DoorDash, Uber Eats... and Tony

Today on the flagship podcast of scaled EV production: 02:50 - Verge producer Will Poor tags along with a former Uber Eats driver who ditched the delivery apps and is trying to start a one-man gig work revolution. This Seattle Delivery Person Is Breaking Free of the Apps https://tonydelivers.co/ 18:54- The Verge's David Pierce and Andrew Hawkins discuss Rivian's new vehicles they announced last week, and what it will take for the company to compete with Tesla. Rivian R2, R3, and R3X launch event: the EV company’s more affordable SUVs are here Rivian’s CEO talks R2 and R3 launch, and why he has ‘complete certainty’ EVs will win Rivian R2 revealed: a $45,000 electric off-roader for the masses Rivian owners now have access to Tesla Superchargers Rivian surprises with R3 and R3X electric SUVs 54:37 - David and Allison Johnson answer a question from The Vergecast Hotline about foldable phones. Google Pixel Fold review: closing the gap Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 review: a little better is just good enough Email us at [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. 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.

• 0:02David Pierce?

  Welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of ScaleDV production. I'm your friend David Pierce and I am in the park, walking my dog, but also doing some headphone testing. So I discovered a month or so ago that I was wearing headphones too often and it was actually making my ears itch. And I had switched from like the AirPods Pro Sony Linkbud style that actually shove into your ear to just a normal pair of AirPods that just kind of hangs there. But even that wasn't solving my whole problem. So now I'm on this weird quest for what I guess I would call non-headphone headphones. I'm trying to find something that doesn't go in my ear, but will still play music and won't annoy everyone around me. So I've been testing smart glasses, like the stuff you get from Meta or Amazon.

• 0:45David Pierce?

  I've been testing things like these, the Shox headphones, they're bone conduction headphones. They just like send sound through your cheekbone instead of your ear. It's all sort of fascinating. I'm not sure any of it is as good as what I left behind, but at least my ears don't itch anymore. So we're making progress. Anyway, we have an awesome show coming up for you today. We are going to do two things. First, we're going to tell a delivery story. Will Poor went out on the streets of Seattle and met a guy who is taking on Uber Eats and DoorDash and this whole crazy delivery industry all by himself. Super fun. You're gonna like it. Then we're going to talk about Rivian, which just launched two new cars that people are very excited about. But in the process of that, I discovered I don't really understand anything about this company

• 1:28David Pierce?

  or why we think it might win, because there's really no evidence to suggest that it's going to. So we're going to get into that. We're going to answer a question from the hotline, all kinds of fun stuff. But first, I just got the notification that these batteries are about to die, which means it's the end of the dog walk. This is The Vergecast. We'll see you in a sec.

• 1:47Speaker 01

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• 2:22Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 2:53David Pierce?

  Welcome back. All right, I made it home. Everything's charging. I have to say, I like the bone conduction headphones so far. Although the Shox ones that I was wearing were pretty expensive. And I also bought another pair from a brand I can't pronounce that is just like a bunch of consonants in a row on Amazon for like a sixth of the price. And they look basically identical. So we'll have to see if you really get what you paid for there. Anyway, let's get into the show. For years now, I've been conflicted about these delivery apps, like DoorDash and Uber Eats. They are super convenient and they're helpful. And sometimes I don't want to cook or go out. And most of us don't live within walking distance of a million good restaurants. Like, I get it. I get why they're helpful and good. But I also can't shake this idea that actually these services are bad. And they're bad for everyone involved.

• 3:38David Pierce?

  They make your meals more expensive, often more than you know, through sneaky price increases. Like, the menu on Uber Eats is sometimes just more expensive than the menu at the restaurant. They also don't pay delivery people enough, or offer them the protections or benefits that the people who work there should get. And for the most part, historically speaking, they're not even a very good business for the companies running them. It's hard to make money for anybody. Including the restaurants, the drivers, everybody. It just seems bad. So what are we doing here? Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, there was this guy who went viral online because of some posters he had put up around Seattle, saying basically, "Skip the apps. Call me instead. I'll deliver your food." He became kind of a folk hero online.

• 4:22David Pierce?

  So we sent our producer, Will Poor, to go see what's going on.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  This is one of those stories that exists because of a perfect storm-type situation. Here's what happened. For years, gig workers here in Seattle, notably delivery drivers, have been pissed at the lousy pay they've been earning in this very expensive city. So in 2022, the city council stepped in and mandated a higher pay rate for app-based delivery workers.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  It's a good day for gig workers, as the City of Seattle's new ordinance takes effect.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  The new pay scale went into effect this past January, and the apps didn't take the change graciously.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  In reaction, apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash began charging customers $5 in what they're calling a local operating fee.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  That's on top of the service fees and delivery fees that apps routinely charge, to say nothing of tips. And customers are finding their limits. Fewer people are ordering from the apps, gig workers are feeling even more squeezed, and everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else.

• 5:22Speaker 06

  Food delivery orders plummeting since Seattle implemented new minimum wage requirements for delivery workers a month ago.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  This kind of battle is playing out in other markets, too. New York City enacted similar rules last year, which the apps have also been fighting tooth and nail. But there's one thing Seattle has that no one else does: a guy named Tony Isles, who I am trying to literally chase down right now.

• 5:46Speaker 07

  I always carry, like, a tennis ball in my pocket for, like, the round fluidity of a ball. I just like the idea of, like... When I was in San Francisco, I had a conversation with my buddy, and I was like, "Do you think shapes have thoughts?" And I think it do. I think they do. I think that they influence the way that you think. And I always carry that tennis ball, so I always feel like I have, like, a fluid mind.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Tony is telling me this while flying across downtown Seattle on a rented e-bike in the pouring rain. I'm on my own rental, trying to listen and keep up at the same time. We're weaving in and out of bike lanes, dodging construction, and crashing through puddles that could be potholes. It's chaos, which is partly the setting and partly Tony's fluid mind. In the first 30 minutes or so of pedaling, we have talked about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, China's social credit score, and the Stanford prison experiment. And I haven't asked any of the questions I came to ask.

• 6:40Speaker 07

  There's this idea called the method of Loki. I don't know if you know what that is.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 6:43Speaker 07

  It's like this way of remembering things verbatim historically in like these ancient societies. It was asked this, this book that I read, it was called Moonwalking with Einstein. Take a left.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  Hey, if we get separated for any reason, just go finish your delivery and text me when you're done. I'll, I'll find you again, all right?

• 7:02Speaker 07

  Okay. Oh, because I'm hustling?

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Well, I just realized that I signed up to do a story about a delivery guy.

• 7:08Speaker 07

  You're all right, man.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  And I don't know how I expected this to go, but...

• 7:11Speaker 07

  It's a pleasure meeting you.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  I gotta up my game here. Tony's backstory is pretty simple. He was driving for Uber Eats when those new fees suddenly killed demand. So at the beginning of February, he decided to go it alone. He put up some very DIY flyers downtown with an offer. Text him a food order from any restaurant within a couple square miles, and he'll get it to you for $5. No taking a cut from restaurants, no service fee, no delivery fee, no local operating fee, just a tip if you're feeling generous. He went viral pretty much instantly.

• 7:47Speaker 08

  Right now on Cairo 7 Tonight, growing frustrations for Seattle's new food delivery rules.

• 7:52Speaker 06

  One driver becomes his boss's competitor.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Now, just a few weeks later, Tony is a full-on local celebrity. He's all over the news, Reddit, Twitter, slash X, and he says the orders have followed. The biggest challenge is cadence. He might get five texts all at once and then nothing for a while. So he's trying to figure that out, along with the fame. Has this amount of attention been weird?

• 8:15Speaker 07

  Oh, it's crazy. I mean, it's just like, all of a sudden, my opinion matters. A lot of people are asking me, they're just like, "How much money are you making?"

• 8:24Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 8:25Speaker 07

  And I'm like, "Well, I'm not a monetary guy, not a business-oriented person." But what's interesting is, is like, I feel like I've introduced a solution for like a social thing.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  Tony's social solution goes something like this. Because of apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash, yes, delivery has gotten expensive. But more than that, it's gotten rushed and sloppy and impersonal. It's just bad vibes all the way down, and it's ruining takeout for everyone.

• 8:53Speaker 07

  It's such a hard position to be in.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  For who?

• 8:56Speaker 07

  For everybody, every party that's involved. The restaurants, the city, the people that are working as a deliverer. They're in this terrible, toxic relationship with somebody.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Like the restaurant owners and the apps, and the apps and the drivers, and just like that whole, that whole thing.

• 9:12Speaker 07

  Well, just like, think about it, last time you went into a restaurant and some driver goes in and is like, cuts in front of you, and you're just like, what in the world? Like, hey, man, I've been standing here for five minutes, what's your problem? You know, that person is, they're like, they're hustling, right? So they're going in, and they're not thinking about that at all, because that's not their psychology.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  No, they gotta keep moving.

• 9:30Speaker 07

  Right.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  And from where Tony's standing, the apps are moving in precisely the wrong direction.

• 9:36Speaker 07

  I think that they, the apps have this kind of misaligned misdirection of where they think the market is and what they're planning for. I think that their whole goal is to like, send robots to the buildings and, you know, send automated cars, and it's like, okay, well, if that's your solution, then you might bleed for a while, right? Like, and so it's like, I'm not a monetary guy, but I could tell you how to make it work a little bit better.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Tony's whole thing is to strip all the tech and anonymity out of the process, and be your friendly neighborhood delivery guy. And he thinks people will actively prefer a more social alternative, even if that care and attention limits him.

• 10:14Speaker 07

  I'm almost like, kind of certain, once I get to a certain number of people that order from me, I almost kind of want to cap it, to kind of ensure the law of Dunbar.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  Dunbar's number is another favorite Tony topic. It's a theoretical limit to the number of social relationships any one person can maintain. You want to cap the number of people that order from you so that you can stop and chat for a couple of minutes, so you can get to know repeat customers.

• 10:39Speaker 07

  Wouldn't even call them customers. I would just call them my friends, the homies, you know?

• 10:43Speaker 03

  There you go, yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 07

  They're literally like, "Yo, Tony, can you get this for me?" And I think that's kind of the thing is, is like, when you try to turn it into a business-to-customer relationship versus a person-to-person relationship, they're not going to be as understanding.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 10:56Speaker 07

  If I forget your drink right now, someone will be like, "Tony, it's fine."

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 07

  You don't have to go back to Chipotle.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 11:01Speaker 07

  But if I forget on Uber Eats, they're going to be like, "Yo, man, what's going on here?"

• 11:06Speaker 03

  In short, Tony thinks that there is a whole lot more to delivery than speed and cost. But yes, he is cheaper than the competition, and often faster, too.

• 11:16Speaker 07

  I've never seen anybody run through a Target. I picked up somebody's Target stuff and I was running through the Target.

• 11:24Speaker 07

  I'm gonna run here real quick.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  I follow Tony as he makes two, maybe three deliveries back to back. Some chicken and a shake from Dave's Hot Chicken.

• 11:34Speaker 07

  Does it come with a drink or anything?

• 11:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, let me get that.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  A salad from a healthy bowl place called Evergreens. I'm honestly not 100% sure. It was such a blur. But at each pickup and drop-off, Tony lives up to his own pitch. He's courteous, warm, casual, and chatty.

• 11:51Speaker 07

  So, man, how are you doing today?

• 11:52Speaker 03

  We pull up to our next destination, a big apartment building. And while we wait in the lobby for Tony's customer, sorry, his homie, to come down, he's recognized by a stranger.

• 12:02Speaker 07

  You're the guy? Yeah, I am. Nice to meet you.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  I stop and chat with Tony's homie for a few minutes. He says that he and his roommates have ordered from Tony maybe 10 times in the past month.

• 12:14Speaker 09

  I was just scrolling through Reddit one day, and then I saw someone posting a, they posted a picture of one of his flyers that were posted, like, in the city. And I was like, "Oh, that's pretty interesting. It's cheaper than DoorDash." So I was like, "Let me give it a try." And then ever since, it's like, been me and my roommates I go to.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Oh, nice. So you guys are, like, serious regulars at this point?

• 12:32Speaker 09

  Like, I was saying, between the three of us, type thing.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  And were you Uber Eats, DoorDash people before that?

• 12:37Speaker 09

  Yeah, exactly. DoorDash mainly, and then it was just, like, got expensive, so we're like, "Let's see what else there is."

• 12:42Speaker 03

  What's the, like, the Tony experience like, and how is it different from the apps?

• 12:47Speaker 09

  I think it's a lot nicer because first of all, all you have to do is just like text him. So that's already a lot easier. He's much faster. And it's always nice like having like a quick conversation with him in like the lobby. He always waits. He's fun to talk to. He's a, he's a very chill guy. Like we've had some nice conversations. It was cool.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  At the end of the lunch rush, Tony and I sat down at a cafe to talk some more. I went into the story wanting to know whether a guy like Tony can make it. Seattle's minimum wage is almost $20 an hour. So to match that, he'd need four deliveries an hour, not accounting for tips, which after seeing him in action definitely feels doable, but it is a hustle. In other words, it's still gig work and Tony's only working the lunch and dinner rushes right now. So after this whole adventure, my question remains, can he make it? It turns out that is Tony's least favorite question.

• 13:39Speaker 07

  I'm looking at it as like, I just understand people, you know, people, they all have their perspectives. And all I'm trying to be is the glue that glues you in that connective tissue. So that way you can get off Reddit and stop arguing about how much money I'm making. Get off Reddit and stop arguing whether it's going to be financially responsible. I can figure that out on my own.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  I get the sense that Tony has become a kind of avatar. Everyone's putting all their thoughts and feelings about the gig economy onto him. I think that's why his story blew up online. If you're frustrated by big, powerful companies making life more annoying, he is the folk hero to root for, which is just way too much for Tony to take on.

• 14:20Speaker 07

  All of a sudden, like people are texting me and they're like, you've got a great business mind. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And I think that what people are trying to do, they're trying to box me. They're trying to say Tony fits here. And I think what they're, they're lacking of understanding is, is like, I actually don't fit anywhere. I'm this like round ball that's just rolling down the street.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  Like the one in your pocket.

• 14:43Speaker 07

  That's exactly, exactly.

• 14:46Speaker 03

  Tony has no idea whether Tony delivers will make it, or what will happen to food delivery more broadly. He just knows that something needs to change.

• 14:55Speaker 07

  Like, what they tried to do is they tried to put food on a conveyor belt and deliver it like an Amazon package. And it's not going to work. They're winning right now, but at the end of the day, it's not going to work. It's too expensive. They're like waiting for things to be solved. And they're hoping. They're hoping that somebody down the line is like, intelligence is going to hit that escrow. They're going to be able to plug in the robots and they're going to be able to do it. And I'm here to tell you, it's not going to work.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  As cagey as Tony is about his own future, he will say that he's been fielding calls from all over the country, people who have heard his story and want to do what he does.

• 15:31Speaker 07

  So it's like, all right, well, how can I then be the Energizer Bunny for some things that we do like and that we do think about? And maybe that I can kind of more positively impact in a different sense. Just giving people the right direction, energizing their buddy, you know, so to speak, giving them the battery to kind of the right mindset.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  So what does this all reveal about the gig economy? Well, Tony has clearly tapped into something. And in spite of his grander pronouncements, what he's saying is pretty straightforward.

• 16:03Speaker 07

  I think that what it represents, I think personally, is like, this idea that we don't need the apps.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  We're so used to apps mediating all of our activities that at this point, what if not apps actually feels revelatory? But it's telling that Tony's customers are more than happy to ditch Uber Eats and DoorDash at the drop of a hat, or the drop of a new fee. And if big tech companies really do double down on automation and robots, more people might actively seek out more humanity, more idiosyncrasy, more Tony. Tony himself wants to experiment and meet people and hopefully pay the bills. And if he accidentally starts a revolution along the way, all the better.

• 16:52Speaker 07

  It would be nice to be known as the guy that was trying to connect us back together. That'd be kind of cool. But not in like the sense of like, this was the guy. It was just more like, oh, like this Tony Isles mentioned this and we thought it was like a good idea and it worked. And then like eventually, like we reconnected.

• 17:18David Pierce?

  Thanks again, Will. We gotta take a quick break, and we'll be right back to talk about cars.

• 17:29Speaker 02

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• 18:56David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. So a couple of weeks ago, the EV maker Rivian launched some new cars.

• 19:02Speaker 13

  I'm so excited to have all of you here. Let me introduce you to R2.

• 19:06David Pierce?

  The cars look great, actually, and people got particularly excited about the R3.

• 19:11Speaker 13

  R2's sibling, which we call R3.

• 19:15David Pierce?

  Which is a little crossover-style EV coming someday.

• 19:19David Pierce?

  But I couldn't stop thinking during this event, like, who even is Rivian? Over the last few years, this company has been set up as one of the most exciting companies in the car industry and a real, genuine Tesla rival. But from everything I hear and read, it is very much still a startup. It doesn't make that many cars. It's bleeding money and it's not lighting up the sales charts. So what gives here? Is Rivian really the golden child we sometimes make it out to be? I asked The Verge's Andy Hawkins to come on and help us understand where Rivian came from, why it's so well-liked, and whether it really has a shot to win, like Tesla-level win. Andy Hawkins, welcome back to The Vergecast.

• 20:00Speaker 14

  Hey, how's it going?

• 20:01David Pierce?

  I'm confused.

• 20:02Speaker 14

  Ah.

• 20:03David Pierce?

  Where did this company come from and how did it become kind of the one that we talked to next to Tesla?

• 20:08Speaker 14

  Yeah, so I think the most interesting thing about Rivian was that it was a secret for a very long time. The company was actually, I think, founded in like 2008, but it didn't come out of stealth, as they say, until around 2017, 2018.

• 20:25David Pierce?

  That's a long time.

• 20:26Speaker 14

  Yeah, which is, I think, a much longer time to be sort of secretive than I think your average company that's in stealth mode. So that was kind of interesting right out of the gate. And then, secondly, they had a very compelling proposition right away, which was that, you know, we're going to make electric vehicles, only electric vehicles. They're going to be adventure-themed. They're going to be for off-roading, for camping, for exploring nature. And it's going to have a very distinctive design language. And so if you look at sort of the first couple of products that the company introduced several years ago, the R1T truck and the R1S SUV, they're both very similar looking to each other and they have this kind of design that is very friendly. It has kind of a cute face with big oval headlights that kind of look like eyes with

• 21:11Speaker 14

  a light bar that kind of runs across the middle of the grill. It just has like kind of a very friendly, approachable design to it. And then also, I think, the products themselves were very clearly meant to slot into those segments in the auto industry today that are the most popular: pickup trucks. And large three-row SUVs. So I think a lot of people saw this company as a very serious contender, that they weren't some sort of vanity play. They were going to try to actually compete with some of the legacy automakers as well as Tesla. And I think a lot of people were very compelled by the image, by the optimism and the friendliness that the company was trying to put out there. And so I think that those are the couple of reasons why a lot of people are very interested in Rivian, and you hear a lot of people talking about them today.

• 21:57David Pierce?

  Okay, so part of why I've always thought this company was odd is that some of what you just described is kind of the playbook in this space, right? This is what a bunch of these companies have tried to do is go for the kind of most obvious segments of this thing, but also to kind of like sell you this beautiful vision of a better electric future of cars, which I think all of these companies have sort of spent a decade doing is like making grand promises about how everything's going to be electrified, so you might as well go along for the ride. But I feel like from the jump when Rivian came out, we put Rivian up in the kind of stratosphere of like one of the serious players in a way that I feel like we don't talk about Polestar that way. We don't talk about Lucid that way. We don't talk about kind of this other handful of companies that are

• 22:40David Pierce?

  actually, you know, out there producing cars in some volume. But Rivian from the beginning was like held up next to Tesla as kind of one of the great promises of the electric car. Why?

• 22:52Speaker 14

  You know, I don't know if that's true exactly.

• 22:55David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 22:55Speaker 14

  If I could just push back a little bit.

• 22:58David Pierce?

  Please.

• 22:58Speaker 14

  I do think that they were, they generated a lot of excitement and a lot of people were very interested in them. And I think that the company's founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, presents sort of like a very interesting figure in contrast to Elon Musk. He was a lot more polished, not so prone to any racist rants on social media platforms or what have you.

• 23:20David Pierce?

  Sure.

• 23:21Speaker 14

  And just seemed like, you know, sort of like a very trustworthy, serious business guy who had like a definite vision for the company, which is not to say that the company, I think, was immediately elevated to the same status as Tesla. Because I think that the fact remains, you know, they're a low-volume company. They only sell- Several tens of thousands of vehicles every year as compared to Tesla, which sells over a million cars every year, or even the legacy automakers, which sell millions upon millions of cars. And so, you know, it's, I think there was a lot of excitement. And I think through that haze of excitement, I think that there, people could make the assumption that this was like a company that was on par at the same level as the rest of the, the industry, or even some of the upstarts like Tesla.

• 24:05Speaker 14

  But I, I think that the reality of the situation was they only make a few vehicles every year. They only had two models that were available to consumers, plus an electric delivery van, which was only available to Amazon exclusively for a while, but is now supposedly going to be sold to some other companies as well.

• 24:21David Pierce?

  That was a big deal, right? Amazon made a lot of noise about buying a lot of trucks from Rivian. That was going to be a big thing.

• 24:26Speaker 14

  It was a huge deal. And I think that that was one of the things. Amazon's backing their investment in the company, their commitment to buying 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian, plus an investment from Ford as well, gave a lot of people the impression that this was going to be the next big electric car company, when in reality, they were going to confront a lot of the same challenges as Tesla. And even as the legacy automakers are really confronting at the moment, too. And if anything, it was going to be a lot tougher for Rivian, because as a new player, as a, what they call pure play EV, a company that only makes EV electric vehicles and not any hybrids or internal combustion vehicles. So they have no other revenue to fall back on if the market dips, which it is now, and I assume we're going to talk about.

• 25:11Speaker 14

  They're going to take it square in the chin. And I think that that's playing out. There's a lot of excitement still about the company. There's a lot of promise, but a lot of questions in the future is a little cloudy, I would say.

• 25:21David Pierce?

  Okay. Yeah, I am curious how the message from Rivian has changed over the years. Because like you're talking about, I think if you rewind to even 2017, there was this sense that like, we're going to have EVs. They're going to be everywhere and they're going to be everywhere soon. And everybody was talking about self-driving was going to be the thing. We were going to have like the Uber fleets of self-driving cars. And by now, the whole world was going to be different. And obviously that is extremely not what happened.

• 25:48Speaker 14

  Yeah, I'm getting PTSD, just from you saying all of this.

• 25:51David Pierce?

  Do you remember when 2020 was going to be the year of the fleet of Uber robot taxis? Like, that was the year they all gave us. It's insane in retrospect. But I think if I'm Rivian, like, you've sort of built up this story over time about what you're doing and why it's important. But I know we recently talked to RJ, the CEO, after the most recent launch, which I want to talk about. There's a sense that they're just trying to still sort of beat that same drum, that they're like, this is coming, it's going to work, everything's going to be fine. And I feel like we haven't done that yet. So like, should we keep believing this guy that this is going to come true?

• 26:25Speaker 14

  Great question. Answer, I don't know. So two things. I think that obviously electric vehicles are not poised to take over all personal transportation in the next week or so.

• 26:38David Pierce?

  But by 2020, they will.

• 26:40Speaker 14

  Exactly. I still have hopes for 2020. No, but it's not coming quite as quickly as we thought it was. Which is not to say that it won't come eventually. And I think a lot of the serious people that are operating this business, a lot of the automakers, the people whose jobs it is, who get paid lots of money to make these types of predictions, are saying that electric vehicles are still the future, despite a slowdown in sales growth and a lot of investment pullback from some of the major companies. Factories are getting stalled. Even Rivian is putting a pause on its plan to build a $5 billion factory in Georgia. As sort of a reflection of this kind of the reality that we're facing today. And that's because of a lot of different reasons. I think first and foremost, the industry kind of put all its eggs in one basket

• 27:24Speaker 14

  and rushed maybe a little bit too quickly towards this goal. Not realizing that both the charging infrastructure was not going to keep a pace with their own desires to sell electric vehicles, but also that consumers were not going to be as eager to make the switch as they thought they would be. And that's because of a lot of reasons. The charging is not that great. The prices are still really too high for a lot of people. Politics have kind of reared their ugly head and have complicated a lot of this for some folks. So it's just looking a lot messier and it's maybe going to take a little bit longer than people thought it was. That's not to say that eventually the majority of cars that are sold in this country and other countries will be electric. We're already seeing it in some countries in the world.

• 28:09Speaker 14

  China has been making a lot of progress in pushing up the volume of EVs. Europe is, I think, a little bit further behind, but they're making a lot of progress as well. Norway, Norway is this country where you would think because of how cold it is, that nobody wants to buy EVs because EVs don't run well in the cold. But yet, I think over half the vehicles sold in that country are electric. Tesla does very well there.

• 28:33David Pierce?

  Good for Norway.

• 28:34Speaker 14

  Yeah, that's right. They're showing us the way, the Norway way. So I think it's just, it's going to take a little bit longer. Customers are showing a lot of preferences for hybrids, for example. They want to be eased in to this hot bath that's being drawn for them by the auto industry. They don't want to just jump right in. That's a terrible image, so you can feel free to edit that out. I don't know why I said that.

• 28:53David Pierce?

  It's good. It's a little gross in the way that all of these should be. I think that feels right.

• 28:57Speaker 14

  So anyway, so amidst all of this, you have Rivian, a small company with a lot of buzz, trying to do its best. And it's struggling. I mentioned the factory, they're losing a lot of money. You know, their cash pile is dwindling, so they have to make what's called a volume play. They need to say, okay, we need to start selling a lot of cars. The cars that they have right now, the truck and the SUV are very expensive. They're over $70,000, $75,000. You can get up to $80,000 with options. Just, that's just too expensive for most people to afford. So they need to make a play for that middle segment, which is why we got the R2 reveal. A $45,000 midsize SUV that can go over 300 miles on a single charge and accelerate from zero to 60 in under three seconds, allegedly.

• 29:42Speaker 14

  So I think that that's why the R2 is a very important car for Rivian. It's their play at the mass market. They're saying, we need to start selling more cars to more people. And here is the product that's going to be the one to do it.

• 29:54David Pierce?

  Yeah, the R2 strikes me as maybe more than just an important car for Rivian, like an important car for this whole industry right now. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's really not a ton out there in kind of this price range and this sort of specific level of coolness. Like, we were talking before we started recording about Hyundai and Kia, and I actually think what those companies are doing in this space is really interesting. But I also think fundamentally, the people who want a car like this are maybe more likely than most to be looking at these cool new brands. I notice Rivian's on the road. Like, the amount of Rivian's that I'm aware of, relative to the amount of Rivian's that exist, is so much higher than any other car on the road right now. Do you know what I mean?

• 30:36Speaker 14

  It's very distinctive. It really, it draws attention to itself, for sure.

• 30:40David Pierce?

  Right, and I think that's really powerful and important. And if you can do that with a car that many people can actually afford, that seems like a potentially huge deal. But then there are two questions where, one, is this actually something lots of those people want? And then, two, can Rivian actually get around to making enough of them to make a difference? And I do feel like those are both still pretty open questions, right?

• 31:01Speaker 14

  Absolutely. You know, the fact that the car is not going to go into production until early 2026, I think is also going to be an issue. I mean, that's, that's, that might as well be 2,000 years from now, you know?

• 31:10David Pierce?

  We might have self-driving by then.

• 31:12Speaker 14

  Exactly. So whether or not, like, you know, the R2 is still generating excitement then is, I think, you know, very much an open question. But that's not to say that people were very excited. At least the people in my very narrow view of social media, very excited about this car. Lots of people that were kind of tripping over themselves to praise it. They loved how it looked. They liked the specs, they liked the price. But, you know, it's, like I said, it's going to be up to the consumers as to whether or not it actually turns out to be a popular one. And whether or not Rivian can survive long enough to actually put it into production, which is going to be a huge challenge for the company.

• 31:47David Pierce?

  Yeah. What's been the, the read on the R1T and the R1S so far? Are they generally, they're very cool when I see them, I like them. But what is the kind of broad consensus on whether these are actually good cars?

• 31:59Speaker 14

  Yeah, no, people really love them. They have a very dedicated fan base. It's very different than the Tesla fan base. It's very interesting. If you go on to like Reddit and some of the message boards and listen to, you know, sort of like what people talk about, they talk about the cars a lot differently. There's obviously less focus on RJ Scaringe, the CEO, as some sort of Lord and Savior, which contrasts very much with what Tesla does.

• 32:21David Pierce?

  Which I'm assuming RJ is pretty happy with.

• 32:23Speaker 14

  I'm sure he is. I'm sure he is. But yeah, these are well-loved cars. The people who own them love them. I think the software experience leaves a little bit lacking, but that's typical across the industry right now. The car industry as a whole is kind of fumbling the ball when it comes to software. The cars do not have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which is not a very popular decision. And a lot of the owners would love to see phone projection brought into the, into their cars. But that said, the cars themselves are very delightful, but they're expensive, as I mentioned before. And so the segment of the population that actually owns these vehicles is still very small. You notice them. They're very noticeable, but still, I mean, like, you know, your eyes glaze over the Toyota Highlanders and the, you know, the RAV4s and the Honda Pilots, because there are just so many of

• 33:08Speaker 14

  them. Whereas the Rivian stand out, which I think, you know, is a good selling point, but I think it kind of obscures how actually small the population of people who own these vehicles actually is.

• 33:17David Pierce?

  Oh, for sure. I'm pretty sure there's just one in my neighborhood, but I just notice it every single time I see it. So I'm like, God, there's a lot of Rivians out there. It does seem like, to your point about Tesla, I think there's a thing that Rivian did kind of accidentally really well, it seems like, which is it grew right as Tesla, I think, was peaking in people's minds as like a cool company that was going to save the world and be good for it. And every time I hear RJ talk, you get the sense that he is trying to still be optimistic and happy and like, tell you about a better world, an increasing distance from what people perceive about Elon Musk in particular, right? And Tesla, for better and for worse, has always been super attached to Elon Musk. So it feels

• 34:00David Pierce?

  like, if I'm Rivian, or frankly, any of these other companies, like, all the people who believe in the mission but are falling out of love with Elon Musk for one reason. Or another are looking for somewhere to go and care about and put their money in and put their fandom in.

• 34:14Speaker 14

  Those people are gettable. Those people are all gettable.

• 34:17David Pierce?

  Do you think they are? The other thing that I wondered is like, are we just gonna get past that? And these are just gonna go back to being cars?

• 34:23Speaker 14

  Well, yeah, I mean, something interesting that RJ said in our interview with with Abigail Basset, or the writer who interviewed him for us, was that, you know, he was very impressed with what Tesla has been able to do. But that new cars that are electric sold each year has just reached about eight to nine percent. And what he was interested in, it was going after that 90% that are still not buying electric vehicles. I mean, that's, you know, that's the obvious line that he's going to deliver, of course, which helps sort of sell the prospect of the R2 as this mass market volume play that they are hoping it will be. But yeah, I think that he needs a Model 3. And Rivian is looking for a Tesla Model 3 moment, I think, with the R2 here.

• 35:05Speaker 14

  Because, you know, Tesla, for a long time, there was no guarantee that that company was going to succeed. In fact, they very nearly failed many times, especially during the Model 3 ramp up.

• 35:15David Pierce?

  Yeah, Tesla was just as precarious as Rivian is now, like.

• 35:19Speaker 14

  If not more so, absolutely. And, you know, it was only because of the car's popularity and the company's ability to get it out in the numbers that it did, which started slow and then eventually ramped up to a pretty steady clip that people were starting to actually get their vehicles, most likely at the expense of Tesla's employees, who have numerous of them have sued the company for many, many, many problems that they've had. But yeah, that prospect, I think, is still up there on top of the hill. And I think Rivian sees it up there and it needs to get up to that moment where they're starting to produce cars at a steady clip and people are loving them and buying them, which is, I think, given the current situation around EV sales and the sales growth slowdown

• 36:04Speaker 14

  is why things are as complicated for the company. So yeah, I think he wants, he wants to get to that, to that Tesla moment. What's most interesting to me about the image that he's projecting and how RJ talks about the company, especially just in the words that he uses during these events. Is they may aspire to be like Tesla, but I think they would rather be more like Apple. Uh, the way that they talk and the way that they present their products, uh, and the way that people talk about their products feels more like Apple than Tesla, which is like optimism and the design is very friendly. And RJ is out there literally talking about one more thing in revealing the R3 and the R3X, which is the classic Steve Jobs line, although Elon stole it as well.

• 36:46Speaker 14

  I think a couple of times, but that's, you know, that's all Apple. So, you know, there's been lots of talk, should Apple buy Rivian, Apple's own car project ended?

• 36:54David Pierce?

  I was gonna say being Apple in cars might not be the thing to shoot for here.

• 36:58Speaker 14

  Right. So I think a lot of people sort of see like a possible synergistic moment here. Like, oh, you need a car, Apple? Here's, here's a, here's a struggling car company that would slot perfectly in with your line of products. I don't know if RJ or Tim Cook are talking or whether or not that would, that would be appealing to them at all, but you know, there's that, that certainly doesn't stop the talk that's out there.

• 37:18David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's an interesting way of thinking about it. And it does make me wonder if somewhere RJ is sitting around being like, do I need a little more of a God complex? If I'm going to make any of this work, like you get the sense that too much God complex, bad, but maybe you need a little bit. Like if, if, if you don't believe it, how is anybody else going to, you know?

• 37:35Speaker 14

  Right. Exactly. Just a little bit of confidence. That's all it takes.

• 37:38David Pierce?

  So that's what I tell you all the time. Just a little bit of God complex, Andy, and everything will be fine. But so I, I think this moment is so interesting to me for exactly the reason you're describing, right? There's the R2 and I think I also want to know what you think about the R3 because it was the, it was the one more thing, the sneaky little thing that kind of got everybody really excited. Like my favorite thing about the R3 reveal was everybody posting pictures of SUVs from the nineties that look exactly like the R3. But then everybody being like, yeah, I don't care. I still want it. And like, there is something about this space that people still like feel real feelings about, even though they're becoming these sort of increasingly mainstream family cars.

• 38:17Speaker 14

  Well, yeah, and especially because if you look at some of the design that's out there today and just the vast majority of cars that people buy, it's, it's, there's very little that distinguishes one car from the next. They've all, I think it's like the industry has all just sort of settled on this kind of shape of a car, this kind of SUV crossover shape that is the most popular amongst all the cars. And it kind of has scrubbed out a lot of the, the things that made like cars unique and interesting to people. There's just very little to differentiate one brand from the other. I mean, you like, yes, you can probably notice, you know, a BMW grill is different from a Ford, from a, you know, and the shape of a, of a Mercedes is a little bit different than maybe,

• 38:58Speaker 14

  you know, an Audi. But in the end of it, I think if you sort of did like a blind taste test with like a bunch of people, I think that they would have some difficulty distinguishing one car from the next, which is, I think, a lot of why you see some excitement around Rivian, because there is something that's distinctive about it. There is something that's kind of, especially with the R3, that's very retro futuristic, right? It has like this kind of hatchback shape that is very reminiscent of like, you know, 70s era VW Golfs, or I saw some people talking about the Lada Nilay, which I was not overly familiar with. I'm not like a huge car guy, so I don't really go too deep into like the lore. But like the Lada Nilay, I was, I've been like, reading lots of articles

• 39:39Speaker 14

  because I'm fascinated now by this like little legendary Russian off-road hatchback that is like fascinating. And it does look a lot like, like the R3X especially. But you, you know, so I think that that was appealing to people, especially if you sort of look at all of our products. Our phones look the same, our cars look the same, our laptops all generally look the same, our TVs all look the same. So you just want something that's out there that gives you a sense that like, you know, I'm attaching myself, I'm making this consumer choice that gives me a little bit of a, an elevate, you know, distinguishes me from my neighbor or somebody else. And I think the Rivian kind of offers that to people, which is why they get so worked up about it.

• 40:16David Pierce?

  Totally. And I'm just, I'm just looking at a picture of the R3 right now. And you're right, and I hadn't really thought about this, that it walks that middle really well. Where like some of the electric cars we've seen really for a decade now are all trying to look like they're from like a thousand years in the future. And even there's a Hyundai dealership just down the street from me. And literally every time like an Ioniq 5 comes by, it's like, oh, look, a spaceship. Like you just, you built a spaceship that now just sits in my neighbor's garage. Like, cool, fine. Some people want that. Lots of people want a car. And it turns out like it's okay that it can look like a car, but also like it's five years from the future, not 5,000. And I think like what you're talking about with Rivian where they're just like, we took

• 40:57David Pierce?

  a thing people are familiar with and like, and just kind of like jazzed it up a little bit is like maybe exactly what people want.

• 41:04Speaker 14

  Yeah, I think people were especially eager to see some, some angles brought back in to the EV design because a common critique that you'll hear is that all EVs look like jelly beans.

• 41:16David Pierce?

  So true.

• 41:17Speaker 14

  Is very much what the Teslas look like. And I think you're now, just now, starting to see some pushback against that. I think you're seeing it from Rivian. There's another company called Scout Motors that's going to be coming on the scene pretty soon. They're owned by Volkswagen. It's an old, also an old like 70s, 80s era off-road brand that's, that's being revived and brought back and made into an all-electric brand. And, you know, Ford has talked about, you know, maybe electrifying the Bronco. So, you know, I think you're going to start to see some differentiation in sort of like what these cars look like. And Rivian needs to get out there before everyone else because pretty soon that space is going to get super crowded, especially the midsize SUV space. I think we've got our fair share of crossovers.

• 42:02Speaker 14

  We've seen them all, the Mustang Mach-E, the Model Y, the Volkswagen ID.4, the Ioniq, the Kia. And now we need to start seeing something that's a little bit roomier, but also just something different that looks different, that gives somebody the idea that like, okay, this is not just the same jelly bean that I've become used to in EVs.

• 42:22David Pierce?

  I will never unsee the jelly bean now, and I feel like I hate you for that. Like, I can't, I can't stop thinking about jelly beans that I can, I can picture them in my head now. But it does seem like what that puts Rivian up for is a very consequential next, like, three years. Because also, like you were saying a minute ago, every other car company has been promising to do this kind of stuff over the next few years. So this idea that, you know, Rivian was early and had some good ideas and made a cool car that a lot of people like. And now it needs to figure out how to make lots of them. Like, I think, to me at least, one of the lessons we've really learned over the last couple of years is just how far ahead Tesla was. Rivian strikes me as not nearly that far ahead.

• 43:03David Pierce?

  And in fact, is kind of at a moment where, like, it needs the R2 to work in a pretty big way, or else it's going to have a pretty big hole to dig out of, right? Am I being too pessimistic about its chances there?

• 43:15Speaker 14

  Not at all. I mean, one of the, the stat that jumped out to me the most was that, I think in its most recent earnings filing, the company said that it loses $47,000 for every vehicle that it sells.

• 43:26David Pierce?

  Good lord.

• 43:27Speaker 14

  So to give you a sense of how unprofitable things are for Rivian right now, that's the price of the R2. That's, you know, basically how much they're, they're planning on charging for this new vehicle.

• 43:36David Pierce?

  Wow.

• 43:36Speaker 14

  Which, you know, just goes to show, you know, sort of like how crucial it's going to be for them. Their cash pile is dwindling, they're running out of money, they have, this, this factory plan is on pause. You know, they did not sell as many vehicles as they thought they were going to. I think it was around 57,000 last year. And this year, they're saying that it's going to stay pretty flat. They're going to sell basically the same that they did last year, which is not something that investors see a lot of confidence in. Obviously, they want to see growth. This company, and a company that sells the same number of vehicles that it sold last year, is not really exhibiting growth in the way that I think a lot of people would like to see.

• 44:13David Pierce?

  Is that because Rivian can't make enough to satisfy demand? Or is it because maybe everybody who wants the stuff that Rivian is already making has one?

• 44:22Speaker 14

  So for a while, they were supply constrained. They were not able to make as many as people wanted.

• 44:26David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 44:27Speaker 14

  And now they are. Demand constraint because not many, not as many people can afford

• 44:32David Pierce?

  Right.

• 44:33Speaker 14

  The vehicles as they would like because they are expensive. The ones that they sell now, the R1S and the R1T. So yeah, it's kind of, it's, it's been flipped on them and they're running into these problems. And all, and it's not just Rivian, every, all the companies are sort of in this weird liminal space right now, where they need to make more vehicles. They want to sell more vehicles, but people all don't want to buy as many as they thought they would because the prices are still too high. The used market still is mostly Tesla, the vast majority of the EVs that are up for sale that are used are Teslas. And those are, you know, those are on the used Tesla. That's 21,000, 22,000. That's pretty attractive. And Tesla keeps cutting its own prices, which is also driving other companies to cut prices

• 45:15Speaker 14

  as well, which reduces margins and makes things more difficult in terms of trying to eke out a profit. But the company does say that it will be profitable in the fourth quarter of this year, whether that's, you know, EBITDA profitable or operationally, whether they have free cash flow, it's not exactly clear quite yet. But they say that by pausing this plan to build a factory, which was going to obviously expand their ability to make more cars, they're going to be able to get the R2 out the door faster because they're going to make it at their factory in Illinois. And that's going to be able to reach customers faster, which they say was going to increase their chances of kicking that revenue stream up and getting it flowing a lot faster and improving their financial situation. So yeah, well, we'll have to see.

• 45:59David Pierce?

  So they know they need to be in the game here. If they do a Tesla and like promise a thing in two years that ships in five years, like they're probably dead in the water.

• 46:08Speaker 14

  Yeah, and they've already confronted a lot of issues around wait times and software issues. I mean, it's, you know, you can set your clock to it in terms of like these companies and the same problems that they're running into. You would think, you know, seeing the Tesla playbook, you know, you would also see the trade offs and, and the pitfalls that, that were along the way. But it's the same thing there. I mean, they had a problem with their software was bricking the cars for a little while. They had to push a software update. I do think that the R2 in particular, that was the, this is their, going to be their, their model. This is the one that they think is going to be the high volume seller. The R3 is going to be the icing on the cake. You know, that's going to be like the fun little cousin to the R2, but that's going to be the real play that's that they hope is going to be the one that takes over the streets

• 46:53Speaker 14

  and transforms them from a small company to hopefully one that's successful and has a future ahead of it.

• 46:59David Pierce?

  Okay, fair enough. Does it seem like there's any other company kind of of Rivian's size and prestige that might just totally eat its lunch?

• 47:09Speaker 14

  Yeah, Polestar, their performance brand, people who like to go vroom vroom really fast like the Polestars, which is cool. They're cool cars. They're really cool. They're also kind of Apple-ish in a way. They're all white and they have, even though they're, it's Google's Android software native, there's just something that's very Apple about about Polestar.

• 47:26David Pierce?

  But Polestar seems to, to your point, have no particular interest in like, they're not trying to be Toyota.

• 47:31Speaker 14

  Yeah, no, I don't think so. They're trying to be Mercedes. They're trying to be Audi. That's, you know, and that's, that's fine. There's a lot of money to be made in that segment as well. I think the one, what they have to be worried about is Ford and Jeep. And I mentioned Scout as well, but I don't think Scout really has, we don't really know what they're going to be yet. But I do think Jeep in particular, given sort of the similarities and the overlap in the customers that are interested in these cars and Rivian's vehicles, has the potential to eat Rivian's lunch, essentially, as you put it. So, and Jeep has said that they are coming out, you know, with all electric. There's going to be an all-electric Wrangler. There's going to be an all-electric Grand Cherokee. They're coming. Also, I think if Subaru got off its ass and actually made some good, some good EVs,

• 48:15Speaker 14

  that could hurt as well because I see some overlap in customers there. But Subaru is sort of in the same camp as Toyota. They're kind of dragging a little bit on the EV rollout. So Rivian still has a, has a possibility here and I do think that they could have a first mover advantage if they, if they can get the R2 out in the timeframe that they said that they will.

• 48:33David Pierce?

  Yeah. And as we've learned, there's nothing like an existential threat to your company to get you to actually ship your car.

• 48:39Speaker 14

  It's very motivating, I've heard. I not experienced it myself, but yes. And then, yeah, but then like the China question kind of looms over all of this, right? Like, will China eventually be able to sell its cheap electric vehicles in the United States? Is a huge question. Elon Musk has said himself that would be a devastating blow to the auto, to the EV industry in the United States. And BYD in particular, China's biggest automaker, has said that they're going to start building a factory in Mexico, which is right on our doorstep. So, you know, the tariff situation is still very unfriendly to Chinese-made EVs. The, obviously, the policy situation, you know, is very bad for them. It would be very expensive for them to try to sell, but you know, it's still an open possibility.

• 49:24David Pierce?

  Fair enough. So it's going to be in a big couple of years. I feel like we've been saying for 10 years, it's going to be a big couple of years. But this one feels, this one feels real.

• 49:32Speaker 14

  Yes, it does feel, I mean, like, I think like, we're starting to see a lot of pieces fall into play. All of the automakers are jumping on the Tesla charging bandwagon. They're all going to start using superchargers. They're giving out adapters to their customers. They're going to have the Tesla port built in natively on the vehicle themselves. The R2, for example, is going to be the first Rivian vehicle to have the Tesla NACS charging port in the vehicle. So those vehicles will be able to charge at Tesla supercharger stations. That's going to be huge as we start to see that get adopted widespread. And then you've got the incentive that are available. The federal EV tax credit can now be taken at the dealership. You go into a dealership, you're like, I want to buy an electric vehicle. Does it meet these criteria? Do I meet the criteria?

• 50:15Speaker 14

  And so, yes, great, you get a $7,500 discount, right? At the, at the point of sale, that's going to be huge. Big incentive, I think, for a lot of people to buy electric cars. And I think more of these mass market cars, more of these volume players like the R2. I think the Chevy Blazer went through a bit of a software issue, but now is back and available for sale, as well as the Chevy Equinox EV is going to be coming out. These are common, normal, everyday vehicles that most people can afford. And if they are sold at a price point that car buyers think is right for them, I think you're going to really start to see things shoot up in terms of sales growth.

• 50:49David Pierce?

  Fair enough. So yeah, we're going to get a real answer on Rivian here, one way or another, pretty quickly. Whether this company is like a neat brand that has sold a good story about itself, or is a real power player. And it makes me feel better to know that that's coming, because I've come into this being like, do we know anything about whether Rivian is actually going to work? And I feel like the answer is we don't, but we're about to.

• 51:08Speaker 14

  Yeah. And I think that, you know, they have a lot of smart people that work for them, and it seems like they have a lot of interesting partnerships. But yeah, there's a lot that's still up in the air. I think that it'll be a really interesting year for them and for the rest of the industry.

• 51:21David Pierce?

  Totally. I do love the headlights. I am normally a gigantic antagonist to all weird ideas about headlights, because they're just all the worst. And the Mustang thing where the turn signal goes awful. I hate it all. Rivian did a good job. So for that reason alone, I hope it works.

• 51:40Speaker 14

  The oval speaks to your, your need for rounded, you know, symmetry.

• 51:44David Pierce?

  It just feels right.

• 51:45Speaker 14

  It just feels right.

• 51:45David Pierce?

  It just, it just feels, it just feels nice. It's like it's smiling at me.

• 51:49Speaker 14

  Happy little face, smiling at you.

• 51:51David Pierce?

  All right, Andy, thank you as always. Appreciate it.

• 51:53Speaker 14

  Oh, my pleasure. Thanks, David.

• 51:57David Pierce?

  All right, we gotta take one more break, and then we'll be back with the Vergecast Hotline.

• 52:06Speaker 02

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• 52:34Speaker 10

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• 53:36David Pierce?

  We're back. Let's get to the hotline. As always, the number is 866 VERGE11. The email is [email protected]. We love all your questions and we try to answer at least one on the show every week. Before we get into this one, first of all, thank you to everybody who called and emailed about TikTok. You had awesome feedback. It was great to hear from you. I promise, Neelai, Alex and I are all still friends. We're going to get to a bunch of your feedback on Friday, I think. I want to give all that stuff a few more days to play out just because there's a lot happening really fast. And one of the things we talked about last week was the huge lack of information that we have, and we're starting to get more information. So we're going to get to all of that on Friday. So stay tuned. For now, we have a question from Terry.

• 54:16Speaker 15

  Hi, this is Terry in Philadelphia, and I'm preparing for a professional exam. And every time I do, I become obsessed about a particular piece of technology, thinking that if I buy one more gadget, that will make the stress of this thing that will define the arc of my life, or at least what my salary raises this year, just kind of go away. That current obsession are folding phones. I am a massive man with hands that can just hold an entire country ham. So it feels like a folding phone would be perfect for the fact that I seemingly have the hands of a steelworker despite being an actuary. And one of the things that gets me is whenever I read a review and one of the dings is its expense,

• 54:59Speaker 15

  is how to interpret the fact that I'm now like a year out from the Fold 5 and the Pixel Fold, and I can get them all used for like $800 off. Do I just effectively add one point to the Verge review score? How do you factor in the fact that stuff gets cheaper when you're interpreting the review on a review site? Any insight would be great. Love the show. Stay classy.

• 55:27David Pierce?

  All right, this is one of my favorite and one of the most relatable questions we've gotten on The Vergecast in a long time. Allison Johnson is here to help me answer it. Hi Allison.

• 55:35Speaker 16

  Hello.

• 55:36David Pierce?

  Do we love Terry? I feel like we love Terry. I feel like the thing where I'm like, I have a big project to do, let me buy a gadget that will solve all of my problems is extremely, extremely relatable.

• 55:45Speaker 16

  I feel seen, yeah. Like, this planner is gonna do everything for me.

• 55:51David Pierce?

  I have brought you here because I think there are two questions inside of this question, both of which I want to talk about. One is, for our massive man friend Terry with huge country ham hands, is a foldable phone the right call? That's question number one. And then question number two, which I want to get to, is how do you think about price in a review like that? And how should we think about price of these things over time as they inevitably come down? But let's just start with the beginning thing, the foldable phone question. Is a foldable phone gonna solve all of Terry's problems forever, for the rest of his life?

• 56:24Speaker 16

  Yes, Terry, I have great news. All you need to do is spend upwards of $800 on a gadget. No, I think there's something there. I think that's fair to think that you have a phone that's like, normal size, and when you want to do something kind of fiddly, or you just want more screen space, open it up and you have like, almost a tablet. So I think that's real. I think Terry is on the right track.

• 56:51David Pierce?

  I'm curious what your experience has been with foldable phones in terms of like, the productivity they enable. Because for me, I've used most of my foldable experiences with the Pixel Fold at this point. And what I have found is that as a thing for just more screen real estate, whether it's like, I have a PDF that isn't, you know, scaling well to my phone, or whatever, or a thing I want to actually mark up with a pen, foldable phones, awesome. The thing that has not worked for me, that I have found very frustrating, is I hoped that typing would be better on a foldable phone. Because you can do the split keyboard thing and sort of type with two thumbs on a bigger screen, and it would be better. I have not found that to be the case at all. But I'm curious what your experience has been. Like, what do you get from the bigger screen that way?

• 57:35Speaker 16

  Yeah, I, for me, it is the productivity stuff and like the, the scenario I keep coming back to is like, I just hate tabbing around between apps and you just always end up doing it. I'm like planning dinner with friends and you're in the little chat app. You gotta switch to Google Maps. You gotta look at a PDF of the restaurant's menu. The foldable phones let you put two things on the screen at once and like hold two thoughts in your head at one time. I so appreciate them for that. I'm, will occasionally indulge in like a game that's like fun on a bigger screen.

• 58:12Speaker 16

  But for me, it's definitely the like, oh, I can just like breathe and like put all these things out or like I have Spotify in a little window and Duolingo. It's just like a little bit more of a, a computer experience than a phone experience. I agree. Typing is weird. It feels strange.

• 58:31David Pierce?

  Yeah, I keep thinking I'm going to get used to it, but I haven't. But the, you're, you're totally right. The two apps side by side thing, especially for something like research and note taking is really useful. Just for me, being able to have like the browser on one side and a Google Doc or my notes app or whatever on the other is amazing. And I never noticed how annoying it is to constantly switch between apps on my iPhone as I have after using the Pixel Fold a bunch. So I'm with you. So, okay, Terry, you should buy it. It's gonna be amazing. Let's talk about prices because I think you were on this show when all this stuff first came out and I think we, we more or less agree $1,800 is a ludicrous amount of money to pay for a phone. Like if you want to and you have the money, go with God, right?

• 59:13David Pierce?

  But $1,800 is a tremendous amount of money, but these things are now a year or in the, the Galaxy Fold's case, sometimes a couple of years old. The prices are coming way down. Does that make you think differently about them?

• 59:27Speaker 16

  This is the question I ask myself every day, just even when you consider when one of these phones comes out, especially Samsung, well, they'll throw a new phone at you if you trade something in, or if you sign up on your carriers, you promise to pay them thousands of dollars over the next three years, they'll throw a phone at you. So what does a phone really cost is the question. I think there is kind of a calculus as you know, when you get to like a year out, the prices will kind of come down sometimes. I think foldables have been a little more stubborn, but the thing to kind of balance that with is always like, what do we think is coming out next? Is it's going to be a

• 1:00:10Speaker 16

  big year, like a big leap forward this year? I would argue that the Galaxy Z Fold 4 to 5, like not much changed there. And if you, if you were looking at a, at a Z Fold 4 and skip the 5, that probably would have been a good call. I think there's some interesting things coming up this year where the, the Pixel Fold looks like it might get a little thinner and kind of a, a less like rectangular shape where it's, it's like real kind of squat and wide, sort of maybe something like the OnePlus Open, which I think has the best

• 1:00:50Speaker 16

  format of like when it's closed and when it's open. So all that's to say, I don't know. I don't know how you think about the price. You do want to factor in like the years of security updates and the OS updates that you're promised, like you, if you're buying a model that's a year out of date, you have to minus one year on all those things. Those are, you know, I keep that in mind, but I would kind of keep an ear to the ground on like what's coming up and then see what the deals are now. And just don't forget that when the new phone comes out, you, you can usually do pretty well.

• 1:01:26David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's a tricky one because I think my go to advice on all technology for a long time has been buy the most expensive, best, newest thing you can afford and then keep it as long as humanly possible. And that advice I mostly stand by, except that I obviously recognize that many people can't, for whatever reason, afford the best and biggest and newest thing, right? And I think particularly with foldable phones, that's really complicated because there isn't, like you're saying, that sort of graceful scaling that happens where like, if you want to buy an iPhone 13 in this, the year 2024, I think that's a perfectly valid thing to do. It's not what I would do because of my aforementioned belief in buying the new thing and then keeping it forever. But the iPhone 13 is

• 1:02:07David Pierce?

  a really good phone. There is no version of that three years ago in foldable phones. And they're getting better so much faster and they're so not yet mature that, and like, as soon as you brought up the Pixel Fold, I'm like, ugh. I just think about how much better like the Pixel Watch got from one to two. Like, the Fold, Google has a long history of making like, kind of, nah, first things and then pretty good second things. And so even at $1,000, like, are you gonna buy that phone and then in six months be like, uh, I should have just bought the $1,800 one because it's dramatically better? Or should you have waited six more months after that, but then at that point you're waiting for the Fold? It's like, it's just a forever...

• 1:02:45Speaker 16

  It's like a hamster wheel.

• 1:02:47David Pierce?

  Yeah, it really is. But I'm curious for you as a reviewer, like, this is something I've struggled with over the years in reviewing products, is how much to think about what they cost. And I think sometimes it's really obvious, right? Like, I made a big show of yelling $3,500 a lot when we talked about the Vision Pro. But in terms of like, as you're reviewing a phone, a foldable phone, or even just, you know, the most other kind of $1,000-ish phones, do you spend a lot of time thinking about the price as you're reviewing it?

• 1:03:17Speaker 16

  I do. Kind of trying to bear in mind, like, the way that most people buy phones, especially in this country, is, looks very different. That, you know, nobody's walking into Verizon and just putting $1,000 on the table. So, that kind of figures in, but, even when that's the case, like, you have a whole lot of capital. With like, if you're ready to to switch to a new wireless carrier, you can like easily get a thousand dollar phone out of that. So like, just the, just kind of keeping in mind the weight of that, that, you know, anybody is potentially putting down on one of these devices. And I do think of them as they're kind of a moment in time, the review. So I,

• 1:03:59Speaker 16

  I bear in mind, like, the prices of the other things out there. And they may be discounted, they may have some special deal going. But I think I come back to the MSRP a lot as kind of an apples to apples, like gut check of, you know, this costs this amount of money for real. And this one costs this, or is that a good deal? And there, there's just a lot of like 4D chess going on and in my mind somewhere, but it all has to kind of come out in a way that hopefully makes sense to people.

• 1:04:36David Pierce?

  Yeah, I was used to try to think about like, okay, if you gave this to me as a gift, and it was free, would I like it? And that's kind of one version of the question. And then the other one is, is it worth the cost? And the problem with phones is, is they exist literally on every single part of the spectrum between those two things. It's so complicated.

• 1:04:53Speaker 16

  Yes.

• 1:04:54David Pierce?

  In a way that like, I pretty much know what an iPad costs, right? Like, you just have no idea what your next phone is going to cost in the strangest way. But okay, let's, let's answer a couple of quick questions here for Terry, and then we're gonna get out of here. Question number one is, should Terry just buy an iPad?

• 1:05:09Speaker 16

  Ooh, well.

• 1:05:10David Pierce?

  Is that the better idea?

• 1:05:13Speaker 16

  I, you know, there's something to that. I'm sort of coming around to this idea of like, wouldn't it be nice to have more gadgets that are just good at doing the thing that you want them to do? Like, we've just spent, I know, we've spent a lot of time like cramming as many things as we can into a phone. And like, that's fun. But sometimes, like, we were both looking at this, like standalone voice recorder today, which is like, what a novel idea. Your phone can do that. But anyway, that's a long way to say, like, that's an option. And if the kinds of things he wants to do with it are just better on a tablet, then, you know, think about a tablet.

• 1:05:52David Pierce?

  Yeah, I've been debating this ever since I first heard Terry's question. And I think the thing I've come around to is the question is, do you need to have it in your pocket? Right? Because Terry is like, I'm a big guy, I have big hands. If the answer is like, I want to carry this thing around with me all the time, foldable phone, because like you can tell yourself you're going to carry an iPad with you all the time. I have told myself that many times. It's just never true. The idea that I'm just going to have it with me all the time, not true. But if you're like, I'm mostly at home and I want a thing that I can like sit with for my reading and research or whatever. I think the iPad's the better advice. The other thing is, if Terry wants a foldable phone, which one would you recommend right now? And, and the thing for Terry is Terry does care about the price.

• 1:06:34David Pierce?

  But, but we are here to tell Terry, all things considered, here is the one we think you should buy. What do you think the answer is right now?

• 1:06:40Speaker 16

  Yeah, I like my general pick right now is the Samsung is the Galaxy Z Fold 5. I think they're just kind of, they kind of had a head start and they've figured out a couple more things, you know, with the durability and with the software that I think Google and OnePlus, those are really the only two other options in the US. They're still kind of figuring out. I say that with the asterisk of like, the Z Fold 5 form factor might not be Terry's favorite, because when it's closed, it has that like long, narrow kind of remote control shape. It's not as bad as it once was, but if you're, if you're not enjoying the experience of typing on like a normal slab smartphone,

• 1:07:22Speaker 16

  this is going to feel a little more cramped, like the keyboard on the front, the cover screen is just a little more narrow. So for that reason, I would steer him towards the Pixel Fold. And I would hold off on that one, maybe because we might get a new one pretty soon. So that was like three answers in one.

• 1:07:42David Pierce?

  Okay, that's fair. I will say the only part of that I disagree with is I do have a hard time. Telling someone right now to buy a Pixel Fold, because I think the odds of there being one that is dramatically better very soon.

• 1:07:55Speaker 16

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56David Pierce?

  I think is pretty high.

• 1:07:57Speaker 16

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57David Pierce?

  I do think the good news is, Terry, if you can wait two months, three months, Google I/O is in June and historically speaking, we are virtually guaranteed to hear about whatever thing they're making around then sometime, even if it doesn't come out till the fall. So you'll at least have kind of a hint about what's coming. But I think I'm with you that if you want to buy a phone that is both a year old and likely to still be good for a while, it seems like Samsung is probably the safest choice.

• 1:08:23Speaker 16

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24David Pierce?

  Even if it does feel like a TV remote.

• 1:08:26Speaker 16

  It does, but it's going to solve all of Terry's problems, I'm pretty sure.

• 1:08:31David Pierce?

  There we go. Terry, good luck on all of your endeavors with your foldable phone. I hope that helped. Allison, thank you as always.

• 1:08:37Speaker 16

  Thank you.

• 1:08:41David Pierce?

  All right. That's it for The Vergecast today. Thank you to everyone who came on the show and thank you as always for listening. There's lots more on everything we talked about on theverge.com, especially the Rivian stuff. We had a lot of really good coverage, including that conversation with R.J. Scaringe, the CEO. We'll put some links in the show notes, but you know, theverge.com, it's a website. We love it. As always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings, or other cars you want Rivian to make, you can always email us at [email protected], call the hotline 866-VERGE11. We love hearing from you. Also, keep sending TikTok thoughts. This is all happening really fast. We really want to know what you think and I suspect we're going to talk about it a whole bunch again on Friday. This show is produced by Andrew Marino, Liam James, and Will Por. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Neelai, Alex and I will

• 1:09:24David Pierce?

  be back on Friday to talk about presumably TikTok, some AI gadgets, and a whole bunch of other stuff. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.

• 1:09:42Speaker 17

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