Zuck's Lucid Metaverse Vision, X CEO Bombs an Interview, Ex-FTC Chair on the Amazon Case

0:00Is Meta's metaverse vision finally making sense? Ex-CEO Linda Iaccarino has a rough outing at code. There's plenty of generative AI news, including a massive new investment to talk about. And the former chair of the FTC joins us to talk about the agency's case against Amazon. A big, bold, awesome show coming up right after this. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday edition, where we break down the news in our typical cool-headed and nuanced format. We have so much news to speak with you about everything from the new meta releases to the bomb at code that Linda Yaccarino delivered. And then we've spoken with the former chair of the FTC, Bill Kovacic.

0:43It was a great interview. We'll play that after the break. Ranjan Roy joins us here. As always, Ranjan, welcome back to the show. It's flooding here in New York City, but the metaverse is back. So I'm still happy today. The city is totally underwater. It almost feels like we should be putting goggles on to zone out from what's happening and live in a metaverse where our problems don't exist. Mark, we need the metaverse. I knew you'd come around eventually to the metaverse. We need the metaverse today. Ranjan, you know that you were getting – people were threading against you saying, ha-ha, Ranjan said this metaverse thing would never come to fruition.

1:17And look at what Zuckerberg has invented. So this is your moment to apologize to all of our listeners for being anti-metaverse. Well, so let's look at what happened this week. Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed, and this is what I saw, the clips with Lex Friedman where it's essentially a photorealistic avatar three-dimensional thing. It looks like Mark Zuckerberg. It's no more a legless being. It looks like real people interacting with each other. so maybe this metaverse actually is is it real is it is it all coming to fruition and i was wrong do i have to apologize well what do you think i don't know what what was your take on this okay first of all just to go off of i don't think you have to apologize i think there's a fundamental uh barrier still in place um which having spoken with somebody who works in the industry this week to get their take on what happened they basically said that and i think this is so right that people will not put on those goggles unless there's an extremely compelling use case to do it.

2:20So I think if it wasn't for the fact that they were filming a demo in VR, when Mark Zuckerberg and Lex Friedman sat down, then they would not be having that conversation by default in VR that was going to be through screen. So I think we're still ways away from the form factor, getting to the place where this is something that people actually want to do. That being said, the fact that you're even questioning what you know whether you need to revise your your perspective on the metaverse indicates to me that meta did make a big leap forward this week and okay we do joke about the avatars there's a great tweet out there by this guy ryan delk that says 13 months of progress fueled by zuck's unstoppable desire to prove the haters wrong with a side by side and there's one photo of zuckerberg looking like literally like the most embarrassing cartoon avatar you could ever create.

3:09And then like the next thing you see 13 months later is his actual freaking face in the metaverse. So clearly they have made some, yeah, he looks good. They've made some progress technologically, no doubt about that. But what I thought was impressive at this week's event, because they had an event in Menlo Park called Connect, and this was their event to sort of demonstrate their vision. They shifted, they made a very dramatic shift from virtual reality to augmented reality, or people might want to call it mixed reality, but let's be honest, it was augmented reality. And you went from a vision of like, you're going to hang out in this like amorphous metaverse, that sort of COVID fever dream with your friends as these like, you know, terrible cartoon avatars to something that actually like sounded compelling, where Zuckerberg says, pretty soon, I think we're going to be at a point where you're going to be there physically with some of your friends, and others will be there digitally as avatars or holograms.

4:00And they're going to feel as present as everyone else. Or you're going to walk into a meeting and sit down at a table and there are going to be people who are physically there and people who are digitally there as holograms. But they're also going to be sitting around the table with you and helping you get things done. And then they're going to be a bunch of AI guys who are embodied as holograms and helping you get stuff done too. So what they're putting together is this vision of mixed reality where you're wearing the headset. You're going to have an overlay on the real world. You're going to be able to beam other people in from virtually, you know, beam them in virtually from wherever they are.

4:34And then there are going to be thinking, talking AIs that might be sitting there with you who have the embodied form in this mixed reality world. But they are, you know, AIs and, you know, maybe they're to help you with certain tasks or whatever. I thought that this was the most coherent vision for the metaverse that they've put together, clearly inspired by Apple. I was just going to say, did you just describe to me the Apple Vision Pro keynote event? Because that's what it sounded like. This was my reaction, was that it is a shift powered by Apple. Like literally, I think they have, we talked about it after the event, by the way, that they have Tim Cook to thank.

5:13Killer Tim Cook back again and driving the conversation. Even again, the company named Meta is following his version of the metaverse. It's absolutely true. I think they realized that Apple's great at marketing and great at setting the vision. And I think Meta bought it hook, line, and sinker and said, you know what? If we mesh our vision with their vision, we might get something here. And I think they did it in a very – they demonstrated it beautifully this week. Now, of course, it comes down to there's going to be some barrier with the technology, but they should figure that out. Yeah. No, I think, again, seeing just visually and from their standpoint, understanding the power of visual communication in the marketing context.

5:58I mean, it looked good. It looked real. It's such a different offering now than what they were showing 13 months ago, two years ago. So it at least gives them a shot. Obviously, what's real, what's pure demo, we're a long way away from. Oh, yeah. But the funny part for me was, again, like, remember, Lex Friedman, again, is finding himself as the kind of like key demo person in a large tech CEO communication. Remember, he sparred with Elon Musk in the cage match buildup. Right. So he's definitely finding his way into the center of all these conversations. He helped Elon put fear into Mark Zuckerberg's heart.

6:39Yeah. Maybe the cage match will be in the metaverse and then everything will be okay. Yeah. So I think that you're totally right that this is going to take quite some time for it to come to fruition. But it's going from a place of watching these demos and being like there's – When Mark Zuckerberg demoed what the metaverse was a few years ago, I was like, count me out. I have zero interest in doing that. But now like this idea of like being present and having people there and having AIs together and, you know, either deciding that you want to hang out together or play games together. I just still don't really know about work.

7:14Maybe work, work together. Like, OK, that's that is a vision that that I could see happening. Now, the real problem is the technology is nowhere near where it needs to be. It almost feels like you need to get quantum computing to work for these devices to actually, you know, be up to speed. Or maybe we need these room temperature superconductors. right but it's like it's going to take some form of technological leap to be able to be in a place where this stuff is something that you're going to want to use where you're not going to walk or want to walk around with a battery pack or you you when you're packing your bag on deciding what to bring on the airport to the airport do you is it going to be worth the extra carry-on bag to have this device with you once those challenges are minimized you could see it coming to fruition but not not before then but it but it is interesting to me there's still the distinction with Apple, because remember, Apple and the Vision Pro was all about kind of being by yourself and doing computing things, where Meta is still like tripling down on social connection and connecting people, which obviously is their whole kind of mission and mission statement.

8:16But it's definitely a difference because, and I still buy the Apple Vision more, that when I put out, the only reason I would put on a headset is if I can have like 10 screens of computing and play some insanely immersive game or do whatever, like just replacing computing versus it necessarily needs to be about connection. Cause again, connection, like getting that to technologically work feels like a much bigger challenge and much harder and further away for me. Yeah, no, I would agree with you. We'll see. I mean, Apple's vision pro is coming out, uh, supposed to be coming out early next year.

8:51I'm still waiting on my iPhone that I ordered, uh, two weeks ago and it's supposed to still be it's mid-October I guess people are buying a lot of those new iPhones oh they are I mean I'm on the 15 and I have to say I made my first Timu purchase uh wait are you serious I didn't buy the iPhone 15 on Timu but uh Amazon was like totally sold out of cases or the cases that I want like the one with the card holder in the back I'm ditching the wallet that's it I'm done with wallets so now I'm gonna do one of those that's like kind of both like as a card holder in the back and uh Amazon was sold out or just didn't have anything good and Timu had a great selection and i was like you know what ready for a thousand emails a day saying you have been selected alex i couldn't wait to talk to you about this i've already unsubscribed twice timu emails me literally like three times an hour it is insane they are breaking every email marketing protocol and probably law imaginable because no i i have i have unsubscribed off different emails and every time but and you can see because they have like insane sign up bonuses and discounts and stuff.

9:56But yep, yep. Every time this phone case moves an inch with UPS, they send me an email. It's unbelievable. It's like your case is now one block further than it was five minutes ago. Email. By the way, here's some incentives to shop more. It's crazy. Shop more. But speaking of Chinese companies and apps, TikTok at the second Republican debate. Did you see this? Oh, yes, I did. So, well, real quick before we jump into that, I just want to let everybody know there have been a few people who mentioned that our mics have sounded a little bit off, a little crackly. It turns out it's not a mic issue.

10:33It was a StreamYard issue. We were using Chrome with a Shure mic and that threw it off. That led to the crackling. You hear this week both of our mics sound silky smooth. So for everybody that wrote in last week, I appreciate you bringing it to our attention. It's cool to hear that our listeners are engaged and listening in the AirPods or in the headphones. That will never be a problem again on the podcast. So we've taken care of that. Also, one more bit of housekeeping before we get to this TikTok story. We do have a new policy where if you drop a five-star review on Apple and ask a question, we're going to address it.

11:05A couple of reviews came in last week, but the stars weren't up to par. So I know you folks were trying to get, maybe it was the Apple interface or whatever. It's got to be five stars. That's the rule. So another Samoan and Che listening. Folks, we're going to get to your questions this week, but in the future. Please at least increase your ratings so you don't end up downgrading the show and the charts as we get to your questions. So one of them was a request for interviews. We're going to reach out to those people. So thank you to the Samoan for dropping that out. And for Che listening, you want us to fix the mics.

11:38Guess what? Mics are fixed. Questions addressed. I appreciate listeners who appreciate good audio. Me too. I mean, that's what we're here to do. We have the equipment. So anyway, we've solved this issue. No longer an issue. But thank you, everybody who's been concerned about it. We are dedicated to making sure it sounds good when you listen. Okay. That aside, TikTok in the debates. Yes, I saw it. Nikki Haley basically, you know, debate murdered Vivek Ramaswamy for his use of TikTok. He was like, oh, I'm trying to use the platform and reach young people. And she said, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.

12:17So it is interesting that TikTok has become this flashpoint in the debates. But the thing that really struck me is the inescapability of TikTok today. Because after Nikki Haley went on the offensive on that front, a story came out that her daughter was using TikToks to do dances. Now, of course, we're not our children and we're not our parents. but it did it was embarrassing moment i think for hayley and her daughter ended up deleting her her tiktok or at least deactivating you can't see it anymore so well ronjan what do you think about this this whole this whole moment as we are starting to build up to what i'm sure will be a eventful presidential campaign i think tiktok's going to be one of the most interesting stories here because how do candidates leverage it do they leverage it i mean you have kind of the two sides of it, where is the company going to fall in the overall discussion?

13:11I'm sure it's going to be a flashpoint. It's like one of the few agreed on topics by both sides of the political establishment, but do they use it and how do they use it and how do different candidates use it? Because you kind of have to, given it drives culture nowadays. It drives like every, I remember, I think it was Ryan Broderick's Garbage Days had a number of great pieces on how Reddit used to drive culture. Before that, maybe Instagram. But now all memes come from TikTok, all conversation. It all starts there. So if you're a politician, you kind of have to use it. But will you? Yeah, it's ignore your own risk.

13:51But it also sort of it drives on the point of a lot of the detractors, which is just like this thing has definitely it's it's unavoidable. I mean, it's a fact of life in the US right now, which will make it really tough to ban or force a sale or whatever, because it has, there's power there. There is, I mean, legitimately, it's accomplishing the goal. There's real soft power there. Yeah, no, and honestly, we are heading into, and from my side, the idea of a black box algorithm driving overall cultural conversation in a presidential campaign year is a terrifying thing. Like I know we've talked about this in the past and I still have predicted that at some point TikTok will be banned.

14:36But I mean, I think we're heading into once we start to see what things start to go viral. And it's hopefully not Chris Christie saying Donald Duck, if any listeners saw that moment, which did you see this where Chris Christie? I read about that. I didn't I didn't actually watch the video. He kind of like looks at the camera and calls out to Donald Trump and says, like, you're scared of being here. I like all the other candidates. I least respect them. But you're scared. I'm going to call you Donald Duck. And it's so cringeworthy that I honestly wonder if Chris Christie, if he was smart enough to kind of make a fool of himself knowing it would be memed and knowing it's so ridiculous that it's actually funny.

15:23he's kind of a player in this. He's kind of a, I think his social media game is strong right now. Yeah, well, I was just on the phone with Mark Cuban for a story I did for GQ. And Christie and Haley are Cuban's people. So the two meme-worthy candidates. It really just goes to show you. Under President Vivek Ramaswamy, though, this TikTok thing is going to the moon, man. Yeah, no. Under President Ramaswamy, I'm sure TikTok will be the most relevant social network. The Secretary of Defense. The interesting thing that I also saw this week was that, you know, people were like, you know, pointing out this.

16:03I guess it became a thing that people started talking about, like how, you know, the line people are saying is that TikTok will take your data and control your country through soft power. and then the reality of TikTok, which was a video of people who tied a hot dog to their waist and then thrust their, with a rope, and then thrust their waist in a way that they tried to catch the hot dog in their mouth. And it's kind of funny just how, you know, it's always interesting to me how we juxtapose like, you know, the fears of TikTok and the ridiculousness of TikTok. But that being said, it is like you mentioned, I mean, it's where memes and culture is created so it is a real force yep no no the hot dogs on the waist are just a distraction from the real uh the real soft power or maybe that is the real soft power maybe that is it's a way to to have america show to the world what it what it actually is which is i don't know very talented athletes and very talented athletes there is there is uh speaking of cringe there is a video going around.

17:09It's an interview that Linda Iaccarino did. The CEO of X did at Code. Look, I think we try to be fair on the show. We're not here with an agenda. When things are good, we say it's good. When things are bad, we say it's bad. I don't think we're out to get anybody. I don't think we're on a side. That being said, let's just call it like it is. It was one of the worst CEO interviews I've ever seen in my life. It was conducted by Julia Boorstin, who was here. She did a great job, I thought. She was composed. She held her own and was composed. She asked tough questions, and they had brought a former Twitter head of safety on who had been called out by Musk after Musk fired him.

17:54And Yaccarino just completely lost her composure, couldn't stop referencing the interview with the head of safety who had a lot of bad things to say about Elon Musk sounded we've talked about her previous interview right evasive but also this time just not like a CEO and you know they asked Joe Namath the legendary Jets quarterback to evaluate the performance of Zach Wilson their current quarterback who stinks and they asked him was there anything positive to take out of that loss and namath just sits there on the interview and he goes nothing that was disgusting and i was trying to think about like what is there anything positive to take out of yak Reno's appearance and i really have one i trend into namath territory on this i have it okay it numbers her days at twitter slash x and that's a good thing for her, for everyone, because I have never seen something this bad, even, you know, like whatever, I think Slate called this a dumpster fire of an interview, but it really was.

19:08Like, to me, the most shocking part of it is she comes on stage, and again, as you said, so much of the interview is focused on kind of her annoyance with the fact that Yoel Roth was interviewed 45 minutes before her. And she didn't have time to respond. You are the CEO of one of the most influential, important companies in the world. I can think of the CEOs of like five-person startups who could handle a bit of stress better than that. And to act annoyed and kind of, you know, impertinent around the idea that someone spoke badly of your company an hour before it and not having had enough time to prepare, I cannot believe she said that out loud.

19:51I cannot believe that this was actually the entire attitude throughout the interview. My other favorite part is, much like I still don't love to have to say Meta as the name of the company Facebook, she could not say keep Twitter or X straight. And it was so fascinating to watch. Like, you could see her really trying her hardest to say X. At one point, she even said, and it was a good line. She was like, OK, and here's another positive from her. when she said he worked at Twitter, like X is the new thing or X is, you know, I'm really trying to distinguish between the two. But then she kept saying Twitter over and over.

20:30So I think she caught herself once and she goes, by the way, I meant to do that. Oh, yeah, you're right. I mean, no, but I honestly think everyone, it's on YouTube, watch that interview because it'll be a nice part of this whole Twitter saga time capsule because it's honestly unlike any other CEO interview I think I've ever seen. Yeah. I mean, the thing is when you're up there, you have an opportunity. No matter what happened previously, no one was actually going to watch the Yoel interview. No, no. I didn't even – no idea it happened. And then, yeah, she came up. She had an opportunity to like present her best foot forward and talk about how it's not Twitter, it's X, and was just – And the first question from Julia, it was so clear that it wasn't – It was in no way attacking her.

21:17It was simply like, oh, you know, let's start it. So we just had Yoel on stage. He said these things, which obviously about safety on the platform, which I have to imagine Linda Iacrino has prepared extensively. She's talking at brands all the time about it. Yeah, I know. So have your talking points ready on that. And then it almost felt like just a kind of natural segue to start the interview from whatever was on the stage before. But yeah, it was something else. Okay. So I think that's a consensus view that even if you're the biggest fan of Musk and Twitter, that interview is a true disaster.

21:56Let's talk about the controversial part though. The sandbagging, quote unquote, right? So they let Linda Iaccarino know earlier that day that Yoel was going to be there. and he had been booked apparently the week before and you know people are now saying that they will no longer get uh high profile interviews because you know they sort of brought her in and then you know quote unquote sandbagged yaccarino by putting someone on there who was going to say these terrible things about musk right before she she came on or right after because they gave her the option about whether or not to whether or not to uh to appear first or second um do you think that that so what do you think about that and do you think this is go is you know i guess some people might be saying well this is the end of the code conference they're so good at bringing on high profile ceos and this might make it harder to do what's your perspective uh yeah so again and this is a bit insider media baseball, I believe, in terms of just, you know, what is the proper protocol around especially big CEOs and how a event slash conference slash publisher needs to approach it.

23:12But again, even like Kara Swisher had come out and she said that she had texted Linda at 7.22 a.m., code folks followed up at 9.30. And then Linda's, her team even asked for a full hour between which they were given. So they're getting their And no questions. And no questions. So they're getting their demands met. But again, you are the CEO of this giant influential company. You should be able to handle stress. You work not for. Elon Musk works for you, I guess, or you work with Elon Musk. Clearly, you should be able to handle some stress. You work for Elon Musk. Yeah, I know. Let's be honest.

23:50You should be able to handle some stress. So I think to me, the fact that he's, Elon Musk is making a big deal about it. She is making a big deal about it. Kara Swisher is trying to defend herself around it. I think it's, every time everyone makes that the point from their side, it makes her look worse because it's saying, I am so incapable of - Unable to handle surprise. Unable to handle. And it's not even surprise. You have an hour to try to refute or prepare and watch their interview and come up with whatever you want to say. And all he's talking about is stuff that you should already have answers for because you are trying to convince every major advertiser to come on your platform and buy ad space.

24:34Saying the platform is safe should be the speech she has given a thousand times. Right. The last thing I'll say about this is I agree with all that. I also think that it's undeniable that if he was booked the week before and you tell her the morning of you're you waited because you thought that if you said that beforehand she would cancel her appearance oh i mean possibly but no definitely yeah yeah but that being said look you're i agree you're a ceo you're being called up talk about your company i don't care who goes before you go ahead and handle it like a pro no so i completely agreed i don't want to end up being monotone about elon musk and twitter like like again like i think there is there are there's it's not black and white totally but this interview in particular was a huge text news story it was black and white it was a poor showing and uh the countdown is on from there the countdown is on i'm i don't think she's there certainly past the end of the year but never know man yeah never know no never know but because at the end of the day okay this is the last thing i'll say about it at the end of the day this stuff matters to some extent what really matters is uh and this is the headline that actually okay sorry i'm going to take back my joe namath thing because the the thing that matters is her relationships with brands she's an advertising person she's been selling media can she get brands on board She says 90 of the top 100 advertisers have come back.

26:081 ,500 advertisers have come back since she's come on board. That's what she was brought on to do, not these interviews. And if she's doing a good job of that, then her longevity, she's going to have more time. Yes, but major brand advertisers are seeing this and watching it. And people who probably have had like 30-year relationships with her and have looked at her as this force of nature and now are seeing this. and it just becomes even more clear that she does not have a handle on the platform. And again, when we say - Yeah, but if you're Procter & Gamble, you're not going to be like, oh, Linda, that code interview wasn't good.

26:43I'm pulling my ads for whatever. No, no, but you already are probably thinking that I don't feel comfortable with this platform, but maybe Linda is going to pull this together and save it, and I'm going to be happy investing in it. But in reality, you see that and you remember that she's not the one in charge. I think that's the biggest thing. It's just a reminder that she was not the one in charge. Well, they're going to be profitable starting next year or so they say. Yes, they will. We'll find out. Okay. Well, clearly, that's not the end of that chapter. Let's quickly touch on this. Oh, my God.

27:19There's so much generative AI news. So much generative AI news. Let's just talk quickly about Amazon and Anthropic. Amazon is going to invest up to$4 billion in Anthropic. And it's putting in$1.25 to start. It's going to get some ownership, of course. Anthropic is the company started by former OpenAI folks who felt that the company was not as safe or as open as it was telling us it was. And now they're doing this major move with Amazon. So it's good for Amazon. There's no doubt about that, I think. I'm curious what you think. But then also, they had just done two funding rounds with Google. And they were Google Cloud's primary partner.

28:03And now they're moving over to Amazon. How do you read all this, Ronjan? I think, so to me, the most interesting part of this announcement was Amazon's strategy, at least publicly in all of this, was they were called the Switzerland of large language models. The idea was really pitching Amazon and AWS would be this kind of neutral place versus a Microsoft, which it's kind of essentially chosen open AI as it's like an LLM of choice or AI provider of choice. So, you know, everyone's pairing up and Amazon saying, no, AWS, our differentiation is going to be, it's this neutral platform that can handle and work nicely with all different types of models.

28:44So they clearly, that was not the strategic choice. And they made very clear that Anthropic is going to become kind of the central part, which is interesting to me because you start to understand that they realize maybe they do need to work that closely with one of these leading players, Anthropic, OpenAI. And there's only a few of them. So I think that was definitely interesting. The Google angle is pretty surprising and interesting as well, that after Google is kind of leading the charge on investing in them and now just kind of gets thrown to the side. So, yeah, I think to me this actually was a fun week because it really reminded us.

29:29Because I feel the whole generative AI hype has been waning in a good way. And people are actually getting down to the task of building things and actually working on products. But this is all very, very concrete things. And also, I think, have you used Claude? Yes. Yeah, Anthropics chatbot. But for listeners, it can take in much, much longer prompts. I believe it's like up to 200 ,000 characters. You can basically feed it an entire book in the space of one prompt, which is very different from ChatGPT. And so already it changes the way these tools can actually work. Because in the past, you would need to potentially fine-tune a large language model to make it do what you want it to do.

30:18Whereas now in a prompt itself, you can hear as a hundred examples of what I would like you to output, use this to complete this task for me. So it actually, I've been using it a lot more. It's a really, really interesting tool. And it's a reminder, I think Anthropic is going to be a player. Okay. I think we're coming up on time. So why don't we call it for here? We're going to address some of this stuff next week, including the fact that ChatGPT can now see and talk and all the other news coming out on the Generative AI front. But we do have an interview with Bill Kovacic, the former chair of the FTC that we want to bring to you.