With Eric on vacation, Katie and Tom take on hosting duties without adult supervision. We go over the rise of tech employees griping to reporters about company inner workings (aka "leaking") and what it says about the state of employee happiness in the industry. Also why CEOs won't be able to control it unless they address what's ailing company morale. Then we touch on the pervasiveness of gig workers around the world and what happens with a significant portion of the world's workers relies on that model. Also, the mortifying text messages between Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani.
Stories we discuss in this episode:
Elizabeth Holme's Texts:
Tim Cook's Memo:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/22/22687747/tim-cook-employee-leak-memos-do-not-belong-at-apple
Global Gig Workers
https://restofworld.org/2021/gig-workers-around-the-world-are-finally-organizing/
Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe
00:00:05
Welcome. No, this is ideal podcast
00:00:18
Ambience can be so ashamed of us.
00:00:21
Okay. So he was sending me messages
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earlier complaining, that businesses that are didn't like
00:00:26
credit him for a story. So far, sounds like sounds like
00:00:29
the vacations go. Going great, like, maybe he
00:00:35
needs for. Yeah, yeah, it's like that guy.
00:00:38
Like walking up and down the fucking, like, Left Bank in
00:00:40
Paris, like yelling at tourists, that he didn't get like full
00:00:44
credit for his injuries and micro fun scoop Wow, remind me
00:00:50
to never go on vacation with Eric newcomer.
00:00:52
All right them and I apologize for the horrific noise of me,
00:00:56
eating a bowl of Meatballs at midnight, but it was it was a
00:01:00
good night, but I needed it need.
00:01:02
I mean, this needed to happen. I went downstairs to get it and
00:01:06
in the lobby of the New York Times, Corporate Apartments was
00:01:08
just like random lady in workout gear.
00:01:10
Talking to the doorman about how it's really all about diet.
00:01:15
Like what you eat, and you need this combination of like 13 and
00:01:20
vegetables. And I'm thinking to myself,
00:01:22
like, I'm picking up a bag of meat balls like that.
00:01:24
I gotta go, I gotta get out of this conversation.
00:01:26
Getting was she like, hitting, was she hitting on him?
00:01:28
Or was just, like, trying to educate him know?
00:01:30
She was like a 23 year old. She just thought she had figured
00:01:34
things out. Well, I didn't like her.
00:01:37
Okay, let me enter the episode. Oh, yes, like I did last time
00:01:41
habit of doing this thing. We don't do in Eric's here.
00:01:45
So yeah, the episode started, it is me Tom Doulton.
00:01:48
Here, here with Katie Benner eating some meatballs in the
00:01:52
background. We're doing a late-night dead,
00:01:53
cat session things really, things really got loose with
00:01:57
newcomer on vacation Huawei happened and I could I could I
00:02:00
just had to do that thing. Like it was a big deal.
00:02:04
Big settlement Canadians were freed.
00:02:07
It was just like a lot. Oh, I got those Canadians out, I
00:02:10
didn't read. Yeah, I mean they're like on a
00:02:11
plane now. Oh man.
00:02:14
I know that was a bizarre couple of days during the Trump
00:02:17
Administration absolon like. Yeah, yeah.
00:02:22
Well I mean, you know, everything is that it's all it's
00:02:24
all a tech lens. It's all of you through that
00:02:26
angle. But so this is our second
00:02:28
attempts at doing this podcast episode because Katie did have
00:02:31
to run to do a job thing in my job.
00:02:39
Yeah, the, my job think. But we actually Too quickly into
00:02:44
the episode last time. And I didn't get to do the thing
00:02:45
that I wanted to do which was read some of the text messages
00:02:49
between Elizabeth, Holmes, and sunny bhawani that have come out
00:02:52
during the theranos trial. Because I think it's easy to
00:02:57
forget in Silicon Valley that, you know, we think of it as a
00:03:00
place for, you know, companies to billionaires to be minted
00:03:05
technology, be to be Advanced, you know, it's all about your
00:03:08
Roi eyes and your kpis and your up into the rights.
00:03:11
But I think we forget that. Really at the heart of the
00:03:13
matter Silicon Valley is about love and it's about Romanticism
00:03:18
and relationships. And so, in that mindset and that
00:03:21
note, I wanted to read some of the text messages that were
00:03:24
exchanged between Elizabeth Holmes, and sunny, bhawani to
00:03:28
understand, kind of the level of romance that can happen in
00:03:30
Silicon Valley. There's no greater love and
00:03:33
self-love. So Tom's going to do both, yes,
00:03:36
I'll do both parts. Are we playing both the part of
00:03:37
Elizabeth Holmes and her romantic partner and Oh CEO,
00:03:43
over co-signing bhawani. So here's here's Elizabeth
00:03:46
Holmes. You are the breeze in the desert
00:03:49
for me, my water and ocean meant only to be together, tiger and
00:03:56
then in a different text message, he wrote madly in love
00:03:59
with you and your strength and then 15 minutes later Sunny ball
00:04:03
while you replied. I am tired today, spending so
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much time on bullshit and not on software or things that build
00:04:09
our product. So, you know, never never forget
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that this is, you know, their hearts that can be won in the
00:04:18
pursuit of billions Sunny. Bhiwani was truly one of the
00:04:21
more romantic characters that came up during this and I'm
00:04:25
sorry I didn't work out for those two.
00:04:27
I just have to agree with the bird headline that the making
00:04:33
the making the text public is the ultimate crime deterrent.
00:04:37
Yeah. In fairness, Elizabeth Holmes.
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I don't know how my, you know, how, my text would look at.
00:04:44
Like, the, the harshness. This is the, this is the tech.
00:04:47
This is the tech version of The Struck page, text messages just
00:04:50
with likes, like you know, lower Stakes but seeing sort of like,
00:04:55
oh god really? Yeah, it's tough.
00:04:57
I wonder if that moment for Elizabeth Holmes in the trial
00:05:00
was when she realized that things kind of got out of hand,
00:05:02
you know, it's like it's one thing to, you know, fleece
00:05:05
investors out of, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars
00:05:07
but it's like, They're reading the text messages now, I really
00:05:11
fucked up, but anyway, on to the real episode, the thing that I
00:05:15
wanted to focus on this week is we're in the era of depending on
00:05:20
who you talk to leakers or whistleblowers.
00:05:24
I feel like with the Wall Street Journal story that we talked
00:05:27
about last week, with the ongoing series of leaks coming
00:05:31
out from, from, from Facebook. Sorry, I just have Facebook.
00:05:36
That's really gummy is from Apple.
00:05:40
And, and others, you know, there's this ongoing
00:05:43
conversation happening on Twitter and among Executives
00:05:46
about like what do we do about these leakers?
00:05:49
You know, what does it mean about our company?
00:05:50
And so I thought to started off I was I would read and a memo
00:05:55
that Tim Cook sent out recently to Apple employees.
00:05:59
And just as background for people, Apple has been probably
00:06:03
suffering with some of the worst amount of leakage coming from
00:06:09
the company in it. It's in its history.
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With a lot of current employees kind of giving pretty specific
00:06:16
and intimate slack messages about arguments that are
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happening among the employees that has made for, you know, a
00:06:22
bunch of stories from from The Verge and other new sites.
00:06:25
And so earlier this week, Tim Cook sent out a memo to his
00:06:29
employees, discussing this exact issue which immediately leaked
00:06:33
to The Verge. And so I'm going to read, I'm
00:06:37
going to read it now and I thought we could discuss it
00:06:39
because there's a lot of That I think is pretty telling about
00:06:41
the way CEOs, view their employees.
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So here's here's the letter. Dear team, it was great to
00:06:48
connect with you all at the global employee meeting on
00:06:50
Friday. There was much to celebrate blah
00:06:51
blah, blah was born. I'm writing today, because I've
00:06:55
heard from so many of you were were incredibly frustrated.
00:06:58
Hope that this was a mistake of The Verge made and not the CEO
00:07:01
of the richest country in the world because it's a pretty bad
00:07:03
typo. I'm writing today because I've
00:07:06
heard from so many of you were were incredibly Rated to see the
00:07:10
contents of the meeting leak to reporters.
00:07:13
This comes after a product launch in, which most of the
00:07:15
details of our announcements were also leaked to the Press.
00:07:18
I want you to know that I share your frustration.
00:07:20
These opportunities to connect as a team are really important,
00:07:23
but the only work if we can trust that, the content will
00:07:26
stay within apple. I want to reassure you that we
00:07:28
are doing everything in our power to identify those who
00:07:31
leaked as you know, we do not tolerate disclosures of
00:07:34
confidential information, whether its product IP or the
00:07:36
details of confidential meetings.
00:07:38
We know that the leak Constitute a small number of people.
00:07:41
We also know that people who leaked confidential information,
00:07:44
do not belong here. And then he goes on to talk
00:07:47
about products. So that line, like we know that
00:07:51
the leaker, you know, we know that people who lie,
00:07:53
conventional do not belong here. I mean, what does that, what
00:07:56
does that mean to you? First of all, I love that he's
00:07:58
like I know a lot of you were really disappointed by the Lakes
00:08:00
but he doesn't address the fact. A lot of people are just
00:08:03
disappointed in apple. Thus they are leaking quite
00:08:06
exactly know but if you're disappointed in my company
00:08:08
because everyone thinks Yy-you look within why?
00:08:11
Turn that depends on oneself? You know, II as a reporter.
00:08:17
I think those people definitely have a place in the company and
00:08:20
an important one. Right?
00:08:22
Sure. Yes, they're important one is to
00:08:24
get stories to us an apple reporter.
00:08:27
So you've sort of seen the level of secrecy among the employees,
00:08:31
that is preached. You know, obviously at its
00:08:33
height during the Steve Job days.
00:08:36
What do you think is going on here?
00:08:38
I mean, I think that when I started Writing about Apple,
00:08:41
this was eons ago, but basically, I was told by
00:08:46
multiple employees who didn't want to say anything to me.
00:08:50
That part of the reason, they didn't talk to reporters with,
00:08:52
why would they? Because it's such a great place
00:08:54
to work and he makes right money and like life is good and you
00:08:58
tell people you work at Apple and everyone's like, oh my God,
00:09:00
that's amazing. It's like, you know, it's like
00:09:03
being in LA and being an actor or something.
00:09:05
So where's the downside? So what this says to me is that
00:09:09
I'm sorry. Where's the upside and speaking?
00:09:11
So what this says to me is that all those things are no longer
00:09:14
enough like it must be it must be bad enough.
00:09:19
Inside the company it must be boring enough inside the company
00:09:23
it must be. Yeah.
00:09:23
Eating it up inside the company. They're like, yeah, suck it.
00:09:26
Will talk to her. Yeah.
00:09:28
Which is it was. Yeah.
00:09:29
And which is interesting because the kinds of leaks that they're
00:09:32
really referring to our kind of fall into two camps.
00:09:34
One is like the product leaks which is been going on forever
00:09:37
and a lot of running come from Apple, right?
00:09:39
Right. Those are like an incredibly
00:09:41
sophisticated like ring of people from like the supply
00:09:44
chain of Apple products that have been doing it forever.
00:09:47
We're at a point now where every Apple launch day is not a
00:09:50
secret. It's funny.
00:09:51
It's like for a company that's like famed for its secrecy.
00:09:53
It's like maybe the leakiest place in Silicon Valley because
00:09:56
like what other cover do, you know, literally every single
00:09:59
thing it's going to do on the most important days of the year,
00:10:01
for it. Another, they don't really make
00:10:03
like new products. Yeah, this year, it's back,
00:10:07
strain increment. I know I'm not supposed to say
00:10:10
Say that but they don't make any new products.
00:10:12
So, right. Yeah, yeah.
00:10:14
Which is probably why they don't care as much about the product
00:10:16
weeks anymore. Innovating you can legally like
00:10:20
how dare the public find out that we're adding another
00:10:22
megapixel like that being the core thing.
00:10:26
The bezel is smaller like that clearly you know, like that ship
00:10:29
has sailed but so that's like one side of things.
00:10:33
And like the cats completely out of the bag there, the horses,
00:10:35
out of the barn, whatever analogy.
00:10:37
But, but then the series of leaks that Happened recently at,
00:10:41
you know, as largely published by The Verge, our employees that
00:10:44
are leaking about issues around pay their, you know, back to
00:10:49
office policy, you know, member diversity.
00:10:52
There was that Tech. Executive Antonio Garcia Marquez
00:10:57
who was hired to be, like, a high up on their ads business
00:10:59
that got pushed out before he even really started, because
00:11:02
there was a rebellion inside Apple that, you know, was all
00:11:06
kind of catalogued on slack. And then, Given to the reporter
00:11:11
and, you know, he was gone before you even started.
00:11:14
So that's so it's that sort of shit is happening over at Apple.
00:11:17
And I'm very divided about these stories because in one sense,
00:11:23
you know, sure these are real issues, things like pay,
00:11:27
inequities and diversity, and all these things that, you know,
00:11:29
matter in any I think like conscientious Workforce.
00:11:32
But at the same time, if you look at like the scale of things
00:11:35
that apple is doing, and you know, if you're an employee
00:11:38
should maybe have problems with It seems a little low on the
00:11:41
list. Yeah.
00:11:42
Like the fact they don't pay like any sort of like real
00:11:45
amount of corporate tax. So all the stuff they profess to
00:11:47
like really want to protect like the environment and lgbtq rights
00:11:51
and their things they could actually like probably more
00:11:53
effectively protect but literally paying money into the
00:11:57
federal government, right? Right.
00:11:59
You know. I mean but yes I think that the
00:12:03
what's happened to Apple speaks to when that these employee
00:12:07
issues are a big deal in Silicon Valley because Talent is
00:12:10
acquiring talents, really competitive.
00:12:12
People can do have places to go, so if they don't like it, they
00:12:14
can, they can whinge and they can complain.
00:12:16
And they can bring things to management but also and think it
00:12:21
speaks to how unhappy employees are in general.
00:12:25
And I think that this is sort of part of a bigger Trend outside
00:12:28
of apple. And so as long as apple is
00:12:30
unable to recognize that and try to figure out what to do about
00:12:33
things, like burn out to do about the fact that people sit
00:12:36
around at home isolated all day long.
00:12:38
So you know things about Company that bother them can really
00:12:42
become very large and very hard to ignore the fact that people
00:12:49
are lonely and their teams are falling apart.
00:12:51
If they can really deal with us though, the the leaks will
00:12:54
continue right? And it's in a way I can sort of
00:12:59
see, it's largely related because the things that these
00:13:02
employees are talking about are the things they maybe have some
00:13:05
control over, right? Like they can probably raise
00:13:07
enough hell to get a better. Attempt at diversity hiring or,
00:13:12
you know, Executives of color, or pay Equity, those sort of
00:13:15
things. Can, someone who is like a
00:13:17
marketing, a mid-level marketing person at Apple really do
00:13:20
anything about the hiring of slave, labor of like uyghurs at
00:13:24
some of the supply chain members of the iPod manufacturing.
00:13:29
It's just like those are real issues and I don't know if they
00:13:31
care about them or not, but they just try to fund the federal
00:13:35
government, right? Like we do right, right.
00:13:39
Yeah. Yeah, sure.
00:13:41
You know, be part of the system that could theoretically make a
00:13:43
stand against these things. But, you know, at the same time
00:13:48
you may be like that sort of cynicism and like recognition
00:13:51
that their company. It's just like, is intractable
00:13:54
and is going to be involved in these sort of nauseating,
00:13:57
elements of global economy and capitalism is just sort of
00:14:02
trickles down to them. And they're just, they're not
00:14:04
happy with their job because they don't believe in the
00:14:06
mission. And at that point, you're just
00:14:08
kind of generally unhappy and more likely to just take stands
00:14:11
against things that are pissing you off.
00:14:14
It was this weird thing about moving to San Francisco.
00:14:17
In 2014. Hello Cal could you wait one
00:14:23
second, Thomas hudler just walked into the frame?
00:14:26
Hello. Hi.
00:14:26
Rosa. Really fucking late.
00:14:29
Yeah, it was very funny that he had hiccups and he was not able
00:14:32
to go to sleep. Is that what's happening?
00:14:36
Can I give you a hug and you go back to sleep?
00:14:43
Can I give you a hug? It's a too funny.
00:14:46
It's too funny. Definitely hug is going to be
00:14:51
attempted hug. Take one thumbs left the booth
00:14:55
too. Well, hopefully, he'll go to
00:14:59
sleep, we don't know though and you call, there's a very
00:15:01
unpredictable Tom's back that litter that literally has never
00:15:04
happened before. Never liked her toddler is never
00:15:07
woken up in an inopportune moment.
00:15:09
No, never not screaming or crying at me and demanding to be
00:15:14
on our bed. Yeah, your mileage may vary on,
00:15:17
what that, what that scene did you, where were we?
00:15:22
Oh, I was talking how Apple employees are disaffected and
00:15:24
miserable. I mean, We moved to San
00:15:27
Francisco in 2014 and people were so all in on the idea that
00:15:31
companies had these big missions.
00:15:33
I had discovered Wall Street where people were all in on the
00:15:36
idea that they worked to get very rich or they worked in a
00:15:40
company super-rich, right? But they were not living purpose
00:15:44
filled lives. No, no.
00:15:46
That by moving blips around, on a screen that represented money
00:15:49
and I got through active mission was a virtue, but then I got to
00:15:53
California. I was like so much of what we're
00:15:55
watching here. Is kind of like blips moving
00:15:59
around on a screen. Like I'm building better
00:16:03
management software I'm building right now.
00:16:05
There's anything wrong with these.
00:16:06
These companies are fine. Like just like I think that like
00:16:09
banks are fine like at the end of the day if you're building a
00:16:12
software company that handles electronic records really well.
00:16:18
That's great right now. But you know, the believe that
00:16:21
like you're, you know, you're a charity and you're in your the
00:16:25
only Force making the world a better.
00:16:26
In the future. I think one of the few recipes
00:16:29
that was really bringing us into the future was probably
00:16:31
Facebook. It was bringing us into a
00:16:32
dystopian future but yeah, bringing us their real fast.
00:16:36
Yeah, it wasn't accelerating something, the end of three.
00:16:41
Mm. But uh, sure, but yeah, so there
00:16:45
was this, I think that whole that whole belief has shifted
00:16:51
and Fallen away. And so that's another sort of
00:16:53
bigger Trend that all the discontent around these Apple
00:16:57
employees plays into, right like, how much are they unhappy
00:17:02
with apples inside? Because the valley has stopped
00:17:05
thinking of itself in a certain way that it was maybe not really
00:17:08
got realistic to begin with. But that, you know, Helped
00:17:12
attract talent and Foster Innovation and right, just what?
00:17:16
And it benefited these companies so much.
00:17:19
Right? I mean that was a huge part of
00:17:20
Attractive people from Wall Street like from the financial
00:17:23
sector by saying. Come to California, you know,
00:17:25
you'll get to, you know, see some trees and also your change
00:17:29
in the world like you're making the same amount of money, if not
00:17:32
more, but you're doing it towards, you know, this is
00:17:35
greater good and you're leaving the sector that everybody hates
00:17:37
because you literally just destroyed the global economy.
00:17:41
Right. Right.
00:17:41
And like you'll have a chance to do that in a couple years and
00:17:43
Tech but opportunity abounds. Yeah yeah, it'll just take a
00:17:49
couple more years but yeah they've I don't know if it was
00:17:54
the pandemic itself or like that, just the general drift
00:17:56
away from Mission. But I think across the valley
00:17:59
companies are having issues with keeping employees engaged.
00:18:02
I mean, that's one of the reasons that there was a lot of
00:18:05
uproar over return to the office, right?
00:18:09
The guys didn't actually like, coming in that much.
00:18:11
You know, and it's pretty hysterical that it happened in
00:18:13
Tech, which was like the office culture.
00:18:15
The one that was supposed to make being there, like going to
00:18:18
a spa, and a gym, and a therapist.
00:18:21
And in fact, all the money that we spent on these things was not
00:18:24
enough. To keep them really all that
00:18:26
engaged. Yeah.
00:18:27
It's like the pandemic was like, we were, it's like in the Iceman
00:18:31
Cometh. When the dude goes into the bar
00:18:35
and he's like, you know what, it's time to pull away the veil.
00:18:39
None of you are ever going to do any of this stuff.
00:18:41
If like this is all just a pipe dream and then you've got people
00:18:44
like jumping off the fire escape and stuff.
00:18:47
So it's filled with the pandemic, kind of had that
00:18:49
effect on on, on most people. Like, what are we right with our
00:18:53
lives, right? And so, and so, one of the
00:18:56
manifestations beyond the great resignation is like, you know,
00:19:00
like the great, I don't know consternation like the great the
00:19:04
great disassociation. It's just people that have
00:19:07
stated their jobs and they just don't like it that much anymore.
00:19:10
And, you know, You can like try to find the biggest Merit in
00:19:14
what they're doing, which is maybe these leaks are, you know,
00:19:16
an effort to change the company and push things in a more, I
00:19:20
don't know, egalitarians direction or whatever.
00:19:22
But if you're a CEO, it's like, it becomes us against them,
00:19:26
right? It's it doesn't live to be like,
00:19:29
you could be seen as an opportunity by executive to say
00:19:32
okay what is making these employees someone happy and how
00:19:35
can we what else can we do about the problem other than just
00:19:38
throwing money at it, right? Or threatening to fire them?
00:19:41
You were threatening to fight fire in them or if there are
00:19:45
other things that Executives could do.
00:19:47
But I think most of them go, the Tim Cook route.
00:19:51
Yeah. Which will see how much longer
00:19:53
it lasts. Because in one sense you
00:19:54
probably could Purge, you know, a certain number of people
00:19:58
either through investigations or like, just ostracizing them,
00:20:02
and, you know, it's like you'll see these companies like
00:20:06
coinbase, which was the one that basically said, we don't want to
00:20:09
talk politics anymore and the work.
00:20:11
Is man, but like, move less that company.
00:20:14
That's hard. Yeah, everybody wants to talk
00:20:16
politics in the workplace. You're really Buck, right?
00:20:19
Well, so yes, they're like, we don't want to talk politics
00:20:21
anymore, the workplace. And like if you don't want to,
00:20:23
if you don't want to do that, you can leave will buy you out
00:20:26
and then like 40% of this place. Like, yeah.
00:20:29
Now I gotta go, I gotta talk politics, I gotta do it over
00:20:31
slack that compulsion. I don't really understand but I
00:20:37
but I love the idea of people really sticking to their guns.
00:20:39
This is total aside, but I was doing a Google image, search of
00:20:43
Hmong one Joe and it all these pictures.
00:20:46
You see her coming out of her like awesome mansion in Canada
00:20:51
and she this is the CEO of Huawei don't get this is CFO
00:20:59
accusations of you know charges of bank fraud wire fraud and
00:21:02
they were all basically they will all be dropped in this
00:21:07
different prosecution though. She does have a long statement
00:21:09
of things that she admits that she did.
00:21:11
We're not right, yada yada. I'm just going to say and all
00:21:14
these photo. She's going these extraordinary
00:21:16
outfits that are like she is she is she has she has put together
00:21:21
outfits around her ankle monitor bracelet.
00:21:23
The ankle monitor bracelet looks amazing and all these outfits
00:21:27
like so good. I don't understand why nobody
00:21:31
wore an ankle monitor bracelet to the Met Gala because it was
00:21:34
like, you know what America means to me and it looks
00:21:37
fantastic. The teal dress the purple dress,
00:21:40
the yellow Blazer with the with the floofy, black skirt, the
00:21:45
ankle monitor bracelet looks very purposeful.
00:21:49
Well anyway what were we just talking about?
00:21:51
I don't know. Oh, people hate working at tech
00:21:53
companies. Oh yeah.
00:21:54
I think they just hate working yet.
00:21:56
Yeah yeah, sure. And so so it's manifested in
00:21:58
multiple ways and one of them is leaking to the press.
00:22:02
And I mean, I can say as a reporter the number of people
00:22:04
that reach out to me after certain stories seems higher.
00:22:10
No, granted. I was covering media beforehand
00:22:13
where everyone thinks that they are holding State secrets about
00:22:16
like, you know what, the pricing scheme is for peacock or
00:22:19
whatever, but so it was a little harder with that.
00:22:25
I think people are. People are angsty.
00:22:28
Yeah. And again, they're disgruntled.
00:22:31
It's very hard to separate the impact of a year and a half of
00:22:35
isolation wondering whether or not you're going to become sick.
00:22:39
Feeling angry all the time because you're communicating
00:22:42
with people through social media far, too much like what impact
00:22:45
that has on what's going on in these tech companies?
00:22:49
But I think is also very telling that the tech company
00:22:51
Executives. At least from what we can see
00:22:53
what the company is doing is not that there's executives are not
00:22:57
actively moving toward addressing like bigger root
00:23:00
problems and stuff. They're like, I'm glad we can
00:23:04
all agree that people who talk to the media should be canned,
00:23:07
right? Yeah, it sounds to me.
00:23:08
You may be needed. Another week of, you know,
00:23:10
unlimited PTO, whatever perk, they're pushing.
00:23:13
So this is a but I want to switch it over now to Facebook
00:23:16
because they are the most immediate recipient of like I
00:23:20
think more significant leaks, you know, ones that sort of
00:23:24
speak to the core of the company's problems and Mission.
00:23:28
And well keep in mind that that that the also I hate the term
00:23:33
leaks. I'm sorry.
00:23:35
I wish I wasn't gonna do it. So like it's like to hear really
00:23:38
bumping up against like I'm Fortunate bodily, fluids stuff.
00:23:41
Yes, all I works. I like sources.
00:23:44
I like sharing information, sharing important information.
00:23:48
The public's comparing notes. You know, I just like, I'm leak
00:23:52
is sort of derogatory anyway, so yeah, it's a little too,
00:23:55
depends. Okay.
00:23:58
Let's stay away from that. Isle of Duane Reade and and just
00:24:02
keep keep going, right? Let's go behind.
00:24:04
Let's go to the back. So yeah, the Facebook story,
00:24:11
isn't the journal, just wrote the Facebook files.
00:24:13
Wonderful, it, like, great investigative work.
00:24:18
Just like one of the most impressive, plank week-long,
00:24:20
blow after blow ya, a different angle, angles of the company,
00:24:24
and I think that one of the things that made it so powerful
00:24:27
is that the it was based on documents not just shared with
00:24:32
the journal, but it's clear that these documents and puts it have
00:24:35
been put together already and almost a narrative fashion.
00:24:39
In order to be shared with Congress because somebody at the
00:24:43
company, a whistleblower was so disturbed by the fact that
00:24:49
Facebook internally new as the journal and put it in a cute
00:24:53
detail that its platform was so deeply flawed and right, harming
00:24:58
people and weighs only the company.
00:24:59
Understood its outward facing message was things are actually
00:25:02
pretty great, right. Right.
00:25:04
They would try this wasn't like, the sort of sharing of
00:25:08
information with Sure, that that we're used to and I think the
00:25:11
relics used to reading. This was sort of more along the
00:25:14
lines of like a very well put together, a packet of
00:25:18
information that was sent that was shared, not just with
00:25:21
reporters but also with lawmakers, right?
00:25:24
And so that's the next step of this whole thing.
00:25:26
I mean, we had the stories from from The Wall Street Journal.
00:25:29
Last week, we're not only two weeks ago when this comes out,
00:25:31
but the next step is it really appears that this person is
00:25:35
going to or has been in communication with lawmakers and
00:25:39
it's Like the testify in in some sort of public setting and so
00:25:42
they're going to kind of in the same, you know, the grand
00:25:44
fashion of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.
00:25:50
And I'm trying to think, well, I guess Daniel Ellsberg someone
00:25:54
who is going to be the face of this resistance to power and I
00:25:59
don't know what you think's going to happen to this person,
00:26:01
you know, I think it depends. Some whistleblowers don't want
00:26:04
to come forward and be the face of anything at least not for a
00:26:07
little while. And I Think that we're in such a
00:26:10
weird. We're in such a weird point
00:26:13
right now and it sure comes to news consumption.
00:26:16
How quickly people become, like, really outraged, like deep and
00:26:22
and Furious way and then how quickly the outrage dissipate.
00:26:27
So one of the interesting things about this Facebook story is
00:26:29
that, yes, there's a lot of outrage but at the same time
00:26:32
because it's so substantive. You can almost feel people
00:26:36
trying to digest. It sure.
00:26:38
It gives you a lot to be Like initially, outraged about so you
00:26:41
can have an internet freak out. But at the same time, people are
00:26:44
actually trying to digest this and it's in I don't if you're
00:26:48
The Whistleblower and you're sort of seeing what's going on,
00:26:50
like by coming forward and putting your identity out there,
00:26:54
you can start the outrage cycle up again.
00:26:57
Pretty easily be the hero and go on Good Morning, America or
00:27:01
whatever, or you could just stay quiet and watched people.
00:27:05
Actually try to observe a happen and not give them a new thing to
00:27:08
be distracted by, what for The your identity.
00:27:10
Yeah, it wouldn't make sense. Long term for your Dad.
00:27:14
We did it. He's asleep Cal is asleep with
00:27:18
this podcast. It's so boring.
00:27:21
We have put the baby to sleep. Yeah, that's that's a fucking
00:27:24
thing we could sell though. Like that would be the greatest
00:27:27
business that we could possibly get up this podcast.
00:27:30
Yeah, I mean, it could be a distraction from the central
00:27:35
narrative that this whistleblower, you know, is
00:27:37
obviously interested in, which is, you know, we need Examine
00:27:40
this company in as close a way, as possible.
00:27:42
But I wonder if part of the issue is going to be, you know,
00:27:45
how could because there was so much in those stories, I mean,
00:27:48
so many failings alleged whatever, failings of the
00:27:51
company had, how many documented failings but that way yeah yeah
00:27:54
yeah I like that one that you know it takes something specific
00:27:58
for people to Rally around at least at the time to push for
00:28:02
any specific change or area of like further investigation and I
00:28:06
don't know what that's going to be.
00:28:06
It's like we've already kind of gone through the cycle of
00:28:09
Politics and like, its influence on our national discourse and we
00:28:15
have, you know, where the other and sex trafficking and
00:28:19
international violence, that's obviously, hugely significant.
00:28:23
But, I don't know. Americans tend to not care much
00:28:26
about, you know, International goings-on in a way that would,
00:28:30
you know, it's like, are you really going to get that in
00:28:31
people America that pissed off about me?
00:28:33
And Mar I think that the series gave people a lot to think about
00:28:37
in terms of just their own lives.
00:28:39
The way that teenagers respond to platforms like Instagram, the
00:28:42
way art that we ourselves respond to another, our friends
00:28:46
family loved ones. If we spend too much time on
00:28:48
Facebook, I think what could be powerful as if is not like a
00:28:54
thing to Rally around and get super angry about on Twitter for
00:28:57
a couple days but just sort of like a deeper recognition that
00:29:01
using these products is really not that great for us, right?
00:29:05
Not that good and that people will just sort of fall away and
00:29:08
he'll lose interest. And they would want to create
00:29:10
content, they're not going to want to post outrageous things
00:29:12
anymore. They'll find themselves much
00:29:14
more enjoying like you know, like zoning out on a different
00:29:19
platform or doing right? More the safe ones.
00:29:22
The safe ones like Tick-Tock. Yeah, that's something that they
00:29:26
could take a long time. We've already been there.
00:29:32
I eat. But why is it on your phone?
00:29:34
Yeah, I can have it on your phone.
00:29:35
I can. Oh, that's the mistake.
00:29:38
And are you gotta get it off? Reading and then downloading it
00:29:40
again. Like I was never given this
00:29:43
addicted to cigarettes like it's so annoying.
00:29:46
Yeah, no, I mean, that's that I don't know to say that's not
00:29:49
you, you should know better this point as a former smoker.
00:29:52
You should know exactly. I think former comes and goes.
00:29:57
Yeah. Right.
00:29:58
This is like, it's just really, it's really dependent on.
00:30:02
Its just its state of the world. There are other factors.
00:30:05
Yeah, no. I know the progression is going
00:30:08
to be interesting. To watch in terms of people's
00:30:11
reaction because it's just, you know, we've already started to
00:30:14
see the like, you know, business reaction and those like
00:30:17
Coalition of advertisers that do boycotts.
00:30:20
They're trying to do their thing.
00:30:22
If it's as effective as like the one they did last time Facebook
00:30:24
could be worth 2 trillion dollars by the end of it.
00:30:27
I mean it's like if we stop using it, the other side of it
00:30:30
is like okay if it's clear that boycotts don't work then like
00:30:33
clearly the other side of it is like the back but the regulatory
00:30:37
arm and you know Ability for government to do anything about
00:30:41
it, and that's not looking too good.
00:30:42
I think it's good. That people just need to leave
00:30:45
the service. Yeah.
00:30:48
But we've already seen the point where they won't leave out of
00:30:50
anger because you know, conservatives get pissed off
00:30:53
about it. But still that's their favorite
00:30:55
place to put their means and like the place forever I think
00:30:59
people like to get pissed off on Facebook regardless of their
00:31:01
political leanings. Okay.
00:31:03
So the last thing I want to talk about in this episode was you
00:31:09
know, And this is, you know, this can be our work or work
00:31:11
themed episode, because this is about this really great series
00:31:14
that, I don't know if you read and haven't fully read in in the
00:31:18
site called rest of world, which covers international business.
00:31:21
So you like don't read the stories that you tweet, you
00:31:23
don't read the tweets, really. And then you like, I'm to read
00:31:27
about this site that I haven't really read.
00:31:29
Okay, that's cool. I work for a site that tries to
00:31:32
limit stories articles to 500 Words.
00:31:34
So when I click on a story and I see like a big video, At the top
00:31:39
of it, you know, when they have like the video in the background
00:31:41
and you can scroll, the text is on top of the video and I was
00:31:44
like, fuck. I'm in for a long one here.
00:31:47
I don't know if I have it in me. This is rest of world.
00:31:50
Is this site that was created by Eric Schmidt's daughter?
00:31:53
No. Was it?
00:31:56
That sounds right? Yes.
00:31:58
Is that right? That is right.
00:31:59
Well, so it's it's a rest of world is anyone who is worth
00:32:04
less than that? I guess?
00:32:08
So there was a series about gig work around the world.
00:32:11
And I particularly liked it because obviously we all those
00:32:15
who cover the space just care about the plight of the American
00:32:18
gig worker, which is Meaningful. But it's much more complicated
00:32:23
and I think difficult in, I think a lot of other parts of
00:32:28
the world especially poor parts of the world.
00:32:32
But what this article was basically discussing is like,
00:32:35
this is the life of Say, you know, food delivery, like an app
00:32:38
food delivery person in India, using zomato, or in Serbia, or
00:32:43
all these other places. And I guess what, I didn't
00:32:46
really realize until reading that story is like this model is
00:32:50
just fucking everywhere. Like there is a huge percentage
00:32:54
of the world's population that uses this.
00:32:58
That kind of relies on these apps as their form of delivery.
00:33:02
I'm sorry, there's a form of income and I'm really I don't
00:33:06
know, like what effect does that end up having on, you know, an
00:33:13
entire Workforce is my question, you know, like first of all how
00:33:16
sustainable or any of these apps but like to have this many
00:33:20
people funneled into this one type of work seems like it's not
00:33:23
going to end well. Yeah and it does make me wonder,
00:33:27
you know, I just pulled up that story.
00:33:28
This idea that these jobs while they do pay money and they'd
00:33:33
often pay relatively relatively very well, that they are high
00:33:40
cost in terms of your own fuel, your own insurance, you become
00:33:44
your own company, you're completely self-reliant and to
00:33:47
have, I guess I would just wonder, you know, how much of
00:33:50
our lives. And the way we view the world is
00:33:54
shaped by the idea of working with other people working toward
00:33:58
common goals, working in a corporation, working in a shared
00:34:01
workspace, whether it's white collar job, or a blue collar
00:34:05
job, You know working together being together and feeling like
00:34:10
work is another version of positive human interaction
00:34:15
versus work. Being a you against the world on
00:34:19
your scooter. Trying to get somebody there
00:34:21
dinner or the right or the right there midnight meatballs.
00:34:25
Yeah right. And they're very unconnected to
00:34:28
the other people that do this to mean that.
00:34:32
Right? And that obviously, you know,
00:34:33
for like unionization reasons, makes it very difficult.
00:34:36
So do you also impact on the way that people think about Civic
00:34:41
life and civic duty if you know everything about their work life
00:34:47
which is how they spend the bulk of their time is reinforcing
00:34:51
this idea of you alone, right? We've seen what happened when
00:34:57
the whole world was forced to think of themselves as alone for
00:35:00
a year or so, I don't think I've talked to Tim Cook, he doesn't
00:35:02
like it makes me like, yeah, people don't know what Came back
00:35:06
happier, we think. And, yeah, I think you're right.
00:35:12
It's removal from Community. It's removal from other people
00:35:15
with shared interests, and I think it also because there are
00:35:19
certain appealing aspects of it, they're willing to put up with a
00:35:22
lot of shit in order to continue this life, you know, like that
00:35:26
their lack of empowerment. When it comes to dealing, with
00:35:28
the companies, they're obvious their lack of pay and their
00:35:31
complete inability to have like any organization to push.
00:35:36
Back on these things but they're like man it's also just really
00:35:39
easy for me to. I mean it's a cube I shouldn't
00:35:42
say easy but it's convenient in certain ways to just try to make
00:35:45
it work because it's just right there like the job is just in
00:35:48
front of you. Yeah, absolutely.
00:35:53
I have to this has been like such an organized episode and
00:35:56
what's so hilarious about it is that Eric usually puts together
00:36:02
these extraordinarily. Weirdly detailed outlines the
00:36:05
even include cues for me to scold him, right?
00:36:09
And now you're playing the part of Katie better and thank and
00:36:14
it's chaos every time. But and you usually leave in the
00:36:19
middle and I have to go near the end.
00:36:22
Usually duck out. Yeah.
00:36:24
The this is like there's we're it's been so organized and we
00:36:28
don't have Eric's like 1200 words script and I am most
00:36:36
people martinis and it's great. Yeah, I know that there's gonna
00:36:40
be here 15 minutes ago and means I should have been floating the
00:36:44
last the last parts of the conversation.
00:36:46
So can we what do you think Eric's doing right now?
00:36:49
Where is he again, he's in Paris.
00:36:52
He he was sending a photo in reference to how cool and like
00:36:55
not engaged in the world. He has on his kind of I think it
00:36:58
was a big support. He's successful and he's pissed.
00:37:00
Business Insider Desai time. He's so detached.
00:37:03
It's funny because like it's been sort of a weird Like the
00:37:08
coverage of Facebook has really dominated everything about tech
00:37:11
news, you know, it's really hard to like, you know, it's really
00:37:16
hard to get excited about. For example, this story Ryder
00:37:18
Cup on course with tech overhaul, you know what I mean?
00:37:21
Like, it's long enough from that's the journal and so I
00:37:25
don't want to be disparaging of the reporter because I'm sure
00:37:28
it's a very good story. But yeah, they work, they were
00:37:30
three months on that story. Yeah, it was that's their
00:37:33
Pulitzer submission. This is your obsession with
00:37:36
opposers is so weird. They would have been easier to
00:37:39
talk about just that low boards, funnier word.
00:37:43
I like this quote though. Nobody would ever think there
00:37:45
was this much technology in golf.
00:37:47
This is the PGA of America is Tech Chief.
00:37:49
You know what tech Chief. You're fucking right.
00:37:52
Yeah. That's what you get yourself a
00:37:53
job. Nobody would ever think that has
00:37:56
proof that there's a lot of technology in golf.
00:37:58
I have a job to Tech Chief. Yeah, I mean like these are
00:38:02
quick. Let's just do a quick tour of
00:38:05
the headlines. So we've got Quickly pull up,
00:38:08
tap me Ryder Cup, that's the way we close out there, okay?
00:38:11
An Amazon faces headquarters controversy this time in Africa,
00:38:15
okay? Bitcoin said a lower, no ever
00:38:21
Grande for you Bitcoin. I think Jed is snowing.
00:38:25
I think we put him to sleep. He's here and that's to get Rosa
00:38:32
down. This will be some sort of three
00:38:37
down. I'm is what we'll call the
00:38:38
episode. I think that the Elizabeth
00:38:40
Holmes text messages were possibly like the most uplifting
00:38:45
part of. Yeah.
00:38:46
It's the it's the Funny Pages. You know it's like get
00:38:48
everything is is the news of everything?
00:38:51
I mean I have to say, I tell the Tycho throught.
00:38:53
I understand why they are so ridiculous and when you read
00:38:56
them, they're particularly amusing.
00:38:58
But at the same time and I just like I just I feel a lot A lot
00:39:08
of empathy for those two human beings that is possibly the
00:39:12
worst thing that could happen. So I just I I like yeah I wish I
00:39:18
could be I wish I could just be like this is all areas but
00:39:21
actually I'm like oh God. Oh God.
00:39:25
Yeah I'm sorry too. No I it's fine.
00:39:29
We'll probably end up in the same place.
00:39:30
I was thinking I'd be like I'm meaner drunk or something but
00:39:33
I'm still like, you know, it's just sad.
00:39:36
It's just that well I think that's A place to end the
00:39:38
episode as we can. We can reiterate the points that
00:39:41
we had at the top when referring to Elizabeth Holmes text
00:39:44
messages, which is that I think the show has a real potential as
00:39:47
a not so much dating advice, but use as a tech executive, send us
00:39:52
your messages. Yes.
00:39:53
And we can help you, we can help you.
00:39:55
Well guess it could be part advice and just par audio
00:39:57
secret. So is there something that you
00:39:59
used to want to unwisely post on an app where your identity was
00:40:03
inevitably going to be revealed? If so just send it to us.
00:40:07
Through some encrypted messaging platform or fire.
00:40:10
A proton mail account and we'll just read all those thoughts out
00:40:13
loud. Thank you.
00:40:14
You're on the show. Your body was here.
00:40:17
Yeah. Yeah right.
00:40:19
That's for audience of Eric subscribers and an increasing
00:40:22
increasing number of PR people. All right, well, and next time
00:40:27
we're going to do the shift, totally sober.
00:40:29
Yeah, we'll change it up. All right, this is Tom do Tom
00:40:33
Katie better reciting off here and see you back here next week.
00:40:47
Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,
00:40:50
goodbye. Goodbye.