Will The Fed Blink And Save Tech — With Ranjan Roy

Ranjan Roy is the co-author of Margins, a Substack newsletter about the financial markets. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a conversation about the Federal Reserve's steep interest rate raises, how they've harmed tech valuations, and whether the Fed might reverse course and bring the party back. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss the short-form video wars and the likely outcome of Elon Musk's pursuit of Twitter. 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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• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:03Speaker 01

  LinkedIn Presents.

• 1:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. He's back, Ranjan Roy is here for, I think, his fourth episode. He is our, we'll call you, maybe your resident in-house economics and Elon Musk slash social media expert. I don't know, Ranjan, how should we, how do we call you?

• 1:41Speaker 02

  The title I always dreamed of when I was growing up, economics and Elon Musk expert.

• 1:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Economics and Elon Musk expert. You might know Ranjan from margins, the newsletter that he writes on Substack, or from CNBC, he's often on Tech Check, gotta always watch his appearances there. Before we get started, just a quick apology to everybody. Last week I recorded. My interview with Tom Allison on my internal mic unplugged, plugged it back in internal mic. That's why I sounded like garbage. Anyway, we're back here with the professional mic and we're ready to kick off what I am sure is going to be an interesting show. We have a lot of ground to cover. The economy, what's happened to tech stocks. Then we'll talk about short form video. What's going on with Facebook and Tik Tok and YouTube

• 2:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  and Instagram and all the above trying to compete with each other. And we will then close out the show with an update on the Elon Twitter scenario. You've probably been overloaded on what's going on and we're recording this a couple of days ahead of publish. So the whole thing will probably turn on its head again. So we will dedicate some time at the end. But in the meantime, let's talk about what's going on with the economy. Ron, John, a lot has changed since the last time we spoke about the stock market.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  I think things are a little less stupid, let's say, since the last three times I've been on. I mean, this morning, we're publishing on a recording on Friday, the jobs number came out and it was in line with expectations, which were good. And of course, that's bad for the market. The Dow ends down 600 points as we're speaking. Tesla's down six and a half percent. Tech stocks are getting crushed again because it means that the Fed is definitely going to state its course. Everyone is waiting to see any kind of sign that the Fed might pivot. And they've been abundantly clear that they're going to try to fight inflation

• 3:39Speaker 02

  and that they are not moving away for not changing course from hiking rates. And the market is not taken too kindly to that.

• 3:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And so just to pull back a little bit, we've in the past talked about how the Fed had zero interest rate policy, which effectively made money free to borrow, which funneled a lot of cash into higher risk investments. Meaning things like crypto and tech companies with, you know, big growth prospects in the future are, you know, would start to get funded in ways they never would in a more rational world. Now the Fed is in the middle of this process of raising rates and everyone's looking at these signals like jobs numbers, for instance, as a like, okay, if the job, if there's more unemployment, then maybe the Fed slows down because the Fed cares about employment, but

• 4:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  the employment numbers are strong, meaning the rates continue to go up. So all of these exploratory places to park your money become less and less appealing. Is that the right way to look at it, Ron? John?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, that's exactly the right way. And I think one of the most interesting dynamics right now is this idea, again, that good news is bad, bad news is good. The idea that the jobs number came out well and people are still employed. So that means that the Fed will keep hiking and the stock market is taking a hit. And I think the Fed is in this very interesting position because you're starting to see an increasing narrative that the Fed wants people to lose their jobs, that the Fed is trying to engineer a recession. And I think this is the most important thing that everyone needs to kind of monitor around this story because for so long, the Fed enabled this insane growth. Zerp, zero interest rate

• 5:23Speaker 02

  policy has been a favorite topic of ours and has led to all sorts of weirdness in the economy, all sorts of little bubbles popping up everywhere. And that's ending and that's that's definitively ending. And it's not necessarily going to be good for the economy in the short term. And it also, I guess you have to qualify what good is in the sense that if it takes a lot of the froth out of the economy, it's not the worst thing in the world. Will it lead to increased unemployment and job losses? We have yet to see that, but we still see elevated inflation.

• 5:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, one of the things that people have talked about in this moment has been the resilience of the labor markets. People are still getting, you know, keep staying in their jobs, getting jobs, getting hired when they need to. And it's really the capital markets that have taken the hit, right? The S and P 500 while we're recording is down 23, 24% on the year, which is just astounding. Basically, that core of the S and P has evaporated over the past 10 months, nine months. And there's an interesting narrative that's emerging about how this is like, kind of the, the working man's correction. And here's a tweet from Matt Stoller. He says, talking about the resiliency of labor and the tough time that the stock market is going through.

• 6:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Says, how come no one else is enjoying the fact that the Fed keeps trying and failing to throw normal people out of work and instead keeps smacking billionaires in private equity? What do you think about that?

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, I think there's something to this. Even if you look at housing, on one side, you have the idea that mortgage rates are going up. This could potentially cause a slight correction in the housing market. But on the other side, you've seen a massive affordability crisis in housing, which leaves out the 40% or so of Americans that don't own their own home. And you've seen craziness in the rental market also associated with this. So, so I think there is definitely some healthiness to the correction. And as Matt Stoller and others have definitely said, you know, the idea that a working man's correction, that this will actually even out the playing field. And even if you look at technology, right now, when big tech fang, these stocks have taken a hit,

• 7:35Speaker 02

  that will decrease their power already. Think about, it's interesting to me, the connection between labor markets and the tech industry, where we both focus most of our time. Equity compensation has been a weapon of choice for every big tech company. And that's how they attracted people with these amazingly inflated pay packages. That's going away. That's, you know, and that could actually lead to better recruiting and talent attraction for smaller, mid-sized startups. So, so I think every one of these things that even if the top line, the numbers move a certain way, underneath that, there's definitely a balancing happen, a rebalancing that's happening a bit.

• 8:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And it's interesting, speaking about tech, I did this story a couple of weeks ago that I think some people were skeptical about that this is a moment of vulnerability as well as opportunity for for big tech. And I focused on the vulnerability because, you know, while they will inevitably consolidate some areas that they're competing in, they're going to lose some of the most entrepreneurial talent who isn't going to have those high equity packages. And we do know that there are hundreds of billions of dollars of dry powder out there that VCs are now investing in series A and C companies. That an entrepreneurial person from, you know, a big tech company who's now getting paid less might go ahead and take advantage of and eventually compete with them. What's your read on that? Good or bad for big tech?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I think it was a Bill Gurley who had tweeted, this is the best time in the last decade or 15 years to start a company. And I do agree with that in a way that now you're entering a period where the froth is going to be gone, talent can actually be attracted. Big tech is no longer going to dominate you, take you out with an early acquisition thanks to antitrust oversight. I mean, every single one of these factors is moving towards where I think we're actually going to see a rebirth in innovation in the early stage rather than just the same old thing that we saw for the past decade.

• 9:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  This is the optimistic way to look, look at it.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  I know, I'm rarely optimistic.

• 9:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, yes.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  On this one, I actually am.

• 9:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  And now I press you on the other side, which is, you know, is the Fed going to end up doing too much? I mean, it's the working man's correction now, but that doesn't necessarily need to apply because eventually if we do go to the inflation, do go to a recession and we get the the job loss to combat inflation that the Fed wants, who does that end up getting hit? You know, it's that unemployment rate ends up hitting, you know, working people.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Of course, of course. But to me, the idea that there's this big question, is the Fed losing its credibility now? Will they lose their credibility? To me, honestly, the Fed has not had credibility for the past decade in the sense that They were trying to get inflation to two to two and a half percent. That's what got us to zero interest rates for years. And there's always this, the mystery, where is the inflation? We can't find the inflation. So it's clear that they did not have their, their hands on the wheel or whatever, you know, to actually move things where they wanted to. And then on the other side, inflation starts rising. It's called transitory. Everything is being done to avoid hiking rates. And remember, the first rate hikes were only in March.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  We're only six months into this cycle right now. So I think that the idea that the Fed has this like perfect view and they can engineer the economy in exactly which direction they want. They already showed that that's not possible over the last 12 years. I don't think right now they will be the ones necessarily creating a recession or causing a recession. I think, again, if the economy can't handle 4% interest rates, four and a quarter percent interest rates with savings account giving you a couple of percent. I mean, if we can't build a functioning economy around that, I think we have bigger problems. And I think that's where we've all gotten a bit spoiled by the last zirpy decade.

• 11:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And now I'm tempted to push back and say, well, you know, these actions are going to cause pain to working people, you know, middle class, working class. However, the other side of it is eight, 10% inflation probably hurts them worse.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Of course, into eight to 10%. I mean, eight, whatever, we at 8.3 right now? That is killing anyone who is actually just trying to balance their checkbook and buy basics. I mean, that's the person who gets hurt the most. So, so that, again, I think it goes back to this idea that, yes, the loudest voices you're going to hear are those that have a vested financial interest and the ones who benefited for the last, from the last 12 years. And their world is not going to be the same as it was. But the idea that suddenly those people are so concerned about the people who no one talked about when income inequality grew over the last decade, I think is a bit disingenuous.

• 12:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And then, but there's also like, I mean, I guess you're getting hit by inflation, but it just, it does kind of suck to like, not, I don't know, be extremely wealthy right now, because, I mean, it hurts for everybody.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  It all sucks right now.

• 12:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, imagine, I mean, normal situation for folks, they're renting, right? Their real estate, their renting costs are going up. They, their portfolio is down and their wages, you know, growing, you know, stagnantly, or, or, you know, bit by bit. And, uh, yeah, their, their portfolio is shrinking.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, but one that assumes a portfolio to begin with, but I mean,

• 13:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, lots of people have retirement, you know, pension, all that's invested.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Retirement and pension, but you're not accessing that to pay for your weekly groceries.

• 13:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, right.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  I think, uh, again, the idea that inflation versus the risk of unemployment, I do think the Fed's staying the course and being, I mean, just, it's amazing how coordinated they are and then purposeful they are, that every speaker who comes out makes it clear to the market, we're not going to give in unless inflation comes down. So if we see a hit in the market, that's not our mandate, it's inflation and we're going to stick to it. And it's rare that you've seen that coordinated a communication effort. And I think they're doing the right thing and they, they waited to do this as well. There was still a bit of vagueness. Some of the governors were still saying, you know, maybe we'll wait and see, we're data dependent. This is the first time that we're really seeing everyone coming out together.

• 13:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. What do you think about this tweet from Joe Weisenthal, previous guest of the show? This year, the Fed has crushed the stock market, tech and real estate, all in its mission to ease the burden on the renter class. You basically, is your assessment, that's, that's true and it's worth it?

• 14:10Speaker 02

  I think it's relatively true, I think. And, and I do think, again, the question of, is it worth it? I think it's definitely a different track than we've gone for the past decade. So I think there's definitely good to it. It's not, it's not all bad, it's not all good, but I definitely think it's going to, it's rebalancing the economy in a different way, which I would say I support.

• 14:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Okay. Now, underpinning this entire conversation has been this assumption that inflation is, is less temporary and is actually here to stay. And I want to get into that because there was this other tweet that I saw from Connor Sen, who's a Bloomberg opinion columnist. I think you've noticed this. It was actually kind of funny. He's talking about an inflation burp versus persistent inflation. So he says, "I'm becoming increasingly convinced we went through an inflation burp rather than some structural 1970s type thing. It's fair to point out that the Fed hikes this year have had an impact in squashing it, but it's clearly happening now." Okay. And he goes through, and I've reported on some of this, and we're actually going to try

• 15:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  to get Ryan Peterson, who's the CEO of Flexport on the show. So it looks like that will happen in November. But shipping from Shanghai to Los Angeles has gone from somewhere around $12,000 a container late 2021, early 2020, to $2,995. That's astounding and almost a return to where it was. Let me see if I can understand some of his other charts. Okay, used cars, right? They were way up in, again, early 2021, early 2022. Now they're falling to pandemic level, pre-pandemic levels. What else do we have here? Okay,

• 15:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  I can't understand this one. And then job openings are coming down.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  The Case-Shiller home price index.

• 16:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Yeah, home price and job openings are coming down. So there is a case to be made that, okay, maybe the transitory, people who said inflation was transitory, that it was just here, you know, for a moment because the shipping lines got messed up during COVID and everybody had this stimmy money that they, you know, were spending and that was, you know, causing prices to rise. And eventually that would even out on its own without the need for aggressive Fed action or maybe minimal Fed action. And in many ways, it looks like that's, you know, happening in some areas. Look, I mean, home price, cars, shipping, these are the things that were fueling inflation. So what do you think about that?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, the Global Supply Chain Pressure Index, it's put out by the New York Fed, is down 66% since 2021 from the peak. But this has already happened. The supply chains opened up, the bottlenecks and the pressure, for the most part, opened up in the spring. That's why every retailer is sitting on insane amounts of inventory. That's why Nike's inventories are up 65%. But average selling prices are still staying either equal or even rising from retailers. So there you see the perfect dynamic where even though inventories go up, that should be deflationary, but it's not. They're still charging consumers more. And that's exactly where, because they don't know where the economy is going, they need to already absorb

• 17:30Speaker 02

  those margins that they paid up for. So they're going to charge the consumer more. And I think that's where you see these kind of like cyclical dynamics where, you know, just because something, even in an economics textbook, should, you know, increased inventories, decreased prices, that's not the way this stuff plays out in the real world.

• 17:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And did you, a lot of this discussion has played out on CNBC. Did you see Jeremy Siegel, the Wharton professor, sort of lose his mind over the Fed being too aggressive?

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. No, no, that's what I'm saying. Out of the, out of the financial pundit world, there's a lot of people freaking out about the idea that the Fed's going to engineer recession. And none of these people were screaming when the Fed was engineering a bubble with zero interest rate. So you can see where the bias lies.

• 18:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Don't you think the Fed, you know, well, now that we're talking nuanced and balanced, right? The Fed is messing, has messed up here, right? I mean, one of the points that Siegel made is they were way too easy, right? With their zero interest rate, they allowed all this crap to happen. And now they're, they're, you know, you shouldn't be in a position where you have to engineer a recession to fix your mistake, effectively.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. But I, okay, even though I may be bad mouthing the Fed right now, I'm not someone who believes this is intrinsically the fault of the Federal Reserve at all. I mean, there's a lot over the last decade, especially in the early 2010s, that because the government was gridlocked and was unable and fiscal policy could not drive actual growth, that the Fed was basically the only actor in the financial system that could push forward any kind of policy. So I think there's an entire other side that the Fed tried to do whatever it could. But there's, they are where they are right now. We all are where we are. And it's not a great place. Other than for early stage startups.

• 19:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's never been a better time for them.

• 19:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Printing all this money, what do you think? Do you think that that was a necessary thing to get us through COVID? Or was the government sort of drunk on its power to just spend our way through it?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  I mean, I think that was, you saw how the past decade informed the immediate reaction. None of us knew what was going to happen. The economy had to get shut down. Something had to happen. I mean, there's been the most insane stories coming out about PPP fraud. And then you have to, the New York Times had an amazing investigative piece and there's a podcast with the daily on it. But at the time, it actually stabilized the economy and actually helped a lot of people. So, so I think everyone did the best. I actually believe overall in good faith, people acted as best they could. But, you know, we're seeing the negative follow on effects of a lot of that.

• 20:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and some folks don't seem to have learned their lesson. I think Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said to fight inflation and gas prices. He's going to give everybody a thousand dollars. And it's like, dude, that doesn't fix, that's the problem here.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, and actually what brings us in terms of gas prices, when we're talking about supply chain bottlenecks, you know, that inflationary impact actually receding, the energy prices, geopolitical risk, that stuff is not anywhere close to going away. So I think that's like another thing to remember that when the Fed is communicating, should they start easing up a little bit? There's a whole host of risks out there that they have no control over, but we have to protect against.

• 21:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And now, okay, so there have been, there has been a movement in the tech world or folks that invest in technology to sort of read into what's happening now. Again, looking at some of these indications of pricing coming down. And say, actually, like, the Fed is about to pivot, realize that we're sort of coming back on our own and is not going to raise rates, you know, to the degree that a lot of people thought they were. Kathy Wood was just on.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  I figured you were referring to a certain innovation-based investor.

• 21:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, right. And she was saying, like, basically suggesting that we'd hit the bottom, saying that tech usually, and innovation usually, leads our way out of a recession. And the Fed is going to be surprised, surprised by how inflation or deflation is, inflation will tail off or deflation will about, will come into play. We're definitely titling, you know, this, this episode, will, will the Fed, the Fed save tech? So.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Will the Fed, I mean, Kathy Wood, Kathy Wood has spoken on, she's continued pushing for the past year as inflation skyrocketed, that deflationary forces are coming, that there's any number, including magical technological innovation, that will be deflationary. She's talking her book. She has the highest data portfolio ever, that when, and we've already seen ARC is down however many percent over the year, like, of course, because if inflation stays and rates do continue to rise, a portfolio like hers is going to continue to get obliterated. And I think that's why, I mean, she can't say anything else.

• 23:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Well, do you think there's a chance the Fed does save tech, though?

• 23:06Speaker 02

  I think the Fed, I think Jerome Powell does not think about the tech industry. When he wakes up in the morning, he does not think about Tiger Global's returns over the past 12 months.

• 23:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And we know that Tiger Global, speaking of them, there's just some breaking news that they're going to actually have a fund that's like half.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Another $6 billion fund, I think.

• 23:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  But much less than what they've been spending, which I'm sure a lot of VCs listening to this show are going to welcome. So. Anyway, yeah, so, okay, can't really count on that. What about crypto?

• 23:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Seems like a lot of that growth in crypto was due to people trying to find riskier investments when their interest rate was zero. It's pretty wild. The Fed signals interest rates are going to go up and the bottom falls out of Bitcoin and many of these other crypto markets. Do you think we've seen most of the pain already? Or is there going to be more on the way when it comes to crypto?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  This is going to be my second Bill Gurley tweet reference of the episode, but another one that's stuck with me is where down 70% doesn't mean there's not another 70% left to fall, something to that effect. And that's what we saw in the dot com bust. And it is, it's, it's their stocks, the first 60, 70% move down, you think, how much more pain can there be? But, I mean, everything can change. You see with direct to consumer companies, this has been fascinating to watch where everyone was talking about price to sales in terms of how they were valuing companies. And you saw companies like Allbirds and Warby Parker trading 15, 20 times sales. And then now, these companies are trading at less than one time,

• 24:49Speaker 02

  or not those two, but like Rent the Runways trading, Stitch Fix is trading at less than one time sales because we're back to price to earnings. We're back to actually looking at profitability to try to value these companies. So, so I do think you're, even when I thought, you know, I as well got so conditioned to looking at certain ways of valuing companies, that that entire framework changed where we're back to actually multiples of profit. And that's, so there's room, there's still room.

• 25:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. I better not say those companies' names because I did write about what was going on with direct to consumer and effectively got angry emails from almost all of them. And some blaming me on what was happening.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  You caused it. The Fed's going to save tech after you killed it, Alex.

• 25:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm like, I don't know. I mean, look, I appreciate their faith in the power of big technology, but I don't think one newsletter article is going to quash a segment of the economy. And by the way, Peloton, I just like. At the risk of giving away, you know, one of my story ideas here on the show like I've been trying real hard to find a Peloton employee to talk about what was, what, what the experience has been like going through this company as it like plotted along and then set up into like one of the hottest companies in the world, only to come crashing down. They went from, I think it was like a nearly $50 billion market cap to $2 billion market cap in a span of months, which is just unbelievable. And they laid off again last week.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, they just had their fourth round of layoffs. And it's the craziest part for Peloton for me to think about is them introducing the Peloton rowing machine in the midst of all this carnage and chaos. Like the idea that you have to introduce, after the treadmill did not do amazingly, you have to introduce this entire new product line to try to save the company while your stock's crashing, while employees are getting laid off. Like it's one of those reminders that, you know, there's the kind of reflectivity that on the downside where as the stock price is crashing, it will have second and third order effects, employees leaving, demoralization. And I agree that I don't think that's something

• 27:00Speaker 02

  that's really been covered and explored in depth. That how, that how did the actual move down in people's own, you know, equity compensation or their options valuations? How did that change the actual direction of these companies and the decisions they made? It's, it's, it's worth looking at.

• 27:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Well, if you're working at Peloton and listening to this show, you know how to reach me. Ranjan Roy is with us. He is the author of Margins. You can find it margins.substack.com. Is that the right address, Ranjan?

• 27:34Speaker 02

  That is, or read margins.

• 27:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Read margins.com. He's also on Twitter, Ranjan X Roy. You can catch him on Tech Check pretty frequently. One of my favorite guest appearances on CNBC, place that I show up every now and again as well. And it's great to have him here on Big Technology Podcast. We're going to take a break, come back, talk a little bit about short form video wars between Facebook, TikTok. Instagram, YouTube, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe BeReal. And then, uh, and then we'll talk about, you know, he who, who shall not be named, Mr. Musk. This episode is brought to you by AVPoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work.

• 28:20Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 29:01Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 30:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here with Ron John Roy on Big Technology Podcast. Ron John, so, you know, we talked a little bit about the economy. So it sounds like you're feeling good about it.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  Um, you know,

• 30:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're rooting for rationality.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Best time to start a company. Let's just repeat that over and over.

• 30:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  But you're also, it also seems like, like that we've, we've sort of been on this roller coaster ride and, and it seems like we're starting to go from these wild up and downs and, you know, GameStop economy to one that seems more predictable.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Maybe that's, that's what, that's what excites you. That's what I'm reading.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  To me, the GameStop economy, Uber being valued at however many tens of billions of dollars while losing billions of dollars, like that stuff did not signify a good economy to me. So that's why like right now, when everyone's saying, or everyone's very worried about what possible negative impact there is in the economy. To me, it's not that the economy was good over the last however many years.

• 31:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Okay. So an interesting battlefield that we're seeing in companies, again, that we look at closely is, is the rise of short form video. I mean, just to kick off, just this week or well, last week, if you're listening on Wednesday, I actually started working with an agency to do Tik Tok and YouTube short videos that are highlights from the podcast.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  And is this, are we going to do Tik?

• 31:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  These might be shorts. Yeah.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  All right.

• 31:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  And the stuff that they, I mean, just watching these, these videos take off is amazing. It is clear that whether it's just people's interest in content consumption or the platforms pushing these formats, that, you know, 10 cents on, you know, a longer form platform will get you a dollar on, on a Tik Tok or YouTube shorts. That's a long way of saying that, like, the reach is just insane. They take videos and explode them and the interest is unbelievable. I posted a video of the Francis Haugen podcast, just a, what a minute long, or the agency did it and it had like 15,000 views and a hundred plus comments and.

• 32:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  In like 12 hours, which you just don't get anywhere else. So, so what's your assessment? I mean, is this just the new form of social media that we have? And, and can you handicap the race in terms of who's going to win and who will lose?

• 32:47Speaker 02

  All right. So, so to me, this is the single most fascinating thing to watch in tech right now. The short form video wars. Yeah. Cause I mean, look at you have Instagram copying Tik Tok, YouTube's copying Tik Tok, Snap has spotlight. Everyone has, I'm waiting for LinkedIn to come out with a short form video product. I mean, everyone has it and everyone's focusing on it. And just as you said, you apparently as well are get, are being the beneficiary of the algorithm getting tweaked to push this stuff. So, you know, when we, every creator has been, you know, missing out on engagement because it's been getting harder and harder.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Clearly these platforms have completely prioritized short form video that, I mean, Mark Zuckerberg and they're begging you to post reels. They're trying to, you try to post a video, it will get converted to a reel. Everything is turning into short form video. YouTube and their shorts product is exploding as well. Um, yeah. So who's going to win? And then obviously Tik Tok is the OG in this. I think YouTube is the most interestingly positioned and, and here's why. Facebook and this is slash meta, I think this is a much, it could be a whole other conversation. Their power has always been the social graph and social recommendation, social graph based recommendation.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  And the way the entire YouTube, uh, short form video ecosystem is developed is not that. It's contextual recommendation and Facebook has admitted that, you know, we're going to start showing you stuff. We think you might be interested, not from, not based on who you follow. They're behind on that, and that actually is not their superpower versus TikTok. Owners ByteDance, they invented Tootiau, they've been doing contextual AI for over a decade now. And then who else is the best at that? YouTube, the entire YouTube product, the right recommendation rail for as miserable as it could be sometimes. Their strength has been contextual AI-based recommendation.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  So if anyone can already actually recommend you the right videos and is in that position, and you use YouTube for video consumption, they have over 120 million daily users, all just nudging all of those people towards shorts. And that's already what you're very good at, I think really makes them an interesting player in this.

• 35:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  And when you say contextual, you mean just based context, based off of what you might be interested in?

• 35:18Speaker 02

  So the difference being, and I remember, because I've followed, in my past life in the mid 2010s, had created a news, personalized news service. We'd built a contextual recommendation algorithm. So we were actually watching Tootiau, which is the news app that ByteDance first created pretty closely. And they were famous that you could literally scroll through just a couple of stories and they would magically know everything to recommend to you. Because it's rather than, you don't have to build a follow graph. You simply, based on what's inside each individual piece of content and how much time you spend on there, that actually forms the recommendation to further drive whatever's going to show up in your feed.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  And it is, it's become like kind of a, almost a meme now where everyone talks openly about training their TikTok algorithm. Like, we've become accustomed to this idea that I'm going to spend a little more time on this, like this, and that will mean it'll make my feed more tailored and show me more of this content. So that's versus my friends shared this and that's why I'm seeing this. That's the main difference.

• 36:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's interesting that we don't have, why do you think we don't have a Tootiau in the US or for English speakers?

• 36:34Speaker 02

  I mean, I tried to build it circa 2014.

• 36:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  What were the lessons that you learned?

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Um.

• 36:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Maybe, yeah, go ahead.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  For us at the time, um, this is going back down memory lane. Facebook actually took over news consumption 2014, 2015 that everyone, our users, people we talked to, we would see a drop off in engagement and ask users, they started getting their news on Facebook. And Facebook moved heavily into news and social based news consumption actually became, you know, the thing of the moment. So I think that was the biggest push away from any kind of pure contextual news consumption. Apple News was supposed to be the closest to this. I don't know, do you, do you use Apple News or I'm sure they have some hundreds of millions of users.

• 37:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Um, it clearly hasn't become like a pure staple, but I, I do think the way American news consumption worked for a number of years was socially driven. So that's why the contextual side of things never developed in the same way it did as in China.

• 37:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, there've been so many moments where I've like heard about new news apps that come up. And the premise always seems good, but I just never see the path for them taking off in, in the US. Maybe it will come as AI gets better.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I don't know. I mean, that's a, that's a big conversation, but I, uh, I, I think the way news consumption continues to grow in the US, I do think it's still, still much more social and everything's socially driven, which versus again, short form video, which is much more entertainment driven, even though there's clearly news types of stories that break through these channels. It's still much more entertainment driven, which is more conducive to contextual recommendation.

• 38:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Okay. So back to our discussion about short form videos, YouTube has been doing this for a long time. I agree. I'm guessing you don't agree with our previous guest, Tom Allison's perspective on this. And let me see if I can represent his case and you tell me what you think about it. Facebook is a place that you're already interested in speaking with friends and family, who are the people that you share these videos with. You might do it on Messenger, you might do it on Instagram, you might do it in the newly built messaging functionality that's about to come back to the Facebook app. And there's 2.97 billion people on Facebook. So you already have these social connections and you're going to have content from a bigger user base than anything, by multiples than anything that exists right now.

• 39:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  And if this is the new social media, then maybe Facebook is well positioned, even if we are used to seeing friend content in the feed. Thoughts?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  I don't think this is social media. That's what's so interesting about Facebook's making such a push into reels and making it to push into content from people you don't follow. And TikTok's greatest advantage in this is I could sign up and I don't need to have a social network. I don't have to have 100 friends or 1,000 friends. That was always Facebook's biggest challenge, but which they overcame incredibly to get you to build that initial network so they could start better tailoring the content. TikTok's, again, their superpower was you just sign up and within a couple of swipes, they can start getting you content that you actually want. You don't need an entire social network.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  And I think from the creator's side, that's where it also gets really interesting. And this is where I do think Facebook is cognizant of TikTok's advantage. For creators, if I were to create an Instagram account six months ago and tried to build a following and get engagement, first you have to build that following and it's tough. So to go from one to 10 to 100 is really difficult, especially because it's saturated. Versus TikTok, and I'm convinced the algorithm does reward early creators, early on in their account creation, because obviously that virality and that engagement makes you want to do it more. And it definitely would weight that slot machine effect

• 40:49Speaker 02

  for people who are just starting to create content or their accounts relatively fresh. And I think that's why now, like Ryan Broderick at the Garbage Day Newsletter had an amazing piece about culture starts at TikTok, memes start at TikTok. And it's because all these people could go there and start getting engagement and views instantly.

• 41:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, that's definitely what I'm experiencing. It's just blows stuff up. And the reason why I thought about starting this was I posted a YouTube short just to see what it was like. And it got 30,000 views like basically overnight. And I was just like, oh, this is probably worth trying.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  The algorithm tweak drives the behavior.

• 41:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  They gave me a little taste and now I'm addicted.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  They gave you a taste.

• 41:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  By the way, if folks want to follow it's, you can get it my YouTube Alex Cantruits and you can do it on TikTok. It's just Cantruits. So you can see little clips from the podcast there. And that being said, shall we move on to our, our final story? The Elon situation.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  I think it's time.

• 41:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do we, do we, so right now that the trial is stayed to October 28th. When the both parties have a, both Elon and Twitter have a deadline to basically say, are we going to make an agreement to have this company sold at 5420? Or, you know, is this, is this going to then go to trial in November? I love that Chancellor McCormick was like, if you're not ready by that point, email me and we'll set a trial date. It is so ordered. I love that ruling. I, I was thinking about doing an emergency podcast as soon as Elon said that he was going to buy Twitter. And I stopped short for two reasons.

• 42:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  One is I think folks are probably oversaturated with this story and it's probably better to wait a little bit and cover it with some context and distance. And I think that turned out to be, you know, the right, the right choice because the, it initially looked like Elon was going to, you know, buy it, no questions asked. And then you started to look at the language of the letter and Twitter's reaction. And it was like, well, maybe this isn't actually going to happen. So let's start here. Do you think this deal is going through a 5420 and Elon's gonna buy this company?

• 43:05Speaker 02

  We have been asking ourselves this question since March repeatedly.

• 43:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Absolutely, but he says he's gonna do it again.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  I'm still going with, man, it's difficult right now. I don't think he is going to buy Twitter at 5420. I think this gets continued to be dragged out. I think the financing is gonna be where things potentially fall apart or just become more and more difficult, even though, even if he's held to it, still actually going from being held to account and executing on the deal and coming up with the money and signing the check and having it cashed on the Twitter side. I mean, the space in between there, there's so much room for so much to happen. I mean, as again, we're recording Friday, I had to ask.

• 43:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm praying that this news is gonna hold, otherwise we have to chop off the last few minutes of the show.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  The Russia, the entire crazy Russia poll tweet was this week. Yet again, we're in such an Elon news cycle that it feels like it was weeks ago or months ago. We're back to anything can change every single day.

• 44:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. So talk about the financing part because that's pretty interesting. So is there, it's always seemed to me like there's a world where Elon's putting up some of his money, but he also got commitments from Morgan Stanley, Larry Ellison, some others. And now he's saying he's gonna buy Twitter at 5420 after disparaging it in public for, you know, how many months? Now he's gonna say, now he's like, whoops, actually, I'm gonna go buy it. Can I have those billions of dollars that you are gonna give me to do this? So is that where some of the, you know, you mentioned that there's a lot of room between point A and point B. Is that where some of the tension's gonna, gonna hit? Are they, or can one of these lenders say, I don't want to do this?

• 44:55Speaker 02

  I mean, okay, so you have the two sides of it. I believe it's like 12 and a half billion in debt financing from banks and then the 30 odd billion in the equity financing portion. So on the debt side, it's already a bit complicated because the markets are completely different than they were back in late March, early April. And then there's Citrix, which was a big LBO that just took place. The banks, when they actually went to try to sell the debt, they had to take a big loss on it. So there's already a lot of talk about the debt side.

• 45:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Our banks are gonna have to take.

• 45:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And before we go to equity, just talk a little bit about how this process works. So they say that they are going to give Elon, you know, X billion in debt. And then who do they sell that debt to? How does that, how do they come up with that money?

• 45:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, no, typically they would go out and sell it and ideally not hold it to institutional investors, endowments, hedge funds, anybody.

• 45:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  So it's like you can, you can fund this loan and get, you know, X percent interest back.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But and, and again, the, now the, there's a lot of speculation around the idea that, you know, are they willing to take a big enough loss because they have made, they can make it back in investment banking fees or just overall have made enough money off of Elon that they're willing to. But again, the market is completely in a different place where, than it was before. But, but on the equity side, I mean, I think it was in Matt Levine, he Matt Levine'd it very well, where he was talking about, like, imagine Larry Ellison, first of all, those text messages, which were the most amazing tech moment of the year for me. How casually Larry Ellison is pledging one or $2 billion,

• 46:38Speaker 02

  does Elon Musk go back to him after saying this company is essentially a fraud? And it's like, are you still good for that $2 billion? Like, how does all that work? What does it look like? If he's on the hook for $33 billion in equity financing, if a lot of those one to $2 billion checks or whatever, if the recent $250 million are not there anymore, is he selling down Tesla shares to get, to actually raise that capital, which is a whole other thing that can happen on the actual Tesla equity side? Like, there's so many twists and turns and intricacies to how he actually gets to the $44 billion that, I mean, the amount of moving parts that.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  A judge saying you owe this does not mean it's showing up in Twitter's bank account.

• 47:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Do we know if he went in and had like Larry Ellison and Andreessen like sign agreements? Like, are there agreements behind this agreement that they would be held to? Or is it sort of like?

• 47:39Speaker 02

  What do you think, Alex? What do you think?

• 47:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  I, I, I don't know. I mean, you would imagine that business people work it out behind the scenes, but reading through the texts, maybe like Larry's like, yeah, I'm just good for it. And you don't, I don't know. Hard to tell. What do you think? You think there are signatures or it's just kind of chill bro, bro code type stuff?

• 47:59Speaker 02

  I, I would like to think they're signatures, but I don't, I don't, I don't like how casual it all was. And that's why to me, again, it was one of the most, it honestly should like live in the history books of how technology, the business of technology worked over the past decade. Cause everyone always had the suspicion and now we got to see it firsthand. And that's what was so interesting about it to me. And, and again, Elon Musk has made Larry Ellison an ungodly amount of money based on like a Tesla stock appreciation. So sure, maybe he could be like, yeah, two billion, that's fine. And like, you know, only when it gets to it, I'll have my people work it out with your people.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  But no, I mean, I cannot imagine based on the text messages, there was reams of documents being poured over and that got signed.

• 48:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hey, Ranj, let me try this out on you.

• 48:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Tell me if this is interesting. Conversational OS for your digital life.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  Wait, what?

• 49:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  You haven't seen this? This is Mark Benioff texted, he was in that, those Elon texts. He's like, let me know if interesting. Twitter as conversational OS for your digital life.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 49:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't own it yet. Just like.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Okay, all done.

• 49:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Some of those are some unbelievable.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  I I I'm not always speaking the most positively of Elon, but

• 49:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  I have to give him credit. Like, he is as good at texting as he is at Twitter. Like, my favorite was, you had people writing these, like, you know, long, thought-out messages asking for, and he just went with the emoji reaction, like,

• 49:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  like, thumbs up, cool. Like, it's like you're trying to date someone and pouring your heart out and they're just like, cool, thanks.

• 49:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Not when he responded at all. I mean,

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  also, one of my favorite was Satya Nadella's response to him, where he's like, thanks for the time. Elon will definitely pass along that team's feedback.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I can only imagine what that is, yeah. But, but yeah, the, the, I think, how, kind of like, what's a slapdash or just casual, that entire world of text messaging messaging was, I think that's just, again, a reminder, like, a week or was it just a few days ago when he announces Elon Musk has sent to, his lawyers have sent a letter that they're gonna go ahead and buy Twitter, it's a reminder that is there some 4D chess strategy behind this? Or is it all kind of, you know, shoot from the hip and see what happens and try to,

• 50:43Speaker 02

  try to, and again, bringing chaos into the system is one of his greatest strengths, and then turning that into an advantage. So, he's certainly shown he's still able, he's still got it.

• 50:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's so interesting also to watch how like, and see, maybe it's because we're on tech Twitter, but it seems to us like, and, and like, all Twitter is focused on Elon all the time. Like, the way that he caused that conversation about Russia where you have like the, what the Ukrainian ambassador telling him to F off and then the Russia, Russian Prime Minister saying, we agree with, or not Prime Minister, but one of, like, these high-ranking Russian officials is like, we agree with Elon, like, Pretty extraordinary situation.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  Twitter works best when there's a main character, a central main character. And without Donald Trump, that there's a vacuum and Elon comes in once every few weeks or months and he fills it. But other than that, I mean, if you try to think, there's no one else who really centrally captures the attention of everyone and is so perfectly divisive.

• 51:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  That it allows everyone to quote tweet him and.

• 51:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  Apply their own heuristic and whatever they're thinking to whatever he just said. So, I mean.

• 52:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Not the try guys.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Not, not, not the try guys are still niche.

• 52:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 52:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  It'll be interesting to see what happens if he does eventually take ownership of Twitter and then lets Donald Trump back on and now he's no longer the main character that gets all the attention, right? It's Trump saying those things about Russia. How do you think he reacts to that?

• 52:24Speaker 02

  I, I, what happens if he takes over Twitter? It's still something because it comes up a lot. You see a million pieces written about what would this mean for free speech? I just can't mentally get there.

• 52:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  We already got our edit button. I don't know if you saw.

• 52:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  I did, yes.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, some people are getting it like, like what is going to be, I mean, does he fix the worst ad targeting system ever invented in the history of digital media? Like, I mean, is he, is he going to turn it into the everything app in the WeChat of the east, WeChat of the west? Like, sure, could go in a lot of different directions, but I think we're so far away from getting there that it's tough.

• 53:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  I was driving earlier and I kind of let my mind wander and be like, oh, maybe there are some good things he can do. Like maybe, you know, he has payments experience. Maybe he puts payments into, into.

• 53:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Into Twitter, maybe some ride hailing, you know, he does cars. Maybe he comes up with, and this is like kind of the X factor with Elon, like maybe he just comes up with these Elon ideas and and makes it better. It's possible. It's interesting. It'll be interesting. It won't be boring if he if he owns this app.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  No, it will not be boring, but but that that whole conversation did get me thinking, why did Facebook not execute on building the everything app? Like, I was really trying to think through that they, and then reading your most recent piece where taught Facebook is going to try to like reinject messaging into the core app experience. Like, they had it, or they still maybe do have it, but if anyone had the social network, had the messaging, started to have, at least on the marketplace side, the commerce, like the beginnings of it, even though there's been a lot of reporting and rumblings that they're cutting back on commerce efforts, like if anyone should have been able to do it, Facebook should have. So that that one's always fascinating to me.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  Why it never has actually, no one's realized that vision outside of China so far.

• 54:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  It does all start with payments, right? Because once you get your credit card in there and you're used to paying and scanning QR codes and paying with your app, and you shop. And then like in WeChat, you might want to buy lottery tickets or pay for a bus ticket in the app. And then it becomes interesting, but you need those payments first.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Do you think Libra was the distraction that prevented payments and crypto like Libra and crypto? Libra being Facebook's big crypto initiative was the distraction that prevented that from happening?

• 54:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's a great question. I think that Facebook tried to come up with all of these non-obvious solutions to do payments, right? Like, they couldn't settle for the simple answer, which is just, again,

• 55:10Speaker 02

  Get everyone's credit card.

• 55:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Get your credit card in there.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  2.97 billion or whatever, yeah.

• 55:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  This is a kind of, that's how WeChat did it. They got everyone's credit card in there. And they said, you can scan a QR code and pay in your phone. That's the foundational layer. And instead, they went for these convoluted, we're going to do crypto, right? Just got lost in messaging, lost in regulation. And even before that, they said, let's do messaging, right?

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, they spun out Messenger, which at the time seemed okay, but.

• 55:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  But it was all predicated on this belief that you wanted to chat with businesses, but you just don't, you know, you mostly don't. And so had they just again gotten that credit card in, use it for physical purchase, purchases and then imagine you go like you, even if you're window shopping, right? If Facebook became the default payment app and you walk by like a storefront, you walk by a Macy's and you see something that you like and there's a Q car, Q, Facebook QR code next to it, you scan it, right? And, um, and then customize it for your size and, and, and look, and you, you have it shipped to your house. That's the thing that, that, that probably will eventually happen. There are subway stations in Korea, I think, or maybe this was experimental, I don't know.

• 56:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  But, um, where you, while you waited for the subway, it would basically look like a grocery store and you could do all your grocery shopping while you waited, scan the QR codes, add to your cart, check out, groceries are there when you get home. So this is, this is, there's an opening there. And if this is what, what Musk, if Musk does eventually pie Twitter and this is what he wants, I don't see a reason why that wouldn't be successful.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  It's not the worst idea. It's not the worst idea. And honestly, I mean, if someone pulls it off, uh, uh, it's a good thing. I still have dark horse hope that Snapchat still somehow pulls this off. I think they're the ones, uh, the forgotten, uh, forgotten social network that quietly lurks in the back. But, but again, messaging first, still holding on to, that's actually where I think the most, I mean, related to the short form video topic, the idea that Facebook is essentially seeding the social graph by moving to contextual recommendation opens up, where's our, where's the social network going to go? I mean, I've had friends complain to me, they're like, I just want to post photos and have my friends see it. It's such, such a

• 57:30Speaker 02

  simple core thing we all got used to and, and it doesn't work like that anymore.

• 57:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  I think that that is all in messaging. That's where it goes. Like instead of posting and having all your friends, you're going to set, drop those photos in your group chats.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. Or Apple iOS shared albums for, well, once, once kids come into the picture, that's how the grandparents.

• 57:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, right. You can do those and Apple's working on their ad products now. So eventually they'll rank those albums with an algorithm and then they'll insert.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  And then inject short form video into it.

• 58:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  And feed. And then it will eventually, you'll see photos from outside your network. And Tim Cook will say, we're so very excited.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  About iVideos.

• 58:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Introduce AI based. Content discovery with Apple Privacy First Advertising.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Oh, man.

• 58:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  You can see it.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  Save us Elon with the X app, please.

• 58:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, prediction for Twitter, then we'll call it.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  I think this stretches out well into November. I don't think there's anything finalized as of early November. I think in the end, I still think Elon is not the owner of Twitter come January 1st.

• 58:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  So he just passes it off to someone.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Somehow he gets out of it.

• 58:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Or passes it. Gets out of it. Interesting.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  No, no, no. I mean, at a cost, but at a significant cost. But I don't think he ends up the owner of Twitter for $44 billion.

• 58:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, whenever there's the final outcome, I hope you're ready for an emergency pod where we'll talk it over.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 59:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Ranjan Roy, thanks for joining. Awesome having you again.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 59:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, thank you, Ranjan. Thank you, everybody, for listening. This was definitely a fun one. Series, a fun one coming up as we move into the next couple of weeks. We have some great guests for you. So stay tuned. Every Wednesday, we have a new interview with a tech insider, outside agitator, analysts like Ranjan. It's gonna be fun. Thank you, Nate Guatney, for turning the audio around. Hopefully, this time, I actually plug my microphone in, making your life more enjoyable. And thank you to LinkedIn for having me as part of your podcast network. Thanks to all of you listeners. Really appreciate you coming back week after week. We've seen a lot of new listeners recently. If you're a new listener, I want to say thanks. Great having you here. Welcome aboard and hope you're getting value out of the show.

• 59:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Not too late to review. The podcast just takes a couple of seconds. If you hit five stars on Apple or Spotify, just do it. I'm sure you'll feel good about getting that five-star rating. I know I do whenever I rate a podcast and also helps us get discovered by more people, including some of the new listeners that are here today. All right, that'll do it for us here on Big Technology Podcast. We will see you next week.

• 1:00:24Speaker 03

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