This week, we discuss Mark Zuckerberg’s craven capitulation on content moderation, even if it was an inevitable decision; the upside of algorithmic rabbit holes vs the downside of the commodification of attention; and how creator culture is reshaping trust in media institutions. Plus: why the Ninja Creami and IVs are good products.
usually like podcasts have like a little spiel that they do,
Brian:know, but that gets so I find that corny sometimes.
Alex:I don't know but you know shame being shameless is how you build
Alex:a media brand and being repetitive being repetitive and predictable
Troy:Okay, hit it out.
Troy:You mind if I call you Al?
Alex:What's happening?
Troy:Hit it, Alex.
Alex:Hi, welcome to the podcast.
Alex:I'm Alex Schleifer.
Troy:And I'm Troy Young.
Brian:I'm Brian Marcy.
Brian:good to be back.
Brian:I had another norovirus.
Brian:I don't know if it's another more norovirus from the PVA virus.
Brian:but I'm, I'm feeling a lot better.
Brian:Thanks for asking.
Brian:we got a lot to cover this week.
Troy:also, we should also send our, you know, just acknowledge of what the devastation that's happening in L.
Troy:A.
Troy:because it is beyond.
Brian:It is.
Brian:It's, the, the picture is coming out of that.
Brian:The video is, it's pretty shocking and unfortunately it probably will
Brian:become a bit of the norm, for a lot of areas, and blame games have started.
Brian:It's been, I mean, we're going to get into this, but like, if you open X.
Brian:this, it's not,
Alex:If you open X,
Brian:it's not a good, like the, the blames, the, like, there's a VC who is, is
Alex:they blaming DEI?
Alex:Are they
Brian:DEI got blamed.
Brian:Absolutely.
Troy:But can we just start, we just start by just thinking for a minute about
Alex:a meteor about to hit
Brian:know, well, okay.
Brian:Yes.
Troy:just just take a minute, just take a minute.
Troy:People that I know, people that you know, People that have nowhere to go, rich people,
Troy:poor people,
Alex:I have good friends that live there.
Alex:I have, I just talked to one of them yesterday, and they lost their house,
Troy:yeah, we're thinking about these folks.
Troy:So
Alex:and, and, you know, I live in a, I live in a fire zone here.
Alex:We, we also had like in Northern California, the wettest, winter.
Alex:So it's, it's surreal to see Southern California on fire.
Alex:But, you know, we had some, some close calls and just that fear
Alex:of like not knowing where you, whether you should evacuate.
Alex:And then actually seeing the flames, you know, over the horizon.
Alex:It's terrifying some of these videos, and it's so populated there.
Alex:It's just crazy.
Alex:but yeah, the discourse has been, as expected, on X, terrible.
Brian:but let's not start there.
Brian:let's start with, Mark Zuckerberg's, Turnabout on moderation, and or pandering to the incoming administration this week.
Brian:he announced a wholesale dismantling of content moderation apparatus that he put in place.
Brian:Let's, let's not forget it.
Brian:Although he'd like to us to forget it in 2017, in response to the uproar over Facebook's role, Trump's 1st
Brian:election, Russian interference, remember Cambridge Analytica that supposedly swung the election.
Brian:He threw mainstream media under the bus.
Brian:He threw Biden under the bus.
Brian:it was pretty clear that this was a, an attempt that we've seen pretty
Brian:much across the board, to bend the knee, I think, to, the current vibe.
Brian:Instead of the, the army of content moderators, he's basically adopting community notes.
Brian:he's even calling it community notes.
Brian:Yeah, we've seen this.
Brian:I mean, every tech company and and leader has in their own way accommodated themselves.
Brian:You know, they've all donated either through the company itself or individually to the inauguration.
Brian:Trump is swimming in money.
Brian:I read something in the New York Times that they, they now can't
Brian:even give, you know, million dollar donors any real perks.
Brian:Like, they've run out of perks.
Brian:Like, they just said, like, they have got like fire codes.
Brian:So, I'm kind of reminded of, of one time I, I went on a walking safari, in South Africa and we came across a
Brian:lion on a hill and it charged at us, but then the guide fired warning shots in front of the lion and it sort of
Brian:skidded sideways and retreated because it understood that it came across some, something that was more powerful than it.
Brian:so I think a couple of ways for us to look at this.
Brian:I mean, one.
Brian:Maybe Masterstroke by Zuckerberg as a business operator, and he's, he's done this before, he's, he's
Brian:ruthless, and he is shameless, or it's just more cravenness, and it's probably a little bit of both.
Brian:Troy, you want to, give us your, your insights?
Troy:Well, I wonder if it, if it will really matter.
Troy:That's what I'm curious to find out.
Troy:It's sort of like if you read the sort of, sadder commentary
Troy:from the endlessly pessimistic Ryan Broderick from Garbage Day.
Brian:Well, he spends a lot of time online, so, like, I can understand
Troy:much, you know, he's like sad Ryan.
Troy:but, you know, it's like this will turn, you know, Facebook to even more of a kind of reality bending bullshit vortex
Troy:than it, you know, seemingly is today and that ultimately will as a society be worse off because of this, because
Troy:we don't have, you know, armies of, you know, sort of lightly engaged fact
Troy:checkers, you know, you know, Deciding what content goes on Facebook or not.
Troy:I think in the end, you know, it, if you look at the information space broadly,
Troy:you can kind of find places to say whatever you want and not be censored.
Troy:And it somehow all manages to kind of, you know, make it, make itself
Troy:available to people, whether it's on X or Reddit or somebody's sub stack.
Troy:So I think in the end, it'll.
Troy:It'll be a nothing thing.
Troy:And, if it is, if it does overwhelm the feeds on Facebook, then Zuckerberg will pivot again.
Troy:What's amazing about that guy.
Troy:I mean, more broadly is that he just moves fast and he sees a change in the
Troy:market and he's done it 10 times and he pushes that company to the next thing.
Troy:Whether, you know, that was a creation of, you know, the, the newsfeed in the early days or Building the app platform
Troy:or moving to mobile or copying Tik Tok with reels or rebranding to meta,
Brian:he copied Snapchat.
Troy:okay.
Troy:And now it's, it's, we're going to change moderation.
Troy:I'm going to put a new face on our public affairs group by getting rid of Clegg.
Troy:And, you know, this is, this is a Facebook for, for a new administration and a new political reality and let's go.
Troy:So that's why, He's very successful and that's my take.
Brian:Okay, Alex, is the sky falling without the content moderators?
Alex:I don't know, the switching over to community notes is fine.
Alex:I think the announcement was, I mean, I don't know.
Alex:It felt, it felt, to me like he was throwing a bunch of people he hired under the bus by calling them
Alex:biased and political and saying, we're going to move to Texas.
Brian:Yeah, that was a weird one.
Brian:We gotta move out of California.
Alex:I mean, it's, it's so obvious that, he has always been shameless.
Alex:I don't like him.
Alex:I was told not to talk about Facebook at my last job because I had a
Alex:tendency to, say things that were, Pretty negative about the company.
Alex:I haven't changed my mind.
Alex:I think he's Parasitic the way he he responds to things and that's fine.
Alex:That's how he runs his business something successful He had luck once managed to build a big company surrounded himself
Alex:by people who allowed the company to grow and now he just looks at what's happening in the market and adjust to it.
Alex:He's pretty shameless.
Alex:Like I think it you know like just the way he The way that video kind of played out, showed like he was
Alex:pandering, and also showed like the administration is open for business, guys.
Alex:Everything's transactional now.
Alex:And, these giant tech companies are very comfortable being transactional, so it's just gonna happen.
Alex:And I think, Trump administration is gonna be pretty cheap, like, hey, fuck, we can get rid of a thousand people, a headache,
Alex:you Under the guise of free speech and and non politicalness And on top of that we get a bunch of goons to like us more now.
Alex:so I don't know.
Alex:I don't think
Troy:Alex, could you tone down the anti Facebook rhetoric please?
Alex:No, fuck him.
Alex:I I I talked to a lot of people who are at Facebook, who I don't think would have
Alex:had any trouble with a shift away from human moderation to, to different systems.
Alex:look at their leader, with a little bit of disdain at the moment.
Alex:I don't think that changes anything for him.
Alex:I think people, You know people need the job and they're going to work there and it's going to be fine but
Alex:yeah, I I just felt like the whole thing felt kind of nasty to me.
Brian:beyond the cravenness, let's, let's leave aside the cravenness for a
Alex:I mean if beyond the craveness
Alex:elon is a genius beyond the
Brian:whole content moderation thing and the idea like platforms have
Brian:been an impossible position and they were put in impossible position.
Brian:Maybe they put themselves in that of adjudicating.
Brian:You know, what speech was misinformation and ultimately you are going to have false positives without a doubt.
Brian:If you're you're just going to right.
Brian:And so I think the question ends up being like, how do you get out of?
Brian:Playing the arbiter.
Brian:Now, they tried to outsource that in some ways, a bunch of different fact checking organizations who he then
Brian:flew through under the bus as being biased and left leaning, et cetera.
Brian:and maybe I don't know, but,
Alex:it's, it's simple, like they, they, they keep telling, I mean, in his, in his little speech, he
Alex:talked about how the, I'm surprised you're not more upset, Brian, because
Alex:he talked about how the, the, the press was pushing them to do that.
Alex:The press, the
Brian:Oh, yeah.
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:Well, the press is always, I mean, come on, you were, you attack the media all the time.
Brian:So I'm
Alex:um, and, but, but yeah, sure, you know, poor, poor little Facebook was forced by the media
Alex:to
Brian:I know, but let's leave aside his craveness.
Brian:We know the
Alex:the, here's the only play that happens.
Alex:It's all about section 230.
Alex:So the last administration threatens them with section 230 by saying,
Alex:Hey, you can't have things that are dangerous on your platform.
Alex:Otherwise you might lose section 230.
Alex:Wouldn't it be like a problem for you to lose the one thing that allows you to have pretty much infinite cashflow through
Alex:the, you know, the creation of content by millions of people on your platform.
Alex:Now the new FTC chair comes in and says, you know what, with all your censorship, and we know what they mean
Alex:by censorship, The, you know, it would be a shame that you lost section 230.
Alex:That is their one thing that they don't want to happen
Brian:So just to recap, Section 230 is, is the law that basically gives them a
Brian:pass for being responsible for the things that are posted on their platforms.
Alex:I mean, I'm surprised like the media is not more upset about that.
Alex:It's the thing that allows these platforms to be a media
Alex:platform without any, any of, the liabilities that traditional, media
Brian:just to be clear, the media, the media has been complaining about this, like, forever.
Brian:I mean, going back to, like, calling Google is Google's a publisher.
Brian:Google's a
Alex:They should have done something because apparently they control what
Brian:Nobody listens to the, the, the media, despite the media pulling the, the, the strings,
Brian:apparently, in all of society, despite it being in terminal decline.
Brian:it isn't actually that powerful.
Brian:It turns
Alex:it's it's all it's all about 230 You know, like it's all
Alex:about 230 shit.
Alex:You're gonna take 230 away So we'll put your friend dana white on the board of meta
Brian:And Joel Kaplan, who Troy had mentioned before, who is a longtime Republican operative, who has replaced
Brian:Nick Clegg, as their head of public policy and assuming, I assume he will be their ambassador to the administration.
Brian:I think it was
Alex:You know, if if Bernie got elected, I think we would have had a speed from Zuckerberg, how he's forcing everyone into
Alex:unions, like it's, it doesn't matter, like 230 is such a powerful thing for them.
Alex:If they lose 230, they lose everything.
Alex:Right.
Alex:And, and 230 has been the get out of jail free, like, You know Zoom zoom.
Alex:Let's make as much money as possible.
Alex:All of these companies have like like no liability It means it's why google is allowed to like advertise
Alex:shit to children under the guise on youtube under the guise of like well, it's just community content like the
Troy:that I'm not following, but you guys would, would admit that, as Brian said, I think importantly, that
Troy:the idea that platforms are put in a position where they have to decide
Troy:whether content should be viewed or not is a troubling place for them.
Troy:uh,
Alex:they have a job, because they have some sort of responsibility.
Alex:It would be so hard.
Alex:Oh, yeah.
Alex:these platforms are always so great at saying, you know what, like, we'd like to figure out a way for
Alex:not letting children longing on Instagram, but it's so difficult.
Alex:It's so difficult.
Alex:Meanwhile, we're talking about, we're building, you know, generalized artificial intelligence by building,
Alex:you know, by, Oh, let's, let's reignite nuclear power plants so we have power for this shit, but all this other
Alex:stuff is too
Brian:honestly, physics is, easier than this stuff.
Troy:Yes, definitely.
Troy:Definitely.
Brian:It is because it's it's it's cut and dry.
Brian:I mean, like physics is physics, like, whereas, you know, whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was
Brian:Russian disinformation or not is like, that's hard to figure out.
Brian:And I don't, like,
Troy:Or if something that's distasteful to some people should be taken off the platform when it's potentially,
Troy:you know, some other people see it as legitimate conversation.
Alex:And this is why Elon did the right thing by moving to community platforms and completely, snuff out the
Troy:This isn't about Elon, man.
Troy:Let's, this isn't, I'm not
Brian:he said a nice thing about it.
Troy:Well, no, he said that he, he went to community notes and then he censors, personally, which is, is hypocritical and
Alex:hyper hypocritical.
Alex:All these companies are hypocritical.
Alex:It's all about sections 230 though.
Alex:Like I said, I don't mind that they have decided to move from human
Alex:moderation to community moderation because human moderation is untenable.
Alex:Yes, we get it.
Alex:It's difficult.
Alex:People are biased, where the political winds are turning can stifle,
Alex:communication and these platforms want to remain as open as possible.
Alex:However, they're all hypocritical.
Alex:The main thing that they want to keep is an ability to To kind of
Alex:put content in front of people with as little liability as possible.
Alex:They want to maintain 230.
Alex:They will do whatever they, they
Alex:need to,
Brian:and 230 is the
Troy:of it all guys is this staggering truth, which I'm reminded of from the earliest days.
Troy:I remember when, when.
Troy:We were talking about, you know, Facebook in the early aughts and how it was emerging, you know, from
Troy:the campus of Harvard into being a generalized social network and taking on my space and all of this.
Troy:And the dialogue at the time was, yeah, but, you know, nobody wants
Troy:to advertise on social networking and can this be a business?
Troy:And now we're in this kind of gilded age period where.
Troy:You know, a handful of people, not unlike Carnegie Rockefeller and, you know, JP Morgan, you know, control
Troy:huge swaths of the economy, which is really just tech through systems that
Troy:have no liability or content costs and make just staggering amounts of money.
Troy:And the amount of money made by a handful of companies, which, you know, gives them the ability to, you know,
Troy:really kind of not just influence, you know, politics, but kind of reshapes society is, is amazing to me.
Alex:the, the, the top, the, the, the magnificent seven of the, in the stock market have a larger
Alex:market cap than I think 200 of the companies that follow them.
Troy:400.
Troy:Well, then 200, then larger, but they, it's 30 percent of the index is
Alex:Okay.
Alex:So, so, and, and here's the thing when, you know, if we're talking about Zuckerberg specifically, because I
Alex:think we can be very impressed with him as a leader, but I think once that that thing had wheels, right?
Alex:And once Facebook had wheels and created the amount of revenue, free
Alex:cash flow that it did, it allowed him to make so many mistakes.
Alex:Like we're saying, yeah, bought Instagram.
Alex:He could have built Instagram.
Alex:He didn't build Instagram.
Alex:These companies are, are, are Their safety net is so huge that they, they can with otherwise like very mediocre
Alex:strategic decision, decide to spend 20 billion on the metaverse and then
Alex:go say, whoops, now where I am, and everybody goes like, man, you're so smart.
Alex:No other companies could spend 20 billion and burn them
Troy:Oh, it's, I think it's like 20 billion a year.
Alex:A year, right?
Alex:And so, so then we look at these
Alex:people like, like as geniuses, as if the same way we look at somebody that inherited like, you know, 200 million
Alex:as a business genius when he managed to make a successful bagel shop.
Alex:Like, it's impossible to make mistakes.
Alex:It's impossible to fail for these companies.
Brian:I compare it to the United States, like we can, we can, as a country, the United States can make so many
Brian:errors and screw up so many things, but because of all of the advantages of
Brian:geography, of the military, of scale, like, it's, it's, it's going to be fine.
Brian:Like, I, Belgium
Alex:we talk about these people like they're fucking geniuses.
Brian:I don't think, I mean, I don't know.
Alex:not
Troy:pretty, they're pretty, they're pretty smart.
Troy:They're pretty smart, Alex.
Troy:Okay.
Troy:So that I
Brian:Is this because maybe he's like cheating at the, Elon Musk is cheating at video gaming?
Brian:I wasn't able to open that link in Apple
Alex:of
Alex:course he's cheating but like I don't even care about elon musk anymore.
Alex:I mean that guy's I think even trump's getting tired of him
Troy:but how did he get so good at that game, Alex?
Alex:these companies, it is unhealthy when companies are so big that they're like unable to get any repercussions
Alex:for the mistakes they make and, on top of that, these individuals are, are too, these people are too powerful and
Alex:it's very worrying when you get into an environment where you know, political apparatus is, You know, it's like, it's
Alex:ready to trade because these people have an infinite money and I don't want to live in a technocratic, like, thing that's
Alex:run by people who actually now believe their own bullshit and think that luck had nothing to do with their success.
Alex:So, like, I'm worried about that stuff.
Alex:And, Let's see the you know, at least hopefully it just lasts four years and just like brace ourselves
Brian:don't think it's gonna last only four years.
Brian:I think that's the new reality.
Brian:I mean, the, the finance industry is what, like 15 percent of the economy or so.
Brian:I mean, they're a power center.
Brian:They've had Goldman Sachs was called government sacks because of the revolving door.
Brian:You go from Goldman Sachs to the Treasury Department bounce back and you're seeing something similar.
Brian:happen with tech now and being embedded in Washington.
Brian:I don't think that's going to change.
Brian:I mean, when you become a massive power center, you're going to
Brian:interact with the government, which is the ultimate power center.
Brian:I mean, that's, that's not going to change.
Brian:I don't care who is sitting in the White House.
Brian:you know, tech is, is, I don't see, I mean, AI is not going to, to make this, sort of less important, right?
Brian:I
Alex:No,
Alex:I think what I mean by change is that I think like we're likely going into a cycle where 90 of the population just
Alex:votes whoever tells them they can fix the economy for them and Neither can so we're going to flip flop between
Alex:like, you know The different parties and so in four years, it'll just be a different set of of pandering that
Alex:happens and you know, I think I think that's what we're gonna see right now.
Alex:It's just feels like this administration is just going to be very very open for business.
Alex:so like, you know fart coin is up That's great.
Alex:I don't know if you bought fart.
Alex:Have you bought fart coin
Brian:I didn't, I don't have any
Alex:Uh, that's unfortunate.
Alex:You could be you could be a millionaire
Troy:guys.
Troy:Can we move on please?
Troy:this is not where I want this to, I mean, this is not a political podcast, okay?
Alex:Is this not political?
Alex:I'm not talking about anything
Troy:Well, it's, it's like grievance.
Troy:Like, let's just move on.
Troy:Let's talk about media.
Brian:No, let's
Alex:are talking about
Brian:talk about, let's talk about CES.
Brian:I miss CES this year.
Brian:I had been the last few years, but, didn't have anything going on, decided to skip it.
Brian:Which is a weird thing that the sort of media world goes to CES, but doesn't really engage in the tech part.
Brian:They just have like a lot of meetings with like advertisers and whatnot.
Brian:but anyway, at CES, um, revealed, some interesting things.
Brian:Interesting announcements around a personal supercomputer running its new Blackwell chip, as well as a
Brian:new partnership involving some kind of driverless truck technology.
Brian:Jensen, you'd pointed this out, Troy, that Jensen, Huang is, is like an old school, Steve Jobs, because there,
Brian:there isn't like of all the like sort of tech CEOs, you know, none of them have the showmanship of, of Steve Jobs.
Brian:I mean, You know, Musk is sort of stuttering and, and awkward.
Brian:Zuckerberg is, is still kind of wooden and doesn't seem human.
Brian:Tim Cook is just Tim Cook, the The Google guy.
Brian:I don't, yeah, he's, he's from McKinsey.
Brian:Right.
Brian:but he, he's a very interesting, tech CEO type.
Brian:He's got the leather jacket.
Brian:Look, he signed
Troy:Alligator for CES, he had an alligator
Brian:Oh, you had an alligator one.
Brian:Oh, that's cool.
Brian:that's part of the vibe shift, I guess.
Brian:he signed that boob one time.
Brian:and he also seems to kind of like an agreeable dad type versus the.
Brian:The kind of trying too hard cage fighting, you know, approach taken by some of these other CEOs.
Brian:I'm interested in Alex in in your First of all, like what what do
Brian:you think about these announcements that made do they matter at all?
Brian:After the announcements, NVIDIA's shares, were down 6.
Brian:2%, and some of that is, is just, you know, one, one analyst, said that, you know, there were technically interesting
Brian:announcements, but at the same time, you know, investors were looking for more, more progress, on this Blackwell
Brian:and, and when the next generation GPU platform Rubin will be, rolled out.
Alex:I think what comes across with, with him is that he actually
Alex:is like, deeply knowledgeable and loves what the company does.
Alex:I think what we're losing with, with him with Apple's presentation, specifically
Alex:with Tim Cook, is that, it, he doesn't, there's no, the passion doesn't feel real.
Alex:And I think the production around it makes it feel even more fake.
Alex:But having this dude on stage for two hours talk about chips, is
Alex:more interesting because he seems genuinely passionate about it.
Alex:And, and, and sure he's charismatic, but a lot of these other dudes are.
Alex:It just feels like he's somebody he is the comp he is like an integral part of that company rather than just an
Troy:Yeah, that feels right.
Troy:That feels right.
Troy:But Alex, any, any insight on, you know, being able to put the entire internet and
Troy:a huge LLM on a supercomputer that you can put on, you know, on your desktop?
Troy:Is that important?
Alex:mean, yes any of these tools that kind of allow us to do more things with the with these llms is going to allow us
Alex:to start seeing the creation of like tools and products That are Actually useful.
Alex:I think we need, you know, a couple of years to kind of, figure out what can be built.
Alex:But you know, my thing has always been that like right now, I mean, we're mostly
Alex:just like tapping straight into the chat bot, into the LLMs via chat bot.
Alex:And we're not really seeing exciting tools come in.
Alex:I think Brian, you were talking about that Google research thing as
Alex:being kind of like, wow, that's an expression of these types of things.
Alex:And And we don't know what happens when you can actually have something run,
Alex:run locally, like in a business
Troy:because because
Troy:Well, maybe I just challenge you a little bit that the tools, you know, maybe applications of them in, in
Troy:more, in narrower ways haven't manifest yet, but Brian's example that Gemini's research tool could string together
Troy:queries and match it with a really deep web search could then bring back
Troy:basically a research report in five minutes is pretty impressive tool to me.
Alex:No, I'm so that's what I'm saying.
Alex:I'm saying these are the types of tools that we're It's it's some of the first tools that we're seeing
Alex:that have like some real use outside of like well It's it's kind of easier to just get to the chat bot.
Alex:I think a lot of the other stuff we're seeing including in in ios and everything like that is just like summarize this
Alex:shit and you know here i'm going to help you respond to that message or you know, like ask me a question with my ai agent
Alex:all of these things feel like you know early internet Experiments that, you know, didn't really hit until we started getting
Brian:but it doesn't feel like there's been some like killer, like, probably like, Oh my God, I must have this.
Brian:This has changed
Brian:my life.
Brian:And it's
Troy:I sent this morning?
Troy:The AI male pleasuring device.
Troy:I mean, it's water
Brian:I haven't tried it.
Alex:Well, yeah, that was at ces yeah, yeah, that was I
Troy:one of those every year where you
Troy:you can connect it to video, I think.
Troy:And so it's it's like, you know,
Alex:It watches your video and changes the rhythm of it,
Alex:yeah
Troy:thank you.
Alex:Yes,
Alex:I mean that's you know what I think the nice thing about that is
Alex:finally technology doing something against the loneliness epidemic
Troy:Yeah, yeah.
Troy:I just wonder where you put that when you're done with it.
Troy:Do you put it like near the small appliances
Alex:Well, apparently it's not waterproof so you can't put in your dishwasher.
Alex:but you didn't want to talk about politics.
Alex:So I
Troy:No, no, but Alex, I had another question.
Troy:These are serious questions that are coming up now.
Alex:No, but let me just
Alex:finish just before you start with your other question.
Alex:because it's hard to come up with answers about this is the type of stuff that we're going to start seeing.
Alex:I'm definitely interested in, in having kind of like an LLM that can run in my house.
Alex:That sounds interesting as an experiment, but the example I always give is like,
Alex:you know, There was a, the, you know, the, we, we talked about the web 2.
Alex:0 revolution, right, which was like a very, technically kind of
Alex:interesting thing, but it didn't really provide a ton of value.
Alex:But the main thing it allowed you to do is, is update websites in real time using JavaScript.
Alex:So now your websites could behave a little bit more like applications.
Alex:And at, and at, and at first, would see just like interesting things happening, but it would really only satisfy kind
Alex:of nerds like me and say like, oh, this is pretty cool until, until we
Alex:started getting, and it took us a while to figure out what that looked like.
Alex:But we started getting things like Google Maps and, and Google Docs and, and it kind of, Both changed the way people
Alex:thought about how application could be delivered over the web, but then things like Google Maps allowed for the creation
Alex:of things like Uber or Airbnb, and you kind of created these like brand new types of tools that that had societal effects.
Alex:Right, like not just like, oh, this is a slightly cooler version of the
Alex:thing I used to use, but this is like something I couldn't do before.
Alex:I couldn't be on the street, press a button, and the car comes, you know, and of course, you needed a
Alex:collection of technologies like the phone and GPS and everything like that.
Alex:But so right now, when you're thinking about AI, it is one of it is part of that, you know, part of that core
Alex:technology, we're gonna have to see kind of like, Technologies that, and products
Alex:that exist around side of it so that people can start building on top of it.
Alex:So anything that's released like that, that allows it to be more portable, more localized, doesn't that allows
Alex:it to run without having to be kind of constantly connected to the LLM, reduces the cost, open sources, these
Alex:things, it's just going to open up the field for these new type of tools.
Alex:And I don't think we've yet seen a tool that is the Uber of, of the LLM era.
Alex:Like we haven't seen the tool that allows us to do things.
Alex:something that's completely different, a completely different
Alex:behavior, rather than stuff that we used to do in a slightly different
Troy:that was good.
Troy:Good context because it was, it reminded me of two small, two small things.
Troy:One is the NVIDIA announcement of, I think it's called Cosmos, which allows the robots to essentially
Troy:train off of images and real world information, which allows you to see a time when actually robots could.
Troy:You know, be deployed, suck up all the information as to how to navigate the world and, and be useful.
Troy:And that's essentially what's happening with, with self driving cars using,
Troy:you know, sensors to, to, to map the world and therefore become.
Troy:You know, autonomous.
Troy:So that was the, the Cosmo announcement.
Troy:The other one, Alex, I thought was cool was to me.
Troy:It's sort of like, Oh, look, the Alex features coming to, my television.
Troy:And it was on a Google TV where you could just say, summarize the news.
Troy:And it would go out, I suppose, to, to YouTube and to the web and to I, I guess any other professional source.
Troy:give you a couple bullet points on your TV and point you at a couple of clips, which would prevent you from
Troy:having to watch Baby News and Zero, you know, get you, you know, it's
Alex:for the new listeners, baby news is what I call things like CNN and
Brian:So we, we did like stitch together.
Brian:Does it like stitch together like clips?
Brian:So it just takes like the video
Troy:I mean, I, I think eventually Brian, but I think at first it's like
Troy:a couple of bullet points and directs you to a clip on YouTube, but what.
Troy:Struck me from that is, when you start seeing all the things that
Troy:have hijacked publishers via aggregation on the Internet, right?
Troy:Things that have made it harder for you to, you know, control your surface area as a publisher.
Troy:And you see that coming for television.
Troy:That's when media is really going to freak out
Troy:because.
Brian:lawyers are going to get involved
Troy:well, there's a lot more money involved and, and,
Brian:mess with the text people.
Brian:That's fine.
Brian:But when you start to get into closer to
Alex:I mean, good luck,
Alex:good luck with this administration and the advisors they've got on because I think that similarly as section 230
Alex:being Kind of the, the brittle foundation of these massive social networks, IP law is the brittle foundation
Alex:for all these LLM because, you know, they've been stealing shit, right?
Alex:And they're continuously stealing that shit.
Alex:It's essentially Napster, but what if Napster just had all the music
Alex:and changed it enough, so it didn't sound like the original song.
Alex:and if, if, if that legal battle doesn't get, you know, one in
Alex:the next couple of years, it's going to be very hard to untangle.
Alex:So, I mean, I keep hearing the media say, well, you know, wait till our lawyers hear of this.
Alex:What's happening?
Brian:don't, I don't hear that though, honestly.
Alex:You can ask, you can ask Google, the new VEO, video, kind of generator from Google, which has
Alex:likely been trained on YouTube, you can tell it to generate a humanoid
Alex:sponge that lives under the sea and it will generate Spongebob Squarepants.
Alex:It won't generate a weird humanoid.
Alex:It will generate Spongebob Squarepants.
Alex:So that means it's trained entirely on copyrighted, not in part in copyrighted data.
Alex:And, there's nothing nobody's doing about it.
Alex:So, I think, any media that's on the internet, it can be behind a paywall or whatever, with new agents, you'll
Alex:just type in your paywall information, all that stuff can be clipped and reformatted, and brought back, and
Alex:I don't think there's any legal way to kind of bounce out of that.
Brian:so I want to move on to rabbit holes and attention spans.
Brian:this is a good reminder that everyone should sign up for the
Brian:companion, the PVA newsletter companion, that has been revived.
Brian:It's a work in progress.
Brian:I think it's, I think it's coming along pretty well.
Brian:it's a bit of a, yeah, it's a conversational format.
Brian:We take five topics, mostly from, You know, what we're discussing here in the podcast and, we go back and forth on it.
Brian:and there's also what is it?
Brian:Anonymous banker?
Troy:Yeah, we, we like bankers because they're sort of like, real estate agents that went to Ivy leagues and,
Troy:no, no offense to, to any bankers listening, they're enterprising, right?
Troy:They got to go hustle.
Troy:They got to find deals.
Troy:They got to find out where they got to make opportunities.
Troy:And so, we know some bankers and one of them said, I'd like to
Troy:contribute to your newsletter and we'll just do it anonymously.
Troy:And he actually better than Alex, dutifully sends his copy over, each week.
Troy:And he, this week, he made a, A comment about the, consolidation that's happening around sort of influencer,
Troy:affiliate marketplaces with the, the mo, mo, most recent acquisition of what's the company called?
Troy:Maverly?
Troy:Yeah, Mavely was acquired by a company called Later, but essentially there as ad tech
Alex:These are all made up names.
Alex:What is those real companies?
Troy:yes, there were companies as ad tech has become less interesting with the decline of the webpage, the, you
Troy:know, influence get an influencer to promote a product and get pay them on performance and have a marketplace
Troy:that stacks up influencers on ones or creators on one side and filters and
Troy:offers from retailers on the other side has become, a good business, I guess.
Alex:I mean, this is how you get 10 year olds into skincare routines
Brian:is capitalism.
Alex:Yeah, it's the best type of capitalism.
Alex:It's the one where you don't have any limitations of how you advertise
Alex:to people and blurs the line between advertising and content.
Alex:We love it.
Alex:it's so
Troy:raw.
Troy:but we were doing
Troy:rabbit, we were doing rabbit holes,
Brian:Yeah, we're gonna do rabbit holes, Troy, 'cause you, you let off the, the newsletter this week with, with an ode
Brian:to the wonder of rabbit holes, which are, you know, I think you pointed out
Brian:they're, they're one of the defining features of the information space.
Brian:And, and that's because, you know, as the name of this podcast and the newsletter is, it's, it's algorithmic.
Brian:I mean, algorithms are about rabbit holes and, you know, algorithms are great about leading you down a rabbit hole.
Brian:It's not like rabbit holes just appeared.
Brian:but they're much more common now because algorithms are directing the, the media consumption patterns.
Brian:I take a little bit of a different point of view because I'm trying to break my, Twitter slash X addiction.
Brian:That is longstanding, I admit it, and, it's, it's really difficult.
Brian:I, I hit the two hour limit, that I set for myself,
Brian:and sometimes
Alex:you have a little, are you using that screen time feature or do
Brian:Yeah, I do, I do the screen time feature and, you know, it's, it's very, it's, it's terrible
Brian:because it leads you down all kinds of paths that I don't want to be down.
Brian:And it's very
Troy:I mean, you might, you might want to think about you should maybe get a dog or, or, or a cat or something
Troy:and
Troy:spend some time there, maybe take up another sort of more offline habit like crochet or there's all kinds of golf
Troy:things you could do.
Troy:I love rabbit holes though Brian and and and I like the counterpoint that that you're, you're beholden to, to a platform,
Troy:and that you can't control your own, your own urges, but Because I use YouTube a lot, I think Alex is right about this.
Troy:YouTube is a rabbit hole in kind of platform.
Troy:And I just noticed that I've had some wondrous media journeys and
Troy:obviously modern media is like, you know, the opposite of a timeline.
Troy:So we used to have the programming guide and the timeline, and now we rabbit hole.
Troy:And that's why I think it's interesting and important where I like, Oh my God,
Troy:this Ron, like I've been rabbit holing on Carson, old Carson interviews.
Troy:Carson was a talk show host that my mother watched, but he had, you know, this was a legendary time in that format.
Troy:Regan, Was on there between, you know, governorship of California and
Troy:presidency and the things that he said echo the present in lots of ways.
Troy:Not only was he kind of, seen at the time is like, who is this outsider actor politician, but
Troy:was, you know, conservative in this and and and railing against.
Troy:The, you know, government overstepping like the present, but, you know,
Troy:just watching Rob Williams on, on Carson or, or Frank Sinatra.
Troy:I mean, this is gold, this stuff.
Troy:Anyway, it's interesting.
Troy:Yeah.
Troy:The YouTube algorithm is not perfect because it assumes that you, once
Troy:you're interested in one thing, you want to consume endlessly on that tip.
Troy:But like I got on this Harmony Corrine tip, he's this wackadoodle guy that, is a filmmaker and a, and an artist
Troy:and a writer who famously wrote the script to this movie kids that
Troy:many of you have probably seen.
Troy:And he's just after that movie came out, he's 19 years old and he's on Letterman.
Troy:And it is a surreal interview and he is kind of earnest and authentic and seemingly at the
Troy:time sees the ridiculousness of the kind of celebrity interview format and kind of fucks with it.
Troy:And I fell down to harmony.
Troy:rabbit hole.
Troy:There's a bunch of content and even, you know, current interviews with him and then kind of moved into his, you
Troy:know, in rewatching kids and I watched spring breakers, which was like one of the first films from a 24 that he made.
Troy:And he's made this bizarre movie called gummo.
Troy:And so that was my rabbit hole.
Troy:And, and I, I find that I'm consuming media like that very often now.
Troy:So that's, that's my contribution.
Alex:I think the impetus for the rabbit hole really matters here because I think what Brian talks about when going on
Alex:next is that Something grabs him by the neck and drags him down a dark alley Well, he sees all sorts of things that
Alex:he doesn't want to see it's a little bit like being invited to a ditty party know,
Brian:Yeah, grooming, grooming gangs.
Brian:I didn't know.
Brian:I don't need to, like, be
Alex:It is
Alex:breaking, Brian, I think we need to like have have have an intervention for
Alex:Brian because it
Alex:it is 100 You are.
Alex:You sound like it.
Alex:Yeah.
Brian:I am.
Brian:Because I think, look, I, I really believe that we have, I wrote about this in my newsletter today.
Brian:We have this, like, Crisis really of attention spans, and it's really all
Brian:because of this algorithmic media, system and how chaotic the information spaces.
Brian:And I think when you I've experienced it, like, I think it's really difficult to focus for a lot of people.
Brian:And, you know, you read a lot about burnout, this is, Ezra Klein had a really good podcast, about burnout, and I think
Brian:a lot of it comes down to the fact that people feel overwhelmed by a lot of the information that's coming out at them.
Brian:and.
Brian:You know, the reality is they need less, not more.
Brian:And I think it's, it's hard being in the information business to, to say that.
Brian:But it, it, it really is a problem when people can't focus.
Brian:And when your attention becomes commodified, because that is how these companies make money.
Brian:The reason that their rabbit holes exist is because that is, is their business model.
Alex:And that is why Facebook has been experimenting putting on AI generated content into the feed because
Alex:it's just more stuff that can be more targeted and it's more surface area
Brian:More personalized, it's going to be more addictive.
Alex:It is why some of the most, popular TikTok content is a screen split in two, well, where they might show a
Alex:clip of a podcast at the top, but at the bottom, they'll put like somebody, you know, playing with play doh or
Alex:car crashes or people falling down like a ski slope because, because your attention is hijacked by that thing.
Alex:It's, it's so, so the only way to do it is you delete the app.
Alex:I was talking to my nephew, and, you know, he's a young guy.
Alex:He says he's deleted all the apps.
Alex:He feels better.
Alex:I.
Alex:Don't think you need it for work anymore.
Alex:I went on to X this week, just to check on something.
Alex:I was actually checking if there was any news about, the fires there.
Alex:and it descended into this thing that like, yeah, it's become really the algorithm and the people
Alex:that engage in it have become way too good at playing this game.
Alex:So it's all about like enragement bait.
Alex:It's all about hijacking your attention and we're no longer able to get bored.
Alex:So And, these tools are only going to get worse.
Alex:and so, yeah, Brian, you just need to get off it,
Brian:Well, I,
Alex:just delete
Alex:it.
Alex:Can you do it?
Alex:Can you do like a, you know, like there's a no, not November, like, you know, no,
Troy:Could we find a, do you guys think there's anything good in rabbit holes?
Troy:Like, here's the thing, my rabbit holing is pulling me, is, is pulling me away.
Troy:It is pretty
Troy:wholesome and it's, it's pulling me away from mindless Netflix shows.
Troy:Like I just don't watch that crap anymore.
Troy:And I think that instead what I'm watching is the American experience on the gilded age or a review of
Troy:a, new tube amp or an explanation on how transformers actually work.
Troy:Like I'm a better man.
Troy:for rabbit holes.
Alex:my first kind of like, you know, because I was very early internet user and I was in forums and stuff like that
Alex:and rabbit holes were the first kind of real experience I had over the internet where you could find a topic and then
Alex:click a link and then click another link and then click another link and it felt like you were kind of uh, Navigating like
Alex:an, you know, like a detective through the internet and finding out new things.
Alex:And it felt so satisfying, but even, you know, our beloved YouTube,
Alex:Troy, like, I'm sure like now it's like, Oh, you like Carson.
Alex:Here's all of Carson, everything Carson, because the, because it's algorithmic.
Alex:Like the, you know, when I looked
Troy:Okay.
Troy:That's a problem with the, with the algorithm that needs to be cured and tweaked a bit.
Alex:but as a behavior rabbit holes are interesting.
Alex:Yesterday I listened to like a Lisa.
Alex:Two hours of coffee Zilla and then I went, I went into a mild depression because I said there's so many of these
Alex:influencers that are just like not getting any repercussions for their
Troy:well, well, um, can we pause for a minute?
Troy:Because Brian, who, tell us about Coffizilla, Brian.
Brian:well, he is Steven, Findelizen, chemical engineering student.
Brian:he was a chemical engineering student at Texas A& M and he's a, he's a YouTube creator.
Brian:He started a different channel called Coffee Break that didn't really take off.
Brian:And then he, he saw a lot of, of the scams, particularly in crypto, and he, he rebranded himself as CoffeeZilla.
Brian:He has this sort of film noir, thing going on, like he built the studio and
Brian:he wears the suspenders like he's like someone out of like a film noir, movie.
Brian:And, basically investigates online scams at the end of the day.
Brian:He did FTX.
Brian:he did, what is it?
Brian:Was it Jake Paul or Logan Paul?
Brian:Probably both of
Alex:Jake Paul, Jake Paul's like crypto scam with, crypto zoo.
Alex:He did, he did Mr.
Alex:B stuff.
Alex:and, yeah, I
Brian:But
Brian:he's like 27 years old, right?
Brian:And he's like an independent guy.
Brian:I think he's got like a, I listened to the, the Joe Rogan one with him.
Brian:And he's got like maybe a couple of people like who, who work with him.
Brian:And, I think it's fascinating because
Alex:he's,
Alex:he's Patreon.
Alex:it's also like if you, I don't know, because I don't think our audience are going to be people that are,
Alex:maybe attracted to Coffee Zilla because there's a whole aesthetic.
Alex:It's, it's kind of, it has pretty good production values, but he is, you know, he wears suspenders.
Alex:He, he's called Coffee Zilla, which makes no sense.
Alex:His videos are set within, kind of a virtual.
Alex:Cyberpunk world, there are parts of the video where he goes to a
Alex:bar and speaks to a robot, because I think he's also, he also,
Alex:likes making computer graphics.
Alex:so it's very, yes, it's, it's, it's, it's very specific and you might be turned off by some of this stuff, but it is
Alex:some of the most compelling to watch and infuriating, investigative content on the
Alex:internet.
Alex:It's, it's,
Brian:too, right?
Brian:Yeah.
Alex:Yeah, yeah,
Brian:Mr.
Brian:Beast is one guy I could definitely see like a, a downfall, like a entire like Netflix series about
Alex:Brian, none of these people are getting there's no repercussions.
Alex:Are you there's no repercussions.
Alex:The
Alex:only
Troy:Brian,
Troy:just this,
Alex:repercussions
Brian:But, but here's what I think is important about Coffeezilla is like, I think a lot of times people in the
Brian:institutional media are like, well, who's going to do the investigative,
Brian:you know, journalism, he's doing a form of investigative journalism.
Brian:He might be talking to a robot bartender.
Brian:I mean, I think there's going to be a lots of coffee zillas out there.
Brian:I mean, there's, there's sub stacks, you know, like, the bear cave and, you know, they're, they're basically,
Brian:you know, almost like a, short seller sort of research kind of thing.
Brian:And they're in specific areas, but I think that there is an opportunity.
Brian:And you see with, with coffee zilla to have real investigative work being done.
Brian:and I think a lot of times it gets dismissed.
Brian:I mean, Troy, you had, brought up in the newsletter, this Julia Angwin, who used to be a Wall Street Journal reporter.
Brian:She, she did a, a research report recently about what like mainstream media can learn from, from creators.
Brian:And, you know, you gotta have, you gotta be talent and you gotta
Troy:but that was really, that was really good, perspective.
Troy:If, if just to visit it for a second, because we rely on media brands and the processes that they employ to create
Troy:this kind of understood relationship between reader and brand that there's kind of trust in that transaction.
Troy:And that, journalist kind of fits into that scheme and it's assumed
Troy:that they bring, you know, the trust of the institution to the table.
Troy:And this report, which was called the future of trustworthy information learning from online content creators
Troy:kind of said like, well, that's actually not true because people don't trust the media like they used
Troy:to, but they, but their trust, Levels are high in many cases with creators.
Troy:What do creators do to create trust?
Troy:And they sort of, she, she sort of broke it down into like transparency about their expertise and intentions, putting
Troy:that right in the content, not assuming that it's there real interactions with not like, you know, interactions in
Troy:comments with the audience and, and, and incorporating feedback from the audience.
Troy:And just kind of like, it's not pretending to be objective, but trying to be sort of.
Troy:Transparent instead.
Troy:And, and I just thought that was an interesting reflection on how trust is created in this new media
Troy:mode that, that what that's sort of replacing the trust with the blind trust we have in institutions.
Brian:it never really made sense.
Brian:The idea that someone just because someone got hired, That makes that
Brian:you should be, you should be trusted because like HR like approved you.
Brian:I mean, to me, it's the same with credentialism overall.
Brian:Like, you know, people who constantly remind you like where they went to college or God forbid the Stuyvesant people.
Brian:like big deal.
Brian:Like, what did you do?
Brian:Like, who cares?
Brian:Who cares that you went to like Harvard?
Brian:Why do I, why do I know it?
Brian:Like, why do you keep telling me it?
Brian:And I think in the same way, like we're in a populist time and that kind of, you know, unearned, credibility.
Brian:Is, is gone.
Brian:And so it needs to be rebuilt.
Brian:And I think it needs to be rebuilding a lot of these organizations, around, you know, their individual quote
Brian:unquote talent, you know, I think the wall, the Washington Post this week had had more layoffs, right?
Brian:But one of the layouts, they, they eviscerated their PR team that was
Brian:getting their like reporters on like, you know, cable news and whatnot.
Brian:And now they're gonna have like a talent division.
Brian:You know, and I think that's like part of, of, of rebuilding these organizations is they're going to
Brian:have to have, you know, individuals who, who build that kind of trust.
Brian:Yes, there's going to be a halo of, of the brand itself.
Brian:but that's just critical to me.
Alex:I don't know if the brand doesn't become though, like, it may be doesn't help or even hurts
Alex:because a lot of these influencers, what they build is this parasocial relationship with their audience, right?
Alex:It's one sided relationship, but the audience feels very connected to them.
Alex:And they feel connected to them because they experienced the content that they're building professionally.
Alex:They also often have like, You know side content of like, hey, watch me play some video games or here's here's
Alex:something personal i'm doing so they feel really like they have, Insight into their lives and then the funding model
Alex:is either, you know brands that The creator really gets behind Personally, or
Alex:things like Patreon, which is, you know, the community itself, like funding it.
Alex:And all of these things are then constantly scrutinized by the community.
Alex:There's often the Discord server where people are talking.
Alex:So it all feels really transparent.
Alex:And I don't think corporations can, Ever match that because there's just like legal HR concerns, all of these things that once
Alex:you get into, into a corporation, you no longer have the capabilities to do that.
Alex:So it's going to be hard to build the same type of trust with.
Alex:You know, somebody that works at the New York Times or, you know, then a coffee Zilla, who's like
Alex:an really independent spirit, like just from, from the ground up.
Alex:and so, so I don't know, I don't know how you even copy that model because, because it's so fundamentally different.
Brian:I don't know if you copy the model, but I think that you, you, you have to like, Learn from it and, you know, like
Brian:I think like we've talked a lot about what Marquise Brownlee, like, what is it?
Brian:MKBHD.
Brian:I get the letters sometimes confused.
Brian:and he's the new Walt Mossberg, right?
Brian:Like, I mean, Walt Mossberg was the, it was like the most valuable page that the Wall Street Journal
Brian:of advertising that the Wall Street Journal would sell supposedly was the one across from Walt Mossberg's column.
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:Right.
Brian:And he one day was talking to like an ad salesperson.
Brian:He's like, what does that go?
Brian:And he found out how much it went for.
Brian:And he was like, he, he did the calculation with how much he was paid.
Brian:And he was like, Oh, brace.
Alex:Yeah.
Alex:I mean, and I think that's what also happens, right?
Alex:One of the kind of best example of the collection of creators was, I don't know if you remember, there was a time where
Alex:Bon Appetit had this like incredible YouTube channel, it was in the kitchen, they had a cast rotation of all these
Alex:different people that came in and that blew up pretty spectacularly and they all went up and did their own things.
Alex:You know, most of them are quite successful.
Alex:The thing is like, once you raise somebody to a level where they're successful, Why wouldn't they go, you know, independent?
Alex:I mean, especially a lot of people who make content are kind of independently minded, you know?
Alex:why share the spotlight?
Alex:Why share the profits?
Alex:Why?
Alex:I don't know.
Alex:I think it's, I think all that stuff's going to be hard.
Alex:I think, maybe the way to look at yourself if you're a media company is more like a talent agency, right?
Alex:Like you said,
Brian:Yeah, I mean, the Puck model is interesting, right?
Brian:Like, I mean, they're sort of running out of the, they're becoming more to me like a traditional, you know, media company.
Brian:I mean, they have publications now with multiple authors.
Brian:So it's not just individuals.
Brian:There might be a lead in that, but some of them don't like, but they at least have, you know, put the, put the
Brian:personalities, or the people at least in the early ones, they, they had, You know, they had equity in the company.
Brian:They were partners, I guess they called
Troy:But while we're on this topic, Brian, you went off in the, in the chats this week about Lex Fridman and,
Brian:Oh,
Troy:uh, and, and,
Troy:and I don't know, I don't know what you got against Lex Fridman.
Troy:I think that he's kind of fallen out of
Brian:I don't, I don't under, I don't understand the appeal.
Brian:I understand the appeal of a coffee Zilla.
Brian:I understand the appeal of, of Joe Rogan.
Brian:I understand the appeal of a lot of, of, of these characters.
Brian:Some like, you know, if they're not like a Mr.
Brian:Beast, like I'm not like a 13 year old.
Brian:So, I mean, I take that, but like with Lex Friedman, I kind of don't get it.
Brian:Like, I don't get like, he, he got an interview with, With Zelensky
Brian:and he talks in this monotone and he wears the black suit.
Brian:He looks like an undertaker.
Brian:And, and you know, his, his tech podcasts are good.
Brian:You know, he's, he's, you know, He, he's very technical, I guess he's, he's at least, computer scientist, when these
Brian:guys get out of their field into politics and into, you know, things like, like a serious situation like in Ukraine, and
Brian:he interviewed Zelensky and, and there was this ridiculous back and forth.
Brian:About what language they were going to like talk in and like he wanted to do it in Russian and Obviously Zelensky is
Brian:not going to do the interview in Russian like Zelensky is a native Russian So he's not going to do it in Russian.
Brian:I mean, that's just dumb.
Brian:Like I mean, they're they're at war with Russia anyway, they did the dubbing and whatnot and he did the three hour
Brian:interview and he I watched it and there were so many points where it was just this, like, this naivete of him being
Brian:like, you just need to love and you need to like, just like, dude, you're talking to the president of a country at war.
Brian:Like, I'm sorry, it's not just like, yeah, you have to understand Putin loves his, his country.
Brian:It's like, no, like, that's just not gonna, you know, I think Zelensky came, came off pretty good during it.
Brian:I don't think, I don't think Lex Friedman did.
Brian:And, you know, he's talking about Joe Rogan's comedy club.
Brian:Are we kidding me?
Brian:I'm like, I'm not sure if we need to go back to like, just having like traditional media do these interviews,
Brian:but like, seriously, we're like, he's like, you've got to come to Austin and go to like Joe Rogan's comedy club.
Brian:Not a great
Brian:moment.
Alex:his
Troy:He said that?
Brian:yes, he was.
Brian:He's like, I want to bring peace.
Brian:And Zelensky was like, well, I've got a busy schedule.
Brian:Yeah.
Alex:he's, he's sycophant and he started doing that with all, he, he kind of, I think, allows his guests
Alex:to feel like, you know, philosopher monks, like he is talking about,
Alex:like, but isn't it all about love and brotherhood and, and oh, yeah, yeah.
Alex:And then they try to like, you know, be very thoughtful and philosophical.
Alex:He's a dork.
Alex:And he, he's, he's, he overplays his hand every time.
Alex:He's not even.
Alex:technically that interesting to listen to.
Alex:he's somebody that keeps reminding of humble, curious, and, and loving he is, which is always a fucking red flag.
Alex:yeah, he, just like, you know, you get a guest and then it brings
Alex:another guest and everybody loves really like, wow, that's good.
Alex:This is going to be the safest place for me to, to spout all this stuff out.
Alex:rich and powerful these people are, the more they love hearing the sound of their own voice.
Alex:I mean, look at us.
Alex:and he gives this really cozy, comfortable, little warm duvet of like,
Alex:you know, fucking nonsense, like just like fuzzy philosophy around stuff.
Alex:And then maybe, maybe Trump is all about love.
Alex:And maybe, maybe we all are about love.
Alex:And, he's just a bullshit artist.
Alex:yeah, I mean, the, the quicker that type of stuff, like, goes away, the better, but I'm, I'm afraid it won't, you know?
Alex:And you can see Zelensky's fucking frustration, in his eyes.
Alex:Like, you know, having to remind him, hey, you know, when somebody carpet bombs
Alex:your family, it's really hard to love that person when they're not getting any.
Alex:And so, I don't know.
Alex:I find all these people.
Alex:He's kind of like, an example of mediocre tech people that have outsized, outsized success.
Alex:And, let that go to their head and start feeling like they're some sort of techno guru.
Brian:but this is a particular execution issue to me.
Brian:Like, I think there's a space for alternative media to have these kinds of conversations with.
Brian:All kinds of people, including world leaders.
Brian:I think they have a different dynamic.
Brian:I don't think it has to be just someone from 60 minutes having like a edited interview.
Brian:Like
Alex:I mean you
Alex:don't have to convince me of that.
Alex:Like I wish everything was just on YouTube I wish CoffeeZilla did that interview.
Brian:All right.
Brian:Should we get to the good product?
Brian:Do we have a good product?
Brian:I have a good product.
Brian:If you don't, if you
Troy:We got some good products I got some good products this week,
Alex:It's CES So there's that masturbation device you saw on
Alex:CES.
Alex:Yeah
Brian:quiet.
Brian:Middle aged men talking about that stuff
Brian:is just not,
Troy:Yeah, well, you know, this is I was gonna start an ode to the breakfast
Troy:meeting, but I won't I won't go there I think breakfast meetings are the best.
Troy:They're the best Meeting of the day, but, they used to do these great breakfast meetings at the
Troy:private dining room at Hearst Tower that they were always so good.
Troy:the, the other one I want to get into my good product, but just on the way there, I've been consuming these just now and
Troy:then instead of alcohol, these, this company called Can, C A N N, which are.
Troy:I have like a cranberry Sage THC refresher, but it's only a couple of milligrams.
Troy:So you can bang back a couple and just kind of takes the edge off a little bit.
Troy:It's nice product can cranberry Sage THC refresher.
Troy:It's a nice product, but you know, there's a company, I don't know if this
Troy:is a good product or not, and maybe I'll get feedback or you guys will.
Troy:Cause I don't think that one should have too many appliances on their countertop.
Troy:I think that it's, it's.
Troy:You know, messy and noisy, but this company Ninja has taken over tick tock such that people, you know, of my
Troy:daughter's, my youngest daughter's age get influenced by their blenders and things.
Troy:And, she brought home this upside.
Troy:It's basically an upside down blender positioned as an ice cream maker.
Troy:And what you do is you, every night you freeze.
Troy:whatever you want to freeze, whether it's, you know, a frozen margarita or,
Troy:you know, bananas and almond milk and vanilla and a little bit of sweetener.
Troy:And you freeze it and then you put it in the machine and the machine drops down
Troy:this whirling blade into your frozen thing and it turns it into ice cream.
Troy:And, it's a countertop device and think, you know, a blender turned upside down that.
Troy:does this
Troy:thing.
Alex:it called, Troy?
Troy:It's called the, the Ninja Ice Cream Maker.
Troy:I
Alex:what it's called?
Troy:think so.
Troy:And what's interesting about it is what comes out of it is really good.
Troy:yummy.
Troy:yummy.
Troy:So that's a good product.
Troy:It's a good
Alex:Yeah
Brian:have, they have another popular thing out there.
Brian:The, they've got a crisper.
Brian:They got a new, they've got a new air fryer.
Brian:It's glass and it apparently, it's, I don't know, it's, it makes crisp, things crispy.
Troy:No, Ninja, I thought it was, you were going to say it makes like you a new kidney or
Brian:no, no, it's just crispy.
Brian:I mean, that's why they call it the ninja ice cream maker makes ice cream and the ninja crisper makes things, well,
Troy:yeah, I mean if you got room on the counter and you want to
Troy:make ice cream every morning, it's kind of a nice, it's a nice thing.
Alex:ice cream in the morning is weird But it's it's also called a ninja creamy and it is all over tiktok.
Alex:yeah, it's probably You know product of the moment in september 2024.
Alex:So thank you for bringing this to our attention troy
Troy:yeah.
Troy:again, I've smashed it with good product.
Troy:Yeah.
Alex:want to make troy happy just get him bring him some ice cream at the morning meeting Make him feel
Brian:Where, where do you like to have your morning meetings?
Brian:Do you have, what are your go to
Troy:Oh, every time, Crosby Street Hotel, that's where I go.
Brian:Oh, okay.
Troy:Yeah, I saw, you know, your boy Scott was there today, Scott,
Brian:Why?
Troy:Scott Galloway, you know,
Troy:and, uh, yeah,
Alex:I think he's tall, right?
Troy:he was sitting down, but he is tall.
Troy:Yes,
Brian:Karl Lagerfeld there once.
Troy:I met with the, I, I had a nice breakfast with the ex CEO
Troy:of Politico who stumbled upon our podcast and, became a fan of it.
Troy:He likes, he likes you guys.
Alex:Wow.
Alex:I don't know how this one's gonna turn out.
Alex:I feel I, I was, well, that's but I appreciate it.
Alex:Thank you.
Troy:Well, why don't you bring a little po I know.
Troy:Do you got any positivity before you bounce anything positive to add to this podcast?
Troy:what's bringing you joy right now?
Troy:Alex,
Alex:I, you know, I think, there are many good, thoughtful creators and comment, and commenters on YouTube.
Alex:And sometimes when I feel like the world is crazy and I turn on the news and nobody's talking about it,
Alex:it's nice to get online and hear people say that, even though it's essentially things that I know.
Alex:so folks like CoffeeZilla, you know, highlighting things or, things like that.
Alex:I find that engaging.
Brian:I have a good, I have, I have one already lined up for next week with,
Troy:do you want to u
Brian:Creator.
Troy:do
Alex:All right.
Troy:What's your good product?
Troy:Just outta curiosity.
Brian:My, my good product is,
Alex:rude now.
Brian:Okay.
Alex:an IV.
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:And IV is amazing.
Brian:I got, I got a norovirus this week and I had to, I had to go to the hospital.
Brian:I don't know.
Brian:I don't know.
Brian:I've ne I do not, I'm not sickly.
Brian:I, I got the PVA virus and then I got this norovirus.
Brian:I don't know what exactly is going on.
Brian:it was very, very
Troy:what ha what ha, what
Alex:Well, Nora, Nora, Nora, Nora is, Nora is everywhere.
Alex:And also, you know, IVs, IVs, at least in, in some California circles, you know, it's the, it's a great cure for hangovers.
Alex:People
Brian:Oh, I,
Brian:I'm in Miami . There's
Troy:Yeah.
Brian:right, like two blocks away.
Troy:Have you tried the nin,
Alex:in New York.
Alex:That's true.
Troy:the Ninja IV or
Alex:It
Alex:shoots, it shoots ice cream straight into your bloodstream
Brian:have had like,
Alex:cannabis infused as
Brian:I used to run like a lot, like a lot of long distance races and
Brian:I got super dehydrated a few times and had to go into the medical tent.
Brian:I would get an I.
Brian:V.
Brian:I would go from like, I've gone from like, not knowing where I was.
Brian:to feeling completely fine after, after an IV.
Brian:IVs are amazing.
Brian:it did the trick with this.
Brian:I didn't feel like amazing afterwards, but it got me on the road to recovery.
Brian:So never turn down an IV.
Brian:That's basically my advice.
Alex:Wherever you are, you could be anywhere.
Brian:Honestly, in, in, in triathlons, like, they make people like, after they finish, like, particularly iron Ironman
Brian:races, they, they make you, they weigh you beforehand and weigh you like, when
Brian:you go into the medical tent, because a lot of times people fake needing an I.
Brian:V.
Brian:Because they know that it will speed the recovery so much, and they'll feel so much better.
Brian:So they don't really need it, like, technically medically, but it's like, such a bonus.
Alex:Right.
Troy:go folks.
Alex:All right.
Alex:You've heard it here.
Troy:That's it for this episode of people versus algorithms where each
Troy:week we uncover patterns shaping media culture and technology.
Troy:Big thanks as always to our producer, Vanja Arsenov.
Troy:She always makes us a little clearer and more understandable and we appreciate her very, very much.
Troy:If you're enjoying these conversations, we'd love for you to leave us a review.
Troy:It helps us get the word out and keeps our community growing.
Troy:Remember, you can find People vs.
Troy:Algorithms on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and now on YouTube.
Troy:Thanks for listening and we'll see you again next week.
Troy:Thanks
Alex:right.
Alex:Thank
Alex:you.
Alex:Bye.
Alex:Bye.