hate, hate, hate talking about earnings on the cast. This is my least favorite, but everyone's all bobbi gr shows up and it's like, what's up, losers? It's the next time.

Well, I think technically it's not just disney, right? It's disney and and Warner brother's discovery. true.

Okay, you're right. So within the disney story, there are lake somewhere between two and three individual stories. Yes ah we should probably start with the sports thing, right? That was kind of the big streaming wars news of the week and and alex, this is where your Victory lap became so tell us us going yeah.

So what's happening is E S P N and fox, which are both currently owned by disney. Our team up with Warner brothers, which is not owned by disney yeah currently .

give give time.

are all coming together to make a giant streaming APP, which is effectively what who I was back in like two thousand and nine, which is when A B, C in fox, in in B, C, all eventually came together to make who you and like fund who and put other content on IT. IT didn't start that way.

But that's where when after like a year or two, and that's what's happening now it's like who do for sports and I said that right as the news broke and then as more came out, I was like, yes, i'm right. That is who love for sports? Yeah.

you were increasingly vindicated. So so let me see if I understand this because we gotten sort of bits and pieces of information about what this thing put IT. It's a streaming service that is launching leader this year.

Sometime I will have a name, we don't know what the name is. Warners brothers is involved, so IT will probably be stupid, uh, but I will have a name. Uh, it's gonna be a mix of all of the linear networks owned by those companies, right? So like all of the S, P, S, all the fox sport is A, B, C, all the tent of the world.

T, D, S.

And just like those full channel is IT is a television of those channel. Sports are not sports OK because I was the questions. It's not it's just it's just channels, just channels.

but IT basically as ports. Okay, right? So it's going to be like it's going to be all of these different sports things. And then disney is still saying there are going to do something with E S P N as its own stand alone, which has me wondering what the health going on with the S P N plus, which I think you are one of the few people have ever meet, that was like, yes, this is a red service.

No, this is good. Okay, you're explaining that this makes no sense.

Which the thing that I have been trying to figure out is, does this actually make any sense? Because all of that is there, right? And then there's going to be what I think amounts to like individual sports, right? So the stuff on E S P N plus the stuff that uh warna others gets through uh the bleezing report, the suspect fox has streaming like all of that will also exist inside of this who love for sports .

theoretically think.

uh, and that's that's IT right IT will have its prays you can pay for IT but also if you wants to watch all of that stuff on the other services that are also part of this U K. And a lot of that also beyon cable because it's just the cable channels they are getting in the stream. And so what is this thing?

I think I think it's like a question, a thing I hear a lot from my brother and sometimes from you in the line, but you guys are much we're technical savy is streaming is really hard if you want to watch sports, like my brother is constantly complaining because he thinks, okay, I have the sports service.

That means I can watch the cowboys any time and the memri s now now I can watch the mavericks anytime I want and and then be like, no, it's a black out and and it's really annoying and he has then go buy another streaming service or he has to find someone who like can like stream just that one channel to him. And it's all stupid and confusing. And this, I think, is going to potentially reduce that confusion.

But not a lot, because sports screaming is still a huge mess because every single sports like owner, like nfl and everybody is selling their rides all over the place in all these different ways and like trying to put all of their big eggs in every single basket. And IT feels like this is kind of solving for that. But behind of not.

yeah, IT feels like, I don't know, add does not if this make any sense to you, can you explain this as the resident sports lover.

the person who clearly knows anything about sports? I mean, this seems mostly IT. That is absolutely the impression I get this, that the sports is the great thing that streaming hasn't managed to do anything with yet. Yes, which also I think means that there is more of a piracy ecosystem around IT in a lot of ways. And I do wonder what impact that's going to have on this at a time when my senses piracy and all the other areas that streaming once decimated has grown a lot.

That's interesting. Yeah, I don't really tired anything except off of Alexis plex .

server t .

but I have watched more sports than I proud of on like a tiktok livestream because I literally couldn't find anywhere else to watch IT. I generally feel like if I try my hardest to find a legal way to watch something and there isn't one is no longer my foot, which is not a good legal argument, but is how I feel about streaming. And often with sports, unlike, okay, I pay for every single streaming service I can find that will show me sports. And still there's like a one in three chance. I just can't watch whatever is .

on you pay your life. T, V, too. right?

Not anymore. So I got rid of cable. But this is part of the whole thing is like the only reason now to have cable is, if you like, the sports, because this is the one place that generally has all the sports unless you want.

Like if you're big in the like college volleyball, you're on E S P N plus, right? But for the most part, live TV is like the last bastion of it's just where all the things are, which is very funny because now that's the biggest problem. And streaming is there is no place where all the things are. So we all just want cable again.

Well, there are also these these smaller services that do live streaming. That sports is kind of what they do like. I think foobar is one and sling TV is another one.

We're like they still have all of these channels. And so they've been making forty, fifty dollars among people for just this. They're about to give bodied.

Do you think so because it's the end of online? No, I don't .

think is the end of online live online T, V. I think it's probably going to be devastating for a few specific companies like sling and football.

Yeah, right. I pay for sling exclusively to watch sports, and I will stop now .

who is going to be fine? right? Ah who else does live streaming at this point?

Youtube TV is the big now and youtube TV has even made a big deal out of sports as the reason to have youtube TV. Uh like they got that will take a deal. They paid a hope and for money for it's it's d core thing that youtube TV is is a sports package and increasingly, if this thing works and there are million reasons to think that might not like, did you think I see the news today that the league were blinded der by this and had no idea this was coming, which is manus.

And I feel like the ftc is going to be very busy with this suit.

I'm serious why this doesn't happened earlier.

With everybody bundling together the sports .

sport like someone making a really big play for life, a large live sports.

It's because partially the leagues, the leagues joke like the leagues want to control their rights. Their rights are super, super lucrative, which is why google spent a ton of money to get youtube TV and in the N F, L.

Sports sunday ticket.

sunday I A sports ticket.

sport ticket. And it's I think IT honestly begins in ends there. IT is so expensive to have sports. And IT is like the last thing that that expensive.

And I think IT, but I think IT spans both ways, right? I think for a while I was like, oh, okay, we can use sports to grow our own thing. And I think IT was when max launched that they made a big deal of batter report being part of IT right there. We have HBO and we have batch report as if those things were like equals and that didn't really work. Uh, and now I think all these companies are a point where it's like, okay, if you're trying to buy sports rates, which again are the best way to win in TV is like a view the nfl you're going to have a successful television business is just how works.

Uh, if you want to a do that, you either have to have tech company money because now amazon and apple and google are all in this fight, may just have infinity money to throw at this or they have to band together and find a way to fight this because what the leagues want is they want their stuff to be everywhere, which is why they are also on broadcast T, V, A. Roger adel, N, F, fl. Commissioner, just gave a long speech basically about how they're not going to get broadcast TV because that almost people experience the games like that's true and it's can be true for a while.

So you either have to replace that unbelievable scale with some other kind of unbelievable scale, which I think each of these companies wanted to do. I know for sure disney has been trying to do there. Oh, P N is going to be the thing and what's going to cost you like a hundred billion dollars and like, never mind. Uh and so IT does seem like kind of a sign of desperation out of these companies that they are like our only chance is to all do this together.

So where we saw that last year because S. P. N. Has been looking for a partner for a while now. Yeah, apparently IT had one of the fox, which is part of disney. They could just like walked down the street and knocked on the door and like, let's work together come on um and you can say finally did and then water brothers who has very, very vocally like give his eyes love has been like, anybody want to do business with me? I'm ready to do business.

Yes, I got by you you by me. I don't care. And this like .

is a great deal for them because most of these most of these big channels are owned by disney. Only a few these channels are owned by water brothers. And now they've got like an actual leg into sports, no disrespectable ability report.

They've got an actual leg into like light broadcast sports yeah and that's huge for them. And these other two have some money bags over in the corner. You're going to pay them more money, hopefully fund whatever massive lawsuit I guess they are going to deal with from the leagues and probably the ftc.

IT does absolutely feel like the kind of consolidation that the ftc right now .

is it's good bit. yeah.

Do you think i've been having going back and forth this because on the one hand, it's just a thing they're all doing together, right? And I think the case that they seem to be making to each other and to the sport leagues and to the world is like this isn't a new product. We're just taking a bunch of existing things.

Like one of the things I was reading made in interesting case that the fact that they are linear streaming channels and not some new way of disseminating the content is how they managed to do this without signing new deals with the league. I don't know that. Sure not.

But I assume the case that they're going to make is this is okay because it's all you know stuff we are doing anyway. We're just packaging IT differently. But I have a hard time imagine that how IT reads to mean icon or anyone else.

We've just spent a bunch of time talking about the small streaming players that are going to get bodied by this, and that is just the biggest argument that, that people could make.

I think that's probably right.

It's all down to fu bo. Fu bo and selling TV are about to change the history of sports broadcasting in america.

But let's go out who because, yes, the you made the case when this is first coming out that this is who love for sports, which congratulations, you were precisely correct on that. Uh, we should also probably do a disclosure here. Uh, let's see, realize on here.

So what will do IT? Uh conchas is in a minority investor invoice media through its subsidy, nbc universal, which of peop notably not a part of this, notably also owns lots of sports rights, as does cbs and paramo plus. So lots of sports still not in this.

We made a nefarious show. It's good. I had nothing to do with that you .

might have it's .

a show they go so add is .

wildly conflicted .

oh my god. Um I don't know other things, Alexis, a black server um but we should just like let's let's do a little bit of a retrospective on whether who he was a good idea because very wide million years ago I was sort of a similar thing right they were like, okay, netflix exists. What we need is a way to take all the things that we'd like about broadcast T, V. On the internet.

They weren't even finding netflix at the time. They were explicit fighting pirates like was torts. They were fed up the torrent um I don't know who does those and and they were super upset with that.

And so they said so I think he was like nbc universal was one of the first ones was like, hey, let's got with some private equity companies in and made the deal and then A, B, C and fox, who at that point only one of them was earned by disney, also said, oh, we we want to be in on this too. We want like a nice controlled way to get our stuff out there without having to manage like abc that go that common that and and so they said, okay, let's all bundle together. Let's let's do IT this way. And then cbs was like, if you guys were going to go to our own thing and eventually that became paramount.

which we choose not to reference. Cbs all access .

yeah is like, just went off and did its own thing. But everybody else came together to fight piracy. And at the time, who was huge and I give was like the second most followed website after like youtube or something at the time, because people were really into a because they ve got all the stuff. And then everybody immediately started to like bigger and in fight, because apparently when you have all of these huge egos and in big companies in the room all trying to work together, they don't so right.

Well, and I feel like that the other reason this is just who do again is it's that dynamic, exactly right? It's I don't think pirates are so much the fight here.

The guy, I really increasingly believe this is about like rights consolidation and making sure they continue to stay in the game together and build a sports thing, both because of all people want in, because only way they afford IT, but the sensibly, okay, if we don't give people one place to come to do IT, they will find other ways that are worse for us. Yeah, uh, which is what who was and who really worked because was like, oh, I want to watch parkson rec, which was just on T. V.

I can either go torn IT tomorrow. I can go to a hooo tomorrow and everybody want to do u IT was easier. Uh, was like I was spotify in the music industry.

Like, same thing. But then IT turns out that having three large companies owe a company together goes badly. yeah. And like, you know who's been through this now is disney. Disney knows this Better than anybody and is now willingly signing up for this. Again, this is just screw itself into paying like twenty billion more dollars to acquire the rest of flu from comcast after all of this, and now is just happily jumping back into bed in this exact same agreement. Again, IT doesn't make any sense to me.

I think that kind of make sense. I think disney is been facing a lot of existence al crisis with its various businesses, particularly broadcast TV, particularly pn. And this gives them like a lot of opportunity to make some money back and make those businesses viable again, provided they don't get fully body by the ftc, foobar.

everyone else involved. I would just be clear that no matter what the ftc does, the ftc also tends to have to go through the courts and the ftc has dop a great track record with the .

course right now they mostly lose.

Yeah so that's fair, that's fair. They'll get like bodied on twitter. Excuse me, they'll like body on threads. Maybe x possibly tiktok.

I think Bobby gar, i'll get over.

Yeah I think he'll survive IT.

And speaking of Bobby gar, so let's let's watch to the other story here because I think the other thing happening at disney right now is like disney is both, I think, to your point, kind of an an anxious al crisis. It's been a weird couple years for disney. It's not growing as fast as I went to. Its not making so much money as I want to to E S P N is still just like giant fountain of cash yeah that now seems threatened to transfer all other stuff. And yet our man babb bigger shows up to the earnings this week and is really like kind of feeling himself roll out these big giant initiatives and is just like, what's everybody like we're .

still the world disney company. Yeah I was had like big bob capi's energy y particularly because I was so like tech focused, a lot of the stuff you were saying, because one of the things is that their going to have their own like persistent universe tied to fortnight, which we don't entirely know what that means or what that's gna look like. We have a vae idea, but there's got fortnight, persistent universe of disney involved. So that sounds like money .

and cool IT feels like that's yeah feels .

like that it's like a bob chapel like that's the sort of thing he wanted to do, right? Like he wanted to turn the company into attack company. And so this is like, okay, this is giving them some inroads in taking there there like terrific IP, in putting IT out there in the fortnight space, in making those deals. And then you also have like, okay, we're going to start cracking down on disney plus password cheering, which is the other like taxi where it's like, okay, no more free rides get out of here, which bob did when he was like, no where free rides at this.

the world or whatever and bob igor was like, how dare you do that? That's so hostile to our customers. We love everybody who comes Prices.

but he doesn't love people who share passwords. Bubble hate you.

Let's look at this for, I think, because I think this was a surprise in a lot of ways. Disney said they are investing one point five billion dollars, I think, in epic, uh, to create a persistent universe. He said, uh, tied to for night.

Again, we have no details on this, but disney and epic have partner of a tn on suffer of the years. There has been all kinds of marvel stuff inside a fortnight. And my sense is this stuff has done very well and feels like in a lot of ways, kind of a natural place for disney as a company to go, right?

yeah. And the absolute first thing I thought is, oh, I have thought this had already .

somehow happened.

yes. So I mean, I think what we've seen from fortnight over the last year from epic really is this idea that they can take the thing that is fortnight and the unreal engine and build IT out into more stuff, right? They did.

They did lego fortnight. They have the racing game that I can't remember the name of right now, but it's very fun and we will play. And there's just like there is a universe around fortnight now yeah.

that seems very powerful, which also ties into IT. Seems like what they kind of want to be is corporate rocks. Yeah, rob locks is incredibly popular. Robo locks is also just the janie's thing in the world to go to a Better site and click on a thing, and you find like a prison simulator made by a thirteen year old.

But I got some .

loves IT. This is more IT is they want to be a game full of games. And but it's these very well recognized .

ips and IT seems like if that's the goal, you've literally could not imagine a Better partner than disney.

right? Yeah, is rox.

Lego was a pretty good partner.

Lego s that I did lego first. Yeah.

yeah. Lego and lego for I, I, I am super well and make sense. It's like the thing I keep coming back to is like, i'm very old yeah and so I play fortnight like it's like a game for shooting uh, most people especially Younger than me because I get a very old for that is just like .

a place to hang out fun stuff.

There's there are purely creative words kind of the same thing, right? Like the being there is the point. And like disney world just is just this digital disney world in so many ways. And I feel like disney i'm almost surprised disney didn't try to do this itself. But IT seems like a big, big bet on who is going to win this race that I would pick epic to go with.

I also think the scalding of the game, even if you're mostly hanging out, is really important just because we have seen at this point two or three decades of things like memos tend to be really successful even if people are using them to get married or hang out with friends. Whereas things like horizon, where the entire world is, why don't you do the things you do in real life, but you can actually get any of the sensory experience IT.

Seems like people just don't like obviously, some people use them. Things like the archa definitely have a base. Yeah, but I think it's a little less intuitive why you should get into them.

I mean, my god son, I was back in in texas recently that night. He's like i'm going to play your blocks with my friends and we were like, I cool and we went off to the rodeo. We came back that night and he's asleep.

We get up next morning and he's like, my favorite came in the world as lego fortnight. The baby sitter showed up to me and now I am a assessed and that's all he plays now like he was just like an instant drug for him and he was not a big fortnight player. He was like robots fan. But that like IT was just very clear built that world of, given that thing and then he could be like there's my babysitters house over there and fortnight and as well that's a little creepy. But also I love this for you and I love that he has the patients to play this with you because you're aid yeah but it's like it's a really weird like aren't some weird but it's just kind of how quick IT is for for people who just jump into IT and IT feels like the disney that's just gonna like huge yeah I mean.

yeah having the pull of the characters you recognize and the story telling that disney is so good at goes a really long way. But IT IT breaks my brain to think about all this because on the one hand, I think the two things that this says to me are, uh, epic is winning in some vague but real way and also that we're all still betting on this idea of the metaverse being a thing. And I really thought we had just given up on, I like, I ve made so much fund of the whole concept of the metaverse for the last two years, and now i'm sitting here being like, this is an unbelievably good idea.

Of course, this I feel indicated because I feel like IT was not me who wrote this, but several people just said, look, the metaphors is just video games. It's just that we went through a weird period, were a bunch of men in suits, decided that we, what if that was video games? But minus the things that people actually like about video.

I feel like used to make the point a lot that robo ks was the metaverse. And like, robo ks was one of the biggest metaverse, right?

I think in one robo, ks itself decided they wanted to make that point to ended up changing its name away from games. And that's also, I think, kind of city because clearly what people are doing games there yeah that they are highly social.

right? But I just I think .

we've gotten away from the idea that you're going to work in fortnight, which is kind of what I associate the metaverse boom of the pandemic era with.

So there's no like B2Be for tnight sof tware.

Rob locks told dole's eem loye to come into the office because you can't work in robo ks.

We try to work in lego fortnight down.

I would broadcast in lego fort, yeah.

whole show in lego for night. You do IT wear .

my rabin meta smart glasses and hang on. A little effort will be sick. Um so you you like this thing works for you you you're in on this concept.

I mean not mean personally.

but that makes sense to me. Okay, why not you personally?

Because I don't like being around other people.

That's honest. Okay, I respect that. Uh yeah I I think this part of disney feels like in many ways the biggest bet we're like it's they're so very much calling disney like the disney plus company like that is the thing disney needs to work.

But disney spent, I think, two billion dollars to do a gambling thing that will work because it's sports gambling and I can help work doing great. yeah. But this feels like in terms of sort of big swings with a lot of room for error and a lot of like monsters, room for success. The the epic thing seems like this could be a big yes.

because I feel disney, when IT comes to games, his head like a very mixed run of things, right? Like they've had some good stuff.

They've had some bad stuff. That's ue.

i'm trying to think of dom heart.

There are many star wars games.

All of the star they do exist, right? But then they are they good and fun and exciting and worth playing.

Disease also had like a internal studios and then it's like moved away from those internal studios. I think go to bob capito, a lot of like heavy reordination ah the studios. And and so this is like an interesting, almost like return to form for disney to be like, oh yeah, games yeah. I mean.

the thing I associate weirdly, most of IT is is wear n inspectors, epic Mickey, which I don't think anyone would really call an absolutely massive .

financial success. No, but I was like that was that the most disney of disney games, right? Like that was like any time I think of a video game of disney, I go back to him being like, you're gonna paint your way like into the future with, like, Mickey mouse.

I was just bast symbolic of that period that was like the height of prestige tripling or player games.

I just google best disney video games ever just to make sure there wasn't like an obvious one I was missing and reluctant things like castle volume starting Mickey mouse from one thousand nine hundred and ninety and crack shot from one thousand nine hundred ninety. What like the track records? Not amazing.

Yeah, yeah. And so you've all terrific IP that they have been very good at selling out other companies and now doing this with epic. And what seems like is going to be a much tighter relationship. I'll be really curious to see what happens there. And also, if IT explodes, it's going to be like really interesting.

It's also very fun that this is one of apple's best friends partners with one of apple's mortal enemies yeah which I just enjoy very much uh like bobbi gar and tim cook are going to have a lot of very polite, very testy phone calls over the next couple of years. And i'm very excited about IT going to be great times. And I mean.

this there was a big launch part was supposed to be for .

the vision yeah we are.

You can you can go hang out. You can watch a movie like I think in in darth vader palace or something. It's I don't remember that.

Is that exactly bit? Yes, IT was disney definitely star wars s themed.

Yeah yeah. I think there's one that's like on the volcano planet where he lived for a while. I know far too much about so is apparently judging by both of your faces. Oh.

no, I remember. I remember those things I am trying to remember because I went into the theater and I do not remember where I was. I wanted.

I say to IT was A T. I know if there were others, but there was definitely A T maybe .

I just made up. I want to watch a movie and aratus like throne.

Good idea. This is, I know for sure, bobbi gers listings, this podcast. So bob, get IT done.

Make IT happen. Come one more thing before we search cars and take a break. care. I know if you get up the the s argument of the week on threads, everyone's favorite facto social media platform, uh, was about apple TV plus in H B L.

And I just want, I just, anna, feel everybody out on on how we feel about that. So why are rote story, uh, basically positing the apple TV is the new H B O. And that is IT is where you go to get basically nothing but very good things.

They don't do that much but the things that they do were very good. Uh and then look at shah who's a reporter of them broken very good and knows the software are the most uh could treat somebody saying something to the effect of anyone writing something like this should be required to say that nobody watches apple T. V.

plus. And the feelings that that brought out in people on the internet. People blogged about IT.

People posted about IT. People got very angry, lucas, somebody called him a funny name that he then quote witted. And I just became this holiday.

But I I think the the question underneath IT is like, is apple T V the the one now like is IT? Is IT? Is IT the best one interest?

I mean, here here's a question, if do you like science fiction .

sometimes.

okay, do you like weird modernist takes on historical women's stories.

Yes, univerSally.

And do you like .

this head accurate?

If you like those things, then like apple TV is great. I think apple TV plus is very much like HBO and that IT has really high standards. IT maintains those really high standards and like HBO for a very long time, nobody watched IT.

Everybody is just like, like, we love to be like, oh yeah. HBO gatherings gathon as huge. It's massive.

And a ton of people watch game of thrones. That was not Normal for HBO. I was a surprise in a shock in the delight for HBO.

And also, i'm pretty sure that like the game of thrones, ratings would have been like a pretty bad .

episode of the big bank, the conflict between the two things.

That's totally fair.

Yeah I think they're doing like ten, eleven million average viewers for which was massive for H. B. And at the time for broadcast, T.

V was like pretty OK. But you know, you think about the math. Fidelia was Grace. My big one is grazed atomy. Season two was over twenty million people watching IT. So you're like, no, yeah, twenty million people did not watch the the latest season of for all mankind, they should have.

I guess the thing that interests me about this comparison is that a lot of the way that I experienced early, like prestige T V N H B O shows, was through a critics ecosystem that doesn't exist anymore, that a lot of, I think you've written about this, that there was idea that nobody y's like, not that many people are watching this show, but every critic, you know, is watching this show. Everything on the internet is writing about IT. There are these whole little ecosystems. I'm really curious what that looks like for apple.

Yeah and I think apples been doing kind of okay that that's one of the reasons it's gone so far. I N A science fiction is because, like, you have monarch, which is a big show that's based in in the godzilla world. And I just ask you to here about the godzilla movies. You shouldn't be.

but he wants you too, so bad IT .

wants you to. And the show, the show is really just really good. I think it's got a great like time ahead of IT and same with mankind.

But IT doesn't really like they're not only hitting at the same kind of lik Epace t hat t raditionally t hose c ritically a cclaim e d l ike s hows l ike w e d on't h ave a t elevision w ithout p ity a nymore. AV club is very, very different than IT was ten fifteen years ago, five years ago. And and so you don't have those like conversations happening. Instead you have like people on tiktok going through in judging easton's favourite ite movies in saying why they sack, which is like not particularly useful criticism um or you have what is a new threats and and people making fun of lucas for something he was right about like nobody watches apple TV exit. Be an David I think.

Yeah well there are a lot of people who responded. TV places twenty five .

million subscribers different than .

how many people s yeah ah they all watch ted. They did not watch .

that that and they may be watched. Do they watch foundation?

Probably said they watch foundation. They like an elise .

in the world who watched all the foundation is dancer and believe the d because yeah.

that's why he's not at the .

virgin anymore is because we found out he watched all the foundation and really wow no .

but that I think you the point of making my critics me think of something which is that like even still like I think about a website like the ringer, which is a lot of really good pop culture coverage, they sort of instinctively cover every new like nine P M on sunday H B O show because there's just an assumption that this show sort of matters, right. Whether the weight loss or succession or any of those kind of handful of times a year shows that yes.

getting that true detective .

right now yeah totally. And there's just a like cultural assumption that the show is relevant because IT is like the sunday night show on HBO. Apple TV doesn't have that like I could not tell you what day any apple T, V show comes out, which I think is is like a .

meaningful thing, was tuesday.

honestly couldn't tell you. Like the only streaming one in general, I remember, was the first season of the man delora. An on disney plus came out friday mornings.

And I had friends who would little like wake up early in the morning on friday morning to watch the show in order to like be able to talk about IT at work. And so like that's the level that you get to. And I think H B O just sort of is granted that level of of cultural relevance, even if it's not real.

Like we were just looking this up before we started. And four million people watched the series finally of succession, like one of the great T, V shows that every critic on the internet was writing about, which is like half a number of people who watch an episode, chicago fire, like everybody's ninety fifth favorite T V show. But nothing has hit that sort of cultural relevance that H B O just gets to have, because this is H B O.

yeah. And know apple T V has a lot of pictures. I actually think, like if you just took fifty random shows from any streaming service, I would bet that apple tvs are Better than any random fifty on any other.

And I mean, was like the kind of the core argument, I think, of that H B O piece, the apple TV plus peace was that, hey, like pound for pound, it's hitting above its weight like it's yes, but it's also it's not doing true detective number s. It's not doing chicago fire numbers and historically prestige TV doesn't to chicago fire numbers. That's why part of why its prestige TV is because a lot of people say I don't want to watch that.

It's mark S. I will say though .

and we .

need to take a break, criminal record on apple TV plus kicks us. I'm pretty sure it's not gonna the plane and it's not going to make any sense of the end. But it's like five episodes and there open great, so highly combs, but I might take that back anyway.

We need take a break. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from the 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 in critical moments.

Let's listeners in on the maker break events that defined major companies like dropbox, youtube, roby's, od and more told by the founders themselves. Tune into season two of crucial moments. Today, you can listen at crucial moments, stop com or review listing podcasts.

Support for this show comes from the aclu. The acl u knows exactly what threats a second Donald trump term presents, and they are ready with a battle tested playback. The aclu took a 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 in fight for all of our fundamental rates and freedoms. Join the aclu today to help stop the extreme project twenty twenty five agenda. Learn more at a lu dot org.

When IT comes to S M B marketing, reaching the right small and medium size businesses can be chAllenging into IT. S M B media labs gives you the power to do more by connecting with the small businesses that need you most with access to an audience of thirty six million, you can target effectively and at scale.

By leveraging insight from small business audiences, you can target businesses by industry size, maturity, location and more, and drive growth across new and existing channels like social, programmatic and C. T. V. Spend wisely and do more with audiences. Taylor, to your business, learn more and media labs that into IT not come.

Alright, we're back. Let's suck vision pro. Uh, so as you listen to this on friday, it's not been a week since the vision pro came out into the world we've got to introduced. But addy, I just want you like describe the vibes of what you've seen from a weak of vision pro being in the world.

IT feels like have seen sort of three things. One is everyone noticing all of the little annoying things about the vision problem that nei and the rest of us noticed. Two is people going, oh, well, i'm like a developer or am a person who is interested in technology.

And this thing is a technologically interesting system, both of which were feel like kind of prefigured by our review. yes. The third is this things really expensive? This is a cloud symbol.

agreed. And that is the one I should have seen coming more than I did. I think I sort of took IT as this thing is really expensive. Maybe it'll be kind of ridiculous. And gosh, to wear out that holy god, was I wrong?

Oh, man, you're still, it's still. Gosh.

i'm right in the abstract.

I'm on in actual repower.

I mean, what was that? I think I think jake posted something on the site. Uh, the headline of the quick posted that was just it's been ten hours and this is a video of man in his car driving while wearing a vision pro which like we knew was onna happen and we ve got a bunch of impressed posts from people saying, boy, you guys called this and I kept like this was not a tough call that's like this what IT was going to be but now we've been we've seen people walking around the mall. You see people on the subway like you are totally rate being the person with this out in the world makes you interesting. And I don't think that of last.

but it's very much think there two ways this could go. One is the iphone, which, having an iphone in the early days, like give somebody as had one, like my cat had iphone the other ways. I remember google grab member, the period, like the week or two, were google glass.

IT was like this, so exotic, all of these models where IT it's like this incredibly exciting size I thing. And IT was A A lot who live in the vision pro, Frankly. And then within a month, two, you were getting down from bars.

Yeah no, I A hundred percent. It's going to be that side because right now all the people doing IT aren't using the vision pro correctly, which was pointed out to me by so when our office who has a pro.

if you're walking down the street with a vision pro on just like pinch pinching the air, you're not doing anything.

Apparently you can only have one. Sorry, apparently you can only have one window open, and you have to hold IT like this all the time. So theoretically, the only way to actually make walking around like that and like, yeah, you got you got so bad he was like, they're not doing IT right. You can only have one window at a time. He was like walking through the office showing us how to IT works.

I was kind of hoping you would be like, you wake up in the morning and you like walk to the subway, just sort of leaving browser tabs behind you yeah and then you just pick them all up on the way home. You come back out, you put IT on and it's like, oh, cool. There's all the stuff I had to do today that isn't that is super.

not how IT works. I would just like to note also, this is a thing that I have had many people mentioned about past through is I am waiting someday this thing is going to crash while you are wearing IT. IT is going to be incredibly annoying to suddenly be blind yeah. While you are driving.

don't drive with IT yeah .

don't be tom and a good, just quick PSA don't do that. Just don't don't do that.

Think like when when internal did theirs when you did her her review and he did like a ski slope thing, they shut down the ski slope because they're like we can have other people like on this slope with her. And but if he goes blind right into, somebody can have that happened. So it's like don't drive with IT like .

joana shows up and she's like, guys have an N D. A. I have to do this separately, and I don't any run around you anyway.

Think you're cool, uh, but IT doesn't like the people have landed on the thing that we've been talking about for the Better part of a year now, which is like this thing is, is a television that seems to be overwhelmingly to take away is like like you're saying they're some cool technological stuff going on here in in certain like engineering ways. This thing is masterful and amazing. Can't useless fr a lot of things.

But holy crap is is a great T V. Watching experience. That's like the thing i've seen overwhelmingly seems to .

be that which is driving me insane because IT is A T, V that I cannot use in the way that I would use a TV because of a single user. The single useless of this thing has been driving me just up a wall for a week.

Yeah no, I completely .

read and I am mad like watching you. I'm angry.

like i'm genuinely angry because I have so many electronics and I look, I share them with a person yeah and the point is we are both able to use this thing and I can it's not just like, oh, it's fitted for your face or whatever. You literally can use the interface. IT won't recognize your eyes.

We haven't all been using the alias review unit because we can't.

I think you can start a guests like to weekly. The thing that happens is there's one person who can own this thing, recognizes them. You can start a guest session by pressing the button, and then you will have to do this like minute long calibration process of picking color dots out.

yeah. And then I can recognize you, and I can recognize you basically until IT swap back. And then they have to start a new guest session. So there is gets to be one designated TV user in the house that's IT.

No one else watches t everyone .

else has to spend a minute .

getting their TV ready. And I do think I was less worried about this before IT launched, then I have become now. And with you, I think it's it's actually the single biggest thing missing from the vision for right now is decent multiuser support. Because if IT is a television and or a game console, it's gonna a thing you pick up, put on use for a bit and then put down, right? IT is IT is like very much an episode device, like all headsets are right now.

Like Chris ate made this point on this show while I go to haven't stop thinking that ever since I was like, oh, why are there VR games that are fun to play for eight hours and he was because I, who the hell wants to play of the for IT out? Like, I think that's right. And so the idea that I take off my headset and put IT down on my couch and the headset is the television, and my wife can then put IT on is stupid.

Like there are people who are saying, you know, it's it's lonely and you can't watch T V A, or you have to watch T V alone. And IT and I both think that's true and also kind of overstated. Like a lot of people spend a lot of time watching TV alone. I think that's basically okay somewhere Richard lawler is listening to this feeling very indicated but uh this idea that IT IT would be like, no one else in my house is allowed to watch my TV ever. This is that fifty.

But or like, no one's allowed to use a by play station.

right? Yeah, exactly.

So like rich multi kid families, do you ever have friends like that when you a kid and they be like, this is my place station and my brother has his own place station, like.

I did not have this now.

why do I have that? Why do I have my own playstation that your parents feeling? Because they cost money to doubt, yeah, go go, go.

The art every other entertainment .

focused computing device on the market tics that maybe the ipad recognizes, you're supose to have multiple profiles.

I just like watching Eddies.

I am going to jack on our team earlier. Um the fun of being in the office is I get to just rain and they get an argument with people and he got very heated and we started IT was saying that we should start giving every ipad as zero out of ten until they give proper multi user support. And i'm just like hya dude, like it's a stance let's go for IT most cases, yeah, I support this. I mean, to this any other version process we should talk about, I don't want to go on this.

We ve talked a lot. I fix IT in a big breakdown. Yeah and boy Hardy is the the pixel per inch awesome is IT not .

to see the numbers three thousand.

three hundred and eighty six pixel .

per h that .

is yeah it's only it's only a few a few pixel less than what you would expect for like like what fork requires, which is why it's not technically a 4k display but .

it's like but it's this big .

yeah fact is an inch has that many pixel on IT is is kind of insane。

Do you want to the quest three and the other numbers that were in our post? Yeah ah useful comparison ah .

comparison that the media three has one thousand two hundred and eighteen P P I and the H T V the the HTC vive pro has nine hundred and fifty. And if you want something that you actually look at more than like once a day, the iphone 4 pro max has four hundred and sixty ppi。 So this thing is and .

this point out, that pixel per degree is a lot of, in some ways, more accurate. That's like the degree of field of views. That right pixel, because I had said, is like this thing where IT just blows up a gigantic small screen to a ji field, but even those numbers are .

also prety good. Yeah, it's like the numbers here are just outrageously high. You like, okay, so this thing is like game good yeah.

Because the pixel per degree, the vision pro is at thirty four P P T, which is lower than the ninety four in the ninety five ratings for the iphone fifteen from fifteen feedback or no the iphone fifteen from a foot away or the standard sixty five four K T V from six point five feedback. So I guess is lower number Better here for the P P, T, for the pig? Num degree is typically Better.

I think that the point is that IT is. Still not going to get you the kind of clarity that you get from like looking at a very small field of view for a small screen. But IT is still I don't know that I have the numbers here, but is still pretty good for IT comparing IT against other headsets yeah .

but IT also makes pretty clear how hard to technical problem this is because I mean, I was talking about this uh, when we talked about his review is like the comparisons into like blood cells, which means nothing but IT is IT is technologically insane, that apple got this many pixel onto a screen, this small. And it's still not enough to do the thing that we need to do in order for the stuff to be really realistic. Rather, that is the scale of this problem, is you can have that many pixel on that smaller space, but because it's so close to your eyes and because this is literally trying to simulate reality, the bar is just so, so, so high. But even though apple has done like an order of magnet de more than anyone else has been able to do, we're still not there like it's the road for really making this up amazing is so .

long it's so yeah a reason why pixel are just not the bill and and doll headsets like things like field. You turn out to be a really big deal with the vision pro.

Yeah yeah ah it's been really interesting watching everybody go through, I would say, the kind of Normal honeymoon phase of a vision pro where you get IT on, you do the first couple of things. You get to set up. You learn how to do the pinch, the eye ache, and it's like, all my god, IT works and he feels amazing.

And then very slowly you start to notice, like, oh, I can see the edges of of my vision here as i'm going. And then, oh, the pinching doesn't really work. And you just like slowly abitur ly, the things that don't quite work start to creep in.

But everybody seems to have that very first twenty minutes in the head network. Ks, like, oh my god, I am never taking this off. This is the greatest thing.

Whatever happened that is also the impression that I feel like everyone who put on of your had said.

yeah.

that's probably no. That's true. Yes, I was starting to a friend who he did when when I work with them. We worked on the the original oculus quest review was at the actual quest, the rift. The rift was the first, the original rift, yeah, yeah and we worked on the gino rift review and he's like, wow, I kind of call IT like then I said basically my reviews a lot like all of the the vision proof views right now and it's like, look back yeah no he's he's right like like when you finally try really cool the area, like, oh, oh this is awesome and then IT of goes away. Which is why nobody talks about VR card board a anymore because that was really cool when you first put on like the cardboard and then five minutes later, really okay.

What do I do now? Yeah, I think a lot of this is just a question of how long IT takes to reveal its problems to you. And the vision pro, to its credit, seems to take a prety long time to reveal its problems to you. But right about the time, IT starts getting heavy and the batter starts dying and the gestures don't work quite so well.

And you remember, you spent three hundred or three thousand and five hundred dollars on IT.

Everyone's a while. Somebody has just been a posting in all caps, thirty five hundred dollars. And I feel this is not my legacy on the verge cats. And very happy that IT.

I don't feel bad. You mentioned google cardboard. I feel really bad for all of the people who spent a bunch of time making one eighty and three sixty degree videos, I guess, including us many years ago. And apples just like, no, they are not good enough. You're not looking .

at them which .

which is wild because it's not like apple is going way out of its way to ensure every experience you have. The vision pro is like perfect, insane. And a lot of people are having issues with you know motion sickness and and some of the black problems with the ways that apps work in. There are not that many god rails except on videos that apple doesn't think look good enough. And I think that's kind of a silly set of god rails.

Yeah it's it's frustrated. Yeah especially that it's even just on the web like the web is the place I think of us. You should be able to just go and experience a thing even if the quality is not great.

Yeah, if i'm willing to go under that stupid keyboard and type W W youtube 点 com slash three sixty videos that are going to make me throw up like that is my right。 This is the internet. I should be a left to tude that right anyway, we should move on a before we instilled around one more wanted a half more of things I want to talk about.

I'm only giving alex a half and we get back in second. Um blue sky opened up this week, which I think is interesting. Um this is the the new twitter ory social network that all the ship posters went to and have been kind of hanging out in secret for the last year.

And now a blue sky is open to everybody the jay their CEO didn't interview with the acx talking about how they plan to make money. And um what do what do you guys make of this is like a boost guy. Do you boost guy?

Come in and how I fully understood I hadn't looked at the website. I I was scoring through threats and I saw a bunch of posting I want on blue sky, but i'll still be posting here on threads and that's how I knew that bu sky had opened. And I like, is that good if that's how I find out, is just a bunch people in threads saying i'll also be here, also be on both posting.

But yeah, interesting. You're on blue sky, right?

I am on blue sky. I I went to masted on first. I still use masted on. I've to blue sky because blue sky felt much more low stakes. Interesting part of IT was that I was private, that IT was just much smaller, but IT does feel like wear a bunch of a twitter. People that I liked went and be IT feels like I don't have to be contributing to a greater social good, which was the feeling I entered up getting for masted on.

Masted on is very much like A A N G O, designed to make the world a Better place through lots of developmental documentation.

which i'm sure is not true for absolutely every instance. Like all of the usual caveats I just got, the sense was like, is this really a good enough, constructive enough thing we were just so many people talking about? You just shouldn't be, shouldn't cluttering up our time lines solve this frivolous stuff? yeah. And then I went to blue sky and drill was.

there is just off frivolous? yeah.

And I also decent amt a lot with her .

to up their fair. Yeah I part of me thinks it's a success story if they all end up a their own things in different and I think the weirdest part is going to be the people who kind of commit to posting everywhere and try to be the same thing everywhere. I just think it's gna work.

And I think these things of all develop such different norms that, like the vibe on blue sky is unrecognizable to the vibe on threads or on master on, uh, there is in good ways, but mostly in just extremely chaotic ways. This just a lot of people making inside jokes that you don't understand if you've been off of blue guy for more than ten minutes. But that's a good thing, right? And I think the part of the big bet that the social web is making right now that is that there can be lots of winners and lots of things to come out.

But in some ways, I think blue sky, taking this long g to open up with both the best and worst thing that have in the blue sky, like blue guy, has this very like mature vibe now, right? Like blue guy knows what IT is. But the downside of that is IT knows what IT is for the small group of people who have been there together alone, like on a desert island for a year, while threats became sort of the clear mainstream choice, uh, masted on continues to be massed on threads and masted on or eventually going to be integrated. And so I just kind of feels like blue sky is just relegated to forever being and also rain.

yes, I that's why I didn't. I have an account, but I don't really participate in blue y's, but just because my brain can only handle so much social media and so I don't want to like I not get to one of those people on to on to different platforms and always talking and that when I was like, I just feel like this one is not gonna the big one. I think a lot of really cool people are there, but a lot of really cool people they'll just text yeah and talk to them because they're my friends.

I know their hand. I kind of well, A I do wish that IT were much easier to have a single interface where I could at least check all these things. Yes, at the same time, that's very annoying to me, but i'm so I don't know what hope we get more sites that are small and niche and that I can just go to for a small subset of things. Blue sky and small reminds me of tumbler in its post hydronic era yeah in .

its current era, where is just like a couple of folks, you know and they're been really weird. That's great. yeah.

Tumbler in the face where every time someone inventions tumblr, you tumble ler. yeah. And that is kind of what blue sky feels like already.

I cept IT is one of them. The last point.

No.

you know, tom, i'm really curious how long is going to last because I am just apple and google exerted so much pressure a few years ago in getting not safe for work stuff either pay water or not pay water, the like either walk away or taken down the blue sky getting on IT feels, oh yeah.

I need to some extent.

I think you could make a pretty good argument that blue sky never should have opened up that mean that that sort of managing and slowing down that growth was a good thing for blue sky. Like IT grew too fast in the beginning, right? Room room people are hacking the invite codes, and a ton of people came on out once.

IT became a mass like the Normal change. People started doing weird stuff. The platform started breaking in weird ways. The health read grew in everyone's life.

And there was, I think, a moment where they said, okay, we're are going to slow this down on purpose. And I think that was the right thing to do then. And I think you could make the case of a the right thing to do now.

The problem is that runs against all of blue sky stated goals, right, which are to build a social protocol for the web that is bigger than blue sky, and to kind of reinvent the way that we do everything, which I think at this point IT IT lost, right? Like we're we're in A H S data max war with, uh with A T protocol. Ge runs blue sky and activity public, which is underneath basted on which threads can adapt.

And IT almost doesn't matter anymore. I don't think which one is Better activity, but is gonna in. Yes, it's just gonna in. And I think if I am blue sky, you either have to look at this and say, okay, do we want to keep fighting this fight that we are now so far behind, or do we go, like you're talking about and try to be something different and not try to build the next great social media company, but like lean into this thing that we already are, which I think could be very cool.

but doing at something they have .

to make money yeah.

probably I think that's going to be a real chAllenge if they don't grow. I totally .

agree. You, I think, runs by for pretty long time.

That's true. Projects that I have used to be taken for granted as just things that .

could exist yeah and there's a way to run this stuff is like an OK business that doesn't involved like if blue sky wants to be a trillion dollar company, there are certain things you have to do in pursuit of that, right? But I think my hope is for the next phase of the social web, that not everybody tries to be a trillion dog company, that they are going to be a lot and lot of much smaller ways to do this stuff. Fingers, ross.

And I think blue sky, I could be told to the wrong because there are a lot of things. Lue guy is really well and it's it's a nice looking APP everybody on there that where drill is, it's like IT is the most fun social platform on the internet. I really believe that. But IT is such an unusual place now that I feel like if I had never been there before, I would show up and I IT would feel very strange.

IT also feels like a place that you kind of can only really grasp if you were on twitter.

yes, but like, but like on twitter, like capital oh, on twitter. And and god help you if you one of those people IT really is is full of like decade old twitter jokes that if you don't get you, you sort of need a glossary to help you understand what the hell going on. A blue sky yeah, I uh, I support all of this. I hope blue sky works. I just don't think it's going to alright, alex, i'm so afraid to do this right now.

I have a piece of .

this year. And if we take a break, we have one more story we should talk about for such a short amount of time.

sure test amount of time. And in fact, this is alex. Be careful in all caps. Um as some of you know, I did make a bet with some people that at some point we would probably see a picture of elon mosque in little elon. I don't want to say any other. I really yeah and um we're one step closer because they are currently dealing with a problem on the platform on x the platform where there is a non conceptual photo of a celebrity in the nude.

I mean, it's drinks like we can just say this. There's an everyone on the internet knows this.

This is why this became a sort IT LED to x being the number one APP on the apple APP store. Uh, I want to just be very clear, consensual moods are not okay, don't do that. But also I hate how close we are getting to the big news where I win a bed. I don't want to win. This bed is a terrible bed.

Everyone loses that bed.

Everyone loses when I win this bed. Um clean up your act act like stop stop letting nonconsensual stuff just be all over your platform. That's not cool.

Yeah well, that and then all this stuff we were kind of book ended with stories about the Taylor swift deep fix being all over x first there were there were not problematic, non consensual, defied and now there's a defame of Taylor swift indorses donal trump. That's all over the platform. Uh, x is just an odd, odd place.

And yeah, it's it's an old kind of internet but not in a good way, particularly if you like, have any vested interest in x and don't want to be sued.

Yeah what are saying? He reminds me have read IT back in the mid during the period where they were extremely .

lot I fair yeah.

but at least read IT would like say out loud that they didn't want these things. They wouldn't do anything about IT for a long time, but at least they would say we don't want this awful stuff to be all over our platform if you do not get that sense from the leadership at x right now there.

yeah. So I think that iran is definitely Operating in a landscape that comes after reddit clean up in which you ah you can't even just say I don't endorse this but at here it's like you have to have full throated endorsement. If yes, then not even though like look yet he has condemned the nothing. He also just talks to a bunch of far right people and spreads his own conspiracy theories. And there's a socia bunch of stuff that even though redit people like hung out with an invited the guy from creeps shots into their events like they didn't end up doing that.

right? Yeah, no, I I think that's right. And uh, it's just bad times. All right? Yeah.

just Better times. I don't want to in this. Don't please. I like I went from kind of warning to win the bed because I like to be smug and win things to like. I don't actually want to win this bet with this.

Don't, it's a terrible bed. And also to everyone who was asking for trending topics to be ond threads. You don't want that. Don't click on training topics because something bad will probably have IT when you do IT right, we need to take break. Then we're coming back to.

hey, is Sally from decoder with new ipad top. 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 the special series diving in the summer. The most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying 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 the A I space, why are so many big players in 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 the life Better presented by strike. You can listen to decoder whatever you get .

your podcast support for .

the verge cast comes from the home deep boo. Hey, it's almost the holidays and whether you're planning to travel or host is always good to have that extra layer of safety, security to help ease your mind. And now with help from the home deepo, you can stay connected and protected with the convenience of smart home security products. The home deepo offers a wide selection of products that afford you easy control and automation of your home, with top smart home brands like ring, google, wise and more, from smart cameras with forecasts, surveilLance to doorbell that can be Operated from your smart phone. The home deep boo has at all, whether you an expert or new to smart homes tech, the home depot can help you find what works for you and your home, visit the home dee boat online or in store, and purchase your smart home products to give some piece of mind this holiday, because smart homes start at the .

home debo support .

for the show comes from service. Now the A I 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 friction and frustration for your employees, super charging productivity for developers, providing intelligent tools for your service agent 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 outcome flash A I for people to learn more.

Alright, we're back. Let's not talk about drakes nudes anymore. Uh, let's do a line around add. You go first. Would you have?

So the fcc has a log in global calls, and this is said, you cannot have artificial voices. Do artificial voices include eye voices?

Artifical my instincts and they agree.

good. Then they .

declared ed .

today that the .

that A I generated voice clones in robot calls definitely to violate the telephone consumer protection. That means they contract down on them. This is partly relevant because the election season is heating up and new hampshire has just released the results of an investigation about who was making phone calls pretending to be jo iden. It's companies in texas.

Yeah companies in my .

hometown OK. You need to be .

less excited about i've anytime .

I see my hometown like if you're .

not like new york, a big town and you see like from four worth I see forth in the name a cool and just for worth.

texas like it's like a tiny town in IOS I mean, it's like a large city of this is a sof .

flattering thank you. Yeah, I think of that is being a pretty a pretty big blue when you're next to dallas like they're always over there talking about how cool they are and how you suck. So we have some inferiority complex and over fort ward and apparently we also have spammers, uh calling, pretending to be geo and everything like don't vote right yeah you got to save .

your vote I think.

Wasn't that a whole story in the last election cycle that there were there was a guy who is convicted of for posting on twitter about like telling people not to vote, making fake ads saying you can vote by text message and telling people not to vote.

I think you are thinking of Jacob wall, the tool who, yes, was doing robotics. And robotics were yet they were an issue in the last election. They are obviously also just an issue as part of the overwhelming span. That means I don't answer my phone anymore.

Somebody in an email the other day, oh, give me a call when you get to sell and they called me four minutes later, I didn't answer 这 anyway。

So now A I has like IT has a lot of things super charged. This is starting to become an issue. And the fcc, is that the very recognizing in the issue, and we probably will end up seeing more about this.

This also seems like we're already kind of deep in the deep fake election in a very real if you .

get ta call and is like, hello, this is president biden why would you ever .

believe that? God.

that's just like whenever you get the emails and is like, this is president but I need your help right now.

alex, but you would at least think that is a message he've recorded, right?

And you would, when you see those, move on emails, are you like, oh my god, Nancy polo is actually me. David pears, no, you're always, this is stupid and not real.

Okay, you want. The weirdest version of this though, is that erik atoms, you will hear definitely in construction with the waist of anything. Yeah, he does his own deep fix like he had a bunch of calls where he auto translated his voice. Yes, I member, that to make IT sound like he spoke languages that he didn't. I'm curious how that stuff is going to end up being affected by this.

I mean, hopefully, I would assume be the same way where they're like, no, that's not true.

I don't man, what a legal mess that's going to be. Can you deep fake yourself? I I don't I don't know.

I really like maybe just don't do that kind of like like it's so it's so it's like dumb because it's just like Nancy polo cy is not writing me. The email joe behind is not out here calling me like at the phone let the phone banks calling me because do we do phone banks in anymore? Is that really a thing anymore? No, maybe maybe a new hampshire, but it's just dumb. I'm just like who who is answering these calls me like a, well, joe told me not to vote. Well, they do not vote.

I mean, I mean, still do you think this stuff is this stuff is a mess um and yeah, we are only the very beginning of what's to come along. We got my .

my thing is not about jo by or my homestay so yeah, I would never mind. It's all done. IT is cool because ford, ford, so long, I will stand for worth again.

Ford, worth fort worth. Oh, OK. So ford has been quietly creating a schunk works team for low cost evs.

And that's exciting because cheaper evs are good. More competitors with tesla will be good. Just competition in general. We love that. Um IT is also, did you watch that show like all amErica I think was called like the auto show. So yeah.

american auto.

american auto. Yeah, yeah. I just feels like I was out of A A story line from that.

So OK, let me explain you what I don't understand about this IT. Ford, notoriously a company that makes cars. Yeah, you don't need to make a car company inside of your car company to make cars.

You can just make cars. That's that's your thing. Like apples, like what we created a gun works team inside of apple to build smart phones like, no, you do that already.

Just tell them to make a different one. Yeah, what is this? I think my understanding .

of four is like it's .

illegal for ford to make anything other than f one fifties. So they have to create a whole new thing to make something else.

I suspect this is probably because a lot of the people working on the skunk works project um the head of IT is is a guy who's a tesla for years, Allen Clark. But a lot of people working on IT or from this place called auto motive, auto space motive, space power. I A M P.

sure. yeah. I had I had to spell IT out. And they acquired the start up last year. And so I think it's probably just easier to hold them into a little company than a big company. But still, I agree with you, it's like you can just go tell your people to make keep like .

that just makes me think they call IT a gun works because somebody at ford thinks that makes them sound like a tech company that actually is is just a team at your company. That's just some people who work for you.

They are gonna make a really cool stealth bomb. Look.

I think it's awesome. I am extremely unfair of ford and everybody else trying to figure how to make cheap evil because that dreams seems increasingly dead all over the place now. And I like more powered anybody trying to pull this off here.

IT is funny. Like farm the the CEO of dead earnings call, after all of us came out technical, ch. Reported the story. Uh, instead the the Clark and the team at A M P flash ford sunk works, cheap evs that com, whatever you want to call a place, uh, said. This is a flexible platform that will not only deploy to several types of vehicles, but will be but will be a large installed base for software and services that we're now seeing at ford pro. I don't know what any of that means, and I I don't understand how this company is running and doesn't know that is a car company.

Somebody went to ChatGPT and said, listen, dear ChatGPT, I run a car company.

What would I say if iran.

a tech company, instead? And they wrote that press.

yeah, immortally, don't let chat. T, G, P, T, you at your Price.

just cars. Me just make cool, cheaper cars. Take the things that you make and make them cheaper.

May be maybe .

shorter company.

Yeah, maybe I don't need cameras to be able to see out of the front of my car.

IT is weak and all i'm going to go last because we started on a current Victory lap and now we going to take a Victory. So the the information reported this week that apple is developing, quote, at least two iphone prototypes that are flip phones in the .

skunk works project that's probably not actually owned by .

out correct, which is just a they take all the people who work at apple park and they just tell them to make those and they say, you're a skunk works now and somebody raised their hand. Where does that mean? Does you change anything? And they say, shut up, tech company is the future just could do that.

But uh, they're been rumors about this for a while that apple was making these things. And also um a thing to know about a company like apple is that they prototype everything like if you can imagine a phone of some shape or function or feature, I I would bet you ten dollars there is one on a table somewhere in apple park. It's just how IT works is just what you do if you are a company this big that makes this many products.

But apple like me, foot phones kick us and is gonna make some and I think it's awesome. I and apparently also apple is working on affordable ipad, which is the other dream yeah like what that just like give me an ipad many that falls up an important my pocket like yeah that is also apparently being worked on. Uh, this life is complicated.

We've seen pot phones. They're hard and bad and have big cries and have their issues. Ah I still firmly believe this is like the next thing.

yes. And I think it's clear to everyone, including apple smart phones need the next thing or they're just gonna be laptops. They're just going to be fine.

You're gna have IT you're never going think about IT, you're going to upgrade IT when he dies and that's gonna IT. And apple has a lot of money writing on being able to get you to upgrade more quickly than that. And I think foldable les are gonna that thing.

I think the only part of this that surprises me is that we aren't closer to the apple fool, given historically the timeline of kind of like following everybody else, they're using only a couple years. With the exception of the vision pro, they're usually only a couple years behind everybody else.

Like you know my theory this they can't call IT anything other than the iphone and you can't make an iphone that is like a one point o anymore like they can't come out and be like it's a new thing. It's called the eye flip. Everybody like know it's just a flip.

It's a iphone. What are we doing here? And so I think if I am an apple, I feel like I have to make an iphone that is like on power with all the iphones we already sell, which is now a seventeen year old line of phones.

And so I think catching up to that is really hard because the fit fones require new components. They require rethinking how batteries work. There's some new software, software are going to have to do.

I get hard work to do this well. And I think in the way that apple was clearly very comfortable releasing a vision pro, that is not the thing they wanted IT to be. I don't think you get away with that OK with an iphone. I think you could then maybe get away with that with an ipad. I think if they came out with a foodful ipad and we're like this is a whole new thing in people like it's not perfect, but oh my god, if all is that cool that I could see but I think the iphone is too big and too important to everything that apple is doing for them to be lake, here's a thing that's not quite finished. Okay, I that's my .

theory and I can see that they all my phone is also your phone is a thing that you absolutely need to work the way that you don't a bunch of other devices.

right? Yeah, if like, if my ipad sucks, I just put IT down like I if yet, no, you're exactly right. If I leave my phone at home, life has fAllen apart. I had when I was a when I was in vegas for c, yes, I my phone just like brook one day and IT was the most stressful, like six hours trying to get all of that to work again because I could log in anything because I didn't have the two factor working. Uh, I couldn't talk to my wife because we talk over S M. S, because she's on the pixel and I on an iphone like this was awful and I had this moment to be like, I am way to rely on my phone, but that's just life.

Now you're exactly, you can actually feel your stress like I only sort of ten gently knew about what was happening with your phone, but I could still feel the stress through vegas.

Oh yeah, yeah. I have burned our hotel down .

with my the moment. You could also on one point, you know, I feel feel pretty good. David must have got this phone fix. Okay.

yeah, I had this moment of like, okay, I have meetings to go to you. I have things i'm supposed today. I'm not doing any of that because my yes.

So what is this world that I live in now but that like I I cannot leave my hotel room until my phone works? Again, it's not good. But but you're totally right. Like that is that is where apple is. And so if they're here's the iphone, flip in my break.

But give me the ipad, give me the I like that. I got my little ipad mini. I want to get rid of that thing. I I want to to fold one having my back pocket.

I'm ready. I've been waiting so long to upgrade my IP head mini, which still has touch I D and is like butted and is now old enough that some of the apps won't update anymore and i'm just holding out and I give me give me the thing apple give IT to me.

You can have to wait to this sounds like twenty twenty six is the early as people are authorizing this is going to come out, but we'll see yeah, I mean, we ve got new ipads coming probably pretty soon.

And tim cook, I know you're listening. Your in a room with bob. I here right now listening to this podcast just hit me one.

I won't even tell anybody, just get me one. It'll be fine. Everything will be OK.

All right, we ve got to get out here. We've we've gone long as always in new has honor something like new e's dead. I just gone for the day.

He'll be back. everybody. Is he really worried about the light when he's not here? I promise everyone, he's OK. He's just, I think, on a plane being too ashamed of himself to use a vision pro wish. I planned to give him a lot of crap for next week, uh, but we need to get out of here. But before we do one quick thing, uh, we the verge cast are moving to the verge ous youtube channel starting next week.

So starting with show on tuesday, all of the verge cast episodes are going to be on the verge youtube channel, not the verge cast youtube channel, or still you use verge cast channel for clips and all kinds of other fun extra stuff we are going to do. But if you want to find the full episode, subscribe the verge channel for arts subscribed. Hang out there.

I think you can subscribe to a play list on the youtube, which will have for the podcast. You can do that too. It's going to be awesome.

Uh so do that smash them button what for you two were say, I don't know um and until then, go listen to decoder case was on IT for once I was a good decoder episode uh and decoder decoder is also now twice a week. The verge cast is now on tuesdays and friday instead of wednesday and friday. There's a large change going on next time.

And that's IT for the 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 the production of the verge and box media podcast network. Our show is produced by Andrew marino and leon James. That's IT. We'll see you next week.

Support for this episode 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 club. Hey, it's lee. From decoder with new iao, 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 I think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing the special series diving in to summer, 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'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 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 tech deciding not to acquire and instead license tech can hire away cofounder? 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 litel presented by strike. You can listen to decoder whatever you get your pocket.