 We just got some stuff that we can get a crazy bulk. We joined this debate in progress Ikea bad fantastic food or fantastic bad food So is it just like alright? Here's a bunch of mass market stuff. We're gonna get it But we're going to splurge for the most expensive version of scalable food, right, right? Or are they like no you want to know what we're not gonna compromise on The following things are going to be of the following quality However, we do need to scale this up So we got to make a few you know a few nips and tucks here or there So like is it purpose that is degraded by its expansion or is it expansion? perfected by way of like that they use this as loss leader Stuff to keep people in the store. Yeah, I tend to think expansion perfected. I feel like it's Sort of like these are great meatballs Certainly not a compromise have to be made because they have to be frozen and shipped all over the world But they are as good as you're gonna get them Here's my thing about their meatballs. Are they great meatballs or are we just not used to that sauce? Because I feel like if you put those meatballs if you're an era sauce It would be every height in every cafeteria every commissary ever. I don't think those meatballs are Always the sauce sauce makes all the difference it does Why don't they sell? Oh, I was that was a dumb question because we buy meatballs at Ralph's and that'll be a meatballs and marinara I'll be one of our go-to items when we're really don't want to cook, right? Yeah And I was like why don't they sell Ikea meatballs at Ralph? Well, of course because they want you to go to Ikea That's the whole point Now I will say this the all-star of Ikea food the lingonberry Lingonberry I love the lingonberry. I lean hates the lingonberry. I'm like the lingonberry like what that's what makes it the lean Maybe the lingonberry is the David Bowie a furniture based diner What other furniture based dining is there besides Ikea? I don't bring it to me and I'll tell you that David Bowie I was that Scandinavian designs cafeteria. I'm willing to say that there's a Freddie Mercury I'm willing to say that there's an Elton John. Where's that Metzger's home furnishings cafeteria But what I'm doing right now is I'm facing all of my furniture based dining options off British pop. Are you at Mayfair? Yeah How are we sitting furniture? All right, you ready to do this show. Let's go. Let's do it. Keep it going. All we do is win This one's for the Brexit voters another advertising damn it Without advertising your radio station would sound like this Without your support on patreon.com the daily tech news show would sound like this We thank you for your support Daily tech news show.com forward slash support This is the daily tech news for Thursday, June 23rd 2016 I'm Tom Merritt Justin Robert Young alongside today Host of politics politics politics headed to politicon this week and Justin We are gonna talk about the president of the United States desire to be Peter Thiel Well, you know, this is in the grand scheme of news topics that I Am paid directly or indirectly to cover there are few stories that I feel Nestle into the Venn diagram of my interest like this story That we will get into about Obama wanting to become a venture capitalist. I am so excited for this very very interesting If you're worried that we're gonna get about we're not gonna talk about elections, you know We're gonna steer clear of general politics. I mean, you can't get away with it We talked about the president. We're gonna focus on president in the United States Leaving office. What do they usually do? Should they become a venture capitalist? Let's start off though with the top stories Alphabet subsidiary Google Fiber said Wednesday, it's gonna acquire web pass web pass is a San Francisco based fiber internet provider They would bring Google Fiber into two new markets Miami and Boston as well as a few markets Google is already slated to roll out in Chicago, San Diego and of the aforementioned San Francisco web pass focuses on providing fiber to large apartment complexes and businesses. They also do Wireless connectivity and those are both things that Google Fiber has been wanting to get into that that high bandwidth wireless direction and Fighting with other ISPs and getting into apartment complexes Justin could sometimes your Comcasts or your other ISPs will strike these monopolistic deals with apartment complexes and Everybody else's shut up so And I hesitate to use the term Monopolistic because they are effectively going to your duly elected representative condo board and you are making the decision that Your people that you have empowered are making the decision to say we're will take this bulk bundle deal And so it will be just put into whatever fees you pay to the building and that's how people wind up getting Direct TV and stuff like called monopolish Monopolistic right less. Yeah, I mean it certainly does cut down in some situations It cuts down choice a lot of Apartments will allow you to pick your own ISP and there are easy ways for them to run lines into it obviously fiber in general high speed internet in general is something that The the market craves the market wants if you are moving into an apartment Especially for many of our listeners and one has Google fiber Available to it and the other doesn't or any kind of fiber system You will want to sacrifice maybe square footage so you can get that internet connection That is that is a real real real thing. I'm very curious to see with web pass. How much of this is a talent acquisition? Into say hey look you guys know how to deal with these apartment complexes You know how to deal with these real estate companies You know how to get this stuff in you know the language that is spoken very often bribery If if we don't get into high Big occupancy cities and not necessarily cities with small urban cores and a lot of rural suburbs like Austin and stuff like that Where you've already seen Kansas City where you've seen a lot of this already roll out then fiber will always be stunted And we'll never gain this kind of traction that Google and all other fiber providers would want to really become something that that is more than just kind of a hobby Yeah, I feel like this is sauce for the Ikea meatballs right like Google can gum into Chicago and roll out a ton of fiber and be Very successful, but they're going to be more successful. It's gonna be easier for them to make their money back It's going to fund them better if they can also strike a bunch of high occupancy condo towers as Part of part of their clients right so they want that not only talent, but any web pass Communities that they already have deals with like those are served on a silver platter So I think it's both it makes me think okay Google's gonna buy an ISP Should they buy others? You know why why did they pass on Verizon's sale of Fios when frontier bought it or is Google thinking well Maybe we should just buy frontier one of these days Well, let me sweeten this story like a Lincoln by the way, that's a dude. That's a plea Please buy frontier. Please bro. Please buy frontier. Let me sweeten this story I think a big winner for this are all the markets that AT&T with all their Perspectacle little boffins put together that fun little press release talking about how they were going to put a Big gig a bit internet and all these different markets and you know as one of those markets Oakland I'm still just kind of tap my tap my watch. She's wondering when I'm sure hey any minute guys I'm gonna hold my breath until there's a door. Yeah Google taking these Markets more seriously by way of acquisition Even if it's just them blowing hot air Moves these other larger competitors faster. We've seen that Like clockwork everywhere that Google fiber puts any kind of effort you see not only a Change almost immediately from the big ISPs, but also a halo effect in other markets Yeah, I I still don't understand why Verizon ditched it then but I guess they the answer is they don't want to be a commodity ISP player and so Google does our Google fiber does the Google fiber division is fine with that That's their whole that's their whole business as that division of Google. Yeah Well, I mean they want to be there They want to be in the game and if they got to do it for for a smaller Margin then they would rather do it and just have everybody love it now Those kinds of aquas those kinds of expansions those kind of businesses often kind of you know You file them under B for boondoggle that that that that tend to maybe not pay off However Google sitting on the kind of cash that they are can probably afford a few larks if it not only gives them good will throughout the community So far Google fiber has been one of the few non Google alphabet properties that is close to paying for itself Sure, although like in the world of ISPs, you should not be shooting for barely profitable close to paying for Exactly Instagram will begin offering Translations for captions and comments next month a translation button will appear on feed stories and profile bios Instagram has not announced what languages the function will work with Instagram's also rolling out an update to its explore section that will recommend collections of videos to you Instagram is launching with 20 curated channels around topics like Comedians cake decorating pit bulls and more Tom. What language would you like to translate your annoying friends Instagram posts that puts up 90 hashtags? Well, man, like I want these stories to merge, right? They're not gonna be translating the videos because that would be perfect I want those Czechoslovakian pit bull videos to be understandable in English but Yeah, I think they have something somewhere around 20 25 languages and Instagram So I'm assuming they're just gonna translate all of them. That's kind of cool I don't really run into a lot of of non English posts on my Instagram Maybe that's on me for not having a diverse enough following Yeah, we're not following a diverse enough number of people But maybe some Spanish from time to time, but I can usually deal with that fairly well. So yeah, I sure this is good This is great Nothing against it. The bigger one for me is the video like everybody's so video crazy these days Yeah, we like we are not anywhere near the crest of the everyone should have video thing yet We will get there to a point where they'll start to be startups that like we're no longer about video This is just about text. In fact, maybe public and talk show are kind of the beginnings of that reaction but I Want to react to this and say I Don't want to watch a bunch of videos on Instagram. I'm not gonna go into that explore tab and look at videos Is that true is that wisdom is that Instagram trying to push me to do something I want to do or am I just out of touch? All right, I want everybody listening I want to start a new thing because we've had it We've had a bunch of these stories and and I want just everybody to Sing along this song with me. Why is Instagram creating channels? Why is Instagram creating curated places where you can see specific things for which they will have a human hand on them and then we will all say DTNS nation in unison to Sell ads This is another way that they can target that they want into that Google ad word That the Google ad word market where they can say oh are you in the cake decorating? Well, guess what Duncan Hines? We got a great place where we can show your advertising to exactly the demo that you want the reason why they are doing Well, wow comedy comedy is a big thing I wonder if comedic movies come out all the time if comedy central and Viacom is a big buyer of these social media ads because I know this The reason why Snapchat redid all their stuff up top is almost Exclusively broken down by very specific content creators and curators that they can sell demo related ads on In fact, I'm gonna Instagram it right now Is that how it works? Well, it's going right. Yeah, it's going great. Why do you think Instagram wants to sell more have more videos? to sell ads Press and hold to record. All right. I'm gonna do it again. Yeah. No, that's that's that's the big key there Although I do love your idea of having the the video the voices of videos Translated because could you imagine how iconic that would be especially if they use like a Siri like voice or something like that That that automates. Yeah, absolutely if it was just the Siri voice over every Russian dash cam video of like, you know an elk running into the street and somebody Pops out with an Uzi. I would be so excited if it's just like, oh my god. Oh my god. There's an elk get the Uzi Now think things to his Instagram. Yeah, there we go. I'm posting it now All right, nothing about Instagram popular mechanics has the real story here. Yeah, what up over there? Let's go. Let's get serious Tom Talking a team of three psychologists and computer scientists led by Jean-Francois Bonaphone at the University of Toulouse Capitol in France just published a study of people's attitudes towards self-driving cars in the journal science They conducted surveys using the Amazon mechanical Turk platform Maybe more people are doing this the first time I've heard of it So between June and November 2015 they paid US residents 25 cents for each survey Here's what they found the large majority feel a self-driving car should Sacrifice its passenger for the greater good So they said look if there's 10 people here and one person here and they have to sacrifice What should they do even and even when they said and that one person is you they said no should sacrifice me for the greater good however When they were asked to choose between buying a car that shows the greater good Versus buying a car program to protect the passenger at all costs Respondents preferred the car that protected the passenger You could actually test your own reaction to these and other moral dilemmas at moral machine MIT dot edu What do you think about this Tom? Well? What do you think about these kinds of service? Well, okay? I think this is really interesting I think this is important actually because what it's saying is hey We are not selfish people when you put the dilemma in front of us and say look you're in you're in a self-driving car 10 other people in a self-driving car. Let's you know forget about what ifs there's there's only one thing That's gonna happen either your self-driving car is gonna have to sacrifice you or you're gonna have to sacrifice those other 10 people What do you do and more people are like no, you know what I get it right like greater good You should sacrifice me in that case. I understand. I totally understand however when it becomes a purchase decision Suddenly people are like Yeah, I really want to buy the safe car the one that's gonna protect me at all costs So it's where self-interest in the greater good do not meet up and the big question for me is like this is This is a real situation For the rules about selling these cars should there be a law that says you can't Sell a car that protects the passenger at all costs that it must choose for the greater good Or do we go the other way which is what popular mechanics suggest in the article and say look You're going to have to sell cars that protect the passenger at all costs to speed up adoption of self-driving cars Tom this is a stupid survey. Why is this a stupid survey you've been surveyed Gko in the chat room makes the very good point. Oh, no, we should also survey But what if it's baby Hitler in the car seat in the front? Passenger seat like should you then have a car that protects the greater good or your personal safety? Of course listen the the the great mind and philosopher Mel Brooks said the definition between comedy and tragedy is that tragedy is when I have a hangnail and comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die like we are Personally invested creatures, so of course if however you want to frame the idea of should the indefinite a Person have a car that might kill them. Yes fine for the greater good We are willing to sacrifice the indefinite. They said it. What if it's you? What if it's you in the car and people still said greater good? Sure, but then well they buy a car But when that's that that is how we signify no no no, but now I'm really involved Then no you don't want to pay for a car that has that there is no new news in this We are selfish creatures beyond the fact that I don't think that we are ever going to see Like a added on the Super Bowl where you know the rock You know gets out of a car and says like don't worry This one will protect you instead of ten people This is not something that a safety will always be paramount and they will always tout the fact that this is the safest car Not only for you, but also for everybody else either in The the mushy middle of self-driving cars and what we have now what we'll get eventually or eventually the totally autonomous version It will just I don't know. I think you're dismissing this too easily I think I think this is going to be something that regulators will have to meet head-on and make a decision about And I think it's a little bit of a Jackson Pollock thing to say like well I could paint that like to say like well, of course. This is how they responded I mean, you don't know until you do the test. This is a pretty rigorous test. Oh, listen Everybody should do every test. It's like these stories that come out every once in a while That's like oh the Department of Defense's secret plans to invade China. Hey listen We only go to war once every 25 years What the hell also these people gonna do of course you should be drawing up plans on how to invade China Of course, they're sitting around in some dusty office building Of course, they should be surveying these people for these kinds of things I'm just saying this is about as newsworthy as Doverman Pinscher bites invading person into somebody's house. I Think it's way more interesting than that. I think this is something I really I'm gonna repeat myself But this is something that people will have to deal with at some point like okay There that we can program it either way, which way should we program it and and it is a conundrum to wrestle with because we are split You could say well I knew we would be split but that doesn't change the fact that we're still split and there's a decision to be made about How these things should be programmed sure one last thought on this I do think that we are putting a lot of this into our own personal context a part of the boon of a An autonomous vehicle is that there are a lot of other safeguards that when you are networking effectively a traffic pattern You can reduce a lot of these situations where you would be putting a ton of people At in in jeopardy, right, you know, so the hope is That there are very there are even fewer situations where you could run a car and attend people Then then they would otherwise and that right, you know, it's a very rare situation I totally agree even if it needs to get to it's a small world level speeds through big You know populated areas you would make up that time Based on being able to go faster on highways and it would be a net positive KV 87 in the chat room calls it the car Be Ashimaru Dynamics as a big robot video a new one that is a spot mini is a smaller version of the alpha dog robot 55 Bounds versus 240 the two foot tall quadruped is all-electric no hydraulics and can run for 90 minutes Between charges it has a manipulator arm that disturbingly is also its face Which can be used to gently manipulate objects like loading glasses into a dishwasher and yes Unfortunately this future killing machine is also just a prototype This future killing machine runs so quiet though without the hydraulics. You'll never know. It's coming Also, what is it with Boston Dynamics having to do things that spook you out? Like the big dog getting kicked or or the the teasing of the one that could grab and pick up stuff Why do they have to make the manipulator arm also the face? Well, I mean, I'm sure that there are probably You know reasons why there are reasons why You know a a animal for example, you know picks things up with their mouth and stuff like that You know, this is this is surely oh geez it is so weird guys We are watching this you know a gift or video of this live here on on the the video version. It is It's impressive how it can just pick up like a soda can or a glass Real quick Boston Dynamics is out of alphabet, right or they still I Don't know if they have officially been sold. That is a good question But they the idea is that yes, they want them out. They want them to be sold. I Don't I mean like Boston Dynamics is one of those companies that I don't know when we are going to stop going from. Oh my god You have the most bomb maker channel on YouTube to oh my god You are Lockheed Martin, right because because right now they're one and you would guess eventually they'd be the the next Right this gigantic massive government contractor that has an entire town at their disposal somewhere in upstate New York But at the same time right now, they just do make bizarre creep show videos for YouTube Yeah, and and that was that was the problem with them is that They don't they're not close to a product and that's why Bloomberg reported March 17th that alphabet plans to sell the company But they don't have they don't have a buyer yet at least as far as we know The information reports Huawei is employing ex Nokia engineers to develop its own mobile operating system Huawei uses Android right now, but it wants an alternative in case its relationship with Google changes for the worse Huawei is also making changes to its Android skin emui under the direction of former Apple designer Abigail Brody The new skin is expected to be revealed in September You know ties in is still under development by Samsung is sort of a hedge against this This is an issue when Google has 90% of the market share worldwide You know we're close to it. They companies get a little nervous about being so dependent on somebody so This has always been and you pointed out very very accurately This is partly an issue because Google owns so much, but this has always been This uneasy Not deal with the devil because that makes it you know a negative thing that manufacturers have had with Android Android got him in the door because hey look you don't got to make any big deal with us It is open source It's better to work closer with us because you get a better product eventually and that has kind of played out Except for the fact that you know it was not too long ago And you know you've been at this game long enough to remember when you know This really kind of built up to a head with Samsung right where we're Samsung was was very seriously back when they were more The absolute king in the mountain of Android phones. We're saying no, you know, I don't know what we're just gonna go We're gonna go all full Kindle we're gonna split off our own version of your own system And we're just gonna run with it and Google was terrified of that So I don't blame Huawei for doing it. I Just kind of wonder when does the final piece of straw fall that that breaks this laborious camels back Or or when do we have our OS to warp moment, right? Windows was dominating the PC platform and people were trying to stop it and IBM's OS to was the big Hail Mary like We're gonna break its stranglehold on the on the desktop and it didn't And it like I don't know if we'll even have that kind of moment But when after that it became like well, okay There's Linux and there's Mac and there's Windows and everybody just get used to it Like Linux is for one thing and and Linux wasn't even around for most of the 90s in any significant kind of way because it was being developed Right it was invented in that decade When do we get to the point where people go right fine? It's Android. It's Android on mobile Just like they did with Windows on the desktop Also, and I we have no idea what this mobile operating system is going to be but I will say this if they are not acquiring another You know of people who do user interfaces or do operating systems very well Then the the the long you know listen for all the kids out there listening There was once a world where we had universally dog crap Operating systems that were created by manufacturers and put on phones. It was really only with the smartphone revolution I mean Blackberry you could say before that where users were even taken into consideration On user on on on OS is for for cell phones. This is a recent phenomena So it doesn't shock me that Huawei wants to go back to it It would shock me if what they come up with is anywhere near as good as iOS or Android. Yeah, we'll get a peek this September. We'll see Singapore's in Moby has agreed to pay 950 thousand dollars in civil penalties to the US FTC for tracking hundreds of millions of consumers over Wi-Fi without consent in Moby use BSS IDs of wireless accounts wireless access points to geodarget phones And users even if they had not opted in geotargeting Thousands of iOS and Android apps used in Moby to deliver ads in Moby has agreed to delete all information collected from children and all information collected without consent Good Lord. That's a lot of money Tom Is it is it? I mean, I don't know. I don't know how much cash on hand in Moby has it's almost a million dollars It'd be nothing for a Google One of those companies, but yeah in Moby. It's an advertising company. I'm sure they've got a fairly good flow What's what's the problem in paying that money is also? That it cut off a large selection of the money that would be coming through because they were able to sell these particularly cool Geotargeted ads for people who hadn't opted in so that's gonna hurt their business too This is a milestone in the world of guess what they can tell where you are if you have your Wi-Fi on That that is just a fact That's the underlying fact of this case and yeah this time the FTC was able to catch this company doing it And maybe that will dissuade future companies from trying this But it's something you need to know as a mobile user You know, we're gonna talk about some politics stuff a little bit later This I do want to get a little bit more into the nitty-gritty call your congressman level of politics Support politicians that care about stuff like this of of where your level of privacy is and should be On on these kinds of things. I am I am always a big Skeptic of exactly how much a government should wield its power especially in an emerging market Hoping that it does not stunt it going forward. However, I think this is something. Yeah, we should be paying attention to this We should be finding companies that go past the line that we have set of what is a reasonable amount of privacy Considering the fact that malware is such a major issue and you don't want people Doing these things where they can then be infected and that is an easier way for your phone That you have not opted into to now be an exploit a few days ago BitTorrent announced the spin-off of BitTorrent sync and enterprise services into a new company called Resilio and today Other shoe dropped sort of the remaining BitTorrents going to focus on entertainment and BitTorrent launched BitTorrent now It's an on-demand streaming service for videos and music from independent artists You'll find a few names on there But it's it's mostly people you haven't heard of to be honest service will also support virtual reality As well as pretty much anything else you could think of uploading it to it The app is available on Android today coming shortly to iOS and Apple TV Tom I can tell you through first-hand reporting that BitTorrent is certainly a company that is trying to make a play Toward a being somewhat of a content company They they they want to leverage the technology that they have to get things Faster and more efficiently in people's hands on a consumer level. I don't quite know You know beyond, you know, the the the enterprise level stuff I don't know how successful they will be they certainly are synonymous With things that a lot of major labels don't want anyone don't want to get anywhere near But you know, they got a name everybody knows BitTorrent and maybe now somebody will make some money off of it Yeah, and maybe like YouTube didn't have major players on it that weren't pirated And maybe that's the difference. There's no piracy on this version of BitTorrent, right? It's very well curated But YouTube stars were created on YouTube and maybe BitTorrent can be a platform for that kind of thing, too Hey, thanks to everybody who participates in our subreddit submit stories and vote on those stories at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com Loki Robert was in there today. I see you California Carl another jay martin I'll bet toilet condolce and more get in there enjoying Captain Kipper and the others at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com That's a look at the top stories All right, so President Obama headed to Stanford on Friday for the global entrepreneurship summit That is a summit that connects entrepreneurs from 170 different countries with each other as well as venture capital folks It's something he has taken a personal interest in he'll be doing an interview with Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook live He'll be doing a talk with four entrepreneurs from around the world on Google Bloomberg did an interview with him was talking about this and asked him Okay, you're about you're gonna leave the presidency here in January What do you think you're gonna go into and he responded the conversations? I have with Silicon Valley and with venture capital pulled together my interest in science and organization in a way I find really satisfying went on to talk a little bit about biotech, too so Hi, hey, John comps of tech crunch wrote Obama might want to be a VC next The mind boggles Justin a president a former president of the United States becoming a venture capitalist in the tech industry Okay, so To understand why this is a much more newsworthy story than let's say a survey takers taking a survey that finds very predictable results This is what you have to understand There is a certain path that ex-presidents take And it is by and large Philanthropic and legacy based they set up They set up libraries that cater to all their notes and they find you know is their own little tourist destinations They set up charities for which they you know use their considerable star power to help You know move for worthy causes, but by and large It's a lot of going to speak for you know the auto dealers of Eastern Louisiana, right? Yeah, I went back and I looked all the way back to Jimmy Carter What are these presidents generally done its speeches charitable organizations and Diplomacy yes So what is different about Obama well Just anecdotally You it seems as if he has a little bit more this might deal with the fact that he's younger than then most presidents coming out of a two-term stint in office But he seems to have a little bit more in the tank. He's doing more press than most presidents do he has a Positive approval rating as of now who knows what happens through the summer as he but makes his way through his lame duck year but Right now he's out there He's talking with Anthony Bourdain on his show He wants to go on Facebook live so we can go toe-to-toe with you know buzzfeed putting a thousand pennies in a jar or whatever Facebook's paying them on on Facebook live. He wants to do these things so For the VC job Tom let me ask you. What do you think of when I ask you? What is a VC? Well Peter teal leaps to mind because the whole gizmodo thing recently right and he's also the model or at least part of the model for Characters on Silicon Valley the TV show but for the most part I think of people that I don't know the names of who are dressed very nicely and expensive clothing in a boring conference room on Sand Hill Road listening to people in hoodies tell them about their product yes and and That is certainly the the regular job so The idea that a VC who cuts a check to a company at various stages of funding and that's where and and we are we strive on Daily Tech news show to not get mega mega mega bay area So if there are any terms that you don't that I'm gonna I'm gonna breeze through I'm gonna try and stop on them Angel investing is something that happens when you just have an idea Hey, I want to make a social network for frogs. You go to an angel investor This is high risk investment in which I just tell you an idea turns out me as an angel investor I love frogs and I feel like they should talk to each other more so I give you money to start it out I don't believe Obama would be that I don't think that Obama is going to be taking random Random meeting although although he might be an angel investor for causes right for biotech Oh, it's kind of cure cancer type of stuff But I know what you're saying mostly he's not gonna be open to all comers. Well, no He doesn't want to take the risk which is why this story is so interesting if your philanthropy Shows a weird balance sheet Welcome to all of nonprofits. Nobody really cause then that's all that the people care about if your Library isn't generating the kind of traffic that you might hope it would who cares You're it's effectively a living statue Just to be there because you served as president of the United States if you have your name on a company No matter how idealistic it is the cure death ink, right and they Show impropriety either in their decision-making in somebody becoming a victim of it Guess who's getting blamed guess who's the biggest name involved in your company? Absolutely, and here's the other thing that I thought of is when you're putting your money into something you are The puppet master for the lobbyists on behalf of whatever industry or organization or company you're putting your money into so do you now have undue influence because of your dual role as a venture capitalist and a Former president when you look through former presidents are involved in charitable organizations You can talk about the Clinton Foundation you can talk about habitat for humanity But by and large they avoid being directly involved in lobbying organizations in fact George HW Bush He taught at the national or he was a chairman of the National Constitution Center bipartisan Clinton and Bush together were part of a Haiti effort by partisan They've they strive very hard to be bipartisan if you become a venture capitalist. You can't be bipartisan. Can you? If you are making investments in established later stage of fundraising kinds of companies with almost You know unforeseen levels of gray you know a milk toast boring kind of Goals that everybody can understand like if you're just saying hey We make the best of valves for new hearts The you know and we've discovered a way to 3d print new valves for hearts and we've tested them a million times We've been through all these trials were FDA approved Obama can put his name on that right because that is very unlikely to go wrong But just to give you an example and we'll come back to Peter Thiel They just had that Facebook board meeting this week, right? Right, right, and he passed he they did not kick him off the board. Well, it's Here's my point Facebook's had a great year. Facebook seems to be thriving We've had discussions on this very show about how Facebook is is what Twitter isn't it is almost the model of web 2.0, right? But we weren't talking about the growth of Facebook live We weren't talking about all the Oculus. We weren't talking about any of the other stuff that Facebook has going on What did we talk about Peter Thiel and his personal vendetta against Gawker media? that's how much a Celebrity VC can control the narrative for your company and folks there is no Larger celebrity than one who has had their finger on the button, you know The other thing is he says in the second part of his reaction to what industry would you think about going into he said You think about something like precision medicine the work We've done to try to build off of breakthroughs in the human genome the fact that now you can have your personal genome map for a thousand Bucks instead of a hundred thousand and the potential for us to identify what your tendencies are and to sculpt medicines that you're uniquely affected for you Gene therapy is not an uncontroversial industry to go into No, it is not Include and here let me just give you guys Can we paint the the the the example that whoever is is going to lead Obama through his transition as as ex-president of the United States? would be terrified about is let's say Obama puts his money behind a company like Pheronos one that is now under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors and the FEC This would be something that would be an absolute Disaster for president Obama because now he is going to be and then listen We're not gonna get into kind of why but he's a very divisive President in many ways he mirrors The the the line in the sand that that you know people had with with Ronald Reagan that one side loved him the side that is You know his party loved him people are outside of it. Didn't you know like him very very much There's a similar divisive nature with Obama put a little scandal of a of a a failed company that he's got money behind or he is Profiting from that is a that is a headline that writes itself Obama takes blood money from company that does not live up to its Expectations, so if you're you're saying like a you know, there's so many Forget Pheronos. There's so many other companies doing that's that similar like Testing situation and it seems like he does want to get into medicine. Maybe it'll be charitable Maybe it'll be you know funding cure efforts But it is different and and to that end what president Carter did when he left office was also different So we're not saying a retired president can no longer try something new and must always do exactly what you know Eisenhower and before did But it is it is interesting to try to figure out what are those potholes? What are those perils that a president, you know, somebody's been a president is different, you know That's all there is to it. I'm just going to say number one I think this is a fun thing to talk about. It would blow me away If he invested in anything but the safest most boring stuff you could possibly It would be no more controversial Then somebody you know an ex-president having a well-diversified Stocks and bonds portfolio that puts certain money into certain kinds of companies that good in no way ever come back to embarrass them It's good to our pick of the day John and Billings Montana picks the Kenevo If you're like me and you just have an ox cable, you don't have Bluetooth in your car The Kenevo works great He says I can use a standard lightning cable to charge if I really need to the only thing I'd caution listeners with is to check if your 12-volt outlet is switched or not if it if it is your golden if not You have to remember to unplug it all the time or your phone will have no sound and you'll be very confused So so you might check that out It's Kenevo while the link to it in the show notes Send your picks to us folks feedback at daily tech news show comm you can find more picks at daily tech news show comm slash picks a Couple people wrote in about putting tape over the camera on their laptop Tomatoes zoop had a co-worker who dialed into a conference and everyone included his boss saw him drinking a beer Which is a corporate no-no needless to say there were e repercussions from that infraction So you know that's a case of somebody forgetting the camera was on and then Brian and Indy said I used to work from home And I was always in WebEx meetings I'd keep my webcam covered so in case my camera got turned on people wouldn't see me in my pajamas and bed head I Don't know if Ryan was drinking a beer or not But that would that would have helped to make a zoops friend. Anyway, so yeah, there are non-paranoid reasons to do this Oh, certainly so I think a vast majority of the people that I know in my life have you know a little tape over there over their webcam it seems Now more than ever we have websites and apps and Any and all things that we don't exactly understand the permissions that we give them for or we give them the permissions And then we forget about it things get turned on all the time and you don't want to be the one rushing to turn it off So it just makes sense. Well, that's it for this episode of the Daily Tech news show Justin Robert Young is headed down to Pasadena With I want to make a little old lady joke, but I don't have one because you're going to politicon indeed. I am This weekend the 25th and the 26th me and the entire Contender quartet mean John Megan fawn. We're taking a little trip down I5 to visit southern California Politicon is a fantastic convention where if you are into politics There's a there's a great speaker lineup from both sides of the aisle I think their big headlining event is James Carville interviewing Sarah Palin, which is something that I think we can all You know appreciate as a hub for fireworks But if you come out and I hope you do You got to come on out to the dealer's room because we at the contender have the opportunity for you to select one of 12 Presidents or presidential candidate sock puppets that you can play the contender Against I will be doing all the voices for the sock puppets We're gonna make videos of them So you'll be able to get your videos and share them on social media, but you have your own Sesame Street style You debating a puppet video if you come to our booth at Politicon That again is this weekend at the Pasadena Convention Center check out a politicon calm If you want more information and also follow at contender game because I Don't know I heard rumors that some of the presidential candidates including Hillary Clinton Donald Trump and Bill Clinton They might be calling you out They might be calling you out and they have some some things that they want to tell you on our Twitter and Facebook at contender game And at facebook.com slash the contender game Definitely follow that yes, Bill Clinton's not exactly a candidate, but he's a former president Yeah, hey, thanks everybody for supporting the show daily tech news show comm slash Support if you're not and you're willing to help us out There are loads of ways to do it if you're in a financial difficulty We totally understand just give us a review on iTunes or whatever pod catcher you use give us a star rating Let folks know about the show if you can support us on an ongoing basis Check out patreon.com slash DTNS you can get into the treasure chest and get the full pre and post show You can get a co-executive producer business card. You can even get into our analyst slack It's all there at patreon.com slash DTNS our email addresses feedback at daily tech news show.com call us 51259 daily That's 5932459 catch the show live monday through friday at 4 30 p.m Eastern at alphagic radio comm diamond club dot tv and visit our website daily tech news show.com back tomorrow with Darren kitchen and lend perelta This show is part of the broad pants network Get more at frogpants.com So I fell out of the I got kicked out of the uh hang out there Oh, I thought it was yeah, I was wondering what that was but you didn't disappear I did Yeah, no he froze and then he came back. Okay I did I did see two of you at one point but the problem I don't know what the error was of some weird hangout error The problem is that a little bit of justin's point won't be in the audio version of the show Oh, really? Um, it was the one when you were making the point about There the headline for obama will be you know because he was involved. Yeah Uh, but it'll be in the video. So maybe I'll be able to go paste it back in later Uh, well you consider that show titles. Yes, what do we got? So Wait, uh, well, of course the karpiyashi maru makes it to the top. So good Um Hey your dog crap ton. It's os on my lawn Obama moving to sandhill road. Mm-hmm. Sorry Uh, we also have mr. Obama goes to Palo Alto Let's see. Uh, not a lot of obama vc scanty pants Obama wants a car with doors that go like this Uh Obama gene editor in chief and obama the real project titan Get it project titan. I kind of feel like car barashi maru is it's so good. Yeah, it's a little hard to get get better than You know, but ultimately I think what your point on that entire Story is not so I actually agree. I I'm I'm I'm half agreeing with justin half agreeing with tom. I agree. It's actually very important But I also agree with Justin's like the problem is Surveys are in many cases kind of an exercise in confirmation bias people Who take it will want to see Well and turn away. I think that is a little reflective of the ideals They believe it but when it comes down to well, are you gonna put your money where your mouth is? You know where the rubber meets the rails like well, no, no, no Well, well, you know one was a hypothetical academic question. The other one is this is my own money. This is my own life No, but see I disagree because the the question that says if you are going to die But 10 people saved what would you want the car to do people said well, then I should die Like that that's not a I mean they're all hypotheticals Yeah, but when they said would you like to purchase a car that which is also a hypothetical So to me it's no like there's one question that's like what you are directly in danger. Would you sacrifice yourself? Yes, the other is more abstract like would you buy a car that would sacrifice you? No I think no what One is saying programmatically if I found myself Uh in a car that I now realized it was hopeless that either 10 people would die or I would die And now that moment was frozen in time and you could quantum leap back to when they were flipping a switch that said You die or 10 people die. What would you be happiest that that switch got flipped to? Right like that that's what you are asking them and then on the other end if you'd buy it It's would you like a car that might kill you with you having no Chance to twist the wheel and save yourself Like that that's I mean like I just don't see Like one doesn't have enough personal stakes to really get into the heart of it and the other one is like I can't see it. I once the one the one that says You would you like the car to protect you or the other 10 people? That's personal stakes. I don't see how that's not I just with non Autonomous car riders I still think it's so far future that people don't see themselves In it and and that the more the the truer way to look at it is would you buy a car that might kill you? And they say no, I would not like a car. You know it. That's a perfect marketing campaign It's like you know what you could go with a computer driven Self-driving automobile that might kill you or you could take your life into your own hands and choose your own destiny I mean that that's effectively what the backlash with with self-driving cars are now, right? I mean that's not No, I guess the other thing that bothers me about that that survey is just that it doesn't take into account How many how No matter whether or not there's some eventual kill switch of like, all right Eventually we're going to decide that you know 10 people need to survive so you can live or so Live that They are going hopefully if we are programmatically putting these things on the road Uh, they will be so much safer and you will get into so right now I get that but at at a certain point there is going to be because of the number of situations that these cars will be in One of these situations and even if there isn't one yet There's going to be the possibility of that situation And so when you're programming the car you're going to have to make a decision about what the car does in those cases Like it's not hypothetical and yet it is hyper it'll always be hypothetical because when you're programming the car You don't know what that situation is but you have to make the decision there I mean, I I just feel like You know Andrew and I always used to joke around that whenever we got in whenever there were like conversations about technology that people Were afraid of that it was like oh man like imagine all the hysteria when it was uh Like oh, you know that they have full banks filled with human blood like how terrifying how grotesque Uh, you know that that we always kind of look at it in this weird abstract way that we want to use to terrify us and it's like listen at some point The if if self-driving cars are to be successful, which I think that's the larger question is still Will stuff like this never be able to uh be outweighed by the safety and convenience and price And we just never get to a point where we're not worrying about the fact that like hey, yeah You might wind up dying to save people in a in a in a self-driving car. Yeah Your car just might explode one day because of some uh leakage in your in your gas tank and and you know Something like that like there there's a million different things How on how a car can kill you we completely ignore the vast majority of them and I think to pull people on the the danger of Our cars now I don't know if if even if they are true I I don't know if we would be revealing anything interesting But I think it's different because nobody Attentionally makes a car. They're like okay. We designed this car to explode one out of a million times, right? But with self-driving cars you have to make a programming decision. It's unavoidable You have to say like okay. We we have the algorithm will behave either this way or this way. Which way should it behave That is a real question that has to be answered long before any hypotheticals play out That's a that and and so what the survey is doing is like, all right, which one do you want? But which which algorithm the programmers sit in here. He's writing to write the code. Which way should he write the code? Sure, but I mean like at what point is it is that decision as Significant as well. Yeah If your gas tank ruptures and there's a fire underneath. Oh, no, no, no, no No, it's it's not to me. It's not it's totally different because yeah, your gas tank might rupture So make sure my gas tank is as safe as possible. Well, we've made it as safe as possible This isn't either or choice. This isn't as safe as possible. This is I don't know They what is safe as safe as possible? I mean, I understand that it is neither or choice all I'm saying is that If these things are on the road Then it will hopefully happen less that the the the cars we put in these situations I don't think that's irrelevant. How often it happens the question has to be answered before they get on the road I mean So then so then it's the same thing to survey people for are you okay? Are you okay buying a car with a gas tank that can rupture? No, nobody's going to build a car with a gas tank that that is likely to rupture. No, no, no, not likely not likely Can either we're dealing with binary again. This is not that's not the same question The question is do you want the car to protect the passengers or Inside this car or protect the most passengers it can on the road I don't think that's a question that's had to be answered with cars before Because we had humans driving them and so we couldn't build it into the car sure and and again I I guess all I am saying is I don't think that By the time we get like yes, that is one of those A dirty under the hood decisions that a programmer is going to have to make right But in the same way That to create a car that you can sell at scale Auto manufacturers have to make decisions on quality of parts and how long they're going to last of course Of course Right, this is something very it's one thing to say like this is the safest fuel tank This fuel tank will never rupture and then to find out later. Well, it did rupture. That's not what we're dealing with. There's no uncertainty It's This in a situation will choose to do one thing or the other which one should it choose But I guess my point is that that decision does not exist in a vacuum right like like that that that programming decision exists among A million other different programming decisions that are designed to make it avoid Having to get to that decision right Where where But that's still something you have to answer when you're building the car and the question is did you say kill 10 people or kill the passenger? I guess but my point is That I and this is where we part ways is I find that decision as relevant or as interesting as Are you okay buying a car that has a part that can rupture and kill you I don't but I think it is different Right that's where we far away because I think it's different because how should here's the here's the way to tell How should they build the car? Justin should they build it so that it protects the passenger at all costs or that it protects the most people in the accident I mean sure like I again Which way you have to pick it before you build it you can't put the car on the road It's going to be one way or the other which way should it be? I Understand Oh, no answer me. Which way? Which way should it be? Yeah I mean if I no taught me from Chicago is like only sith deal in absolutes I wanted to kill 100 and 100 thousand people before I'm just saying like this isn't a hypothetical like I wanted I wanted to get the taste of human blood and start roving the street running over families I know but it is a real question like which way should it be I'm not saying it's not a real question. I'm saying that When these things will actually matter it will be an insignificant So what you're saying is I don't care which way they build it. It doesn't matter build it Without however you want no, I'm saying that they will likely build it to save as many people as possible, right? Uh, that that's that is going to be the decision that people are going to make you say, okay never be brought up Because they will sell it as this is the safest automobile On the planet and they will other ways that they can safeguard that Well, that's why I like this survey because this survey says people will ask the question like well, wait a minute. Will it This survey asked the question. Ah, but it's in our minds now people are gonna. This is gonna come up This is gonna be like, uh, so is this the one that protects me or the most people? And there's gonna be some unless there's a law there's gonna be some company That's like, oh, we're selling you the one that protects you. Don't worry I mean, I'm I guess I I just don't like we are now talking about it because it was in a survey, right? Because they came up with a moral conundrum. All right chicken and egg. You're right. I I just I just don't I find it The reason why I brought up the baby hitler thing is because that's what it feels like to me It's just like a moral conundrum where it's like, oh, would you would you kill an innocent baby? Oh, that baby was it no and believe me I 100% get where you're coming from where it's like the the number of instances where this will matter Are infinitesimally small and and shouldn't matter at all And so you may be right that people Like rationally understand that and just like yeah, it's not a big deal. I'm not going to worry about it You may be right I think that it will still be something we're like, yeah, but which one am I getting am I getting the one that protects me? I yeah, I that's I I think If if self-driving cars are having people think about that There will be no self-driving cars. We are we are not going to get in a world where you are saying Uh, uh, oh wait. Well, is this the one that uh saves me or kills other people? Like that is if we are still talking about that at the point that self-driving cars are for sale Then they they are going to be uh day woos like they will not be You know kias are the highest quality cars made according to a recent survey I don't know why I I was in a synod once it was great. Yeah, um All right. Well, there you go folks. We've uh, we've given you We're giving extra value. Yeah extra value is what you get Yeah extra value is what you crave And uh, we will be back tomorrow with more value Give us some value back Talk to you later. Bye