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The Ezra Klein Show

Hard Fork: Elon’s Hidden Motives + A Meetup in the Metaverse

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.611K Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2022

⏱️ 66 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today we’re bringing you an episode from the recently launched New York Times podcast, Hard Fork. Hosted by veteran tech journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, Hard Fork is a rigorous and fun exploration of Silicon Valley’s already-emerging future — and its evolving imprint on the rest of the world. In this episode, Kevin and Casey discuss Elon Musk’s on-again-off-again – and recently on-again – interest in Twitter, as the billionaire signals once again that he’s buying the social media platform. What might be behind the change of heart? And what will the deal mean for employees and users? Casey and Kevin swap theories and predictions — and also step into the metaverse with the New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill. Hard Fork is produced by Davis Land. Edited by Paula Szuchman and Hanna Ingber. Fact-checking by Caitlin Love. Original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop and Marion Lozano. Engineered by Corey Schreppel. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Shannon Busta, Julia Simon, Larissa Anderson, Pui-Wing Tam, Kate LoPresti, Nell Gallogly, Mahima Chablani and Jeffrey Miranda. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Mr. Klein. This is the Ezra Kunchel.

0:24.4

This is just a weird unsettled moment in the tech industry.

0:27.6

If you go back five years, the big players are settled.

0:31.3

The technology is settled.

0:33.0

The companies are powerful, seemingly impenetrable.

0:36.3

And then you go now, and the technologies are changing with Web 3 and AI.

0:43.5

Tons of people hate the big companies.

0:45.2

They're under actual challenge from regulators, from upstarts.

0:49.2

The tech markets are drying up.

0:50.9

There's a lot less money sloshing around.

0:52.8

Big people are doing layoffs.

0:55.2

They're trying to buy each other, sell each other.

0:57.2

Elon Musk is buying Twitter.

0:58.2

Then he's not.

0:59.2

Then he is.

1:00.2

Then he's suing to get out of it.

1:01.2

Then he's not suing to get out of it.

1:02.2

It's just weird.

1:03.2

Where this whole industry is in five years and ten years, it feels much less noble than

1:08.6

it did before.

1:10.4

When I'm trying to follow this, I often follow it through the work of Tech reporters, Kevin

1:14.2

Roos and Casey Newton.

...

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