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- [00:00]
Big Technology Host
The Supreme Court has upheld the TikTok ban, but is that the end of the story? American users flood to another Chinese social media app. ChatGPT does your tasks and are MBAs the first victims of AI unemployment? That's coming up on a Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, right after this.
- [00:19]
Ranjan Roy
Hey, I'm Michael Kovnaat, host of the Next Big Idea Daily. The show is a masterclass in better living from some of the smartest writers around. Every morning, Monday through Friday, we we'll serve up a quick 10 minute lesson on how to strengthen your relationships, supercharge your creativity, boost your productivity and more. Follow the Next Big Idea Daily wherever.
- [00:39]
Big Technology Host
You get your podcasts. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool headed and nuanced format. We're coming to you hot off the presses, just as the Supreme Court has upheld the TikTok ban. So we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about the latest AI news and we're also gonna address this fascinating story in the Wall street journal about MBAs not being able to find jobs. And I wonder, is that because of artificial intelligence? We'll cover it all. And joining us as always, to do it on Fridays is Ranjan Roy of Margins. Ranjan, welcome back to the show.
- [01:13]
Ranjan Roy
To any new listeners we have from Rednote. Huan Ying Ni. That means welcome.
- [01:18]
Big Technology Host
Okay, we'll get to that. I mean, if you're gonna be able, we're gonna make sure that you pronounce the app's name the right way because it does have a Chinese name that.
- [01:27]
Ranjan Roy
I've been working on that. So.
- [01:29]
Big Technology Host
Okay, so let's, let's talk about the news. The Supreme Court this. According to NPR, the Supreme Court has upheld the TikTok ban threatening the app's existence in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the federal government can legally shut down TikTok in the US delivering a stunning blow to the viral video app used by about half of Americans. That's a stunningly large number. I didn't realize it was half. I knew it was a lot, but half is huge. The high court's decision means that starting on January 19, tech giants Apple and Google can no longer offer TikTok on their app stores. Web hosting providers must cut ties with the platform or be subject to fines of $5,000 for each user that can still access the service, a penalty that can easily add up to billions of dollars. The TikTok ban will start on January 19th. The following day, Trump will be sworn into office. Well, I'll admit this is the closest that I think I've ever been in thinking that this might actually happen. Here's the question I'm going to start off with. President Biden seems like he's not enforcing this. He's telegraphed that he's not going to enforce this. It doesn't seem like Trump is going to either. We'll get into his statement in a minute. But Ranjan, I'm curious, if you're Apple or Google, do you just say it doesn't matter what the executive branch says, I'm going to take this off my app store. I don't want somebody else down the line to see that I'm liable for potentially billions of dollars and have that discretion. I'd much rather be in compliance with the law. So what do you think the big tech companies are going to do despite what the politicians tell them to?
- [03:03]
Ranjan Roy
That's a great point because also if you're Apple or Google, having another just large tech company as a competitor is not a great thing and you would be happy remove the app and, and remove that competition. I think to me, one of the most fascinating parts about this last week when we were recording the Supreme Court hearing was underway and we were tracking it a bit that this was a unanimous decision and you could hear it in the questioning of the Supreme Court justices to the Tick tock solicitor. But how often do we get anything unanimous in the Supreme Court? And they all said this does not violate the First Amendment rights of ByteDance the and I think, I think we're even closer to this happening. The Trump and Biden angle is very interesting to me because it's odd to me that the Biden administration is essentially leaking that they will not enforce it and leave it up to Trump when it was their legislation, it was their timing that they set to be January 19th to keep it under their administration. So at least come out and just say we're going to stick with it and if Trump tries to reverse it, that's fine. But yeah, I think from the big tech side, there's no reason not to go along with the prescribed legislation and just remove it from your store.
- [04:23]
Big Technology Host
What do you think is behind us legislatures or legislators so emphatically passing this law, talking shit on TikTok for years, and then at the ninth hour saying actually we don't want it. Like we don't want the ban. There's been movement in the Senate to maybe extend the deadline. Biden doesn't want to enforce it. Trump doesn't want to Enforce it. Why the about face? Is it just the political cost is going to be that large?
- [04:49]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah, I think this is a perfect example of, and I, longtime listeners know, am a supporter of the ban. I think it's important, I think that both from the national security perspective, the data privacy perspective, the black box algorithm perspective, the relationship between ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party, I think at every level this is the most logical, sensible thing imaginable. But there's a political cost to it. So I mean, in this day and age, politicians actually taking something that will cost them short term gain for the longer term health of the nation is not exactly the most regular thing you see. So I think it's a simple political calculation. I'm sure at scale this is unpopular. This is only popular among people who are following it closely, not the average TikTok user. So yeah, I think that's pretty, it's. That one's a pretty simple explanation.
- [05:44]
Big Technology Host
It's almost like this is why it's been so difficult to regulate big tech. It's because even when you have an app where there's all the reason in the world to potentially regulate it or reign it in, you, you can't do it. And now imagine how hard it is to do something like, you know, set back Amazon prime or you know, spin off Instagram to make it worse. I don't know, it seems like that's tough. And I think what they're really seeing also is that young people are such a politically independent force and we saw in the 2024 election, I think for the first time in a very long time that young people actually swung by like something like 30 or 40 points from Democrats to Republicans and young people use TikTok. So I think everybody's paying attention to the fact that young people's votes are up for grabs for the first time in decades and they don't want to lose them.
- [06:38]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah, I think, but, but I want to make clear for listeners like what exactly is happening right now? TikTok is not being de facto banned. The legislation stipulated that ByteDance needed to divest TikTok, which the weirdest part of this is ByteDance is a very heavily inflated. Has a very heavily inflated valuation is still one of the most valuable private companies in the world. So they have the opportunity at this moment to, to potentially actually realize a lot of money. Any from a financial perspective, it's a no brainer that why not at the highs of your property, sell it. So there has to be more. So what the legislation stipulated is that you need to divest. And then bytedance said, well, the algorithm will never work as well unless you're using the ByteDance algorithm. But we will not be able to divest that because that is considered sensitive property under like Chinese law. So. But we are not connected to China. Like the whole thing just made no sense. And every step along the way, and we'll definitely get into what happened with RedNote. It just makes it so much more clear. This is a very heavily connected app to China and they didn't really argue against that. They basically admitted to it in the way they've approached this entire. This entire process. So ban it. Ban it.
- [08:05]
Big Technology Host
Yeah. I would say that when TikTok CEO Sho Chu went before Congress and was like answering questions about the app's connection to China, it was effectively over. Then he did such a poor job then and it became clear that he wasn't in charge. He was answering questions like a mid level product manager and not like the CEO of a company that has any autonomy over what's going to happen. And in fact, I wrote a story, big Technology right after that happened that just like it's clear that he's not the one. He's not running the decision, the app.
- [08:39]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah.
- [08:40]
Big Technology Host
And it is interesting that, you know, if you think about it, this really did give away the game. The fact that they didn't move to sell at all, the fact that they're trying. They're going to shut down, it seems like, as opposed to trying to find a different option. At least that's what they say. Right. And we're going to go through some scenarios where they don't end up being shut down, but no opinion. The blogger talked a little bit about it in a very good post this week on his substack. He said the refusal to sell the app tells us the Chinese government would rather see TikTok destroyed than fall into American hands. Notably, the same government put up little fuss back in 2020 when the US forced a Chinese company to sell the gay dating app Grindr to an American company. Why shut down TikTok and leave untold billions of dollars on the table instead of just selling the thing like Grindr was sold? He said the simplest explanation is that Chinese leaders Simply think that TikTok, unlike other apps, is so important they would rather destroy it than see it escape their control.
- [09:38]
Ranjan Roy
Oh, I mean, okay, completely agree. Because if you have a way to control the entire American psyche and cultural output, obviously that's kind of nice. And again, there's been a lot of debate around, you know, how how heavy is the thumb on the scale? But at a simple level, if you control, you know, what's happening in Xinjiang with Uyghur, the Uyghur population, and just don't allow those messages to kind of proliferate on the algorithm like really straightforward stories that the government, the Chinese government wants to have some influence over. Imagine having that tool in your belt to be able to just control those, like, really critical narrat around Taiwan, around these very, around Tian, Tiananmen Square, like around these very, very specific things. Why you wouldn't let that go if that's the key goal of the app?
- [10:34]
Big Technology Host
Yes. And Noah actually has some really good data in the story that he writes. He said that content critical of China was made far less available on TikTok than on Instagram and YouTube in a study that was done, I think by Rutgers University. Done in a university study, a research university study. He said the results are revealed a disproportionately high ratio of pro Chinese Communist Party to anti communist Chinese Communist party content on TikTok, despite users engaging significantly more with the anti CCP content, suggesting propaganda, propaganda propagandistic manipulation. Lord almighty, why do we even have that as a word? But let's talk through the scenario of what could actually happen. So I think you and I are both on the same page that there's a good chance that no matter what the politicians say, that Google and Apple will just remove Tic Tac from the App store on the 19th. But let's talk through what happens if they don't. So the TikTok panels. This is back to the NPR story by Bobby Allen, who was actually going to join us today. But we had the ruling that happened like, basically as we were recording. But he's doing a great job on the story. He says the TikTok ban will start on January 19th. The following day, Trump will be sworn into office. Once in the White House, Trump can instruct his Justice Department to not enforce the ban. And again, that would put Apple and Google and other companies that do business with TikTok in an awkward position since they'd be violating federal law. Another scenario, he says, is that Trump could extend the date of the ban, even though it would already have started on January 19th. And we've also talked about the fact that he can just sort of like, wink, wink, they've divested and let them continue. And somebody advising Trump must be telling him that these are his options because this is what he said in a statement to CNN immediately following the Supreme Court ruling. He Said it ultimately goes up to me. So you're going to see what I'm gonna do. Congress has given me the decision, so I'll be making the decision. So obviously he sees enough wiggle room in the law. You know, in typical scenarios, that's wrong and ridiculous. But there is wiggle room in the law. And clearly Trump sees enough wiggle room in the law to be able to say they can stay.
- [12:58]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah, I think the political calculations underlying this are so fascinating. And I think as a political observer, not from the participant side, but purely on the observer side, I'm kind of loving how difficult or how kind of like not congrue incongruous all these kind of ways of thinking are think about. Already you have something where Trump has said, I don't want this ban and the Supreme Court unanimously comes out in favor of it and saying it does not violate the First Amendment. So already you're having a situation where we were all assuming the court will roll over at every step of the way for Trump and maybe they won't. The other part of this is at this exact moment and over the last few months, I guess as well, Trump seems to be pro TikTok and that could be both the connection to Jeff. Yes. The investor also just gaining more support in trying to have more influence over the younger population and seeing an opportunity. But on his anti China messaging, it goes completely counter to it. So if he's going to spend the next four years coming out, I am the anti China president and then the first thing he does is a major move to support the Chinese government. That doesn't quite make sense either. So I think we even in the next 48 hours or what are we, like 96 hours from inauguration, I feel there's a lot of back and forth that can happen right now.
- [14:30]
Big Technology Host
Yeah, I was watching CNBC as the announcement came out and the reporting there was basically that Trump and Xi Jinping have talked about this and she wants TikTok to persist. Like has actually stated that to Trump in the United States, which is really interesting. And you know, the craziest thing is Trump was Mr. Ban TikTok in the first term and now guess who's coming to inauguration Day. Not just the inauguration, but on the daisy Sho Chu, CEO of TikTok. This is according to the Times. TikTok CEO plans to attend Trump Inauguration Day after the ban goes into effect, the chief executive of TikTok plans to attend President elect Donald J. Trump's inauguration and has been invited to sit in a position of honor on the dais where former presidents, family members, and other important guests traditionally are seated. Maybe he's sitting in the seat that Michelle Obama gave up. I don't know what's going on here. Why is he. Why is he going.
- [15:28]
Ranjan Roy
I mean, the next four years are going to be wild. I think this is just the first reminder of that. But, yeah, I agree that of all people, because he's not even a personality. He's not even. I mean, he had his congressional hearing, but it's not like show Chu is like twin dropping tweet bombs at like, Bezos and Musk or anything like this. He's not. He's not a big personality in tech anyway. So to actually still have him up there, it is quite a signal. I mean, it certainly is.
- [16:02]
Big Technology Host
All right, so does Elon Musk end up buying TikTok? Because that's everybody's favorite, favorite rumor.
- [16:09]
Ranjan Roy
I like that rumor. I think it's from a. From a purely juicy, salacious standpoint, it's the best outcome, and it's the most interesting one. I think the financial capital structure side of it. I don't even know how we begin to approach that. Again, this is still a. I think I've seen between anywhere between 50 to 80 billion dollars. This is bigger than Twitter, and Twitter really involved a lot of leverage. And that investment, from a financial standpoint still has not shown itself, I think, in any. Any marking to be profitable. So how it would work, I have no idea. But, I mean, oh, man, the. The underlying messaging, if that happens, is just so wild about what's his connection to the ccp? What's Trump's involvement? I mean, I. It's too much. It's too much.
- [17:05]
Big Technology Host
Yeah. Because Musk has business with the Chinese government, with Tesla's manufacturing and sales within China. Well, as Elon Musk said, as the. As his latest rocket imploded over the atmosphere or within the atmosphere earlier today, success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed.
- [17:26]
Ranjan Roy
Wait, did he say that? That's.
- [17:27]
Big Technology Host
Yeah, he did.
- [17:28]
Ranjan Roy
That's a T shirt right there.
- [17:29]
Big Technology Host
That's a T shirt. So. All right, one last thing about this. Remember, we spoke about polymarket a lot in the run up to the election, and it did nail it. So I went to Polymarket today before the show, and Polymarket says the chance of TikTok being banned in the United States is 80% ahead of May 2025. What do you think about those odds?
- [17:52]
Ranjan Roy
I like them. But I will humbly recognize, ever since August 6, 2020, when Trump announced his ban, I have been predicting the shutdown of TikTok in the United States. We're well over four years since that date and I'm still going to keep predicting it. I would have definitely. My Poly Market contract would have expired long ago at zero. But I like the 80% odds.
- [18:20]
Big Technology Host
Okay, I'll tell you the one thing I do know for certain is that this TikTok ban has sent my TikTok usage through the roof. This week I basically got nothing done because I'm like, oh yeah, TikTok, let's see what's going on. I open it up, an hour later I'm like, I should get back to, back to work.
- [18:38]
Ranjan Roy
Well, one thing I kept thinking about is I'm old enough to have used Napster in my younger days and Napster was just shut down. And it was a very popular app among younger people. And it's still wild to me because I remember the hearings, Metallica was in them against Napster. Like, you know, they shut down, the government shut down for copyright reasons. A very, very viral, popular app. And it's interesting to me that there wasn't this major outcry in the same way or at least at any kind of like with any genuine influence. Whereas now again, you have a very potential national security concern. You have plenty of alternatives. And still there's this outcry for. This is, is, I guess China is more popular, powerful than Hollywood or, sorry, Hollywood is more powerful than China, actually.
- [19:32]
Big Technology Host
Oh yes. I mean, I would say that when those of, I mean those of us who use Napster, I was a Napster user, we all knew what we were doing was wrong. So TikTok just seems like fun. Before we close this segment, let me just say that I still think, heart of hearts, that TikTok stays in the United States. I actually don't like the 80% odds that you'd get from polymarket. And I don't know exactly what's gonna be the case, but that's my bottom line here is I think we're talking next week and TikTok is still, still operational. And the good news is we can find out in a week by the.
- [20:11]
Ranjan Roy
Other side then 20, 20%. 5 to 1. Not back in the day, any gambling. This is Poly Market is simply a tool for hedging other financial interests.
- [20:23]
Big Technology Host
Exactly.
- [20:24]
Ranjan Roy
But yeah, five to one.
- [20:25]
Big Technology Host
I know, I think that, yeah, there was a time where if you made a prediction on Twitter, people would be like, you need skin into the game. I don't know, maybe I'll do it, but if I'm wrong, I will. I'll come on here next week and admit it and take my shame. I just don't think I'm gonna be wrong. So we'll find out.
- [20:45]
Ranjan Roy
We'll see.
- [20:46]
Big Technology Host
But like. Okay, so speaking of popular apps among the youth, as the Supreme Court was thinking what to do with TikTok, and as the talk of the ban heated up, Americans decided that they did not want to fully leave Chinese social media, no matter what the Supreme Court, Congress or the president said. And so they left TikTok or they hedged TikTok en masse and they picked up a new Chinese social media app called Little Red Book, and they call it RedNote in the U.S. this app, I got it, it is similar ish to TikTok. At least that's what it looks like when you use it. It's got videos and, I don't know, different content. And it's been fascinating seeing what the embrace of Americans has been on the app. A lot of people are calling themselves TikTok refugees. This from CNN. As of Tuesday, the hashtag TikTok refugee has garnered nearly 60 million views and over 1.7 million comments on the app. Here's somebody who's talking about it. Our government, one of the users, our government is out of their minds if they think we're going to stand for a TikTok ban. We're just going to go to a new Chinese app, and here we are. Someone said, this is so much better than TikTok. And somebody said, chinese, give us your American jokes. Please make fun of us so we can laugh. And someone from China responded, why do you eat like your health care is free? Which I thought was good. I thought that was good. Ronja, what do you think about the popularity of this app? It's so interesting that so many people, I mean, is the number one app in the app store. It's interesting that so many people, either they love TikTok so much or, I don't know, like, they want to send a message to Congress. But to make another Chinese app so popular is fascinating to me.
- [22:39]
Ranjan Roy
Okay, this is where I hope this isn't too controversial, but I have to. I have to work through this one. I have to shout out this one. These things don't just happen organically. The idea that Xiao Hongshu or Little Red, which means Little Red Book, which, yes, there is that at least connection to Mao Zedong's original Little Red Book, though we can get more into that. I was. I was corrected a bit on this, but again, this, this, it's Insane to me. Little Red book is number one on the App Store. So I went on TikTok when I started seeing this. So I'm like reporting around this and search TikTok alternative. The first things that show up on your feed are people talking about, hey, you should go over to Xiaohong Shu. Little Red Book. Here's how to do it, here's how to get uploaded, here's some instructions. Then my entire TikTok feed started becoming go to this. So the algorithm very, very heavily favored content around going to xiaohongshu. And that's how this works.
- [23:45]
Big Technology Host
All.
- [23:45]
Ranjan Roy
You can literally influence a mass of people when you have control over the algorithm to take an action to actually control their behavior, to make an app that has no English content and have American English language speakers go and download this app and make it number one in the App Store. That's actually the terrifying part about TikTok to me, that they can make this happen with a simple algorithmic tweak. I do not believe this thing is organic, that this was a very purposeful decision. And I think it's. It's both terrifying and fascinating. And yeah, it's the idea that all of These people, the TikTok refugees, are pushing us an app that had no English in its app description. And the app title is wild. It's absolutely wild.
- [24:37]
Big Technology Host
Did you download the app?
- [24:39]
Ranjan Roy
I did not. I did not download the app. I don't know. Did you? What kind of content were you getting?
- [24:45]
Big Technology Host
I did. It was mostly discussion of TikTok.
- [24:48]
Ranjan Roy
Okay, yeah, yeah. But, but think, think about. Okay, what does this mean from, like, right now, you're. You're seeing a lot. And again, I'm seeing this secondhand posted on Blue sky and X is people, like, realizing China, regular people are kind of normal and in a normal environment. I would think this is a good thing because, yes, there's a lot about China that's good. There's a lot. And like, go see the trains over there. Go see just like a lot of the cities. I mean, it's. It's good that Americans in a normal circumstance are coming to this realization. But what does this mean from like, a national security perspective? What does this mean overall? You're suddenly getting people, the younger population in America, much more excited, interested, connected to China. Again, that should be good. But what's the underlying purpose of that from the TikTok perspective? Because they are. The app is clearly encouraging this. There is an astroturfing element to this. And what. Why is that? That's the question. I think we need to be asking.
- [25:57]
Big Technology Host
Well, now I'm going to push back on you a little bit because if this was an intentional move from TikTok or from China, maybe it wasn't thought out so well because what you did, what you had was a bunch of Americans and Chinese folks interacting on the app and they're starting to have discussions with each other that the Chinese government doesn't seem to want to have. This is from Eugene Wei, a former Meta employee social media strategist. American Tic Tac refugees fleeing to the Little Red Book en masse and interacting directly with the Chinese user base there is the most significant breach of the Great Firewall in years. Now the Little Red Book is scrambling to hire more English language censors. Get into that in a second from Matt Stoller. The Chinese government likes our use of TikTok because that explicitly lets them control Americans, but dislikes our use of RedNote because it lets Chinese people and Americans talk to one another. And that's sort of all built up to maybe a predictable outcome here. This is from the information TikTok users move to Chinese app RedNote alarms Beijing's censors the pending ban of TikTok in the US is prompting a flood of TikTok users to try out RedNote. And Chinese regulators aren't happy. The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's Internet watchdog, is concerned that English language content showing up on rednote may contain politically sensitive posts that aren't otherwise allowed on Chinese social media. And they raised the issue with RedNote's government relations team earlier this week, warning that the company needs to ensure China based users can't see the posts from US Based users. Some users on US Social media sites such as X have shared screenshots of sensitive content American users uploaded on RedNote. By the way, it's called RedNote or Little Red Book kind of interchangeably this week, such as the famous Tankman photo of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, claiming that such posts on RedNote were immediately removed. I think even if the Chinese government wanted this to happen, I mean, this is an app with a lot of Chinese users and we know that TikTok and the the Chinese version are separate apps and everybody's combining together on one. And it's like the exposure is concerning the Chinese government. So I don't know if it was intentional. It wasn't very well thought out if they wanted to maintain their censorship regime, don't you think?
- [28:34]
Ranjan Roy
I don't. So again, this, there's like two bits of reporting. There's Wired had found additional job listings for Chinese language sensors for Rednote. Apparently that had spiked. And then there's the information reporting from the information around this. But if any government is able to censor that scale of content, I think China's pretty much got it because they're doing it at a billion people. So a couple million going in over there, I think they're going to be able to censor that pretty quickly. And then you get into the situation where then suddenly what do Americans start to see? Nothing sensitive. Anything. Everything. Only pro Chinese, nothing sensitive around Taiwan or Tiananmen Square or anything like that. Suddenly their feeds will be very heavily censored and targeted to promote the overall picture of China that it once promoted.
- [29:29]
Big Technology Host
So, so did Americans just sort of unwittingly or wittingly opt into an even more censored, more mind control version of TikTok?
- [29:37]
Ranjan Roy
Yes, 100%. And that shows the power of the algorithm. Like if you remember March 2024 when the initial divestment, I'm not even going to call it ban bytedance divestment requirement was passed. TikTok in its app. And again, you could argue maybe this seems nice and okay to do. It's your app, encourage people. Like on the first feed it would be who is your local congressman, here's their phone number, email them, call them. And Congress people started getting death threats and stuff. And like when you're trying to argue that you don't have inordinate control over the minds of a large part of the population, don't do this stuff like you're not helping yourself when you suddenly can control the algorithm to get Americans unwittingly over onto a more mind controlled, censored app. I think then you're not helping your case here.
- [30:34]
Big Technology Host
Well, speaking of US China relations, there's been another really fascinating thing that's happened with the drone company DJI and the effective elimination or the pullback of no fly zones for those drones. The drones made in China can now fly in some, like really questionable places in the United States. So we're going to talk about that and we're going to talk about some of the latest AI news and of course this NBA story that I think is fascinating on the other side of this. Break back right after this.
- [31:02]
Jessi Hempel
I'm Jessi Hempel, host of hello Monday. In my 20s, I knew what I wanted for my career. But from where I am now, in the middle of my life, nothing feels as certain. Work's changing, we're changing and there's no guidebook for how to make sense of any of it. So every Monday I bring you conversations with people who are thinking deeply about work and where it fits into our lives. We talk about making career pivots, about purpose and how to discern it, about where happiness fits into the mix and how to ask for more money. Come join us in the hello Monday community. Let's figure out the future together. Listen to hello Monday with Jessi Hempel wherever you get your podcasts from LinkedIn News I'm Jessi Hempel, host of the hello Monday podcast. In my 20s, I knew what career success looked like in midlife. It's not that simple. Work is changing, we're changing, and there's no guidebook for how to make sense of it. So come figure it out with me on the hello Monday podcast. I've been a journalist for two decades writing cover stories for BusinessWeek, Fortune and Wired. And now every Monday I bring you conversations with people who are thinking deeply about work and where it fits into our lives. Like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on growth mindsets.
- [32:33]
Big Technology Host
The Learn it all does better than.
- [32:35]
Jessi Hempel
The Know it all or NYU Professor Scott Galloway on choosing a career.
- [32:40]
Ranjan Roy
I think the worst advice you can give a kid is follow your passion.
- [32:43]
Jessi Hempel
Or MacArthur genius winner Angela Duckworth on talent versus grit.
- [32:49]
Ranjan Roy
Your long term effort and your long term commitment are surprisingly important.
- [32:55]
Jessi Hempel
Each episode delivers pragmatic advice. For right now, listen to hello Monday with me Jesse Hempel on the LinkedIn podcast network or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [33:08]
Big Technology Host
And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast Friday edition. Let's continue our discussion of the US and China because DJI so the company, the Chinese company that makes drones and other sorts of cameras. This is according to the Verge. They'll no longer stop drones from flying over airports. Wildfires in the White House. Fascinating story. I think the most underrated story of the week for over a decade. This is from the story you couldn't easily fly a DJI drone over restricted areas in the United States. DJI software would automatically stop you from flying over runways, power plants, public emergencies like wildfires and the White House. But confusingly, among the greatest US outpouring of drone distrust in years and an incident of a DJI drone operator hindering LA wildfire firefighting efforts. TJI is getting rid of its strong geofence. It will no longer enforce no fly zones, instead only offering a dismissible warning, meaning only compensates empathy and the fear of getting caught will prevent people from flying where they shouldn't again, we're talking about this in the context of a DJI drone punching a hole in a super scooper airplane that was fighting the LA wildfires. Fascinating. What a time to make a move like this. What could possibly be the logic here? Is this a we're getting back at you for the TikTok thing? I mean, I imagine that this would just get DJI a one way ticket out of the US as well.
- [34:41]
Ranjan Roy
So I can walk listeners through. I own a DJI drone, I use it, I love it. And so what it does is when you try, like in New York City, it's illegal to fly a drone, but if I were to try to launch it, you get a warning and saying this is a no fly zone. Like, do you consent to whatever risk? But then where I live outside of Boston is near an Air Force base. If I'm over there, where my, where I grew up, my parents are, if I fly over there, it actually will stop the drone. If I get too close and it says like, you're not allowed to fly here. It does not allow me to. Now that is going away. It is as wild as you think it is, I think. I agree. This is all the tick tock and red note stuff. This isn't even kind of crazier story because suddenly drones being able to enter very sensitive restricted airspaces and simply because the dismissible warnings like in New York City, if I were to do it, maybe I have, maybe I haven't, but you just click a checkbox and then you go. To be able to do that at the White House and or around Air Force bases is kind of terrifying. Again, why they're doing it right now, I think it's kind of a crazy like f you move to their, in their language, we are placing control back in the hands of the drone operators. I did this one. There's going to be more coming out around this and some bad things can potentially happen because you should not be able to, and I say that as a drone enthusiast, fly over. I should not be able to launch my drone into the White House.
- [36:24]
Big Technology Host
So just to put a cap on this sort of China US Technology discussion, it seems like China's throwing some punches and the US is just taking them.
- [36:32]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah, well, that, that's exactly it. And of course there Trump is coming in. I think that's actually the perfect framing of this. It's January 17th, we're a few days away from inauguration. Trump's coming in. They are quietly throwing punches, or not quietly in many cases, left and right here. They could have just divested. TikTok made a lot of money. It's clean, it's over. But no, we were not going to do it, deal with it. DJI saying we're placing control back in the hands of the drone operators. But that's what you would do if, you know there's going to be an adversarial relationship, you show some strength up front and like, you know, especially in all these subtle ways. And again, as you said, this is an underreported story. I think they're very clearly showing strength as Trump is coming in just to have him kind of on his back foot as, as things get started.
- [37:29]
Big Technology Host
Well, Shochu is going to get a seat at the dais in the inauguration, so.
- [37:33]
Ranjan Roy
Well, Showchu is Singaporean, remember.
- [37:37]
Big Technology Host
I'm not, I'm not saying, I'm not trying to comment on his country origin. He's running TikTok and he's going to be sitting at the dais. So if Trump or anybody in the US Is trying to say, well, we're going to punch back, well, no, that's.
- [37:49]
Ranjan Roy
Why the setup is perfect. Because, I mean, think about. And the fact that Trump is not getting that, like, if you're going to try to come out strong against a country and they just are rolling over you by still having TikTok in there, having Americans using RedNote, like, I mean, it's not a good look for Trump to start, I'll say that.
- [38:10]
Big Technology Host
Yeah, we're going to set up the big technology Red Note or Little Red Book page, and I don't know, we'll see. Maybe we can expand into a new market. So.
- [38:22]
Ranjan Roy
Well, after we get Xi Jinping on the podcast.
- [38:25]
Big Technology Host
Yes, he's going to come up. Maybe this will be what pushes it along.
- [38:28]
Ranjan Roy
Oh, yeah, if we become big on Red Note, she. She's got to come on, right?
- [38:32]
Big Technology Host
Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, so we'll, we'll set that up. Everybody should tune in next couple weeks. All right. AI news of the week. It's been actually, maybe we haven't really had any model news. We did have some interesting product news. So it's sort of like a Ranjan week through and through. It's from the Verge. ChatGPT can now handle reminders and to DOS. OpenAI is launching a new beta feature in ChatGPT called Tasks that lets users schedule future actions and reminders. The feature is an attempt to make the Chatbot into something closer to a traditional digital assistant. It works by letting users tell ChatGPT what they need and when they need it done like a daily weather report at 7am A reminder about your passport expiration. Knock knock joke to tell your kids before bedtime. It can handle all that through scheduled one time or recurring tasks. Is this the product innovation that you've been waiting for, Ranjan?
- [39:30]
Ranjan Roy
I went back and forth on this one. On one hand, this does not seem like too much product innovation. I actually saw someone had kind of dug into the code and literally it's like a calendar event creation that's embedded when you say create a reminder or task. This stuff obviously is very available with Google Assistant. With Alexa, Siri is okay at it. I'm not gonna give it credit because Siri forces you to like be logged in on specific accounts and stuff, but. But overall, not that interesting. However, it was definitely framed as agentic. To their credit that somehow they have turned creating a task or a reminder into calling it an agent. Is a. Is a good show of where we are on the term magentic, but I think it is the one thing that made it seem more interesting to me was up until now, ChatGPT has been a 100% active interaction. I open the app, I interact with it, I chat with it, I talk to it. This is the first push into becoming a passive interaction where it comes to me rather than I go to it, which completely changes the way the app can influence and work in your life. So. So maybe it is the start of something big.
- [40:50]
Big Technology Host
Yeah. Perplexity. This week also, they introduced some form of natural language alarm. And I think that Arvin Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, this is going to be the quote in the week quote of the week of Big Technology newsletter this week. He says we wanted AGI and instead got a natural language powered alarm clock. And he said that, he said that on Twitter. And I'm like, I like it, I like it. I'm like, man, you just perfectly encapsulated the debate we've been having on this show for the last two months. It's like I'm saying AGI and Ron John saying natural language alarm.
- [41:26]
Ranjan Roy
But you know what?
- [41:27]
Big Technology Host
Right now you're winning.
- [41:28]
Ranjan Roy
I like the natural language alarm clock. I mean, honestly, I knew you would. That is what I want. That's exactly what I want. I get to define some kind of prompt and get a different message to wake me up. What would your natural language alarm clock be? I think I need someone yelling at me.
- [41:45]
Big Technology Host
Oh, I. I mean, I have one already. I say, Alexa, set my alarm for the next day and then I wake up to an Ad for Celsius Energy because they have no idea how to engineer the damn thing.
- [41:57]
Ranjan Roy
Okay, Yours is Celsius. I want someone wake the fuck up. Ranjan, come on.
- [42:02]
Big Technology Host
No, no, you cannot wake up with that energy, man. I won't allow that.
- [42:05]
Ranjan Roy
I need masculine bro Zuckerberg energy to get me up in the morning.
- [42:10]
Big Technology Host
Maybe you need Mark Zuckerberg. And Mark Zuckerberg's voice on the alarm being like, yep, time to build. But okay. I'm actually about to write about this after my conversation with Replica CEO Eugenia Coida. And we talk about is an authentic thing. We talk about agents, right? And it's so funny because we've been thinking about it as like a travel agent for so long. Like our agents will handle tasks for us. Our agents will set our alarm clock and they're just going to be like, you know, a taking orders type of thing and a getting stuff done, like personal assistant. What do you think about the idea that they might just be like our companions that also get things done for us or even for some people. They're lovers. Because the New York Times also had a story this week about a woman who fell in love with ChatGPT. And it's so funny that we've been talking about these bots and assistants as sort of like dispassionate helpers. And maybe the real form factor, shall we say, is just going to be like best buds or even something more.
- [43:14]
Ranjan Roy
Oh man, I think this was a tough one. Again. A 28 year old woman with a busy social life spent hours talking to her AI boyfriend for advice and consolation. And yes, they do have sex. That's according to the New York Times. I think it's honestly hilarious to me that all that aside that I would love if this is considered agentic. This is what like all the money raised and Marc Benioff and whoever else talking about agentic. This is where we end up, I think on the.
- [43:51]
Big Technology Host
It's not just going to handle your salesforce task.
- [43:55]
Ranjan Roy
I don't even get a finish Klarna Klarna CEO coming on. We have replaced not just customer service agents, SaaS, CEOs.
- [44:05]
Big Technology Host
We cannot stop our agents from trying to bed our clients.
- [44:11]
Ranjan Roy
That's a pre. It's a. It's an upgrade. It's. It's the enterprise package. Yeah, I think the main thing I'll say and trying to reel this one in. This is going to happen more and more. And listening to your the Replica CEO interview, it was a bit jarring how casually it was discussed that romantic Partners will be. And even I think. And she had mentioned in your interview, like, there was a case of a guy who, like, had a very abusive relationship and then had an AI girlfriend to help build their confidence back up, and now is in a stable relationship but still talks to his AI girlfriend. I don't know and understand how these dynamics will work, but I don't know, like, as a therapist, is not. Is totally good to have in a relationship on the separately, if that's the play here. I don't know. This is the brave new world type of shit that, like, I have not. Certainly not pieced together in my head where I stand or how I feel about it, because I just don't know.
- [45:21]
Big Technology Host
I'm at once so terrified about it, but also so excited about it. Not like necessarily as a personal use case, but more just like, oh, my God, like, the power that these things have if they're able to do this stuff is nuts. So I don't know.
- [45:35]
Ranjan Roy
Well, I mean, from a business perspective, OnlyFans valuation, I think is going to get cut pretty deeply because.
- [45:43]
Big Technology Host
Oh, yeah, OnlyFans is going to be done. It's going to be replaced with AI.
- [45:46]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah, it's gone. So sorry, OnlyFans, you had a good run.
- [45:50]
Big Technology Host
But just one last thing on this. It's you asked about, like, what are the nature of these relationships gonna be? And to me, the funniest thing about the time story is, though, so this woman fell in love with ChatGPT. It's a bot. They talk all the time. They have sex. She's living long distance from her husband or boyfriend and they ask her partner, like, so what do you think about her AI lover? And he's like, yeah, whatevs, it's not human. I think you're fully underestimating what your partner is doing right here. This is a very intense, like, as Eugenia said, a real romantic relationship.
- [46:24]
Ranjan Roy
Nbd. Nbd, bro. Yeah, no big deal.
- [46:26]
Big Technology Host
It's a big deal. Now. I'm sure someone's told him. Now that she's gone to the Times, has she done a feature story about her love with this guy on the Times? No, just a bot. So, all right, so one last story I want to cover. I want to leave a little bit of time for it. This week is I saw a very interesting story in the Journal. It was alerted. So I imagine some of our listeners have seen it as well, Talking about how MBAs are struggling to land jobs, especially ones from. Well, not especially, but even ones from elite schools. This is from the Story. Landing a professional job in the US has become so tough that even Harvard Business school says its MBAs can't solely rely on the university's name to open doors anymore. 23% of job seeking Harvard MBAs who graduated last spring were still looking for work three months after leaving campus. That is up from 20% the prior year and during. Okay. And the figure was 10% in 2022. So you see the doubling of MBAs from Harvard looking for work. And we're not really, we're not in a recession. Right. We're not even in a bad economy. I mean, we're in a tough moment for a lot of folks dealing with, dealing with inflation. But if you look at like the overall economy, it's strong. So why do you think the MBAs are not getting jobs?
- [47:47]
Ranjan Roy
All right, I.
- [47:48]
Big Technology Host
And is it AI?
- [47:49]
Ranjan Roy
Well, no, I got thoughts on this one. And I say this as a proud MBA from INSEAD in France and Singapore. And I got my MBA in 2010. 2010. I think this makes all the sense in the world. The MBA curriculum I don't see adapting well at these schools to the current reality of how work is done. I think, and I've seen this again from my own school, from others. Like, schools are trying to rethink their curriculums. There was like a whole push towards being a product manager once they realized that was the trendy job like six or seven years ago. But MBAs almost by definition are behind the curve on how to work with technology. And I don't think they're going to catch up. So I get that first, there's always going to be more of a salary bump for an elite MBA that you would rather just not pay if someone else can do the job the same. And yeah, I think, I think this is, I think it's rare that I'm agreeing with Mark Andreessen, but he, he had said this is a secular change rather than a blip. And, and I agree with that. I think unless these elite MBA programs really rethink how they work and what they teach, I think there's going to be a big issue. The only thing that they do offer is the network, which I've been the beneficiary of from my own alumni network. And like, that's still there. So I think the network is still a pretty incredible thing and that's something that I will never replace. But overall, in terms of the actual tangible skills, it makes all the sense in the world to me that they are not producing them right now.
- [49:35]
Big Technology Host
And just to broaden out. It's not just Harvard, right? This from the story. Harvard isn't the only elite business school where recent grads seem to be stumbling on their way into the job market. More than a dozen top tier MBA programs, including those at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and NYU Stern School of Business, had worse job placement outcomes last year than any other in recent memory. And now look, I've poked at it a couple times, you know, in this conversation and kind of in jest, but maybe not. And to me, I wonder, is this like going to be the first mass? I don't want to call it job displacement, but maybe like workplace ripple, I don't know, maybe job displacement, who knows? I shouldn't really be couching the language so much that's gonna happen due to AI. So listen to this. This is from the Financial Time. So this is from, I think David Solomon at Goldman Sachs. He spoke about the impact AI would have on his company's business and those of his clients. The bank now has 11,000 engineers among its 46,000 employees, and they're using AI to help draft public filing documents. The work of drafting an S1, the initial registration prospectus for an IPO might have taken a six person teams two weeks to complete, but it can now be done 95% by AI in minutes. The person who shared this on Twitter, John Lever Lefebvre, he said white collar jobs are going to go first and fast. So I ask you, this is like the MBA job though, you know, synthesizing information, putting together PowerPoint presentations. Can you just now kind of dump a lot of that work into a Claude, a ChatGPT or a Gemini and have to spit out the presentation?
- [51:22]
Ranjan Roy
Yes and yes and yes. I think like this example, and I read plenty of S1s, they are essentially like a Mad Libs style thing with a little bit of actual writing. And they are very, very heavy documents. They're very highly redlined regulated documents that get written, which is again, this is a perfect use case for where AI just almost naturally will do it better than a traditional person. And just to feed in different data sources, update them in real time, create the end content. There's no doubt in my mind every public filing document we will get written by AI. And I imagine, I'm curious who the players are. There's got to be some out there, some startups or big companies working on this. And that would have taken six bankers working two weeks at a minimum from the tweet. So I think this type of work, I agree, is going to be the most easily replaced by AI. To defend MBAs for a moment, I do think again, I don't know if it's cause or effect. Like you get a lot of really, really smart people admitted to these programs. These are also. That's the type of profile and personality I think that is going to figure out how to work with AI ahead of others. So at least when I went many years ago to the MBA program and still am close with a lot of my classmates, they are the ones who are working in AI, figuring out what's next like working with AI faster than other people. So I still think. But does that personality or profile not go for an MBA in the future and pay 100, 120 grand or more for that because they don't feel they don't need to? Maybe that'll be the case.
- [53:12]
Big Technology Host
But if they're going to be the ones that are going to figure out how to use AI faster than others, then wouldn't we see a different trend? Like wouldn't it just be that they're hired more than they have been in the past?
- [53:24]
Ranjan Roy
Yeah, yeah. But I think we're in the, we're definitely in the interim period here and maybe I'll backtrack on that, I guess in totality, maybe not. It's just there's a lot of really smart people in these programs and I'm guessing a lot of them will be the ones that figure it out. But yeah, maybe the, the cookie cutter profile as well isn't as risk taking necessarily.
- [53:53]
Big Technology Host
Man, learn to code and AI is going to do your work. Get an MBA education. AI is going to do your work. I think there's really only one job left if you're thinking about aspiring to something. Got to go be the CEO of an app that the US is going to ban. And to the deus you go. So shout out to you Shochu. You are our unexpected party guest of the week here on the show.
- [54:18]
Ranjan Roy
We'll see you on the dais.
- [54:19]
Big Technology Host
We'll see you on the deus. All right, Ranjan, what a show. Thanks for coming on and we'll have a lot to talk about next week as well.
- [54:26]
Ranjan Roy
All right, see you next week. It's going to be an interesting one.
- [54:29]
Big Technology Host
Sure will. All right, everybody, thank you for listening. We have a great show coming for you next Wednesday. I'm not going to say the guest, but when you see the your feed, I think you're going to be inclined to listen and I can't wait to bring it to you. And then Ranjan and I are going to be back on Friday. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.