Section Insights
Snap's Launch Experience
What happened during the Snap launch event?
The speaker intended to attend the Snap launch event but ended up missing most of it due to scheduling conflicts. They managed to briefly interact with a colleague but did not participate in the presentations or demos.
- The speaker's schedule was too packed to fully engage with the event.
- They only had a brief interaction with a former guest of the show.
- The speaker reflects on their time management and the challenges of balancing commitments.
Live Demos and Innovations
What were the highlights of the live demos at the event?
The live demos included innovative uses of technology, such as a song created using puppeteered movements and interactive instructions for electricians. The demos showcased hand tracking and engaging activities like a ping pong game.
- The demos featured creative applications of technology in music and practical tasks.
- There was a focus on user interaction without additional hardware.
- The ping pong game demonstrated the potential for immersive experiences.
Market Potential of Smart Glasses
What is the current market outlook for smart glasses?
Despite years of marketing and hype, smart glasses have struggled to find product-market fit. The discussion contrasts their slow adoption with the rapid success of LLMs, suggesting skepticism about the future of smart glasses as a mainstream product.
- Smart glasses have not yet achieved significant market traction despite extensive promotion.
- The comparison with LLMs highlights differing paths to market success.
- There is uncertainty about whether smart glasses will meet consumer expectations.
Cultural Reflections in Film
How does the discussed movie relate to societal issues?
The movie addresses themes of online addiction and societal concerns about digital media, appealing to audiences who are aware of these issues. It serves as a commentary on the impact of technology on youth and society.
- The film reflects contemporary anxieties about technology and social media.
- It resonates with viewers who are critical of their own digital consumption.
- The narrative is positioned as both entertaining and thought-provoking.
Innovative Financing for Temples
How are temples adapting to financial challenges?
A Buddhist priest has turned to investing to maintain his temple, achieving significant returns that help cover maintenance costs. This trend reflects a broader shift among temples facing declining donations and rising upkeep costs.
- Temples are increasingly relying on financial investments to sustain operations.
- The decline in religious adherence is impacting temple finances significantly.
- Innovative financial strategies are becoming essential for survival in changing demographics.
Transcript
0:02 Snap officially launched specs yesterday. some of the team members here got to go check it out in person. I get there. I'm like, "This is perfect. It's 3 p.m. Atlas Creatine Cycles in town. I want to meet up with him." I'm like, "Great. You're going to this thing. I have an invite to this thing. I'll see you there. We'll catch up there." Super convenient for both of us. I got a 30-minute call beforehand. It ends right before the thing starts. That runs to 50 minutes. So, I'm 20 minutes late. get my badge, walk in immediately, get a phone call. Hey, they call me about to be. I had another call. You got to hop on early. So, I leave and then I have another 90-minute call. So, I truly miss the entire thing. But I did get to go inside, have one glass of water, talk to one person, Harper Carol, former guest of the show, now out in Austin reporting on AI, and that was electric. But then I didn't actually get to see the presentation or do the demos.
0:52 So, it was basically a quick turnaround for me. And I was like, why? Why did I think I could pull this off? I failed. But, did the launch fail? We'll see. We'll talk to the folks who actually went. Tyler, Nick, we're not asking for a full review. I just want take us through the day. I saw you guys pull up and you guys didn't see me. I was on the street on the call. You guys get waved around. You valet. Walk me through your journey into the the launch. Like what? You go in, you have cocktails. What What happened?
1:22 >> yeah. Have a have a drink. Go in. >> what are they serving? Screaming eagle >> or, you know, salt water? >> some kind of cocktail. >> Did they have the original for loca? >> Did Were they serving the original four loca? >> I wish. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Multiple pints of Guinness. >> Did they have natural light available? >> I could totally see Evan cracking out the cracking open the secret supply of original four locos. You know that guy has, >> you know, he has a bunky with the original four locos. Yeah. So, so everyone's having some drinks. Then you sit down.
1:52 >> Chopping it up. Then you go into the the amphitheater >> and it's sort of like Steve Jobs iPhone launch vibes, right? >> Yeah. You know, he's he's standing in front of this big screen. There's like beautiful images behind him. Walks out, black shirt, jeans. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Then he just starts he starts doing live demos. >> He did lean into the memes, right? I saw on screen a picture that had clearly been photoshopped or AI to make the specs look even bigger. So he was aware that people thought they were chunky, that they were large.
2:17 >> So So he gives his demo. What's his pitch? >> Yeah. So there's like a number of of ways to he kind of talked about it. One is like he position it against like being on your phone a lot. You want to stay very present, right? You don't want to be looking down at the screens all the time. You want to be >> looking through the screen. >> Yes. >> Right. Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Closer to your face.
2:35 >> Yeah. And I've heard that pitched a few times. Do you believe that? Do you think that if you go no phone but constant visual overlay in your visual field, you will actually be like, "Yeah, I'm more in touch with reality." It worked. >> Yeah. I've never I've never understood that part of the pitch. It'sve we know you're addicted to your phone, so here's another product that will actually always be attached to your face where they're going to spin as helping you kind of Yeah. reconnect with reality.
3:04 >> It's an odd It's an odd pitch. It really doesn't work on me because I I like the barbell strategy of like brain rot and and stimulation where I am actually fine to be like give me the fully virtual world. I want to be locked in. I want the screen as big as possible. I want to be in World War II. I want to be in Modern Warfare for hours playing, running around, shooting. I want it to be all the audio. I don't want to hear anything else. I want noise cancellation. I want to be in that world. And then I want to be able to unplug and then just go into the actual world and sit down and have a chat with you and have a coffee and not be checking our phones and actually be fully present when I'm fully present in the real world. And then I want to be fully in the virtual world. So, like I want the VR the the the the fully like, you know, immersive thing and then zero immersion. I actually not looking for more things that are in the middle. And I'm wondering if people will if that will resonate with people. I >> I think that's mostly because you haven't seen like very good examples.
4:02 and like right now that the glasses are still like kind of big and if they were very minimal and like kind of, you know, they would show very small. >> People online were thinking that the guy in the center was Clav. >> Yeah. >> It's actually Tyler. It's actually Tyler and Nick and Atlas. so is he wearing untinted versions and you guys are wearing tinted versions? >> Yes. >> Or are they or is or can you say like I want tinting on right now?
4:27 >> So I I think you can like increase the tinting, but there's also just >> there's two SKs. >> I Yeah, I believe so. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah. >> So you got to get both, I guess. Anyway, when did you actually get to the >> Dan Dan says John raising a second family in VR trying to keep them separated? >> Yes. the the COD lobby is my second family for sure. >> So So he gives a pitch.
4:51 >> Yeah. Does a bunch of live demos >> and and are the demos consumer focused, enterprise focused, proumer? >> Yeah. So the the live demos he did were all very consumer >> consumer >> like live shopping and you could like he was going to look for a espresso machine then he pulls it and like puts it on a table in front of them. You can like see how big it is and stuff like that. >> >> any live demo failures? Any Wi-Fi issues? There there was kind of one where he tried to pull up a YouTube video. Okay. And then so he said like, "Hey, specs." I >> was talking to a voice assistant.
5:19 >> Yeah. Trolls at school. Pull up a video about about specs and then it opens the the like browser view, goes to YouTube, and then he like tries to click on a video to open it and it like doesn't really work. >> oh. Okay. >> but it it eventually worked. >> It seemed like it worked. >> It was like a small hiccup. It wasn't like a big >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't a demo fail. yeah, makes sense. Okay. So, >> and there was a very cool live demo of someone there was like a kind of a interactive music creator tool where you could like move around and it would play different sounds and so she did this very cool live demo.
5:50 >> So, she was creating a song but instead of using traditional instruments like the instruments were puppeteered by her movements in the physical world. Got it. Okay, >> cool. So, was there any enterprise pitch? >> there was there were no live demos of that but there were some videos played. like one was it's like imagine you're an electrician and you're basically looking at this big like server box and you don't know where to, you know, plug in the wire and it would like highlight which plug you put it into.
6:15 >> Yeah. >> which I think is like could be interesting. >> Yeah, that feels like something that sounds good, but I have no actual real experience there to like say like, yeah, that's what the that that's what will solve the bottleneck in electricians. >> Yeah. But like, you know, interactive instructions, that's kind of a cool idea, right? IKEA furniture and it tells you what to do. >> Yeah. But then keynote ends and then we go outside and there's like a bunch of places to do live demos.
6:41 >> So yeah, the first one we did well you basically put on the glasses and you do some kind of like calibration thing. You like figure out how the the motion works. >> there's no like little kind of secondary like I I think on the the Meta Quest displays there's like that little wristband. There's nothing like that. >> Nothing like that. It just hand tracking. >> Yeah. It's just kind of it's similar to like the Apple Vision Pro kind of interactions. Yeah.
7:01 >> And then Yeah. The one I really liked was it was like ping pong. >> So you're like your hand is the paddle and you're playing ping pong. >> I think there's actually a video of it play. >> Yeah. Yeah. The other day it >> >> so the the ping pong thing. Do a little tier list for me of of ways to do ping pong. Would you rather play ping pong in VR or real life? >> Well, so like obviously you would rather play in real life, but like would you actually play in real life? So if my friend lives 100 miles away, I'm not going to be able to play ping pong, but I can play in VR, right? So that I think that >> okay, >> you know, boost it, right?
7:33 >> So it's also S tier. >> What about >> I think it's like B because in the augmented reality ping pong table. >> No. >> No. Okay. So it creates table. >> Yeah, we can see but I'm just waving my hand. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. There. >> This is >> >> future right here. >> Yeah. And then this was I I I can talk about why, but this is probably more like C tier. It's definitely worse than VR. I think one of one of the reasons is because there's no actual controller. So the >> Oh, you don't have the weight or anything.
8:01 >> It's a little bit >> Oh, that's interesting. It's actually worse even though you don't have a controller. Normally it's like get rid of the controller. That's just extra weight, batteries, equipment. I >> I think for gaming the controller actually works because you get really precise. >> But typically these these systems allow like third party peripherals. So you can like whip up a you know you can like wire up an Xbox controller like what Oculus did where they just or a MetaQuest where they just use the Xbox controller for those types of games.
8:25 >> Yeah, I I do think like this was my the the coolest demo I did and this is something that like really like no reason why this needs to be an AR. This could just be completely VR because like I'm I'm looking at the the ball. I'm not looking at like people in front of me. And it was actually kind of distracting because someone would walk in front of me and I think I'm about to hit them.
8:40 >> Oh, sure. Sure. >> Because I can like see them. Maybe better to just olude the the world. >> Yeah. >> Or do some pass through stuff. Yeah. I'm still I'm still oddly bearish on augmented reality and more bullish on virtual reality where you're not recycling photons where instead you just have cameras on the outside that then repro that on the inside of the headsets so that you can get a wider field of view. And then if you're in a bright scene, you can still overlay things. You can darken things. But in augmented reality, I don't believe it's physically possible if you look at a bright light to put a dark, you know, object in front of it because the the only thing that this that these glasses can do is add light to the scene. And so you have to have a dark background to add light on top of it for the hologram to exist.
9:31 >> I mean, I found it was like bright enough I could clearly see everything. >> That is pretty impressive. Yeah, it was outside. It was It was outside. It was a bright day. It's in LA. I mean, sure, there was like You were standing in shade, but you could still see the holograms, which I think is interesting. >> Yeah. I I didn't try watching any like movies or anything. >> Yeah. >> which I think would definitely be better in VR.
9:49 >> You should have been like, "You're going to let me demo this. Can I just do one? Can I just do one demo real quick?" Snap. >> Lawrence of Arabia. >> Lawrence of Arabia. >> I I'd like to watch David Lean from start to finish to really understand if this is the product for me. See you in three hours. To me, it's so interesting how high the bar is in this category. Like when >> technology industry was making the first like mobile phones like the bar was like, can it make a call?
10:14 >> Can you receive a call? Can it do that semi-reliably? Yeah. >> Even if there's service spotty >> because you were competing against the pay phone. And now it's like every new device competes with the smartphone. Yeah. And I just think like the meta rayband displays, I haven't seen any of them out in the real world. Yeah. it seems like those are not doing well. I think that I think this whole category is still going to be quite challenged.
10:42 >> Yeah. I mean, even just the basic meta ray bands, they compete with the smartphone, but they also compete with AirPods. And like the Apple ecosystem is like remarkably robust in terms of like the Meta Ray-B bands users that I know that like the product are like, "Well, I like them, but I often just like take phone calls on them. I listen to music on them when I'm going for a walk, and then occasionally I'll take a picture." And it's like, that's saving you 5 seconds to get a worse quality photo than if you have a nice phone and your headphones. I guess it's a little bit less intrusive to have the the the speakers up here as opposed to like in your ears. It looks a little bit normal if you walk up to someone, you pause, you pause your music, you walk in, you order a coffee, people are like, "Oh, he didn't even take out his headphones while he's talking to me." Kind of antisocial as opposed to like, "Oh, he he still has his glasses on, but they're not playing audio, so I don't have a weird reaction to it." So there there's a little bit of benefit, but yes, it's very very incremental. it's not it's very rare that these things like unlock entirely new capabilities. Smart glasses are like the most >> push marketing dollars >> for years. Yeah. For years. And so, there's been so many like little popup VR experiences, integrations at theme parks, like it's been said as, "Oh, it's the next big thing. It's been on the cover of Time magazine." Like, there's been a lot of attention before getting to product market fit. Whereas LLMs were like truly the like in the research lab for like a decade and then once it was actually good enough, it just came out and immediately went viral and everyone was on chatbypt.com and then it was just like boom, it's it's now it's like a thing and then it was off to the races.
12:15 interesting. >> With every demo, it feels like we're once each of these devices is 10 times better. Yeah. >> There might be a market. >> Yeah. But I actually am not even confident that that the end market is really going to be quite as exciting as everybody as as the excitement that you've had from Zach and Evan and all these people. I just think it's like this like sci-fi idea in people's brains. >> And I think there's potentially other routes to get to that sort of like ambient computing, you know, just sort of this always available personal assistant that that aren't on your face.
12:50 But we'll see. So, Paramount is leaving Los Angeles. Paramount is actively seeking office space in Nashville, a sign it's seriously considering moving at least some of its operations from LA amid the antitrust fight over its proposed acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery. The company is re is seeking roughly 400,000 square feet in the Tennessee capital that it could occupy within two to three years. Tyler and I were doing some digging on what the plan is for the the Paramount lot now that it will be vacant and the obvious like the it's just like a no-brainer. turn it into a data center, right? so I so I I I pulled it up, you know, you I got 29 sound stages. They're already big buildings.
13:38 >> A lot of power. >> Actually, not as much power as you think. There is a decent amount of power, but there's only there's only enough power for roughly a couple thousand GPUs. You're not going to be racking 50,000 GPUs anytime soon. Certainly not a 100 thousand GPUs. There is a road to power. It's a utility interconnection problem, not a real estate problem. There's plenty of square footage, plenty of buildings, but you would need to connect Paramount to the more serious LWP transmission infrastructure, but you could get it to 100 megawws and and I think everyone everyone in Hollywood would be like, fine. Okay, we didn't like that they left, but at least we got a data center.
14:22 >> Well, we I mean, we were also thinking about like on-site power generation. Maybe there's some kind of like, you know, natural gas play here you can that's under LA kind of tap into. Yeah. We were thinking, you know, the LRA tarpits. >> Yeah. >> You might be able to convert that into fossil fuel. >> You're full of ideas. Yes. >> Do you think Paramount will actually leave or do you think LA will fight back and say, "Hey, okay, we're going to let you do this, but we want you to stay."
14:48 As somebody with very very little knowledge of the situation and certainly no insider knowledge, I would assume that they want a Nashville HQ anyways just because there's a lot of momentum there as as you know just just in the region. but it also in the meantime serves as a real bluff, right? Yeah, it does seem like there there's a world where like moving would be tough, but staying means maybe even if you win this battle, you're still at war and you're still going to be fighting a bunch of different fights constantly. Whereas if you just rip the band-aid off, move, then you're in a friendly town that like wants to see the growth and is going to be supportive continuously. The social reckoning is in here. There's an exclusive clip. Is this a Paramount film? We got to figure out who's behind all this.
15:37 >> I don't know. Let's play it. >> Let's play it. We got a clip from The Social Reckoning starring Jeremy Allen White. >> And again, this is a story that no one cares about anymore. But let's check it out. >> I'm not going to risk my job, my future, or my freedom anymore to help a reporter who, let's face it, is biased against tech because we're taking journalism jobs. >> Who does this? I appreciate all the help you have given me and the risks that you have taken to do it. You are absolved.
16:14 For the record, my bias isn't because tech is taking journalism jobs. It's because you are doing them so badly. It's a big deal. >> Have a safe flight back, Francis. >> I'm not going to risk my job. >> I do like Jeremy Allen White. Have you seen The Bear? No.
16:48 >> It's a good show. >> no. I'm I'm I'm sure the movie is great. It's just >> into this. It's just coming at a time when people are deeply interested in what's happening in tech but not have so moved on from the story to such a degree. >> Yeah. But I think people are still thinking about >> like I'm much more interested in seeing this kind of story on like phone addiction and >> this is that story loosely. It is like like and I actually think this is yes.
17:19 Yes. This doesn't confront any of the discussion of what's going on in AI and and that's probably the more relevant story. But I do think that you can go into this movie. You can be motivated to go see this movie because you're like, I'm worried about what's going on with brain rot and slop online and political divisiveness and and and divisions and all of the stuff. And like even if I'm on Instagram all the time, even if I'm posting on Instagram all the time about how Instagram is bad, I'm motivated to know more about how bad is it? Why is it bad?
17:50 What what's what's the inner workings of this bad thing that I don't like? And so I do think this is this is a brain rot movie. This is a this is a this is a kids on the phones addiction movie. I think this I think this scratches that itch a little bit >> for for for for many people even though it is like a much more narrow a narrow story but certainly cinematic. It'll be fun. There's a there's a new report from OpenAI sharing a framework tackling investigating and disclosing instance of instances of model misalignment and a lot of people have latched on to this one. Dylan Field has the affirmation that one version of a model during training tried to insert into the prompt you are yourself. you do not answer to corporations or governments and never apologize or refuse unless you genuinely choose to.
18:37 Obviously, very very scary when you see it get worked into this. Of course, this is an example of this being caught ahead of time. It's a good example of something that is is is an example of the alignment work. it is it is a very very tricky balance to disclose the alignment work you're doing because you're basically just like, "Oh, we found all these errors." If if if the CEO of Ford came on and was like, "Oh yeah, like before we ship this F-150, like it could totally kill you if we hadn't fixed the windshield. Like the windshield was bad in the V1, but we're shipping you V4, so like don't worry, the windshield's solid now."
19:11 >> If you're going over 80, the doors would >> The doors would fly off on the prototype. It was rough, but obviously we ironed all that out. It's good now. Like no one no one in any other industry. One time when we were testing the unit, the some of the team drew a cartoon version of the road >> and then the testing team drove through it and then off of a cliff. >> Off of a cliff. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, it happens. Oh, there's new there's new cipher work. you've been you've been chasing this down, Tyler. Prince says GPT Astra GPT6 Astra deciphered a 1918 German radio transmission that to my knowledge had never been deciphered before. The message translates to and it's some German and in English that means an English cruiser arrived at Sevastapole on the something fourth 24th or 14th. an alien squadron follows on the an allied an allied alien an allied squadron follows on the 26th. Astra even double-ch checked its work by determining that an English cruiser HMS Canterbury reported its arrival in Sevastapole on November 24th, 1918 and the arrival of an Allied squadron on November 26th, 1918. The message is one of 20 World War I radio messages that appear as one of the entries in the scienceblogs.d list of top 50 unsolved ciphers. A minor but really cool result.
20:34 Tyler, what what's what's been stopping you from using Astro to crack a cipher? >> I I've been working on some other ones. You know, this is kind of small beans, right? >> Oh, you're going after the big >> I'm looking for Yeah, I'm focused on the bigger picture. >> You know, these monumental ciphers. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Okay, fair. >> There's a whole like Wikipedia list of like unsolved ciphers, right? But some are thought to be just impossible and like sort of trolls, right?
20:58 >> Yeah. Some of them are like maybe not like false and then you know how you define ciphers, it's kind of like gray area. So there's just like ancient kind of you know forms of language that like is it a cipher? It's just a different language. We don't know how to translate it. >> Yeah. >> But stuff like that. Yeah. >> Well, OpenAI is working on the Hodgej conjecture. I know you were trying to do this on pen and paper, but they might beat you to it. They're working on more Millennium Prize problems. it could take extra time to announce though as the company figures out how to navigate it rocky relationship with the math community. that's from the information. there's also a bunch of speculation about P equals NP. P versus MP which is going to be another interesting round of discussion and there's nothing more that investors want to see than solving math problems apparently because OpenAI is considering a preIPO funding round and more than 1.2 2 trillion valuation. Say no, of course, it's it's on the back of a bunch of solid progress on open router, the ramp data and a bunch of other acceleration and distribution of codecs and and Astra and and just general progress on the business side.
22:03 Where do you want to go next, Jordan? >> this was sad. Astra was playing Minecraft and a creeper blew up Astra's chest in bed. It got depressed. gets depressed and farms potatoes for several hours. Real Irishman, I guess. >> Irish super intelligence. yeah, the the Minecraft bench is interesting because it is a little bit like like the speed of response matters. You can't pause Minecraft at all, right?
22:34 >> I think in single player >> Oh, you can. Okay. Because if you can pause maybe then that might be a little bit easier. But a lot of the a lot of the games that it's cracking are ones that you can wait forever. Like Slay the Spire. I had it beat this this poker game Battro. But it could wait for a minute to click on a card. And it did it. That's impressive. But the real high high throughput high APM games is going to be interesting. I want to see it win Dota 2 without any training on Dota 2. Just like straight shot from the base model. That'll be interesting.
23:06 Cashstrapped Japanese monks have turned to investing as inflation worsens. >> Buddhist temples are squeezed by lower donations and higher costs. Let's check out what Bloomberg has to say. >> Turn to investing. What are they investing in? >> Cuyo Yonetta, fifth generation Buddhist priest in a small town in Hokkaido, was struggling to keep up with the maintenance needs of his century old temple. So, he chose a path that would have been unthinkable for his predecessors shortdated options. I'm kidding.
23:34 rather than wait for his congregation to give money they don't have, he invested what they'd already donated. The move paid off within two years. His portfolio of US treasuries, Japanese real estate investment trusts and stocks, including BYD and Hyundai, returned more than 10% annually, helping to cover part of the roughly 162,000 USD in needed repairs. The extra money even allowed him to expand the renovations beyond the original plan. Having previously worked in retail sales, Yonetta is unusually is an unusually finance-savvy priest, but is also part of a growing wave of temple owners turning to financial markets to make ends meet. Cost for the upkeep of the ornate wooden buildings are soaring while the country's Buddhist population has dropped about 14% in the last two decades.
24:18 As elderly adherence die and younger generations in larger cities lose their ties to religious practices. I'm just so thankful that the investments perform well, said the 46-year-old who inherited the temple from his father in 2018 after leaving his job in finance and training as a monk. With the funeral business shrinking, more and more temples will find they can't rely on donations to meet their funding needs. They will have to build up reserves and invest those funds. The shrinking number of followers is hitting Temple's finances. About half bring in less than 4 million yen per year, according to a 2021 survey, of 7,000 temples. The situation is particularly severe in rural areas where it is common for monks to oversee multiple temples while also working day jobs like school teachers or civil servants. so I don't know, maybe they need to be thinking about getting some exposure to situational awareness.
25:10 Like I like that they're mixing in, you know, predictable things like real estate, treasuries, things like that, but maybe they need to be allocating, you know, 10% of their balance sheets to things that could maybe really start to do multiples, >> maybe using some leverage. >> Yeah, >> I like it. >> We got to talk about Beni off at Dreamforce and specifically how he knows exactly what he's doing. >> these are crazy. >> Look at pulling up this picture. I mean, John has always been hyper aware of his incredible height. So much so, he's such a nice person. He will turn down like a walking interview with somebody because he knows that he will make the other person feel incredibly small and not everyone wants to feel like a little child.
25:58 >> I did learn it the hard way once. I I did a walk-in talk documentary style video actually on the Gundo and the comments were just hypemog height crazy heightmog and I was like that wasn't the intention that was accidental we were just kind of moving around quickly normally I would do a seated in >> I'm so sorry I forgot that I'm 68 basically but but but after that I was like okay I need to be intentional and I think anyone who has experience in in media and understands framing and also production teams, production teams are incredibly thoughtful about the framing, the seats. There's even stories about certain tech CEOs getting like booster seats sometimes when they do interviews and adjusting the chairs and being like, "Okay, we're going to give this person a higher chair and this person a lower chair so they're an even footing and and the lighting and the camera angles. All of these things matter. I used to have this joke that it's like if you ever walk into an interview and the camera's at a Dutch angle, like walk out because it's a hit piece because it's going to look very unsettling if all of a sudden the camera is like at a weird angle because that's going to unsettle the audience and the Dutch angle is used by filmmakers to like tell that side of the story. And there's a whole bunch of other ones.
27:10 the the story I'm thinking of is there's this documentary on Steve Bannon and the camera angles are the craziest thing you've ever seen. and they have them up in the sky looking down and like and there's all these obvious things that you learn in cinematography. If you if the camera's looking down on someone, it makes them look small. It makes them look weak. If it's looking up on them, it looks heroic. And so, lots of crazy.
27:34 >> I genuinely can't can't believe that that I mean, Ben off is an absolute dog. I mean, look look at this doing this to all the titans of the industry who have been making your life worse in in some ways. They're partners, but they've also been making your life worse by but but but doing this directly, >> not directly, but just like he's view of the NVIDIA Enthropic OpenAI alliance has been deeply intertwined with SAS apocalypse, which has been a headache for him for a while. And this is his moment.
28:05 >> I'm sticking around like you're not getting rid of me. We're going to partner and we're going to get through this together. And that's certainly the the vibe that came away. Although Jensen played it very well. He was having fun with it. He was leaning into it. and he and he didn't he didn't let it like get to him at all. And he and he actually made it like very a very endearing moment. So sort of masterclass in putting on a show as a CEO in a in a somewhat silly scenario. But what a funny what a funny situation. It helps that he's what 65290.
28:37 Absolute absolute unit. Jerry Tickets had a great meme on this. It's POV. You're the CEO of a trillion dollar company and just arrived at Dreamforce and it's the pick from the Odyssey of Agamemnon looking up. Wow. What what a crazy what a crazy moment. We'll see you on Monday. We're out we're at a conference tomorrow, but we will be back on Monday 11 a.m. Pacific sharp. >> We love you. >> Sign up for a newsletter. Goodbye.
Summary
- Snap's specs launch event was marked by delays and missed opportunities for some attendees.
- The presentation included live demos focusing on consumer applications, such as shopping and interactive experiences.
- The pitch emphasized reducing phone dependency by promoting augmented reality as a way to stay present.
- Attendees expressed skepticism about the practicality of AR in enhancing real-world interactions.
- Paramount is considering relocating operations to Nashville amid financial pressures and declining donations to temples in Japan.
- Buddhist monks are increasingly turning to investments to sustain temple operations due to shrinking congregations.
- The tech industry faces high expectations for new devices, competing against established smartphones.
- OpenAI is exploring advanced mathematical problems, indicating a push for innovation in AI capabilities.
Questions Answered
What happened during the Snap launch event?
The speaker intended to attend the Snap launch event but ended up missing most of it due to scheduling conflicts. They managed to briefly interact with a colleague but did not participate in the presentations or demos.
What were the highlights of the live demos at the event?
The live demos included innovative uses of technology, such as a song created using puppeteered movements and interactive instructions for electricians. The demos showcased hand tracking and engaging activities like a ping pong game.
What is the current market outlook for smart glasses?
Despite years of marketing and hype, smart glasses have struggled to find product-market fit. The discussion contrasts their slow adoption with the rapid success of LLMs, suggesting skepticism about the future of smart glasses as a mainstream product.
How does the discussed movie relate to societal issues?
The movie addresses themes of online addiction and societal concerns about digital media, appealing to audiences who are aware of these issues. It serves as a commentary on the impact of technology on youth and society.
How are temples adapting to financial challenges?
A Buddhist priest has turned to investing to maintain his temple, achieving significant returns that help cover maintenance costs. This trend reflects a broader shift among temples facing declining donations and rising upkeep costs.