What if there was a better way to talk to all your friends than through a thousand different messaging apps on a thousand different platforms?

What if you could just find the show you wanted without browsing through infinite tiles in a hundred different streaming apps?

What if you could have all of your stuff everywhere without dealing with some crummy user interface on some unknowable file sharing platform?

This month on the Vergecast we're looking into connectivity. How we talk to each other, how we talk to our stuff, how we find things online.

All this month, on the Vergecast, available wherever you get podcasts.

Support for this show comes from Atlassian. Atlassian software like JIRA, Confluence and Trello help power global collaboration for all teams so they can accomplish everything that's impossible alone.

Because individually we're great, but together we're so much better. No matter if you're a team of two, two hundred, or two million.

Atlassian software keeps everyone connected and moving together is one towards shared company goals.

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Hello, and welcome to the long form podcast. I am Evan Ratliffe, one of your three hosts. Max Linsky and Aaron Lammer with me, the other two.

Hey, hey, you guys fair warning to all there's noise happening at all three locations, bro, none of us are in the same place.

But there is extremely loud noise at all the places, you know, something something new for the audience that should be exciting. Who's on the show this week?

This week, our guest is Mitchell Jackson. Mitchell, as many of our listeners will be aware, one, both the Pulitzer prize and the National magazine award for feature writing this year.

For his story in runners world that's called 12 minutes in a life, it's about the killing of a mod, Arbery, but more than that, it's about the life of a mod, Arbery, it's about the history of running.

And if you haven't read the story, I would say give this show a pause, go read that story, and then come back. It's a, it's truly an incredible story.

Mitchell also wrote a very inventive and brilliant nonfiction account of his own life growing up in Portland, Oregon called survival math. He's a prize winning novelist. He teaches English at Arizona State University.

And I really enjoyed talking to him. I'm so excited for this one. It's that piece is incredible. But Aaron, I feel like I have to share this with you. I saw Evan on the street just after he did this interview and he was running to an errand.

And I was like, Evan, how to go and as he was running, he turned around and gave me the double thumbs up. Wow. That is like that is the highest praise ever for. I should also know for people who are listening at home that we are introducing the long form podcast. I'm on a video call with Evan and he's wearing a long form t shirt. This is the kind of spirit that I love.

Just I'm just a real supporter levels of Ratliffe and enthusiasm, the likes of which we've never seen. If you want any more of those t shirts, there's about 50 of them in my basement, by the way.

But I'm but if don't write in asking for one because I it's too hard to mail them. I can't handle it.

Let me just add one more thing about the interview. There's an article that comes up in the interview that Mitchell wrote recently for the New York Times magazine travel issue, I believe.

That was about gathering with friends from his childhood, a group of friends that call themselves the eight three three crew. So you'll hear a three three referenced. And one fun fact for you NBA heads, Max and Aaron, another member of the a three three crew, Damon Stonemire.

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