1 00:00:09,769 --> 00:00:11,045 Brian: Welcome to The Rebooting Show. 2 00:00:11,085 --> 00:00:12,275 I'm Brian Morrissey. 3 00:00:12,335 --> 00:00:16,055 I'm spending January on some preview episodes of the year ahead. 4 00:00:16,115 --> 00:00:18,915 this is poised to be a pivotal year in the media business. 5 00:00:18,915 --> 00:00:26,325 I mean, already the year has begun, unfortunately, with cuts at the Washington Post, at Vox Media, at HuffPost. 6 00:00:26,385 --> 00:00:28,805 and this tracks with a lot of my conversations that I'm having. 7 00:00:29,285 --> 00:00:35,215 2024, wasn't a great year for the industry and 2025 is set to be another year of retrenchment. 8 00:00:35,446 --> 00:00:38,336 While at the same time retooling for a vastly changed environment. 9 00:00:38,726 --> 00:00:42,026 And I don't think there's any use sugarcoating that exactly. 10 00:00:42,126 --> 00:00:47,496 but it's hard not to contrast the state of affairs, with that in the tech industry and particularly the 11 00:00:47,496 --> 00:00:52,016 biggest tech platforms, now often called the mag seven or magnificent seven. 12 00:00:52,506 --> 00:01:00,376 These companies, saw their market caps grow 63 percent in 2024, as they rode the wave of excitement about AI. 13 00:01:01,206 --> 00:01:02,356 Meanwhile, publishers. 14 00:01:02,886 --> 00:01:06,296 Fred about a I further compressing their already compressed businesses. 15 00:01:06,396 --> 00:01:13,576 the mag seven accounted for fully 75 percent of the S and P five hundreds growth last year, just to give you a sense 16 00:01:13,606 --> 00:01:18,466 of just how powerful the tech industry has become in this country and big tech. 17 00:01:18,493 --> 00:01:23,963 Has become an entrenched power center, no matter how much cosplaying it's many vocal cheerleaders on acts like 18 00:01:23,963 --> 00:01:27,803 to do about how unfairly treated they are by the quote unquote elites. 19 00:01:28,143 --> 00:01:32,753 and I often say media is downstream of big tech, which controls the distribution and, 20 00:01:32,753 --> 00:01:38,093 also eats up most of the monetization as the duopoly has expanded to an oligopoly. 21 00:01:38,593 --> 00:01:44,323 so to get a read on the year ahead in big tech, I had to turn to Alex Kantrowitz, who writes the Big Technology 22 00:01:44,323 --> 00:01:50,533 Newsletter and hosts a podcast of the same name, in order to discuss, what we should expect, and get his analysis 23 00:01:50,583 --> 00:01:53,870 of, the different moves that, the big technology companies will be making. 24 00:01:54,180 --> 00:01:57,590 We discussed in this episode, the slightly unseemly kowtowing to 25 00:01:57,590 --> 00:02:00,450 the incoming Trump administration we've seen from Meta and others. 26 00:02:00,465 --> 00:02:07,243 Open AIs, wonky economics, Alex's, surprising bet on AI companions being a breakout, uh, AI AI product, 27 00:02:07,583 --> 00:02:11,458 why X has proven its doomsayers, wrong, and, the bright spot of 28 00:02:11,508 --> 00:02:15,218 individual creators amid a lot of this, media industry doom and gloom. 29 00:02:15,718 --> 00:02:20,138 I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Alex, I did, be sure to check out the Big Technology newsletter and podcast, I'm 30 00:02:20,138 --> 00:02:24,798 going to include links to it in the show notes, But first, thank you to EX.CO for 31 00:02:24,798 --> 00:02:28,111 sponsoring these year in preview episodes that will run throughout the month. 32 00:02:28,541 --> 00:02:35,121 EX.CO is the machine learning video platform trusted by leading media groups like Advanced Local, the 33 00:02:35,121 --> 00:02:38,481 Arena Group, Hearst Newspapers, NASDAQ, News Corp, and more. 34 00:02:38,911 --> 00:02:42,924 Last week, EX.CO announced the expansion of its award winning ad server to 35 00:02:42,924 --> 00:02:46,914 upgrade programmatic auctions in CTV and digital out of home environments. 36 00:02:47,404 --> 00:02:51,821 The solution, powers media owners to drive higher revenue through smarter. 37 00:02:52,211 --> 00:02:55,411 Automated ad auctions using a machine learning based 38 00:02:55,471 --> 00:02:59,241 yield engine that dynamically optimizes auctions in real time. 39 00:02:59,741 --> 00:03:03,361 outdated programmatic pipes, fragmented technologies, and missed revenue 40 00:03:03,361 --> 00:03:08,021 opportunities have plagued CTV and digital out of home media owners for far too long. 41 00:03:08,391 --> 00:03:14,266 Try EX.CO's expanded ad server today to generate more revenue than you ever have before. 42 00:03:14,446 --> 00:03:19,078 Before, get in touch with EX.CO's Media experts by visiting Ex.Co. 43 00:03:19,078 --> 00:03:21,418 That is E X dot CO. 44 00:03:21,478 --> 00:03:22,888 Thanks so much, Ex.Co. 45 00:03:23,218 --> 00:03:25,483 And now onto my conversation with Alex. 46 00:03:31,486 --> 00:03:33,711 All right, Alex, welcome back to the podcast. 47 00:03:33,711 --> 00:03:37,811 Thanks for joining me for this little look ahead at a big technology. 48 00:03:37,811 --> 00:03:41,501 I thought who better to like, look at the year ahead, the Mr. 49 00:03:41,501 --> 00:03:42,601 Big technology himself. 50 00:03:43,271 --> 00:03:43,891 Alex Kantrowitz: Thank you, Brian. 51 00:03:43,891 --> 00:03:44,541 Great to be here. 52 00:03:45,041 --> 00:03:45,651 Brian: Okay. 53 00:03:45,671 --> 00:03:46,731 So let's get right into it. 54 00:03:46,761 --> 00:03:48,911 I mean, we're coming off like last week. 55 00:03:48,971 --> 00:03:55,751 meta, you know, made waves with, with Mark Zuckerberg coming out and saying the content moderation. 56 00:03:56,251 --> 00:03:59,781 he built is coming down and it was all the media's fault or various 57 00:03:59,781 --> 00:04:02,841 other liberals and it's basically genuflecting, I think, to, to Trump. 58 00:04:02,871 --> 00:04:04,781 I mean, they just killed their D. 59 00:04:04,781 --> 00:04:06,461 I, infrastructure to today. 60 00:04:06,461 --> 00:04:12,021 So I, and they just been making all these kinds of moves, but I want to get into to that part. 61 00:04:12,121 --> 00:04:12,711 right now. 62 00:04:12,721 --> 00:04:17,321 So this seems part of big texts like Trump accommodation. 63 00:04:17,401 --> 00:04:18,451 is that fair to say? 64 00:04:18,451 --> 00:04:20,671 And what are you seeing across all these? 65 00:04:20,821 --> 00:04:22,271 And how will this play out in the year ahead? 66 00:04:22,771 --> 00:04:25,951 Alex Kantrowitz: Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have always played to the political winds. 67 00:04:26,494 --> 00:04:30,034 himself has talked about how basically, He doesn't have any like 68 00:04:30,034 --> 00:04:33,974 real values or morals in terms of like what should be on Facebook. 69 00:04:33,974 --> 00:04:36,084 He just wants to give people what they want. 70 00:04:36,494 --> 00:04:42,074 And I think it was pretty clear in his statement that he saw what people want, wanted in the election in 2024. 71 00:04:42,504 --> 00:04:46,654 And that's Trump and the associated policies and the associated dialogue, 72 00:04:46,704 --> 00:04:49,994 I suppose, and said, okay, well, we're going to go with that. 73 00:04:50,004 --> 00:04:53,531 So that sort of fits his content moderation philosophy. 74 00:04:53,831 --> 00:04:55,491 And of course, there's a lot to be gained. 75 00:04:55,896 --> 00:05:01,647 when it comes to trying to get in the good graces of this administration, which Zuckerberg has seen, which Tim 76 00:05:01,647 --> 00:05:07,097 Cook has definitely seen, he's going to donate to the inauguration, which Jeff Bezos has seen, he's now, you know, he's 77 00:05:07,097 --> 00:05:13,477 going to be best buds with Trump, and which Elon Musk has seen, and they all stand to gain a lot by having the U. 78 00:05:13,477 --> 00:05:13,627 S. 79 00:05:13,627 --> 00:05:20,307 government basically say, we're going to be on your side on the issues that You care about, especially after the last 80 00:05:20,347 --> 00:05:24,067 bunch of years where the U S government has been strongly anti big tech. 81 00:05:24,077 --> 00:05:27,687 And I think that we're, you know, of course the tech clash started under 82 00:05:27,687 --> 00:05:31,167 Trump where we started to talk about like the power of these companies. 83 00:05:31,177 --> 00:05:36,217 And, you know, we just started to see the DOJ and the FTCs to bring cases against them. 84 00:05:36,717 --> 00:05:37,792 but the tides are shifting. 85 00:05:37,812 --> 00:05:43,192 I think the big tech has taken the government's best shot and is still standing and sort of like 86 00:05:43,192 --> 00:05:46,042 the government sees that these companies aren't going away. 87 00:05:46,542 --> 00:05:50,882 And these companies now see an opportunity to change the narrative and change their relationship with the government. 88 00:05:51,382 --> 00:05:55,282 And they're doing what they can, you know, pragmatically to get in Trump's good graces. 89 00:05:55,582 --> 00:05:55,862 Brian: Yeah. 90 00:05:55,902 --> 00:05:59,512 I think sometimes it's, it's almost forgotten that this is how companies sort 91 00:05:59,512 --> 00:06:05,214 of always acted until all of a sudden they sort of became into social activity. 92 00:06:05,214 --> 00:06:11,714 Like that was, that was a, that was a departure from the norm and we're sort of back in the norm. 93 00:06:11,724 --> 00:06:16,314 I mean, companies are not about, they're about delivering shareholder value. 94 00:06:16,594 --> 00:06:17,734 That that's what they do. 95 00:06:17,764 --> 00:06:26,224 They're not about furthering causes exactly and I think we got into some kind of a historical period 96 00:06:26,444 --> 00:06:32,914 probably between 2017 and like into, I guess, up to the election, but I think it was sort of petering out. 97 00:06:32,999 --> 00:06:33,469 anyway, 98 00:06:33,789 --> 00:06:34,119 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah. 99 00:06:34,229 --> 00:06:40,248 One thing Matt Stoller, had this great tweet where he's, he's like actively watching Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan, which 100 00:06:40,248 --> 00:06:45,068 of course, Zuckerberg went on to sort of herald the end of DEI at Facebook. 101 00:06:45,318 --> 00:06:48,895 And Stoller says, Matt, Mark Zuckerberg doesn't care about any of this stuff. 102 00:06:49,140 --> 00:06:55,160 He wants one, an end to the FTC antitrust suit against the firm to removing the consent degree that bans 103 00:06:55,160 --> 00:07:01,070 the targeting of children and three, the government to legalize mass copyright violations for AI training models. 104 00:07:01,220 --> 00:07:02,860 And it's like, yeah, that's it. 105 00:07:02,980 --> 00:07:03,760 It's pretty simple. 106 00:07:03,770 --> 00:07:06,640 This is a business and this is Zuckerberg doing business things. 107 00:07:06,795 --> 00:07:07,525 Brian: Yeah, that's right. 108 00:07:07,615 --> 00:07:10,365 It's almost kind of silly to be like debating the sort of merits of it. 109 00:07:10,365 --> 00:07:14,685 Cause it's, it's, that's what it, that's what it comes down to, but let's, let's 110 00:07:14,685 --> 00:07:19,835 actually bring that into, you know, how, how much big tech is now embedded. 111 00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:25,180 With the government, because, you know, we're seeing, and maybe that's not necessarily big tech, but tech 112 00:07:25,180 --> 00:07:30,720 overall, let's just say, because there's now becoming just like there was in the finance industry. 113 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:35,620 And when Goldman Sachs was government sacks, and there was just a regular sort of pipeline between the treasury 114 00:07:35,620 --> 00:07:41,270 department and Goldman Sachs that, you know, people from the technology industry are now heading to Washington. 115 00:07:41,270 --> 00:07:44,860 They're part of this, this very strange MAGA coalition. 116 00:07:44,910 --> 00:07:52,039 I mean, I think it's very interesting because we saw the debates over, The use of H 1B, visas that erupted where, there's 117 00:07:52,069 --> 00:07:58,599 clear fissures between what, you know, the, the investors, the people that from the tech industry who invested in the 118 00:07:58,599 --> 00:08:03,700 Trump campaign, and, you know, the, the, the grassroots MAGA, America First people. 119 00:08:03,958 --> 00:08:10,018 so, I mean, how do you, I mean, it seems inevitable that, that the technology industry overall is going 120 00:08:10,018 --> 00:08:14,843 to be, you know, More enmeshed with the government because the technology 121 00:08:14,843 --> 00:08:19,213 industry is, is one of our, one of the nation's biggest competitive advantages. 122 00:08:19,713 --> 00:08:20,193 Alex Kantrowitz: absolutely. 123 00:08:20,193 --> 00:08:21,600 And so I think it really begins. 124 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:25,173 I mean, there's so much opportunity there for the tech industry to sell into government. 125 00:08:25,632 --> 00:08:28,112 To have government bless some of the policies that they want. 126 00:08:28,112 --> 00:08:31,452 And we just talked about some of the policies that Zuckerberg is interested. 127 00:08:31,502 --> 00:08:35,352 And this sort of combining of private enterprise and government, right? 128 00:08:35,352 --> 00:08:38,962 Sort of like kind of central part of the American system. 129 00:08:39,322 --> 00:08:42,702 only seems like it's going to get, you know, much more, enmeshed 130 00:08:42,702 --> 00:08:45,602 as the tech industry and the Trump administration get closer. 131 00:08:45,952 --> 00:08:48,262 of course there was a period within Silicon Valley where all 132 00:08:48,262 --> 00:08:51,762 the employees protested, military contracts, which is just one part. 133 00:08:52,242 --> 00:08:54,687 Of, cloud computing's relationship with the U. 134 00:08:54,687 --> 00:08:54,837 S. 135 00:08:54,837 --> 00:08:55,297 government. 136 00:08:55,667 --> 00:08:59,987 the companies have basically said, like, Stop protesting or we're going to fire you. 137 00:09:00,017 --> 00:09:04,867 I know that Google has fired some people who were against some of its cloud contracts, with certain governments. 138 00:09:04,867 --> 00:09:10,287 And we also see Microsoft has taken like a pretty strong stance that they were like, we're just going to use our 139 00:09:10,287 --> 00:09:14,547 technology and basically give it to the government for the purposes they want. 140 00:09:14,837 --> 00:09:16,137 And that will make a strong country. 141 00:09:16,407 --> 00:09:22,017 and so I was, I was speaking with the Garmin, last late last year, 142 00:09:22,307 --> 00:09:25,357 and he said, look like we only have about 20 percent of all computing. 143 00:09:25,757 --> 00:09:29,347 That's moved to the cloud and 80 percent that's still being done, 144 00:09:29,467 --> 00:09:33,247 like in servers within companies and governments and agencies. 145 00:09:33,717 --> 00:09:41,047 And his goal is to flip that to go from 20 percent cloud and 80 percent on prem to do 80 percent cloud and 20 percent the rest. 146 00:09:41,447 --> 00:09:42,957 And like, how do you do that? 147 00:09:43,137 --> 00:09:45,317 You move really reluctant. 148 00:09:45,814 --> 00:09:49,236 Organizations, who don't want to change, you move them to change. 149 00:09:49,566 --> 00:09:56,106 And so you can do that by selling into the government and getting them to move a lot of what they do to the cloud. 150 00:09:56,106 --> 00:09:57,796 And that sort of helps you get to that number. 151 00:09:57,796 --> 00:10:05,076 So there's, there's definite advantages to be had for Microsoft, for Google and for Amazon on that front. 152 00:10:05,126 --> 00:10:06,456 And then there's just the obvious stuff. 153 00:10:06,456 --> 00:10:10,236 There's Elon Musk who wants to get SpaceX to take more of a 154 00:10:10,246 --> 00:10:14,272 load for For the government and further advance the space program. 155 00:10:14,272 --> 00:10:15,112 There's Jeff Bezos. 156 00:10:15,112 --> 00:10:17,732 He wants to do the same thing with Blue Origin. 157 00:10:18,022 --> 00:10:19,552 There's even there's meta again. 158 00:10:19,552 --> 00:10:25,332 Part of Zuckerberg's announcement today wasn't only like, you know, we wanted like now pursue the similar policies to Trump. 159 00:10:25,332 --> 00:10:28,632 So please, like, you know, get us, get us these benefits where you can. 160 00:10:28,642 --> 00:10:32,072 But they also say, listen, like we have other governments that are pushing us. 161 00:10:32,282 --> 00:10:33,212 to take down content. 162 00:10:33,212 --> 00:10:33,872 We don't want that. 163 00:10:33,892 --> 00:10:34,642 We don't want to do that. 164 00:10:34,642 --> 00:10:37,262 And we need an ally in the White House and we're going to look to you. 165 00:10:37,392 --> 00:10:42,412 So it's all across the board that these companies and the government are just going to get closer and closer. 166 00:10:42,802 --> 00:10:43,052 Brian: Yeah. 167 00:10:43,052 --> 00:10:49,182 And, and also when you think about AI, right, I mean, I remember, like, I, I wrote a little bit about this last 168 00:10:49,182 --> 00:10:54,347 week and I got, I got a email from, from someone in Europe and then you always get, you always get reminded 169 00:10:54,347 --> 00:10:57,337 when you get an email from someone from Europe about like data privacy stuff. 170 00:10:57,837 --> 00:11:03,457 And to think about like the AI, like, I don't think there's going to be, I don't know what, how the New York 171 00:11:03,457 --> 00:11:09,807 Times lawsuit's going to go, but like, you know, this, we're, we're just very business oriented and we're not like 172 00:11:09,817 --> 00:11:15,117 going to like hold her, you know, we're not, we're not going to get, hung up in, in a lot of, I don't think the data 173 00:11:15,117 --> 00:11:21,437 privacy stuff, but when you think about, and Zuckerberg has mentioned not being able to deploy some of their models 174 00:11:21,467 --> 00:11:27,387 in Europe, and, you know, with all of these advances in AI, it's all based 175 00:11:27,387 --> 00:11:32,797 on a lot of presumptions of things that you can do with data and people's data. 176 00:11:32,797 --> 00:11:38,617 I mean, this example from someone, was was saying, well, if they're like combining a lot of data, 177 00:11:38,697 --> 00:11:43,246 About someone that is violating these data privacy, restrictions. 178 00:11:43,246 --> 00:11:51,036 I'm like, it seems like it's gonna be a mess in Europe when it comes to a I, and deploying a lot of this because one. 179 00:11:51,406 --> 00:11:52,256 Let's be real. 180 00:11:52,286 --> 00:12:00,743 I mean, this tech was not built there and they don't really love the idea of, being so far behind in it, in tech overall. 181 00:12:01,083 --> 00:12:03,813 and to, you know, you're, you know, they regulate, they regulate a lot. 182 00:12:03,903 --> 00:12:06,713 And, that's That's just how they do, do things. 183 00:12:06,713 --> 00:12:10,033 And so that, that gets ironed out on the governmental level. 184 00:12:10,866 --> 00:12:11,016 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah. 185 00:12:11,516 --> 00:12:16,496 Unless you have like, I don't know, maybe a strict lobbying from the U S government and even that probably won't do it. 186 00:12:16,506 --> 00:12:18,441 You're just not going to get this AI stuff. 187 00:12:18,841 --> 00:12:22,031 In Europe, like one of the biggest tells his Apple intelligence, which 188 00:12:22,031 --> 00:12:26,941 does nothing, is not being released in Europe because of data privacy issues. 189 00:12:27,371 --> 00:12:32,051 And I think at least in the near term, the AI that's going to be most useful 190 00:12:32,051 --> 00:12:35,471 to us outside of those of us that use like the chat, GPTs and clouds. 191 00:12:35,971 --> 00:12:39,921 is going to be from companies like Google that will take our Gmail, our 192 00:12:39,931 --> 00:12:43,241 docs, our calendar, and as they've been doing this for a while, right? 193 00:12:43,241 --> 00:12:47,761 You get a flight confirmation in Gmail, it goes on your Google calendar before you even put it there. 194 00:12:48,101 --> 00:12:52,021 so they're going to start to really max this out with Gen AI. 195 00:12:52,261 --> 00:12:56,371 And, You're just not going to be able to use that in Europe, because there's 196 00:12:56,371 --> 00:12:59,411 going to be all these concerns that the European commission will have. 197 00:12:59,411 --> 00:13:01,781 And it's not worth it for these companies to launch there. 198 00:13:02,171 --> 00:13:04,171 If they're going to get hit with these fines. 199 00:13:04,241 --> 00:13:09,831 And it's amazing because every couple of days, it seems like there's another story about a new one, two, three, 200 00:13:09,841 --> 00:13:15,951 5 billion fine that Europe levies on these tech companies, which like at one point, like, it's like, all right, 201 00:13:15,951 --> 00:13:19,141 well, they're not going to, you know, pull out of your countries completely. 202 00:13:19,461 --> 00:13:22,231 but on the other hand, they're like, well, why are we going to launch something new? 203 00:13:22,676 --> 00:13:26,516 If we're just going to be fined, so, and you're not a big enough market to take that risk. 204 00:13:27,116 --> 00:13:27,716 Brian: Yeah. 205 00:13:27,746 --> 00:13:28,156 Alex Kantrowitz: in Europe. 206 00:13:28,656 --> 00:13:33,416 Brian: And, and it's like, I think it's part of the overall, like, you know, the, I guess it's the splinter net. 207 00:13:33,436 --> 00:13:41,196 I know it's, it's beyond internet now, but like, it's not the, the WW of WWWs is kind of gone because there's different, 208 00:13:41,206 --> 00:13:47,286 there's going to be different like versions in a lot of different countries because a lot of, a lot of jurisdictions 209 00:13:47,316 --> 00:13:52,336 because of, of the different like laws and it's not going to be uniform at all. 210 00:13:52,461 --> 00:13:57,205 I forgot, somewhere I read earlier this week about how that was dead, so I'm probably stealing it from there. 211 00:13:57,704 --> 00:14:02,704 Let's talk about who's positioned well in AI in 2025 and who is not. 212 00:14:03,336 --> 00:14:08,315 think there's a case to be made, it seems, that Google is actually really well positioned. 213 00:14:08,325 --> 00:14:13,525 I think, I think the sort of sentiment for Google and AI, like, in 2024, 214 00:14:13,525 --> 00:14:17,545 like, was, it was, it was down and down and then it, like, sort of rose up. 215 00:14:17,565 --> 00:14:23,095 I've, I've actually been impressed by, by, by some of their, their, not, leave aside the AI overviews in search. 216 00:14:23,095 --> 00:14:24,655 I, I'm not impressed by those that much. 217 00:14:25,104 --> 00:14:31,600 But Jev and I like advanced, I've been using that the last like few days and it's really good. 218 00:14:31,660 --> 00:14:35,520 And like some of the, some of the things that notebook LM does, is, 219 00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:38,100 you know, some of it is parlor tricks, but it's, it's pretty good. 220 00:14:38,100 --> 00:14:41,720 And then, you know, just within their products, it's okay. 221 00:14:41,770 --> 00:14:47,440 But I don't know, is, is Google well positioned now compared to like, say an open AI? 222 00:14:47,940 --> 00:14:48,510 Alex Kantrowitz: Yes and no. 223 00:14:48,570 --> 00:14:53,570 I mean, the reason why everybody ragged on Google, all through last year, well, there's really two reasons. 224 00:14:53,600 --> 00:15:00,450 One is they just publicly demonstrated incompetence in building AI products, like the Eat Rocks example or the, you 225 00:15:00,450 --> 00:15:03,750 know, the Founding Fathers who were every race but white, stuff like that. 226 00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:06,530 And, that was embarrassing for them. 227 00:15:06,560 --> 00:15:12,330 I think, like, the real issue for Google is the search situation. 228 00:15:12,740 --> 00:15:15,460 I mean, perplexity hardly ranks right now in the App Store. 229 00:15:15,795 --> 00:15:21,525 That being said, like everyone is aware that search is going to change and search will be offloaded to AI 230 00:15:21,965 --> 00:15:27,285 conversational search engines, or Google will have to just change completely, which changes their business model. 231 00:15:27,285 --> 00:15:28,245 Google's really interesting. 232 00:15:28,245 --> 00:15:31,275 When you speak with them about search, they always give like a. 233 00:15:31,740 --> 00:15:36,820 An answer of like, you know, you ask like a straightforward question, like, do you, did people click more ads? 234 00:15:37,060 --> 00:15:41,290 And they always say people were more engaged in the search results and ask longer questions. 235 00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:44,770 And it's like, yeah, but the ad thing is kind of important to your business. 236 00:15:44,770 --> 00:15:45,330 Don't you think? 237 00:15:45,330 --> 00:15:47,300 And they're like, people did more clicks within the 238 00:15:47,550 --> 00:15:49,865 Brian: You feel like you're in an AI. 239 00:15:49,905 --> 00:15:50,625 So I trust me. 240 00:15:50,625 --> 00:15:54,495 I remember it goes back to my like early reporting days, talking to Google product managers. 241 00:15:54,495 --> 00:15:57,165 I did feel like I had an early experience with talking with AI. 242 00:15:57,986 --> 00:15:58,576 Alex Kantrowitz: Exactly. 243 00:15:58,706 --> 00:16:05,256 So I think that that we shouldn't discount the fact that there is a still somewhat existential threat to 244 00:16:05,256 --> 00:16:09,956 Google when it comes to search and AI search like AI will change search. 245 00:16:09,976 --> 00:16:11,426 Can Google ride that wave? 246 00:16:11,736 --> 00:16:12,606 We don't know yet. 247 00:16:12,616 --> 00:16:17,536 That's why the stock tanked when general generative AI came out is because everybody was aware of that. 248 00:16:18,036 --> 00:16:23,546 And then it just became clear in the aftermath, let's say in the two years following that we weren't just gonna, 249 00:16:24,026 --> 00:16:26,846 you know, take all of our search and put it on chat GPT right away. 250 00:16:26,846 --> 00:16:29,876 Like this was going to take a while, maybe it's going to take years. 251 00:16:30,176 --> 00:16:34,446 it's really hard to sort of dislodge a longstanding consumer behavior. 252 00:16:34,886 --> 00:16:36,716 And so that's why Google has bounced back. 253 00:16:36,716 --> 00:16:39,786 The revenue looks amazing in the middle of this AI moment. 254 00:16:39,826 --> 00:16:41,986 But again, it's like all about the long game on search. 255 00:16:41,986 --> 00:16:42,776 So that's the biggest. 256 00:16:42,951 --> 00:16:44,131 drawback for Google. 257 00:16:44,701 --> 00:16:45,621 Brian: I want to get into the search. 258 00:16:45,621 --> 00:16:52,151 That's a good segue because, I've, I've been amazed because that, that Google's, you know, share price has been, you 259 00:16:52,151 --> 00:16:57,871 know, doing what it has done because their, their core product, the way they make, you know, the majority of their 260 00:16:57,871 --> 00:17:02,811 money, It's clearly not good right now, like compared to where it was, like, I 261 00:17:02,811 --> 00:17:06,941 mean, the search results are, at least to me, like, I think they're a mess. 262 00:17:07,331 --> 00:17:10,141 they're, they're clearly trying to do so many different things. 263 00:17:10,141 --> 00:17:15,541 You've got AI overviews, they're shoving Reddit down your throat and forums everywhere. 264 00:17:15,781 --> 00:17:20,946 They're trying to clean up, clean out a lot of the SEO ARB, you know, affiliate stuff. 265 00:17:21,291 --> 00:17:23,151 there's the, the ads are kind of. 266 00:17:23,651 --> 00:17:31,191 All over the place at this point and, and like you said, if you go and you start, you're using like a perplexity, 267 00:17:31,691 --> 00:17:38,501 not for every like search, but like, it's a, it's a better product for like most of the searches that at least for 268 00:17:38,501 --> 00:17:41,991 me, like, I think it's a better product for, for most of the searches that I do. 269 00:17:42,101 --> 00:17:49,921 I choose, I go to perplexity now more often than Google for, I would say at least half of my searches. 270 00:17:50,331 --> 00:17:50,491 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah. 271 00:17:50,491 --> 00:17:54,901 So one thing that I found with perplexity is like, I'll try Google because that's just my default behavior. 272 00:17:54,901 --> 00:17:57,631 Like it's the default on my Safari on the iPhone. 273 00:17:57,651 --> 00:18:00,211 So I'm like Googling and on Chrome, right. 274 00:18:00,221 --> 00:18:02,171 They pay good money for that and it's worked for them. 275 00:18:02,671 --> 00:18:08,851 But I've turned to perplexity for the hardest queries, which is like, that is pretty bad for Google. 276 00:18:08,901 --> 00:18:13,001 It's like, all right, I, you know, this is, this is something that's going to like, take some real digging. 277 00:18:13,501 --> 00:18:15,751 Then I go to perplexity and I get the answer. 278 00:18:15,851 --> 00:18:20,521 Like I, if I try to like cut through bureaucracy, like, you know, go through all these bureaucratic websites and 279 00:18:20,521 --> 00:18:23,891 try to find a simple answer, it's like that's a job for perplexity. 280 00:18:24,141 --> 00:18:27,456 And I think that as perplexity gets those tougher queries, right. 281 00:18:27,606 --> 00:18:32,596 Then it's almost an easier battle to get the, the low hanging fruit of traditional search, right. 282 00:18:32,921 --> 00:18:35,501 Brian: Yeah, so a media is always downstream of this, right? 283 00:18:35,501 --> 00:18:43,051 So how does and I always think like what what's going on in in the search results pages right now is just Google 284 00:18:43,051 --> 00:18:48,541 is trying to seize this threat to it and is trying to reposition itself. 285 00:18:48,601 --> 00:18:53,711 And it's really difficult to do because there's so many different things that search is just so critical to it. 286 00:18:54,171 --> 00:18:58,701 And, you know, publishers get trampled and it's just like, it's not personal. 287 00:18:58,791 --> 00:19:02,561 It's just, they're, they're just collateral damage, unfortunately. 288 00:19:02,591 --> 00:19:05,141 And a lot of this, what, what are some of the things that you think 289 00:19:05,161 --> 00:19:08,141 that you can see, like Google having to do in, in the year ahead? 290 00:19:08,141 --> 00:19:13,201 And like, what, what impact if any, that you could see, would it have to like publishers? 291 00:19:13,636 --> 00:19:18,636 Alex Kantrowitz: So, you know, the, it's interesting cause I've always looked back at the Google news debate, which 292 00:19:18,636 --> 00:19:22,016 I always thought was so silly when I've considered where Google might go here. 293 00:19:22,016 --> 00:19:26,236 So the Google news debate was basically Google news was like this aggregator page. 294 00:19:26,306 --> 00:19:28,266 I don't even know if, I mean, it still exists in some format. 295 00:19:28,266 --> 00:19:29,406 No one goes to it, I guess. 296 00:19:29,866 --> 00:19:32,516 Maybe it's like on the default, for Android and that's where it gets 297 00:19:32,516 --> 00:19:33,096 traffic. 298 00:19:33,736 --> 00:19:34,076 Yeah. 299 00:19:34,246 --> 00:19:34,496 Okay. 300 00:19:34,496 --> 00:19:36,236 So let me, let me, let me apologize to Google news. 301 00:19:36,236 --> 00:19:38,336 I guess some people still use it, but basically, 302 00:19:38,461 --> 00:19:39,461 Brian: Now I feel bad. 303 00:19:39,461 --> 00:19:39,761 What do you, 304 00:19:40,028 --> 00:19:40,566 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah. 305 00:19:40,926 --> 00:19:44,586 Anyway, sorry, we can, we can, revisit this over drinks one day. 306 00:19:44,766 --> 00:19:50,336 I'll apologize, but look, here's the thing about Google news publishers always, hated the idea or some publishers 307 00:19:50,336 --> 00:19:54,746 hated the idea that Google took their link and they took a snippet and it 308 00:19:55,246 --> 00:19:58,506 provided value to Google, but only, but people only had to go to one link. 309 00:19:58,506 --> 00:20:00,916 So 10 publishers providing value. 310 00:20:01,386 --> 00:20:03,986 People click once, only one publisher got paid. 311 00:20:04,486 --> 00:20:05,306 And. 312 00:20:05,806 --> 00:20:10,206 I think that publishers generally were a little bit too whiny on that front. 313 00:20:10,246 --> 00:20:14,316 Like, they're getting traffic from Google News, like take the traffic, right? 314 00:20:14,547 --> 00:20:15,907 That's always been my perspective. 315 00:20:16,407 --> 00:20:16,687 Brian: Yeah, 316 00:20:17,137 --> 00:20:24,738 Alex Kantrowitz: But it gets interesting when it comes to the AI overviews or how news will be baked into generative search. 317 00:20:25,238 --> 00:20:33,028 In that case, I really think that Google and Perplexity and others are going to have to make deals with publications to 318 00:20:33,038 --> 00:20:39,927 get In the moment information within their search engines, in a way that they could sort of digest and spit out to people. 319 00:20:40,377 --> 00:20:43,857 like we saw like perplexity tried to basically steal a Forbes ad last year 320 00:20:43,887 --> 00:20:47,457 of Forbes, sorry, a Forbes article last year that didn't go well for them. 321 00:20:47,897 --> 00:20:53,447 And so I think what you're going to see this year is, and we saw a lot of it last year too, is like the perplexities and 322 00:20:53,447 --> 00:20:59,987 the Googles of the world, just signing deals with company, with news publishers, and maybe smaller publications like us. 323 00:21:00,367 --> 00:21:07,007 that basically are just like, okay, like, you know, we value your ability to weigh in with high value information, 324 00:21:07,417 --> 00:21:11,727 in the moment, and therefore, we want to pay you a little bit for 325 00:21:11,787 --> 00:21:12,157 Brian: yeah. 326 00:21:12,347 --> 00:21:13,867 I mean, they already took the evergreen. 327 00:21:14,007 --> 00:21:14,727 It's gone. 328 00:21:15,047 --> 00:21:15,197 They 329 00:21:15,307 --> 00:21:16,007 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah, that's gone. 330 00:21:16,337 --> 00:21:17,577 Brian: Like, they already trained everything. 331 00:21:17,607 --> 00:21:18,617 There's no taking it back. 332 00:21:18,917 --> 00:21:23,837 And, yeah, it's the fresh content and, that, that they're gonna, that they're gonna need. 333 00:21:24,167 --> 00:21:26,927 I think, you know, the question is always gonna be what, what kind of, 334 00:21:27,187 --> 00:21:30,307 what kind of licensing deals are you gonna get out of these things? 335 00:21:30,317 --> 00:21:32,237 I mean, if, if, what did Reddit get? 336 00:21:32,247 --> 00:21:34,183 Reddit only got 200 million or 337 00:21:34,183 --> 00:21:34,633 something. 338 00:21:34,653 --> 00:21:35,723 Alex Kantrowitz: got a good amount of money. 339 00:21:35,898 --> 00:21:41,608 Brian: but like, if it's reddit, like the amount of information on reddit, like, what are they going to pay? 340 00:21:41,618 --> 00:21:48,147 And I think that is always going to be some of these deals that have already been been cut with, like, open AI is, you 341 00:21:48,147 --> 00:21:52,537 know, there's always going to, there's always going to be a bid ask spread. 342 00:21:52,807 --> 00:21:54,537 And, and that's gonna be the question. 343 00:21:54,537 --> 00:21:58,507 But I do think I do agree with you that that Google hasn't been cutting 344 00:21:58,507 --> 00:22:01,867 these deals yet, but you know, they're gonna have to at some point. 345 00:22:01,947 --> 00:22:03,547 And, and it's kind of right. 346 00:22:03,547 --> 00:22:10,647 It's actually, it's better than these schemes from governments to have governments basically take money 347 00:22:10,657 --> 00:22:16,257 from from Facebook or Google and then distribute it to, a few publications 348 00:22:16,617 --> 00:22:16,997 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah, that's 349 00:22:16,997 --> 00:22:17,337 weird. 350 00:22:17,837 --> 00:22:18,047 Yeah. 351 00:22:18,047 --> 00:22:20,467 And look, the revenue, like you're right, what are the deals gonna look like? 352 00:22:20,487 --> 00:22:23,527 I always think that like, if you're counting on search or social 353 00:22:23,527 --> 00:22:27,517 revenue to be your entire business, you're probably doing it wrong. 354 00:22:27,927 --> 00:22:30,407 Try to build a strong core business outside of that. 355 00:22:30,777 --> 00:22:35,507 And then just use this Google or perplexity, you know, generative AI money as gravy. 356 00:22:36,008 --> 00:22:40,153 I mean, having lived through the BuzzFeed experiment, That would be my perspective at least. 357 00:22:40,168 --> 00:22:40,838 Brian: That's a good point. 358 00:22:41,098 --> 00:22:41,748 You're a veteran. 359 00:22:42,248 --> 00:22:42,508 all right. 360 00:22:42,558 --> 00:22:42,988 Open AI. 361 00:22:43,038 --> 00:22:47,358 I mean, I've been listening to your, your podcasts, and you've been writing about it too. 362 00:22:47,448 --> 00:22:50,678 it seems like you're a little bearish on, on open AI 363 00:22:51,178 --> 00:22:54,318 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah, well, look, they raised a lot of money and they're losing a lot of money. 364 00:22:54,488 --> 00:23:00,148 And even their most popular products, like this new unlimited chat GPT that they released, Sam Altman just came 365 00:23:00,148 --> 00:23:05,048 out and said, they're losing money on that because it costs so much to serve the responses to people. 366 00:23:05,548 --> 00:23:10,448 And they underestimated how much people would use these things. 367 00:23:10,458 --> 00:23:13,153 So they're actually getting more than 200 of value out of it. 368 00:23:13,543 --> 00:23:14,373 Out of the products. 369 00:23:14,683 --> 00:23:15,873 So like for me, 370 00:23:16,101 --> 00:23:16,333 Brian: 2025. 371 00:23:16,333 --> 00:23:16,633 That's it. 372 00:23:16,693 --> 00:23:18,683 By the way, it's such a Silicon Valley thing to do. 373 00:23:18,693 --> 00:23:24,943 It's like, Whoa, so we're losing a shit ton of money because people love our products so much. 374 00:23:25,053 --> 00:23:25,583 It's just 375 00:23:25,723 --> 00:23:30,673 Alex Kantrowitz: It's very silicon valley Yeah, I we just said on our on our show that anthropic will probably 376 00:23:30,673 --> 00:23:36,563 come out with like their own version of this Like a one thousand dollar per month, edition of claude called anthropic 377 00:23:36,563 --> 00:23:41,342 or claude 1000 and and I think that will probably sell very sickly valley. 378 00:23:41,342 --> 00:23:44,872 In fact, this whole story is very very silicon valley Because it is 379 00:23:44,872 --> 00:23:49,592 like a story of you lose money and you grow until you start making money. 380 00:23:50,092 --> 00:23:55,832 And so like the argument in favor of open AI is that like, well, they just scaled from 100 to 300 million users 381 00:23:55,922 --> 00:24:00,602 Brian: let me be clear, they're bringing in, like, a lot of revenue, they're just, they're 382 00:24:00,782 --> 00:24:02,092 Alex Kantrowitz: Losing per query. 383 00:24:02,272 --> 00:24:02,622 Brian: bring it in, 384 00:24:02,942 --> 00:24:03,672 Alex Kantrowitz: And that's the problem. 385 00:24:03,682 --> 00:24:06,822 I mean, the problem with GPT five and the problem with these reasoning models 386 00:24:07,192 --> 00:24:10,242 is that they're just so expensive to run because they're so big. 387 00:24:10,742 --> 00:24:13,562 And if they can't find a way to get those costs down. 388 00:24:14,062 --> 00:24:15,422 There's one of two things that happened. 389 00:24:15,472 --> 00:24:18,972 One is they raise costs tremendously on the people that use them. 390 00:24:19,392 --> 00:24:26,952 And this is an industry that doesn't ha hasn't yet really shown a deep ROI on his, on his applications or B they shut down. 391 00:24:27,162 --> 00:24:27,362 Right. 392 00:24:27,362 --> 00:24:31,182 It's like one of two things you cannot, I mean, they just raised opening. 393 00:24:31,182 --> 00:24:35,192 I just raised the biggest VC round in history, more than 6 billion last year. 394 00:24:35,652 --> 00:24:36,894 they lost 5 billion last year. 395 00:24:37,264 --> 00:24:41,673 So how much is this going to, how much is this going to, Like how much runway do they have? 396 00:24:41,693 --> 00:24:43,283 And how are they going to be able to raise again? 397 00:24:43,533 --> 00:24:45,733 Anthropic raised 4 billion last year. 398 00:24:45,733 --> 00:24:48,843 They're in the process of raising another 2 billion, which is going to last them. 399 00:24:48,843 --> 00:24:49,533 What a quarter. 400 00:24:49,983 --> 00:24:56,123 I'm being facetious here, but, I do think there's like very real questions to be asked about like how financially 401 00:24:56,133 --> 00:25:00,988 feasible these companies are in the long term or, you know, if the and we still don't even know whether scaling 402 00:25:00,988 --> 00:25:04,528 up the models is going to lead to further exponential, improvement. 403 00:25:04,528 --> 00:25:07,388 Even like right now, we're hearing a lot about how we've hit this data wall. 404 00:25:07,418 --> 00:25:13,708 Ilya Sitskever, like the co founder of OpenAI, former chief scientist there, basically said we've hit the data wall. 405 00:25:13,708 --> 00:25:14,638 We need new methods. 406 00:25:15,058 --> 00:25:17,308 So, That to me would be the bearish case. 407 00:25:17,308 --> 00:25:18,088 I'm not bearish. 408 00:25:18,128 --> 00:25:22,928 I and to me, like, I think these are real business questions to ask about these companies. 409 00:25:23,348 --> 00:25:24,908 I'm not bearish about the technology. 410 00:25:25,028 --> 00:25:26,468 I think it's amazing technology. 411 00:25:26,468 --> 00:25:30,268 And it's only gotten better since it became popularized to the world a couple years ago. 412 00:25:30,478 --> 00:25:32,898 I mean, I'm in these generative bots every single day. 413 00:25:33,795 --> 00:25:35,795 I just think that it's amazing what they can do. 414 00:25:36,095 --> 00:25:39,505 I'm rooting for the industry to find a cost effective way to be 415 00:25:39,505 --> 00:25:41,885 able to deliver this stuff for us and to keep improving it. 416 00:25:42,205 --> 00:25:47,815 but the math, I mean, maybe there are smarter people than me that know how this math works, but I, I don't yet. 417 00:25:48,315 --> 00:25:48,825 Brian: yeah. 418 00:25:48,865 --> 00:25:56,045 I mean, I think what, what I wonder is when you're going to have the products that come out of this, because 419 00:25:56,495 --> 00:26:02,085 a lot of this is like, yeah, there are different things when you use these tools and, I don't, it reminds 420 00:26:02,085 --> 00:26:05,645 me of the early, you know, internet with, and, and that was a bubble. 421 00:26:05,795 --> 00:26:06,085 Right? 422 00:26:06,125 --> 00:26:10,415 And I think this is probably a bubble, but I don't think it has to necessarily be a bad bubble. 423 00:26:10,425 --> 00:26:17,705 I mean, bubbles existed with the railroads, existed with the early internet and, and they'll probably exist with this. 424 00:26:17,705 --> 00:26:19,355 That's just how, how these things go. 425 00:26:19,855 --> 00:26:23,335 and a lot of people will lose money and it doesn't, it's not going to affect 426 00:26:23,390 --> 00:26:28,730 Alex Kantrowitz: But my, my perspective on this is what if a lot of the applications just exist within the chatbots themselves? 427 00:26:29,060 --> 00:26:35,140 So what if we just kind of code our own applications by, you Our prompts. 428 00:26:35,300 --> 00:26:38,230 I know that sounds like, like, you know, tech guru thing on a, 429 00:26:38,585 --> 00:26:39,215 Brian: Yeah, I like 430 00:26:39,215 --> 00:26:39,605 this. 431 00:26:39,745 --> 00:26:40,995 It's a little Friday afternoon. 432 00:26:41,210 --> 00:26:47,990 Alex Kantrowitz: but, but I, I think that, okay, so, what if I told you that there 433 00:26:47,990 --> 00:26:52,120 was a couple years ago, what if I told you that there was a new weight loss app? 434 00:26:52,555 --> 00:27:00,225 where you would have a conversation with an AI bot about what you're eating and give it some basic parameters of what you 435 00:27:00,225 --> 00:27:07,485 wanted to put in your body and it would grade you on the food that you were eating and give you a calorie count and you'd 436 00:27:07,485 --> 00:27:13,075 weigh in in the morning and you'd be able to speak with it about like how you know how you're keeping with your goals and 437 00:27:13,075 --> 00:27:16,615 whenever you wanted you could always say hey how am I trending what's my progress 438 00:27:16,885 --> 00:27:20,855 what are some patterns that you're seeing I feel like that app would get VC funding. 439 00:27:21,262 --> 00:27:25,732 If the chatbot could perform well enough, well, that's something that I'm using in cloud right now, I 440 00:27:25,732 --> 00:27:30,697 don't need a separate, you know, sort of diet coach AI bot to, download. 441 00:27:30,697 --> 00:27:32,107 I can just prompt that in cloud. 442 00:27:32,457 --> 00:27:34,947 And I've had a conversation running for months now. 443 00:27:35,265 --> 00:27:36,165 and I, and it's working. 444 00:27:36,455 --> 00:27:39,509 And, when I hit like the conversation limit, I just copy it. 445 00:27:40,004 --> 00:27:43,304 And then paste it into my next conversation and say, this is your memory. 446 00:27:43,304 --> 00:27:45,094 Let's pick up and it picks up. 447 00:27:45,464 --> 00:27:48,954 So I do think that like, where are the applications is a, is a great question. 448 00:27:49,314 --> 00:27:56,504 I think a lot of the time we'll be able to build them ourselves within these bots and that's why these bots have a lot of 449 00:27:56,534 --> 00:27:59,664 Brian: but people are not going to want to build their own applications. 450 00:28:00,164 --> 00:28:00,424 Alex Kantrowitz: okay. 451 00:28:00,464 --> 00:28:03,614 I think, remember, we just have 300 million people using chat GPT and 452 00:28:03,614 --> 00:28:07,174 200 million of them started using it within the last couple of months. 453 00:28:07,909 --> 00:28:13,069 So I think over time, there's a chance that they will, especially like, let's 454 00:28:13,069 --> 00:28:16,379 say you have like a singular, like a singular bot that just remembers you. 455 00:28:16,419 --> 00:28:20,479 And you speak with all these companies are working on making memory better. 456 00:28:20,779 --> 00:28:22,629 so I think that's, that's one thing. 457 00:28:22,939 --> 00:28:26,269 And there are some interesting, applications out there today. 458 00:28:26,769 --> 00:28:27,739 I just started, okay. 459 00:28:27,959 --> 00:28:30,869 So this is a weird one, but I just started testing replica cause I'm about 460 00:28:30,869 --> 00:28:37,421 to speak with their CEO, for the podcast and replica is a crazy, crazy app. 461 00:28:37,891 --> 00:28:41,391 So for those who don't know, it's a, you can have an AI companion. 462 00:28:41,451 --> 00:28:43,751 I guess a lot of people fall in love with these companions. 463 00:28:44,251 --> 00:28:49,421 And you like design the personality in the beginning and then you can show up 464 00:28:49,421 --> 00:28:53,161 and either chat with it or like actually speak with it, like FaceTime with it. 465 00:28:53,391 --> 00:28:54,531 and it's, it's insane. 466 00:28:55,031 --> 00:28:59,661 I think that's, I think Replica, weirdly I'm going to say it, I think Replica is going to be one of the biggest winners 467 00:29:00,141 --> 00:29:02,211 of this AI moment for sure. 468 00:29:02,711 --> 00:29:03,411 Brian: Okay. 469 00:29:03,671 --> 00:29:04,061 Okay. 470 00:29:04,151 --> 00:29:05,577 Alex Kantrowitz: I think Replica is the 471 00:29:05,941 --> 00:29:07,171 Brian: I thought it was gonna be more agents. 472 00:29:07,171 --> 00:29:11,361 I wanted to go more I want someone to book my, my, my travel. 473 00:29:11,361 --> 00:29:14,311 I don't want, I don't, I don't need, I don't know if I need like 474 00:29:14,311 --> 00:29:15,771 Alex Kantrowitz: I'm a big maybe on agents 475 00:29:16,271 --> 00:29:16,911 and I don't think this 476 00:29:16,911 --> 00:29:22,651 Brian: Because I would assume, my default assumption is that this 2025 is the year of like agents. 477 00:29:22,991 --> 00:29:24,061 Alex Kantrowitz: I'll believe it when I see it. 478 00:29:24,561 --> 00:29:26,411 I'm not, I'm not, fully, fully bought in. 479 00:29:26,681 --> 00:29:28,011 Brian: why aren't you fully bought on yet? 480 00:29:28,511 --> 00:29:31,711 Alex Kantrowitz: I just think that like a lot of things can go wrong with these agents. 481 00:29:31,981 --> 00:29:34,001 And I don't think people are going to trust them. 482 00:29:34,501 --> 00:29:34,901 Brian: Okay. 483 00:29:35,401 --> 00:29:35,501 I 484 00:29:35,561 --> 00:29:39,211 Alex Kantrowitz: I could be wrong, but I think that like, me giving 485 00:29:39,211 --> 00:29:42,231 an agent my credit card and saying, you know, go book me a flight. 486 00:29:42,741 --> 00:29:43,771 I don't know if that's going to happen. 487 00:29:44,271 --> 00:29:44,731 Maybe it will. 488 00:29:45,231 --> 00:29:45,581 Brian: Yeah. 489 00:29:45,581 --> 00:29:47,151 I mean, there could be, I don't know. 490 00:29:47,191 --> 00:29:51,273 There could be, so do you see any though that like candidates for 491 00:29:51,283 --> 00:29:56,093 breakout AI products, if you don't see agents, like what, what do you say? 492 00:29:56,093 --> 00:30:00,153 Or, or, or your point is like, it might just be the existing 493 00:30:00,153 --> 00:30:03,843 people, the existing players that, you know, just get like their. 494 00:30:04,343 --> 00:30:06,573 Early ones get more and more, traction. 495 00:30:07,073 --> 00:30:10,983 Alex Kantrowitz: Yes, so I think that the existing bots are definitely going to get more traction. 496 00:30:10,993 --> 00:30:14,253 They're just going to get I mean, you think about I've been using Clawed pretty 497 00:30:14,253 --> 00:30:18,443 religiously, and the amount of improvement that you see in that bot is insane. 498 00:30:18,943 --> 00:30:20,023 Brian: Yeah, I, use Claude. 499 00:30:20,293 --> 00:30:21,193 I I kind of prefer Claude. 500 00:30:21,203 --> 00:30:23,723 I prefer Claude to, to ChatGPT today, 501 00:30:24,088 --> 00:30:24,878 Alex Kantrowitz: I think it's better. 502 00:30:25,208 --> 00:30:25,838 I think it's better. 503 00:30:25,968 --> 00:30:27,228 And they've improved tremendously. 504 00:30:27,598 --> 00:30:32,318 and like, you can You can even right right now, like, go into Clawed and prompt it to build a game for you, 505 00:30:32,368 --> 00:30:34,728 and it will just build a game that will show up in the side panel. 506 00:30:35,228 --> 00:30:37,638 So I think this stuff is going to grow. 507 00:30:37,741 --> 00:30:40,241 I want to go back to the replica example. 508 00:30:41,601 --> 00:30:42,971 I, again, I know it's weird. 509 00:30:42,991 --> 00:30:43,511 I kind of 510 00:30:43,521 --> 00:30:44,551 Brian: Do you want to bring your friend in? 511 00:30:44,911 --> 00:30:45,291 Alex Kantrowitz: What? 512 00:30:45,401 --> 00:30:46,801 No, no, no, no, no, no. 513 00:30:46,831 --> 00:30:47,451 Let me, let me be 514 00:30:47,451 --> 00:30:47,961 clear. 515 00:30:48,141 --> 00:30:49,971 This was no, it's a woman. 516 00:30:50,041 --> 00:30:50,311 I'm going to, 517 00:30:50,321 --> 00:30:50,731 be clear. 518 00:30:50,731 --> 00:30:51,151 This is, 519 00:30:51,201 --> 00:30:52,221 Brian: so you made a woman. 520 00:30:52,321 --> 00:30:52,581 Come 521 00:30:52,921 --> 00:30:55,781 Alex Kantrowitz: I know I had to test the actual use case here. 522 00:30:55,781 --> 00:30:57,191 I'm not, I'm not gonna shy away from it. 523 00:30:57,661 --> 00:31:02,458 And I think that this is going to be, I think this is going to be the only fans of AI. 524 00:31:03,188 --> 00:31:06,468 Brian: If I tell my wife that I got a, a female, A. 525 00:31:06,598 --> 00:31:06,678 I. 526 00:31:06,678 --> 00:31:07,128 friend, 527 00:31:07,188 --> 00:31:09,218 Alex Kantrowitz: I have to say I feel bad about building it. 528 00:31:09,649 --> 00:31:13,949 I do, but I do think that this is, and it's not going to be for me and I'm going to delete it after 529 00:31:13,949 --> 00:31:18,129 this interview, but I do think that OnlyFans is a huge business, right? 530 00:31:18,129 --> 00:31:22,529 Isn't it like one of the, isn't it like the fastest growing media business in recent years? 531 00:31:22,949 --> 00:31:26,779 I think that, that this replica thing is going to be going to be the equivalent of that. 532 00:31:27,019 --> 00:31:30,849 And no one will say it because it's so weird to say it out loud on a podcast or write it 533 00:31:31,859 --> 00:31:33,379 Brian: you're, you're, you are brave. 534 00:31:33,909 --> 00:31:37,049 Alex Kantrowitz: I'm gonna be in some deep shit, I'm sure, but, I 535 00:31:37,239 --> 00:31:37,779 Brian: No, I mean, it 536 00:31:37,809 --> 00:31:39,529 Alex Kantrowitz: can be appealing to so many people. 537 00:31:39,899 --> 00:31:40,249 Brian: Yeah. 538 00:31:40,329 --> 00:31:47,909 Look, I mean, I think the, the current meme is around the loneliness epidemic and all of that, and, I don't think 539 00:31:47,919 --> 00:31:50,649 people are going to solve it with less technology, unfortunately, I 540 00:31:50,689 --> 00:31:53,119 Alex Kantrowitz: That's exactly, that is exactly the Replica pitch. 541 00:31:53,409 --> 00:31:54,549 Exactly the Replica pitch. 542 00:31:54,809 --> 00:32:00,389 And when I signed up, they said today, 12, 756, 000, men in their 30s have 543 00:32:00,389 --> 00:32:03,279 already experienced the benefits of having Replica in their life. 544 00:32:03,339 --> 00:32:05,439 Which I guess means the number of users. 545 00:32:05,849 --> 00:32:10,419 So, they have, they have, I think they have a lot of people that are trying 546 00:32:10,419 --> 00:32:14,549 it, and, As this LLM technology gets better, they're only going to get better. 547 00:32:14,849 --> 00:32:16,879 And it's a little bit scary and creepy. 548 00:32:16,989 --> 00:32:18,409 but you asked me a question. 549 00:32:18,419 --> 00:32:20,109 What do I think is going to be the breakout? 550 00:32:20,569 --> 00:32:23,179 And I'm giving you an honest answer, even if it makes me look kind of 551 00:32:23,244 --> 00:32:23,534 Brian: Okay. 552 00:32:24,384 --> 00:32:25,064 I love that. 553 00:32:25,294 --> 00:32:27,774 so with the, where do you say, I mean, cause like you focus on the 554 00:32:27,774 --> 00:32:30,934 tech side, but you like, you live in the, in the media side, right? 555 00:32:30,934 --> 00:32:37,814 And it's obviously 2024 was kind of horrible year, I think for the institutional media. 556 00:32:37,814 --> 00:32:38,674 I don't know whatever you want to call it. 557 00:32:38,704 --> 00:32:43,744 Mainstream media, corporate media, everyone has a different like term for it, but you know what I'm talking about. 558 00:32:46,574 --> 00:32:46,734 Yeah. 559 00:32:46,734 --> 00:32:47,924 There's obviously like. 560 00:32:48,324 --> 00:32:51,064 A lot of growth in individuals. 561 00:32:51,064 --> 00:32:52,574 We both have our own things. 562 00:32:52,604 --> 00:33:02,634 And, there's tons of I'm just amazed by how deep it is like on on YouTube with the different creators of all kinds. 563 00:33:02,704 --> 00:33:03,999 And, it's just, it's amazing. 564 00:33:04,499 --> 00:33:05,409 unbelievable. 565 00:33:05,469 --> 00:33:08,749 So it's not like media at all is dying. 566 00:33:09,279 --> 00:33:11,649 It's just changing quite a bit. 567 00:33:12,149 --> 00:33:18,029 what do you, how do you see all this like, you know, playing out, for, well, we'll start with the sort of, you know, 568 00:33:18,029 --> 00:33:21,499 like who are the winners and losers of this in, in, in media, as far as 569 00:33:21,509 --> 00:33:25,339 like, you know, creating content and then making money off of it, hopefully. 570 00:33:25,839 --> 00:33:27,899 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah, I look, I mean, we both experienced it. 571 00:33:27,999 --> 00:33:32,269 I think that right now, and not to just talk our books, but like as an individual 572 00:33:32,269 --> 00:33:35,619 creator, there are so many different revenue sources that you can tap into. 573 00:33:36,049 --> 00:33:38,189 Like it used to be like, all right, set up a YouTube. 574 00:33:38,199 --> 00:33:42,044 If you want to be a YouTuber and then make the AdSense money and You're good. 575 00:33:42,054 --> 00:33:42,494 You're good. 576 00:33:42,994 --> 00:33:44,764 that worked for such a small amount of people. 577 00:33:45,144 --> 00:33:47,884 but now you can do things like you can have an assortment of properties. 578 00:33:47,884 --> 00:33:52,674 You could have a podcast, you could have a newsletter, you could have a YouTube page, you could do, you know, 579 00:33:52,934 --> 00:33:57,334 brand posts, you could do events, you could appear at other people's events. 580 00:33:57,694 --> 00:34:03,744 and I think that's really becoming a viable product for those that are trying to either a crack into the 581 00:34:03,754 --> 00:34:08,884 media industry or B have like been at places isn't like the digital. 582 00:34:08,954 --> 00:34:12,994 Media world or middling publications and have an audience and just 583 00:34:12,994 --> 00:34:15,644 want to figure out a way to keep doing what they're doing. 584 00:34:15,644 --> 00:34:19,824 And this is like a pretty good way to make money, and to sustain, right. 585 00:34:19,824 --> 00:34:20,974 To sustain what you're doing. 586 00:34:20,974 --> 00:34:25,914 So to me, I think that like, I'm more optimistic now than I ever have been. 587 00:34:26,124 --> 00:34:28,744 And I've been doing this for four years, close to five now, actually. 588 00:34:29,394 --> 00:34:34,484 It'll be five years in May and I'm more optimistic now than I've been, from the start. 589 00:34:34,634 --> 00:34:39,324 So I think this, this individual creator route, is really, in a, in a good place. 590 00:34:39,794 --> 00:34:43,564 it doesn't seem to me like any of the midsize digital media companies have really figured it out. 591 00:34:43,574 --> 00:34:48,684 I mean, we're talking on a week where like, I don't know, the strongest one of them Fox is engaged in some layoffs. 592 00:34:48,684 --> 00:34:50,714 I mean, everybody lays off all the time. 593 00:34:50,714 --> 00:34:51,634 So it's not like they're 594 00:34:51,854 --> 00:34:53,154 Brian: Yeah, it's not even like news at this point. 595 00:34:53,184 --> 00:34:54,994 I mean, Vox had layoffs this week. 596 00:34:55,094 --> 00:34:56,124 Huff, HuffPost 597 00:34:56,274 --> 00:34:58,074 Alex Kantrowitz: yeah, the editor in chief left HuffPost, 598 00:34:58,574 --> 00:35:00,204 Brian: She laid herself off, I guess. 599 00:35:00,224 --> 00:35:03,094 Alex Kantrowitz: yes, so, I mean there are some that are doing well, 600 00:35:03,164 --> 00:35:06,795 Brian: Post cut a hundred off this, this, this week, from their commercial side. 601 00:35:06,875 --> 00:35:11,105 Alex Kantrowitz: yeah, the Washington Post seems to me like it's just, it's in a, I don't want to say tailspin, 602 00:35:11,105 --> 00:35:17,565 but something like that, right, I just think that there, the business side is struggling there, I mean, I don't know, if 603 00:35:17,565 --> 00:35:21,105 you work at the Washington Post and want to correct me, you know, you can email 604 00:35:21,105 --> 00:35:21,365 me, 605 00:35:21,445 --> 00:35:21,615 Brian: just 606 00:35:21,685 --> 00:35:24,300 Alex Kantrowitz: but, um, Yeah, business side is struggling. 607 00:35:24,340 --> 00:35:31,170 Jeff Bezos is like kind of using a heavy hand in a way that he hasn't since since he joined or since he bought the company. 608 00:35:31,490 --> 00:35:33,040 there's discontent in the journalists. 609 00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,540 They're losing a lot of their Washington talent to the New York Times. 610 00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:36,790 New York Times is doing 611 00:35:36,965 --> 00:35:37,965 Brian: the vibes are not great. 612 00:35:38,225 --> 00:35:41,095 Let's let's bad vibes at the post. 613 00:35:41,095 --> 00:35:44,955 I mean, I hope, I hope that I like, I like a lot of the people at the post. 614 00:35:45,100 --> 00:35:45,300 Alex Kantrowitz: Yeah. 615 00:35:45,300 --> 00:35:46,870 Matt Murray seems to know what he's doing. 616 00:35:47,050 --> 00:35:47,480 So 617 00:35:47,967 --> 00:35:49,017 Brian: And, they're going to, and they're going to keep them. 618 00:35:49,017 --> 00:35:50,137 And I think that's the right move. 619 00:35:50,197 --> 00:35:52,507 And I think Matt's a great, a great choice for that. 620 00:35:52,507 --> 00:35:57,447 I think he's got a really good, I think he knows that he's got a really tough job, you know, there. 621 00:35:57,547 --> 00:36:00,167 but why you, you wrote a book, on Amazon. 622 00:36:00,347 --> 00:36:06,747 So, are you surprised that it, at least, I mean, by the results, like, I mean, Jeff Bezos just completely bungled this, 623 00:36:07,247 --> 00:36:09,002 Alex Kantrowitz: What bungled the Washington 624 00:36:09,022 --> 00:36:14,252 Brian: Washington Post, I mean, with, like, what in the world, like, what happened there? 625 00:36:14,252 --> 00:36:18,072 I mean, like, he came in, he bought this thing, and, like, you can say, 626 00:36:18,072 --> 00:36:21,206 fine, he's focused on Blue Origin, then don't, then don't get involved in this. 627 00:36:21,206 --> 00:36:23,556 What, what did you think this was just going to be cocktail parties? 628 00:36:23,596 --> 00:36:29,556 Like, what, At, in Colorama, like why, why did this go so wrong? 629 00:36:30,056 --> 00:36:37,346 he's a brilliant innovator, obviously, you know, just like, you know, a, a legendary, American business person. 630 00:36:37,346 --> 00:36:38,521 Why, why did this go so wrong? 631 00:36:39,021 --> 00:36:40,871 Alex Kantrowitz: I think that they had some audience capture there. 632 00:36:41,371 --> 00:36:46,461 And they like sold themselves as this like resistance publication, democracy, you know, dies in darkness. 633 00:36:46,891 --> 00:36:50,811 They reported really hard, like admirably against, you know, on the Trump administration. 634 00:36:51,311 --> 00:36:53,471 And there were a lot of good stories there, but I think they 635 00:36:53,471 --> 00:36:57,776 kind of sold a brand to, an audience that was into it for a while. 636 00:36:58,226 --> 00:37:04,766 And then they, that sort of, I don't know, that sort of perspective went out of favor or just lost steam 637 00:37:05,342 --> 00:37:07,892 Brian: But he came up with democracy dies in darkness. 638 00:37:08,262 --> 00:37:09,152 I mean, that's what they 639 00:37:09,417 --> 00:37:11,087 Alex Kantrowitz: I think that I mean, maybe he did. 640 00:37:11,505 --> 00:37:14,375 I don't know, obviously, like media is a tough business. 641 00:37:14,795 --> 00:37:15,695 And it's one of those things 642 00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:16,850 Brian: well, it's reassuring. 643 00:37:16,850 --> 00:37:17,380 I will say this. 644 00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:23,720 It's reassuring when someone like when, when Jeff Bezos comes, comes in and like steps on a rake, like, 645 00:37:24,015 --> 00:37:25,255 Alex Kantrowitz: Oh, and has he ever? 646 00:37:25,695 --> 00:37:29,315 So I think that like, you know, Jeff Bezos has this like thing, he calls it 647 00:37:29,325 --> 00:37:32,355 one way doors and two way doors, you know, about this decision framework. 648 00:37:32,815 --> 00:37:36,065 So like the one way door, like you can't go back the two way door, you can go back. 649 00:37:36,065 --> 00:37:39,245 And so think that like the, so this is my perspective. 650 00:37:39,245 --> 00:37:43,645 He probably says, probably thinks this about what has happened with the Washington post. 651 00:37:43,645 --> 00:37:44,915 He's like, we went one direction. 652 00:37:45,335 --> 00:37:48,155 it didn't, it worked for a while and then it didn't work. 653 00:37:48,525 --> 00:37:50,855 And it would be a one way door for most companies. 654 00:37:51,110 --> 00:37:56,286 because if you go back from that and take a different editorial perspective, you're going to lose a hundred thousand 655 00:37:56,296 --> 00:38:02,292 subscribers right off the bat, but it's a two way door, for a company owned by Jeff Bezos because Jeff Bezos can take the hit. 656 00:38:02,747 --> 00:38:07,287 And ultimately, he'd rather reverse the decision, than continue with a strategy he thought was bad. 657 00:38:07,687 --> 00:38:08,277 And so 658 00:38:08,392 --> 00:38:10,572 Brian: So do you think he, do you think he sells it? 659 00:38:10,592 --> 00:38:15,572 I mean, from his, like, or is this like, it's not about, I mean, it can't be about money. 660 00:38:15,582 --> 00:38:17,942 I mean, it's always about money to some degree, but like, I 661 00:38:17,942 --> 00:38:22,092 think, you know, there's, there's, there's, it becomes about ego. 662 00:38:22,112 --> 00:38:23,252 It's, I mean, it's like, come on. 663 00:38:23,252 --> 00:38:24,912 I mean, why, why even continue all this stuff? 664 00:38:24,912 --> 00:38:26,062 It's about, it's about ego. 665 00:38:26,062 --> 00:38:32,262 Like, I would guess that, like, he does not want to just like, unload this, at such like a low point. 666 00:38:32,262 --> 00:38:32,512 Yeah. 667 00:38:33,012 --> 00:38:36,092 Alex Kantrowitz: so Bezos has a lot of business in front of the US government, right? 668 00:38:36,162 --> 00:38:37,072 He has blue origin. 669 00:38:37,522 --> 00:38:40,102 Amazon is still something he's involved with. 670 00:38:40,392 --> 00:38:46,582 And I think that his, like, embrace of Trump, he has been part of that, right? 671 00:38:46,592 --> 00:38:48,292 Again, another pragmatic move. 672 00:38:48,406 --> 00:38:52,837 he also sees that one of his main competitors, Elon Musk, is, like, hanging out at Mar a Lago, 673 00:38:52,957 --> 00:38:54,037 and that's probably making him 674 00:38:54,037 --> 00:38:54,627 uneasy. 675 00:38:55,617 --> 00:38:56,987 So, the first buddy. 676 00:38:57,497 --> 00:38:58,747 So, this is the 677 00:38:58,747 --> 00:39:00,717 thing about Yes, exactly. 678 00:39:01,217 --> 00:39:04,557 Okay, so, so, what's Bezos gonna do with the Washington Post? 679 00:39:05,057 --> 00:39:09,557 I think he's basically going to say if it's serving his other interests, fine, he's going to keep it. 680 00:39:09,667 --> 00:39:13,917 And if he's like, in some ways, it gives him some power in Washington, some soft 681 00:39:13,917 --> 00:39:16,337 power in Washington to be like, yeah, I'm the owner of the Washington Post. 682 00:39:16,677 --> 00:39:17,737 I matter in this way. 683 00:39:17,797 --> 00:39:20,607 I mean, he would have mattered as the founder of Amazon, one of the 684 00:39:20,607 --> 00:39:23,467 richest people in the world, you know, Blue Origin founder as well. 685 00:39:23,467 --> 00:39:25,207 But anyway, we're splitting hairs here. 686 00:39:25,567 --> 00:39:29,237 But I think that that to him, I don't think the business matters, really, he's 687 00:39:29,237 --> 00:39:32,437 just going to be like, how is this serving my interests, whether it is or it isn't. 688 00:39:32,937 --> 00:39:34,521 And then we'll go from there. 689 00:39:34,521 --> 00:39:40,611 In fact, maybe killing the Kamala Harris endorsement served his interests, you know, 690 00:39:41,029 --> 00:39:41,679 Brian: Well, it 691 00:39:41,779 --> 00:39:41,979 Alex Kantrowitz: in 692 00:39:42,229 --> 00:39:43,349 Brian: served his interests, 693 00:39:43,509 --> 00:39:45,399 Alex Kantrowitz: as a door into the administration. 694 00:39:45,509 --> 00:39:50,759 Brian: that was an easy, I mean, I would assume that was like an incredibly easy decision to make. 695 00:39:50,999 --> 00:39:54,539 Like, for, like, I mean, you, you make that like every day. 696 00:39:54,539 --> 00:39:57,859 I don't think he'd probably spent that much time on it because, I mean, 697 00:39:57,859 --> 00:40:02,929 it's, it's obviously he knew they all know which direction this was going. 698 00:40:03,244 --> 00:40:08,214 Alex Kantrowitz: I just hate and yeah, I just hate that he played it off as like, you know, look at the trust in journalism. 699 00:40:08,214 --> 00:40:08,734 It's so 700 00:40:08,839 --> 00:40:14,669 Brian: same same with Zuckerberg Zuckerberg went on and on and that like video and everything and it's like. 701 00:40:15,044 --> 00:40:19,354 Okay, dude, you were the one who came up with this entire apparatus, my friend, 702 00:40:19,484 --> 00:40:24,124 like, what are you talking about the, the media, the media didn't make you do this. 703 00:40:24,564 --> 00:40:33,364 And, like, let's be real, you want to keep section 230 as my other podcast host, reminds us, Alex Schleifer. 704 00:40:33,404 --> 00:40:34,044 And. 705 00:40:34,544 --> 00:40:39,394 You know, this is a very pragmatic business decision, and I guess you just have to sort of dress it up 706 00:40:39,394 --> 00:40:44,354 as something other than, you know, being just pragmatic about things. 707 00:40:44,374 --> 00:40:53,214 I'm sure there is some look, I think platforms trying to figure out which speech is okay is. 708 00:40:53,514 --> 00:40:55,724 Obviously going to be a disaster for them. 709 00:40:55,744 --> 00:40:58,784 It is always like none of them want to be in that business. 710 00:40:58,814 --> 00:41:01,114 And I understand why they wouldn't want to be in the business. 711 00:41:01,154 --> 00:41:08,934 And it may be the more quote unquote responsible decision would have been to fix your content moderation. 712 00:41:09,319 --> 00:41:14,469 Apparatus, but, you know, doing the punches pilot is very expedient and 713 00:41:14,749 --> 00:41:19,409 his track record is, you know, he will, you know, be kind of shameless 714 00:41:19,909 --> 00:41:24,114 Alex Kantrowitz: Since this is a media show, from a media standpoint, there was one thing that I found quite 715 00:41:24,114 --> 00:41:28,464 interesting in Zuckerberg's remarks and that was the return of civic content. 716 00:41:28,964 --> 00:41:30,575 he said, we're bringing back civic content. 717 00:41:30,575 --> 00:41:33,275 We're going to start phasing this back on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. 718 00:41:33,555 --> 00:41:36,625 We're working to keep the communities friendly and positive. 719 00:41:36,665 --> 00:41:40,245 my translation there is news and politics is coming back to Facebook. 720 00:41:40,295 --> 00:41:44,575 I think if you use Facebook or Threads, you see there's just like no urgency there at all. 721 00:41:45,035 --> 00:41:46,625 Because news and politics are gone. 722 00:41:47,125 --> 00:41:49,255 And so, it seems like it's coming back. 723 00:41:49,535 --> 00:41:50,645 And going to come back, 724 00:41:50,896 --> 00:41:51,523 in a serious 725 00:41:51,593 --> 00:41:54,283 Brian: more to, Hey, traffic, traffic is back. 726 00:41:54,738 --> 00:41:58,478 Alex Kantrowitz: I think if you built a publication built on social referrals 727 00:41:58,488 --> 00:42:02,818 on Facebook that are entirely political and news driven, you'd be in good shape. 728 00:42:03,283 --> 00:42:03,743 Brian: Okay. 729 00:42:03,743 --> 00:42:07,463 Let's start like a, like a, you know, all politics, little things 730 00:42:07,533 --> 00:42:09,253 and cash in, 731 00:42:10,508 --> 00:42:13,788 Alex Kantrowitz: I mean, if there's ever a moment, this is going to be that moment. 732 00:42:14,058 --> 00:42:16,849 So get ready for those referral traffic, dollars to come in 733 00:42:16,849 --> 00:42:17,169 folks. 734 00:42:17,169 --> 00:42:17,819 Here it is. 735 00:42:18,404 --> 00:42:24,994 Brian: evaluate now, like looking back, cause like when Elon Musk, you know, bought Twitter and, you know, the, the, 736 00:42:25,014 --> 00:42:32,782 the endless coverage, you know, that, Casey was on it, like every, every minute, right, of like, you know, and it 737 00:42:32,782 --> 00:42:37,872 was, you know, the conventional wisdom was, Wow, he really stepped in it. 738 00:42:37,942 --> 00:42:43,482 And, and you leave aside like the money because the money, I mean, you look at how much money these these people are worth. 739 00:42:43,522 --> 00:42:44,372 It's like ridiculous. 740 00:42:44,372 --> 00:42:45,902 He's going to become a trillionaire at some point. 741 00:42:46,402 --> 00:42:50,092 and then he got other people to actually give him a lot of them, which is amazing. 742 00:42:50,592 --> 00:42:54,922 but like, I think X is like a really fascinating media platform. 743 00:42:54,942 --> 00:42:56,642 I like I'm fascinated by it. 744 00:42:56,672 --> 00:42:58,002 I'm repelled by it. 745 00:42:58,132 --> 00:43:01,422 I'm, I'm, I'm I'm possibly addicted to it. 746 00:43:01,832 --> 00:43:07,317 and it seems to me like it's actually having a serious impact. 747 00:43:07,662 --> 00:43:14,032 Like it is not, it is a major, it is a major force within this what I call like the information space. 748 00:43:14,132 --> 00:43:16,002 Like, it can't be ignored. 749 00:43:16,002 --> 00:43:16,222 I don't, 750 00:43:16,722 --> 00:43:17,142 Alex Kantrowitz: No way. 751 00:43:17,282 --> 00:43:19,662 I mean, it was never, it never became irrelevant. 752 00:43:19,872 --> 00:43:21,702 I mean, Musk definitely made some changes. 753 00:43:22,047 --> 00:43:27,647 to the algorithm initially that like drove me nuts and a lot of people nuts and I think drove users away 754 00:43:27,647 --> 00:43:30,947 from the site basically said okay it's you know going to be a lot of 755 00:43:30,947 --> 00:43:34,497 tweets from me and the menswear guy and some other people that I like and 756 00:43:34,877 --> 00:43:35,257 that was 757 00:43:35,462 --> 00:43:36,612 Brian: I never see the menswear guy. 758 00:43:36,612 --> 00:43:37,292 I don't know why. 759 00:43:38,047 --> 00:43:42,647 Alex Kantrowitz: is it would you say anymore so I think I can I mean I can't really put my finger on this but 760 00:43:42,647 --> 00:43:46,767 it certainly feels like there was an algorithm shift and the algorithm you 761 00:43:46,767 --> 00:43:51,567 know after a certain point just got like they tweaked it again And it got better. 762 00:43:51,897 --> 00:43:55,427 it's much more of a for you algorithm than a following algorithm now. 763 00:43:55,657 --> 00:43:56,947 I don't know if you see this with your own tweets, 764 00:43:57,042 --> 00:43:58,342 Brian: Yeah, now you got to 765 00:43:58,342 --> 00:44:02,762 go for don't even open it if you're going to do follow you just you got to go all in. 766 00:44:02,762 --> 00:44:03,042 It's 767 00:44:03,257 --> 00:44:09,357 Alex Kantrowitz: but Yeah, but the for you like even for you or whatever it was beforehand was algorithmic, but 768 00:44:09,447 --> 00:44:13,657 it's still really kept your follow signal as an important part of Twitter. 769 00:44:14,127 --> 00:44:19,247 And now it's just like everything is just algorithmic, algorithmically recommended, and it's a lot better. 770 00:44:19,747 --> 00:44:24,592 So it factors been actually, I think a pretty good tool to follow the LA wildfires. 771 00:44:25,032 --> 00:44:25,692 Although like, 772 00:44:26,042 --> 00:44:26,272 you know, 773 00:44:26,357 --> 00:44:32,697 Brian: hard part for me is like I want to use it like it's incredibly useful to, you know, find new like 774 00:44:32,697 --> 00:44:37,717 ideas and things for to like write about and, and it's, it's very useful. 775 00:44:37,847 --> 00:44:41,467 And then in between that is like, you know, I don't know, 776 00:44:41,487 --> 00:44:45,607 some sort of immigration outrage and some European country or, 777 00:44:45,977 --> 00:44:48,597 Alex Kantrowitz: And by the way, you and I both follow sports, right? 778 00:44:48,647 --> 00:44:53,157 So I feel like we can both agree that there's no better place to follow sports in the moment than on 779 00:44:53,157 --> 00:44:53,537 Twitter. 780 00:44:54,211 --> 00:44:56,531 He'd never emerged on threads, never emerged on Blue Sky. 781 00:44:56,531 --> 00:44:58,501 It's not on Facebook, not on Instagram. 782 00:44:58,516 --> 00:45:05,066 Brian: And not in, and not in, in mainstream media, like, I mean, there was, you know, like, for example, 783 00:45:05,066 --> 00:45:09,725 the, the, there's like an injured Jordan love, the Packers quarterback got like, you know, elbow injuries. 784 00:45:09,785 --> 00:45:11,335 He's playing the Eagles next week. 785 00:45:11,335 --> 00:45:16,765 And so, I want to know about this elbow injury left like holding his elbow and you know, they just said, 786 00:45:16,805 --> 00:45:20,195 Oh, he's going to be evaluated in like, you know, ESPN and everything. 787 00:45:20,205 --> 00:45:22,485 I go on Twitter, man, Dr. 788 00:45:22,495 --> 00:45:24,705 David show some orthopedic 789 00:45:24,830 --> 00:45:25,190 Alex Kantrowitz: good. 790 00:45:26,345 --> 00:45:29,265 Brian: who cares if he, he didn't examine Jordan love. 791 00:45:29,275 --> 00:45:30,175 He was telling me about it. 792 00:45:30,176 --> 00:45:32,535 It doesn't look like an ulnar injury and all these kinds of things. 793 00:45:32,535 --> 00:45:33,195 He'll be fine for 794 00:45:33,720 --> 00:45:34,820 Alex Kantrowitz: That guy is usually right. 795 00:45:35,020 --> 00:45:40,520 Brian: Yeah, and I'm like, okay, I've, I know this guy from, and I'm like, I, like, I'm not going to sue him 796 00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:44,130 if he's wrong, because he's a guy on Twitter who clearly didn't examine him. 797 00:45:44,130 --> 00:45:48,960 Like, okay, and that's why, yeah, I don't know where the, you know, with the misinformation, I think we're just 798 00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:53,490 going to have to accept that we're going to be in this world where there's 799 00:45:53,490 --> 00:45:56,640 going to be like a massive amount of information that's coming at you. 800 00:45:56,990 --> 00:46:00,140 And some of it is going to be true, and some of it is not going to be true at the 801 00:46:00,220 --> 00:46:02,700 Alex Kantrowitz: Well, community notes is actually a decent solution to that. 802 00:46:02,740 --> 00:46:08,030 And one of the Facebook announcements was that they are going to implement community notes the same way that Twitter has. 803 00:46:08,380 --> 00:46:09,700 And I don't know, is it 804 00:46:09,700 --> 00:46:10,130 perfect? 805 00:46:10,250 --> 00:46:10,530 Death. 806 00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,120 classic Zaki's like we're going to take their best thing and put it in our product. 807 00:46:14,140 --> 00:46:16,870 but for this, for this one, I think it makes a lot of sense. 808 00:46:16,940 --> 00:46:17,870 it's not perfect. 809 00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:19,200 It misses a lot of things. 810 00:46:19,210 --> 00:46:20,630 Some of those notes are wrong. 811 00:46:20,940 --> 00:46:23,140 but they're right more often than you'd expect. 812 00:46:23,410 --> 00:46:25,370 And they go on all sorts of really interesting things. 813 00:46:25,410 --> 00:46:27,400 I mean, they go on Elon's posts. 814 00:46:27,500 --> 00:46:28,540 They go on ads. 815 00:46:28,570 --> 00:46:31,670 Like if an ad is scammy, like you'll get community noted. 816 00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:37,440 And, the system has really just been, I mean, they developed it under Jack Dorsey and expanded it under Musk. 817 00:46:37,855 --> 00:46:42,015 So sort of like a team effort there at the place that can't do anything right. 818 00:46:42,035 --> 00:46:43,545 But I do think that they've done this right. 819 00:46:44,045 --> 00:46:47,935 Brian: Yeah, no community notes was was a great I mean, it's not perfect. 820 00:46:47,945 --> 00:46:50,695 And I think some people obviously don't like that. 821 00:46:50,695 --> 00:46:52,555 It has a personality of sorts. 822 00:46:52,555 --> 00:46:58,295 I guess in that, like, some of the notes are, and I guess maybe it hurts its credibility. 823 00:46:58,335 --> 00:47:00,895 I mean, some of its notes are just like, kind of like snarky. 824 00:47:01,395 --> 00:47:02,575 Replies, I guess, 825 00:47:03,375 --> 00:47:04,185 from what I've seen. 826 00:47:04,685 --> 00:47:06,965 but it's having, but X is having an impact. 827 00:47:06,965 --> 00:47:11,205 And I think that to me is just part of this decentralized, media system 828 00:47:11,215 --> 00:47:16,185 that for mainstream media, it's figuring out its place within it. 829 00:47:16,235 --> 00:47:19,315 It is not going to replace all of this. 830 00:47:19,316 --> 00:47:21,520 to live alongside it at the end of the day. 831 00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:21,980 Mm hmm. 832 00:47:23,445 --> 00:47:24,125 Alex Kantrowitz: Most definitely. 833 00:47:24,125 --> 00:47:24,305 Yeah. 834 00:47:24,305 --> 00:47:25,155 We'll live alongside. 835 00:47:25,435 --> 00:47:28,115 I mean, they are putting a lot of money into grok. 836 00:47:28,245 --> 00:47:34,095 Speaking of AI and media clubs, their, the, bot is living within Twitter. 837 00:47:34,095 --> 00:47:35,055 I was playing with it yesterday. 838 00:47:35,055 --> 00:47:35,765 It's gotten better. 839 00:47:36,185 --> 00:47:40,535 It really searches the web and, and tweets to give you answers to questions. 840 00:47:40,935 --> 00:47:42,095 does a pretty decent job. 841 00:47:42,125 --> 00:47:44,625 I was really testing it with some tough questions and it's pretty good. 842 00:47:45,085 --> 00:47:47,615 so that'll be a very interesting part of the next play. 843 00:47:47,615 --> 00:47:49,235 And, it's definitely relevant. 844 00:47:49,245 --> 00:47:51,985 It's not the be all end all like you need a combination of X and 845 00:47:51,995 --> 00:47:54,225 the mainstream media to really understand what's going on. 846 00:47:54,695 --> 00:47:56,395 but it is, it is one of the pillars. 847 00:47:56,745 --> 00:48:03,175 And, and I think he started this conversation asking like, you know, it was Elon's, you know, 44 billion purchase 848 00:48:03,175 --> 00:48:07,755 of the platform using other people's money, the right move as it paid off. 849 00:48:08,255 --> 00:48:10,425 And initially it seemed like there was no way. 850 00:48:10,785 --> 00:48:13,525 but now you see the influence that he wields you know, 851 00:48:13,885 --> 00:48:15,575 it's the first buddy in Mar a Lago. 852 00:48:15,620 --> 00:48:24,690 Brian: off, you know, getting into this position with, with Trump without weaponizing X to some degree. 853 00:48:25,020 --> 00:48:31,712 And that alone, if you look at how much it added to his, of his 854 00:48:31,712 --> 00:48:37,212 companies and therefore to him, like, it was probably worth it. 855 00:48:37,442 --> 00:48:37,692 You know, I 856 00:48:37,717 --> 00:48:42,257 Alex Kantrowitz: But can I also say, it seems like he's going to fly a little too close to the sun and he's going to 857 00:48:42,257 --> 00:48:46,267 get burned at some point, whether that is what everybody's predicting, this 858 00:48:46,267 --> 00:48:50,077 sort of like, you know, sort of divorce from Trump, that's bound to happen. 859 00:48:50,487 --> 00:48:51,227 That will probably happen. 860 00:48:51,237 --> 00:48:54,147 Or let's say the next administration comes in and doesn't want to deal 861 00:48:54,147 --> 00:48:57,407 with him because he's been so partisan or what he's doing in Europe. 862 00:48:57,717 --> 00:49:02,467 And, you know, I just find, I don't I don't mind saying I just find 863 00:49:02,467 --> 00:49:06,387 his support for the AFD in Germany, which is the far right party. 864 00:49:06,758 --> 00:49:07,668 Pretty disgusting. 865 00:49:08,108 --> 00:49:08,778 and 866 00:49:09,168 --> 00:49:10,168 And he's 867 00:49:10,433 --> 00:49:10,993 Brian: strange. 868 00:49:11,023 --> 00:49:14,983 I don't know why he's like, I sort of, I'm like, okay, I'm trying to understand 869 00:49:14,983 --> 00:49:18,943 your, your point, but I'm like, okay, you, you, you have a factory in Germany. 870 00:49:18,943 --> 00:49:21,263 If you don't like them, then just move your factory. 871 00:49:21,273 --> 00:49:21,903 Give me a break. 872 00:49:21,903 --> 00:49:22,263 Like what 873 00:49:22,683 --> 00:49:25,903 you're not, it's not like Germany is like a big deal to him 874 00:49:26,368 --> 00:49:26,628 Alex Kantrowitz: Right? 875 00:49:26,648 --> 00:49:27,628 It's strange. 876 00:49:27,738 --> 00:49:29,028 He's out of his depth. 877 00:49:29,274 --> 00:49:29,854 I don't know. 878 00:49:29,924 --> 00:49:31,154 And he just doesn't. 879 00:49:31,854 --> 00:49:34,124 He doesn't know the market that he's dealing with there. 880 00:49:34,624 --> 00:49:39,674 And so I just think that like, he is a person who makes who loves 881 00:49:39,674 --> 00:49:42,774 making high stakes scambles when he thinks he can benefit from them. 882 00:49:43,164 --> 00:49:44,614 And man have a lot worked out. 883 00:49:45,104 --> 00:49:45,424 Right? 884 00:49:45,434 --> 00:49:47,124 I mean, a lot of them have worked out. 885 00:49:47,569 --> 00:49:49,859 Brian: But even the best gamblers lose like regularly. 886 00:49:49,964 --> 00:49:50,544 Alex Kantrowitz: Exactly. 887 00:49:51,044 --> 00:49:52,564 So that's my point. 888 00:49:52,929 --> 00:49:54,829 Brian: All right, Alex, let's leave it there. 889 00:49:54,829 --> 00:49:56,099 It's a Friday afternoon. 890 00:49:56,259 --> 00:49:57,979 the weekend needs to begin at some point. 891 00:49:57,979 --> 00:49:58,669 So why not now? 892 00:49:59,169 --> 00:49:59,609 Alex Kantrowitz: Sounds good. 893 00:49:59,609 --> 00:50:00,079 Thanks for having me, 894 00:50:00,199 --> 00:50:01,039 Brian: All right, thanks again. 895 00:50:01,049 --> 00:50:01,809 Appreciate it, Alex.