Elon Musk, Red Hydrogen, and Zuckerberg in the EU

Are you driving somewhere for the holiday weekend? Here at _The Verge_ we'd like to encourage you to use a car that's wholly or at least primarily powered by dirty fossil fuels. On this week's episode of _The Vergecast_, Nilay, Natt, Casey, and Paul discuss how we're financially beholden to Big Car, and what to do about it now that Elon Musk has called us out on our bias. We also got a chance to discuss Nilay's insane theory about Apple's dongle suppression campaign, Mark Zuckerberg's wacky trip to the EU, and spoke with unearned confidence about Dieter's hands-on with the Red Hydrogen One. Paul's weekly report on robots that do backflips is, of course, also something that happened. 01:50 - Elon Musk 27:54 - Red Hydrogen One hands-on 32:34 - RIP Essential? 36:37 - BlackBerry KEY2 41:19 - Dongle suppression EXPOSED 47:15 - Paul’s weekly segment “Robot backflip weekly update” 51:08 - GDPR is happening 55:54 - Mark Zuckerberg in the EU 1:03:51 - Casey shamelessly plugs Converge 1:06:35 - What’s happening in the rest of tech 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.

• 0:00Nilay Patel?

  This episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by IBM. By the end of this podcast, nearly 10,000 new malware variants will have launched. That's terrifying, but IBM has AI that can help protect your data from threats wherever it lives with IBM Security. Let's put smart to work. Learn more at IBM.com/smart.

• 0:22Nilay Patel?

  Hello, welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of theverge.com, the Vox Media of your life, the automobile that you're now in.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 0:33Nilay Patel?

  Hi, I'm Eli. I'm going to tell you right now, just to top the show, Dieter's not here. He's off. He's got the co-conference. He's got a little sculci brewing. Dieter's having a ride, so he's not here today. It's real sad, but he'll be back next week. He's going to tell us about all the things happening. But Nak Aaron is here. Hey. Casey Newton is here.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  What's up?

• 0:50Nilay Patel?

  In cross podcast network synergy. Casey, congratulations on the launch of Converge.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 0:57Nilay Patel?

  It finally happened.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  It was really fun.

• 0:59Nilay Patel?

  You really.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. Let's just talk over each other for the entire hour.

• 1:04Nilay Patel?

  It's the heart of The Vergecast. No, congratulations. You really drew it out there.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Thank you. You know, the podcast was in development for so long that I was beginning to routinely receive tweets from people who asked me whether the entire thing was just an elaborate con. And I tried to explain to them that we were fermenting the show like a fine wine so that when we finally uncorked it, it would be rich and buttery and smooth. And indeed, I feel like it was, so.

• 1:32Nilay Patel?

  That's better than what I've been saying, which is Casey started with a pun and we had to backtrack from there into figuring out what the hell was going to happen. But congratulations, my friend.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  I loved it. Thank you for making a podcast.

• 1:43Nilay Patel?

  We'll talk about Converge more in a minute, but Paul Miller, who you hear, is also here. Hello. All right, so we just got to start. I want to say, and this is a crazy thing to say, but just hear me out. I think Elon Musk has had the wildest week of his public life as a billionaire this week. The twists, the turns, the getting Grimes to change her name to the symbol for the speed of light, and then an all out assault in the past two days on the media. Casey, I asked you to help us understand what's going on. So here's the timeline I got. Last week on Thursday or Friday. He, um, it was Friday. He had a press conference for The Boring Company,

• 2:25Nilay Patel?

  which was basically a pep rally. Liz Lopato, our science editor, described it as a pep rally, uh, cause he's gonna build the tunnel under Los Angeles. And he had a party. He promised to give people fame there. That's a high. That's like an Elon Musk high. And then yesterday, he was like literally attacking Verge reporter Andy Hawkins on Twitter, saying he'd lost all credibility. And then like, I was feeding my baby at four in the morning, and I like, I'm like, holding a baby. I'm like, let's see what quiet things are happening on Twitter now.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  And you immediately dropped the baby.

• 2:55Nilay Patel?

  I dropped the baby.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Out of shock.

• 3:00Nilay Patel?

  She was, she was like doing the burps. Anyway, I was like, I'm looking at the phone. Cause she's like, anyway. I promise, I'm doing excellent job of caring for the baby. But I look at the phone, Elon Musk is still tweeting about how much he hates the media. Still goading the media. Casey, how did we go from the high of digging tunnels under the city of Los Angeles to come on media vote in the poll that I'm basing credibility on?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Well, Neelai, it all began yesterday when he linked to an article on a publication called Electrek that featured a note from an analyst named Ben Calo, who said that, quote, "There are increasingly immaterial reports about Tesla that have dominated news cycles." And Musk wrote in response, quote, "The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie is why the public no longer respects them."

• 3:57Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so first of all, I just wanna say, in terms of Elon tweets, that one clearly written by Grimes, because it almost makes an enormous amount of sense and then doesn't. Just like most of Grimes' lyrics.

• 4:12Nilay Patel?

  I'm down to have this conversation, but if we're gonna start shitting on Grimes, I'm walking out the door. No, I'm just saying, that's why the power of her music is like, it's just ambiguous enough.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  So, that's right, and then, uh, our own Andrew J. Hawkins, uh, replied at, uh, at Mr. Musk, calling him a quote "media baiting Trump figure." Uh, Andy said, "Musk continues his slow transformation into a media baiting Trump figure screaming irrationally about fake news. Hope it works out for you, dude!" Exclamation point, and I think Andy may have been being sarcastic there.

• 4:42Nilay Patel?

  If there's one thing you should take away from this conversation, it's just never, ever be sarcastic on Twitter. And if you must be sarcastic on Twitter, then just make a video.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  For me, to be sarcastic on Twitter, I just use a lot of exclamation points. That tends to help. It's like, it's like I'm screaming, but internally.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  I kinda like it when people misunderstand what I'm saying.

• 5:04Nilay Patel?

  Paul Miller, everybody. Alright, so, okay, you, you're just like, everyone just assumes you're sarcastic.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I mean, it's to the point now where I'll say something very sincere and someone assumes it's sarcastic. That's probably bad for me, long-term, uh, but, uh, you know, if, if I decided to stop being sarcastic on Twitter, frankly, I wouldn't have a lot to tweet about, so, um, I don't know, sarcasm is fun to just kind of like, puncture the, the craziness, uh, every once in a while. Um, but anyway, we're, we're sort of getting off track from this war that Andy started.

• 5:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he did start a war.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Because he started a war. So, so after he tweets this thing, the "hope it works out for you, dude," Musk responds with, "Thought you'd say that. Anytime anyone criticizes the media, the media, the media shrieks, 'You're just like Trump. Why do you think he got elected in the first place? Because no one believes you anymore. You lost your credibility a long time ago.'" And then, and then this was probably where it sort of went to absolute crazy town, Musk tweets, "Problem is, journos are under constant pressure to get max clicks..."

• 6:09Nilay Patel?

  Max clicks!

• 6:10Speaker 02

  "...and then advertising dollars, or get fired. Tricky situation, as Tesla doesn't advertise, but fossil fuel companies and gas and diesel car companies are among the world's biggest advertisers." So, the implication here is that, uh, all, all of the media has been dragged into a conspiracy whereby, uh, gas and diesel car manufacturers are, uh, sort of buying us off with ads to make Tesla look bad.

• 6:34Nilay Patel?

  And I, I'm just gonna say, that's 100% true.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Sarcasm.

• 6:41Nilay Patel?

  No, that's okay. There's a lot. There's a lot there. There's a lot there. Just a lot. Here's what I will say, and I think this is, again, I'm, I'm officially back next week. I'm like in the news cycle. I'm just like dropping in and out of this all day. Elon Musk is smarter. If I was to be like, the car industry is hopelessly corrupt. And then I like attacked Elon. He'd be like, no, I'm not the car industry. I don't speak for the car industry. I'm set apart from the car industry. So just, I assume he is aware of this. But I was like, every subway operator in the world is a disaster. He'd be like, well, the Hyperloop is not a subway operator. But I was like, every rocket company is not landing the rockets. SpaceX is landing the rockets, right?

• 7:24Nilay Patel?

  Like, industries are not the same. Most of them are hyper competitive. The media in particular is hyper competitive. So it's like, pretty weird for him to attack one reporter in a way that pains the entire media. Like, that's like, just your first, to me, the baseline problem.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  I read a pretty good take on this from Benedict Evans, who works for Andreessen Horowitz, the venture firm. And his take on this was that Tesla, more so than other companies, is dependent on positive media coverage. And the reason is, is that it's running out of money, right? You go through and you look at the, the past few financial reports from Tesla. This is a company that is burning cash. It can't hit the deadlines that it's hit for itself. And so eventually, it's going to need to go back to the capital markets and raise a bunch of money. And what makes that very difficult is when you have the press that is raising appropriate questions about your ability to do the things that you say you're going to do.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  So Evans' argument was Musk is scared because to him, bad press is actually an existential issue. And so he has the same incentive that Trump does to destroy the, or to impugn the credibility of the media. If he can make you believe that the media never tells the truth about Tesla, maybe he'll be able to raise more money from the capital markets when the time comes.

• 8:43Nilay Patel?

  So I think that's largely true. I think the other problem he has, and he, you know, he said this on the Tesla call the other day. We covered it. He put out the Model 3 and said, this is a $35,000 car. But he hasn't actually shipped any of those, right? He's shipping the more expensive ones. People are getting them. They're happy about them. I see a tweet from a happy Model 3 owner who took delivery like once a day.

• 9:06Nilay Patel?

  But they're way, way more expensive. And he said, I can't ship the cheap ones because if I do that Tesla won't exist anymore. I have to ship the expensive ones at higher margins before I can ship these cheap ones. And he's still in production hell, right? He looks sleeping at the factory every day. He's like very public about this. That combined with the issue Casey is talking about, which is as a business, even if everything was going great, they're still not ready to like run a self sufficient business inside of Tesla. That is like really truly existential. And not for nothing, the press around the Model 3 has not been consistently good either.

• 9:46Nilay Patel?

  So Consumer Reports, which I would say is a mixed bag sometimes.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Problematic.

• 9:54Nilay Patel?

  Are you attacking the media?

• 9:57Nilay Patel?

  They're a competitor. Everyone's wrong but us. Whatever. Consumer Reports tends to oversell it when they don't recommend a product, right? They do it with the iPhone every year six times in a row. They're like, we don't recommend the iPhone. And Apple's like, we solved the one problem with like scroll animations. And consumers like, we now recommend the iPhone. Like this is a constant thing that they do. Anyway, but they-

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, Consumer Reports is a messy bitch that lives for drama. Sorry, go on.

• 10:25Nilay Patel?

  That's why I'm here, Casey. But they, you know, they said there are some breaking issues with the Model 3. There are some build issues with Model 3. When we had our Model 3 review unit, we only had it for a few hours here. And I get a close look at it, but our photographer, James Barham, came back after shooting it. And he was like, hey, did you notice the paint on that car? Like some of the panels are different colors and some of them have that like orange peel, bad paint job quality on them. And this is the review unit they gave us. So like, there's definitely like issues with the Model 3. And if that cycle continues where the people who are the most excited about it now, as they're getting their expensive ones, are unhappy with the car and they're being really public about it, then the whole cycle of Model 3 collapses. So I think there's just a lot of stress on Elon.

• 11:09Nilay Patel?

  And the, the way he can do it is to utterly dismiss any criticism of his company. But that does not explain the behavior, right? Like, that's a weird- I like

• 11:20Speaker 02

  I I

• 11:21Nilay Patel?

  Coldly understand huh go ahead.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  And I mean, this just goes into the realm of just pure speculation about an unknowable other person's mind. But I do have to wonder if Elon has bought the hype a little bit, right? Like, many people pointed out today that almost no one has benefited from positive press more than Elon Musk. Right in the past many years, we have built him up into this figure. We compare him constantly to Iron Man. He's the Rocket Man like we really have sort of held him up as as this beacon of innovation. And certainly he's done many, many impressive things. And I wonder if in his mind, he has sort of ascended to this next level where the, you know, the the concerns of peons in the press no longer apply to him.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  And he should just sort of be able to live his Iron Man life. That's certainly the how he comes off. I hope he doesn't think that. But that has been the impression I've got lately is that, you know, the these concerns that we raise like don't apply to to immortals like him.

• 12:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like Steve Jobs was out there tweeting, right? Like Larry Ellison, for all I know, is like an evil mastermind. Right? He's not out there tweeting, right? Like, he's just launching lawsuit after lawsuit against Google to take down Android. Like, like, I get it. Like, if you want to be that person, you can be that person. But then I think the man of the people that Elon's trying to do on Twitter cuts against him because he's providing this on the same nation. Now, for nothing, neither Tesla or SpaceX can hold on to a PR staff for longer than six months. But he hires professionals to help him with this. And then they literally start drinking and disappear. They're like, we're moving to the woods now. Anyhow, Casey, where do you think this all goes?

• 13:06Nilay Patel?

  Do you think he's going to launch his news? The reason I wanted you to talk about it is because you cover. Social networks and democracy, all the time, every day, on your newsletter, The Interface. And his last threat was, "I'm starting a site to rank news by its core truth, which is choice, for a lot of reasons."

• 13:24Speaker 02

  And track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor, and publication. And he said, maybe jokingly, that he would name the website Pravda, which was, of course, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. So, I don't know how seriously to take this, because it does feel like an elaborate troll. We just put up a piece, which I have not yet had a chance to read, about why this is a bad idea. I think it's going to be very... Ultimately, what you get when you ask people to track the credibility score of a journalist or a publication is you're just going to get something that reflects the belief of whoever's making it, right?

• 14:04Speaker 02

  And, you know, look, I mean, there are some, like, trippy epistemological issues in here of how do you know what you think you know, right? Like, it can get very freshman philosophy real quick when you start asking about, you know, why do you believe what you read in the media, like, which things do you believe in the media and which don't you? But, you know, there are also a lot of hardworking journalists who have a lot of credibility. You take their work very seriously. And by the way, the vast majority of the journalism done about Tesla and all of Elon Musk companies is done in good faith, and it has been the work of great journalists that has exposed, you know, some unsafe working conditions at some of his factories, has shed light on some of the high-profile car accidents that are maybe connected to his autopilot feature.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  So, you know, these are good things. And I think a better CEO, instead of trying to impugn the media, would say, "Hey, we're listening, and we're going to try to fix this stuff." And by the way, as somebody who writes a lot about Facebook, a company that has had even more scandals than Elon Musk has had over the past 18 months, I would say, "Go back and look at how they responded." Initially, they responded very poorly in a lot of ways, but then after they saw they were getting pilloried, instead of saying, "The media is wrong about everything," they went back, they introduced a lot of changes into the way their software works. They held a lot of press conferences. They sent Mark Zuckerberg to do a lot of interviews. It was a much different approach. And if you look at the headlines about Facebook over

• 15:30Speaker 02

  the past month, they're far better than they were for Facebook than the headlines of the previous month. And I think Elon Musk could get to that place, too, but it would require actually listening to his critics and unveiling some changes that might actually address some of their concerns.

• 15:44Nilay Patel?

  So here's like a thought. If you're listening to this, you know, Elon stand, we should talk about the Elon stands because they are out there. But if you're listening to this, you're all raging, you're going to tweet at us, which you can do. That's great. But like, here's the thought experiment about poverty you should do. There was the big Center for Investigative Journalism project story about working dishes at Tesla factories. This is not, by the way, an organization that relies on clicks and fossil fuel advertising, right? They're like a nonprofit investigative journalism operation. But they wrote Elon Musk doesn't like the color yellow. He doesn't like beeping in his factory. They had a bunch of documents and interviews from people who were like, yes, the working conditions of these factories are unsafe. They had a letter from their former safety officer that had

• 16:27Nilay Patel?

  been sent to Elon Musk saying, I know it keeps people up at night and I'm not sleeping right now at Tesla. So this is all, I guess, a lot. Here's, here are the claims. Now, there's no core truth, right, to evaluate there. Like, those are the claims that people working at Tesla are making. Elon is like, hey, there's miles of yellow tape in the factory. Now, you can't evaluate that. Someone has to go in and be like, let's look, is this up to, is this up to the standard? Is there enough? Are the complaints that are being made by these workers accurate? Or is Elon right? Right? And like, actually, there's, there's a middle ground here. You can't possibly evaluate the core truth just by one person

• 17:11Nilay Patel?

  says something and then a richer, more famous person says you're lying.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  I think it's interesting that Elon Musk, I think at this moment in time, definitely has more credibility on the topics of Tesla and SpaceX despite his obvious his obvious interest than the media at large. And so it is kind of a, it doesn't, it doesn't seem very applicable or correct reaction from him. And like Casey points out, you know, he is someone who's enjoyed an incredible amount of positive press in his career. But it is, I do think there is, I do think the media lacks a lot of credibility in the United States especially.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  And it tends to pick fights with people and then kind of keep piling on. And like, I really feel like, for instance, take like the PewDiePie situation. I think that was kind of like a big wake up call for like a lot of younger people to realize that I love PewDiePie. I'm a fan of PewDiePie. I enjoy his content. I agree with him morally and ethically because he's basically my guru of life, right? Now the Wall Street Journal is going to come after him by like calling up advertisers and basically break YouTube.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Who am I going to side with? Right. Am I going to side with the scold or am I going to side with PewDiePie, my hero? And so I think the media, for good or for bad, has had a lot of those moments over the past few years and is not trusted. And obviously, obviously making a Pravda credibility rating site is not the way to fix any of this. But it's like, it's broken, doing that is broken conceptually. There's a reason why it's a powerful accusation saying you're part of the corrupt media.

• 19:23Nilay Patel?

  I think there's a whole thing happening here, right? There's, there's an entire world of culture on the internet that exists that has never faced the scrutiny of other people who make culture and products. Right? So PewDiePie lived in a bubble with his fans. The bubble is ever-expanding. The size of that bubble suddenly hit the limit where the people who generally criticize that culture and hold people to account start taking notice of it. And that was just a new experience for everyone. But if, I don't know, a Fox sitcom was out there making Nazi jokes, which is what PewDiePie was doing, we would instantly and immediately hold them to account in that way. And that is like, the big problem. Elon does not live in that world. Elon is a fucking billionaire.

• 20:07Nilay Patel?

  He's always been held to that level of account. This is just, that's what he does. People, people, their livelihoods depend on him in a huge way. Like, lots and lots and lots of people.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:18Nilay Patel?

  Our global, like, communications infrastructure depends on SpaceX launching their rockets and touching them down again, right? Like, the amount of reliance we have on him is not as an entertainer, is not as a guru, is not as a lifestyle coach. Like, he is a captain of industry. So like, the comparison there like falls apart a little bit. Because PewDiePie can rail about the media, but he is the media.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  I don't think it's a fair turnabout for, for Elon Musk to go after the media's general unpopularity to bolster his own

• 20:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  flagging popularity. But I will say-

• 20:53Nilay Patel?

  Elon Musk fucks up and people in his factories lose their arms. Like, that's like, PewDiePie fucks up and like-

• 20:58Speaker 01

  The press fucks up and people learn lies.

• 21:01Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  And I, I am see, I definitely in, in this scenario, I'm seeing a lot of people in the media who say, "We want to be able to criticize people. We are the people who are keeping people safe from Elon Duke fucking up." And then if the media is attacked in a general sense, and it might not be fair, the media is like, "Oh, well, we gotta have, protect our free speech." Like, the media seems to really not react to criticism very well.

• 21:28Nilay Patel?

  But I think this is the core problem, right? Like, you can't look at it as a unified block. Like, the car industry does not react to criticism well. It's not a sentence that you would say in the way that you are currently saying it about the media.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  We complain about like, um- We complain about ecosystems, like the technology industry likes to create these ecosystem lock-ins and these walled gardens and beautiful handcuffs and stuff like that.

• 21:54Nilay Patel?

  Because I can pull that apart.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  And we're not saying we hate technology. We love technology, which is why we're criticizing.

• 22:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. The media is fiercely competitive and they have some of the same incentives and they do some of the same things, but you can't paint us all with the same brush. It just like doesn't make sense the way that we don't paint Apple and Google and Facebook all with the same brush every time we talk about the tech industry. Particularly on this show, which, go ahead.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  And that's why it's such an effective criticism, right? Because there's only one Elon Musk, but if he criticizes the media, then folks like us have to spend 30 minutes weighing, well, is the media good or bad? When the answer is, well, there's some good journalists and some bad journalists and there's some fair stories and some unfair stories, right? And I think most fair-minded people can see that, but it's become so easy for people like Musk and yes, like Trump to say, ah, the media is so unfair and then, you know, go find some example of unfairness in the media. And then that becomes the discussion instead of their, you know, corruption or their unsafe working conditions or whatever the problem might be. So, you know, of course, the media is rife with problems and it will

• 23:01Speaker 02

  always deserve scrutiny and it will always mess up. But man, if we get to a place where the media is seen as just another tribe and you have to decide whether you're with the media or you're with, you know, whoever the demagogue of the day is, then we're just in real deep trouble.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Don't you think that's where we already are?

• 23:18Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  It already feels like the media is a tribe.

• 23:22Nilay Patel?

  Look, I'm more hopeful. Like I go home every day, there's like new life in my house. I'm like, she's gonna, we're gonna make a better world for her. I just think people want Elon to succeed. Like that's actually the core of it. Right? There are, there are not.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  And so does the media, by the way.

• 23:35Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Like when his pockets go up and come down, it's good for us.

• 23:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we just made a video with him. Like Lauren just shot a video with him and Swayz. Like, we're not out to get him, we're just.

• 23:45Nilay Patel?

  It's the same as anything. He makes a bunch of claims and we're like, hey, is that, we're gonna check your work. And right now, the, I think the claim that he's reacting to the most is, are you gonna ship the Model 3 on time? And that's just hard. Like, I don't know if the answer is yes. I don't know if he knows the answer is yes. And he's in a relationship with a girl who just changed his name, changed her name to Speed of Light, because she's so into him. That's a lot to deal with. That's a lot. He's sleeping at the factory. He's in a new, new love is blooming. He's stressed. Maybe don't tweet at that time.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Well, he did end the rant yesterday with, I'm having the best week. Like, this is a great moment for me, so.

• 24:23Nilay Patel?

  That's like a true sign.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  That's like a cry for help. That is like a cry for help.

• 24:29Nilay Patel?

  Like, if you are in a Twitter war with thousands of people who are like, fuck you, and you're like, I'm having the time of my life.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  Well, no, not, I think more people were saying, you're awesome than the other, but yes, go on.

• 24:39Nilay Patel?

  He's trying to take down a sign. I mean, like, I just think this whole, Paul, I take your point, like, a little bit. Right? Like, it is, there's a, there's a counter narrative about Elon that is forming. It's great. It's out there. But there's an ice cold story to write about the Model 3. There's an ice cold story to write about the conditions in that factory. There's an ice cold story to write about the future of Tesla as a company. And if he actually wants that coverage to be fair, what he needs to do, what every CEO of every company needs to do, is participate in those stories to make them fair.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  And just to be clear, I wasn't saying that Elon wasn't deflecting. I'm saying he is absolutely deflecting. And this is why it is a powerful way to deflect right now.

• 25:20Nilay Patel?

  All right. Well, I'm gonna deflect us to this ad for the Dollar Shave Club. And then we're gonna talk about BlackBerry phones.

• 25:29Nilay Patel?

  All right. This episode of The Vergecast is brought to us by the Dollar Shave Club, which delivers everything you need to look, feel, and smell your best. Dollar Shave Club has everything you need to get ready in the bathroom. That's a sentence. Any particular product that you have fallen in love with outside of the razor and?

• 25:42Speaker 01

  They, okay, here, let, let me lay this out for you, Eli.

• 25:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  They want you people to come away with knowing that this is a full bathroom experience. Razors is just like a part of the package. It's not the key ingredient anymore.

• 25:56Nilay Patel?

  See, you did a good job. You did better than me. Dollar Shave Club, yes, that Dollar Shave Club delivers everything you need to look, feel, and smell your best. You name it, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toothpaste, hair gel, even a wipe that will leave your bottom feeling tingly clean. I see your sample. They've got amber and lavender calming body cleanser. You've never smelled anything like it. Good luck finding a product that great at the store. Get brick and mortar sick of pants. That's a lot. All of Dollar Shave Club's products made from house shelf ingredients. They won't break your budget. You will feel the difference. Plus, shipping is included with your membership. And it's a great way to try a bunch of their products for just five bucks. You can get their daily essential starter kit. It comes with body cleanser, one wipe Charlie's, the butt wipes that we mentioned previously. The world famous shave butter and their best razor, the six blade executive.

• 26:40Nilay Patel?

  Keep the blades coming for a few more bucks a month. Add in shampoo, toothpaste, or anything else you need for the bathroom. Check it all out at DollarShaveClub.com/verge. That is DollarShaveClub.com/verge.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Stores.

• 26:53Nilay Patel?

  Stupid stores.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  It's a very scary feeling of you being that added and looking straight at Paul's face.

• 26:59Nilay Patel?

  I like to threaten Paul during the ad reads. I've been doing it for a long time.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  He's like lavender wipe Paul.

• 27:07Nilay Patel?

  See, I'm trying to. We're product reviewers, right? It's fundamentally weird for me to read these ads.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's always been a tension with us.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm not saying that none of that is weird. It's weird when you talk about butt wipes to Paul, like very angrily.

• 27:22Nilay Patel?

  Never gotten a butt wipe like this. No, I listened to Vox Media's great podcast, "Said Explained." Uh, and they're, they do the ads and they get to just like be in the ads.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:31Nilay Patel?

  Cause they're like reporting on politics and like they're not reviewing products. They're certainly not recommending products in the content of a thing, which is a thing we do all the time.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  I feel like when you read, you look at me, it's like, I dare you to, to accuse me of recommending this in a professional journalistic capacity.

• 27:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, or I'm just trying to gin myself up into like having a little emotions. That's not totally fine. Anyway, speaking of products, uh, Dieter's not here, but I want to talk about the red hydrogen one. Dieter went to an event, I think it was in LA, Nat?

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Hollywood.

• 28:02Nilay Patel?

  Hollywood, Hollywood, where red is. Um, got to play with the phone. Weirdly, they would not let us film the screen.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  Yes, it's to do with the display. Yeah, I'm told it's because it, the display just doesn't translate well on camera is what their excuses. We don't actually know what the problem is, but that is why they did not want him to.

• 28:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so tell us about the phone, Nat.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  I mean, it's, it plays on the same idea as a bunch of other modular phones. Like, we've seen it from Essential, we've seen a bunch of Moto phones with mods. So this is Red's version, and it's going to have, like, an insanely expensive camera that you can attach it to, and the phone itself is also insanely expensive.

• 28:39Nilay Patel?

  Twelve hundred dollars!

• 28:40Speaker 03

  It's insane, yeah, it's a lot. So yeah, like, the idea is just like, this is a crazy modular phone that you can shoot, like, insane videos with, and then you can use it to, like, see your insane 3D display.

• 28:54Nilay Patel?

  It's two cameras on the front?

• 28:56Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 28:57Nilay Patel?

  And you can, like, video chat with holograms?

• 28:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like, it's this holo-chat thing where, yeah, you have this special screen where you can theoretically FaceTime somebody in, like, a 3D effect. It's very weird.

• 29:09Nilay Patel?

  So Dieter couldn't show the screen?

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:12Nilay Patel?

  But if you watch the video, to convey the idea that it's in 3D, there's just a lot of shots of him, like, going around the screen. He's like, "Look, I'm looking at all the sides!" It's great.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  He says it doesn't pop out of the screen, but that there's a depth to the screen, and it's not just like a simple, lenticular, like, two angles. It seems like there's more than two angles.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  But it wasn't, but it also wasn't really the selling point of the phone. He said it was cool, but it wasn't like, "Oh my god, you have to get this phone because the screen is so cool." He was just like, "It's, sure, it's neat, but like, meh."

• 29:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, so, we, I don't know, we know a bunch of YouTubers, we go to a lot of events. At every event, people have built entire camera rigs around an iPhone. Right? Like, they've got a mic mounted, actually, Dieter has built an entire camera rig off an iPhone. He's got a mic mounted on it, they've got custom lenses, it's on a gimbal. If you're Red and you're seeing that slowly creep towards you, and really the thing you want to do is get all the YouTubers to, like, buy a Red weapon, or whatever Marquez has. I'm very jealous of his camera.

• 30:16Nilay Patel?

  Why wouldn't you build the camera that's like, the phone that's the starting point for all of those people? Right? So you can be like, "Buy this phone, it's the best phone to begin as a filmmaker." It's your phone, it's the most expensive purchase you're making anyway. Buy the one with the best camera, and we'll build you a modular ecosystem of cool Red stuff to put all around it.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  That's because the OS is still not...

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Apple.

• 30:41Nilay Patel?

  But they can't get it, right?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  For me, the ideal situation is you make films, you need a good LCD for using with your red camera. Might as well spend a little bit extra and get this red phone as your like monitor for for filming. Right? Because you could also just use it as a standalone phone. But you're not going to use it typically as your monitor. For a 3D, you know, most people aren't filming three in 3D.

• 31:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that ship has sailed.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:13Nilay Patel?

  I just want to be clear.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  The 3D hype, what was the end of it? The when The Hobbit? Was The Hobbit?

• 31:19Nilay Patel?

  The Hobbit was in 240 and that looked horrible. Remember, we had a whole story about it.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  It was like, it was a different frame rate, but also 3D.

• 31:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  But I felt like that was like, for me, that felt like the end of like, okay, we're not allowed to experiment with this.

• 31:31Nilay Patel?

  Peter Jackson, you're done now.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  People hate experimentation. They want to watch everything in 24 frames per second.

• 31:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  And if you make it big in 70 millimeter, they'll like that too. But don't screw with 3D or frame rates.

• 31:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  And so I don't know why they, I mean, I guess it's fun. It's fun to experiment with like weird 3D technology and I'm sure it will be like really impressive. But as far as a useful tool to filmmakers, 3D.

• 31:59Nilay Patel?

  But I don't think that's something, I don't think they're, I mean, they have a distribution problem, right? Like you can film in 3D, but then what the hell, unless you have a red phone, you're not going to watch it. I think it's, they made a neat display because they had the opportunity to make a neat display. But I think the fundamental selling point of the phone is we're gonna, you're gonna build this ecosystem of red stuff around it. So that when you roll into, you know, your YouTube event as a YouTuber. Instead of having the iPhone and getting both all the shit around it, you're gonna have a red camera and I can both all the shit around it. And you'll still be shooting in regular 2D 4K.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  That to me is what I read.

• 32:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Okay, so as we've been recording this podcast, we had some breaking news, which is that Andy Rubin is apparently putting Essential up for sale.

• 32:41Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  And they're not gonna make the Essential phone two.

• 32:43Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 32:44Speaker 02

  So, yeah. So, one, that's a big deal.

• 32:48Nilay Patel?

  That's a huge deal.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  It seems incredibly relevant in the context of this conversation about the Red phone. Because Essential had the same idea, right? Which is, we're gonna create a family of products, and the smartphone is gonna be at the center of those, and so we're gonna invest a lot in a really good phone, and then that is going to inspire you to buy all of these other products. They raised $300 million to do that, and they had the father of Android as their CEO, and they got nowhere with it.

• 33:18Nilay Patel?

  Nowhere.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  So, I take a look at something like the Red, this phone, I think it looks beautiful. It actually looks like an old cassette tape. Like, I think it looks badass. And they're selling it at a crazy high price point, and I just can't imagine that they're gonna sell more than 100 of them. Like, I don't know who these outsiders are who are making these phones, thinking that anybody wants anything other than an iPhone or a normal Android phone.

• 33:39Nilay Patel?

  So, okay, let me distinguish these two things. I'm gonna try. I agree with you, because ultimately, the story of the Vergecast is the story of Android phones failing. It's true. That's what we've been covering, the life and death of Android phones. Some of them, two of them are successful.

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  The Galaxy, well, two categories. Samsung's phones, and then everything that's happening in India, in China, right? And then everything in that middle zone in America tends to flame out. But, here's how I would distinguish these things.

• 34:12Nilay Patel?

  Red is not trying to be a mainstream consumer company. They have no pretension of that. They're not making point-and-shoot cameras or whatever. They're this high-end creative, creator company. So, they just serve that audience. And, you know, sales of their high-end film cameras subsidize their like phone dalliance. They've still got like a great business going. Essential, if you remember, launched the Code Conference last year. This is great timing because the Code Conference is next week. Uh, so it's like one year to the day that this thing like failed. Um, they launched with, "The phone is our first product, but really we're making something called Ambient OS, and we're going to put an Alexa-like device in your house that will somehow link every other device

• 34:55Nilay Patel?

  in the world together, and you'll just like wander through life, speaking to Andy Rubin, who will then turn on your lights for you. And we just need to make a phone because that's the first step. And if we don't have the phone, then we can't build this OS that goes everywhere with you." So their promise was like, it was a mainstream, "We're going to build another Sony curve." And they couldn't even get the phone off the ground. I think Red's promise is more like, "People love us, they already buy our super high-end expensive things." Having this like beautiful giant phone, it'll just be another status symbol that we can sell. And hopefully, this generation of kids that wants to be YouTubers will buy this phone instead of a Samsung.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  I also just don't think that this phone, as expensive as it is, if you had the money to buy a Red device in the first place, it's not going to be your primary phone. Like, this is clearly like a gadget that YouTubers or bloggers are going to play with or take with them when they're on shoots. I don't think that it's going to replace their iPhone. I think it's just like a thing that they're going to shoot with that just happens to be a little more portable.

• 35:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I really want one.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just feel, I just feel like Red's, Red's core competency has been, "Oh, you want, we know what you want, we will be the company that builds it for you." Sony and Canon won't build that camera that you actually want. We'll build it, it will cost a lot of money.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and like iPhone can make a phone with a really good camera, but it's not going to be at this capacity and it's not going to work with a bunch of other, other stuff.

• 36:21Nilay Patel?

  It doesn't also look like you can bolt it onto the back of a Jeep Wrangler and it will survive.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  It really does look like you can run over it with a car and it's gonna live.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  I just feel like they're differentiating themselves with something that their core, very loyal market doesn't want. But we'll see.

• 36:37Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. Being a core loyal market.

• 36:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, doing that.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  BlackBerry.

• 36:43Nilay Patel?

  Still alive.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  With a new phone. Oh, man.

• 36:46Nilay Patel?

  What's it called?

• 36:46Speaker 03

  It's called the Key 2 because.

• 36:48Nilay Patel?

  Why is it called that?

• 36:49Speaker 03

  Because the one before it was called Key 1. Originality.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Key 2, still got keys.

• 36:56Nilay Patel?

  Remember those? Uh, what's going on with this? They have dual cameras.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  Um, well, it's a teaser, but it's basically, yeah, like, it's pretty much all but confirmed that there is a new BlackBerry phone. It's running Android. It's got a keyboard, of course. Um, it has dual cameras and it's got, uh, BlackBerry is now two divisions. There's the mobile division that sells the hardware and then there's the software division that sells their like security, like software stuff.

• 37:22Nilay Patel?

  A strategy that worked great for Palm.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Deers not here. Um, anyway, so this phone will have the BlackBerry software stuff pre-installed and yeah. It's very strange. Uh, we, I, I mean, like, the last time BlackBerry came out with the phone, the key one, the senior members of the team were like, this phone was a success. And then news came out that was like, BlackBerry sold 850,000 units all of 2017. We don't know how many of those were key ones.

• 37:51Nilay Patel?

  Should put vending machines in Acela stations between New York and DC. Those are the only people who are buying these phones, as near as I can tell.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  And to be fair, the phone was quite well reviewed. Like Dan Seifert reviewed it and he was like, you know what? Like this is an enterprise phone. I tried it. I totally understand why people like it. Their, the keyboard makes it so much easier to function and work and concentrate because I'm not out on Twitter putting like emojis everywhere. I'm answering emails. So it makes sense. Like this is a phone that was created for a very targeted audience that works for them, but it didn't sell a lot of them because people want. Their personal phones to also be easy to use.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Like i- i- is there a world?

• 38:32Speaker 03

  To be, um, I think compared, I believe the last report we had was like Nokia in. Quarter four of 2017 sold like 4.4 million phones. So, you know, in comparison, that it's very abysmal.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  But you see, you're not taking over the world, but Android's not going anywhere as operating system. And it makes sense that there is at least one Android phone with a physical keyboard.

• 38:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  And if the market is for that is 850,000 people a year want to buy a phone with a physical keyboard. Is that a sustainable business or is it too much?

• 39:07Nilay Patel?

  It should. It is. It should be. There's actually a lot of hardware differentiation happening with Android right now. Right? So there's the, um, the red phone that we just talked about. There's the key two. This doesn't sound like I'm talking about a success story.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  The Vivo.

• 39:23Nilay Patel?

  The Vivo with the pop up camera and the full screen. The U11, you can like squeeze it and it will do something. I don't know if that's good or bad, but like there's a lot of that like happening.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  U12 plus, you can squeeze it. It'll do something.

• 39:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Again.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Please, please stop talking.

• 39:39Nilay Patel?

  Remember the U11 that you could squeeze? The U12 is here. You can also squeeze it.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Still squeezing.

• 39:45Nilay Patel?

  U12 still squeezing. HCC, give me a call. I got, I got one for you. HCC, by the way, is making a Bitcoin phone. We talked about that last week.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 39:54Nilay Patel?

  So I'm just putting that out there again as differentiation.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  That's a better idea than this one. Let me tell you what I don't like about the new BlackBerry phone. It is a distraction from their now core business of just being a patent troll.

• 40:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Like this was the smartest thing BlackBerry did was just like give up on the idea of making things. And just hiring a bunch of lawyers to go sue better companies to try to penalize them for innovating. Based on like old BlackBerry designs that they never could have executed. That's what BlackBerry should focus on.

• 40:25Nilay Patel?

  See, the world needs villains. I'm just putting it out there.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 40:29Nilay Patel?

  Like what is, what is Batman without the Joker?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 40:33Nilay Patel?

  He's just a guy. He's just a very confused young man. All right, uh, I want to talk about dongles.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:42Nilay Patel?

  Cause there's this Apple thing about the iPhone 6, but whatever.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Ben Gate?

• 40:46Nilay Patel?

  Ben Gate. I'm not gonna relitigate Ben Gate. But I'm gonna relitigate dongles every day for the rest of my life.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:52Nilay Patel?

  So, I'm gonna paint a conspiracy theory for you. I want all of you to tell me if you think I sound like a loon.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:00Nilay Patel?

  And if I should dig up whether this is true, or, uh, wait, if I sound like a loon, should drop it? Or whether I'm making sense and I should dedicate my life to uncovering this conspiracy?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:11Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  You know what? Actually, I'm gonna keep my remarks to myself and I'll submit them to Elon Musk's news site.

• 41:19Nilay Patel?

  All right. A Belkin just put out a $30 cable that goes to Lightning 3.5. If you own Beats headphones, this is the cable you have needed the whole time. Right? Without a dongle, you can just plug your Beats headphones owned by Apple into your, your phone. Uh, my Sony headphones, this is the cable I've always needed.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Just to be clear, cause I know it can be confusing sometimes. We're talking about the, the male jack.

• 41:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  The 3.5 millimeter jack that goes into

• 41:49Nilay Patel?

  Into the headphones.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Physical part of the, if this is not adapting to your headphone cable, this becomes your headphone.

• 41:56Nilay Patel?

  This becomes your headphone. This is the one that the Beats owners have wanted the whole time. This is one Sony owners have wanted the whole time, because they don't, whatever. Uh, lots of people with cars that still plug in the aux in. This is the cable they've always wanted, right? You, you need a dongle. The iPhone 7 came out 18 months ago. Big, you know, Phil Schiller moment, courage. Before he talked about wireless, before they introduced AirPods, they're like, Lightning Audio is great. Here's some great Lightning Audio devices. It has taken 18 months plus for the cable that makes Apple's own expensive headphones simpler to work with, to appear. For this reason, Apple didn't allow people to make it before.

• 42:37Nilay Patel?

  As near as we can tell, because Apple licenses all the products that use Lightning Audio with the made-for-iPhone iPod MFI program. And they finally let people make it. I submit to you, sir. Oh, and there's also no, I think there's but one battery case for the iPhone X, Eight, Seven that has a headphone jack in it, which is insane to me. Because I think a lot of people would have bought that if it came out. I submit to you, Apple has not allowed these products to exist in order to drive people towards wireless. And the best wireless products you can buy are Apple's unwireless products. Am I a loon? Or should I dedicate my life to this conspiracy theory?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Well, Master and Dynamics made one of these cables in April. It was like seventy bucks.

• 43:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:27Nilay Patel?

  Paul's really thinking about it.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 43:30Nilay Patel?

  April, by the way, was, uh, last month. It's not quite. Just a reminder, it is currently May.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  If Apple was gonna suppress the cables that we all need.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  That just seems like a lot of work.

• 43:51Nilay Patel?

  Why? They're not making anything.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  A lot of work to prop up.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  You know, whereas I think just the inconvenience and questionable utility is enough of an explanation of why.

• 44:07Nilay Patel?

  If you're at Belkin, all they do is make cables.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  True.

• 44:11Nilay Patel?

  They don't make any other product. You think the people at Belkin, chief cable inventor? Her name is Laura. She's out there. She's like coming to work every day. She's like, I got a great idea for a cable. You think she just forgot about this one? I don't know if her name is Laura.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Cable brainstorming meetings at Belkin?

• 44:27Nilay Patel?

  Huh? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Cable brainstorming meetings at Belkin where they're just like, what? Cable doesn't exist that we can make?

• 44:33Nilay Patel?

  If you.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  I'd like to visit one and write a story about it.

• 44:37Nilay Patel?

  Well, Dr. Belkin, if you're listening to this.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Frank Belkin.

• 44:42Nilay Patel?

  It's clear we don't know enough about Belkin. But if you are one of these accessory companies, this is your whole job.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  This is a great conspiracy theory. I love it. Apple made life suck for people to promote. Wait, what was it?

• 44:54Nilay Patel?

  To drive adoption of wireless.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Like V-Tacs and AirPods?

• 44:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, wireless in general.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Wireless in general.

• 45:00Nilay Patel?

  So like, if the iPhone 7 came out and then everyone bought a head, a battery case, a headphone jack, no one would have bought any wireless headphones.

• 45:07Nilay Patel?

  But they didn't let those exist, so everyone lived the dongle life. And I'm looking at you, buddy. Mister, I had a dongle permanently attached to your phone for a year.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Conspiracy or not, I have been thoroughly defeated by Apple. Apple, Apple showed up and said, here's what we're gonna do. And I was like, oh, good dongles. And I was wrong.

• 45:29Nilay Patel?

  Nat, am I a loon?

• 45:30Speaker 03

  No, I don't think so. I mean, it doesn't ever surprise me ever that Apple makes life hard for people. And for the purpose of making you buy more stuff. No, like that, none of that surprises me.

• 45:44Nilay Patel?

  Mister Newton?

• 45:47Speaker 02

  This is like an Occam's razor situation. I just don't know what the simplest explanation is.

• 45:53Nilay Patel?

  And I'm saying worldwide conspiracy.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Right. And, you know, also, like, I don't remember the name of the principle, but it's like never, you know, ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. And it sort of feels like maybe that is at play somewhere in here.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Casey's a lot nicer.

• 46:14Nilay Patel?

  Two for, one against. If you think that I should dedicate my life to uncovering this conspiracy, please tweet at Paul. He's at FuturePaul. All right, I'm gonna read one more ad. We got a little bit more show for you. And then we're just gonna promote Casey's show for, I don't know, another hour or so.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  Now we're talking.

• 46:33Nilay Patel?

  There we go. All right.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  This is what people came here for.

• 46:38Nilay Patel?

  This episode of Vercaast is brought to you by IBM. By 2050, the world population will reach nearly 10 billion and food production will need to grow by 70%. What if artificial intelligence could help? Farmers are using it to help increase crop yields. Watson and the IBM Cloud provide access to weather data and analyze satellite imagery to help them monitor soil moisture levels and reduce water waste. So as the population grows, more food can be put on tables. Let's put smart to work. Find out how at ibm.com/smart.

• 47:06Nilay Patel?

  Paul.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  I will.

• 47:09Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna start threatening you in every ad now. All right, Mr. Miller. Every week, my friend, a segment occurs.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  It's the weekly robot backflip update. We have a new backflipping robot. I think we're up to two. Please correct me if I'm wrong, and there are more robots that backflip. But Disney is working on Stick Man, which is a... Imagine an acrobat that's a robot, but they only have like... It's like a human divided by two. Like one leg. Like, I feel like, I feel like one of the C.S. Lewis, like, one of the Narnia stories, there's like people that just had like one big leg. Anyways, it's one-leg robot that jackknifes in the air and does a backflip and like lands on pads. It's like, it's like truly acrobat.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  It's like swinging, swinging through, through the trapeze.

• 48:05Nilay Patel?

  Whoa.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  It's like, I don't know. Anyways, I don't know why, I mean, to be honest, I would definitely go to a robot circus.

• 48:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Right?

• 48:15Nilay Patel?

  I feel like this segment went somewhere that you were not quite anticipating.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  I was just really excited about more robot backflips. It's just really impressive. I just watch these.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  I mean, to be fair, the last time I went to like an acrobatic show was in China where I was feeling very bad because the, most of the gymnasts and acrobats were probably like underpaid children. So this is probably an area where a robot could totally...

• 48:40Speaker 01

  I don't wanna put children out of work, but...

• 48:44Nilay Patel?

  But do you wanna put children to work? Where do you fall on that one, Paul?

• 48:49Speaker 01

  I think everyone should have the right to work if they want to.

• 48:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, including robot.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  I mowed lawns when I was a kid.

• 48:54Nilay Patel?

  That's true.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  But if the kid doesn't want to do backflips for my entertainment, I'm saying I'm willing. To watch a robot.

• 49:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Manufactured by children, probably.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Do backflips for me.

• 49:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  No, I think it would be fun to watch acrobat- acrobatics without the danger. I want to be impressed by tech- by physical feats without the fear of death. And I feel like a lot of people think that what's cool about acrobatics is that fear that someone's gonna die.

• 49:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Like watching, you know, race cars. But I think it's just the, the technical achievement.

• 49:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, but people still cringe when I see a phone drop or like a robot falling over and they're like, aww. They still feel the same way about like robots that kind of look human like.

• 49:37Nilay Patel?

  Again, I think we started with a robot that can jump and we've really landed on the essential appeal of death.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  I'm saying it's not appealing to me.

• 49:45Nilay Patel?

  I know. And I-

• 49:47Speaker 01

  And I think now you are right. We do impute thi- but thi- that might be a good time for us to work through these emotions that we ascribe to inanimate objects.

• 49:55Nilay Patel?

  I will say that is the best pitch for a surface, uh, for a surface. The best pitch for a circus that I've heard in some time.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Circus pro?

• 50:01Nilay Patel?

  Come work through your feelings about the, the entertainment value of death while you watch these robot. You have to like fill out a comment card at the end. You're like, this was great. I wasn't afraid anything was going to die. It's horrible.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Empathy rating?

• 50:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Empathy Circus.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Empathy Circus. Thank you.

• 50:19Nilay Patel?

  Dot com. That's when you start up. I don't really know what it does, but I, I think there's a circus involved. All right, Casey, I want to ask you about two things. Three things. Uh, well, four things. One of them is your podcast, but we'll do that at the very end. Uh, GDPR happens tomorrow.

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Technically, it, it happens 90 minutes from now, uh, because of Greenwich Mean Time. 90 minutes from the time of our recording.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  People are freaking out.

• 50:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, by the time you listen to this, it will have happened.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Hmm. Yes.

• 50:50Nilay Patel?

  Done and done. I've noticed too, and Mark Zuckerberg was in front of the European Parliament this week, that went medium, the format was completely insane. So I want to talk to you about that. And then I want to talk about Trump being ruled unconstitutional block. Trump, it's being ruled unconstitutional for Trump's block people on critics. So let's start with GDPR. You've been covering Facebook, democracy, privacy, all this stuff for some time. Is this like the bomb going off that people think it is? Is it just a bunch of emails that are getting filtered and ignored? What's your read on it?

• 51:25Speaker 02

  It's sort of both of those things. You know, I've read every take about GDPR and they cover every possible opinion. I'll start by saying where I think it is good. It creates the expectation for all companies that if they are going to use your data, they should use it in a way that you have given your express consent to. And then afterwards, you as a consumer should be able to ask that company for your data and to see what data they have stored with you. I think most people would say those are pretty reasonable things

• 52:05Speaker 02

  to ask. Now, the implementation gets tricky. The enforcement is tricky. It will be imperfectly implemented and enforced. But companies really have been scrambling to make themselves ready for it. And we are just going to sort of have to wait and see how it shakes out. There are potentially bad consequences to what is being done. Something that a lot of people say is that it will make it harder for startups to get started because there will be this sort of onerous new regulatory regime they have to comply with that favors big incumbents like Facebook and Google who are already printing money and can afford

• 52:50Speaker 02

  all of the lawyers in the world. But I don't know, this is one where I'm just not inclined to be a nihilist and say, ah, it's a bad regulation. I think that, again, creating that expectation that companies should only use data in ways that they have told you they are going to use it is a good thing. And, you know, let's give it a chance and adjust.

• 53:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I think that the wave of we need to regulate Facebook coverage that turned today into we're getting all these emails and they're annoying. Because of a regulation that took place is like that whipsaw to me is hilarious. Like, this is the thing that people want, right? If you're gonna regulate Facebook, they will have to adjust their policies and communicate them to you. And then everyone else in a similar situation will have to do the same thing.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Right. They, I think, I think we ended up in this, this scenario because people don't want to think about it.

• 53:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I was just.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  They don't want their data to be used poorly. And they also do not want to think about it at all, like, when they're giving it away.

• 53:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but you've got, like, yeah, take some responsibility for yourself. Joe, I was talking to Joanna.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Bank, data banks, maybe you missed that episode.

• 54:05Nilay Patel?

  I probably missed that episode.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  It's like a bank for your data.

• 54:08Nilay Patel?

  And the bank takes care of you? Nothing can go wrong.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:12Nilay Patel?

  Uh, no, I was talking to, uh, our friend Joanna Stern, the Wall Street Journal, um, and she made an incredible video that everyone should watch where she literally printed out all of the new privacy policies for a bunch of services. Altogether, they were the length of a football field. And to illustrate this point, she rented a football field and unrolled them across a football field.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  Was it like thirty services?

• 54:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Made a football field worth it.

• 54:33Nilay Patel?

  It's just like an incredible visual stunt. But then she actually like breaks them down. She's like, all these updates happen in certain categories. And what she was saying was, there's something really deep here. And what I can tell is no one cares as much as I do. And I think that is like fundamentally the problem. Okay, so you're looking expectantly at this, at the screen.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I, I don't know, man. I, you know, on one hand, for everything that I just said, it still feels ridiculous that you think about how many emails you've gotten about GDPR. Many of them don't say they're about GDPR, right? But I think most of us who sign up for internet services in our lives have received what feels like an insane number of emails from people. You know, I myself have probably gotten more than forty emails. And they all say the same thing, which is, you know, please review the changes to our privacy policy. And you start adding that up, and it really does become an unreasonable expectation. You know. Most people simply can't set aside hours out of their week to understand the implications

• 55:35Speaker 02

  of these changes. Many people wouldn't understand the implications even if they did read it. So, you know, I don't have a good answer to that, which is probably why I focus more on, you know, the, the, the consumer benefit, you know, as opposed to sort of how they're rolling it out and what it is asking of the average citizen.

• 55:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Okay. So let's go from there to Zuckerberg in Europe because they're deeply connected. And the European lawmakers were like, do you want to be Steve Jobs or Bill Gates and help society? Or have you created a monster that will kill us all?

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:06Nilay Patel?

  Which is, by the way, an incredible question.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  An amazing moment. And of course, something that Zuckerberg didn't ultimately answer. So, you know, let's talk a bit about what this was. The European Parliament held a hearing. They had long sought Zuckerberg to appear before them. Frankly, I think they saw him speaking before Congress and they got very jealous because they thought we could do a better job asking questions. And I know that they felt insulted that he didn't go over there to bow and scrape and, you know, tell them how much he loves Europe. But he agreed to do it and it was initially going to be behind closed doors. But they sort of prevailed upon him to have it be live streamed so they could all grandstand in front of the cameras. And that's what they did. The format was the weirdest thing

• 56:51Speaker 02

  I've ever heard of. They set aside 75 minutes. There were, I'm going to say 15 members of parliament who asked questions. And the way it worked was they would give a member of parliament a seemingly an unlimited amount of time to ask as many questions they wanted. And then before Zuckerberg could answer, they would move on to the next member of parliament who could then do the exact same thing. This repeated itself 15 times and it absorbed the, almost the entire 75 minutes was just members of parliament talking.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  You know, ostensibly in Zuckerberg, mostly to the TV cameras and sort of to each other. And then at the very end of all this, Zuckerberg, who's like been dutifully trying to categorize all of these questions into like groups so that he can begin to address, you know, these dozens and dozens of questions, starts talking, but, you know, because there were so many questions, he was able to get away with answering them at the very highest level, you know, so he'd say something like, "Well, I noticed there were a lot of questions about false news, and let me tell you what we're doing about false news." And then he gave the same answer that he gave, you know, on his blog and in Congress.

• 57:59Nilay Patel?

  This format sounds like legitimately the most European thing I've ever heard in my time.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  This is also the sort of thing that makes me skeptical that GDPR is good.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is totally fair, you know, and, you know, for all I know, this is how they signed the peace of Westphalia in 1648, and so they wanted to trot it out again. Like, I don't know, but this was what was agreed to, and they didn't get literally anywhere with any of this. And at the very end, so Zuckerberg talks for 15 minutes past the time that they had allotted, which he notes, and then he's like, you know, "So maybe wrap it up?" And at that point, some of the more upset members of parliament start literally screaming that they, you know, have more questions, that he didn't answer the questions, and he's like, "Well, my team will follow up with you," and that was the hearing. So...

• 58:51Nilay Patel?

  My favorite thing about European politics in general is that every time I watch anything, there is a short period where everyone gets to yell. And I feel like that's actually really healthy.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  I like that. Okay, I'm back on board.

• 59:04Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, it's just really healthy. It's like, you know what? We all just need to yell for a while, and this is the time that we do it. And it's great. Like, you watch the British, like, Prime Minister's Question Time, like, that's just the government berating the Prime Minister. And then he gets to yell back, and then everyone calms down.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  That's British Parliament.

• 59:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  They yell in your Parliament, too?

• 59:24Nilay Patel?

  They're yelling.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  This is so good. This is so good. It is healthy. Wait, Casey, I feel like we've had an ongoing conversation about, like, conservative censorship, whatever. I feel like that was kind of addressed, right?

• 59:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he got that question from Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister of Britain, who noted that, according to him, his posts were seeing 25% less engagement than they used to. And he asked Zuckerberg to answer the question of whether Facebook was censoring conservative viewpoints. This is a question that drives me crazy, because the number one publisher on Facebook last month was Fox News. And also, there's nothing easier than to see a feed full of conservative news on Facebook if you wanted. But, you know, to frankly, great effect, conservatives have complained that they are seeing, you know, reduced engagement, and this must be part of some sort of conspiracy against conservative

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  viewpoints. There were hearings about it in Congress here. Maybe there will be hearings about it in Europe. I find the whole thing a ridiculous sideshow that the evidence just does not support. If you are seeing reduced engagement on Facebook, get in line, buddy, because that is how Facebook works. You put a lot of effort into it, and to diminishing returns, and you get to a point where you wonder why you are there at all.

• 1:00:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wonder if they could put out a number that just says, here's how much less traffic we're sending to non-friends-and-family.

• 1:00:56Nilay Patel?

  Again, this is one of those, like, 4 a.m., Eli's just, like, on his phone while that kid is sleeping. But I tweeted a quote from the Weather Channel. It's like, "Facebook pays us in everything but money." For two years, they've paid us in likes and shares, and none of those things feel like money. And just like, for three days, random media people are finding it, and hitting like and retweeting. And it's like, it's just this moment that everyone in the media is like, "Yep, that is definitely how I feel about Facebook." Like, they just don't pay us in money. Everything but money. All right, last one, Casey, then we gotta go. We'll ask you, I want to talk about your podcast for two minutes, but Trump not being allowed to block his Twitter critics. Is this, in the grand

• 1:01:38Nilay Patel?

  scheme of social networks and democracy, a big deal, little deal? Where do you land?

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  Big deal. So here's why it's crazy. The court ruled that Twitter is a public forum and that an elected official cannot block access to a public forum. And that has really interesting implications because a lot of folks who argue for more content moderation will say things like, "Look, these are private spaces. You don't have the right to put whatever you want. It's not censorship if the government isn't doing it. No one has a right to have to see what you tweet." And that has been a line of thinking that has pushed Twitter forward as it develops features like tuning the algorithm so that you don't automatically see replies from people you don't follow, which, you know, of course, generally means that you might see less abuse.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  So we've sort of been going down that track, and here the court comes along and says, "Well, look, I mean, you know, the president is using his Twitter feed to run the country to some degree, to a terrifying degree, and to block people is to sort of take away their right to have a voice in this public forum." And so they said it was unconstitutional. So I, you know, I don't know that I had a prediction of which way this was going to go because I'm not a lawyer. I don't understand the case law here. But the implications of this are crazy, and this is not going to happen, but I love imagining this happen, is Donald Trump having to go through his block list and manually unblocking every person who he's blocked, like since starting Twitter?

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  I just love that image. It brings me joy.

• 1:03:15Nilay Patel?

  He's on his Galaxy S4, just like pounding away. There's a great story this week. Politico was like a little, sourcing was a little up and down, that he has two phones and he refuses to turn over the one with Twitter on it for security evaluations. That terrifies me.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32Nilay Patel?

  The one that he makes calls on, apparently he hands it every month, but the Twitter phone, he's like, "That's too inconvenient," which I don't understand because presumably he has to do nothing. Right, he just has to get another phone in his hand and he's like, that's too inconvenient. Because he must tweet at all times.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:03:48Nilay Patel?

  It's terrifying. It's terrifying. Anyway, Casey, tell us about Converge. And then we'll, you got two minutes, we gotta bail out of here.

• 1:03:57Speaker 02

  Are you referring to the number seven ranked technology podcast in the world right now?

• 1:04:02Nilay Patel?

  Yes, that one.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  Then let me tell you about it. If you are a longtime listener of The Vergecast, you had a chance to hear us play a couple of games from it. I played Retro Pitch with Paul and Neelai, which I can now confirm is coming up again on an episode that we recorded yesterday. But it's an interview game show and the feedback we've gotten so far has been great and it's been consistent. And what we've heard a lot of people say is, you know, it's nice to have a tech show that is funny. Like, these are real interviews with very smart people, but they're also very silly and so we laugh a lot. And so if that sounds like something that you might want in your life, I encourage you to subscribe to Converge for a guaranteed good time.

• 1:04:47Nilay Patel?

  I'm into it. And by the way, let me pay you this compliment. I don't know, your first guest was Sina Sistani.

• 1:04:54Speaker 02

  From House Party.

• 1:04:55Nilay Patel?

  From House Party. I don't know her, but I, someone was tweeting at all three of us the other day. And I was like, oh yeah, I know her. And like, that is an incredible feeling to come away from an interview and feel like you actually know someone.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  No, I feel like she's my best friend now.

• 1:05:09Nilay Patel?

  That's great.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  She is wonderful.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  But I have a, I have a very important question.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  The show starts off with a laugh track.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  But I feel like the laugh track fades over time. Am I right?

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  You're right. And this was a sound design by Andrew Marino, our wonderful producer and editor, who did all of the sound on the show. And Andrew surprised me with the laugh track. He just sort of like gave me the cut of the episode and I listened to it and you hear this laugh track. And, you know, if he had told me he was gonna do it, I'm sure I would have said, gosh, I don't know. Like, that's gonna sound really weird. But when I listened to it, I felt like it gave it the feel of a game show, like that live studio audience thing. And the fact that it just kind of gradually fades away into the background to the point where you sort of stop noticing that it was there in the first place. I thought it was a really cool effect. So, you know, we'll see what it sounds like. I will say it was the 100% the most controversial aspect of the show. I did get tweets from people who are like, what are you doing with this laugh track? But then I got, you know, frankly,

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  a higher number of tweets and emails from people saying, I love the laugh track. Like, what a crazy, unexpected element. So I think we're gonna keep it at least for a while.

• 1:06:18Nilay Patel?

  And I also was curious to see.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  It surprised me. I love being surprised.

• 1:06:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  And it was good that it fades, but I do, I think I love it at the start.

• 1:06:28Nilay Patel?

  I'm adding a laugh track to this show.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Nilay Patel?

  And a soundboard and one of those like crazy ear horn things and fart sounds. It's gonna be great. Nat, what's going on with our tech team that people check out this week? Anything good?

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  Um, gosh, what's going on with our tech team that you guys haven't talked about? I mean, like, it's a bunch of new phones. There, um, yeah, we have a bunch of phone reviews that are out. Um, Dan Seifert reviewed the OnePlus 6, which people were very excited about. There are LGG 7 reviews up, so people should check that out. And Dieter has a new episode of Processor by Android P Gestures that you can also check out. Um, and if you are interested in more things, Google, you can also read a small little thing I just wrote about how Google managed to add another messaging feature to a Google product called YouTube. You can now chat on YouTube because why not? Why not?

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  I like this, if this is just part of a running joke that Google's now in on where Google makes too many chat applications. But do you think Google is gonna try to make YouTube its social network?

• 1:07:30Nilay Patel?

  It already is, by far.

• 1:07:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:33Nilay Patel?

  It is 100% the most popular social product Google makes.

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it has, you can follow people. You can-

• 1:07:41Nilay Patel?

  It has the community tab.

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can comment and talk to each other. And now you can talk to each other. You can add friends.

• 1:07:47Nilay Patel?

  Soon you'll be able to tweet.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  I hate, I hate those posts. I'm scrolling through YouTube.

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  I mean, you know that like, there is a theory that the long-term destination for Twitter as a thing is for YouTube. Like, there are a lot of people out there, including a lot of former Twitter executives who think it would be smart of YouTube to just buy Twitter. And because so many top YouTubers are already using Twitter as a way to like, talk to their fans in the world. So I, it is, you know, not something I count out.

• 1:08:15Nilay Patel?

  That would be wild.

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Nilay Patel?

  If only Twitter would expand YouTube links in line. That'd be a good first peace offering. Hey, do you want to buy us? We've started to let people watch your videos on our platform. All right, that is it. We've run a little bit over time. Thank you, Casey, for being here. Thank you for shamelessly plugging your show. Nat, thank you for joining us.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:08:37Nilay Patel?

  Paul, you're fine.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:08:38Speaker 03

  Well.

• 1:08:39Nilay Patel?

  Paul, buy, buy, buy the products I've advertised to you.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  I will.

• 1:08:42Nilay Patel?

  Use AI for your farm, Paul.

• 1:08:46Nilay Patel?

  You can follow us everywhere, uh, Twitter, Instagram, we're at Verge. There's a new Instagram account from The Verge, which is excellent. It is our art department. Uh, all the custom art they make for the site, all the wallpapers they're doing is The Verge Art on Instagram. Rocketship, uh, already 10,000 subscribers in one day, which are followers, whatever they are on Instagram, in one day. There's also Verge Science, which is doing gangbusters on YouTube. So check out our two new channels that we're doing. There's more podcasts to listen to. There's obviously Casey's. There's Recode Decode with Kara Swisher, uh, and there's Recode Media with Peter Koffler. By the way, Kara, I just want to shout out Kara, who is the ultimate sometimes, because in the middle of all this Elon Musk stuff,

• 1:09:25Nilay Patel?

  just War tweeted at him about coming to the Code Conference, and he replied, hi, I'm really busy at the factory, but let's do it. And then she was like, I'll come to the factory. We'll go to the factory. I'll build a car, anything. I, do you think she's going to show up at the Code Conference?

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  You know, I, I wouldn't rule it out. Like, he is an impulsive person, and he has been to the Code Conference before. And as you say, Kara Swisher, incredibly persuasive. So my fingers are crossed, because it would be amazing.

• 1:09:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:53Speaker 03

  It would be. And also that my favorite part about this entire thing is I was out yesterday, and at 11 o'clock, I come home. I open my laptop and I get an email from Dieter saying, look at this, sweet. Please plan around this. I know it's going to be late your time, but please plan around this. And I said, well, I said nothing. I just closed my laptop.

• 1:10:13Nilay Patel?

  Dieter, I can't do this right now. Oh my god. Casey, you'll be at Code. Dieter will be at Code. We'll have coverage that's coming up. It's gonna be a big week. Uh, WWBC is next week.

• 1:10:22Speaker 03

  Two weeks.

• 1:10:23Nilay Patel?

  Two weeks. Two weeks?

• 1:10:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:10:24Nilay Patel?

  Look, I'm not actually back at work yet. I'm officially back at work and next week- And I cannot use a calendar. I haven't looked. I'm try- I'm try- I did my best to be far away from work. I'm officially back next week. The quality of this show will increase, uh, because I will have prepared for it instead of just swinging it, uh, after changing your baby. Uh, but that's it. That's the show. Thank you very much. Rock and roll.