 Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 18th, 2013. I'm Josh Dapolsky. I'm Neil Epitale. And we have a very special guest with us, Adrienne Jeffries. Am I saying that right? No, it's Adrienne Jeffries. I'm sorry. Wait, it's not J-Fries? That's what I've been pronouncing it this whole time. Adrienne Jeffries, who is one of our writers, a human, and also... Also my own person. Also her own person, and a female human, I should say. A female human. Yes. Anyhow, Adrienne is here. She wrote a big piece on Andy Rubin this week that we wanted to talk about, which we're going to get to. And I don't know what the topic list is. I rushed over here because I was waiting at home for a package, and it never came. It's my happy hacking keyboard. Oh, is that what it is? Which is a $300 keyboard. You're a maniac. Which I probably won't use very much because I use a laptop. And so it's been very upsetting. It's been a very upsetting day. Let's see if it's been delivered. I'm going to keep checking. I'm checking FedEx. Are we going to get live updates on this show? Yeah, we're going to get live updates. Well, I'll be very disappointed if I can't make it back in time to get it. Still on vehicle, so that's... Well, actually, I just tweeted that we had a surprising amount of chaos as we began. It's a lot of... You mean for this? Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is... We should talk about this. It's our first show. This is so weird. I don't know. There's so much distance between you guys. It's our first show in the new studio. Which is still in... We're still unpacking. There's stuff to be done here. There's literally a man sleeping in blankets. There's a guy over there who worked all night. But it's very exciting. It's extremely exciting. It looks very professional from the camera angle. It does. Based on these cameras, I feel like... There's people working in the background. Yeah, we can see... We have a monitor here. I don't even know what camera I'm looking at right now. Is it the left or right camera? Where am I? Where do you want? This one. This one. Yeah. That's mine. Okay. So, it's new to us. Obviously, our crew, our team who does this has seen it, but it's news to me. So, when I address the viewer, I guess I'm addressing you in this camera. Is that right? Does that look right? Great. Fantastic. Okay. So, we should get started. We have a lot of stuff to talk about. Neelay. We had... It was a big, crazy week in news. We came storming out of the gate. No. It was a week of not of major news events. Right. But of a lot of meaningful, interesting news. There's a lot going on. Yeah. And it's pretty obvious that the stage is being set for the next wave of big news events. Yeah. And we'll start right off with, I think, Samsung, which I love talking about. My favorite company. Haven't we talked about Samsung? Yeah. So, they launched GS4 last week. Yeah. We talked about that. We talked about that. We had the big live stream. Yeah. The phone looks like the KS3. People were very confused, by the way. Is the Vergecast dead now? Yeah, it's over. It's like, listen. We're only doing the Vergecast immediately after Samsung. It's just one show. Yeah. Well, we were building this, too. Anyway, so they had a big event. There was a lot of controversy immediately after the event. And then I ran a big report on Monday, because I called Broadway people, which is not something you normally do. Oh, that's right. I mean, this week's been so long, I completely forgot that you had this report. So, I talked to the director and the writer. The writer is now in LA working on an Adam Sandler. Well, you wrote, hold on. Let me, let's be clear. You wrote a kind of a behind the scenes of their extremely sexist, of the Galaxy S4 sexist event, which was written and produced by Broadway professionals. Right, a major Broadway talent. Broadway talent. Well, you know, people who have Tonys. People who have Tonys. Well, yeah. The director directed Newsies, which I thought was, he was very into talking about Newsies, because it's his one year anniversary. Adrian, you're a big Newsies fan. He's great. Who doesn't love Newsies? Love Newsies. Do you like Newsies? I haven't seen it. You've never seen Newsies? What about the movie? I haven't seen the movie. Seriously? You know, Christian Bale's in it as a child. That's crazy. Yeah, it's really, it's really. Now I'll see Newsies. Anyway, but so, so look, even aside from the controversy over the specific content of the thing, I think it's crazy that Samsung is like putting on these lavish productions to launch a phone. You think that's bizarre? There's only one company in technology that does that. Who is it? Samsung. Only Samsung is like, we'll have dancers. Everybody does their events. Everybody does events, but like the idea that Samsung will have an orchestra that literally is under the stage and then they'll raise the orchestra and be like, look what we bought. Well, they were in Radio City Music Hall. But that's crazy too. And the word on the street is that they're spending $400 million to promote, to launch the Galaxy S4. Yeah. 400 million. That's the number. Do you have any idea how many starving children they could feed with $400 million? Well, I'm sure they'll feed them after they sell the phones and collect like billions of dollars. Like 10. You got to spend money to make money, kid. I guess so. Sure. Okay. That's what Samsung is telling the starving children. So regardless of the controversy, I thought it was really interesting. I want to talk to these people. And then this massive controversy erupted over the portrayal of women in the show. And so I called Ivan Menschel, who wrote it. He's the guy who's writing the Adam Sandler movie. And Jeff Calhoun, who's the director, is a guy who's currently directing Newsies. And they're both like, basically what they said to me was a regular Broadway show that we're used to working on, we open like out of town. Like we open in like Curia. Yeah, you give it a little test run. And we do reviews and we like get feedback and then we change the show. Sure. But because this was a product launch and it was basically being written in Korea, we didn't have any opportunity to do any of this stuff. And nobody ever mentioned this like crazy, like all the women in the show are super annoying. How did that controversy get started? Did it start with the CNET story? That started during, I mean, I was looking at tweets. While I was live logging, I mean, I always look at Twitter while I'm live logging to see what people want to like know about. And it was like all of it, like the whole time it was like- Those were the tweets. Well, I feel like, I also feel like people's sensitivity to how sexist this any event might be now was turned up a little bit because of the Sony event. And this was like, if the Sony event seemed like subtly sexist in that there were no women on stage out of the 19 companies that they brought up on stage, this one was like, but what if we weren't subtly sexist? What if we were overtly crazily sexist? Right. I mean, this is the nails- Which I like better. Yeah. Well- I mean, look, at least they're honest, right? For sure. They're like, look, ladies, you can wave at it while your nails dry. Ladies, here's what we think of you. We're just going to be straight. And you know, it was really interesting is, so the guy, you know, the writer and the director, they told me like this whole skit, this big controversy with the bridesmaids party and the waving your nails and the drunk lady, ogling a naked guy, which is fine. Did that happen? I didn't see the entire thing. That happened. They were like, we wanted to make fun of Sex and City. We want to make fun of bridesmaids, but literally we had to send Korea a new script every day. And his big line was there was not a pair of socks on stage that hadn't been photographed, sent to Korea and approved. Yeah. So it's like they engage- I'd like to see those photos, by the way. Here's like 15 socks selections. I'd like to get a book of the socks just laid out for the Koreans. So that all happened. And I think people who are watching this podcast probably read that story and know about that. And loved it. Loved it. But what's interesting is that the next day, Samsung South Africa apologized to sites in South Africa, like for an event that Samsung had held in that country. For refrigerators. For refrigerators and washing machines. And the washing machine was called the wobble. And they had a troop of bikini girls come out and like shake to like demonstrate that they're there. So Samsung has this like problem where- Well, I think the world has a problem. Samsung is simply a symptom of the world's problem. Yeah. It's a symptom. But I think the specific problem is- Well, it's not like you saw a woman on stage at an Apple event. Well there's that. But Samsung's problem is that they're putting on these like incredibly lavish productions. And they're trying to engage art in this way without ever realizing that by doing like the most crass, like lowest common denominator thing, that they're going to get this criticism. Well here's what I feel like I've learned from watching like the Qualcomm CES keynote and the Samsung thing. What I've seen in the Samsung thing. I really think that these companies should stay away from theatrics. I think that it is a toxic, terrible mixture when they think that they're going to put on like a show for people. It's always off key. Right. It's always bad. And it's because you can't, maybe you can, but it's really, really hard to mix the direct commercial message of everybody should love our product with like this game you're trying to play. Right. Well- We're also engaging culture. Yeah. These are still like supposed to be like trade events, right? Right. Yeah. Like their primary audience is journalists. So like I guess the way it used to be is it would just be specs and technical stuff. Right. And then do you feel like now they're actually hoping that some customers are going to buy phones and tune into- I do think, I do. You know, there were a couple, to that point, I agree that they are thinking that. There were a couple of things, I think Matt Honan wrote something and Matt Buchanan wrote something about like, this is, I'm so bored with this. Like there was this big launch event. It's just another smartphone. And I was thinking that's true for us in the industry. We've seen a million smartphone launches, but I think part of putting on this spectacle was not to say, Hey, look at all of our amazing specs. It was almost to say like, Samsung is here and we've got awesome products and we're an amazing company. They can put on a big show. And Radio City holds 6,000 people. They invited fans. Right. So like they streamed it and like 500,000 people watched it live, which is nuts. 500,000. Yeah. That can't be right. That's right. 500,000 like at one time or total? Different people. That was the number that Thomas Rooker told me. They were watching the live stream and that was them. Worldwide that's not actually a huge number. Seems insane to me. And then I don't know how many people watched it since. So you watched it today actually. You were, you were like cramming for the verge cast. So what'd you think? I thought it was, I mean it was super campy. Like Molly Wood makes the point that, you know, it's not just women who are portrayed as stereotypes. It's every single type of person. And yeah, I thought it was annoying. It reminded me. Okay. So we're talking about the women in tech stuff now. It reminded me of like, do you remember when Dell had that like. Della. Yeah. The mini site that was for women. Yeah. And it was just like, you know, it's not, it doesn't like, it's not like a huge deal. It doesn't really impact my life, but it's annoying. It's lame. It's annoying. It's like, if you have, if you're a smart, modern, I mean anybody, not a woman, a man, anything, like it just seems so out of touch with reality and what like life is actually like, you know, that's so, it's just off key. It's like, you know, you're right. Going back to this, these portrayals, these stereotypes, it's like the thing with Qualcomm where they were supposed to, you know, these young hip kids and it was, you don't know what, you don't know what those people are like. And so your portrayal of them is, is insulting to the people that you think you're portraying. It is stupefying to the people who don't know what you're portraying. And it just comes off as totally off color and totally bad. And that's the Samsung stuff just feels that way. But I think there is also, you know, we've got to admit that there is, like you said, it's a trade show. It's a trade event. And I think we're probably going to talk about this yesterday's sexism kerfluffle. But I do think that in our industry, I mean, let's just be honest. Like we all know there are things that we're battling in the industry of technology and internet culture and technology culture. And a lot of that stuff is sexism and like really latent sexism and racism and even not so latent sexism and racism and just like general, general conditioning that is, has been. Can I just say that this set right now is like super set up like a crossfire and I feel like I need to be arguing with Adrian. Everything's fine. Why don't you ladies just shut up? Adrian, you're in support of women's rights. You feel women should have no rights you said before the break and I quote lock them away and take them out only when we need them. Why don't you shut your face double? I tried to make me make him get him some chicken. I don't know what that means. I don't know. It's a reference to yesterday and I did it. Oh really? That's not true. That's a SBC. It was a soft power situation. But uh, but uh, but there is like this kind of this thing. It's like, and you know, what's most frustrating about it is that people in the industry don't, they're like, what do you mean? There's a, there's no problem. Our commenters drive me crazy. Commenters, but also, you know, the people who are like, we're colorblind. There's no sexism. You know, Arrington saying like, if women would show up to our stuff that women would be included. It's like, well, women don't show up to your stuff because you don't include them. Cause you're horrible. That's why Samsung is like a little bit forgivable here because like you said before, it was weird and the really insidious sexism in tech is the, you know, the more subtle, the kind where it's just like, it's, it's not obvious and people are like, oh, what's the problem? I don't see the problem. And the problem is actually just that there's, you know, there's not women visible on stage. There's not, uh, you know, the, the jokes are aren't as funny to women as they are to a room that's full of guys. Like it's that, that kind of stuff that's worse. So we should do, if we're talking about jokes that aren't funny, except really anyone, this controversy yesterday. Yes. Can you, when you walk through it? Yeah. So we ran the Samsung piece and I actually think this is, this story begins not at the controversy that yesterday or even what happened at this event. The controversy for me begins at the immediate reaction to what happened to this event. Right? So we ran the Samsung story and we're like, there's their sexism attack, right? That's like a thing that we've been talking about. Right. And also, but I just was like, yes, there's sexism in tech and I think we can all say we could all do better. Everybody can do better at being better with like modern life. We're not, we're not perfect when it comes to, uh, there's no sexism in NASCAR. And I think we all know that's true. I mean, we're not perfect anywhere. Danica Patrick has driven through the glass, the glass retaining wall. We can all do better and be more cognizant of, of how we behave. Right. Was this a right? This is, this is exactly right. So we ran the story and I got a lot of emails and then there was a forum thread and a lot of forum threads about why aren't you guys equally covering this Adria Richards story. So Adria Richards was a developer evangelist for a company called SendGrid. Right, it's an email marketing company, SendGrid. They're actually over a hundred employees. They're not tiny. Right. So it's like she was, she's a developer evangelist for this company and she was at, was unfortunately, um, was a developer evangelist for this company. She was at a Python conference called PyCon and she overheard two guys at another company at Play Haven. Yes. And they were from a company called Play Haven sitting behind her telling jokes about dongles and forking repos. It was like, it was sexual innuendo using the term dongle and forking. And I'm not going to say I've never made a dongle joke in my life. Because I happily make dongle jokes all the time. You know, check out this huge dongle. I mean, that's basically the kind of joke they were making. That's all you can do. By the way, I apologize, Adrian. Go ahead. Go on. Wait, I have to look up this exact headline. Okay. While you're doing that. This is important. So she was thinking about it. She like saw a picture of like a girl. Okay. Are you ready for my dongle joke from January 18th, 2011? Jack Dorsey's dongle growing in popularity. You're fired. That's a beta beat headline. That didn't happen. Yes, totally. That did not happen. There's no way we ran that headline. So good to know we didn't run that headline. Ev tweeted it. Of course. There you go. We blew it. You're the big winner. We should have run that headline. Anyway, so she took a picture of them. She tweeted it repeatedly and was like, please, PyCon organizers, come talk to these guys. I'm really uncomfortable with this. She made a big fuss about it. She publicly shamed them. She took a picture of them and tweeted it and was kind of like, hey, this is not right. Sure. Anyway, so they got kicked out. One of the guys who's still nameless, I believe, got fired. The other guy didn't get fired. Nameless offender got fired. Nameless offender got fired. This story got picked up. Really it arrived on Hacker News and Pastebin and it just started just building in controversy and hatred and rage until anonymous got involved. I don't know if it was anonymous. It was just anonymous people. But they called themselves anonymous. That's the whole point of the organization. You know the thing about anonymous that's so tricky is that anybody could say it. Anybody could use it. Right. I mean, that's why ultimately anonymous is going to have severe problems in the future. They don't currently have severe problems. No, they do have severe problems, but they're not so big that it's a thing. When there's actual terrorist activity under the guise of anonymous, it's going to be problematic. Anyway, so Sendgrid was DDoSed. Adria Richards herself- And deservedly so, by the way. Because they fired her too. Right. And then they fired her. And then she was fired. But literally, they threatened her company until it appears that she was fired. There's a lot of hazy in there too. And just to be clear, what we're saying is that she was attacked, started to be attacked online for- Viciously. For getting this guy fired, which she did not ask anybody to do. And attacked in a way that wasn't like, hey, it was wrong for you to shame those guys. You should have told the organizers. You're a jerk for doing that. Yeah, metastasized. It's more like, you bitch, how dare you, you deserve to die, like that kind of stuff. By the way, you guys are both going to get flame emails after this. I got one and all I did was tweet about it. All I did was tweet that Russell Brandom was writing a story. That's all I tweeted. You don't understand what my inbox looks like. I get angry emails. Welcome to hell, H. I get angry emails. Okay, fair enough. Fair. And I also have to get, I also get emails for you guys about your behavior because- You're welcome. Because I'm supposed to be in charge of you. I get a lot of emails about your behavior. Really? Do you really? Circle five. Wait, I don't get emails about you guys. I will start forwarding emails after this. I get emails that are like, how can you allow Joe Flatley to keep writing his liberal screed, you know, stop letting Joe Flatley push his agenda, stuff like that. What's the Joe Flatley agenda? Well, you need only- To be as crazy as possible. No, you need only read his post to note that he has a major political agenda. Anyhow, so they were violent, mean, nasty attacks that were way out of sync with the situation. And a lot, so my tweet summary, which I got hate mail for too, was woman tweets about men creating hostile environment, men respond by turning internet into the most hostile environment possible. Because that's what happened. They were mad at her degree of complaint that you know, you should have just talked to them. And in response, we were going to literally tell you that you should kill yourself and take and remove your, like destroy your company. I mean, there is, there is this thing of, well, it's the internet. I mean, when we were talking about headlines for that piece, we were, one of the first headlines was the internet is terrible or something along those lines. Cause it is like- You can only use that headline once though. It's true. Or can you use it constantly? Part two. That's like, I don't know. Part two. That's like, yeah, it's like a series. This is the worst story stream of all time. But there is this- We should actually just make that story stream. Really, the internet is terrible and just all of like the really rotten stuff that happens. I like that idea. But there is this thing that, that's just like, it's so easy for these guys to just say whatever they want. Just say the first thing that comes to mind. Just, you know, and I know this is internet mentality, but internet mentality needs to like chill out. I mean, basically the problem is that we are all going, oh, it's the internet. It's like, yeah, the internet is life now. Like we're all there. We're all living there. I mean, we work on the internet. We live on the internet. We communicate with everybody that we know on the internet. So it's like, you can no longer get away with, hey, it's the internet. You know, that's how people are going to be. In a room full of people, they wouldn't be that way. And the internet's a room full of people. So it's like, there needs to be some better way to do this conversation. And what's interesting to me, just before the show, we were talking and we're like, no one in the actual situation seems particularly likable. Right. And we should make clear we're not endorsing either side. I think she was, I think that her decision to shame those guys instead of saying, I do think she should have turned around and said, hey guys. I think that would have been effective. It would have been more effective. I think it would have made them think twice. The next time they're in that situation. I do feel like she overreacted by making it into a public thing when it should have been a conversation between three people. Right. I mean, that's in regular real life and maybe the internet has dulled us in some way to these types of interactions. But if you're sitting at a restaurant and somebody next to you is saying something really offensive or upsetting, I mean, I have done this. Every time we go out. Every time we go out. It's really bad actually. Or somebody's being really loud or whatever you say, listen, I hate to bother you, but if you could be a little quieter or, hey, what you just said is really offensive, could you keep it down? I mean, there's only been a few times. I mean, I remember I was standing in the deli. I was standing in the deli ordering a sandwich and this guy next to me was talking to his friend and he's like, yeah, you know, I chewed him down a little bit. And I was like, listen, I don't want to be a jerk, but that's really pretty offensive and I'm Jewish and it's not cool to say. And he's like, what are you talking about? He got really mad at me. He's like, what are you talking about? I have a lot of Jewish friends. He actually said that. I was like, okay, well they probably think you're a dick. Of course you do. You're in New York. They probably think you're a dick. You didn't have to try that hard. Yeah. He's like that guy. And it was like a Hasidic Jew was standing there buying some potato chips. Anyhow, but that happens. It's New York. Uh, but anyhow, but the point is that that's a normal approach would be, Hey guys, I think this is really offensive and I can hear you. So can you keep it down? Russell and I were like working on this piece. Um, I was like, you know, in high school, like you make these jokes, like I was a boy in high school. I've made, I continue to emotionally to be a boy in high school. You were a boy in high school. No, I mean like the nature of social interaction is that you learn what the boundaries of acceptable behavior are. And this is just like that that's boundary setting, but I will. So on the flip side, let me argue the please do Contra positive. Yeah. I don't know what that means. I don't either. Um, but if we're saying, but we're saying, just to, just to prep, just, I want you to do this, but just to cap off what, what Adrian said and what you just said is that we're not, we don't think anybody in this situation who was actually involved is like necessarily cool or great. And when I actually, it seems like any of their people who got fired was, this is like a last straw situation. But yeah, so we're not, I don't think this is not a question of, of defending one side or the other. It's a question of like how the internet treats people and in particular, and in particular, how men on the internet respond to and react to and treat women, whether they like them or not. Right. And I think that by extension women and I mean how men treat women in general, whether they like them or not, I think the internet is just an amplified version of reality. Yeah. Well, so here I think those reactions are, I think here's the difference. It's amplified public sentiment. If the massive outrage that is taking place on Twitter and our comments and other sites and hacker news is about how she should have felt fine just turning around and telling them to shut up. Right. Maybe there is exists in the world like environments where women don't feel comfortable doing that. Right. Yes. And we are, we have now turned the internet. Yeah. Like this place of expression. In a room full at a hacker conference and a room full of, of. That's, that's besides the point. Well, I know, but I'm saying, but like I think it goes, it works in both places. You know, we say like you should have turned around and said, Hey guys, can you chill out? That might not be an environment that's comfortable for a woman to turn around to two guys and say, Hey guys, can you chill out? Right. You know, I'm saying, but we, the, what, what we've arrived at is like the, the vast amount of retribution here will chill the speech of other people regardless of what they're complaining about. Period. And it's not that the sad thing about it is it's not new. It's not infrequent. It is basically the norm. Right. You know, it is the norm to shout somebody down when you don't like them or agree with them on the internet. And it seems to be doubly severe and I'd say violent when it comes to women. I mean, it does, there, there is this thing that's like a certain kind of subtle violence in it that is shocking and weird to me. That's kind of scary looking at it. I was looking at 4chan's discussion. Why? I mean, 4chan can't be counted on to not be. I was trying to get an idea of how many people really felt this strongly about it because, and it's, and it was really hard to tell because these are people who are very good at making themselves look like more people on the internet. So like there's like this change.org petition that was signed by 1500 people and you're like, but are some of those not really people? What's the petition? Fire, fire, uh, Adria Richards. And then it was like, and then it was like, you know, she was saying, you know, I'm not saying that people on Twitter who were arguing with her, like somebody had made a fake Twitter account for a woman who was like arguing with Adria and it was like pretty obviously fake. And then there's like, there's all these, and then there's emails and it's like, but how many of these people are the same people? Is this just like a group of 500 like trolly, terrible guys or is it more than that? Yeah. And it's, and the interesting thing is it, I mean, it is kind of impossible to know. And it does give to a cat, I mean, you're actually looking very specifically at things and you're thinking about whether this is, but to a casual observer, it's indistinguishable from reality. Right. The, the, the fake, the fake Twitter accounts and the fake petition is, is not, there's no way to verify that it's to say that it's not real, you know, basically. So you know, it's, it's, it's a, I mean, So to me, so the, the, I read a lot of our comments and I got into Twitter arguments last night, which was stupid and I apologize if I argued with you on Twitter last night. I don't really apologize, but I, you know, given this context, I feel as though I should. Don't apologize. I'm not apologizing. Never apologize. Never apologize. Never apologize. No matter how wrong you are. And so here's the, the, the, the thread, the strain that I picked up on that was, I thought was very interesting. Which is basically like, I'm a really shy guy and I feel very uncomfortable speaking to women and now I feel like if I say the wrong thing, they, they're, they wield so much power in this environment of feminism that they will get me fired. That's the idea, the idea. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's so like deeply weird and wrong and it's, it's like, it's, it's shyness and fear now mixed with like a different kind of fear. Uh, Russell was saying to me like this, when he was writing the piece, he was like, there's something very old here where it's like they keep saying he's a father of three without assigning him any other qualities. Yeah. So he's like this like breadwinner, noble father figure. Yeah. Taken down by this woman. And then Delilah came and cut off his hair. Exactly. And it's like, that's crazy. Like this is the oldest kind of like sexist like story that's ever been told. There is something, I was just thinking as you were saying that like, it's weird that we're almost having to like relearn lessons or deal with things that you think are like in reality have been most, not most, not totally dealt with, but are more dealt with, you know, I mean, you, you know that in an office environment, in certain environments, like there are, there are going to be guys who say the wrong things or do the wrong things or asses to women, you know, that's going to exist. Right. Um, and they're going to be women who are meaner than they need to be or whatever. Like, yeah, those are people that exist in the world. But like overall, like I don't walk into rooms full of men and women and think that there's going to be like, we don't all know how to speak to one another. No. It's like, this is some Neanderthal shit. Yeah, it really is. I think that's it. I think it's, um, it's, I think what's, what's happening here and this is just pop psychology, so forgive me, pop armchair, non-psychologist psychology. There's it's a group of women or a group of men who are saying why, why do we have to recognize this like pervasive sexism in the world when we already feel women have so much power over us because we're so afraid of them. Like we don't know how to talk to them. You think it's a type. It's a type. I think it's a type of person. I mean, I don't know. It's like guys who couldn't talk to girls in high school. Yeah. And now they can exert some power. But I also have a little hesitation at ascribing this type, like saying, trying to pinpoint a type. That's what I was reading over and over again. But I think it's, and I get that there is those maybe the loudest voices. I think that, but I think there's a bigger, I think that's what drove this particular incident into the spotlight because like Adria Richards is not a perfect spokesperson for the other side. Right. I think it was like this hardcore group of people who had this like very visceral reaction. Who is the perfect spokesperson? Who is the perfect spokesperson? I mean, you look at, you know, what was the girl's name? Sandra Fluke. She the one that rushed them about called a slut. Oh yeah. The Planned Parenthood. The Planned Parenthood. Right. And this is, this is like part of the problem. And I'm saying like, you could say it's a type and maybe those are the loudest voices, but we have, you know, widespread issues in this department. Like you don't call a guy, you don't find whatever the equivalent of slut is for a guy. There is no equivalent as far as I know, which is part of the problem. It's whatever I am. But you know, Rush Limbaugh, you know, Rush Limbaugh calling someone a slut for something that is, I mean, there's no, there's no reason for him to do it. It's just like he wanted to be mean and he wanted to like hurt a woman. And so he found like a really great hurtful word. And I think that that type of mentality is, is like kind of bubbling under the surface. It's not just with guys who, you know, couldn't talk to girls in high school. It's with guys who are in positions of power. It's with regular guys. You know, I mean, you have to have like a somewhat evolved, you have to be somewhat evolved and your brain has to be somewhat evolved to not think that way and feel that way. To not feel threatened. And you like to think that we get to that point. I mean, all the people that I know, I feel pretty confident that the people in our company, at our company don't feel that way and don't walk through life having these kinds of insane, weird dated, like Neanderthal thoughts. But I mean, I'm sorry, I mean, except for you, but, but, but you know, other people don't, a lot of other people don't. The problem is that the, that the internet gives them amplification. It gives them illusion of size, I think in many instances and it, and it is that, and that's the thing that the headline ended up being thug mentality, which is like, you know, a mob can be good and bad. There are good mobs and bad, you know, crowdfunding is a mob doing great things. Yeah. You know, rioting is a mob doing bad things. This to me is like a mob of thugs. Yeah. And, and that, that mentality, that mindset needs to be squashed. It really does. Because I think it's, it's, it's super hurtful to the people who are, who are, who are victims of it, who are the direct targets of it. But it's also, I mean, it's look, I mean, you say what you will about anonymous and, you know, this kind of citizen, you know, this, these, the rising voices of this citizenry, there is a lot of negative that goes along with it. And it's not just like cut and dry that we say like, Oh, it's great that we can organize and push our ideas and our agenda forward. It needs to be more than just, we have a group, so let's use them. It needs to be like, what is the group for? What does the group do? What do we stand for? What, what will we and won't we tolerate? It's cool that like, I think that's the thing about the anonymity of the internet, which I support, which I think needs to be there. But you get to a point where you start to say, okay, anonymous is a group, but what is it? What does it stand for? You want to be formless like water. Well, if you're formless like water, then you're also terrorists. And not everybody who thinks that anonymous can do good things wants to be a terrorist. They want to do good things, you know, they want to petition for and fight for the things that are really valuable. So you get into situations like this and it's like, you're either going to take shape or you're not. And I think part of the problem with the internet is anonymity gives you, it's easy to, to take a vague form, but not a specific form. And it totally reminded me of, I mean, this was the terrorist attack kind of, and like Russell made this point that, you know, SendGrid like gave in, like you're not supposed to negotiate with terrorists, but SendGrid didn't even try to do that. They just gave in. I mean, that was the first, I had this theory, I was like, maybe it's a fake firing and they're just trying to get the hackers off their back. And then they're going to be like, ha ha, now we're all shored up, like bring it on. We're hiring her back or we never fired her in the first place. Like we're standing by her. But no, that's the point. I mean, I actually think that, so, I mean, she's, I feel like this is not a fireable, I mean, it feels like she has a pattern, right? She might have a pattern, but I feel like it's really pretty raw for them to say like, Hey, we, you're fired because we think you somehow now are threatening our business. Public firing is a big deal. A public firing is a big deal. For both of these people. I would be surprised if there's, she doesn't file something. Well, yeah. Some kind of wrongful termination. For both of these firings, I'm sure there were reasons beyond this incident, but the timing is awful and stupid on the behalf of the companies. Like if I were the, you know, if, if let's say something like this happened and I had to let somebody go because of some terrible situation that occurred on the internet, they'd said something racist and horrible or whatever. I wouldn't, I mean, I don't know if I would take that moment when it was, when, when tempers were hottest to let them go. You know, I would definitely let that simmer down. Unless you're negotiating, right? Unless you're like, here's my peace offering. Like, which is, which is like, I think if it was something that's so obvious, like, man, this, like, if it wasn't, he was just like, can I do a firing transition here? Obviously racist or something like you might go, look, this person's obviously bad, a bad person to have here. We don't want them around, but this is not publicly. Right. But nothing about these, these two people is, is publicly obvious that they're terrible people. And that's the thing that, that, that the firing on the behalf of the guy makes him seem more terrible than he was probably. And her firing makes her seem more terrible, which just fuels the fire of this, this art, this debate in a bad way, I think. Right. Anyhow. So I'm going to, we have a hard out. I know we have a hard, we have a hard stop today because somebody else has to do a show because we have a fancy new studio. We have a fancy new studio that's scheduled out. So speaking of fire. And I was late. It's all my fault. Is that weird? That's a weird transition. It's FedEx. Well, there's two things. Oh, actually, I'll just check in. Go ahead. So you left Android last week. You did a big profile over the weekend. Tell us about it. What'd you learn? Why did homeboy leave? Why did homeboy leave? Basically Android got, Android outgrew him, outgrew his abilities and he, it stopped being the kind of work that he wanted to do. So it's, I still don't know whether the initiative first came from Andy Rubin's side or whether it first came from Larry Page or somewhere else at Google, but somebody, I didn't put this in the story, but somebody close to the situa, somebody who would know said Andy could have stayed at Android. So it might've just come purely from him. He might've gone to Larry Page and said, you know, I'm ready to do another thing. We still don't know that. But it does seem clear that the whole Android experiment had gotten to a new phase, a more complicated phase. Like one of the lines in the story was that the way forward was less clear. And he was, Andy Rubin's like kind of more of a, an entrepreneur startup guy. He gets, he's like the first leg of the relay race. And he did a great job also, and it's totally brilliant. But yeah, it just got to the point where he, he was no longer interested in the, the types of problems that were confronting Android, which had to do a lot with working with other people. Well, it turns out that it's, it's funny cause you've got Sanofsky and Forstall and now Rubin and Rubin wasn't fired or let go. He didn't quit. He's moving to another, he's moving to another project, Google and I think this is in your, this is in your story. This is in your story. And I've heard as well that, that what he's doing is from sources familiar with the matter that that what he's doing is important. It's not like, it's not like he's going to do a, you know, they're going to shuffle him off into the background and then eventually he's going to leave to go start a new, new startup. The history of Android suggests that what he's best at is like, we have this crazy idea, go make it a success. Like how much money do you need? We trust you. Well, that was kind of the gist of Adrian's articles that like he's really good at the starting part and then maybe it gets a little bogged down when you get into the, how do we grow this and shape it. And I think Android has real, has real problems. Like it is at a real crossroads. In a way that is like striking. Dan Fromer wrote something on a Splat F on his blog, spliff, spliff, spliff, but about sort of, you know, what the issues are with Android and you're right, it does. And I was reading it today. I was just, I was perusing, but, but he made some great points and I think there is a point to be made that Android does have real problems that it's getting, you know, it's disappeared behind the brands of Samsung and Amazon and whoever else grabs it and uses it. It's not a profit center for them. It's not making them money. They don't, they can't exert control over it. I don't know how much is playing into search. I assume a ton. I mean, everybody who has an Android phone is using Google to search unless you've some, for some strange reason bought the fascinate on Verizon, which comes preloaded with Bing. Which a lot of people bought. Weirdest phone ever. No, that was the one that that's the phone that went up against the iPhone when Verizon had the iPhone. No. Yes. That is the, that is the phone. I know more people. No, it was the droid. The original droid was the. No, no, that was, that was, that's for the iPhone. That was the original droid. That was, we're going to, that's, you know, at any rate, that's the second one down in these details. The point that I was making is that my mic is like sliding. I don't know what's happening here. What was I, what was I saying? Oh, it is at a crossroads and, and I don't, I just got a mental image of the little robot like at an actual cross. Just saying they're like, what am I going to do? One of those kind of, yeah. Can that robot look sad? Yes. I've only ever seen that. I mean, it shows his mouth. He doesn't have a mouth. It's kind of like where his head connects, but it basically goes all the way around it. I don't know how it could frown. His eyes could probably do something. I mean, I've definitely seen like cartoons of that, like the little robot, like it's like staking an apple, like in the face. If you have a, if you have an image of the Android looking sad. At a crossroads. At a cross, either at a crossroads or looking sad, please send, I'm looking into my camera here if you want to use it because I'm addressing, I'm addressing the viewer. If you have an image of the Android looking sad or standing at a crossroads looking sad, send it to a vergecast at the verge.com. Would love to see it. You could also tweet at us. Yeah. At verge. Thanks in advance. Yes. Thanks. Please and thank you. But yeah, so, so Android does have problems, but they've, but they've put in a Sundar. What is his last name? Pichai? Pichai. Pichai. Okay. I just want to make sure I had it right. Yeah. I always see there's an N in there. When I see it, I immediately think of Pikachu. So it's a real problem, which is a Pokemon. If somebody could make the Android robot that looks like a Pikachu, I think we'd. That definitely exists. I need to see that as well. Please send it to vergecast at the verge.com. And what is, what is your take on him as a, as a leader? On Sundar Pichai? Yeah. Yeah. He seems a lot smoother, a lot. So Andy Rubin's a technical guy and he's sort of unusual in that he was able to do both like about halfway through his career. He was an engineer at first. He was at Apple, a couple other places. And then about halfway through his career, he transitioned into management and then eventually became CEO of Danger and then later Android and was the head of Android and was able to manage a lot of people. Yeah. This is Rubin. And so like that's pretty unusual to be able to take a company to the point where he took Danger and also like be basically a technical guy at heart. But Sundar seems like more of an advanced leader. Like he's like a product manager more type. He is really smooth and we've, I've talked to him a handful of times and he does a lot of the, he does, he did a bunch of Google IO presentation. I think he did a really long one last year. I can't remember, but he's been running Chrome and apps. And I mean, you got to say it too, of Google's most important, most valuable business. I mean, apps has been, their whole thing has been, we got to take on Microsoft, right? We got to take on office. And they've been, and I think that they've been making some inroads. I mean, that's my, my strong feeling. Immediately. Really? Wow. That is, that is really detailed. Is that a 3d rendering? Does they just have that on hand? We can get this on the screen. I feel like somebody just had that on hand. I don't, that wasn't made for us, but anyhow, but he is, he's a real leader. He's very even keeled. Like my impression of him is that, I mean, Andy Rubin seems like he could have, you know, he could be a bit mercurial in the sense that he seems like not a hothead, but he's, he's very passionate. Yeah. And, and Sundar seems like smooth. He's a cucumber. So had Android emails. This one's crying. Smooth as a cucumber. I said, he is a cucumber. Sundar is a cucumber. If I could get a Photoshop of that. So obviously the, wow. So many of these. What's happening? Are they pouring in? Yeah, they're good. Anyhow. So the, the, we, there's some breaking news we need to address. Uh oh. Well, we have Chris Ziegler on the phone. Oh my God. Uh, but before we do that, like this moment now earlier today, we've got Chris, but just to wrap this up, the big, now that Sundar is in charge of both, the obvious speculation is that they're going to merge Android with Chrome OS, which I think they're going to do very soon. And you think it's far off. You think it's far off. Why do you think it's far off? First of all, I think it would be hard to do. And the, the thing about the Android team is that they're kind of, they're like running at breakneck pace there and they're trying to keep their head above water, trying to, you know, they're having trouble coordinating, getting updates out to all the carriers and they're, they're just going really fast and they don't really have time to stop and integrate with the Chrome OS team. Yeah. I think. I agree that it would be a long, it would be a long time before that happens. I think, I think. And Eric Schmidt just denied that that was going to happen. I think it's possible that Chrome OS could begin to get some Android functionality. There's nothing stopping. I mean, there's, there's, you could see a situation where they have an emulator and you're taking this. Look, they just made the Chromebook pixel. It's got basically the same resolution touch screen as a Samsung. There's the Nexus 10, which is a touch screen Android tablet. You could see a situation where they say like, Hey, you have a touch screen. It's running a Google OS. You can run your tablet apps on the screen, do full screen, you know, apps or do them windowed as standalones as you know, in whatever emulator they cook up or however they do that. That to me seems like a, I almost kind of can't figure out the explanation for the pixel otherwise. Yeah. And I think that's, that's what I'm expecting to see at IO, which would, that would come from the Chrome OS team, right? Like, I mean, it would have to be a collaboration, but it would be a discreet collaboration, wouldn't it? I mean, it's not like you don't need the whole Android team to implement Android on a platform. You need some help. Yeah. You need like a buddy. I mean, Android, and that already, and that already, you know, it's obvious that Android is easy to get up and running on just about anything you want it to run on. Yeah. So, but it's, but that's an X86, right? Are there any difficulties there? I guess they've got Android for X86. Yeah, no. And Motorola is shipping. Right. And you know who owns Motorola? Yeah. Google. It's all coming together. It's all happening. They're going to make. Finally this plan has stumbled into fruition. The plot. Motorola is going, oh, I know what they're going to do. They're going to make a new, yeah, they're going to do make a new Atrix, right? That runs, that is a Chromebook and Android. I think Motorola. Boom. You heard it here first. Breaking. There's your breaking news. Can I just end this by saying I believe the Motorola acquisition is complete failure. I don't think yet. I don't think it's yet. That's it. So that's the other thing I think is interesting. I know we have to move on, but I think, I think what would be really exciting and interesting is if Andy Rubin decided to take a major leadership role in turning Google's hardware business into a real hardware business instead of, instead of like a fake hardware business, which it is now, which it seems like he'd be into, you know, he was hoping that Google would be able to sell phones directly to people over the internet, which did not work. So it seems like, and they have, and there are some things happening now. I think there is, and by the way, well, we're probably going to, I know we have at the FCC. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah. That's okay. Well, I was going to say there are changes happening at the FCC. You know, we are kind of at a new, going towards a new age. The government wants you to be able to unlock your phones. You know, there's definitely a new age of awareness of the need for interoperability and people are no longer, I think, just thinking of phones as something they buy at their carrier. I do feel like there's an opportunity. They botched the Nexus Q. They've had some success with the Nexus 7, maybe some success with the Nexus 4. The 10 I can imagine has not sold anything because they just started promoting it. There's at least one out there because I got mine stolen. That's true. I'm still mad about it. But to see them do what, closer to what Apple or Microsoft is doing or RIM at this point, which is like, hey, we're actually really involved in this. Not just LG has a spec that we're going to, a chassis that we're going to pull for our next phone. Cause let's be honest, that's what they did. They talk about working really closely together, but I don't believe that. I mean, if you look at the Galaxy Nexus and you look at the Nexus 4, you see the chassis of a phone that already exists, that's already going to market in some other form that's just been given like a slightly different form basically. So I would like to see that happen. I think they can do it. I think they should do it. I think the Chromebook Pixel is an incredible piece of hardware. I wish it was more functional because I like it more like physically. You want it to have more Android stuff. I like it more physically than my MacBook Air, my MacBook Pro. Look, if Android was as good at the web as Chrome and Chrome OS was as good at apps as Android, there's something there. Okay. Let's get Chris on. We're out of time. Let's get Chris for this breaking news story. Is he power? Hey. Oh my God. Hey, buddy. Hi, Chris. Chris, how are you? How is everyone? Do we not have a still frame of Chris's face that we can put up on the screen? We do not have one. I've just been informed. I can pull up Chris's picture on my computer and turn it around. Chris, tell us what's happening with our government. What's going down? That's a pretty broad question, what is happening with our government. What's going on with the CPI? What did Obama do today? Something's going on in Cyprus. Yeah, Obama is in Jordan today, I believe. No, so Julius Genachowski, our esteemed FCC chairman for the past four years, has announced that he is stepping down. And this should come as a surprise to no one, because his term was up in July anyway. It's just that he is stepping down a little early. And there's some speculation. Washington Post, which of course is a Washington DC based publication, has been covering this pretty closely. Really? You needed to stipulate that? Well, it could be Washington State. I'm just clarifying. Yeah, it could be Washington State if you have never lived on the planet Earth. They've been covering this situation very closely for the past couple of weeks. A Republican commissioner, FCC commissioner, just stepped down a few days ago. And there's speculation that Julius was waiting for him to step down to tip the balance of the voting in the Democrats' favor. But that's just speculation at this point. So we'll see what happens. Genachowski's replacement hasn't been named yet. So it's going to be an interesting few weeks for people who follow this kind of thing. So Neelai, you know Julius. Sorry, I'm just checking on my package. This is very important. You know Julius. You guys are good buddies. We are. We've talked. You have spent a lot of time together. You summer together in the Hamptons. What do you make of this? How will this impact the world? I think Julius has had a mixed tenure, I would call it. I think he's been very successful at the broad strokes of he's turned the FCC from being this super corporate regulatory agency that mediates disputes between satellite companies and cable companies and talks about technical standards of RF transmission, which they still do. But he has made it a consumer facing agency. They're out there. They're talking about cell phone unlocking. They're talking about broadband across America. They're talking about what our standards should be. But it also comes at a time, and I'm not to take it away from him, but it also comes at a time when the awareness of those things as an important. Right. Now I'm not saying, I mean like, you know, the timing was right. And I think he was, I think as much as he could have, he did, he was the right guy. But they're an incredibly, they're an incredibly lobbied part of our government. I mean, Chris and I sit around dreaming of things the FCC could do in our private moments and they don't ever do anything. They're heavily lobbied by private interests. By the way, Neelai, I cherish our private moments. Can I just say? Do you also summer in the Hamptons with Neelai and Jenny Kowsky? Major Power and Julius. But you know, I feel like they've done almost nothing. So I disagree with you, right? Yeah, I also disagree. Whoa. Well, no, I mean, if you think about the things that they do. You guys had time to talk about this at the beach house. Yeah. Well, Julius got to me. No, I mean like, look, they presided over the 700 megahertz auction. Yeah. Which went pretty badly. I mean, except for the fact that there's LTE. No, no, no. They sold it. The United States. No, no, they sold it. The United States leads the world in LTE. But you knew they would sell it. But all of the things, but the things that they should have done to kind of protect consumers' choice for that, in that auction were definitely left on the cutting room floor. And this is what I'm saying is that happened. Chris, that happened during Kevin Martin's tenure, right? Like, Julius took it over. Yes, it did. So that happened during the previous commissioner's tenure. So he took over the implementation of this thing that happened, right? So like, they sold the spectrum to Verizon. Now we've got to build it out. And that's when he began turning the FCC into this consumer organization, right? Where they're saying, we need net neutrality. Where they're saying, we need massive broadband deployment. You've got to stop playing with your trust. No, no, no. Go ahead. Sad Android face. No, no, no. No, and that's just what he started talking about what the FCC needs to do in order to protect consumer interests. And I think he lost a lot of battles. Like he lost that net neutrality battle. He lost a ton of battles. And I mean, maybe he could never have won them in the first place. But it's, you know, I'd love to see an FCC that's a lot more brutal to carriers. Right. Well, I have to say, I think that Julius Genachowski's legacy is going to be the failed AT&T T-Mobile merger, which is obviously seen by most as a huge win for consumers. And T-Mobile is a resurgent carrier now, or at least they appear to be. I mean, are they? Do we have any data to back that up? Well, they're going to launch LTE. They're doing all that uncarrier stuff. Yeah, their spectrum position is much, much stronger than it was 12 or 18 months ago. At what point can I confidently switch to T-Mobile for great LTE service? 18 months. Oh, really? I'll be dead in 18 months. 18 months. But no, but Chris, like I agree with you. I mean, you think that will be his legacy? His legacy is ending something, which I think is interesting. Well, yeah. I mean, I think that's the most sort of blockbuster Hollywood thing that happened during his tenure, for lack of a better word. Yeah. It was a big deal. Yeah. I mean, I think it was good, but I think there were a lot of places where he, you know, look, maybe the impossible forces, you're talking about the government, you're talking about lobbyists and the government. No, what I think is interesting is that, you know, he transitioned. I don't think we ever talked about the FCC. When we were at Engadget, we probably, like Chris and I would run like- We definitely did the 700 megahertz. Well, that's a huge story, but like we never talked about it. I painstakingly photoshopped an eBay auction that was for the 700 megahertz spectrum with like, you know, highest rated seller. And I had like- That's very funny. It said look, and it had like- Now I get it. A plus plus. Yeah, A plus plus. No, look, I think he led this transition where the FCC stopped being a technical standards organization, which is what they were. And they started being this like, we're in the mix. Like the internet was this vast unregulated space. And like now like we need to like decide how people in the United States are going to get connected, how fast they're going to connect, what the companies that control those connections can and can't do, and how we want our economy to work. And so, you know the phrase app economy, which I know you and I both hate, that phrase came from Julius Genachowski, but it's like real. It might've been quietly slid across the desk to him. Tim Cook showed up at the FCC. I'm just saying, I don't know if he invented that term. Anyhow, unfortunately we have to end it here. I will say that to your point on a final note about Genachowski, I don't want to give him no credit. I do think there were some things that he did that really worked. And I think that you're right about the perception of the FCC as a, they've moved into, they are now seem a lot more like a defender and a defender of consumer interest. And I will say this, still the only regular person that the FCC Twitter account follows, Chris Ziegler at CPAC. Yes. I double checked for you today, buddy. That's weird. Yeah, that was a little horse trade I did with Genachowski. Not you, not you, they don't follow you. No, I asked the last time I saw Julius, I asked him if he would do it and he said yes. All right. I stayed away. I want to preserve my integrity, Ziegler. Unfortunately, we got, we have to wrap up. We're out of time and people are going to start coming here with forklifts and remove us. That would be kind of cool actually. Let's wait it out. They just scooped us up. Verge Studio Occupation. Yeah. We're going to handcuff ourselves. Occupy Studio. To the desk. Hashtag. Anyhow, and I do apologize for being late. I will not be late next time. Anyhow, that's the Vergecast for this week. If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at vergecast at the verge.com. Send your sad Android photos. You can find us on Twitter at Verge. You can leave a comment on the post when it goes up. We're also all on Twitter. Neelai is reckless. I'm Joshua Topolsky. What is your- ADR Jeffries. ADR Jeffries. What is that? What is the ADR? I'm a doctor. Is it just your- No, it's just a- I thought you were going to remind me of that. A Dr. Jeffries. That's amazing. It's just a condensed version of your name. Interesting. I said Verge. You can find the Verge on Twitter. What else? Any other messages I need to share with the people? No. No. Paul Miller is still alive. Paul Miller is fine. He just did an interview with Douglas Rushkoff, which you should watch. You should watch. Actually, it's really good about present shock, which is not getting presents and being shocked about them. I have to say, whoever sent me this gif of the sad Android- Got to wrap it up. You're my favorite. Anyhow, that's our show for the week. We'll be back next week. As always, I wish you and your family the very best this weekend. Rock and roll.