Vaping Alone with Wikipedia

Are you ready to settle in for another hard tech episode? I hope so, because that's what we have this week. Nilay, Dieter, Chris, and Sam bring the beef/sweat/swag/hype to the table to discuss Jony Ive, cars, Sony, and the merits of various Matrix sequels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Nilay Patel?

  So this is gonna be weird. It's been, I think, 141 episodes of this show.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:05Nilay Patel?

  And we're about to do something I think we've only ever done once before.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  It was a disaster.

• 0:11Nilay Patel?

  It was, it was something. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna read an ad. This episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or online store for you and your ideas. Squarespace features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, and incredible 24/7 customer support. Try Squarespace at Squarespace.com/surprise and enter offer code VERGE, double surprise, at checkout to get 10% off, triple surprise. Squarespace, build it beautiful.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Rich!

• 1:08Speaker 01

  So the intro music sounded totally wrong to me. It sounded weird.

• 1:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh, it was, it was playing back at regular speed, not 1.5.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:16Nilay Patel?

  Oh, burn. Podcast production burn. Hello and welcome to The Vergecast. Now that we have advertising, I feel like I have to be a professional. That's a lie, I don't. This is a show about The Verge and all the stuff that happens on it. I'm Neelai Patel.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  I'm Dieter Bone.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  I'm Chris Plant.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  And I'm Snapchatting right now.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Oh, god.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  I'm Sam Sheffer, hi.

• 1:35Nilay Patel?

  Remember when I said we were gonna be professionals? And I immediately blew it.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  The hype is under construction.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  No, no, no, we're, we're professionals, we're just teens.

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  No, so here's what I'll say. We, seriously, I think it's been, we're professional teens, I always said. It's been 141 episodes. We have, we have secured cash money for this show.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Do they actually pay us in cash?

• 1:57Nilay Patel?

  I have no idea.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  The Squarespace, just like flip those ones?

• 2:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Squarespace makes it, they show up and they make it rain. The whole time, just being like, "Check out our website, use offer code VERGE." And then they take 10% of the money back.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  This takes the term down for dollars.

• 2:12Nilay Patel?

  That's how they pay for that discount. No, I have no idea. I mean, one of the, one of the glories of Vox Media is that there's a wall between editorial and sales. So, who knows?

• 2:22Speaker 02

  They're getting all of the money.

• 2:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, someone else is like receiving a bag of money upstairs while we sit here huffing it out in front of these microphones.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Drink water.

• 2:31Nilay Patel?

  Drinking water, like, like chumps.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  Real chumps.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  I'm drinking a beer whose brand will not be named and don't tweet at me about it.

• 2:39Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  Brand.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, you missed this last week.

• 2:41Nilay Patel?

  Definitely missed it last week. So we're back. I will say the Vergecast at episode 141, plus Cash Money, we're gonna try to like be organized.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51Nilay Patel?

  I'm not gonna keep this promise.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  You've already broken this promise really bad.

• 2:57Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  You say this every episode, money or not, this is gonna be the one.

• 3:01Nilay Patel?

  Hype check, money.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  It runs the world.

• 3:04Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 3:05Nilay Patel?

  It's good, there's tons of news. I'm just getting ready to.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  We're getting corporate Sam today.

• 3:10Nilay Patel?

  Super corporate Sam.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  It's gonna be good.

• 3:12Nilay Patel?

  By the way, we got lots of excellent hype formulas, most of which I would say tracked to my thought.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18Nilay Patel?

  That hype over reality.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  We read a hype paper on the Vergecast last week.

• 3:22Nilay Patel?

  We got a scientific paper. I want to find one of these, uh, uh, uh, like bad journals that don't have peer review and then submit the paper to the bad journal.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:32Nilay Patel?

  Like that, we have to do that. So we are still in the market for hype check, uh, formulae. If you'd like to provide us one. But there's tons of news, so we should get right into it. And I think, as it happens, Apple is dominating the news this week in a variety of ways. I think actually two weeks of news domination. And it's weird because they're leading up to the watch, right? They've said the watch is gonna come out in April. I believe that means we'll probably see some sort of like event where they show the watch again. There's rumors of a new MacBook. So they're probably gonna have some sort of event before the watch is released to sale in April. We have no idea when that's gonna be. But what's interesting is that we're seeing the fruits

• 4:16Nilay Patel?

  of the first new open Apple in that the New Yorker published a 17,000 word profile.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Just massive.

• 4:24Nilay Patel?

  Of Johnny I, which we should talk about in a structured way in a minute.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:26Nilay Patel?

  But then underneath that all has just been this endless drumbeat of. Rumors about a car.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:33Nilay Patel?

  Of all of the things, just an endless. It started with.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Well, it started, it started a while ago with like people and there were rumors about Tesla and like there was like.

• 4:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, are they gonna buy Tesla?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  vague sense of car out there, but nothing got nailed down. And then within, the way this usually goes is like either Reuters or the WSJ will like. Sometimes Bloomberg, they're like, one of them will break a story and then we'll have like bam bam bam, like rumor after rumor, like confirming the story in some way. And so this time around. It started, I want to say what you write in Wall Street Journal. Fast follow. Titan and then Reuters came right after.

• 5:07Nilay Patel?

  And then Chris got very mad because Mark Newsom, who is one of Apple's designers, famous designers. Designed like a Ford concept car a long time ago, which is very cute.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  It's whatever.

• 5:20Nilay Patel?

  So everyone thought that would be.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:22Nilay Patel?

  You like it?

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it looks nice. Looks European.

• 5:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I like cute looking cars.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  I mean, it looks better than iPhone six.

• 5:33Nilay Patel?

  Dude.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  I thought that was your iPhone six.

• 5:35Nilay Patel?

  I had a dream last night. This is true. I mean, here's a tangent. I had like a really intense set of dreams last night, but the one. Thing that sticks out now that you brought up the iPhone six is that I dreamt for a while that the beard on my face. Was like crazy antenna lines, like the back of the iPhone six and I couldn't get rid of it. Like I was desperately trying to like shave off these antenna beard.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Well, that's really weird.

• 6:01Nilay Patel?

  It was, I woke up like really disturbed and I checked my face.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  What did you eat for dinner?

• 6:07Nilay Patel?

  Huh?

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Vodka?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Now it all makes sense. I thought you had strapped phones to your face.

• 6:14Nilay Patel?

  No, no, it wasn't phones. It was that my, my beard refused to grow in anything but the shape of the iPhone six. Like, you know that weird outline that's bad? That was my face. Sorry, there's nothing worse than hearing about other people's dreams.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  No, that was, that was a great dream.

• 6:28Nilay Patel?

  Thanks, thanks buddy. It's in, there's not really a story arc there, but I'm glad that you appreciate it. But you must appreciate the terror that I felt while asleep.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that sounds terrible.

• 6:38Nilay Patel?

  Cause like, man, dude, just like cover it up, you know what I mean?

• 6:41Speaker 02

  I mean, I just dreamt that I was underwater and I was never gonna get out.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  You get a Hannibal Lecter mask?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  That's your phone case?

• 6:47Speaker 03

  Welcome to the Dreamcast.

• 6:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, no, my battery life was great, but I looked terrible unless I was in a case.

• 6:53Nilay Patel?

  What? That's my F N six joke.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Doesn't?

• 6:56Nilay Patel?

  The F N six is the first F N.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  So the car?

• 6:58Nilay Patel?

  The car.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Sorry, that was, that was, that was cold.

• 7:01Nilay Patel?

  So there's, okay, so here are the things that we have now heard about the car. We have heard that it's called Project Titan. We have heard that it might look like a minivan, which is incredible, resembles a minivan.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Resembles a minivan.

• 7:14Nilay Patel?

  Uh, there is, I would call it, it's not disagreement because it's all rumors. There are conflicting reports over whether or not it's self-driving or not.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Right, which we can explain, or Chris Ziegler has explained, I think, pretty well. So the, the problem with saying is it or isn't a self-driving car is, uh, like self, self-driving is a spectrum right now of like completely autonomous goes and does its own thing to pretty good to, uh, being autonomous on a freeway to, um, like lane assist and hold the speed and they can brake when needs.

• 7:48Nilay Patel?

  Cruise control.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  All the way down to just cruise control, all the way down to like, you know, not autonomous at all. You've got a hand crank to start the damn thing.

• 7:54Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  And so presumably.

• 7:56Nilay Patel?

  That's the bottom end of the spectrum.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:58Nilay Patel?

  There's a Model T.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:59Nilay Patel?

  There's like on the self, but that's not even on the spectrum of self-driving.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Well, it's the.

• 8:04Nilay Patel?

  It's a spectrum of cars.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Baseline. I mean, you don't have to pedal it, right? There's an engine.

• 8:08Nilay Patel?

  Okay, fine, fine. By self-propelling to like robot car that can kill you, that's the spectrum.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Right, so.

• 8:15Nilay Patel?

  You don't have to pedal it, alright, fine.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  It's a safe bet that the Apple car, assuming it comes into fruition by the time it gets out into the world, will have some pretty advanced autonomous driving capabilities.

• 8:28Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  But like, maybe all cars will by then.

• 8:31Nilay Patel?

  Right, then there's no timeline, this could not happen.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:34Nilay Patel?

  We've been told that there's a former iPhone product manager is running this thing. He's got like a thousand employees in Skunk Works. The stuff that.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Oh, and Apple just today, it's getting, it came out that they're getting sued by A126?

• 8:48Nilay Patel?

  A123.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  A12 something.

• 8:51Nilay Patel?

  A126 is.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  The Amazon thing, yeah. The company that makes basically batteries for electric cars and because Apple's poached a bunch of their engineers.

• 9:00Nilay Patel?

  Which is wild.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  I have a question for you.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  If you're a tech company, okay, and let's say that you're like valued at more than $3 billion. You have to have two things in development, no matter what you actually make, right? You have to have a car in development because either electric cars or self-driving cars are going to become a gajillion dollar industry. And hey, it would be worth having some hand and maybe somehow scoring that. And you have to have like those dogs, those robot dogs who are going to fight all of our wars. Like, it doesn't matter who you are, you are.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  So Facebook, you're saying Facebook has, Facebook, you think Facebook's got creepy dogs?

• 9:42Speaker 02

  No doubt. Facebook has its own like DARPA wannabe that is like going to like go and just share free internet in third world countries.

• 9:50Nilay Patel?

  Just, you said $3 billion, but just to put that in perspective, like Apple is at like 800 billion.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure. I have no doubt.

• 9:57Nilay Patel?

  Like $3 billion is like Snapchat on a good day.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  No, no, they're over 10 now.

• 10:02Nilay Patel?

  They're over 10. So Snapchat has a DARPA dog.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  I hope they do.

• 10:04Nilay Patel?

  Ride you in a self-driving car.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  I like the phrase DARPA dog.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Would DARPA dogs exclusively chase self-driving cars?

• 10:13Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Oh. That'll be our new police.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  What happens if we have a huge regression and we have these DARPA dogs that are like, you know, horse and buggy kind of thing, but they're DARPA dogs?

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Oh, and they're like 400 miles per hour.

• 10:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but they're pulling the buggies.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:28Nilay Patel?

  I hear what you're saying.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  This is the steampunk future we deserve.

• 10:31Nilay Patel?

  And there's guys in giant Mecca suits kicking the dogs as they run down the highway.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  So I had like a half-formed argument and it's still half-formed, but like, basically the idea that Apple feels the need to build a car is depressing to me.

• 10:47Nilay Patel?

  Why?

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Cause I want Apple to build things that are more egalitarian than that. And I feel like we could build better systems for transportation than cars. I think cars are great for wide open spaces. They're great for the middle class, assuming that they hit a certain price point, but like. I don't know, man. The Hyperloop seems way more exciting and good, better for humanity than just more cars.

• 11:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I just think that, well, here, there's two things I want to say about the car thing. The first thing is very glib, but it's, I think it's super true. It is easier for Apple to try to build a robot car than it is for them to make a TV.

• 11:27Nilay Patel?

  Like, that is where we have arrived in this industry.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, did you not hear, though?

• 11:31Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 11:32Speaker 02

  They're gonna announce a new TV. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if you saw the rumors, but I'm pretty sure they're true this time. Oh, no, no. And it's, and it's gonna, it's not gonna be Ultra HD either. It's gonna be 1080p, because they know how to make a good TV.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  It's like the equivalent of the original iPhone coming out without, without 3G.

• 11:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Is it about 1080p?

• 11:50Nilay Patel?

  I just, I'm telling you, there's, there's every chance in the world Apple will release a robot car before they can get Comcast to do the cable, over-the-top

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:59Nilay Patel?

  cable subscription they need to watch a TV. And that is like the saddest thing I can think of. Like, try to think of something sadder than that.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  I don't know, world hunger.

• 12:07Nilay Patel?

  That's whatever. We got Bill Gates solving that stuff on the side every day. It's cool, man. Just like genetically get those seeds up.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  I, I don't think it's

• 12:14Nilay Patel?

  Genetically get the seeds up.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  On, on a human, uh, scale, I also think like, making self-driving cars is to be like, one of the top things you can do for like the US right now.

• 12:26Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Other than the tremendous damage due to the economy, because I didn't realize that like, most jobs in the Midwest are drivers, so that causes its own problems. But beyond that, on a, on a pure safety level?

• 12:39Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I'm all for it. Here's, here's what I will say.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  But no, you know, safety is not dying.

• 12:43Nilay Patel?

  A train. No, no, it's not the same, right?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, but a train can't take me to the cafe. I would take the train to the cafe if I could take the train.

• 12:50Nilay Patel?

  I am all for the major companies of Silicon Valley fighting over who can build the better, faster, cooler self-driving car.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:58Nilay Patel?

  That's like, Google doing it, and Uber doing it, and Apple doing it, and, you know, maybe Microsoft has one.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Remember Detroit?

• 13:03Nilay Patel?

  Microsoft is more like, hey, do you not like putting this on your face? What about putting this on your face? And everyone else is like driving the cars.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Well, remember we used to have those systems where they were like, there are these sci-fi worlds of like, there would be like monorails everywhere. Little individual pods would like drive along on these rails over the city, and so we could actually have like our streets back.

• 13:21Nilay Patel?

  Yes, that's Epcot.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:23Nilay Patel?

  I'm with you, but here's

• 13:24Speaker 02

  The people mover.

• 13:26Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  I'm forgetting it was

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was called a people mover.

• 13:29Nilay Patel?

  Experimental prototype city of tomorrow.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Didn't know, but I'm talking about more recently, like in the past five years, this guy came up with a pretty reliable plan.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  People mover 2.0.

• 13:37Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 13:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, PM 2.0.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  How could we forget?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  I'm just saying.

• 13:41Nilay Patel?

  The PCOT PM 2.0.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  You're talking about the redesign in Popular Mechanics right now?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Look, I know I'm a communist tippy, but maybe transportation, we could start to think of in the same category that we're starting to think of healthcare. That it's a thing that we should figure out as a society, not as individual people who happen to be able to spend lots of money on a car that Apple makes.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Oh, I agree. I'm just happy right now, and I'm sad because I'm from Ohio, but like Detroit refused

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  to go electric so long ago and they could imagine, imagine if Detroit had gone down that route. Imagine if they had gone down the technology route with their cars and the safety route with their cars and like what today would look like. And I feel horrible saying that because I desperately wish that was reality versus some of the people who are in charge of what the future of cars could be. Because I don't necessarily know if Silicon Valley is the Eric.

• 14:37Nilay Patel?

  It's not Silicon.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Silicone.

• 14:39Nilay Patel?

  Silicone.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  I'm from the Midwest. I also say council and roof.

• 14:43Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Silicone is the stuff you use to like insulate your bathtub.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Guys, I know.

• 14:48Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  I'll say crick.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Do you say nuclear?

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Nuclear.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Let's just, let's just hear about.

• 14:55Nilay Patel?

  So here's my thing about the car. I didn't say, I said the glib thing and we told them a bunch of jokes.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:59Nilay Patel?

  The other thing that I think is massively important about the car is it's, it's related to the glib thing. It's, Apple needs the next thing, right? And I think the next thing for them is connecting their phone to like the rest of the world. Right? So they're doing it with HomeKit. They're like building this thing and that'll take some time. They're trying to do it with CarPlay and CarPlay is just, they're trying to do it with Apple Play, right? You're like, or Apple Pay. You have your phone and things, it turns into a wallet. The next piece is you get in your car and your car knows about your phone and then stuff happens.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:31Nilay Patel?

  And the reality is that most of the car manufacturers are never going to give up like controlling your AC. Like, they're not gonna give that to Apple. They're not gonna give, like, core functions of the car to Apple. They're not gonna give controlling your speed to Apple, or like windshield wipers, or any of the other core functions of the car. Apple's gonna get, basically, a button that launches an app that connects to CarPlay, and you can run Spotify and maybe Apple Maps.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Right. So they need to, they need to build their own car because they can't own the other ecosystem?

• 16:00Nilay Patel?

  They can't own the stack. And I think that is, unless there is a car company that's willing to give that up, and I walked through CES with, um, so a thing that I do at CES, our chief, is like, I give tours to the people who partner with our company. And so as we're walking around, and some of the people there are from car companies, and I was like, this is the challenge, like, both Apple and Google have to convince you, car company person, to give up this piece of the car if they want this to be a good experience. And they were just like, we're never getting that up. Just flatly, they just like looked at me like, yeah, that's crazy. Why would they do that? And that, I think, if you're Apple, it's funny because they ran into that same wall with Comcast.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:35Nilay Patel?

  But they can't build a cable network. They ran into that same wall with a GM or Saab or whatever.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  They just build a car.

• 16:40Nilay Patel?

  Saab is a dead brand. I don't know why I brought up Saab. Volvo, what a name. Name some car company.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Toyota.

• 16:45Nilay Patel?

  Toyota. Uh, they ran into that same wall with these car companies. Honda. Honda's a good car company.

• 16:52Nilay Patel?

  Come on, Bone.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I got more. I'm just waiting to interrupt you.

• 16:56Nilay Patel?

  Get them all out. Uh, they ran into the same wall with the car companies.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Hyundai.

• 16:59Nilay Patel?

  Hyundai. Uh, and they just like, well, just build their own car.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm done.

• 17:06Nilay Patel?

  Hyundai and Kia, by the way, are upstarts.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:09Nilay Patel?

  Like, if there's a company that's gonna give it up, like, give up, give away the stack, it's like one of those. Anyway.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Did you hear this? The other, we, we, we should get into Johnny, but I, I can't not read this, uh, former GM CEO quote, Don Akerst. He said, and I quote, "They'd better think carefully if they want to get into the hardcore manufacturing. We take steel, raw steel, and turn it into a car. They have no idea what they're getting into if they get into that."

• 17:35Nilay Patel?

  Don't, doesn't Apple take raw aluminum and turn it into, like, billions of phones? Cool, bro. They don't know how to manufacture anything.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  That reads like a car commercial.

• 17:47Nilay Patel?

  It does.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Like he's like, that guy has been watching too many. That is his job. It's just like his eyes feel bad.

• 17:52Nilay Patel?

  No, if you're to see you have a car commercial, your entire life, your entire career spent trying to measure up to Lee Iacocca and that's Chrysler commercials.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:59Nilay Patel?

  When he was like, I know we sucked, but now I promise we won't. Introducing the K car.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Right. I was gonna say like, the best thing about it is he like.

• 18:07Nilay Patel?

  The K car. Sam, do you know what a K car is?

• 18:11Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 18:13Nilay Patel?

  And I, this will, this will transition into Johnny.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:15Nilay Patel?

  In the eighties.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  A time before I know.

• 18:19Nilay Patel?

  A time before, a time before your time.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Time before time.

• 18:21Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Lee Iacocca, one of the.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  You know who Lee Iacocca is?

• 18:24Nilay Patel?

  One of the revered chief executives in American business history.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 18:27Nilay Patel?

  Saved Chrysler by introducing the K car, which was great. It was like a masterpiece of mass engineering. Somewhere upstairs, Chris is listening to this in the freaking.

• 18:37Nilay Patel?

  But the K car ushered in the era of badge engineering, which is where you would take, you would take a Chevy and then like put a Cadillac badge on it and like put leather seats in it and it would be the same car. Like literally the same car with a different badge on it. Uh, and that like destroyed over time, destroyed the American automotive industry.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:55Nilay Patel?

  Like basically GM was like the same car with 50 different brands on it.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they would, they'd like, they'd like tweak the fender and then they put in a slightly better stereo and that was about it.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  It's like the generic car.

• 19:06Nilay Patel?

  Right. Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Like when you think of a car, it's like they made this thing that's like a car and you can like modify it if you want to.

• 19:12Nilay Patel?

  Right. And like, so that was like, and that over time evolved into like what happens now with like car platforms, right? So like, you know, like Toyota owns Lexus. And so the fundamentals of like a Lexus are in many ways similar to the, a corresponding Toyota model, but they've learned that you can't just badge engineer the car.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  So they really.

• 19:32Nilay Patel?

  Like you have to make significant changes.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  When these came out, they would legitimately just slap a badge on here and call it a day and like change the seats.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Not too far off.

• 19:39Nilay Patel?

  So it's just funny, like Lee Iacocca was like, I'm saving Chrysler. And it's like, and then you gave us this garbage. And I believe, I firmly believe every single car company executive like gets the Lee Iacocca book and like, I'm going to make that ad. I'm going to talk directly to America about how I'm saving this car company, which is why this guy's like, we take steel, raw steel, turn it into cars. Dude, somewhere Tim Cook's like, yeah, I take raw silicon and turn it into super computers.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  I take the air and I make money.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's what he does. He effectively does that.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Squarespace.

• 20:13Nilay Patel?

  Can you imagine what it's like when Tim Cook gets super hard? Like when he's like, just like raw, he's like, when he's like mad in a meeting.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  I think the only way you know is like.

• 20:23Nilay Patel?

  Like he's like, cause he's so smooth in public.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  What if he gets quieter?

• 20:26Nilay Patel?

  When he's, he probably gets quieter. But like when he's like raging at Samsung and he's just like, yo.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  Like, I don't even think he has that in him.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Oh, I guarantee you.

• 20:36Nilay Patel?

  Zero chance.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  I think every CEO has. You know what I think he does? I think he gets quieter and quieter until it's a whisper. And you have to get close to it and then his voice goes full ASMR and then everybody's like, ah, and they melt. And they just do whatever he wants.

• 20:50Nilay Patel?

  That's probably true. So I think the reason, just to get back to actual cars, not Tim Cook's secret ASMR ability. Tim Cook's just cracking.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Today on the Bridge Cast, we're gonna pop some bubble out.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  I love you.

• 21:07Nilay Patel?

  Now I'm cutting the back of your head.

• 21:10Nilay Patel?

  Okay, you just watched the binaural audio video. This all makes sense. No, so here's the thing. I think the reason we're hearing so much about the car in the lead up to the watch is that it's a hedge against the watch not being very good.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the big question. Whenever stuff about a future Apple product leaks.

• 21:29Nilay Patel?

  If they were gonna.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  You ask, is it, is it, is it Apple leaking it or did someone legitimately get the story?

• 21:34Nilay Patel?

  Right. And I. Right?

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Isn't it always Apple leaking it?

• 21:39Nilay Patel?

  No, sometimes yes and sometimes no. And like, I think if they were gonna hedge, I don't think you can hedge the watch with like, let's talk about the new MacBook that's coming out or a 13 inch iPad.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  Like, you think the watch event is gonna have the car too?

• 21:51Nilay Patel?

  No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying, I'm saying, we're in the lead up to this event.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Right? Which event?

• 21:57Nilay Patel?

  There's gonna be a watch event. Everybody I've talked to believes that before the thing goes on sale, there'll be a lead up to this. The watch is going on sale in April.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Right. You don't think there's just gonna be an event like for the watch as they do with the phones, right? Like.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  It'll, it'll be a watch event and they'll also announce a MacBook. It's cool for college kids or something.

• 22:15Nilay Patel?

  There's a lot of like prediction about that, right? So, but in the, in this moment.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  Now until that event.

• 22:21Nilay Patel?

  We're in the lead up zone.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 22:23Nilay Patel?

  What we're not getting leaks about is the watch or the apps or like this MacBook. We're getting leaks about a car. Yeah.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Which is crazy.

• 22:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Right? And like, what are you hedging against? Like, why does Apple letting the story just kind of like get out there? In a way that Apple never lets a story get out there unless they really want to, right?

• 22:39Speaker 03

  Every iPhone has leaked to date.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  No, no, that's like different. Like, Apple does some of that, right? Apple leaked the two sides of the Wall Street, the iPhone to the Wall Street Journal.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Like, duh, that happened, right? But, right, so right now it's happening.

• 22:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but there's been-

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Here's the dynamic here. Uh, everybody, when, like, you go and watch, I don't know, CNBC or some financial show on some other cable news network channel, they're all like, "What's gonna be the next iPhone-sized thing for Apple? If they don't get another iPhone-sized thing, they're gonna fail." They're doomed, even though they're the most wealthy company in the history of mankind. And so, the watch is not going to be an iPhone-sized business.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Maybe never, probably never.

• 23:20Nilay Patel?

  So this is what I'm saying.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  And so when people, when the, like, nabobs look at that, they're like, "Oh, well, the watch is a failure." They're like, "But we can pin our hopes on the next thing."

• 23:28Nilay Patel?

  Right. But there's this car, like, Apple's revolutionizing the car. And like, this is a hedge against that watch event, being like, "Here's a watch, it's exactly the same as it was before." Now we have some apps that are like glances off the apps on your phone, which is basically what they've announced for the, the watch so far.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:42Nilay Patel?

  And it's, I just like fascinated to watch Apple play this game right now. And then, on top of it, this is what we should, like, go into-

• 23:49Speaker 01

  I was gonna say.

• 23:50Nilay Patel?

  Is this book-length profile of Johnny Ive that came out, that is basically, my reading, it's 17,000 words, you should go read it. In my reading of it, it's Johnny Ive swan song.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  It's hard not to read that.

• 24:04Nilay Patel?

  It opens with Johnny Ive looks tired. Like, that's the beginning of it. That is the first sentence of this profile. He can't stop talking about how tired he is. He's involved in so much. He's doing so much. He hired his best friend to help him with this watch. He's redesigning the stores, these fashion people. He's redesigning this campus.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:23Nilay Patel?

  It is just, like, what a, what a strange thing to have in this moment.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Also, uh, not for nothing, Johnny Ive has lots of feelings about cars.

• 24:32Nilay Patel?

  He has lots of feelings about cars.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:34Nilay Patel?

  There's like a scene in this profile where he's driving down the highway and they see a Toyota Echo and he's like, "What is this garbage?"

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's baffling, isn't it? It's just nothing, isn't it? It's just insipid.

• 24:44Nilay Patel?

  Is that your Johnny Ive accent?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  No, I'm, I can't do a Johnny Ive accent without being ridiculously, like, just offensive to British people.

• 24:51Nilay Patel?

  You can't be offensive to British people.

• 24:54Nilay Patel?

  You can't.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  Ouch.

• 24:55Nilay Patel?

  What dude? You ran my country for 200 years. You made my people build railroads. I'm gonna do your accent.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  That's fair.

• 25:02Nilay Patel?

  That's how it goes.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:03Nilay Patel?

  It's magical. It's so simple. It's inevitable.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  That was, I don't even know what that word was. Inevitable?

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Inevitable.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought you said like inevitable. It's like a Harry Potter character.

• 25:15Nilay Patel?

  It's precise. Aluminium.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Aluminium.

• 25:19Nilay Patel?

  That's what you get. That's what you get.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Welcome to the accent.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Where do they go to the bathroom?

• 25:23Nilay Patel?

  Huh?

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Where do they go to the bathroom?

• 25:24Nilay Patel?

  Blue.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  I'm sure that works too. I wanted you to say laboratory.

• 25:28Nilay Patel?

  Labor? Why would they go to the bathroom in the laboratory?

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Cause it's like a laboratory, but a laboratory.

• 25:33Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you're a weirdo.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:34Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I thought you said laboratory.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  Johnny Ive can go anywhere he wants in Apple.

• 25:37Nilay Patel?

  In the CNC machine. Like, I don't know. I don't know what he does.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  I'm sure you might already be.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  So this profile. The profile just, it paints him as just like this, like.

• 25:44Nilay Patel?

  By the way.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Like sad, sad, sad figure.

• 25:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like really, like lonely in a way.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:50Nilay Patel?

  But like, he's always talking about how tight his team is and like how they're jealously guarded and nobody ever lea- like, there's just this thing about it that is, Apple's design is not just Johnny Ive.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:03Nilay Patel?

  Like that, that's his message to the world is like, this isn't just me. There's all these great people here. We're all working together. We're making this thing together.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:11Nilay Patel?

  I have all this control and power, but I, it's actually my team who does it all. It's an incredible thing to read because if you have ever, so I've written a profile of this kind, not obviously 17,000 words and sort of not Johnny Ive. You've written corporate profiles of this kind. I'm sure you have in your past. Sam?

• 26:28Speaker 03

  No.

• 26:29Nilay Patel?

  You've tweeted about companies before.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  That counts.

• 26:31Nilay Patel?

  Uh, no, like, but when you do them, the way they work is on the other side is this person, this, this story starts with basically, I'm following you around at the Apple event and like writing on observations. Then there's a series of interviews, like structured interviews.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:48Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and then there's a little bit more following around and then you like call the person's friends and like do all, and it's just interviews. You build all these scenes and recollections out of interviews. And the thing about interviews, particularly with a company that is well managed as Apple is that they're structured so they provide you with the story that they want to tell you.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:03Nilay Patel?

  And it takes a lot of work to get out of that story.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:06Nilay Patel?

  And like, The New Yorker is a very good magazine and this piece is extraordinarily well-written, but if you like see it, it's like, this is, there was a story they wanted to tell here. Cause Johnny Ive does not tell a reporter, I'm tired unless he wants to.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:20Nilay Patel?

  And that's kind of just the sense I get of it. Also, he has many, many, many, many favorite, like, famous friends.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Lots and lots and lots of famous friends.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, him and JJ. Talking about those Star Wars lights.

• 27:31Nilay Patel?

  And dude hates the Moto X.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's just mean.

• 27:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he's mean. He's like, this is garbage.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  He believes that it was abdicating responsibility as a designer.

• 27:44Nilay Patel?

  I will say that.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Which I disagree.

• 27:45Nilay Patel?

  I also hates the Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs biography.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Well, he's right.

• 27:49Nilay Patel?

  He's right. That thing, that book is a piece of.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Though he did do the thing where it's like, I haven't read it. I've seen, I've, I've, I've heard some chunks of it.

• 27:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  That's enough. That drives me crazy. Maybe because I don't like commentators making comments on things that they like, don't read, but to do like, be like, I have the, the microphone of the New Yorker and I'm going to dismiss an author entirely off of things I've heard.

• 28:13Nilay Patel?

  Right, but like.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  That's my own personal sensitivity.

• 28:18Nilay Patel?

  Like, it's, it's a, like, it's not a good. Like, how do you write a book about Apple and the iPhone and, like, not get into, like, and like, when they were like, and then Apple decided against using Intel chips and decided to use these ARM chips and then, like, just move on?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:31Nilay Patel?

  And you're like, did you ask them what that meeting was like? That would have been a cool thing to know about. Nope. Nope.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  So what do you think of, he thinks of his own profile?

• 28:40Nilay Patel?

  What do you think I thinks of his own profile?

• 28:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Uh, I bet he, I bet he's pretty happy with it.

• 28:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  I think it's a fair characterization of him.

• 28:48Nilay Patel?

  Right, I mean, it's worth reading.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Not that I know Johnny Ive at all.

• 28:52Nilay Patel?

  No, no one does.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  As, as the thing that has had the most words about him, I can say that it seems to fit there.

• 28:59Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean, like, uh, like, he is, like, this is the most anyone has ever gotten Johnny Ive.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:04Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and the idea that he's like a regular person in a way is like very interesting. And the fact that the only other people who like really know him are people like Bono. Like, can you just imagine, like, oh, man, who should I talk, I want to get a sense of Johnny Ive, like, who should, Bono. Bono knows who he is. And then you, like, have to talk, like, that's bonkers to me. Um, but I will say, so let me just point out one thing in this profile and then we can move on to something else, because there's other things to talk about. This is like a classic Apple story profile moment when they're like, the watch was always going to be rectangular. Right? And there's this line. I've actually think circular bases makes sense for what you're doing on it because a huge part of the function is list and a circle doesn't make any sense. And it's like, right there, you either buy Apple shit or you don't.

• 29:49Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:50Nilay Patel?

  Like you either buy that they like sat around and considered this, or you believe that they probably tried to make a circle and they couldn't. And now they're like retconning history.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Or you wonder, maybe think about creating watch software that doesn't require you to stare at lists on your wrist.

• 30:06Nilay Patel?

  Right, but it's just funny.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Cause that's kind of not maybe smart.

• 30:08Nilay Patel?

  You know what? One of the hardest problems in all tech has been for a long time is making circular LCDs.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:13Nilay Patel?

  Right? LCDs. LCDs. Circular LCD is great.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Don't take the ovals.

• 30:18Nilay Patel?

  No, it's on the time faster. Yeah. Uh, no, circular, circular LCDs are hard to make.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:23Nilay Patel?

  And like, you just know it. Like you read this stuff and you, I'm, the three of us have all done it. You ask questions like, why did you make this design decision? And they're like, cause the other one was stupid. And you, literally you either believe it or you don't. And a thing that I think is characterized in this here is that this piece believes it. Like if I had to say the thing about this profile, this lengthy, lengthy profile is that at its heart, it believes what it was. It believes the story.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't, I don't think it's that bad. I'm not, that's not even necessarily bad for it to believe in.

• 30:56Nilay Patel?

  It's not, it's not a criticism in like a hard way.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  There, there are times when you will put a quote on the web, on a piece that you've written. And you don't say, this quote is a lie. Here's the quote. You like, you say the quote, but like you let the quote sort of hang itself. Right? You like, you, you know that your readers are going to be like, what the heck? And they're not going to put it on you that they make, they think you believe it. And I, I think that there are places in this piece where it's like. You know, the reader's not inside a reality distortion field from Johnny Ive. He's seeing Johnny Ive turn his nose up at the Toyota Echo and be like, dude, that's there.

• 31:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, I hear that. I just think that's, it's worth reading, like many men, have you reread it? You should read it. Everyone should. Have you read it? But come on, what world are we in?

• 31:43Speaker 02

  I read like literally 30 pieces about it on the version.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  I read an art post about it, exactly, yeah.

• 31:49Nilay Patel?

  No, I just think, I think it's fascinating. It's like, absolutely. If you have any interest in technology, like, it's true. Ive has had more influence on design in this world than almost any other human being. It is, go read it. But like, keep that in mind, like, these things come from a place, they come from people having conversations in the real world. And those conversations are not motivated necessarily by like, complete transparency.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:11Nilay Patel?

  They're motivated often by like, let me tell you the story I want to tell you. And with Ive, like, that's in the piece. That is the part of the piece that I agree with. Like, the piece repeatedly refers to the fact that Ive is like, very guarded. And like, hyper aware of what he's saying. And then he's saying things like, a rectangular watch wouldn't have been, is the only choice we could have made.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like, can't you, I mean, we should move on, but like, I would say that giving you that impression about Ive colors what those like, other factual things, like, if you, if they, if they color him as guarded in one spot, maybe you can assume that they, you see it that's guarded in another spot.

• 32:46Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 32:47Nilay Patel?

  Well, here's what I would say. I think the extreme positive read on Apple going into the next month is, the watch will come out, it will be a big success. Johnny Ive, then like a car, then the MacBook will come out and that'll be great. And then the drumbeat of car rumors will like, really start to pick up. And Johnny Ive will work there forever, then he'll put out his car and everything will be great. The extreme negative read is that the watch will come out to kind of a piffle.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:12Nilay Patel?

  And Johnny Ive will retire.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:15Nilay Patel?

  And like, I couldn't, it's, I think, right now, based on the sort of the media zone that we're in, I couldn't tell you which one's gonna be.

• 33:23Nilay Patel?

  With that, it's time to read another advertisement.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  I was gonna make a Gene Munster joke.

• 33:27Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, and Gene Munster will ride off. He will just like sit on the lawn at Apple, just demanding his television. "Give me my TV." Seriously, man, TVs are so hard to make. Apple made a car. Like, that's like, that's the world we live in.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:42Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Also, TVs aren't gonna make you the money that a car is gonna make you.

• 33:46Nilay Patel?

  Who knows?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Bad time.

• 33:47Nilay Patel?

  Who knows, man? It's time. It's time to, let's talk about Squarespace. Building a website can be tough, and even if you do know your way around coding, creating something that looks good and works well is a time-consuming affair. Whether it's for a business site, a portfolio, a restaurant, or whatever else, in this day and age, you probably need one anyway. Well, lucky for us, Squarespace makes it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat. Squarespace provides simple, powerful, and beautiful website templates for you to work with. Not only that, these templates are part of Squarespace's responsive design, which means your website scales to look great on any device, Chris Plant.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 34:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Further minimizing the hassles of making a website on your own. What do you think about that?

• 34:27Speaker 02

  I, I, I like Squarespace.

• 34:29Nilay Patel?

  Every website you build.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  I use Squarespace.

• 34:33Nilay Patel?

  Comes with a free online store if you need it, you capitalist pig.

• 34:39Nilay Patel?

  You just need something minimalist but powerful? Try the cover page feature, which also allows you to set up a beautiful one-page online presence in minutes. Have you ever made a website before, Chris?

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I made one in Squarespace, but I'll tell you about the time I made one without Squarespace.

• 34:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it sounds like a horror story.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was. I was 12 and I didn't know shit about HTML. Sorry, Squarespace. You can cut out the shit part. Anyway, I made a, I made a site on GeoCities and I, I, I'm not, I'm not gonna lie. GeoCities had its features. I could make like little like particle effects follow the mouse cursor.

• 35:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  I also had to write in HTML and I broke the site all the time.

• 35:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  It may have had to been about 007 and Bart Simpson.

• 35:21Nilay Patel?

  Whoa.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Could be more clues.

• 35:23Nilay Patel?

  Was Bart Simpson?

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Well, let's just say we had an illegal sound section.

• 35:28Nilay Patel?

  Ooh.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  So, but, like I said, did not, did not stay open very long because, because my HTML skills were awful.

• 35:37Nilay Patel?

  Well, right, but Squarespace gives you 24/7 online support and a beautiful website for only $8 a month. You can even get a free domain if you buy Squarespace for the year. So, what are you waiting for? Start a trial with no credit card required and start building a website today.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 35:54Nilay Patel?

  You don't need a credit card.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  So I want to do that. Yeah, I don't have a credit card. As you can tell, we're the same clothes every day. And let's also say that like, I don't have enough money.

• 36:05Nilay Patel?

  Eight dollars a month.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Is there like any trick I could do to maybe pay a little?

• 36:09Nilay Patel?

  When you go to sign up for your credit card free website.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 36:13Nilay Patel?

  Use the offer code VERGE.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:15Nilay Patel?

  And you'll get 10% off your first purchase.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 36:18Nilay Patel?

  You will also, for better or worse, alert Squarespace to the fact that you have been listening to the show. I'd like to thank them for their support of the show.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  It is nice. They're very patient.

• 36:29Nilay Patel?

  And please just don't, don't do anything weird on Squarespace.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Unless you want to make an illegal Bart Simpson's sound page and then get sued by Dan.

• 36:35Nilay Patel?

  Use offer code VERGE, 10% off. Squarespace.com.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Build it beautiful.

• 36:39Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  I did it.

• 36:42Nilay Patel?

  We did it. We did it. How do you feel?

• 36:45Speaker 02

  I feel like.

• 36:46Nilay Patel?

  I can't believe we've never had ads on this show before.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  I can't. That implies that people want to spend money on it.

• 36:54Nilay Patel?

  I think they do. I think that, I think that they do.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  We should be thanking them for their pity.

• 37:00Nilay Patel?

  That's our new offer code.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  P I T Y for 10% off.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Wow. All right, you want to talk about drones or Sony?

• 37:10Nilay Patel?

  I think we should do Sony. I've got a lot of things to say about Sony.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  A lot, a lot, a lot.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  These guys are all sour.

• 37:17Nilay Patel?

  Well, you, actually, I think part of the Sony story.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  In the past 24 hours, four sad trombones Sony stories.

• 37:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, actually, I forgot to do something. Sam. Hype check Apple car.

• 37:29Nilay Patel?

  Give me a number, one to 10. Hype check is now a numerical score.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Me personally?

• 37:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Seven.

• 37:37Nilay Patel?

  Come on. What is the lowest Apple hype rating you've ever given anything?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Seven.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's that's probably correct. Cause that was the first time we're hype check.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Hype check Sony.

• 37:47Nilay Patel?

  There you go. That's the new realness.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  Oh, like three?

• 37:50Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  No, four, because they have the PlayStation four.

• 37:53Nilay Patel?

  There you go.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:54Nilay Patel?

  So I, this, it's good that Plan is here. No, it's good that Plan is here because I think if you are a games fan or PlayStation fan, this is the sweetest revenge in the world. So Dieter, you want to run us through what's happening with Sony real quick?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  So Sony basically is not doing super hot. They are making noises about spinning off all sorts of their businesses, including the audio business and the video business, and they've even made noises about wanting to get rid of the smartphone business and what's left of their TV business. And you look at all the stuff that they're looking to spin off and you look at what's left that's actually valuable and there's not much. There's the PlayStation and what else did you say there was? Oh, there's the camera sensor business, right? Cause they sell camera sensors to Apple for the iPhone.

• 38:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, they, so they.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  And some insurance.

• 38:47Nilay Patel?

  They've already spun, insurance actually makes more money than anything. So they've already spun off the TV business into a separate division.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:54Nilay Patel?

  They are now spinning off AV, which is like home theater stuff and DVD players and stereos and all the rest of it. They have talked about spinning off cell phones that like, and they're saying there are three core businesses left that they need to focus on are the Sony Pictures, Hollywood Studio, Sony Music, PlayStation, so the movies and music, PlayStation and image sensors. And that is such a crazy list of things.

• 39:26Nilay Patel?

  Because the reason they spun off TVs, like TVs are still part of Sony.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:29Nilay Patel?

  But they were just like, yo, our TV division needs freedom. Right? Which is the opposite of what they were saying.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  Can you define spin off?

• 39:38Nilay Patel?

  So they took, so Sony is. It's hard to, it's not that hard. Just go with me, like, there's, there are pedantic things I'm gonna gloss over here, but just, listeners, please go with me for the purpose of keeping this short. Sony was once a big company with many divisions, and they literally took TVs out of the big company, made it its own company, completely owned, 100% of shares are owned by Sony, the old company. But it has its own CEO, its own profit and loss, its own whatever. Right? So it all still rolls up into the broader Sony, but they get to make their own decisions without like irritating the people at Sony Music or Sony Pictures.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:15Nilay Patel?

  And like, that's kind of working, right? Like TVs got a little bit better, they got thinner, they just like, screw it, we're using Android.

• 40:22Nilay Patel?

  The PlayStation Division, like, they just like shut down Sony Music, like, we're using Spotify. Like, they're doing some interesting stuff. But they're just gonna, one day, they're just, they sold Vio, right? They first they like split it out, and then they just like sold the PC Division.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, once you, when you, when you split it out, you, it makes it way easier to just get rid of it later.

• 40:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, or fire bunch people, which is another thing TV should do.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  Is this similar to what Microsoft did with Nokia?

• 40:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean,

• 40:50Nilay Patel?

  sort, I mean, they didn't buy it and then like kill it, right? Like, like, how would I, like, if you were to visually characterize Microsoft and Nokia, it's like, Microsoft had a friend, they moved into a friend's house, and they got in a friend's bed, and they put their hands around the friend's throat, and then they squeezed until the friend died. And then they just lived in the friend's house.

• 41:09Nilay Patel?

  That's like different, that's like a whole different game. Right? This is like Sony like lived in a house, had a big family.

• 41:19Nilay Patel?

  Right? And then this is like Sony has a big family, and they're like, look, Scooter, like, it's time to get fucked up. And it's like, that's, but you're still part of the family.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  Okay, that makes sense.

• 41:28Nilay Patel?

  It's like a little bit different.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 41:37Nilay Patel?

  So anyway, so what they have left is like these, these two big content businesses, which is crazy, and a business, and everyone got mad at me for writing this, that is predicated on the enormous volume of sensors, image sensors they sell to Apple for the iPhone. Because Apple sells 72 million iPhones a quarter.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know what? Apple has a history of, although they're not as good as-

• 41:58Nilay Patel?

  Switching suppliers to building their own chips?

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Building their own stuff, yeah. Like, you know, they're not like at Amazon levels of, oh, this seems popular, let's do it ourselves. But for their components, like they, they start doing their own stuff and they, they could do that with cameras.

• 42:11Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  It's still, I mean, this is the part where we say, it's insane to me that like anybody that wants to, once the supply, Apple's supply runs out, can buy Sony sensors and they often do and they never, their, their camera quality still isn't good as the iPhone.

• 42:23Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  So that's something.

• 42:25Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  I don't know how that fits in here, but-

• 42:27Nilay Patel?

  Well, I mean, like the argument I got, so I wrote this piece, like Sony is no longer an electronics company, which is true because Sony Electronics, as it was once constituted, is now basically spun off.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:36Nilay Patel?

  Right? Sony Mobile is still in the mix, but losing tons of money. They're the ones responsible for the phones and tablets. We're losing, just losing money hand over fist. And Cause for I is out there saying, we're not going to invest in growth in smartphones. Which is like, yeah, that sucks. Like, you're not going to invest in smartphones then? Like, why? If you can't do it, why would you even try to? If you can't invest in growth, like what are you going to invest in? Like, pride? That seems like a terrible way to run your business.

• 43:03Nilay Patel?

  It's true.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 43:07Nilay Patel?

  So it's just funny because, yeah, Sony makes sensors for Nikon and Sony makes a great interchangeable lens camera system and they make the RX100. Like, they make all this stuff, but if you look at the size of those markets, literally, it's like every month they sell 300,000 total interchangeable lens cameras.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Which is-

• 43:25Nilay Patel?

  It's peanuts.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 43:26Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 43:26Nilay Patel?

  They sell a million DSLRs and those numbers are plummeting. So like, maybe they have huge margins and maybe, that's great. Maybe you have 100% margin in each of those sensors cost, I don't know. Like a thousand dollars. You're still not making any money the way that you make money, even at a low margin against 72 million sensors in three months. Right. And like, that's the business. And it's just a crazy fact that that is a third of like, the third stool, or the third leg of the stool. And then you have what I think is the biggest part of their business and their biggest opportunity, which is PlayStation, which, plant, I mean, like, do you remember, like, a few years ago, PlayStation was all but ignored?

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, well, and then Casarati.

• 44:04Nilay Patel?

  The former CEO, PlayStation took over.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's kind of what happens. I, I don't know why I'm like, want to be rah rah Sony. I guess because I like their TVs. I feel like their TVs have gotten so much better in the last three years, and that is worth the enthusiasm, but again, kind of a separate thing.

• 44:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Uh, it's sad to think of PlayStation as like, the last hope though, because knowing the direction video games are facing right now, that's a bad place to put your last hope.

• 44:38Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Because this could be the end of consoles. Like, maybe that's another three or four years, maybe it's even six or seven, but like, things are going to change fast. And like, everyone knows that streaming, in some capacity, is going to become an important thing.

• 44:55Nilay Patel?

  We're talking, when you talk about the end of consoles, we're not talking about the end of video games.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 44:59Nilay Patel?

  People are streaming.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  The end of a box that you buy just to play video games, nothing else.

• 45:04Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Uh, that, it's very unlikely that that, as we know it, will be what the next set of video game machines looks like. And seeing how they are just absolutely botching PlayStation now, does not put a lot of confidence in me, or I would say most people who watch the market closely, for what things will look like down the line. Uh, they had the opportunity to get ahead of it. I'm very curious to see what they do with PlayStation View, even though it's about television, because at least it's looking into streaming and streaming technology, and just how you deliver content to people in different, interesting ways. I think all those things are great ideas. I think-

• 45:46Speaker 02

  The the pace at which they're willing to change those things or try

• 45:51Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Big ideas. Right now, especially with PlayStation now, before anyone else gets on that bandwagon, they should be changing that thing as fast as they can. Something doesn't work, try a new thing. Start talking different models for any way you can make money off of it. Because there are ways to do it and they're just not trying them. Or maybe they can't. Maybe there's no contracts for it. Maybe video games is are are going to be totally screwed by except for anyone who can afford insane contracts like Apple.

• 46:17Nilay Patel?

  Well, the question I asked you when is just like, I don't see Sony doing anything on phones. And if I was Sony, I would like build a huge business of like, let's build a PlayStation app for the iPhone with a store in it.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:33Nilay Patel?

  Have that be a place where you go and you like do in-app purchasing and fine, Apple's gonna have 30%, but whatever, it's still our app here and we're doing the volume because there's so many phones.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we we we kind of talked about this because they have a thing called PlayStation Mobile, which is what this should be, where it's like a service that I think you can even play some on PlayStation One games on it. And they have a slew of indie games, but it it's a mess.

• 46:57Nilay Patel?

  Or even let's like, let's bring our IP to phones. Like, they make Android phones.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:01Nilay Patel?

  Why don't you make Android games that leverage PlayStation IP? Like, I just don't get it.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Sure. And well, but the logic then is like that everything is going the way of Sonic, which there's a good piece on The Guardian today about like the future of Sonic and Sega is now mobile games. And it's just taking your big name IPs and throwing them on EA's, what EA does with all of its big properties, throwing them on like endless runners.

• 47:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, right.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  And which is fine, but that's gonna last you one generation cycle before suddenly those IPs are just worthless. So it's like, sure, grab all the money you can, but like if people really don't play anything good from Sonic, and don't get me wrong, Sonic's been bad for a while, but if they play like iPhone garbage for the next 10 years, people are not gonna be looking back fondly on Sonic.

• 47:44Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  After that, so.

• 47:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but what games are you gonna look back fondly on a game? Like?

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Mario.

• 47:49Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, but that's.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Zelda?

• 47:50Nilay Patel?

  No, I meant on mobile.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  On mobile?

• 47:54Nilay Patel?

  Like, who is made?

• 47:55Speaker 02

  The jewel? You're not, that's, that's, that's the problem. Dope Wars? I look back fondly on Dope Wars. I, I don't know if mobile's necessarily the best place to be long game. I think that's like, that needs to be part of it. Yeah. But, like I said, I think Sony has the opportunity to be doing essentially the app thing that you're talking about, but doing it with TVs. That's what PlayStation TV or PlayStation now is supposed to be. You aren't gonna need your, your PlayStation. This is gonna be in every TV. And this is all backed by Gaia Kai, right? It's such a good idea. Yeah, it's, it's a brilliant idea. Yeah. And it, it's just not organized or sold properly. Right. And they, the good thing is, they have such a head start on everyone else, that they have probably another two years of like, basically no competition to figure it out.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Because Microsoft streaming is not nearly as good. I mean, Microsoft streaming doesn't exist. It's non-existent.

• 48:44Nilay Patel?

  I thought you could do, you can go, it's on a LAN, right?

• 48:47Speaker 02

  You can, you can go for like your Xbox 2, the PC is coming soon. Which is still, uh, but who knows what they're going to announce at GDC. I'm, I'm very, very, all of this could be very, very different in about a week and a half. Yeah, tell me the rumors of GDC. Uh, I'm not gonna go into all of them. Tell me the rumors of GDC. Because some of them we have, uh, that we're, we're still working on, but.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Can I, can I play Xbox on my Hololens? That's all I wanna know.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can definitely do that in nine years. It's gonna be great. You can play one game on it, it's Minecraft. Um, GDC, it sounds like it's gonna be, I, you know what? I'm hoping for old school GDC. For people who know what this is, Game Developers Conference, happens in San Francisco every like, February or March, uh, I guess even got bumped to April recently, but it used to be crazy. Like, it used to be like this place where like, really weird stuff got announced, and there were keynotes where people like, really threw bows. Like, I was thinking, I was talking to Andrew Webster at our site about this earlier today, uh, because he was watch, writing about how Nintendo was doing free-to-play games. Yeah.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  And man, there was this keynote speech that, I can't, I think it was Awada gave, like, three or four years ago, and it literally was like, "Dear..." Indie game makers, please stop.

• 50:06Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 50:07Speaker 02

  You're making cheap games and this is not good for us. So please, stop. Like, we can't sell games that cheap. So it would be good if you stopped undervaluing things.

• 50:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  And it's like, what? Like, these are crazy things for heads of these giant companies to get up on stage and do. And these to make big announcements were there and hardware announcements and engine announcements. And that kind of slowed down recently. But my sneaking suspicion is that this year will be like a return to form. I think-

• 50:36Nilay Patel?

  Right, because you have a new generation.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  A new generation, but on top of that, I think they realize now, there's this weird moment where E3 became really popular again. And everybody thought that's where everything needed to be. And I think there's a great spreading out of news in the industry again. And I think, I think we're gonna see crazy things from Windows. I think Valve is gonna get back in the conversation. I think all of the engine makers are gonna be vicious to one another.

• 51:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  Both Epic and Unity, who are powering most of the third-party things that people play, are, are gonna go head to head hard. And it's, for people who like, like watching this like weird drama behind the scenes, I think it's gonna be really exciting. I hope. I, I could be wrong, it could be really boring, but I, I don't think that'll be the case.

• 51:21Nilay Patel?

  Do you think we'll see any Morpheus stuff there? Because it's just getting back to Sony, even like-

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Not-

• 51:26Nilay Patel?

  Because they're missing the window.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  What happened to Morpheus?

• 51:28Nilay Patel?

  Right, because they're totally missing, like Oculus is just running away with it right now.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Here's my big prediction. If you are a, you remember I said, like, if you make over $3 billion?

• 51:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you got it.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  If you make over like $25,000, you're gonna have a VR device at GDC. I think everyone's gonna be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, that reminds me, you wanna, you wanna come back and look at our VR device?" And you're like, "No, not really, I don't want pink eye."

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Two years since they announced Morpheus? Wasn't it last CES we first saw it?

• 51:56Speaker 02

  Was it CES?

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Oh, so a year and a half?

• 51:58Nilay Patel?

  Now, how was E3?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Was it E3?

• 52:02Nilay Patel?

  This is gonna end up, you're just buying a product for Morpheus.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  Actually, that might've even been last GDC.

• 52:06Nilay Patel?

  By the way, you can't just type "Morpheus" into Google, it just doesn't help. The first, the first result is "Morpheus: The Matrix."

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Nice, oh no, red pills.

• 52:14Nilay Patel?

  I'm just gonna go ahead and read this Wikipedia entry. He's portrayed by Laurence Fisherman in the film in "Matrix."

• 52:19Speaker 02

  No, I thought you were gonna read the good one.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Don't do that.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  Um, so yeah, I, I think it-

• 52:23Speaker 03

  It was last GDC.

• 52:24Nilay Patel?

  It was last GDC, okay.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  And also, also Sony just did their own Google Glass competitor like this week or last week also. That $800 piece of crap that no one's gonna buy.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:39Nilay Patel?

  Can you imagine?

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, those glasses are just, ah, hum, ah.

• 52:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  So, but no, but like, so the thing is with those glasses with the Sony Smartwatch 3, even, I'm starting to worry with Morpheus. Sometimes big electronics companies just make stuff because they can for the hell of it. Like Sony has an e-reader business for a long time and I guess they still do. I don't even know.

• 53:00Nilay Patel?

  No, I think they shut it down.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, shut it, but like they're just, just because they know that people are gonna walk into Best Buy and say, "I need a blah." "Oh, Sony makes a blah. I trust Sony. I'm gonna buy a blah." It's basically free money for them.

• 53:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they shut it down.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  But glasses? Just cuz?

• 53:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, everyone, everyone's like, "I love those Google glasses."

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:19Nilay Patel?

  I hope Sony makes some.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  Not.

• 53:22Nilay Patel?

  Here's the thing I want our listeners to help us do.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  I want our listeners to help make Project Morpheus real.

• 53:28Nilay Patel?

  The person who wrote the Wikipedia entry entitled "Personality for the Character Morpheus in the Matrix."

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:36Nilay Patel?

  I just want to know what that person's like.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  You can look at, you can look at the revision history.

• 53:40Nilay Patel?

  His strong, almost single-minded belief in Neo is the one has a very strong biblical correlation to that of John the Baptist belief in the prophecy of the Messiah.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Please don't. Talking about the Matrix makes me hurt.

• 53:51Nilay Patel?

  I don't know.

• 53:52Speaker 03

  Why does that make you hurt?

• 53:53Speaker 02

  It's, it's so connected to like everything that makes me cringe about the internet.

• 53:59Nilay Patel?

  I'm, I'm proud of you for seeing it.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  Because it came out when I was nine.

• 54:04Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  It did. I've seen that movie like 10 times.

• 54:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  Matrix is a great film. The next two-

• 54:10Nilay Patel?

  I saw it my first week of college. Now I just feel really-

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, now you're old. No, Reloaded was like just full of action and, and-

• 54:16Nilay Patel?

  Wait, Hype Check and Matrix Revolutions?

• 54:18Speaker 03

  Oh, Revolutions. That's the last one. That's like-

• 54:20Nilay Patel?

  One to 10. Remember, hype now exists on a 1 to 10 scale.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  It's actually, we, the paper-

• 54:25Nilay Patel?

  This is post-hype.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  The paper last week established that it was a ratio and it was-

• 54:28Speaker 03

  It's too complicated.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  Centered on one.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  Too complicated for my Vergecast brain. Hype Check, Matrix Revelations on a scale of one to 10, it's like a five or six.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  That's generous.

• 54:37Speaker 03

  Just like when Neo like goes into Trinity's heart and like.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  You're giving revolutions a six and the apple car a seven?

• 54:43Speaker 03

  Hell, yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  That's rough.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  It's not rough. The original Matrix has a ten.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Is it exponential scale?

• 54:48Speaker 02

  It's between five and ten.

• 54:50Speaker 03

  No, now, now, like, who gives a crap about the third Matrix movie?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Like Morpheus preaching.

• 54:53Nilay Patel?

  Is seven, ten times more hype than six? About the imminent return of the one into the Matrix. John was preaching in the desert of the Messiah's imminent return and actively searched the Messiah to come to deliver his people from bondage.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  This is the Bible cast.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Because you think it's ridiculous or because it's too obvious?

• 55:08Nilay Patel?

  I just like, who did this?

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Someone who like saw an obvious thing and wrote it down.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  Someone that wasn't planned.

• 55:15Nilay Patel?

  It's planned, by the way, has been leaving Bible allusions in all sci-fi.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  No, no, I hate this. Don't talk about this.

• 55:21Nilay Patel?

  It's just amazing. Who's this person? Like, let's just hang out. Like, let's get a beer and just be like.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  I don't think that person gets some beer.

• 55:26Speaker 03

  Let's talk about the Bible.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  I think they get something else.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  They take LSD.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  Just like, there's nothing remarkable about that.

• 55:33Nilay Patel?

  I'm not saying it's remarkable. It's remarkable that it exists. It's the thought.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  If you're the Wikipedia editor out there listening to this.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  There's like, there's like books on the philosophy of the Matrix.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  Get at Nei. Nei, really? Nei, do you want to hang out with Wikipedia?

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Every time there's a popular movie, like a bunch of like out of work adjunct professors get together and write a book of philosophy about that movie.

• 55:51Nilay Patel?

  I get it. No, I understand. But then they're not like, yo, to the Wikipedia screen, like.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  No, they are because they even put a citation and that's their only form of advertisement.

• 56:01Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, here's what I would like to do as a series, right? We had, we had a number of pitch meetings today.

• 56:06Speaker 03

  Oh, God. Don't copy. It's interviewing.

• 56:08Nilay Patel?

  If you are like a, like a hardcore Wikipedia movie, this is how I watch movies. I don't know how you guys watch movies.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  I usually watch them with my eyes open.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  The one, the people that I want to interview are the people that put the plots of video games into Wikipedia.

• 56:21Nilay Patel?

  No, that's super important to me.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  If you're playing a video game, you're like, set that thing down like, oh, God, I gotta make sure this is recorded for posterity. I'm gonna put it in Wikipedia.

• 56:28Nilay Patel?

  But you do movies. Wait, so this is how I watch movies. I don't like to read reviews before I watch a movie.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  Me too. I'm the same exact way. I ignore all critics.

• 56:35Nilay Patel?

  I watch the movie, then I Wikipedia the movie, then I read the whole Wikipedia, then I read all of the reviews.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Oh, no, you're missing a step.

• 56:40Nilay Patel?

  And then it's like four in the morning. My wife is like, I've gone to bed hours ago.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:44Nilay Patel?

  You should have, you should have just talked to me, you're human. Wife about the movie.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  The middle step is your, your, your wife or girlfriend immediately goes to IMDb and reads all the like cute anecdotes and quotes about the movie and like weird production things that happened.

• 56:58Nilay Patel?

  Becky, Becky just like, nope. She's like, you're doing it. And then she leaves.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, but like, like.

• 57:03Nilay Patel?

  You're doing it again.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  You need, you need to.

• 57:05Nilay Patel?

  See you later.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  You need to insert the IMDb anecdotes into your process. You really do.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  It's.

• 57:10Nilay Patel?

  Enjoy your night vaping alone, reading Wikipedia nerd. Like, that's basically what my relationship is like.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  On your, on your beautiful Kuro television.

• 57:18Nilay Patel?

  It's, it's good. We make it work. It's great.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Vaping alone.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  There's no way to, there's no way to transition away from the direction of this conversation.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  Solo vaping does this.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Until we are all just sitting here weeping silently.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  Hey, do you like podcasts?

• 57:33Nilay Patel?

  There you go.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Might not know this.

• 57:34Nilay Patel?

  Use offer code VERGE on iTunes.com.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  Killing me.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  Do we have, do we have iTunes.com slash what's tech?

• 57:40Nilay Patel?

  Uh, do we?

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:42Nilay Patel?

  Wait. Not yet.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Who said you get to plug your podcast?

• 57:45Nilay Patel?

  It's time.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  It's in the script. Do you know how to read?

• 57:49Speaker 03

  Wait, how do you read?

• 57:50Speaker 02

  So, I have a new show.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  It's a great new show.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  It's, it's much shorter.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  It's much.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  If there's one thing I can tell you is it's a short show about what technology is and isn't. And every week we have a new topic and a new guest.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  We've had some great guests so far. I have, both of you have episodes coming up. I think your episode might be next week, possibly.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  Really? I, I, I don't know if I can recommend it. I can recommend the first three. They are stupendous.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  I can recommend it, as he's being honest. It's called What's Tech? And it's about, your episode's about smartphones. Yes.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  And.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  Where can you listen slash download this from?

• 58:29Speaker 02

  Here's what I recommend you do. Uh, I recommend you go to the iTunes page, even if you can't use it. Download it there. Give it a five star rating. Give it a, give it a review. Say whatever you want. You know, if you, if you wanna, if you wanna pick on me, I understand. I'm, I'm not always the most likable person.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  But give the five stars.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  But I am the most charming, but damn it, give that five star. iTunes.com slash The Verge.

• 58:51Nilay Patel?

  Everyone freaked out.

• 58:53Speaker 02

  You can also go and find it on like

• 58:56Speaker 03

  SoundCloud.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  SoundCloud, SoundCloud's great, or you can come to theverge.com. We have it. We're gonna get a better organizational tool for people finding it on the front page of the website.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  As he stares deeply into the eyes of the ever chief.

• 59:07Nilay Patel?

  Ooh, you know what else you can find at iTunes.com slash The Verge? You can find this very podcast.

• 59:12Speaker 03

  And now is it my turn? Is this the transition where I do this? This is a social corner?

• 59:15Nilay Patel?

  By the way, and I just wanna, I wanna say to the listeners, we hotly negotiated the amount of engagements that Sam can engage with.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  I wanted five, Neel I gave me three.

• 59:22Nilay Patel?

  The deal has changed.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Next, next week it's two if you don't do this right.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  Wow, okay.

• 59:27Nilay Patel?

  I'm renegotiating.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  This is how we do business around here. Neel I, Neel I just yells.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Pray I don't change it again is what you're going for.

• 59:38Speaker 03

  You should, if you don't already, like us on Facebook. We are Facebook.com slash Verge. And if you'll notice, we have been hot and heavy on giveaways. We gave away two really rare 3DSs the past two days. And you should do, indeed, you're still shaking his head at my house.

• 59:52Nilay Patel?

  That counts as an engagement.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  Okay, that's one.

• 59:54Nilay Patel?

  That's two.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  That's one. You should go to YouTube.com slash The Verge. You should a thousand percent watch the Binaural Audio video. You should take your headphones, put them on, and seriously hit play. That video is dope and the view count speaks for itself. It's got, I wanna say it has over, definitely has over 100,000 already, which is awesome. So YouTube.com slash The Verge, check out the Dead Mouse video also. And the third thing, obviously Snapchat. We are the Real Verge on Snapchat.

• 1:00:21Nilay Patel?

  Got called out by NPR today.

• 1:00:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:23Nilay Patel?

  As being as a hot Snapchat channel.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  It's the only Snapchat channel. I say this on all of our shows. It's, it's embarrassing, I'm sorry, it's embarrassing how like nobody is good at Snapchat as Sam and Helen are.

• 1:00:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  It's, it's so much better. It's, it's literally the only reason I even get Snapchat out. I have no problem being hyperbolic about it because it is hands down, be like, one of the coolest, well, now I'm gonna say the coolest things that happen at The Verge. Because no one, no one else is doing it in media.

• 1:00:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  It's crazy to see somebody that could add it.

• 1:00:56Nilay Patel?

  Now you have to hype What's Tech on Snapchat.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  By the way, What's Tech is a pretty good show too. I don't know if you've been listening to it.

• 1:01:02Speaker 03

  Um, oh no, I'm out. That's my three things.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  Ah shit.

• 1:01:05Speaker 03

  Back to you. That's it.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry. Damn it. John, you got so close.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  No, no, Neel I, Neel I hella cursed before. It already happened.

• 1:01:12Nilay Patel?

  I did?

• 1:01:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Nilay Patel?

  When did I fucking do that? Rock and roll.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  Paul. Is that the end?

• 1:01:20Nilay Patel?

  That's the end.

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  That's the end. Bye.

• 1:01:22Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God.