Sam Altman’s $7 Trillion Fundraise, Google Gemini Catches OpenAI, The Return To Office Ploy

27:02Now, this, again, might be a bit of heresy, but in a lot of private conversations, the people who are plugged in that I speak with, when they talk about Sundar, they say, that guy likely isn't long for that job. But yet I haven't seen any coverage asking about how safe Sundar Pichai is. I've not seen one report about that. Of course, Alphabet's doing, you know, I just checked because I was thinking about digging into it. They did hit their all-time highs in the stock market earlier this year. So, you know, if that's the measuring stick, they're in good shape. But you look at where the competition's going and you sort of wonder.

27:36I'm curious why you think we haven't seen any deeper questioning of Sundar's position in this role. Well, but Google Cloud as a business very strongly responded to Amazon Web Services. Google Workspace very strongly responded to Microsoft Office. So I think they've shown they can basically copy very well, but they haven't shown any kind of like completely new innovation. I've had a lot of conversations around this is like, you know, like what was their last great innovation? you know maps youtube all these things just kind of keep going on as just you know almost relics of their past self but uh yeah i think that is interesting i agree maybe it becomes more of a conversation but it's hard to have that conversation when a stock is at an all-time high so exactly yeah there might be a story to do on it well we'll see speaking of google's big innovations uh i have a feed drop coming on on the feed on monday which is for a new podcast called building one by the chief product officer of LinkedIn, Tomer Cohen, and he interviews the co-founder of Canva.

28:45And apparently this guy was an early person working on Google Wave. Google Wave. Remember Wave? I love it. Go ahead. It's not quite Google Plus, but Google Wave was definitely one of my favorite. Was that like 2011, 2012? That feels right in the pocket. It was kind of a Twitter clone, if I remember. No, it was like this collaborative place where people could like type and move images and put videos. It was like a basically like a. Cowork, almost like Figma, like there was Google Docs for everything. Collaborative workspace could have been Google way. I mean, that's one of the things you imagine is pretty tough.

29:30And it is that problem of incumbency because you can totally picture they like Miro or, you know, collaborative whiteboarding tools. if you've ever used them, but Figma even, like that whole idea of like real-time collaborative work, which they have nailed with Google Docs and Sheets and stuff being able to work together in real time. But you can imagine that kind of product. That's a problem when you have how many billions of users that to show genuine traction, you don't probably have the time to innovate and actually find something that's going to really stick. You're either having to hit insane numbers early on or it just gets folded into wherever and then gets killed off eventually.

30:13Yeah, so folks, stay tuned for that feed drop coming on Monday. Tomer and I talked for like 10 minutes right before the episode starts just about what he's trying to do with the show, but also about this Google Wave thing and about how he thinks about generative product, product management with generative AI. So that's something to keep an eye out for. Now, this week was also interesting. There was this leaked, Well, there was this faked robocall from President Biden telling voters that they should abstain from voting in the primary elections. And soon on the heels of that, the FCC banned AI-generated robocalls.

30:55So it's interesting that we're starting to see some pushback towards this AI-generated stuff. I mean, I think that there were already AI-generated robocalls that were hitting the market. but to see the government take action on them is quite interesting. What did you make of this? Yeah, I think, because again, the main difference is how are they really going to be able to tell even finding who originally created and paid for the robocall is almost nearly impossible. So I think the more important thing was sending a signal that you will be prosecuted. This fits into, you know, there's like a three-decade-old law aimed at curbing junk phone calls, and it fits under that.

31:34It's a clarification around that. So I think we're going to see in this election year a lot of very, very intense, strong action around this kind of stuff. Again, how easy is it to enforce is another question. But I think at least in the letter of the law, it's going to be spelt out pretty clearly. It's interesting seeing the government take action on tech. It's like we've had these two side-by-side pictures of effective government and ineffective government. The big tech hearings and then these smaller moves from agencies where you're actually seeing them do things. This is one example. And then there's also the FTC, which has had a mixed record of success, but has really been on the warpath trying to block mergers.

32:23And I don't know if it was them or European regulators, but basically there was a significant block merger recently that we've been meaning to talk about, which is that Amazon wanted to acquire iRobot, which is the maker of Roomba, and then basically decided to walk away from the deal. So what can you tell us about that? Yeah, I think overall, we've seen the climate has changed and there's going to be a lot more scrutiny over all M &A. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's one of the reasons we're still sitting here and the Magnificent Seven have just incredible amounts of market power.

32:59But I think it's, yeah, M &A is definitely an area where the government has been successful in the last couple of years. There's been some big, you know, like notable losses, but overall the entire climate has changed. And I think that's a good thing. Well, let's talk about whether that's successful or not. Because, so the CEO of iRobot lost their job because of this. iRobot also took, they are going to lay off 350 employees, 31 % of the workforce. They are a mess internally now after being, you know, waiting to be acquired. And this is a problem for companies that like make plans. They go through these lengthy processes and they can't eventually close the deal.

33:46And the same is going to happen with Figma, by the way, which just like got closed out of this Adobe deal. like the company spent months or more than a year waiting for it to close both of them and all the plans put on hold you know people figuring out what they're going to do for work maybe just chilling like you don't want to advance too much you don't want to change the product too much you know as you wait for this approval and so i'm curious if you think the word success is the right word to use like yes i think it's a hundred percent the right word to use because yeah the new york times had a long piece it was really good actually just yesterday around what the culture and feel is at Figma right now.

34:24And again, they had, it was supposed to be a$20 billion deal. And then internally, Figma just reset its valuation to 10 billion. So you can imagine you're an employee sitting there, you thought you were going to just have some insane windfall. And now it's not as insane. It's probably still pretty good for most employees, especially early ones. But I agree, it completely changes the calculations and the whole culture about how companies just approach their product and approach their work. And I think it's a success because I think it's a good thing. I think like if companies were built around not actually continuing to figure out how to better serve customers and innovate, and instead we're just trying to figure out how to cash out, you're seeing it in real time.

35:10Like as you said, if you know people are just kind of spending months and then not really doing anything in the hopes, and And we all know if Figma was acquired by Adobe, it would just go out to die, to go out to pasture. So, I mean, I think it's a good thing. And it's a reminder that a lot of the kind of downstream effects of this are longer term, because for each one of those stories, that means that at somewhere, some M &A lawyer and some investment banker talking to some CEO are not going to start that process rather than starting it. I think that's where you see the, like, you can't almost measure a lot of the times with Lena Khan and the FTC or even around the Department of Justice, there's like kind of like win-loss score cards.

35:57But I think unless you look at the aggregate, it's tough to paint the whole picture. And that's taking shape right now. And they will diverge, right? Because you'll have some company, like a lot more companies will decide not to go the M &A route, right? So their real chance of an exit is an IPO. And some of them will make it there and be worth probably three or four or five times what they were going to make as an acquisition. Like think about Instagram, for instance, if they had to go the IPO route, they would be worth so much more than the billion And social media might be good right now if Instagram actually...

36:29But there's also going to be companies that will just kind of fizzle because they can't get there. So it's like taking away this very important piece, you know, potential exit, and then will investors continue to fund? So I think there's very complicated second order effects. I think you just described healthy capitalism to me, but rather than catch and kill M &A. Well, I'm not advocating for catch and kill. Okay. I hear your criticism, Ronjan. All right. I'll give you this round. All right. Speaking of healthy capitalism and unhealthy companies, I want to talk about Snap. I mean, the company not only laid off 10 % of the workforce or said it was going to, but when they reported earnings, which missed in some categories and had light guidance, They blame the war in the Middle East, which is, I think, a pretty poor excuse, given when you saw Meta's numbers, right?

37:18They didn't have any problem with that. Anyway, the stock dropped 30 % in a day. Yes, snap. I'm going to say some bullish things about them in a second, but I think their earnings report clearly did not please the market. It's down over 30 % since right before the earnings. Though it ran up a good amount after Meta's earnings, and I think everyone was hoping that they would kind of have the same. Meta had, I believe it was 24 % ad revenue growth year on year, whereas Snap's was up 5%. But it's an interesting time. Like one thing I wanted to highlight about Snap that was interesting, and it was the first time they really addressed this, and I think this is a really important thing both for them, because they were kind of the poster child, is stock-based compensation.

38:10In the first three quarters of last year, they generated$3.2 billion of revenue and issued$1 billion in stock-based compensation, or SBC. And SBC, the weird part of it is it's a non-cash expense. So it's been used by lots of tech companies in varying degrees of absurdity where you have a certain amount of cash outlay and then you give everyone else shares. It's part of the tech industry in general and it's part of a lot of jobs in general that we all expect now. But you use it so aggressively that you're basically not paying people, you're just issuing stock because that doesn't come out of your profit.

38:54Your EBITDA does not reflect stock-based compensation. so this is the first time where they actually openly acknowledged that that is an issue and that they would be cutting down in the amount of stock-based compensation they issue and i think that that at least was a good sign that they recognized they need to be more disciplined around it i mean the whole advertising business of theirs is another conversation but i think it was an important moment because that's the first time i've seen a company openly acknowledge it as may be problematic, not calling it directly problematic, but at least saying we're working on this.

39:28Is that your bullish statement on Snap? Well, clearly I'm in line with the market on this one, but no, no. Okay. What was bullish for me was I think they're still at a really interesting position right now because they have not figured out direct response advertising like Facebook or Meta. They haven't. Everyone was hoping they had in the same way in the last year. And Meta has such an advantage in terms of first party data because snap always was we're not they have a whole new ad campaign we're not social media they're not a data siphoning data collection thing a machine in the same way facebook is so they can't create their own first party data driven advertising model in the same way facebook can but again daily active users was up 10 percent which I thought was interesting.

40:18And still for me, and it was barely mentioned in the earnings call, 7 million Snapchat plus subscribers. We've talked about this a lot. When you're getting 7 million Gen Zs to pay for your product that would be free in any other platform, I think that's interesting. And then the whole idea that we've talked about that as a generative AI platform, people are paying for quirky little Gen.ai features that if they become kind of the gateway to Gen.ai for every single user, I think maybe they start to move as a non-advertised based platform, which starts to get interesting. But they're certainly not there yet.

40:59Right. Yeah, I saw the stock drop and thought like, oh, man, like this might be a good buying opportunity for Snap. And I didn't do it for two reasons. One is I don't invest directly in the companies that I cover. But even if I did, they're still remarkably higher, maybe 25 % higher than they were in October last year. So they did have this huge drop, but I think you're totally right to point out that it was in front of a run-up. But I am bullish on them. I know that they are getting more serious about figuring out the ad stuff, and I think that over time they will. Yeah, I also, when you look at the layoffs, one thing that I thought was pretty interesting was there was like the SVP of content.

41:41It was a lot of people who had content in their title. And if you've used Snap Spotlight, it's pretty garbage relative to certainly a TikTok or if Meta figured out Instagram Reels really well, that I think whatever they were trying to do with in-app content, apart from the messaging, and they have big numbers that Spotlight views are up X percent. and I think it's like 175 million people a day engage with Spotlight or whatever it is. But if you use the app, you quickly realize they have not figured out content yet. So the fact that there were a lot of the layoffs were around that, I think maybe and competitively trying to compete on Reels and TikTok and everyone else who went into YouTube shorts, maybe they're realizing they're not gonna win that battle.

42:30Yeah, I saw you added me on Snapchat this week. Were you just kind of exploring the product or what was the story behind that, Rajan? No, no, I actually use Snapchat with a few friends. I do. I think it's amazing. So when I was doing my story on Snapchat Plus, I redownloaded it. I hadn't had it on my phone for a while. I redownloaded it and wanted to see what it was all about. And my wife and I use it all the time now. Just sending those stickers and stuff is fun. No, no, it's just a much better, more fun messaging app than the rest out there, which is, and again, I mean, I'm old. Like everyone I know who's younger, they still live on it.

43:04So that's where I think, again, in terms of user engagement for something that's not built to be addictive, the stickiness of it, the increasing daily active user side of it, like it is 20 million. Yeah, it's a great product that has a lot of people who love using it. The only difference is they have not figured out direct response advertising. So speaking of CEOs, Evan Spiegel, of course, has disproportionate control of that company, same way that Zuckerberg has of Facebook meta. Snap is down 58.95 % from its first day of trading. If Evan Spiegel did not have that control, do you think he would be out?

43:46I know. This is always a really interesting question for you because I still think, We were having this whole conversation in this episode about kind of operator versus visionary CEO. He's shown time and time again to be on the visionary side of things. I think like Snap, I mean, again, the whole metaverse thing, they've owned augmented reality to the point where no one even considers them augmented reality, even though everyone's using AR in their app all day with lenses. is like at so many levels, even disappearing chats, even the whole stories format, they led the way on every one of those product innovations.

44:26They just never found their operator. And I agree. I think the fact that he's gotten away without finding that operator is definitely a problem of super voting power and super voting structures. And Zuckerberg has always actually found the right way in the end, whereas Spiegel hasn't. And so, yeah, I think his job would have been a lot more threatened, let's say, versus others without that. Hey, well, Sheryl Sandberg's a free agent, so just saying. That would be the move. Make the call, Evan. Wait, no, and she could rehabilitate her image completely because Snap's whole thing is we're not addictive social media.

45:08So she could make amends for all the ills that the addictive social media side caused. and then she'll run for president. And that's the story. The Snapchat president. All right, folks, you heard it here first. President of the United States. Yeah, no, I'm saying the first Snapchat president. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. Got it. Could happen. All right, let's take a quick break. We have plenty more to cover. We'll be back right after this. Did you know your credit card points and miles can lose value to inflation? Credit card companies often reduce the redemption value of your points and miles.

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46:19In order to qualify for the$200 crypto intro bonus, you must spend$3 ,000 in your first 90 days. Some exclusions apply to instant rewards in which rewards are deposited when the transaction posts. This content is not investment advice and trading crypto involves risk. The Gemini credit card cannot be used to make gambling related purchases. What the hell is going on right now? And why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting to the bottom of those questions on a daily basis. And maybe you are too. I'm Katie Drummond, the Global Editorial Director of Wired. And I'm hosting our new podcast series, The Big Interview.

46:56Each week, I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative, and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big interview conversations are fun. I want a shark that... That eats the internet. That turns it all off. Unfiltered and unafraid. So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online, to the best of my ability. Every week, we're going to offer you the ultimate luxury of our times, meaning and context. True or false, you, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me, one day, at some point, as of yet undefined in the future, you will die.

47:36False. Tell me more. Listen to The Big Interview right now in the same place you find Wired's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. We're back here on Big Technology Podcast Friday edition. We have a bunch of stories left to cover. Let's briefly touch upon Chris Dixon's book, Read, Write, Own. So this is a book basically extolling the virtues of crypto and telling diehards that it ain't over yet, folks. so look I think I should just share like the backstory here because I've mentioned it once or twice on the show but Chris Dixon's reps pitched not one but two of them pitched me on having him on the show I said yeah bring him on you know obviously it's not going to be easy questions but we'll do it and they pulled out I guess like they went on so many friendly shows that they decided they didn't want to face any tough questions.

48:36And I'm starting to see why. Because when you look at some of the reviews that have come out about this book, it's pretty rough. And he is, of course, like the person leading the crypto push at Andreessen Horowitz. And I'm going to say this before I start reading some of the reviews. I still think that we can see, we already know that blockchain is starting to be used in places. I still think that we can see applications built on top of this technology. But my bottom line here is that I think that crypto just needs better spokespeople than Andreessen Horowitz and Chris Dixon, and that this guy is doing a disservice to this entire era, like wave of technology.

49:21So this is from Molly White, who reviewed the book. So she says there's part four here and now, and then there's part five, what's next? The name part four suggests that he will perhaps lay out a list of blockchain products, projects that are currently successful solving real problems. That may be why part four is precisely four and a half pages long. And rather than name any successful projects, Dixon instead spends his few pages exoriating the casino projects that he said has given crypto a bad rap. In fact, throughout the entire book, Dixon fails to identify a single blockchain project that has either successfully provided a non-speculative service at any kind of scale.

50:01The closest he ever comes is when he speaks about how for decades technologists have dreamed of building a grassroots internet access provider and that's something called helium that may or may not be turning out. I mean, like the whole thing that's going on in this book is him plugging A16Z projects which have not had a great track record. And basically Molly ties up her review saying this whole thing should have been a blog post. always the greatest thing to read after writing a book i'm sure but yeah i uh yeah i think for me it's just i want the only reliable narrators right now on blockchain are people who did not absurdly enrich themselves during the last few run-ups and i think this is like again another example that it's difficult to take it seriously when you know lamenting for the current but the past few years about people, you know, and casino projects and crypto getting a bad rap.

51:01When you made too much money on it just makes it difficult. And the moment, just one successful project. That's all I ask. And now here's my favorite part of the whole thing. So Chris Dixon was on X talking about how well the book did and that it was number nine on the New York Times bestseller and number 25 on some other list. And if you look at the bestseller list, there's a dagger next to the book, a dagger symbol. And what does the dagger mean? This is from Vice. The dagger icon indicates, as the Times helpfully explains, that the bulk purchases were included in that count that put the book on the list.

51:41And basically, it comes out that a lot of injuries in Horowitz portfolio companies built and bought, in some cases, more than a thousand books, which helped this book get on the list. And I just thought it was kind of poetic, right? Just this something that appears to be big and successful on its front and really want you to get behind it. And it turns out that behind the scenes, it was like a lot of manipulation and smoke and mirrors to make it seem to be more than it was. Just like. A lot of what Andreessen Horst has been telling us. I learned about the dagger icon, and that was my favorite thing this week that I learned about.

52:19I didn't know about it either. Yeah. Yeah. That, that would that, and I was just, I had been reading that it's called the dagger of death in the publishing industry, but basically, it basically is assigned to readers that this is on here, but it probably shouldn't be. So I kind of love that the New York times has recognized this and is not afraid to bring the dagger of death to their own list when they have to base it on sales. Yeah. Now, look, I, you know, since we're, we are like a nuanced show, like I'll say that, you know potentially uh i don't know my feelings on this could be influenced by the fact that dixon pitched and then decided to bail uh but i also think that everything that we're saying here is like true and i would have no problem saying it to his face either well i respect that you acknowledge that but i think i i have to agree with you here yeah and there was a comment uh that that got on X when I tweeted the Times bestseller thing.

53:17It was basically this person saying, is it really newsworthy that a book got on the NY Times bestsellers list? Is it newsworthy trying to discredit book sales? There's real tech to report, but technophobes advice are petty. I think that that is a good point. However, if you look at all the different frauds and the pump and dump and the schemes and follow follow me everything's going to work out type of stuff that has been extolled by you know a lot of the scam merchants and crypto like the fact that this big book about the crypto industry um the web 3 in particular you know ended up being kind of scammed it's scamming its way onto the bestseller list like yeah that's freaking newsworthy man yeah i think especially given it covers crypto and how you tied the two together i think that's newsworthy.

54:06All right. So look, if people have different opinions, like I'm definitely willing to hear them. Just email me at alexatbigtechnology.com and I'll happily, I will happily read what you have to say, respond and potentially read it on air next week, but figured that was worth covering. Oh my God. I'm just looking at our next story on the list. You see this? So, So speaking of crypto, FTX is going to fully repay customers. And basically, like, they will not give them, like, the additional gains they would have gotten since the exchange collapse. But they will be able to repay them in full. And I think part of that is because Bitcoin is now at$45 ,000.

54:46So clearly, like, this crypto wave is not. Oh, my God. It's now$47 ,000. It's flying. It went up to$2 ,000. So clearly, the crypto wave is not over. Like, there's going to be a second wind here. but it is kind of interesting to see to see where this thing is moving yep i i'm sitting on the sidelines and watching closely and we're also waiting for whatever the next sbf uh sbf news is oh yeah so i think we'll probably so we we teased about having zeke fox on uh i think he will come on uh the week of sam bankman freed sentencing so people should keep an eye out for that. I'm excited about that one.

55:24That's in late March. Do you own any crypto? No. Okay. I did. I have multiple times and multiple iterations, but yeah, not at the moment. I just bought some Bitcoin for the first time in a while when I opened up Robinhood before I interviewed Vlad. I was like, oh, crypto, let's do that. So. All right, there you go. So I am up. another interesting story it feels like we're like rolling the clock back but adam newman is trying to buy we work again adam newman is trying to buy we work again his real estate company flow global which they'd raised i think yeah 350 million from a16z everything is connected today is uh had sent a letter that they're working with third point capital dan loeb's fund that would try to help finance a transaction to get out of bankruptcy.

56:20To me, there's two great parts of this story. One, Adam Neumann back looking at WeWork after enriching himself to$1 billion, or I think it might have even been$1.7 as the company went into bankruptcy, and that they would have to basically work out terms with SoftBank, who lost$16 billion, I believe it was, total, that was poured into it. So that's already great. The other thing I found fascinating, Alex Spiro was the lawyer involved in this. Alex Spiro is Elon Musk's lawyer whose name and quotes end up in every single Delaware story, SEC, Elon Musk story. And he also apparently represents Jay-Z.

57:05I think he might low-key be one of the most fascinating people in tech that no one has really ever. I don't know what he looks like. That would be a great profile, honestly. yeah i should write that one i mean come on elon he and he's like elon musk's attack dog basically in anything any legal story he's the only one that's quoted he's always super aggressive but clearly people i mean he's doing a good job when you're not only getting hired by elon musk but adam newman and jay-z yeah it seems like these folks really know how to do the legal stuff pretty well. Yep. Do you have a couple minutes to talk about the return to office stuff?

57:44Yeah. Or do you have a hard out here? Let's do a couple of minutes on IBM because who better to end a conversation about big tech than the original big tech? Right. So basically IBM has told managers you got to move near an office or you have to leave the company. And this is from Bloomberg. IBM delivered a company-wide ultimatum. Yeah. Basically telling people that better get back, all US managers must immediately report to an office or a client location at least three days a week, regardless of current work location status. And that badge and data will be used to assess individual presence, right?

58:20IBM to me is just the tip of the spear here. There are so many companies that are telling their employees, they better get back to the office, or they are not going to get raises, they're going to be laid off, they're not going to get promotions, all this stuff and i had a friend i was talking to about who's going through this and he goes like we've and they don't work at meta but like they use the year of efficiency term basically he said we've gone from year of efficiency to the year of douchebags and like i wonder if this is like the flip side of earnings ranjan because you know we're seeing great all-time highs record profitability companies talking about how they're making more money with less people and they are trying to find ways to find margin.

59:01And is this a way, this return to office thing, a way for them to get out of having to pay higher compensation, figuring out who to lay off, and trying to make those margins higher and deliver for Wall Street? I'm curious if you think it is a ploy because I do. Oh, I 100 % think. I wouldn't even use the word ploy, which is kind of cynical. I think it's pretty direct. I think it's explained to people. And I also think that, again, the whole work remotely, return to office, work from home debate, I think especially bigger firms, it's clear which direction majority of firms are moving and that's return to office.

59:40I tend to end up on the being in office is a good thing in many ways. And I think that these companies hired too many people during COVID. So all of those, the fact that, I mean, it is the single worst sign for a worker sitting comfortably remotely when record profits are up while layoffs are happening. Because it just showed that a lot of the workers were extraneous. And we talked about this a lot. And I would say this is probably one of the few times where normally I might be critical of big technology companies where I don't feel bad for them. But I think having seen how comfortable a lot of workers were at a lot of these companies over the last few years, there was endless rest invest stories or people kind of having side jobs while getting paid 400K or whatever it was.

1:00:36It was kind of not even an unwritten secret, but a written one in the tech industry that these were very comfortable places to work. And then they're just not going to be as comfortable right now. Wait, you think the very act of being at home is effectively slacking off? No, no, not at all. But I think that at a lot of these companies, probably too many people took advantage of that in a way that made it so that they realized that it can't work that way. I actually think my whole, I got theories on this, but I think like a early to mid-stage startup almost can work better remotely where everyone is accountable to each other remotely.

1:01:19It's at the larger the organization gets, the easier it is for people to kind of skate by and not be accountable because you'll just easily lose yourself in the overall bureaucracy. Let me give you the wrinkle here, right? Which is that it seems pretty clear to me that people, that these companies are going to apply an uneven standard to their workforces, right? like the high performer will be able to stay at home and continue working for Mexico City where the rank and file are going to have to come in. And I'm curious if you think that that's true and what sort of tension that could cause within a company.

1:01:54Is this actually healthy for companies? Oh, that's not the way I've been hearing this for the most part. Really? What have you been hearing? I know that this is affecting everyone at every level. And it's actually more often than not the senior managers that have been going in more regularly to start and they're the ones pushing it. And that's actually where you get a lot of the pushback is that, you know, if someone who's senior has an easier time, you know, finding a place to live in San Francisco or New York City versus someone who's junior. So their commutes will potentially be shorter and life is easier.

1:02:28So they're able to do this. So I think there's potentially reasonable claims and pushback there. But overall, I don't think this is something where they're laying off or they're using this to get rid of rank and file. I think it's the opposite. One of my core takeaways here is that it's time to buy stock in Chipotle because everyone's going to be back in the office. Everyone's going to be back in the office. And they're going to be eating Chipotle for lunch. And that is very bullish. Oh, I like this. I like this. This is not investment advice. Maybe Sweetgreen comes back as well. Oh my God, Sweetgreen is so back.

1:03:02It is a technology company. It is a technology company. We know this. 60 seconds on the Vision Pro. I got a chance to try it this past weekend in the Apple store in Brooklyn. A few key observations for me. First of all, there was a tremendous amount of open appointments to come see it. I expected to wait online for hours. Did not happen. And that to me was pretty interesting. the actual technology itself better than i expected uh the actual fidelity of what you see being beamed into your eyes is absolutely incredible uh the entertainment is amazing and i personally was like should i buy this thing until i took it off and remembered how much it cost and said all right i'll get the the next generation so i know ranjan you haven't tried it yet um but very briefly are you are you more or less bullish on the vision pro after seeing it out for a week?

1:03:51I am more bullish from talking to people who have bought it. I actually had an appointment on Thursday after talking to Joanna last week. I wasn't able to make it yesterday, but I think I'm more bullish. Everyone I'm talking to, the whole idea of like multiple screens and just working again, I think I'm more, my take that it should be proudly an isolating device and that recognize that's what it is. I think it's going to, it might hold some water, at least in the near future. Maybe eventually we end up with, you know, lean AR glasses that actually fit comfortably and aren't weird. But yeah, I think, and actually I was at a New York fashion week show yesterday and I saw someone in the front row wearing a vision pro.

1:04:38So there's models walking down the runway and there's just some dude with a hoodie looking up and sitting with the vision pro. So, and people were pointing it out. People were laughing a little bit about it. I mean, it looked utterly ridiculous, but it did make you wonder, is this going to become kind of normal at some point? And again, if they were, I don't know if they were from the company, who they were, if they're filming it in spatial video, and that was a whole point of it, but it looked ridiculous. But now that it's happened once, maybe it's not going to look so ridiculous the next time.

1:05:10Oh, I think it's actually going to be common front row at fashion events, sports games. You're going to see people walk in and watch these things and then go back and relive it. And some of those people will be perverted and some of them will just be sports fans or business people. But that is happening. I always keep thinking of, we had talked about it on the show a while ago. There's that iconic sports photo of everyone holding their phone up when, what was it? I think there's some scoring records. Michael Jordan and LeBron setting records. And everybody was in the moment with Jordan, but not with LeBron.

1:05:43Yeah, yeah, yeah. They showed Jordan, everyone is just looking. LeBron, literally everyone has their phone out. And I think that's the problem to me that I think the Vision Pro, the most interesting part of it is we've all been living kind of halfway between reality and our device in a really uncomfortable way. And I think the Vision Pro is at least the start of recognizing like either it's going to be totally seamless and we have nice AR glasses that fit well and look okay, or you should be isolated and everyone should look at you as I'm not going to talk to you because You have a headset on, but you're just recording the moment.

1:06:19So Ranjan, I'll end with this. Are you going to drive your Cybertruck with the Vision Pro on or without it on? I mean, the only way to, oh, maybe for next week, I read something really interesting that Apple, the Vision Pro is really a kind of the tech within it, technology within it is leading to the Apple car. and it's like the way we experience driving is going to completely change. Maybe for next week, we should get into this one. That is a good teaser. All right, Ranjan, thank you so much. Long one today, but lots of stuff to cover and great as always to get a chance to speak with you. Thanks for being on.

1:06:58Have a good weekend. All right, you too. Thanks everybody for listening. Again, my interview with Aravind Srinivas is going to be up on Wednesday. We also have that feed drop of building one on Monday and then Ranjan and I will be back next week to talk about how potentially we're going to talk about how the Vision Pro is going to change the Apple car and then also everything that happens between now and then. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.

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