Liz Lopatto (3:34)

Hey, Mama. Thanks for making all my favorite recipes.

David Pierce (3:37)

Hi, Ma. Thanks for your unfiltered advice.

Liz Lopatto (3:40)

Hi Mom.

Sean Hollister (3:42)

Thanks for always being by the phone.

David Pierce (3:44)

Hey, Mom.

Sean Hollister (3:45)

Happy Mother's Day.

Liz Lopatto (3:46)

When you ship UPS Air at the UPS Store, your items arrive on time or your money back, guaranteed at no extra cost, exclusively at the UPS store US retail locations. Visit theupsstore.com airshipping for full details. Terms and conditions apply. Send your Mother's Day gifts at the UPS Store and we'll get your gratitude there on time. Burn your five pound weights. I'm Robert Arson. I'M an athlete and fitness instructor and I am telling you, unless you have been limited to lighter weights by a medical professional, they're honestly inexcusable. You need to be lifting heavy. And I'm talking especially to the women out there. Toned arms. What can your body do this week on Project Swagger? What heavy means and rules to bring into your routine? Listen now. More and more Americans are finding themselves taking care of their kids and their parents at the same time. Well, you know, I, I joke that there's a dark game which I was playing. Which family member will I disappoint today? How to care for others without burning out in the process. That's this week on Explain it to Me. Find new episodes Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

David Pierce (5:05)

All right, we're back. Joining me now the Verge is Liz lapato. Hi, Liz.

Liz Lopatto (5:08)

Hey, David. How's it going?

David Pierce (5:10)

It's been a minute. I feel like there has just been like, undercurrents of constant Liz related chaos. And finally it has all sort of peaked up. And there is a moment where it's like, well, we have to call Liz and talk about the shenanigans, because it's shenanigan time.

Liz Lopatto (5:25)

Well, you know, I mean, it's, I think we've talked about like my cycles of Elon theory where we have like periods of like peak elon activity and then it sort of drops off and like, you know, he's elon ing again. Like, this is some peak Elon activity. We have this idiotic trial and then after that there's an ipo. Like, I wouldn't have put those two things together personally, but I'm not Elon Musk.

David Pierce (5:48)

It's, it's so true in so many ways, Liz. So I sort of want to start with, like, there's this big trial coming up, right? And you're, you're going to be there covering this thing because I think it's, it's going to be interesting. But my sense is I can't figure out whether this trial is going to be interesting between elon Musk and OpenAI, because it's interesting and important and instructive for the future of AI or if it's just going to be a mess of shenanigans essentially. Right? Like, is this actually a court case or is this just a show that it is somehow going to jury selection? What's your reason?

Liz Lopatto (6:23)

This is a shit show.

David Pierce (6:24)

Okay?

Liz Lopatto (6:25)

This is a shit show for sure. So there is sort of like this outside possibility, I should note. There's an outside possibility that OpenAI loses the case and has to disgorge a bunch of money, which that potentially does affect the entire AI ecosystem because, you know, OpenAI is tied to virtually every other AI company. They've made deals with basically everyone. So if OpenAI has to disgorge all this money, that's money they may not have to pay, let's say Oracle, you know, on their obligations. So that is a possibility. But, you know, I, many of the lawyers I spoke to for this story were like, if I were taking this case on contingency, I would not take it. Like, if I were, you know, if I, if this were on contingency, I would not get paid. Like this is happening because Elon Musk has the money to pay someone to argue a losing case. And so I'm basically just expecting like mudslinging and gossip. And, you know, if we, if we get more chaos than that, like, I'm, I'm not going to say no to it. But, you know, like, it's, it's, to me, it's mostly like it's meant to embarrass and maybe humiliate Sam Altman. And OpenAI's lawyers are sort of also notoriously nasty. So we'll see.

David Pierce (7:47)

Yeah. So, okay, I want to get into some of the mudslinging because we've already seen a lot of it and you've covered a lot of it. And I want to, I want to talk about kind of what we know and what we think we might learn, but give me like the, the flattest possible read of what this case is about. Like, no, take all, all the shenanigans about it. The most, like, generous down the middle read of what this, what this case is actually supposed to be about.

Liz Lopatto (8:11)

So casting our minds back through the sands of time. OpenAI was originally a nonprofit and Elon Musk originally co founded and funded it. People forget that.

David Pierce (8:23)

Right? These are facts. Right. These are not like stipulated things. Those are, those are facts we're good on.

Liz Lopatto (8:28)

Everyone knows this. Yeah, we're all, we're all there. Those are stipulated things, in fact.

David Pierce (8:32)

Sure. Right.

Liz Lopatto (8:34)

That's all true. And then Elon Musk wants to be in charge of OpenAI and like, he has these ideas about, like maybe rolling it into Tesla. He wants to be the CEO and there's some hemming and hawing from Ilya Ever and Greg Brockman. And basically Musk is like, I don't need any more of this. I'm leaving. Goodbye. And he storms off. And he had previously made this commitment. I think for $100 million and I think he had only paid 30. So he kind of leaves OpenAI in the lurch. And this matters because one of the approaches that OpenAI famously took and has gotten us to where it is today is the very expensive approach of just buying as much compute as possible. Just throw compute at the problem and that'll fix AI. And so they have these very expensive scientists, they need to buy very expensive compute and their big funder has just walked off. And so they open this for profit arm, they wind up making a deal with Microsoft. And that is sort of the genesis of OpenAI as we know it today. Because the thought was that without a return on investment, it was going to be much harder to get people to donate the amounts of money that they

David Pierce (9:50)

needed right up to what, $1.4 trillion in compute. Now it's a hard, it's a hard donation to ask for, I would say. They're not wrong.

Liz Lopatto (9:58)

Right. And like, to be clear, when Musk was still at the company, this was something he had also discussed with them. Like we've seen this in emails, so it's not like this totally came out of nowhere. You know, it was, it was something that they were kicking back and forth before like Musk took his ball and went home. So, you know, time goes by and then we hit this sort of point where all of these AI companies are angling to go public. So Musk folds xai his kind of shitty, I think is the word AI project that is creating nude images of people that are non consensual on Twitter. And it's got problems with like child porn. That's, that's his thing. He folds it into SpaceX, which is his functional company. And now SpaceX is about to go public. And then there's also been rumblings about anthropic and OpenAI going public and like trying to figure out how to make profits finally. So this is sort of this moment where you can see the field starting to change. We're like at this point where they can't keep giving AI away for free anymore. And also like there just needs to be some sort like, because it requires so much money, there just needs to be a huge cash infusion. And so that's what they're going to the public markets for.

David Pierce (11:16)

So what do you think Elon Musk wants here? Obviously there is, there is a thing that happened where OpenAI went out and became one of the most valuable private companies in the world. Like you said, it is running towards an IPO that's going to make a lot of people tremendously rich. Is Elon Musk just trying to get a piece of that? Is he just trying to use all of the resources available to him to try to crush a competitor? Like, what. What does he want out of this lawsuit, do you think?

Liz Lopatto (11:40)

I think he just wants to punish OpenAI and Sam Altman.

David Pierce (11:43)

Okay. For wronging him essentially, all those years ago.

Liz Lopatto (11:46)

Yeah, I mean, he's incredibly vindictive. Like, that is just a thing that is known about Elon Musk. And so there are any of a number of ways this goes. Arguably, he has already won because we're going to trial at all. That is already distracting. It's expensive. And at this point in time, OpenAI should be really prepping for IPO, and instead they have to deal with this distraction. And then on top of that, anything that comes out about Sam Altman that maybe discredits him means that there may be agitation for him to step down again. And that, again, potentially really puts the company adrift. So basically, any sort of negative information that comes out in this trial about OpenAI or Sam Altman lets him kneecap a competitor. But just the trial, the fact of the trial itself is enough, again, because it is expensive, and it is kind of a way of wasting time for these people who he's, like, I guess, really angry at. And if you look at what he's asking for, he isn't just asking for money, which he's, like, been like, oh, you should. We should donate that, all of that to the OpenAI Foundation. You know, it's not for me. I'm only asking for money because otherwise they're not going to let me, like, run this case. And, like, I don't totally believe that, but whatever. But the other, like, remedies he's asking for are ones that I was told he is unlikely to get. But he wants Sam Altman to step down and I think be banned from running companies for a while.

David Pierce (13:20)

Oh, boy. Okay.

Liz Lopatto (13:21)

So there is just, you know, a real sort of vindictive streak. And, like, the other thing that's worth knowing is that, like, this is one of four lawsuits that Musk has filed against OpenAI. And it's also, this guy loves filing lawsuits.

David Pierce (13:38)

He really does.

Liz Lopatto (13:40)

It's. It's lawfare. It's because he has so much money, and he knows that most of his opponents don't have as much money as he does, and it's just a way of inflicting pain, and that's all it is. So, you know, like, the Fact that, like, the lawyers on this case are not, you know, people who are knowledgeable about, you know, laws around charities or contract law. You know, I think the, the lead lawyer for Musk is an IP lawyer, which is definitely not the same thing.

David Pierce (14:07)

Nop.

Liz Lopatto (14:07)

That kind of tells you what you need to know. He's not hiring, like the authorities in, you know, this kind of law. He's hiring whoever will take the case.

David Pierce (14:17)

So I think that, to me is one of the most interesting facts of all of this. And again, you pointed to, like, it's a win that this made it to trial. I think it's been easy to write this off as sort of Elon Musk legal nonsense until it actually goes to trial. Right. Like, like you said, the man loves a lawsuit. He, he will sue anyone over anything real or perceived. And he seems to just feel like, well, I'm paying these lawyers anyway, I might as well make them do something which sure, like, knock yourself out. If, if you, if you like a lawsuit, go for it. What is your read on how surprising it is that this thing is actually, as it stands right now, on Friday, April 24th, going to trial? You've been reporting on this and writing about this. Like, is, is it as surprising to everyone as it seems to me that anyone took this seriously enough that this is actually going to trial?

Liz Lopatto (15:11)

I mean, again, if it were not Elon Musk, it wouldn't have gone okay.

David Pierce (15:17)

He can just horsepower this thing through with resources.

Liz Lopatto (15:20)

Yeah, basically. Because, like, the, the questions that they're like, that the jury is being asked to decide are questions of fact. And so they're not really things that the judge can rule on. The judge rules on law.

David Pierce (15:32)

Right.

Liz Lopatto (15:32)

So, you know, I would argue, having looked at what evidence has already been released, this is a pretty clear cut case and it's like open AIs to lose. Now maybe there's going to be some like, surprise legal maneuver that comes out and like, we're all blown away, you know, legal. Legal drama style. But that's, that's, that mostly doesn't happen, you know, like, so the fact that it is, you know, a question of facts rather than a question of law is the reason we're in front of a jury. And it's just because the facts are so strongly lined up against Musk that everybody's surprised that we're going forward. Because most lawyers would be like, this is a waste of my time.

David Pierce (16:14)

Yeah, you have a, you have a great quote in a, in a story you wrote that was basically like, this ended up A trial because. Let me see if I can find this. It's from, it's from Sam Brunson, who's at the Loyola University of Chicago, who says it only ended up at trial because Elon Musk can pay his attorneys to argue a losing case like Bleak. But here we are. You mentioned, you mentioned all of the stuff that we've seen already. There's been a lot of information about this case that has come to light in one way or another in the run up to it. What have we learned, do you think? What's kind of top of mind for you in terms of new things we've learned just because this case has come this far, which again, I think is in particular Elon Musk's goal is just to get put a lot of damaging information about his opponents out there through legal filings. To some extent. It seems to be working already. What, what has happened so far?

Liz Lopatto (17:03)

Well, my personal favorite, which I'm just going to start with, is from a legal filing, it's not going to make it into the case because in the filing, Musk's lawyers were arguing successfully, as it turns out, to get it excluded. But it's a line of questioning in his deposition from OpenAI's lawyers who are asking him, does he know what rhinoket is? Does he know what rhinochetamine is? Did he do rhino ketamine at burning man in 2017? Okay, like, that is like, that's a

David Pierce (17:33)

series of very specific questions.

Liz Lopatto (17:36)

This is dirt, you know, and like they actually, they can ask about Burning man, by the way, because that is a period of time that is relevant to this case. So we, you may hear some questions about Elon Musk's behavior at Burning man. And if he answers them wrong, he does open himself up to then getting the questions about Rhino Cat. So like, I'm over here just like fingers crossed, baby. But you know, I think that that's sort of like emblematic of like, you know, what we're getting here. Like, some of the things that we're getting are details that I think are interesting to people in the tech industry, like Ilya Sutskever being like, oh, we can't treat open source AI as a sideshow. Like, this is potentially something that we need to take very seriously. And you have moments of discovering that Musk was, as he stomped off, going to try to start recruiting people from OpenAI, like poaching them. So there's some of this inside baseball that I think is going to be really interesting to people who work in the tech Industry, and obviously we'll be covering that, but for me, I'm here for them. Insulting Jeff Bezos casually, a bit of a tool is, I think, what. What Musk called him.

David Pierce (18:46)

So this. This is actually one line of this case that I'm particularly interested in, because when you have people as central to the tech industry as Sam Altman and Elon Musk in particular are, you have people who are talking to everybody all the time. Discovery is designed to get lots of information. I think the. You covered the SBF trial for Sam Bankman fried through all the crypto stuff, and that was another case in which a lot of people caught a lot of strays.

Liz Lopatto (19:13)

Yeah.

David Pierce (19:14)

Is this likely to be the same thing where just every name you can think of in tech is probably going to surface in some embarrassing text message or email?

Liz Lopatto (19:21)

Yes. I mean, they're already catching strays. Like, Mark Zuckerberg's texts, again, have showed up in the docket.

David Pierce (19:27)

Wait, that was from the moderation thing? That was from this trial.

Liz Lopatto (19:30)

That's. This trial, yeah.

David Pierce (19:31)

Oh, that's funny. That's great. Wait, explain what that was for people who didn't know.

Liz Lopatto (19:35)

So about a year ago, Mark Zuckerberg went on the Joe Rogan podcast and lied his face off about how, you know, Facebook doesn't respond to government pressure. And, like, they don't want to censor because of the government. And the mean old bad Biden administration called them occasionally and asked them to take stuff down. How dare they.

David Pierce (19:57)

This is also when he said Facebook needed more masculine energy.

Liz Lopatto (20:00)

Right? And I called him Bitch made super cool times. So for. For those of you who remember. So, you know, it was like, I called him a liar at the time. And then this comes out and he's like, don't worry, Elon. We're going to make sure that nobody reveals the ident of your doge boys. And it's like, man, I knew you were lying, but I didn't think that you were lying that brazenly. Like, I didn't think that you were just like, I'm gonna put some that's incriminating in my texts. Like, that's incredible. After everything this guy has been through in court, he's, like, still putting incriminating nonsense in his texts. Okay, so, you know, like, it's. It's. Zuckerberg's already caught strays. I'm sure there are more because he and Musk seem to be pals. Sam Altman knows everybody. Like, that is sort of famously one of the things about him that makes him you know, unique in the Bay is that he is just like really connected in part because of his sort of previous time at Y Combinator. And so I imagine we're going to hear things about leadership at Nvidia. I think we're probably going to hear things about, you know, OpenAI's assorted partners. Like obviously Microsoft's a part of the suit, so we're going to hear from them. But anybody that they might have partnered with or that they had explored partnerships with, that's also potentially something that comes into the case. And so that's everybody that's a number of these companies like Coreweave that are making deals with OpenAI for compute, that is places like Amazon and Microsoft that are big companies that we're thinking about investments that is potentially anybody who is thinking about an investment in OpenAI. So I'm like, all right, which VCs are going to be catching strays here? Because like, you know, those are also people who potentially can be very embarrassed by stuff that comes out just in the course of like having this discussion of like what happened on this timeline.

David Pierce (22:00)

Yeah. And it also seems like we've tracked a bunch of really interesting moments in the history of OpenAI, particularly Sam Altman getting fired. I mean, it's, it's really interesting to me, the timing of this next to that big New Yorker story about Sam Altman, which raises a lot of questions, I think, about his fitness to lead the company and a lot of questions about the, the information being shared around him and potentially by people like Elon Musk who want to take him down. The like, dossiers being created by oppo researchers. Like, I mean it's literally like in the way that Silicon Valley, the HBO show is way too real about the tech industry. Like, it's all, these are all just succession plots. Every single one of them is just a succession plot about other companies. And it just feels like the risk right now for Sam Altman reputationally is so high that you can sort of see why Elon Musk like smells blood in the water. Right. That it's like if, if I can just take him down a, I will, I will win in my heart in a deeply like black hearted way. But also I can in a very real way take down a competitor right before SpaceX goes public. Like, part of me thinks that you're right and this is going to be easy and OpenAI is going to win the case pretty open and shut and just walk away and go about its business. But it also does feel like OpenAI is tenuous right now in a way that this could go sideways even if they win the case. I don't know. Am I overthinking this?

Liz Lopatto (23:31)

No, I don't think you are. Although I will say I think that the New Yorker article came out when it did in part because of this case. Right. Like, you know, my read of this, and this is just like, as a person who also does reporting, is that when I got to the part about the dossier, I was like, oh, someone sent Ronan Farrow this dossier? And he was like, okay, how much of this can I substantiate? And the answer was, like, the most egregious claims were false. And, like, there's a point at which Altman actually thanks him for, like, looking into, you know, these allegations where he's like, well, at least somebody, like, looked into it and said, like, that's not real. Yeah, it's really hard to prove a negative. But, like, if anybody's going to find, you know, misconduct, like, Ronan Farrow is pretty good at it.

David Pierce (24:16)

Yeah, yeah. He was on decoder and basically was like, I wouldn't. I would never say never, but I have looked into it as hard as anyone has ever looked into it, and I found nothing. I'm like, yeah, it's about all you can ask for at the moment.

Liz Lopatto (24:28)

That's all you can ask for. So, you know, that is my understanding of the genesis of the story. Like, you would have to ask Ronan Farrow, like, to figure out if that's true. But just like, thinking about how reporters work and at least how I work, like, if somebody sent me a dossier like that, I'd be like, ooh, that's juicy. And then I would try to substantiate it. So, you know, that's my guess. And, like, when they didn't. When he didn't turn up, like, the misconduct allegations that are in there, I imagine in that process, he started to turn up this stuff where it's like, well, Sam will say anything to keep people happy. And, like, that is in and of itself pretty newsworthy. Like, that is a thing that is a problem if you want someone to be trustworthy. The thing that I thought was really interesting was this description of him as being simultaneously people pleasing and a sociopath, which is like, that's quite a combination.

David Pierce (25:21)

Yeah, it's tough. Again, I think so much of this and so much of the OpenAI story ultimately ends up being a referendum on Sam Altman. And I think in part, that is probably exactly how Elon Musk and frankly, Dario Amade at Anthropic. And any of OpenAI's competitors would like it. Right. Because he is the poster boy for all of this. And if you can knock him down, you can. He'll kind of take OpenAI with him in a very real way. What I wonder is, again, why anyone would allow this to go this far. Like, I keep. There is such a real chance in my head that we're not going to run this segment because they're just going to settle and this is all going to go away part. I, I. Do you think that's a real possibility?

Liz Lopatto (26:06)

No. I mean, like, I, I hope I'm wrong, because I would rather not spend the next month in a courtroom.

David Pierce (26:12)

Sure.

Liz Lopatto (26:13)

But again, like, this is a probably a losing case for Musk. Like, he is going forward with a losing case and refusing to settle. This, this is punishment for Sam Altman. Like, he's not. There's no, like, amount of money or, like, whatever. I think that that's going to be as good for Musk as, like, humiliating Sam Altman in public.

David Pierce (26:36)

I guess that's true. There's a. There's a normal world in which OpenAI writes him a check for every penny he ever put into the company. Everybody shakes hands and moves on. You definitely don't get the sense that $30 million would solve this problem for Elon Musk.

Liz Lopatto (26:51)

I don't think he knows what, like, that's what's in his couch cushions. You know what I mean? Like, this just doesn't. That's not a sum of money that matters to him. So I think this is really just about feelings. And, like, I think the thing that's interesting here and the thing that I am kind of watching for is, like, if you do significantly damage Sam Altman and OpenAI, you potentially also damage all of AI because OpenAI is basically in the center of this enormous web of deals with virtually every important company that's in the space. And so if they are forced to disgorge money, that's a problem for their financial commitments. If they are forced to get rid of Sam Altman and they have chaos again, that may trigger stuff in their contracts that may potentially slow down their ability to come through on the things they're supposed to be doing, may hinder their ability to fundraise. Because that is really the thing that Sam Altman is best at. He's not a tech guy in the way that some of these other people are tech guys. He's a finance guy primarily. And so if you kick over OpenAI to me, the question is, okay, what happens to the rest of the industry? Because SpaceX is about to go public. So let's say we kick over OpenAI and then there's like a panic in the AI sector. What does that mean for the SpaceX IPO? To me, the funniest possible outcome is that Elon Musk wins a Pyrrhic victory, takes out OpenAI, and then absolutely shoots himself in the foot for his SpaceX

David Pierce (28:35)

IPO by doing it because the economy collapses.

Liz Lopatto (28:39)

Yeah, that's right.

David Pierce (28:40)

Which is sitting there. Yeah. So to that point, actually, what is the risk here for Elon Musk? Like, I. I think I understand the downside for OpenAI, even in a winning case, in a. Other than losing a case, which I think everybody, probably including Elon Musk lawyers, believes is the most likely outcome here, is there a larger risk for Elon in. In the way that this case is going?

Liz Lopatto (29:04)

Well, it sort of depends on how much reputation you think Elon Musk has left to lose. I say that because one of the key witnesses for OpenAI is Siobhan Zillis, who is the mother of four of Musk's children, who was an OpenAI board member and was for a long time, sort of the liaison between OpenAI and Musk. And we've seen some of her texts, too, right, where she's like, oh, how close do you want me to be? How friendly should I be? Do you want me to get information for you? And it's just like, so this is somebody who's extremely close to Musk, who has had her texts brought into discovery. And, like, I'm thinking about some of the stuff that we saw from Theranos that was like, you know, the humiliating texts between Sunny Balwani and Elizabeth Holmes, like, I love you, my tiger, or whatever, that had no bearing whatsoever on the case, but that we all, like, got to read anyway. So depending on what's in those text messages. And it seems like there's some very real stuff about Elon Musk's business in there, because, like, not only is this woman, like, you know, the mother of his. His children, she also is involved in a number of his companies. Like, I believe she worked at Tesla and Neuralink. So, you know, who knows what's in there? So that's. That's, again, like, you got to keep in mind there's this IPO that's about to happen, and anything that comes out about xai, for instance, is potentially an issue. I'm just sort of imagining. I don't have any evidence that this is true, and maybe we won't get it. But let's imagine that somewhere in the texts she expresses reservations about an AI model that goes on to be incorporated into xai or Autopilot, a Tesla.

David Pierce (31:05)

Sure.

Liz Lopatto (31:05)

That is something that is, you know, pretty important to a lot of people who are invested in those companies. So that's, that to me is really the risk for Musk is that there is some damaging information in his sort of bank of information that he hasn't like, fully prepared for or fully like, thought about, like, how much he can hurt himself here. Like, there can potentially be blowbacks.

David Pierce (31:32)

Yeah, yeah. I think the, the question about what is everyone's tolerance for Elon Musk chaos? Who has already signed up for Elon Musk chaos? Fascinating to me. And I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even begin to know how to handicap that. Right. That, like, if you're in business with Elon Musk at this point, even in a tangential way, you know what that is. And you, you, you understand the, the sort of weirdness and costs that come with that. But at what point does that tip over? I have no idea. And it feels like if we're ever going to find out, it might be very soon here.

Liz Lopatto (32:07)

Yeah, I think that's right. And again, this is why the timing is so interesting to me, because one of the other things about this SpaceX IPO is that Musk has been very clear about wanting to reserve some chunk of it for retail investors, which to me seems like, oh, you're going to dump on retail. That's, that's horrible. But, you know, like, the, the positive case, of course, is that, well, this is potentially going to be one of the most important companies of our time, so we should let the little guys get in on it too. Fine. But that those people are not, maybe not already in business with Elon Musk. And so, like, if you are just thinking about this from an investment perspective, you're not bought in on his whole deal, you're not one of his fanboys, you're not an investor in Tesla, and you start to hear things from this trial, you might be like, I don't know about this. Like, I don't think that's a good place for me to like, put my money or for me to put my funds money or for me to put some, you know, the retirement counseling, managing.

David Pierce (33:04)

Yeah, it's going to be interesting. And I think it's, it's, this is very instructive because I feel like I can Spend less of my time now wondering who's going to win the case and more just monitoring the chaos. Because it. That is the point of this is the chaos, it seems. And that is. That is what we're going to be doing. Which is perfect for you because I feel like this is, like this just has Liz written all over it. I'm excited for you. It's going to be great.

Liz Lopatto (33:26)

I was trying to explain to a friend, like, what I do, and at one point he was just like, oh, you just write about the most cursed stories in technology. And I was like, yeah, that's. That's about right.

David Pierce (33:36)

And sometimes those cursed stories end up in courtrooms and then you have to dress nicer to cover the cursed stories and technology.

Liz Lopatto (33:43)

I'll be hanging out outside a courtroom in downtown Oakland waiting for this, this all to start kicking off.

David Pierce (33:50)

It's going to be a messy one. You've stood in some wild lines for courtrooms. I suspect this one's going to be high on molest.

Liz Lopatto (33:56)

I. We'll see. But yes, I am expecting mess. I am expecting chaos, and I'm very curious about who's going to get burned here.

David Pierce (34:04)

Yeah, indeed. All right, thank you for helping with this. I feel good. You're going to be in the courtroom. You're going to be writing a ton. Make sure you're following Liz to get all of this stuff. And we'll have to have you back when some truly wild stuff happens. And we're just going to read texts to each other and then just sort of cackle about them on a podcast. Podcast. I'm very excited.

Liz Lopatto (34:21)

Sounds amazing. I look forward to our dramatic readings.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (34:25)

Perfect.

David Pierce (34:26)

All right, we're gonna take a break. We'll be back. Thanks, Liz.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (34:30)

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David Pierce (38:02)

All right, we're back. The Verge is Sean Hollister is here. Hi Sean. Hi. So we have an opportunity to talk about a thing that I'm very excited about, which is that framework, a company I think you and I both think is like cool and interesting and fascinating and we should talk about the reasons for that oh yeah. Kind of finally made the computer we've been waiting for Framework to make. So let's just start there. There's a bunch of announcements from Framework this week. Super interesting stuff. But the Framework Laptop Pro was the star of the show. Tell me about this laptop. You were at the event, you saw it. Tell me about this laptop.

Sean Hollister (38:38)

I was excited just from this spec sheet because of jargon, because of things like LP Cam 2 with two M's, because that is, that is a new form of computer memory which is wonderful and I'll tell you about that later, but things like custom display, 30-120Hz, variable refresh rate, things like Core Ultra 3. But when I got there, the thing that actually impressed me was the thing I dismissed at first. It's that this has a chassis made of CNC machined aluminum actually carved out of extruded blocks of metal instead of being like printed and stamped and those things that cheap laptops do. And that Framework, which does not make cheap laptops was still kind of doing up till now because they wanted to put their money other places, right?

David Pierce (39:26)

Yeah. The wrap on Framework I feel like since the very beginning has been, I love this company's ethos which is that everything should be upgradable and repairable and you should be able to swap in parts and you should be able to buy a computer, use it for a very long time. But you were always making some sacrifices in service of that.

Sean Hollister (39:43)

Huge compromises, huge compromises.

David Pierce (39:46)

I feel like they've gotten less huge over time in Frameworks defense. But I do think, I think the chassis is actually maybe the biggest one. Like Framework has just never made a laptop that you pick up and you're like God, this feels great. It's just never done that before.

Sean Hollister (39:58)

Never.

David Pierce (39:59)

And so I think to me just like even reading your story it was like the first impression you get is like, oh, they made a great one. Like the MacBook Pro I think is a reasonable standard of like really excellent high end laptops. Is it that nice a piece of hardware?

Sean Hollister (40:11)

It feels like it's in that category now. Like you know, I don't want to go all the way to like if you take your, you know, M5 16 inch MacBook Pro with all the stuff and it's the best laptop that Apple has ever made because of course every year they make the best laptop they've ever made, yada yada. I don't know if it is that perfect of a like feel which, and even there, Apple Laptops I don't like how like the deck, like pulls and carves into my wrists when I'm trying to type on it. I don't love that. But when we, whenever we've said, wow, a Windows manufacturer finally got it. This is up there with the MacBook. Framework is finally there too. Framework is finally in that place where this chassis feels like it can go toe to toe with anything else out there. And the touchpad may be better than the Windows laptops I've used. That's strong praise. And it's very preliminary. Very preliminary. Like, how long did I play with this thing? Not long enough to be like, I'm going to use this touchpad every day and love it. But my first impression was silky smooth. Nice. The haptic click feels like a proper haptic click. Whereas most Windows manufacturers, like kind of tried to copy the thing Apple did and maybe didn't quite get all the way there. Like, they put some serious thought and effort and money into this. And yeah, we're on that trajectory now. Maybe it's there more testing to do.

David Pierce (41:43)

Yeah, that is very exciting though. And I want you to walk me through the specs a little bit because I confess I get slightly out of my depth in the weeds of the many, many intel options available. Um, but luckily you exist and you know this stuff better than I do. So I think the thing that threw me was basically they're trying to say we've, we've made a very high performing, highly functional, no compromises window lap Windows laptop that gets better battery Life than the MacBook Pro. And I don't know a lot, but I know that that doesn't exist in the Windows world. So what, what is happening here? What is Framework doing that is. Is trying to walk this balance.

Sean Hollister (42:23)

I want to correct you. It's just finally now existing. We're in this place where there is one other laptop that comes to mind in particular, there is a Dell XPS 16 out now where they have a special screen from. I think I want to say it's LG display that goes all the way down to 1Hz. And when you combine that with the Core Ultra 3 chip, which is more efficient than most of the other Windows stuff we've been seeing for a while, AMD had some stuff that came close, but this is even better. When you combine these things together, that laptop was definitely beating all the MacBooks, was beating all the arm stuff when you combine that with a big battery. But this one, they're saying it'll do 20 hours of 4K Netflix and they say that's a smidge more than the 14 inch MacBook Pro. Get 13.5 inch laptop, 14 inch laptop. We're talking pretty comparable here. More battery life than that. When you go up to like a 16 inch MacBook Pro, you got a bigger battery anyhow. Core Ultra 3, you want me to go through the specs? The Core Ultra 3 in here is a very efficient chip as we've seen in that Dell, we've seen in some other machines. It can also be a very powerful chip with graphical potential. When you got 12 of the XC3 graphics cores in there. I saw some Cyberpunk 2077 running at the event with some artificial upscaling and things like that. But it looked good and smooth at over 60fps on a machine that's very thin and light. This is 1.4kg. It's got this custom screen, the first custom screen from Framework. They've been semi custom before. They've done off the shelf stuff, but generally Framework, they want everything to be modular, repairable. They want to know that they're going to be able to find screens in this form factor this resolution years from now that you can put in these laptops. So then do a custom panel, that's a big deal. This one is 13.5 inch, it's 3,2 aspect ratio, it's tall 2.8k resolution. It is IPS, not OLED, but IPS is pretty good. And it has that variable refresh rate from 30 to 120Hz when their 13 inch laptops were stuck at 60Hz before. So all of a sudden things are going to feel smoother because everything feels smoother when you graduate beyond 60 hertz.

David Pierce (44:42)

It seems like so far we're in a place of like nothing, sort of individually world beating, but also no red flags. Like nothing you've described to me is the thing where I'm like, oh, that's the. We haven't hit that yet. Is that coming?

Sean Hollister (44:57)

Yeah, we'll get to one. We'll get to one of them for sure. To get this battery life, it's not just the intel processor. The battery in it is 22% larger. They're at 74 watt hours now and they've got this LP Cam 2 memory which is the compression mounted memory. Before you got like sockets, I stick it in the socket and I put it down and it snaps into place. And that is not the best and most efficient like electrical connection you can have. You want memory paired very closely to the CPU on the motherboard for best results. And so what Apple and some other companies do is they say, we're going to solder it on there. You can't replace it anymore. But we are on the motherboard now. You can be on the motherboard with LPCAM2 memory by putting three screws in it and sticking it down very tightly to pads that are right on the board. And so this memory is fast, it's low power, it's efficient, and it's also efficient because it's connected directly. On top of all of that, there's PCI 5.0 storage, which is, like, much faster than PCIe 3.0. Your storage was probably already fast enough, but if you want to go up to 14,000 megabytes per second, you can do that with an SSD now, and maybe it won't make your laptop overheat. It's a pretty cool laptop, as far as we can tell. There are side firing speakers. We never loved the speakers on this. They were pointed a weird direction. Now they go at the sides. Do I know if they're any good? I don't, because it was loud in there. We'll see. Sure. And the most exciting thing is that all of the refinements and changes, including some I haven't talked about, can go back to all of the previous Framework laptops. If you buy these parts, because all of them can slot in, you can take. You can't take all of them by themselves. Like, if you want to put a new, bigger battery in your original framework 13 from, I don't know, 2021, you can do that, but you have to also put the new bottom cover on so you have enough space for that battery. If you want to get the new touchpad, you also have to get the new keyboard, and you put those on as a set. But all of it, you can take that old laptop, you can put the new motherboard, CPU in memory, all the stuff, you can bring it along for the ride, which is wild. No company's ever done this.

David Pierce (47:06)

Yeah, I remember, like, I mean, God, this feels like decades ago at this point. But talking in the early days of Framework, and it was like, okay, this company is saying the right things. We've heard this before. And what ruins these companies is permanently backwards compatibility. It is forever making a thing and then continuing to support that thing rather than say, oh, look, some new technology has come along. Let's make that work instead, because it's objectively better. Screw all of the people who already bought our product. And then you have. You have broken your original promise to your original customers. And the Whole thing starts to fall apart.

Sean Hollister (47:40)

I feel like they break the promise without even trying to, honestly. Like, maybe. Maybe they tried it in R and D, but did any company ever come out with, like, we are actually going to let you swap the GPU or the CPU or something like this in perpetuity and just put the money into it and fail at doing it? Or did they just break the promise and move on?

David Pierce (47:58)

I think this is about as long as anyone has successfully pulled this thing off, which I think is very exciting. But there's also something else in that that I think you talked to Nurav Patel, their CEO, a little bit about, which is you and I have tracked a lot of hardware companies, and there's this really fascinating thing you go through as an early hardware company where you have no leverage, you have no money. And so you essentially call a bunch of factories in China and you take whatever parts they will give you. And that's how you make your first product. You build a thing around the parts that are available to you, and then the next time you get some scale, you get some brand recognition, and then you can call those same people and you can make some light customizations. You can tweak a thing here and there. You can maybe have them make it slightly differently. You can reserve the best one instead of getting the leftovers. And then if. If you keep iterating on that long enough and you get big enough and successful enough, you get to start dictating the parts that you make, right? And that's. That's when you become powerful. And it's also when you get to start making the things that you want to make. And it seems to me that this is Framework hitting that point, that that now Framework is in charge of its own destiny, like, all the way down to the metal in a way that it never has before. And it seems like Nurav kind of alluded to that with you.

Sean Hollister (49:07)

That's what Nirav said to me. I mean, he said, after six years doing this, they get to decide what they're making, really. They have the relationships. He said there is essentially no technology that's theoretically possible where we're not at a scale. We can get it. That's what he said.

David Pierce (49:26)

It's kind of a bold thing to say out loud.

Sean Hollister (49:28)

Very bold. He's been very bold this cycle. He also said, everybody. Nobody likes this Logitech keyboard. We'll get to that in a little bit.

David Pierce (49:33)

We will.

Sean Hollister (49:35)

But to some degree, it's true. To some degree, yes. They made a custom display here. They'd never been able to do this much before. To some other degree though, like they are working with specific companies that do still control their destiny. This wouldn't be possible without working closely with intel, not only on the CPU, but on the motherboard and the ram, putting all of that together in a package. He said they worked with Micron to secure access to the RAM and some other memory companies because you happen to have a supply of these newfangled CAM2 memory modules. It's not just a standard part. Lenovo has them too. But, you know, now, now so does Framework. I don't know for sure that they're not like, hey, Lenovo, can you send some of your other memory modules over here? And I do know some companies, some very small companies that have kind of used like the leftover capacity at an Apple factory that's, that's, you know, taking, making metal shells for things. It could be that Framework is using some leftover capacity Apple doesn't need. But I don't know. They've been here six, six years. They like, they're here to stay, right?

David Pierce (50:37)

Yeah, yeah. Why do you think this company is kind of feeling itself, like, even just in the run up to the event, it was like, okay, I wonder what they're going to have to say about brand prices and what they're going to have to say about supply and they're going to have to give the squirrely. We don't know what this is going to cost and we don't know when it's going to be available. Here's a website. Sign up for more information. And instead they kind of came out with bravado and confidence. Like, this company seems to be firing on all cylinders in a way I did not really expect. What's your read on how it has managed to find its way through the chaos we keep talking about on this show?

Sean Hollister (51:14)

Part of it is, I mean, part of it's investment. They've had investment that's unlocked the ability to invest in these supply chains, in these, in these products that they did not have before. Part of it is that they have gained the respect and confidence having done this thing with laptop Number one. We were like, well, is that, are any of these parts going to be upgradable than laptop Number two, or is this a broken promise with number two? We're like, this is better. But nobody's actually had a chance to replace Laptop One yet. Let's see if they're going to do it in Laptop three. Laptop three comes out. We're like, okay, it's Two generations, they've done the thing nobody else has done. Then they did it again with the 16 inch. Okay, this company is really onto. They know this, and they are building an audience that trusts them. And they're being very transparent with this audience about everything from RAM prices and, you know, how much it costs them to the suppliers they use for the components. They don't just say, you know, we've built this wonderful new WI FI chip that's in this framework keyboard. They say, we are using this particular component from this one of our suppliers that the nerds in the audience will know and recognize and say, yeah, you use a really good component. We are nerds, too, and we get it. That is something that there's been far too little of in this industry. And so that. That kind of. I don't want to say radical transparency, but this transparency is a breath of fresh air. It makes this audience feel like they are being listened to, that they have a voice, that they are supporting a movement instead of just supporting a company. And so when they're playing to that audience, like they were in that event in San Francisco, you know, they brought in fans, not just journalists, to cover that event, too. And I don't. I don't mean, like, influencers. Like, I did not see these fans roaming around with cameras for their YouTube channels. Like, I see at Samsung. I saw, like, people who were, like, just walking around asking questions, trying gadgets, and occasionally coming up to me and saying, hey, are you Sean Hollister with the Verge? You want to talk about this? That was fun. That was fun. I don't get recognized very often.

David Pierce (53:21)

Those are the good days. I like those days. And that's also when, you know, you're like, oh, this is. This is nerdy people. When people know who I am, these are. These are my people. Yeah.

Sean Hollister (53:29)

Yes. Yes.

David Pierce (53:31)

So, okay, so this all sounds very good. You haven't tested the thing. We will. We will eventually get one of these to review. What are you worried about? What. What do you look at? Or what have you seen that you're like, this is a. This is a yellow flag. I'm. I'm marking this down to check later.

Sean Hollister (53:46)

Surprisingly few. I did skewer the idea that this is like a MacBook Pro to some degree in my story, because although it has the build, we don't know the performance quite yet. And this screen that's on it, while it is a custom screen that has a lot of characteristics that I want, MacBook Pros are generally screens for creative professionals who need to work with Accurate colors and things like that. And while they say all these are color calibrated out of the box to a per unit level, by the way, which is also amazing, they're talking about 100% of the SRGB color gamut, which is this small one, not Adobe RGB, not DCI P3. So if you want, if you're a creative professional working on your next film, you're probably not gonna do it on this screen. You're probably going to plug in an external monitor to it that has the specs you need for that.

David Pierce (54:41)

Okay. Yeah, I think, I think it was in your story that they said something to the effect of we think this is a computer for developers.

Sean Hollister (54:48)

Yeah.

David Pierce (54:49)

Which strikes me as very smart at this moment in time. It's like when Apple says creative, it means like people who use video editing suites for a living. Right. Like you see the things in Apple's commercials and it's like people who make creative arts in some way or shape or form. And that's like. I think that's who Apple wants you to think its customer is more than its actual customer base. But like that's, that's what Apple means by creative. I think it's actually, it's sort of instructive to hear them say this is for developers. Which also I think maybe helps explain one of the other fascinating things about it, which is there is a, there is a dyed in the wool Linux version of this because Sean, this is the year of Linux on the desktop. I don't know if you've heard.

Sean Hollister (55:31)

It's news to me. No, this is Framework's first laptop that can actually come pre installed with Linux and it is the default. You could get DIY systems and they would be like, yeah, this works great with Linux. We've worked on the drivers, we make sure it's a great experience.

David Pierce (55:48)

But this one is like they'll ship you a box that works with Linux. Yeah.

Sean Hollister (55:51)

You will turn it on and it will be running Ubuntu Linux. It is certified with Ubuntu Linux and they have support for a whole lot of other distros too. So you know, then if you want to put your bazzite on there and have this, the 12XE core version, be your portable 13.5-inch gaming machine, you can do that with Bazd.

David Pierce (56:08)

Not that you've thought about that at all. Certainly not that that's your plan.

Sean Hollister (56:11)

Yeah, I might be dual booting Bazzi on my desktop soon, but haven't really mostly been putting on handhelds for now. But yeah, they say it's the MacBook Pro for Linux users. They say it's the ultimate developer laptop. Even choices like the type of screen that they're using here, like it is an IPS screen with a matte anti reflective coating that is very matte. Like this is what I want for text clarity, it's not what I want for beautiful graphics, watching movies, things like that. I'm sure I can do all those things. I'm sure they'll be fine. But this is like, oh yeah, if I'm going to spend all day looking at text on a screen, this seems like a direction to go with that.

David Pierce (56:54)

Yeah, that's smart. I like, I don't, I don't know how sort of big and sexy that audience is, but I think it's smart for a framework to try and talk to that group of people directly. Walk me through the price really fast and then, then I want to talk about the couch keyboard, but walk me through the price because even, frankly, even in your story, you seem slightly confused about what this thing actually costs.

Sean Hollister (57:14)

Yeah, it would have helped if they had told us more about price before the event, during the event or after the event instead of just letting you go to your website for all of that. I was a little busy at the event to go to the website, so I had to add some of that later on after I got home. But the base price is, let's just say it, it's $14.99. $14.99 for a Core Ultra 5, what used to be known as an i5, 16 gig of memory, 512 gigabytes of storage, you can get the DIY version of that for $1,200. But I will warn you, good thing about DIY is it's not really DIY with framework. It's like all you have to do is add the storage, the memory on your os, right?

David Pierce (58:03)

Plug a bunch of things in, yeah, easy.

Sean Hollister (58:06)

So save $300 that way. The bad thing about DIY is they don't actually give you all that much of a discount to do it that way because then you still need to add your memory, your storage, your iOS, your, you know, expansion cards. It ends up costing sometimes the same, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. But it's not generally enough of a savings if they're giving you what you want in the pre built. It's only if you need to configure more things, you go to the other way anyhow. So 14.99 there, but things go up quickly. They Go up rather fast. You're looking at $20.99, nearly $2,100. If you want to do the model that's going to have a. A nice processor with all of that extra internal graphics for doing gaming or other things that require graphics. It's a huge difference in terms of graphic performance between the 5 and the X7. You also get double the CPU cores, double the RAM to 32 gig, double the storage to 1 terabyte. It's a lot of things that you get at that level. So it's like, oh, yeah, is that justified? Because you get a lot of things, maybe, but it's still $2,100.

David Pierce (59:12)

Right. You're even looking at, like, pretty upgraded MacBook Pro at that point, like 1499. I was going to be like, that's a nice price. And it probably, for what it is, that is a pretty nice price. But if you, like, at the point you're starting to get really competitive, you're deep into MacBook Pro territory.

Sean Hollister (59:29)

Yeah. And to be fair to Framework, their laptops have always had this kind of value proposition where it's like you can buy the incumbent and you will get the same, or maybe a good bit more, usually a good bit more on your spec sheet at the price you'll pay for the framework. And so what they've had to say in the past is always, but then you don't have to buy a whole new laptop 2, 3, 4, 5 years down the road. You just buy a new motherboard CPU combination. Now, those can get pricey, too. If you want a new motherboard CPU, you're looking at $450 for the. I think it's 450 for the core ultra 5 level, but you're looking at 800 for an X7. So out of your, you know, your $2,100 laptop, 800 of that is motherboard CPU, not including the memory.

David Pierce (60:20)

Yeah, it does add up fast. But I think it's interesting because the strange thing for Framework is the longer the company can keep keeping this promise, the better that deal starts to look right where it's like, even now, I have trouble sort of weighing how long this laptop will last you, but more and more likely to last you longer than whatever you buy from somebody else, especially in the Windows world. Right. And I think this has been one of the things people have been excited about with Framework for a while. It's just that Apple, I think, is kind of in a league of its own in terms of, like, building and supporting computers for a long Time right now. The idea that I can get that in the Windows world and have real faith that this thing is going to last me 5, 6, 7, 8 years is pretty powerful.

Sean Hollister (61:06)

It is. And I also think from a marketing perspective, it is actually wonderful for Framework that they're going toe to toe with the MacBook Pro, because Apple does not let you easily upgrade things, even things like batteries, and definitely does not let you upgrade storage or memory. They are infamous now.

David Pierce (61:25)

Yeah, Nobody solders RAM like Apple solders ram.

Sean Hollister (61:29)

So this Framework with the Windows ones, they're like, oh, yeah, value proposition. A few years from. With this one, we're like, a few years from now, your MacBook is not going to get any faster. It's not going to have more memory. You'll never be able to fill more storage into it. You're going to have to get a different laptop. But with us, you can do all of those things, and you can do them super easily.

David Pierce (61:50)

Yeah. Okay. I've waited this long to ask you about the Couch keyboard, and if I'm being completely honest, I might be more excited about the Couch keyboard than I am about the Pro. I think the Pro is, like a way more interesting, important device. It says a lot about the world. The Couch keyboard, the Logitech K400, everybody's couch keyboard is a piece of junk. It's also $35. And I was. I was actually very edified to know that everyone hates that thing as much as I do, because it is. It has a. It has a trackpad on the right side. It has clicky mouse buttons. It has a keyboard. It sucks all the way across from left to right. It is junk, but it works. And it's $35. And framework just, like, decided to build a better one just for funsies.

Sean Hollister (62:29)

I can count on one finger the number of times I have been in a call with a tech executive, and he has said, so we're building a thing to replace that thing that you hate that you own. And I'm like, you're right. I have this thing and I own

David Pierce (62:48)

it, and I hate it. I do hate it.

Sean Hollister (62:49)

You're right. Everybody owns this. So we've had Verge commenters who've come in and been like, actually, no, I don't hate this because the price is low.

David Pierce (62:57)

We've had verge commenters, it's $35. It's very hard to compete with 35 DOL. Like, I agree with that.

Sean Hollister (63:02)

It is. But Logitech, like, there should be. It's one of these things. We had Nirav we had Framework CEO Nirav Patel on the Vergecast. What was it, a year ago? I want to say almost exactly a year ago. And he told us that his strike zone is finding mature product categories that are not being properly served.

David Pierce (63:23)

We tried to talk him into doing

Sean Hollister (63:25)

a printer, and so did his audience at this event, by the way, those fans, they were like, as soon as he said on stage, like, we are going to. We are going to fix a product category, everybody was like, printer, printer, printer. And he was like, no, not that one yet. Not that one yet.

David Pierce (63:40)

Sorry.

Sean Hollister (63:41)

But this, yes. He says, everybody's got the same keyboard. Nobody likes that keyboard. And I was like, yep, that's the one. He didn't even say Logitech yet. And I was like, is it? Yeah, it's that Logitech keyboard.

David Pierce (63:56)

It's really funny, but, yeah.

Sean Hollister (63:57)

So this is the key, the Logitech keyboard, the one we've been talking about. It's the one you buy if you want to control your keyboard, your PC, if you want to control any kind of PC from your couch from across the room. Your options are the Logitech keyboard that has a keyboard with a touchpad next to it built into the same little slab for $35. Or some keyboard from a company you've probably never heard of that switches its name every six months on Amazon. There are a few others, but that's pretty much the bifurcation here. And so that keyboard has. The Logitech keyboard has old school, like, very squishy, terrible membrane keys. Feels like junk to type on. It does have real buttons underneath the touchpad, but they also feel like junk. The touchpad is old school. This was designed in, like, 2011.

David Pierce (64:45)

I know. I can't believe how old that thing is.

Sean Hollister (64:47)

It's a great seller for them because nobody else was serving that market right. And so they served it, just not well. And so now this Framework one, not only is it gonna do the usb, a dongle thing like Logitech, it's also going to have four different Bluetooth pairings, and you can plug it in with a wired cable. So you can. Us nerds and developers, we can go into our BIOS and fix things, which you can't do with the wireless keyboard very easily. It's thinner, it's lighter, the typing feels better. I got, like, around 90 words per minute on my first try with it, and I barely practiced. My normal typing speed. Some Verge commenters asked, is around 120. So, yeah, that's slower. But again, this was my first time Ever touching this. Yes.

David Pierce (65:28)

To just stand there and type on it. That's not bad.

Sean Hollister (65:31)

And so the hardware inside it is the Framework Laptop 12's keyboard and a touchpad that is variant.

David Pierce (65:38)

Okay. Which, if memory serves, is, like, fine. As laptops keyboards go, it's fine.

Sean Hollister (65:42)

Antonio gave it a C on his report card. It's like, it's not the best thing ever, but compared to that Logitech, I tell you.

David Pierce (65:51)

Well, that's the thing. And so the thing I was thinking about is, like, what would I pay for this? And the idea that I can pair it to other devices also. So I can have it as, like a, you know, backup keyboard to my laptop, and I can have it as a backup keyboard to my desktop or just, like, have it as my only keyboard, and it just sort of runs around with me for the things that I'm doing. Or I can just throw it on the couch and have it be my couch keyboard is like. I'm betting this thing is not $35. And I think I'm willing to pay more, but I don't think I'm willing to pay a lot more, which makes this challenging for Framework.

Sean Hollister (66:23)

It is. I worry that Framework will overestimate what this is worth to people because the audience is so underserved with a nice one, and they're going to be like, oh, we're the nice one. We're the nice alternative to the Logitech. So we can charge a hundred and no, I will not buy it at 100.

David Pierce (66:43)

I'm hoping, yeah, I think it's $69.99.

Sean Hollister (66:46)

I'd buy this 50, maybe.

David Pierce (66:48)

70 advice, for sure.

Sean Hollister (66:49)

Yeah, 70 is starting to get to be 70 is where I'm like, I could, but I already have other things. Like, not only do I have the Logitech, I do have some folding keyboards from companies you've never heard of lying around. So for me personally, 70 is a

David Pierce (67:06)

stretch, but maybe, maybe, yeah, it's an interesting one. I also. I just think it's a. It's a neat way of thinking for Framework to say, basically, we're building this modular set of things, and rather than just have them all connect to each other, how can we sort of turn individual ones into other kinds of products? And I don't know how far that idea goes. Right. Like, keyboard is sort of uniquely well suited to do something like that, but to just be like, well, we made a good keyboard. Let's find other uses for good keyboards is a cool way of product thinking that I think we don't see out of a lot of laptop manufacturers I'm

Sean Hollister (67:45)

eager to see because they're going to release the CAD for how to hold this keyboard and other things. And so we'll see people build it into fun things. Framework had a whole gallery of here are things our fans built using our hardware. There was like a gaming handheld there that has Framework motherboard inside. All kinds of fun stuff like that. And so this keyboard will be added to that stable of you can build it into things. The other bit, which I think you're going to love, I don't know if you saw it, if you read my story, because I didn't have a picture of it in there, but it's in the video. They have built what I call the anti dongle. No, I missed this. And so, you know there's this USB C A like wireless receiver that comes with any of these keyboards. Right. So what if you could stick that into one of Framework's little expansion cards? So you stick that dongle into a bigger dongle. Bear with me. But then that slides perfectly flush into the side of your laptop or your Framework desktop because they are designed to hold expansion cards. So it's flush no longer sticking out of your laptop or desktop. Only works if you're a Framework owner of computer user. But still, anti dongle. I love it.

David Pierce (68:54)

Anti dongle is pretty good, especially when it's sneakily actually two dongles. That's very good. That's very good. So it seems like Framework, like, in general, again, I think we, we have rooted for this company because I think this idea is a good one and I want. I want someone to make laptops like this and computers like this. And it feels like Framework just continues to get the thing right. Right. Like, this all feels like good news coming from Framework. If you're somebody who likes PCs made the right way, this feels like a win of a week.

Sean Hollister (69:29)

It really does. It feels like this company coming into its own. And I didn't think I would think that coming in. I thought like, okay, they're doing another 13 inch. They've already done the 13 inch. And there's some really cool peripherals around the edges. We didn't even talk about, like, the EGPU stuff. That's delightfully nerdy. But yes, but it's a lot. And to see them playing at this level now. I don't usually consider myself a fan of companies. I'm a fan of individual products because many companies, their next product won't be anywhere as good as their last one. And then I don't want to be rooting for a product that wasn't well designed. But Framework. It's hard not to be a fan when you love tech like we do.

David Pierce (70:16)

Yeah, I think again, I'm I root for framework because I like this idea and the thing they're doing. And we, as always, we reserve the right to change our minds. But also, you and I have both spent a long time rooting for lots of people to do this thing, and lots of people have done it poorly. And it's very exciting to see somebody continue to do it really well.

Sean Hollister (70:34)

It is.

David Pierce (70:36)

All right, we need to take a break. But Sean, do you have a few more minutes to stick around and do a hotline question with me?

Sean Hollister (70:41)

Sure.

David Pierce (70:41)

All right, we're going to stick around. We'll be right back. See you in a sec.

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David Pierce (73:06)

All right, we're back. Let's do a question from the Vergecast hotline. As always, the number is 866-VIRGIN-11. The email is vergecast@the verge.com we have so many good nerdy Sean questions, but I picked one for you that I have not prepared you for. But it is, it is about tiny laptops. So get ready, here's the question. It comes from Kate. Kate says as a highly satisfied owner of a Surface Go 2 purchased back in 2020, truly the most ironic year to have bought a highly portable computer. I think it's a real shame that this product category never ended up taking off. Kate describes the way that they use the thing for travel with the dedicated Brydge keyboard. Shout out Brydge, which made good keyboards, liked the 1920 by 1280 IPS screen, and then basically winds up to what happened to this category of PC and why hasn't this worked? And Sean, the reason I bring this to you is to go all the way back to the very beginning of the framework discussion. You said something to the effect of we can kind of do good performance and good battery life now. And that suggests to me that maybe what we can do is slightly less good performance and even better battery life, which is what something like the Surface GO always needed. Right? Like the go's problem was, it was, it was an adorable little thing that just sucked like it was, it was underpowered and, and didn't do the things you needed it to do in order to be a successful computer. But was it just too early? Are we, are we coming back around to where something like the Surface Go could be what it was always meant to be?

Sean Hollister (74:39)

I, I, I absolutely 100% think so, because we are on the verge of this explosion of ARM taking over computing. I think where in that moment back then everybody was like, we're going to try to shrink down our powerful x86 processors very poorly to try and make them fit smaller devices. And we're going to try to scale up our phone chips. Oh, a phone can be a computer, right? And then the apps don't run on it. We now have Snapdragon, like Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops with amazing battery life. We have the MacBooks with their arm silicon and amazing battery life. We have Handhelds, even with powerful chips, have gotten decent battery life in less, you know, computing. Less. Less like volume than you need in a Surface go. The battery density is starting to get a little bit better. The framework device we were talking about has higher battery density than frameworks put in a laptop before. Like 850 milliwatts per. I can't remember that. Some number. It was a cool number.

David Pierce (75:46)

I was going to say the number didn't mean anything to me anyway.

Sean Hollister (75:48)

But I believe you anyhow. And we know that people are interested in what's going to happen when Steam and other vendors bring their Windows games to these machines. They've been building the groundwork for them to run there. There is so much demand and always has been for battery life that is finally coming around to being realized on ARM and on the chips that are now being, you know, pincered by ARM at every corner that I think we could do this. Now. How much performance do you need? How much battery life do you need? Are you willing to weigh a few more years for them to figure it out or do you want them to take what they got right now and try to force it into this shape?

David Pierce (76:39)

So just for folks who have not followed this as closely as some others, walk me through very briefly kind of the chip revolution that has happened because I think an easy place to have left off in the chip world is that Apple sort of leapt ahead of everybody with the M series chips. Intel was and is flagging. AMD is coming out to sort of eat Intel's lunch, but is particularly focused on like high end, high performance things. And Qualcomm is desperately trying to figure out how to make something other than smartphone processors and can't figure it out. Like not that long ago that's where we were. And then it seems like kind of all at once, everybody figured it out all at the same time for sort of the same reason. Explain that kind of like Big bang moment that seems to have happened.

Sean Hollister (77:31)

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. A lot of it, to be Frank, was driven by this moment that Apple had where Apple was like, we are going to ditch intel, we're going to make our own silicon. It is, it is built on arm. It is built on the fabric that we've been putting into our phones. ARM generates the intellectual property. They don't actually build chips until maybe they're one very recently, but sometime we're

David Pierce (78:03)

going to do a nine hour Vergecast. That is just me saying, how does ARM work to you over and over and over and over again.

Sean Hollister (78:09)

It's changing right now, literally right now, because they just. That's their own dang chip. And I'm like, but you don't do this. You told us for like 12 years that you don't do this and now you're doing this. So Apple brings out this M1, the M1. And it is. My wife works as a subcontract for Apple. So I don't report stories about Apple, I don't edit stories about Apple, but I do mention them on things like the vergecast. And since we're asking about history, it comes out and it just upends our concept of what laptop performance and battery life could be overnight. And I think that might literally be the headline we put on the story that heingartenberg wrote for us. And it upends this whole concept overnight because we expect that it's going to have this tremendous performance penalty or battery life penalty or something because it has to translate software that was designed to work on Intel Macs into software that works on ARM Macs. But they figure out that translation the same way that Valve and in its Linux community figure out how to translate Windows software to run on a handheld device with Linux. Like, we're transporting software from one realm to another through this tunnel. But this time the tunnel is good. The tunnel is so good that performance actually turns out to be better because the chip, you know, it doesn't require as much cooling. It's more efficient chip anyhow. And without that performance penalty, it's like, look how far we can run. And so they run very, very far in. Every other company needs to react to that, and they need to react to that quickly. They don't react to it as quickly as they want, but they up their game. And intel just now is coming into its own. AMD came into its own a little while ago. It started having better battery life than intel. And it also started having excellent mobile graphics. So the integrated graphics in the laptop, suddenly those were great. And it doesn't have as much battery life as Apple. Maybe not, but there's Qualcomm, which had been trying to do the phone thing forever and failed until Apple came along. It was like, okay, now we get it. They start bringing out finally some chips that'll do the Windows thing on ARM pretty well. There's still some compatibility issues, but they do it too. And now Nvidia is about to do this as well. There's an N1 and N1X chip coming. The Nvidia ARM revolution is about to happen. They're finally gonna have their own processors in devices when the only thing I think that's been powered by an Nvidia CPU that anybody would know about is the Nintendo Switch. And so now they're going to do that there too. A lot of things happen along the way that help. I mean, it really helps AMD for those integrated graphics that they got the vote of approval from Sony and from Microsoft. They make it into the Xboxes for two generations, running more if you count like the PS5 Pro and Xbox One X versus One S and all that. All the incentives are aligned. Apple's shown this pathway, everybody's following the pathway, and it seems like it's all working great. All the chips are performing better than they have bigger leaps in not necessarily in performance, but in battery life than ever. And the performance is getting steadily better as well.

David Pierce (81:29)

Yeah, I am actually surprisingly hopeful for the idea that we are one or two chip generations away from something like the Surface Go actually being like a completely plausible computer. And that, like, you look at what the iPad has been for a decade, which is vastly overpowered hardware, desperately in search of, like, usable software for most work. And so it's natural to be like, well, what if this thing could just run Windows and thus run all my Windows apps? And like, it does feel like we're almost there. I feel like I have said that before and I feel like I've looked very stupid, but it feels like we're almost there and I think our friend Kate might get what they want.

Sean Hollister (82:07)

It could happen this year. I don't know what the form factors will be. And of course, everything that is happening in the world with RAM and tariffs and fuel prices and so on are kind of pointing people, pointing companies away from. Let's bring out exciting consumer devices right now and instead focus on where they know the money is in AI, in enterprise. So I don't want to say that I expect it to happen soon, but with the trajectory that we've been on, I wouldn't be surprised if it's sooner than we expect.

David Pierce (82:38)

All right, Kate, hold out. Hope it could happen. Sean, thank you as always. Good to see you.

Sean Hollister (82:42)

Yeah, you bet.

David Pierce (82:44)

All right, that's it for the show. Thank you to Liz and Sean for being here and thank you as always, for watching and listening. If you have thoughts, questions, feedback, if you have favorite things that you found in discovery of the Elon Musk OpenAI trial and you want to share them with us, you can Always call the hotline 866-Verge 11 Send us an email vergecastverge.com we absolutely love hearing from you. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. This show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, Travis Larchuk and Andrew Marino. We will be back on Friday with more news. We're doing version history this week, so go subscribe to that feed. We're making making some really fun episodes right now as we speak, but we'll be back on Friday with Nili talking through all of the news. We'll see you then. Rock and Roll

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