SPEAKER_00: Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. It's going to be a great full news show. Molly is back from her coronavirus vacation. I lived. You survived. You're back. You lasted eight days.

David Friedberg: You felt terrible. You know, on the ninth day, already calling in sick in the second week.

SPEAKER_06: I really like this. Unbelievable. I really like the best. That's all that matters. Right up top.

SPEAKER_07: The big news story of 2022. I mean, this may remain the biggest tech story of the year.

SPEAKER_09: It's certainly on January 18th. We started the year off with a bang.

SPEAKER_13: For crying out loud, Microsoft announced that it's buying the troubled and yet historic game studio Activision Blizzard for 69 billion dollars. We think it's like 75 billion all in that it'll end up being the biggest tech acquisition of all time if federal regulators let it go through.

SPEAKER_14: We'll talk about that as well. Stick with us. It's going to be a great show.

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SPEAKER_00: Okay. Microsoft has announced they would be acquiring Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal for 75 billion dollars. This would be Microsoft's largest acquisition ever right after LinkedIn, which I think was right around the 29 to $30 million mark. Another incredible, incredible acquisition for Microsoft. GeekWired, in fact, gave us this beautiful chart

SPEAKER_22: here to show just how meaningful this acquisition is. If you took the next couple of acquisitions and combined them, it wouldn't be as long as that blue bar for this pending acquisition. Nuance,

SPEAKER_00: which is the language company, Skype. We remember that getting bought, GitHub, Nokia, other things they bought over the years, Yammer, David Sachs' company. This is the equivalent of 75 Yammers. It's

SPEAKER_22: the equivalent of a half dozen Skypes, right? It's a very big. So why are they doing this? I think Microsoft would like to become Netflix for games. CEO Satya Nadell said that back in January of 2019. Right now, the world has 3 billion gamers. I think that's out of 7 billion people on the

SPEAKER_00: planet. And Microsoft expects 1.5 billion more to be gaming in 2030. In other words, the majority of humans enjoy gaming. And that's 4.5 billion gamers, according to Microsoft. Let's throw to this 57

SPEAKER_22: second clip. And it's a lot of word salad. But after this 57 clip, 57 second clip, I'd like to get your

SPEAKER_30: thoughts, Molly. Our vision is for a river of entertainment where the content and commerce flow freely, driving a renaissance across the entire industry to make games more inclusive and accessible to all. And together with Activision Blizzard, that's what we will be able to deliver. Removing these barriers will only become more important as the digital and physical worlds come together and the Metaverse platform develops. When we think about our vision for what a Metaverse can be, we believe there won't be a single centralized Metaverse. And there shouldn't be. We need to support many Metaverse platforms, as well as a robust ecosystem of content, commerce, and applications. In gaming, we see the Metaverse as a collection of communities and individual identities anchored

SPEAKER_31: in strong content franchises, accessible on every device, a river, a river. Okay, I'm assuming,

SPEAKER_35: was that Satya Nadella? That was Satya Nadella. Yeah. Sorry. What are your thoughts on this

SPEAKER_37: acquisition? Why now? What's the background here? Let's start there. Yeah, I mean, this is like,

SPEAKER_38: I don't want to state the obvious here. But this is big. It is a big deal. It's not just a big deal, because it's a big crap ton of money. I would actually really be curious to know a little, like, real-time assignment for our producers. What is the biggest tech acquisition ever and where this sits in that stack? Because this is a very big amount of money. I think that we tend to forget how quietly dominant Microsoft has been making itself in gaming over the years. Like, Minecraft seemed like a big acquisition at the time, and we sort of had no idea. And Microsoft has been very quietly gobbling up game studios for the last few years and making more and more titles exclusive to Xbox. Like, at some point, this company clearly said, Xbox is not a hobby for us. You know, it had been kind of a side business. And they went, like, this is a way to keep... And they launched Game Pass. They've put

SPEAKER_13: everything into this subscription model that just keeps recurring revenue over and over and over.

SPEAKER_00: There it is. Consumer SaaS. Subscriptions are magical, whether it's Netflix or Spotify or Calm, one of our investments, Steezy for Dance. And that's why we're obsessed with it as well. And people are obsessed with SaaS, like Slack. This would be the largest tech acquisition, I believe, ever. If you remember, Dell bought EMC, which was more like a merger, and that was $67 billion. Yeah. What are the games here? And how does this change gaming? Because you have, you know, the Microsoft platform, which is the default for desktop gaming, you have Xbox, which I believe is the largest console. And, you know, they don't have a foothold on casual gaming on Android and mobile and iOS. But what are the names here? And, you know, because you have

SPEAKER_22: Activision and Blizzard. We know Blizzard had, like, Diablo and some of those, like... And World of Warcraft. And World of Warcraft. A lot of subscription stuff there, right? World of Warcraft,

SPEAKER_51: one of these original subscriptions. And also Overwatch, which was, like, huge for just a hot

SPEAKER_52: minute, you know? Yeah. Is Call of Duty in this cohort? But yes, exactly. That's what I'm getting to.

SPEAKER_09: The big gorilla here is freaking Call of Duty. With this acquisition, Microsoft has Halo and Call of

SPEAKER_13: Duty in the same... I mean, if they put Call of Duty on Game Pass to use... to steal the phrase directly from my brother, that RIP PlayStation. Like, done. This is just massive for people who are into first-person shooters. Hardcore gamers have something to love here, big time, because Call of Duty, I think, might be the biggest game in the world. That's bananas. And then they also get

SPEAKER_55: Activision Blizzard bought King. I'm, like, so worked up because I can't believe they have Halo and Call of

SPEAKER_56: Duty. Mobile, you're right. I forgot about that. So King is mobile. So all of a sudden...

SPEAKER_00: That's Clash of Clans and Candy Crush. And Candy Crush. And it's fine with your ass. Clash of Clans was the thing that, uh, they were doing over there at King?

SPEAKER_60: I think so. That's a Scandinavian country. Crash Bandicoot?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Yeah. They also get StarCraft, which is a, you know, was one of my favorites. Oh, yeah. Which is a big eSports. Big eSports. Right? So that could be very powerful if they launch... I think the last StarCraft to come out was StarCraft 2. Like, I don't understand how they could have a franchise like StarCraft, Blizzard, and not release another one. Real-time strategy bonanza. And I... there was that... what was that game that came out that's real-time

SPEAKER_61: strategy that I think people got obsessed with that kind of replaced it. Hmm. It'll come to

SPEAKER_62: me in a minute. Or maybe one of the noties we'll remember. Probably.

SPEAKER_61: Um, hmm. Anyway...

SPEAKER_13: I mean, honestly, I think, like, for hardcore gamers, this is all about Call of Duty. A hundred percent. And bringing those into the same fold and putting it all on that... on, uh, Game Pass. And... and the question of what will they make exclusive and what won't they? How big is Game Pass? And then let's

SPEAKER_22: talk about exclusives after that. Because this reminds me of Disney Plus. If I was going to build an analogy. Totally. Disney was selling their content, if you remember, to Netflix. That's why we had Daredevil and, you know, was it Jessica Jones and all these different, you know, um, IP was licensed to Netflix, but then Disney came out with their own. So this feels analogous. Sock 2 compliance is

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SPEAKER_13: twist for $1,000 off. Game Pass has 25 million subscribers. What? That's its subscription. Yeah. I mean, again, this, these are the things you just don't think about, right? You're like, huh? Is Microsoft big in gaming? I don't really know. Hmm. Yeah. Turns out 25 million subscribers globally. And those numbers are as of today via GameSpot. And that's 10 bucks a month, I think. Yeah. Something like that. I mean, I'm a subscriber. It's basically the replacement for Xbox Gold, but now you get game downloads instead of spending 60 bucks a pop. So they obviously just pulled in a

SPEAKER_38: ton more excited subscribers. And then there's just the part, I mean, the part I find really interesting aside from just the sheer, oh my goodness of it, right? The dominance. I mean,

SPEAKER_13: this is like such an alpha play. I almost can't even believe it. But they also get Activision Blizzard

SPEAKER_38: at a time when its stock is down 30% because the, you know, it's been kind of a show.

SPEAKER_68: Right. They've had all the scandals. So was the stock depressed because of the scandals?

SPEAKER_38: Was that the headwind on the stock? I think that was a big part of it. Yeah. I mean, they were sued by the state of California in June over this culture of quote, constant sexual

SPEAKER_13: harassment. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing said, you know, essentially it's awful. There have been questions about whether the CEO was going to leave. And the thing that I was actually waiting for as this news sort of unfolded throughout the day was

SPEAKER_38: what is going to happen. And according to the Wall Street Journal, sources close to the deal said that Bobby Kotick, Activision's longtime CEO, is expected to leave after the deal closes, which is expected, by the way, in Q1 2023, which leads to the other interesting part of this, which is like, really, though, do we really think the FTC and the DOJ, which just made an announcement today about how they're going to get a lot more hardcore at looking at big acquisitions are going to let this go through easy peasy? What do you think? I think they'll let this one go through because

SPEAKER_00: it is tiny when compared to Microsoft's overall revenue and the other players in the space. I don't

SPEAKER_86: know that this one kills competition in gaming. It might kill PlayStation. I don't know, man. Well, it depends on whether America's problem. So,

SPEAKER_00: you know, here's one of the things with the thumb on the scale. What presidents who appoint people to do antitrust, right? This is a very political thing. Netflix and Google under Obama didn't seem to have any problems, right? And Apple and Google didn't have many problems under Trump. Yep. Um, and this is where it gets very complex. Do you want Microsoft to beat Sony? Well, America wants Microsoft to beat Sony. Um, and that would then, you know, if the, if we are not,

SPEAKER_22: we have no control over what Sony buys, unless it was an American company, I suppose, we have little control, but do we really want to ankle? Do we really want to put sandbags and slow down Microsoft great American company in competing with global companies outside of our borders? We don't, I can answer that question. And you don't want to be the president, uh, or the administration that is ankling American dominance and American exceptionalism globally in the face of, you know,

SPEAKER_96: other places like China, which have their finger on the scale and, and, and a dogged fight on a global basis. We need to win. America needs to win. And so this would be an example of just letting America

SPEAKER_38: win. If I had to make a bet, cause I think there is concern about it. Uh, Twitter user Tane Jipuria pointed out the Microsoft deal, who I think is a journalist pointed out that the Microsoft deal to purchase Activision for $69 billion has a breakup fee of about $3 billion, which I'm guessing

SPEAKER_00: who pays it to Activision. So that's not, that's usually the other way around. So why is Activision doing $3 billion breakups? Why is Activision have to pay it? Generally, that's a good question,

SPEAKER_40: actually. Hold on. I'm looking. Usually it's the other way around. That would indicate that there are some risk factors on Blizzard side, as opposed to on Microsoft. A breakup fee or termination fee,

SPEAKER_38: yeah, is paid by the seller if the deal does not go through for whatever reason. So in this case,

SPEAKER_105: usually it's paid by the buyer. Like if Microsoft was going to buy your small company, if it doesn't go through Mike, so this means the balance of power was with Microsoft that Microsoft got to extract

SPEAKER_00: this from Blizzard. So that means Blizzard is trying to sell. And I would indicate to me on game theory,

SPEAKER_38: but you wish you were game there. Well, my theory is that that's related to either a huge settlement related to sexual harassment, which would not be a shock or a regulatory headwind. And if I had to guess, what I would imagine is that the FTC, I think you're totally right. They don't want to necessarily block this. The gaming sector is very vibrant just because they're really only two dominant consoles doesn't mean that it would, you know, be a massive monopoly that killed gaming, especially because PC gaming exists, which is massive. I do think they might make Microsoft uh, give up some exclusivity. Like they might say, ah, you can't have COD be a game pass exclusive.

SPEAKER_00: So if you're doing COD on Xbox, you might be able to do an exclusive for three months or six months, but you can't ban call of duty from PlayStation. And are those, I wonder if which titles, like if they do own Halo, Halo is exclusive. Halo is exclusive. See, if you want to play Halo, you got to have Xbox or a PC, you can't do it on a Mac. You can't do it on PlayStation. Yeah. Or Nintendo.

SPEAKER_116: Yeah. So it's interesting. I think that, yeah, I agree with you. I think they need to get a big,

SPEAKER_00: uh, ticket, uh, big penalty for the like unbelievable track record, horrible track record, like, uh, with the harassment, like that seems to be systematic and going on forever and that they condone. So this is one of the problems, uh, with old school companies, old school companies use the HR department to kind of just very quickly settle things. But if you settle things and you

SPEAKER_116: allow the perpetrators to stay at the company, which it seems like Activision Blizzard did, then you never change the culture. Yeah. And in fact, what you're doing is reinforcing the culture

SPEAKER_00: because the bad actors stay and the speeding tickets are so low. Imagine if like a speeding ticket of 90 miles an hour was $9. Everybody would go 90 miles an hour. So that's one of the problems in corporate America is that the penalties need to be you, your career at this company is over. Maybe not career forever, but you know, we got to think about those things too. Like when does,

SPEAKER_38: uh, I can't believe, and I, if I worked for Activision, especially if I were a woman or a person of color, anybody from an underrepresented group, I would be overjoyed

SPEAKER_13: at this because Microsoft's a great company. Yeah. Microsoft's a great company. So far, the board had been standing behind the CEO. And if you go and read, you know, Nick just posted this in our Slack. If you go read the lawsuit that was filed in California, it makes your stomach turn.

SPEAKER_53: It's gross. Yeah. It is. It, and I mean, I've been around the tech industry for a long time. Like

SPEAKER_13: a lot of bad crap happens. It is appalling. So I'm thrilled actually that Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard for lots of reasons, not least of which is I'm a Game Pass subscriber. Yeah. But also I hope they just firebomb. Yeah. That executive level.

SPEAKER_61: Just that will clearly happen. There's just no way those people make it over to the other side.

SPEAKER_133: They all just get, yeah. Yeah. Period. End of story. Can't.

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SPEAKER_116: to learn more. Probably going to be great for consumers because now consumers for the same price get more. And this is the issue with the issue or maybe the feature, it could be a bug or a feature

SPEAKER_00: of our antitrust laws. So here's the thing about antitrust. It is designed to protect against consumer harm. So when Disney decides, Hey, we're going to buy Star Wars, Pixar, LucasR, Star Wars, Marvel,

David Friedberg: everything. Does that harm consumers? What's the harm? Right. They're, I'm getting all of those for not seven bucks a month on Disney plus. There's no harm. And if they were to buy three or

SPEAKER_22: four more franchise, if they bought James Bond, they got the whole French, whatever they buy,

SPEAKER_79: there's no harm. And then you look at- As we define harm. Like we define harm in terms of prices.

SPEAKER_13: Exactly. Specifically that very narrow lens versus what the hell happens to game developers,

SPEAKER_140: as Beardscript pointed out with this acquisition. Right. And so that's where you have to think like

SPEAKER_116: maybe, um, second order effects are where you could start to see, well, in the future, there'll never be an Xbox competitor. Is there ever going to be another console if- Exactly. You know, and can there be another streaming platform to compete with Disney? Or can there be another

SPEAKER_00: theme park? It's kind of hard, right? Can you imagine going up as a streamer? And so we have

SPEAKER_116: this three horse race we've talked about before, HBO, Disney, Netflix, and here we go. But now you're

SPEAKER_68: going to get Call of Duty as part of your $10 a month. You're going to get Diablo. You're going to get

SPEAKER_151: Candy Crush. You're going to get StarCraft II if you're like a nutcase like me and you still like to

SPEAKER_00: play a game from 15 years ago or 10 years ago. Hasn't been updated. It's kind of rad when you think about it. It's just like when we go to Amazon and then I'll hand it off to you. You know, I'm looking at Amazon and I was, uh, we were talking about that, uh, house brand from India that people are obsessed with. What's it called? Salimino something. There's some house brand that's from India where you can get teeth

SPEAKER_22: whitening trips or vitamins or wipes. So limo S O L I M O. And it's like, okay. Uh, is Amazon basic

SPEAKER_25: cables and so limo better for consumers? Of course it is lower prices, you know, is better until you

SPEAKER_52: can't have second order. Go ahead. Until you can't exactly until you can't get anything else,

SPEAKER_13: right? Until you're on call of duty in 19 and a new game hasn't come out in six years and all the movies, all the movies that exist in America are Avengers movies. And you may not have noticed that like Amazon prime, those prices are going up and maybe the price of game pass will go up over time because eventually there will be, but it's such a hard argument. This is the bind that Lena Khan and the FTC are in and that she's been arguing for years, even as a law student, which is, do we need to think differently about how we approach antitrust and how do you define, how do you prove a negative? How do you prove what you missed out on because there were only three streamers and because there was really only one viable, you know, game future competition is a

SPEAKER_61: really hard thing, you know, to kind of like it's an abstract concept who will show up in the future.

SPEAKER_22: It's like, well, Facebook had Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, you know, Twitter that countless other

SPEAKER_00: competitors show up, but that doesn't mean there won't be, it's not getting harder and harder for the next Snapchat or TikTok to take hold. It is going to get harder. But yeah, like you said, it's a counterfactual and like, yeah, it's, it's really hard to, to figure out. But I kind of like the idea of letting American companies run because the bigger issue for us right now is can America remain dominant and have a balance sheet and a currency that is still the world currency, for Ray Dalio's book, can we still become the world, can we still maintain our, our power in the

SPEAKER_22: world? And if we seed power, we all know who we're seeding power to. And that's what I would encourage Americans to think about and it dovetails with discussions of human rights and democracy.

SPEAKER_161: If America doesn't win, maybe the dictators win and pick your poison.

SPEAKER_38: What do we mean, even though I really want to talk about Brian Chesky, what do we mean when we say

SPEAKER_13: let American companies run? Because if we mean we only let six of them run and we, I mean, small businesses are the middle class of the United States, right? Small businesses are the backbone,

SPEAKER_38: the part that's shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. There's huge and there's like micro, like creators, and there are small businesses struggling to hang on. But that's always been where the strength and the power is. And they're the ones who need room to run. But if they run

Jason Calacanis: right into Amazon, or they run right into Walmart, or they run right into Apple, you know,

SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think what you'd have to say is entrepreneurs are always going to come up with something better. You know, they're always going to come up with some new market. And if you're fighting over, you know, owning a deli or a five and dime store or a grocery store, like maybe that's not the battle to have right now, like fighting to compete against Walmart or fighting to compete against Amazon basics. Like maybe that's not worth fighting for. Maybe there's other places

Chamath Palihapitiya: innovators can go to innovate and do other great things in the world. Everyone should just give up

SPEAKER_172: on their delis. I mean, listen, you could have a great, well, let me, let me rephrase that. See, even the camera was like, no, bro, you want to think through that one again.

SPEAKER_174: I wanted to talk about bagels, and I lost my camera. It's just so the world is so unfair.

SPEAKER_00: FML. Okay, listen, delis, I was probably out of line saying that. Here's the way to look at it.

SPEAKER_116: Yeah, some great Amazon basic bagels could take over. And when they do, that generic bagel cannot compete with some new local brand in Berkeley boy chick bagels, whatever it is, that makes something absolutely refined and delightful. So it creates another opportunity, which is I'm not the generic

SPEAKER_22: cable. It's some unique cable in the world that does something different, right? And the innovation cycle starts again. But, you know, winning as a country and letting these companies run means, I think, allowing them to continue to grow, making them pay taxes, making them pay great wages, right? So there are things we can do, which is the one thing I would argue Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have done well, which is the pressure they put over a sustained period of time on all corporations

SPEAKER_00: or the country to raise minimum wage was heard loud and clear by the people who were running hard.

Chamath Palihapitiya: They heard it and they were like, huh, these people will keep complaining about us, AOC is complaining, this, okay, what are they complaining about? Oh, how much we pay people? Well, could somebody just run

SPEAKER_61: a number here? What if we added four, what if we raised it 30%, would they shut up? It's like, yeah, they got no choice but to shut up this route. They asked for $12, $14, $15 minimum wage, okay,

SPEAKER_139: pay everybody 18 bucks and shut them up. Oh, they want to pay for community college? How much will that

SPEAKER_22: cost us? Oh, only one out of 20 people are going to do and it's going to cost eight grand? Well, effing do it.

SPEAKER_116: Yeah. And that's actually like, I think what we're looking at Molly, I think is a functional democracy and capitalistic society. People are complaining over here. People are taking action over here. Yeah. That's a vibrant debate and democracy at work. Or how awareness drives change.

SPEAKER_22: So as much as I complain about Senator Karen, I do give her credit for creating a dialogue around minimum wage, creating a dialogue around taxes. And you know what? We've seen people sell some shares and pay a lot of taxes. Record taxes have been getting paid the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_25: And let's talk about like corporate taxes. Like the fact that corporations do not have a minimum and they can play shell games is unacceptable. It's insane. It's insane. Like just come up with

SPEAKER_183: a minimum tax. And I'm sorry, like, and no more loopholes for every time you want to say,

SPEAKER_13: let American companies run. And then there's an American company who's not paying taxes. That's

SPEAKER_186: un-American. It's un-American. It's un-American. And no more putting-

SPEAKER_13: It's un-American to hide your revenue and not, you know, like we're, we've taken the reins off. Like our companies are largely unregulated compared to everybody, everywhere else in the world. Yeah, that's why we're winning. And then what do you do? You turn around and you don't invest in the schools and the human beings and the people in the streets and the like double barrel. Yeah. Well, no, this whole concept that

SPEAKER_37: they're like, listen, God, God love, you know, my home country of Ireland, but they're like,

SPEAKER_25: yeah, just set up a company here, put Google and Facebook's IP in Ireland. Yeah. Then the company in

SPEAKER_116: Ireland licenses that technology and patents back to Google America. Like, I mean, come on. It's so lame.

SPEAKER_192: It's just pay your taxes, everybody. It's just pay your taxes. We have all the money that we need

SPEAKER_09: in America. Like I know now I'm delving into the different, the other podcast,

SPEAKER_13: but we have enough money. We just need the people to pay. I think the tax gap in the United States is like $70 billion a year. That's the gap between what is owed and what is paid or what would be owed. We don't need a wealth tax. We don't need to like,

SPEAKER_22: we have the money. I mean, and also collecting it. Apple doesn't know what to do. And Google does not need to know what to do with their money. I literally remember a conversation with the founders of Google where I kid you not. One of them said in a small dinner, what should we do with

SPEAKER_116: the money? Yeah. Like literally they did not. This is, and this is when they only had 10 billion in the life extension. They were looking for ideas on what to do with the money because the money printing machine was going and they're like, what should we do with literally that was a question

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SPEAKER_38: analyst was like, I'm just counting the seconds until Apple buys Sony. Like Apple's just buy PlayStation now. Why

SPEAKER_13: isn't Apple more serious about gaming? But when you talk about companies who are sitting on crap tons of money, Microsoft was sitting on $165 billion in cash. So I'm sure they did the same thing. They were

SPEAKER_38: like, well, we'll look around, think about what to buy. And it'll be like, not even half.

SPEAKER_201: Yeah. And Apple doesn't know what to do with their money. Apple does not know what to do. They're just

SPEAKER_84: like, because they don't want to buy things. They like to build everything themselves. So they buy back their shares. The money keeps piling in.

SPEAKER_15: And they're out of ideas and they're absolutely trapped in the iPhone.

SPEAKER_210: I mean, they have a couple of ideas. I think, honestly, I am coming around to Google ski goggles.

SPEAKER_211: Google ski goggles. I was skiing today.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah. And I was just thinking about those Google, because they look like ski goggles. And I was looking at the mountain and I was watching people ski down the mountain and I keep track of my speed in an app called slopes. And I'm like, I'm getting good now. I'm back on diamonds. I did 45.5 miles an hour on a run, like, which is pretty fast. And don't get hurt. I just got here. I won't. Yeah. I won't be safe. We got to keep this guy on the game. I'm just the mom. Anyway, I was just thinking with this goggles, I'm like trying to find this. I was trying to find a run for my daughters the other day and I couldn't find this run. And I was like, if I had the goggles on, when I'm looking at the mountain, I would have seen the run. Cause I would have just looked up at the mountain. They were like, it's over here, dummy. But I'm like trying to find out the map. There's a thousand runs. And then I could see my daughter's speed when they're going down the

SPEAKER_116: mountain. And I could also see, because I'm teaching them to do S turns in parallel. I could actually see tips and I could literally, I mean, think about this. If I was wearing those apple goggles, it could show me my daughters doing pizza slice or parallel skiing or S turns and say,

SPEAKER_25: tell them to lift the back leg, tell them to put their feet flat down, whatever it is. And this is the speed they're going. You may want to slow them down. This is where they're at. I mean, it is going to be

SPEAKER_96: mind blowing augmented reality. I think it's going to blow away the iPhone. I think the iPhone is toast when it comes to these things. And that's why they're never going to do it.

SPEAKER_07: No, they're doing it. They're doing the reasons that we don't have this is because these are from companies that make all their money somewhere else. No, no, it's coming. Cause it's going to be

SPEAKER_25: $3,000 in that first dev kit. And then I think people will pay sustained 50% more for these goggles than they will for an iPhone. And I think they'll keep their iPhone. So I think what's going to happen is you're going to buy both because think about it. The Apple store is packed. Apple comes out with the watch. People give up their phones. No, they come out with AirPods. People give up at it. Nope. This is all a creative. I think the goggles people will use when they're skiing. They'll still have

SPEAKER_96: their phone in their pocket for the next 20 years. I think they'll want both.

SPEAKER_38: I mean, it's going to be a creative, not replacing until they can make absolutely sure that people are not going to not buy iPhones, right? They have what they're trying to figure out is how do we still make

SPEAKER_13: that? Cause like you're a businessman. If you have a thing that makes all the money, I'm not a businessman. I'm a business. Pretty soon. Right. Actually, good point. You're the opposite of the person that I'm thinking of because if you're Tim Cook and you're a publicly traded company and you

SPEAKER_40: are a cash machine and no, you gotta be careful with that franchise getting replaced. Yeah. And you

SPEAKER_13: have one and you become fundamentally risk averse. And I think the reason, like, I don't think that there aren't good ideas inside Apple. I think there are probably a million good ideas a day inside Apple.

SPEAKER_38: And then somebody says, how does that sell iPhones? And then you want to know my best idea? You want

SPEAKER_61: to know my best idea? Yeah. Oakley buys, I'm sorry. Apple buys Oakley and Smith. That's my best idea.

SPEAKER_235: I just came up with that idea or a producer did in the chat room and I'm taking credit for it.

SPEAKER_236: But I mean, can you imagine Oakley or Smith, you know, in an Apple store, just buy those companies.

SPEAKER_206: I mean, I want this so bad. I don't, I want to skip the goggles. I want the chip. Just put the chip in my eyeball. Absolutely. I want it all. Like, and I don't know if we're going to make it. I don't

SPEAKER_66: think you're getting the glass. I don't think you're getting the chip. I'm going to have to get

Jason Calacanis: Google life extension to live long enough to get the chip. Yeah. Maybe we'll be like 80 years old

SPEAKER_241: doing this podcast and then still have that on. I mean, this week in theatrics. Can we do one

SPEAKER_22: question from our, we got one question from the notice. The notice feel a little neglected. I got

SPEAKER_183: some back channel. Well, cause I used to always take two or three questions and we've had so much

SPEAKER_25: show. We just always have to remember to take one great question. We get one great question. Cause Walton Dormish is here. You know, John Galt is here. OG Bob G is here. I know. I mean,

SPEAKER_246: we've got some great notice here. Beard scripts and profit. Give a great ask. This one doesn't

SPEAKER_22: even have to be in the show. Anybody can give us just a question like about our personal,

SPEAKER_13: well, not that personal. I think I love Yogesh who is sort of like our friend, but also like Pokey. He's like, he apparently at some point was calling us communist,

SPEAKER_253: communist, communists. Commies. Do you mean us? How are we commies? I just said let the companies run.

SPEAKER_102: What are you talking about? Why hasn't Apple bought Sonos yet? Actually. That is the other question.

SPEAKER_256: That's an antitrust one. That's an antitrust one. For sure. Sonos is so tiny. I think so,

SPEAKER_00: because it's the only hardware company that makes a competing product. It's just so tiny. It's not

SPEAKER_22: worth it for them, but I love my Sonos, even though Sonos has screwed me. I'm like, I, I am

SPEAKER_00: absolutely upset at Sonos for this, like Sonos two app and then breaking my system. And I can only use my Sonos roams if I'm on Sonos two. And it's like, so kludgy and they're like, oh, you, you bought

SPEAKER_116: new equipment from us. Guess what? You're screwed. Cause now you gotta operate everything else. It's the worst execution I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_13: Kind of why I want Apple to buy them. Cause they would have a proper UI. Although I am obsessed with, because I'm a frugal girl. I'm a normal compared to your normal friends. The Ikea line of Sonos

SPEAKER_09: speakers. Oh yes. I don't know what you're talking about. Sonos is now in bed. I know. Cause you don't go there, but no. Sonos technology in Italy. It takes nine months to come to your house. No. Sonos technology is now embedded in a line of Ikea speakers. Oh yes. There's like a lamp that has a

SPEAKER_267: show. Morpherisk. How do you pronounce this stuff? Symphonisk. S-Y-M-F-O-N-I-S-K. Symphonisk.

SPEAKER_07: Symphonisk. The Symphonisk is the . Stop. It's the shoot-a-gur-gur-gur. I've got like four of them and then you can swap out some covers. What? It's a wall? It's a shelf? You can get a shelf one.

SPEAKER_38: You can get, you can mount them on the wall. You, they have a lamp. Now you're just effing with me now.

SPEAKER_81: I love it. Sonos is effing with me now. I, they have more than one? Your camera got all excited and died

SPEAKER_266: again. Oh God. We think it must be overheating. Oh my God. They have a ton of these. They have a ton of them and they're the best. I didn't know there was a Sonos-Ikea collab. That's going to get me to go

SPEAKER_273: to Sonos and eat those meatballs again. Dude, seriously. Go to Ikea. I'm going to go to Ikea. Get

SPEAKER_102: some meatballs and get a bunch of speakers because they're amazing and they totally work with the

SPEAKER_38: app and you can tie them all together and then they play everywhere and then mine falls out the window all the time because I'm always like jamming in the windows. This is how my wife fell in love with me.

SPEAKER_192: When we were dating, I went to Ikea love. I went to Ikea with her. She bought whatever she wanted

SPEAKER_25: and I put it together for you. This is just, if you want to have somebody fall in love with you, get on your hands and knees and give up your weekend trying to put together. And literally you're sitting there with pegs and wrenches and you're trying to put the stuff together. And I figured out how to do it. I bought additional like L hooks and S hooks and other things to reinforce how that stuff is made. So I would put these little braces on them that made it more stable. If you buy extra braces and then you also mount it to the walls with extra braces. So you build an Ikea shelf and it falls over and it's like wobbly and it's not perfect. Just buy

SPEAKER_139: these little L's and put them on the inside and then buy other hooks and mount it to your wall.

SPEAKER_116: All of a sudden she said you can get married. All of a sudden she says yes.

David Friedberg: She says yes. Or he or she or they, you know, but that that's Ikea love for you. That's I don't know if anybody, that's my testimonial.

SPEAKER_105: Patrick asks, I wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for this pod, J Cal. I'm graduating college this spring

SPEAKER_00: and I'll be working for a New York City startup founder. You interviewed. You're a legend. Thank you. Amazing testimonial from Patrick. What?

SPEAKER_22: All right, Pat. Thanks, Patrick. Well, you're going to get some equity in this company and it's 7% of your equity you shipped to J Cal. So that's fine. Give us one question. Come on,

SPEAKER_105: guys. You got one question? Can you have the next one up?

SPEAKER_289: I'm denying Bob G this one here. So let's go with this one.

SPEAKER_139: Okay. You got a Bob G. I like this question though. Basically, you're changing the rules. Like having Shaquille, OG Bob G is like having Shaquille O'Neal in the league. You're like, too dominant. Go ahead, Molly. You read the question.

SPEAKER_127: Can we have, Bogair Ayoub says, can we have the next Google or is it too late? I think this is related to our question of size and monopoly. Like what, what can compete?

SPEAKER_22: Um, the answer is yes. Yes. Uh, there are new search engines coming and getting steam.

SPEAKER_00: That will be subscription and not have ads in it. And that don't track you. So you have duck.go slowly been growing, but there's a new one called, I think, yes. Or you, I can't remember the name of it. It might be you.com, but I saw there's a, yeah, it's you, the private search engine that summarizes the web for you. You can add it to Chrome. I think there might be using bangs, you know, um, uh, interface or something, you know, they have like an API, but I do think it's possible for a search engine to, to, to come out in 2022 that removes ads. Cause right now you do a flight search, you do a product search on Google. The first 20 links are all ads. So there will be, it's not going to be easy. That's going to be one of the

SPEAKER_39: harder ones to displace, but it is possible. What do you think Molly?

SPEAKER_13: I mean, oceans rise, empires fall, right? The thing, you don't, the thing you fail to understand about companies is that the bigger they get, the more unwieldy they get, the more tied they get to legacy systems, the more they get trapped in a cycle of how do we sell iPhones. Eventually things get so big that they topple over or they get so big that things are uncovered about them that we hate. For example, the, you know, targeted advertising ecosystem. And so that gives someone

SPEAKER_38: an opportunity to sneak in and build something better that you didn't even realize you need, or you'd stop needing Google at all because you get the implant, the chip in your eyeball. And it just gives you all the information as you think it. There it is. All right, everybody. It's been

SPEAKER_61: another amazing episode of this week in startups. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.