307: Alex Kantrowitz On Big Tech's Role In Society

Alex Kantrowitz, the author of a new book on big technology called Always Day One: How The Tech Titans Plan To Stay On Top Forever. He was previously the lead technology reporter at BuzzFeed, but recently left to start his own media company called Big Technology. In this conversation, we discuss the role of big tech in society, the commonalities between each of them, why Alex left his job to go out on his own, and why the individual media company will be more popular in the future. Alex's Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/607065/always-day-one-by-alex-kantrowitz/ Alex's Email: https://bigtechnology.substack.com/ =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at http://www.pompletter.com ===============================

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

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Alex Kantrowitz is the author of a new book on big technology called Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever. He was previously the lead technology reporter at BuzzFeed, but recently left to start his own media company called Big Technology. In this conversation, we discuss the role of big tech in society, the commonalities between each of them, why Alex left his job to go out on his own, and why the individual media company will be more popular in the future. I really enjoyed this conversation with Alex,

• 0:43Anthony Pompliano?

  and I hope you do as well. Before we get into the episode, let me remind you that I also write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. I break down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com, or go in the description and you can click on the link there. Alright, let's get into this episode with Alex. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 1:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 1:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright guys, bang, bang. Super excited to have Alex here. Thanks for doing this, man.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me, Pomp. I'm excited to be on. I've listened to a bunch of your interviews and they're terrific, and glad to be in the hot seat.

• 1:55Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Well, the big news, obviously, is you recently left your job and have struck out on your own to go build a dominant one-man media company for now. So, well, we'll get to that in a second, but for those that don't know you, maybe let's start with your background and kind of how we got to you writing about large technology companies.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I came out of school, I studied industrial labor relations, came out in the middle of the recession in 2009, didn't have a job, sat on my parents' couch and was like, what do I do? So it was a moment where the internet was starting to rise as an impactful marketing platform. And I took a marketing job. And I went in-house as a media buyer at New York City's Economic Development Corporation and came in, they were doing a lot of print advertising, and I was like, we can reach the same readers for less money on the internet and we can target them better. And we don't only have to buy on publications, we can buy on Google AdWords, we can use

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Facebook, and we could use LinkedIn. And they said, really? And I said, oh yeah, this is all possible. And so I just made it a point to really learn how to spend money best on the internet to reach audiences. And it was amazing just to see their willingness, like as a government agency, they don't move really fast, but I had a $10,000 budget for each campaign, and it was amazing to see their willingness to let me kind of spray it around and see what the results are. And by doing that, you know, I started to learn the inner workings of how online advertising works. Then I was in New York for a while, you know, at this agency, and Bloomberg was the mayor at the time, kept talking about how important tech was to the future of the city.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  And at a certain point, I was like, I'm done hearing him talk about it, I want to go do it. And I was like, just get me to a tech company, any tech company. And so I signed on as a lead development representative at an ad tech company that sold order management software to publishers. It's about the most boring type of tech company you could possibly be at, maybe like a neck above an ERP system, but not too much further than that. And by doing that, I learned the inner workings of, you know, I had been buying advertising through the internet, now I started to learn a little bit more about the plumbing. And at a certain point, I was like, do I want to, you know, keep trying to sell this

• 4:24Speaker 01

  software, uh, which was all direct sold. We were moving automated, uh, as the, as an industry. And so I said, I could keep trying to sell this stuff, or I could start to about, to write about where the energy was going. Um, I chose the second path, went to advertising age, started writing about ad tech as a journalist. It was my first uh, full-time staff job. Um, and then, you know, change you've been a part of, right? I saw all the money moving from independent ad tech out to Silicon Valley. And all of a sudden, it wasn't like the two moguls and the Yummys that were the power players in the industry. It was Facebook and Google and Twitter and Snapchat. And I said, I could stay in New York and, you know, write obituaries, or I can move to Silicon Valley

• 5:06Speaker 01

  and start to figure out how these companies work. And I decided to make the move to Silicon Valley. And that's been the challenge, uh, since I've been here.

• 5:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And, and so I think part of what's so fascinating about the work that you've had is, um, there's multiple kind of levels or depths to it, right? So one is just, hey, where's these industries going? Um, how do these platforms work? But also then, uh, there's tens of thousands of people that work at these companies now, right? And, and so there's this kind of entire, uh, human layer on top of it. Maybe talk a little bit about, uh, some of the stories that you wrote about, um, and the process that goes into, uh, really how you built your reputation covering those large technology companies.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Right. So I showed up here, I showed up in here in San Francisco in, uh, May 2015. So almost exactly five years ago. And, uh, you know, I had been this ad trade reporter. And so I said, let me make it a point to try to cover everything I possibly can. Stick my teeth into these companies in every direction possible and see where it leads me. And it's interesting, like you cover an ad tech company, like it's pretty simple. You have the sell side, you have the buy side, you have some data layered in between. That's what you're dealing with. But when you come, when you cover a company like Facebook, you're dealing with, you know, not only the advertising side, but you're dealing with politics, entertainment, how society works, you're looking at AI and and media, you know, and so

• 6:32Speaker 01

  by by I I decided to go pretty wide in the beginning and just cover whatever I could. And then I started zeroing in on the things that I thought were interesting. And so to me, like, the idea was to stop covering the symptoms as much as to cover the physiology. Look at the product decisions, look at the culture of these companies. And by deeply understanding and and conveying the repercussions and the results that these systems produce, people could better understand exactly what's going on inside the company. So instead of, for instance, saying, how could Facebook not apply a label to Trump's tweet? Or how did Twitter apply a label to Trump's tweet? You know, for me, the more interesting thing is looking at,

• 7:16Speaker 01

  why do these platforms, you know, from an elemental level, start to incentivize the type of posts? Where you end up having a world leader who could end up putting stuff out there that merits a label or even that discussion? Like, that type of stuff, in my opinion, doesn't happen by accident. And I wanted to learn, you know, A, why, why do these companies' products spit out the type of communication that they do? And then B, you know, the thing that motivated the book was, it was kind of astonishing to me that as these companies got bigger, they actually grew stronger. You know, we're used to companies getting big and getting bureaucratic and starting to, you know, batten down the houches and protect an asset and

• 7:58Speaker 01

  milk that asset until there's nothing left, and then they become Xerox. But these companies are doing something very differently. They just become stronger as they get bigger. And I I knew there was a cultural story behind that. And I just wanted to find some way to go out and tell it. And luckily, you know, I got the chance with the book.

• 8:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so the book, maybe talk a little bit about kind of just some of the takeaways there because what's fascinating to me is we've seen a number of books now written about individual companies, right? And people spend months, if not, you know, more than a year, really going deep on one single company and trying to just understand what's happening to be able to write in depth, a full-length book. You did that for multiple companies, right? And so there's this element of almost, it's a more difficult challenge when you're trying to cover so many different businesses. So what are some of those takeaways that you had from writing the book?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think this is the first book that Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have all participated in together. So those are typical, typically rivals, and they came together on this one. So I would say that what motivated my book is a different question, right? Most of the books that are out about these technology companies are what did you do? What are you going to do? For me, the question was, how do you do what you do? And that's when you start to get into things that you see, you know, instead of telling the history, you start to talk a little bit more, and it's kind of nerdy, but about process and technology and culture and leadership that's enabled them to be successful. And the more I dug into it, the more I saw there were some real parallels in the way these

• 9:41Speaker 01

  companies operate. One of the things that they all do is that they have this view of work. And you might have seen this, you know, in your various steps, but they view work as you're either going to be spending your time creating something new, or you're going to be spending your time supporting something that exists. And what they've done is minimize the time people spent supporting what exists using various forms of technology, AI, automation, collaboration tools, to make room for them to create something new. And that's kind of my idea with the title, which is always day one. The idea is that they're always reinventing themselves. It's as if their first day with little regard for what came beforehand, and they do this by making much more time for people to

• 10:25Speaker 01

  come up with new ideas and bring them to life. And then the second half of that is they've built systems that once somebody has an idea, you know, they're able to get it to a decision maker with incredible speed. So at Facebook, you probably saw if you have an idea, you could bring it right to Zuck or maybe somebody who's going to tell Zuck about it. And in a typical company, you tell your boss when you have an idea and then your boss laughs at you and then maybe they'll bring it to their boss and their boss will laugh and they'll bring it to their boss. And if anybody along the chain says, no, your idea is gone and a startup across the street who's now operating with the lowest startup costs in history, who's now operating with the fastest time to create a company in history can go create that idea while it's

• 11:08Speaker 01

  making its way through useless middle management who are all laughing at you. And so the tech giants have done a really good job as of giving people the permission to come up with ideas, which is important, and then making sure that those ideas have a way to get to decision makers and don't get caught up in that corporate muck.

• 11:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I'll even take a step further. I actually tell people that one of the things that was the most surprising to me at Facebook is I would see people come up with these ideas and they would go to kind of somebody who would have brought it to Zuck and the response was not a, I like that idea, I don't like that idea. It was something to the effect of like, well, if you're an engineer, like, why don't you prototype it? Or if you're not an engineer, like, why don't you go try to find somebody who will prototype it with you? And then let's talk about, does this work? Does it not? Once something's actually built, right? Kind of this idea of like code wins arguments. And to your point, like, it's just all about speed, right? This and the speed really leads to that innovation, which is, uh, which is pretty interesting. Any kind of funny stories from the process of writing the book? And anything

• 12:09Anthony Pompliano?

  that didn't make it into the book that, uh, that you just found either funny or you think people would enjoy hearing about?

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. A couple of fun Zuck stories if you're up for them.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  First is, so I knew Zuckerberg used Snapchat. And I kinda wanted to get him into this position where he admitted it to me.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  And so I'm telling him, you know, we're talking about stories and I have an idea of how stories came to be. You know, again, this is part of the feedback culture, people telling him that you need to do this or else your products are gonna die. And I knew that he was using Snapchat and he alluded to like, you know, watching stories and I was like, so you did it on Snapchat? And he goes, well, and Instagram. I was like, but you use Snapchat. And he goes, "Yeah, but I use all of our competitors' products." And then he said, he said, he was, when Facebook was starting to experiment into the dating app scene, he had to try them out. So he got onto the dating apps with his own picture and started experimenting with them.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  And he said he was on this one app where you match with a new person every day. And he thought it was a cool looking app. So he showed it to his wife, Priscilla. He goes, "Hey, Priscilla, check it out. You know, here's this dating app. That's pretty interesting." And she looked at the person on screen and was scheduled to have dinner with her the next night. So,

• 13:40Speaker 01

  anyway, it's kinda one of those stories where I'm like, "Okay, I'm sitting here next to Zuckerberg and he's telling me he's using dating apps to meet his wife's friends. That's interesting."

• 13:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I mean, and look, I think part of that is like, it's funny, right? And, you know, one, those are great stories. But two is,

• 14:03Anthony Pompliano?

  it also shows the level of, maybe obsession is the wrong word, but just really wanting to understand how technology works, what are other people doing? What should we be doing, right? And being critical of products. And I've said over and over again, you know, Mark was probably one of the only people I've ever met that could sit in a room and talk about high level strategy of an entire division within a multinational corporation. And then literally during the demo, zoom in and pick up, you know, why is that pixel off? Right? And just the ability to kinda go up and down. And one time somebody said to me, who'd been at the company a long time, they said, "Look, you gotta remember that..." Mark has more context than anybody else who works here.

• 14:47Anthony Pompliano?

  He's been working on it longer than everybody. So he has the story behind every single one of these products. He's seen them all get developed and all this. And if you kind of go across all the major tech companies, that is one thing that remains constant is most of them are still run by their founders or the founders are still in some sort of influential position, which I'm assuming that you kind of saw as one of those patterns across the companies, right?

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Totally. And I think that like, you're right. The way that he's using these apps shows a willingness to believe in a product outside of Facebook. Right? Like, the problem that companies get into is they believe that their software is the best. Therefore, they'll never even try another person's software. And like, to me, it was surprising that Zuckerberg is using Snapchat and dating apps. But like, looking back, of course he is. Like, Amazon has an interesting leadership principle called invent and simplify. And the idea is, you know, you invent and then you build systems to make sure you're not spending too much time supporting that existing product. But they say explicitly, you know, we don't have this dedication to building, to using stuff only invented here.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  If something was invented elsewhere, we'll use it and we're going with best of breed. You contrast that with Microsoft. When Steve Ballmer was running Microsoft, you couldn't bring an Apple product into the campus. You know, Steve Ballmer once pretended to throw an iPhone in a meeting with people. So people sort of knew if I'm working on a Mac, even if I'm developing for Mac users, I'm going to get a dirty look if I'm working on on this computer and Apple, and sorry, Microsoft campus. And I think it sort of shows when you have a willingness and an appreciation to ideas from anywhere. When you have a willingness to admit that other companies are developing good software and you want to learn why they've done well, then you're going to be in good shape. But when you want to sort of, you know, again, look and protect your asset

• 16:37Speaker 01

  and think that that's the only thing that matters in the world and that all your competitors don't have a chance in the world, that arrogance ends up leading to bad business outcomes.

• 16:47Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And since you are the go-to expert on these big tech companies, what's your assessment of kind of their role in the world right now? Obviously, there's everything from the coronavirus to the economic crisis to now we've got kind of social unrest in the United States and this debate over do you label tweets or posts? Do you not? And what is a platform's role? Like, how do you see the major tech companies playing their role in society? Given that, again, it's not just on one issue, like they pretty much touch everything at this point. How do you kind of evaluate that role?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they play important roles. Are they the only actors in this world? No. Like, when we talk about Facebook's impact in the US, we have to talk about Fox News and MSNBC and CNN. When we talk about Twitter's impact in the world, we also have to talk about the way the president uses it, not just the product. So, but they're all self-reinforcing systems. I mean, we know they have, they're definitely changing the way people in society see information. I mean, the anti-vax movement is a good example, right? I mean, you know, I don't think this is surprising, which is sad, but the anti-vax groups on Facebook are growing at double the rate that they were a year ago.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  And so what's going to happen when we have a coronavirus vaccine? And, you know, people, you know, by the tens of thousands refuse to take it because their minds been poisoned inside these groups. Then you get into, you know, pretty tricky territory. So I do think they're definitely changing the way people think. I mean, that was appealing to me, you know, when I started going after this beat, is I would realize that these companies have a pretty important role to play in the way that information gets to people. Now, when I was, I was coming from the ad world, I was mostly interested in what publications they were going to support. But it turns out that they, you know, they've, you know, not surprisingly.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Played a role everywhere. And like my only thought on this is they got to slow it down a little bit like they're too fast. And the share button and the retweet button just enable like quick unthinking dissemination of bad information. And if those buttons even had like, uh, you know, you have to wait 10 seconds before you hit them, or you have to click the link. Before you retweet the story, um, I think we would be living in a better society.

• 19:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And it's interesting because now what we're starting to see is um, kind of a divergence in uh, maybe not ideology, but uh, but like action, right? So the obvious one, and maybe we just talked darkly about it is uh, the president's tweets where Twitter has decided to go ahead and put a label over those tweets. Uh, I think they've now extended that to other um, government accounts that are tweeting similar things or the same things. They've also gone uh, and done to other politicians. Facebook instead has taken the position that um, for the most part, they're going to be a kind of free, open platform. They don't want to make decisions on labeling things and not labeling them.

• 19:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, they're obviously under heat for that. Kind of walk me through a little bit like your understanding based on Zuck and Jack specifically, you know, those decisions are coming from the top. This isn't a policy person making it like at the end of the day, they are uh, maybe not betting their companies, but definitely stepping into um, a very controversial situation. And so the CEOs themselves are making these decisions.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And one of the things that's really disappointed me uh, in this whole situation is that the employees protesting uh, and the media have only focused on the labels. Um, and I'd love for them to focus on what is going on inside your, your platforms that are making them turn into what some people have really accurately referred to as anger video games. And where like the points are retweets and the points are shares and the points are reach. And why is the most incendiary content from the most fringe actors being amplified this way on these platforms? I mean, they've created status games. So people who have mainstream status are not actually going in and playing in them, which means the fringe occupies all the room.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  And then, since the fringe is making all this content for these, for these platforms, they're just getting amplified like crazy with the retweet and share button. Um, so then we, we get into the situation where the media sees like the fringe say, you know, be pretty successful and then say, we need to, you know, take this stuff down. And that just gives them fuel and say, see, this is, you know, we've been here all along. Um, and the mainstream has kept us down and they don't want us to be successful. Um, but of course that's not the case. They've just been, been successful by nature. Uh, uh, of the fact that they've rode these, the systems themselves. Uh, and become pretty popular, you know, on the platforms and in the world because of it.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  So I'd like to see that fixed. Um, and I'd like to see more discussion about that. Because until we really get into that discussion, you know, we're, we're kind of talking about window dressing. Now, we, you know, you know, as far as the labels go, um, I don't really think they're going to make a difference. Like Twitter put the label on Trump's tweet and the rioting didn't stop. Um, so, you know, they, they fact check his, um, his tweet about mail-in ballots. But I don't think that's going to make him stop trying to, um, you know, start to cast dispersions on the validity of this next election. You know, he's behind in the polls. Why do you think he's doing this?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  So, um, ultimately I think that, that Jack has been more willing to act than Mark. Um, and so this sort of ends up following that, that type of, uh, pattern. Um, but I, I know, I know this is sort of unsatisfying, but I think that neither of them are in the right until they start to examine the fundamentals of what their platforms are doing and start to fix them.

• 22:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and it's really interesting because I, I do think that most people are focused on this idea of like, are the platforms becoming publishers? Uh, and they think of it, um, in this like editorial perspective, but it's always about, did they put the label or did they not? Did they censor or did they not? And coming from somebody who, uh, who's worked on these systems and understands, you know, some of the, the complexity of them, like, There's a lot more to, and it's very nuanced, right? It could literally just be, hey, Alex posted something and he gets less reach because of a word he used, right? Or the easy example I always tell people is on Facebook, for example, if you see a post and everyone starts writing congratulations in the comments, it explodes, right?

• 23:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Because obviously if everyone's writing congratulations, it must be this like super engaging, awesome thing for this person. And everyone then gets this dopamine hit and it's like this self fulfilling, you know, cycle. But that's kind of an editorial decision as well, right? Like what goes behind the algorithm?

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's exactly it. Like they are, they've been editors, they are editors, they will be editors. And whether they put a label on a tweet or send you to a fact check, what's happening underneath is playing a far greater role than when you see them act with a quote unquote heavy hand. Like, let's look at the systems and let's look at the belly of the beast, you know, versus its haircut.

• 24:19Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So, most people who listen to this will agree in some form or fashion that the platforms have a hard time claiming, hey, we're the phone company, right? The phone company, the analogy there is just, hey, look, they don't listen to the, well, they're not supposed to listen to the calls, right? And, and they definitely don't, yeah, they don't say, hey, I'm trying to call Alex, but because we're going to talk politics, like I'm not going to connect the call, right? Or I'm going to cut you short at five minutes rather than give you 30 minutes because we're going to talk about something in the conversation. So it's a, it's not quite an apples to apples comparison. But what is the solution, right? And so when you talk about like examining the actual kind of belly of the beast, like they, let's say that they say, okay, you know what?

• 25:03Anthony Pompliano?

  We have this problem, we're going to go ahead and be very introspective, we're going to take this seriously. Like, what do you think is the, the direction that they can go or that like finish line, if you will, where they end up creating solutions?

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I don't want to be one of those people who say they must do something because, as you know, unless we test something, we don't really know what the outcome is going to be. But I do know what I want to test. So, I want to test and see what the outcome is if, three things on the share button. One is if you remove share and retweet completely. Two is if you put a ten or fifteen second timer, you know, on that retweet, so you have to wait fifteen seconds after you've seen it before you can hit it. And three is if you have to click the link before, before you can hit that button. And we know, research shows, if you don't hesitate,

• 25:59Speaker 01

  you're much more likely to share fake and sensationalized news. And I would say probably outrage as well, right? Um, if we put that pause in artificially, I am really curious to see what the platforms will find out. Um, and my guess is that it will create a much better environment, uh, inside. The other thing is status, right? Um, so here's the other thing I want to test. I'd love to test what these platforms look like without follower counts and without retweet and like counts. Um, now, look, these are gonna have, um, you know, potentially some negative effects, right? Because we might not be able to tell someone who's pretty influential from a bot.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  So it will put their, you know, opinion down, uh, you know, kind of on the same plane, which has been an issue. So I'm not sure this is an issue, but I'd like to actually see what it looks like. And then maybe you could just do tiers, right? Because think about it, Twitter counts up every single follower that you have, you can see it. And, and, you know, anybody on Twitter knows that that's freaking addicting and hard not to check. What if Twitter did it here? You know, you're five hundred plus, you're one thousand plus, you're two thousand plus, three thousand. You know, then all of a sudden, you know, it becomes less of a status game and more of a signal in terms of audience. Um, and I think that like if we end up testing things of this nature on, you know,

• 27:25Speaker 01

  you know, along the lines of what I'm suggesting, we will end up getting to a more civil place. Uh, because again, this, this status game with quick virality, to me, seems unwinnable for everyone. I mean, it's pretty good for engagement. Uh, it keeps people checking these things more than they should. Um, but if we're thinking about the way that society is impacted by these platforms, uh, these are some of the fixes I'd like to see.

• 27:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and I guess one of the things, and I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but really, if you think about following people without the follower accounts, email lists have basically done that, right? So like, hey, I subscribe to an email list. A lot of times, I don't know how many subscribers they have. I may have a good sense of it's big or it's not, but really unless they tell me, I've got zero clue. I'm just subscribing for that specific content, which is kind of, it sounds directionally, one of the things that those tests would try to see is that make the platform, quote unquote, better based on the metrics that you're using.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and Eugene Wei has this great post about, he calls it status as a service, and talks about how humans are status hungry monkeys, and we use these platforms as the incentives teach us to. And again, like, you know, it's not like this is the first time society is fraying. Like, we had a Holocaust before Twitter and Facebook. So I don't think they're the cause of all evil, but I do think that the public discourse that we have is important, and it does lead to, you know, a lot of outcomes in real life. And so if we can find ways to improve it versus say, oh, this is just the way it is, it's just going to be better for all of us. And we can maybe, you know, I know it's, we're not

• 29:08Speaker 01

  in a time where we can start talking about social media with this utopian view that it was talked about in the beginning, but I don't think the promise is gone yet. I think we can get to a better place with social media, just not the type of social media we have today.

• 29:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and the other thing I always, you know, remind people of, and I'm biased, look, I worked at some of these companies, right? It's just like, they've had a net positive impact on society, in my opinion, in the sense of, you know, how many people are now connected and all this stuff. Now, there's bad things that came with it. I think they would be the first ones to admit that, you know, there's challenges and they've got to try to solve them. But I think that these are really important conversations, and really what we're asking every large tech company to do is do the impossible, right? Give us all the benefits without any of the downsides. But it's, some of the downsides are definitely worth focusing on and addressing in the short term. What's going on with Google and Amazon and some of the like, non-social media, large tech companies, in your opinion?

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Google is in the middle. So in the book, I talk a little bit about how Google, people think Google is this company that figured out how to do search and just wrote it to a multi, you know, hundred billions of dollars of valuation and that was it. But Google is this company that's really gone through so many different transformations in its history. It started out as a website. You would access on Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer. Then it really became a browser extension on Internet Explorer. I don't know if, you know, many people remember, but the primary way that people used to access Google was through Google toolbar, which is an extension you would install onto Internet Explorer and it would like show up in the browsers, you know, Chrome.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Every Chrome is everything that's not part of the browsing window. And you would type your searches in and it would show up in the browser. Actually, more than 60% of Google search went through toolbar at a certain time. So Google was an extension.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Then the Google team saw, led by Sundar Pichai, who's now the CEO of Alphabet. They saw that Microsoft was starting to mess with them a little bit with that toolbar. As you might imagine, Microsoft was like, we're delivering billions of dollars to value, a value to Google. And we own the browsers. So why are we continuing to do this? And so Google realized that the longer it depended on Microsoft, which was then working on live search, which would become Bing, it was going to be dead. And that's when it really had to build its own browser. And it's funny, I remember seeing ads for Chrome and being like, why is Google building a browser? Why is the search engine so intent on the browser? But Chrome saved the company and without building its own successful browser where you can type your searches in the address bar.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  You know, we might be binging today, like that might be the verb.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  And so that's obviously Chrome worked out really well for them. So Google's safe, but then we move from desktop to mobile. All of a sudden, they need to reinvent again and they do that using Android, which they acquire and then build up. And then, you know, we start, we start getting into this mobile world. All of a sudden, um, voice computing happens. And what you do with Google is you ask it questions, you know? What time is, is this gonna happen at? You know, where did this take place? And people start asking the, you know, Amazon Echo these questions. This is Google's bread and butter. So Google needed to reinvent again. Uh, and that's where it started developing the Google Assistant. Sundar brings the whole company together.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Uh, and so he does, he puts this big slide up in front of the, in front of the company. And it's all Google's products. And then there's like this squiggly line. And it points to Assistant and said, the number one thing that we're doing in this company is turning what we have into one cohesive assistant. Uh, the Google Assistant. And I think that like, this is gonna be Google's future is whether it can make that assistant overtake. Um, you know, the Echo, I can't say here, let me pause, uh, mute it. Um, sorry, overtake Alexa. Uh, or, um, you know, it can't lose that. And, and if Google, if the Google Assistant is good, then all of a sudden it propels all, all the Google products you use.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  It propels Android and it propels the Google Home, which is still second to the Echo. Uh, but if you look at the order, um, you know, the Echo is, is, has the lead, then you got Google. Then there's like an other category and somewhere deep inside that other category, which has very few units sold is Apple's HomePod. Um, so Apple is totally, uh, letting this revolution slip by it. Um, in terms of Amazon, you know, Amazon's like this invention factory. Uh, its culture, you know, I talked a little bit about, you know, working on ideas versus working on execution. And its culture has, um, you know, baked in, and like incredible technology that allow its employees to, um, focus on invention. And that's why.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Amazon's been able to go from, you know, an online bookseller to a massive first-party marketplace, a third-party marketplace, logistics and fulfillment operation, a cloud services platform, a voice computing platform, a hardware manufacturer, and a grocer and an Academy Award-winning movie studio is because the company knows how to operate. Its process is baked in. And we're starting to see some of the fruits of, you know, its most ambitious AI program called Hands Off The Wheel, and I go into that in depth in the book. Hands Off The Wheel is a way that Amazon used machine learning to automate a good amount of tasks in its retail organization. So its retail employees were on the phone with like brands like Tide

• 34:48Speaker 01

  and saying, "We need this many detergent units and this many fulfillment centers, you know, at this time for this price." And Amazon looked at itself and was like, "We got two decades' worth of retail purchase data. Why are we having people do this? We can just have software." And then slowly but surely, over the last few years, they've worked to automate all these tasks. So if you're Tide right now, a machine sends you the purchase order. You get an email, right? You go and negotiate with a portal. The pricing and promotions are all done with technology, not people. It used to be a very big organization inside Amazon. And by freeing those people up, the company's really been able to invent, you know, its next new products. My favorite story is one of this guy, Dilip Kumar,

• 35:33Speaker 01

  who ran pricing and promotions in the retail organization. He goes and spends like a year and a half under Bezos, taking meetings that he, that Bezos was taking as his technical advisor. By the time he's done, pricing and promotions is totally automated. So we can't go back to this division. So he gets together with a bunch of people from Amazon's retail organization that are feeling displaced and need to do something new. And they say, "Why don't we use technology to solve the most annoying part of shopping in real life, which is checkout?" And that is the team that developed Amazon Go, which you can just walk in and take something out, and then it charges you. You know, you, there's no scanning. You scan in once with a QR code, grab what you want.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  And then walk out, it feels like stealing, probably the future of brick and mortar retail, period. Uh, I think that these systems we're going to see in supermarkets all over the place. Uh, and, and in stores and, and I think that Amazon's really hit on something with this. And it all happened because they were able to use technology to change the way they work. And make room for more invention and have the process to invent. So I think that company is, um. You know, really good shape from a business standpoint. The only caveat I'll make with Amazon is. Um, the company needs more empathy. Uh, you can tell by the way that they've engaged in this coronavirus. Moment that they, they, they've fired their whistleblowers.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Uh, they've tried to run a nasty PR campaign targeting somebody in their fulfillment center that spoke up. Um, saying he was inarticulate and they wanted to make him the face. Of, um, you know, worker resistance and honestly like. It's much easier just to treat your workers well than to go through all this effort and the PR campaign to try to make somebody look bad. And I think at a certain point, Amazon needs to realize that because. You know, consumers might one day actually say, I want to go to a. A company that's first priority is making sure that the people. That work for it, it's safe, are safe and making sure that the businesses that sell into it. Are sustainable, that's good for everyone. And if Amazon doesn't prioritize that, it's going to be in bad shape.

• 37:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that, that's a fantastic overview. It, it's fascinating how, um, the use of technology across these companies. Uh, this idea of not spending time supporting things that have been built and just constantly innovating, constantly inventing. Um, you know, it's kind of that, that layer of a commonality across all of them. Um, in terms of also inventing or building something, you recently made the jump to leave your job. Uh, and go, uh, go it alone. Maybe talk a little bit about what you're doing and kind of what the thought process was behind. Um, leaving and, and starting a big technology.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was at BuzzFeed for five years as a senior technology reporter. In BuzzFeed years, I think that's thirty five or so. It's a long time in a digital media company. And I release always day one in April. And you know, it happened, we released in the middle of a pandemic, which is, you know, if I write a second book, I'll make sure to not release in a pandemic because it adds an element of challenge to the whole system that that isn't great. And I basically kind of looked at my, what's going to happen to me in my life over the next handful of years and said,

• 38:56Speaker 01

  you know, I could stay here and, you know, stay in the staff job, hopefully, and try to ride out what's going on in this pandemic and, you know, keep reporting on these companies in the traditional news ecosystem. Or I could just try to take my future and my destiny in my own hands. And that means helping to get the word out about the book in a way that I wasn't beforehand, because again, like full time reporter job is pretty demanding. And I think that there are some lessons in the book that are valuable to, you know, anyone, no matter what industry they're in and, and, you know, spent a long time working on it and figured it was worth that effort. And then the other thing is, so, you know, I think that, and you are, you know, totally, you know,

• 39:38Speaker 01

  you've been early and ahead of this for a long time is that I think we're seeing the movement of reporters, people with perspective. You know, people with something to say to do it without a filter, to do it with as a direct relationship with readers and listeners. And, you know, I've been writing about this for a while and seeing it take place. And I thought it was possible. I believed in, in, you know, what people like you are doing. And said, it's time for me to give it a shot. Um, so along with going and spending, you know, leaving and spending more time, you know, getting the word out about always day one.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  I wanted to start my own publication, so I did, um, went to Substack. Uh, I've had discussions with the Substack guys for a while and, um, you know, I, I trust them. I think it's a good platform and a good place to start out. Um, so I'm starting this new newsletter called Big Technology on Substack. And it's not entirely new, like I've been writing a newsletter for BuzzFeed called The Tech Giant Update. Uh, but again, trying to do that in between stories, now I'm going to make the newsletter my main focus. And I'm sure like, you know, you've done this, right? You, you know, you know, when you send a newsletter and you have people that reply and then you can start having a conversation with them. That's so rewarding, so much more rewarding than putting it on a website. Um, so I'm, I'm really looking forward to that back and forth interaction, uh, with subscribers.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  And then, uh, you know, I'm going to do a podcast as well. Um, and you know, if people subscribe to the newsletter, then they'll, you know, be able to get, uh, heads up when the podcast comes out. But to me, you know, the best part of my day is spent speaking with interesting people and trying to figure out what their worldview is like. And, you know, I just think that it would be pretty cool to be able to release those conversations to the world. Uh, and so I'm right now trying to find a, a partnership with a media company. I've had a couple of good conversations so far where like we would do like a, uh, sort of an audience for revenue. Yeah, audience for content trade and then a revenue split.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Essentially saying, you know, I, I think I have a pretty good idea of how to make this content. You know, you have an established audience, you know, I want to start big. Um, and so the idea would be to, to do this partnership, you know, they help drive listeners and I'll, you know, go out there and make sure to, to make great audio. And so, um, I think by the end of June, we'll have something to announce on that front.

• 42:11Anthony Pompliano?

  That's awesome. Yeah, one of the things going back to the kind of the social media conversation and the algorithms. Uh, I keep going back and forth on, um, there's definitely this value of, uh, rather than write an article, put it into a publication on the web and then have that distributed through social media and, and hope that the algorithm gods are, are kind and, and give you a big boost. Uh, email is still one of the best ways to deliver content, right? You have that relationship directly with, um, the, the reader. Uh, recently I've had two separate people say, yes, but, uh, don't forget that Google of all companies, uh, could put you in the promotions tab, right? And, and there can be a little bit of filtering there as well.

• 42:54Anthony Pompliano?

  And so how, how have you just thought about, um, you know, there's the content creation, but then there's the delivery. And so it sounds like you're pursuing, uh, still written and audio. So kind of two different channels there. But, but any thoughts about just like what you can do to continue to, um, you know, really cultivate a relationship directly with the reader, uh, or the listener and, and kind of wean yourself off the dependency on some of these larger platforms?

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, I think it's a reality today. Like anyone who says that email is total, totally filter free is probably kidding themselves. Like you definitely are going through a filter with email. Like you mentioned Google's or, you know, Microsoft, if you're sending there. Um, the one thing that I found, uh, really amazing about email is though is just that like, when you go and inbox is a pretty sacred space for people. People get mad if they see a bad email. Now they're okay if they see a bad tweet. So they're, even if it's in the promotions tab. So there's a lot of trust coming in. And you have to, when you, I, I think for like, from my perspective, when I'm going to send an email, you know, it's gonna, I'll make sure that it's going to be worth somebody opening it if they do decide to make that click.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Um, and then, you know, people have controls, right? Like you can drag an email and I've done this with plenty of newsletters that I like. I've seen it show up in my promotions tab. I can drag it into my main inbox and say, Google will say, do you want this to appear here from now on? And I'll do that. But yeah, ultimately, we are at the mercy of big technology company algorithms, whether we like it or not. And I think the thing that we can do is give ourselves the best, our best chance to be able to cut through the noise. And so if you ask me, would you rather send an email or send a tweet? An email is a much, much better way to do it. I mean, I'll do both. But I, I, I just think the two way communication on emails is so

• 44:49Speaker 01

  great. And there's something, something else is nice about it. I don't know if you found this with sending your email, but the privacy is cool, where people feel that comfortable to share thoughts. They wouldn't share like as a reply on Twitter, you know, like a reply on Twitter, you know, typically you'll get like, you know, you're a dumbass and here's why. A reply on email, you might actually get something civil and something constructive and a way to think about the issue in a different way. And, and then more stories will come that way. So I, I'm pretty freaking excited to get sending and, you know, over the past week, I was going through some of the replies to the tech giant update and just like, man, like a lot of people were like, you know, send these more often. And

• 45:34Speaker 01

  I was like, yeah, but I'm writing stories full time. So to be able to combine that is something I'm stoked for.

• 45:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I, I could definitely vouch for the idea that the feedback is much, much more thoughtful via email. Sometimes literally people write back like paragraphs and paragraphs. And I'm like, wow, you really care, right? Like, like you really were listening and, and thoughtful about this. So definitely agree there. How do you think that this affects, right? Like going from working at a large publication where when you reach out to sources or anything like that, it's a BuzzFeed reporter is reaching out to now it's Alex is reaching out, right? And you're going to build the name of a publication, but on day one, you are better known than the publication, right? Now, over time, hopefully that kind of flips.

• 46:23Anthony Pompliano?

  But how do you think that that affects, one, the stories that you can kind of get access to, to the relationship with sources and maybe kind of talk through if you did any analysis there or thinking as to whether that would change the way that you actually could cover some of this stuff?

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's going to be hard. Like, I don't think it's gonna be easy. Like, you have to, in this world, you have to earn it, right? People are gonna see big technology. Many of them have never seen a story from it, uh, never even seen my intro post. And so I'm gonna have to go and earn trust and, and make a mark by, you know, producing big, hard-hitting stories. And so, like, my goal, I'm gonna give it a couple of weeks before launch, because I have a couple I'm reporting out. But I wanna come out guns blazing. Um, and then, like, the other thing is, uh, like, you know, I kinda know what this is like. Um, because I was one of the original members in BuzzFeed's Silicon Valley Bureau. And we came on the scene and, you know, BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed had done some tech content before,

• 47:22Speaker 01

  but it wasn't known to be a hard-hitting tech desk. And so we had to literally prove to the world that we were capable of doing the work that they should pay attention to. And that required a lot of hard work. That required, you know, getting on the phone and, um, you know, sometimes sources are just like, "Okay, but BuzzFeed," you know, or they were like, you know, "I'll speak to anyone." That's what, that's one I love. "Oh, okay, you're for BuzzFeed. I'll speak to anyone," you know, which was literally what happened to me. People were like, "Oh, I thought this was for Ad Age." You know, now people would much rather speak to BuzzFeed than Ad Age, I think. Um, and so, yeah, we had to, you can't, we had to work hard, and we had to punch hard. And we couldn't go into it with an ego or a narrative, right?

• 48:05Speaker 01

  I feel like if you go in knowing, knowing what you're doing, a- and then writing original pieces, not narrative-driven pieces, um, you know, you go and writing stuff that people actually get value out of, not like the 10th version of the story that everybody's written. That's where you're gonna make people want to start to speak with you. And like, I mean, I don't know, like, to me, the cool thing about starting this on my own is, if I get this right, I can keep it, you know? That's pretty neat.

• 48:32Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And I think part of the allure of going out on your own, right? For journalists that I've seen do this is, hey, look, I get to write the stories that I want to write. Right? And it's not to say that they couldn't always do that, but there's definitely editors and kind of other things at play when you're writing stories. And so that's an attractive component to it. But what you lose is those editors, you lose some of the support staff, you lose some of the resources. So kind of how have you thought about the pros and cons of those large organizations, right? You get some freedom, but you also lose some resources and just kind of like, how do you balance that in your head and think about it as you kind of start now?

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, I've done seven years as a full-time reporter after starting out freelance. And I feel like if I were to do this, starting out, I wouldn't know what I was doing. Like, I mean, I started out, you know, doing Forbes blogging when Forbes would let lots of people, you know, go and use its platform. And that was like a good learning moment for me and it was a way for me to sort of make mistakes in real time.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Now, like, I feel like I have an idea, you know, of what I'm doing and I feel confident that I'll be able to find the stories that are going to cut through. And like, you know, with my newsletter beforehand, I think that watching the type of stuff that I would write and how it would resonate with people was like a good chance for me to sort of give this a shot, experiment a little bit and see if it could be something more broadly, more broad. You know, you can't, you can't, I feel like everyone could use an editor, like you can't replace the value an editor brings. So while I'm excited to start assigning myself stories, I am going to miss that second set of eyes. You know, this isn't something interesting.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  That Ben Smith brought up in one of his recent columns about, you know, people going out and going independent, whether it's celebrities or like, you know, um, you know, people with influential tech followings or like B-list journalists like myself, you know, it's like, um, uh, the, the services that are, the services that are there for you, like Substack, may eventually start doing something like, you know, once they get enough people, are they gonna have an editor on call that you can just, uh, you know, give a call to and talk a little bit about? I could see that happening. Are they gonna have healthcare? Okay, that might be more of a stretch, but the editor thing certainly, certainly possible. And, you know, until that day, like, you know, when I have something that's pretty, you know, controversial

• 51:09Speaker 01

  or, you know, um, I'm not sure about, I'll just gut check it. Like, I'm lucky to have friends, uh, who are reporters, um, who, you know, I probably can't ask them every day, but every now and again, I'm sure I can say, "Hey, can you just take a look at this before I hit the, the publish button?" Um, and I don't know if it's gonna be something that will be smooth all the time. Like, it will definitely have hiccups in the way that working in a established media corporation, um, you know, didn't, you know, wouldn't have as many of. And, you know, my approach to this is to admit that that's gonna happen, to ask my readers to trust me, to admit when I mess up, because I will, and to learn and grow from it.

• 51:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I, look, y- you already know this, but I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you, uh, the whole key is the persistence of just doing it in, in a very disciplined manner, right? Hey, if I'm gonna write every Monday, write every Monday. Um, and you definitely make the mistakes and stuff, but, uh, I, I think I've been writing on Substack for two years now, actually, um, as of, uh, May. And, uh, that's probably the most defendable thing I've done, is I just did it every day, right? And, uh, a lot of other people started out and then stopped at some point. How do you think about this changing the content you write? And what I mean by that is when you're writing a story at BuzzFeed, it's less your opinion and it's much more kind of reporting the facts.

• 52:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Now you do have that trust of the reader, right? They're subscribing to hear from you. Do you think that that leads to more opinionated pieces? Do you want to write more opinion? Like, talk a little bit about how you kind of balance the opinion component, given that now it's less, hey, I'm just reading this on BuzzFeed and maybe I don't know or I haven't paid attention to who the writer is. To now, no, I'm specifically getting this because I've chosen to get content from Alex.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think the reporting will lead the way. So people are going to hear the reporting first and then my opinion second. But I think that there's definitely going to be more opinion in the stuff that I write, and I'm excited to do that. I don't think there should be, in any form of journalism, well, actually, maybe that's debatable. But like every venue, you should have, if you have an opinion, you should have the ability to write it. Otherwise, you know, we're holding stuff back from readers and, you know, who does, like, what type of good does that do? I'm not into it. So, yeah, I think the readers of this newsletter will hear what I think for real. They might be surprised, like, you know, like I talked about narratives,

• 53:52Speaker 01

  like oftentimes, coverage goes in narratives. You know, people say, what's the big story? And then they all try to advance, you know? And I'm just kind of skeptical of that a lot of the time. Like, people will not hear, you know, after reading a story in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and BuzzFeed and Fortune and Forbes, they won't see my, you know, same story. They're going to see a different perspective from me. So it's going to be, there'll be a lot of first person. There'll be some opinion. I mean, my book is like a good example, and always they run.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  You'll see the reporting lead, you'll get, I feel like a reader can kind of get lost in the reporting and then I'll bring it back into like what I saw and what I felt. Um, and yeah, like, I think it'll be, it'll be a two-way conversation. Um, it will be me learning from subscribers, them learning from me. And who knows, like, it might go in different, interesting directions. We could get spiritual, we can think about, you know, things like meaning, um, which I think is important to think about when you think about tech. Um, and ultimately, we'll just, I'll just let that two-way discussion drive.

• 55:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it, it's really interesting too, because you, you keep mentioning this two-way discussion and it, it's almost like what you actually end up doing is you end up building a community. Right? And, and that community is there to, um, kind of consume the content that you're creating. But then the discussion afterwards, there's kind of intellectual satisfaction to it. But also too, that's what ultimately, uh, brings value as well. And, and so, um, as part of that, like, how do you think about, uh, monetizing all of this? Is this a, uh, there's some for free and some that people will pay? Is it an ad-supported model? Like, how do you kind of? We're talking about it as if you've been doing it for years. Obviously, you're just starting, but like, like, what does that monetization look like? Um, you know, as you see it today?

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um, I have like three main monetization goals. Um, one is, um, I'll just do the easy one first, sell another book. Um, so to me, that is, the first thing I'm gonna do is do my best to get always day one out there as much as I can. And hopefully that gives me another opportunity to write another book. Um, second, with the newsletter, I'm going to go to a model of a free article, probably a free article a week and then maybe two or three, uh, for subscribers only through the week. Um, so it will be reader-supported. And then third will be the podcast.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Uh, like I mentioned, I'm gonna try to build a big audience on that and then just do revenue share with a, with a media company. I mean, if, um, you know, with, with the podcast and the newsletter, like if the, I mean, I'm kind of curious what you think about this, but like if the podcast does really well, or the newsletter does really well, um, then maybe I can, you know, make the other one free. Like if the newsletter crushes it, you know, probably do like the podcast like ad free, or if the podcast gets a big audience, then I can move and make the newsletter, uh, you know, free to everyone. Um, to me, they, they all reinforce each other. And I'm not, you know, my goal isn't to get rich off of this. My goal is to sort of be able to do this type of work that I love to do and share,

• 57:13Speaker 01

  you know, what I know about these companies and what I know about the tech world, you know, without an end date, uh, in a way that I can support myself independently, um, and not be reliant on, on somebody else to give me the permission to do that.

• 57:28Anthony Pompliano?

  I think you're thinking about it the right way. I, I mean, that, that, that's what's so crazy about all this, right? And, um, you know, I, I've obviously thought a lot about it, but, uh, I forget the, um, the, the woman's name who, uh, coined the term of the, uh, the passion economy, with basically this idea that, you know, look, you only need a couple hundred people, uh, to, to pay, um, for whether it's reader or listener supported, uh, content, and most people could replace their salary, right? With, with just a couple hundred people. And, uh, and, and so what's, I think, really interesting is, um, when you see journalists leaving to go start this, uh, you know, you've did a pretty good job outlining, like, it's the same body of work. Yeah, there's some tweaks and maybe with some less resource or whatever,

• 58:12Anthony Pompliano?

  but like, you're still writing about the things that you were writing about and want to write about. Uh, you're just choosing to monetize that work in a different way, and it involves taking more risk, right? Cause if, if, if you're unsuccessful in getting people to pay for it, then obviously you make less money, but you also have uncapped upside. And, and so it's very interesting to kind of see, um, you know, some people are very attracted to that, and some people say, hey, look, just pay me my paycheck, and, you know, I don't want to ever think about monetization in, in my life. I just want to do my work. Um, and so it's kind of cool now that the tools are in place for other people, um, who, who previously didn't have this, you know, avenue to pursue. They, they have it now, right?

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Totally, yeah. And you know, I've, I have a high risk tolerance. And I've been, you know, I mean, started out on the business side as opposed to starting out in journalism. So I've seen the changes in the media industry, you know, reported on the changes in media and social media. And, you know, succeed or fail, like this will be a cool experience to kind of see what it's all about. Once I get out there.

• 59:17Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that attitude. Before I finish up, I always ask two questions, and then you get to ask me one question to finish. What is the most important book that you've ever read other than your own?

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Um, this is, I love the book, The Forever War. It's by Dexter Filkins. Have you read it?

• 59:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Fantastic book. Yes.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  I'm getting chills just thinking about it because we'll, we're never gonna have. So, so for, for your listeners who haven't read it, it's a book by this correspondent who'd been at the New York Times and the New Yorker covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I don't think we're ever going to have another book like this because he was sort of the last war reporter to write a book about what it was like to embed with people who are fighting with the US where they still needed the filter. There was no YouTube for the Taliban to use when he was in Afghanistan. And so he got unbelievable access and is able to tell this fascinating first person

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  story about the sort of repercussions of the US action in those two countries. And I think that,

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  yeah, I don't know, I just was blown away by every single chapter that he, that he told. And I think that it's a good read for anyone that's trying to figure out sort of what actually happens when the US thing goes in and invades, because too often where, you know, we, our networks won't really show us what's happening there. Our newspapers won't, won't cover the full story. They do a good job getting the basic details, but we don't really see the extent. And I think the book does a really good job of that.

• 1:01:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's one of these books that not only has great content, kind of the access and just information you can't get anywhere else. And then it's also very well written as well, right? A lot of times you get one or the other. This one has both. And I read that a while ago, but that's a fantastic suggestion. Second question is a more fun one, which is aliens, believer or non-believer?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Oh, Pop, you got me on the tough one here at the end. I'm gonna just say that if we had, if there are aliens out there, I'll be shocked but not surprised. Like,

• 1:01:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, why?

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Because math says there should be. But we haven't seen any of them yet. And I know there's that theory that like, you know, maybe most civilizations get to a certain point and then they annihilate themselves. And right now, that seems fairly believable. So it's possible that all the other aliens have annihilated themselves at this point, and we haven't really made contact with them. But I mean, we think about it, universe is big. And, you know, the chance of another Earth-like planet is not out of the picture. So, you know, if they're here, oh, yeah, like, you remember when there was that comet, that comet that was gonna came

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  pretty close? And I think I had tweeted something, you know, you know, appreciate your interest in visiting, but we're going through some shit right now, maybe try another time. That would sort of be my message to the aliens, like, or maybe they should come now, because, you know, might as well, you know, deal with all the crap at one time.

• 1:02:42Anthony Pompliano?

  That would be the most on-brand 2020 thing ever, right? It's like, oh, aliens came too, like, of course they did.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Exactly. What do you think, Pop?

• 1:02:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I definitely think that the math suggests that uh, there's other life, right? I cheat because I've asked this question out of 300 people and I've heard every variation of answer, but I think the two big questions are, are you talking about life or intelligent life? So let's just say that we're talking intelligent life. Okay, math would suggest it's out there somewhere, but then two, and I forget who's the person who originally said this to me as part of their answer, but they said, yes, but then you have to cut it also by time. And what they basically were saying is like, the odds from, if you just look at how vast

• 1:03:32Anthony Pompliano?

  the galaxy is, is that there is other intelligent life out there, but they could have been here a million years ago, right? Or they could be here a million years from now. And I said, look, you know, you're blowing my mind to the point where like, I feel, you know, not only small, insignificant, and also just really stupid, right? Because these things are so complex.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Anthony Pompliano?

  But like, the math suggests it, and so from a probability standpoint, you know, it is probably out there, but we haven't identified it. Like, that's the other thing is, right, is have we already discovered them and just haven't said it yet? I don't, I don't go that far.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  Have you seen the videos of the flying saucers that are being captured by the Air Force? And are you buying and selling on the idea that that's extraterrestrial life?

• 1:04:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, so I've seen them. I don't know what to think of them, frankly, and really what I mean by that is, there's two pieces to it. One is, there's something there, right? Unless they're like, literally, it's a optical illusion or something, but it appears that something's there. Two is, the part that actually makes the argument around alien life or something else, the most believable to me is actually the fact that there's multiple reports of things that we can't explain with physics today, right? So, hey, we've got this understanding of science, but something that we saw, we can't explain through what we're seeing. Look, you know, there was plenty of things in science we didn't understand 100 years

• 1:05:05Anthony Pompliano?

  ago that we now understand today because of the technology, whatever. So, doesn't mean that we can't figure it out, but just like that, to me, is probably one of the more compelling arguments for like, why aliens would exist.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Okay, I got one more, one last question for you. Sorry, I've taken over your interview. But you really sparked a topic of interest for me. All right, so I'm sure you have friends in the tech world who believe that we're in a simulation. So how do you react when you hear that?

• 1:05:39Anthony Pompliano?

  2020, anything's possible.

• 1:05:44Anthony Pompliano?

  No, I, I, I think that it's, again, it's a probability thing, right? People way smarter than me have done all the math and, and could, you know, rattle it off. I don't know how probable it is. What I would say is, uh, when you start to go down this path of like simulation, aliens, whatever, I actually kind of come at it weird because, because what, look, from a life experience standpoint, right? Like, I went to Iraq, right? I was at war, like I saw that kind of stuff. And you just get reminded of like, we're all gonna die. Right? And so like, is it a simulation? Are there aliens, like war, all this chaos, whatever? Like, we're all gonna die. And you and I are about the same age.

• 1:06:26Anthony Pompliano?

  And you just kind of start thinking like, yeah, I think I've got like another 50 years or so. Right? Like, like, that's what the math would tell me is, you know, probability wise. But that could be not happen and I could die tomorrow. And so it's just like, let's, let's just enjoy what we have. Right? Like, let's go live our lives, let's go do the cool shit now. Because if we're living in a simulation or anything else, like, I almost don't want to know. Right? It's like, let me believe that I'm actually doing the things that I want to do.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like the old question, like, if you knew the day you're gonna die, would you want to know? Nah, oh, no thanks.

• 1:07:03Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Where can we send people to, one, find the book? And then two, to, to sign up for, for Big Technology?

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if you Google Always Day One, or Bing Always Day One, or type it into whatever weird search engine you use, you'll be able to find it everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookbound, the whole deal, Apple Books, if that's your cup of tea. I haven't been banned on Apple Books yet, so that's good. And the newsletter is just bigtechnology.substack.com. And yeah, that thing will be firing up any day now. So I'd love to see you all there.

• 1:07:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome, man. Well, we'll link to both of those in the in the description as well. And then appreciate you doing this. You know, best of luck as you go down this path. Because I think it's a it's pretty cool that that you're doing it. And I got no doubt that you're you're going to be pretty successful.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you, Pop. I'm looking forward to continuing to listen.

• 1:08:06Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Thanks for listening to that episode. I hope you enjoyed it just as much as I did. My goal is to educate as many people with these conversations as possible. So please go subscribe on your favorite podcast channel, leave a five star rating and a review. These things really help the podcast get higher up on the popularity charts, which ultimately brings more people to learn. Also, don't forget you can go to YouTube to watch each conversation in video format as well. Just search my name, Anthony Pompliano, on YouTube, and you'll find our channel with hundreds of awesome and informative videos. Thanks again for listening to this one, and I'll see you for the next one.