Kara Swisher: Tech, Power, and Why You Should Get the F*cking Duck

Kara Swisher is widely considered the most powerful and plugged in reporter in the world of big tech.

Kara Swisher knows Silicon Valley as well as anyone.

My source tonight is the veteran tech insider Kara Swisher, the host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher and Pivot.

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The end of this podcast,

you would have to take a second.

Her pictures are amazing.

He was like, where did you send position and everything?

No, he said, where did you learn how to use selfies?

And actually, Kim Kardashian talks to you.

No, are you being serious?

I didn't expect that.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

I showed him this one.

Yeah, it's showing some wide details.

Oh, okay.

So she was teaching me duck face

and that time we were together.

So she's like, here's how you do it.

And she showed me, she has a light, this loomy light around her camera.

It's right there.

That's how the picture looked.

Kim Kardashian taught you how to take selfies.

Yeah.

But you're day-to-day.

She's good at it.

No, I mean, I'm assuming that she's brilliant.

Pictures of family.

Oh, oh.

Oh, those are.

All right.

Every time I've tried to take it for it, it looks like I'm using a Nokia 3210.

That phone did not have a camera.

So you can see that.

You know what I was about to say?

I was like, I don't know why that image was even better for me because the Nokia 3210 doesn't have a camera.

Exactly.

My pictures look like someone with a sketch pad.

Oh, man.

All right.

You are so good at pictures.

That's all four of them.

Their babysitter both in the same phone.

You know, I didn't know what to expect, but you're not wrong.

No, there they are.

Yeah, the composition.

That's them.

The lighting.

Looking like a pile.

And where you're standing at the pig pile.

See?

Yeah.

They love doing that.

But we just put a sheet up behind us and took the picture.

And then you just jumped in.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you think the cameras are actually getting?

They are so good.

The new camera and the new iFi.

Do you leave your phone portrait unlocked or locked?

I let it decide whatever it's going to do.

Yeah, these are amazing computers.

They're astonishing.

No, I'm just always intrigued by which people keep it locked or keep it unlocked.

Unlocked.

Because if I want to watch something.

so if you turn it sideways, does it turn?

Yes.

Lock it.

I've just explained to you now.

Do you know what it is that I take?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

No, he doesn't.

Eugene is the perfect person to have this conversation with us because he's like a mega Luddite.

Right here, there's a thing called the lock screen on this.

You lock it and it doesn't, when you do, you do that, it doesn't do it.

You unlock it.

And then if you're watching a movie or something on YouTube,

let's do everything in real time.

Except

you're in it.

It's unlocked.

It is now unlocked.

Now Now it's locked.

Yeah, there we go.

There.

Keep it unlocked.

Keep it unlocked in case you're watching.

If you want to turn your screen.

Then it just.

But I don't like my screen turning when I turn the screen.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Do you know what I mean?

I'm very intentional about those moments.

So sometimes what I don't like is it will turn when I'm trying to turn.

That's right.

That's right.

I just want to look at my phone from a different angle.

Oh, yes.

Then you should lock it.

Oh, sometimes you're just mining your business going, hmm.

And there you go.

Yeah, and then it turns.

I don't like that.

So I'm like, don't turn it to turn.

I will tell you when it's time to turn.

Plus, a lot of the apps apps that have come out now,

they auto-rotate when you go into like a full-screen.

That's right.

They do.

They do.

So I feel like it's...

You feel like your free will is taking.

This is exactly what I'm...

So would you say that?

This is autocracy, really.

Yeah.

If you really want to get into it.

This is my true challenge in life.

Yeah.

Keep it.

No, you do what you want.

See what your vibe is, but at least now you know.

Because Kara Schwisher has talked.

By the way,

welcome to the podcast.

And more importantly, happy birthday.

It's not my birthday.

Yeah, I feel like it's never your birthday.

No, it's never.

I put birthdays all over the internet.

So nobody knows my birthday.

Yeah, but then I feel like, but then I feel like I should say happy birthday to you.

Every month is my birthday.

You know, when I read this about you, I was like, this is one of the craziest things and most amazing things I've ever...

When did you start doing this?

In 1993, 1992, three.

You put up your first fake birthday.

No, no, I did that later.

After I realized what was happening with the privacy stuff, which was relatively soon.

I just kept telling different things.

There's a correct birthday up there.

They've found the real birthday.

But you just keep...

I just change it and tell people different things and just I put it up in places.

I'll change it a different place just to just because I don't want people to necessarily know my birthday.

Because I was really worried about privacy from the get-go when AOL started.

I started covering AOL in the 90s.

And that was the first iteration of where we are today.

Popular one.

There were others.

There were all kinds of

message boards and things like that.

but it was real complicated.

And if you didn't, it was not easy to use.

And so AOL was the first commercial interpretation of what we see today.

And that wasn't even the internet.

That was a service that was then attached to the internet.

That was, you know, a separate, it was not the internet.

It was like a walled garden approach.

And the minute I saw what AOL was doing, I realized they were scraping and stealing information so they could take advantage of you and sell advertising.

You knew this in 1993?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it was obvious what they were doing.

What did they need all this information?

Why were advertising come back that were based on my searches and stuff?

And then when Google was there, I got it right away.

You understood what their business was.

Although initially Google's business model was not advertising.

They didn't have one, actually.

They came upon advertising.

This is, I remember using AOL and I don't know what it was like in America, but in South Africa, we didn't really have these services full-on.

So we would get a

CD, a disk.

Everybody did.

Oh, that was the same.

Yes, everybody.

That was their method of marketing.

Yeah, and I could only access it for like, it was like 30 minutes.

Like each disc gave me 30 minutes.

Yes, to try it out, to try it out.

And then that was, but in my world, I didn't know when the next disc would come.

So I'd go in these little chat rooms and these, like, I'd make friends on these chat sites, you know, and I remember it was like age, sex, location, ASL.

And you type that in, and then I would go, you know, age,

male, and location, South Africa.

And the people were like, you're lying.

That was the first thing everyone said.

You're lying.

Yeah.

Like, there's no internet in Africa.

Ah, yes, there is.

Well, there's not as much.

I'll tell you that.

That was that's yes, but they were like, there's no internet in Africa.

And then I would say, sort of like your birthday thing, I would go, well, I am the prince of my village, and I have the one computer.

And you know what's crazy?

That's when they accepted it.

They're like, you know,

they're like, that makes sense.

That makes sense.

Welcome to the internet.

It's interesting you said that about Africa, because in the early days, Google had this amazing visualization when you entered the company.

It was a small company at the time.

And it would show a globe where all the information requests were coming from.

And it was different colors based on language.

And so it was sort of a light visualization.

So it would show the amount of questions being asked around the world.

And it would be like beams of light, almost like...

skyscrapers, right?

And you see New York, big skyscraper, and lots of languages, and you'd spin around to Europe, and there'd be a lot with lots of light, like Germany had German, French, whatever they were speaking.

And you see lots of light.

And you would spin around to different, Asia was just bright because they were using internet and because the cables that went across the seas

were linking all these countries, right?

Africa had almost no light coming off of it.

It was, and I remember turning to Sergei or Laria, I can't ever tell them apart at this point, and I said, what's going on?

And he said, they're not asking questions.

I said, no, they're not allowed to ask questions because they don't have access.

They have questions.

So, you know, this whole asking questions is about modernity when you ask questions.

And they weren't, this one continent was not able to ask questions because they didn't have the fiber laid.

But when wireless showed up, it grew really fast because then, whether it's to be satellite or whatever it happens to be, they got, they had fiber is a problem.

ultimately.

So when wireless happened, it changed.

Yeah, like the physical infrastructure in most developing nations is the hardest thing to get going.

But that's why wireless became the revolution.

So in South Africa, and I think many parts of Southern Africa and India, we actually leapfrogged the United States.

We did for now connectivity and connectivity and speech.

Like I remember visiting America and 3G wasn't a thing here and people were still on like old CDMA technology, like a GPRS.

That's for another reason, because the companies didn't want to modernize.

And so, you know, one of the things we did, and I did an interview at the time, the head of the FCC, and the US had the most expensive internet access and the least fast.

So I was like, oh, so we're getting shitty service for the most expensive price.

And it was because of the way these things were monopolies and they didn't, you know, whatever the cable, the cable barons didn't owned a certain section.

And whether they decided to modernize or not was when things got modernized.

And so there was no competition and they tried to keep satellite out.

They tried to keep all kinds of things out in the United States because we let these corporations rule the roost as we always do.

And that's why it was so slow to get here.

Competition is what everything is about in general.

There's two things you've said that just sparked like sort of how we should be looking at tech even through today's lens.

The first one was when you said you're at Google.

You're talking to the two people who've started Google.

Right.

They have a device that tracks where people are asking questions from in the world.

They see no questions from Africa and they're like, man, Africans aren't asking questions.

Well, that was their first thing.

And also what they also had is.

But what I'm saying to that point,

and I want to hear what you're going to say after that, but it's wild to me that

the people who are like sort of seen as shaping the world and the most intelligent weren't intelligent enough to come to the conclusion.

I don't think they're the most intelligent.

I don't.

No, but that's how they're seen, is what I'm saying.

Well, of course, because we have to make these people into gods, right?

They're magicians or gods.

They're not gods.

They're just people and very broken people, many of them.

I mean, look at Elon Musk from your country.

And

wow, wow, wow, Cara.

Wow.

Damn.

Damn.

The way she just threw that at us from your country.

That was so slick.

He's a proud immigrant.

That was such a happy.

to be.

She threw a ninja star at us.

And look at Elon Musk, that crazy bastard from your country.

I meant that as a compliment.

I meant that as a compliment.

He was an export into this country.

And

she was good for us for letting him in.

That was great.

You know, maybe not today, but yes, for a while, for sure.

But yeah, he should, well, he should go to Mars.

Let's just be clear.

Let's send him to Mars.

Let's move him to another.

I sometimes think he's just trying to get home.

Oh, to Mars, yeah.

Like if we found out that Elon Musk was an alien who's always just been trying to go home, it wouldn't be the most shocking thing when you think about it.

You're right.

You look at his mannerisms, the way he jumps, his vibe, the way he doesn't really understand human empathy the same way.

What if the guy's just trying to go home?

So he's a trapped alien who's trying to get home.

Yes, because he can't tell us he's an alien.

There's been movies like that.

Remember where they're like.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, very well done.

Yeah, well done.

Like, so if you were an alien who was trapped on Earth and you knew you had advanced technology.

So he's the only one here.

Yes.

Of his kind.

You have super advanced technology.

You're not going to come out and tell humans I'm an alien.

You know what we do to you.

Right.

You know?

I think the soldiers dissect you, obviously.

Exactly.

The bigger question should be: why did they send him here?

No, but I know that they sent him.

Maybe he got stuck.

I like this.

He got lost.

Yeah.

Maybe he got lost.

Maybe his spaceship broke down.

He was hard.

And where is it?

He fell in the sea.

Or so he was in the sea and then he swam

to South Africa.

He's an alien, so he's got fish like a snow.

That's a tough one.

He buys sperm.

Maybe, okay, maybe.

Maybe it's like Clockhind Superman.

Maybe his dad found his pod and then has just been raising him.

So he was out fishing.

Yes.

And then all of a sudden there was a floating.

Yeah.

And then

he raised him.

And then he gave him a meat suit.

And then there you go.

Ah.

But what was he before?

Was he like a weird blob?

We don't know.

We'll never know.

We'll never know.

Until we get to Mars, we'll never know Elon's true form.

Well, we actually know what people look like on Mars.

Actually, today, interestingly, you're talking about they found some

bio on Mars.

It was a speckled rock, and it has what?

They found something that's akin to life there.

It's not a person, but it's a, I think it feels like it's almost like lichen or something on this rock.

It's a speckled rock with bio material.

That's what they're calling it.

On it.

Yeah.

So that life does exist.

Well, water exists there.

Lots of stuff exists there.

So there's a possibility of further life.

That said, interestingly, I just interviewed a bio,

an astro biologist and physicist.

And he was noting, he wrote a book called, his name's Adam Becker, wrote More Everything Forever, which is a sort of...

motto of tech people, which is not, you can't have more everything forever, right?

But they think that.

And so he was blowing up the Mars idea because Mars is got gravity issues.

They've got massive radiation issues.

It's constantly hit by comets and asteroids and stuff like that.

And so he was like, literally,

the worst day on Earth is better than the best day on Mars.

Like, because you have to live below ground, like deep into the ground.

You have to protect yourself from radiation.

Your bones get...

get

more brittle.

I'm not sure what happened, but you get shorter is what happens.

And you get stupider.

And you you get stupider when you're there.

And so you do become, you know, these depictions of Martians as sort of mole people, it's actually kind of accurate.

That's what would happen to humans there.

That could be us.

Right.

This is sometimes what I think of, like, you know, like the sci-fi stories.

Yeah.

At the same time?

Different times.

Definitely.

No, no, on the same day.

Like, they,

it just like goes, it oscillates between.

It oscillates.

Yeah.

And you age really quickly, which is another thing.

So there's no reason to want to go there.

Yeah, at all.

You didn't sell it well.

Did you sell it?

So then what is their obsession with it?

Because you can get to it.

It's closest.

No, but

I mean, like, I wonder if you've garnered an insight.

You know, going back to what we were talking about, these men are seen in today's world at least, they're seen as like demigods.

I've talked to people who genuinely believe that you should never, ever question Elon Musk or Jeff Bates.

Not anymore.

Not anymore.

That's changed recently.

Slowly.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I think their brand is not great these days.

I mean, Elon's brand was quite high.

And now it's, I think he was the most hated person in America recently.

I mean,

in a

poll, one of these polls.

I was surprised.

I was like, not Trump.

It's him.

It's actually

Elon Musk.

Musk.

Yeah.

Because he went against Trump.

That was the first time.

And look at it.

No, that's not why.

That's not why.

It was declined.

It was already because he acts like an asshole.

And he showed himself.

He showed his ass.

I mean, that's what he did.

He showed his ass.

And I think you noticed, wow, he's a little strange.

Wow, he's cutting without indiscriminately.

Wow, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

He kept showing his ass.

And you were like, oh, wait a minute.

Yeah, he is.

And just jumping up and down, saying, tweeting things about how we need more white people on the planet,

et cetera.

You start to be like sort of repelled by it.

And look at the brand.

I don't have to prove it.

I don't think it's just because people don't like him that Tesla's sales have.

plummeted.

I think that's part of it.

Other party doesn't have a car anybody wants anymore and there's lots of competition.

China

is tracking him

across the globe, BYD, making great innovative cars all across the globe.

In this country, a whole bunch of car makers have great Rivian or Ford has some great cars.

Everybody's now competing, and Tesla hasn't innovated in a very long time, except for the Cybertruck, which, as you know, is the ugliest car in existence.

And it hasn't been able to sell very many, except for men of problematic penis size.

maybe a woman or two how do we a society avoid men of problematic penis sizes well because you're a parent of three three men yes three no three three young two young men and one boy yes yes i i don't know i think it's really um it's it's i think it's been with us forever that's not a new fresh insight yeah i you know what i actually think um I actually think we are in a cycle.

Like, it's a loop of life.

We often forget that tech was the domain of the nerd.

Right?

Like, I know when I was burning CDs, like when I had my first CD-ROM, my first CD-writer, my modem, when I was building my own little rig, when I, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

When I was in that world, I can tell you now that world did not brush up against anything cool or sexual.

Yes, no.

Okay.

None of that.

Yeah.

Fast forward to today.

There was no world where I could say to you, ah, my PCI slot got me closer to that woman.

No, never happened.

A lot of things are making sense about you now.

There's a lot.

And you know, I'm glad you're opening up about this because

there's times where I

have questions.

You just had them answered when he said PCI slots.

It was a compliment.

He's trying to make a sexual reference, but it didn't come around.

No, no, it wasn't at all.

Genuinely.

See?

I promise you I wasn't.

I wish you wasn't.

We heard it.

No, I wish you wasn't.

I'm teasing you.

No, genuinely.

But I mean, like, it just wasn't.

There's a lot of tech words that are very sexual, though.

I've never even thought of them in that way.

Put the floppy disc in.

Wow.

Okay, I would go with a stiffy.

Stiffy, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Hard drive.

Hard drive.

Hard drive, drive.

Hard drive.

There's all kinds of stuff on there.

Yes, there are.

So when I think of that world, right?

There was a community that we would form as nerds where we, you know, the bullies beat us up.

It was just not the cool space to be in.

No.

Right.

Then money comes into it.

It becomes money.

It becomes the force that changes the world and then what we forget is this is a like an entire generation of nerds who were bullied who were always on the outside

and now society has just told them that they're the coolest people but they didn't sort of like

i think you're going to have a lot of money they society it likes money yes and money

is attractive but that's what i mean and it without the money they would remain uncool and the power yeah right exactly and so and even now the way like for example that dinner they all had it it was embarrassing to them.

Oh, yeah.

You know, dinner at the White House.

Yeah, it was, I was like, you're the richest people in the world, and you have to suck this guy's, you know, whatever.

PCI.

Yes, PCI.

It was really quite something to see.

It's like, what's the point of being the richest people in the world if this is what you have to do?

Aren't you exempt from that?

But they're not.

And so I don't think they look very cool.

I thought they looked kind of like toadies, pathetic toadies.

But that's...

Do you think maybe that's the side effect of being bullied as a young person?

Not all of them were.

You just want to be with a cool guy.

It doesn't tell me.

No, no, no.

Mark Cuban's pretty cool.

He's pretty cool.

He's always been cool, I think.

For example, Mark Cuban.

Was he like tech tech nerd in that?

He was a tech nerd.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's just a different kind.

You know, I think, I mean, Mark Zuckerberg is kind of classic, but actually, he was pretty popular in high school, from what I understand.

He was not bullied.

And it just depends.

I think that, you know, it's because it's formed by Hollywood, like Revenge of the Nerds and those, and all those movies.

And I think, you know, as tech became so important to all our lives,

we began to recognize the importance of these characters in making us understanding it and inventing it.

But back in the day, Edison was a hero.

All those people, all those inventors, Franklin, they were all heroes.

So I think we've always loved the inventor.

That's not a new thing.

But you're right.

There were these images of, like Bill Gates, for example, sort of was the quintessential

nerd, right?

But that image is, you know, when you, when you talk about, I love that you say the word inventors,

because I

watch every single

Apple event.

They just have one, you know.

Every WWDC, every new launch, every, you know, I watch the Pixel events, I watch the Google this, I watch the, I watch them all.

And I don't know if I'm the only one, but I feel like over the past few years, I felt like it's less a club of inventors now.

Oh, yeah.

Than marketers.

Yeah, it feels more like it's marketing and extraction.

It doesn't feel like when you say these things, Edison, I go, yeah, but look at what Edison was trying to do.

You know, Graham Bell, look what Graham Bell was trying.

Look what Tesla, the man, was trying to do.

None of these people were trying to think of a way for you to get your

food 15 minutes faster than you were getting it before.

Right.

That's not an invention, in my opinion.

Well, it was interesting because at one point,

some of it was inventions, absolutely.

And Steve Jobs sort of personified that, although he wasn't a technical person.

He was just, he was good at marketing and he was good at visionary, being visionary of what it should be.

And he had enough technical expertise to spur inventors to make what he, what his vision was.

But one, at one point during the internet age,

it got so,

I guess, fucked up that they were, someone came to me with like

digital dry cleaning service.

I was like, this is not innovation.

This is just what do you mean a digital dry cleaning?

You just ordered on an app.

That's all.

It was just an app and it was still dry clean.

I'm like, are you going to dry clean it digitally?

Because that would be cool.

But one of the things that I used to, someone said to me at the time, and I agree with it, was at one point, Silicon Valley became

really smart people doing really small things.

And that's what it felt like.

And that's why Elon was so interesting, I have to say, and I spent a lot of time with him, was because, you know, he was talking about cars.

He was talking about space.

He was talking about Neuralink.

He was talking about tunneling and Hyperloop.

Whatever you think of those things and whether they work or not, they were big ideas.

They were.

And so smart people working on small ideas is really quite deflating in a lot of ways.

And I think a lot of it is that, right?

And Steve Jobs, for example, was perfect at making you see the vision of where it was going because, you know, this phone, even though they just released the skinny one, I don't know if you saw it.

It's got that bump on it.

I saw it last night.

Mega bump.

The bump is weird.

It's massive.

It's also lopsided.

That's my problem.

Like maybe, maybe it's just the...

Steve wouldn't have liked that.

Yeah, I go like, if you're going to make a phone that has a mega bump on the back, at least more bump.

that would make more bump because then when I put the phone down, it's flat.

Now you have a phone that has like one corner and then it wobbles and it does a thing.

Why am I resting my phone on the camera?

I mean, maybe it's just me, but I'm like.

Right.

They have a case for it, but then it's not the whole point of the thin phone.

That's correct.

I said this to this Apple executive and they're like, God, you're annoying.

Yeah, yeah, I had to sit through this lecture last night.

It is.

So he's 100% right.

The wobble.

The wobble.

And not just the wobble.

You make the thinnest phone.

Yeah.

And then you put a fat battery on it.

And you tell me, look, we can put a battery.

But then if I've got to put a fat battery on a thin phone, you've got me back to the fat phone.

Give me back this.

Okay, but the gains of the fat back and the wobble.

No, it's no gains.

There's no gains.

So you don't get to.

I have one camera instead of three.

I have less battery life than I would have on the other one.

You have less battery life with the sample.

It also charges slower.

Right.

Right.

So it charges slower.

I've got fewer speaker grills.

Yes, that's right.

Come on.

I'm not loving this new one, I have to say.

You know what I do love?

The new AirPods.

Now, that's pretty.

Those Those things are cool.

Real coming up.

Someday, well, AirPods should be, if it was a business by itself, it would be a massive business, right?

And everyone made fun of them at the time they came out.

If you remember, everyone's like, you look ridiculous.

I'm like, no, no, these are fantastic.

One of the things that to me will happen is someday we will have video cameras in them or some sort of camera and it will start talking.

It will be your, instead of wearing glasses, like which some people are working on, Face Meta has some.

Apple obviously did Vision Pro.

But

these are where I think there's going to to be visuals, and then it's going to talk to you, like in that movie, Her.

It'll be talking to you and like, okay, up ahead is that person.

Go to the left, go here.

And you'll constantly be interacting with some sort of AI that will speak to you all day long.

What's the first tech that made you feel like you were living in the future?

I always love asking this, like, tech levels.

Well, I'm a little older.

The browser.

The

mosaic.

browser.

Really?

Yes, because look, you had to.

Some of the computer, that was like okay-ish.

They hadn't really innovated.

I mean, there was that time.

There were a couple, not Dell's, what was the company?

It's gone now.

They had some small ones that were pretty cool, right?

Actually, it's not true.

There was something called

General Magic that created the General Magic Magic device.

And it was an iPhone before there was an iPhone.

Like, how long are we talking about?

It was a lot of the people who worked on iPhone later.

This was the

80s, essentially.

No way.

Remember, Apple had Newton, if you remember.

Yeah, yeah, but I don't know about General Magic.

Similar.

General General Magic was before that.

And a lot of the people moved to the Newton project.

They kept trying to do it, right?

And the guy, Tony Fidel, that ended up being critical to the

iPod worked at General Magic.

Like, they were always trying to figure out this sort of, and it actually goes back to Star Trek.

That's what they were trying to make.

That little device that they're using.

That's right, the communicator.

The

communicator, right?

And so they were always trying to create that.

And that was what that became.

But General Magic had, and I have one, I have an original General Magic, was a block.

It just was too big.

And it had pictures of male on a desk with a male, with a mailbox and stuff like that.

And you would, you'd have stylus, and it was just, it wasn't the right form factor, but it was directionally the correct version.

And if you look at that, you're like, you could see the straight line into this.

Same thing with the glasses and stuff.

I have one of the original Google Glasses, which those massive.

No, they weren't big, actually.

Google Glass was quite skinny.

And then it had this weird little thing, this little

Yes, they were not massive.

Vision Pro is massive, is still big.

And so are most of the meta ones, Oculus and everything else.

Google Glass was small and it sat on your, it sat on, like it was very thin and then had a little thing.

It just wasn't very functional.

It didn't do much, right?

And it would sit there.

And one of the problems with it, when it first was introduced, I went to, my ex-wife worked for Google.

So I went to a Christmas party and they had just introduced Google Glass, but nobody had them but the Google people.

And so everyone on the boat, she was in that division, had the Google Glass on on a boat.

It was such a great scene.

And they wouldn't let me have it.

They're like, you can't have it.

I'm like, thank you.

And they and they're wearing it.

And they were trying to

get it to go, you go, hello, Google, or you made it, you said something like, hello, Google, to it.

Yeah.

And then that was like the, yeah, yes, that was, they have an action word, right?

And they were all going,

hello, Google.

And they were turning on each other's Google glass with the same thing.

Oh, my goodness.

At Google parties, they used to have really good food all the time.

And they'd have like a mountain of shrimp, like really good shrimp.

Like, and I sat there eating shrimp like, this is the worst.

Listening to hello, Google.

It was like,

this is dystopia, but the shrimp is delicious.

And they didn't realize nobody would.

interact like this.

And even Sergei, who wore them around all the time, he's one of the founders, Sergei Brin, he'd wear them everywhere.

And they were so weird looking and unattractive.

And he was wearing them at a Vanity Fair Oscar party.

And he came up and he goes, nobody's talking to me.

And I'm like, well, you're wearing those fucking Google Glass.

No, celebrities don't want a picture at a party where they're smoking pot.

Like, are you kidding me?

Like, what do you take them on?

She's walking around with a camera.

Yes, exactly.

And

he goes, oh, what should I say?

I said, say, I'm a billionaire.

It'll work with these people.

Like, take off the glasses, say I'm a billionaire.

But what happened with Google Glass, and I think eventually it'll get better, was,

and I did say this to him and others at Google at the time.

I said, congratulations, you've rendered.

Remember, they went to Victoria's Secret and they all had them on.

Do you remember?

No, I don't remember.

So they had, to introduce it, they did a Victoria's Secret event and all the supermodels had them on.

Oh, wow.

And so I was there and they go, what do you think?

I go, you've just made supermodels unfuckable.

How good for you.

Well done.

That is technology.

It was.

Well done, guys.

But I think everything she's explained is what I find wrong with technology.

It almost feels like it makes you ignore the giant plate of shrimp shrimp in front of you.

Right.

Well, but yeah, you've never shrimp isn't.

Like, what tech?

No, but I like asking you

these things because you've always been my one of my non-techie friends.

Yeah.

So you'll ask me questions, and there's some tech that you'll adopt, and then there's some tech that you won't.

Yes.

Like, which tech do you think is actually meaningful?

Do you like even care?

I think after the radio, we should have stopped.

Totally.

Jesus, Eugene.

Wow.

We pushed it to television.

I'm sold on that.

I love the butter churn.

You know what I actually like?

You might like this, the aura.

Although now they're working with the Defense Department, so fuck that.

But

this ring is really, it's the beginning of the idea of monitoring your health a little bit.

I find this to be really interesting.

And it gives you, I used to call a lot of these things unwearables because it was like your steps.

What does that tell you about your health?

Does it tell you anything?

Oh, I did 10,000 steps.

What does that mean?

What should you do next?

What I always wanted was a device either on your wrist or here or in your ear.

You'd eat a donut.

It would go, oh, that was a mistake.

It would talk to you and say, what you need to do is get up right now and walk a thousand steps and I'll tell you when you're done.

Or what you need to do now is go get a kefir immediately and drink that down.

Get those probiotic going.

Get those probiotic going.

But I would like something that has actionable information.

And this one, especially for sleep, really does gives you data that...

you can actually pay attention to and they have to start to interpret it but that's the kind of thing you're hoping for waiting for that would be useful to see aura ring.

It's good for you, and it makes you look committed.

Yes, it does.

Yeah, it's kind of too big, though, because only guys made this.

Let me just say.

It needs to be this big because of all the

sensors on the inside.

Eventually, it will.

And wear space for your wedding ring.

I know I'm married.

I don't wear it.

Don't say anything.

I don't like rings.

I don't like rings.

They make me feel like I'm captive.

I do this with

your finger makes you feel like...

I don't like rings.

Some people like jewelry in general it's on their fingers yeah no just even even like around around your neck as well sometimes

you've never had a conversation my wife

she would like me to wear it more and i try i try my best how many times does this topic come up because many times thank you for bringing it up and now she'll listen to this and we'll have another one let me just say something let me give you a little tip for reporting

ask a man how his wife is sometimes.

I always start interviews with some weird personal question.

Ask a man how their wife is.

Many men do this.

No.

They start

and take it off.

Like they don't, they, it's really interesting.

Just try it.

It's like it's burning them from

burning their finger.

And they're always like, great, great, great.

Everything's great.

And I'm like, okay.

I wonder if you could get all the data and see if there's any correlation between who took the ring off and how their relationship turned out.

Right, exactly.

Because maybe that's like a tell that someone's giving you.

It's like, how's your relationship?

And if they pull the ring off and then answer you and then put it back on.

Yep.

And And maybe you can tell us because you've never had it on.

Because they know.

I'm not subject to that.

I'm only wearing it because I'm traveling.

I usually take it off in the morning.

So, where do you keep the one that

was blessed for this union?

Yes, because the Catholic Church loves a gay marriage.

It's in a box.

It's in a nice, pretty box.

It's a pretty box.

And she was.

Probably from South Africa.

From your country.

From your country.

I'm fascinated by this because earlier on I was telling you that I'm actually entertaining the concept of getting married.

Okay, I have what?

And you know, you just said that yesterday.

He just told me.

Wow.

You see.

You didn't know, son.

You know, when we're together, you said maybe ask your friends.

Yeah.

What did I say?

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, I'm saying about ask your friends, but no, I said, have you fix him up?

Let me explain what the where the what came from.

And the what came from me finding out on a podcast that we are sharing here from from Cara Swisher, yeah,

that you are considering getting married.

Well, I'm a famous reporter, so that's clear.

What you're saying, I found out that you were a weird nerd who was brushing up against nothing cool your whole life.

You knew this about me, okay.

You've always known this about me, and Trevor, I didn't.

He didn't know the shame that you had, I didn't know the shame.

I had no shame, yes, there was no shame, I was just a nerd enjoying myself.

100% wished he could date, girl.

Let me tell you, let me tell you something.

Let me tell you how much fun it was.

Let me tell you something.

Few things were more fun.

Friday nights,

I would be in my room with my PC.

With my PC, I'd have my PC.

Wow.

And we had this deal in South Africa at the time where

the service provider would give you internet that, like, the cost of dialing up wouldn't go beyond a certain price from 7 p.m.

on Friday night until 7 a.m.

on Monday.

Downtimes, yeah.

Right?

And so the maximum price was something like

$1, essentially, which was otherwise you could pay like $1,000 if you weren't careful.

So I would wait.

Friday night would come, and I'd be sitting there with my PC.

I had my whole rig.

I'd plugged in car speakers that I would find from wrecked cars.

And I would, I created my own surround sound in my room.

Wow.

Right.

So connected them all, had my Winamp going.

Win amp, of course.

I'd wait for 7 p.m.

product.

I'd wait for 7 p.m.

And then 7 p.m.

would come, click that modem, get going.

Nice, nice.

I would get in, and then my mom taught me how to make a

rum and raisin whiskey concoction.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So I'd sit at home with a five-liter, I don't know what that is, a gallon meat.

I don't know how to convert these things, but of ice cream

mixed with whiskey.

Oh, and then I would dip my cup in and I would sip it and then I would chat to strangers from all over the world.

Good time.

That was a normal Friday night for you.

Yeah.

The best Friday night.

Who's the person that you wanted me to ask?

Do you see any shame?

100%.

What?

We're ashamed for you.

We're ashamed of you.

But I was really asking Kara about this.

I was like, I really, I really, really want to take that step.

But my question to her was: is it better to do it with someone that you've known for a long time or get fixed up?

No, I got fixed up on a blind day.

My wife and I were fixed.

Who fixed you up?

Lydia Polgreen and her wife Candy fight.

What did they see in you and her?

So I had broken up with someone and I had not ever been single my entire life.

I went out with men too, many, many years when I was in high school and stuff.

And I just hadn't been alone by myself.

And I said, I'm going to be alone for a year.

I did one of those things.

And Candy called me and texted me and said, can I fix you up with someone?

I have two people.

I have two different.

She was kind of a matchmaker personality.

And she said, I'll.

I'll set, and I was, I actually was going to a funeral and I was like, well, how about after the funeral?

Pretty Pretty practical.

Right, exactly.

I was wearing all those things.

I think I was wearing this.

Maybe I might.

Yeah.

I might intend another death.

I know, exactly.

And

I said, okay, but I'm not going out with anyone for a year.

I'm not.

I'm going to, like, I literally just.

How many months were you in now?

A month, a month.

One month in, still strong.

A month and a half, maybe.

And

I said, okay, I'll go.

I'll start with one.

And

they had a little dinner party kind of thing in brooklyn and i went and i think we got married we had a baby a year later

you never got to number two never got to we did meet i met number two later very nice it was a very excellent choice too wow so was there a moment when you met number two where you're like this could have been or was it no like you know no i picked the right yeah i got the right one she was she she picked the right one actually

she picked the right one because that was the first option that she had she that she picked

up plan yes and i really really trusted her and i think you should take advice from your friends if they really care about you they think about it.

I got you, boo.

Same one to drink rum and raisin.

I got used to drink rum and raisin.

Used to.

Do you have someone for him?

Used to.

Do you?

I can figure it out.

No ways.

I got you.

I got you.

The only way.

I only trust Trevor to pick the menu.

Oh, okay.

All right.

He picks up.

I would never.

I know, but he has your best interest at heart.

I've got his.

Thank you, Cara.

I have his fully, full best interest.

This is a guy who's

been through talking about the hump on the iPhone for hours and hours.

But you know what?

He's right about that.

That's very upsetting.

That's what I'm talking about.

I was like, these people this the most it's a multi-trillion dollar company they didn't notice the i i said that to the executive so you know what my there was a pretty big executive at this morning show premiere and he goes what do you think i'm like what's with the bump and he goes fuck you

you didn't notice the bump all your multi-billion dollar can i tell you my theory what gen my genuine theory and i could be wrong on this

i feel like the technology that's being made today not all of it but a lot of it is being made by people who are not using it, using it.

So they're sort of like making theoretically, but they're not using it.

No, no, I think they had Samsung NB, you know, because a lot of people.

So the thin phone?

The thin phone.

I think they wanted a thin phone.

Carl, there's no way someone was using that and was like, this is right.

Well, it was interesting because when I saw it, I thought Steve Jobs would vomit on this phone.

Like he would not like it.

He would not have let it go like that.

No way, no way.

One of the things that was really interesting many years ago when I, you know, I was partners with Walt Mossberg for years on our conference, our big code conference, where we had Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together and stuff like that.

And we had Zuckerberg and Elon and everyone else.

But Walt brought him the Zoom.

Remember the Zune for

picked a brown poop color?

But it was a pretty good device.

It was a good device.

It was a good device.

But it looked good.

It didn't look good at all.

It didn't look good.

The color and it was shaped wrong.

It had a wrong.

The iPod had the golden means measurements.

The ratio, right?

The ratio, which was why you found it attractive.

And you don't know why you did, but it was very nice to hold.

And it's because Jobs used the golden means ratio, which is interesting.

But the Zune was square.

Remember, it was hard to hold.

It was just an ugly device.

It was an ugly device.

So Walt handed Jobs the, he goes, let me see it.

And he's like, I'm not supposed to show it to him.

And Jobs is like, let me see the fucking thing.

Cause he wasn't able to get it.

Right.

And so he put it in Jobs's hands and Jobs went like this.

Like

he was such a drama queen, but I think it actually repelled him.

He was like, why do they make so many ugly things?

Like, why can't they make, because a lot of them, including at Apple is the only one that really did do things that were beautiful, were actually beautiful and beautiful to hold.

And even Google, when they were trying to make, when they made their phone,

and

my ex-wife was a Google executive too, and they had, remember they had the stacks.

You had to go.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I was on her, I was using my phone, but she had to use the Android.

And I was looking for an address.

and I go, where is?

She goes, well, it's in the stacks.

I'm like, what the fuck is the stacks?

And she's like, the stacks, the stacks.

And she's a tech person.

She goes, obviously, the stacks.

I was like, nobody normal knows what a stack is.

And with iPhone, you could pick, a child could pick it up and use it.

Yeah, it's the most intuitive device ever created.

It's intuitive because it's simple.

And one thing Steve Jobs used to say, he said it to me at least, was it's really

It's very complex to make things simple, but it's very simple to make things complex.

Like, and so a lot of people in Silicon Valley make things complex on purpose because it's easy for them, but they're not thinking like a consumer would use it.

This conversation proves one thing to me.

That I should never

let him choose anything for me.

Because me?

Because Cara was basically giving me advice about how option one became so great.

And you lured her in with your stags.

Stags.

No.

And your ramen raisin breasts.

But wait, you know what?

Actually, no, I think.

Well, let's help him.

No, but can I tell you something that actually we're getting to,

which is important.

That's why I like this triumvirate that we've created here.

I think Cara is giving us an insight into the tech industry

that to me sounds like

there are too many, like,

let's just say cables that have been disconnected from people.

Right.

Because what you just said...

is what I think is missing in dating apps and whatever.

I think a lot of dating apps have a very simplistic idea of how dating and how relationships are formed.

A person finds another person attractive, they link up, therefore

it works.

But it's like, no, no, no, no, no.

If you think of what a working relationship is, everyone who's told me a story about being set up, obviously some people have bad stories, but when you even think of

matchmakers in India.

A great matchmaker in India will tell you, my job is not to just set you up.

My job is to understand you and then understand you and figure out why you would or wouldn't work beyond what you may know or not know about yourself.

And whenever I hear people talk about someone setting them up, like a friend of theirs or somebody, they go,

you said the line, and I promise you everyone says that.

They go, they were like a matchmaker type.

There's a skill that they possess.

Right, correct.

Not everybody has.

Exactly.

That enables them to see why you connect with you.

But these apps don't necessarily...

AI can do that eventually.

Eventually they're willing to.

But now they don't.

Some of the algorithms do have things that are helpful.

I mean, we're we're on our way to that.

And I think

they can read your facial expressions.

You know, they're doing job interviews like that.

They can watch the facial expressions.

We don't know what they mean, mean yet.

Well, actually, you know, interestingly, I just, I'm finishing up a documentary about future health, right, right now, because it's my next book talking about there's amazing things happening around tech and health and figuring out things.

And one of the ones is this company in Boston, and it's from Mass, Brigham Young, which is a big hospital there.

It's doing testing there.

And it's showing incredible promise called face age.

And you look at doctors, when there's a cancer patient,

looks at a cancer patient and decides whether they need more aggressive or less aggressive treatment.

And they actually, among the many things they look at is the face.

They're like, do they look too much?

And a lot of doctors are doing it

without actual science.

They're just like, I have a feeling this person can take it more.

And they use age.

They don't even realize they're doing it.

They're assessing people.

They use the word assessment.

but they just look, well, not at a glance.

They're bringing lots of data in to figure it out.

But there's this thing called face age, and the AI looks at a face, and you will have a chronological age and a biological age.

Your biological age could be a lot lower than your chronological age.

And that means you should have more aggressive cancer treatment.

Because you can take it.

Because you can take it, but doctors don't always see it because they're looking at wrinkles, they're looking at all kinds of things, or maybe someone's a little creakier.

But this AI has been accurate in telling doctors which patients can take treatment more aggressively.

And this one woman I met, she's 82 years old, she looked older.

She was wearing a wig.

She looked older.

She was 82.

Her face age was 72.

And they gave her more aggressive treatment.

She's cancer-free now.

It's incredible.

Like

this AI will be able to have a lot of data that we don't quite understand, the decision-making.

It'll be part of a tool that doctors use.

It can't can't be the decision maker, but it'll be a tool that doctors use going forward.

So someone will be, AA will be able to fix you up eventually.

Not today.

No, I'm not kidding.

Here's the thing.

Let me ask you a question.

What do you want?

What are you looking for?

Make a list.

That's what I did.

Tara, you know what I love about you?

You care.

I care.

I care.

No one has ever asked me this.

I mean, some people were cardigans and came to be my friend.

Wow.

And every time.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

I'm having a bad

time.

This is awkward.

This is awkward.

What was on your list, though?

What's on your list?

Well, what was on your list?

Likes children, because I had two kids.

Okay.

And

well, yes, yes, that was.

Yeah, okay, good.

Excellent.

We have the same list now.

Flexible.

Physically is great, but no, no,

no, more like flexible

isn't like rigid as a person, rich as a person.

Sense of humor.

Take

okay with change.

I'm a very change-oriented person.

Like, I just sat there and wrote it down.

Change as in, like, you change the way you think.

Not uncomfortable with change.

Location.

Whatever, just things happen, right?

I had a whole list.

I'd have to find it.

Please, feel free.

I will send it to you.

But you have to make a list of what's most important to you.

Stack rank it.

I like your recommendations.

Yeah.

Stack rank it.

Stack rank it.

Are you going to stack now?

And then, no, well, go ahead.

Go ahead, stack.

Go ahead.

Stack to stacks.

Okay, go ahead.

What's the most important?

Spontaneity.

Okay, good.

Should that be at the top?

And you can say looks, too.

You can be like, I like a good-looking lady.

Good-looking lady.

Well, to you, a good-looking lady.

What's number one?

Privacy.

Oh, that's number one?

Yes.

Interesting.

Have you heard of the new iPhone?

Yes.

But more than anything, family-orientated.

Okay, there you go.

Yeah.

So look for that.

And don't, and if they're not, they don't, if it's not on the list, you got to cut it loose.

We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

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Is it possible sometimes that you would not want to date someone because you wouldn't think they fit with your friendship circle?

Yes.

And if that happens, who goes?

Do you dump the person?

No, you're not even

circle is more important.

I think they have to be able to dance.

Yes, I agree.

I think they are.

Your friends are way more important than you.

Study after study shows you live longer if you have a friendship circle.

That is very true, Eugene.

If you keep your friends close, you will live longer.

Wait, wait, wait.

So, was it more helpful for you that she was recommended by a friend?

Yeah, I think.

And then you got to keep her and the friendships.

Yeah, you don't want your friends at cross-purposes.

That sucks.

Nobody likes it.

Look, it was, I had the funny, bad boyfriends are always the worst thing for a group of friends.

If a friend has a bad boyfriend, you're like, oh, the bad boyfriend.

And you know who that is, right?

It is always funny when someone has a partner, like everyone else is like,

are they coming with them?

I had a friend who has someone we don't like.

And they, they, and it was very obvious.

And everyone pretends, like, doesn't say anything.

and they're like you you don't like this person I said I don't I really don't and they're like well it's you know kind of you have to and I'm like and I named another friend of mine.

I'm like I've never met her fucking husband.

I never hoped to like I don't have to be friends with your partner.

I said if her husband fell on me I wouldn't know it was her husband so why do I met you for the first time today and we got on like a house of fucking you are a likable person.

I am a likable person.

You are an interesting person.

I am interested.

Interested person.

I am an interested person.

What is it about that guy?

I don't know.

I just didn't.

It was a, it was a woman.

I didn't like her.

I just did, she was me.

You just didn't feel her vibe.

No, I didn't like them.

You cannot like people.

I like this.

Yeah.

One day, the other,

I said to someone,

they're like, I said, I can't, not friends, it was a work thing.

And they were like,

why are you leaving?

And I said, I don't want to talk to you anymore.

They were like, what?

They said, honestly, why are you leaving?

I'm like, honestly?

I'm done talking to you.

I said, I'm done talking to you.

And they were like, what?

And I go, I wish I could say it any nicer, but that's really the reason I am.

I am Cara.

And then what does the opposite of that look like?

You're walking into this apartment in Brooklyn.

I just want to talk to you.

I like hanging out with you.

Yeah.

Did you know it was her when you walked into the apartment?

I went before because

dating people are the TV for couples.

Like they're like, oh, let's see what happens here.

You know what I mean?

We're entertainment.

And we didn't.

So we met before at a bar.

So we both understood we would be the entertainment for the evenings.

And everyone was watching you.

That's right.

And so before we met before, so we made sure that

we had an initial like for each other.

Yeah.

Was she also in tech?

No, not at all.

Was that refreshing?

She was in journalism.

Was that him being tech against?

I know.

I want to know.

No, you know why.

Oh, refreshing.

Nicely done.

No, my ex-wife is a techie.

She was the CTO of America under Obama.

Wow.

I know.

She worked at Google.

She's CTO of America.

Yeah.

No, but no, the reason I'm asking is because I was going like, is it more refreshing to be with somebody who's in your world or somebody?

So, like, I like hanging out with Eugene partly because he doesn't care about half of those things that I'm talking about, right?

Right.

And, but then I sometimes go, like, it is fun to be with somebody where I feel like you two should have a little relationship.

I wish.

I'm not his type.

I'm not his type.

All the things that he said,

all the things that he said, family-oriented.

But you hang out with Bill Maher?

You're a Bill Marrow.

Friends first.

Friends first.

That's me.

No, but like,

yeah, I just mean like, you know, the refreshing world.

Because you,

how much, how many years have you worked in tech?

20, 30, 30.

30 years.

Yeah.

And I would say you know everyone who has done anything in tech.

You know what I mean?

Well,

I didn't know Edison, but yeah, but I mean, this is.

I would assume you didn't know Edison.

I didn't know the Hewlett-Packard people.

I met them later when they were older.

But from jobs and gates on.

But that's what I mean.

That is the tech we know.

No, no, there were people before that.

There were all these companies.

Yes, but I'm not assuming you've lived forever.

That's what I'm saying.

Yes, that's right.

Yes.

So from gates and jobs on.

Cool.

So how much of this do you now see as your career and how much of it do you see as your passion?

Because when I listen to speak, yeah, okay, okay, cool.

All right, cool.

I love it.

I wouldn't, you know, one of the reasons my book was called Burn Book, A Love Story, a Tech Love Story.

I love tech.

I'm just pissed at what they did to it.

Like, and pissed that they had to take all the juicy bits for themselves rather than.

What do you mean by that?

Well, look, the internet was built by the U.S.

government and it was paid for by the U.S.

taxpayer, but who made all the money?

A small group of largely white men, right?

That's what happened there, right?

In fact, almost to a person.

And I don't understand why everybody doesn't benefit from the fruits of this amazing technology, except for a small group of people.

And I don't understand why a small group of people gets to decide everything for the rest of us.

Why didn't they ever have any regulation?

Why wasn't there any input by citizens on so much of this stuff around privacy?

Why do they design things that are so damaging to people?

Why can't they not do that?

And also, and why don't they lean into the good parts and mitigate the bad parts?

Why do they not care about the bad parts and don't feel it's their responsibility?

So, that's what it I love.

The amazing things tech can do for people, bringing people.

I have a vision of the way I put it in the book was: I have a vision of Star Trek, and we live in Star Wars.

Damn.

You know, and Star Trek is an amazing vision in the future about diversity in its best light, in

people understanding each other, where villains are complex.

Cooperation.

Cooperation, problems too, and everything else, common cause, cool outfits.

And Star Wars is a very dark and dystopian vision about power and evil ultimately succeeding.

They never win.

Yeah, never win.

The good people never win, you know, at the end.

It's just a constant slog.

It's a constant slog against the abuse of technology by powerful people.

And so I am furious at them for

taking something that could bring people together and not caring enough to take out the parts that bring people apart, right?

Like anti-Semitism or whatever.

And then hiding behind.

one of the most astonishing amendments in history, the free speech, right?

Pretending they're all about free speech when they're not interested.

They're interested in their free speech and nobody else's, right?

So

when you've seen them over the years, I wonder how much you've seen them change because

I remember having a conversation once with a politician and it was interesting to see how much they didn't recognize themselves in the person that they were.

So I met a politician and then 10 years later I was in an interview with them and I asked them about something that they had said 10 years ago.

But I didn't say it was them.

I just said, this is an idea.

What do you think?

And they're like, I think that's unrealistic.

And you've got to understand that that's not how the real world works.

And I was like, you said that.

And they're like, I don't know if I said that.

I was like, no, no, you said that.

Sounds like Obama, but go ahead.

But there's so many politicians.

I had that conversation with Obama.

Really?

Oh, yeah, about encryption.

And what was the conversation?

He was like, we need to open up things.

No, it was encryption.

It was about...

Yeah, I think it was about something where he had said one thing and then he later said something else.

And he goes, well, if you knew what I knew now, and I was like, oh, stop.

stop but that's but that's what i wonder with like the tech guys as well is

look maybe i'm taking them at face value when i see a lot of them launch an idea maybe not today because today the money is really in the forefront everything is like can it scale yeah will it be a unicorn what why am i at this dinner with trump why tim kilk am i giving trump right a golden statue yes i know he is dying inside i know it i i don't care he can deny it all he wants i know he is but my question is like what have they lost that they had in the beginning?

Because in the beginning, it starts as a...

Hope.

You think it's hope?

Well, it's interesting because, you know, I've known someone like Sam Altman, I knew him when he was 19.

He was really interesting as a 19-year-old when he did Looped, which was failure, his company.

It was a location services.

I don't even remember what it did, but it was a location pinger kind of thing.

And, you know, parts of it remain.

I think people are...

often the way they are when I met them early or the way they are now, just with more money.

And then money has its deleterious effects, or too much money, or too much.

You know, they have a lot of people licking them up and down and agreeing with them violently about every, like, oh, right, good job.

And I think what happens is they become.

Do you remember in succession as you watch that show?

I think that was a fantastic show depicting wealth and power, what happens and the deleterious effects of it.

Their worlds kept getting smaller and smaller.

In their homes, they went from their tight little cashmere homes to their cars, to their planes, to their boats and they never encountered people right they stayed less and less the last scene of succession i thought reminds me of tech people a lot think about that last scene besides the guy who died logan roy everybody the mate the the oldest son he was alone by himself by the water alone yeah with with a with a security guy the couple uh uh uh was together tom and um shiv they were in an insulated car expensive car by themselves.

You know what I mean?

They were insulated.

They went from the hotel room down through the kitchen through the thing.

There was only one person who was with people, real people,

was the other son.

He's in a bar.

And he's the only one that's happy.

And that.

And I thought it said a lot.

So these people, they go from their cars to their yachts, to their homes, to like Mark Zuckerberg has a compound in Palo Alto.

That means nobody gets in, nobody gets out.

And so if you're like that and you're you're constantly being told you're smart and every idea is right, you never get a feedback of, you fucking asshole.

What are you kidding?

And you either bring it into your life, like Mark Cuban enjoys feedback.

He will listen.

He's doing great.

He's a great guy because he will listen to people who disagree with him.

And he'll seek out people.

He was just with Tucker Carls.

I wrote him like, what the fuck?

He goes, I got to listen to him.

Like he's open to hearing from lots of different people.

And then there's people like Zuckerberg, who has a compound, and then he bought half of hawaii and then he bought this it's to insulate yourself from everyone else and if you start off as kind of a bit of a broken person or a jerk like jeff bezos was always a jerk in my memory like he was a jerk to start with and he's a bigger jerk now um

when you have money and the deleterious effects of wealth they become worse it it emphasizes the way you were the way you initially were amplifies it it amplifies it just makes you more of you you know look at elon look at elon like he was so interesting and

he's not what you've explained about people being insulated from the truth once they acquire a certain amount of power it's like are you a big fan of the sopranos yeah i love the sopranos of course you remember the episode where tony bandetto came out of prison and then he was hanging out with tony and the rest of the goons then he made that joke about boy you're a fat

and then tony got offended called him to the side and said i know we joke around but i'm the boss now oh right because he's changed he can't be told that yes they're like that that.

It's and it depends on the person.

Like,

you know, when I run into some people, they and I'll say, What are you talking about?

And they're like, Oh, my people agree with me.

I'm like, Oh, really?

They work for you and they're dependent on you.

They, you know, just I mean, the board of Tesla is a really good example.

They cannot have been running this thing correctly given what's happened and then want to give them a trillion-dollar pay package.

So far, the record in the recent years has been pretty problematic, right?

Not Not just

the lack of sales, but everything, the drug use,

the crazy political posturing.

Any other company, they would have been like, you need to move along in that job of yours.

We need to get someone else to figure out how to keep this company going.

You know, I'm always torn with those types of stories because I go,

I know this is a crazy alt take in that way.

Go ahead.

But I sometimes wonder if some of these guys are screwed over by the fact that now they're in the public eye in a different way.

Because

we don't really know what many of the great inventors in life thought.

They didn't have Twitter, they didn't have Facebook.

Maybe they're writing, but I'm saying it wasn't a front-facing.

Oh, no, Edison was

quite a jerk and also was abusive of tabloids at the time.

Oh, damn.

He put all kinds of nasty shit out about Tesla.

Oh, yeah, when they were having release.

He was trying to undermine his reporters.

He used reporters of the day.

So it's the same old, same thing.

Reporters of Yeah.

He used to, he, he, Tesla is a very sad story.

What an inventor, but he got, he got mowed under.

He got turfed by Edison because Edison knew how to use and manipulate the press.

But what I'm saying is we didn't own the we we went there.

But do you think it was as easy to know who Edison was was for the people oh, yes.

No, he was

like knew him as like oh, yeah, very famous.

Very, he was a, he was, you know, look, someone else like Charles Lindbergh, very famous, most famous person of the day turned out to be a you know a virulent anti-semite and a lover of Hitler but um yeah no some of the people had worldwide celebrity like some people had for their like the bad side of their they didn't know the bad side no that's what I mean right sorry sorry that's what I'm trying to say is I'm going

back in the day it was a lot easier to obscure who you were and put out who you want people to think you are.

I think that's what I mean.

No, it is.

No, it is.

Yeah, and I'm saying like now, someone like Elon gets exposed way more than he would if he was in like the 90s.

At some point he doesn't shut the fuck up.

At some point, you're like, stop.

Put down.

Like, I used to, after we stopped getting along, I used to put stuff out because I knew he read my stuff at like two in the morning because I knew he was up.

That is hilarious.

And I would, I put up

Kanye West put up the fat picture of him with Ari Emmanuel.

Remember that one?

Yeah, yeah.

And Kanye West is the one that did that.

And it was like, oh man, what happened?

And I, I, I never, and I'm not on Twitter anymore, even though I have 1.5 million followers.

And he wrote something really awful as always.

And then I was like, oh man, I just did that.

I just, oh, man.

And five seconds later, Elon blocked me.

It was so funny.

So I knew he's so easy.

I was like, oh, my God, you're a billionaire.

If I was a, let me tell you, remember when he was at Mar-a-Lago for New Year's Eve.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

For the big party.

Here's what I thought to myself.

I'm the richest man in the world and I'm fucking at Mar-a-Lago with all these stiffs.

Like, and this guy dancing to ymca like if i'm the richest person do you know where i am i just bought france and i've given everybody free wine and we're all you know what i mean and beyonce is there we need to give cars fisher all the money in the world this sounds like a fun world wouldn't you buy a country give everybody the wine get fried you know what's funny about that story is do you remember like i don't know why there's some moments that are seared into my brain do you remember when trump was like basically saying elon's annoying and he's sick of him being around yeah so there was but this is like in public this is not a secret thing not on the side.

No, no, no.

You can see this.

They were talking to him about Elon and his work and whatever.

And Trump was like, Yeah, you know, Elon, very smart.

He's doing big things, doing big, big thing, very smart.

He's uh, he's been around, always here, always.

Sometimes I wonder when he's gonna go, but he doesn't go.

He's here every day.

Yeah, I go, Don't you have to run a company or something?

But he stays, he stays.

Good old Elon.

Good old Elon.

Get the fuck out of here.

You know, get the fuck out of here.

He needs the money.

Who the hell?

I was like, for Trump to be like, who is this loser who I can't get rid of?

He's like, you've done your job.

You gave me the money.

We'll help you win the election.

Move on now.

You know, when he first started showing up there, like, and he was, because after the election, they're like, oh, he'll go.

I'm like, oh, he's not going to go.

He has nowhere to go.

You called him up?

Oh, oh.

The fact that he's going to stay?

Oh, I thought he was going to stay.

And so I ran into a Trump person pretty high up.

And

he goes, oh, you're so mean about Elon.

I go, he's fucking nuts.

You'll see.

I said, he has a drug problem as has been well reported by the New York Times.

He's got, well, he doesn't consider a problem, whatever.

He likes the ketamine and stuff like that.

He talks about it.

He likes the ketamine.

And I said, and he's really irritating.

Like, he really is, just so you know, and he's become more irritating now.

And you can see it.

And they're like, oh, you're just jealous.

We have musk.

I'm like, okay, good luck.

Four weeks later, this person I ran into, they're like, oh my God.

And I was like, I told you.

And they're like, you are right.

He won't leave.

And I was like, he's not leaving.

I said, he goes, when we move up to the White House, he'll leave.

I go, he won't leave.

And he didn't.

Remember, he was always.

He didn't go anywhere.

He didn't go.

He's like, no, in the White House, we can keep him out.

I'm like, you can't keep him out.

He became the White House mascot, like next to the White House.

With that kid, that poor kid.

Yeah.

Wait, so how could they not keep him out of the White House?

Because Trump said

he just blocked someone.

Trump is like Tony Sprawn.

He likes people hanging around.

Yeah.

And also remember, like Trump, if you go back in his life, I think it was his dad who taught him a a lesson.

He said, always stay close to the richest, most powerful people that you can.

So Trump faces that dichotomy.

And I also think he likes the crew.

Yeah, but he likes cool.

And I think he actually has an acute sense of what cool is.

But sometimes he's stuck with the uncool, but it's attached to the rich or the powerful.

And he's like, ah, I've got to hang out here.

He just said it recently.

He said, he's got to come back.

Who's Elon?

Elon, yeah.

Trump did.

Now I thought he shouldn't have said that.

He won't come back now.

He won't come back.

No, because

also they were, when they were saying, you know, we got Elon, I go, oh, it's going to break up bad.

I said it publicly.

I was like, this is going to be like, there can be only one.

It's Highlander time here, everybody.

And it's going to be Trump.

I love that, Rick.

FYI.

I love that.

They're making it again.

They're making it again.

Oh, what a target.

Who is that?

Christopher Lambert.

Lambert.

Lambert.

Lambert, I think, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And of course, Sean Conner.

was.

No, they're making it yet.

I forget who the star is.

Do you think it's going to be any good?

Oh, yeah.

What, you think so?

Oh, yeah.

It's a good cast.

Okay.

Yeah, but the cast for me doesn't sell.

Well, the first one's great.

It's like Roadhouse, right?

Like you just trust that it's.

Roadhouse, the original Roadhouse, is the finest movie in the land.

I don't know, Carla.

I feel like

movies are in the same world that tech is right now.

No, they're recopying themselves.

And also, nothing feels, not nothing, nothing.

There's a few things that pop out, don't get me wrong.

But for the most part, if I look at the weapons or sinners or yeah exactly weapons sinners it's funny yesterday we were talking about those exact same movies um yeah but i i just feel like

it's less adventurous it's less edgy it's less interesting it's less uh imaginative it's less yes it's limited but i think there there's always been sequels there's always i think we always say that like ah this donut's not as delicious as it used to be and it kind of is it wasn't very good before

like we have memories that maybe because you know what did you what was your formative movie

My formative movie.

I'm guessing Star Wars.

No, The Matrix.

Matrix.

Okay.

Yeah, nothing has shaped how I perceive.

And not like, is it real?

Is it not real?

Not like that.

Not like, oh, red, pulled blue.

No, actually, that stuff I think is dumb in the way people interpret it, to be honest with you.

It was, first of all, the computer world.

Yeah, also amazing.

Yeah, the way.

Great story.

That's why you liked it.

It was not because it was the tech.

It was the technology.

No, but I did love the aspects of tech.

And remember, for me, I was this little kid watching this guy who's like a loser in his world.

Right.

Which guy?

And then you go,

no, no, I meant this person.

Not you.

Not you.

So I was watching Keanu.

Okay.

This like sort of loser who's in his bedroom the whole time.

And he's doing.

And I was like, man,

there's a world where you could.

PCI slot.

Yeah, you could, you could become, because remember, he's like in there and they come and they come and buy the

business.

You get the control cash.

Hyper-looped.

I could be a rapper.

Except for being a

small white woman.

There was that element of it.

Who can't sing?

Do you know my sons have really good tastes?

I'm going to take it aside.

My sons have really good musical taste.

And I had, they were using my Spotify at one point

and just making playlists and stuff like that.

And I think the guy who's had a Spotify was like, you have great musical tastes.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

He goes, and they said someone.

And I was like, who's that?

Like, because I didn't know my sons were more.

Oh, they were like making your playlist.

Yeah, making

so I look cool nice so you love the matrix yeah

it was just it was everything it was like everything everything everything but the most important thing okay this is why I think it's formative and this is I have this theory and you know I say this to you I apologize for saying it to you again Eugene I'll say it to you I've never said it to you

I think we take for granted how powerful

the stories we are told can be and what they can do to us because they shape how we then perceive the world and what we think is or isn't possible.

Do you know know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

And so that's what, like, the Matrix forced me to think of the world differently.

And what the world is really like.

Exactly.

And about the layers of it.

Who's in, who's not in?

Right.

Who are you?

Who do you pretend to be?

What's real?

What's not real?

What's, you know, and for me, one of the most powerful scenes in The Matrix, the one that like really, really got me was the scene of Agent Smith with Morpheus,

where Morpheus is sitting in the chair and he's restrained.

And Agent Smith comes up to him, you know, and he's like wiping this, you know, he kicks the other agents out of the room and then he's like get out get out and then he talks to him and he goes and he says like you want to know what it is about this place it's the smell if there is and he goes they hated being there yeah but what i loved was how like

to what you said earlier complicated villains yes that's right he was a complicated i was like imagine this guy hates that he's there he hates that he has to be there he hates that he has to and it was one of the things like the dc national guard right now yeah he was no No, they just released a report.

And

they were like, we hate being there.

We hate it.

We're embarrassed.

There you go.

It was an internal report that just got out.

Wow.

The guards themselves.

I never mean to them.

There you go.

They don't want to be there.

Yeah.

But there you go.

And what it did for me was it opened my eyes to the possibility

that the

prison guard could also sometimes hate.

being in the prison.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

And then it's like, the way I thought of all of it, he wanted to be free.

And that's why it shaped it.

Yeah, what was your

one?

Terminator.

I love

it.

The first one, all of them.

But was the first one the formative one?

The first one was the formative one.

Okay.

What was it about?

Same maker, right?

Same.

No, no, no, no.

Matrix and Timothy.

No, no, no Cameron and Wachowski.

No, the writer.

I'm saying the creator.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, Cameron and Wachowski.

I think the person that wrote.

Cameron wrote Terminator.

Terminator.

Yeah, yeah.

And then Wakowski.

No, then the Wukowski's wrote The Matrix.

Similar, probably influenced.

I bet they were.

I mean, you have to be influenced, yes.

I just love that movie.

It was so, I love time travel.

I love time travel movies.

I love time travel books.

I think I would love to be able to time travel.

And I always was attracted to Ray Bradbury stories.

You know, I even like Time Cop with John Claude Van Dam.

I like, I'll watch any time travel.

Time cop was what a movie was.

What a fucking fantastic movie.

And so

it was,

anyway, I loved it.

And I just, the idea of can you change time was always really interesting to me.

And just the Schwarzenegger was amazing.

The visuals were amazing.

The ideas, they were fucked up ideas.

They're really fucked up ideas of what the future is.

And what was really interesting was the idea that it wasn't the machines that are the problem.

It was people, right?

People not understanding the power of the machines.

And so I just, it was always resonated.

And of course, Gladiator, who doesn't love Gladiator?

But that's just the finest movie in the land, too.

Another one.

Well, Roadhouse.

Roadhouse is my favorite movie.

Formative movie.

We just watched it again.

I do the annual Roadhouse watching and not the Jake Gyllenhaal pathetic version.

Damn, original.

Shots fired.

What do you mean?

Original.

Formative movie?

It has to be Norton and Pitt Fight Club.

Oh,

I like that.

That's a nice voice.

It almost feels like it made you see the world in a different way through the characters that played in that world.

For example, Meatloaf.

He wasn't a rock star there.

You were just a guy with huge man boobs.

And then for a long time in the movie, you're caught up thinking

Tyler Durton and the other guy are the same, are two different people.

Right.

And all along, he was having a conversation with himself.

Spoiler alert.

You're supposed to say that.

You're supposed to say that.

Well, that's all right.

It's old.

It's too late.

You know what would happen to you if we're in fight clubs?

You know what would happen to him if we're in fight clubs?

I'd go,

then blood would just seep through my teeth.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Wow.

Okay.

So, okay.

You know what?

Actually,

so this is why I'm, you know,

some people think it's a stretch, but you did bring it up with Star Trek.

People take for granted how much the technology that is made today, or the technology that has been made over the past few years,

was made by people who were inspired to make it by the movies they were watching as kids.

That's right, that's right.

Like they watched something and they went

deeply impacted by sci-fi.

Exactly.

Deeply.

Like we've had so many discussions about sci-fi and

the stuff he is interested in.

It's crazy.

Like many of them are.

And that's what.

so this is why I hop on about like art.

Yes.

Not in the highfalutin sense.

I just go, you know, people will be like, who cares if movies become terrible?

Stories too, stories, books, whatever it is, whatever, the stuff that's getting on.

Cartoons, all of it.

That stuff tells a kid what to imagine and what to think about.

That kid grows up into a man or a woman who is now going to try and create a certain type of future based on the imagination that they have inherited.

And then if they don't have a good enough imagination, like I think of of all the movies and TV shows now that make the best thing you can be a billionaire.

Rich, rich, money, money, rich, rich, money, money.

No, no creativity rates.

It's like money, money, rich, rich, power, power, rich, rich, money, money, money.

And then I go, what does that mean for like the generation that grows up watching that if they aspire to just be.

Well, maybe they're not getting the art from there.

There's a lot of television shows that are really powerful.

Definitely.

I hope so.

So now, I mean, like, listen, what I watched was like Gilligan's Island and, you know, Love American style.

I love boats.

So

and somehow I made it through.

Like, sometimes I think we overestimate the the negative effects of some of this stuff oh not the negative I just I don't I don't underestimate the inspirational effects right right but look go back and look at H.G.

Wells read that sometime that guy clocked Leonardo da Vinci clocked a lot of stuff right I mean if you go look at his drawings you're like how did he know that you do right how did he get they might have been time travelers maybe so where would you go in time if you could travel definitely forwards you can't go forwards what do you mean i have to to go backwards.

I've made the rule.

I'm now.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

You can't go.

All right, so I have to go backwards.

Backwards.

Okay, let me think.

This is a difficult.

Okay, let's establish a few rules.

If I'm going backwards in time, am I going, am I going to meet me?

How does your time travel work?

Am I

going to be that way?

You see yourself, you blow up.

Like, do I exist in the back?

No.

You do.

I do.

Okay.

No, no, these are the rules.

It's fine.

You have to.

Wait, but I need to.

But I'm going to get it.

You can't go meet yourself.

Let's just go say you can't.

No, that's why I'm trying to establish the rules.

Okay.

So in your rules, I do exist there.

Okay.

Then that changes quite a few things.

You see, I knew this was going to happen.

He had an accomplishment.

You could mail yourself a letter and say buy Apple.

Yeah, we could.

You see, I wouldn't.

You see, honestly.

I'm just saying you can do that.

Can I tell you, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking of time travel.

And I worry about it because for me at least, is I go, I don't know what the butterfly effect would be of changing any one aspect of my life.

And I worry.

So you.

But it wouldn't matter because you're not coming back.

No.

Into the present.

So whatever change happens is what is.

Yes, but my point is I don't know how that turns out.

So to your point, let's say I tell myself at a young age, buy Apple stock.

First of all, I'll go, what is Apple?

What is stock?

What is buying?

What is money?

Don't go too far back.

No, but no, no.

But even at that age, I didn't, I remember, yo, let me tell you how crazy.

I remember when Alibaba was listing.

It had its IPO.

I was in South Africa.

For some reason, I had had been deep in reading about Alibaba as a tech company.

And then I went to like a bunch of people in banking and stuff.

And I was like, can I get in on the IPO?

And people were like, what are you talking about?

I said, there's an Alibaba IPO.

And they're like, Eh, Baba.

What are you talking about?

So you didn't get in.

No, and I didn't.

And now we have, like, now you can buy, you know, derivative share stocks.

You can do different things that you could back, then you could back then.

But what I mean is, I don't know.

I go back and then what happens?

You know what I might do?

I might use my time travel powers to go back

conversation.

Oh, hours.

Oh, nice.

How about that?

Maybe five minutes from now.

Yeah,

five minutes back.

Yes, because you added the complication of, am I there?

Am I not?

What is money?

You know what I would go back to if I could time travel?

I would go back to the moment when I met you.

Oh,

that's the moment I would go back to.

That's the moment

I would go back to.

Thank you so much.

And then I would turn around and not walk into that building, Eugene, because I'd be like, this person is going to roast me for the rest of my life.

Ah, that's good.

No, you wouldn't.

You'd be so sad.

That's when I would go back to you.

You would never.

I would never erase this.

I would literally go back and meet Jesus.

Wow.

Would he know he's Jesus at the time?

I don't know.

I need to find out.

Jesus knew he was Jesus.

No, but there were times where people have been saying he didn't know he was.

No, but Jesus knew he was Jesus.

So he was rolling with his uncle.

I would go to other places.

So you would go, what age, Jesus, would you want to go back to meet?

Yeah.

Right as he started.

He started being Jesus.

You could have been then one of the wise men because that's basically what they did.

They didn't let men be that.

We don't know that they let men or not be that.

You're right.

The Gnostic Gospels.

I got it.

Right.

Okay.

Also, we don't even know what...

Wait, wait, wait.

They don't let who?

Because here's the thing.

There's two things.

Wasn't Mary Magdalene.

Yeah, but no, no.

No, she was not a whore.

She was not.

She was not.

There's two men writing the history.

There's two things we also forget, though.

And one of the big ones is we forget how many times in the Bible it was possible to just like cover yourself in a certain way and people like, oh, you're a man, oh, you're a woman.

So you actually

have the gospels show that there were a lot of women involved.

It's just the ones that survived are the ones who were using the history we survived.

So, I would want to meet Jesus.

Probably one of the most significant people.

But for all the years,

right when the historical, I'm talking about the historical Jesus.

Who was this person?

And to meet that person.

Oh, you don't mean Bible Jesus.

Well, you mean?

Is Bible Jesus historical?

I want to see, like, what happened.

I'd like to see it.

I'd like to see what happened.

And what age are you thinking?

Whatever, 20.

What was he, 20?

20.

20, right?

25, 24, 23.

Yes, because

would you tell Jesus that he's going to get crucified?

No.

Damn.

No.

Would you like to meet confident Jesus or?

Confident Jesus.

It was always confident.

Or insecure Jesus.

Because it was Jesus where he was like, no, it wasn't.

No, there was Jesus where he was doubtful.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it was.

I was in the thing.

Yeah.

Oh, like you couldn't go to the garden and go run.

Run.

Like, get out.

Get out.

Then he turns to Joseph and goes, you're not my dad.

That guy's not your friend.

I would actually like go to history in lots of places.

Like, Caesar, don't go to work today.

Just let me go.

Go to Theopatra.

Don't get in the carpet.

Get on that chariot and head out of Rome.

Just going back and like spoiling every moment from history.

I know.

Like Lincoln, don't go to the theater.

Don't go to the theater tonight.

Just

go to Abraham.

Your crazy wife.

Spoil the end of the play.

Just be like, oh, in the end of the play, they find out that the woman had another family.

Oh, why did you do that?

I don't want to watch it anymore.

Yes.

But then nobody nobody could do the other than that, Mrs.

Lincoln.

How is the play?

You know, they wouldn't do that joke.

We lose a great joke.

We lose a great joke.

Wouldn't that be funny to wander through history and be like, leave?

Don't go to that plane.

It would be so cool to do.

I mean,

if we don't think about what it would cause, it would be really fun to just.

Amelia Earhart, don't get on that plane.

Yeah.

Don't go.

Just go like.

Just don't.

What do women think about Amelia Earhart?

Do they think...

What do women think?

We got together last week.

You like it?

There are more women than me.

I don't know.

I don't think people think of Amelia Earhart that much.

I think they probably think she's really interested.

Eugene thinks about her all the time.

Amelia Earhart is Eugene's Roman Empire.

She's a little more complex than people.

They have this vision of her, but actually, she had a lot of

some not-so-great things about her.

I mean, she was complex.

She was very complex.

She was a human being.

Where would you go in time?

She, I would

go hang out with David Chase when he was still thinking about making

the sopranos.

I would just be his friend.

I would just

contribute.

Because

I love the sopranos so much, I even watched how they were doing the casting and who would have gotten which role before which role.

And he was at the precipice of making some of the best television.

I love the sopranos.

I love the sopranos.

You don't worry that you would throw it off by being there knowing what it's going to be.

What do I care?

It's me time traveling here.

Now I must care about everyone's feelings.

But then there's no sopranos, is what I'm saying.

So you don't care.

You won't be the sopranos.

It's like back to the future.

Yes.

Here you go, Biff, or no, or whatever.

Because every time after I land in Logari, I go.

Yeah, you do.

And then that's why immigration always pulls him aside.

Every now and then I go, I go back in time and I'd say yes to those job offers at tech companies.

Why?

Yeah, why did you never get into tech?

There were so many of them.

So it must be.

Go back?

I might be yes.

Because then I would have a billions, billions of dollars right now.

And then I would be able to be like, really?

getting to france drunk like you know no but actually let's talk a little bit about this like you were you were in tech yeah when tech was still like it was really small the wild wild west yeah no i was offered a job at aol in the early days i was offered a job at facebook in the very early days at google in the very early days and amazon in the very early days do you know how many billions you've just that's correct and i kind of would be like interesting like it would be a really it would be a it would be a different world like i would have used it politically for sure but let's pretend we're 10 years from now and we're going back in time which decisions would you make now to get us wealthy to get us wealthy yeah what would we buy now see i'm gonna do it again i'm gonna fuck up again but um i'd probably do some something in ai in an area i knew about like what it's gonna it'll be hard it'll be hard to know which one's gonna win though right you never know which one's gonna win yes we don't want to there were seven or eight googles before there was google right there was excite there was there was um there's a bunch of them that were all search engines.

They just didn't work.

I'm blanking on all the names.

I covered them all, but there were a lot like Google before there was Google.

I'm still.

There was MySpace before there was Facebook.

There was MySpace.

And before that, there was another one, and I'm blanking on that name, but there was a bunch of them.

Yeah, but I want to know why, like,

you love tech.

Right.

You still love tech.

And you kept saying, do you know why you said no?

Well, you know, at one point, I think it was Ted Leonces, who was a, he's now a billionaire and he, he owns a bunch of teams and stuff.

And he used to send me the amount of money I would have had had I taken his job.

It's not like

his favorite trolling.

But he doesn't do that so much anymore.

But

I think at one point I said to one of them, I think it might have been an Amazon.

They wanted an editor job.

They had an editor job free.

And I said, why would I want to do that?

I work for the Washington Post.

Something like that.

I think I, I liked what I did.

And I, you know, at some point.

Where was this job?

That was an Amazon job, I think.

That is crazy irony.

One of the loop.

Why would I want this job at Amazon?

I work at the Washington Post.

And then Amazon goes and buys the Washington post.

Jeff does.

It's almost like Jeff Bezos heard that.

I could have bought the one.

I still could have bought it.

And then all you hear is.

I think I was just, I think there is a point where there is a number where more money doesn't matter.

It really does.

It doesn't make you any happier, right?

Unless you want to buy France and buy everybody

us a line, and then you do need that money.

But there is actually, and there's study after study about this, there's a number where people aren't.

You've also seen it, though.

Yes, like you've been on the inside seeing

these people become some of the richest men in the world and still be very.

I would have to say, on my hand, I can count the people who are happy who I consider.

Not Cuban would be one of them,

that are really truly happy.

What do you find the other people show you that

you deem unhappy?

What is it that they're deeply insecure?

They are constantly aggrieved.

There's a lot of aggrievement among the wealthy people.

Do you notice that?

Zuckerberg to me is the most, the worst.

Everyone's always attacking me.

I'm like, oh, Trump is the same way.

He's always being under, he's under siege.

Live like that.

That's like a terrible way to live.

Very few are, I would say, really happy people in a lot of ways.

And the people that stop sort of being so ultra-competitive and demented are happier people, right?

I suspect Bill Gates is a happier person now after after he did all the philanthropy than before.

I like this.

When I met you there, you looked like the kind of person who always chooses passion and happiness.

Yeah.

So when you were young, who was a mother?

I like making money.

Who did you look at and go, hmm, I love being happy.

I don't have any heroes.

No, no, my dad died when I was young and my mom's kind of complex.

But

I would say.

I just like doing what I like to do.

I know it sounds dumb, but when I think about every time I have been successful,

I do things that please me, right?

I think I like doing this.

And I was very informed by Steve Jobs speech that he gave at Stanford, which I recommend to everybody.

He was sick and then he was well for a little bit and then for quite a few years.

And then

he got sick again.

And one of the things I think about was he invented or he was critical to inventing.

the most important things when he was sick.

He really was.

If you think, you know, the iPhone, the

iPod, everything like that.

And one of the things he gave this speech at Stanford that I read and I listen to all the time.

And it basically says, you know, remembering you're going to die someday is the single greatest motivator for me.

When I'm doing things day after day that I don't like, I know I have to stop.

Right.

And I think I, I really, it really resonated with me when my dad died.

I was like, you know what?

He was 34 years old.

He just got out of the Navy.

He just started to make money and he died just like that.

Now, he didn't know.

He didn't, obviously, he had three kids.

He was beginning his life, really beginning, you know, his life.

It's fine.

And he came from a not a rich family.

He worked his way up by going in the Navy and everything else.

And I do, I think about that.

I'm like, do I, is this the way I want to?

And Jobs talked about this.

Is this the way I want to spend my day?

Like with that.

And so when I remember when I was like, offered, I think it was a fate, one of the Facebook people, it was Owen Banata, who said, come to Facebook.

And I was like, and I happen to like him, but I was like, I don't want to be with you people all day.

Like, I just don't.

I just don't want to, I don't want to be here.

And I think that was what it is.

And so everything I do now, I stop doing things when I don't want to be there anymore.

And I'm, it's very easy.

Same thing with having kids when I was older.

I was much older.

I was like, yes, I would like some kids.

I'm going to do that.

And so I think that's, and I have the choice.

I have the luxury of choice that other people don't.

And that's the other thing.

Other people don't have a choice.

And I, and to be whiny and bitchy about things when you have all these choices seems

yeah, but I often think

the

great responsibility that everybody has is knowing when they have the choice.

Because I think

a lot of people in life don't have the choice.

And you'll be surprised at how many people do have the choice, but then still live like they don't have the choice.

They don't.

They don't.

And if you don't know that you have the choice and you're living like you don't have it, I almost go, you've, you've, you know, you've sort of done yourself a disservice because you have the thing that most people don't have and you're not using it.

And I think that's, I think that's sort of where we are in a society, especially with women.

And it's interesting because a lot of women come to you.

Now a lot of media people come to me for advice.

They're like, how did you do it?

I want to do it.

And I like that they want to do it.

And sometimes I'm like, maybe not you, but sometimes, well, you can tell who's entrepreneurial and who's not, right?

And often,

I'll never forget this.

One woman came to me and she said, she was an executive, always number two.

Often women are number two in a lot of these companies or three or something but never one right men are very easy to step up to one very easy and you notice that it's very clear

and she's like she goes I want your advice what should I do and I said

what do you what do you want to do that's what I said what do you want to do and she said well I've been offered this this and this and I said uh-huh and she goes and I'm thinking this I go I didn't ask you what you were offered I asked you what you want to do you didn't hear me what I said to you she goes what's the difference I go oh it's a huge difference offered is like, this man wants to marry me.

This man wants to marry this.

That's what you got offered.

That's not who you want to marry.

Maybe you do.

Maybe you don't.

And I said, I said, the metaphor to me is a restaurant.

You go in and they have chicken, pork, and lamb.

And you want duck.

Ask for the fucking duck.

And she was like,

well, what if they don't have duck?

I said, they have duck.

It's back there.

And she goes, what if they don't have duck?

I said, they have fucking duck.

And she goes, What if they don't have duck?

I said, Then leave the restaurant and go find the duck restaurant.

Like, I don't know what to tell you.

If you want duck, have fucking duck.

And she's like, What are you talking about?

I was like, I am a genius.

I said, I am giving you this pearl of fucking wisdom.

I was like,

order the duck.

Just do it.

Like, don't have the chicken if you don't want the chicken.

Like, you have the ability to choose.

And most people in this world, I have to say, are stuck in places they don't, like, whether you're in Syria, whether you're a woman in, you know, Sudan, like you don't have a choice or you're poor, or you're in, you're in deep poverty without education.

Even in this country, like, people don't have choices that other people have.

And to be, that's why it drives me crazy with the Democrats.

Like, what do we do?

I'm like, what are you fucking talking about?

Lots of things.

Let's start with the thing instead of just wallowing in, you know, oh no, autocracy.

Really?

Does it have that has to be the choice?

No, it doesn't.

Don't press anything.

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You know what you're saying reminds me of a conversation we had with one of our friends in an episode here who said, When you asked him, Why are you always so happy?

Joe, then he says, I'm hashtag winning because you know where I come from.

He says, In Uganda, all of this is not here.

So I get to enjoy all of this.

Right.

And I have no time to bitch and moan and complain when other people are feeling a little bit inconvenienced.

And I think of you and how you speak of your father.

What's not going to amend?

Like, come on.

Right?

Right?

And how you speak of your father.

And

I'm like, you.

He's long gone now.

Yeah.

He's dead.

I think he's gone.

Gone, gone, gone.

Long, long, long.

You never know what these days.

I think either the gout got away.

You lost forever.

I think the story that you mentioned about

your dad, I stopped myself from being choked up a little bit because I.

I cry.

I lost my dad two years ago.

You're going to weep.

Is this documentary?

Has it been made?

I lost my dad two years ago, and there were so many occasions that I could have gone and spent time with him because i've told trevor the story before he was he was an alcoholic so he was really struggling it was hard for you too so i never knew which guy i'm gonna get when i go meet him but when he passed away i felt a certain loss and i thought maybe if i don't go to the funeral i will never feel like he's really really gone and as time went on i really really feel like he's gone and it influenced how i what i think of alcohol i'm not really a big fan of alcohol and i try to be

as pre

as and i try to be as most as present present as possible.

And I looked at your family pictures today and it spurred on that thing that I told you that I think this is one thing that I would like to try because I'd never seen a working version of it.

I've attempted it, didn't work.

But I think with hindsight, you get to have a bit of

experience in it without actually living it.

So I understand completely when you say you don't have time to, you know, do something that you don't.

And I think that's a really, by the way, this thing I'm working on is about longevity and the health span span versus lifespan and how to have a better, longer, healthier life.

Because we spent 90%

of our medical money in the last 10 years and it's all horrible.

Even in the best of circumstances, it's horrible.

And so why are we spending 90% here and not over here?

Like, why are we, why are we living in a six, six, I'm not a Maha person, trust me.

I think they're crazy.

But why are we spending all this time in the sick place and spending all our money and resources when there's all these incredible breakthroughs that we could end obesity and like cancer and this stuff?

And we spend all our time

in the worst possible situation at the end of our lives, which I think is terrible.

Like barring accidents, barring...

things that you can't avoid, right?

Earthquakes, whatever it happens to be.

And so it's really, I think about that all the time.

And whenever I saw, I was at this event this morning and these young people came because I was, I thought I was pretty good on stage.

And all these young people came up to me and said, that was so incredible.

And they said, can you give us a piece of advice?

I go, you'll be dead in 100 years.

Goodbye.

They were like, and I'm like, think about it.

And then make your choice.

Make your choice.

You'll be actually dead in 100 years.

What is the film going to be?

I'm not interested in what I'm doing.

Oh, you have to wait and see.

I'm not supposed to talk about it.

It's embargoed.

I hate embargoes.

It's for CNN.

Fine, whatever.

But it's actually going to be a podcast and an event and a book.

So I really think people have to think about

our time here.

I don't know.

I do.

I think about it all the time.

I think about it all the time.

It's not an obsessed thing.

There's a great app called We Croak.

Okay.

It's such a good thing.

Yeah.

We croak.

We croak.

It's called We Croak.

It's a little frog, too, which is a little thing.

And let me read this to you.

It's really interesting.

So it's my favorite app that I have.

It's right on the front.

And it's about We Croak five quotes a day.

In Bhutan, they say contemplating death five times a day brings happiness, right?

And then they have a quoted, the five quotes.

And this one is from Jimi Hendrix.

I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die.

So let me live my life the way I want to, Jimi Hendrix.

I just read that.

I'm like,

good, good point, Jimi Hendrix.

And so I read them and then I'm like, okay.

And then it makes you do things.

When I was in Bhutan and we were doing that.

Oh, you're in Bhutan.

I didn't, at the time, at first I was just like, this is

really not a vibe.

And then you get into it and you're like, oh yeah,

it's the embracing of the impermanence.

That's right.

Right.

You know?

And what it does, funny enough, is I remember going on a

guided tour in Paris with a fantastic tour guide.

Always shout him out.

Jean-Manuel, if you're ever in Paris, look him up.

And he gave this tour.

And one of the main things

that I learned from that tour was there are two different kinds of people who get to shape the future.

There are people who shape the future knowing that they will not be a part of it, but they know what they wish they would have gotten to be a part of.

And then there are people who shape the the future as if they will always be there.

That's right.

And the latter is oftentimes the worst person to shape the future

because they don't know that they'll have to let it go.

And when I think about some of these tech guys that you're talking about, I'm going to impetus for this series because

I was at endless dinner parties where they talked about living forever.

Yeah, they love

it.

In another thing, and I was like, for what?

Yeah, they love it.

Cryogenics.

But I honestly, I honestly believe.

There's more stuff going on, but that was the original.

Cryogenics was, of course, the idea that you can preserve your brain.

Right.

And by the way, we're moving into areas that some of this is, you stop Zhe and Putin talking about doing morgan training.

Living forever.

So their impetus is so narcissistic, and it's not about making better lives for people on this planet and extending life.

One guy I interviewed for this thing was he wrote a fictional book called Elixir, and I'm blanking on his name, but he was terrific.

So what if you were, the premise of this book is pretty simple.

There's a pill you can take that for every year of your life, every five years of your life, it only ages you one year.

So you can be 100 and look 20, right?

Would you take it?

One.

And once then, and then he starts to contemplate the impact on society.

Well, young people would be up in arms because all the old people would stay young longer and never get out of the fucking way, right?

That's one, which they don't do now, as aged as they are in Congress.

And then two,

what if the person who made it would become the first, the real first trillionaire of the thing?

Who would control that?

Should it be an individual who's selling it to you?

And what if it was expensive enough that only wealthy people could take it?

It was such a great, it's a great idea, this elixir.

And the idea of elixir has been with us forever.

There's a magic, a fountain of youth, elixir.

There's always been that theme.

And so would you take it?

What if you took it and your kids didn't want to?

They get older than you.

I mean, it's so mind-fucking, right?

It's so interesting to think about.

And a lot of these tech people who want, whether it's Larry Ellison, who's now become the world's richest man today, he's just surpassed Elon.

Wow.

Also Elon, Sam Altman, they're all investing in longevity stuff because,

and in some cases, it's an interesting thing.

Sam Altman's stuff is about health span extension.

So you don't waste your time.

I kind of, I'm down with that.

Others are like, how can I live?

longer than other what can I do to live to stop telomeres and sentient cells and all this stuff other people like Jennifer are funding people like Jennifer Doudno with CRISPR, which will remove, for example, sickle cell anemia.

They may be able to, they are able to solve it now.

It's just expensive to do so because it's a single gene that you remove via CRISPR.

So you just edit that gene out.

Most diseases are multi-gene, and so it's much harder.

But it costs $2 million every time they do this.

Wow, wow.

Too expensive.

But they can eradicate it now, which is largely eradicated, for the most part.

And so the question is, who gets to have it and when?

And is there a way to do it that's democratic and not, as usual, for the world's richest people?

They are all approaching it as if

I should not die because I am this unique individual.

What if you approached it like you are going to make the world better for all these people, like everybody, that people don't have to die of obesity?

They don't have to die of heart disease.

They don't have to die of many, many, many cancers.

That it just goes away.

It's a really interesting idea.

And so I want to get rid of all the charlatans, of which there are so many, and narcissistic charlatans.

And then let's look at what really is working, which is, it's an amazing field, you know, and remove it.

And so, again, the same thing.

It's a love story in the benefits of technology.

And it's also a nightmare if it goes another direction.

Would you take that pill?

No, I wouldn't.

You wouldn't?

No.

I've thought about this a lot and I wouldn't.

No, you wouldn't.

So the reason I wouldn't take it is because I think

one of the greatest lessons I've learned in life is that the value of things is often most appreciated in their scarcity.

Absolutely.

So I've seen this through my friends who have children.

I've watched them appreciate time differently.

I like I, you know me.

I've never said the phrase time flies.

I've never felt like time flies ever, ever, ever.

But every single friend of mine who is a parent will go, I mean, you look up and you're like, where did the time go?

Yeah.

And I see them yearn for the time, but they never cared for it in the same same way before.

Right.

You know, and I think we take that for granted.

We don't understand.

And that's where some people have hacked us, like food companies and stuff.

But like, there is something magical about the last chip in a bag.

There really is.

Yeah.

But you know, when there's infinite chips,

it doesn't.

I don't care.

Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't have the same anything.

There's, there's something to emotional.

There's a lot of Highlander.

Exactly.

Or all the vampire movies.

Exactly.

Which I also love a vampire movie.

There's just something that you lose.

And I think there's a stage stage in life that you don't get to experience that's beautiful.

Like you start slow, you speed up, and then you get slow again.

And I think there's something beautiful in that loop.

What if you could take your brain and put it in another robot or a cyborg or something like that?

That's going to happen.

So here's what I will say to that.

I find it particularly interesting.

that a lot of these people who are doing this will say they have the greatest imaginations, but then they don't imagine the possibility that there's something beyond what we're in now right and not necessarily an afterlife, but just like

What if you just locked yourself in this forever and what

to get out?

You don't even out or in what if there's an in?

What if there's another I don't know what is there or isn't there?

That's a really good point.

But why would you limit yourself from possibly experiencing?

Then you're like, oh, but what if you just did?

Yeah, well, you won't know.

Well, because they don't believe there is.

They don't believe there is something.

And that's, but I'm saying, why would you lock?

That to me is when ideas and imaginations start to die.

Yeah.

You know, one of my favorite things someone ever said, and I hope he sticks to this, was Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO.

I was talking to him about jobs and AI and all these things that are going to happen.

And I said to him, what do you think about all the companies who are firing people because they've got AI?

And he said to me, I think every single one of those companies should die.

And I was like, whoa, wait, what?

And he said, if you are using AI to get rid of employees, you're a company that's run out of ideas.

And he said, because AI should enable you to do more of what you are trying to do, because now you can expand it infinitely.

Get rid of all the mundane tasks.

And Nvidia has shown that.

They were like, we make chips.

Then they were like, maybe we could make software.

And also, maybe we could make robots.

And maybe we could make warehouses.

And maybe we could make cars.

And maybe we could make the in, and maybe we could.

And maybe, and you go like, oh, he's living that ethos.

Do you know what I mean?

They're not, there's no mass layoffs.

There's no

today.

Let me just say.

No, but that's what I'm saying to you.

I hope he sticks to this.

Yeah.

And whether he does or doesn't, I do believe the message is correct.

It's true.

It's like, why is what you're using?

We were just talking this on pivot this week.

It's like, why is what you're using AI for is to limit?

It's like, why is it?

And by the way, there are mundane tasks people shouldn't do.

When's the last time you look at a map?

When's the last time you churn butter?

When's the last time you, you know, you could go through all kinds of technologies and time saving is okay for a lot of those.

And

a lot of jobs are so rote and machines do do them better.

and so what what what what the challenge of our society is in the next few governments will be is what do you do when things like we had a drastic change farmers were on the original entrepreneurs you get it deciding what crops to pick whatever to do with the weather so much like such an entrepreneur to which which which uh plow to use what you know did you do of the innovative new plow or i always go look at old plows i'm fascinated and as they made the progression and how they ease time for people and and backbreaking work.

And one of the things that's interesting is what part of that do you, when we went from farming to not farming,

it was the right decision, right?

Because that was artisanal and done in a small way.

So what is that right now?

And then what can we do to help people transition to the better job, right?

Or what is the better job?

Like, I think a lot about self-driving.

I love EV.

I love like Waymo.

I've been in it.

They're really fun.

I was in the original, original one.

The one when they first invented it.

You went like the...

This was 10 years, 10, 12 years ago when Google had it in their parking lot.

I ran over there.

I'm like, put me in this fucking thing.

And let me see who I can run over

because I wanted to see how good you guys are.

No, you can't get in the car.

We do have shrimp.

The guy who started it now runs a company called Aurora, which is a self-driving, which is an autonomous trucking company.

He's great.

He's a great, great entrepreneur.

But I made him stand in front of it.

I'm like, let's see if you're up to what you just invented.

And he did it.

He stood stood in front of it and his car stopped.

Oh, well.

But

I kept going, go, go, go.

So

anyway, so I love them.

And I know people will be put up jobs.

I do, I do.

But I'm thinking, for example, trucking is such a dangerous profession for people.

It's not a good profession.

It's not good for your family.

It's not everything.

I know there's a romantic around trucking, but it shouldn't be done by people.

It really shouldn't.

Coal mining shouldn't be done by people, like things like that.

And so, okay you have the autonomous trucks and a lot of our nations is pretty flat and so they're not going to get in accidents they get in fewer the problem is people not the truck yeah the people are the anomaly anomaly right exactly and the trucks once one truck makes a mistake all the trucks learn when one person makes a mistake nobody learns right that's how it goes unless we have to figure something out to get people the matrix and the chip in their head um so what was interesting to me is i was like okay let's talk about the jobs thing he goes here's here's the thing i'm thinking, because he happens to be a very thoughtful entrepreneur, this guy.

He's like, right now, long-haul trucking is really dangerous.

It's bad for people physically.

It's dangerous.

What if all these autonomous trucks went to the edges of cities?

And that's the only place they don't go into cities anymore.

And by the way, it solves a problem.

And then you get smaller trucks driven by people that bring it into the cities.

Oh, nice.

You know, of course, the idea of putting them under cities is actually a great idea.

But they, so you, or all the people that are running the fleet, who's, who's monitoring the fleet and where it goes.

But you create a situation where the truckers then live near where they work rather than drive.

And I was like, thank you.

You just thought of really, I don't know if that's going to work, but you could, you could sit there and start to think, okay, if the people of

Google aren't coding anymore, you know, or if people vibe code, you know what vibe coding is, right?

If people vibe coding, Eugene is...

Do you know what vibe coding is?

No, do you know?

I'm assuming you don't.

That's what I'm saying.

I just figured out today I can rotate my...

Okay, so So vibe screen.

So vibe coding is

the original coding was you had to know the language that a computer speaks.

Right.

And there were multiple different languages, you know, Java, C, yeah, coding languages.

And then vibe coding now is you're using an AI to basically code on your behalf.

And you're saying what you want the code to be and what you want the program to do.

You just find me a wife, and this is my criteria.

And not just criteria, it's the prompt.

Prompt is the big word.

Everything is a prompt.

What is the prompt?

And everything will be created by the, it's a question.

Yes.

It is.

Answers are, things progress because of questions in this world.

And so you're like, I want an app that will make me find a wife.

And here are my criteria.

And here's where I want you to search.

And it will make you the app.

It will just happen.

So it's vibes.

Right.

It's like on Star Trek when you said, I would like a turkey sandwich.

And then it just appeared, that kind of stuff.

But you see, you know, when you go back to the world of vibe coding and what we look for as a future,

I think what makes this business business person thoughtful for me is,

I don't know them, but I think they understand

the nature of work.

And I think this is what most people in business have forgotten.

And the significance of it is that they forget that a company is a fake thing.

They forget that Wall Street is a fake thing.

All of these things are imagined is what I mean.

To use the correct word, it's more imagined.

It's more imagined.

The purpose of it is to give people something to do, to move value around, however, we assign it, whether it's time or currency or a product, whatever it is.

But that's what generally keeps societies moving and happy and flowing.

But once you stop them, once you create a dam,

that's when things die.

You know what I mean?

That's when the water, the sand builds up.

But that's exactly it.

And I think they don't realize this.

It's funny, you talk about the truck thing.

I remember talking to somebody who was also in autonomous trucking, and I said,

What if there's a bridge?

You think trucks should be autonomous?

There are many people who drive trucks for a living who are going to lose their jobs, right?

So we don't have enough truck drivers, but go ahead.

Yeah, no, no, but I was like, there are many people who will.

But I said,

what if you found a bridge in between where the person could drive the truck from home?

Like you have an autonomous truck,

but it's guided by a truck driver at home.

It's very different driving a truck.

And then I saw the other day, my youngest brother sent me a video of this.

There's some people now who work in like quarries and stuff.

Mine.

Yes.

Yeah.

And they're not there.

They're at home and they're using like the extra.

So the human element is important in decision making, right?

And it's the same thing with drones.

It's the same thing with, like, at some point, there will be drones that will operate on their own, like autonomously.

Like

and make autonomous decisions.

Same thing with sentencing, justice.

That's what's interesting.

Like every single industry will be affected.

The thing about AI is everything, because what it does is you had Google where you went and put in the thing in the box and then it brought you the answer, but it didn't really bring you the answer.

It brought you lots of answers to find.

And so it's like, here's a lot, here's a pile of library books.

Good luck.

That's what Google is.

Like, you know, like, oh, God, there's 10 books here.

Where is the answer in these 10 books?

Well, it could be here is sort of gave you a suggestion.

Maybe look at this one first.

I'm feeling lucky.

Yeah, I'm feeling lucky.

That was my favorite thing on a Google page.

It was.

I'm feeling lucky.

Well, do you?

I often had the right answer.

Yeah, but I was just like, what a crazy button to

be lucky.

Yeah, they were a funny gang back then, let me tell you.

Wasn't that dirty area?

No, they were a weird group of people then, I have to say, and they remain this today to this very day.

But one of the things

that's interesting about that idea is with AI, is it doesn't, it actually, and I know hallucinations, blah, blah, it will get it right.

Like the original internet, if you recall, was quite ugly and stupid and didn't work.

AI will get it right at some point because it will learn and figure out.

It could provide you with things.

It could really give you great answers and

cut the time it requires you to get it and get rid of things that were lots of steps along the way, like making butter, like or whatever.

There's a better way to do it.

And so I think we have to approach it like it's a better way to do it.

And now what can people do?

What's the human element?

in deciding these.

And I think what I get really worried about is people who really not resist it.

I was with a bunch of journalists or the most risk-averse people on the planet.

I was with a group of people, and I was talking about AI coming up with headlines, right?

Just for writing headlines.

They're very good at it.

They can do, they can spit out 100 headlines in five seconds.

And it takes some creaky old guy to come up with two terrible ideas in three hours, right?

Well, we got to keep him in the job.

I'm like, but he's bad at it.

Like, why is he doing that job?

Yeah, right.

And they were like, we can't have people do that.

I said, but it's headlines.

Like, why?

Why do people have to do that?

Well, because people have decided, I said, well, then spit out 100 headlines and then a person picks the one, but let the person have the final decision making.

The person doesn't have to be out of the loop.

That's right.

The person also doesn't have to be doing the grunt labor.

Right.

Like, why not?

And by the way,

AI comes up with, I would say, 79 bad ideas.

But 21 are pretty fucking good.

Like, they are.

Like, I have to say, you're like, hmm, not bad.

Yeah.

And they were like, well, that's this group of people.

That's terrible.

I'm like, why are you, the hill you're dying on is headlines when I'm telling you you need to focus on making products that people want and figure out what the creativity part is.

Headlines are not the create.

It's the grunt work.

It's the input work.

It's the stuff that computers should do, right?

Why are people

inputting?

Why?

I don't even understand it.

And it's really interesting.

The resistance is, you know, in media, as you know, I mean, what's happening now at your old play, well, that's another story

you'd like to get into that i'm the happy two but what the actual

um uh

god yeah anyway um but like for example i was just with uh the person who's running ems now which i don't particularly like the name oh yeah

i don't really care what they call it they can call it phyllis i don't really care but it's awesome

for a network i know i know right it doesn't matter if it's good it's good you see what happened on phyllis phyllis yeah i like that actually barbara

barbara are you the guy from phyllis yeah excuse me, ma'am.

Did I see you?

Did I see you on Phyllis the other day?

I actually like that.

Or Barbara.

Barbara's.

But Phyllis is really...

Phyllis.

That's like a cool

thing.

I can't hear the words.

Phyllis Dilly is Phyllis.

Phyllis Diller?

What?

Syphilis.

Syphilis.

Okay.

Oh, damn.

Oh, wow.

You went there.

Is that the fool?

Wow, Eugene.

Huh.

Syphilis?

As you were.

No, please.

Cara.

Okay, so

one of the things I was talking, it's called Versin, which I'm like, also causes rash in your, you know, causes vaginal.

audience.

Also solves your vaginal rash problems.

And they, and this executive is like, that's not funny.

I go, no, that's funny.

That's funny.

Come on.

The name Versant, you walked right into it by calling the stupid thing Versant.

So

anyways, AI came up with that name.

And

so

half the people there, it's really interesting, are like, oh, no.

Oh, no.

And I was like, no, this is a golden fucking opportunity to be creative and make things people want.

And if you don't, you get to leave.

Like if you can't, and to me, the people I really like are the ones that are like, okay, this is a, we're now freed of all this other shit.

Now we can make cool stuff.

Same thing, you know, at so many of these places.

They now have the opportunity.

I have a rule when I make companies.

I've made everything I've made has been pretty successful, very successful, actually.

And someone was like, what's your secret sauce for making things?

And I go, I make things people want and I sell them.

And they're like, what?

And I said, and I asked myself this one question when I'm making something and it's whether I know it's right or not.

Did anyone ever ask for this?

Like a lot of people make, a lot of corporations make, did anyone ever ask, like Washington Post did, let's let sources make comments in the stories that our reporters write.

And they think it's brilliant.

This one.

And did anyone ever ask for that?

Did anyone ever fucking, I said, did anyone ever fucking ask for this?

They're like, no, but it's cool.

I'm like, but it's not.

Like, who wants that?

Like, who?

Except the sources who get to like clap back at the reporters.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they wanted it, but does that make you more money?

Like, you know, does it even make the product better?

Right.

Doesn't matter.

You know what I mean?

Does it serve your reader more?

Does it inform them?

Does it create?

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

Exactly.

And so often they try to make, they don't think about what people want.

And that's what I think about that all the time.

So I think they'll do great if they make things people want and they keep the costs in line.

Doesn't seem to be.

It's been amazing.

Yeah.

I love this.

Do you miss TV?

I'm curious.

Do I miss TV?

Yeah.

I don't think I ever liked liked TV.

Oh, really?

Interesting.

No, like the

live.

No, no, but what I mean is this, is like,

I hope I'm not getting too didactic with this answer, but it's like, please do.

So even like, let's say, podcast,

I always laugh at that.

I go, what does that mean?

If there's a camera,

then is it a podcast?

Is it not a podcast?

People love giving...

things names.

It's a TV movie.

It's a movie.

No, it's a TV movie.

It's a movie.

You're just watching it on TV.

Yeah.

All of these things.

So for me, what I genuinely, the thing that I miss, the only thing that I miss is engaging with the human beings that I engage with.

So I loved working on problems and ideas with a team.

I love the jokes that we would tell each other in the writer's room.

I love the meetings that we would have.

I love meeting with the audience and having them ask questions.

That's all that I miss genuinely.

And my friends, I think, can account for this.

If you told me that none of that actually ended up on TV and I was just like being scammed, I would go like, man, I still had a great time.

Yeah.

And that's how I think of it for my life is I go, I wish to be partaking in the activity

with the people that I love.

And then

I'll enjoy that and I'll come out on the other side with an experience.

But the actual TV side of it

doesn't really matter either.

That's the thing that's the thing a lot of people meet don't get.

I used to say, like, one of the things they were, they were always like, oh, if this goes and that's what I was like, no, if you make great stuff, it'll sell every single fucking time.

And I think they get stuck into the system more than anything

rather than what they're actually making.

And so process always takes over.

And one of the things that I've just recently started doing a series of podcasts, a media that works.

I'm so sick of the doom scrolling.

Oh, media.

All I talk to is people who are, and some of them work like the woman who's running Wired.

She's kicking ass because she's making great stuff.

She decided to double down on Doge.

She has really interesting stories.

She's part of a corporation.

I'm not just doing entrepreneurs.

Her descriptions are up like 100%.

Why?

Because she's making things people want.

So I interviewed her, Oliver Darcy, who does media writing.

He left CNN to do it.

I interviewed him.

There's a guy at the post that I helped.

figure out how to leave who does videos on tick tock like all kinds of people are approaching it from different ways and so i and using technology to do so and i think it's really important to keep at heart all that's important is what you're making like what's the thing you're saying or doing or writing or what's the story you're telling?

Yeah.

That doesn't change.

And technology doesn't make it any better.

Like, doesn't.

It just doesn't.

People do.

100%.

No question.

I love this.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Thank you.

I hope we see you again.

Yes.

Come and join us.

His wedding, obviously.

Ah.

When you fix him up.

Walking down the aisle.

Here comes Eugene Coza.

When you need a Sopanos fan.

This morning.

You You need a Sopranos fan, obviously.

That should be a top up.

Or even better, you need somebody who's never watched the Sopranos because that'll be the greatest joy.

Yeah.

There's nothing better than introducing somebody.

No, introducing somebody.

They won't like it.

No, they can't not like it.

What if they don't?

But that's how you'll know that they love you.

No, that's how I mean it, honestly, is that's where I feel like you'll explore something.

They'll be like through your eyes, why do you love it so much?

Yeah.

Well, they'll hate it and you'll still be a great couple.

Actually, you can get along.

Like my wife is like, I'd love to live in Brooklyn.

I said, I'd rather poke my eye with a dry smile.

The whole entire eye.

The entire eye.

Like, totally.

If I have to go in a co-op, I'll kill myself.

I'm like, give me, give me the $4 apple and leave me the fuck.

I don't want to talk.

I don't want to work for it.

I would like.

But I'm not a Burning Man gal.

So.

Do you go to Burning Man?

No, I've never been.

I want to go, though.

Why?

Because I want to experience everything in my life.

It doesn't matter.

Okay.

I've been in dirty before.

Yeah, I can't.

You know why?

No, I have been in dirty before.

Tell us more.

I've even told you this.

It's like, I want to experience.

You see what's happening now.

What's happening?

You're corrupting me now into the world.

How am I corrupting you?

You're like, I told you about my dirty people.

Okay, but what?

No.

What can I do?

What you could learn more about each other?

What is dirty?

Okay, what is the dirtiest thing about Burning Man?

Dirt?

Like, the actual dirt?

Actual dirt.

Kara, have you been to Hamanskral?

Have you been to Hamans Kral?

No, what is that?

Exactly, Kara.

Is this your country again?

Is this your country?

No, like, what I mean is like the thing.

You win.

The thing that Thank you, you dude.

You win.

The thing that people, like, I loved going to the homelands.

And like, when someone goes Burning Man, I'm like, this is not.

Oh, that's true.

You're true.

It's kind of a whim thing.

Yeah.

Here's why I can't go to Burning Man because a lot of tech guys go there.

They're going to slip me like ayahuasca and then I'm going to end up in some trailer in Reno married to a man.

Like something like that.

I like that the end of the bad story was married to a man.

I will end up, there will be spectrums.

There will be pictures.

They will, I will not, I do not, when I go to these companies now, I'm like this.

I'm like, don't touch it.

Just cover everything.

Cover everything.

No, man.

How do they do that without presidents?

When I was interviewing Obama, they put a thing on the.

And I went to touch it and the Secret Service lost their fucking mind.

They wouldn't even, when you interview presidents and that, they don't even let you have the water.

They don't.

Yeah, no, no.

They bring everything with them.

Of course, what's the first thing I did?

Was like.

Can I tell you one of the funniest moments I ever had like that was

it was Gail King invited.

This is like early, early, early when I was like just in the U.S.

hosting the daily show.

Gail King invited me

to the Kennedy Center honors.

Yeah, they're fun.

They're fun.

I covered them as a young one.

Yeah, but in Obama's box.

What?

You see, now you're with me.

Gail, she's always up to things.

Bet Gail.

I remember going, wait,

she was like, Trevor, come with me.

And you know how Gail?

She's like, Trevor, you're going to love it.

She's like, she's like,

do you know Gail from TV?

Yes, yeah.

Then you know Gail.

Exactly right.

Gail is the most personal person.

Gail person.

She's the most personal person.

Gail is like Gail.

Gail is like Gail.

So Gail, she was like, Trevor, you got to come.

Kenny.

I was like, okay, okay.

We get there.

We don't go to the main section.

We go into President Barack Obama's box.

Walk in.

There he is, Secret Service sitting.

Trevor, are you coming to watch the show?

We're going to have a good time.

Good time.

It's going to be good.

You ever been here before?

Well done.

So we're in there.

We go.

We sit down.

And then the show starts.

And I'm sitting right behind him.

And the Secret Service is like, like, way back there.

And I'm, to your point of like the glass, I'm like staring at his head.

And I was looking at like the just

the hairs on the back of his head.

And the,

and, and I was just like,

when was the last time somebody like hit his head?

That's how William Booth became who he was.

No, let me explain.

Like John Wilkes Booth.

No, I was.

John Wilkes Booth.

John Wilkes Booth.

No, no.

Let me explain.

Let me explain.

So you you thought about hitting his head?

No, I did not think about hitting his head.

Okay.

This is not the first time you're coming.

You're going to get the Secret Service coming.

No.

I just thought to myself, because I always, I want this for people.

I've got a visa.

I have two.

I can't wait to see where this is ending.

Land the plane.

I love for people to have human experiences.

And I've asked...

President Obama the same person, I've gone, do you miss being called by your name?

Do you miss somebody not knowing you?

He does share that he does miss many of those things.

He has dreams of being on a park bench.

Like, literally, that's his his dreams.

Not anymore, never again.

Yeah, but that's what I mean.

He dreams of that.

He's like, oh, man, you know.

Send in his voice.

And when I was there,

I was like,

Wilts Poozy.

I imagine.

No, I imagined, like, wow.

When was the last time in his life that somebody just went pap on Barack Obama's head?

Michelle probably does it.

Oh, maybe.

But I just thought that would be so cool for him to be like, what?

Like, in that, but then I was like, how close is the Secret Service?

Would they think I'm trying to kill him?

Would they?

What was the problem?

They would.

so i was unable to afford him you can't touch him i'm glad you didn't touch him i didn't can i tell you a very brief obama story go go so we did a interview and he was talking to digital people that you know they decided let's get some digital people you know that he knows some stupid marketing person or pr person's in a room so i get one of the things and the other one was remember the woman with the green lips on mtv and i'm blacking on her name she had green lips and she was an mtv dev oh she was a vj right so she gets an interview i get an interview but then they cut my interview by 10 minutes minutes and give it to her.

And I was like, are you fucking kidding me?

Like, I'm sorry.

I mean, you know, I don't mean to say, don't you know who I am, but you just cut my interview by 10 minutes.

So that's hard when you have it planned out in your head, right?

And everything.

So because you've planned the whole thing.

I planned the whole thing.

And I'm like, now I got to do something.

So we sit down and the glass is there.

And I'm thinking of touching the glass, but then I that'll take off another five minutes off because it'll be to five minutes of moving the glass around.

So, um, so he, so he sits down.

He's right knee to knee with me.

And I go, listen, they just cut 10 minutes off my interview.

And here's the problem I have with you is you talk too much and you never have a pair.

You talk in paragraphs.

You never stop talking.

I understand you've been president for six years.

Everyone listens to you, but I'm going to interrupt you.

And I'm sure you're not used to that because no one interrupts you.

But I'm about to interrupt you a lot because they cut my fucking 10 minutes.

So just be aware.

You're maybe not used to it, but try to remember when people used to interrupt you.

Okay, great.

And he looks at me, he goes, I heard you were obnoxious.

And I go, I am.

And we started the interview.

The whole interview, he was so pithy, I totally like mind fucked him to do it.

So later, I totally mind, he completely fell for it.

And so, and I was always, I got in an argument with him too, because one of you have to figure out what in an interview is the thing.

And he does not like getting mad.

And I kept trying to get him mad because he's, he's resisting anger, right?

Because he doesn't want to be angry black guy.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Whatever.

I kept trying to get him mad.

And so we do the interview.

It was very testy, actually.

It was a very testy interview because everyone sort of is not testy to him.

And I was like, I'm going for testy.

So

months, months and months later, when he was leaving office, my ex-wife worked for him as the CTO.

And when he ends his administration, it's such a lovely thing.

You go into the Oval Office and meet him and you get a handshake and a picture.

Everything from Susan Rice on down gets

every single time.

It's lovely.

It's a lovely tradition.

So my ex-wife goes, hey, come with us.

It would be really nice to have the whole family there.

The sons would love it.

It would be really great.

So we go.

I go, I don't know.

He doesn't like me very much.

He doesn't.

For good reason.

Yes.

No, but he does.

I poked in production.

I poked and talked about Google.

And so we walk into the Oval Office and he goes, how did you get in here?

And I was like, so then, so then it gets worse.

So I was like, I didn't want to be here either.

Trust me.

I don't really want to spend time with you either.

And so he goes, fine, we'll take the picture.

And he knows everything about everybody.

He must be given cards or little factoids.

You know how they know.

So he goes to my oldest son and he goes, Louie, I hear you're such a good cook.

And if you open a restaurant someday, can you come?

And Louie goes, Yeah, yeah, sure.

Absolutely, Mr.

President.

I'll cook you a great meal.

And my other son, who's a techie, and he goes, Alex, do you, you know, you want to, um, do you want to do when I, when you're a company, would you let me invest in your company?

And my son goes, maybe.

That's your boy.

And he goes, this is your son.

I was like, yes, he is.

Maybe.

we'll see if we'll let you on the cap table we're not sure if you're worthy and i just look we had a recent back and forth because i had said i thought he should step a little more and stop hanging out with celebrities and go say something because trump was problematic and i thought he hung back too much yeah and so i got all this pushback because they're like oh why should he come in and do it i'm like because he's the most important democrat in existence and it's a compliment to him which i don't tend to pay him so i would i would say he's the one who has to stand up until they figure out who the next

leader is.

And I got a text from their office.

They're like, we don't think he has to, you know, he, he doesn't have to step up.

I'll be like, oh, no, he has to step up.

I don't care what.

I don't know.

I think there's, I think there's a paradox that we've, we've, we, we, I talked about this with like a friend.

No, no, no.

I, here's what I think it is.

I think damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Right.

So if Obama continues to step in, there will never be somebody else who steps in.

And then you, you sort of don't create.

No, I genuinely believe this.

I think like people, people people will often say and i i've seen this happen when there was like the rallies even when biden was running kamala was running all of these things he would come out and then people be like oh why isn't it that guy yeah and you know where you you're sort of not helping so he would end up blocking the next person that's what i mean you are right now we're under extenuating emergency circumstances yeah but i would argue in this moment in time and i mean everyone will disagree or agree i would argue in this moment in time i don't know that he would have necessarily the best impact.

I actually think, you know, like Star Trek a new generation type thing.

I think like the Zorons and the whatever

people are not going to be,

if Obama was to step in now, I can very quickly see people turning around and going like, well, how did you let this happen?

And all of a sudden it becomes like this like,

do you, do you know what I mean?

I think he should.

I think he has so much gravitas and it's an emergency situation and he will help the transition.

And it's a different media world now.

Everything's

operating

as if it's the same thing.

And it's not this, it is indeed not the same thing.

It is not the same thing for sure.

And so acting like the Democrats are peacetime, like I like to keep

stop it.

Like stop Chuck Schumer, turn off the social media cameras right now because you suck.

But like what Zorn Mandami is doing, what Newsom is doing, that's what's required, which is muscular.

And I don't mean that in a gender-specific way.

It's like it's muscular, it's aggressive, it's promiscuous, and it's constant from a thing.

And it's a very different thing.

And Obama has an incredible charisma and charm that will take it to the next thing that needs to be to counter.

And he is the counter at this moment.

And then he brings up people.

Like, I don't, I don't know.

I just, anyway, if you noticed, he's been saying a lot more lately.

He hasn't.

So I irritated him.

Like a lot of people.

Right.

I was like, don't you think?

And, you know, I think it's, I think he's,

and I was like, I'm paying you a fucking compliment for once.

So don't.

Yeah.

This is funny.

You got Barack activated, Trevor almost hit him at the back of the head.

I mean,

no, there was no almost hit.

I wasn't trying to physically don't ever do that.

You thought about it for a second.

You thought about it?

I thought about

whether or not he had experience.

No, he didn't.

You know what?

He didn't think about hitting.

He wanted to rub the back of the head.

Oh, rub Zara.

I wondered when was the last time he had a very human experience of somebody sitting behind you and just doing that on your head.

He touched his ear.

Next time you see him, will you touch his ear for us?

I will not.

Oh, both of us.

I will not.

Because I want my pictures and I do not not want to be on enemy terms with Barack Obama.

Now, when I walk in the room, he's going to be like, are you?

Yeah.

Oh, you and Carl.

How did you get in here, Trouble?

Next time I see him, I'm going to touch his ear.

And I'm going to ask, because I'm a consent kind of girl.

May I touch your ear?

I want no part of this.

I'm going to say it was your idea.

No part of it.

No part of this idea.

He'll know it was not my idea.

No, I'll say no, it was.

He'll tell you it was my idea.

He will know for a fact.

He will know for a fact.

Remember when you told us?

I'll put the doubt in his mind.

Let me tell you something.

Let me tell you something.

If there's one thing he will know, is that it was not my idea.

No, it was.

He will not.

Remember when Trevor said he wants to hold both of his ears?

I'm out.

Do you remember that?

I'm out.

What now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM.

The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackle.

Rebecca Chain is our producer.

Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu.

Music, Mixing and Mastering by Hannes Brown.

Random Other Stuff by Ryan Harduth.

Thank you so much for listening.

Join me next week for another episode of What Now?