This week we're talking about big deals and big tech and big stuff as Farmville's Zynga was acquired for 11 billion and NFT marketplace OpenSea raises $300 million at a scorching $13 billion valuation. Big tech staff movements are on the rise, people are moving all over the place, including Meta's head of PR resigning and Signal's CEO is stepping down. And our reports of 70 departures from Microsoft's HoloLens team to companies like Facebook Meta and other stories, including the successful assembly of NASA's big Webb telescope.
This week we're talking about big deals and big tech and big stuff as Farmville's Zynga was acquired for 11 billion and NFT marketplace OpenSea raises $300 million at a scorching $13 billion valuation. Big tech staff movements are on the rise, people are moving all over the place, including Meta's head of PR resigning and Signal's CEO is stepping down. And our reports of 70 departures from Microsoft's HoloLens team to companies like Facebook Meta and other stories, including the successful assembly of NASA's big Webb telescope.
It's the Next Wave Podcast, episode 56. I'm James Thomason here with my co-host, Dean Nelson and Brad Kirby. This week we're talking about big deals and big tech and big stuff as Farmville Zynga was acquired for 11 billion and NFT marketplace OpenSea raises $300 million at a scorching $13 billion valuation. Big tech staff movements are on the rise, people are moving all over the place, including Meta's head of PR resigning and Signal's CEO is stepping down. And our reports of 70 departures from Microsoft's HoloLens team to companies like Facebook Meta and other stories, including the successful assembly of NASA's big Webb telescope. Dean, Brad, how are you, my friends?
Dean Nelson:I haven't gotten COVID again yet. So that's good. How about you, Brad?
Brad Kirby:I haven't either. And it's been all around like at New Year's I. I've asked Ron's wife got it the next day. And it seems like I've had 17 or 18 close friends that have gotten it within 24 hours of meeting room. I could just be at the end. It's you I had one. asymptomatic and giving it to everyone.
Dean Nelson:Is that because it's minus 27? Yeah,
James Thomason:this whole time I've been getting it from you
Brad Kirby:wouldn't be the first virus. Yeah,
James Thomason:after you try to get COVID he's been he's been flying. He's been riding with your daughter had COVID You rode in the car for hours with your daughter. And now you're flying all over. And now you're gonna fly again. So I think you want COVID Again, you didn't didn't get enough of the last time. I do
Dean Nelson:not want COVID Again, but I do want to continue to do business. bidness. So yes, I'm going to PTC as of right now. So hopefully, everything doesn't shut down. I'll be flying. And then I was in Utah yesterday. And then I'm going to Monaco So April here we come.
Brad Kirby:Hey, since we're out of Cincinnati, I can't have PTC. I should go to Hawaii. I don't mind. I think the rest of our team can afford to be trapped and why for two weeks, but I wouldn't mind at all. Minus 27 degrees right now. No, I haven't. I'm dead. Seriously, let's get down to this.
James Thomason:Well, they let you in coming to you live from inside of Taunton and the frozen planet Hoff is Brad Kirby. That is too cold. How would Dean say it? That is hell?
Brad Kirby:It is.
Dean Nelson:It's just an icy Hill. Yeah,
Brad Kirby:it's probably mild compared to most parts Canada right now. Really?
James Thomason:Yeah. You live in South East lives in South Canada. Dean. Sally
Brad Kirby:is really warm. If I'm on the same parallels California, California. That's okay,
Dean Nelson:so let me just kind of flip that remove the minus and add 38 degrees. And there we are today. Yeah, that's cool for us. So it's 60
Brad Kirby:something approaching absolute zero.
James Thomason:You even by the Imperial math. Right. That's, that's cool.
Dean Nelson:I think we should just put quantum computing in Canada because it would have enough cold temperatures to handle even
Brad Kirby:that. Yeah. So they're doing Yeah,
Dean Nelson:I suffered it. Oh, it's insane. Yeah, it'll, that's gonna change all data centers, because, well, sorry. They're gonna have custom built things because it just doesn't cool the way you normally Cool. All right. I forgot what it is. But some Kelvin Yes. Really, really low number, right.
Brad Kirby:It's a low energy use, right? It says near absolute
James Thomason:zeros. They can get it I think. Yeah. But hey, well, big deals this week. Take Two Interactive to buy Farmville maker Zynga and a $12.7 billion deal. Folks, this is for games that you click around and play on Facebook, like Farmville being the most legendary, I think Words with Friends. I mean, I guess they're buying where are they buying this? Dean? What do you think they're buying this to get more solidify their mobile position? So that was,
Dean Nelson:yep, it's mobile. But also, I think, because they're gonna get to a billion users. So if you think about it, this is one of the largest publicly traded interactive entertainment companies in the world now. When that goes together at $6.1 billion and trailing 12 months, pro forma net bookings, right up till September 2021. So this is a big deal. But the difference is that I think over 50% of their actual transactions will be mobile at that point. So I think that's why take two went after them was to to grow right, but also to get a chunk in the mobile. I'm not sure how Farmville goes to the other games they've got right. What's their prime their main ones with
James Thomason:friends? I think it's one of the most popular right now. No, no, take two bucks. That's auto Yeah, Grand Theft Auto to GTA. Yeah, nothing says family fun on Facebook, like Grand Theft Auto. She said
Brad Kirby:that was one of my favorite games gonna happen with a kid first back in the day, like I was a great game, but I think it's also really the the whole web three movement. I don't want to use the Mr. Because I know that they specifically stayed away from calling the the metaverse but whatever we call it is it's kind of that play right. So learn a little bit about Farmville, a whole industry and mobile in the mobile space. Plus, it was devalued after Apple's privacy laws came into place. They lost users after the pandemic. flared up a bit, because everybody was on their phones playing Farmville all day every day as much,
James Thomason:although they've been doing surprisingly well over the last few years, I kind of thought going back maybe 2016 2014, I kind of I kind of just viewed Zynga as dead man walking. Yeah, but actually, their their revenues have been up quarter over quarter are successfully since 2019. So they climbed from around $964 million in revenue in March of 2019. And their most recent quarter, they reported $2.7 billion of revenue. So they've been on a really good run, despite that their stock price has been been depressed. And I think that's the reason that they paid a premium in the acquisition for the company. So just prior to the acquisition, the stock was trading around $6 a share. And it's currently trading over eight. So it was a pretty significant premium. They paid to get into Zynga, so to speak.
Dean Nelson:But it's also lower than what Zynga was. If you think about it just earlier last year, it's still below there. Yeah, yes, it's still a little bit high. But single also, we think about Farmville and, you know, words of friends, but they've got a lot of other games as well, CSR Racing, golf aspects, right?
Brad Kirby:Learn their challenge.
Dean Nelson:puzzles and spells and yeah, so I think there's more to this than just Farmville. And do you remember when Zynga, like you said, we thought there were dead. There was something that happened a few years ago, where Facebook basically had shut something down and Zynga lost, like, half this revenue or something.
James Thomason:That's right. That's right. They, you know, Facebook had through its walled garden effect changed its API's, and somehow I can't remember the exact details of what ended up shutting down. Huge. Yeah, it was a huge, it was a huge deal.
Brad Kirby:Yep. Well, this valuation isn't crazy, because Merck came crypto kitties on Aetherium with dapper labs, you know, do you know what that's valued at over at? I don't know. 7.6 billion efforts last round September. Crypto kitties. They have other games now. But so if you think of it, what exactly is crypto kitties about that's buying NF T. Cats on there? They're the original NFT. A game buying cats on Aetherium? Yeah, really are with a theorem. Yeah, this is like this is like four years old, too, right? It's not. It's not like they have other games. Now. It's called dapper labs. They're they're backed by SoftBank. And the gaming consolidation market in terms of acquisitions has reached 180 billion transactions now, too. So I think it really does say something to how people view gaming and the future of tech and how it's going to evolve beyond gaming. life experience.
James Thomason:I remember about Zynga back and I want to see right around their IPO or shortly thereafter, they were attempting to claw back stock from employees, one of the very nastiest things a startup company can do to its early employees. And you know, in the startup game, you often give equity incentive options to early employees. So I guess the feeling of the board was that they gave they were too generous with their option, grants to early employees. And so they actually clawed them back from employees. That's a very, it's a horrible thing to do. So they really robbed millions of dollars from early stage employees. And I've never forgiven them for that, of course, I wasn't at Zynga. But still, I still never forgave them. And I can't, I was surprised that people continued to work there. You know, if that was their, their modus operandi. And so shortly thereafter, a couple years, maybe probably misreporting this, but don't take this as a fact. But I do know that they let the founder go Mark Pincus left. And then they brought him back, like a year later, to run the company again, and then they let him go again. So the founder was, in out in out over time, I mean, to my mind there, but the brand was completely tainted when they bought back options from early stage employees. But of course, for me, that's probably one of the worst things you could do. Yeah, throws a jump point. So
Dean Nelson:they're the ones that actually built the product and made the company happen. So yeah, yes, awful. Not good.
James Thomason:The maybe the rating employees got something out of this deal. I mean, they certainly have, I'm sure they're getting stock grants. Yes, it was. And Sasha, they continue to work, but we're way past IPO days. So probably the only people making money on this are the executives and if there's a banker in the mix of bankers, but maybe there's no banker in the mix, you know, who'd made many as the corporate dev guy on the fire side of the equation? I'm sure that person had a good when I say guy, I mean guy, Gal, whatever. That person had a good person. Yes, person. Yep. Corporate person, corporate dev human. This week open see the NFT marketplace raised 300 million at a $13 billion valuation that is a screening valuation for a company at this stage. Wow. Brad, for us, old men. What is an NFT marketplace?
Brad Kirby:It is a place where you can go and buy non fungible tokens, including a few that's in our last episode virtual real estate. So Russia has to prove that those plots of land that you buy on one super world you can then go and take them because they're on chain sell them on open see, because it has that marketplace as they have about I think they're up to like 3 billion in revenue a year. According to their transaction fees, they charge like a 15% broker tree, which you know, is really in the spirit of web three, having these intermediaries, I mean, isn't for me. And Jack Dorsey, when Ilan said where's web three, and Jackson, somewhere between the letters A and Z, you know who's behind this is the typical culprits of centralization, touting decentralization and creating centralized apps. That's what this is, it's BS, because when you go on and create your own NFT, which I've done, just to show people, it makes it look like it's been recorded on chain, it gives you a gives you a contract on Aetherium, it gives you a token ID, it gives you etc, you have to you have to have a meta mask account, you have to collect and approve transactions, none of that is on chain. It's only on chain once you've paid to list it. Now, you might get your feedback if it doesn't sell, but you're still paying transaction fees and gas costs on Aetherium by by virtue of, of actually recording it on chain. So really, it's just an expensive way to buy and sell pictures. Whatever other representation is recorded in the ERC 720 token and a lot of 35 whatever form that takes, which is really just a series of metadata recording on chain so you know anyone that's a blockchain or jewelry is bashing their head against the wall on this stuff. But at the end of the day, people like it, people are doing it. I think that the whales are having a large impact on like we see Celebes selling art, you know, the first 60 million you see the Constitution getting, you see dinosaurs getting sold all of these things that are very novelty, and get a lot of media, right. So the media is driving it. And it's just I think you're seeing a lot listing. And it just, you can't just go and list the picture unexpected this won't happen. Right? It has to have some kind of novelty to it has to have some kind of hype around it. So I say to get 60 million. The largest today is around 60 Plus, yeah, yeah, that art. Yeah. So
James Thomason:what you're trying to say is like, if I were to take a facsimile of my buttocks, I'm not going to get$60 million for it on Open. See?
Brad Kirby:I wouldn't think so unless, you know, there's some kind of story behind it. And you had the interest of market makers in this space.
Dean Nelson:I think you could put a story behind it. There's 6 billion check. Yeah, wait, 6 million a cheek? So not 6 million.
Brad Kirby:Yeah, I mean, if you show up to be an ass. Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit about creativity, I guess to that extent, if you want to go that far. But
Dean Nelson:it's just normal. This whole not is but I'm talking about the 300 million. Is that that seems a $13 billion valuation, is that normal?
Brad Kirby:Well, I just told you about dapper labs. There was another company in France, where there was a NFT sporting company that got 480 million euros and a$4.5 billion valuation in September. Yeah. So it's, it's starting to become the norm.
Dean Nelson:It just seems very high. Like yeah, 30 billion for a marketplace.
James Thomason:Yeah, there was another another link making the rounds this week was CSV chain, which is a new NFT as a way to let everyone know that you own something digital could be a GIF or JPG or PNG, a WAV file, or even a PowerPoint presentation. By purchasing entity you have the right to say that you are the person that purchased the NFT. at Roy's Emporium, you can mentor purchase entities or entities are recorded and stored using our proprietary CSV chain technology. That's right folks built on robust and tried and true CSV. Those are comma separated files folks. CSV chain stores transactions such as purchasing and FTS using a CSV file, all the CFTC to see if a change data is held on cold storage using this USB drive attached to my laptop to ensure that secure. Oh, amazing. You send I guess the way it works is you send Roy an email. Then you negotiate a purchasing fee $10 least minting fee and selling fee. And after that ROI will add your NFT to the end of a CSV file
Brad Kirby:on the USB stick. That sounds like a great deal. It's kind of genius. It is. Wow. And as there's
James Thomason:the cost of other marketplaces.
Brad Kirby:Yeah, Robert Robert dinero has partnered with some exchange apparently where he's programmed this face to react to the price movement of ether and every picture selling for point 285 eath which is about $860 A picture My job is out of control. Right? It's just so there's some relevancy, I think in terms of disintermediating the marketplace. And if you think of gaming, you think of it becoming, think of it like a casino chip, then look at it like because, right, in that ecosystem, which is no different than fungible token really like an ERC 20 token, which is what a lot of these cryptocurrencies are based on. But yeah, it's getting a little bit silly at this point. Where it lands, I think 90% of these are gonna be with dollars in two years. I think everyone buying that, find that knows. But I mean, I'm so old
James Thomason:that I can remember the Beanie Baby craze. So this reminds me very much of the Beanie Baby craze. People were buying in the investment grade Beanie Babies for 1000s of dollars, and storing them, many of them, of course, still have these vast collections of Beanie Babies.
Dean Nelson:Yep. That they'll never get their money back for Do you remember when Twinkies on eBay? were sold for some insane amount of money because they were
James Thomason:hostess had gone out of business.
Brad Kirby:These are all scarcity. Israel scarcity plays including Beanie Baby, right? Like there is a scarcity. Well, that's that's what they try to claim is that there is scarcity, you are the only person that owns the rights image. Well, that's what a copyright is. I mean, true. Yeah. So I can still take a screenshot of your NFT and have a copy of it for myself, if I like your picture. I don't see the I don't see the scarcity value and all that. But that's just my opinion. A lot of people will argue that. So the cows come home and eat grass. No.
James Thomason:But I love the idea of creating a different source of revenue for artists. I mean, yeah, artists in the world, producing great stuff. And it's not easy for them to make a living doing that. So I certainly love the idea. Yes. But well, congratulations to the folks that open See, for $13 billion valuation, of course, getting to the exit doors, is the trick with that high valuation. And so I'm sure they have a plan for that and amazing deal. On the heels of that, we saw a lot of big tech labor moves this week, Matt has had a PR, that's Facebook folks, that has struggled to address several controversies in the wake of the Facebook papers. Brad, what were the Facebook
Brad Kirby:papers, those were the leaks about just just some of the internal programs that were happening around visit that we talked about, or podcasts where they did that study on human behavior, just in terms of internal communications and employee culture being pretty negative across the board. And he's kind of been a lot faced with having to deal with that. And all of the, you know, misinformation that has gone around, associated with Facebook and political ads and all the scrutiny that's come with that. So ultimately, I think it was probably a little bit too much. You know, I guess he didn't see that the three branding was enough of a pivot to satisfy his own personal beliefs. I think is is tough. I
Dean Nelson:mean, think about when you're when you're at that level, and there was controversy, it's extremely hard, right to turn that around. Not a lot. Not a lot of people are able to do it, whether you're an HR PR, or just anywhere where there's that scrutiny at this global visibility. So John Panetta said his name, yeah, it's Ryan, Eddie. And, Eddie. Yeah. panetti. So I, it just, it seems like when you have that many things shooting at you all the time, like, how can you go back and pivot to get to solve it? So I don't know, I'm speculating here. But it's either, you know, he couldn't do it or didn't want to do it, or the strategy wasn't working. And but that that's a really, really tough problems. So think, think of like Ubers challenges, right? When you're in the media every day, when there's things and some stuffs built on other portions, something's real, something's like, but either way, that's like a PR nightmare. And then you think about the same thing, from an HR standpoint, when you have these things that pop back up. It's difficult to fix. It's difficult to go back and change public perception, as well as what happens internally, especially depending on how, how valid the actual concerns are. You know, and I like to give an example, this one, when all this stuff was going down at UVA, right. I went internally and started looking at with, you know, do we have these issues? Do I see it because I wanted to know, I worked at a company where it was okay, right? I had a daughter and a wife. They're asking questions about things. And so I went back and did my own research on those things and found that it was there were there were definitely pockets of things that were broken and right, the process broke. And things did not work. But I didn't find policies and things like that, that were actually out of control. And so I look at the Facebook papers themselves. This is what's so hard about media content that comes back out What is real? What is boosted up to sensationalized? Those kinds of things? I don't know. And diving into the research, James, we're looking at other stories and things and we got to be careful about the headline, right pops back up, is that headline, the thing that's actually there? Or is it all sudden the headline that's hot? And is it real behind the stuff that's there? It's, it's difficult. So just imagine how to deal with that every day as a PR executive now,
James Thomason:and then we're gonna do when you discover that your your company is literal Satan, then what?
Dean Nelson:See, that's that's the thing, your own personal party, like, I think it's time to move to something different if you can't actually make a change, or actually influence or do something to change it. So and again, speculation really, I have no idea what John scope and all this was. But in the end, it looks like a very difficult problem to solve.
Brad Kirby:Very difficult.
James Thomason:This exit memo, he did say, I know the team will continue to thrive is to do some of the most important and most difficult work in communications. To put it mildly,
Dean Nelson:yeah, you know, the other parallel of this is think about outages and things. People are crucified all the time because of something that went wrong. And unless you really dig in to see what it was, a lot of times, you know, the team is looking at a piece of it, and they crucify a person based on that. And it's instead of systemically what went wrong, and why did it happen. That's why whenever you have outages, you try to do blameless post mortems. Right. And you have to stick to it. And so I don't know, sorry, I'm going off on a tangent here. But it's just I look at lots of people that are beaten up externally, for things that are just sensationalized or blown out of proportion. I have no idea if this is the case here or not. But either way, it's a difficult situation to deal with. And you put yourself in that person's shoes, how would you deal with it? Well, when there's adversity, you dive in. And if you can't make a change, or it really isn't going to change, then you move on. But if you can, and you try that and you can't change it, then maybe you're not the right person for the job. Right? What
James Thomason:do you do when you realize that your job basically is to cover up the mess, but nothing's really going to change? Right? Like, we're going to continue to make messes, and they'll be more messes in the future, that you have to clean up and so nothing. There's no learning from this. It's just a ah, yeah, turns out we're evil. But let's not be so evil in the minds of Americans, right. So even the minds of the world. So it's basically it's basically a propaganda job, right? I mean, that's what it is. So I don't I don't envy him. He definitely had a hard job. I mean, maybe not as hard as like Muhammad Saeed. I'll show half the former Iraqi diplomat and politician, the guy that used to call Baghdad Bob, you know, comical Ali, the guy during the Gulf War that got on us like the Americans are running in terror from our you know, we fought them and they're leaving. Remember that? Maybe not that bad, but close. Okay. Close. There's three levels of this, right? When it's bad, right? You're like, you're Baghdad. Or you're Trump's PR person, or your Facebook's pure. I'm sorry, Mattis, PR person? I think it's I think it that's kind of the rungs on the ladder. That's right there. That's really bad.
Dean Nelson:James is here to make a lot of friends on this podcast. That's, uh, that's that
James Thomason:influence people.
Dean Nelson:Don't forget influence people that truly truly truly Okay. All right.
James Thomason:We wish him luck in his new role wherever that may be. I don't think he said where he's going. He's probably going anywhere. It doesn't need to go anywhere. Maybe he's gonna go to Hawaii with Eugene.
Dean Nelson:There you go. Hopefully, we did not get COVID together.
Brad Kirby:I was actually listening as a career the other day talk about his Metaverse view with one of the more influential guys in the metaverse space. He's a journalist for economists. He's actually here in Toronto. He's He's like number two most influential person out of ours, it was a good conversation, because I'm trying to really just grasp this as a, if this is where we're going, let's make it a better world type type viewpoint. And now, I want to see what what MATA is doing. I don't want to miss really participate. But I am curious to see what his what his vantage point is right. Rather than just ignorant.
Dean Nelson:I mean, guess what, 2 billion users there's influence there. So no matter what, it's solely here, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Metaverse is a very real thing. That's my CTO is with me yesterday driving and he said, he said he got the Oculus for what it was the new one. And so he started diving into that experience right on Facebook with with those and and he said the software is good. What they put together is actually really good. The thing that that I think is going to start to change the way that people interact is he said, people are setting up their own
Brad Kirby:theaters.
Dean Nelson:So movie theater, and you go in and you sit in a chair and you watch a movie together. And you said it got a little awkward. I'm sitting next to a lady and another guy sitting next to her and he starts hitting on her and I can hear the whole conversation. Like in real life. Not a girl in a movie theater right, but in the metaverse but either way, that is the way that things are going to be operating and interested in. Have you guys heard the story from The Wall Street Journal about the migration? Right. The tech battle? Oh, the defection of giants. Yeah, yeah. So because I think that's where I forgot what it was. Is it people that were actually at Microsoft HoloLens
James Thomason:is defecting to fate to Mehta. Right, this is, yeah. 70 7070 former employees on hold and seem have defected. Well, at least 40 of them have joined meta and that we know so far.
Brad Kirby:Yeah, I think as well. I think even applets and the departures towards that direction, Apple came out and said, they're building their own VR headset, and they're not going away at the metaverse, a lot of people kind of staking their grounds in big tech where they want to be right now.
Dean Nelson:If you think about this, I remember when I joined Uber, I had to build a hardware team, I had to build it, we just keep expanding. And same exact thing. We went back and got, you know, experts out of the hardware team from Facebook, and we got we pull people from all different places. And that's that's the tough part of the Silicon Valley is it's expensive. Everybody's competing for talent, right? And it's the same pool. So yeah, I can see this. And this is more than just Silicon Valley. But think about it. Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, all going after Metaverse style, right, full, immersive type experiences, which means there's only so many people that are involved in that. So yeah, it's it's just repeating
Brad Kirby:again. Yeah, I think I My view is that it might have something to do with the cost of the HoloLens. The HoloLens is very expensive, right? You're looking at 30? I think partially Wait, how much is it can be anywhere from 3500, up to 6500 for professional versions. So it's very enterprise focused? I haven't really haven't really scaled it down towards the consumer yet. Whereas you know, Oculus and Facebook, that's very, that's very consumer oriented, right? So.
Dean Nelson:So here, you've got Microsoft with going after the business Metaverse or whatever they're calling it. What's their name? Ami verse or something?
Brad Kirby:That's first. Yeah, but I don't know what Microsoft. Okay. So but
Dean Nelson:they're, but they're doing it all based on your business? Sure, yeah. Yeah, sure. Versus servers. And then you've got meta, which is is is going after really the consumer style. So I'm just wondering, the people that are actually migrating between those two different companies? Is it because they believe in the strategy more? I don't know, if it would be like the device cost unless they don't believe that the devices are going to be adopted?
Brad Kirby:is a good question. I'm curious, I'd my comment was just pure speculation, because I don't know why there'd be such a mass exodus to a company that so many people have, you know, a little bit of despise, really in the space, right. So there's
Dean Nelson:so that, that and by the way that the people despise in this space, if you think about it from a technical standpoint, and working in infrastructure and all that they literally have one of the biggest infrastructures in the world, right. They're most of the most advanced technically, from a digital infrastructure standpoint, right. So there's a lot of really good things, the bigger picture of the company and the social aspects of it. And the other things I dropped parallel to Uber here too, right? That was, there's a lot of, well, Microsoft is a very well run company as well. Right. I guess my main thing here is that not everybody shares the same opinion.
Brad Kirby:Right? Those brands, right? Yeah. And the big companies is a
Dean Nelson:balance here of where people want to work. And I think that people want to work on cool projects, and they want to work on something that's rewarding for it. But also people want to work at companies that are ethical and, and have the right values and things that they care about too. But it all depends on the personal preference of people, and what they believe in what they where they focus their time and their opinion.
Brad Kirby:Just my opinion,
James Thomason:or you might say that big tech, big tech is Satan. I don't know.
Brad Kirby:Some people will work for the devil. But isn't this just a big tech, big tech move?
James Thomason:Fair enough.
Brad Kirby:So I think the real reason that these 70 defectors is all about salary, I think company I think managers offer double the salary comp is what the boards have been saying what the what the buzz is, is just a matter of paying a month.
James Thomason:So you ding ding ding ding, no one cares of their company. It's like yeah, I absolutely will not work at meta because I am a moral person who gets my principles. Wait, how much since you put it that way. LinkedIn is launching interactive. I think Dean, we've applied for interactive, right? This is a clubhouse style, audio events, live streaming, live video kind of node, where you can just hold quasi live events on the platform and we're gonna try this ourselves pretty soon.
Dean Nelson:We are this. Yep. This is LinkedIn streaming. So just like Twitch and others who use the same kind of setup for it. So we could have a live podcast streamed on, on LinkedIn. So we're going to give that a shot. I'm not sure exactly when but we're going to give that a shot. So terrifying
James Thomason:prospects, we imagine what are you who are audiences imagine that things will do to us?
Dean Nelson:Well, now they'll be able to see us this time right now just the the audio itself. But the fans,
Brad Kirby:we never really get anything out. That's in terms of our we're pretty. What we say is what we say. That's true.
James Thomason:I mean, unless unless we totally screw up, which we do sometimes shut that out. But other than that, it's pretty much just as it is. So it is kind of like a a live show already. Pretty much. Yep. If it weren't, we'd also inform more intelligent we do.
Brad Kirby:flows better this way. Anyways, there we go.
James Thomason:I'm afraid of the virtual Dean Nelson AI and put made him say all kinds of stuff.
Dean Nelson:Yes, you still haven't done that. And I'm very happy about that.
James Thomason:Oh, it's coming, though.
Brad Kirby:Well, when I was listening to Zuckerberg that Facebook has a similar style clubhouse app and his dream, it was cutting in and out like crazy. This was not could not support traffic. I think there was like 100,000 viewers on Facebook's metas like clubhouse. Colin, I think there'll be interaction. So the interesting to see how it rolls out,
Dean Nelson:or for LinkedIn, I think what they're starting those just audio, right. And so like clubhouse are just going to have the ability for people to speak that way. But then they're gonna open it up for video and streaming. And they just want their creators to be able to, to us platform like like other platforms.
Brad Kirby:Then Facebook was audio as well. It was just audio and it was still cutting in and out. Oh, wow. Really? Yeah. Because 150,000 current users is a lot of was it web format? Like a webinar? Yes.
James Thomason:That would be nothing for Facebook. Yeah, yeah.
Brad Kirby:It's one way. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of interesting, the scaling issue, they're now trying to put 150,000 people in the same virtual environment and see how that works out.
Dean Nelson:I remember back in 2016, when they launched that they were going to basically have video streaming. There was something about fiber and links on Facebook, when they first kicked off and said, unlimited video. I can't remember what that was. But I just remember the investment they had to make on the networks globally and CDN and everything else to to enable that to happen. That was 20. Yeah, 2015 or 2016. I can't remember the details. But
James Thomason:well, the overwhelming majority of traffic now is video. Right? And thank you, Netflix and 50 other streaming services that you have to pay for now. And by the way, I think that's imagine a future in which you pay one subscription fee and get all the channels you could possibly oh wait, that was cable still know what's gonna happen, right? And five years from now, they're gonna bundle them all together and you're subscribed to one service already happening.
Brad Kirby:It's Disney happening. The cable companies in Canada have already integrated Netflix and prime into their
James Thomason:offering. It's just another service. And there's always a fight with. You guys have one cable company, right like Rogers has. I
Brad Kirby:think there's two. There's two bells the other one. Okay.
James Thomason:So if you if you're a Rogers, a bell customer, you just get you get Netflix now, as a part of it.
Brad Kirby:Yeah, can be built in. There's one called crave that has HBO streaming in it. That's a bell company, but it's gotten augers that's pretty good service, as HBO and
Dean Nelson:at&t bundles now, HBO and other stuff together too. Right? So it's the same kind of concept.
Brad Kirby:Yeah, I think XFINITY might be doing as well with a few other offerings. Yep, cable is coming back in New Form.
James Thomason:Cable, Beanie Babies, peer to peer. It's the 90s over
Dean Nelson:satellite connections. Remember that? Oh, now we're gonna have a satellite network.
James Thomason:Now. Again, yes. Well, there was a rumor spreading this week that Norton Antivirus was automatically crypto mining. If you had it installed. Norton is sneakily installing crypto mining software on your computer. They would be skimming a commission but they don't do it unless you give them permission.
Dean Nelson:Yeah, okay. Okay. They have the capability the feature and I got it, you can turn it on. So
Brad Kirby:I don't use Norton but I'm gonna call my parents after this and see if they have it running. I use Norton appears What permission is like, you know, and, you know, accepting cookies, except all like, is that permission? Is that the type of permission you give? Have you checked in? Do you have looking at a minor?
Dean Nelson:I'm on a Mac. So it's not a DHD. exe, but I don't find any process running. That's n CR y PT.
James Thomason:You run on your Mac?
Dean Nelson:I do. Interesting. Who?
Brad Kirby:What? What do you what do you do?
Dean Nelson:James is open to the internet. Yes, because he believes in sharing with everyone.
Brad Kirby:He's Kaspersky. But James, what do you use? I don't use that kind of software. Never say, Oh, I don't get your special.
Dean Nelson:Oh, did he say doesn't get hacked?
James Thomason:I don't I don't you just ask someone to accept a challenge. That's not a challenge. I know. I know some angry Russians that could absolutely do it. But I don't want them to do
Brad Kirby:yours. You're just you proved yourself enough that you're not worried about it. Is that what you're saying? I have other means of you have your own and your own personality viruses.
James Thomason:My other means of protecting myself, but I certainly don't use Norton I consider. Well, let's say you think that about Norton company's product, but I don't trust that kind of software. Gotcha. I don't trust software that has us, you know, elevated permissions that I don't have the source code to have my own computer.
Brad Kirby:Oh, doesn't work anyways, I can tell you that firsthand.
James Thomason:So I maybe it didn't work. And that's how you got it. I don't know. Maybe
Dean Nelson:it was all he knows. I've had it for 10 years, and I have not been hacked. And I have also not had my identity stolen, because LifeLock is actually really cool. So yeah, LifeLock is, that's very, very useful.
Brad Kirby:Yeah, that's it.
James Thomason:Yeah, I mean, no one wants my credit. So they want to see what I guess go right ahead. I mean, you couldn't do anything to possibly improve it.
Dean Nelson:I just want your crypto keys. That's all.
Brad Kirby:That's why I get hacked. Nobody takes my identity is always been intact. I paid$30 A month TransUnion. You've
James Thomason:been you've been hacked so often. And I know, I know, a lot of hackers and none of them are they hug each other? They're not hacked as much as you are.
Brad Kirby:Yeah, I think that I think I've created my own system now that I'm kind of comfortable with. I'm not going to get hacked anytime soon. Oh, that's just like you I think I'm just gonna delete my antivirus. Like it's useless.
James Thomason:Challenge, not a challenge. They're, you know, they're very specific ways that I can be hacked tonight. It's not a challenge. There you go. Yeah, I'll just say that, you know, you can't, you can't trust the software running on your computer to secure your computer. That makes no sense. If that can be done, then they couldn't be broken, too. Anyway. So you know, that doesn't make any sense at all.
Dean Nelson:So how about for all the non CTOs in the world? Mr. Thomason? What do they do? Like your mom, my dad?
James Thomason:Yeah, well, is for the first thing is to run a more secure operating system. And I would say that there's no doubt that Mac OS is superior in terms of security share just yet just is, even by virtue of the fact that there's less users means it's less of a target lesson. So it's not just that it's more secure, it's also less attractive as a target. Because if you spend all that time finding a vulnerability, you know, you just don't have as big of a market. I think in arguably, like Mac OS, is very secure. I, you know, iOS is very secure. I don't run products that design virus installation as a feature. I mean, you realize, right, like, I think we talked about this before on the podcast, we used to joke on Usenet, about the idea that you could email someone a virus, that was a joke. Haha, you email someone a virus? One company, I won't say who they actually implemented that as a feature. And then they refused that fastly to change it. No, no, that's the way it's supposed to work, install antivirus software. So if you're browsing the web, if you're using email, those things should not be able to compromise your host. Granted, there have been some exploits where that's possible. It's pretty rare. Well think about this example. Everyone wants to break out of your browser getting a
Dean Nelson:computer. That's true. But think about it this way. You don't want to get COVID You get a vaccine. So what do they do they inject the actual virus in your body, so your body can build up tolerance. So I don't know there might be a parallel there to have something on your computer to make sure that you're not going to get the virus. I could be completely wrong and hacked, who knows, but I feel a little safer.
Brad Kirby:I think it's very common for like a the average person get Trojans on their computer just for web browsing. I think that's extremely common thing. So for an average user, so I think it's a good piece of software.
James Thomason:They're gonna hack me just make sure it's the real me and not not one of Pooh Bear social honeypots
Dean Nelson:Ah, now I understand. Okay, Pooh. Bear likes honey.
Brad Kirby:Well captures that all that's in the world of News for the week.
James Thomason:I don't think so. I think the last thing to talk about a significance was that NASA even NASA seems surprised by the fact that the telescope works really well. We covered previous other podcasts that they shut down era sivo, the giant space telescope in Puerto Rico, featured in hit movies like contact. I mean, your Acebo crashed and burned, right? It was destroyed basically, when the array fell apart and destroyed itself. So NASA's new telescope is in space. There it is. Outer space, the Webb telescope, Brad, what's the deal with this thing?
Brad Kirby:I think this was the new Hubble so it's $10 billion. And they successfully they launched on Christmas Eve in success successfully been assembled. So there's more steps to go but the exciting what it brings in the future. Have you taken a picture with this thing? Not yet. No. It'll be interesting to see So they've launched the telescope, but they haven't actually done anything with it. Okay, that was the hard part. So they got through, they're
James Thomason:getting getting it into space. Well, I mean, you can launch a car to space these days, surely things actually
Brad Kirby:the assembly was not the not the launch the actual assembly.
James Thomason:Okay, I get it now. So once you know deploying, they gotta think deployed and assembled. And that was that was tricky. But was there a spacewalk involved?
Brad Kirby:I'm not sure. I don't think so.
James Thomason:We'll put them in our then.
Dean Nelson:Just 10 billion.
James Thomason:Man rocket moon, where's the problem? Easy. The Atlantic reported that NASA never attempted such a complicated deployment before. And there are hundreds of ways that the process can go wrong. Yes, if a part for example, became stuck, like really truly stuck, they would just have abandoned the thing. Like $10 million torched off for nothing Dean's gonna
Brad Kirby:have to defend in this episode, because he's gonna catch
James Thomason:Well, apparently we're gonna wrap it up. We're being signaled by our production staff here that it is time to go so folks, if you enjoy podcasts such as this one bring the latest news we bring you some great guests, the top leaders and thinkers and minds in business please do give us a like it will draw our audience. We are sponsored by Infrastructure Masons, uniting builders of the digital age; learn how you can participate and go to the iMasons.org that's iMasons dot ORG and by EDJX, build a new platform for all the things does objects on the web at edjx.io. That's EDJX.io.