In the Tweet Mix

This week's show includes a very special attempt at an actual introduction. That's right, we're rolling out the red carpet for Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider's chief correspondent. The professionalism doesn't last for long, though, as we quickly devolve into the mathematical definition of a hypecheck, the FCC's role in the future of the internet, and Apple's new take on photo management. 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.

• 0:06Nilay Patel?

  Hello, welcome to the professionally introduced Vergecast. This is a show about The Verge.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:13Nilay Patel?

  And things relating to The Verge's interests.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  It's like the director's track.

• 0:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and you're listening to it now, which is great. And

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Just staring right at me this whole time.

• 0:25Nilay Patel?

  I was hoping that you would like tell me how to start the show. And the answer is that no one, no one knows. But hello, I'm Neel Patel. This is Dieter Bohn. And actually today, the reason we tried and stumbled through a real intro for the show.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 0:39Nilay Patel?

  Our listeners, I know.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  I'm extremely flattered.

• 0:42Nilay Patel?

  Is because Nicholas Carlson is joining us as a guest.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:45Nilay Patel?

  For the opening of the show. Nick Carlson, senior.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Nope, a chief correspondent.

• 0:50Nilay Patel?

  Chief correspondent. That's like a TV network title, man.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  It's totally, it's totally made up.

• 0:55Nilay Patel?

  Chief correspondent of Business Insider.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  A couple summers ago, friend and I, well, I was talking to Henry about a new job. And then a friend and I sat and said, what would be really awesome?

• 1:04Nilay Patel?

  You're talking to Henry Blodgett.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Henry's the boss.

• 1:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  And I had a new job. It's this job, didn't have a title. And he and I, and a friend of mine were talking, what would sound awesome?

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, a chief correspondent sounds dope.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17Nilay Patel?

  Like, but that's like, you have to go to a war zone now. Right? Like, you can't be, you can't

• 1:22Speaker 01

  I covered Yahoo. Come on.

• 1:24Nilay Patel?

  All right, so, so with that, with that mouth percussion, we will now explain why Nick is here. Nick just wrote a book, published a book, first, first real

• 1:35Speaker 01

  First book.

• 1:36Nilay Patel?

  Sold book.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37Nilay Patel?

  Marissa Mayer.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  And the fight to save Yahoo.

• 1:39Nilay Patel?

  Fight to save Yahoo, which I have read.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:43Nilay Patel?

  Cover to cover.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  No, really?

• 1:44Nilay Patel?

  And not because you gave it to me for free.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:47Nilay Patel?

  But because I have a deep and abiding interest in failed organizations. And disaster stories.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54Nilay Patel?

  And Yi is a disaster story.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that, you know, Yahoo, people don't think about this, but it was like the, the Google, you know, today's Google, today's Apple, back in the late 90s, early 2000s, it was the internet company, 128 billion dollar company, and it crashed, crashed to, within a year, 8 billion dollars. You know, that was its market cap, so.

• 2:14Nilay Patel?

  And it's, what's it doing now?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Uh, now it's around 50 billion, but that's because they made this great investment in 2005 in a Chinese internet company called Alibaba. And Alibaba, as we all know, has exploded in value. It's now like, you know, one of the big giants of the internet. So, that stake in Alibaba is the reason that, that Yahoo's worth so much.

• 2:34Nilay Patel?

  Didn't something just happen with that stake recently?

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So, the last third of my book is about Marissa, so, you know, this awful company, it's just going downhill for all these years. And then, like, this superstar Wonder Woman CEO, Marissa Mayer, you know, first I chronicle her rise at Google.

• 2:50Nilay Patel?

  And it's quite her rise. She's like in the garage.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:53Nilay Patel?

  In the early days of Google.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Employee number like 20 to 25, somewhere in there. And there's actually a little bit of dispute over which, which number. But anyway, so she goes to Google and she has this amazing career. And can she save Yahoo? And the thing is, is she gets this, this has to do with Alibaba. She gets this amazing opportunity that most turnaround CEOs never get, which is that she was going to be able to turn around the company for two years, work on it without shareholders really paying attention to how Yahoo's core business was doing. That's because everybody who's investing in Yahoo was actually paying attention to Alibaba. Because this is the only way to, really, for public investors to invest in Alibaba, in Alibaba at that point, was to invest in Yahoo. And, and so she had this two-year period, and could she do it or not? Could she really get the company healthy by the time this IPO came around?

• 3:38Nilay Patel?

  Right. And the answer is no. So, and this is, and this is a thing that comes up several, several times in your book, which I think is kind of like. The way The Verge in our audience, I think, we think about tech companies is that they're like fully formed actors and they they're top down.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:56Nilay Patel?

  Right? And they like, they make decisions in a like a cohesive way. And the story of Yahoo, which is crazy, is that there's all these people outside of the company.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:05Nilay Patel?

  Evaluating what it is.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:07Nilay Patel?

  What it should do, doing math, like crazy ass math about like what all the pieces are worth. And then being like, well, what if we just change CEOs to do something I want? So then I'll make more money. And like, that is like a recurring theme, particularly with Yahoo.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:23Nilay Patel?

  And so Yahoo, right now, some of the parts valuation, the business of Yahoo is worth negative money.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:29Nilay Patel?

  Compared to Alibaba.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, like super quick math. It's so, so Yahoo has a big stake in Alibaba, 15% stake in that. It's going to spin it out in a tax-free fashion. That's just important. That that that stake is worth about $40 billion, judging by the public markets. These figures are actually according to Yahoo. And then it owns, you know, a good half of Yahoo Japan with its co-venture with SoftBank. And that's worth about $7 billion. Meanwhile, Yahoo has about $5 billion in cash. So that's we're up to $53 billion is what you would think it would be worth on the markets, right? It's actually, the market cap is at $43 billion. So people are saying, okay, so there's the Alibaba stake and there's the Yahoo Japan stake. Yahoo core business, the one that we all think of when we think of Yahoo.com

• 5:13Speaker 01

  is worth, you know, theoretically, less than $0.

• 5:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Which is amazing.

• 5:17Nilay Patel?

  And literally, the only thing I think about when I think of Yahoo, I think of Yahoo Fantasy Football.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:23Nilay Patel?

  It is the only, the one and only valuable part of Yahoo.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:27Nilay Patel?

  As far as I can tell.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Well, no, I so my, my dad only uses Yahoo and he reads Yahoo News.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  And he read and and like, I think there's that kind of demographic that.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  How old's your dad and where does he live?

• 5:38Speaker 02

  He is a.

• 5:39Nilay Patel?

  Nixon researchers next book.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Late 60s of Minnesota.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Minnesota, middle of America, very popular.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  You want to know the crazy thing? He only reads Yahoo Deutschland because he assumes that in America it's more biased.

• 5:53Nilay Patel?

  Well, so Yahoo. So tell us, okay, so you you spent months and months and months.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:58Nilay Patel?

  Interviewing hundreds of people.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:01Nilay Patel?

  Learning about Marissa Meyer. So I want to talk about the character of Marissa Meyer because in your book, she is very much a character.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:07Nilay Patel?

  Right? And there's all these scenes and all these moments.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:10Nilay Patel?

  But I want to talk about the Google because I think she, as every kind of ex-Google person does, she rolled in being like, I I got it.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:18Nilay Patel?

  I'm I'm from Google.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, so you want to talk about her rolling into Yahoo or like what she did at Google?

• 6:24Nilay Patel?

  Let's let's let's start with what she did at Google because I think she she was for a minute like one of the most important people.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Totally. So I mean, so there's some lessons people can draw from like the career of Marissa Meyer. She is, by the way, made like 700 million dollars. So at Google, she shows up, she could have gone anywhere after Stanford. I mean, she could have gone to a consultant at like McKinsey or gone off and been a professor at Carnegie Mellon, like pretty impressive jobs. Instead, she goes and works for this funny sounding company, you know, Google, which at the time was what? She was like worried how her parents would think of it because of the name, which was just weird. So she goes in there at 22. She was hired as a coder. And to her credit, she kind of quickly realized that that was not going to be her specialty long term. She went in there and she was supposed to build Google's first ad delivery system and it was taking her months and months and months.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  And then when Google went out and hired a guy named Jeff Dean, who's a superstar coder, there's actually like, you know how like there's Chuck Norris facts on the internet?

• 7:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  At Google, there's Jeff Dean facts.

• 7:20Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  And we actually did a slideshow at BI about it. They're funny. I mean, there's the funny like nerd jokes that I don't really get. I actually had someone explain it to me, one of the engineers at BI. Anyway, he's great and he did what she was working on in about three weeks.

• 7:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  And she realized, okay, this isn't my specialty. So instead she sort of stepped back and she loved working at Google. She's like, what can I do here to really make a difference? And she just threw herself at any problem. She got involved in PR and then she got involved in like really kind of just being the CEO's like lieutenant, like, you know, she kind of ran Larry Page's meetings and then she ran the UI reviews and she gained a lot of power by sort of, by being the person who determined finally whether or not a product lived up to Google's standards in terms of user interface. And then the other big thing she did is she set up a program called the APM program, the Associate Product Managers Program. She taught Google how to hire.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Google had been going out and hiring MBAs and well, it had been there's this guy there who was trying to hire MBAs and Larry Page kept being like, I hate MBAs. Why are you bringing these people to me? They're like a bunch of douchebags. So. So Meyer said to this person who was trying to hire all these people, like, you're doing it wrong. What you need to do is you need to hire like technically savvy people who are interested in business. And he said, okay, you think you're so smart, go start up the program. And so she did. And it was called the APM program and it's sort of renowned in Silicon Valley as this like CEO school. And so the clever thing that she did was these APMs would come, they would come from Stanford or MIT or wherever. And they would come into Google and they would go off and they would like have their actual bosses.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Like they would be working on Gmail and they would have their boss in Gmail or something like that. But Marissa Meyer was the person who hired them and was running their APM program, which is like, and so they would all.

• 9:02Nilay Patel?

  So she was their finisher.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Exactly. She would, they would all come back to her, report to her, say what was going on. And she had a lot of influence with them, even as they went up in the org. And so, you know, by 2008, 2007, she was extremely powerful at Google. And then, then came like a, you know, a derailment of her career, but, but still.

• 9:20Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:20Nilay Patel?

  But so the, the one story that I love, which is in your book, and then it's been everywhere in the world. It's the 40 some shades of blue.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:29Nilay Patel?

  Right. She's famous like data-driven design.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:33Nilay Patel?

  Right. And so tell that story.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  So, so I mean, I mean Meyer is the person who, so you know, she's, she was in human computer interaction at Stanford, which is also the, the, um, the degree that Scott Forstall got out of Stanford, same program and everything. So, you know, so she was very good at like sort of creating ways of understanding what users wanted. This is how she got, she like sort of progressed in, in understanding. So she would, she would, um, she would measure data, sort of see how people did. But she would also do things like before broadband was, uh, over 50% penetration. She had dial up in her home because she said, you know, like that's how most people are using Google products. I want to use it how most people are using it. So she sort of created these systems. And then she created like tests.

• 10:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Where she would, um, she would say like, you know, she just had like interesting ideas about what design meant. So she had this rule of like, you know, if there's a certain amount of colors on the page and a certain amount of font changes, you give a point for every font change and a point for every color and different change. Like nothing should go over five points.

• 10:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  So, I mean, she just had like all these like very particular rules.

• 10:37Nilay Patel?

  Right. And then one designer, he's like, I can't work with these rules. I can't work with these tests. Like

• 10:43Nilay Patel?

  I picked one shade of blue in Google, like A B test.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  One thing I think Meyer deserves credit for, and also one reason why she has a lot of enemies is like she threw herself at all these problems at Google. And she didn't care who else was already trying to solve them. She's like, I'll do it. Someone else is like, but I am. And then like by the time they say that it's done and she's moved on to bigger things.

• 11:02Nilay Patel?

  Right. So you said there's a derailment of the career. There's a lot of, there's a lot to unpack there, but that's actually not. That's like, it's interesting for itself, but what's in the bigger context.

• 11:13Nilay Patel?

  Google like flattens out for her and then she's recruited into Yahoo.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:17Nilay Patel?

  From what I can tell, turn Yahoo into a Google again.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, so there are two directors who hired her, really led the charge. One was Dan Loeb. And like, they're just real quick. There's a section in my book where Dan Loeb looks at Yahoo. He's the investor you were talking about before. He like looks at Yahoo and he says, okay, this can be fixed. I just need to fire the entire board of directors. And so he buys 5% of the company and he basically leads a campaign to get all of the directors fired, including the CEO that they hired. And he does that by discovering that the CEO lied on his resume. And, and there's this great scene in the book where all the executives at Yahoo discover that this story about him lying on the resume in a meeting with the CEO. And then he rushes out of the room and it was just.

• 11:58Nilay Patel?

  And there's Scott Thompson.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. Scott Thompson is who I'm talking about. Yeah. So they, so, so Loeb and another director named Michael Wolf, they were. They, they actually talked to a lot of people in the valley, including Mark Andreessen. They said, what kind of CEO does Yahoo need to turn around? And Andreessen kind of gave him this idea that what a tech company like Yahoo is, what it, what its products are is, is innovation, not specific products. You need like a Mark Zuckerberg, you need a Larry Page Jr., you know, and they're like, who's like that? Who's like that? Oh, Marissa Meyer. And so they, they were just sort of like stunned that she was interested because she's a big name early Googler. And they hired her with hopes of turning Yahoo into a high-flying company like Google or Facebook or, you know, one of those.

• 12:38Nilay Patel?

  Right. So I, so I will say that. You work for a new media company that owns a proprietary technology stack.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 12:45Nilay Patel?

  We work for a new media company that owns a proprietary media stack. There, there's a hand, the BuzzFeed is one of these things.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:51Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and that tension between the media company and the tech company is, is real.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:55Nilay Patel?

  It's, it, it's defining in this moment for us and our careers. But what's funny to me is that for a company like Yahoo.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:03Nilay Patel?

  That tension is the whole game.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:05Nilay Patel?

  Right. It's like, uh, reading the, the, these stories in your book. It was, the choice was between Marissa Meyer, the product person and Ross Levinson.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:14Nilay Patel?

  Media person.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 13:16Nilay Patel?

  And it's like, it's, I don't know. It's like if your football team needs a new coach, are you going to pick an offense guy or a defense guy?

• 13:21Speaker 01

  It's a lot like that. Yeah.

• 13:22Nilay Patel?

  But it's also like, you also need a good head coach.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:28Nilay Patel?

  There's a reason that like, you also need that, right? Like, uh, no one thinks Bill Belichick is like bad at offense.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, exactly. It kind of to like, to go with the metaphor further, like, uh, Belichick is very adaptable.

• 13:39Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  You know, and what, where Meyer is right now is where she needs to adapt. She needs to say like, okay, I was hired to do this. And by the way, neither of those directors are still on her board. Uh, so she's not responsible to them and why they hired her. She's responsible to shareholders.

• 13:53Nilay Patel?

  Agents of chaos. Like, that's the thing.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  They really are.

• 13:55Nilay Patel?

  The way we talk about companies and even the way BI reports about it, you guys obviously have a much more business focus.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:01Nilay Patel?

  It's when we report on Microsoft, it's like, Microsoft made this decision.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:04Nilay Patel?

  And somewhere in the backend, it's just like.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:06Nilay Patel?

  Or these like, this dude's name, this dude's name is Michael Wolff. Like, or this dude, like, just Wolf showed up.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:13Nilay Patel?

  And like, bought a big chunk of your company.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:16Nilay Patel?

  Fired a bunch of people.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:17Nilay Patel?

  Helicoptered a new people and then left and was like, thanks for the millions.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that, this is like, why I wrote this book. I mean, just because like, they, these are humans that, at the other end of this, who are like, just doing crazy things and living through crazy times and making whoppers of decisions. Like, I mean, just to me, like, the story that I love talking about is Terry Sammel thinking that he can outsmart Mark Zuckerberg by like, forcing him to take a deal for a hundred and fifty million dollars less than the deal he agreed to. And Mark Zuckerberg, so, so they had a deal, done deal to buy Facebook for a billion dollars. And Mark Zuckerberg didn't. Not want to sell his company, but he's he promised his board that if he ever got an offer for a billion dollars.

• 14:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  He'd sell the company. So so the deal's done. It's a billion dollars. He's walks into Yahoo and Terry's Terry Semel, who's like a famous, famous for being a tough negotiator in Hollywood in his career prior to Yahoo. He's all like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get him to take a smaller deal. Comes in, says, you know, Mark, I'm sorry. It's gonna be eight hundred and fifty million dollars. It's the best we can do. You know, Semel's like thinking like, oh, he's gonna take that. That's eight hundred and fifty million dollars. He's like twenty two years old. He's gonna take it. Zuckerberg just goes, ha.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  He's like, gotcha. He's out of there. He left. He goes back to Facebook's headquarters and he high fives Duskin Moskowitz and he's like, we don't have to sell. We did it. We're, we're on our way. And now, now what is Facebook, like two hundred billion plus?

• 15:38Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  And now who's struggling along? I mean, not to say that necessarily would have been great, but I just love like getting down into like the, the, the moments where these like human people make mistakes that, that, that.

• 15:48Nilay Patel?

  Massive ripwire.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:50Nilay Patel?

  So what are, so let's talk about Marissa at Yahoo now, because that's really, your book is third. It's like the rise of Marissa, the transition into power.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:58Nilay Patel?

  And like, what I would call the current period, which is what, what, what are you doing, Marissa?

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Well, what's up, Marissa? How you gonna do it?

• 16:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  You know, she's, I mean, she's an incredible person. Extreme. I would say no one in the world prepares better than her.

• 16:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  You know, like if she needs to be prepared for something, she will know it inside and out. But I mean, it's just like mind boggling. She works extremely hard. She's pretty creative. And she did some amazing things at Yahoo. She went in and got like, I don't, I imagine none of us use Yahoo apps, but just think about this. When she got there, there were no native apps for iOS. I mean, like they had like garbage, like, they had those terrible hybrid apps that were like reliant on webpages, HTML five and what have you. It was just garbage. And so she went in and said, this is garbage. And now they have all pretty, nice workings, fluent apps. I mean, like, they're not extremely popular, but they're all better than they were.

• 16:47Nilay Patel?

  I mean, she bought, do you know this story? When we had our old office, which was near the business insider office, there was a company next to us.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Stamped.

• 16:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  First Aquar.

• 16:57Nilay Patel?

  So stamped was literally, they were the office next door. We could hear their. Weird ass piano music in our office. You remember that? It was cra- it was weird.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  It was strange.

• 17:08Nilay Patel?

  And one day, we just like, we look on Instagram and there's a picture of Marissa and I with the stamp.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Oh, she was on our floor.

• 17:15Nilay Patel?

  Open the door like, Marissa?

• 17:18Nilay Patel?

  What are you doing? But she, so she brought it, she bought all this talent, it kind of an incredible premium.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, she did. She paid about a million dollars per engineer for every one of these aqua hires.

• 17:28Nilay Patel?

  That's ridiculous.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that means, and then she made like 40 of them. So you can start, it starts to add up.

• 17:33Nilay Patel?

  Right. And then she obviously bought Tumblr.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:35Nilay Patel?

  Which as far as I can tell is ridiculously independent of Yahoo.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  It is. Yeah, they're, they're stridently independent. Like there was, I was around at a executive during a conference recently and like someone said, oh, you're Yahoo. And the person said, no, Tumblr.

• 17:50Nilay Patel?

  Well, even during this net neutrality thing, there was a great story in the Washington Post just now about how Tumblr CEO was sitting next to Obama, just like arguing for net neutrality at dinner.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 18:01Nilay Patel?

  And I, you know, I've been plugged into that story a long time. And what I've heard over and over again is basically people around Tumblr and in Tumblr saying, yo, we're doing this and like, maybe we're all going to be fired. Because this is not necessarily Yahoo's position.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:15Nilay Patel?

  But for us, like to make Tumblr strong, like this is where we came from, this is what we believe.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:19Nilay Patel?

  And we're running with it. And David Karp is like, yo, Barry. Title two, right?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:25Nilay Patel?

  And that, it's just funny because they're just like, we're doing it like this, this is important to us and like, we're not telling Yahoo.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  I think that's the way they're running it. Totally.

• 18:32Nilay Patel?

  And but so that's, as far as I can tell, the most successful, the fact that Yahoo as a business.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:36Nilay Patel?

  Is negative value and Tumblr's sitting within it.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  That's a good point.

• 18:40Nilay Patel?

  It tells you like a ton about Yahoo.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  That's another asset you could put in the sum of the parts, like Tumblr's surely worth something.

• 18:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Like you could just buy Yahoo, be like, okay, everything's shut down.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:51Nilay Patel?

  This is like when I used to work at, I told you I was going to transition this.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  That's a good point.

• 18:54Nilay Patel?

  You should put that in your book.

• 18:57Nilay Patel?

  Too bad you printed it on Dread T's.

• 19:01Nilay Patel?

  I know.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  I could do a whole other podcast about the weirdness of books.

• 19:06Nilay Patel?

  Oh, we should do that one too. So we should wrap this up a little bit. We, we promised you we're going to take a little bit of your time.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  I can hang out and just get it.

• 19:12Nilay Patel?

  It's fun. It's a fun podcast. So what, we, we, there's a common report pitch at The Verge, which is just basically like WTF blank.

• 19:23Nilay Patel?

  WTF phones like that week that comes up a lot. WTF 4K TVs like that's another one. So WTF Yahoo?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, WTF Yahoo? So just, I mean, what am I saying? Like what?

• 19:34Nilay Patel?

  What's happening? Is this company gonna survive? Like here's, so I used to work for AOL. You used to report on AOL by calling me and fishing for quotes. This is true. Don't tell them I never gave you anything.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  No, never.

• 19:47Nilay Patel?

  Until I quit, then I gave you everything.

• 19:51Nilay Patel?

  So AOL is like AOL is going through whatever rocky time it's going through, but it still has grandmothers who don't know better paying for dial up.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Yes, it does. Amazing.

• 19:59Nilay Patel?

  Billions of dollars there. Tim Armstrong, another ex-Gugler, powerful ex-Gugler, running immediate AOL and Yahoo are like mirrored twins.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  They're pretty similar. Yeah.

• 20:08Nilay Patel?

  They're, you know, both old media company.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Webmail providers, portals.

• 20:12Nilay Patel?

  Webmail providers. That's what they are.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  That's what Yahoo is. That's what it is. It's a webmail provider. It's amazing.

• 20:18Nilay Patel?

  That's the saddest thing. It's a webmail provider that runs Tumblr.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  It's a declining, it's a declining product in category and that's why Yahoo is declining.

• 20:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Uh, man. Um, no, so Tim Armstrong goes to AOL.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:30Nilay Patel?

  He makes his disastrously failed media play the AOL way.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:35Nilay Patel?

  Which is literally the reason I quit my job at AOL.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  And Patch.

• 20:38Nilay Patel?

  And Patch.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:39Nilay Patel?

  God bless Patch.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain.

• 20:42Nilay Patel?

  Right. So he makes his whatever, his two big failed media plays.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:46Nilay Patel?

  I would say directly leads to the creation of The Verge, which is delightful. Thanks, Tim. That was nice to hear.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  This place is nice.

• 20:53Nilay Patel?

  It's good. It's, uh, I would say, again, I said this year earlier, snack game not as strong as business insider. We're gonna have to use some of our dirty new media money to get better at that.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Just raise the pile, I think.

• 21:05Nilay Patel?

  But anyway, but, but then he, what, none of that worked. They're actually shutting down blogs at AOL now. But he invested heavily into pretty boring ad tech services.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:15Nilay Patel?

  And it's paying off as far as I can tell.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he had a come to Jesus moment, which is like, we were talking about this Dan Loeb guy went and just started stuff up at, um, at Yahoo. Same thing happened at AOL. I mean, this Starboard, which is actually interestingly now turns its sights on Yahoo. Starboard went into AOL and said, you gotta shut this patch thing down. You've got to rationalize HuffPost. You've got to like, do something about these, these patents you have. And then AOL sold its patents, which were for like a billion dollars. And then it sort of just got, it got rid of Patch and actually just got rid of it because of these investors. And then, um, Tim, yeah, he got into like real boring behind the scenes, but actually profitable businesses in ad tech.

• 21:57Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And realized that it's pretty good to be number two or three to, to Google and Facebook and ad tech and like, just do that.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  And, and now actually sort of, uh, Marissa Meyer and Yahoo are sort of pivoting into the same space. I mean, they just bought this company called Brightroll. Before that they bought Flurry. These are ad tech plays. They're trying to take this massive audience they have and, uh, use technology to make it so they can charge slightly higher ad prices.

• 22:23Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  You know, like I saw something crazy, which is that per every mobile user, Facebook gets $2 in ads. And per every mobile user, Yahoo gets 44 cents, you know? So that's, I mean, that's, that's both a terrible state of affairs and also an opportunity.

• 22:39Nilay Patel?

  So here's the last question, and I think this is in, in terms of this, like, I'm going to call them the Wolf Pack.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:45Nilay Patel?

  That's like pretty good.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good.

• 22:47Nilay Patel?

  This Wolf Pack of activist investors.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:49Nilay Patel?

  It feels like the next thing they're going to want is for Yahoo to just finally just become one.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:53Nilay Patel?

  Just mash up these companies that have looked the same forever.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  They've demanded it actually in public, in public letters to Meyer. And, um, there's a big, I mean, there's big, so what you don't, you see these like activist ones who are big in public, but there are like very big ones behind the scenes who own huge shares of Yahoo. And they're pushing Meyer to take this deal. They want her, they're talking to the board, like, you really should do this. You should, you should sell to, to AOL. You should, you know, even if it means Tim Armstrong should be the CEO. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen because Meyer has a board that trusts her and they like her. And she may tell these, um, investors, go suck an egg and say like, you know, this is what you're getting. If you don't like, if you don't like this, sell the stock.

• 23:32Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah.

• 23:34Nilay Patel?

  I mean, if only I had that ability.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  I know. I want, I really, I really want her to do that.

• 23:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  I want her to come out and be like, listen, our plan is to be, try to be a high flyer again. We have billions of dollars we're going to invest. We're going to do it. If you don't want to buy the stock, don't buy this stock. And if you want to try to fire me, try to fire me. See who else is going to run this thing. And so.

• 23:56Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's like a dare at this point.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, but also she's got $700 million and she would be a hero. And also, you know, maybe she could do it. And if she can't, you know, it's like, Yahoo is pretty messy in the first place. And someone goes, someone will go and buy it.

• 24:09Nilay Patel?

  Well, that's actually, that's the sort of the last piece of your book is look at all these smart people who tried to fix Yahoo.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that was like, real quick, the, one of the big lessons I learned is like, people looked at Terry Semen, we just talked about him before, Hollywood executive came and tried to run Yahoo. People looked at Carol Bartz and they said, what a bunch of idiots, like old doddering fools. You know what I mean? But I researched this book. I found out that those were actually really excellent, bright people who just got put in charge of a company that has, from the beginning, not had like a coherent purpose.

• 24:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  You know, and that's made it very difficult to run.

• 24:40Nilay Patel?

  It's also called Yahoo.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:42Nilay Patel?

  Yahoo.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Come on, man. Google's called Google.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 24:47Nilay Patel?

  Well.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Google used to have an exclamation point because Yahoo had one.

• 24:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Right?

• 24:51Nilay Patel?

  It's delightful. All right. You should buy the book if you're listening to podcasts.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 24:55Nilay Patel?

  You should.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Marissa Meyer and the Fight to Save Yahoo.

• 24:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Find an affiliate link on our website so we get a cut of this dirty money. We don't have any of those, but maybe next time we will. But Nick, thank you for coming on the show.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yes. Thank you, guys.

• 25:07Nilay Patel?

  Sam, you've got to read some copy about Snapchat.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  All right. See you, guys.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  John, let me know when to do, oh, oh, come on. Okay.

• 25:15Nilay Patel?

  We're so bad at transitions.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  We're, we're doing the thing. All right. So as you guys know, The Verge is on Snapchat. We are The Real Verge there. And we've had our account for five months now. And I want to know what you guys think of the account. We are doing a bunch of new things recently. We did like Food with Phil yesterday. We did this new music thing with Lizzie. But I want to know what you want to see, what's worked, what you hated, what stuck with you, what was funny, what do you want to see more of? Who do you want to see more of? And let me know. Email me. I'm [email protected]. Or you can just tweet at me. I'm at Sam Sheffer on Twitter. And add us on Snapchat, The Real Verge, and we're going to have fun.

• 25:54Nilay Patel?

  Did you just self promo?

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:56Nilay Patel?

  You just, just.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Hey guys.

• 25:58Nilay Patel?

  Machiavellian, man.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  I mean, how are they gonna get in touch with me?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Sam published a Snapchat news story on the verge.com today and he put the big giant follow the real verge. And as I was scrolling down, I was 50% sure that it was gonna be Sam's own Snapchat.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  I was like, oh, here we go. Okay, it's fine.

• 26:23Nilay Patel?

  Uh, hey, guess who's back?

• 26:26Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  I realized it's an audio podcast, so the full pantomime I was gonna do for the episode really isn't gonna play.

• 26:35Nilay Patel?

  Hey, Chris Plant.

• 26:36Speaker 04

  How you doing?

• 26:38Speaker 02

  He's doing great, cuz we, we, we won the internet back.

• 26:41Nilay Patel?

  We did. Yeah, so we gotta do some news.

• 26:44Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 26:44Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean, great. Talking yahoos, talking yahoos.

• 26:47Speaker 04

  Not news, talking history.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  We didn't hype check Yahoo.

• 26:51Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, hype check Yahoo, dude.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Tumblr was a good purchase for them.

• 26:57Nilay Patel?

  Wait, because it's Tumblr? Not for any other reason.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Guys, today we're getting business, Sam.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  No, corporate Sam. It's corporate Sam.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  I just feel like those...

• 27:09Nilay Patel?

  Do the hype check. By the way, I came up, just everybody knows, before the show, cuz we have, we have what I would call an inherent conflict at the verge. A fight for the, the attention that defines our brand, which is what is the difference between beef and/or bust and hype check?

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, like beef or bust is a thing, and then like hype check is like also a thing.

• 27:29Nilay Patel?

  Right. Oh, by the way, in this Snapchat synergy, synergy Snapchats, Beef or Bust is a show that Sam, Sam is the host of.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  With Chris.

• 27:37Nilay Patel?

  With Chris Sigler on our Snapchat, co-host.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 27:40Nilay Patel?

  So you can watch Beef or Bust, I would say, up to 35 times a day on our Snapchat.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  And it's, it gets better every time you watch it.

• 27:47Nilay Patel?

  It continues every time I watch it. But then on this show, on the Verchats, we have hype check.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  And the, from what I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  The difference is beef or bust is a binary.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  So like, is this good or bad?

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  And you can only answer with, with the beef or the bust. Beef being a positive, bust being a thumbs down.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:09Speaker 04

  Hype check started out pretty similar because it was like hype or not hype.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 04

  But what is, it's evolved into bizarre, you don't know what you're gonna get.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  I don't even know what it is.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  It's more like opening a fortune cookie.

• 28:21Nilay Patel?

  Right, so I figured it out.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  I know.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  I think it's, hype, hype check is, you wanna, you wanna look at the, you know, the, the asset plan for the company.

• 28:28Nilay Patel?

  No, no, it's teenage.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  I need, I need to look at the portfolio.

• 28:31Nilay Patel?

  I'd like to study your cap table.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  I need to see the revenues, what were they doing last quarter?

• 28:34Nilay Patel?

  No, here's, here's, I think what it is. I've thought about it. I've thought about it, alright? I've thought about it. A hype check.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Here's what he knows about hype check.

• 28:42Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I know. A hype check is a mathematical kind of equation.

• 28:48Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 28:49Nilay Patel?

  Where it's, it's hype divided by reality equals a check. Right? So the, like, the iPhone 6 has a lot of hype.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 28:57Nilay Patel?

  But there's a lot of good reality there.

• 28:58Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 28:59Nilay Patel?

  So it has a hype check index of .9? I don't know.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Oh, no, it's hype minus reality. So like, you want, and you want.

• 29:08Nilay Patel?

  Or reality divided by hype.

• 29:09Speaker 04

  And it's golf. So you want the lowest score. So if you have, if you have a hype of 100 and you have a reality of 99, then you get a 1.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  No, I think it should be division, and I also think the scale needs to be.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  It should be division. No reason why.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  The scale, the scale needs to be like Richter scale.

• 29:25Speaker 04

  Mine actually worked.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Exponential, right? So a hype of 10 has to be 10 times more hype than 9.

• 29:29Nilay Patel?

  So Sam.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  My, okay.

• 29:30Nilay Patel?

  Sam, here's what I want.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Can I hype check my definition of hype check?

• 29:33Nilay Patel?

  No. Here's what I want. For the rest of this show, when we say hype check, I want you to do some math in your head.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 29:42Nilay Patel?

  And arrive at a number.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  He literally, for people who can't see this, he literally turned to his computer as if he was going to do math.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  I need to, what is, what is the formula for hype check? Neel, I define the formula.

• 29:55Nilay Patel?

  I think it is hype over reality equals check. Hype divided by reality and that gives you your hype percentage.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  And what is your metric? Percentage?

• 30:05Nilay Patel?

  Hype percentage.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  No, but shouldn't the result be the hype check?

• 30:08Nilay Patel?

  Okay, here, I'm gonna stop this. I'm gonna say that if anyone is aware of our program and how we end it.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Shouldn't it be swagger divided by sweat equals hype?

• 30:17Nilay Patel?

  We're done. We're done with this. I want to talk about telecom policy. We've killed Sam.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Oh my god, Peter, that was probably the funniest thing you've ever said. Oh my god.

• 30:28Nilay Patel?

  All right, all right, let's talk some FCC. By the way, give us five stars in iTunes and tell us what the stupid formula should be. What is a hype check? We need a mathematical formula.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  I gave a great one.

• 30:43Nilay Patel?

  You gave a formula.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  Form the hype on a hundred point scale, a hundred being the best hype.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  But it needs to be more complicated.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  No, it doesn't. It works great.

• 30:52Nilay Patel?

  We're gonna give it to the people.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  Anyway, we won the internet this week.

• 30:56Speaker 04

  There we go.

• 30:57Nilay Patel?

  We did win the internet. And the reason we're giving it to the people.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  It's because we won.

• 31:00Nilay Patel?

  Because we won the internet.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  People are the internet.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Transitions.

• 31:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. The reason that we're giving it to the people is the people's voice was heard by our government. And that voice said, "Choose one law and not another law." "Choose this part of a piece of paper and not another part of a piece of paper." So that's what happened this week. So finally, after, and this is, I think, this is, for me, this is crazy. Like, there's like, my personal history is wrapped up in this. Like, I published.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Almost a year ago, exactly.

• 31:32Nilay Patel?

  Almost, in February 20th or something of 2014, I published "The Internet is Fucked." Because I was basically like, because that's how I felt.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Yep. Also, it was true.

• 31:43Nilay Patel?

  At that moment, it was true. So the FCC had lost in court about, over the first set of net neutrality rules because the legal standing was too weak. Immediately after that, every ISP in the country started like doing bad weird stuff. Comcast started, Comcast keeps always promising that it will obey net neutrality rules. So that's when they started throttling Netflix and then Netflix paid and Netflix speeds went back up. AT&T started doing sponsored data. Just silly stuff like, do you remember, what was it? Hangouts was gonna be preloaded on Android phones, but it couldn't be.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  And T-Mobile's music thing too.

• 32:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that was a little bit later. This is, there was like some ridiculous thing where.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Oh, it was video chat, like.

• 32:30Nilay Patel?

  Hangouts video wasn't gonna be preloaded on Android phones on AT&T, but you could install it from the App Store and it was AT&T was like, we don't allow preloaded apps until we approve them. And it was like, what's the difference between a preloaded app and one that comes on the App Store? And AT&T was like, we control our network. And that was, it was just like all this crazy stuff, like why wouldn't you let Google just build an app on its phone, on its platform, right? Like, and it was just this moment, I think, in early 2014, where it felt like all was lost in these carriers to be able to completely control what devices we used, what apps we used, what services we wanted to use, how we were, like, there's no competition, how we're gonna pay for them.

• 33:12Nilay Patel?

  And there was just a massive outcry, like, we want these rules. And a year later, after basically thinking it was not going to happen for the longest time, the president said, we're gonna do the rules. And finally FCC announced yesterday, Tom Wheeler, chairman of the FCC, said, we're going to use Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which is what people have wanted for a decade to regulate the internet, like the utility that you know it is.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 33:39Nilay Patel?

  And that actually doesn't even do anything yet. That's the funniest part about it. It doesn't create net neutrality rules yet. It just, it's the piece of paper that says you have permission to make these rules.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a piece of paper that says the FCC is going to do its job.

• 33:53Nilay Patel?

  Basically. Although, you know, like, when was the Janet Jackson Super Bowl? The FCC's job at that time was to like, regulate nudity on TV. So like, it has been a long road. Right? Like, when people wouldn't like, I don't know, like, doddering old ladies like, see a swear word on TV, or hear a swear word on TV, they like, write a letter to someone, it's the FCC.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:14Nilay Patel?

  That used to be their job.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  Can I do that for the internet now?

• 34:17Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  Beef, ugh!

• 34:19Nilay Patel?

  So that's, admittedly, that's the worry, right? Like, the previous, the reason I brought up Janet Jackson is like, the previous thing that the FCC got the most letters about ever, was like, a boob on television. And so this whole agency-

• 34:32Speaker 04

  Good job, America.

• 34:33Nilay Patel?

  And now they're getting letters about whether or not Comcast should be regulated. And the fear, and Comcast is able to do this, is, and it's, it is an argument that can be made,

• 34:45Nilay Patel?

  that the FCC will start to regulate the content of the internet. Right? They'll, they'll start to regulate Facebook and this and that. And I think that, I personally think that's ridiculous. I think the FCC thinks that's ridiculous. Like, the, the goal is to protect the marketplace from the monopoly of the providers, not to regulate the marketplace. But you can definitely make that argument. I think that is going to be where the, sort of, Republicans who are reflexively anti-Obama-

• 35:10Speaker 04

  Can we talk about that ad that came out today?

• 35:11Nilay Patel?

  No, I didn't see it.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  The Republican ad? You haven't seen this?

• 35:13Speaker 03

  No.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  So, I, I believe it was the GOP who released a YouTube video that is this, this scene, but also implies that, if net neutrality is approved in any capacity, that your wife won't be able to have sex with the guy who installs your internet?

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is literally-

• 35:32Speaker 04

  That's literally-

• 35:33Speaker 03

  The video, if you didn't know what the video was, and you played the first forty seconds, it is a porn video.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's the beginning of like, it's like, it's like, it's like, a mother is home, or a wife is home, and it's like, this, looks like, just this big, generic suburban home, and then the, a guy shows up, who I guess is like, a repairman, but he's here to install the internet. And they like they emphasize that and then a nerd because

• 36:01Nilay Patel?

  Of course, yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  A nerd comes up and he's like, um, actually, I'll have to document this entire process. And he's like, I'm here for the government. And then like eight more nerds show up. And then they're like, oh, you have a smart refrigerator? We'll have to write that down. And the whole like arc of the video is because they can't actually say what is going to happen. Is like, we'll write that down. Like this weird implication that things are gonna happen because they write it down. They're like, oh, you, you have a webcam? You're gonna have to use this webcam. And it's like, wait, what? Like, these are all the fears that I had if Comcast had utter

• 36:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:43Speaker 04

  You literally, you could replace the video and just like put Comcast and After Effects onto all these people's shoulders. It's like, yes, that, that was the fear.

• 36:53Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:53Speaker 04

  What is this?

• 36:55Nilay Patel?

  Also, that's like, um, that's real for mobile carriers, right? Like you go to AT&T and they're like, you want that phone? What about this mildly rebranded phone with worse software? Right? Like, that's already happening.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:07Nilay Patel?

  Comcast's like, you wanna watch TV? Here's a box from 1975.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  You are stuck with it.

• 37:14Nilay Patel?

  This shit's real. Like, it, it, what's funny is all the, uh, so this is, I, I think I've told this story like four times now, right? Um, I don't know if I remember, I don't remember if I told them on the show last week. But we, I went to a conference last week about telecom policy conference. And there was a Republican Congresswoman speaking, uh, and she was saying literally all of the right things in a really significant way. And the, after she spoke, the conversation at the conference was you can't fight the people anymore, right? Like regardless of political affiliation, everybody hates their internet provider. That's true. And they're saying, we want the government to protect us from the market monopoly of the internet provider.

• 37:58Nilay Patel?

  Because what is real, I mean, it's a monopoly. There's no getting around it. If you are Comcast and you put wires in the ground. In a city of 100,000 people, you have 100,000 potential customers. If you are Verizon, you want to come in that market, you're not going to capture the entire market. So you're, everybody's customer base gets smaller in an area. And eventually you're just not like, it won't ever be economic for a fifth, fourth or fifth or right? Like you won't get a big market of choices because every, no one's going to chase a market of 20,000. Right? Or a potential market of 20,000. So everybody is, naturally consumers know that this is a monopoly and they want protection from it.

• 38:38Nilay Patel?

  And they've demanded it so loudly that both sides of the political spectrum know they can't say it's a bad idea anymore. So now they're just arguing about how to do it, which is great. Except the way that we should do it is not to like do what the Republicans are doing now, quite honestly. And like, we wrote a slapdash law, let's pass this and that'll shut you up. And the fact that it's become politicized like that, I think is really short sighted. And politicizing it like literally the thing Title II says you can't do is block, or you know, the net neutrality rules that will go under effect on our Title II is no blocking of lawful devices and applications. It is the number one thing it says.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:15Nilay Patel?

  And everybody, there is not a single person on either side of the spectrum. Michael Powell, who was the Republican Commissioner of the FCC, was the first person to pass no blocking rules. Right? And he was also the Janet Jackson Commissioner. Yeah. He's the one who started moving the agency because he thought that was.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  It's a really great time for politicizing random things though in America. We're coming off of like, off of a good six years of like everything being divided. But now some issues are popping up where they don't naturally divide. Like this is a great one. Vaccines is a great one.

• 39:46Nilay Patel?

  Really great one.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  Where it's like a thing that I associate with liberals, but now it's become a conservative thing. It's a really fun.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  Dieter is about to.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Live in the verge cast, I'm getting in a fight with Mark Cuban about net neutrality. Just.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Wait, wait. Have you seen the tweet?

• 40:01Nilay Patel?

  No, I haven't seen the tweet.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Dear FCC, you just set back online implementations of virtual reality 10 years.

• 40:06Nilay Patel?

  That's crazy.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  I know.

• 40:09Nilay Patel?

  Is he listening to us?

• 40:10Speaker 02

  Uh, he, no, he just replied, I retweeted him and said, no, that's not true.

• 40:14Speaker 04

  Great. This is a great time to do that.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I'm at least I'm not shopping.

• 40:18Nilay Patel?

  I will say that we, we have gotten into many, many fights on this show on Twitter. Like, we should ban Twitter on this show, but it's like, we should just not use computers.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  You can also maybe just stop fighting with Mark Cuban. What is it with you guys? Like, you guys like-

• 40:34Nilay Patel?

  No, it's like this, like, you know who I really want to fight with all day? I want to fight with Gawker-

• 40:37Speaker 04

  Someone who's on like a Trump show.

• 40:38Nilay Patel?

  I want to fight with like Gawker writers, right? But that's like punching down. Mark Cuban is at least punching up, right? Like, whatever, like, cool, cool, dumb idea, guys, like, great. I'm not paying attention to you or twice your size. Mark Cuban's like a billionaire, he owns a basketball team, he has a jet, he has a standing order for the biggest TV anyone can make. Like, that's punching up.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:58Nilay Patel?

  You fight that guy.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 41:00Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Just-

• 41:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, I'm saying, like, that's, all that's cool.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  The last part is super awesome.

• 41:04Nilay Patel?

  No, it's true, he does, he has standing order for, like, if any company makes a bigger TV than the one he has.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  It shows up.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it just appears.

• 41:11Nilay Patel?

  They all know it. There was like a really great run, uh, sort of in the, like, 2005, 2008, when the HD transition was like really kicking off, when every, like, literally, we'd go to CES and, uh, like Panasonic would be like, "We made a bigger TV, Mark Cuban's getting it." And he'd be like, and he'd be like, "Cool, that's awesome for me."

• 41:32Nilay Patel?

  Uh, all right. Do we, do we continue talking about neutrality? Here's, so here's, so there's a few things left to say about it. One, the rules are not yet out, right? There's a, he announced he was gonna do it, and that was a big deal, and everyone, we wrote a lot of stuff yesterday. I would say our audience is, uh, appetite for telecom policy stories. A bit surprising.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:55Nilay Patel?

  But you guys love it, so we're gonna keep doing it. But then there's gonna be the actual order, the proposed order, which we are expecting basically to leak any day.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 42:05Nilay Patel?

  Uh, the reason it's gonna leak and not just be published is because, so there's five commissioners of the FCC, three of them are Democrats, two of them are Republicans. He's gonna, Tom Wheeler is going to distribute, uh, this order, and they're gonna negotiate.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:18Nilay Patel?

  And because he desperately needs the two votes from the other two Democrats to pass this, because the Republicans definitely aren't, there's gonna be a little back and forth, right? They get, they're gonna pass some leverage. Then there'll be a real order, then that will pass, and then Verizon will immediately sue the FCC. Like, oh, that's the path.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 42:34Nilay Patel?

  And they'll sue the FCC for two reasons. One, they'll say reclassification is illegal. You don't have the power to do it. So it's probably going to be a loser because the court.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Just said they do. Yeah.

• 42:44Nilay Patel?

  And then they're going to say, all these Title II. This is nerdy. So Title II is a long law. It was.

• 42:53Nilay Patel?

  It literally like regulates rates for like long distance service and all this stuff.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:57Nilay Patel?

  The FCC is going to selectively, they have the authority to selectively cross out parts of it and only enforce parts of it.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so this is why, like Comcast and Time Warner's stock jumped when the news came out and it was like, what? Why? Why would your stock jump? I thought you were against this, but the FCC said, we're not going to apply the like rate regulation that's entitled to to cable companies. You guys can charge whatever the hell you want. And there was like, oh, we're cool. And so that's why.

• 43:24Nilay Patel?

  And yeah, so.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Those big cable company stocks, like they're, that just spiked as soon as the news came out.

• 43:28Nilay Patel?

  Right. And so we'll. Which is crazy, right?

• 43:31Speaker 04

  It's crazy because to me than what maybe, tell me if I'm wrong here because I'm going to speak for a normal. All right.

• 43:37Nilay Patel?

  A norm.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  If I saw that.

• 43:39Nilay Patel?

  You're a norm cast?

• 43:39Speaker 04

  I, I, I'm going to, I'm going to go for Norm MacDonald.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  I invest in a company like Google, which is.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  If you're going Norm MacDonald, you gotta get way more nasal.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  I can't even do it. I was going to do a Dennis Miller instead. But I invest in a company like Google, which I see going into cities with faster internet, cheaper internet and better services. That's reliable. I don't go like, great, these. Sorry, evil, essentially companies that are using awful rates and exploiting people again and again and again, and they're not going to be controlled regarding that. I don't, I don't see like. I, it just boggles my mind in investing in them because like, great, they can still be evil because as we're saying with Google, is it spreading like wildfire?

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, it's not quite wildfire.

• 44:26Speaker 04

  People are jumping to it fast and hard when it comes to their towns.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  It's a smoldering.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  Is getting better.

• 44:32Nilay Patel?

  No, it's amazing what a little competition.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Actually, the municipal stuff is the thing that I'm municipal broadband is what I'm actually really excited about.

• 44:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Anyway, but we're getting a little bit off track to Title II. It's got a whole list of rules that were designed to regulate phone companies.

• 44:45Nilay Patel?

  And they're going to selectively cross some of them out and they're going to selectively enforce them in every decision, I'm sure. Like Verizon is.

• 44:52Nilay Patel?

  Verizon, it's funny, we pick on Comcast the most because Comcast is most easily picked on. Like, they're the biggest, they're the big gorilla. Verizon is the most litigious, in its way, and they're the evilist. Like, I'm just gonna say it, they're the evilist. And they're the evilist for this reason.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Although they don't, they don't rename their customers.

• 45:11Nilay Patel?

  That's true, Comcast, Comcast has like massive customer service problems. But, um, the rea- the reason that I would pick on Verizon the most is there, the old net neutrality rules were in effect, and the only company that like, like, just wouldn't have it, that like, went to court and just beat them down was Verizon. Verizon operates, uh, its proprietary wireless networks, right? So even, um, Google, if you remember this, there was a big wireless spectrum auction. Uh, Google bid a bunch of money to trigger a clause in the auction rules that said 700 megahertz LTE had to be open access, so you could use any device you want. Verizon has never, ever, ever let that happen. Uh, like, you know, the, Verizon is just, they're very proprietary about their network.

• 45:55Nilay Patel?

  Now, you get what you pay for, I think Verizon has the best wireless network, they have the most expensive one. Um, but in a world of choice, like, once you are on Verizon's platforms and networks, you're not going any, Verizon's the one that blocked Google Wallet, remember the Nexus?

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:09Nilay Patel?

  Uh, the Nexus 1, was that gonna have Google Wallet?

• 46:12Speaker 02

  It wasn't the 1, it was later.

• 46:15Nilay Patel?

  Nexus S?

• 46:15Speaker 03

  I think it was the Galaxy Nexus.

• 46:16Nilay Patel?

  Galaxy Nexus, that's what it was, that's what it was, man, we should just do a timeline of those.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  Those were great phones.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  We can, we can go way back with Verizon, I was getting in fights with them in like 2008 about, about GPS on Windows mobile devices. They were blocking the GPS chip, the hardware chip on phones that you bought, it wouldn't work.

• 46:33Nilay Patel?

  Uh, we used to, there was an entire series, I remember the series of Post and Engadget, where Verizon was fighting against having Wi-Fi enabled on their phones.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 46:40Nilay Patel?

  Because they wanted you to definitely use a Verizon network. And their argument was insane, it was, we guarantee you that no matter where you are, the Verizon network is better than your Wi-Fi. And it's like, dude, you are running like a 3G network, what are you talking about? Like, no, you're wrong.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  And they lost that battle, right?

• 46:56Nilay Patel?

  Well, they lost the battle because their, because their customers were like, this is stupid.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:01Nilay Patel?

  Because their customers were like, yo, I'm gonna go to AT&T where, uh, there's an iPhone.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:07Nilay Patel?

  Right, like Verizon like literally was not doing, opening up the devices to wifi until like the iPhone pressured them basically into doing it. Uh, I mean, like, these are companies that are built around like command and control. What is happening?

• 47:19Speaker 02

  There, there's a big ass Verizon ad on our website.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  It's great.

• 47:26Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna shut up about Verizon now. Verizon's the best, you guys.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  There was a phone where they blocked.

• 47:31Speaker 04

  Fucking evil.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  There was a phone where they blocked Bluetooth because they were afraid, they knew that people were using it to tether their PDAs to the phones and so they wouldn't let their phones have Bluetooth.

• 47:41Nilay Patel?

  I mean, all I'm saying is the, and the reason that this is, I'm bringing up Verizon Wireless in particular, is uh, these rules for the first time will regulate mobile networks, the same way we regulate wired networks. And the argument over and over again, and if you ever want to get Chris Siggler, like really mad. You like, you like pumping full of booze and you say spectrum crunch. And then he starts getting real mad at you. Um, because their argument is always like, spectrum is a finite resource, it's so valuable, we pay so much money for it, we've got, it's so different. It's magic what we do to put data in the air. That's how.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  It's like they're wizards and they only have so many spell charges and their wand.

• 48:20Nilay Patel?

  And so they're like, so their whole thing is we need to be able to zero rate the music service, like all this crap they do. And basically, we're at the point where mobile networks are so much more important than wired networks.

• 48:31Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:31Nilay Patel?

  Um, and there's, you know, like, it's some crazy number, it's like 70% of like accesses through mobile now. That the FCC is like, look, we're gonna do it, we're doing it to everything.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, they have to.

• 48:42Nilay Patel?

  And so then you're gonna see a lot of lawsuits there, but.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  But I mean, the, the, assuming like, the best case scenario, as near as I can tell, is all these lawsuits happen, Verizon fights, and the FCC like wins everything, hooray. We're still in a place where the FCC is gonna be making lots of weird little judgment calls that like we have to keep an eye on. Like, they, they said that they were gonna pay attention to zero rating of data. So this is like the thing where T-Mobile lets you listen to music for free, they're gonna look at that stuff on a case by case basis. They're not gonna allow sponsored data, I think?

• 49:11Nilay Patel?

  I think sponsored data is out the, out the window.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Right, but like, there's like, it's a whole lot of like, well, we have the authority and now we're gonna draw some bright lines, but then, I know, we know you want to do this terrible stuff, and so we're just gonna like, see how it goes.

• 49:26Nilay Patel?

  Which is, I mean, we're fine.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  Which is fine. Like, that's a way better situation than where we were headed before, I guess Barack Obama pressured Tom Wheeler into changing his mind. Like, I like that, that process of what, did Wheeler really want to do this in the first place? Was he, did he put out that original terrible proposal because he knew? Like, I have to assume that he genuinely had to change positions here, right?

• 49:48Nilay Patel?

  I think there's a good story in the Washington Post.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:51Nilay Patel?

  Uh, where basically the president had two aides who secretly, who developed a net neutrality plan. Uh, and like, the real push in, everyone right now is taking credit for this, so, like, it kind of depends on who your sources are. Um, but according to this Post story and according to some people that I've talked to, um, the real push came from basically like New York startup tech companies, right? Cause your Apples and your Googles and what have you. They're big enough to pay. So they're, they're not like, like, Google spends a lot of money on lobbying, but they were not like at the forefront of the net neutrality fight because they'll just pay. You run YouTube, like, you're gonna pay. You're gonna be fine. But if you are, uh, Tumblr, so David Karp, we were talking about this, uh, with Nick, like, David Karp,

• 50:35Nilay Patel?

  like, personally petitioned the president. Uh, he's like, Tumblr's built on this. Etsy is like, a big company that's like fighting for net neutrality because they're like, look, we can't increase costs to our sellers, who are just people in their garages, like, making stuff. If our costs to distribute content go up, because Comcast and Verizon want to charge us to get faster, we're just gonna pass that cost down to our sellers, who are trying to like build small businesses.

• 50:58Speaker 04

  And Etsy's who they have to drag out if this does get politicized, because if there's one thing that wins, it's jobs.

• 51:06Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 51:06Speaker 04

  And, and like, down home jobs.

• 51:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:09Speaker 04

  And, and that's exactly who, I, I mean, I'm, I'm happy to hear that because Silicone Alley, I think is the right phrase, but they've been, I wish I could remember the name of the people who've worked under Bloomberg, but the work that has been coming out of that team is nuts.

• 51:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  Uh, and doesn't get nearly enough attention.

• 51:25Nilay Patel?

  Made in New York people?

• 51:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, just because they, they do so much work and it's, it's such a different, uh, I would say not repugnant culture.

• 51:33Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 51:33Speaker 04

  Compared to what we've seen out of San Francisco. And it's totally unsurprising to hear that they would be involved because.

• 51:38Nilay Patel?

  Etsy is like way at the front of it. And I know people who work at Etsy and they're like wonderful and they're they're they're the ones who like really, really pushed and said, we are building market. Do you know, there's a thing, we've talked about this on the show before. Like the difference between New York companies and San Francisco companies is that you have to actually make it in New York.

• 51:59Nilay Patel?

  It's real. Like, there's a lot of people here. So if you're building a company that depends on a lot of people using your thing, like either it's going to happen right away for you in New York, or it's not.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:07Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 52:08Speaker 03

  Eli, can we can we circle back for one second? I just had a question about this. So if net neutrality and that whole bill passes and the internet is a utility and all that stuff. Netflix pays Comcast, right? There's like money exchange there for giving them like faster speeds. Will that continue to happen if this bill is passed?

• 52:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, so there's Ben Popper is like deep in this game. So there's the last mile question of net neutrality of like, can your retail ISP provide you stuff? And then there's like the backbone interconnect peering question. So this proposal, as far as we can tell, regulates the whole chain.

• 52:44Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 52:45Nilay Patel?

  But even at those interconnects, like, there's, there's just a lot to unpack there, right? Those are, those are big, complicated, hairy business deals that have traditionally like either not involved money or involved a lot of, there's, it's.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  So we don't know.

• 52:59Nilay Patel?

  Ben's gonna do a big series, I think, of reporting against that because that, right, you can, there's a lot of people who will make a very persuasive argument that the Netflix problem with Comcast was not about Comcast. It was about Netflix choosing crappy providers on their end and underpaying a company called Cogent, which was not able to do Netflix. And then finally quitting and paying Comcast.

• 53:20Speaker 03

  Right. And we've reported on this.

• 53:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we have. We have tons of this stuff. And actually, Ben and I don't like 100% disagree. So I'm on this show like stridently arguing for net neutrality. And Ben has done an amazing job of reporting on the site. Kind of peeling apart all the layers of this onion.

• 53:34Speaker 03

  So this is like something that's gonna like unfold as this crazy thing continues.

• 53:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna be a long way.

• 53:43Speaker 04

  It'll be a story of the year. I mean, this feels like the type of thing that's going to be.

• 53:46Nilay Patel?

  You know, it's funny, I think it is for us. When I talked to, when, when Obama. You know, issued a statement and did it on YouTube and I was like, I saw Ezra Klein, who runs Vox, and obviously Ezra is like, deep in the politics game. I was like, this is it. Like Obama's making his mark on the way out. And he's like, no. And it's like, way bigger stuff coming, dude. And it's like, oh, yeah, like, that dude can also just like bomb a country on his way out the door. Like, you know, it's like, so I think-

• 54:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, last history there, I mean, for the, I can assure you, things have happened this week that are probably in the real world.

• 54:18Nilay Patel?

  But for us, I mean, if you think about like, what the Verge is and why the Verge exists, like, all of the things we want to cover and all the things we want to talk about and all the change and all the future and all that, you can't have it without an internet that allows it all to happen. Right? And the last thing you want is Comcast software. The last thing you want is AT&T software. Like, if you are a listener of The Vergecast and you use AT&T's address book, I want you to send us an email. Right? Like, just send us a note and tell me why.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  And we like genuinely use it and, and, and don't just have it forced upon you as a, like, thing sucking the life out of your actual address book.

• 54:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, right. If you are like, yep, that's the software I'm choosing.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  It's, it's, it's like the alien. It's the face crawler on your address book.

• 55:02Nilay Patel?

  No, if you are-

• 55:02Speaker 02

  And it's, it's eggs are sitting inside.

• 55:03Nilay Patel?

  If you are a listener of The Vergecast, like, legitimately, you're not just like riding along in a car. You're not, you're not, you haven't been kidnapped and forced to listen to this as a form of torture. If you are a legitimate listener of the show-

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Realistic scenario.

• 55:15Nilay Patel?

  Uh, yeah, it's real bad for a lot of people. And I apologize. Also, those people should send me a note and we will rescue you. Just tell me where you are. Uh, no, if you're a legitimate listener of the show and you, uh, choose VZ Navigator over Google Maps-

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Which why?

• 55:30Nilay Patel?

  Let me know. Or Waze. Just like, let me know. Like, I want to know why you made that choice. Like, what is, what is wrong with your brain? And then we will help you. Um, because those are garbage products. And like-

• 55:42Speaker 02

  You know, you have to pay for VZ Navigator on Android?

• 55:44Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God. Why would you do that? Like, just get Waze, dude. Like, just do it.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  You got Google Maps?

• 55:51Nilay Patel?

  So that's what I'm saying, like, you don't want to live in a world where these companies are making those sorts of decisions for you.

• 55:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:58Nilay Patel?

  And if, if we could, if you, I don't know, it, it's like, I keep coming back to TV because that's the last network that we all are confronted with, where it is closed control, where I would love nothing more than to buy an Apple TV box or Google TV box, and plug it into my Comcast TV service, and just be able to watch some TV with better interface ideas in the front of it. And they can't do it. They've never been able to do it, because Comcast and the cable companies completely control that chain. And you just don't want the internet to turn into television that way.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:29Nilay Patel?

  I think that's incredibly dangerous. So that's, I've done-

• 56:31Speaker 04

  And if you want to hear more about the internet changing into television, there's a great piece on the All today that you should read that will break your heart. I thought I-

• 56:40Nilay Patel?

  I think John Herman is one of the best writers on media, but I completely, I don't know if I agree with that piece.

• 56:45Speaker 04

  You should read it.

• 56:46Nilay Patel?

  I believe, I will say this, I saw-

• 56:48Speaker 02

  I gotta go find this thing.

• 56:49Nilay Patel?

  Uh, you should read it. Go to theall.com. It's called "The Future of the Internet's Television." It's a really good piece. John is a great writer.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Kind of on the nose is a headline, don't you think?

• 56:59Speaker 04

  You read the dang piece.

• 57:01Nilay Patel?

  Read the, read the take. Take it out. That's my new command for making people read blog posts.

• 57:08Speaker 04

  Oh, gosh, please never say that, ever again. What else do we have? We have-

• 57:12Nilay Patel?

  We, we, we're coming up on the show. So, Apple Photos. Dieter, you want to take us through?

• 57:17Speaker 02

  So-

• 57:18Nilay Patel?

  Stop reading think pieces.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  I'm putting it in my pocket.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  That was nerdy.

• 57:24Nilay Patel?

  This show's gonna go long, John, I apologize. But we gotta, we gotta talk Apple Photos.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  So, Apple Photos, uh, there's a developer seed, which means if you're a developer, you can look at it now. Uh, if you're not, there's a beta coming, and then after that, it's getting released in the spring. This is Apple's replacement for iPhoto and for Aperture. And it basically makes the app on your Mac look and feel and sort of generally operate the same way the Photos app on iOS 8 does. So like, all like, the zooming out to like, the giant year, year view. There's a cool thing where you can like, hold the mouse button down and drag around to like, see like, pop-ups of all your pictures, so you can find them really quickly. And then it has pretty good editing tools. Uh, they've got this cool thing, um-

• 58:04Nilay Patel?

  The intelligent slider.

• 58:05Speaker 02

  An intelligent slider. So it shows your picture and then there's a slider that has like what'll happen to your picture like the if you do like the light slider, it's like dark on the side and light on the other side. And then you slide it around and it just it does a really good job of brightening the photo. But when you look at it, you can expand it and see that it's doing all the crap that like you always do manually when you're trying to make a photo brighter. You're bumping up the exposure, but you're bringing down the highlights, but you're popping up the shadows a little bit and you're like screwing around with luminance and all that other stuff. They just figured out a way to do most of that algorithmically. They've got a crop tool that will automatically find the horizon line, rotate it and

• 58:43Nilay Patel?

  Un skew it.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Un skew it. And then they also will adjust it slightly to fit the rule of thirds to make it look better.

• 58:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Just magically. So if you're an iPhoto user, it's a huge improvement. It's a massive huge improvement. It seems to be way faster. It's got a much nicer interface. The editing tools are much better. And there's a the best part about it is it has a it's got this weird like, I don't know how to put it. The learning curve is not very steep. Like using the new Photos app to edit photos will make you better at editing photos because you can you can screw around the slider and then you can watch how it does the thing that it does. And you can actually learn to understand, you know, the concepts of what these things are. And like you could the histogram will actually become a meaningful thing to you instead of a random ass graph that's attached to every photo.

• 59:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I just moved the slider to the pointy part.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 59:33Nilay Patel?

  That's where the blacks go.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  So it's great. If you are hoping that it is like an aperture replacement, that it's like a pro tool, you're kind of out of luck.

• 59:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but I think even Apple's like just use Lightroom.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 59:48Nilay Patel?

  I think that's the I think they've come to that conclusion.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:51Nilay Patel?

  I think the last piece of it is like, they're gonna kill Final Cut.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  So the the other half of the story is iCloud Photo, which basically it's a magic sync between the stuff on your phone and the stuff on your computer. And it's all finally properly to where it should have been the whole frickin' time in the cloud. But you need to pay for it.

• 1:00:13Nilay Patel?

  Which is makes no sense to me.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Pretty annoying because you don't have to pay for Amazon or Google service. Right?

• 1:00:18Nilay Patel?

  Right. Well, Google, that's the highest tiers of Google.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  If you above a certain image size, I guess you do.

• 1:00:23Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  No, I think Google Plus, Google Plus has, yeah, I think you have unlimited storage.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, anyway, it's. It's always complicated. And the other thing is, if you don't opt into iCloud photos, you can still use My Photo Stream, which still has the insane arbitrary 30-day limit on how long your stuff stays in the cloud.

• 1:00:41Nilay Patel?

  So this is what I don't understand.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  You should switch to it if you use an iPhone and you want to use the thing, but you're gonna end up having to pay for storage.

• 1:00:48Nilay Patel?

  If you live in Apple's ecosystem, you should use it and pay for storage.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the thing.

• 1:00:51Nilay Patel?

  Because Casey, it's funny because Casey wrote the initial piece on photos and his earlier piece this week.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  Was no photo of storage thing can survive.

• 1:00:59Nilay Patel?

  Which is, you know, RIP Picture Life, I think, was really the emphasis behind that story. But what's crazy to me is Apple is the richest company in the world. They're the biggest, they have the most money. They have like, basically, a small country's GDP in the bank, just sitting there. And it's like, storage for you is free.

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Nilay Patel?

  It's storage is free.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  And it's also, this thing lives inside Apple's app ecosystem. Yes, you can like, upload photos in iCloud, but this is not a, like, participate in the rest of the internet tool. You can't like, squirt your Instagram photos into it automatically, right? You need to like, do the work to like, import your crap and put it in there.

• 1:01:37Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  If you live in Apple's world, it's great. But if you don't, you need to like, you're gonna need to like, do the same old thing that you did before, where you figure out a way to get your photos off of Facebook and Instagram and whatnot.

• 1:01:46Nilay Patel?

  Well, that's only if you use.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  Use it, right?

• 1:01:50Speaker 04

  Photos just stress me out, man.

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's really stressful. I lost, I lost 10 gigs of photos this year, or last year, because I backed up my iPhoto libraries to Dropbox and Google Drive without doing the research to discover that both of those storage solutions don't support complex databases, the way that iPhoto does, and so the photos are just gone. Yep. I didn't, I didn't back up the raw files. I backed up the library and it got all corrupted.

• 1:02:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's awful.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  It's terrifying. So yeah, the idea.

• 1:02:21Nilay Patel?

  I'm just gonna start printing them all out.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  Photos are terrifying, they're terrifying to regular people. And you need to do, you need to make your photo back up into the cloud solution. Make people believe that they're not gonna get leaked, right? This is the thing that nobody, we need to talk about that with Apple. And you need to make sure that it is so simple and obvious of where they are, where they're going, and how you can get them, that you just, you know that they're there and you're not gonna lose them.

• 1:02:49Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  Solve those two problems, and I will give you lots of money for your service.

• 1:02:54Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's funny, because Google, Google doesn't have the native component of this that I think is required, right? Like, I would love to give all my photos to Google, because Google+ stuff is really good. It's probably the best part of Google+.

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  It's the only, yeah.

• 1:03:07Nilay Patel?

  But then, I feel like it's not anywhere near me. Like, I'm taking all these photos, and they go to the cloud, and I'm just like, I want, I don't-

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  I love Google Photos. It's my preferred thing.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  It's what I'm using, too.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  And it does everything for you. It's easier to navigate.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  I just wish that they would decouple it from Google+. Because every time I want to grab a photo out of there, it's like, oh, here we go.

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  Also, uploading it on the phone, the app is-

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  On the iPhone, it's garbage. No, but on Android, it's just-

• 1:03:32Nilay Patel?

  I have a real camera, and I like-

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, on Android, it's just native. It just happens. It's great.

• 1:03:36Nilay Patel?

  No, on Android, it's great. But then, I have like a real camera, and like, am I just gonna upload this in like this web client? Like, that's weird.

• 1:03:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what I do, man. It's great. I do it like, whenever I have like a large batch of photos, turn my computer on right before bed, drop it all in there. I can literally drop thousands of photos all at once. It uploads them all. I wake up in the morning, it's like, oh, I hope you slept well. Here are gifs of some of the things that were there.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  See, that's awesome.

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  We thought that would be fun. Oh, and all your photos, we touched them all up for you. Oh, and it's snowing in some of these? So, you probably don't want it, so we left the other ones normal. But we add snowing to them just in case if you want alternates. And it's like, yeah, Google, I do want those things. I won't share them with anybody, because I hate Google+. But, thank you for keeping these.

• 1:04:21Nilay Patel?

  It's such a weird, man.

• 1:04:23Speaker 02

  The other thing is really cool.

• 1:04:24Nilay Patel?

  I know, that is cool. I just like-

• 1:04:26Speaker 04

  All the features are so good.

• 1:04:26Nilay Patel?

  I just want them all close to me.

• 1:04:28Speaker 04

  It can be close to you.

• 1:04:28Nilay Patel?

  I keep buying big ass hard drives and back in my photo library.

• 1:04:30Speaker 04

  Guys, we're all searching for Android. This is the time. Ready? Guys.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  I just switched to iOS like a month ago.

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm switching. I'm done. This is it.

• 1:04:40Nilay Patel?

  You should. Which one? What are you gonna get?

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  The good one?

• 1:04:44Speaker 04

  Which one is it?

• 1:04:46Nilay Patel?

  Oh god. And this Verge cast took another hour to complete.

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  Everybody.

• 1:04:51Speaker 02

  What's important to you, a camera?

• 1:04:52Nilay Patel?

  The best Android phone.

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  Is a camera important to you?

• 1:04:53Speaker 04

  No, I have my own camera now.

• 1:04:54Nilay Patel?

  The best Android phone, I would say, right now.

• 1:04:59Nilay Patel?

  Well, then, here's what you should do. You should get a Nexus 6 and glue your camera to the back of it.

• 1:05:05Speaker 04

  That sounds fine.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Do you, if you want a big ass phone, get a Nexus 6.

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  I don't like big phones.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  Oh, they get a Moto X 2014. Moto X 2014, that's what you want.

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  It's 2015.

• 1:05:15Nilay Patel?

  Thanks, teen.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  Just saying.

• 1:05:17Nilay Patel?

  Teen back.

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  I would wait, I would wait. Hype check Apple Photos for OS X.

• 1:05:21Nilay Patel?

  That was 10. God, man.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  There's no difference.

• 1:05:24Nilay Patel?

  Hype check your pronunciation.

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  There's no difference.

• 1:05:27Nilay Patel?

  Sam, you're supposed to say, you're supposed to do math. Oh my god. Yes, there's an absolute difference. One is a letter, one is a number, and a thing is a number. And, when you're supposed to hype check something, you're supposed to do math and say a number. So, twice in one thing, you failed to say numbers.

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Wow, you are being really hard on a swag master.

• 1:05:43Speaker 03

  Photos for, I haven't used it yet, I can't.

• 1:05:45Nilay Patel?

  Sorry, that was, that was supposed to sound like fake angry, I'm not a, I don't.

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  I didn't think you were angry either.

• 1:05:50Nilay Patel?

  I don't know.

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  No, but for real, Plant, I would.

• 1:05:52Nilay Patel?

  I could have fewer emotions about that, it would be really hard.

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  But, Plant, regarding your Android phone, that, we're, there's a Samsung event soon, the.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 1:06:02Speaker 03

  The new.

• 1:06:03Nilay Patel?

  The curvy S6.

• 1:06:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:05Nilay Patel?

  Oh, we haven't talked about that.

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  Okay, I'll get that. I have a Moto X in my drawer. I went back on it.

• 1:06:13Nilay Patel?

  You should just glue your camera to that, and it's a great phone.

• 1:06:15Speaker 03

  Eli, we should talk about Bill Gates, because his future went on on Wednesday.

• 1:06:19Nilay Patel?

  We should wrap this up. So, it's Bill Gates month on The Verge. We'll just do this quickly, because, I don't know.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  Well, and there's also other beautiful videos you should be watching and articles you should be reading.

• 1:06:29Nilay Patel?

  Yes, but this is the month during which Bill Gates guest edits The Verge. That means, every Wednesday, we're gonna have an episode of The Big Future and a feature about one of Gates's predictions for the next 15 years. And all of his predictions are specifically related to how life for the world's poorest will radically improve because of technology. So, this week, the feature was about mobile banking.

• 1:06:54Nilay Patel?

  So, this is a crazy thing that I actually didn't know. In many of the poorest places in the world, if you ask people what they would rather have, a mobile phone or plumbing, they will pick mobile phones. They will, they will continue to use outhouses as long as they have phones. Which, I think for most of us in the developed world, is like, kind of like a crazy choice, but then we, I would make the same choice. Like, if you're like, "I'm gonna take away your phone, but give you this toilet", I'd be like, "I dunno, I dunno what to do with that without a phone."

• 1:07:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I mean, there are also things...

• 1:07:28Speaker 04

  I think the point that they make is, there are things that we take for granted that...

• 1:07:32Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 1:07:32Speaker 04

  Like, we can go to a bank, here. You can't always go to a bank in a third world country.

• 1:07:38Nilay Patel?

  Right, right, but I'm saying, so...

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  It provides you a lot of benefits.

• 1:07:40Nilay Patel?

  But, one of the things is, as, particularly phones, because the desire for them, the demand for phones is so high...

• 1:07:48Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:07:48Nilay Patel?

  That they will spread through the population in these poor countries.

• 1:07:51Speaker 03

  I wanna read this tweet that Bill Gates tweeted, and he linked to our article. He says, "Today, 2 billion people don't have a bank account. In 15 years, they'll be making payments with their phones."

• 1:08:02Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  So those 2 billion people that don't have a bank account now will have phones and be making payments with those phones.

• 1:08:06Speaker 04

  The crazy thing is, Bill actually tweeted that.

• 1:08:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Nilay Patel?

  He does. We know, so we know more about Bill Gates and like, his Twitter strategy now. It's very interesting.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Nilay Patel?

  There's like, a lot of, like, Bill Gates, like, tweets, I dunno. He tweets by committee.

• 1:08:21Speaker 04

  But he is involved.

• 1:08:22Nilay Patel?

  But he's definitely like, in the tweet mix. By the way, "In the Tweet Mix", my new album.

• 1:08:27Speaker 04

  It's actually a remix album.

• 1:08:28Nilay Patel?

  It's just Twitter.

• 1:08:29Speaker 04

  Just in the tweet.

• 1:08:29Nilay Patel?

  It's just Twitter raps.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  Oh boy, getting to the end of the episode!

• 1:08:35Speaker 04

  Just got it.

• 1:08:36Nilay Patel?

  Anyways, it's Bill Gates Month. The mobile banking thing is fascinating, the episode of The Big Future is fascinating. I believe next week is about education, so look for that on Wednesday, and then we'll have this sort of exact weird summary at the end of the podcast next week.

• 1:08:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, it'll be great.

• 1:08:48Nilay Patel?

  Actually, I won't be on the podcast next week, because I will be on vacation.

• 1:08:51Speaker 04

  Ahhh.

• 1:08:52Nilay Patel?

  So then Dieter will be doing this awkward thing on the podcast next week.

• 1:08:54Speaker 04

  Just me and Dieter.

• 1:08:56Nilay Patel?

  Tune in.

• 1:08:57Speaker 04

  And Sam and the boss chair.

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  Tune into the Vergecast next week when everything falls apart.

• 1:09:03Speaker 04

  Unlike every other episode.

• 1:09:05Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be great. Anyway, that's our show. A bunch of stuff is gonna be, I've got a whole list here. I'm gonna do it, Sam. I did an opening, I'm doing a closing.

• 1:09:16Speaker 04

  Wow, taking Sam's role.

• 1:09:17Nilay Patel?

  That's not a role, it's, I just wanna see if I can do it.

• 1:09:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:21Nilay Patel?

  And the last line here is just, makes me want to cry.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  We need, that's like, you're worried about the sign off?

• 1:09:26Speaker 03

  No, he's, he's, he's ready for it.

• 1:09:28Speaker 02

  Way more worried about the sign off.

• 1:09:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  I, I, I really do not enjoy it.

• 1:09:34Nilay Patel?

  Guys, we're done, because I'm gonna go upstairs and study some more telecom policy.

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:09:39Speaker 04

  Great.

• 1:09:39Nilay Patel?

  Stay tuned to The Verge for more Bill Gates throughout February, that's the best. Follow at Verge on Twitter. Do something hashtag Vergecast. Go on iTunes, leave us a five-star rating.

• 1:09:51Speaker 04

  And what's the assignment for me?

• 1:09:53Nilay Patel?

  The assignment is, please tell us what a hype check is. The specific hype check formula.

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Nilay Patel?

  The iTunes URL, we have a new iTunes URL, iTunes.com.

• 1:10:02Speaker 03

  Oh, that's dope.

• 1:10:02Nilay Patel?

  Slash Vergecast, which is awesome.

• 1:10:04Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:10:06Nilay Patel?

  Stay tuned next week.

• 1:10:08Speaker 03

  What?

• 1:10:09Nilay Patel?

  Oh, maybe, maybe instead of that, oh, oh, we're, stay tuned next week for the debut, the star-studded debut, by which I mean Chris Plant and somebody else, of What's Tech with Chris Plant.

• 1:10:22Speaker 04

  An audio podcast.

• 1:10:24Nilay Patel?

  An audio-only podcast, which involves, I will say, sitting in a tiny, uncomfortable room with Chris Plant, with audio padding on the walls that makes you want to fucking die.

• 1:10:34Speaker 04

  He gets so hot and stinky.

• 1:10:37Nilay Patel?

  And then like, they're like-

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  We did four in a day.

• 1:10:39Nilay Patel?

  Like, magic eyes at you.

• 1:10:41Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. The good thing, can I tell people about it?

• 1:10:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  So the good thing about it is, the room is, I, it should, you should not put more than one person in this room. You just shouldn't, it's so small, but it's surrounded in that audio foam.

• 1:10:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:54Speaker 04

  That's what they call it, audio foam.

• 1:10:55Nilay Patel?

  The triangles sticking out of you.

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  We should just Snapchat this afterwards.

• 1:10:58Speaker 04

  We'll Snapchat it. You sit across from each other in the corners, so when you look, it, it's like a folding in of that audio foam. And when you stay there for more than two minutes- Your eyes, they don't know what to do with the mirror image. It's kind of like looking at a TV when it has a 3D effect on, where you're not wearing the 3D glasses, and you just start to faint. And like, I literally was like talking to you, I'm like, uh huh.

• 1:11:23Nilay Patel?

  And then he like went, he like went down a little bit. And he told, he told me this was gonna happen. I was like, I'll be fine. And then like, that happened, and I was like, huh? And then I started, and it's over.

• 1:11:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. By the time you know, it's too late.

• 1:11:34Nilay Patel?

  What's Tech?

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  The podcast is in fact coming.

• 1:11:36Nilay Patel?

  The podcast is coming. What's Tech with Chris Plant, featuring many past out guests.

• 1:11:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:40Nilay Patel?

  Uh, next week, debuting. That'll be really exciting. Uh, Sam is on Snapchat at TheRealVerge. It's like the 50th time we've plugged Snapchat.

• 1:11:48Speaker 03

  Hell yeah.

• 1:11:49Nilay Patel?

  Uh, our unmonetized distribution channel.

• 1:11:51Speaker 03

  It's cool.

• 1:11:52Nilay Patel?

  Go look at us, we make no money.

• 1:11:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I am reckless. Dieter is back lawn. Chris Plant?

• 1:11:58Speaker 04

  Plant.

• 1:11:59Nilay Patel?

  Plant. Sam Chef?

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  Sam Sheffer.

• 1:12:02Nilay Patel?

  Sam Chef. That's it. Uh, that's the end of our show. Goodbye.

• 1:12:07Speaker 04

  Bye.

• 1:12:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, bye.

• 1:12:08Speaker 03

  Bye.

• 1:12:09Speaker 04

  Bye.

• 1:12:26Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Chris Plant, and I believe technology can be, well, a little impenetrable. So I've invited my friends into a tiny padded room to tell me how it all works. You can hear it all on my new podcast, What's Tech from The Verge.