2021 In Review, 2022 Predictions — With Casey Newton

Casey Newton is the editor of Platformer, a CNBC Contributor, and a friend of Big Technology Podcast. He joins us for our final show of the year, where we look back on the biggest stories of 2021 and predict what's coming in 2022. Join us for a conversation about Big Tech's year of transition, the upcoming Web3 wars, and whether the cult of the founder is falling apart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 0:45Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed nuanced conversations of the tech world and beyond. Our guest today is Casey Newton. He's the editor of Platformer. I first want to let you know that last week I said there was a chance I was gonna have COVID living in New York, and lo and behold, this week I'm coming to you with COVID. I've tested positive, so that's probably why you're gonna hear my voice a little scraggly, but feeling good, feeling good. And, and everything the doctors say lead me to believe that it's just gonna be a couple of days. I boosted a month ago, so. But yeah, just a heads up that it's out there. Be safe, everybody. Welcome, Casey.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Welcome, and sorry to hear about your COVID, Alex. I've not listened to any podcast where the coast, where the host had COVID. So this is a, it's gonna be a first for me, recording and listening to a podcast with a COVID-positive host.

• 2:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you. You know, I did, I had listened to one. I have a DJ that I like to listen to. She has a podcast, and

• 2:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Though she came back like this one week and like, you know, obviously it's like very little narration. She plays songs and I could just hear it in the voice. And she goes, I just tested positive for COVID. And I was like, okay. But I mean, maybe it's a good thing because, you know, after having three vaccines, even getting hit with like, it must be the Omicron. Very like, I feel fine mostly, so.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  I mean, that's, that's all you could, I mean, I think the, the best case scenario is it not getting COVID. It's actually getting an asymptomatic case of COVID and then not spreading it to anyone. So the closer you are to that, the better.

• 2:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly. I mean, there's, there's a little bit of nerves with it because it's like, wow, I, I have the thing in my body that's done all this destruction. But I like, I called the doctor yesterday and was like, so what's the percent chance that I'm going to die? They're like, shut up. Like basically this doctor said, you get the first half of the cold, which is like head cold. And if you have the vaccine gives you antibodies, it prevents you from like having the stuff enter your lungs.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 3:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  And she said amazingly that she hasn't sent a single vaccinated patient to the hospital, which is cool to hear.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  A miracle of science.

• 3:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  And if this breaks the trend, well, it's been nice to have everybody listening to the big technology podcast.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Honored to appear on the final episode of the technology podcast.

• 3:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, you did. You did help us kick it off with our, in our first week. And, and so, you know, it would be fitting to have you here.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, I'm thrilled to be back and to be a friend of the pod.

• 3:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you, Casey. So I was going to ask you what you thought the biggest story in tech was in 2021, because today we're going to talk a little bit about what 2021 was like and looking forward to 2022. And you have some really fun predictions, looking forward to the year ahead. But, um, you know, instead of like one big story, I think you actually identified a storyline where 2021 unexpectedly turned out to be a year of big transition at some of the world's biggest companies, companies like Facebook, companies like Twitter and Amazon, where Jeff Bezos stepped down, basically all the companies that we cover

• 4:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  on this podcast and, and that you cover in your great newsletter. So can you just like kind of concisely and, uh, uh, describe like what your thesis is there and, um, you know, what you saw and maybe, and maybe like why it was unexpected?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think once you've built a company as big as a Jeff Bezos has or a Jack Dorsey has, you sort of assume they're going to hang on to it for as long as they possibly can. You know, in many cases, they've built their boards so that they can't be removed. And for very different reasons this year, we saw CEOs leave, you know, and with the Bezos case, he'd been running Amazon for like 27 years and it seemed clear that his, he just wanted to put his attention elsewhere. You know, with Jack Dorsey, it was more of a shareholder pressure thing. So I don't think that there's like a really neat trend line through why

• 5:21Speaker 01

  all of the CEOs that we saw leave left. But I think coming as it did amid a surge of enthusiasm for crypto and web three, this year did kind of come to feel like a transitional year in the history of Silicon Valley and tech.

• 5:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And then there's also Zuckerberg, right? And, you know, I was thinking, oh, are they going to name a CEO of Facebook? And they already have somebody that runs it, Tom Allison. So, but it is interesting to see, you know, if you, if you think about any founder associated with the brand more closely, it would probably be Zuckerberg with Facebook. And now he's, you know, CEO of Meta, not Facebook, which is fascinating.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I definitely did not see that one coming. Facebook just pulling the ripcord on its entire brand and creating a new brand that meant nothing to anyone was actually a better path forward for them than keeping the brand that they had turned into one of the most recognizable brands in the world. But it just speaks to what a rough five or six years that they've had. And I think, you know, sets them up for probably even further transitions, you know, in the year or two ahead.

• 6:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  And I want to get into the Meta thing in a minute, but just a question for you about the founder led companies. Jack Dorsey on his way out. Wrote this resignation letter that was basically saying like, we need to get over, you know, this cult of the founder and it's actually not good, which is again like extremely surprising because Jack, one would imagine, used his clout as the founder to, you know, push Twitter in a direction where it actually shipped stuff. Like Twitter's not perfect by any means, but the company is actually shipping products and you can do that when you have a founder CEO. And now Jack is gone and he's like, maybe this isn't good. Bezos is gone. And I almost felt like Jack's goodbye letter was a pot shot at Mark Zuckerberg, who he doesn't seem to like very much. So what do you think about that? And are we going to start to look

• 7:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  differently at founders now than we have in the past?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I mean, I think this is a pendulum that swings, right? So before we had the era of founder-like companies, we had an era of companies where CEOs were replaced all of the time. And it was Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm in particular, that came along and said, you know, it seems like companies that hang on to their founders for longer actually outperform the companies where the CEO is being replaced whenever the board that gets mad. And so we entered this era where CEOs like Zuckerberg or Evan Spiegel set up their companies so that they maintained total control over the board and could never be replaced. Travis Kalanick at Uber was sort of another one of these people, although the board did eventually force him out. And I do think that this had some positive

• 8:02Speaker 01

  effects, you know, at least from the standpoint of helping companies take a longer term approach. You know, Bezos, I think, is a great example of somebody who, you know, famously said he was willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time and indeed did lose money on Amazon for a long, long time. There's the amazon dot bomb cover, right? But because he was the founder, there was this cult of personality around him. He was able to convince everybody that if they just hung on, Amazon would be a supremely profitable company. And indeed it was, right? So there's your sort of evidence that it's good to keep a founder in place. On the other hand, you do have situations like the Uber scenario where if

• 8:44Speaker 01

  not for a bunch of like insane board theatrics, Travis Kalanick might still be running that company, even though he'd arguably mismanaged it. You know, I think Adam Newman at WeWork is another one that sort of gives people the heebie jeebies in terms of a founder-led company that, you know, just, you know, did a lot of really strange things that ultimately led to, you know, him leaving that post. And so I think we're just in this space now where maybe that pendulum is swinging back and people want to see a few more checks and balances on founders. And we want to see that founders are beholden to someone, they're accountable to someone. And so, you know, I don't know how that's going to swing out, but I wouldn't be surprised.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Let me say that again. I'm not sure how that's going to shake out, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see that kind of swing back and forth, you know, over the next few cycles of tech.

• 9:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see more founders start to resign now that it, because it almost feels like there was a norm in Silicon Valley that if you're the founder, you hang on, goddammit, you're the founder. And now it's like, well, actually, Jack Dorsey stepped down, Bezos stepped down. They seem to be enjoying life and working on what they're passionate on, you know, moving forward. And maybe that's a good thing for the economy.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's anything that says that these people have to run these companies forever. Most people don't stay in their jobs for more than a couple of years. And for some reason, we've just decided it's a norm that if you found a Decacor and you have to run it for 10 years plus. So I think that's okay if that changes.

• 10:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Casey, will you look for outside leadership for platform? Or are you planning to stay as founder CEO for a while?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  I mean, it depends on the result of the ongoing HR investigation, the congressional inquiry, what the third-party law firm we've hired is looking into. So we really have to wait to see the results of all those investigations come in.

• 10:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's great. I won't press you more on that, but I do wish you luck.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  I can't say anything more on your endeavors.

• 10:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's right.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Counsel's advice. Yeah.

• 10:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, okay. Yes. Well, that'll be an interesting storyline to follow for us in 2022. We will get to the predictions. Let's talk a little bit about a few of these transitions in particular. The meta thing to me is so interesting. I mean, I did write a book about corporate reinvention. And so I, you know, should be a fan of this. But it does also seem like VR is way and AR are just way out into the future. We actually talked about this, I think, the first time. You were on the show. I think you you mentioned this in your piece and you say there were two immediately important aspects of the move. One, it marked the moment that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp began their transition into legacy products after a decade on the top.

• 11:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Which to me is interesting that those are going to be legacy products. And two, it led to a slew of other companies to say in earnings calls that they are also metaverse companies. And within a week or so, let's see, the rebrand on the Twitter timeline. Okay, was begging us to stop saying metaverse already. So it's so interesting because, you know, it does, it did strike a nerve to the fact that now everybody is pitching their metaverse strategy. Even Microsoft is doing it, which to me is kind of hilarious. Like, imagine a world where you can meet your coworkers. And a combination of VR and AR and in real life. I don't get that pitch. And then also just like to that these products are going to be legacy products to me is fascinating because.

• 12:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  They're such successful products. So can you expand a little bit more about like the significance of this transformation?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, we could probably spend the whole episode talking about what the the metaverse means. The the definition that I'm fond of comes from Sean Puri, who's a venture capitalist. And he basically says that the metaverse is a time. And it's basically a time when we are using internet connected devices way more than we are not. And so maybe it's like a threshold of like 90% of the time, which you can really only get to once you're wearing some sort of internet connected device on your head. And so if you want to say, well, the the metaverse is a bust, it will never happen. Then you have to ask yourself, is there a natural limit to the amount of time that human beings want to look at screens and be connected to the internet?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  And I actually don't think there is. You walk around the street, you know, everybody's staring at their phone. You see couples hanging out at a restaurant. They're staring at their phones. So to me, the idea that we've hit our limit, I just think is kind of ridiculous. And so I think what you've seen Silicon Valley do this year is say, and not quite articulated in this way. But basically, once we hit that kind of 90% threshold of like 90% of waking hours as screen time. We're going to have to call it something different than the internet because it's not actually going to be the internet anymore. It's going to be, it's going to be basically like the vast majority of the meaningful time that we spend awake is living in these internet connected experiences and we should call that something different. So that's the bet.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  It's not going to happen in 2022. In fact, I will, you know, one prediction I'll make is that, you know, next November, December, we'll see a bunch of people write the take about how the metaverse flopped in 2022. But the, the, the reason is that this is a multi-year, we're talking like five to 10 year transition. And we're not going to get there anytime soon. So everybody's going to say it flops next year, but in reality, it was just under construction.

• 14:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  So this whole idea of living in screens, um, you know, it, it seems like, does it have to have AR and VR? Because it seems like it's already happening in places like Fortnite and places like Roblox. So which is just for, for context, that's where kids kind of hang out. And we've talked about it numerous times on the show, but they actually spend more time just chilling than they are than they do spend the time playing things. So like, why can't, why can't that be the metaverse where we're like kind of congregating online versus like having to wear these devices?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  So it could be, and it will probably be part of that 90% of the time that we're spending on these devices. But we also just know, uh, based on the history of Silicon Valley, that the tech industry will continue to invent. We know that every major tech platform right now is working on some sort of headset. It might be an AR headset, it might be a VR headset, it might be a mixed reality headset, which people call XR devices. And if you want to be pessimist about this, you have to say, well, do we think that Apple, Google, Snap, Microsoft and Meta are all going to fail at that? And that there will never be a challenger company that

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Figures it out. And maybe you would look at the history of Magic Leap and some of the other flops in this space and say, yeah, well, I don't think anybody's going to figure it out. But personally, for me, I do think somebody is probably going to come up with a really compelling mixed reality headset. So I tend to be on the camp of like, this feels inevitable, although who knows, you know, when it will actually become reality.

• 15:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Is there an element of this that's a COVID fever dream where it's like, we spent two years, especially like Silicon Valley folks and people in the professional class that like, spent two years kind of sitting at home and, you know, living relating to the outside world, not largely, but in, you know, a decent amount via screen. And maybe just trying like, you can really, I mean, it's a recency bias, right? You can really get sort of sucked into the moment and believe that the fundamentals of that movement moment are going to be what defines the rest of your life. But maybe that's not the case. What do you think?

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Well, again, I think it's a lot of it's going to come down to what are the experiences that people build, you know, when we look at it today and it's like a bunch of Zoom meetings with legless avatars, it doesn't feel very compelling. If you talk to Mark Zuckerberg, he'll say that, well, you know, however it looks to you, the fact of the matter is, once I know where my colleagues are in virtual space and I have spatial audio, it helps me feel more present in the meeting and I actually remember the meeting better when I was there. And that's valuable to me as a person who does business. So it may be one of those things where you sort of have to try it to kind of get the the full effect. But also, we just know that these experiences are going to continue to get more immersive.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  You know, right now, the the screens aren't very good. There are a handful of cool games, fitness programs, that sort of thing. But there's not yet a thriving ecosystem of stuff that would make you want to buy it. And yet, a surprising fact I learned recently is that according to analyst estimates, the Oculus Quest headset outsold the Xbox this year. So that doesn't feel like a COVID fever dream to me. Now, I do think that the Xbox was like supply constrained. You know, they basically sold every one of them that they made, but it tells you that there is something going on here that is not just wishful thinking on behalf of these giant tech platforms.

• 17:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And the Oculus had supply constraints of its own as well. I know that there was a moment where they were basically sold out, which was. That was kind of a moment where you're like, okay, maybe this is something here.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Completely. Actually, a really interesting thing happened last week when there was a story broke that apparently the FTC is looking into Meta's planned acquisition of a company called Within, which makes this fitness program supernatural, which is one of the highest grossing, you know, pieces of software on the platform. Apparently that was a more than $400 million deal. So the FTC is finally waking up to just how big a business this could be for Meta eventually.

• 18:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. Yeah, it's okay. So all right, I'm sold. I think I think could be something. But yeah, you're right. I think we should also keep an eye out for the hot takes next year. It's like the Twitter is dead hot takes, you know, those don't really age.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  There was one of those in the Atlantic that I like still go back and read sometime. It was from like 2012 and it's literally the headline is Twitter is dead.

• 18:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, there's multiple. There was one in the New Yorker also. I think Josh Topolsky wrote it. Love you, Josh Topolsky, but that was that was wrong.

• 18:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  One of your former colleagues. Speaking of Twitter, they are doing all sorts of things, trying to, you know, reinvent themselves as a protocol, which I don't fully understand. I'll admit it. They're transitioning leadership from Jack Dorsey to Parag Agarwal, which is an interesting choice. CTO to run a company that's essentially a political animal. I might have put somebody who runs policy or someone who runs product at the head of the company. What do you think about their year of transformation and where do you think they're heading?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the way that I describe all this is drama Twitter is back. You know, like in the early 2010s, there was a new CEO every six months or so. The company couldn't ship anything to save its life. It was just this crazy catastrophe of a company. I like to call it the Blues Company because I'm a big Arrested Development fan and it really felt like that, you know? And then this year, they were just really, really competent. They were last year too. Basically they've shipped more stuff in the past two years than they did in the past three or four combined. And it gave me a lot of confidence that Twitter was really starting to figure things out. But then this activist shareholder. Comes on board, points out that the company's stock price is basically flat from when it IPO'd.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  They put a ton of pressure on Twitter to turn it around, winds up that Jack Dorsey leaves the company as a result. So what happens now? Well, the activist shareholders aren't going away, right? So they're going to have to be putting a ton of pressure on Agarwal, who I don't know personally, to turn it around financially. And I think the question is going to be, can that revenue organization ship as successfully as the product organization has? Because while the product organization manages to ship some things that have monetization potential, like tipping for creators, the Twitter Blue subscription product, doesn't feel like any of those is primed to be a true breakout success

• 20:33Speaker 01

  the way like a scaled ad platform can be. So there are a lot of question marks there. I think we've already seen some executives leave as part of Agarwal coming in. I sort of assume that'll continue to happen next year. I'm very curious how long Kavon Bigpoor, is that a product will continue to be there? He'd already been there longer than any head of product in Twitter history. And a, you know, CEO transition can be a time when people like that decide to leave. So that's not based on any reporting, it's just like kind of a question that I have in my mind. But I just, whatever happens, I just suspect 2022 is going to be a very dramatic year for Twitter.

• 21:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and I'm not here to stand Jack, but it is a testament to what he was able to do there, that he took drama Twitter and turned it into essentially, I mean, of course, they had drama with like what they were going to do, all that stuff, but inside the company never really seemed more stable than under the last few years, under his leadership, you mentioned Kavon, hanging there as the product, head of product for many years. And it used to be a one-year job inside that place. I wonder if you think Elliot management made, misplayed this one. They're the activist shareholder you referenced. And I also found it kind of fascinating that right-wing Twitter sort of dug into Parag's

• 21:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  old statements and said that he was going to come and censor them, and blamed Elliot for installing a woke CEO outside of the reasonable, instead of the reasonable Jack Dorsey, which to me just was true galaxy brain situation. But I do, I wonder if they made the right choice in touching the company.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  I mean, we'll find out. I mean, look, you know, if you're an activist shareholder, all you really care about is the stock price, you know? That's not how I look at Twitter. I look at Twitter as a really valuable communication service that helps me understand the news and does a bunch of other things. Elliot doesn't care about all of that. And from that narrow perspective, like Jack Dorsey wasn't doing a great job. He wasn't even a full-time CEO. I do think that if nothing else, Twitter deserved a full-time CEO. And, you know, good for Jack that he founded two really great companies. But I think both of them arguably needed full-time CEOs. There were just, you know, very complicated issues at both of them that needed somebody's full attention. So from that perspective, it's hard for me to disagree with Elliot.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  But again, why should we have confidence that any other executive would be able to unlock, you know, some yet more billions in revenue out of Twitter? I think that's a very shaky hypothesis. And, you know, I would, I would honestly be surprised if within six months, Twitter's stock price was radically higher than it is today.

• 23:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wow. Okay. It's a big prediction.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  I mean, is it? I mean, do you think that predicting that Twitter's stock price will be radically higher in six months is like the safe bet?

• 23:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's, I don't think so.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't get it. Yeah.

• 23:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Google, kind of trucking along, somewhat boring now, but just printing money, making a new chat app every five days, which I know you're a fan of.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  It's, it's a very like fat and happy company, you know? It, it, it tries to keep its head down. It tries to, it does all of the same bad things that other companies do, but it tends to be conflict averse and it doesn't wade into controversies where it doesn't have to. And it's pretty good at diffusing situations when they arise. And so it just kind of floats along. I think the flip side of that is it is not an innovative company. Most of their major surfaces, like, you know, the G-suite.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  God, what else do they even have YouTube? I mean, they're functionally the same products that they were a year ago. The hardware is very middling, right? So I do think it's a case where a company that has a giant monopoly just kind of floats along and feels no pressure to innovate. I mean, does anyone think Google search results are better today than they were a year ago? Like, I don't.

• 24:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't know. They're pretty good. I mean, it would be tough to tell the difference, but I know they've, I mean, I don't know. They seem to have gotten better over time.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  My counter example, though, is always that, like, Google Maps actually does invest a lot and it does get better because there's actual competition, right? It has to, like, fight to be on the iPhone now. And so Google Maps tends to get better every single year, and it's really the only Google product that does.

• 25:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and it was pretty good. Yeah. 2021, a good year, bad year?

• 25:08Speaker 01

  For Google?

• 25:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, for you, or I guess for the world, maybe.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, not to brag.

• 25:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Was 2021, you know, I guess, yeah, objectively, subjectively, a good year? What do you think?

• 25:18Speaker 01

  I mean, not to brag, but I did not get COVID-19. So, you know, knock on wood.

• 25:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you're crushing that. That would be a shame if someone were to get it. Yeah.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  It would be such a shame if anyone got COVID. I probably just jinxed myself into, you know, getting it on my flight to see my parents for Christmas. So, shame on me.

• 25:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  I hope not. Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  But, um, no, I mean, it was, it was a good year for me, at least compared to 2020, right? Like, at least I got to see my friends. I got to see you in person. Like, I had way more fun than I did the previous year. And it was my first full year running a company, and that went well and made me excited for the future. So I feel tremendously grateful for the year that I had.

• 26:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Casey Newton is with us. He is the editor of Platformer. You should check it out on Substack. And he's here to talk to us about what happened in 2021. When we come back after the break, we will talk about 2022. This episode is brought to you by AVPoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data. And most teams have no single way to see it, secure it, and prove it's under control. That's exactly what AVPoint does. For 25 years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate.

• 26:44Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 27:29Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 28:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back on the Big Technology Podcast with Casey Newton. He is the editor of Platformer. Are you able to share some stats? How's it going on Platformer? Where could people sign up?

• 28:28Speaker 01

  It's great. You can find it over on platformer.news. You can sign up for free. And if you do, you'll be one of more than 52,000 people who have signed up so far. So that feels good. And yeah, and enough people, you know, have signed up to make it my full-time job and have got some, some fun things that are hopefully coming next year. So yeah, I can't wait. Platformer things. Yeah.

• 28:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Are you able to, you want to pre-announce some of those things? And by the way, I'll just say for the record, I'm a happy subscriber and it's a must-read for me. Yeah. Are you able to preview anything that's coming down the pipe next year?

• 29:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I talked a lot about wanting to do a podcast. So that's like very much on my mind. My two goals for 2022 are to start a podcast and to hire someone to help me, although I'm still not exactly sure for exactly what role and exactly on what basis, but getting a little help and doing some audio stuff are kind of my two main goals for 2022.

• 29:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sounds great. So let's talk about some of, you just posted a, a list of 22 predictions for the next year. We already started with two, but let's get into some of the deeper tech ones. There was one that I found particularly interesting, authoritarian shakedowns of platforms and their employees will accelerate. What makes you believe that?

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is just an acceleration of something that we saw this year. So two things that really got my attention this year. One is India just went nuclear on US tech, tech platforms this year. They sent in the police to rage Twitter headquarters, you know, threatening Twitter employees. And then in Russia, there was like actual physical intimidation of platform employees at Google, among other places. They were, and like, if you look at the reasons why, in India, they were mad that Twitter had labeled a tweet as like containing misinformation. And Russia was mad at Google because there was an app in the App Store. That helped people vote against Putin. And so for that reason, they physically intimidated employees.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  And for the platforms, they don't have a lot of help to fight back, right? They're not in the favor of the US government. And so there's not a lot of diplomatic help that they get. And so they're sort of on their own and they they're faced with this really tough choice, which is they either agree to the demands of the authoritarian government to to spare their own employees jail time or physical beatings or worse, or they pull out of the country. And the demands of capitalism are usually that they exceed to the wishes of the authoritarians. But so, of course, that just puts all the power in the hands of the the right wing, you know, authoritarians that we have now coming to power in so many countries around the world. And the authoritarians pay attention to each other. We know that this works now.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  And so I just think you're going to see a lot more of it over more and more things. I mean, just, you know, last week, Russia announced that they were going to find Google and the fine was going to double every day. And the fine was over the fact that YouTube removed a channel from an ally of Vladimir Putin's. And because YouTube did that, they can now be fined up to a billion rubles in the next year. So authoritarian governments are are learning that they can, you know, abuse their power to get essentially whatever content moderation decisions they want. And we're just going to see a lot more of that next year.

• 31:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it did always strike me that these authoritarian governments would allow these platforms with American values to come in and operate kind of freely. It's actually amazing. There was even an era where that happened. And I I'm with you. I'm concerned about where it goes from here.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the the Internet is just going to continue to splinter. You know, several years ago, as tech CEO pointed out to me that before the 1920s, you didn't need a passport. You could just kind of travel from country to country. But then eventually, you know, countries sort of tamped down. And you're now seeing that same thing happen to the Internet, where like every country is effectively getting its own Internet.

• 32:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  What about other countries' tech apps and platforms that show up in the United States? Last year, we did have this, or was it even, was it this year? We had this drawn out thing where Trump administration tried to ban, no, it was last year, tried to ban TikTok.

• 32:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  We're increasingly seeing companies coming from China with a growing foothold in the United States. We don't know what's going on, you know, behind the algorithms. I must have worried it from a data security perspective, but their ability to shape culture is legit. So do you think this is something the United States pays more attention to and potentially the government intervenes to make sure that our cultural values are represented in foreign tech platforms? What do you think?

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I did my 2021 predictions post last year, Alex Damos, who used to run security at Facebook, predicted the the United States is going to need a China tech strategy for all the reasons that you just laid out. And Alex was absolutely right, but we still don't have a China tech strategy. And that does extend to TikTok, you know, with which we essentially have no new regulations in place that would control the way that like data flows between countries, for example. So it remains a big issue. I think the silver lining on the China front was that this year China decided to just basically destroy as much of its own consumer internet as it could and to discourage people from starting new consumer internet platforms. And so I actually think it's weirdly less likely that we're going to have a huge problem with a bunch of Chinese made consumer internet platforms

• 33:51Speaker 01

  like serving as stalking horses for Chinese influence in the United States as I did maybe a year ago.

• 33:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and I do wonder what happens with the TikTok thing. It seems like eventually that issue will come to a head.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, or maybe like TikTok will just decline in relevance and fade away like most social platforms do eventually, you know.

• 34:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Is that your bet for TikTok? Because, I mean, I know we're seeing shorts on YouTube and reels and Facebook and Instagram, but damn it, it doesn't seem like there's been a powerhouse like TikTok for a while.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  It, look, it definitely had a great year, but it was also a weird year, right? Like due to that Chinese crackdown, the CEO had to step down for basically no reason other than that he was very successful. Then he had to leave the board. So now there's this other person who's running the company. I know basically nothing about him. You know, at what point does China say, you know what, like, we think that, like, Dalian, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok is like actually bad for the youth, like, we're shutting it down, right? And like, and we're going to force you to like spin off TikTok. I mean, like, I just believe anything could happen with TikTok. And I think there's been so much instability there that it just doesn't bode well for the future of the company. Like, I do think with social apps, there's a lot of benefits in having a founder led.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Culture because like they can make sort of big bets and I think that companies that are not founder led just tend to be much more cautious over time. And so I think it'll just be interesting to see like, how quickly does TikTok iterate next year? This year, they released, they shipped a bunch of stuff like they should be proud of what they did. They, you know, they're arguably at the peak of their cultural influence. But in my experience, like, social apps just don't hang on to that crown for all that long. And you never know when it's going to start to slip. And, you know, you know, who know, maybe they, maybe for a freshman in high school, like, next year, like TikTok feels like something your older brother did, and you want to do something else. Like, you just never know.

• 35:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you don't. And that point that you make about like, what the Chinese government is going to do to it is really poignant, because what they did do with Dalian is sort of unbelievable, where they, for kids, there's a 40 minute daily limit. You can't be on the app from like, 10pm to 6am. And there's a handful of other restrictions that they put on. They even have these mandated five second pauses between videos to be like, maybe you should like, take a walk, or like, be productive in life, you loser. Like, it's unbelievable that like, that's what's going on inside China. And I wonder how that will influence the development of TikTok, because it's worth noting that TikTok basically takes successful Dalian features and actually ends up just implementing them. There's like,

• 36:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  not much original TikTok development, from what I understand.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly right. Like TikTok is downstream of its big brother app in China. And there's just so much instability there that anything could happen.

• 36:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. Okay, let's go on to another 2021 prediction. And this is a fun one. You say Frances Haugen is going to get a TV show. Was that you or one of your readers?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  That was me. I just like, she just seems like she'll have a TV show. Yeah, I just think she's like, good at talking. She has relevant expertise. If she just like showed up as a co-host of The View or The Talk, I'd be like, yeah, like, this, this makes sense to me.

• 37:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  So, okay, so if you had to predict which show she'll be the host of, or will be her own show.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, I think I like, I can see her being part of like a panel talk show. I could see her like hosting like a series of tech documentaries. There's, there's like a lot of TV out there and she's, she's an interesting person. Like if nothing else, I think we'll probably see like a documentary or two about her.

• 37:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, no doubt. Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Here's another fascinating one from your list of predictions. Pro and anti crypto factions hardened into place, setting up a long-term religious war over the potential and perils of the blockchain. I love that one. Can you expand? Cause it does seem like that war is already beginning.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is, but I think this year like crypto went way more mainstream than it has to date, but I still think it has a little bit further to go. And you still have these forces that are kind of polarizing. And on one side you have people who, you know, maybe they bought some tokens early and now they have a bunch of money and so they're big believers in the promise of crypto. And then you have people who've stayed out of it, who believe that the entire thing is a mirage and an illusion, needs to be regulated out of existence. And these are essentially just religious beliefs, you know, like they're at some point there, it's a really faith-based approach to making arguments. And I think it's going to stick around and because there's so much money in crypto,

• 38:45Speaker 01

  like it's gonna be with us at least through, you know, the next year. And I think it'll, it'll probably be with us for another decade. But, you know, I like, this is one where I've tried to like thread the needle a little bit. I've tried to be open-minded about crypto stuff that I thought was interesting. Tried to call out stuff that doesn't seem to be going as well. And, you know, candidly, like my readers kind of hate it. Like I get a lot of flack when I write about crypto. And particularly if I try to highlight something that I think is interesting. Yeah, they hate the nuance, but they also hate it when, when I, you know, when I ever hint that maybe it's going to be around for a couple of years.

• 39:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  And there just hasn't been anything like that since I've been a tech reporter where people basically wrote to me and said, please, please don't write about this. You know, you're you risk making it real. So I just think this is going to be a big fight for a long time.

• 39:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, we just had Ben Devenz on who talked a little bit about this, how it's the most polarizing issue that we've seen in tech in a long time. Speaking of which, what do you like, just following up on this, NFTs, are you, are you in, are you out? Do you think they're legit? They've been taking a like a boatload of flack in like popular culture recently. Keanu Reeves had this amazing moment with Alex Heath, where Alex is trying to sell him on it. And he goes, it's easily duplicable. And that was sort of the end of the discussion. And then South Park had their COVID, end of COVID special or post COVID special. And it was almost, I would say, 50% a takedown of NFTs. And I think these things need to have cultural support and cultural

• 40:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  relevance and can't be a laughing stock in order to thrive because that's sort of our needs that cultural weight to it in order to actually like be able to stand up. So I'm curious where you think it's gonna happen, where it's gonna go.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  So I think the thing to keep an eye on is the secondary market for some of the like blue chip NFTs. So like some of the most highly valued sets of NFTs right now would be the CryptoPunks, the Bear or the Board Ape Yacht Club. And the thing that I would be looking for is like three months from now, six months from now, is there a lot of trading activity there? Like, are people still trying to get in? Or does it slow way down? And what about the next tier below? Right? Because one thing that concerns people about crypto is that it always makes sense to buy in early in case it goes way up. But it's like, it rarely makes sense to buy in late if you don't think a bunch of new people are going to come in who you can eventually sell your thing to.

• 41:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sorry, it sounds like a pyramid scheme. It sounds like marketing.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, some people will tell you that they bought their board A because it's art and they like making it their profile picture. And I think that some of those people are sincere, but there are a lot of Ponzi dynamics in this stuff. So that's just what I'd be keeping an eye on, but I also think you'll just see NFT is used for other things like I think, like access to digital communities, right? So you buy this NFT for relatively cheap, but then it means you get to hang out in my Slack or my Discord. I think we're going to see uses for NFT that goes beyond the sort of like art trading and they'll probably come up with some interesting new uses.

• 41:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Have you thought about?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Gaming is the other one.

• 41:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  So like you've already seen, was it, I think Ubisoft said that they're going to start selling in-game NFTs. And they're probably not going to be the last one.

• 42:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Have you thought about buying one? Have you bought one?

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Yes. So I have my, I have my, my Ethereum name service name. So like I'm Casey Newton dot E and that is an NFT.

• 42:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  I sort of like expressed some curiosity about on Twitter and this like crypto company reached out to me and said, hey, like, you know, it would be cool if you had your name, like we can show you how to do that. So they did. And so I did it.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  And I sort of did that, like thinking, well, if Ethereum becomes a way that we do a lot of transacting in the future, like it'd be good to own this, the same, for the same reason it's good to own, you know, your, your domain name. So that's kind of why I bought it, you know, it's, it wasn't like a speculative purchase. Like I'm hoping to unload Casey Newton dot E on another Casey Newton at some point in the future, but I also haven't done a ton of it yet. So.

• 42:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Is there another Casey Newton?

• 42:56Speaker 01

  There, yeah, there's a tech executive named Casey Newton. I wrote a story about him once a few years ago. Yeah. He like, his company pitched me and they're like, we'd love to set you up with our, you know, COO Casey Newton. I was like, well, how do I turn this down? So I wrote a story about it.

• 43:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's amazing. Have you, have you thought about selling an NFT? To your list.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did, but. Because of those like Ponzi dynamics that you identified, it's like, you know, I'm like basically a columnist. My columns have a pretty short shelf life. Like, I love to flatter myself that something that I wrote this year is gonna be super valuable to somebody like five or 10 years from now, but I just kind of don't feel that way. So I have talked to people at Substack about like, who are into crypto, about like, what are some like crypto things that you can do? And, you know, we sort of brainstormed at the end of it. I was like, you know, I don't really want to do any of that. But, you know, I keep an open mind. Like, the media industry like changes very quickly. And if you're not thinking about what you might be doing in six months, like, shame on you.

• 43:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's right. So, talk a little bit about this war. Is it just like, quote tweets and like, you know, people making fun of like Chris Dixon and Chris Dixon blocking them? Or is it like, does it escalate from there?

• 44:07Speaker 01

  I mean, Chris Dixon is a major front in this war.

• 44:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sure is.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Every, every day, someone new is blocked by him for, you know, sending him like a mild reply. There does seem to be a sort of head in the sand mentality. I don't know, like, on the pro crypto side, you're gonna see like a dozen new crypto VCs pop up with giant hundred million dollar plus funds, and they're gonna pour a bunch of money into it. You're gonna see brain drain from the major tech platforms as a bunch of kids go try to get rich crypt doing, get rich quick, rather.

• 44:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  That was perfect.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Get rich crypt.

• 44:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  You just coined something beautiful.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the t-shirt. Get rich crypt, doing crypto things. And so that's gonna be a problem for those companies. It'll be interesting to see if any of them dabble with it. Like, Meta is the one that has dabbled the most. It's been a disaster for them. We'll see if it gets any traction next year. And then there's the anti-side, which is that people say that like, this is basically the sovereign citizen movement, but for money, there needs to be a big regulatory crackdown on it. The tide is gonna go out. Everything is gonna be revealed as a Ponzi scheme. The underlying technology is not actually useful or interesting. And, you know, those, there are smart people in that camp too. And so I think you're just gonna see lots of volleys of blog posts and, you know, who knows? I

• 45:31Speaker 01

  had a reader tell me that I should die because I wrote a pro crypto story a few months ago. So.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Maybe some violence, too. So we'll see.

• 45:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Geez, that's an extreme overreaction.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 45:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sorry you had to deal with that.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  It's fine.

• 45:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Weren't they paying subscriber also?

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're paying subscriber. I mean, I just bring it up because like I think people need to understand the intensity that like people bring to this discussion, which like I actually don't like I I'm interested in the outcome, but I just don't feel emotionally invested in it. But like that makes me a rarity. Like, most people are very emotionally invested in crypto either succeeding or failing spectacularly.

• 46:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, let's get to one more. You have a prediction that Europe cements its position as the most important tech regulator in the world. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts, why, and whether what Europe does extends outside of Europe as well.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. That's what makes it so important. So you know, the United States for the past five years, we've watched a series of hearings and a bunch of frowning faced congresspeople say, this time we're really serious about big tech and we're going to crack down and we're going to do a big investigation and we're going to put out a report and we're going to introduce a package of bills that we're going to pass those bills and we're going to rein in big tech. And of course, you know, they've done all of those things except for pass any laws. And so like functionally, the United States is in exactly the same spot as it was five years ago when all the members of Congress started to complain. In Europe, on the other hand, they've actually passed some regulation. There's something called the age appropriate design code in the United Kingdom, which has actually changed the way that US tech platforms are designed for child safety significantly.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  The European Union passed GDPR. They're also well on their way to passing the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. The first is sort of about content moderation. The second one is about competition and antitrust. And anything that gets passed there, the tech platforms are going to have to deal with here as well. And so one of the things that I've been watching is just the degree to which Americans increasingly live on a European internet. And that's true today. And it's going to be more true at the end of next year.

• 47:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's pretty interesting. I wonder, do you think that sparks American legislators to act? Or maybe it sort of takes the pressure off of them and they're like, you know, they say, we had these tough hearings and look at how the platforms have changed. Meanwhile, the rules are being mandated in Europe.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  I mean, maybe like anything's possible. Like I don't rule out the possibility that one or two bills somehow squeaks it out and makes it onto the president's desk. But like right now, we're watching the president's entire agenda fall apart. Everything comes down to one or two people. The will of the majority is no longer expressed by Congress in any meaningful way. And our, our country is just rapidly spiraling here. So it just seems unlikely to me that we're going to get a bunch of tech regulation when, you know, the two sides are so polarized.

• 48:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. Is there any big predictions that I missed? Or do you think we've covered them?

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Any fun ones? Here's one I want from you. Like, do you think that, do you think Peloton will be an independent company at the end of next year?

• 48:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, because you had, you said that your predictions that they're going to be acquired, right?

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of my readers said that Amazon buys them, which I think is smart. Like, I'm sure other people want to buy them too.

• 48:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Can you see, can you see Lena Khan, who runs the FTC, letting through an Amazon Peloton?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  I sort of can, like, because it doesn't seem like there is a lack of competition in the like home exercise market.

• 48:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, it's a good question. I think that there would probably be a fight, or there'll at least be scrutiny. But Peloton seems like it's had a really bad year.

• 48:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  It has. I would say it's like with Peloton, I view it as the same as some of these pandemic stocks, right? Like if you detach it from stock price, it's actually a solid company, I believe. But the fact that Peloton and Zoom and some others just shot up way beyond where they should have been during the pandemic. And, and now they're, and now they're having to deal with some of those repercussions. That's where we're starting to see some of the issues. But I, I'm long Peloton. I think it's a good company. I don't have one of the bikes yet. I used the app for a while during lockdown. But I think that it has great potential. And my prediction is that the price for the bikes come down, and that expands the market

• 49:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  because they're still making a fee on the classes, even if you have the bike. So, and the bike is too expensive. That's sort of my thought there.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Interesting. Yeah, I'll be just very interested to see what happens with that company. It feels like a prime like pickup target for a lot of the big tech companies.

• 49:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Do you um, do you think we're going to see continued action in this meme stock world? Like the GameStop AMC or was that sort of like a subsection of Reddit getting it out of its system and that's kind of done?

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Oh, I think we're going to continue to see stocks go viral, you know, because the the underlying dynamics remain where there are going to be stocks that people are able to pump up and it's going to be a fun thing and some people are going to get rich and like we're just going to see that play out over and over again.

• 50:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Oh, and sorry. Lastly, we have to talk about this clubhouse. What happened? That that, I mean, that's a pretty steep drop that they've had, speaking of companies that were once, you know, the the most admired and now is, you know, seemingly an afterthought.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that like the audiograph just turned out not to be a thing and that for most people is just much easier to get that kind of content on Twitter like when they want it, which is not all that frequently. My like joke about clubhouse is that for clubhouse to succeed, the only thing that needed to go right for them was for Twitter not to successfully clone their product, which throughout the entire history of Twitter would have been a really good bet, right? That Twitter would figure out your product and clone it in a year. But hey, you know, clubhouse threw the Joker card and now their lives suck and so they're going to have to cash out next year and I think they're probably going to just sell it to some Indian telecom company or something and those two founders will walk away.

• 51:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Why do you think Indian telecom?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Uh, because it's like still popular in India and like, you know, like kind of like path sold to an Indonesian company because it was still popular in Indonesia. That just kind of seems like the the place where they could get the best price for it right now.

• 51:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Oh, I like that. Uh, any, any wishes for the new year before we go?

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Oh, I wish that um, every person on earth got vaccinated against COVID-19.

• 51:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, uh, living through it right now, I can say I'm much happier that I have that protective, three protective layers of antibodies than, than meeting this virus without any, any of that. Um, so.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Me too. Well, I hope you feel better soon, Alex.

• 52:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you. Yeah. I feel, I mean, it, it, I'll be honest, the side effects from vaccine number two were worse than this. So, uh, before we go, I just wanted to say this, we're closing out 2021 and I want to thank all you, the listeners for, uh, sticking with me through the year and, and faithfully coming back. Um, as really we've, uh, I, uh, start to figure out how to run a podcast and what that means and what it's like to interview on these type of things. And, uh, I've met many of you actually getting out in the, uh, in public over the past year, of course, not over the past few days. Um, and it's been, it's been a true thrill to get a chance to speak with you and hear what you like and what can be approved about this show. And I pledge to you in 2022, I'll continue to do the work

• 52:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  and the show will be better than ever. So thank you again for listening. Thank you, Casey Newton. Really appreciate you joining us today.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, Alex.

• 53:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Platformer.news, everyone should go sign up. And that will do it for us this week. Thank you, Nick Guatney, for, as always, mastering the audio, doing the edits. Thank you, Red Circle, for selling the ads and hosting the show. And lastly, uh, just to reiterate, thanks to all of you, the listeners. I hope you join me next week. We'll be back with another show and have a great new year. Hopefully 2022 will be everything you hope.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side, but Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPact.com, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.