Transcripts For CSPAN2 Communicators With Walt Mossberg Part

Whether its the runways that have to be open so you can land on them, whether its the open seas or the hill youre going to climb, when they are in change, and they are in change right now, the military is concerned about that. The military has long had an interest in data with things like this and forecasting what might happen. Wisconsin congressman Jim Sensenbrenner at a town hall meeting. I want to know why dont you just have a singlepayer . [applause] i sit in the beginning of the meeting, and that is that interruptions, you know, im not going to be tolerated. [shouting] okay. Would you please sit down, sir . They have the floor, you do not. Would you please sit down . [shouting] please sit down or go out in the hallway. Thank you for leaving. Maine senator angus king at a hearing on the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. Ill ask both of you the same question, what a nut answering these questions . Is there an invocation by the president of executive privilege . Is there or not . Not that im aware of. And why you not answering our questions. I feel it is inappropriate. What you feel is an relevant, admiral. And changes to the doddfrank act. And today, today we released a report titled was the cop on the beat . This is regarding the cfpbs wholly inadequate role in investigating the wells fargo fraudulent account scandal. We have received numerous records from both wells fargo and the occ and others that indicate that the cfpb was asleep at the wheel. Cspan programs are available at cspan. Org, on our homepage, and by searching the video library. Walt mossberg, where you retiring . Guest its just time. Its time to reinvent myself, and go on and try some of the things. Peter, ive reinvented myself a number of points to mike ruppert we could talk about that if you want, and you know, ive been doing that tech commentary and the tech reviews and columns for about 26 years. I will that you have been doing it 26 years. And its just, it just seems to me i have some other things i want to do and try, and thats whwhat im retiring. Host will they involve tech . Guest i will never not being interested in tech, and its certainly possible ill pop up occasionally and have something to say in print or on a podcast or in a video or something. The folks at fox meeting where i work now are threatening to try to call me out of retirement from time to time, and ill probably do it. But i want to do something so maybe are not about tech with that giving up interest in tech but explore some of the things. Host 26 years ago, how did you get into this position . Guest well, i was already, i had already been a reporter at the wall street journal for 20 years, but the last ten of those years i have been a computer hobbyist with some of the old primitive computers that are around at that time, learning how to program, learning how to solder inside a thin. You had to do that kind of stuff in those days. And i had no Computer Science background i just got kind of hooked on it. And i realized that although computers have been around for a little while by then, they were still not been in the hands of average people. Not none, but not many. And to master them, to be able to get any usefulness out of them took way too much time and effort. And you had to kind of become a techie. And i decided there was a column in championing average people who never wanted to be techies, and in challenging the companies, the industry to serve those people. And so i propose that call into the wall street journal, and they bought it. And so thats what i made the transition. Host and affect your first column in 1991 was about personal computers and how hard they were to use. Has it changed over the years . Guest its gotten better, for two reasons. One is the industry has gotten the memo, and it wasnt just me becaus. As whole bunch of other e who then began to write similar kinds of collins, Market Forces and other things columns. They work to make it easier to can get a fake that consumers a little more sophisticated. The real personal computer that people use most today as you know is not what we think of as a pc or mac. Its your phone. And that come you can have that, weve all seen this in your lights come you can edit to a child and not very hard for the child to figure out the phone, as if you ask the child to type in the commands of dos, they couldnt do that. So in that sense the thing as, the gap has narrowed tremendously. However, we have new technologies come along all the time. I believe were going to see in the next fiv five to ten years g burst of new stuff, virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence. And i think all kinds of new ways of driving cars. We have as little taste of it but we will see a lot more of it, all kinds of things going on in your home. And i think theres a gap that will continue to always have to be closed between the engineers and what they think is easy, and real people and what really is easy for them. So i just encourage people in my business to keep writing that stuff, to keeping skeptical and keep educating the consumers and pushing industry. Host we will talk about some of the future, what you think of the future in a little while, but we asked several people around the company cspan and some of the reporters if it question for you since we knew we you coming over. Guest thats great. It makes me happy. Host lets start from one from our director, brett, and this kind of talks about today. Is there a single tech invention thats change our lives up to this point . Guest you think, is a skeptical that any of them a change allies . House of representatives hes asking you what your view is. Guest well, i mean, i guess i would have to say the personal computer, as we knew, whether youre talking about, you know, i went a step computer or a mac. The personal computer which by the way is only really hit the mass market in 1977, compared to the automobile and the airplane and the oil industry and the railroad and all these other fundamental things in our lives. This is very young. Recently wrote a column where i pointed out, the personal computer is younger than disneyland, its younger than starbucks. By this change the world. It is change the world. It has changed every aspect of business, every aspect of personal life, every aspect of education, religion, everything you can think of. But i think it has morphed and kind of spread, and i think the smart phone you have in your pocket is, in fact, of the personal computer as a set a few minutes ago. It is much more powerful than the first personal computers. And so taken in different forms. I could also answer the question and say the iphone has been a huge thing that changed everybodys life. I could say the internet is a huge thing that changed everybodys life. And i would be right on both those points, but neither the iphone nor the internet, the web, couldve existed without the personal computer. Because of the iphone is derived from the mac operating system that operates differently as we all know it as a different user interface, but the iphone, the ios operating system the rise from the mac operating system which derives from the system called unix, and android also doesnt derive from the mac but android derives in some way from unix you know, these things were all spun off. And the web, while it wasnt, the web is one of the few parts of the story that werent invented in the united states. The web was invented in europe. It was invented on a computer called a next computer, which was a failed Computer Company that never really gained traction, which was created and run by steve jobs after he was thrown out of apple. Very expensive, very powerful Computers Called next computers. They were black cubes. They sold for about ten grand apiece, and thats really what it didnt succeed. They were way overpriced. Like in switzerland at this laboratory there, a british engineer researcher scientist had one of these and thats what he felt the web on, the very first website, the very first idea for the web. So all of this comes, all of this comes from the late 70s, early 80s personal computers. Host Walt Mossberg, jeremy was in your take your picture minutes ago more Media Relations department, kind of casual as before you sat down, would the world be different if steve jobs was still alive . Guest if steve jobs were alive and healthy, yeah. I mean, i think hes one of those guys, look, there are loads, let me back up. There are loads of really smart people in many businesses, certainly intact, loads of smart people. I think steve jobs is one of those rare people that comes along who gets in the history books because he was truly, to use an overused word but perfectly appropriate for him, he was a visionary, and he was, he came by the early 2000s a very Good Business executive, which he wasnt at the beginning, even, he was always a visionary but he wasnt a very Good Business executive. He has learned how to be Good Business executive. He was a tremendous marker. So we had the goods to market. He had the products that were solid, but he knew how to market them. Obviously you cant come you can be a great marketer and have crappy products and thats still good. You can have great products and not know how to market them. Weve seen both those cases. He had it all. He really had it all. He had a sense of design. He could understand the engineers. Pretty much every month steve jobs live as a healthy guy, the world changed in some way. Either at apple, primarily at apple, but also people forget he ran pixar. He owned it and ran it. He wasnt, he didnt trea create movies but he ran the company. He approved the movies. I once asked him how he ran apple and pixar at the same time and he said well, i did pixar on fridays. This is when pixar was the most successful studio in hollywood, having giant hit after giant hit after jack hit, and winning oscars for all these things. People forget that he revolutionized retail. I mean, apple is of the most successful retailer of any kind in america, when judged by the dollar volume of sales per square foot or square meter, however measured in the retail industry, of its stores. And it wasnt a retailer at all, and he had this idea of doing that. And it kind of goes on and on, so yes, the world would be changing. If he wasnt healthy, if you would like it was towards the end which is very feeble and ill, its amazing how much he did in the years he was ill, but toward the very in when he was very ill, he just had at some point, is really only about x weeks before he died, but he gave up the ceo of apple. He just had to fight for his life. If he was alive and well, yes. Host how well did you get to know him . Do you know bill gates, jeff bezos . Guest i know all those guys. Jobs and gates, a lot of people know that i spent time with jobs and had a bunch of private conversation with them over the years. I dont think a lot of people know that i had just about as much time with bill gates. And i dont say that to flatter myself. I become he was just very generous with me. He would see me in his office, in his home. He took me to dinner once at some suburban shopping strip, Indian Restaurant. He was the richest man in the world. We pulled up in back of, on the backside of a strip Shopping Center and we went in a and went into an Indian Restaurant and spent three hours. And he, like steve jobs come he appeared at these conferences which i produce with my partner many times, including famously they did one together on stage. So i spent a lot of time learning, arguing, because i think thats one way you learn is to argue, particularly if youre a journalist, with both of those people. I dont jeff bezos since he started ive known jeff since before he started amazon. Icm, i have spent less time over the years with him than with those two. I mean, this is not, it sounds sort of ridiculously egotistical, but, i mean, when you are the chief Technology Columnist for the wall street journal for all those years and then you build up your own brand, even after you leave the wall street journal, these kinds of people will see you. Its not because they like you. Its not because they think youre great, but because they think you are smart. Its because thats the way the world works. So it was lucky for me, and if you want to go on and talk about Mark Zuckerberg or, you know, Larry Ellison or any of these big tech figures, yes, i know most of them. Host one of our Ceos Susan Swain has this question for you, which is what did it feel like to be an influencer . Guest well, susan is an influencer so she knows. Its what does it feel like . Humor, it depends on the day. If your column is good and you view like you hit the marks you feel like you hit the mark set you hit and you said the things you wanted to say, or if your podcast is good or whatever, then it feels good because you feel like you use whatever influence you have, which is usually overstated by the way, which is used whatever influence you a bad you have had to give credit where credit is due on a product or to tell people, or if its a commentary to make a point that you think needs making. If its a bad day and you havent done such a good job, and you dont feel so great as an influencer, i dont know. I think the really important thing to do, and i know that, i have certainly, im not the only influencer in technology. Im pretty sure that everyone else, whether they are an analysis or a journalist or whatever rezulin influence feels this way. I mean, you absolutely must not let it go to your head. Its not about you. It really isnt about you. So you have to have a goal in mind, and my goal has always been to champion this average consumer, smart, about whatever it is she does in her personal life, our business maybe shes a travel agent. Maybe shes a teacher. Maybe shes an executive at a big company, doesnt matter. She wants this smart phone, this watch, this digital camera, this pc, this whatever it is, she wants it to work and she wants it to actually help her do her best work. And she doesnt care what chip is an and she doesnt care how big the batter is as long as the battery gets her through the day. If it doesnt its irrelevant. If i didnt say to her its a really big battery, im kind of surprised, she would be quite correct to say i really dont care. I need a battery to get me through the day. So thats been my person or thats kind of the way i frame what ive done. Host are other ceo rod kennedy, a followup, he has two questions that are related. What a gadget that you thought was a dead that turned out to be a hit . And vice versa, what was a gadget you are sure would be a hit . Guest its really interesting. I thought, i thought the palm pre, which was a phone made by palm had a good chance to be a hit and it wasnt. And i think a lot about is execution by the company. So in other words, i think they had a great design. I think they had, its very hard, even at that point, it wouldve been very hard to break into the two wobbly that now been really cemented by apple and google duopoly but i think there was still somewhat of an opportunity at that point. I cant remember the year. It was seven or eight years ago, nine years ago, seven, seven or eight, and they developed their own fresh operating system and they developed a pretty clever series of phones and then they just didnt execute right. They couldnt raise the money. I distinctly remember their marketing was horrifically bad. And so it failed. So thats a product i thought, i gave it very strong reviews, just didnt go anywhere. In terms of a product i liked, i mean, i didnt like that went there, or became popular, its a little bit like a movie reviewer. Movie reviewer was a visible in a bad movie and get it will get a bigbox office, and i think a good good movie reviewer was a to herself or himself is not my job to worry about the box office its my job to evaluate this movie and tell you whether i think you ought to go see it. You can ignore me, and people do, they ignored me certainly, but its not your job. So im sure, i cant think of one right now, but im sure that i said negative things. Well, yeah, i can give you an example. I mean, i gave bad reviews to several versions of windows over the years, and they still sold hundreds of millions of copies now. My family solace is compared to other family windows, they didnt do well. Windows vista is a good example. It was generally, each as people is generally regarded as a big blunder, but it still sold hundreds of millions of copies and microsoft made a lot of money off it. I was hoping they would go bankrupt, but you know, if people had followed my advice, nobody would have bought it, but they did. Host just to followup on that, another question from susan swain was, what kind of gadgets do you use at home . Guest i have, i mean, im the wrong person to ask because i have to use a wide variety of things. So i have both an iphone and an Android Phone. The Android Phone is a google pixel, so its first phone host which you like quite a bit trickier like the iphone a little bit better. But they are pretty close. I do most of my work on a macbook air, which is now a little long in the tooth at apple but i think is still probably the best laptop that was ever made. But i also have several windows laptops and a couple of chrome books that i work on. So i keep familiar with everything. I have an ipad. Im a big ipad fan. Im a big proponent of ipad. Tablets in general, but really thathere are not any good tables in my opinion. Theres no tablet that comes close to the ipad. So use the ipad for not just watching movies or reading books or something, but actually i get worked on ipad. Host have we hit a low when it comes to battery life . Guest no, but ill explain to you while its different pixel battery why its different. Battery life partly depends on how efficiently the hardware and software made by samsung or lg or apple or google or whoever, how efficiently did they do their hardware and software. For instance, i think a lot of people dont know that if you have an iphone or you have an Android Phone, that phone is turning off various of its functions in nanoseconds. If it notices you have and use something, some aspect of the way the phone works with its hardware or software, it will turn off to save battery life and it will turn it back on again when it appears you could use. You dont even notice it. It happens very fast. So thats one of the elements of battery life, but the much bigger element is the chemical and physical properties of a battery. Now, Everything Else intact and in Jim Sensenbrenner<\/a> at a town hall meeting. I want to know why dont you just have a singlepayer . [applause] i sit in the beginning of the meeting, and that is that interruptions, you know, im not going to be tolerated. [shouting] okay. Would you please sit down, sir . They have the floor, you do not. Would you please sit down . [shouting] please sit down or go out in the hallway. Thank you for leaving. Maine senator angus king at a hearing on the foreign Intelligence Surveillance<\/a> act. Ill ask both of you the same question, what a nut answering these questions . Is there an invocation by the president of executive privilege . Is there or not . Not that im aware of. And why you not answering our questions. I feel it is inappropriate. What you feel is an relevant, admiral. And changes to the doddfrank act. And today, today we released a report titled was the cop on the beat . This is regarding the cfpbs wholly inadequate role in investigating the wells fargo fraudulent account scandal. We have received numerous records from both wells fargo and the occ and others that indicate that the cfpb was asleep at the wheel. Cspan programs are available at cspan. Org, on our homepage, and by searching the video library. Walt mossberg, where you retiring . Guest its just time. Its time to reinvent myself, and go on and try some of the things. Peter, ive reinvented myself a number of points to mike ruppert we could talk about that if you want, and you know, ive been doing that tech commentary and the tech reviews and columns for about 26 years. I will that you have been doing it 26 years. And its just, it just seems to me i have some other things i want to do and try, and thats whwhat im retiring. Host will they involve tech . Guest i will never not being interested in tech, and its certainly possible ill pop up occasionally and have something to say in print or on a podcast or in a video or something. The folks at fox meeting where i work now are threatening to try to call me out of retirement from time to time, and ill probably do it. But i want to do something so maybe are not about tech with that giving up interest in tech but explore some of the things. Host 26 years ago, how did you get into this position . Guest well, i was already, i had already been a reporter at the wall street journal for 20 years, but the last ten of those years i have been a computer hobbyist with some of the old primitive computers that are around at that time, learning how to program, learning how to solder inside a thin. You had to do that kind of stuff in those days. And i had no Computer Science<\/a> background i just got kind of hooked on it. And i realized that although computers have been around for a little while by then, they were still not been in the hands of average people. Not none, but not many. And to master them, to be able to get any usefulness out of them took way too much time and effort. And you had to kind of become a techie. And i decided there was a column in championing average people who never wanted to be techies, and in challenging the companies, the industry to serve those people. And so i propose that call into the wall street journal, and they bought it. And so thats what i made the transition. Host and affect your first column in 1991 was about personal computers and how hard they were to use. Has it changed over the years . Guest its gotten better, for two reasons. One is the industry has gotten the memo, and it wasnt just me becaus. As whole bunch of other e who then began to write similar kinds of collins, Market Forces<\/a> and other things columns. They work to make it easier to can get a fake that consumers a little more sophisticated. The real personal computer that people use most today as you know is not what we think of as a pc or mac. Its your phone. And that come you can have that, weve all seen this in your lights come you can edit to a child and not very hard for the child to figure out the phone, as if you ask the child to type in the commands of dos, they couldnt do that. So in that sense the thing as, the gap has narrowed tremendously. However, we have new technologies come along all the time. I believe were going to see in the next fiv five to ten years g burst of new stuff, virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence. And i think all kinds of new ways of driving cars. We have as little taste of it but we will see a lot more of it, all kinds of things going on in your home. And i think theres a gap that will continue to always have to be closed between the engineers and what they think is easy, and real people and what really is easy for them. So i just encourage people in my business to keep writing that stuff, to keeping skeptical and keep educating the consumers and pushing industry. Host we will talk about some of the future, what you think of the future in a little while, but we asked several people around the company cspan and some of the reporters if it question for you since we knew we you coming over. Guest thats great. It makes me happy. Host lets start from one from our director, brett, and this kind of talks about today. Is there a single tech invention thats change our lives up to this point . Guest you think, is a skeptical that any of them a change allies . House of representatives hes asking you what your view is. Guest well, i mean, i guess i would have to say the personal computer, as we knew, whether youre talking about, you know, i went a step computer or a mac. The personal computer which by the way is only really hit the mass market in 1977, compared to the automobile and the airplane and the oil industry and the railroad and all these other fundamental things in our lives. This is very young. Recently wrote a column where i pointed out, the personal computer is younger than disneyland, its younger than starbucks. By this change the world. It is change the world. It has changed every aspect of business, every aspect of personal life, every aspect of education, religion, everything you can think of. But i think it has morphed and kind of spread, and i think the smart phone you have in your pocket is, in fact, of the personal computer as a set a few minutes ago. It is much more powerful than the first personal computers. And so taken in different forms. I could also answer the question and say the iphone has been a huge thing that changed everybodys life. I could say the internet is a huge thing that changed everybodys life. And i would be right on both those points, but neither the iphone nor the internet, the web, couldve existed without the personal computer. Because of the iphone is derived from the mac operating system that operates differently as we all know it as a different user interface, but the iphone, the ios operating system the rise from the mac operating system which derives from the system called unix, and android also doesnt derive from the mac but android derives in some way from unix you know, these things were all spun off. And the web, while it wasnt, the web is one of the few parts of the story that werent invented in the united states. The web was invented in europe. It was invented on a computer called a next computer, which was a failed Computer Company<\/a> that never really gained traction, which was created and run by steve jobs after he was thrown out of apple. Very expensive, very powerful Computers Called<\/a> next computers. They were black cubes. They sold for about ten grand apiece, and thats really what it didnt succeed. They were way overpriced. Like in switzerland at this laboratory there, a british engineer researcher scientist had one of these and thats what he felt the web on, the very first website, the very first idea for the web. So all of this comes, all of this comes from the late 70s, early 80s personal computers. Host Walt Mossberg<\/a>, jeremy was in your take your picture minutes ago more Media Relations<\/a> department, kind of casual as before you sat down, would the world be different if steve jobs was still alive . Guest if steve jobs were alive and healthy, yeah. I mean, i think hes one of those guys, look, there are loads, let me back up. There are loads of really smart people in many businesses, certainly intact, loads of smart people. I think steve jobs is one of those rare people that comes along who gets in the history books because he was truly, to use an overused word but perfectly appropriate for him, he was a visionary, and he was, he came by the early 2000s a very Good Business<\/a> executive, which he wasnt at the beginning, even, he was always a visionary but he wasnt a very Good Business<\/a> executive. He has learned how to be Good Business<\/a> executive. He was a tremendous marker. So we had the goods to market. He had the products that were solid, but he knew how to market them. Obviously you cant come you can be a great marketer and have crappy products and thats still good. You can have great products and not know how to market them. Weve seen both those cases. He had it all. He really had it all. He had a sense of design. He could understand the engineers. Pretty much every month steve jobs live as a healthy guy, the world changed in some way. Either at apple, primarily at apple, but also people forget he ran pixar. He owned it and ran it. He wasnt, he didnt trea create movies but he ran the company. He approved the movies. I once asked him how he ran apple and pixar at the same time and he said well, i did pixar on fridays. This is when pixar was the most successful studio in hollywood, having giant hit after giant hit after jack hit, and winning oscars for all these things. People forget that he revolutionized retail. I mean, apple is of the most successful retailer of any kind in america, when judged by the dollar volume of sales per square foot or square meter, however measured in the retail industry, of its stores. And it wasnt a retailer at all, and he had this idea of doing that. And it kind of goes on and on, so yes, the world would be changing. If he wasnt healthy, if you would like it was towards the end which is very feeble and ill, its amazing how much he did in the years he was ill, but toward the very in when he was very ill, he just had at some point, is really only about x weeks before he died, but he gave up the ceo of apple. He just had to fight for his life. If he was alive and well, yes. Host how well did you get to know him . Do you know bill gates, jeff bezos . Guest i know all those guys. Jobs and gates, a lot of people know that i spent time with jobs and had a bunch of private conversation with them over the years. I dont think a lot of people know that i had just about as much time with bill gates. And i dont say that to flatter myself. I become he was just very generous with me. He would see me in his office, in his home. He took me to dinner once at some suburban shopping strip, Indian Restaurant<\/a>. He was the richest man in the world. We pulled up in back of, on the backside of a strip Shopping Center<\/a> and we went in a and went into an Indian Restaurant<\/a> and spent three hours. And he, like steve jobs come he appeared at these conferences which i produce with my partner many times, including famously they did one together on stage. So i spent a lot of time learning, arguing, because i think thats one way you learn is to argue, particularly if youre a journalist, with both of those people. I dont jeff bezos since he started ive known jeff since before he started amazon. Icm, i have spent less time over the years with him than with those two. I mean, this is not, it sounds sort of ridiculously egotistical, but, i mean, when you are the chief Technology Columnist<\/a> for the wall street journal for all those years and then you build up your own brand, even after you leave the wall street journal, these kinds of people will see you. Its not because they like you. Its not because they think youre great, but because they think you are smart. Its because thats the way the world works. So it was lucky for me, and if you want to go on and talk about Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> or, you know, Larry Ellison<\/a> or any of these big tech figures, yes, i know most of them. Host one of our Ceos Susan Swain<\/a> has this question for you, which is what did it feel like to be an influencer . Guest well, susan is an influencer so she knows. Its what does it feel like . Humor, it depends on the day. If your column is good and you view like you hit the marks you feel like you hit the mark set you hit and you said the things you wanted to say, or if your podcast is good or whatever, then it feels good because you feel like you use whatever influence you have, which is usually overstated by the way, which is used whatever influence you a bad you have had to give credit where credit is due on a product or to tell people, or if its a commentary to make a point that you think needs making. If its a bad day and you havent done such a good job, and you dont feel so great as an influencer, i dont know. I think the really important thing to do, and i know that, i have certainly, im not the only influencer in technology. Im pretty sure that everyone else, whether they are an analysis or a journalist or whatever rezulin influence feels this way. I mean, you absolutely must not let it go to your head. Its not about you. It really isnt about you. So you have to have a goal in mind, and my goal has always been to champion this average consumer, smart, about whatever it is she does in her personal life, our business maybe shes a travel agent. Maybe shes a teacher. Maybe shes an executive at a big company, doesnt matter. She wants this smart phone, this watch, this digital camera, this pc, this whatever it is, she wants it to work and she wants it to actually help her do her best work. And she doesnt care what chip is an and she doesnt care how big the batter is as long as the battery gets her through the day. If it doesnt its irrelevant. If i didnt say to her its a really big battery, im kind of surprised, she would be quite correct to say i really dont care. I need a battery to get me through the day. So thats been my person or thats kind of the way i frame what ive done. Host are other ceo rod kennedy, a followup, he has two questions that are related. What a gadget that you thought was a dead that turned out to be a hit . And vice versa, what was a gadget you are sure would be a hit . Guest its really interesting. I thought, i thought the palm pre, which was a phone made by palm had a good chance to be a hit and it wasnt. And i think a lot about is execution by the company. So in other words, i think they had a great design. I think they had, its very hard, even at that point, it wouldve been very hard to break into the two wobbly that now been really cemented by apple and google duopoly but i think there was still somewhat of an opportunity at that point. I cant remember the year. It was seven or eight years ago, nine years ago, seven, seven or eight, and they developed their own fresh operating system and they developed a pretty clever series of phones and then they just didnt execute right. They couldnt raise the money. I distinctly remember their marketing was horrifically bad. And so it failed. So thats a product i thought, i gave it very strong reviews, just didnt go anywhere. In terms of a product i liked, i mean, i didnt like that went there, or became popular, its a little bit like a movie reviewer. Movie reviewer was a visible in a bad movie and get it will get a bigbox office, and i think a good good movie reviewer was a to herself or himself is not my job to worry about the box office its my job to evaluate this movie and tell you whether i think you ought to go see it. You can ignore me, and people do, they ignored me certainly, but its not your job. So im sure, i cant think of one right now, but im sure that i said negative things. Well, yeah, i can give you an example. I mean, i gave bad reviews to several versions of windows over the years, and they still sold hundreds of millions of copies now. My family solace is compared to other family windows, they didnt do well. Windows vista is a good example. It was generally, each as people is generally regarded as a big blunder, but it still sold hundreds of millions of copies and microsoft made a lot of money off it. I was hoping they would go bankrupt, but you know, if people had followed my advice, nobody would have bought it, but they did. Host just to followup on that, another question from susan swain was, what kind of gadgets do you use at home . Guest i have, i mean, im the wrong person to ask because i have to use a wide variety of things. So i have both an iphone and an Android Phone<\/a>. The Android Phone<\/a> is a google pixel, so its first phone host which you like quite a bit trickier like the iphone a little bit better. But they are pretty close. I do most of my work on a macbook air, which is now a little long in the tooth at apple but i think is still probably the best laptop that was ever made. But i also have several windows laptops and a couple of chrome books that i work on. So i keep familiar with everything. I have an ipad. Im a big ipad fan. Im a big proponent of ipad. Tablets in general, but really thathere are not any good tables in my opinion. Theres no tablet that comes close to the ipad. So use the ipad for not just watching movies or reading books or something, but actually i get worked on ipad. Host have we hit a low when it comes to battery life . Guest no, but ill explain to you while its different pixel battery why its different. Battery life partly depends on how efficiently the hardware and software made by samsung or lg or apple or google or whoever, how efficiently did they do their hardware and software. For instance, i think a lot of people dont know that if you have an iphone or you have an Android Phone<\/a>, that phone is turning off various of its functions in nanoseconds. If it notices you have and use something, some aspect of the way the phone works with its hardware or software, it will turn off to save battery life and it will turn it back on again when it appears you could use. You dont even notice it. It happens very fast. So thats one of the elements of battery life, but the much bigger element is the chemical and physical properties of a battery. Now, Everything Else<\/a> intact and in Digital Products<\/a> intech benefits amaras law which is the thing that says you can put more essentially power into chips. You can almost doubling every 18 months or two years or whatever. Batteries dont benefit from that. Batteries get more efficient for the space they occupy and the density they have. On a much slower paces. They ma maybe get three to 5 better every year. There is no, to my knowledge, theres been no breakthrough since the lithiumion battery, which is by the way, subject to catching fire and exploding if not handled right. We saw that with sam sons note seven this past year. But its the most efficient chemical and physical combination for the amount of space it takes up in terms of how much power it generates and how slowly it degrades its charge that we have now. Its whats used in tesla, using other electric cars. Nobody has come up with an allnew battery. And when, i did a column on this a while back where i talked to some battery experts because im not one, and they said they didnt see anything on the horizon for a new chemical combination. Different batteries in your regular car are led batteries. There are such a thing as a sink of battery they used to be nickel cadmium batteries when the first tech device was using batteries came along, and then nickel metal hydride. You know, im not a chemist. I dont understand all that stuff. I just know that we got to lithiumion. Theres some variations within lithiumion but were still playing around in that, and for that to get better, somebody has to invent a whole new idea for how to do a battery. The only Investment Advice<\/a> ive ever given is that if somebody does and its safe, not blowing up and its a doing orders of magnitude better, i was so all your other stocks and by that. Host that brings us to the point, your code of ethics statement that is posted on recode, a do stock in mutual funds, a co cover. Hos fo gu from trump and the whole thing theres been a slow erosion of trust in the press. Even though i dont cover politics, i used to it time but i dont now, i havent for a long time, i still think its important for people to have some transfers about how you operate. I think we have to hear to a very code of ethics. You know, if you want to get rich on the stocks on whatever companies you happen to be covering, i personally think you shouldnt be a journalist. You should be Something Else<\/a> where its not unethical to do that. To be a journalist covering not just attack but whatever, you shouldnt have financial entanglements with it dick and you should be accepting favors. So we have the rules, many places have these rules, many of the places by the way have no such rules. Why not be transparent and tell the readers what our rules were . So when care swisher, another great journalist out of the wall street journal like me, she and i became Business Partners<\/a> and we started a business called all Things Digital<\/a> which was inside the company that owned the wall street journal. And we started a website in the year 2007 called all things. Com, we decided that every single writer and editor would produce an ethics statement, including us, that when the high people, made and sell any stock they had in any of these companies can make and stop taking it if they were, working someplace where this was allowed. We made them stop taking free trips, stop taking free products, stop taking discounted products. And right next to the byline we had a link to an ethics statement just like that, and we did it again when we started our own country and had recode and that ethics statement, if you printed it out, its still there. Host Walt Mossberg<\/a> is retiring as executive editor and columnist from the verge in june and as editor and large for recode. Our conversation with Walt Mossberg<\/a> will continue next week on the communicators. Good morning. Followed by a short updates from members of his cabinet","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia600608.us.archive.org\/5\/items\/CSPAN2_20170612_120000_Communicators_with_Walt_Mossberg_Part_1\/CSPAN2_20170612_120000_Communicators_with_Walt_Mossberg_Part_1.thumbs\/CSPAN2_20170612_120000_Communicators_with_Walt_Mossberg_Part_1_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240628T12:35:10+00:00"}