filing taxes. Find out what recent tax changes mean for you with The Wall Street Journal's E book by trusted tax reporters Ws J members can download now Debbie S J plus dot com slash tax 2020 from The Wall Street Journal This is insane message. I'm David Pierce this week on the show. We're gonna talk about Facebook because apparently we cannot stop talking about Facebook kid evenly. A reporter on our team went through a truly wild experiment that sitting next to her, I got to listen to a lot of to see what she could do to affect the ads that she saw. So we'll get to that in a minute. I'm also gonna be chatting with Frank Yang, the CEO of Simple Human, about the state of the smart home and why he's obsessed with $250 talking trash cans. First up, though, Maur Facebook. This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a big block post about privacy, encryption and the future of Facebook. There's a lot to unpack there,

So here, help me do so. Chris Berman's in Baltimore and Joanna Stern in New York. Hi, guys. Hi, Lo. We're starting late. So we have to talk extremely fast to get through everything. Because that's I think let's do the micro machines guy that thing. But people that are listening, they don't know. When we started this, we could have started this five. No, we would have needed 65 minutes before this airs.

Wow, that's I mean, Tanya is very good at editing the show, so you're not wrong, but Okay, so did you guys have you guys read this block post? So it's a, like 3200 word, sort of vague but sort of useful opus from Mark Zuckerberg on Privacy and Facebook. Have you guys read it? Every word. We're going to do a live reading now that we have Morgan Freeman here to really is a special episode today where we read for how long do you think it would take to read this? All How many words is it? 3200 words would be like, Can we get the in a time? One guy in a time when privacy was under threat.

Keep going. This is great. You've you've already Then go on. Things is the movie version warrior named Mark Zuckerberg the social network, too. Uh, Okay. So, Christopher, you've been reporting and writing about this. So can you like, what's the 32nd version of this 3200 word block post this Really? It's weird. It felt like an internal memo to his team reading it. I just kept thinking Who is the audience? And I think it is him just signaling publicly all the Facebook staff that they need to go make Facebook feel private now.

So the 32nd version is they had a bunch of scandals. Nobody trust them anymore, or some people don't trust them any more, and they want to regain that trust. Okay? And so the thing that struck me was it seems like he's less talking about Facebook as it exists, and now that, like that, will continue to exist. My first reading of it was, We are changing Facebook entirely, and I realize that that's not actually what he's talking about. Like Facebook and Instagram. We'll sort of continue to be as they are, but he's talking about wanting to build this whole other thing. A more private,

small group social networking experience. Is that your read of it too? Yes, there is a very vague line in there about how we need to rethink sort of all of the whole platform and a privacy way. But it was so non specific that I felt like he was just sort of leaving the door open to the possibility of some day changing the main Facebook product in the news feed. But that definitely wasn't his emphasis, he said. What's up 14 times in this 3200 word memo, he said, Payments four times. Ah, so his focus is clearly on creating this end to end encrypted messaging service like we chat in China. Or like I message in the U. S. Which I think he really the one point he said this really odd thing in an interview with Wired editor in Chief Nick Thompson, which was,

You know, we're not the number one messaging app in the U. S. And then I went and looked it up, and it's like, Yes, you are faced with messenger number one messaging app in the U. S. According to multiple service is number two. What's up? What's he talking about? I think he's talking about I message, which, of course, is an app in its own right. But because I think analysts do it as you know,

Justin SMS alternative sort of. It doesn't get included in these indexes of top messaging apse. So I think he is really gunning for Apple on this, he said. Payments a bunch. And so I think that he sees Apple pay. He sees what we chat, has become this whole interface for your entire life in China. And he wants to. I think in some ways, copy that. Make the American version of that get us trusting Facebook again so that we're all on the same unified unitary messaging platform. And eventually it's how we are connecting with individuals, connecting with businesses, paying each other. So I think that's the direction he's pushing.

So it's really once again more Facebook and not less. I also, by the way, we're saying that I did a search for how many times he said SMS in here and because I'm using this on my iPhone. I think it's three or four and is in your in your research. Did you find that s a mass is actually still the number one messaging platform? I don't know. I didn't Look, I just know. I wonder if that's I mean in the U. S. If that might be what he's referring to, your right, it could be that he's just talking about SMS itself. You're right about that. Which to me,

signals like you said some sort of assault on Apple and I message more Facebook, more ways to connect the private messaging between iPhones, android phones and whatever other devices we're gonna be using in the future. In this private social network world, Apple's best response to this would be to release an eye message app for Android. Yeah, it would be the ultimate f You from Tim from Tim Apple today? You know, honestly, after this, I feel like if Facebook gained any traction, Apple might actually do that right. I mean, Tim Apple has already said he doesn't like Mark Facebook, and he's, you know,

he's made some quite public statements about how he views the world. Why not? I mean, that's really like because it like it just seemed to describe a lot of products that are out there already and was like, Yes, Facebook. You want to make Snapchat Okay, Great. You already made Snapchat and it's like, different in its for instagram. Oh, you wanna make messaging text messaging? Great. All these other companies want to do better text messaging. Guess what? My message is the most used app on most iPhones.

What is the other things he talks about? I don't know, Like we chat. Everything seems to be out there. He talks about you, a small group sharing in small groups, which obviously they see a lot of that overseas. So I talkto, you know, a friend of mine who has a lot of insight about how what's up, for example, is used all around the world and especially in India. And it's funny, you know, like the Indian government. In some ways,

it's sort of preventing Facebook from becoming a payments platform there. But like if they got out of the way, they could be number one in India tomorrow. Like they could be the We chat of India, like the combined messaging and payments platform. You know what's up is just this absolute force of nature outside the U. S. Bigger than Facebook. Even so, no wonder he wants to double down on it. Well, that was the weird thing to me. right is like I read this whole thing and there's this one line where he says Zack writes that today we already see that private messaging, ephemeral stories in small groups are by far the fastest growing areas of online communication, which is like, Yeah,

dude, that's what you spent $21 billion on WhatsApp for and like, I got through the end of this whole thing. And basically the all he seems to say is WHATS app is really good. We're gonna double down on that, which is fine and great. But then the big product thing was that they're gonna try to unify the Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook systems so that you can chat with all the same people in all the same places. And it becomes this, like one big back end encrypted platform, which I'm sure for every Facebook engineer is just a absolute nightmare of a task. But I got Sanderson is like you're just describing WhatsApp just better. What's up? I felt fine. Seems good. I like WhatsApp.

Fine, but a lot of the same things that a because it's encrypted. It's harder to know what's going on in order to do things like stop viral misinformation as its shared around. It's harder to figure out how to make money off of it. It's harder to figure out how to sell ads against it, which is why I think like this payments thing is a really big deal, because very clearly the goal is whatever adds can't do. And Facebook seems to think that they can still figure out how to sell a lot of ads against this stuff. Uh, but that being part of commerce can pick up a lot of that slack. And I mean there there is a lot of evidence that that's true. But I feel like most of that evidence is just we chat and I don't know how many more we chats we're gonna have in the world, and I was actually also bring up. I think slack is also a big game here, Uh, one thing that I find it's like they're now a lot of these mom groups that actually use slack and don't There are Mom and I should just say Mom,

there are parenting groups on Facebook that are very, very popular, but they're like big big groups. But then slack. There's a lot of these smaller mom or parent groups where people really engage in chat about certain things. And it always struck me like wiring isn't just on Facebook Messenger, but for some reason, like Slack has become this big sort of private messaging community for smaller communities. And I feel like that's kind of again what he's describing in this, which is like, you're gonna find these shared communities and that's the future and turns out actually like that's what's happening right now. They're just not playing as big, if not only for WhatsApp. WhatsApp is clearly one of the leaders. Well, I think it gives it gets back to the trust issue,

right? Like why move that to slack? I mean, if you're sophisticated enough to move your parenting group to slack, I would argue that your sensitive thio all the coverage about Facebook scandals which obviously the majority of its users or not Yeah, I actually I've never asked like, Why are you guys here on slack? I'm gonna go do that. I'll be back. Theo Hate evenly or a reporter on our little personal technology team has written a couple of pieces over the last week or so about crazy experiments she had with Facebook at. So she learned ah, lot about how the ad world works and probably ruined her own ads forever. Now that I think about it. Ah, but anyway, I don't even want to spoil the crazy stuff that she's gone through,

so I'm just gonna go get Katie. I'll be right back. We're gonna do a live reading. You should pick your favorite passage, and I'm gonna pick my favorite passage. In the beginning, there was the water, and then I need phase of Facebook, the Facebook, And then the Internet existed. I ke t Hi, David. We're talking about all the ways that Facebook collects data about you That isn't just the content of messages. And this is like Ben, your life for the last month or so. So,

like, just tell us what you've been doing. So it all started when I was walking around popping in and out of some stores on Fillmore Street, and I went into one of them, and the next day I got an ad for that store in my instagram feed. Um, and it's not a place I never bought anything. And so I was like, Well, I don't have my email address like, How did they know I was there? And I was like, Wait a second, I got to check my location settings and I checked. And sure enough, I have them turned off for Instagram.

Did you go straight to the mic? Is recording me conspiracy theory that is, one felt much more like other tracking where I like their they somehow have access to my location when I've thought that I've denied it. That was sort of my immediate thought. But I think about Mike phone all the time, obviously. So that sort of was the like, the first trigger for this. And then I just I kept noticing other ones like I've got this tool, that supposed toe. It's a Facebook privacy tool that's supposed to make it so you don't see adds tied to like your browsing history because it blocks them from showing you ads tied to pixel. And then I would like I was research. I've been researching a story and going to this one company's website and then I started getting ads for them, atone in my instagram feed, and so I just got this idea like wait a second. They've,

you know, given us these measures, we can take to not see ads tied to certain types of behavior. So why do I still feel like I see them all the time and thus began, like asking them a town and a ton of questions about why these things were happening? Because Facebook stances always basically been. You have lots of control over these kinds of things. Yes, and not only we've known is not true for a pretty long time, but they keep saying right. I feel like it's kind of the illusion of control. Um, as that's actually a researcher I interviewed wrote like a medium piece that that uses that phrase you know, this illusion of control. Because if you look at the, um,

you know, the settings for location, it'll tell you like Oh, you know, it stops, stops you from sending us your precise location. And the word precise is doing a lot of work there because they are, you know, able to infer it from other signals, like I p address and things like that, which is not, you know, it's not going to get down to like they know the exact coordinates of where I am, but they have a very good idea, I would say, based on based on what I learned.

Yeah. So what was the You went through a bunch of, like, specific experiments to see how you could affect your ads. Yeah. So the craziest ones, you went well. So it started basically with just looking up random stuff that I felt like I shouldn't be in the target demographic of. So I spent a lot of time googling like men's golf clubs. Earns was one of them, Like I'm in the market for an urn. Let's see if I could make Facebook think that, um, trying think the o And then so then I started being like, All right, wait.

Pregnancy is a pretty good one because like, even though I'm 37 but I'm single like I'm not, I don't usually see pregnancy ads, and I've actually taken a lot of steps to not see them. So I had, like, blocked parenting or hidden parenting is an ad topic, and I had removed Child is an interest, and that had been working like I didn't I didn't see ads tied to pregnancy or anything. Maternity related, Um, and initially, just my browsing history didn't result in seeing any ads related to that. And then I was, like, whom?

I wonder what would happen if I downloaded an app. And Joanna, actually, when in her piece from last year wrote about, um I forget if you what you downloaded like a some kind of appetite away loss. Yeah, right. There wasn't a lot. It's just tracking your food, which Yeah, tracking your food. And then you started seeing related ads And, um so I was like, All right, let's see what happens if I download the what To expect app. Like,

I've got all these other measures in place to not see this stuff that's, you know, based on based on my offline behavior or my off Facebook behavior. Rather and I downloaded the app and, um, just kind of kept an eye on my instagram feed. And, you know, with 11 hours almost on the dot, I got an ad for Hatch Gal. And there's like this, you know, very happy woman sitting and kind of like a boho chic maternity dress. And she's got her hand resting on her. You know swollen belly. And it was like,

Oh, hey, Mama, you, you know, like, I need to get our 30% off deal or whatever it was. And I was like, Okay, there we go. We got one. Um, so that's that's what hand you had for that step. You had also turned off something in IOS, right? You turned off the tracking?

Yes. Thank you for mentioning that. I forgot about that. Yes. So what's that supposed to do? Is, you know, make my mobile advertising I d unavailable to developers. Because if if I hadn't done that, it would have made it would have been, like a very easy connection to dry would have been like, All right, well, you know, they've got my mobile advertising idea, and then Facebook got that.

But in this case, I had that supposedly blocked. So thus began this, you know, sort of investigation into why I saw that ad, which was It was it was an unsatisfying investigation in the sense of there was not. It did not feel like people were eager to help me figure this out and you'll see a lot of people who, you know, work in digital advertising Be like you know it. Relevant ads are good for you and blah bitty blah. This is what customers want. And I'm like, Okay, well, if that's the case, like,

why are all of you so kg in telling me, Like, what? What the criteria were, you know, that were used to send me this. And, um I mean, ultimately, Facebook looked into it for me, which was nice of them. And they told me that I waas um I was targeted because I was in a look alike audience, which I've realized that that is, but both of the ads that I looked in that I had them look into for me, I was in a quote lookalike audience for when they say look like audiences. They mean,

like women 18 to 54. It's so hard to talk about this stuff. I feel like without either feeling like you're talking about a conspiracy theory or not, it just doesn't seem like there are If someone at Facebook who is helping you knows the answer, they're not going to tell you your knicker, which is like must have been a coincidence. Right? Is so good. Because, like That's what we've been hearing, basically, like, you know, must have been a coincidence. You were talking about this thing. Okay?

I did a lot of reporting on the MIC thing last year, and I do not feel confident that they are listening to our Mike. I think it would be much harder to parse my car audio information than all of the other information that you detail so well, Katie and the peace that they have. So, like you often hear from either the companies or from Facebook. It's a coincidence that you bought X, Y and Z, and then we got you this or it's a coincidence that you downloaded this thing and you got this like there are too many other signals tying these things together, that it shouldn't be a coincidence. Well, the other thing that I think is theater thing. I saw a lot of people replying to when I when I posted my story on Twitter, were, you know, people saying like it's the frequency illusion or I forget if it's frequency or vision or whatever,

there's some like syndrome that comes with it, and I am, like, completely, um, you know, willing to acknowledge that there are times when I was talking about something and I saw an advert, and I probably noticed the ad because I was just talking about where they don't notice the 1,000,000 of their ads, that right? But so So yes. So that explains some of these things, but that this is sort of why the pregnancy one is so perfect. Because I would have noticed pregnancy ads because I don't see them and because, like, you know, it's just that that's the kind of thing that I know.

I just know I would notice because I'd be like, I don't really want to see like this kind of thing right now at this stage of my life or whatever, Um, I don't buy the know something by the way, like that was the same argument last year when the Mike thing was happening and everyone's saying, and it was like, Yeah, but there are too many of these ads that I'm seeing that are really relevant and are based on things that I did so like, Yes, I'm seeing them and maybe because I, like, heard that thing I'm or paying attention to this ad. But then I also like even over the last year, just noticed how many ads in my feet now irrelevant like I am? Very. And we were talking about this last week like there are many ads in my future.

I'm like, That's interesting or that's interesting. And someone, actually that works in our video team. She was like, I buy things all the time on Instagram based on ads. They know me so well if you believe Facebook, that all of this is true and that that that that data is not being collected because you walked into the store, right, that it's like if you know enough of the details around what I'm doing and who else is doing those things and, like you can gather all this data without knowing the specifics about where I'm standing at any given point. And, like Joanna, your headline on that story last fall with something like Facebook isn't spying under Mike because it doesn't need Thio. Ah, and I think that's true,

and I think like that, as even as Facebook wants to talk more and more about privacy and encryption, like the part of me that thinks all of this is sort of a delightful ruse to give Facebook a P R win thinks that, like, maybe Facebook doesn't need to read my messages to keep selling me these incredibly good ads. If Facebook contract us in this way, the question that always comes up is how else can this data be used? How does it get out? Who else contract us like this, right? Like so. Facebook just wants a target. Target us with ads. But, you know, can people on our enemies list which I know we all have.

Ah, someday track us this American like governments track us this way, that sense of unease, like, Wow, I really am carrying a tracking device around in my pocket, and this seems innocent enough now, but will it always be this innocent? Yeah. So and square all of this for me. Memes with the memo that that duck wrote. What do you like? What changes here? Does anything have to change or is facebook just gonna yell encryption every time you say anything until everybody trust them again? I mean, I feel like Katie's piece was the best illustration ever of the fact And also,

you know, other reporting by our colleagues about how Facebook is getting data from sensitive data like your where you are in your cycle. If you're a woman from maps that track, that is the best illustration ever that you know, Facebook doesn't need to look at the contents of our messages to determine all this stuff about us, right? Like there's tons of sensitive data being thrown off all the time. And again, the most sensitive data about any of us is who were connected to where we live, where we go, what time of day we do things. All those can continue to be tracked by any half that's on our phones. If we give them the permission, and if we don't give them the permission, there's probably some other app tracking it. And then that data gets sold on and recombined inside Facebook's ad engine.

That's the most foreign thing. Mention about that engine is. It can ingest any kind of data, and then you can do any kind of correlation you want, whether it's are you pregnant, or are you standing next to a friend who just looked at this particular dress? Should we feel encouraged at all about the idea that Facebook might start to get rid of our data overtime like the I think he said something about deleting messages by default, Uh, after a month or a year or something in stories being the default and the idea that a more private Facebook means your stuff goes away more quickly. Is that do we care about that? I can't decide if that means anything to you, By the way, that was. The other governments asked them for that data, and they if they can tell them that they just don't have it in there in a stronger position. So that could be good.

Yeah, I mean, actually, that was another example. Can I think we should, like, read the whole memo and mark up like all the other products that he's basically referring to? Because when I when I read that part, I was like, Oh, so signal right, like signal has become really popular now as an anti Facebook anti privacy or, you know, anti the anti privacy messaging APS or social networks. And, like just adding those features to their current platform,

to me does not seem like innovation or the things to save them. But maybe, I don't know. Maybe people will like one thing I keep thinking or have been thinking about since since we saw this post is like, how long do they really need to keep the data in order to get what they want from him? Like I don't know. Is it kind of just doing them a favor by being like, sweet? We don't have toe save all these a year from now, but it's sort of like captured at the moment. I want to check the box in my profile. Do you need it? Right? Right. And I don't I mean, I don't know enough about the like,

deep inside, like the black box of how their algorithms work or whatever, but I remember when I did my and when I did a story referencing this clear history tool we've been waiting for for however long someone sent me and being like, you know, I don't think they really need to keep this stuff in order for them to like, you know, learn more about us, and still, you know, make use of it, right? Yeah, that's probably better, actually, that they don't Well, I've talked to other companies who do this kind of targeting in a different way for safety and security.

They don't keep data, they it's totally event driven. They look at your behavior in the moment on a napper on the service in order to determine who you are and if you're trustworthy. So you know, frankly, one of the company's doing this is Airbnb. If Airbnb can determine whether or not you are a safe person to rent an apartment for rent one from somebody else, you know, I think Facebook can can do it from the same kind of in the moment, event driven data rather than having in much history about you, right? And that, like the back end systems, haven't been smart enough anyway. Toe like Katie got a pregnancy at now. I don't think it's smart enough to know that in nine mean maybe it Ned files into like,

future parents. But like in nine months, she's gonna wanna have newborn outfits, a map marketed to her right like that would be, And it doesn't need that because in nine months she'll be a very dapper looking at the appropriate website. They don't need to know, you know, they don't need that. Yeah. Congratulations, By the way, Katie, thank you so much. My fake baby is due August 16th which is my mother's birthday. And since I haven't given her any grandchildren yet, I thought I could give her a fake wall.

So excited. Follow on instagram account of your text with your mom, I feel, but only if it's encrypted. All right. We should move on, Katie. Thank you. Thank you. Good chatting, guys. Okay, Coming up in just a second. My interview with Frank Yang on Why Smart home gadgets sec and how we can make them better. But first, Mims,

you you claim you have solved auto correct? Finally, tell the people if you want a word to stop being misinterpreted by Siri, just add that word to your contacts. List your little contacts app on your iPhone. So if you are flustered by Siri Mr correcting the f word as duck or duct, just add a contact named F word. The word we cannot say on this family friendly podcast, if you're not that sort of. Just so you know, you can also do this with, like, your kids names. Like I had problems with Siri like I couldn't understand. I was like, This is the worst design ever.

I've said my eldest child's name of 1000 times. She never gets it right. Put it in your contacts list overnight, she'll start getting it well. So you're talking about auto? Correct. But also Siri knowing the name. Like what? What a serial one. Siri knows the name and the auto correct. Those are linked. Got it s so it's like once it sees the word written as it should be in your context list, it realizes, Oh, that's what he's been saying all this time. Yeah,

I thinks it's a proper noun. And and And that's why, by the way, like you can tell it like, hey, you know, call someone. So you're like, Well, that's a weird name that it just got because it's in your contacts list. Uh, see, I don't get it. I don't get it auto correcting me anymore because I say it so much or I type it so much. Why can't we say the word? It's learned?

You want to swear? Yeah, it knows that. I want to say I knows that I never want to say Doc and I always wanted just because any weather ever wanted to say what the duck in attacks message has that ever been on purpose? Drives me insane. Yeah, or docking. I never said that. Cluster duck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cluster doc. Cluster duck is inhuman or were the other day. You can also put it into the like auto. Correct the keyboard function,

the keyboard shortcuts. That might also be a good solution for people. That's what I'm gonna d'oh. Anytime I accidentally typed duck, it's gonna auto correct to the other word. But that's the problem. Would it go the other way if you typed? If you typed it correctly What? It's still make it duck. I think this is why you needed in your contacts. I'm putting it in. Both think the real problem is it's just bizarre to me that Apple does not expose Siris on the auto correct dictionary in any way like it's This is such a weird working like I really Googled on this so that I was like, Oh, surely there's some setting I can do? Nope. Does it capitalize it now?

It would if I had capitalized it in my contact, I think. Oh, Yeah, Lower case. I know. What have you list? Where were you know, if you listen to this podcast, If you've listened this far in this podcast and you follow us on Twitter, send us screenshots of how you're changing this in your contacts. Yes, please. Um all right, for now we should move on, and,

uh, coming up next, we're going to talk about fancy trash cans. Social distancing slows the spread of Corona virus. So we should all stay home to lower the risk for everyone. More info at corona virus dot gov Let's all do our part because we're all hashtag alone together. Brought to you by the ad council. Welcome back. Here's question. Would you pay $250 for a trashcan? What? About $80 for a soap dispenser? Frank Yang, the CEO of a company called Simple Human thinks you might and he's actually sold a lot of them. Frank's whole goal is to take these everyday objects the things you just never really want to think about and make them better. Civil humans been doing this for years,

decades, But more recently, the company is starting to think about the smart home. It's integrating Alexa and Google assistant connecting your devices to each other, that sort of thing. The company's most recent product is a mirror. It has a light that around Michael comes on when you get close. But it also has a speaker inside and Google assistant and could do lots more than just show you your own face. We're a funny place in the smart home era. Lots of things are connected. Lots of things. They're smart, but it's all kind of confusing, and it seems like nothing works the way it should. Yet our homes aren't smart, really.

We just have more gadgets now. So I wanted to know what Frank, the guy who spent literally decades perfecting a trash can, thought about the state of the smart home. But I also wanted to know a little more about Frank himself. Like, for instance, why he would spend decades perfecting a trash can

on one of those guys that you know around the house. I usually get bug like Oh my God, you know, I learned that when things are in order and there are just working well, you just see a lot more relaxed, calmer and I think a lot of people don't realize that kind of block it out. I'm just trying not to block

it out. Yeah, I think it's an interesting point, and I think this This is true with a lot of technology right now. Which is one thing I'm curious to get your thoughts about, where it seems like there are all these things that we sort of have learned how to do that aren't necessarily the right way or the most efficient way or the easiest way, but like we learned how to use our phones. And so we assume that that's the right way to use our phones, even though there's absolutely no evidence that the way we learn to use our phones or keyboards or computers or whatever is actually the right way. So getting people to sort of get out of the I know how to do this space and into, like, how could this actually be better? Is a really interesting sort of exercise,

totally agree?

It seems like over the course of the time you've been running simple human that that technology sort of in it like computers, I guess, for lack of a better word has started to factor much more into what you're doing. It's It's not only just about how do I make this better and simpler you're trying to make these things smarter. Is that a different sort of equation than just like, How do I make a trash can? Easier to use. But how do I put Alexa in a trash can in a way that's easier to

use? You know, we going for a big, clunky computer right now to a smartphone and probably just smart watch, you know, the technology getting smaller and smaller and more integrated. I think you should walk around the room, and technology should present itself at the right time when you need it, and the way you need without me being slaved to a phone to do it. Actually, for a while when we designed that trashcan thio react the voice. At first we thought, Oh, we could easily integrate the Lexx. I'd say, um or a phone and say, you know,

Hey, Alexa, open trash here but he's not well. Why that doesn't That's just so slow and nine to it. If we went directly to open can have our own trigger

word I would guess. If you feel that way, that you look around and you see a lot of the sort of connected home products that are out there and they drive you kind of crazy. Is that

true? Yeah, it does, because I feel like a lot. You can do it because the technology is there. And if you look around, how many connected home devices are really, really successful? I will argue the camera, if successful, probably. But other than that, a lot of things out there, it doesn't feel like it's

like changing. So I want to hear a little more about the kind of simple human process on Don't know if there's a specific device that's the easiest. I mean, it seems like your newest thing is is this mirror so we could talk about that. But I'm really curious of what goes into the process of trying to redo one of these sort of everyday objects in the simple human

way. So first people say, why the mirror And I said, because I'm looking at functional products that really people use a lot of and we were first in the kitchen and then we knew that people also spend a lot of time other than the kitchen, the bathroom. After a while, we thought, while the mirror everybody you meet a lot of. But the problem was that it's a mere what'd he do to it? Right. So in the beginning, we would then go through a lot of research with industrial designers. So you kind of look at people, have it. You know what, Miers out there and do a bunch of few faces of that. And then we will start Thio.

Heidi ate like, Well, maybe Amy should have at the time, like clocking in a stock for phone, you know, to play amazing or scoping arm that comes at your face and a little cubby and it back for your comb. Ah, hair dry. I mean, like, just a lot of ideas and all these ideas would have a different slant. Actually, we did that for like, eight months, actually is the toughest part is to figure out in which way is the right way to go. It was very tough for me because I just like I was lost.

So my team was being frustrated and then I was like taking a shower one morning. I was looking through it. You know, the shower glass can stalk foggy and little Puritan saw the meeting. My bathroom. It was not clear, obviously, you know? Yeah, the mere supposed to show you a really good view. They say, Well, Army has to provide the best view. So it's sounding basic. But after that, it just kind of started to move really fast,

because then we had to research. Well, wait, what is The mirror is a clear glass. With what? What's the backing? What gives you reflectivity? So with Ian way through all this R and B and looking at materials to understand the whole mere how to get the best of you, Which means you need to get lighting, they have to go through what's colliding, right? What? Consider the best which is a satellite, go through all that start showing this prototype to friends and family. And they would look at it for, like,

five seconds and say, Oh, looks great. Thanks. Wait, wait. You didn't turn on the

light.

It will. No, it's fine. Don't. I don't need a light because I realized people don't like to see themselves a

magnifying. Usually

I say, Wait, you know what? It's a nice not on. I didn't guarantee the best view. You know what? I'm gonna make it come on automatically. That's why you're the sensor in there, because it satisfied or goal.

I like that. So at what point in that process do you start thinking about things like Alexa and and how some of this other technology

could be part of it we have. First about this is just a really functional tool that we call the Vanity Mirror for the bathroom. Right. Then they started taking on makeup slipped because the makeup world so here, just like this is awesome makeup mirror because the light is so good. Then it evolved into, Well, makeup takes a long time for a lot of people. It's really a routine. So we started thinking, will start to visualize this as a routine. Did you go through? We know people love to have music and love to kind of of the podcast, that news. And this is why we I wanted to add the speaker. And this is also why we chose Google over Alexa. Actually,

because we knew Google have more of the routine aspect because they have maps and calendar. And you could say, Well, my day. So that's why we chose to integrate Google first into this product.

So as you look at sort of what's going on in the smart home and in this kind of everything is about to be connected. Universe. What What pieces of that are most interesting to you like, Where do you feel like the biggest opportunity for simple human is in terms of kind of the broader smart home universe?

Yeah, actually, I don't know the answer, and we're still thinking of searching ourselves, and I just know we keep looking at the wellness part of it We don't have identified. It's actually quite a difficult question to answer. I mean, we're even answer anything. Like, for example, Now you say, Alexa, hey, Google, right to wake up, couldn't walk up to microwaves and just talk to it without, say,

Alexa or Google. Can I say microwave? Because it is Michael waste right? But can I talk to my crib like it's a smart person? Not like I'm talking to another smart person to help me operated. What's in my head is so is, there's only gonna be two assistants out there in the war or three or every device will be its own person eventually.

This is this is a conversation I've had with ah, lot of people over the last couple of years. And it's really interesting because it it I as best I can tell, it is basically 50 50 where there are people who are like, Okay, you're not gonna wanna have to know what it is. You just say Google and let it handle it. And then other people who are like, No, you're talking to your microwave. Your microwave is not named Google. Your microwaves named

microwave. Maybe you don't have to say, Michael, because it might hurt you. You go up there and just talk. I tend to agree with your direction.

That's why we were very careful

about, like, going too deep on the smart assistant. Well, you know for

sure. Yeah. So do you think is the is the future for a simple human, For there to be this kind of smarts or some kind of sorts in all of your products? I mean, is there is there still a world in which you're just making better versions of things that don't need to be connected

or smart. They'll be both for sure, because a lot of time it will be the technology. You know, like the moment you put smarts in that we'll need a battery. You want to put it in. You want to recharge it so there'll be a line like just that smart for that product. It's just not deserving of the downside, right? Like a paper towel holder. No, You know what? I could put a chip in their plug it in. Seriously, Do you wanna have a court on your kitchen countertop? Or if one day somebody invents something, were it's like five year battery life,

right? It could do all that may be, Yeah, with today's technology, it's

not that many products you really apply yet, but it will be more and more down the road as technology gets better. Thanks to Frank, Katie, Christopher and Joanna for being here, thanks to Tanya, our producer, and thank you for listening. We have new episodes, always on Fridays, so make sure you described in some message on whatever podcast after you use. If youse Castro, there's a new update. It's really cool has some new discovery stuff. Big fan. As always. If you a few back radius. Email us at personal tech. Ws a dot com. We'll talk to you soon.