This week I spoke with Washington Post CTO Vineet Khosla about the collision between a legacy shaped by perfection and a future shaped by iteration. We get into why the Post is pushing beyond the one-size-fits-all article, how conversational and personalized formats change the relationship between readers and reporting, and what it takes for a newsroom to think like a product organization without losing its editorial core. Vineet walks through the shift toward voice as an interface, the role AI will play in expanding how journalism is packaged, and why publishers need to stop viewing themselves as content suppliers to platforms.

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partnership.

Welcome to the Rebooting Show.

I am Brian Morrissey.

this is a real treat, because I'm joined by Vineet Khosla, the CTO at

the Washington Post, Vineet and I, and I had what I consider, one of,

if not the most interesting of my conversations at Cannes, this past summer.

And so I'm hoping to reprise it.

In, in podcast form here.

a little bit about Vineet.

He worked on the na natural Language core of Siri at apple,

as one of the earliest engineers, building conversational systems.

He spent years subsequently to that at Uber, working on routing,

mapping, real-time infrastructure.

And then he joined the Post, in 2023 as CTO, to modernize the technology stack.

and you know, one of the things that.

I've seen like under your leadership of the Post is, you know, expanding

particularly into audio as an interface.

I mean, obviously your background is in that, and I wanna get into all of that.

but I wanna start with a fundamental question, Vineet I wrote a, a few

weeks ago about media people, 'cause I think this is a type, there is

a, they think a narrative they like to like, you know, cause trouble.

they like heroes and villains.

They're more storytelling there.

I have, throughout my career, I've been, I feel like I've been trapped

in this, like men are from Mars, women are from Venus, but it's, it's

usually tech guys and media people.

That's my, and I know that, I don't mean it gendered in either way.

but there's always been this divide.

You have spent your career mostly on the tech side, and I know

that like tech and media is like enmeshed, but you know what I mean.

Right.

Right.

Give me like what, you've now been at the Post for two and a half years, you

know, give me the differences that you see on a, with building product and

just the instincts for it from a tech.

Engineering driven organizations like Apple and Uber and, and not necessarily

just the Post, but like, just like what you see in the media because tech

has never been the, the, it's not the main thing that these organizations do.

Thank you for having me, Brian, and I hope I can bring back some of the charm of

The magic.

The magic of all the rose we had that day.

I'm sitting in an office right now, so for my hr, here, I'm not drinking Rose.

that's a great question you ask because as I, I feel like I'm so

lucky that I lived in the tech world and I get to live in the media world

and I get to have multiple lives.

when I was in the tech world, I thought I was so lucky that I got to build Siri.

And then I went and did maps, which is like an entirely different problem.

Right.

So when you ask what is fundamentally different between tech people and

media people, I think one thing is media had too much success.

And what do I mean by that?

News is a really good business.

It has a product market fit like nothing else on the planet for 3000 years.

We were etching it on tablets, we were writing it by hand.

Then the technology of press came like it's a great product market fit.

And in the tech world, you know, people literally die for this

level of product market fit.

So naturally, when you find a really good business and you get good at

it, right, like it's not just a business, you get really good at it.

It's serving a real purpose in the world.

You tend to aim towards perfection a whole lot.

When something is put in print, it's there for the rest of your life.

And by the very instinct, the tech people are more experimental, right?

So in our DNA, getting something slightly wrong is not the end of the world.

But getting something slightly wrong in the world of media is often

perceived as the end of the world.

So there I feel like, becomes the fundamental difference.

And I can see both sides of it, right?

Like I want to be very clear.

I'm not saying, oh, this makes media, people like dinosaurs and

they're not willing to change.

No, I mean, the opposite of that, I mean, this entire industry is named

after the biggest technological innovation of its time, the press.

Right, so it's not like people here don't want to experiment or do something new.

I just feel the training has been such, it is kind of hard to overcome.

So just I, and I want to talk about the printing press, but just to stay on that

for a little bit, how does that translate into, The product that is shipped because

you, you were very complimentary of media people and as I said, I, I self-identify

and I think I, I'm definitely not a tech guy, so I'm, I, I have to be

a media person, by default in this conversation and my evaluation of the

products that, media ship is that they.

Not all of them, but, when you compare a product-focused technology organization

to the, the website that I visit, to get great content from, there's no comparison.

It's not even close.

You can tell who is a product driven organization and who frankly is not.

And we can go through all the reasons for, you know, with monetization and the

market, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But I don't think that you could be within an organization like say Uber

and have products that have that kind of usability, no matter the excuse.

And that seems to me, and it's not unique to any organization that.

With where things are going.

That is the biggest challenge because nobody will go to your products.

Nobody will use them if they suck.

Like I, I like, to me, it's just fundamental.

no, I, and I think this is the question I ask.

Maybe I should ask you first, I have

Don't do this.

I'll turn the tables on you, Brian.

Um,

We're only seven minutes in.

there is a belief that news is the product

Yeah.

and for majority of the lifetime that was very true.

I am not saying news is no longer the product.

It is still the product, but product is also the product.

See, what has happened is there is a container that has been put on

our interactions with the internet, right, which is a beautiful app,

which is audio and vertical videos, like these are the expectations.

They have been set since they have been set by parties outside of the media.

Media needs to catch up and needs to play within those containers very effectively.

That's the area where I think a lot of big media companies did not in a

timely manner, recognize that their audience is moving away from them

and going to Instagram is not because Instagram has better journalist,

they have zero journalists, right?

They're moving because the container, the product that Instagram is putting

out is attracting some of their journalists to put their content on it.

So if we get outside of our, you know, thinking that news is the product and

nothing else can be the product and say, well, news is the core of the product,

but the product is also the product, then I feel we can get to success.

And I think.

That isn't my assessment from, you know, in two years in this media

world is we are hesitant to make that jump and say that statement.

So let me, and, and, and then we can move on, but like, what in your

diagnosis are like the three things that that likely hold back A lot of

media organizations from shipping, I wouldn't even say great products.

I honestly, I would say like good products from a, from a user standpoint.

I can come up with my own sort of like ideas, but I would

love to hear yours from that.

'cause I mean, I think that there, there is an acute problem here and I just, I

don't mean it to like, you know, denigrate like publishers or media companies.

It's just like, you have to be honest that, you know,

the, the product itself is.

Is objectively losing in the marketplace.

There's a reason that people want to, open Instagram and the

ads are, are a good experience.

They fit and, and these are, yes, there's algorithms and they're like

addictive and whatnot, but then, you know, sometimes we all feel this way.

Like we will click on a link and I'll like brace myself.

You know, like I'm not sure what's gonna happen.

My phone might start heating up.

I, I don't know if I have three nicely tied things in a bow.

but it is the investment, right?

You have to invest in a tech team, which is thinking like a tech team, which is

thinking like a product team and in the engineering and AI talent to match it.

one example, one phrase I have used a few times is, everyone has heard this.

There is no longer.

Just a company in the world.

Every company is a tech company selling product X. Right.

Which is very true.

If you look at mattresses like avocado mattress, like they're

running like a tech company, right?

So you are a tech company selling product X at that level of.

alignment needs to happen at the executive level, right?

Like for, to, not to toot my own horn, but at exec at Washington

Post it has happened, right?

We have said that we are going to get the best of the best in the fields that we

need, whether it is growth, whether it's advertising, whether it is technology, and

we will let them do their job because we are the world's best news company, right?

We are the world's best tech news company and our core product is

news that will, we are nothing if we don't have great news period.

Right?

Like that's the foundation and the heart and the meat or however we want

Yeah.

That's it.

like a restaurant not having a good kitchen

exactly right.

You can have a great ambiance, you get a wonderful host and all this stuff, but if

you don't have a, if, if the food stinks, like you don't have much of a shot, I

don't think.

Maybe some,

That's exactly it.

We have the best chefs with the best ingredients, right?

And now we are going and making sure all tech companies should do that.

Like they should not have a crappy restaurant that smells bad.

It should smell good.

It should look good.

It should make people want to spend money.

It should add value to their life.

It should not feel like homework.

Yeah, so let me let, let me ask you this then off that, and, and then we'll

get into to more of the specifics.

But this is a little bit philosophical 'cause I, I want to get into like how

you think this sort of news experience will be in three years or five years.

Okay.

And five years might be too much to ask these days, but, I ask this.

A lot of CEOs in this industry and I never get a coherent answer.

They usually change the subject.

So I'm gonna try to pin you down on it.

and I understand why they changed the subject because

so much is changing right now.

You mentioned the, the printing press, right?

And you've compared this moment basically to the printing press in

that, AI is going to change, creation.

Delivery and consumption, like it will all be redefined.

I do this other podcast, called People Versus Algorithms, and one of my co-hosts

is not from the media, media industry.

He is, he is the former head of design at Airbnb.

He's like out in Silicon Valley and he keeps saying the spaceship

is over the White House.

You know, like, and and I think he's, he's, he's right.

I don't know the timeline of that, but I, I think he is.

Is correct.

so I think a lot of media organizations have to make the decision about.

They're downstream of technology.

Technology, controls.

The tech industry controls the interface layer.

They are experts at interface and therefore they control the distribution.

And, you know, all of the, the angst about Google Zero and AI overviews and stuff,

all of that is because media companies do, are, are not at the interface layer.

They're downstream of that.

And to me, if you play all that out.

A lot of companies are gonna end up being content suppliers to those who

control the commanding heights of the digital economy or the interface layer.

Some companies are going to be able to compete on the interface layer.

Am I wrong in thinking that or, or like how are you thinking about that?

no, I, I think you're very correct in that.

there are a few things I would point out is I see more often than not media

industry giving up the mantle to the tech industry as if what they're doing is

something very magical or very difficult.

It's actually not.

But when we start the conversation with saying, oh, we are the

content providers, right?

You, you already put yourself in a hole.

You have defined yourself in a box.

And my challenge to everyone is why are you not the platform?

Why are you not the first place, the first destination that people

come to when they think about news?

I want Washington Post to be.

the place where people come and the first app they open when they have a curiosity

about something in the world, right?

So that's my challenge.

Number one to everybody who is dealing with this problem is do not let the world

frame you go find your own audience.

Go build your own audience.

Give them the experience.

This is not rocket science.

This is just simple engineering.

You guys have done the hard work of journalism, right?

No matter what happens, at the end of the day, computers and AI

cannot do the hardcore journalism.

That will always be like, you have all the power, just build the container around it.

People will come to you, and if you don't, then you will exactly end up in that

spot, which is you end up becoming content suppliers to somebody else's platform.

And those platforms, as good as they are, they have very, you know, and they're not.

Evil by design.

They have very little business incentive to promote you.

Right?

Like if I am on apple News, Instagram, TikTok, it's great.

Like people understand the brand.

It's like a lead generation, right?

But what is your strategy to get people back to your own and

operated to become subscribers?

Do you have a content strategy and business strategy where

you're giving some of it?

Almost like you would do in an advertisement, you know, a

trailer of a movie, and then what do you do to get them back?

And people have just not really spent too much time thinking

about that whole life cycle.

But I, let me just push on that a little bit.

Is, I think one of the central questions that, that, that brings up is.

Is that keeping up with user behavior?

Because like anyone who operates in a market, right?

Like you, when you get into a market, I always say the market's

gonna tell you what it wants.

You might, it might just not be what you want to hear.

Right?

And it seems to me very clear with the various developments that ai, is,

you know, is ha have any already, the reason people are, the reason chat

BT it has has gotten unbelievable adoption so quickly, right?

Is because.

People prefer this.

People prefer to get the answer.

They don't wanna click and go to someone's website like they're voting with

their, their, their swipes or whatever.

And it might not be what people, what, what publishers or anyone

operating on the internet want to hear, but the people building these

systems are driven by data, right?

And the data is clearly showing.

That this is what people want and the entire you, you have to respond

to what people, so my question is, and this is the sort of give me

the news experience in three years.

If publishers want, people want these people to not just be going

to the platforms and say, give me whatever I need to know, or whatever.

Like, let's leave this the content aside.

'cause they ha like, let's just assume the content is, is top-notch and everything.

How are they going to, what is the news experience like that?

Is differentiated and is attractive enough to people to not take the lowest

common denominator, the easiest option.

the kind of good news in this is people are actually telling you how

they want their news, so all we have to do is make sure that we offer

it to them in that format, right?

Somebody else took in billions of dollars of VC money.

Ran GPUs created this LLM technology and created God knows how many billions

in this to tell you, ah, look, this is how people want to interact with news.

So our CHOP's like really easy now the way I see it, right?

So this is the reason why we made ask the post ai, it's like all multi-term and

conversational, but going three to five years now, let's answer that question.

news has two aspects and this is like.

Somebody who's two years into this industry making

quantifying it a little bit.

News does two things.

It tells you what is important and it tells you why it is important.

Right?

When we would open our newspapers, when we still had print, and I actually still do,

'cause I love print, I, it, it relaxes me

Here.

Here.

Have any distractions of my phone and we, I love the print paper for that.

I almost feel like there is a generation of digital detox.

You know, people like me who would probably subscribe more to print because

It's a trend.

No, no.

This is, this is a documented trend.

But see what happened at that time on, we would open and it'll tell

us everything that is important in the world and why now that what is

gone away, what is on Twitter, what is on Instagram, what is on TikTok?

What is in my WhatsApp messages?

I already know what is important, okay?

For the most part, then the Y is something that we still surface.

The why is why somebody would come to a newspaper and read a full

article about, what's happening in the White House and p text it to

get into the details of it, right?

Yeah.

So if we focus on the why, which now I believe fundamentally nobody

other than journalists can do the smartest people on the earth.

They can take any topic and talk in five, 600 words in details about it.

Like, that's amazing.

But not every way is equal.

How silly it is to assume that one person like wrote an article for 800 words

and there are a hundred million people who had the same curiosity, who had no

further follow up questions, like it fit them all, like one size fit them all.

That is so silly, and this is why we see Chad, GPT, and Gemini and these type of.

interfaces that are curiosity driven, that are question driven, succeed because

they let people follow their own path.

They give them enough information.

But as a follow up, you can say, but wait, I really don't get this.

Can you go deeper into that topic for me?

Now, if you look at the Israel Kaza War for a 20-year-old.

You probably need to spend few hours giving them context why this is happening,

what is the importance of it, how did this all come about versus somebody you are

and my age, who already has accumulated a lifetime, context around these topics.

Right.

Yes.

We've read the, we've read the same article like 50 times over

the course of 30 years, basically.

we've read our history books, we know what happened in World War, we

know how these countries were formed.

We understand colonialism.

There's, it is so multi-dimensional, right?

But that is the reason why these kids generally kids.

Our going towards these type of platforms first is because

we are not able to serve them.

That's why we made, you know, ask the post, made it multi turn.

We let it go.

You know, where people want to go.

And we see with data and we have done some studies with the university,

we will publish that one very soon.

It has actually led to more consumption of news.

So people who use it, like properly use it and are coming.

Spending time with it.

They actually consume Washington Post more.

They go to more and more different sections.

'cause we are not sending them away.

We are basically answering their questions, getting them more curious,

and now they want to know more.

I, and that's where we need to be in the three to five years as a media industry.

This one size fits all as the article.

I think that needs to go away.

I

so you think so lemme just jump in because I'm, I'm obsessed with,

with, with webpages and the 700 word inverted pyramid article, having

written many of them in my life.

They're imperfect.

I mean, the 700 word inverted pyramid article came from the

limitations of of, of physical print.

You go back to the printing press, I mean, it came from column inches, right?

There was scarcity.

I mean, anyone who has written for, I kind of miss it because like if

you're writing for like a magazine, like you've got, you've got.

Specifics, you're trying to cut out little words in digital.

Like you, you can just go on forever.

And that's why, I think I, I actually like print because constraints,

can lead to better, products.

But the shipping a one size fit fits all article.

That is a hard for, that's hard for me to believe that in 700 words

or, or is gonna be the case in, in, in three, in three to five years.

I just don't see it.

everything is customized.

Everything is like on demand.

the needs of you.

It are different than the needs of me.

And they're very different from a 20-year-old who, who just found out about

like the, the Gaza, Israel conflict.

And to me, I compare it to like, choose your own adventure.

I used to love those books as a kid, you know, you could go in different

directions and you could go deep or you could just skip ahead to the end.

give me an idea of what a news article is like in three to five years.

And then we'll come back in three to five years and see if it's the case.

I think the news article, you actually get more free.

You can write a whole lot more.

You're not constrained by seven, 800 words.

Mm-hmm.

I think the future is if you write literally a book, when you think

about a topic, go ahead, write a book.

If you think about a complex topic and you want to do stick figure animation,

do the stick figure animation.

If your art, your skill is making a video or making a podcast, do that.

Let that get fed into AI and let people consume it the

way they want to consume it.

Right.

So I think it frees up people a whole lot more 'cause we are now outside the

restriction of these print columns.

So will somebody ever read your original piece in its entirety?

I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that, but I do

some percentage will, some people want the package, and I get that.

But that, to me, it's like necessary but insufficient.

Like some people wanna see the background information.

Like for me, sometimes when I, I, I'm like a nerd, right?

And like I want.

I want to see like the actual transcript.

I wanna see the original.

Sometimes I read news articles and they keep like describing like these things and

I'm like, well, why can't I just see it?

Why aren't you just showing me the thing?

Because I wanna like query it.

Like what?

Like I'm a fairly

Just show me.

like I can do this myself.

Yeah.

I think the news article, right, like the point I'm trying to make is like.

I think it gets bigger, it gets more freer, it gets mixed modality.

It basically becomes what you as a person are good at in storytelling, right?

What is your special skill and your special art of storytelling?

You just do it in that and you get more free 'cause you're no longer by print.

So there is no one size fit, all consumption, and there is

no one size fit all creation.

Even creation doesn't have to be one size fit all.

Of course, somebody somewhere would either invent technology, of course, with people

and editors in the middle to say, okay, I got this one hour video from Brian and

I need to turn this into a six column article for my Sunday special edition.

Right?

Sure.

We will have the technology help you do that, but at least

you and I are now free to.

Completely practice our skill and our art.

So this is more, is more type of world.

I see this as a world where you kind of get a lot more unshackled.

Yeah, for sure.

So let's talk about the interface layer, right?

Because you know, you, you were at, at Apple working on Siri

all the way back in like 2008.

Was it

Yeah, we, it was an independent company, 2008 and nine.

We sold it to Apple in 2010.

Right.

So like you've been, and, and just to be clear, like you've been working on ai,

you have a degree in AI from like 2005.

So like, you, you go back, this is not like a, a recent sort of thing.

There's a lot of like, you know, you're not an AI prompt engineer.

Exactly.

so tell me about what that experience and how that informs.

Now, all these years later, how you think about interface and particularly the role

that audio, will serve in on the interface layer, because I'm always, look, I don't

have a, I don't have a mouse right now, but like, you know, like a lot of the

way we, interface with information is.

To me going to change completely in three to five years.

And I also add to that, thinking about the screens.

Like the screens are a scourge.

I don't think anyone gets, very few people get to the end of

the day and say, you know, this was, this was a really good day.

I wish I spent more time looking at my phone and scrolling on my

phone, like on the couch, that that would've made it a better day.

And so inevitably, I always think, you know, we're gonna look back at this era.

Like, for instance, I'll, I'll just go, like when I walk around New

York City, I think about, 'cause New York City's a very analog city.

You're in New York right now, right?

Like it's a very analog city.

'cause I think about, I've, I've lived there since, 1999 and I think if I

were to tra transport from 1999 to today, I would walk around New York

City and be like, it's not that d.

The biggest thing that would stand out to me is everyone walking around

looking at their phones, nearly getting run over by, Ubers instead of taxis.

So that would be different, that would stand out to me, and it's just

hard for me to, to not think that the way we interact with information

is not going to be completely different in three to five years.

Yeah, Not Ubers, but self-driving.

Vamos and Ubers.

Well, we don't have them in New York yet

for obvious reasons.

it's a topic for another podcast, but.

they're really good.

They're much more safer.

The math and the stat and the, you know, I had friends in 2003

and five when I was working on ai.

I specialized in natural language, so I went the path

of Siri and I had friends who.

Specialized in self-driving.

'cause this was a big DARPA project.

this was sponsored research and I know in 2005 and six they had the

cars that could drive from New York to New Jersey and back on their own.

So this tech, that technology is also very

It's regulatory and insurance that is like, you

Uh, the world will work it out.

But coming back to the Siri question, right.

I got contacted by the founders of Siri.

Adam Chare, he was the main engineering head behind it.

And I was very curious and I went and met with them and I interviewed

with them and we had to, you know, do code exercise and everything.

'cause I was a young college grad at that time, but it was a very easy sell.

Right.

How many people in the world are actually using computer right now?

Very few.

What's really holding them back?

Well, you kind of have to learn how to use computers, right?

You have to understand the mouse and the clicks and these design paradigms

and minimize, like, I still try and get my dad to maximize and minimize the

web window, and it fails every time.

You know, it's almost a joke of like, parents are the only people

who know three different ways to insert the USB in the wrong end.

Yeah.

But if you start talking about voice, if

you start

talking to a computer.

you're talking to a computer, everybody on this planet can talk.

They will have a different language, but at the heart of

it, everybody knows how to talk.

And that was it.

That was the whole promise of series.

Just talk to your computer, tell it what to do.

You could buy movie tickets, you could book restaurants, you

could call a cab, you could order food, you could do shopping.

I have gone to movies, you know, that I used, like when we were sitting the

app at, we had this full integration with Fandango and movie tickets.

I would just use to buy movie tickets and go.

I would use, just voice to book a restaurant and, you know, go for

dinner and then have, make sure the movie times align after that.

So voice is really free.

It, it just literally enables all of the planet to use computers.

So the way we think about it, the way we thought about it at that time is, yes,

it's great, it's technology and it, it should, you know, be in everyone's hand.

But really the core motivation of all of this was this really frees up

all of the humanity to use computers.

Wouldn't that be awesome?

And when I look at that world and I come over to news, it is

not that very different, right?

People want information.

People are curious if you are forcing them to go down the design patterns of.

getting an iPad and learning how to use a browser or use their app and there

is no consistency behind these apps.

Every app looks different, then of course, they're going to use less and less of it.

Right?

Like now, if we do the same thing that applied to us in 2007, we

bring it all the way to news and say, this is just another modality.

If you wanna click, if you wanna read a full article, please read a full article.

Okay?

If you want to hear a podcast.

Hear a full podcast.

but if you want something that is more conversational, we have an option for you.

Even in the world of when you think about, you know, single unit that fits all.

When we, when I say no one size fits all, I don't just mean text.

We are actually taking that paradigm and blowing it apart in Washington, Paul, and,

I don't know when this podcast will come out, but hopefully by then we would've

released our AI podcast, which is, the AI system for Washington Post knows what

are the things that are you are most interested in and creates almost like

a personalized daily podcast for you.

Okay.

AI voice.

Within AI voice, it is based on what you read and what your topics are

and what's happening in the world.

'cause our personalization model is not a silo.

We use like a Twin Towers model, which knows what's happening in the world and

what your interests are and various does.

But even in that podcast, Brian, we are not gonna say, oh, I know it.

I know it all.

I'm just gonna give you like eight minutes of what you want.

You will be able to interrupt that podcast and ask it questions.

You will

so it's, it's giving me an overview of like the latest, like Gaza,

Israel, and I'm like, wait a second.

What, why, why, what is the relationship between like Egypt and, and Hamas?

Like, why aren't they, why, why does Egypt like, you know, whatever.

Like, it's something like, I, I would be able to say that

and they, it, it would change.

Yeah.

You will be able to bring the voice driven, ask the post into

the middle of that podcast.

Okay.

Interrupt the host, get your questions answered, and then

go back to your podcast.

'cause once again, one size doesn't fit all.

one size might not even fit for you in different times of the day.

You know, you could have forgotten things and you just want to talk about it.

so this is almost like the long answer also is like, why is voice so important?

Because we can all talk, and if I have a curiosity in my

head, I want to make it easy.

At a product level for people to ask that question, get that need

satisfied, and maybe they exit.

Like that's the downside of it.

By the way.

You know, the world of internet is all around engagement metrics and sometimes

when you answer people's question, they kind of leave you a little bit too soon.

You don't get to show them ads.

Yeah.

I am fine with that.

Right?

Like it's a value exchange.

We need to do

ads are friction.

I mean, ads are friction.

This is why, you know, Silicon Valley's typical.

I'm gonna speak in complete generalities, typical.

aversion to ads only because I've seen it like so often.

Like I always joke like the first, the first step of like a technology

company, running advertising is the vowel that they will never run advertising.

It's like along the sort of, it's like a Kubler Ross kind of, you know,

we saw this, we've we're seeing this play out in real time with Sam Altman.

You know,

Yeah,

well,

eventually they're gonna, they're gonna stick ads in there because,

you know, they get over the friction because like the math is the math.

I I mean, the other ironic part is.

Silicon Valley's built on advertisement, right?

That's how Google made its money and seeded.

A lot of companies in Silicon Valley were people in Google who made a lot of monies

and they broke away and they funded other companies and so on and so forth, right?

It's all

But I will say this, having spoken to a lot of them over the years, they used to

always talk about turning on the revenue spigot with ads, which I always, always,

as someone, it was a media person.

I always found that kind of hilarious because like when you don't control

the interface layer, you can't like.

Say things like, turn on the revenue spigot.

Like you have to go out there and eat what you kill.

but tell me about like, so the conversational part, 'cause I want

to tie this into the voice because chat BT came out three years ago.

It came out with as a conversational interface.

AI as you, you've been in this world, like has existed for a long time.

You know, Google had all this, and to me, like the real sort

of secret sauce of chat, BT was that conversational interface.

I used to cover the early search, industry, and I always thought

that AskJeeves was a great model, you know, because it was.

It was basically a differentiated product to, and a differentiated

pro approach to 10 blue links.

And the problem was they didn't have ai,

Yeah.

the flaw.

but chat, CBT made this thing conversational.

Okay.

And, and it exploded.

And I think that's related.

Like, I don't think if they, they chose a different, I

don't know if that's a modality.

I don't, I don't like, but like if they chose a different approach,

I don't know if it would've been such a breakout success.

yeah, it's, it is the scale problem, right?

Like the tech industry has a scale problem at a different level because pre

LLM technology, doing conversational.

More still very algorithmic driven and like what we call

manual algorithmic, right?

Like we had AI in it, but you kind of have to do a lot of templating and logic,

so it'll always sound very machining.

And it'll never be natural.

This is what LLMs inherently unlock, is the conversational ability.

'cause they have been trained on these, you know, all of the

internet, so they know how people write, they know how people talk.

They actually know less about how people talk.

When people complain, oh, AI is too verbose.

Well, it's because what we have fed it is a lot of our post stuff

that was printed on the internet.

Once it starts to get a lot of audio, a lot of podcast, a lot of talking, you will

see the LLMs evolve and they will become even more TSE and better in conversations.

So this is a, you know, that's the reason why, the older version of Siri, you know,

when we even started the conversational part was just not natural and LLMs.

Inherently unlock it,

Yeah, so.

Tell me about how this is gonna ha end up affect changing, like what

the news product experience is like if, if voice is going to be a major.

Form of interface, like when people are like, they're gonna be using voice

and like, it's not gonna be using voice to get a bunch of, to get like a 700

word article, like spit out at them.

Like, I mean, it's, it's, it's going to be conversational.

It's like voice on voice, right?

And, and look, the AI voice right now, like in my view, like you take

a hit now, I don't know whether that is, Just because it's new.

Like for instance, I just saw, the, iHeart Media, you know, they're having their,

DJs say guaranteed human to basically make clear to people that this is not an

AI, voice, which is interesting to me.

And I don't know whether that is just.

Now, like as a human who speaks a lot, into a microphone, like I'm

hoping that Human Premium does, does maintain for, for a lot.

And I know that I will be, I, I will be accompanied by robot voices too.

but how.

Let's just talk about that for a little bit.

Is that just a temporary phenomenon?

Because I find just having done a lot of podcasts in my, in my life,

that sort of voice, the human voice has a lot of connection to people.

it's, it's qualitatively different than.

Then print.

Like I've, I've done a lot of, and I print text.

I've, I, I write a lot.

Right.

But I've noticed there's a complete difference if I speak with someone

who has read my articles but not listened to podcasts versus someone

who has just listened to podcasts.

The, the connection is absolutely different.

Yeah, I, I think you're probably right for a decent amount of time

Okay.

until AI goes quantum and then all better off,

Give me 10 years Vanid.

we have a lot of time for that, but I do think this is like a product

market fit type of question, right.

there will be a group of people who will always prefer the human nuance,

the uncertainty, the unnatural pauses, the ability to say, I don't

know, you know, and explore together.

And there will be products where I want just a briefing, right?

Yeah.

Then I might just choose AI over there.

Yeah, that's true.

It's like, it, it's like the, you know, the, I think about weather, right?

You can get weather.

It's like such a, it's like the most commoditized information, right?

I mean, first of all, the government co collects it, like all the other,

like, but you know, you can easily get the, the weather channel still exists.

Yeah.

I, I just don't see, you know, my mindset is more, is more, right?

That's the world I live in, right?

When technological advances happen, human beings decide

whether this is a value exchange.

And they decide to use it or not use it, right?

Like crypto, for the longest time, you know, not so much, you know, the majority

of the world did not get into it.

But when you look at ai, the majority of the world got into it, right?

That is because they're getting some value exchange out of it, and we should

recognize that as media industry into it.

It doesn't mean we stop doing what we are doing, right?

That that's not the case.

Speaking on voice, right?

Like I just had a great experience in Amtrak yesterday of all places when I

was coming up to DC we have a cafe car where you can go buy sandwiches and

drinks and you know, beer and stuff.

They have a hot dog too.

they were not a bad hot dog.

I haven't,

I'm

mean, it's a microwave hotdog, but

yeah, I'm very wary of doing hot dogs on train.

You know, I just feel like it'll never end well.

they could have used.

Automated machine voice to say, Hey, the cafe car is open,

please come and get your stuff.

But the guy announcing it, he literally made cafe car sound like a

party where we've got shit made for you and I got this wine and I got

that red for you and I got chips.

And if you don't like wine, I got beer for you that goes with the hot dog, you know?

And I was like, man, I gotta get to that cafe car.

This guy is so

Yeah, we're all gonna become Southwest Air pilots basically.

But isn't that awesome?

Right?

Like now the premium on the human right, like imagine the premium on that human

actually doing something in the moment and infecting us with this energy.

computers are a long way from doing that, right?

Like they are still tools for us to leave.

Live our best life.

Yeah.

That's how I use them.

and that's how we should use them.

That's how, even in media, we should think about ai.

It is helping us get better at everything we do.

So let's do that better.

Give it to our audience.

Don't take it away.

'cause then they're going to other platforms.

So, so explain to me how will, will, so will voice be the default

for starting a news interaction?

Like will people

think so.

I, no,

I think it's still the back to the what and the why, right?

If what is important and why it's important.

There are definitely days I want surprise and delight.

I want to open up a newspaper.

I want to see what this really smart editor thought is a really

important story that the world should.

Right.

So I, I really do want that expert opinion and the expert curation.

It's, it's like being a dj, right?

I, you can think about it there in finite number of auto DJs possible

for god knows how many years, right?

Like 30, 40 years.

You could have programmatic DJs, you could have these computer and software

that could run an entire club for you or an entire playlist for you.

But human DJs have never gone away.

That value of having an expert blow your mind, you know, still exists.

So even in the world of news, whether you do print or whether you do app

or iPad, you want the expert view.

And there are times you don't.

There are times you come in with your question and voice just happens to be

the most easiest mode for you to ask that question, get an answer back and move on.

Yeah.

So I feel like with ai, let's talk about AI for a little bit.

so I feel like with ai, at least in the early part, It's, it,

it's been good at summarization.

it's been good at, versioning, you know, like, so here's a bunch of texts.

Give me a version of this.

A as, you know, a presentation for the notebook LM is, is now pretty good

at this and it'll get better, right?

I think the age agentic stuff is not there.

It's just not like a, I am not, I'm not holding my breath.

For this century to be able to book a, a vacation, through ag agentic

ai, I, I would take that bet.

I just think that there's too many, there's too many variables in it, and this

is the use case that a lot of the people building these systems have put out.

And I don't think it's necessarily gonna have, like, I think we'll have full

self-driving before we actually have it.

Same for a robot who actually is able to fill and empty the dishwasher.

In, not in a controlled setting.

I just don't think there's too, I think a lot of the things, it's like

a lot of these systems, it seems like, like to me, need things to be very

structured in such a way to be able to, to operate and my like uber fear, right?

Is that society will have to conform to these machines and

become less manic and chaotic.

Like, you know, like I see delivery robots all over Miami Beach stranded

and like confused because it's actually easier, I believe to have a self-driving

car go from point to point because you know where the roads are and everything.

Sidewalks are like messy.

There are dogs, dogs are very unpredictable, and the robots, if a dog

comes near one of these delivery robots, the, the delivery robot freaks out.

and I don't know where I was going with that, but like EE explain to me like

where, where you see that, that, that going when it comes to like the media

experience and then I'll let you go.

the, let's say my brain's also now firing in 10,000 different directions

on the world of just AgTech.

I would take the other side of that

Okay.

right?

I do think there will be tasks that you can do with the Gentech ai.

And we will learn very fast which ones can be done now and which ones will

come five, six years down the line.

But I think it's gonna happen much faster than you imagine.

And I say that because in the earlier versions of Siri that we build, you know,

we did planning, this is simple planning.

And I would say, Hey, I want to go on a date tomorrow.

And then Siri would've come back and said.

Here is a suggestion for a restaurant and this is a movie, right?

Mm-hmm.

All of those type of interactions, they can start to learn from you, you know?

What do you mean when you say this?

when you want to book a vacation, they can come up with a nary and

it's not gonna be one and done.

Like this is a conversation.

You are talking to machine.

So it's gonna come back and say, Hey Brian, based on your history, I

see you like a hotel by the beach.

Always.

Do you want me to keep looking for that?

Yeah.

Okay.

Go look for a me, keep it under $600, right?

this is all doable.

This is no longer rocket science.

We have the MCP protocols and just general old API style.

You know what a software service can provide.

You turn that into natural language, right?

So when you look at, for example, a hotel booking website, it

brings you all these options.

It is not a stretch of imagination to say, Hey ai, can you translate this into

a paragraph for me so you can tell me?

And the AI could come back and say like, Brian, I got nothing around the beach,

but I got something from the beach.

And the reviews say the views are not that bad.

Would this be a good compromise for you?

And you would say yes, and it would go ahead and block that for you.

So agents doing commerce for you, it's gonna happen faster than you think.

'cause this is the sucky part of the internet, right?

Like I always say, this is.

And in Washington Post, I've gone on stage and said that let AI

do the sucky part of your job.

The sucky part of a vacation is planning the damn vacation.

Right.

So I would very happily do that.

The sucky

some people like the, some people like the vacation and I know you gotta go,

but like, there's just a real quick, I think a big question always in journalism,

in the news when it comes to AI is.

Is AI gonna write the news right now?

AI is used to summarize, financial filings and, and all kinds of different

things by, by, by news organizations.

you know, business Insider for instance, now is like tiptoeing

into like an experiment.

They are, you know, they're very cautious about it, that they're

gonna have an editor look at it, but that they're going to have.

Specific pieces where that that is gonna be created by ai.

Where do you stand on the ability, of AI to serve a primary role

as the creator of news content?

I think you nailed it over there, right?

There are things that we do, which can be done by ai, cheaper and better than

us, or at the same level of quality.

And, why would you not?

Spend time doing the harder things.

And AI cannot do investigative journalism and AI cannot do this.

Deep analysis and AI cannot have a human opinion, right?

Like when we have our opinion section, it's not the fact that they are saying

some opinion that matters the most.

It's the fact that a human had connected bunch of those dots

and written that opinion, right?

So more is more.

There will be a world where AI will write a lot of stuff.

There will be a world where AI will write a lot of stuff and some human

will edit it, and there will be a world where a human will write

everything and there will not be an AI involved anywhere in the middle.

So there is no one size fits all.

Again, Brian there.

It's all going to happen at the same time and we as consumers

get to choose it, right?

Like, Hey, here's the beautiful part of it.

Let's say that financial report thing.

I read this day in, day out and there is no damn analysis in it, and

I buy that stock and I lose money.

What do you think I'm gonna do as a human?

I'm gonna like, I'm done.

I'm going to Brian Morrissey, my financial advisor.

'cause what he wrote actually made sense to me.

So don't forget, we are humans on the other side consuming it too.

We get a choice.

Got it.

Awesome.

Well, I think you, I think you hit on the theme of this episode, which is

more, is more, and that the, one size fits all era is, is definitely ending.

I could have done a Joe Rogan style three hour podcast, but

we're gonna leave it there.

Veit, this was a, this was a real pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me, Brian.

Glad to be here.