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Feb 9, 2024 ยท 2024 #6. Read the transcript grouped by speaker, inspect word-level timecodes, and optionally turn subtitles on for direct video playback
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Speaker 3
I've got sunshine on a cloudy day When it's cold outside, I've got the Monday Oh baby, I guess you say What can make me feel this way? It's my girl, my girl, I'm talking about my girl
Speaker 2
My girl, I've got sunshine on a cloudy day
Speaker 4
That was the week with my old friend Keith Teer. He's relying on horrible AI art, and I can't convince him not to. So if you're just listening to this, you are spared Keith's dreadful AI art. And if you're watching, it's doubly offensive. Not only is this horrible AI art, although he'll probably claim it isn't, but we also have a picture of two men who aren't probably particularly popular on our network, Vladimir Putin. And Tucker Carlson. And this is supposed to be a show on technology, Keith. So how did two old white guys get prime position on That Was The Week this week?
Speaker 1
Well, they got there, A, because I wanted to put some real photos on, so you wouldn't be able to accuse me of only using AI.
Speaker 4
Yeah, but there's still some AI on this. I can sniff it. The whole background is AI. The whole background, and it's a cemetery, which might be a sort of, a metaphor for the world or for the creative community. A whole lot of people at a funeral around something called old media.
Speaker 1
That's right. So that's why they're on, because for a technical person and a person who's been following the internet for a long time, as you have, it is striking this week. New York Times yesterday reported that they're up to a billion dollars a year in revenues, largely driven by subscriptions. And a billion dollars is such a tiny number compared to Google and Facebook and Twitter even. And what happened yesterday is that...
Speaker 4
They changed their name, Keith, from Twitter. It's no longer called that. I know.
Speaker 1
I think we can flip-flop between Twitter and X, and everyone's going to know what we're talking about. So it's fine. Old people find it hard to change names, as you know. Anyways... You're not old. You're not old, though, are you? Open question. The viewers can decide. But, you know, what Tucker Carlson did yesterday has implications way beyond the interview he did with Putin. The interview with Putin was actually quite boring. I listened to it. It lasts two hours. And Putin, sadly, has been trained in Stalinism, so he doesn't have to answer a question in less than 30 minutes. So it was super boring. Who did he remind you of, Keith? Not me. Anyways, so it was really boring, except for the fact that it was on the Tucker Carlson network, which is the name of Tucker Carlson's website, and it was on X, and it wasn't anywhere else. They showed snippets of it on CNN. MSNBC ignored it, hoping it would go away. But the fact is, because of it, the X app became the number one US app for the last several days, handily beating every other app. Tucker Carlson got a whole bunch of new subscribers to the Carlson network. And this idea that you no longer, that mainstream media, TV, print, and so on, hasn't really evolved where it could have only been used for the purpose of, you know, under this experience on the internet. And so Tucker Carlson, who was, you know, was he fired or did he leave Fox? I forget.
Speaker 4
I think he was, so to speak, pushed out.
Speaker 1
He was pushed out, and it looked like he was going to fade into irrelevance. It's turned it into a huge win. He's clearly an excellent marketer. He knows how to use... What's his business model then? Subscribers. Pure subscribers. So...
Speaker 4
And actually, you wrote about it. I ran this. I forwarded you a piece by... Ivan Sewell.
Speaker 1
...Ivan Sewell.
Speaker 4
...Casey Newton on the dying web. And I think this was your attempt to push back, suggest his piece, Casey Newton's piece. He's always a good writer. Scenes from a dying web, which you also include. So for you, this is evidence that the web is not dying. It's been, so to speak, reborn. Is that right?
Speaker 1
Well, you have to reinterpret the word web to more broadly mean the internet. Because web, for me, very specifically, it's an HTML page. But if you accept that the internet has evolved way beyond HTML pages ever since the iPhone, really, and we're now in this world of applications that sit on the internet, then far from dying, it's thriving. It's absolutely thriving. And you can argue that the enemy, if you like, that Casey Newton points out, which is AI, and he makes the point that AI using a new...
Speaker 4
Yeah, we'll come to that. But here's... No, I don't disagree with some of the things you're saying, but the headline for That Was The Week, the newsletter, which is an excellent one this week, is new, new media. I'm just not sure what's new about this new, new media. You have two very powerful white men, and you have high-quality video. I take your point that in the old days, this would have been broadcast on MSNBC or Fox or the BBC, and now Carlson can put it on his own network. But it's still a winner-take-all economy. There's only a tiny handful of journalists who can do this. There's only a tiny handful of journalists who Putin would agree to sit down with. There's only a tiny handful of authoritarian leaders who can do this. There are only a few people who can do this.
Speaker
And I think that's the key to this whole thing,
Speaker 4
is that Carlson would be willing to interview. So why is this new, new media? It's like the old media, just in a different bottle.
Speaker 1
Well, yeah, my point isn't really about democratization. I agree with you that it's still... Audience capture is an elitist trade. I wouldn't use that word.
Speaker 4
I mean, it's a top-down trade.
Speaker 1
It's a top-down trade. And so Tucker Carlson has grabbed audience from old media using new tools. But it's still, you know, a top-down. I agree with you on that. So I think the story isn't really about democratization. The story is about disruption.
Speaker 4
What's even disruptive about it?
Speaker 1
I mean, he stuck his finger in the eye of Fox. Economically, it's disruptive to where advertisers used to have to go. Like, I watched this morning a discussion with Verizon about advertising on CNBC talking about the Super Bowl ads. And the Verizon CEO made the point that...
Speaker 4
The ex-Erikson guy, right?
Speaker 1
Yeah. He made the point that... Which was shocking to hear, that TV advertising doesn't work anymore and they need to do more digital. In 2024, that should be...
Speaker 4
These guys have been saying that for the last quarter century.
Speaker 1
So basically, there's a huge shift in audience and money. That's truly disruptive to people who've got massive investments in old infrastructure like satellite networks, cable networks...
Speaker 4
But from the audience point of view, the kind of person who signed up to Carlson, who got the X app out of the Apple Store, they're the kind of person who historically might have subscribed to Fox or MSNBC or one of the other networks. For them, the seamlessness of what we're calling the internet means that for them, there's no distinction between television and the internet anymore. It's the same thing. And in many ways, it has become the same thing.
Speaker 1
Well, technically, you're right. It was announced this week, for example, that Disney and Fox and somebody else are going to do a combined live sports streaming network. So that's evidence of what you just said. But what's different is they now have to compete with people they used to employ. And that's new. That is quite new. The Bill O'Reilly piece you sent me.
Speaker 4
Yeah, I sent you... I'm not sure how many of our viewers and listeners are familiar with Tang or Isaac Saul's networks. Really good. Isaac's been on the show before. He had Bill O'Reilly on. And O'Reilly spoke quite eloquently about the internet. Intelligently, I think, and in a nonpartisan way about these structural shifts.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so they're super real. And strategically, if you are at Fox or Disney or ESPN, live sports is probably the last bastion of old-fashioned audience. And now they're moving that to streaming. Well, it would only take an Apple or an Amazon to buy the rights to the biggest games for that to be under way.
Speaker 4
So you are almostััะฒะพ discrediting a change over this post post Majesty isn't really under my coordination control as many out there So they're producing home calle auxuks. So it means that's bigger, bigger moved controls are getting involved, but I'm just saying let's take this short, you can see why it's of edge, because Bernie We don't have a Maureen Dowd network or a Thomas Friedman network. So why aren't the left or progressives doing the same thing? Well, maybe they are.
Speaker 1
I think it's hard. I mean, you do it, Andrew, with Now TV and Keen On. It's super hard. It involves a lot of work. You have to become the owner of the entire end-to-end value chain from content all the way through to delivery and then monetization. And some people just don't have the mindset to do that. Tucker Carlson clearly is very entrepreneurial as well as being a smart guy and a good marketer. So, you know, I think it's down to the people. By the way, the New York Times has a billion dollars in revenue. It's an average of about $40 per subscriber.
Speaker 4
I guess our neutral friend, Ikara Swisher, has kind of done that. She left the New York Times. Although. She's somebody who seems to be able to walk the very fine line between new and old media. She has a new book out next week.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And Barry Weiss kind of did it. Yeah. But she's not exactly on the left, Weiss. Well, I wasn't thinking left and right. I'm just thinking personalities. But if you want someone on the left who does it, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4
Swisher is probably the best example. There's no Swisher network. You'd think there would be one. She does. She does the thing with Prof Galloway. Well, that's.
Speaker 1
I don't know Kara very well. But observation. I don't know if anyone knows her very well, Keith, even herself. But I do know her. And observing her from afar, I would say she's used to being to earning a salary. And it's super hard to move from a salary to being 100% responsible for all your. Yeah.
Speaker 4
I wonder if there's money. I mean, so where's Carlson getting his money? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he has investment in this network. He's doing something that Trump wanted to do. And he sort of failed. Right.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, Trump's too ideological. Truth. Truth.
Speaker 4
I don't know if Trump is. He's too egotistical. I don't think he has an ounce of ideology.
Speaker 1
Yeah. But when he when he is a marketer, you know, he called his thing truth social. It's too. Tucker Carlson actually manages to balance between actually.
Speaker 1
You don't think plenty of journalists are month of numerous interviewers on this show.
Speaker 4
But, and, and, but, but, you look accusable. Well, that's also one of the things about lรชnvision, which is that you talk about cuz he's obsessed with a lot of TV coming out Abroad, which is only being posted more or less than Rapso. ISA market. It's not Live Madam. People are
Speaker 4
For. around in 1938, he would have done the same thing with Hitler. Does he do one-on-ones with Xi and Netanyahu and Erdogan? Where does he stop with this stuff? And at what point should he stop?
Speaker 1
Well, if you were him, you wouldn't stop, would you? I mean...
Speaker 4
Well, would you interview Pol Pot? Would you interview mass murderers?
Speaker 1
I think the act of the interview isn't the point. It's what do you ask and say, and how do you do the interview? You can... How did he do with... I didn't watch it, I have to admit. Did he ask him any hard questions? He did. I mean, he was focused on Ukraine a lot. And, you know, that's why Putin ended up giving a thousand years of Russian history.
Speaker 4
And that was the headlines about Putin supposedly being open to some sort of peace deal, right?
Speaker 1
Well, Putin... And I think this might even be true. Putin... On many occasions during the interview said that he was genuinely interested in Russia joining NATO with Clinton, that he was genuinely interested in all kinds of normalization of relations that US presidents, he named them one after the other, rebuffed. And the CIA eventually corresponded with him saying they weren't interested. So it... You know, he painted him a picture of Russia as a victim of US intransigence, basically. And that's probably not 100% untrue.
Speaker 4
Let's go back, Keith, to the Casey Newton piece. You poo-pooed it to some extent, saying that the web isn't dying. It's an interesting piece about... It's basically about AI, suggesting that in the old days there was Google. He doesn't idealize Google, but at least they provided links. And in the AI age, everything's gonna be built around AI. So we're not even gonna have websites anymore. Leaving aside the Carlsen news, is there any truth to this?
Speaker 1
Well, I actually think it's a good piece. The only real thing you can disagree with is the title. If it said, scenes from a dying Google, that would be kind of a bit more accurate, but...
Speaker 4
Well, he's not saying that, because of course, the other big piece of news is that Google and... Well, he's not saying that, because of course, the other big piece of news is that Google and... As launching its Gemini Ultra.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 4
Its most powerful LLM, which some people say is as good, if not better, than OpenAI.
Speaker 1
I used it this morning, and it still has a long way to go to be as good as OpenAI. They're charging $20 a month for it, and it's a two-month free trial, which I signed up for. It only works in individual Google accounts, not in the business Google accounts.
Speaker 4
You have to be careful, Keith, what you say about Google, because otherwise I'm going to alert my wife, and she will eliminate you.
Speaker 1
She will. I'm scared of her. But anyway, I mean, Google is making progress. That's clearly true.
Speaker 4
But Newton's point is, I think it's an important and a serious one, that everything is going to be built around AI. I saw a piece this week. I should have put it up. There was a story in The New Yorker about a guy called Matthew Brettler, some of our viewers and listeners. You might have watched it. The guy, actually, I know in London, whose son tragically died in London. And I saw some AI pieces that had come from it that was linked on the front 10 of Google. This is already happening. The AI platforms, and Newton talks about perplexity, and ARC, they're already putting together content in ways that will undermine. They're going to undermine the very idea of a website.
Speaker 1
I think he's right about that, but I think he's wrong to mourn it, because I think it's going to end up being better. So if you think about it, I installed the ARC browser this morning, and perplexity is built into it. And so when you look at... Is it a browser or sort of a post-browser? It is a browser. I don't know if you're going to let me share, but here's what it looks like. Yeah, hold on.
Speaker 4
I'll let you share.
Speaker 1
This is me doing a search for myself. You probably have to put it on the screen, because I can't.
Speaker 4
Okay. But I'm not sure how to do it. Hold on.
Speaker 1
But basically, it replaces me searching for my name. And what it brings back is, actually, an extremely good agglomeration of stuff about me that's very relevant, including SignalRank right at the top there of the bullet points. And compare that to a search experience for me, where you get all those blue links, a hundred of them, and they're not particularly organized in any way or anything.
Speaker 4
Yeah, so this is all created by AI. So the real question is, at what point, if Newton is right, and this all means a dying web, or at least, you know, at least dying websites, what will the perplexities and arcs of the world, what will they build, and the open AIs and the Geminis, what will they build their intelligence off if there are no longer any websites? How are they going to know anything about you?
Speaker 1
No, there will still be websites, and people will still read them. I mean, think about it. If that was the week, would I... Well, firstly, I'll tell you this. Almost nobody goes to the website anyway. Almost everybody gets there. That was the week in email. Right. The website is crawlable and learnable by AI or by Google. And I do want it to be incorporated in their knowledge basis so that it can be surfaced. So I don't know that... I think the thing that changes the most is user behavior. User behavior is going to be less and less browsing, which it already really is with mobile. And more and more and more, and more and more and more, asking for and getting things that you want to know about.
Speaker 4
And yet you remain a cornucopian. You have a piece today by Anish Acharya about how AI will usher in an era of abundance. It's an argument that we hear time and time again. The cult, if you like, of the algorithm. You're in the abundance camp. Ultimately, Keith, are you optimistic that AI will? I'm not sure. Will? Will trigger an age of abundance, even when it comes to creatives?
Speaker 1
Well, it'll trigger an age of abundance. The word abundance can be interpreted in many ways. I usually think of it as economics, wealth, if you will. But it could also mean content. That's an Andreessen Horowitz strategy piece about consumers and what the future of consumer software is. And it focuses on creativity, productivity, relationships, and wellness as the three things. So I think they're really they're talking to themselves, persuading the Andreessen investors.
Speaker 4
Don't they realize that wellness has become an ironic term, that it's something to make most people throw up the word? It's a word that will make you most unwell.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's an industry, isn't it? Wellness is getting consumers to pay a lot of money for when they're not sick is what it really is. But no, they're being thoughtful, Andreessen. I mean, from a thought point of view, that article asks all the right questions about what the future of software is. Somebody this week said, well, software is eating the world, but AI is eating software. That's actually quite accurate. Yeah.
Speaker 4
And speaking of thoughtful Andreessen, we always think of Mark Andreessen and Horowitz, but there's more to Andreessen and Horowitz than those two. There's also Chris Dixon. He has a new book out. And he's a man who still believes in Web3 and in the power of the blockchain and decentralization. Is there anything in this? Do you think, I don't know if you've read Dixon's book, but he's had quite a lot of visibility over the last couple of weeks. Yeah. I haven't. Should we be going back to Web3? I'm not sure if indeed Casey Newton's right and the web might be dying. Is Web3 another nail in the coffin or is it a way to stop the web dying?
Speaker 1
Well, I think web, firstly, the book is a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 4
Yeah, but it's only, and one of the stories was it's only a bestseller because Andreessen Horowitz have been buying up huge quantities in the sort of Reid Hoffman style.
Speaker 1
I don't know. I don't know if it was them that bought it, but there have been.
Speaker 4
Yeah, it was. Well, the piece I read suggested it was, which makes the best sellers also a bit of a fuss, but that's another story.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So Chris Dixon is, has been at Andreessen a long time. He wasn't originally a Web3 guy. He was a software, consumer software guy, mostly, I think. He worked with Connie Chan who left a couple of weeks ago and they're trying to reimagine and reinvent. Yeah. Soะฐัั disengaging growth, as we think. This is a population that I really think the next period looks like, and they've been struggling. I mean, they've got a few things going on. American dynamism is one of their big overarching discussion points on narratives. Blockchain and Web3 is another. And AI is another. And I think a little bit like Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures and his team, everyone got blindsided by the acceleration of AI and the deceleration of Web3. So this is an attempt to adjust, which I think may still be premature. I do think it's valid. I mean, I can't imagine that the centralized cloud infrastructure that we have today doesn't start to get. Yeah, I don't agree.
Speaker 4
I mean, we've been hearing this ever since the Internet started about democratization and decentralization. And all we get is Tucker Carlson and Putin dominating the news and dominating the Internet for better or worse. I just don't see any evidence that that's going to happen. And if anything, the dominance of these huge multi-trillion dollar companies. The Googles, the Microsofts, the Amazons and dominating the stock market. That's just the reality for better or worse.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, OK, let's focus there. I mean, I think Dixon is wrong to search for use cases because I think insofar as Web3 and blockchain are going to end up being important, it's going to be as infrastructure. Use cases are almost always centralized because the things you need to get done to build. Audience. Are essentially highly focused, task based things that require an effort of a team, and that's almost always centralized. Even in a decentralized infrastructure, there'll be centralized use cases of the infrastructure. So I think this centralized, decentralized narrative is a false, a false narrative. I think it's both. But I think the end user mainly is going to experience things delivered. Yeah. From teams that end up bringing together using infrastructure, some kind of an experience, whether it's for businesses or for consumers. So I think his search for use cases is actually a bit of desperation, but it's also an intellectual error.
Speaker 4
Well, it's interesting that his book and all his speeches seem to be directed against big tech. And it's ironic that a partner at Andreessen Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, is so anti big tech. Yeah. Same as Wilson and Albert Venger at Union Square. So even the VCs are dependent. I mean, it's in their interest to get beyond this highly centralized web. Otherwise, they're not going to be able to win anymore.
Speaker 1
Well, it's their version of the innovators dilemma. You know, the short version is you have to eat your children. So, you know, go back 20 years. And what is today big tech were startups that they all loved and invested. And now they have to do it again. So the grownups become the enemy. You have to eat your children in order for the new ones to be acquired.
Speaker 4
Maybe that explains why some people's children are so fat. People are planning on eating. Speaking of the creative community, for better or worse, not all of us are Tucker Carlson or even Bill O'Reilly. And then, you know, the promise of the Internet is. Yeah. Of a creative economy where everyone can rely on Patreon or Substack. But you have an interesting piece by Joan Westenberg, which, again, is realistic and saying most people. I mean, none of us can be Tucker Carlson, but most people can't even build a real living out of these platforms. Most people aren't even like Casey Newton, who seems to have done a good job as an independent journalist. So what does Westenberg say about this new ecosystem? And why doesn't it work, at least according to her?
Speaker 1
Well, she's talking about the numbers, the math of an audience becoming a subscriber base. And that that transition from an audience to a subscriber base is a willingness to pay.
Speaker 4
So she has. So let's say you've got 20,000 followers. Can you get to that 1,000 paying supporters on Patreon or Substack that we're talking about? Would guarantee you about 50K of revenue a year?
Speaker 1
I don't think so. I think it's super hard for most people. But that isn't to do with the platforms. That's to do with whether you're sufficiently interesting for people to pay for what you do or even or even whether you whether that's your primary purpose. Like for me. I just did a survey asking people what they would pay for. And I said, well, I don't know. I think it's a little bit more on that was the week and about 35% said they pay for this video. But only about 2% bothered to vote. And so what that tells me is that 98% of that was the week subscribers are not interested in paying.
Speaker 4
What are you going to say to all the people watching? What I would say is wake up and respond to Keith. At least he's not charging you. So at least you can do is respond to his questions.
Speaker 1
Well. I think it's asking a lot of anyone to give you their attention. And I, you know, I have a very large open rate on the newsletter. It's about 60% in any given week opens and reads it. So so I can't really complain about engagement. But payments are totally different thing. And thank goodness for me. I have no interest in this becoming an income. To me, this is a chance for me to be relevant. And if I'm relevant, that involves training my brain to read and think and write. If I'm relevant, I'll make money in all kinds of ways.
Speaker 4
It seems like Keith, the media industry is going exactly the same way as the tech industry. We've been talking about media and tech all day. Just as we have the the top seven making up. I don't know whatever it is, 30 or 40% of not just the US, but the global economy. Got multi trillion dollar companies dominating the age of AI. The late age of the Internet. So we have men like Tucker Carlson who can get away with selling their content online, have tens of thousands of subscribers and getting very rich. But that's it. Maybe Bill O'Reilly, probably Bill O'Reilly can't even do it. Thomas Friedman can't do it. Even Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway struggle.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I think I think money is the wrong focus to understand the change. Actually, there is money at the top. But the primary change is.
Speaker
Time.
Speaker 1
Right. Or attention. Attention. It's, you know, how do you and I spend our day now? What portion of it used to be in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal versus broadcast TV versus today? And, you know, for all of us, the answer is less and less of our time is given to those older models. And more and more of our time is, you know, anyone who reads that was the week isn't paying me. But they're spending time. Reading it.
Speaker 4
So does Westenberg have any advice for wannabe creatives? I mean, you're lucky enough that you don't need the revenue. I don't really need the revenue either. But many people do, especially younger people, journalists who everyone's being laid off at all these different publications that are shutting down or dramatic cuts. Even The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. What should they be doing?
Speaker 1
Well, I think I think that's a difficult question to answer because most of the time.
Speaker 4
I mean, I don't know the answer. Maybe not you, but none of us know the answer.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Many of the skills that they have are not going to be required. Copy editors, editors, you know, reporters even because facts are going to be easily accessible. So I think I think I think it's super hard. I just think it's an adjustment in the number of people that are going to be employed in a given industry, which is another word for productivity.
Speaker 4
So what would you do if one of your boys came home said, I want to be a journalist?
Speaker 1
I'd say you better be super interesting, be able to charge people. Otherwise you're stuffed.
Speaker 4
That's depressing. It's not your fault, Keith. But it seems to be a very bleak world out there. Some people, Cory Doctorow has described the Internet may not be dying as and shitified. And Blue Sky is your startup of the week. Which is now open for anyone to join their CEO. Jay Graber said that she won't. And I'm quoting her here because this is a family show in shitify the network with ads. What is it about Blue Sky that has made them your startup of the week? And do they offer any promise of a new brave new world for creatives, for journalists?
Speaker 1
I did go and subscribe this week and they're the startup of the week because, you know, they opened up free subscriptions for anyone. You needed an invite before. So I did go and subscribe. And it's like a clone of Twitter except it's on a distributed architecture. I think at least for now that's the promise of distributed architecture because I think they are the only host of it.
Speaker 4
So it's Chris Dixon's dream of Web3 melded onto the old Twitter basically.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And Jack Dorsey obviously is big. Right.
Speaker 4
It's Dorsey's vision. He's been writing about this and talking about it for years.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So visually it's just like Twitter. It's way less interesting than Twitter because nobody's on it. And the people that are on it you've never heard of.
Speaker 4
So it's just another of these wannabe exes that will die or probably already die. It should die because there's no purpose for it. Why have you made it your startup of the week? It's your dead startup.
Speaker 1
It's your dead startup. Well, because said of the week doesn't mean I like it. It just means it's noteworthy.
Speaker 4
It's newsworthy because it's going to die. So I'm not going to go on it. And finally, your ex of the week and no surprises or prizes for this one, Keith. From the Tucker Carlson Network. And it's an announcement that Tucker is going to interview the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Come tonight at 6 p.m. Is this what drove traffic? Yeah, very much so. And is this why X became the most popular app on the App Store?
Speaker 1
According to Sarah Perez, and I think she's probably right. Yeah. And that is why. In other words, X as a platform became a must have for those people.
Speaker 4
So Keith, is this what you and I, old time Internet guys, we've been around for a long time. We've been around since the mid 90s doing startups. Is this what we wanted? A world where Tucker Carlson can interview Vladimir Putin without the approval or editorial guidance of a network? And this is what dominates our media world?
Speaker 1
Yeah. If I take myself back to the early days of TechCrunch when Web 2.0 was arising. We talked about the separation of content from the publications it was traditionally encased within. And YouTube was one of the first examples of that in those days, 2005. Where you could publish to YouTube and YouTube could be embedded in any other place as well through using an embed code. And that became the poster child for content being free. Of what you might think of as a prison cell or a hotel, depending on whether you like it or don't like it. And I think the vision was something close to what we're seeing today, which is anybody can try to become a focal point and build an audience and where possible monetize that audience without needing a benefactor. The old publishing company infrastructure. Yeah. Ends up becoming irrelevant. And it still isn't. So this is a very, this is now, you know, 20 years later, I would say it's a very incomplete revolution. But I think what happened yesterday is a sign that it's still happening.
Speaker 4
And finally, Keith, can we imagine, I mean, Tucker Carlson's brand and popularity and unpopularity visibility was built on his career at Fox. So he built his brand. He's brand the analog way. Are they going to be Tucker Carlson's in the future who are purely digital? They already are some on YouTube.
Speaker 1
I think there's a lot of emerging personalities. A lot of them tend to be on what is often called the right. And that's because they feel as if traditional media is. Well, TikTok. And TikTok. Yeah. But, you know, you look at people like Ben Shapiro's a name that comes to mind who's now very well known, mainly because of social media. And YouTube as well. So I think there will be more.
Speaker 3
Come on. I've got sunshine on a cloudy day.
Speaker 3
When it's cold outside, I've got the Monday morning. Everybody! Everybody say! I guess you say what can make me feel this way. It's my girl. My girl. I'm talking about my girl. My girl. I've got sunshine on a cloudy day.