Reunion

Happy 200! Hear the uncut and unscripted episode featuring Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and special guests Joanna Stern, Paul Miller, Chris Ziegler, and Ross Miller as they reminisce about the early days of The Verge and also talk tech news today. This is an episode you don't want to miss! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:19Nilay Patel?

  It's The Vergecast. The Vergecast is brought to you by Scissor Vodka, which is a vodka brand that I've made up and that I will continue pretending to be reading ads for at the beginning of The Vergecast until someone gives me money to make it real. Scissor Vodka, cut through the night.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  If you're listening, we have a Scissor Vodka prop.

• 0:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  It's beautiful.

• 0:35Nilay Patel?

  Someone made me a bottle for it.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  It's very painted gold.

• 0:37Nilay Patel?

  For Vergecast.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, it's a gold bottle.

• 0:38Nilay Patel?

  It's a gold bottle.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  It's got a wire frame scissor.

• 0:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's very nice. Green logo on the top.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:44Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna say this forever. Anyway.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  It's inside joke.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  I think it's, I think so.

• 0:47Nilay Patel?

  Don't worry about it.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  What if there are vodka called Scissor? Think about it.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  Is it a joke from, from someplace else?

• 0:55Nilay Patel?

  Alright, so.

• 0:56Speaker 03

  No jokes, Neelai.

• 0:57Nilay Patel?

  No jokes.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  I feel like I'm hurt.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  You've definitely pitched me on Scissor Vodka.

• 1:02Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  At some point in our life.

• 1:03Nilay Patel?

  Look, here's what I'm gonna tell you. It's the 200th episode of the show. It is also, in a quirk of timing, almost exactly five months, or five years, since all of us started quitting our jobs to start The Verge, which is crazy. So in honor of all of that, I've assembled an all-star roster of Verge OGs on the show today. So Paul Miller is here.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 1:28Nilay Patel?

  Paul. Vergecast listeners might remember Paul.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  As Paul.

• 1:32Nilay Patel?

  As Paul. How's it going with that name pronunciation?

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Paul.

• 1:37Nilay Patel?

  It's getting better. Joanna Stern is here.

• 1:40Speaker 03

  Just Joanna.

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  It's like, I invite you on the show and then you bring this vibe every time.

• 1:46Speaker 03

  What vibe?

• 1:47Nilay Patel?

  You're like, I don't, it's the, I don't know. Joanna.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna talk to you.

• 1:51Nilay Patel?

  You're still really far away from the microphone.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  No, not.

• 1:53Nilay Patel?

  Alright. Chris Ziegler is here. You gotta talk into the microphone. He's not, it's an audio show.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  He's so far away from the microphone.

• 2:01Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 2:01Nilay Patel?

  It's the worst.

• 2:03Speaker 04

  I just wanna, I just wanna point out that through, through a payroll quirk, I actually never quit.

• 2:08Nilay Patel?

  [laughing]

• 2:09Speaker 04

  Engadget.

• 2:10Nilay Patel?

  [laughing]

• 2:11Speaker 04

  Gonna get that fixed?

• 2:13Speaker 03

  That would really be amazing.

• 2:14Nilay Patel?

  Ross Miller is here.

• 2:15Speaker 05

  You might also know me as, yeah, you might know me as Paul, is that Paul on The Vergecast?

• 2:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and then Dieter Böhm is here as well.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 2:22Nilay Patel?

  Hello.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  We, not special.

• 2:24Nilay Patel?

  Dieter, the correct distance away from the microphone.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27Nilay Patel?

  Not immediately bringing the showdown.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  No gimmicks.

• 2:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no gimmicks, no hats.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  You see what you get.

• 2:34Nilay Patel?

  Dieter is calm, professional.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  You get what you see.

• 2:38Nilay Patel?

  Is that a burn? Is that a compliment?

• 2:39Speaker 03

  No, it's, it's, he's-

• 2:40Speaker 01

  The quietest man in tech.

• 2:42Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43Nilay Patel?

  All right, so here's what I thought we would do. We got a show, we got all the OGs back in town. It's the 200th episode. I kind of want to do a thing that we've never done before.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Behind the music.

• 2:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, which is go behind the music. So Joanna, when did you become addicted to drugs?

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Well, that's what's in here, right?

• 3:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's a gold tube of drugs. I don't think you're supposed to-

• 3:07Speaker 01

  You definitely don't want to do it here.

• 3:10Nilay Patel?

  We have, we have hats and sparklers. It's, uh, it's silly. No, let's talk about it. So we were all, except for Dieter, Dieter was a smartphone expert.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  You're supposed to just shake.

• 3:17Nilay Patel?

  You're also not supposed to talk over each other while-

• 3:20Speaker 03

  That's not how it used to be.

• 3:22Nilay Patel?

  It is, and we're way more professional now, as evidenced by the fake vodka ad, the immediate talking over each other, and Chris lying about still taking a paycheck from AOL. So the, most of us were-

• 3:34Speaker 03

  I mean, be honest, though, you probably still have one or two laptops that AOL gave you.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Oh, I have, I have like, you know, televisions, laptops, you name it.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Ross, you have.

• 3:42Speaker 05

  I, I, my lawyer has advised me not to actually speak, doesn't matter.

• 3:46Nilay Patel?

  Unfortunately, I'm Ross's lawyer. It's a very confusing situation. Um, no, let's talk about it. So five years ago, The Verge did not exist. Uh, the name didn't even exist. We were all still working at AOL five years ago, at Engadget. I actually have Engadget on March 7th, 2011, open on my computer right now. Let me read you some headlines. Let me read you the work that we were producing five years ago. Joanna Stern, Sony Vios arrives stateside, brings along an advanced extended battery.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  I don't want to hear about this.

• 4:17Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you were worried Sony wasn't going to release its new Vios Ultra portable in the US. Okay, so it has taken the company a bit longer to prep the 13.3-inch laptop for its American debut, but it was, it's here, and it was well worth the wait.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Let me see, let me see a picture of this, of this laptop.

• 4:32Nilay Patel?

  Do you remember this laptop?

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, that thing was well worth the wait.

• 4:35Nilay Patel?

  It was not. That thing had a terrible plastic-

• 4:36Speaker 03

  That definitely was well worth the, yeah.

• 4:39Nilay Patel?

  We got Thomas Ricker writing about Windows Phone Mango, which was gonna miss its 2011 target?

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 4:44Nilay Patel?

  Question mark. Updated.

• 4:48Nilay Patel?

  We got Vlad writing about the Samsung Galaxy Pro with a 2.8 inch touchscreen over a portrait cordy.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  That still looks like an amazing phone to me.

• 4:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it really does. Portrait cordy for life. Except. Vlad again. The O-Droid A tablet fits a 1366 by 768 res screen on 10 inch display with a dual-core Exynos inside a transparent shell.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Not a Zyboard?

• 5:11Nilay Patel?

  Not a Zyboard. Zyboards run out. And then Chris.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  I reviewed the Zyboard for the.

• 5:14Nilay Patel?

  Breaking some news. The Sprint website put up a page for the Nexus. Listens coming soon. This is, I think this is before the Galaxy Nexus.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Right.

• 5:24Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 5:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 5:27Nilay Patel?

  No, Nexus S.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:29Nilay Patel?

  So this is where we were five years ago. We were like.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Samsung's.

• 5:32Nilay Patel?

  We were hardcore gadget blogging.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 5:36Nilay Patel?

  And we were doing really well. I would say, dare say, we were the best gadget blogger in the world. Yes. I mean, it was Austin Giz, right?

• 5:43Speaker 04

  I just want to point out Ross just went.

• 5:47Nilay Patel?

  We were trying.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  We did our best.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  We weren't the best, but we did our best.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  We did our best.

• 5:53Nilay Patel?

  We were the best tryhard gadget blog in the world. So 13. So it's super clear, I wasn't at Engadget. And so as a.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  So you thought you were the best.

• 6:00Nilay Patel?

  Objective, external observer of the gadget blog wars, Engadget was the best.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 6:07Nilay Patel?

  I would, I would.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  You didn't think you were the best?

• 6:09Nilay Patel?

  I was running, I wasn't running a gadget blog per se. I was running a bunch of smartphone communities, which included gadget blogs, but weren't solely gadget blogs. But any day that I managed to beat Engadget to a piece of news, I felt very, very good. Any, anytime I managed to get a link from Engadget for some news that I had personally broken, I also felt very, very good. Yeah. I mean, it was.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, the links were the thing.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  I just want to check my, how sharp I am still.

• 6:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  1366 by 768 WXGA?

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 05

  Every netbook?

• 6:43Nilay Patel?

  I mean, this is about as old school as we got podcasting can get. Anyway, so then Paul and Josh and I were hosting the Engadget Podcast, which was great. We had the Engadget Show. We were doing great. It was like a good time. And then we asked, well, then AOL became AOL.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:01Nilay Patel?

  And then this is the part that nobody knows. We developed in secret a plan to leave AOL.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Nobody knows that?

• 7:10Nilay Patel?

  Yes. And we started a website, which nobody knows about, called The Verge.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Right, well, we first-

• 7:15Nilay Patel?

  Wait, actually, first-

• 7:16Speaker 02

  People know about it. After we left Engadget, we were all hired suspiciously quickly by Vox Media-

• 7:27Nilay Patel?

  No, it wasn't-

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Then known as SB Nation-

• 7:30Speaker 05

  As reported by Kara Swisher.

• 7:31Nilay Patel?

  Sports blogs, nation-

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Sports blogs incorporated.

• 7:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, it was-

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Again, I am still an AOL employee.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  And we started This Is My Next.

• 7:42Nilay Patel?

  We started This Is My Next.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  I think This Is My Next is actually the best gadget blog of all time.

• 7:46Nilay Patel?

  Oh, it was great.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  That was solid.

• 7:48Nilay Patel?

  It had, it had some real-

• 7:49Speaker 03

  The best thing about This Is My Next was, it was just blogging. You know, we didn't have, like, anything.

• 7:55Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  We had, we had only a word, we had a WordPress blog-

• 7:59Speaker 05

  Yep, no editors, no copy editors, no spell check.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  And a laptop, that's it. We didn't even have power.

• 8:06Nilay Patel?

  Get a solar cell.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  I went to Paul, I used to go to Paul Miller's apartment to steal his power. And then he lost power, and we had no power.

• 8:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, so, before we started This Is My Next, we actually, so we all quit.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  We had our independent blogs.

• 8:19Nilay Patel?

  And we-

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Watching all of you quit, it was like, oh, yeah, hmm.

• 8:23Nilay Patel?

  It wasn't, it wasn't as sly as we thought.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  It was not sly at all.

• 8:28Nilay Patel?

  Well, I was reading some, like, Business Insider coverage of us quitting yesterday, which is insane. Um, because there's a lot of it. Like, it was, like, AOL bought TechCrunch. Michael Arrington used to, like, write nasty shit about us, about Engadget, buying ads that real blogs don't do. Yeah, there was, there was like, it was like a war. It's crazy, yeah, well, and like, there'd be articles in Business Insider being like, "How long will the Engadget editors last? How long will they take it?" It's crazy.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:58Nilay Patel?

  But that wasn't, actually, what's funny about it is, that had nothing to do with it.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Like, actually, can we, can we talk about, can we talk about Paul Miller's extremely salty-

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Post when he left.

• 9:09Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, which is gone now. I was looking for it.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  You deleted it?

• 9:12Nilay Patel?

  Paul wrote, maybe the greatest mic drop, I'm quitting this place post of all time when he left it.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  I didn't delete it. It's just, it's just link, right? I, I need to put it back up. I made my own WordPress blog called Paul Miller or something like that. And I, I wrote something called Leaving AOL, which, speaking of TechCrunch, TechCrunch wrote a scathing review of my, it's like five rules for stunt resignation posts. That I broke all of them, but basically the, there's a scuttlebutt around AOL, this thing called the AOL way.

• 9:47Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Oh, right, right, right.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Which was gonna be this new directive for content that was all based on SEO and traffic optimization and chasing trends. And had nothing to do with, with writers producing quality stuff that they're interested in. It was just all suits, you know, turning writers into drones.

• 10:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  And I had a lot of reasons for leaving, including to start The Verge eventually.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  But I thought the AOL way perfectly encapsulated what a big media company like AOL could do to screw up a beautiful thing like Engadget. And so I, I wrote about how I hated it.

• 10:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. Dieter and I read the AOL way again this morning.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, we did.

• 10:27Nilay Patel?

  We did, because it's, it's on Business Insider. Like, Business Insider did an admirable job of covering this thing.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Did the AOL way ever happen, though?

• 10:34Nilay Patel?

  It did in some place of our, I don't think it ever hit Engadget. And I think Engadget continues to this day to be like its own special butterfly.

• 10:43Nilay Patel?

  But we read it this morning and it's like now, five years in, we run the place. And we're like, oh, this actually describes the media business. But like if an alien had come to Earth and was like, here's how media businesses work. They publish stories and put advertising next to them and then think how much the stories are worth. And then try to figure out what people are interested in. And it had nothing to do with journalism.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:07Nilay Patel?

  It was like a very, I mean, you should read, it's like fascinating. There, they literally, in this document, scheduled out all of the meetings that everyone in the company should have every day. And like what everyone should be doing. It was called the town meeting cadence. Engadget was in a part of the company known as Tech Town.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  I sat there.

• 11:25Speaker 05

  Right.

• 11:25Nilay Patel?

  I sat in Tech Town too.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  You could sit in Tech Town?

• 11:28Speaker 05

  There were physical real estate.

• 11:29Nilay Patel?

  There were signs above our heads.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Did they have, did it, did they have like, what's the like Playmobil like furniture? Like actually, was it actually?

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Made to look like a Tech Town?

• 11:39Nilay Patel?

  No, no, it was made to a corporate office building.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  It was really.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Was there like Christmas time with elves?

• 11:44Speaker 05

  I think it was like Richard B. Scary kind of design.

• 11:46Nilay Patel?

  That's what I was.

• 11:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:47Nilay Patel?

  Thank you. Anyhow, this is ridiculous. I can't even ima- like, can you imagine being like, the town concept lasted for like five seconds?

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:57Nilay Patel?

  Like they rolled it out and I'm pretty sure Tim Armstrong was like, I'm the CEO of a major American corporation. And I just told everyone that our company is basically a country and they run towns. And that's the metaphor I'm going with. And he was like, no.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  And that the heads of departments are mayors.

• 12:11Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  What? No.

• 12:14Nilay Patel?

  Yep. We had a mayor.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  What if you wanted to be unincorporated?

• 12:18Nilay Patel?

  It was like a village.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a city?

• 12:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I don't want your damn plumbing.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Not exactly.

• 12:22Nilay Patel?

  America. Uh, it was ridiculous. Um, so like all this is happening. They rolled out this plan. We couldn't get new investment. Um, we couldn't hire anybody. We were having a hard time upgrading the site. It was like a big stuff.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  You couldn't hire me?

• 12:37Nilay Patel?

  I tried to hire Dieter. We could tell this story. I met Dieter at Build when Windows Phone was coming out. I remember that the old time Engadget, verge people will know this, when Windows Phone first came out, they unveiled it. And then for like a month, all they would say is you'll find out more at Build.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, was that in Las Vegas?

• 12:54Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  It was in Vegas. It was definitely in Vegas.

• 12:55Nilay Patel?

  For a month, like literally, you'd be like, hey, is that, is this screenshot accurate? And they're like, you'll find out more at Build. Like crazy. Like, is this a puppy? Like, you'll find out more at Build. Uh, so I went to Build to cover it.

• 13:06Speaker 04

  You, you and I were staying at the Four Seasons for some reason. Can I just point that out?

• 13:09Nilay Patel?

  Oh, we were?

• 13:10Speaker 01

  What?

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Because you worked at Engadget.

• 13:12Speaker 04

  AOL, yes, AOL always put us up at the most insane hotels. So neither I were at the Four Seasons.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  I was.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  No, not Ross and I. Ross, remember when we went to?

• 13:21Speaker 05

  Oh, in Germany?

• 13:22Speaker 03

  Hamburg?

• 13:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Leeds dig, I think.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Hanover.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Hanover. We went to Hanover and we, I, I think I actually was killed.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I was staying in Scaliber and like happy. Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  No, we were at the Four Seasons and quite frankly, the room service was atrocious.

• 13:41Nilay Patel?

  No, by the end of AOL, the expense process had been so whittled away that I could just log directly into SAP and type in numbers. I was like, sure. It was ridiculous. It was like the last days of Disco, like the most decadent. Anyway, so we're billed. I met Dieter. Full disclosure, Dieter and I got very drunk.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:01Nilay Patel?

  And I was like, we should come work in Gadget. And then went back to AOL, like flew home.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:07Nilay Patel?

  And Dieter was like, sent me an email and was like, love to take you up on that offer. And I was like, hey, can we hire someone? And AOL was like, a roar of voices screaming, no.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:16Nilay Patel?

  And I was so embarrassed that I didn't talk to Dieter again for a long time.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Seriously, I just went, I'm like, oh yeah, you know, here's like, but here, I'd like to work. What's the deal? And they're like, yeah, cool.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  I'd like to work.

• 14:25Nilay Patel?

  And then stopped talking to me.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  I like to work.

• 14:28Nilay Patel?

  Didn't reply to emails, just went totally radio silent.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  I was super embarrassed.

• 14:31Nilay Patel?

  I assumed I'd done something horribly wrong.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Well, we were very drunk.

• 14:35Nilay Patel?

  Just like ridiculously drunk. Anyway, but then we were all quitting and we were thinking about who, how do we expand our team? And Dieter, literally the first person that we called, literally the first person we hired. But tell your story, Dieter. Dieter has a story, a deep, dark. I don't think the listeners-

• 14:53Speaker 01

  I don't know if I'm allowed to tell the story. I might technically be under NDA.

• 14:57Nilay Patel?

  The company doesn't exist.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Okay, so I went out to interview for this job, but by then This Is My Next had launched. And I actually had two interviews. One was to talk to Josh DePaulski about coming to This Is My Next. And the other one was to go be a PR executive at Palm. And the-

• 15:18Speaker 03

  You made the wrong decision.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  We'll go have him at Palm.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  The interview with Josh, I met him at a-

• 15:26Speaker 03

  What if he had done there and saved it?

• 15:27Speaker 02

  What if you'd saved Palm?

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  We would all be happier, better people.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  The interview with Josh was at a San Francisco bar. I met him at like 12:30 at night and we talked till like 3:00 in the morning. And then I drove back, back down to Sunnyvale and then had to wake up to be at Palm at 8:00 to start those interviews. And that ran for like six hours because it's like a standard corporate, you know? Dammit, what's the word?

• 15:55Speaker 03

  No, you had to interview with like fifteen different people.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Right, and then I had to choose between those two jobs.

• 16:00Nilay Patel?

  There are no, there's nobody left.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  And I took the crazy risky.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  No, I'm saying he had to interview then with fifteen people.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  They offered you a job, you literally chose, this is my next over Paul.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  I took the, I took the risky bet. I bet on the crazy startup that would probably fail instead of the big safe corporate job.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  What was the last thing they had launched?

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Just exploded.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  What did they, they hadn't launched the touchpad or VR yet? They had?

• 16:22Nilay Patel?

  No, they had, they had launched a touchpad.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:24Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Then, then they had launched pretty much everything they were always gonna launch forever and ever.

• 16:29Nilay Patel?

  Yes, the last, no, they put out the pre.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  They put out the pre three in like Europe for like a minute and then they canceled the whole thing.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  So that would have been what you would have gotten to work on if you had taken.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  No, I was gonna work on WebOS as a platform, not on hardware.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Oh, no, that would have been also the last thing you were gonna work on.

• 16:43Nilay Patel?

  The day I knew I was gonna leave AOL was the touchpad launch event. Um, because we were, I was live blogging it and we were beating everybody in coverage because we were very good at beating everybody in coverage.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Because my website crashed and I was live blogging by sending AOL instant messages to my boss back in Florida so that he could hand code them in HTML and put it on precentral.net.

• 17:05Nilay Patel?

  Virgil G's.

• 17:07Nilay Patel?

  No, so I was like live blogging, da da da, and I don't remember who was sitting next to me and they leaned over and they looked at the site and they were like, cool belly fat ads on a gadget. And I had, I had spent the entire week before that pleading with the company, like, don't run garbage ads on, like, don't run them ever. But like particularly when we know there's like an influx of eyeballs, don't run belly fat ads on a gadget, just don't do it. And I got everyone's support and they promised me it wasn't gonna happen and it totally happened. I sent this furious email. I was like, this just happened. And like we turned them off, like did it again, like we're still there. And I was like, I just want you guys to know that a competitor li- literally leaned over while I was beating him to check what he was missing.

• 17:48Nilay Patel?

  And told me and made fun of the ads on the site, like I, this is awful. And I got this reply from an AOL executive that was like, we win as a team. And I was like, dude, my team is fucking winning. What is your team doing? And I was like, I looked at Josh and Josh was like, yeah, we should quit. It was like basically the day we're out the door. Paul, what, what, no Joanna, what was your exit story?

• 18:12Speaker 03

  I just left.

• 18:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he was spared. No drama.

• 18:15Speaker 05

  I don't, do I know wasn't?

• 18:17Speaker 03

  I wasn't a full, yeah, I mean, that was one of the reasons, you know, Josh was so angry for many years there was I worked there for two years with you guys and you could never, he could never hire me full time.

• 18:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  Because AOL didn't want to have, or you guys didn't have headcount. So I was a freelancer and would make like, you know, a chunk of change every month and I would save my money for taxes and pay my own insurance and stuff like that. It was actually, it was a good experience, looking back on it, because it's like, I think many people just graduate from college now, get a job and they're like, oh, my money just, that's where it goes.

• 18:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Um, so yeah, life.

• 18:51Nilay Patel?

  Do you still save a chunk of money for like other things like now?

• 18:55Speaker 03

  I mean, now I make more money.

• 18:58Nilay Patel?

  Break down your, your monthly.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  Now I make more money than then. So, um, yeah, like, well, you guys were all full time and I, I mean.

• 19:07Nilay Patel?

  No, Chris wasn't.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  You weren't full time either.

• 19:10Nilay Patel?

  I remember, so I have two great. This is about Chris. The, when I went, the first day I interviewed at Engadget, uh, Ryan Block was like, oh, there's this guy, Chris, he lives near you in Chicago. And Chris took me for a drink and he was like, well, it's nice to meet you. Most people don't make it. I'll see you later.

• 19:27Speaker 04

  I was traumatized because we had just fired like three people in the span of like three months. I was like, I'm going to be real with you.

• 19:36Nilay Patel?

  So that was that. And then the, the second one was when I was taking a full time job, when I was quitting lawyer, be full time job, I went out for a drink with Chris and he's like, I don't know, man, AOL sounds like a lot of bullshit.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  That was right. Right.

• 19:49Nilay Patel?

  Uh, but Chris, where were you?

• 19:50Speaker 03

  So my, yeah, my exit was basically like, then they, when, when everyone was starting to leave, I was the, one of the last to actually give the notice. They preemptively said, oh, we have a full time opening for you. And guess what? Actually, we have a lot of money.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  That's because it just freed up.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Right. There was money. There was a full-time job. There was benefits.

• 20:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. We've been AOL all along.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. There was, there was an actual laptop. I think they tried to bribe me with a laptop because I never had a company issued laptop.

• 20:16Nilay Patel?

  There's a, they were gonna assign me elderly people's dial-up accounts directly to funding.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Funding me. Actually, like.

• 20:23Nilay Patel?

  Twenty-nine ninety-five a month.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  Josh gave me, I think I, he like allotted me some extra money one month to buy my own laptop to work there because I couldn't get like company.

• 20:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  Stuff.

• 20:35Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that, I will say this was like the thing that enraged us all.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:39Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, where were you before?

• 20:40Speaker 03

  It was me.

• 20:40Nilay Patel?

  It's John, it's John's fault.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I, I was never interested in working full-time at AOL. That was not something that intrigued me.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Chris, what's that watch band?

• 20:50Speaker 04

  Oh, this is the new Apple watch band.

• 20:52Speaker 03

  It's pink?

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's awesome.

• 20:53Nilay Patel?

  Comes in multiple colors.

• 20:56Speaker 04

  So I, I did the math and I was like, I'm making enough per post so that I should just like write like a hundred posts a day.

• 21:03Nilay Patel?

  Yep, I did that math every day. Just basically, every morning I did that math.

• 21:06Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so that's why I, I quit and gadget with something like 11,000 posts. It's because I was just grinding.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  You really did write a lot.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I was never gonna beat shotgun Murph, but.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  No.

• 21:17Nilay Patel?

  Machine gun, machine gun.

• 21:18Speaker 04

  Machine gun.

• 21:19Nilay Patel?

  By the way, Darren Murph, now the editor of Tech Radar.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yes, that's true. That's true. But yeah, so I was, of course, a programmer before I was a writer. And in college, I actually went through the, the one engineering program where I didn't have to write a single thing. I didn't write a single line of anything in college. And hated writing and then turned out I was actually okay at it, as Ryan Block discovered. So here I am.

• 21:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So that was more of a quit your promising other career.

• 21:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:49Nilay Patel?

  And try this crazy ass career.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  And here I am.

• 21:52Nilay Patel?

  Ross also wrote a mic drop post.

• 21:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did. But like after Paul did his, I was like, I'm just not gonna compete. I can't do that. So I just kind of redirected it to Paul's and said, just confuse the two. Yeah.

• 22:02Nilay Patel?

  So then we were out and then we had to like come up with a name. I remember one-

• 22:05Speaker 01

  All of you said that it wasn't the AOL way. All of your Mic Drop posts were like, "It's not the AOL way." And I was reading, I was like-

• 22:11Speaker 05

  No, yeah, no, because like it wasn't. So we just winked at it. It isn't. Wink.

• 22:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it wasn't imposed on us.

• 22:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:20Nilay Patel?

  So that wasn't a thing. It was more like-

• 22:21Speaker 02

  AOL way was indicative of what AOL was about as a company.

• 22:26Speaker 05

  It was a philosophical concern over how the mothership would like create journalism.

• 22:30Nilay Patel?

  Right. And also there are people who are gonna stay there.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  Right.

• 22:34Nilay Patel?

  So if we had been like, "The AOL way came to Engadget, we're out," those people would have been-

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Screwed.

• 22:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And it turns out they were in the end because AOL fired them all. It happens. Media companies. Now, now AOL's gonna, you know, they're gonna, Verizon-

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Verizon owns AOL.

• 22:50Nilay Patel?

  They're gonna buy Yahoo.

• 22:53Nilay Patel?

  That's the rumor today. Did you hear this, Joanna?

• 22:55Speaker 03

  That what?

• 22:55Nilay Patel?

  Verizon's gonna buy Yahoo and merge it with AOL and Tim Armshung's gonna run it and combine.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I heard something about this.

• 23:01Nilay Patel?

  It's a circle of life.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Bizarre.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  I mean-

• 23:03Nilay Patel?

  David Pogue.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  What happens to, yeah, exactly. What happens to the tech coverage there?

• 23:07Nilay Patel?

  It's crazy. Anyway, this is like very inside baseball, but it's a 200th episode. If you're gonna do it, this is the episode to do it on.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, the two O's could be like a baseballs.

• 23:17Nilay Patel?

  They're inside stuff. So Paul, where are you?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  I gotta, I gotta go.

• 23:24Nilay Patel?

  I understand where these four people have been, but you two, you two are the OGs who flew the coop.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Uh, Joanna's behind a paywall. We never see her.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  I'm actually not. I'm not behind a paywall. I just wanna, I'm not behind a paywall. Please read my stuff. Please, please click the links. Just watch some videos. Just read some articles. Scroll around some photos, please.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Just click on one of your links just a second.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, no paywall.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  No paywall.

• 23:50Nilay Patel?

  Well, you clicked it off at Twitter, though.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, no.

• 23:52Nilay Patel?

  You can get to some stuff for the journal.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  That Google check is not working for getting through the paywall.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  No, they closed it up.

• 24:01Nilay Patel?

  That's crazy.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  For, for the record, I'm a paying Wall Street Journal subscriber, Joanna. My money goes directly into your pocket.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Thank you, Chris.

• 24:07Speaker 05

  And you're welcome. For the record, Chris has a paying Wall Street Journal account and I stole his password. Really. Get the most out of it.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Well, while I was off the internet, I, um, had a paper Wall Street Journal subscription that my brother bought me, but it was addressed to Paul Pillar.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 24:26Nilay Patel?

  Actually, you should talk about being off the internet, because I think that a lot of our new listeners have no idea what you're talking about.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  I spent a year without using the internet. And

• 24:36Nilay Patel?

  Alright, cool.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  When I got back, I was really bad at using the internet. And I couldn't quite keep up with The Verge pace and had some other stuff I wanted to do. So I quit The Verge like a few months after I got back. I got back in March of 2013, I think, and then quit in June after E3.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  But you wrote for... Explain how you wrote for The Verge while you were off the internet.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah. So while I was off the internet, The Verge still paid me. And I would write articles and put them on a thumb drive and give them to an editor to be published. So I have a lot of great personal essays about my life and my quirky thoughts about the world. All at The Verge. It's called Offline, is what the series was.

• 25:24Nilay Patel?

  It was great.

• 25:25Speaker 03

  Not behind a paywall.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Not behind a paywall.

• 25:27Nilay Patel?

  You know, I didn't want to say-

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Also not available offline.

• 25:30Nilay Patel?

  I didn't want to break this early, but for our fifth birthday, The Verge's fifth birthday in November, we were actually going to put in a paywall.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 25:37Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna- And it's only going to be old Paul and Joanna stuff.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  I actually think people might pay for some of that.

• 25:47Nilay Patel?

  What was your favorite Verge thing that you ever did, Joanna?

• 25:49Speaker 03

  My Zyboard review?

• 25:52Nilay Patel?

  You know what's funny is that if you say the word Zyboard-

• 25:54Speaker 03

  We put the tablets on a skateboard.

• 25:57Nilay Patel?

  I gotta find this.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Because-

• 25:59Nilay Patel?

  You don't remember?

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Board.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  I remember that.

• 26:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I don't. I don't know.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  And that's where I really began my future as using props to illustrate.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  Which is truly my claim to fame. And some days I worry I will come, I will no longer have any props to use that are new.

• 26:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, I will say that what you're doing at The Wall Street Journal right now is truly next level.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 26:19Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I don't, like, is the journal ready for it? Like, when you publish your video in the morning, does the whole newsroom shut down and be like, "What did you get up to this time?"

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Sometimes that happens, yes. They just halt all news production globally around all bureaus in the world.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  But no, I really am running out of props. I mean, I didn't think I would ever be able to beat the BlackBerry and a piece of cheese.

• 26:42Nilay Patel?

  That was really good. That was the

• 26:44Speaker 03

  I think that's where I really got the inspiration. Yeah, for the passport.

• 26:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, which is

• 26:49Speaker 03

  Still people very angry about that.

• 26:51Nilay Patel?

  What's shaped like a piece of cheese? How do you say that about shapes?

• 26:54Speaker 04

  But what's uncanny about it is that it's perfect.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Fits perfectly. Yeah, fits perfectly.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  Like, they definitely planned around that.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. Same measurements as it when they looked at the thing, we need to do same measurements as a piece of Kraft cheese.

• 27:07Nilay Patel?

  So let's talk so BlackBerry brings up, by the way, this picture of the ZI boards on a skateboard is

• 27:13Speaker 03

  One of the best things.

• 27:14Nilay Patel?

  So funny. I look at all of our original Verge stuff, all these ideas that we thought were brilliant, our videos, Joanna, when like Joanna and Billy making the first set of video reviews.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  But that was, that was like next gen, like

• 27:26Nilay Patel?

  It was at the time.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  It is at the time.

• 27:27Nilay Patel?

  And I look at this picture of tablets on a skateboard now and like, what the fuck were we thinking?

• 27:33Speaker 03

  No, I look at that and say, what weren't they thinking?

• 27:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they thought of everything, including this photo.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  It's a great photo.

• 27:40Nilay Patel?

  No, but it's funny. I you look at the stuff from back then.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  I mean, the photo is not good.

• 27:44Nilay Patel?

  The photo is bad.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. All my photos are really bad.

• 27:47Nilay Patel?

  Joanna, that's ultimately why we had to let you go.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  But really, my photos were always really bad, and I apologize for that.

• 27:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  Sometimes Ross would take my photos.

• 28:00Nilay Patel?

  Those are even worse. Can you imagine an Android tablet review in this day and age getting 104 comments?

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:09Nilay Patel?

  I don't, I just don't see it. So that's what I want to talk about now. So

• 28:11Speaker 03

  Look at those charts. I handmade those charts.

• 28:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  With my coding.

• 28:16Nilay Patel?

  If you handmade

• 28:17Speaker 03

  A chart now?

• 28:18Nilay Patel?

  Handmade charts now, our product team would kill you. They would literally It's just a table. It's a supported HTML element.

• 28:25Speaker 03

  I made that.

• 28:25Nilay Patel?

  You're not supposed to do

• 28:26Speaker 03

  With my hands.

• 28:27Nilay Patel?

  Software is supposed to do that.

• 28:28Speaker 04

  Do you still stand by the 6.0 score?

• 28:31Nilay Patel?

  It's a brutal score.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  I actually think it probably should have been lower.

• 28:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I agree. Oh, man. Oh, you were you were rough in this conclusion. That is ultimately how those ZI boards are not worth the cash. The pricing is just out there is their names.

• 28:47Nilay Patel?

  Uh.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  It's profound.

• 28:48Nilay Patel?

  They're a good piece of hardware despite the button and expandable storage issues. With software, it's decent, but held back by an ecosystem. I just want to put it out there, even in the early days, just railing on bad ecosystems. Also, Android tablet ecosystem?

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Not better.

• 29:02Nilay Patel?

  Still not better.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  That's amazing to me. I think you're trying to pivot to talk about the current state.

• 29:08Nilay Patel?

  I'm trying to get to the future.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  One thing that has never changed is the Android tablet software ecosystem.

• 29:14Nilay Patel?

  It just hasn't. So I want, so we talked about BlackBerry. Back then, like, I'm looking at our site when we were leaving Engadget in that middle zone, we, we were able to do gadget coverage in a way that is very difficult to do now. Right? The big companies were at the top of their games for that second. So Microsoft was trying to launch a new phone ecosystem. It was very exciting. Android was very exciting and all the harbor maker, HTC was an exciting company back then.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:43Nilay Patel?

  Um, and now they make the Vibe, so I guess they're like medium exciting. Um, I don't know. Apple was, it hadn't reached its set of dominance in mobile. There was just stuff going on all the time in these zones. BlackBerry was BlackBerry.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Irrelevant.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 30:00Nilay Patel?

  What's going on now?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  They were just failing then.

• 30:01Nilay Patel?

  Give me, give me, so we've done enough past.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  I saw someone using a BlackBerry phone on the subway.

• 30:08Nilay Patel?

  Were they, how were they?

• 30:09Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 30:10Nilay Patel?

  Were they, do they work for the government?

• 30:12Speaker 02

  He was, he was wearing a suit.

• 30:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. They all do. Joanna has BlackBerry. Do you have a journal BlackBerry?

• 30:17Speaker 03

  I don't have one anymore.

• 30:18Nilay Patel?

  No?

• 30:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 30:19Nilay Patel?

  You had one for a minute. You were really into it the last time I saw you with it.

• 30:22Speaker 03

  When I let, when I worked at ABC, I had another BlackBerry and I actually was really into it. And then when I moved to the journal, it was actually very hard for me not to have a BlackBerry. But now I'm, I'm full touchscreen all the time.

• 30:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Touching things. Screens.

• 30:35Nilay Patel?

  Wait, so Joanna, you wrote a column this week. This actually fits in.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:38Nilay Patel?

  You were like, smartphones are boring, but now they're going to get good again. There's something else is gonna happen.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:44Nilay Patel?

  Think about what you wrote.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Well, it's funny because we think about back at that time. How many, what was, what year was that? I think we're-

• 30:49Nilay Patel?

  This is 2011.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, so like we're actually talking like, what, 2010? Or like, when did Motorola launch the Droid? When did Nexus, when did Google launch Nexus?

• 31:00Nilay Patel?

  The Droid was 2009. The original, the first Droid was 2009.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  And then Nexus, the Nexus, um-

• 31:05Nilay Patel?

  The Nexus 1.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  No.

• 31:07Nilay Patel?

  Was that the first Nexus? Nexus 1 was the first one, and that was, that was the following year. And we was like, oh my god, Google's gonna sell it correctly, it's a Google phone.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  And then the Nexus was Samsung.

• 31:16Nilay Patel?

  Nexus S was Samsung.

• 31:17Speaker 03

  And the one right afterwards was Samsung too. Anyway, we would make a huge deal about those launches. Like, I remember if we, if I was sent, like, I was one of the ones selected to go live blog one of those. I was like, super nervous because there were gonna be a ton of eyeballs watching the press. I mean, Vlad and I specifically, this one that we did in Hong Kong, which one was that?

• 31:37Speaker 04

  Galaxy Nexus.

• 31:38Nilay Patel?

  Galaxy Nexus.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  It was the Galaxy Nexus.

• 31:39Nilay Patel?

  That one was a botch, remember? They told us at the last minute that you guys had to go to Hong Kong.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Right, but it was huge. Like, we had huge numbers just from the hands-on and from, there was so much excitement around phones.

• 31:49Speaker 04

  Didn't you guys sneak in ahead of-

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, we snuck in, we got it. We fucked them all, remember?

• 31:58Nilay Patel?

  No one gets that.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  Nobody gets that.

• 32:00Nilay Patel?

  Whenever Joanna got a scoop at NGadget or the early Verge, she would just write into IFC. We fucked them all, which then Ross made a picture of a robot fucking them all.

• 32:10Speaker 05

  Which I did find the other day, I will share that with the team.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  But like, we were so, and it wasn't just us, I mean, we were covering it and that was actually one of the best things, right? We were so excited about what we were covering, but our audience was so excited about it. And people, this was just like the early days of people actually being able to get great smartphone technology. The cameras were being upgraded, the screens were getting better, Android software was getting better. Obviously, the iPhone was doing its own thing. And it's like, now, it's what, eight years, seven years?

• 32:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  Maybe, maybe less. And it's sort of like, meh. It's just like, you know, when there's a new phone that's announced, it's like, mm, yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Well, that the when you would buy a new Android phone every year back then, like you are even a new iPhone every year back then. You knew you're getting something that was like markedly better and you would notice it and feel it and it would like make your life better. Now, like getting a new phone every year, that that improvements are not as like holy crap in your face.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  And that the Galaxy, the Nexus seven, not the Nexus seven, the Nexus, it was just the Nexus, right? The Samsung.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  There was the Nexus S and then there was a Galaxy Nexus.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  Galaxy Nexus, right. The Galaxy Nexus, I bought that. Yeah, I bought that phone. It was my first phone after the Droid two. I bought like, I had the Droid two.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  The Droid two was my first phone after the BlackBerry and I thought it was the craziest, best thing ever. Then I got the Nexus and I thought it was the craziest, best thing ever. And, you know, at that time it was like, what size was the screen? Four inches?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it feels so tiny now.

• 33:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it was so crazy. It was like so big, like, oh, people were looking at me. How do you put that in your pocket? Oh, my gosh, you know, like, and, and, yeah, exactly. Now there are these phone announcements and we're kind of just like, mm. And it's pretty much a lot of categories, even this week, you know, HP announced this new really thin laptop. And I was like, that's, we're dealing with like the Dell Adamo all over again.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Yes, it looks like the Adamo.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  You know, it's, it's like, uh, you know, I don't know. I don't want to sound jaded. I don't want to sound like ungrateful of all of this great progress. But we're sort of hit this point in the, in the major gadget refresh cycles that things sort of have tapered off. And there's, there's a lot of good technology, I think that's going to be coming. But, but right now it's been a lot of refinement.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  I mean, from my perspective, I have not been writing about gadgets day to day for, for years now. And It's just felt to me like everything's good enough.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  Like my, you know, as soon as Apple made a laptop where, I mean, they were good at the track pads and then they solved battery life and I could work all day on a laptop without plugging it in. And the phone is great. It's got a great camera. It just works.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  I love the cracks on yours.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that's a problem.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. But no, totally.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, the dissatisfaction with phones are feel like, well, you know, like my sister has a cracked phone too. And I was like, well, I don't, I don't have an upgrade right now. I don't have the money for, you know, there's like external, there's, I mean, there are such a huge important part of our lives. They're not boring in that sense.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Taken over our lives and it's super important. But a new addition of it doesn't change my life because the current addition is so good.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Right. And that was like the basis of my iPhone six S review, which like, this is a great phone. What happens from here? And we all have these like complaints, but they're not big complaints. They're like, I need more storage.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  I need some more battery life. You know, they don't, I mean.

• 35:45Nilay Patel?

  So I disagree. So I disagree. And it's funny, the second half of your column is you like predicting all this stuff that's going to be cool.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  And I hope it, I hope it comes.

• 35:52Nilay Patel?

  What do you think is cool? Let's come in.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I think wireless charging, like true wireless over the air charging. If it does not fry our brains like a microwave, it's going to be completely awesome and change everything. That's like the piece of technology in that column that I think is the most cool and completely altering component. I mean, there's a lot of other cool things like screens and, um, you know, modular design and things like that. I don't know how much of that is going to change things, but.

• 36:22Nilay Patel?

  So my big theory, and Joanna laughs at me about this, every year at CES.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  Yes, right. They're back.

• 36:27Nilay Patel?

  Guys, it's back. Cause I think the phones have gotten boring and that means the investment and the dollars and the interest has to go somewhere else. And you're seeing all these little bits and bobs of that everywhere. So like drones, for example, drones are fucking really interesting and great and they can fly themselves now. Um, and we, like yesterday, Ben Popper, if you know the noise a phantom makes, and I know it very well because I flew a drone at my friend Dieter's wedding, my best friend, the drone, not Dieter.

• 36:56Speaker 03

  You flew your best friend into a wedding.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  The drones got married and Dieter flew through the air.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  But like, I heard that noise, like, did it, it, the phantom makes when it boots up. And I was like, that is the most exciting noise. Like, it's really cool what they can do. All the Internet of Things stuff is mostly garbage.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  That Wi-Fi wine bottle.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  That Wi-Fi wine bottle. But some of it's really interesting. Some of it's really cool.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  Right. Well, like, the Echo and the technology that's going into that kind of stuff, and I mean, which arguably could be, you know, the smartphone is at the core of some of that, is awesome.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  Right?

• 37:34Speaker 01

  And VR, like, I think that's the other one. And VR is built on smartphone parts. I could actually make a pretty strong case that the Wi-Fi wine bottle is a super interesting and culturally important product. Get it.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  I agree completely. Please state your opinion, so I may concur.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  What is the, I'm looking it up.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  A little formal there.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Well, there's this wine, there's this, there's this wine bottle, but it's actually just a sleeve. And it has a tiny computer and a tiny touchscreen, and you can stick wine, wine pods into it.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  The cartridges.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Cartridges. And it's, there's this new trend. There's the Wi-Fi wine bottle, there's the Juicero.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Which only lets you use, like, prepackaged juice. Juicero's the dumbest thing in the world. No, but they're both Wi-Fi connected, smart, intelligent things that give you consumables in pods, and rather than you, like, making it yourself.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  So they're Keurig for everything else?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  They're Keurigs. It's Keurigs for everything. So you know there's Uber for everything? No, but a bottle of wine, it, it's not a Keurig. It's a, it's a bottle of wine that you put another bottle of. That's what I'm saying, is they're, they're turning it into a Keurig. There's a new trend in the way that people think about the things in their life. It's not just, you know. Put a Wi-Fi chip on it. It's also like, turn it into a subscription service. So like, the idea that like, software is a service is a thing that we've all accepted. Like, you pay a subscription for Microsoft Office instead of going to Newegg or whatever, like, buying the box. We're now, the companies are trying to take that same thing that blew up the technology world and apply it to like, regular consumable goods, like wine.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  Is Jake drunk here?

• 39:13Nilay Patel?

  Jake is drunk in that video. It's one of the best videos we've ever made.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  And on top of all that, it's also like, we are, anybody who wants to make a computer that does crazy things can just go make one. And that's an old story, but like, it's getting applied to more and more new things, and people are just trying crazy shit. And I find that really compelling.

• 39:29Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I'll say about this.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  But this wine bottle is stupid.

• 39:31Nilay Patel?

  The wine, yeah. It's not the curing of wine, it's just, it's whatever. But I get what you're saying.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  It's trying to be.

• 39:37Nilay Patel?

  They're regulating your use, like, the idea is that they're cut down on your waste by knowing how much you're consuming, and they'll only sell you that much.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:44Nilay Patel?

  So like, you can buy the four bottles, and if you don't drink the four bottles, you won't buy another bottle.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  I mean, you could argue all day that the Keurig is a terrible idea for coffee and for people. But you can't argue that they've sold a lot of Keurigs and a lot of coffee pods.

• 39:58Nilay Patel?

  Can I just say this one thing that I actually promised somebody I would say?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 40:01Nilay Patel?

  The Giuseppe, started by the CEO of Organic Avenue.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:07Nilay Patel?

  And I was watching our staff discuss this fact yesterday, and Caitlin Tiffany, our social media manager, was like, Organic Avenue is the Taco Bell of organic food, and no one should trust him because he's a liar. And I thought that was the greatest print I've ever heard. I've been trying to figure out what else I can refer to as the Taco Bell of organic food for literally two days. I tried to say it to Walt on the Walt podcast yesterday, and I could, I just couldn't get it out. He was talking about the app versus, like, app versus webs, and I was like, yeah, Firefox is truly the Taco Bell of organic food. And I couldn't, I couldn't even say all the words. It just was like, yeah, it didn't work that time. But keep that one in your heart.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Firefox is the Kirkland of browsers.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  It is true.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  That is true.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Wait, but you're gonna buy a Juicero. What is wrong with you, Chris?

• 40:54Speaker 03

  I don't understand something about it. Can I ask you real quick?

• 40:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  How do they get the organic things into the bags?

• 41:05Speaker 04

  A, not something you need to know, and B, you don't wanna know.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  And that's why this can't be healthy.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  When you go and buy bagged salad, there's always like the chance that there's a rat in it, right?

• 41:15Nilay Patel?

  What? Wait, what?

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yes. Every year, there's a story about like someone bought like a bag of salad home and they opened it up and a live rat came scurrying out of the bag.

• 41:22Nilay Patel?

  Rat in salad bag.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  And now that's gonna happen to your juice.

• 41:25Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, because...

• 41:26Speaker 03

  Like, how are they arguing that...

• 41:27Nilay Patel?

  A surprising number of results for rat in salad bag. There's literally 500,000 results.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  I mean, that... They're putting organic, what, kale and apples and pears into small little bags and claiming that that's going to be healthier and better for you than real juice?

• 41:47Speaker 01

  It is real juice.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  Well, you're talking to me like I'm the CEO of Organic Avenue, Joanna. I'm just a simple man who wants a Juicero.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  But you wanna...

• 41:56Speaker 03

  Why?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Because the name sounds like a beach party?

• 42:00Speaker 04

  Well, I haven't thought of that, but that's a very good point.

• 42:03Nilay Patel?

  It does sound like a beach party.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  The name sounds like Hyundai's latest crossover vehicle that you would drive to a beach party.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  Hyundai Juicero is a great name.

• 42:12Nilay Patel?

  Juicero is a good name.

• 42:13Speaker 04

  But it would be for like an El Camino type thing?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 04

  With like a surfboard in the back?

• 42:17Nilay Patel?

  It has to be an El Camino with a surfboard.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 42:19Nilay Patel?

  It sounds like a beach party.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 42:20Nilay Patel?

  Sounds like you're young, you're having fun, you're juicing.

• 42:22Speaker 04

  Look, I'm gonna leave it at this. I want my entire life productized, and we're getting there. Um, most of my life has been productized. The one thing that hasn't been productized is vegetables.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  And we're finally to the point, thanks to the innovation of Juicero, where I can have that part of my life productized. And the reason I want my life productized is because every cool sci-fi movie I saw in the late 80s and early 90s had... People had their entire life productized.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  That was all like dystopia, though.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. I'm ready for my dystopia, Dieter. I've been promised my dystopia.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  A Juicero Soylent.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  You did go all in on Soylent.

• 43:01Speaker 04

  I went all in on Soylent. I'm probably gonna buy...

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Are you still on Soylent?

• 43:04Speaker 04

  On occasion. I probably am gonna buy a Casper mattress. I'm gonna buy everything that's like the tech bro version of the mainstream product.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, I think with all of these things, there has to be a purpose.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Wine and juice.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  I don't know if I see the purpose. If you really can't see what the purpose was gonna be, then why?

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Oh, I have no idea what the purpose is. I'm just gonna.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:27Nilay Patel?

  You just want it.

• 43:27Speaker 05

  Isn't the purpose to drink juice?

• 43:29Speaker 01

  I mean, that's.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  But what's wrong with the juice we're drinking? They say, oh, it's so hard to make all of this stuff. And it's true. I've juiced before. It is not easy. Okay?

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  I also just finished the people versus OJ and it is amazing.

• 43:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's really good. I was, I was, oh, I see.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  I bought like a, like a $300 juicer. I was like, I'm gonna become the juice man.

• 43:48Nilay Patel?

  I remember that. That was when we were starting the Verge.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was into juice before anyone was into juice.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  I set up a recurring fresh direct order and all this green stuff would come to my house. And then I couldn't handle it all. And if you didn't juice it right away, it all went bad. And then you had to like preserve the juice that you made.

• 44:08Nilay Patel?

  Hello, Juicero.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  So right, Juicero's saying that's the problem that they're solving. So I'm a little bit convinced that that is a, that's a good thing. But then when you think about what the sacrifices are gonna be in terms of health and organicness and the Taco Bell of organicness, you know, you're going down. What, then what's the point of this thing?

• 44:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, it's to have juice.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:28Nilay Patel?

  It's to be rich and have juice whenever you want.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  I'm just arguing like, we don't need everything to be connected. Case in point, the umbrella I tested last week.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  What? What? Tell me about this.

• 44:38Nilay Patel?

  Joanna doing work for the journal.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  I did some real work.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  I wanted an umbrella with a LTE radio in it, real bad.

• 44:43Speaker 03

  For what? To do what?

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Just to have.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  To have.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  It'd be, it'd be a great hot spot.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  That would be.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Tell you the weather.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  This just tells you that you left it behind.

• 44:52Nilay Patel?

  The umbrella, it is almost certain that you know what the weather.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  If you make it look like a cane, I could just look like a dandy man.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  Like we always said, we were.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  I'm really curious, what does the umbrella do?

• 45:03Speaker 03

  It just tells you when you've left it behind.

• 45:05Speaker 05

  Wait, what?

• 45:07Speaker 02

  This is like send you a text?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Hang on, hang on.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  And also, though, every time you walk away from your umbrella, you get a text.

• 45:13Nilay Patel?

  So, wait, the umbrella is a bad relationship?

• 45:15Speaker 03

  So like, I left it in my office, text.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  Does it text like, "Don't leave me, I miss you"?

• 45:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:22Speaker 05

  I swear I can change.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  What if it were smarter? What if it knew the weather?

• 45:26Nilay Patel?

  You got a new job.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  It sent you a text if you walked away when it knew it was gonna rain later that day, but otherwise it left you alone.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Well, this does tell, I deleted the app because it was so bad. But it did tell you the weather with inside the app, so you could go check if it was gonna rain today, but it didn't alert you to take your umbrella when you left it. But that would have been a better thing, but again, every time you left your umbrella, like, it's a, you know, it's a context thing. It's not smart enough to know where you're going.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Also, isn't that just tile, like?

• 45:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 45:53Nilay Patel?

  So that's what, so basically, the highest innovation is tile and bag juice.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:00Nilay Patel?

  Can you just, couldn't Capri Sun just kill the Juicero by putting out Capri Sun with like, healthy juice in it?

• 46:06Speaker 04

  No, because there's no machine, you put the Capri Sun into Neelai, why do I have to? The Juicero bag has like reels, like.

• 46:14Nilay Patel?

  What does it do in there?

• 46:16Speaker 04

  It just presses the bag or something.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Squeezes the bag, that's all it does, it squeezes the bag.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  Right, I think actually you're.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Stuff that comes directly out of the vegetable right then.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  It actually ends up being Capri Sun but green.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  Sounds delicious.

• 46:30Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Jake's getting a Juicero. We're gonna make, Jake is on the Wi-Fi liquids beat.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:35Nilay Patel?

  He reviewed the Wi-Fi Brita pitcher, he did the Wi-Fi wine bottle, he's gonna get the Juicero.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  This is a great trend.

• 46:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the problem is that the video for the wine bottle will be better than all the other ones, because he got drunk.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  Good ideas when I'm here.

• 46:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, but you just get him drunk before he does the video for all of these.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  One time I had this like, very emotional dinner with Joanna, and I was like, telling her this like, very emotional story, and she, I was like, "What are you doing?". And she's like, "I'm not listening to you. The ladies at the table next to us are talking about their Kindles and I have to take notes."

• 47:06Speaker 01

  I was like, "Really"?

• 47:07Speaker 03

  And guess what? It was a column.

• 47:09Nilay Patel?

  It turned into a column.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  Yep, it did.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Whenever I get like a real opportunity to hear real people talk about technology, I have to seize the moment.

• 47:21Nilay Patel?

  What are we? We're not real people?

• 47:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  You know, one thing that I would say is indicative of the current technology climate is that when Amazon made a Fire Phone, it was terrible and nobody wanted it. Like, it's not like we're at this place where these big companies are like fending everybody off with pure market muscle. They are doing that. But like, I don't know, the barrier to entry is so high because you have to make something so good. And Amazon didn't do that, but if any company could, you would think Amazon could. Well, I feel like that was a really interesting product. It's like, I am excited for someone to do crazy, weird, new things in tech.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  And I'm glad they tried. I'm really sad that they did a terrible job.

• 48:12Speaker 03

  Right. Actually, you bring up a really good point because I think then there draws this line between gimmick and real usefulness. And the Fire Phone ended up falling into gimmick, but there were some interesting technologies in there. The screen, I don't know what the point of it was, but it was different.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  A billion cameras on the front.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  You could look around.

• 48:30Nilay Patel?

  But it's funny because if you had a phone with that screen now in VR, you could do all kinds of cool stuff with it. They were just way ahead of that curve.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Right. That's what I wrote about in this piece. Like, maybe a holograph display is actually not a gimmick anymore if this company can pull it off.

• 48:43Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean, but that's all improving the phone. Like, that's the thing to me. I think it's really hard to get around. It's, the big improvements come not necessarily even when they come to Android, right? They, like, Android phone vendors do a lot of cool stuff all the time. And I think, honestly, right now, if I was buying a phone... And I had no other phones and I didn't have to shop and get a new phone every week, but whatever. If I had to just buy a phone right now, I would be extremely tempted by the S7. Yeah. Only because, only because of the Gear VR, only because it has one additional capability.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  So I'm that jerk. I mean, I'm using a broken iPhone instead of using an S6 that I bought for Gear VR. And like Gear VR was Samsung's chance to prove to me that they could not screw up an operating system. And they didn't. They, they, they made such a bad experience. Like, literally, I got the S6 for Gear VR and I sat there for hours trying to figure out how to turn off all these automatic updates. Cause I'd be trying to play Gear VR games and like, hey, I'm gonna update your, I don't know what their stupid app are called.

• 49:55Nilay Patel?

  They fixed it on the S7. I don't know if it's on the S6, but like when you go into Gear VR, you go to little settings inside VR. There's a do not disturb option now.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  Right, but like they missed the chance. I got S6 when the Gear VR came out.

• 50:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  That was sad to me.

• 50:10Nilay Patel?

  Remember Big Papa Joe?

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:14Nilay Patel?

  Ladies love.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  I'm frequently reminded of Big Papa Joe.

• 50:17Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 50:17Speaker 02

  On Twitter.

• 50:18Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  There's a lot of, a lot of people who've got.

• 50:21Nilay Patel?

  People don't know who Big Papa Joe is.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Kind memories of old Vergecast moments.

• 50:25Nilay Patel?

  So we used to take call-ins on this show. We might yet again. I, I also this, real chance we're gonna like reboot the show. It's done 200, 200 episodes in this format. Tweak it around the edges a little bit. Anyway, we used to take call-ins. One of the call-ins, we asked people, is there anybody out there who likes TouchWiz?

• 50:42Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:42Nilay Patel?

  And a man named Big Papa Joe called us. He told us that ladies love the whiz.

• 50:50Nilay Patel?

  He told us that he could check all kinds of weather.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 50:53Nilay Patel?

  It was one of the most insane moments on the show ever, I think. We've had other insane moments, though, I believe.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  Do you guys still have the Fanboy Wars with Android and Windows?

• 51:06Nilay Patel?

  Here's what, yeah, we have Android iOS Wars. The new Fanboy Wars are VR platforms. So all of our Oculus review comments were five fanboys and all of our five comments were. That makes sense.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  I am thrilled that we're getting like a Nintendo Sega console war in VR right away. I think that so much good is going to come of that.

• 51:35Nilay Patel?

  What I think is really interesting is the level of sophistication of understanding. The Fanboy, the VR Fanboy War is incredibly nuanced.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  It's already super meta.

• 51:45Nilay Patel?

  It's super meta. A bunch of the stuff can work across the platforms. It's all just plugged into a gaming PC. So there's no like hardware limitations there. And there's a lot of conversation about Steam being locked down versus store exclusives versus DRM. At like an incredibly deep nerd level. And it's remarkable. I mean, even with the Fire Phone, the reason everybody knew to be disappointed with the Fire Phone before it ever even came out. Was because Amazon made the decision to fork the ecosystem and use the Fire ecosystem instead of regular Android. And like a generation of consumers instinctively knew that was a bad idea.

• 52:25Nilay Patel?

  Like at a corporate strategic level, you're forking the platform. You're not going to get developer support. That to me is the big difference in from when we started, I started in 2006, 2007. You were, you'd been there for a little bit.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  2005.

• 52:42Nilay Patel?

  I think I started in 2007. But it's funny, even just back then, the amount of, whatever, it's a new product. It'll be, it'll be as good as the other products without all of the backstory. And now everybody, the backstory is taken for granted. Right? So the VR fanboys are like ridiculously sophisticated. And they're arguing about the most insane, they're arguing about the like the moral implications of a store exclusive versus actual DRM.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, VR, VR's had that, I think, since really early on because Oculus got bought by Facebook. And then Notch, the creator of Minecraft, said he wanted to put Minecraft on Oculus.

• 53:22Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Because Facebook is a big evil company. And I think that's really interesting where Oculus seemed like this chance for a new out of nowhere Kickstarter project to redefine a whole platform, a whole thing of experience. And then they got bought by Facebook and they're still doing really cool stuff, but it's not as impressive, I guess.

• 53:48Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean, do you remember that day? It was CS 2012? When Palmer Lucky showed up at the trailer with the first Oculus?

• 53:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it was 2012.

• 53:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was. It was like our first CS.

• 54:00Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 54:01Nilay Patel?

  First or second? First.

• 54:03Speaker 05

  Let's see.

• 54:03Nilay Patel?

  It had to be 2012.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  I think it was 2012 and it was amazing.

• 54:08Nilay Patel?

  And that was like ski goggles with duct tape on them.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:11Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 54:11Nilay Patel?

  Um, Dieter's just reading old trees.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  No, I'm trying to find my.

• 54:15Speaker 05

  It was a 2013, actually.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  You saw it before that though, right?

• 54:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we saw, so the first time, I think, most anyone saw it was Billy Jordan and I, or Billy and Jordan are video producers. And I went to see John Carmack in Texas because he had an aerospace company. We were gonna look at his rockets. And while we were there, he's like, I've got this thing, this dude on the internet made it. It seems pretty cool. You want to check it out? And it was literally, it was literally ski goggles, the original Oculus Rift. John Carmack had just made it based on Palmer's like forum design. And that was the first time we saw it was May 2012. And then 2013 is when they first did their CS. And that's when he came to the trailer, showed to everyone in a slightly better version, still duct taped everywhere.

• 54:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was ridiculous.

• 54:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:56Nilay Patel?

  It was, it was mind blowing. I don't think there's been, I mean, Joanna, you just did a big VR piece. You think it's gonna, what do you think the curve is for the normals?

• 55:05Speaker 03

  I think, well, actually, I was just thinking that as Ross said that, so 2012 to now for what we're seeing in the Oculus, right?

• 55:14Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  So let's think similar to what we're going on right now. I mean, That thing was a janky, crazy prototype. I mean,

• 55:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was like 640 by 480 per eye. Like it was like barely anything. It was super blurry. There's like no like adjusting the game. I think they used a Doom 3 like tweaked version of that. It was the ugliest thing, but it was still so compelling that you could like just look around, not walk around, just kind of look around and use the controller for everything else.

• 55:39Nilay Patel?

  Every demo.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  I mean, that is actually, and like, that's where I feel like I do feel like I feel like an asshole for the last like 30 minutes complaining about, oh, we've just seen smartphones. They're so boring. You know, like what you're saying, like, that's amazing that we witnessed this, right? Like, we are witnessing that happen and that is amazing. And like, we're going to witness it with VR and we've definitely witnessed it with smartphones and it is, it is amazing.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  Right. Well, and then, and augmented reality is gonna be crazy.

• 56:10Nilay Patel?

  Do you think it's gonna be bigger than?

• 56:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think there's some combination of the two that's gonna.

• 56:13Speaker 02

  I think it's definitely gonna be, augmented reality is gonna be bigger for, for sure.

• 56:18Nilay Patel?

  Why do you think? Cause I think Microsoft's making obviously the bigger bet on AR with HoloLens. And my suspicion is that Apple will make a bigger bet on AR than VR.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  I think augmented reality, um, it doesn't take up your whole eye. And so you're still in the, the world. Um, and, and so you can improve the world that you're in. I mean, I really think that the ideal augmented, like, I think they're kind of doing this with the new Pokemon thing. Um, I really think the, the, I don't know if they're gonna do a good job, but the, the sheer concept of this Pokemon augmented reality AR game kind of thing, where you take a universe that has always been virtual and a dream and put it into the real world.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Um, is gonna be so compelling and it's gonna take over people's lives. It's gonna be something to do with all your time. It's not a hobby, really. It's not something you go home and do after work. It's now part of your whole life. And I think that only works when it's augmented reality because VR, it has, you have to set aside a specific time to go away and do it.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's the isolating factor of VR, which you're talking about, which is people just keep asking like, where will I be doing this? And I'm like, well, sitting at home or going in your office or, and like, yeah, you're, would set aside this time to possibly do some sort of training or do some sort of tour of a house or the number of different things. I, I just think there could be this combination of both that gets people used to either I'm going to go to this world or I'm going to use these glasses to improve something in my current world, like measuring a kitchen cabinet or shopping or something like that.

• 58:07Nilay Patel?

  But wait, that's a total paradigm shift that you're describing, right? Because the concept of where do I use technology didn't exist until phones. Because previous to that, you had a computer room. You had to decide. Right. The deal is really big on computer.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  I love a computer room.

• 58:22Nilay Patel?

  But like, you had a computer room, you had a living room, you would go to the office to use a computer, you would go to school to use a computer. There were distinct times and places in which you would use technology.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  And that's foreign to people. It doesn't feel right.

• 58:34Nilay Patel?

  But that was 10 years ago. That was just 100% true.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Right. And I think VR is, is literally making people right now look at their home and figure out how to enjoy it.

• 58:44Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  But it, I think that is gonna keep it a relative niche to what mobile phones were able to do, which is be everywhere all the time, always useful.

• 58:54Nilay Patel?

  Do you think anything's gonna come up and be as disruptive as a phone? I mean, if the hype behind Magic Leap turns out to be anywhere near true, they could like realize this vision that Paul's talking about. I think that.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Indoor drones, I don't know if they'll be as disruptive as the, or as, as the phone, but like drones are amazing, but they, like the use cases are like, you know, filming stuff and screwing around outside, but we're starting to see some like quiet, reasonable indoor drones that can run around and do things. And I think that if someone can figure out a mainstream use for that, that's going to be a big change and a big shift.

• 59:28Nilay Patel?

  Oh, so that question, by the way, was a setup for Chris. Cause the obvious answer of what the next disruptive thing is is self-driving cars.

• 59:35Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't think that's the next.

• 59:37Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 59:37Speaker 04

  No, I think that's the disruptive thing, two or three things from now. Like if you go back a hundred years, the big disruptive thing happens every seven to 20 years, right? You have the internet, you have the computer, you have, you could make an argument for the laptop. The ubiquitous laptop is a disruptive thing. Then the phone, then VR.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  iPhone.

• 59:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:58Nilay Patel?

  Then obviously the Android tablet ecosystem.

• 1:00:00Speaker 04

  Of course. And, and I think, um, you know, we're still in the, in the pre iPhone days of both VR and drones where the, the truly magical moment in both of those categories hasn't happened yet.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  I think the Phantom, I, I think the Phantom 4 is a drone.

• 1:00:15Speaker 04

  No, but, but it's still a niche product, right? Like your, your parents are not saying, oh, I gotta have a Phantom 4. Like.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Who, not everyone needs everything. First of all, that's my motto.

• 1:00:25Nilay Patel?

  Don't he had his best friend, the Phantom 4?

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  It's like, not everyone, not, not everyone need everything.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  What are you using drones for?

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  I think drones become disruptive when they start delivering stuff to my house. Like, like juice packs.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, not juice packs, things of actual vegetables to make the juice.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  No, no, drones delivering vegetables is literally this dystopian future.

• 1:00:48Speaker 03

  Fine.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Okay. Just as long as we're clear.

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  But, but I don't, I still don't think, I like drones. They're very fun to watch and play with, but what is the real practical use of drones other than what Paul has just mentioned?

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  I mean, and taking very beautiful video at people's weddings and putting in our own videos. It's very, it's beautiful.

• 1:01:07Nilay Patel?

  I really need to put that ring video on the site, by the way.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:09Nilay Patel?

  Just realized I haven't done that. Um, but don't you feel guilt in your heart about turning your friend's wedding into content?

• 1:01:15Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:01:16Nilay Patel?

  All right, well, do it. That's, anyway.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:19Nilay Patel?

  Thanks, Paul. Uh, see, I knew, I knew there was a reason I had you on the show today.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Um, I think it's more like.

• 1:01:28Nilay Patel?

  If you have a drone in your life, your life is better.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:01:34Nilay Patel?

  Cool. No, that's not it. I think if you have anything in your life that can move around for you,

• 1:01:43Nilay Patel?

  that radically changes like your reach as a person. So right now, the Phantom 4 can fly around, take pictures. But instead of relying on a company to drone things to you, if you can take a drone out in the world and send it somewhere for you, that is a different, totally different value proposition.

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  On a certain.

• 1:02:01Speaker 03

  Why won't we just have Uber do it?

• 1:02:03Nilay Patel?

  What do you mean?

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  But like your presence, if you've got AR or VR, you feel immersed in another world. But that other world could be the thing that the drone is showing you. So if I want to go hang out in San Francisco, I could like log into a drone that's in San Francisco, go have my meeting in the office with like my little flying drone.

• 1:02:25Speaker 04

  There's a Portlandia episode or skit about exactly that.

• 1:02:28Nilay Patel?

  Telepresence robots?

• 1:02:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:30Speaker 04

  Where they they visit a, what concert is it?

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  Why do you need the drone for that?

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Because the drone can get around in physical space.

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  Oh, it's a Flaming Lips. They visit a Flaming Lips concert using a drone.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Get help. Like if you've used the, the like, the iPad on a stick.

• 1:02:42Speaker 03

  Right, right, the iPad, yeah.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  But if you can get a good indoor flying drone that isn't dangerous and isn't loud and is like, and we accept it as not the creepiest thing ever, which we might not.

• 1:02:50Nilay Patel?

  Super the creepiest thing ever.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  So offices have flying drones with people hanging out on them. Okay.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  This is great.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  And because it's AR, like they'll have a little QR code on them and like you'll tell the system, this is Dieter. And like, well, there'll be two drones talking to each other.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  But they'll each, each person looking at it through their VR headset will just see the person.

• 1:03:09Speaker 02

  So for homework.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  Or holograms.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  To think about.

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  For homework, everybody needs.

• 1:03:13Nilay Patel?

  Or holograms.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  God damn it, man.

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  Everybody needs to read.

• 1:03:18Speaker 05

  Mr. Patel, you have something to say?

• 1:03:20Nilay Patel?

  Yes, I'm the host of the show.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  No, Paul is. Paul is making a point and I have to go in five minutes. Can someone drive me a drone?

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  Needs to read Rainbow's End by Verner Venge, which explains the whole augmented reality future. Where one of the really interesting things about that, you mentioned that QR code. You can have consensual realities where where it's like, I've decided that I want to represent myself as this way. And I'm going to be a big fluffy bunny. And other people who want to be part of that reality can see me the way I want to be represented. And you you kind of divide up the same meat space into lots of different realities all at once. And it's insane.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  But why does it have to be augmented reality? Why can't it be virtual reality? Because did you read Ready Player One?

• 1:04:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Speaker 03

  So that's like similar in a way.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  Because Ready Player One is more dystopian to me because like as much as I like the idea of being in like a Matrix style tube with my brain jacked in for the rest of my life. I don't think my mom would like that.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Right. But even but when you're picturing yourself as this fluffy bunny, which you are already.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  Um, why, why do you? What is the purpose of augmented? Like, just the fact that you can see through and that you can see those other objects in the real world?

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm in the real world with all its perks. And yet I'm choosing to see all Coca-Cola ads as ads for um, Slurm or whatever. And is that a thing?

• 1:05:01Speaker 04

  What is Slurm?

• 1:05:03Nilay Patel?

  Slurm?

• 1:05:03Speaker 04

  Tell me more about Slurm.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  I think Slurm's a thing.

• 1:05:06Nilay Patel?

  It's actually the next generation of Pentile displays. Slurm displays.

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  What happened with that?

• 1:05:12Nilay Patel?

  That was just a toss out for the people who have been tweeting me about Pentile displays this entire time.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's from Futurama.

• 1:05:19Nilay Patel?

  By the way, Neelai Patel has always loved Pentile.

• 1:05:22Speaker 03

  I'm gonna read that book. I need to understand a little bit more about.

• 1:05:25Nilay Patel?

  Is the S7 still Pentile?

• 1:05:26Speaker 03

  How we can still live in augmented reality.

• 1:05:28Nilay Patel?

  What does Pentile even mean anymore?

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 1:05:31Nilay Patel?

  Remember when I used to take macro photos?

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  Rainbow's End is great.

• 1:05:34Nilay Patel?

  Look, here's what I know. Here's what I know. Gadgets are back.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Rainbow.

• 1:05:38Nilay Patel?

  This has been the Gadget Podcast. Greetings, Apple accomplishers.

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Like the possessive.

• 1:05:41Nilay Patel?

  Uh, look, here's what I know. Gadgets are back. And they're gonna drive themselves around. They're gonna fly around. They're gonna look like bunnies, apparently, in some sort of AR dystopia. They're gonna make you fucking juice.

• 1:05:51Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:05:52Nilay Patel?

  Because you have no idea how to spend money. Just not.

• 1:05:59Speaker 03

  Well, he does work at AOL still, so he's making some money.

• 1:06:01Nilay Patel?

  He's making, you're gonna spend those AOL Gs. Poor AOL. David Poe got a room in Gadget. That's like, it's just still in my, still in my life. Cause if they buy Yahoo.

• 1:06:12Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:06:13Nilay Patel?

  And Yahoo Tech merges with that, we're gonna stick them.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  That makes sense.

• 1:06:18Nilay Patel?

  Look, here's what I know. Gadget's a back. I'm just gonna keep saying it. I believe it in my heart. Like, the phones are boring. The world around phones, you can't try to make money on the phone. It's really hard to even make a phone app anymore. Right? Do you read, everyone should read Casey Newton's piece, Life and Death in the App Store. It is so hard to launch a new app on, on the iPhone now because the, the space is crowded.

• 1:06:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:42Nilay Patel?

  The App Store policies aren't great.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  I launched the app. I made like 300, 300 bucks.

• 1:06:47Nilay Patel?

  What was your app? Do you know I still have the app on my phone that counts down when you're gonna come back to the internet?

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:06:52Nilay Patel?

  Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Oh, Dan told me the S7 is still pentile. Thanks, Dan.

• 1:06:58Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 1:06:59Nilay Patel?

  That's why, that's why I didn't buy it.

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 1:07:01Nilay Patel?

  Let me open this app.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  It's a great phone.

• 1:07:03Nilay Patel?

  Where is it? Spotlight, garbage. Oh, there it is. Paul, you've been back online for, oh my God, it reset. No. It's over a thousand days. You've been, you've been back online for 17 minutes, 17 hours and.

• 1:07:16Speaker 02

  Over a thousand days.

• 1:07:18Nilay Patel?

  Something over a thousand days. Um, no, I just think the ecosystem of things around gadgets. We didn't talk about wearables once on the show. We didn't talk, how's your Apple Watch?

• 1:07:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:27Nilay Patel?

  You're both wearing them over there.

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  I mean, I just, I haven't bought another watch because this one's so expensive. Like, it tells time. That's cool.

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  That's, I haven't worn mine in like two weeks and the only thing I miss is telling the time.

• 1:07:40Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's wearing a 360.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  Uh, paired to an iPhone.

• 1:07:43Nilay Patel?

  Ooh, that's a move. You know, the Wirecutter today said the 360 is best smartwatch on the market. That's, that is aggressive in my mind.

• 1:07:51Speaker 03

  I actually do think also for the design for, I was wearing the other one and it looks really a lot nicer than the.

• 1:07:57Nilay Patel?

  They say for the market or for? Just in case you want to know what the experience of sitting next to Dieter on the Vergecast is. He just looked at his smartwatch and dismissed a Trello notification. What? Like, super casually. He was like, nope. And then started typing. That's what it's like working at Verge. Anyway, this was a great show. I'm very happy to have worked with all of you in this way for so long. I mean, I still work with most of you, so it's fine.

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  I still work at AOL.

• 1:08:25Nilay Patel?

  That joke is just gonna keep going. Hey Chris, what day is it?

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Friday.

• 1:08:29Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  What? Wish.

• 1:08:33Nilay Patel?

  You're weird.

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  Alright.

• 1:08:34Nilay Patel?

  Everyone's a shit. Hey look, that was a show. We have a million other shows that you can listen to. I have a show with Walt Mossberg, which is, by the way, when we were all leaving Engadget to do this, the idea that years later Walt would work at The Verge and I would host a podcast with him.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  And I would have Walt's old job.

• 1:08:49Nilay Patel?

  And you have Walt's old job! That is fucking bonkers. Just like, everybody just think about that. That is fucking bonkers.

• 1:08:56Speaker 03

  I think about that often.

• 1:08:57Nilay Patel?

  That is weird. And one day you and I are gonna have a podcast.

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  We are.

• 1:09:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:09:03Nilay Patel?

  And you're gonna call me the old man on the podcast.

• 1:09:06Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so Ctrl+Delete, Chris Plant has What's Tech. Emily O'Shea and Liz Lopato have Verge SP, our entertainment sign show. Lauren Good has Too Embarrassed to Ask. There's so many of these. Lauren Good has Too Embarrassed to Ask on the Recode Network. Karis Sosher has Recode Decode. Peter Kafka has Recode Media. Is there one more?

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 1:09:28Nilay Patel?

  Peter Bone has a podcast in his head.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Nilay Patel?

  The Verge Mobile Show is still not back on the air.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  Do not bring up The Verge Mobile Show.

• 1:09:34Nilay Patel?

  It never will.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  If you are on Twitter, please tweet @ZPower about The Verge Mobile Show.

• 1:09:39Speaker 04

  No, @Vlad and Dan, actually.

• 1:09:41Nilay Patel?

  We'll think of something.

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  Um, let's start a podcast.

• 1:09:43Nilay Patel?

  Joanna is at The Wall Street Journal, where she makes a video every week.

• 1:09:46Speaker 04

  Behind a paywall.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  Not behind, not behind a paywall. Not.

• 1:09:52Nilay Patel?

  Those things are cool.

• 1:09:53Speaker 03

  Why aren't they coming out?

• 1:09:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  You gotta flick it.

• 1:09:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  We gotta be impressive.

• 1:09:56Nilay Patel?

  We're gonna celebrate. This is it. It was Vergecast 200. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sticking.

• 1:10:05Nilay Patel?

  Get out. Joanna's done. Joanna's fired. All over again. Thank you for being with us for 200 episodes. Rock and roll.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Paul.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  Rock and roll.

• 1:10:14Nilay Patel?

  Paul.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Paul.

• 1:10:15Nilay Patel?

  Sternburn.