The Verge's David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and Alex Cranz roleplay as CEOs of Vergecast Inc., tasked with creating a tech company by acquiring product lines from various industry giants. They select established products ranging from smartphones and PCs to messaging and audio solutions, sourced from companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, Meta, and others.
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TechTranscript
00:00Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of Corporate Infighting.
00:03I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am sitting on my back patio,
00:06getting the grill ready, because it is July 4th weekend, and that's just what you do.
00:10This is America, it's July 4th, it's also my birthday on July 4th,
00:15and so we sit outside and we grill, even though it's very hot and there's mosquitoes everywhere.
00:20And would I rather be inside in the air conditioning looking at my television?
00:23Yes. But it's July 4th, so we're grilling stuff.
00:27Anyway, we have an awesome episode coming up for you today.
00:30We are going to basically start a tech company together.
00:33Nilay Patel, Alex Kranz, and I are going to, as a group of CEOs, which couldn't possibly go poorly,
00:40figure out how we would build a tech company out of the tech industry as it exists now.
00:45It sounds a little complicated, but I'll explain the rules when we get into it.
00:48It'll all make sense. But basically, I wanted to see if you were to start from scratch and say,
00:53okay, what are the best products in tech? What can I take? What can I put together?
00:56What could we build that would be cool and different and that we could make awesome?
01:01How would we do that? We had a lot of fun putting this together and figured
01:04this would be a fun time to do it. It's July, the news is a little bit slow.
01:08We're about to get into crazy gadget season again,
01:11but it felt like a fun way to take a different kind of look at the tech industry.
01:15I should also say, some credit for this whole concept goes to a podcast I really like called
01:20The Big Picture. Really good show about movies, and they did one recently where the two of them
01:25started their own studios together. They did a draft and picked actors and writers,
01:30and it was a very fun episode. I just stole that concept, and we're going to
01:35take it and turn it and do something similar on the show today.
01:38We're going to start a tech company. I'm very curious what you think as you listen to it.
01:42If you think we made bad decisions, if you think we made good decisions, if you think we're
01:46monsters, I want to hear everything. Call the hotline, 866-VERGE11. Email us,
01:51vergecasts at theverge.com. Tell us how you'd start a tech company, and maybe between us,
01:56we're going to take over the tech industry. It's going to be awesome. Anyway, all of that is coming
01:59up in just a second, but first, I just noticed that I turned the grill on without actually
02:04turning the propane on. This is how good I am at grilling. I'm going to go fix that problem.
02:08This is The Verge Cast. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Let's go.
02:15Nilay Patel, hello. Hello.
02:17Alex Krantz, hello. Hello.
02:19I'm excited to be a CEO today, right?
02:21Thank you both for coming to maybe the most convoluted, insane game I have yet
02:25devised on The Verge Cast, but I'm very excited about this. The structure of this is basically
02:31as follows. We, the three hosts, are now co-CEOs of a tech company because I would say,
02:37historically speaking, companies with three CEOs tend to be the most successful.
02:41Yeah, it's like BlackBerry, but a little bit more.
02:44What if you added one more person who had some weird ideas and wanted to own a hockey team?
02:49It could be great. We are going to build our own company out of parts of other companies.
02:54It's essentially how this is going to work. I think it's either 10 or 11 categories here that
02:58we, as a tech company, are going to enter by taking that product from another company.
03:04There are several rules. Again, this is very convoluted, but it's going to work. It's going
03:08to be fine once we get into it. Everything we take from a tech company, we get as it exists
03:13right now. Whatever it's selling, whoever it is that makes it, all the factory deals,
03:18all the marketing stuff, everything. We can change it as we like, but we don't get the idea of it.
03:23We get the thing as it is right now. We only care about things up to 2030. After that, who knows?
03:28We're all going to live on Mars. We're playing a six-year-long game here. Frankly, if we,
03:34the triumvirate of CEOs, last until 2030, we will have been wildly successful.
03:38I'm banking out really fast. As soon as we IPO, I'm gone.
03:41Alex is resting investing from day one here. It's going to be great.
03:45We can spend as much money as we want, but making money is not the point. We're actually
03:50not going to talk about money at all on this show. We don't want to go out of business,
03:55but our main goal is just to build the greatest tech company in the history of the universe.
04:00That is what we're after here. If we start talking about the money side of things,
04:04it just gets weird and complicated in ways that we don't have time for.
04:07That's what we're going to tell our investors. We're just going to be like, look, guys,
04:10if we talk about money, this is going to get weird and complicated. You just relax.
04:14We're just out to make an AGI. Don't worry about it, guys.
04:16Yeah. For 20 years, Jeff Bezos was like, I can make money whenever I feel like it. For now,
04:21I'm just going to make cool stuff. That's the vibe at our tech company. I would say
04:26the two most important things as we pick here are we can only take one product from each company.
04:32So once we have used something from Apple, we cannot use anything else from Apple or Samsung
04:37or Google or whoever else. One product per company, which I think is going to be very complicated.
04:42That product also cannot be the whole company. So if there is a company that makes a single
04:47product with its name, like I originally had Figma in one of our categories as a thing we
04:53might want to take. But if you take Figma from Figma, there is no Figma anymore. So that doesn't
04:57count. Well, what about what about FigJam? Sure. No, moving right along. Sure. That's actually
05:04I'll give you that. Another one I had is like, oh, here's a good example. Like we can't take
05:09Salesforce from Salesforce, but we could take slack from Salesforce. Oh, I see. So if Apple
05:14had a product called Apple, you would just be like, no, that accounted for, you know, 98% of
05:18its revenue. Yeah. So sure. I guess under that rule, we can take FigJam. I'll add FigJam back to
05:24the list. And most importantly, this is not competitive. We are three CEOs. We are doing
05:29this together. And so we have to agree on everything that we're going to take, which I
05:33assume means this is going to take 12 hours. Is there such a thing as a hung jury in this
05:38situation? No, because there are three of us and if it comes to it, we will vote and two to one
05:43will win. This is why we have three CEOs. This is, it's a perfect, I can't believe no one has
05:47thought of this before. Yeah. Why are people doing one and two? Odd number CEOs solves all
05:52your problems. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here are the categories. We're going to do smartphones,
05:56tablets, and PCs. Then we're going to take a break. We're going to do wearables, headphones,
06:00app platforms, which is not specific apps, but think of like app businesses like Microsoft office
06:06is one of the options in that category. Uh, and then we're going to do what I have called boring
06:10B2B money faucets, which is the thing that makes you all the money that nobody ever wants to talk
06:14about. Then we're going to take another break and then we're going to do messaging, streaming
06:18service, wildcard gadgets, and wildcard everything else. And then we're going to get out of here and
06:22we're going to go be filthy rich. Sound good. I'm so excited to be rich. All right. Category number
06:27one is smartphones. This to me is maybe the easiest, but also maybe the most difficult one
06:31to do first, which is why I wanted it to do it first. See, I also agree with you because I think
06:36we're probably along the same lines for what the phone should be. Well, the only thing that makes
06:41it different is David told us not to worry about money. Oh, interesting. We don't worry about money.
06:45Well, if you give one wit about money, you take the iPhone. Yes. Right. Because then you,
06:49then now you funded whatever other boondoggles you want to get on. Like, yeah, then we can pick
06:53the Kobo for tablets and it's fine. That's what we should do. Exactly. You're, you're right on
06:57the same way. But if you don't care about money, then you might have a substantive discussion about
07:02what phone you want. Well, so, okay, let me, let me frame this slightly differently. We don't care.
07:06We are not spending our time thinking about quarterly earnings and shareholder value,
07:10but we do want to win right in like big picture win. Then we're taking the iPhone. Yeah. I've
07:15already, I've crushed you. We're taking the iPhone. We win. I think that's right. I think
07:18the only reason for me that the iPhone is challenging is that there are a lot of categories
07:22here in which Apple is also very good and some in which it has a lot less competition. Oh, no,
07:27no. I can every other category. I can, I can defeat everyone else with the power of the iPhone's lock
07:32in. Oh, interesting. Do you trust me? You just wait and I'm allowed to change stuff. Yeah,
07:38we're good. We nailed it. It's fine. Oh my God. I just realized we're going to speed run
07:43building an app tax. Yeah, it's going to go so fast. You think I don't care about money, David?
07:5045%. Let's go get somewhere. Lena Khan just started listening to this and she's like,
07:55this is, she's like, this isn't the tech company I would have built.
07:58We're not even going to be allowed to make a company. Lena Khan's like, nope,
08:00no company is illegal. Sorry. Okay. But just for this, for the sake of argument,
08:06the other nominees that I had here were Samsung, which I think is probably the only other
08:11reasonable competitor here to Google pixel. If you're, you know, feeling good about yourself,
08:15the nothing phone, which is a fun, like dark horse. If you want to like bet on doing something
08:19weird and cool in the next six years until 2030, interesting that, uh, Huawei one plus
08:24Asus Motorola, like it gets bleak pretty fast, real fast. Were you hoping that one of us would
08:29be like Motorola? I was hoping one of you would fight for Samsung to be honest, just because I
08:35think it's possible to maybe want to pick an Apple product in another one. Cause we've now
08:39ruled out every other Apple product. No, cause I'm looking at through the rest and I'm like,
08:43I'm like, there's other really good competitors in these other places. But like the iPhone,
08:47if you're, if, if the phone is like the engine of the business, which it feels like probably is
08:53true, then we want the iPhone. I mean, alternatively, the one that I would have argued
08:58for would have been the pixel because then the one thing you would change about it would be caring.
09:04And then it would be good. Yeah. But the iPhone, we've got like the people who are making the good
09:08processors on the iPhone, whereas the pixel we've got not that sure. But yeah, a little,
09:13a little caring goes a long way. Yeah. That's true. Like also trying to market the phone would be
09:18useful. I mean, yeah. Like in terms of raw upside, the ROI, I think for the pixel would
09:24be huge. Whereas the iPhone, I've all her time imagining making the iPhone more successful,
09:28but it's also very successful. I think the answer is just the iPhone. I don't know that we need to
09:32talk about this much longer. It's going to solve every other problem on this list. So again, I
09:36would, I would remind you that one of the things we are not trying to do here is build a services
09:40business or a monopoly. We're not trying to build a monopoly. We want to win. So you're saying this
09:46collection of three CEOs has to have some values. Yeah. We want to like be cool. Our main value is
09:52like be cool. Okay. I want to have a monopoly in a cool way. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Fair. Okay. We
09:58can move on. All right. So the iPhone next up tablets, which is ironically a very similar set
10:03of companies, but I would say that we, we can't pick the iPad. So the iPad is out, which leaves
10:08us with the four nominees I picked so far were the Samsung galaxy tabs, the Google pixel tablet,
10:15such as it is Amazon's whole Kindle lineup, which I think counts as a tablet Kobo. You could do one
10:20plus there's a lot of tablets out there. We could argue about the Microsoft surface as a tablet
10:25line, but I think I won't count that. We'll get to that in a minute. What do you guys think? Who's
10:28the favorite here? I think we go with the books and then we have the Apple, the iPhone team make
10:34the operating system. Good. Wait, is that, can you, can you make that choice? Can I pick the
10:39galaxy, but it runs iPad iOS? No, but it, but if we don't take the iPad, we don't get iPad iOS.
10:43We're going to use iOS to put a, put that on the books. Oh, and then I didn't, we didn't take Mac
10:48iOS, which would have been the real move. We can't wait. Huh? Yeah. So wait, it was a wait,
10:54hold on to wind this week on all of this to get an iPad running Mac. I have to like take the pixel
11:00so I can take the Mac book so I can take the Samsung galaxy and make it run Mac iOS to get
11:07to a galaxy pad running Mac iOS. I have to take the pixel and then a Mac book. That would be the
11:12way I'm going to be honest. I don't hate that strategy. I feel like this board of directors
11:17meeting will be very confusing. No, I'm with, I'm with Krantz. I think you take the Kindle lineup,
11:22you jazz up the software a little bit. People are happy. I wanted to go books to get escape
11:27the lock-in. Cause I feel like we save some money with that acquisition, but we can solve the lock
11:32in. Remember Android is open source. So Android is fair game. No matter what we do, we can just
11:36have Android. We can on DRM the books as well. Yeah. And I think so then the real question is
11:40like, who, who is better at making the hardware that we can take and have a pretty solid lead
11:46on. And I feel like, I feel like it's Amazon. Like books does cool stuff, but I feel like if we,
11:51we just steal the Amazon team and we're like, what if we did a good job again? Yeah. Cause we get,
11:55we get Panos. Oh yeah. We get Panos. Yeah. We're doing the Kindle. That's right. I feel good about
11:59that. Yeah. We're doing the Kindle and we're going to make it good now. It's a real culture
12:02hire right there. Yeah. Do we immediately kill the whole Kindle fire line and we just focus on
12:07E Ink? No, no, no, no. That's good for kids. Okay. So actually I would say we take the,
12:12the tablet thing we're taking is like the extended Kindle, the Kindle universe we get.
12:16Yeah. All this class of tablets is accomplishing for anyone is playing Disney plus for your
12:22children. So we're just like the Kindle fire kids is the centerpiece of our tablet strategy.
12:28And then we also just make a nice e-reader on the side that runs iOS.
12:31Yeah. And then I can go to various state capitals and be like, you want,
12:34you want to make laws protecting kids, make a law saying you have to buy a Kindle fire for kids.
12:39Yeah, there we go. I mean, I love how we're like making a really good culturally
12:43important company that also doesn't break laws.
12:46I'm not trying to break the laws. I'm trying to make the laws.
12:48Yeah. I'm trying to be the law.
12:51You understand if you don't buy a Kindle fire, you will be arrested.
12:55Here is my question is, do we reboot the fire phone with our iPhone team?
13:02Which part are we like?
13:03The 3D display.
13:04We've already added 50 cameras to the phone. What if we had four more to make it 3D?
13:09And it's one of them is just for barcodes.
13:11Yeah.
13:12Amazon, Kindle, easy choice. Next up is PCs. And I think the list of
13:16folks is fairly familiar here. Alex, what do you got?
13:18Okay. So the list is it's we can't do Apple, but we've got Microsoft, Lenovo,
13:23Asus, Acer, HP, Razer, Dell. I think we should go Lenovo because you get rid of all of the spamware
13:30that they like automatically install. You have some really nice laptops.
13:34You've got really nice hardware.
13:36Yeah. You got really nice hardware. And then we make the iOS team. They're going to be working
13:41nights, but they're going to have to basically like reinvent Mac OS. They can figure it out.
13:47You're back into it. iOS started with Mac OS. Go the other way.
13:51Go the other way. I fully believe in them. If we can make PC clones, we can do this too.
13:57But we don't have the chips. I guess we do because we have the iPhone. So now we just
14:01put a hinge and a lid on an iPhone. That's a laptop.
14:04Yeah.
14:04Which is more or less the iPad. I just want to be very clear about what we're discussing. We're
14:09like, we make iPads now.
14:10But it's also got the little, it's got the little, the dot.
14:13Yeah. The little, the trackpad guy.
14:14Yeah.
14:15See, I was going to say Microsoft because I want control of the operating system.
14:19That's where I go to.
14:21Right. And I want the Surface line.
14:22I don't.
14:23Now I've pulled the tablet ecosystem bigger, right? I've got my Kindles and my Kindle Fires,
14:28and I've got the Surface Pro, and I've got a whole range of products.
14:32Tell us about all of the really good laptops and all-in-ones that we're going to get with
14:37our Microsoft acquisition.
14:38Again, a lot of my strategy is just try hard.
14:41Okay.
14:42Right? Just to be clear. So yeah, the Surface Studio, but what if you put a real chip in it?
14:48And that's just me in meetings. What if circle this on the whiteboard and then write try hard,
14:53and then three exclamation points? And that's my whole Surface strategy.
14:57We can make it all run RISC-V.
14:59With the power of one Raspberry Pi 4.
15:04Yeah. David, you're the tiebreaker here. It's between Microsoft and Lenovo.
15:08I agree. Lenovo makes some of the better hardware here.
15:11You make a compelling point about being able to have Windows and make it good.
15:15The one wrench I would like to throw in is that if we get Dell,
15:18we just instantly have the best lineup of Windows PCs that exists.
15:23But we don't have Windows.
15:24We don't have Windows. Do we want Windows?
15:27For example, I would like to walk up to the box that says security and write try hard.
15:32I will say though, under the rules of this game though,
15:35I think what we're getting is a perpetual license to Windows. I don't think we're getting-
15:39Even inside Microsoft? That's probably how the Surface did it.
15:41Yeah. I don't think we get to run Windows.
15:43So when we took the iPhone, we don't get to run iOS?
15:45No, we do. That one counts.
15:47It does. It feels different. I can't describe to you why.
15:49No, it's because it's one device to one operating system.
15:52This is not one device to one operating system.
15:54We are a partner to the operating system, not the only venue for the operating system.
15:59Even if we're Microsoft?
16:00We're not, but we're the Surface team.
16:01We aren't Microsoft. We're Vergecast Incorporated.
16:04We're not taking Windows from Microsoft.
16:07I still think it's Microsoft, just because I think we're clearly building a luxury thing here.
16:13And I think getting there with Lenovo is going to be challenging.
16:17Like, I don't know how we're going to convince
16:18everybody that Lenovo is like kick-ass cool again.
16:21I think we can get there with Surface.
16:22No, we're not Lenovo. We're just taking the product.
16:26We're doing a little rebrand.
16:26We got the ThinkPad.
16:28Yeah, you're right.
16:28We got a little coat of paint on there.
16:29Get the yogas. So you guys want some yogas?
16:32Yeah.
16:32They do the flippy things.
16:34I'm going to make tent mode happen for America.
16:36Okay, I'm going Lenovo because I think we're going to want Microsoft later.
16:40I think there are other things in this list that are going to be more useful to have for Microsoft.
16:44So I think we should pick Lenovo.
16:46You're right. That's true.
16:48I'm dying to know what you think those things are, but we'll come back to it.
16:50Think of all the boring things that make you the most valuable company on planet Earth.
16:55And that's what Microsoft does so well.
16:58It's not the Surface team.
17:00Yeah, I think, all right.
17:01So we're picking Lenovo.
17:03Welcome to the team, the little nub.
17:06It's very exciting.
17:06What's that thing called?
17:07The TrackPoint?
17:08Is that what that's called?
17:08TrackPoint.
17:09TrackPoint.
17:10Love that thing.
17:10We just call it a nub.
17:12We're rebranding it immediately.
17:14Just immediately.
17:14That's the first thing we do.
17:16Day one.
17:16Yeah, I love this.
17:17All right.
17:18So just to recap so far, we're going to take a quick break.
17:21We have, as Vergecast Incorporated, we now make the Apple iPhone, the Amazon Kindle,
17:26and Lenovo's set of PCs.
17:29I feel like we're doing very well so far.
17:31I'm excited about this guy.
17:32We're doing well.
17:32All right.
17:33We're going to take a really quick break.
17:34We're going to come back and do some more stuff.
17:42All right, we're back.
17:43Vergecast Incorporated.
17:45We haven't talked about our pay structure, by the way, as co-CEOs,
17:48but we'll come back to that.
17:49It's going to be very lucrative for us.
17:51Because again, we're only going to be in this job for six years.
17:53So we gotta do it and get out.
17:55Yeah.
17:56Next category.
17:57I think this might be the richest and sort of most evenly competitive category
18:01of all the ones we're about to do is wearables.
18:03And I'm defining wearables deliberately broadly.
18:06Anything that you wear on your body counts.
18:08We can't do things like the Apple Watch or the Vision Pro.
18:11We can't do all of Amazon's weird Alexa wearable stuff.
18:16But I would say mostly we're still pretty wide open.
18:19You have X-Rail on here.
18:21Yeah, I do have X-Rail on here.
18:23I'm not saying we should pick it.
18:24I'm just saying it's a company I thought of when I said wearable out loud to myself.
18:28What do you guys think?
18:29Any jump out to you that we should definitely get into?
18:33I have a clear favorite here.
18:34Out the gate, I'm going bold and taking Meta for the Ray-Bans.
18:37Oh, OK.
18:38Oh, that's a good point.
18:39I wasn't even I was thinking of the headset.
18:41I forgot about the glasses.
18:43Yeah.
18:43OK, on that front, do we get one or the other or do we get both?
18:47Like if we if we say Quest, we get all the quests in one product.
18:51But I feel like the smart glasses are a different thing.
18:53Get your face computers away from me.
18:55You know what I mean?
18:56Just no, no, no.
18:57Although, what are the Ray-Bans?
18:59You just want the smart glasses.
19:01I just want the glasses.
19:02Even if we get the whole team, we're immediately killing
19:04the Quest line and we're just going smart glasses.
19:06That's what I just did.
19:07I just want to.
19:07That's what Meta just said.
19:08Yeah, and Fisk reorganized that team.
19:10So I'm saying the glasses are the future.
19:14We're putting we're putting our excess iPhone profits into the glasses.
19:17Oh, I mean, if the glasses like ran a really good AI.
19:22Well, no, we don't have one of those.
19:24We have Siri.
19:24Although on a six year time horizon, it's like,
19:27maybe I just want to take Samsung's watches and do walking.
19:32I mean, that is that is actually an interesting question, right?
19:34Like, are we betting that smart glasses are going to be
19:38sufficiently huge by 2030 that this is like worth it for us?
19:41Or are we just taking like a nerd gadget for the next six years?
19:45No, this makes sense for us because we're like, we're we're cool.
19:48We're luxury.
19:49What's this luxury like a pair of Ray Bans?
19:51Fair.
19:52OK, I have two others I'd like to throw an aura ring.
19:54That is one of the things I was going to throw at you.
19:56I think Aura is like a sneakily fascinating company,
19:59and they're way ahead in smart rings.
20:01Smart rings are a lot of people think,
20:03including our own V song about to be a real thing.
20:06I think especially if you're betting that this like health
20:09and fitness thing is going to keep growing really fast.
20:11That's a place to go.
20:13I also think Garmin for kind of the same reasons.
20:15Like, what if we can redesign Garmin's watches
20:18so that they don't look dumb,
20:20but they have all the cool stuff that Garmin already has
20:22that people really like?
20:23I feel like you could make something out of Garmin.
20:25I also my immediate reaction when we did this was snap
20:28because I want the spectacles line.
20:30But I think we go we go Ray-Ban meta smart glasses
20:32and that gets us everywhere.
20:34We're going probably significantly faster.
20:36Yeah, it's basically do we want to go watch ring or glasses?
20:39Totally.
20:40But if we go Samsung, we do watch and ring, right?
20:42Well, so the thing that this I think makes very clear
20:46is you can take any of the watches
20:49and you can do iPhone lock in.
20:51And now you have a realistic competitor
20:52to the Apple watch, right?
20:54Like, yeah, that's the thing that actually holds
20:56a bunch of these companies back
20:58is they cannot communicate with the iPhone, right?
21:01Yeah, but that be cool.
21:03Nilay, it's written.
21:04It's written at the top of the building of our headquarters.
21:07It just says be cool.
21:08What's cooler than lock in?
21:10What's cooler than lock in?
21:11Yeah, the change I'm making is being like,
21:12all right, whoop, you're in like, let's go, you know?
21:15Yeah.
21:15Like you can you can now more directly
21:18figure out Apple integrations.
21:19Buy a ThinkPad, get a whoop, let's go.
21:22But I'm saying that on a six year time horizon,
21:25maybe that is a better move than take the meta Ray-Bans
21:31and figure out how glasses work,
21:32which, by the way, glasses also held back
21:35because they cannot properly integrate with your phone.
21:37Yeah.
21:38This is like a real problem for all these products.
21:40But yeah, that's why like the glasses,
21:43we get them properly integrating with the phone.
21:45Then we also have like an additional audio solution.
21:49When you say an additional audio solution,
21:51that means some headphones.
21:52Well, you know, headphones coming up next.
21:55So you've been a CEO for 20 minutes.
21:58You are already super corporate.
21:59Yeah, we need more than one audio solution
22:02for our company, guys.
22:03I've prepared a deck to talk about this.
22:05We need to be diversified in our audio.
22:08It's good.
22:09It happens to everybody.
22:10It happens just immediate.
22:11Yeah.
22:12But the Garmin has so much cool stuff in it.
22:15They just look so ugly.
22:17And we've got the Apple team now, right?
22:19They can make it look good.
22:21That poor team in Panos Panay just chained to their desk.
22:25We need that team to keep making iPhones, though.
22:27I don't know.
22:27It's not like they're doing a lot.
22:28They're like, take the buttons off it.
22:33That's true.
22:33It's thinner next time.
22:35We did it.
22:36I think you're the tiebreaker.
22:37I think it's between Garmin and Meta.
22:38Once again, David, you have to pull apart this corporate battle.
22:42I think we should pick Meta.
22:44Because I think the Ray-Ban Meta partnership is cool.
22:51I think the glasses are awesome and people really like them.
22:54And I think our ability to integrate them a little
22:57and make them way better for people, instant victory.
23:01I think with the other picks that we have here,
23:04we have a chance to immediately make these things much cooler
23:07in a way that I feel like we're going to have to basically tear down
23:10the Garmin hardware team and build it back up.
23:12And I feel like that's going to take us a while.
23:14Yeah, it's going to be more than six years.
23:16Garmin, please know that I love you.
23:17And you make cool things.
23:18Just make them cooler.
23:20Garmin, if you'd like to integrate with Verge Cast Incorporated's iPhone,
23:24you can pass 55%.
23:25Yeah, we'd love to have you.
23:26We've got some really good audio solutions for you.
23:29The developer program is open
23:31and it will only be slightly more than half of your revenue.
23:35Yeah.
23:35Also, the smart glasses are just cool and I love using them and I want to have them.
23:39So we're going with that.
23:40I feel good about it.
23:41I don't love that we just hired a hardware team out of Meta,
23:45which makes me feel a lot of feelings in general, but it's okay.
23:49We're doing it.
23:50We now know everything about you.
23:53Our privacy policy, by the way, is dope.
23:55Let's just take that for granted.
23:58If you're wondering about our privacy policy, it is sick.
24:01The EU never gets mad at us.
24:02No, it's like not a problem at all.
24:04I should have said at the beginning, by the way, by picking the iPhone,
24:06we did just bring ourselves a delightful antitrust case that I'm not super psyched about.
24:11But I feel like it's one of those that's coming anyway, right?
24:15Lena, call us.
24:16Nilay has been begging to fight an antitrust case.
24:19From this side.
24:20That's really what I've been after this whole time is let me be the monopolist.
24:25It's perfect.
24:25I'm just saying we're raising rents.
24:26If we're going down, we're going down rich.
24:29Yeah.
24:30And by the time any of this comes out, it'll be past 2030.
24:32We'll be out anyway.
24:33It's fine.
24:33I'm not worried about it.
24:34All right.
24:35Next category is headphones.
24:37And here again, we're pretty wide open.
24:40Apple is off the board, but I'm going to allow Beats to stay on the board because it is
24:44different enough that I think will allow it.
24:46Because they don't care about it.
24:47Yeah, pretty much like I don't know if Apple knows that it owns Beats,
24:49so we're just going to let it ride.
24:51But there's also obvious players here.
24:53Bose and Sony and Sonos is a new one.
24:56Just headphones, though.
24:57No, we'll make this headphones slash speakers.
24:59We'll go audio solutions.
25:00Oh, my God.
25:01In Alex Grant's.
25:02I think you know exactly where we're going with this.
25:04Nilay is going to advocate for the party speaker.
25:06Yeah, I'm taking Sony.
25:08Now that's audio solutions.
25:10Yeah, we got a lot wider range.
25:13It's the ULT era.
25:14I mean, you want luxury.
25:16What screams luxury more than the words of Megabass?
25:19A seven foot tall speaker.
25:21By the way, shout out to the Vergecast listeners who just send me pictures of it in the wild.
25:25Amazing.
25:26It's like they're birding, you know, but like only one person cares about birds.
25:30And it's me.
25:32How does it feel to be known for the Cybertruck wiper and Sony party speakers?
25:35Like, is this a good legacy that you're happy about?
25:37Is that on the Cybertruck wiper on the wildcard gadgets?
25:41Cybertruck wiper.
25:42We have two wildcard options.
25:44So don't don't worry for me.
25:46It's Sonos on this one.
25:47Interesting.
25:48I want Sonos real bad because again, we're in this like we want to build cool stuff that's
25:52integrated.
25:53Sonos makes good products.
25:54They know how to make good audio products.
25:55I feel like we could take Sonos and be like, just learn how to make software.
25:59Everything's going to be fine.
26:00Just learn this easy part.
26:01Yeah.
26:02Like, have you heard of apps?
26:03What if we did that?
26:04This could be fine.
26:05So again, I would actually take Sony here, but not just because of the party speaker situation.
26:10I think our headphones are really good.
26:11They are.
26:12My Sony noise cancelers are really good.
26:13I think they compete with Bose to be the top of the market.
26:17Then they've got an actual audio solutions catalog, like an actual array of speakers.
26:22What is one product I want desperately from Sonos?
26:24They won't sell is like a receiver, right?
26:27There's a huge array of those audio products that you can ruthlessly integrate with a phone
26:33in a way that even Sonos can't right now.
26:34That's why they have the software problems.
26:36Their app platform has to support a bunch of stuff because they can't just put it on
26:39your phone directly.
26:41And also Megabase.
26:42I would just get it.
26:43Okay.
26:43I would have it.
26:44Alex, what do you think?
26:45I just really like the Sony headphones.
26:47Okay.
26:47They just have such a nice wider range.
26:50Sonos just got into headphones.
26:52They don't have any in-ear monitors.
26:54They don't have any buds.
26:55Also tough time to be taking over Sonos.
26:57Like real kind of reputation hit.
26:59Oh, you know what you don't have on here?
27:01What's that?
27:02Again, I'm just going to point this out for everyone.
27:05I think the age of televisions is coming to an end because David made a list of gadgets
27:09and didn't put TVs on them.
27:11Yeah.
27:11I don't care.
27:11I know part of me wants to build televisions.
27:14Well, I'll just remind everyone that I asked the CEO of Netflix about the Samsung frame TV.
27:18And he was like, what?
27:19Stop talking to me.
27:21I was like, do you think this is a harbinger of doom?
27:23And he was like, I don't know what you're saying.
27:26But I'm just saying you made an entire list of gadgets and you didn't put TVs on here.
27:30It's a prophecy.
27:31Because he knew you were going to say we're going to acquire the Samsung frame and fix it.
27:35To be clear, not an oversight.
27:36We are not getting in the television business.
27:38What if we made no money and everything was impossible and we had to spy on our users?
27:42All I'm saying is if TVs were on here anywhere, then I would change my headphones pick.
27:48If you're giving me audio solutions, but not TVs, then it's Sony.
27:52If TVs are back on the list, then I have to.
27:56I'm required by blood and heritage to take Sony televisions.
28:00And then I would change my headphones.
28:02So we do have a wildcard round coming later.
28:04And if you think you can win the fight for us to get Sony TVs, you can hold your fire for them.
28:10I'm going to fight for TCL so hard.
28:12Yeah, I don't think you're going to win the Sony TVs fight.
28:14I just don't think we want to be in the TV business.
28:16Well, if I take him off the board here, it's a big, it's a big decision.
28:19How do I get Mac OS on the tablet?
28:21It's kind of, you know, I got to play three moves ahead.
28:24I will be down with Sony here.
28:25By the way, tough beat for Bose that none of us are even attempting to take Bose.
28:29They're fine.
28:30Well, you made it audio solutions.
28:32Right.
28:32If it was just headphones, I would immediately go Bose so I could win the Sony fight later.
28:37Interesting.
28:38Okay.
28:38Yeah.
28:39And I don't, it's just like a bunch of weird scientists in Massachusetts.
28:42Like we don't, we don't need that.
28:44I'll go Sony under one stipulation,
28:46which is that we immediately rename every single product they make to something not stupid.
28:50No, with more letters, twice as many letters and another dash in the middle for no reason.
28:58Just get in there.
29:00Okay.
29:00I think it's Sony.
29:01Okay.
29:02I feel good about this.
29:03I think we're, I think we're aligned.
29:04I can figure something out for TVs.
29:06Yeah.
29:06I feel now obligated to take something from Samsung just so that you can't argue for the
29:10frame TV because I don't need this in my life.
29:12That's not what I was going to take again.
29:14I believe it's a harbinger of doom.
29:17Okay.
29:17So the next two things on here are, I would say the sneaky places.
29:22We're going to make a lot of money.
29:24This is what pays for everything else that the shareholders are going to love.
29:27And we're probably never going to talk about again.
29:30The first one is app platforms, which I suppose could be a single app if we wanted a single app,
29:34but I'm thinking more along the lines of like big groups of things.
29:38So like I had Adobe creative cloud as an option here and Microsoft office and Google workspace.
29:43This is like probably B2B software that is going to make us just a tremendous amount of money.
29:47What do we think?
29:48So I have to go with office.
29:51Okay.
29:51Only for one small reason.
29:53And I can't believe you didn't think of it first, David.
29:55We cannot run this company without Microsoft Excel.
29:57Oh, that's interesting.
29:58No company can be run without Microsoft Excel.
30:00Like just for our own survival.
30:02You know, you can just like pay for a license.
30:05We'll have so much money.
30:06We can just pay for a license for Excel.
30:08But what if other people paid us for licenses?
30:11Yeah.
30:11I'm just saying you want a dog food, you know, you're in work.
30:15Yeah.
30:15But we can have Adobe creative cloud and just have a stranglehold on the entire industry.
30:21You want people to hate us?
30:23We can just like, I love a monopoly.
30:26I'm on this side of things now.
30:28Another antitrust fight that I'm really excited about.
30:30Yeah.
30:31We're only going to be there six years.
30:32By the time that stuff all hits, we'll be long gone.
30:35So I think the upside of creative cloud is we take creative cloud.
30:39We make the pricing better and we're legends, right?
30:41Like instantly best possible PR win is we just like give away Premiere.
30:47We're just like, yeah, you can have it.
30:49No, we sell like rather than the cloud license.
30:51We're like, okay, you can just buy Premiere, but it'll cost a thousand dollars.
30:55Yeah.
30:55Yeah.
30:56Then we make a lot of money and people are happy because they can just own it.
30:59For six years.
31:00Yeah.
31:00For six years.
31:01And then it's gone.
31:02And then, you know, whoever follows us, Panos, I'm sorry.
31:06You're taking over the company from us.
31:08Good luck.
31:08A lot of our ideas are like, what if we made slightly less money?
31:11But that's fine.
31:12Whereas my ideas are what if we made a lot more money?
31:16Yeah.
31:16This says a lot about the distinct vibes of the Vergecast incorporated team.
31:22It's either office or it's creative cloud, right?
31:24I feel like there's nothing else.
31:25Like we could go try to get like Oracle's weird business or like IBM's consulting arm or whatever.
31:30But we haven't picked a Google thing.
31:32Do we not want Google Workspace?
31:34Do we just take Google Workspace and go kill office?
31:37So my idea here, again, you know, our company's mission is try hard.
31:41Yeah.
31:42And Workspace is a ripe target for trying hard.
31:44Yeah.
31:45This is also where you could do messaging.
31:46You could, you know, you could walk in the room and be like,
31:48make a list of all the messaging products and then walk out.
31:51And six months later, come back in and look at the list and circle like this one.
31:55We're just doing this one.
31:56Yeah.
31:57And we're going to name it Gchat.
31:59That's a real, that's a thing you could do here.
32:00It is.
32:01Messaging, I would point out, is a separate category.
32:03So we're going to get to messaging.
32:04But if we, whatever company we pick here, we can't pick there.
32:07Okay.
32:07Which is a case for and against some folks here.
32:10And if we pick Microsoft Office, we can't pick Azure.
32:14If we pick Google Workspace, we can't pick Google Cloud.
32:17That's right.
32:18No one was picking Google Cloud.
32:20Okay, I will concede and say we should pick creative cloud.
32:23And our mission here is to make people not hate us.
32:26Yeah, I think this is where we win over all the people to use our hardware,
32:31because they're going to love.
32:32This is how we sell Lenovo Thinkpads.
32:34Because of 55% lock-in.
32:36You can run creative cloud on someone else's laptop.
32:39It'll just cost four times as much money.
32:42I don't make the rules.
32:44Yeah.
32:44Except for that one.
32:45We just like, the more your company makes, we charge you more.
32:48Like just a sliding scale.
32:50Oh, I like that.
32:51You pay per YouTube subscriber instead of per.
32:54Yeah.
32:57Exactly.
32:58Oh, you're just getting out of this industry.
32:59You basically get it for free.
33:00Right. Yeah.
33:01I love this.
33:02The minute you start making success, we come for our cut.
33:05And if you're wearing our wearable,
33:07we can track your general burnout level as a creator.
33:10And we start bringing the price back down.
33:12Yeah. I love that.
33:12See? Oh my God. Synergy.
33:14We actually turn the app off when you need a rest day.
33:17And then we'll give it back.
33:19Calm down, Jimmy.
33:20Yeah.
33:23All right. So we're good on Creative Cloud?
33:25All right.
33:26I mean, sure.
33:27I think it's the right answer.
33:28That's like, I know I'm the one who has to deal with like,
33:30whatever terms of service conflagration.
33:32It's like, fine, I'll do it.
33:34Yeah. David and I work four days a year.
33:37Oh yeah.
33:37Kranz and I are the ones who like go to Cannes Lions
33:40and like meet with advertisers.
33:41You have to actually like do the things.
33:43I have to write the blog post.
33:44It's like, all right, we changed our terms of service.
33:47It's true that we're going to take your firstborn child.
33:51We're doing this for the good of all humanity.
33:53This is beautiful. I love this for you.
33:54All right.
33:55Next category is the boring B2B money faucets.
33:59This is where we get to pick our cloud provider.
34:02We can make B2B chips that we sell.
34:05I was going to put ARM in here, but we can't have ARM
34:07because ARM's only thing is ARM.
34:09So that doesn't really work.
34:10This is where we make all of our money,
34:13but we try to never talk about in public because no one cares.
34:16Can we take TSMC?
34:18What would you want to take from TSMC?
34:20Making the chips for everybody?
34:21No, that's their whole thing.
34:23But they don't make a product called TSMC.
34:26They don't ship TSMCs around the world.
34:28That would be then just buying the company,
34:29which is not what we're doing.
34:30We're taking products.
34:31You get like one TSMC factory.
34:34This is like an expansion draft in sports, right?
34:36We get to like pick from your roster,
34:37but we can't have your team.
34:38What about that one company in Europe
34:40that actually makes the lithography machine
34:42that TSMC relies on?
34:44That like $23 million machine.
34:46Yeah.
34:47There's only, what's the name of that company?
34:49ASML.
34:49I think we should take ASML.
34:51I think we should take the machine that makes the fabs.
34:53The machine that makes the fabs.
34:54Okay.
34:55Not like Azure?
34:56Yeah, but like, you know,
34:57I'm already defending Creative Cloud.
34:59Like I'm not trying to be out of here.
35:01I just want to print all the money.
35:03Like this is our money printer.
35:05Who gets mad at Azure lately?
35:08No one, but it's also in second place, right?
35:10You have to go make the AI case.
35:13You got to do the AI CRM thing to grow Azure.
35:16I guess we're just milking it for profits
35:18and walking away, right?
35:19Right, we're only here for six years.
35:21And we can't take AWS because we took the Kindle.
35:23Right.
35:23Yeah.
35:24Which is a very funny trade to have made
35:27if you're trying to build a business.
35:30We could take Whisper from OpenAI.
35:33Whisper's open source.
35:34We're good there.
35:35Oh yeah.
35:35But also OpenAI, it's on this list as a money faucet,
35:38but it is not.
35:39It's like a reverse, it's a drain.
35:41Oh, true.
35:42I meant to write this as basically like,
35:43if we want, we can take like GPT 4.0 from OpenAI.
35:48Which still, which they are now in a stunning business judo move
35:53or giving away for free to Apple.
35:55Yeah, no, I don't think that's the winner,
35:58but I wanted to have an AI option here.
36:00Let's take NVIDIA GeForce now.
36:03Yeah, so this is the thing.
36:04How do we get something from NVIDIA?
36:06This is my question.
36:07What do we take from NVIDIA?
36:08Is it just the H100 business?
36:10Do we just take NVIDIA's whole AI chip situation?
36:15I'm telling you, you buy ASML and then you're like,
36:19if you use these machines to make H100s, 55%.
36:26That is a pretty good money faucet.
36:28I feel like we will be ripe for disruption there.
36:31Yeah, I think taking the NVIDIA AI chip business
36:36is like a strong move.
36:38Because now you're selling to Google Cloud and Azure.
36:40And on a six-year horizon, they all want to disrupt you,
36:42but they won't be able to.
36:43So I was about to say, do we worry that every other chip
36:46maker on earth is going to start making these
36:48and this becomes a bad bet pretty soon?
36:50That's Panos' problem in six years.
36:52Yeah, not in six years, baby.
36:54Okay.
36:54In six years, I'm on a boat.
36:56I mean, the other problem here is that if we take that,
37:00the bubble bursts and we become the poster child
37:03of the AI bubble that just burst.
37:05And that's going to happen in less than six years.
37:07That's true.
37:08This is why I'm saying we should take ASML, the chip company.
37:11That is like the least sexy business
37:13you could possibly imagine in that.
37:15I doubt there's as much money in it
37:16because I don't think they can make all that many of those.
37:20It's like Samsung and their battery business.
37:22Actually, maybe this is a good idea,
37:24where Samsung just makes a bunch of random stuff
37:26that makes them a ton of money.
37:27Oh, yeah, we could take LG Display right here.
37:29Oh, that's good.
37:32Right, like you want to put an OLED in your phone?
37:34Come talk to Lucky Gold Star, you know?
37:36Wait, I like that a lot.
37:37I was like, LG Display, that feels like it.
37:40The way we all were just like, yeah.
37:42And that feels sticky.
37:44They're going to make screens for a long time.
37:45I feel like we're in.
37:46And that's easy.
37:47It runs itself.
37:48We're good.
37:48All right, I love this.
37:50And we love talking about it.
37:51We do.
37:52You want to talk about dual-layer OLEDs?
37:54Let's go.
37:55Do you feel like this gets you close enough
37:56to the TV business that you're happy now, Nilay?
37:59They make the panels that go in your son's.
38:01It's true.
38:01They do make the panels.
38:04Fine, I got myself a monitor and TV business.
38:06We're going to take LG Display, and we're going to make TVs.
38:10And then we're just going to bolt two Sony Party speakers to it.
38:14Boom.
38:14You think we won't sell these tomorrow?
38:16Come on.
38:17Come on.
38:18Some little pulsing lights at the bottom.
38:19Yeah.
38:20Okay.
38:21All right, nailed it.
38:21That's good.
38:21LG Display.
38:22This is great.
38:23I'm in.
38:23All right, we're going to take one more break,
38:25and then we're going to come back.
38:26We got four more to do.
38:27We're going to build first casting.
38:28Be right back.
38:29All right, we're back.
38:37Next up for the triumvirate at Vergecast Incorporated is messaging.
38:43We can take, again, not a company.
38:46So we can't take Signal from Signal or Telegram from Telegram.
38:49But we can take and reinvent any messaging app or platform or ecosystem that we want.
38:54We can't take from Meta, which I just realized,
38:57because we took the Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, which I now slightly regret,
39:00because I would like to have taken WhatsApp.
39:02So we can take all of the different Google Chats that have existed and finally make one?
39:07Yeah.
39:08This is our opportunity.
39:09Yeah.
39:09We can make Gchat.
39:11Done.
39:12Done.
39:13All right.
39:14I can solve this.
39:16I mean, again, on the list of do it and be legends, finally making Gchat is way up there.
39:21Just making Gchat.
39:22And then I got the phone, so your blue bubble problems are solved.
39:27Yeah.
39:27Oh.
39:28Yeah, we don't have to worry about Messenger.
39:29We just put blue bubbles on the iPhone.
39:31Yeah, super.
39:32Whoa.
39:33This is even, why are we even, Gchat, baby.
39:35I met my wife on there.
39:36That's a real story, by the way.
39:37That's not just a case in point.
39:38That is a real thing, yeah.
39:39Becky and I spent years of our early relationship in Gchat and nowhere else.
39:44Do you ever randomly find the transcripts of those
39:47chats when you're searching for something in your Gmail?
39:49This is a thing that happens to me occasionally.
39:51I'll search for pizza in my Gmail and it'll be like,
39:54did you mean this conversation you had with your ex 11 years ago that we saved in Gmail?
39:59Ooh, I haven't thought about that and now I'm worried about looking.
40:02Don't look, don't look.
40:03We're going to set that aside.
40:05Don't look, it's no good.
40:05It's probably for the best.
40:07All of those Gchat conversations were before we were dating,
40:10so they were just conversations about the things we had gotten up to at night,
40:15which is a lot of things.
40:16I love it.
40:16Yeah.
40:17It's very good.
40:17Yeah.
40:18All right.
40:18The only other one I would throw in is Slack,
40:20which I think is like a forever unrealized potential that-
40:25Or Discord.
40:26So, but we can't take Discord because Discord is Discord, right?
40:28Like that's, that's, it's off the-
40:31I thought somebody else owned Discord now.
40:32No, they almost sold, but it's still just Discord.
40:35Microsoft was gonna, but then they were like,
40:37this seems like a disaster, which probably reasonable call.
40:40Gchat being good, like we're going to kind of win people over with, with Adobe,
40:47but eventually we will jack up the prices on them and having like,
40:51yeah, just having Gchat there as like instant win.
40:54Oh yeah.
40:55All right.
40:55I feel good about this.
40:56It's Gchat.
40:57And we're, we're agreed that we're scrapping all the other nonsense
41:00and we're calling it Gchat, right?
41:01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:02Without, yeah, easily.
41:03We are building the Gchat that always should have existed.
41:05Next one is streaming service,
41:07which is actually fun because again, we can't steal a company.
41:10So like Netflix is out.
41:11Oh shit.
41:12We just traded Gchat for YouTube.
41:14Oh crap, we did.
41:16Oh no.
41:17No, no.
41:17Can we go back?
41:18No, we can take TikTok.
41:20Oh, we can take TikTok.
41:21Yeah, you're right.
41:22We can take TikTok.
41:23For now, it's on by chance.
41:25So.
41:25Oh, we can buy, we're it.
41:26We're going to save America.
41:28Yeah, we're, we're buying it.
41:29Yeah.
41:30There we, oh my God.
41:32Why dude, the wildcard round here is amazing.
41:34We're going to, we're going to be heroes with Gchat
41:36and we're going to save America's youth.
41:37Oh wow.
41:38We just did it.
41:39This is, this is, we're now the coolest company on earth.
41:43Okay.
41:43Yeah.
41:44And the good news is this one isn't even going to be very expensive
41:46because they're desperately trying to get rid of it.
41:48Yeah.
41:49Eat your heart out Oracle.
41:50We do have to fight the Chinese government and Larry Ellison.
41:53It'll be fine.
41:53Do you think at the end to buy TikTok,
41:55you have to win a boat race against Larry Ellison?
41:58He's like, I'll do this.
41:59If you can beat me in the America's cup.
42:01Let's yacht about it.
42:04Okay.
42:05So I will just say there's a bunch of Disney streaming services that are interesting.
42:09ESPN would make us an awful lot of money for a pretty long time.
42:13Hulu exists.
42:15Disney plus exists.
42:16We could have Apple TV plus and have all the good shows.
42:19Yeah.
42:19But those are also dependent on external licenses that we might not acquire.
42:24True.
42:25With our streaming service acquisition, right?
42:27We're not getting the rights to Star Wars.
42:29We get, we get all the existing contracts.
42:32Yeah.
42:32But I think you're right.
42:32If we get Disney plus we get, we don't get to own Star Wars.
42:35You're right.
42:36The economics of streaming are very simple.
42:38There's a handful of companies who think the Samsung frame TV will continue to exist.
42:43Their business model is they pay a lot of money for content
42:46and then try to pay, make people pay money for it.
42:50The other model is TikTok gets free content from America's teenagers
42:55and then sells ads against it.
42:56And not for nothing, an infinite array of pirated movies
43:00from the idiots who are paying for content.
43:02Yeah.
43:02It's gotta be TikTok.
43:03You're just sort of the economics of the business.
43:05Like, do you want to have costs or not costs?
43:07But again, TikTok, not famously making a ton of money right now.
43:10Well, cause they're, they're, you know, we're, we'll fix that.
43:1255%.
43:13No, no.
43:14It's, it's, we, we do something like deal with Adobe Creative Cloud
43:18where we somehow charge our own creators.
43:19Well, we're going to have to, because if we get TikTok, we don't get CapCut.
43:22So we're going to have to immediately put the Creative Cloud team on building CapCut.
43:27So that people would.
43:27The TikTok video editor is CapCut.
43:29So we just spin it out.
43:30It's good enough.
43:31Yeah.
43:31Like it'll work.
43:31And we call it CutCat.
43:32We can probably, CutCat.
43:33There we go.
43:34All right.
43:34TikTok and CutCat.
43:36We've done it.
43:36All right.
43:37I think that's right.
43:38I feel good about it.
43:38I like briefly wanted to fight for Prime Video just because it is like,
43:42it's another one that is like, try harder.
43:45Oh no, we took Kindle.
43:46God.
43:47Yeah, we took Kindle.
43:48The amount of money that costs, that taking Kindle has cost us.
43:51Good Lord.
43:52I mean, it is very funny that we took Kindle and Google Chat.
43:56That's what we took from those companies.
43:58I will say if, if we want to go back and take Slack and YouTube, we have a chance.
44:02No, we're committed.
44:04Is there anything cooler than fixing GChat?
44:07That might be the single most important thing we do at this company.
44:10I feel really good about it.
44:11I mean, the teens will prefer us for TikTok.
44:13That's true.
44:14Okay.
44:14So we have two more categories, one of which I just changed two minutes ago,
44:18and I'm very excited about it.
44:19So far, we have the iPhone business from Apple.
44:22We have the Kindle business from Amazon, the PC business from Lenovo.
44:27We're doing all of Meta's wearables.
44:29We haven't decided yet if we're killing the Quest,
44:31but we're probably killing the Quest.
44:32We're all in on the smart glasses.
44:34We're taking Sony's audio solutions.
44:36We're taking Adobe Creative Cloud.
44:38We're taking LG display, and we're taking GChat.
44:42Well, we're taking the mess of Google's messaging systems,
44:45which I think actually probably means we hire most of Google
44:47because everybody's working on messaging in one way or another.
44:50And we're making GChat.
44:52And then we are saving America and taking over TikTok.
44:55How do we feel so far?
44:56Feel good?
44:56There's so many rules.
44:57I'm feeling great.
44:57I really feel like it does.
44:59Lenovo is still very much the like weird one out,
45:02but we're going to make Lenovo cool again.
45:04It's going to be great.
45:05Yeah, we'll fix it.
45:06Okay, so we have two left, which one is wildcard gadgets,
45:10which is I think the rules still apply.
45:12So we can't take from a company we've already taken from,
45:14but we can take from any category,
45:16including categories we have not talked about.
45:18So it's some other product that Vergecast Inc.
45:21is going to make that is not off limits
45:23because we've already taken from another company.
45:25We can do TVs.
45:27This is where we take the Cybertruck
45:28if we want to take the Cybertruck.
45:30Anything you guys want.
45:31Any initial thoughts?
45:32Anything you're excited about?
45:34Well, so this is where I was going to back
45:35into taking LG's TVs.
45:36Okay, too late.
45:37But then we already have LG Display.
45:39I think this is better.
45:40We have the part of the business that's like good
45:42and not the part of the business that is webOS.
45:44I feel really good about LG Display and not LG TVs.
45:47Have you guys heard of a company called Stores & Bickle?
45:50Is this how we get into like bespoke whiskey?
45:52No, this is how we get in.
45:53We just get the Volcano.
45:55They make a whole bunch of different vapes.
45:56We just get the Volcano business.
45:58Okay.
45:58And then we make one that looks really, really cool.
46:02We put a big screen on it.
46:04We put some big speakers on the side.
46:06Just a whole one-stop party business.
46:09Just for Alex Kranz.
46:10It was just, you know,
46:11legalization is coming for this country.
46:13We gotta be there at the start.
46:15I'm not feeling that.
46:16I gotta tell you.
46:17I just feel like if we were in this till 2040.
46:20Yeah, that makes sense.
46:21I'd be down.
46:222030 feels iffy.
46:23And that's just like a lot of legislation stuff.
46:26All right, I'm just, I'm throwing this out there.
46:29The NVIDIA Shield.
46:30Oh yeah, we didn't do NVIDIA, did we?
46:32We took LG Display for NVIDIA's GPU business.
46:36We're doing really well.
46:37This gets us the Tigra.
46:39Yeah.
46:40Why this?
46:40Because I think between Kranz and I,
46:43we can communicate with an audience of TV.
46:45We can bring the Shield back to prominence.
46:47This is a try harder booth.
46:49Look, if you look on the forums right now,
46:51people are like, the Shield isn't it anymore.
46:53It's true.
46:54And it was for a long time.
46:55There's a lot of people who are like,
46:56what you want to do is run Infuse on Apple TV.
46:58And I think that's a shame.
47:00Interesting.
47:00Yeah, we're not getting Infuse.
47:02Do we want to get into the car business
47:03is my big question here.
47:05No, because to be a successful car maker,
47:07you got to make a shoe.
47:08You got to make a midsize crossover.
47:10And that's just not for us.
47:11Okay.
47:12But again, we would take all the infrastructure
47:14required to do it.
47:15So we'd be up and running making Kia Fortes tomorrow.
47:18We're not buying Kia.
47:19We're not.
47:20We're just taking the Forte.
47:22I was like, I don't want any part of the Kia Hyundai business.
47:26They keep that.
47:27Neil, you don't want the Mustang Mach-E.
47:29This is your moment.
47:30Take the Mach-E, man.
47:31It's a shoe.
47:32I'm just telling you, I'm not making a midsize crossover.
47:35All right.
47:35No, thank you.
47:36Like, if you're going to let me be like crazy about it,
47:39you know, let's get nuts.
47:40But I don't, that business is too wackadoo.
47:44I talked to a lot of car CEOs.
47:46They're all insane.
47:48Like, that's what will tear us apart.
47:50Okay.
47:50Wait, I thought of it.
47:51Okay.
47:52Samsung's barely alive digital camera business.
47:56Oh, I like getting into the camera business.
47:58Oh, and then we can actually make them smartphones, right?
48:01Yeah.
48:01We actually take, you do the thing where you make the smartphone mirrorless camera.
48:04Exactly.
48:06Interesting.
48:06Does Samsung still make cameras?
48:08Do we want Samsung's though?
48:09Or do we want like Fuji's X100 business?
48:12Yeah.
48:13And then the solution is you just make them.
48:15Right.
48:15Make more of them.
48:16Let people buy them who would like them.
48:19Yeah.
48:19I like that.
48:20I like taking a camera.
48:21That's actually a great idea.
48:22Yeah.
48:22And then we fix the software so that it like doesn't take you 12 hours just to change a setting.
48:28Yeah.
48:29Sony cameras, but with menus that humans beings can navigate.
48:33Yeah.
48:33But I do think Fuji is like a good, in terms of wildcard gadget for our brand, especially.
48:39And then we do like a limited release of the iPhone and the Fuji,
48:41and they have like the same look to them.
48:44We'd sell a lot of money.
48:45That's pretty good.
48:46All right.
48:46So we're taking, we're taking Fuji's X100.
48:49All right.
48:50Yeah.
48:50Yeah.
48:51I like it.
48:51And then last category, the one I just added a minute ago, I had another non-gadget wildcard,
48:58but I think that's boring.
48:59So what we're going to do instead is we're going to buy a startup.
49:01Yeah.
49:01I know my answer right away.
49:02Really?
49:03Yeah.
49:03I really hope it's the same one.
49:05It's Rivian.
49:05Oh, so you want to get into the car business.
49:10Because they don't make a shoe.
49:13They also famously lose all the money in the world.
49:16Sure.
49:16But 55%, I can fix it.
49:18If you want a Rivian, you have to buy an iPhone.
49:22Rivians are now in-app purchases on iPhones.
49:2555%.
49:27What about like, we could get SSI.
49:29We could have like just the AI guy.
49:31There's just one guy.
49:32We're all ready.
49:34I mean, in that case, is OpenAI still a startup?
49:36Because that would be another.
49:37I was just about to say, I think OpenAI counts.
49:39But you want something, you want like a startup.
49:41You want like an earthy.
49:42So my vote, if we're buying an AI company, I want to buy Anthropic.
49:46Yeah.
49:47Yeah.
49:47Which is, I would say, less valued, but also way less problematic.
49:52And they're actually making products, right?
49:54Their product is moving along fast.
49:56They're like kind of right in the mix with Google and OpenAI.
49:59I don't know that I want to deal with the like Sam Altman of it all, if I'm being honest.
50:04And SEO is notoriously difficult to get rid of.
50:07Yeah, exactly.
50:08So if we're going AI, and that was one of my instincts, my vote would be Anthropic.
50:13I also think like a company like Notion would be an interesting one for us to buy.
50:17Potentially a lot of money there.
50:18Is Notion a startup?
50:19They've been around for a long time.
50:20This gets us into like, what is a startup zone?
50:23Yeah, like is Stripe still a startup?
50:25They're doing pretty well.
50:26I like the idea of Anthropic though.
50:28Like that is firmly a startup.
50:30Yeah, Anthropic counts, I think.
50:32Like Rivian has factories.
50:34Is that a startup when it has factories?
50:36Fair.
50:38It is just pretty much a car company.
50:40Yeah.
50:41But Nili, the problem is if we buy Rivian, they're gonna, we have six years to convince
50:45you to make a shoe.
50:46We will convince you to make a shoe.
50:47Look, the R3X is very close to a shoe.
50:50But it's a cool shoe.
50:53That's all I got for you.
50:54So okay, the other Anthropic question is, do we want to be in the AI game?
50:57Like, are we?
50:58No.
50:59We don't need a move.
51:00Not really.
51:01Because then we have to deal with copyright stuff.
51:03Nili's got a lot of blogs he's going to have to write already.
51:06Like apology blogs.
51:07I don't, we don't need more.
51:09Yeah, Nili is definitely the one testifying in Congress, right?
51:12We're all on the same page about that.
51:14Yeah.
51:14I have several other options for you.
51:15Can I throw some options at you?
51:17I love an option.
51:17We could buy DJI, another company that might need some saving in America that does some
51:22interesting stuff.
51:23But not a startup.
51:24So you, this is not just companies we could buy.
51:26Is it not a startup?
51:27Super not a startup.
51:28Yeah, you're probably right.
51:29Okay, fine.
51:30That doesn't count.
51:31There's the like Canvas and Figmas of the world that also are kind of iffy on whether
51:35they're startups.
51:36But like if we're in the creator world with Creative Cloud, we fold that in.
51:40The FTC won't allow it.
51:41Yeah.
51:42These aren't the rules.
51:43Canva is 10 years old and has a $26 billion value.
51:46It's just like not a startup.
51:49Like you want to go, you need some installer shit.
51:52Like what's some like weird two person app?
51:55Oh, interesting.
51:55Let's get Carrot.
51:57Does Discord count?
51:58No, not a startup.
52:00If Rivian isn't a startup, none of these other things are startups that you're mentioning.
52:03Okay, fair enough.
52:05I think Anthropic is the best idea I have.
52:07Yeah, Anthropic is good.
52:08I think I'm buying Anthropic.
52:09Yeah.
52:10It's like we're going to like run them off to the side, though.
52:13We're going to sort of Instagram Anthropic where it's like you do your thing, and if
52:16you become really successful, we'll ruin it for you eventually.
52:19But until then, like you're kind of this is like your problem.
52:23And like if you get in trouble, that's your problem and not ours.
52:27We're going to call them like the Moonshot Factory or whatever.
52:29Well, I think just having them collab on making Siri not suck would be like huge.
52:34Yeah.
52:34Oh, yeah, because we do need Siri to not suck.
52:36That's pretty important.
52:38Big, big change for us.
52:39Okay.
52:40All right.
52:40Anthropic it is.
52:41Welcome to the team, Anthropic people.
52:44How do you feel about party speakers, Anthropic?
52:46How can you make AI accelerated?
52:49Make these LEDs blink smarter than ever.
52:52We have a lot of audio solutions that are ready for you.
52:55Okay, I feel like we've done this.
52:57Can I recap for you?
52:58Yes.
52:59At VergeCast Incorporated, here are the things that we make now.
53:03We have the iPhone business.
53:05We have the Kindle business and all that that entails.
53:08Lenovo PCs are now VergeCast PCs.
53:11Meta's whole wearables thing, the Quest and the Ray-Ban smart glasses.
53:16That's us now.
53:17Sony's audio solutions, headphones, party speakers, the whole jam.
53:20That's ours now.
53:21Yes.
53:22Adobe Creative Cloud is our big software app platform play.
53:26LG Display is now ours.
53:28We are just fabbing it up for everybody.
53:30If you want a TV, hit up the VergeCast.
53:33I love this.
53:34That feels right.
53:35We are taking over all of Google's messaging shenanigans and turning them into GChat,
53:39which might be the single hardest thing we've signed ourselves up for.
53:41This is what kills us, I want to be clear.
53:44It's like the guitarist and the singer start arguing a little bit and then Oasis breaks up.
53:48That's messaging.
53:52Joe Biden just gave us TikTok.
53:54Congrats to us.
53:55Big day.
53:55We now have Fujifilm's X100 business and Anthropic is now part of VergeCast Incorporated.
54:02How do we feel?
54:02This feels good.
54:03This feels great.
54:04This is the right combo of things.
54:06We're doing a little bit of good.
54:08We're doing a little bit more evil.
54:10We're making some money and then we're going to fix messages.
54:13We are incredibly deep into hardware.
54:16My only worry is should we not have done LG Display and pick something that is more like
54:20cloud software, AI-y?
54:22No, no, no.
54:23Because if we own the hardware, then they all have to do it.
54:25We got AI.
54:26We got Anthropic.
54:27Yeah.
54:27We got Anthropic and the iPhone.
54:30We have all the power.
54:31And Anthropic is like their whole thing is they want to be like a B2B thing.
54:35So that could eventually pay dividends for us.
54:38And we have most of Google because we acquired all of Google Messaging.
54:41Yeah.
54:41And we're just printing money on increasing creative cloud fees.
54:45Yeah.
54:46Just to be clear.
54:47Right.
54:47Microsoft is going to be paying us so much money for their creative cloud.
54:51I think there's money to be had.
54:52Again, TikTok's business model is they pirate content.
54:56What are we going to do with the TikTok shop?
54:58What's our first move with the TikTok shop?
54:59Oh, we are 55%.
55:01Yeah.
55:02Straight up.
55:03You want to transact in the TikTok shop?
55:05We're taking the fees.
55:06Yeah.
55:06We just charge outrageous fees there, except for our own products.
55:10In which case, we don't charge a fee at all.
55:12Oh, yeah.
55:13The self-preferencing is going to be out of control on all of these.
55:17Do you want good Photoshop?
55:18You have to use our X100 camera.
55:20Otherwise, you get bad Photoshop.
55:21Really sorry.
55:22This is actually great.
55:23It's like, why do these companies act like this?
55:25And it's like, we're pretending we run the company.
55:28We are going to be so evil.
55:29We started out trying to do a good job, and now we're doing this.
55:31We're just the most evil.
55:32Lena Kahn just waiting behind us all right now.
55:36Yeah.
55:37All right.
55:37Well, I think we've solved it.
55:38I feel like we're easily a trillion-dollar company right off the bat here.
55:42Immediately.
55:43Our website is going to be sick, by the way.
55:45That's very important to me.
55:46We're going to give all our products cool names,
55:48and our website is going to be so tight with a good, understandable URL scheme.
55:53These are the things I care about.
55:55I'm going to run the naming of everything.
55:57You guys can run the company.
55:58But I'm in charge of names.
55:59Yeah.
55:59The speakers will have real names.
56:02Yeah.
56:02More letters.
56:03I could continue to say this.
56:05There's only one solution.
56:07But I think it's right.
56:08It's no more numbers.
56:09It's just all letters.
56:10And you have to guess what the letters mean.
56:12Because they're in no order.
56:13It's just consonants.
56:14And you have to guess.
56:15That's all of our products from now on.
56:17I love it.
56:17I'm very excited.
56:18And I promise the people, Megabase is coming back.
56:21Oh, absolutely.
56:22Megabase is coming to many new products.
56:23We have new places to put Megabase.
56:25The iPhone is going to have a hardware Megabase button.
56:28We're going to rattle your head off with the smart glasses with Megabase.
56:32We will give you and solve your migraines all at once.
56:35Gchat Megabase.
56:38Every time you type, just a...
56:41All right.
56:41Well, it's been an honor.
56:43Thank you for joining this company with me.
56:44This is wonderful.
56:45This is going to be a wild six years.
56:47Yeah.
56:48We're going to make so much money.
56:49Panos, have fun.
56:50And then go to jail.
56:52No, Panos goes to jail.
56:54We're out.
56:54We're out.
56:55Lina Khan, you know how to reach us.
56:56Yeah.
56:57All right.
56:57Thank you guys.
56:58We'll do this again soon.
56:59Thank you.
57:01All right.
57:02That is it for the Vergecast today.
57:03Thanks to Nila and Alex for doing this weird thing with me.
57:06And thank you as always for listening.
57:08As you can tell, we have a lot of thoughts on all this, but I want to hear yours too.
57:12We're going to put some links in the show notes to coverage we've done of these companies.
57:15But I really want to know what you think.
57:17What did we pick wrong?
57:18What did we pick right?
57:19What would you have picked differently?
57:21How would you build your tech company?
57:23You can always email us at Vergecast at theverge.com.
57:26Call the hotline 866-VERGE11.
57:28Tell us all your thoughts on Vergecast Inc.
57:31If you have thoughts on anything else, hit up the hotline, send us an email.
57:34We love hearing from you.
57:35This show is produced by Andrew Marino, Liam James, and Will Poore.
57:38The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
57:41Nila, Alex, and I will be back on Friday to talk about all of the upcoming news.
57:46There's a lot of gadgets about to come, plus some more weirdness in the AI world and lots more.
57:52We'll see you then.
57:53Rock and roll.
57:56♪