#1236 - Jack Dorsey

February 1, 2019

Jack Dorsey is a computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur who is co-founder and CEO of Twitter, and founder and CEO of Square, a mobile payments company.

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The Joe Rogan Experience

what's up nice to meet you man nice to meet you finally wake up from your face when you started Twitter when you guys first started did you have any idea there's no way you could have had it any idea what it would be now but I would try to emphasize the people in the people I got Shooters crazy like how could it not be crazy there's never been anything like it before like imagine trying to predict

the kind of impact the present United States uses Twitter to threaten other countries I mean well you know we were building the sing for a self and that's how that's how everything starts we wanted to use it we wanted to

we went to you no stay connected with each other we we text like a group text we loved our phones we loved technology we actually started this as a project out of a failed company called odeo is podcasting we're really creative folks but we weren't that passionate about where podcasting was going in our particular don't mean we just got a lot of competition early on iTunes just release her podcast directory but we knew we wanted to work together we knew

we love this idea of one button publishing we love this idea of collaboration and we love this idea of being anywhere and being able to

share what was happening that was that was the idea I've been thought that was it and that's what we wanted it to be and I think the most beautiful and also sometimes uncomfortable aspect of Twitter is

it we really learned what it wanted to be and the people helped created like everything that we hold sacred now the at symbol the hashtag the retweet those were not invented by me or the company those were things that we discovered things that we discovered people using and we just observed it and we'd we noticed what they were trying to do their trying to talk with one another they were trying to collect tweets around topics with the hashtag when the first use of hashtag something was created yeah it was it was actually our lead designer Robert Anderson who leads our design in the cash up higher than four square later on but he was the first one he was actually communicating with his brother

and he put at Buzz his brother's name is Buzz and it just kind of spread it wasn't in Mass but people were doing it but what was most interesting is not what they're doing but what they wanted to do with it they wanted to address each other and that's that changed the company completely that change the service because I went from just broadcasting what's happening to conversation into being being able to address anyone publicly out in the open which came with it a lot of power and also a lot of issues as well yeah. The use of hashtags like a little looking up hashtag you know fry faster hashtag and I ain't time to something weird that's in the news that's that's such a unique way to find things but to go on Twitter until to utilize that it's it's it's interesting that you're that this guy just did it just to contact his brother was that

where was he a symbol to hashtag was this guy Chris Messina and he's trying to he was trying to tag Houston trying to tag around topics and who is tweeting about and again that spread all we did was made it easier we made it more accessible we we enabled everyone to do it with the at symbol we made a page that collected all mentions of your name with the hashtag we allowed people to search immediately so you could tap on the keyword and you would see everyone talking about that or tweeting about that specific hashtag so these things were just emergent behavior is that we didn't predict and they became the lifeblood of the service was fascinating to me about something like Twitter or even something like YouTube is that there's not a lot of other ones like it there's just this one thing like how does that happen with this one thing sort of gets adopted by everybody and takes over and then just becomes is overwhelmingly massive platform me this really a few other

videos services but nothing on the scale of YouTube and it's the same thing with Twitter there's nothing on the scale Distributing information in a quick short 280 character form like that I don't think we could plan for it I don't think we could not show it billed for that someone said recently to we just heard a bunch of our leadership last week in Palm Springs for an oscillating someone said recently that Twitter was discovered and I think what's behind all that is that it it it hit something foundational it hit something at Central and my co-founder Biz likes to say that Twitter can never be uninvented it's here it changed everything but the use of it has been revolutionary and it just as simple I do if you know if you could text with the

entire world if you could actually reach anyone in the world or anyone could see what you're thinking which I think is also the beautiful thing about about text in the in the medium you can actually get it someone's raw thoughts and anyone in the world can see that instantaneously it becomes a subconscious it becomes us like Global Consciousness and yeah it gets to some really deep places in society and and some of those places are pretty uncomfortable place is psychologically there's there's a there's a weirdness to it right there's a weirdness to sending texts particularly at anonymously you know I'm in there's so many accounts that are just an egg you know so many accounts were there clearly designed if you like sometimes several to eat something mean to me and I'm like one with this person's up to so I go to their site and itches them tweeting mean shit at people all day long like it's prom

some angry person at work and then like I'm just going to find people and fuck with them all day did you realize or when did you realize I'm sure you are aware of it when did you realize that this was almost out of your control in terms of like the scale of it

and there were there that wasn't there wasn't one moment there wasn't one moment that it just felt completely resonant it's it's on folded into

the next thing in the next use case and it just keeps surprising us with how people are are using it weed

you know it definitely recently I think we've identified some of the areas of the service that we need to pay a lot more attention to Twitter is unique and it has two main spaces one which is your timeline the most of the people that you follow and you know when you follow someone they've been the audience and then it has this other world where anyone can insert themselves into the conversation that you can actually mention you and you'll see that without asking for it you can insert yourself into hashtags and to search Indies are areas of people have taken advantage of and these are the areas

people have gained our systems to in some cases artificially amplify but also just to spread a lot of things that weren't possible with a velocity that they're not possible before

now when this is all happening what's the conversation like at Twitter when you recognizing this is happening that people are kind of gaming the system like what it how do you guys how do you mitigate it what what's the discussion early on it was

is pretty surface-level like how we change some of the appdynamics but more recently we're trying to go a lot deeper in and asking ourselves a question when people open Twitter what are we incentivizing what are we telling them to do when they open up this app we may not explicitly be doing that but there's something that we're saying without being as clear about it so what does the like button incentivize what does the retweet and Son fights what does the number of followers and making that number big and bold incentivize so

I'm not sure what we should know I'm not sure if we should incentivize anything but we need to understand what that is and I think you know right now we we do incentivize a lot of echo Chambers because we don't make it easy for people to follow interest in topics it's on the account we incentivize a lot of outrage and hot chicks because of the sum of the Dynamics in the service not allowing a lot of nuance in conversation earlier on

pseudonyms you have the ability to not use your real name incentivizes some positive things like the last for whistleblowers and journalists to might fear for their career or even worse their life and under certain regimes but also allows for people like the example you mentioned of just random Fire and you know spread of abuse and harassment throughout so those are the things that were looking at and how do we how do we enable more of the conversation to evolve how do we increase the credibility of reputation of accounts how do I identify a credible voices within a particular domain not just through this very coarse grain blue verified badge but if you're an expert in a particular topic how do we recognize on real time and show that so that we can provide more context to

we were talking to and if you want to engage in a deeper conversation or just ignore or block them what is the conversation like while you were at work like when you realized that all the stuff is happening and you're realizing that now I mean in particular because the president uses it so often it's such a butt mean this is preferred platform for communicating with the people I mean even more so than address what's the conversation like in the office when you try to figure out hate what's our responsibility here like how we supposed to handle this or how do we I mean you're you're in some way what Twitter is doing is it it's really kind of its flavoring the public narrative its flavoring the way we communicate with each other and in the skin in our culture worldwide

yeah I mean the conversation has Stephanie evolved I think in the past we just got super reactive we were reacting to all the negative things that we're seeing in that led to a lot of short-term thinking more recently we just looked much deeper we we don't react to the to the present day where we look for some of the patterns and we have a we have a company that is not just serving the people of this particular country the United States this is Global Way of global leaders all around the use all around the world using Us in Norway some you no more with our velocity some recognize more of the power some put up statements some weed conversations it's looking at all those Dynamics and not trying to hyper focus on any one particular one because if we do we're only building it for one portion of the population are only

one perceived present a crisis

what I'm what I'm trying to get at was like okay like when things come up like say if you find out that there's people from Isis they're using Twitter and they using Twitter and posting things like what is the conversation like how did what do we do about this do we leave this up and we recognize this is Free Speech do we only take it down if they're calling for murder or hate speech like what how do you handle that it involves I mean because like we first saw Isis when the world so Isis and we need to change our policy to deal with it was the initial reaction to it so once you realize that people from Isis for making Twitter accounts and they were trying to recruit people doing all these things what was the what was the thought process we we we haven't experienced this before we need to nobody has me you don't know it yet but there are people who have experience in different forms in different mediums so weary

go to our government Partners front center law enforcement partners are we reach out to her pure companies to ask if they're saying the same things that we're seeing we have a bunch of civil societies that we talked to Aunt to get their take on those while I try to balance that across you know very spectrums weather be more organizations are more focused on preventing online harassment all the way to the ACLU and the FF who are protecting the First Amendment online so we won't we try to get as many perspectives as possible take that and then make some informed decisions but also realize that we're probably going to make some mistakes along the way and all we can do to correct some of us just be open about where we are and that's probably where we failed the most in the past as we just haven't been open about

are thinking process what led to particular decisions how are terms-of-service evolved the terms of service as an area in our industry is just it's a mess no one reads them you know you sign up for the services and you quickly hit accept and we expect people to read these rules of the road but they haven't read them and have you ever read them I have Rats on Facebook right what about Instagram your red there's I was I was in the first time users of a of Instagram intern Kevin Systrom was an internet at Rodeo and I was on the First Investors of Instagram and love the service I don't think I've ever had their temp service

you and me but I read Artisan you want two things I noticed

right away is you know you read are you read our terms of service and one of the first things that we put at the top of the page was copyright and intellectual property protections you go down you scroll down you see everything about violent threats and abuse and harassment and safety and

is that the company intended for that to be the order it just we just added things going on but even a read of that

put forth our point of view like what we're actually putting copyright infringement above the safety the physical safety of someone so we need to relook at some of these things and how they've evolved how they reacted and then sit above just because it's listed second I mean is it they're essentially all in the same one sheet there on the one she bring it up when you discuss it first is that really critical they're all they're all part of the terms of service but I think that ordering matters like what what do we consider to be most important and we have to consider physical safety to be the one thing that we protect them so I don't know threats physical threats doxxing anything that impinges on someone's physical safety this is an area where I don't think technology and services like ours have

focused on and off we haven't focused on the app off platform ramifications of what happens on mine so what do you do like like here's a good for instance this situation with this young kid who had the Maga hat on in the Native American gentleman who is in front of them banging the drum and then people are calling for this kid's name they want his name they want his address including Kathy Griffin like how do you how do you handle something like that request for doxxing and that's that is a new Vector that we haven't seen in Macon GA cases of bring up entirely new things so we have to study at we have to see how we reacted what happened with the network but this goes back to the incentives like we are incentivizing this very quick reaction and it's taking away from someone some more of the you like considered work that we need to do to really diagnose what's happening in the moment and

it was it such an interesting case study to see how that evolved over just 48 hours and that's one of the most fascinating new Cycles or stories in the new cycle because it's nuanced there's there's many different levels to it and a lot of like really need York reactions but we helped that well it's just that that's how some of the Dynamics of the service work but is that wasn't as things we connect to the service or is it the wage people choose to use the service like if you are a thoughtful person you wouldn't just like for instance the original image that was distributed came from an account is now banned right and so it was it was discovered that the account was a troll account what how does that happen and what was the thought process behind that cuz it with the image that they've been posted was a legitimate image it really did happen

part of an actual occurring event so what why do you ban the person or the troll account to put it up I don't know about this particular case but it's likely that it was found there's there's a lot of what you see on the surface the Twitter and some of the actions that we take on the surface but where we spend a lot of our enforcement is actually what's happening underneath so in many cases we have trolls are people like the case that you mentioned whose sole purpose is just to harass or abused or spread a particular information and often times these accounts might be connected or they start one account that gets bands they start another account but we can actually see this through a network lens and we can actually see some of those Behavior so that might have been one of the reasons I'm not sure in an in that particular case but

how do you know do you know because of IP addresses do you know because of the variety of things so I could be it could be trying to use the same phone number same email address IP addresses device IDs all these things that we can use to the judge what's happening within the context so we do have a lot of occurrences of suspending or temporarily suspending accounts because of activities across accounts that happens a ton but what would I mean what I mean in the in that we're helping this right now is like some of the incentive so I could just just imagine seeing that unfold and when you see someone with one take it kind of involved in something to follow along and then this mob kind of rules so there has to be a way for us to incentivize a lot more more considered and more nuanced introspection of what's going on

be more considerate I mean what what does engineering social behavior okay so if I followed a bunch of accounts that Boris Johnson who was constantly giving me information about reasons to leave

I would probably only see that perspective a lot of folks just will not follow accounts that have a completely different perspective or a different influence the number of people do hopefully journalist too but most people won't do that work so this is the only two a week if people follow and account if however during that time you followed the hashtag you filed a hashtag vote leave 95% of the conversation in the tweets you see are all reasons to leave but there's a small percentage that shows a different perspective than that shows a different a different reasoning

we don't make it easy for anyone to do that and that is a lot for anyone to follow the perspective followed the fall of topic follow follow an interest and because of that we helped build an echo chamber and and something that doesn't really challenge any perspective and not to say that we should force set upon people but we don't even make it easy for people to do in the first place though the way you do that today is you go to the explore tab you look you search for hashtags are you tap into a hashtag and you can see all the conversation but that's that's work most people just want you to work though Standard time line will see what they need to see in I can certainly imagine you know why if I'm just following a bunch of people who have the exact same take on this it just continues to run Bolden Bolden Bolden and they see nothing of a different perspective on the exact same the exact same situation what's interesting to me is the

difference between Twitter and Instagram essentially it's not just a photographs which weird that has happened was theirs there shity people on Instagram as well I mean there's there's a lot of arguments and things on those lines but they don't overwhelm the the initial post whereas with Twitter different surface yeah it's it's supposed I mean it it supposed to snow really eliciting conversation to listen, it's difficult to follow the conversations back and forth about a particular subject that's disgusting your initial post but it's not it's not very clear whereas with with Twitter it only conversation only conversation photograph even if somebody posted a photograph on Twitter has conversation under it the photographs seems to be like of secondary importance superfluid

super messy to the thing is every on Instagram or any any blog you have this this post the statement and you have comments underneath where is the Twitter everything is on the same surface right it's all one surface about Facebook he says because in Twitter because I post something and then all these fucking morons post something and he goes to see if you don't care he's very animated he's a like in Dish it looks just like my shit it's all the together all piled up and goes but if I post something on Facebook he was I have this whole thing like this is the original statement and then underneath it are you fucking say whatever you want but it's clear that there's a differentiation between omniscient Post in the secondary cause there's room for both models but I

this conversation most conversations it's it's not you making a statement and me just reacting to our conversation of all is based on what we say we can interrupt for another week and you know we can completely change the subject I can take control of the conversation and the people who might find that interesting follow it and the folks that don't just stop listening where you can't do that in a post comment model it's also text is so limited there I mean it's great for just getting out actual facts but it's also thinking it's so close to thinking like there's no composition right so you know in and not said that to me is the most beautiful thing about Twitter but also something that you know can be uncomfortable like I can compose my life on Instagram I can compose my thoughts within a Facebook post and it can look so perfect but the

Twitter is just super raw and it's right it's right to the thinking process and I just think that's so beautiful cuz it gets took it gets to Consciousness it gets to something deeper and I think that deep house so how is it different than a post on Instagram or post on Facebook at the speed demands that you know that the the character constraint the speed kind of just demanded I'm more conscious present focused stinking versus like stepping back and an imposing a letter composing a letter in and thinking about all the outcomes people do compose it as a letter and they break it up into separate 280 character posts the other threats you can't just just ramble and it's great for Comics cuz he forces us to write jokes like with economy of words exactly we found a lot of residents with with journalists because I had lines

we got a lot of residents with with Comics because of

the Rhythm and we found a lot of residents with hip hop as well because the bar is unjust the structure and the constraint allowed at that flow

did the thinking was we we looked at are you know languages around the world and and there's some languages like German 140 carat cuz you can't really say much can only say much at all their sound language is like Japanese 140 characters is 140 words and Japan is one of our largest our largest countries where we're bigger than Facebook there where I use Facebook sorry Facebook I don't either use it in terms of if I post something on Instagram and goes to Facebook when I go to Facebook it's it just seems like a lot of bullets to a lot of arguing but what up Twitter seems to be more fun if that makes any sense even though it's there's a lot of chaos when something put one of my favorite things when someone post something stupid

underneath it is a bunch of gifs gifs or gifs I said GIF I know I was just mocking someone relentlessly like that is one of my favorite things about Twitter when someone like with Donald Trump post something ridiculous and then I'll go and I'll look at the response of like

it's a public conversation as you can see our own racks put it like it's hot there's not one Twitter it's like you have politics Twitter which can be super toxic you have sports Twitter you have NBA Twitter you have MMA Twitter you have a UFC Twitter you have Kpop Twitter you have you have all these different sweaters and you and you have a you have a completely different experience super funny some of them do you want to walk away from it I got to a certain point where I couldn't read replies anymore I just it's just not as vast majority of interactions I have two people are super positively absolutely like more than 99% but it's

I didn't I don't have time and I don't have time to be consoling responding to people and it just didn't the sheer numbers what I think when I got around three million ish followers and like I can do this anymore fast it's just it's overwhelming like I don't have the resources say I am a huge believer in Serendipity so you knew you look at your replies once and you might see something that just like strikes you and that's enough you don't need to read through all them things come back up to do a lot without go through my mentions and when people I sent you the used it as almost a news aggregator I'll go through and I mention to people post cool stories and that would retweet those and so because people knew that I would retweet them they would send me a lot of cool stuff so because of that because reciprocating I got a lot of really cool stuff set my way to spend the night at work and I just I wanted to thank people for posting.

and they love the fact they would get a retweet and so they would send me like interesting science stories or you know very bizarre nature stories and I just be retweet them all the time go to but then after why I'm like this is a lot of time it's a lot of time so now essentially what I do is I just post something and I just kind of like as I walk away I mean that that's what we want to incentivize more we want more people contributing things that back to the network back to the back to the public conversation and I I know it doesn't feel like this today for most people but

my ideal is someone walks away from Twitter learning something and they're actually learning something entirely new exactly it it's all depend on the on the Twitter follower unlike the you know that Health Twitter is amazing you know you learned some I like that followed Rhonda Patrick and and went off and Ice baths and Ben Greenfield and you just follow them and you just get all this new information about alternative views of how to stay healthy how to live longer and I can't find that anywhere else is in one place like that and it's not just done broadcasting there's a whole conversation about it so you know some people say this is this is not been my experience for this is not this is not true for me or actually have you seen this connected thing

I just go down this rabbit hole at night I learned so much but that's not the experience for everyone sometimes people just like to go on there and talk shit mini of someone that strap in a cubicle right now strand they just want to go in there and get an argument about gun control or and out whether or not Nancy Pelosi the devil this is this is what it did serve the purpose for them if the thing that gets strange though is who's to decide you know there's a business this is concept there's a discussion I should say there are some people believe that things like Twitter or Facebook or any Forum where are you having a public discussion should be considered almost like a public utility like anyone has access to the electric power even if you are

you know even if you're racist you still can get electricity and some people think that you should have that same ability with something like Twitter or the same ability with something like Instagram obviously this is where in Uncharted Territory and you or you are in Uncharted Territory Call of Duty as no one has been there before so who makes the distinctions when you see someone that it's saying something that you might think is offencive to some folks but not offencive to the person who saying it may be the person saying it feels like they need to express themselves in this is important to say and how do you decide whether or not this is a valid discussion or if this is air quotes hate speech which is a you know there's some things that are hate speech and there's sometimes people use the term hate speech and it's just a cheap way to shutdown a conversation on duct

we don't we don't look at the speech itself we look at conduct we look at how the tool is being used in your you're right in that like I said I think when people see Twitter they see and they expected to be a Public Square they can go into the Public Square or they can say whatever they want they can get on a pedestal and people might gather around them and listen what they have said some of them might find a defensive and they leave

the difference is there's there's also this concept of this megaphone in the megaphone can be highly targeted now which would as well so it's it's not the speech it's how it's Amplified so what do you do if someone in the media let's say it's a prominent feminist and then you have a bunch of people or it would say just one person and their Twitter feed is overwhelmingly attacking this prominent feminist just consoling attack or calling her a liar calling it is, when do you decide is it harassment when do side this is hate speech went like how do you and misses you look at the synapse is a fictional account right fictional person were talking about but in this for instance what what would dictate

something that was egregious enough for you to eliminate them from your platform well that's that's that's a heavy action so that's the last resort but we'd like to conduct we look at it often times it as you said like the probability of someone who is harassing one person it's highly probable that they're also hassing 10 more people right so we can look at that behavior we can look at how many times this person is being blocked or muted or reported and based on all those all that data we can actually take some action but we also have to we have to correlate it with the other side of that because people go on and they coordinate blocks as well and the coordinate harassment made in the coordinate I'm sorry not harassment but reporting reporting a particular account to get it shut down into to take the voice off the service so these are the considerations

how to make but it's it's it all starts with conduct and I'll often times will see coordinated conduct weather be that one person opening multiple accounts or coordinating with multiple accounts that they don't own to you don't go after someone and there's a bunch of actors of people use retweet for that the quote tweet for that a lot as well like another quote tweet a tweet to someone finds in those a look at this idiot Twitter do your thing and then just this mob starts and goes and tries to effectively shut that person down so there's a bunch of tools we can use the permanent suspension is the last resort one of the things that we can do is we can down rank the replies so any of these entities behaviors and conduct that looks linked linked we can actually push farther down in the reply chain so it's all still there but you might have to push a button to actually see it you might have to

show more replies. You see this harassing account or what might look like harassing language and is this manually done this is all this is all automated automated but how would you get a ranking in the end looking at amplification and then looking at the network is is automated this person's reply should be down ranked like how do you how do you figure that out it's it's a machine learning and deep-learning model we look at that we look at how these things are doing and where they make mistakes and then we improve it it's just constantly improving constant learning and like automated censorship

is amine who is who is to decide other than people whether or not something is valid or not looking at the at the speech in this particular case we're looking at the contact like on a dick. Conductive like someone in fast philosophy attacking someone else right so those are the things that our technology allows it changes of velocity changes how you know what to broadcast a message that someone didn't really ask for and didn't want to hear we don't touch if I follow Joe Rogan

you'll see every single tweet we don't touch it right but that's an audience that you earn but in your replies page we have a little bit more room because this is it this is a conversation that starts up and some people just want to disrupt it and and all we're saying is we're going to look at move in the disruption down not that it's hidden but it's still there but you know you just see it a little bit farther down like there was a what was the incident with Ari I should text him right now get him to answer me in real-time but Ari shaffir got kicked off Twitter because you said something a bird life bird I'm going to fucking kill you Bert Kreischer being a good friend all of us are good friends and he's like you fucking dumb I'm going to kill you or something like that I think was all bullshit right on the boat really stole his record me I will probably happen I'm not sure

your case but will probably happen there is someone might have reported that tweet one of our agents human agents without context to their friendship or that relationship so it is a violent threat and took action on the mistakes that we're going to make that's why we need an appeals process and right

that's probably not going to happen we we we need to we need to make sure we need to make sure that we're reacting the right way like the look we're going to make mistakes we're we're trying at the prom with this system right now is most of most of the work is actually in in the burden is actually on the victims of abuse while they're getting harassed so a lot of our system doesn't

enforcer act unless these tweets are reported right so we don't take suspension actions or removal of content actions unless it reported The rhythms ranking order the conversation but they don't take suspension actions they don't take they don't remove content they might suggest to human to look at this who might look at our rules and look at the content and try to look at the context of the conversation and then take action but we would like to move towards a lot more automated enforcement but more importantly how do we how do we highlight how do we amplify more of the healthier discussion conversation again not removing it weren't weren't we're going to a world especially with technology like blockchain that all content that exist that is ever created will exist forever you won't be able to

get down you won't be able to sense for it it won't be centralized it all our role is around what we recommend based on your interest and based on who you follow in in in helping you to get into that lawn Ram put if you look at the architechnology it's a given that any time something is created it's going to exist forever this is what I'm watching helps enable down the line and we need to make sure that we're paying attention to that and also realizing that you know our our role is like how do we how do we get people the stuff that they really want to see in the find valuable that they'll learn from that they'll make them think that that will help them involve the conversation as well as the messages that you deem to be more positive right like how do you decide people decided people the people decided based on like are they are they engaging and replies are they are they

treating it are they liking it are they sometimes it's really negative like sometimes the people that are engaged is that valuable or or is it just unfortunate is variable I mean every every signal is something that we can learn from and we can act on but it it's going to console you evolve these these these models that we have to build will counsel have to learn what the network is doing and how people are using it and you know what our goal is healthy contribution back to the all the conversation that is what we want we want to encourage people into more

bigger informative Global conversations at the learn from you like constantly aware of how much this is changing society that you are one of the four or five different modalities that are radically changing Society whether it's Facebook or Instagram or any of these social media

companies radically changing the way people communicate with each other like there's a there's a giant impact on the way human beings talk and see each other and the way we process ideas in the way we distribute information is unprecedented like that before and you setting up something you think is going to be a group chat with the early days when you would say like at Jack is going to the movies you and say it like that's how we would say it I would say at Joe Rogan is on his way to dinner that somewhere along the morphed the more it is that's what the world wanted to do with it that's what that is where they wanted to take it and I just think it's so reflective of what the world is and in some cases what the world

wants to be so it's up a pathway for thinking just a pathway for people to get their thoughts out but a really powerful one and unprecedented method of Distributing information is really nothing ever been like this before no no and then

it won't this this mode of communicating will not go away it'll just get faster it will become a lot more connected and that's why our work is so critical to figure out some of the Dynamics of play that that that make it that that cause more negative outcomes and positive outcomes

I I I think about it because I think about it because it's it's just a hugely significant thing but I also think about it because of podcast cuz podcast in a similar way just no one saw coming and the people that are involved in that are like what the fuck are we doing that like me I'm like what am I doing what is this like for me to talk to guys like Ben Greenfield and and Jonathan hate and all the others different people and learn some stuff clearly way more from doing this podcast that I ever would have learned without it no doubt about it unquestionably but I didn't I didn't fucking plan this so now all the sudden there's a signal that I'm sending out to millions and millions of people and then people like well you have responsibilities great why didn't want that I didn't want a responsibility to what what I distribute I just want to be able to have a freak Show just talk to people

like what it would have been like there's certain people don't have on with this Alex Jones or anyone that's controversial for people who get fucking mad why you giving this person to platform are you okay I didn't think about that way and I don't think that's what I'm doing I think I'm talking to people you can listen but it's giving that person to platform cuz there's a well know they'll tone down there like Milo yiannopoulos it was one of the arguments people gave me like he tone down his platform when he was on your show so you can get more people to pay attention to him like okay but he also talked about

he doesn't want a reason why I was exposed was my show because he talked about that it's okay to have sex with underage boys with their gay because there's like a mentor relationship between the older gay man the young people like what the fuck are you talking about and that was a big part of why he's kind of been removed from the public conversation that was there was one of the fitting and then there's the discussion like what what is that what is removing someone from the public conversation if someone is very popular and they have all these people that like to listen to them like what is the responsibility of these platforms whether it's YouTube or Twitter or anyone what is the responsibility in to decide whether or not someone should or shouldn't be able to speak and this is the thing that I've been struggling with and I've been bounced around inside my own head and I see that you guys struggle with it and pretty much everyone does YouTube does

edit some it is a hugely significant discussion that is left to a very in a relatively small amount of people and this is why this discussion of what is social media is it something that everybody has a right to or is it something that should be restricted to only people that are willing to behave and they carry themselves in a certain way I believe it's something that I don't have the right to but you still ban people like the last guy to keep Alex Jones on the platform you're the last one and I believe you hung in there until he started harassing you personally right now and he did not know he he did very different things on our platform versus the others we saw this domino effect over a weekend of one platform Banning him and then

another very very quick succession and you know people I think would have assumed that we would just have followed too but he didn't violate our terms of service right and

afterwards she did and and we have you know we have a we have a policy and if if you know there's a violation we take enforcement actions one might be asking you the account holder to delete the Tweet another might be a temporary suspension another might be a permanent suspension in the Sandy Hook was fake he did not say that on the platform did not say that on Twitter and we said that on his show I don't know I don't know I don't know all the mediums he said it in or what we're looking at is the is the is a con. And what he did on our platform that was like that you all were in agreement that is enough I'm not I'm not sure what the what the actual like you no violations were but we have we have a set number of actions and if they keep getting if if if

keeps violating terms of service Alton Way at least a permanent suspension and when all the other platforms were taking him off we didn't find those three we didn't we didn't find those violations and they weren't reported but again it goes back to a lot of our model people weren't reporting a lot of the tweets that may have been in violation on our service and we didn't act on them like a good incense is what's going on with patreon I'm sure you're aware of the Sargon of akkad thing he did a podcast a long time ago I believe six months or so ago where he use the n-word in the way he used it is actually against white nationalists and he also said a bunch of other stuff and they decided Patron decide that what he said on a podcast was enough for them to remove him from the platform even though he didn't do anything on their platform that was agreed

and also they had previously stated that they were all new judging things that occurred on their platform is been a giant blow back because of that because people are saying now you're at you're essentially policing and not based on his actions just son Concepts and communication that he was using the way he was talkin you are eliminating him from being able to make a living and that you're doing this because he does not fit into your political Paradigm the way you want of you the world he gave you the world differently this is an opportunity for you to eliminate some what are you disagree with I mean I don't know the nuances of their policy but like we we have to pay attention to folks who are using Twitter to shut down the voices of other that's where it gets weaponized and we also have to pay attention to where people are using it that put other folks in physical danger and that is where we need to be most so

but otherwise everyone has a right to these Technologies and I think they also have a right to make sure that they have a very simple and open read of the rules and we're not in a great state There are rules and enforcement can be extremely confusing the people in the one thing that came up that was perhaps the most controversial like I know my friend Sam Harris was trying to get you guys to ban Donald Trump who sang to follow your terms of service I just did a podcast with the next day or so to come out today or tomorrow and a guy Sam Harris I love him to death but it would he was trying to do is like saying he's threatening nuclear war like he's saying hey Korea my mom's a bigger than your bombs like what else does the guy have to do to get you to remove from the platform when you guys saw that what was your reaction to that dude was there an internal discussion about actually Banning the president United States

so two things are one it was the context that presidents of this country have used similar language in different mediums

they use it on radio that use it on television it's not just through Twitter and even if you were look at you were to look at the presidency of Obama it wasn't exactly the same tone in this exact same language but there were threats around the same country and we have to take back that context into consideration so the second thing is that we need that the most controversial aspect of our rules and our terms of service is probably this Clause around public interest in newsworthiness where powerful figures are public figures might be in violation of our terms of service but the Tweet itself is a public-interest there should be a conversation around it and that is probably the thing that people disagree with the most

and where we have a lot of internal debate but we also have some pretty hard lines if we had a global leader including the president United States make a violent threat against a private individual we would take action

we always have to balance out with like is this a is this something that the public has interest in and I I believe Jenna Lee the answer is yes it's not going to be in every case but generally the answer is yes because we should see how our leaders think and how they act in essentially it informs voting that informs that the conversation on forms whether we think they're going to they're doing the right job or we'd we think that you know they should be they should be voted out it's very important to see how someone uses that platform and when someone uses it the way he was and then becomes president continues to use it that way that's what people like what he's been consistent in 2009-2012 and you look at all the streets all the way back down and it's pretty consistent mean he likes to insult people on Twitter it's 5 ramp

the country and then you know after four years or eight years just go back to his old self fuck you fuck the world fuck this but no he's he's he's just

in one way it's hilarious see as a comedian I think it's awesome because it's just it's so hilariously stupid it's so Preposterous that even has the time to talk about Jeff bezos's Affair and the fact that he got caught with the National Enquirer getting text messages and calls him Jeff Bose I like don't you have shit to do man likes as but as a comedian. I am a gigantic fan of folly almost against my better judgment I like watching its I want I like watching disasters I like watching chaos when I see nonsense like that my call Jesus drawn like a moth to a flame but in the other part of me is like man

this sets a very bizarre tone for the entire country because what one of these will about Obama like Obama or hate Obama seems very measured very articulate obviously very well educated and I think that that aspect of his presidency was very good for all of us because he represented something that was a very high standard in terms of his ability to communicate his access to words the way the way measured his words and held himself I think that that's good for us like yeah it's like we like I talk better than me that's why is the president but you know your ABC Trump you like these doesn't talk better than me he does he doesn't use Twitter better he's not he's just as fucking mad mad but it didn't understand that hopefully that informed opinions and actions of a percent that's my point that's my point is like that this is this

gray area where I think overall I definitely support your decision to not not ban him for violating terms of service I keep we need to know you know it's how do you know how many accounts are Bots how many how do you know how many accounts are from a Russian troll Farm how do you know that so this is something that we're we're trying to wrap our heads around but like one of the things we're trying to do is like let's skip the problem down a bit let's use the technology we have available to us like face I do you like touch ID like the biometric stuff to identify the humans humans first we haven't we haven't used it yet but you can use it for things like is this a human operating this

we don't have access to images of your face or not but the operating system can tell us that this is the legit owner of this phone and therefore it is it is human and Technology always has to change people find ways around that. But if we go the opposite direction and we look for the Bots the problem with looking for the boxes people assume that they just come through our API but scripting has become extremely sophisticated people can scripts the apps can scrape the website and make it look very very human so where we're going after this problem first trying to identify the humans as much as we can utilizing these Technologies is is live right now these are these are considerations were making an and trying to understand I'm like what the impact would be end and how we might have all that but we we need to because that information would provide context for someone like this is an actual human that I'm talking to and

I can invest more time in it where I can just ignore the thing cuz it's meaningless and fingerprints or face not the data just the operating system verifies that it is an individual to individual and it's like you know when when you use the are dark espresso squares cash up when you want to make a transfer to someone when you want to send someone money or when you want to buy Bitcoin we turn on face ID and you verify that you are you and you are the owner of the phone and and then it goes we don't get images of your face we don't see who you are that's a lockdown by the operating system has there ever been any consideration to not allowing people to post anonymously

well is it like what you said earlier about journalist and whistleblowers it that is protocol look at platforms that that have a real name is fall see what your Facebook I don't know cuz I don't go there before I understand there's a lot of still a lot of arguing there it's just a lot of political play colder than General is seems I also not really hanging out there but it it seems a little bit or Grammys looking at pictures of the kids grandkids and stuff and send its connecting with the people that you know and that's me the biggest difference between its connection to the people you don't know what I find interesting and like it's around its round topics and stuff that you find out that you want to learn more about when you saw Zuckerberg testifying and realizing like this platform is being used in what are the dangers of this and then you see the Senators that really don't know what the fuck the

it's it's a really highlights how we're entering into this really yeah but not just a Gap a gap in the critical understanding of how these things work and what they are and in terms of like how these really important politicians who are the ones who are making these decisions as to whether or not someone has violated laws or not something should be curbed or regulated and they don't really even understand what they're talking about there's there's a few people do because they're not they're not using it correctly using in the way that people are using it every single day and didn't have the same experience that people have every single day and you know it in terms of regulatory and and our regulators and our governments are you know what I think the conversation is off in about how Regulators will come in and start writing rules and and setting expectations for how companies or Services might behave foot

there's a role for the company to educate and there's a role for the company to educate on like what technology makes possible whether it be positive and and also some of the negative set that become possible as well so I I think we have a role to help educate into and help make sure that were you know really were pushing towards what I think the job of regular regulator switch his number one protect the individual number to level the playing field and make sure that those two things are not compromised by special-interest trying to protect their own domain in our profits or or dominance within a particular Market Plainfield Plainfield so that an individual has the same opportunity that someone else might have her company might have

so okay so like anybody or anyone can anyone can have a Twitter account you know to have at least at you know an equal opportunity to contribute to it and whatever they do with it will change the change the outcome some people might become very popular because they're saying stuff people want to hear some people want to see any following whatsoever because you're not adding anything original or interesting or or or or different terms of perspective

where do you see this going when you look at these kind of emerging technology not sickness early emerging anymore but establish now but still you know a new thing in relative terms of human history where do you see this going and it doesn't get more intrusive does it get deeper into our lives like what would it when you look at new technologies like augmented reality and things along those lines do you see new possibilities in new things that make things even more complicated

I mean yeah I mean we we just have to assume

we we naturally use more and more Technologies more and more things become open more more things increase the velocity there's more communication not lest I did this is not going away and it's just a question of what we do with it to where it where I wanted to go is and where I want Twitter specifically to go is it you know what I think it's existential right now that we we we have Global conversations about some things that will become crisis to climate change being one of them there's no one nation state that's going to solve that problem alone you cannot make disparity being another the the rise of AI and job displacement and it just like us offloading decisions to these two these algorithms those are things that that no one nation no one Community is going to solve a loan it takes the entire world to do so so I want to make sure that we're doing our best to get people

seeing these Global conversations and ideally participating in them because it did helps helps us solve the problems faster and I just believe that more open society allows us to solve problems much faster so you in many ways see Twitter is having some sort of a social responsibility in this is totally totally right now like how are we how are we ensuring that there is more healthy contribution to that Global conversation and you know it I just think it's so it's so critical that we start talking about the things that are facing all of us not just one nation I do think you know that that's where our current model really puts the world at a disadvantage because it incentivizes more of the elk Echo Chambers which lead to things like nationalism instead of taking the broader picture and looking at what's happening

around the world to all people to all of humanity what do you do though to balance a conversation or what responsibilities do you think you have to bounce conversation turns with the way conservatives View at versus the way liberals and progressives you it is their responsibility do you have responsibilities or is it just believe that it up to the people and let them figure it out the same way they figured out hashtag and everything else I think we have a responsibility to make it easier to do them easier how to write right now it's just it's just too hard most most people will not I will not venture out they will not break your bubble but if you because it sits right now on the service is just so hard to do that I can only follow accounts and I have to buy to look into and just imagine like you know trying to get an understanding of your own politics people can't just look at your bio they have to look through all your tweets and to listen to a bunch of podcast

and that's a bunch of work if we shift it more towards topics and interest at least we have the potential to see a bunch more perspectives we see it as simple as soon as I follow a hashtag follow a topic like why can't you just follow Warriors Twitter or you know NBA Twitter why you have to go and find all the coaches in the players and and the team we can do that we we can help make that a whole lot easier for folks that you're going to get the whole conversation going to get the pros and the cons the left the right the whole deal the Centrist going to get everybody vs. following the people that you already follow that agree with what you think the probabilities her that you'll get more you'll get more variety prospective not even if you want to leave but within that topic there might be some

something opinions and you get to choose whether you those inform you whether that in bold in your position or not but in in again I'm not saying that we should force that upon it but it's not easy to even do that to write the only tool we give you is finding and following the accounts and that was it but people search hashtags Twitter know how to do that but most people the following account and they stand that I might and what their world is there time I pass tags can be corrupted to I mean I can over I took over #vegan cat go to hashtag being without what is That's a Wrap that's mine now my last Netflix special about a woman who said a bunch of horrible things to me because I put a picture up on Instagram of some deer meat and I wrote this is some meat from a deer that like to kick babies it was about to join Isis

I wrote #vegan which was a mistake right to the right #vegan the Moc but the the hashtag vegan people went fucking crazy and came after me because I answered their timeline with meet the hashtag vegan cat it's all either pictures of coelacanth is Joe Rogan write a thank you I haven't laughed that hard to while #vegan cat it's people that are feeding your fucking cat vegan food they're all dying and I live in the special I say every cat looks like it's living in a house with a gas leak like they're all our generous conversation does something like that like you can pick person you know whatever that person is whatever their there they're doing if they have a hashtag that utilize all the time for their movement or whatever it's someone could mock them and then use that and if it's a public figure or someone who's got a prominent voice then all the sudden. Hashtag

becomes people just take it over and start mocking that out that hashtag and coordinator in a amplifier on Fairway and then that's what that's what our systems are trying to recognize I'll sick did that cat look at look for fucking cat that was a real one that was a real #vegan cat while it's poor bastards so when you look back at emerging social media like we go all the way back to my space right

Myspace you got Tom Tom was sitting there in your in your top 8 and you know people would like post music that they liked and it was never political it was very often very surface in the comics it was a great way to promote shows and it was an interesting way to see things but it was it was like like the seed that became Twitter or Facebook or any this is one of them at least for us like we got more of our routes from AOL instant messenger and icq is remember the status

message where you said like I'm in a meeting or I'm listening to music and watching a movie right now and then what we took from that was being a little like if you could do that from anywhere anywhere you can do it from your phone and you could just be running around and say you know I'm at I'm at Joe Rogan's studio right now it's cool I don't need my computer I can do it from anywhere and then the other aspect of of instamessenger was of course chat so one of the things that the status would do is you might you might say it like you know I'm listening to Kendrick Lamar right now and I might hit you up on chat and say it's like what do you what do you think the new album but now

it's all public and everyone can see it that's that's the biggest difference in the end that's that to me is what Twitter is it my MySpace was it was profiles and now people organized around these profiles and this network that developed between people and not his Facebook Facebook Facebook optimized the hell out of that and stay scale the world we we were something very different we you know we'd we started with a simple status and then people wanted to talk about it and we decided that should be on the same surface it shouldn't be subservient to the to the to the status of should be part of that flow and that's what makes Twitter you don't so fluid now when you look at this sort of metamorphosis this Evolution between those initial social media whether it's AOL Instant Messenger that eventually became like I Aisa kyun what was that one that we would use that game

words would you use that it was like a livestream Message Board know it was like it wasn't your wasn't that wasn't that wasn't TeamSpeak it was like you would go there and share files and stuff and and people would would would go ice play a lot of online video games play on teams we have teams go play other teams and he would use this sort of it was like I wasn't a message board cuz it was all in real-time what the fuck was it called

on life no forget it anyway guys would go there and you could send people files through it and teams go and meet and it would be a chat like an online chat in real time we have a lot of Our Roots and AOL Instant Messenger but also like IRC Internet relay chat using it for the Northeast Technology heresies what I was talking about topics and she could see people typing you see it occurring in real-time see a popping up in real time you know I just wonder like what is the next evolution of this cuz because no one saw anything going from icq to Twitter no one saw anything going from that to Instagram and to where we're at right now where it really does play for the conversation of our entire culture made it date

before it was just a thing that was happening that was happening on people's computers now it's a thing that's happening on people's computers and now phones and now your whole life it's it's it's a very different influence and I wonder which is everything does accelerate things constantly move forward and become more more more more integrated into our life experience I wonder what is the next stage of this it if I mean like the 2nd or Trends and you know you look at technology and you look at Technologies like like blockchain France and some thinking to work but we're moving to a world where anything created exist forever

that there's no centralized control over who sees what that's you know these these these models become completely decentralized and all these barriers that we that exist today aren't as important anymore when you think of something like gab app seems to be a response to the fact that some people getting banned from other platforms and they're just allowing anybody to come on say anything they want the downside of that is of course the most horrible people are going to be able to say anything they want with no repercussions the good side is anybody can say whatever they want I haven't studied them too much but I do know that they have taken action on accounts as well they have suspended accounts on Sunday Services well what are they suspended accounts for. I don't know it's probably conduct related it's probably it might be doxxing you know probably right

play King of the trolls and if you agree to the rules then you know sign up for the service and if if not there will be other services but look at the trends and I'd I think you know certainly Things become a lot more public certainly Things become a lot more open sorely-needed the series in the boundaries that we have in place today become less meaningful and I think there's a lot of positives in that and I I also think there's a lot of danger that we need to be mindful of CEO as a guy who's running this thing what what is this pain is experienced been like for you cuz I got to imagine that wasn't anything that you predicted

no one predicted Twitter right so to all the sudden have this responsibility order change and everything and your young guy how old are you forty-two to be in control of that much I quit in to have it over the time of what is it been 11 years or like for you it's been it's been both beautiful and scary and uncomfortable and learning and it's just been a ton of learning in the balding and like I said it shows me every single day where I need to push myself and what I don't know and and I think a big part is like just the realization that we're not going to be able to do this alone and I don't think we have to either that these are these are what the technologies that continue to allow his weekend

it if if we have to have all the answers around enforcement or policy wouldn't not we're not going to serve the world we have aspirations to serve every single person on the planet and we we have aspirations to you know be the first consideration for the global public conversation and you know if we're the bottleneck for all this work we're not going to reach those aspiration so it just thinking deeply about how we might distribute more of this work and decentralized more of it look at look at you know the platform itself in like

what we need to change to reach that reality and I think we got to look really deep and foundational it it it goes back to you know that your question on 141 of the things that we saw was you know we we shifted to 280 characters and that you know this 140 characters is so sacred you know it is it became this cultural thing and and I was in love with it and so many people are in love with it but one of the things we noticed as we move to 280 is that the vast majority of tweets that are broadcast don't go above 140 even with that limitation raised but where they do Go Bubba 140 is in replies when people reply they tend to go over the hundred forty character limit and even bump up into the 28280 lemon and what it'll at what we seen it allow is just more nuanced in the conversation that allows people to give more context and and and kind of just get their experience on the table of him or where is 140

did not allow that so we we have seen that increase the health of those conversations in the discussion so stuff like that that we need to question and not hold so so sacred is there any consideration to expand it further not right now how about a million characters know what we don't have edit tweets right now so weak that's good or bad if you can't edit 140 characters are going to be really pissed off if you write a million characters in Canada does thing or something like that but also the ability for people to see the original edit but see the original like so we're looking at exactly that we were born on SMS were born on text messaging when you send a text I can't text back right so when you send a tweet it goes to the world instantaneous you can't take it back when we have to send someone something

people going to know the original a screenshot and you could build it such that you know maybe we introduced a 5-second to 30 second delay in the Sunday and within that window you can edit I'm going to need more time than that dude damn it stupid autocorrect on longer than that it takes that real-time nature in the conversation flow out of it looks like when you're watching UFC are you watching like Warriors basketball a lot of a lot of the great Twitter is like just like in the moment just like you know it's the Roar of the crowd it's like you know looking across at someone you're in this virtual Stadium messenger saying like oh my God that shot can you believe it and that isn't isn't Clarity more important because you're not going to spend some contacts quickly

but you also have the ability to clarify that's it that's where we need to really pay attention because

if you're if you're in the context of an NBA game you want to be fast and you just want to be at the moment you just you don't you want to be raw but if you're in the context of considering what the president just adore making a particular statement that you probably need some some more time and and we can be dynamic her to me is how few people use video like I thought when you guys have video on Twitter my glob bunch of people going to be making videos and putting those up on Twitter and it's not it's not that often it depends on who you followed it's huge for some aspects of Twitter it's it is that it's less so and others but a lot of a lot of sports I mean we see a lot of like just the replays in the Recaps in my account aspects of the lake I think it's dangerous for us to the focus too much on the medium in Weatherby images or gifts or video it's it's more about the conversation around it like that's what we want optimized for

Sports and Folly and there's a bunch of animal attack videos that you could natureismetal is a good one and hold my beer that's that's another good one I mean it's all videos but what I meant was people making a video talking about something this is what I was trying to say what I think is this and that Baba blah you don't see a lot of that and I thought maybe that would be something that people would adopt more two different speed you know and I think that I could the consumption of video I mean you see this in the technology right now like people are subtitling every single video because people might be in an environment where they can't turn the audio on or like a video like I have to scrub through to see what's interesting but can't do a text I can see it in this allows for a lot of serendipity to find something that I probably would have seen unless I watch the whole damn video so like the ability to clip something the ability to like index

is really critical so it's not to me it's not about the four minutes about the to use case in the context of urine going back to the responsibility that you guys have and you in particular when this became what it is now and when it became evident that it became just a gigantic way of changing the way human beings communicate with each other was there ever any regret or was there ever a moment where you like what the fuck have I gotten myself into

I mean there's always reflective of where I am and what I'm doing I think that the biggest has been around to fold one how the Dynamics of the service allow it to be weaponized nor to silence someone else or to drive them officers which goes against the entire concept of free speech and free participation like we we we just can't stand for that we we we need to make sure that everyone feels that they have an opportunity to voice and when you have these coordinated attacks it it just it's not fair the second is around you know this this concept of an echo chamber in the filter but I just I don't feel personally good about that I don't feel I don't feel

that we thought that through enough in the early days I I think we should have moved toward by sitting the service towards topics in interest much much sooner then we're now considering doing when you have these considerations when you take these actions do you consult with psychologist or sociologists or historians are people to try to put in perspective for you what the ramifications of each individual move would be a try to read as much as possible I try to talk to as many people as possible just get a completely different perspective and is there any internal disagreement about actions you take oh yeah there's there's always there's always debate there's always debate but I think my role is to ask ask questions and make sure like hard like what what is our goal here what are we trying to do you know what evolves and is this over the long-term going to be a net positive for

All Humans old all Humanity like how do we balance the considerations of you know how we serve everyone and like how do we get down to something how do we get down to a fundamental answer in a central answer and that to me is where the real truth is when you can get to something foundational but I like you I like having conversations with his many people from as many different fields as possible and getting the perspective on this is questions all the time that you you are looking at this as a method to save or two to help people to serve people you're looking at this as a way that you can benefit Society Society can benefit from your platform can benefit from this this ability to communicate you're not just looking at it as a tech company that has to remain profitable and it is one of the more interesting things about tech companies to me I mean there's been a lot of criticism

may be justified in some way is a tech companies all lean left but what is it interesting to me is that name another corporation that willingly of its own choice takes that into consideration that there were they want to serve the world and serve culture in a beneficial way regardless of profit because you can't you're not really selling anything right you guys have a platform obviously it's financially viable but you're not you're not selling things right with we do our models based off people's attention and they're paying us with her attention and that's extremely valuable and something that we need to really really honor but I agree with you I mean like to look at look at Tesla you know they're you know I'd I just listen to the recent earnings call on one of the things that you Don said was

but there are two reasons for Tesla number one is to advance different sources of of energy more renewable sources of energy because it's a fundamental an existential crisis it's facing all humanity and number two is to advance autonomy because it'll save lives and give people time back and your then you started talking about how to make that possible and that's where you know our business comes in how do we how do we make that possible and we we have a we have a great business we need to improve a bunch of it but we it it serves what we think are larger purposes which is serving the public conversation we want to see more Global public conversations we want to we want our technology to be used to make the world feel a lot smaller to help see what common problems we have before us and ideally

you know how we can get people together to solve them faster and saw them better you also seem to be embracing his responsibilities that you're you're helping to evolve culture and this is part of the providing this method of communication of communication rather it's helping to evolve culture and this is this is something that is really only applicable to tech companies in some strange way and it's weird that so many of them share this like I was personally a little weirded out when Google took out don't be evil like that was a big part of their operating model take that as a yes right make sure that only gets sued

pretty sure they remove that from what we would call that they're their operational directive like what is code of conduct and it's not there anymore right there a movie that article that says they remove dew claws tell people not to be able is weirder to take it out of its way weird to say I fuck it we were on is another way oh well what does that mean the things you can make more money you know like hey we want to make money will do the right thing it's makes more money that's why I like that's why that's open this is so critical. That's why I like the public the public conversation is so important is we can talk about stuff like that and like companies forming today that look at objectives and and a sec. And based their whole

culture around it and is that the right idea or not but if we're not talking about a week and we won't be able to answer that question what's also interesting because Google is so all-encompassing right you have Gmail you have Android I mean that they are the number one operating system for mobile phones in the world on top of being a search engine there's so much involved in that company and again like almost all tech companies they heavily lean left and they beat bit because they had that don't be evil as a part of their code of conduct it seems like something that was a good idea to have they like and it sort of defined what I was talking about that tech companies are uniquely Progressive

I mean I don't know I don't know what makes it I think no matter what like we the internet allows for a very healthy skepticism of nearly everything I'm from I'm from Missouri the Show-Me State my mom was a Democrat my dad was Republican and my dad listen to Rush Limbaugh on Hannity all the time I found myself somewhere in the middle but one of the things I appreciate it we had a ton of

fights and arguments and yelling matches around the kitchen table but like I appreciate the fact that I we could have them and I didn't I felt safe to do so and I didn't feel like I mean obviously to my parents but they weren't judging me because of what I said and force you to be a Republican or Dem to think of particular way I think of a good at least showing

different perspectives even in you know this in this Union that they have and I don't know it developed it's about to skepticism in me that I think is is healthy and I have a lot of skepticism of companies like ours and leaders like me I think that's right I think that's right in people should we I mean

I was I was I was formed through a lot of the ideas of the Unites fell in love with what it made possible and I I I never ever want to run afoul of of those ideas and and you know the the the removal of barriers and boundaries and and the connection that we have because of it and I know it I think often and reflect often about my role in the centralization of my role in the car company

and I want to I want to figure out and help figure out like how we can continue to add massive value and and be an amazing business which is is us and we'll always be us but at the same time

be a participant participatory force in this greater good that the internet has really started and it it's not it's not led by any one individual or any one company nuts to the beauty of it and I want to I want to make sure that we find our place in that and we can also contribute massively to and then I think we can't just going to take a lot of work a lot of introspection and a lot of experimentation about making mistakes and failures to it's very encouraging that you have that attitude cuz you know a lot of people I think in a similar situation would try to control the narrative they would try to reinforce their own particular perspective on things and try to get other people to adopt it or try to push it and I think it is it's very important to just have this open discussion in and I think it's very important to review your own thoughts and ideas and the best ways to do so for the last everything I put it out there

parentvue is it has a great process and that's how it works the way this podcast has evolved more than probably any thing you did this because you want to learn from people in and that the platform that you've created Millions get to learn from it as well and Ms just so amazing like I learned from your podcast all the time and in

that's what technology makes possible but with that power also comes ramifications and if we're not talking about the ramifications and like at least being open about what we know and what we don't know and I think I think we State and post a lot more of what we know rather than what we don't know how much my check fuck you Google can I help Anythink telling our place to do just like you has seen more conversation around what is quote-unquote evil have you guys considered expanding your influence another venues like you know Google start off as a search and now it's fucking everything how do you guys consider doing something similar I think we probably did too much of that early on and that's what led to a bunch of issues from a from a corporate standpoint

just trying to do too much like one too many times we won and so I can know we we had a you know it's a video thing and we had we're looking at gaming stuff and messaging and it it it lost focus of what we are good at what we're good at is Comer Sation and what we're good as is is public conversation so we now have as a company we have we have just such a amazing focus on what that means and how that involves and there's just there's some really cool things that we can do there like we have this way of this app called Periscope and one of the things that were discovering is like a lot of people are using it to podcast a lot of people are using it to share their thoughts and these people come in and you know that they chat have a conversation and one of the things we did recently as we allowed the audio to play in the background it's super simple but what we found was that people didn't necessarily want to watch

the video of people talking to just want to hear what they're they're saying and that just open the door for more types of use cases and I think add a new dimension to what conversation looks like and how it is experienced and how it involves and those are the things I'd I get really excited about us like how how can we make conversation better and and how you know how how do we how do we make it feel more live how do I make it feel more electric and how do we bring new new technology into it just opens the door for an entirely new way of talking and in that's the thing that I think has been most educational to me about Twitter as we you know as well as we talked about we started with this idea of

sharing what was happening around you and then people told us what they wanted to wanted it to be and it became this conversation on medium if you came this interest Network and it became a it became a thing that was entirely new and it you know we observed it and we learned more more of what it wanted to be in route as we get deeper and deeper that we're going to be surprised by some of the technologies that we thought would be used in this way but it turns out that the d'masiv use case and the resident use case in the front values case is going to be created right before Eyes by the people using it now did you guys are choir Periscope we like the live nature of it we like the the broadcast aspects why keep it as Periscope why not have it be like Twitter live there's a specific Immunity on on periscope

and I think it's interesting from an experimentation standpoint we can play with ideas there it's a small progress, and he's he's one that I think is figured out he understood The Knack behind it in Haiti starts every one of them with the with the simultaneous sip of coffee he gets his listeners and his viewers engage right away and then he just goes on and then every now and then home you know look at the comments and and Riff Off them so that people build up to Ikea announced that he's going on and it's a bunch of people are in the room then he starts talking I just I find I find that so interesting because that is a future conversation is looking at the patterns it's looking at what people trying to do with the thing and then you feel technology around it and that becomes that becomes the next big thing and that we just had

we're Tejon our power of observation all in our power of flight connecting the dots and looking all the patterns and what people are that's what's a question behind the question what's the what's the statement behind the statement that they're making and if we can get good at understanding some of the fundamental essential things that we've reached that we've we've at least crowded the probability that most people in the world will find it useful and find about Joey Diaz is the other person uses to Periscope better than anybody alive but he just get it just gives you more in the morning joint smoke a joint or smoke a bowl in the morning and then just sort of let everybody know you're in someone's mind doing something in sync with one with with more people than shingle a good weave

perhaps some folks who are interested in doing meditations through Periscope but if you're actually meditating with them there's something powerful about it and like what can we do to improve that experience what about people using it for group workouts is anyone doing that I'm sure it's happened tonight. I haven't seen him personally but I'm sure it's having a how much more people do you have on Twitter than Periscope a lot a lot more stuff. It's it's one of those things that I personally just have a lot of conviction around and I have a lot of belief in the format and I know every now and then we don't have instant hits it just requires a lot of patience and we we need to really learn what it wants to be in it is sometimes that takes time and you know I died I think often times I should only done this we know we shut down we shut down things a little bit too early

we did this at that square like we had this amazing technology in a pile of called a square wallet and allowed you to you know you link your credit card and you have all these Merchants around you here in LA and you could walk up to a coffee Merchant and as you walked up your name would pop up on the register so you could say like I want a cappuccino put it on Jack and it just automatically charge your card and they would only happen if you were with him like two feet were using Bluetooth on geolocation would not but we you know we'd we had it for about three years and it it it just didn't take off and we shut it down and I kind of regret doing that but it also paved the way for another thing

that I didn't want to give up on and that was that was the cash app like for 4 years it was just a slog like a lot of people in the company wanted to shut down the thing they saw it as something that wasn't successful and you know recently the team reached number one in the in the App Store in the United States and I'm like we we we are all we are against all these comments like venmo and PayPal and and it finally clicked and it's just because we had the patience in the conviction or under our belief behind it a really fantastic to we're really thankful for the cash app especially my friend Justin Wren and his fight for the Forgotten charity that every time you use the code word Joe Rogan all one word it all goes for that $5 goes to two. They've built to Wells for the pygmies in the Congo and it has thousands of dollars and building more Wells right now it's really really cool but really really happy about that

great way to save money to me when you can save 10% at Whole Foods I mean that's that's real the other thing is like the population that we serve

typically are underserved by Banks or unbanked entirely we are there bank account but more importantly they don't have access to things like rewards you don't get rewards on a typical debit card or credit card so like just you know going to your favorite place and getting an instant 10% off or whatever it is Out Of Reach for most people cuz of financial institutions donor enabled and they weren't even able to get in the door in the front in the first place people listen to this on YouTube you don't know what the fuck were talking about the cash app has a thank all the cash card is a debit card you get with it and there's a thing called boots and with boots all you do is pick a boost in the app and then use your cash card as a debit card and you get these automatic discounts and the real discounts and instead for folks with bad credit with no credit check if you can direct deposit your paycheck right into the app and the fact that you guys do do things like support fight for the Forgotten and you're supporting UFC fighter Ray Bourque son he's got some serious medical bills

it's really really cool yeah I'm really I'm really proud of that I'm really proud of the team that so it just a very small team but they're doing some big things good things about it to I'm running to be on the street to tell me that use in the very happy about it so it's it's nice to see again in emerging technology that's profitable but yet also has a really good at its really good set of Ethics you have don't be evil in Kona. National news take it to one of our one of our like equivalent operating principles within cash and square is 500 like how do we understand someone struggle micro how do we understand how do we have the answer key for like what they're struggling within like when it comes to finance their struggling with a lot of thought process with everyone thinks it's kind of cool about the cash app is that you can buy and sell Bitcoin with it are you going are you guys going to consider other forms of cryptocurrency as well

all right now so back to the internet I believe that and I will have a native currency of crunch and I don't know if it's Bitcoin and I think it will because just given all the tests it's been through the principles behind it how it was created and you know it was something I was born on the internet that was developed on the are not that it was tested on the or not it is up to the Internet and the reason we going to be enabled the purchasing of Bitcoin within within the cash app is one we want to learn about the technology and we want to put ourselves out there and take some rest were the first publicly traded company to actually offer it as a service for the first publicly traded company to talk to the SEC about Bitcoin in what that what that means and it it made us on come from where did where did you know like really understand what was going on in and that was critical and important and then the second thing is that we you know we would

we love to see something become a Global Currency it did it enables more access it allows us to serve more people that allows us to move much faster around the world and we are we we thought we were going to start with how you can use it transactionally but

we noticed that people were treating at more like an asset like a like a virtual gold and we wanted to we want to just to make that easy like just a simplest way to buy and sell Bitcoin but we also knew that it had to come with a lot of Education had to come with constraint because you know two years ago people really unhealthy things about you know purchasing Bitcoin be maxed out the credit cards and put all their life savings into in the Bitcoin so we we develop some some very simple restrictions and constraints like you can or you can't buy Bitcoin on the cash out with a credit card do you have to it has to be the money you actually have in it and we look for day trading which we we discourage and shut down like that that's not what we are trying to build us not what we are trying to optimize for we made it a children's book explaining what Bitcoin is and where it came from and how people use it and where might be going so

we we really tried to take on the role of education and an end to have some like very simple healthy constraints that allowed to be allowed people to consider what their actions are in in the space know when you have something like it's very much a disruptive technology in terms of like decentralization of Banks and and end currency and you know to have it where everything is going right at your direct depositing a paycheck right in the app if you so choose and then you could also buy Bitcoin which is another disruptive technology mean that this is another step towards this sort of new way of doing things and is there pushback from from any companies or is there you just look at it and like some of the major Banks and their consideration round pick one they all love watching because of the efficiencies that can create for their business and Patel

play new business lines but now I think there is a stupid database where you know that the source of Truth can be verified at any point around the network and you can see no the sanitation around how content or how around money like traveled institutions division of centralized me threatening to certain Services behind Banks and financial institutions it's threading some governments as well so I just look at this in like how do we Embrace this technology not react to it and I in you no more from a threat standpoint but like what does it enable us to do and where does r value shift and that's what we should be talking about right now is

how are value shifts and there's always really strong answers to that question but if you're not willing to ask a question the first place you will become irrelevant because technology will just continue to march on and make you irrelevant and it's the people that like you know growing up with this technology are born with the technology only knowing that technology or are asking the tough questions of their cells that are going to be super destructive to their business and they're just thinking about right now and they're and they're taking actions and you know we're doing we're doing that square and we're doing that a Twitter and then like that to me represents longevity that represents our ability to thrive and weed we got to push ourselves are going to make us as I'm comfortable and we got to disrupt what we held sacred and and what know we think is successor as otherwise of sound can be bigger than what we have today I couldn't agree more and I think that cryptocurrency to me represents one of the more interesting discussions on the internet what is money

and why are we agreeing that it's these pieces of paper that the federal reserve prints out totally it's it's a fascinating time in technology because like that that to me was one of those one of the last big centralized nationalized instruments is is currency is money and when you think about the internet as

has there ever been a country as a market as a nation it's going to have its own currency and but what's interesting about the internet as a nation it's the whole world it is the whole world so the world gets one currency to get Switz get one thing that communicate on and that's me. You're so freaking and so exciting around for such a short. Of time but yet it's I guess it's become a part of the global conversation I also I also think that is going to open up the door to potential Universal languages and I think this is yeah yeah that excites me a lot about you like it if we want to get the world into a conversation into a single conversation conversation like we got to work on Technologies it like instantly translate we got to work on technologies that I can speak as I'm speaking right now and in real time people are hearing it in their contact cement

language in their dialect that is amazing that is so exciting like just how that involves and how it how it impacts not just communication like this music and just like you know how hip-hop and rap and you know just it it just it's it's amazing to think about where that where that can go anywhere that can take us you and I are extremely fortunate to be alive right now during this time cuz I think it's one of the strangest and most unique times in human history toilet I don't think there's ever been changed my fuel you know we

what were we just were able through Technologies like Twitter to at least see and acknowledge some of the issues that we're still facing or probably in the dark before and I think it's so critical to

making any sort of improvements for for making any sort of evolution and never making it better for everyone on the planet and I you know I died as as uncomfortable as soon as you know sometimes Twitter makes people feel I think it is necessary to to see those things and have conversations about them so that we can understand how we might move forward and how we might really good at the biggest problems facing us all and you know that there's some huge wants some huge runs right now that if we don't have if we if we don't talk about it like it will drive us to Extinction and like it will threaten our ability to to to be at Planet 2 at 2 to live on this planet I agree

thank you thanks for thanks for having the attitude that you have I really really appreciate I could jump

bye buddy

thank you everyone for tune into the podcast and thank you to our sponsors thank you to rev Town jeans rep Town jeans ladies and gentlemen super comfortable I wear them all the time they look like regular jeans but they definitely don't feel like I'm they feel like sweatpants and you can head over to rev Town usa.com pick up a pair while you're there and rub Town offers free shipping and free returns so you have no excuse not to grab some of the most comfortable jeans whoever put on your derriere + will be giving a few pairs of free jeans away so go to rabbit-town usa.com / Rogan to check it out we are also brought to you by the motherfuking cash app to catch up ladies and gentlemen the number one app in finance in the app store for a damn good reason I'm a Giants fan this company would it stands for if you go to the Google Play store or

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