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male speaker: thanks,everybody, for joining us at "talks at google." today's guest, i'm veryproud to introduce. alexis, don't call himalex, ohanian, who has just published this book, whichyou can all get here, and you should all read. i had the great opportunityto read it before it came out, and i enjoyed it immensely. i am surprised to see,however, that we don't believe
in putting the titleon the cover anymore, so it's on the back. alexis ohanian: who needsto go with convention? male speaker: withouttheir permission. so thanks very much, alexis,for joining us today. alexis ohanian: thankyou for having me. [applause] male speaker: so not to giveaway too much of the book, but i just wanted tostart by asking you
a little bit about a storythat happens early in the book that i really enjoyed, whichis apparently, when you were a teenager, you startedout in a compusa pitching software demos tobasically an empty store for hours at a time. so tell me a littlebit about that, and how you think it might haveactually surprisingly prepared you for what came after? alexis ohanian: well,i was a teenager
when a buddy of mine jacob--shout out, jacob winthrop, was like, hey dude, oneof my childhood friends, you want a job demoingsoftware at a compusa? and i was like, sure. i don't know whatthat entails, but it's going to pay melike, $10 an hour. and i'm like, hell, yes. so i show up, andon my first day, he puts me in this little booth.
actually, you guysremember what a compusa is? there are probably a lotof you who have no idea. it was this amazing storewhere you could go and buy all your computer-related needs. and they put mein a little booth. and it was this companycalled [? sydea ?], which was one of the many corpsesfrom the first tech boom. but at the time, they werepaying us this absurd amount of money, $10 an hour, tobasically every 30 minutes,
do the same pitch, thesame like, 10 minute pitch, of whatever software orhardware we had at the time. so it'd be like, lookat this amazing mouse. it is a great mouse. i remember we playedthis one, there was a madelaine math--i think it was a game. it was one of those point andclick adventure games for kids. and i practically learned frenchat the end of those two months, because we'd be playing thesame thing over and over again.
but all that's to say forlike, a chubby teenager to get up in front of anaudience every 30 minutes and literally have the worstexperience a public speaker could have, which iseveryone ignoring you-- male speaker: like, worsethan being a stand-up comic. alexis ohanian: right. you were basicallyannoying people who were just trying to shop. and they're always lookingover like, god, really?
you just did this30 minutes ago. male speaker: you were like, thepre-internet version of spam. alexis ohanian: i was a spammer. yeah. i mean, i was, i wouldsay a step probably below the dudes whoare always handing out flyers on new yorkstreet corners. and i had my littlemegaphone and my headset, and just demoed software.
but it was-- and youactually put this very well as we were talking. i guess it was like,my 10,000 hours moment with public speaking. and it was a great way--i mean, it's all practice. look, anyone you seeup there who's like, an amazing public speaker,even a good public speaker, they weren't born that way. they just spend alot of time doing it.
and it's shocking howterrified people are of it. but you all need jobsat doomed companies to just get over itfor a couple years. male speaker: now, now, now. you're not making anypredictions about google there? alexis ohanian:i don't think you guys have to worrytoo much about google. you guys actually, youwouldn't show me the room, but there is a room thatliterally prints money here.
i'm not allowed to see it. male speaker: shh. alexis ohanian: notallowed to see it. but i know that. male speaker: that'sa google x thing. we don't talk about that. alexis ohanian: i see. all right. male speaker: sospeaking of companies
that were not doomed, anotherbig section of the book is about reddit,which of course, you were one of the founders of. and it's really strikingto me in reading the book, you tell the story. and of course,you tell the story about how your ycombinator experience was really pivotal to that. but the y combinatorconnection comes back
in almost every chapterof the book that follows. i'm sort of curious,one, what do you think about thatcommunity and its value, not just to your company, butto the startup scene in general? and then maybe aharder question. if that pitch at y combinatorhad not worked out, what do you thinkwould have happened? alexis ohanian: wow. ok.
well. so first and foremost,steve and i-- i got to give youthe full thing. like, steve and iwere seniors at uva. and i had talkedto him-- basically, i had an epiphanyat a waffle house. realized that i didn'twant to be a lawyer. sorry. i just--
male speaker: thank you. alexis ohanian:and thankfully, i realized i wanted to just livelike a college student working on fun projects. and i had this friendof mine, steve, who was a talented engineer. we had talked aboutstuff for long enough. anyway, i convinced himto work on a company with me called mymobile menu, or mmm.
that was the name for it. audience: [laughing]. alexis ohanian: i cannever tell if that's a good response,like great idea, or that was a stupid name. but anyway, iconvinced him to do this instead of taking ajob at a software company. and during our senioryear, his girlfriend saw an article somewhereon the interwebs
about a guy namedpaul graham giving a talk on how tostart a startup. and he was up in boston. and it was during oursenior year spring break. so of course, we went to bostoninstead of going to a beach, because laptops suck on beaches. there's not a lot to do there. a lot of screen glare. it's just not fun.
male speaker: sand. alexis ohanian: and weheard him give this talk. there's rarely wifi. it's not fun. and we heard paulgive this talk. and we lucked out. steve approached himafterward to get an autograph. and i followed andsaid, it'd totally be worth the cost ofbuying you a drink
to pitch you on our idea. we came from virginia. like, hear us out. and he was shocked. shocked that, i guess, wecame all the way from virginia to boston, and said ok. and one thing leads to another. a few weeks later, heannounces y combinator. he had given us reallygood feedback on mmm.
and we applied andhad a great interview, and then got rejected. and then got drunk. and the next morning,he called back-- male speaker: it's goodthat it went in that order. we would have knownthe exact reason why wed gotten rejected if wehad just gotten drunk first. it would have made theinterview more fun, but it hurt. it hurt.
and they called us backthe next morning and said, we don't like your idea. it's too early. 2005, right, the smartestphone on the market was a treo with a stylus. remember those things? and like, blackberrywas still a company. and i guess palm wasstill a company too. male speaker: what,no love newton?
come on. alexis ohanian: anyway,it was too early. aw. another wonderful product. but like, it wasahead of its time. and we lucked out,because he calls up. and i'm like, hello? and paul says, listen, we'lllet you do y combinator. just come up with a new idea.
do something on the web. mobile's too early. so we come back up there. we speak with paul for an hour. he asked what our problemsare every morning. and we say, a bunchof things, including how to find out what'sgoing on in the world. and steve have lovedslashdot for many years. i was just reading a bunchof news sites in my browser
every morning. and that became whatwould become reddit. and so, all that's to say ycombinator changed our lives. even after the success we hadwith reddit, for steve and adam and me to someextent, it was a no brainer to do ycombinator with hipmunk. and look, that's not to saythere's obviously-- everyone knows about this sortof y combinator mafia in that network.
we don't do anythingillegal, but it's that very strongnetwork among founders. if nothing else, ithink it is great because it has helped peoplereally appreciate how-- they were the first ones to reallyshow, if you invest less money than it coststo get a ford focus, you can have a billion dollarcompany within a few years. i mean look, no matter howyou feel about y combinator, i think part of reasonit's been so special
is they genuinely careabout founders doing right by their founders. and i think that more broadlyhelps the greater ecosystem, because now investorscan't get away with being jerks in the way thatthey used to even 10 years ago. that founder friendlinesshas a ripple effect. and so, yes, it's influenced. i'm very appreciative,because it's made me who i am. and the reality is, if wehadn't gotten that call back,
we would have goneback to virginia and tried to provepaul and jessica wrong. we would have showed them mmmis going to take over the world. we probably would've stayedin charlottesville, virginia, which is a great college town,but not the biggest market. and we probablywould have languished for a few years trying to figureout what was going to happen. maybe we would havegotten lucky with the app store finally coming online.
who knows? male speaker: all i know isall the college kids at uva, they could have had a greatmobile ordering service. and you just-- alexis ohanian: if only. male speaker: yeah,it's very disappointing. it's very disappointing. alexis ohanian:we abandoned them. but what is so coolnow is there are so
many companies thatare doing this. and someone's goingto win the day, and then we'll never have towait in line for a frappuccino. so there's that. male speaker: so! one other thing thatcomes through to me as i'm reading the book about,obviously, you start reddit, and then you guys goon and do hipmunk, and you've done a whole bunchof other great startup-related
ideas, and supported alot of other startups, you're not a technical person,sort of by your own admission in the book. you were not the codingchops behind reddit. alexis ohanian: nope. male speaker: and you haven'tbeen the coding chops behind any of these other startupsthat you've-- so, i'm sort of curious. a lot of people in this roomdon't have that handicap.
god bless you. but for those ofus like myself, i was a liberal artsmajor undergrad, i'm sort of curious, whatare your thoughts about, is being a technical personmore and more necessary? less and less necessary? is it orthogonal to the wholequestion of being in a startup? i'm really curiousabout your prospective in a world full of hardcorecoders, not being one.
alexis ohanian: youknow, the running joke in that firstbatch of y combinator-- and this is back when itwas in boston, all right, but it was maybe a dozenor so companies-- was, what does alexis do? and they'd always askthis about steven. at some point, it wasclear they weren't joking. they were genuinely concerned. because i think i was the onlynon-technical person in yc.
maybe with one exception. but also, yc's very biased. this whole techindustry for startups is so biased towardstechnical founders, which is why it's so importantto be able to write code. because if you have anidea, congratulations. you are one of everyone. everyone has great ideas. so it is moreimportant than ever.
and if i could do it all overagain, i don't want to brag, but at howard high school, iwas the best in my pascal class. i loved programming. male speaker: and youknew how to pitch software in 10 minutes. alexis ohanian: iknew how to pitch. i had that going for me. and i was very proud ofmy mascot doodles as well. but at the end of the day, ifi could do it all over again,
i would've stuck with computerscience when i got to college. what happened was i metsteve freshman year. he just lived acrossthe hall from me. and i was so excited,because here's another geek. he was playing video games. we were talking aboutgaming pcs we had built. and at some point, he's likei'm in engineering school. i do cs. and i was like, oh,i think i'm going
to be pre-med or something. that lasted a week. i ended up beinga history major. and it was clearhe was someone-- i feel guilty saying this. but it was clear, hewas the kind of person who-- when a talentedor fairly talented high school athlete goes tocollege and meet someone who's very clearly, youjust know, she's
going to be in theolympics one day. and you think, well, i'mprobably going to ride the pine and have to figure outsomething else to do. i felt that waywhen i met steve. here was someonewho was clearly just a brilliant technical mind. he was going to gooff to do things. and i was intimidated by it. male speaker: heruined it for you.
you were like, i'mnot going to do that. alexis ohanian: and thethe first version of reddit was in lisp-2. and he spent a sad 48 hourstrying to work with me. i was trying to learnlisp for about 48 hours. i still have a photoof that journal entry where i just said, thishurts, dot, dot, dot. that was not fun. i still can't lookat a parenthesis
without like, shakinga little to this day. male speaker: i think you'reselling yourself a little bit short. because i think a lot of whatyou talk about in the book is the importance offiguring out what users want, and really paying attention,being there, listening to their complaints,answering them. and the truth of the matteris i'm guessing scott probably didn't have the time to doas much of that as you did.
alexis ohanian: yeah. steve was busy actuallybuilding the site. male speaker: steve, rather. alexis ohanian: yes. so what i tell non-technicalfounders today? one, learn how to code. you can get started right there. the tutorials thatare available today versus even eightyears ago when we
started reddit are ordersof magnitude better. but if you do manage toconvince a technical co-founder to work with you, be ego-less. be willing to doanything, whether it's ordering the takeout,dealing with the lawyers, negotiating the cell phone bill. like, do everything else. create and care somuch especially early on about those fewusers who are actually
willing to try your new servicethat no one has ever heard of, that has a weird typo, andcare so much about them. because those people are crazy. those people areamazing and wonderful. and like, those arethe ones who are going to be those earlyadopters, those evangelists. i mean, that's how we builtthe audience at reddit. that's how we did it at hipmunk. that's how i see non-technicalfounders doing it all time.
but really, i mean, i'mpreaching to the choir here. but developing and writingcode is the most valuable skill of the century. and like i said, if i coulddo it all over again, i would. male speaker: so in thebook after the acquisition of reddit, you did a whole bunchof really interesting things that were not just aboutmaking the next million dollars or whatnot. so say a little bit about that.
it struck me that a lotof the stuff you did were much morecivic-minded than i think i'm used seeing-- usuallymen who cash out from startups, i don't see them doing thekinds of things you did. and so i'm curious, whatput you on that path? alexis ohanian: oh, wow. i should probably giveall the credit to my mom. i don't know. i mean, i think when youhave the fortune that i had
of being a 23-year-oldmillionaire, you can go one of two ways. at the end of the day, though,what anchored me so much was having the relationshipthat i had with both my parents, but especially my mom,that made me appreciate what really mattered in life. and i won't go intotoo much detail because it usuallymakes me sad and cry. so instead, what iwill say abstractly
is most 22,23-year-olds, whatever, they don't have the wisdom thatusually comes with age when you actually start questioningyour mortality, and wondering what'sgoing to happen, and what you'll care aboutwhen you're on your death bed. as a 23-year-old, iknew very, very well what people cared aboutwhen they were facing death. and that something iwish i could, trust me, i wish i could nothave had that happen.
but the advantage wasit gave me a perspective that i think usually, wearen't fortunate enough, i suppose is the word,to get until much later. so all that's to say, it waseasy because i knew that there were not going tobe-- i never wanted to have thingsthat made me happy. i wanted to have experiencesand actions and a legacy that made me happy. and look, i thinkaltruism is selfish.
don't get me wrong. i'm not a monk here. it is an opportunityfor us who have done so well to make sureother people can too. and look, i also say this, youcorrectly identified my gender. but it is also, as astraight white dude, the way i like to describe itis it's kind of like playing on easy mode. i played a lot ofvideo games too.
male speaker: no, really? alexis ohanian:that's not obvious. and i don't think it in anyway takes away from success that i'm proud of thati feel like i've earned. but it's anadmission of the fact that it is just alittle easier for things that are not of my control. like, it's the way theworld is, unfortunately. but it makes me reallyaware of the asterisk.
this isn't like a barrybonds kind of asterisk. but it is an asteriskthat points out that, yeah, i had advantagesother people don't have. and if i really believe inthe power of the internet, it's for anyone with agreat idea to be awesome. that's why i wrote the book. that's why i'm going on acrazy 150 stop bus tour. male speaker: yeah, actually,i was going to just ask. say a little bitabout that bus tour.
because i thought thatwas-- for an the industry-- if you read thetech press, i mean, i would love to do a studyof every company mentioned on tech mapped. and it would be veryinteresting to see if there was anythingbetween the west coast and the east coast that isever mentioned on techcrunch. i don't mean to single them out. it's true, i think,of all the tech press.
what made you think, let's goacross the country in a bus? alexis ohanian: well, i thinkyou're absolutely right. and you're talkinga guy, mind you-- reddit was not oncecovered in techcrunch until the day we got acquired. i mean, we're based out ofsomerville, massachusetts. we're still in a startup hub. but there is very much,most of the tech press stays to the bay, newyork, boston, the coast.
and last year,this pissed me off, because i kept hearingsilicon valley-- no offense, guys-- defeated hollywood in thebattle against sopa and pipa. and it's like, yeah,ok, you all showed up. but the whole country showed up. millions of people-- male speaker: the whole world. alexis ohanian: thewhole world, right? and so, i wanted to illustratethis as best i could.
and instead of just talkingabout it, we crowd-funded a bus and drove it through theheartland for 10 days. we visited googlefiber in kansas city, and took a numberof other stops, and met with farmers, andtruckers, and startup founders, and students, andall kinds of people who were using theinternet to be awesome. whether it was startingcompanies, running their family farms better.
all that to really justshow off that it wasn't just silicon valley. the internet economy is notjust a few zip codes here in california. it's the entire world. at least for ourpoliticians' consideration, it is the entire united states. every one of theirconstituents lives in like, a digital district.
and so i thought, allright, that was fun. that was my beta test. now let's do it for five monthsand go to 75 universities. because i basically want todeliver the class or the talk that i wish i had had whilesteve and i were at uva. we lucked out, right? we heard paul graham was givinga talk in boston up at harvard. we got up there. but i want to deliver it.
i'm excited, because we'regoing to go to ohio state. arizona state, all right? i don't know how many arizonastate alums are in the crowd right now. represent. all right? so arizona statehas a reputation of being the school thathas a very good time. would that be accurate?
when we announcedthe tour, and we had all the obvious schools--and i wanted to make sure we hit a numberof large schools. not just the ivies. i went to uva. i went to a public school. but still, not justthe obvious candidates. arizona state, i don't know what they did,but that came out in droves.
there was a delugeof emails and tweets from people at arizona state. undergrads and grads-- male speaker: theyheard about mmm, and they were all like,we need more of that. alexis ohanian: maybe. i hope so. at the very least,at the very least, they were pissed off becausethey care about this stuff.
they want that spiritof entrepreneurship, because it is there in pockets. but they want someone tocome in really be like, yes, there's no reasonwhy you can't do this too. and it was great. and i have to admit, even i wasa little surprised at first. then i was like,shut up, alexis. stop being surprised. if the thesis is true,this is not just something
that kids atstanford care about. and obviously, it's easy tojust cherrypick and be like, every kid from stanford wants tostart her own startup one day. and that's probablytrue, actually. but more power to them. but this is a nationwide, thisis a worldwide phenomenon. and it's not juststarting companies. it's getting your firstfilm funded on kickstarter. it's opening yourfirst etsy store.
it's using these platforms, evenif you're not building them. male speaker: and haveyou taken that message out to other countries as well? i imagine this is a messagethat a lot of people are ready to hear. and it's been funny. because of interesting--i don't know how exactly the world works with apublishing and licensing internationally.
there have been anumber of people abroad who have had trouble gettingthe book because it's not technicallypublished there yet, even in digital form, whichis kind of a mind job. so they found waysto acquire the book on the internet using things. which is great. i'm happy the ideas spread. and there has been a tonof requests to go abroad.
but i'll tell you, i feel likei learn more from those things than i could possibly present. one of the stories thathad such a big impact on me was going to egypt maybe amonth or so after mubarak felt. and it was a techentrepreneurship conference. and here i am in cairo talkinga few dozen entrepreneurs who are literally revolutionaries. like, they call founderslike me and david karp, larry and sergey revolutionaries.
that's bullshit. no offense to those guys. but like, we're notrevolutionaries. that's a great hyperboleto throw in a magazine. but like, these were peoplewho were actually trying to forge a new egypt,and in the process were also starting companies,and had the same ambitions. they ask the samedamn questions you get asked in brooklyn froma bunch of tech founders.
it's obviously verydifferent starting a company in egypt versus here for lotsof sort of macro reasons. but at a microlevel, they're just trying to make somethingpeople want just the same. and to see that same kind ofhustle is so inspirational, because i realize the lifelottery ticket that comes just from being born in the statesversus being born anywhere else, and how easy it is tojust open a laptop and get started on a business.
male speaker: yeah, absolutely. alexis ohanian: so ithink it's a good time to get to the politicspart of our program today. obviously, a chapter of yourbook is about the sopa/pipa that you played and redditors-- alexis ohanian: and google. thank you, google. male speaker: we did our part. and wikipedia.
and all kinds of otherfolks participated in it. i'm curious. what got you interested? what made it possible whenthat happened for you to sort of say, hey, yeah,this is something i want to try todo something about? and do you think thereare any real lessons that you want to impart topeople about what you learned and what the internethopefully learned.
alexis ohanian: oh, yes. so i fell into this. i had not been terriblypolitically active before this. i mean, i voted, but i wasnot by any means an activist, or any way really thatpassionate about it. and then i got anemail from a friend of mine, christina [? shi ?]. and she said, hey,some friends of mine are working on this thingcalled fight for the future,
and they're really worried aboutthese two bills, sopa and pipa, and they mayactually become law. and i took a look. and i'm reading throughit, and i'm like, no, no. this is so stupid. there is no way thiscould actually become. and i start emailing, andi realized very quickly that, no, actually, thesebills are considered to be inevitable,inevitable, in washington.
they had democrats. male speaker: they were wired. alexis ohanian: theyhad republicans. it was done. the check was signed. male speaker: it waslike, the chamber of commerce andthe unions agreed. and they were like, well,that never happened. let's take advantage, right?
this would be at a timewhen, even back then, i know it's hard tobelieve, government was seemingly dysfunctional. back then. male speaker: compared to what? alexis ohanian: good thingwe got that one solved. male speaker: exactly. alexis ohanian: butthis was something that was ostensibly bipartisan.
it was. they had democrats andrepublicans lining up. hollywood, theentertainment industry, had dropped about $94million in lobbying. it was all finished. all going to happen. at the time, i was justtransitioning out of hipmunk, and it was clear i'd bea hypocrite if i didn't participate, becausesteve and i never
would have been able to startreddit if either of those bills were law. and don't get me wrong. i would've loved ifmy peers at facebook, and twitter, and everywhereelse were also joining in, but it's fine. it's fine. male speaker: we were there. alexis ohanian:yes, i know-- no, i
know-- well, dude,between google, and then the wikipediablackout was the big one. because that made it-- i wasignored by even my friends who are producers in the mediaup until wikipedia went dark. because then, top 10 website. actually, i rememberchecking wikipedia at like, five minutespast midnight, and i was pissed offbecause it was down. and i was like, oh, no, wait.
right. good cause. this is a good cause. male speaker: [laughing]. alexis ohanian: and i feltthat rage for a minute. i was like, what's happening? oh, right. but it was after that thatall of a sudden, the phone starts ringing, and i spend24 hours pretty much on tv
explaining why theinternet's enraged. but like, all of thisis to say, like i said, i got a fortuitous email. i was down in dc a week later. and i started meetingwith senators and reps and their staffers. and what was so wild was theywere actually listening to me. the ones we met with, at least. this is a small sample.
but they wereactually listening. we would go around the table. we'd have our threeminute elevator pitch for saving the internet. and i just told mystory of reddit, and how steve and i gotthis thing started out of an apartment for $12,000,and now look what it's doing. and that story of the americandream, that economic story, was enough to get peopleto perk up their ears.
because look, as sadas it is, the thing that actually moves themis the potential of being accountable for losing jobs. male speaker: jobs. economic. alexis ohanian: jobs. jobs. i actually went on thetechnology subreddit the night before andasked for advice.
i said, should i talkabout censorship? should i talk about theeconomic repercussions? i was getting talkingpoints from the internet. and everyone was saying-- male speaker: whatcould possibly go wrong? alexis ohanian: well, touche. i lucked out because theratio of cats to good advice was actually pretty good. not too many cats.
but they all said, don'teven bother with censorship. and it was just cynicism. there were a fewpeople who claimed to be staffers orformer [inaudible] i said don't even bother. no one cares. talk about the jobs. jobs, jobs, jobs. mentioned jobsevery two seconds.
male speaker: youmentioned in the book-- the protest in new yorkthat you attended in person. the fact that one of thethings you said-- i mean, there's a wholebunch of people who came out in irl toprotest against this. and you asked mostly techies,i assume, how many of you work at companiesthat are hiring? every hand. male speaker: and ithought that was great.
very powerful. and that's exactly what peoplein dc can hear, for better or for worse. alexis ohanian: andthat message resonated. and we saw a bill that wentfrom inevitable to unthinkable, almost overnight. after the blackout on the18th, you saw people running. running, because a bunch ofcitizens picked up a phone, called up.
a bunch citizenssigned petitions. a bunch of citizensactually got engaged. and millions ofdisparate people-- this was a leader full movement. it wasn't just a couplepeople pulling strings. this was a decentralized,very internet kind of story. and it worked. it actually worked. it did something that everyonein dc said was not possible,
and it defeated anentrenched lobbying group that has spent their entireindustry basically trying to buy washington towrite laws to preserve their outdated business models. i'm a little biased. but we actually won. and so for me as a kindof political virgin, that was so dangerous, becauseit inspired me so much. because i was like, holy shit.
like, the system's broken99% of the time, but look, it actually worked. and it was thanksto the internet that we were able toconnect and amass this. male speaker: iwas really struck. as part of that fight, as peopletalk about it in retrospect now, there is almost asense of magic about, and then there was a blackout,and then the law was defeated. but there's been a lotof great stuff being
written about actuallywhat happened. and one of the things that ithink people shouldn't forget is tumblr. tumblr, early on, theydid an interesting-- they blacked out piecesof their website. and then they created, basicallyhacking together existing web tools, they hackedtogether a web to phone interfacethat led straight to the congressional switchboardof your member of congress.
and i thought that was just sucha great concrete example of, it's not magic. it's existing web tools,bringing the technologies of the web, and just tying stufftogether to make things happen. and tumblr wasn'tthe end of the story, but i think it was avery important beginning to the story that led tothe wikipedia blackout, and google's partialblackout, and all that. alexis ohanian: theimpressive thing,
and the thing thati hope to impart on as many people aspossible, is that we all have a responsibility. and i think, justas citizens, it is so easy to get so cynical. it is so easy to get sodisappointed and frustrated. but we have-- male speaker: again,this week in particular. alexis ohanian: trustme, i'm just like,
face-palming most the timewhenever i get updates, about what's goingon in washington. it is still our government. it is still a government bythe people, for the people. and the internet presents--it is just a tool-- but it presents a tool that canbe used to let us actually get the leverage andinput that we deserve. that we've always deserved. that we always should have had.
and so that part of thatis just being-- i mean, i go around demoing the contactcongress app on my smartphone, just because i likethe accessibility. i've been calling my repstaff the last couple weeks just to check in. like, i like theaccessibility of knowing that i can push a button-- male speaker: governmentgoing to go back online? alexis ohanian: just belike, hey, what's happening?
like, we should feel thatsame kind of accountability. because so much ofthe inane stuff, i can see the photo ofsome stranger's breakfast right now on instagram,or what have you. that's great. i'm happy that exists. i'm not going to hate on it. i like looking at food. but if we get that kind oftransparency and insight
into random thingsabout random strangers, shouldn't we have that kind ofinsight into our government? into the peoplewho represent us? male speaker: sothis was the thing that really struckme reading your book. and frankly, even afterthe sopa/pipa fight. i agree with you completely. i mean, that kindof transparency is absolutely crucial.
but another piece of it,frankly, is the money piece. huge part of it. male speaker: and i'vewondered for a long time, why is there nokickstarter for politics? we've taken the toolsof transparency. we've taken the tools ofphone calls and all of that. but we haven'tdemocratized the tools of giving money to politicianswhen they do things we like. because that'spositive reinforcement.
it can be effective. so that's always struck me. why haven't we crowdfundedthe government we want to see? alexis ohanian: i don't thinkwe've had candidates yet that have really been able tohave the savvy, or the gusto, or the what. male speaker: let'scrowd-fund them. alexis ohanian: i mean, right? like, i mean, there are--
male speaker: what areyou doing next fall? alexis ohanian: well,google, i wanted to come here toannounce that next fall, i am running for nothing. here's the thing. we're going to get a candidate. and because she'sa technologist, she's going toinstinctively understand how valuable this is.
and with that, we're going to[inaudible] technologically right. let me go down the list. solved problem is crowdfunding. this is a solved problem. right? we could do this tomorrow. we could do this in hackathonover the next 24 hours. one of my favoriteexamples of a google doc,
shameless plug in action,is the nonprofit watsi.org, which manages every singlefinancial transaction on that nonprofit in apublic, real-time, of course, google doc. so at any moment, you can goto this nonprofit's website and check up on their finances. every transaction. that kind oftransparency is solved. that's done.
they're doing it right now. and they're an examplethat's probably going to affect everynonprofit going forward, because why else would i wantto give to a non-profit that doesn't give me thatkind of accountability? watsi can do it, why can't you? we get someone runningfor office, crowdfunding. actually publicly sharingevery dime of where money gets spent, where it comes in.
that is already public,it just comes out too late in real time. then all of a sudden, nowwe have a representative or a senator who we canpoint at and say, she did it. why the hell can't you? and have that example as avery real, concrete-- except and all this software ispretty much off the shelf. like, i'm spendingthe next five months on a bus just talkingto college students.
but i hope itinspires some who are at least-- i guess they'dhave to be old enough to run. well, they could doit at the local level. the point is, itis going to happen. and when it does, ican't help but feel like they're going to have suchan amazing amount of support from all of thosepeople who called up to fight against sopa/pipa. all those people whocare about the internet.
the internet public isjust about everyone. and it's about time we actuallycould flex some muscle, because this is what we deserve. male speaker: so i totallyagree with all of that. and i look forwardto seeing that. alexis ohanian: we shouldfind this candidate. [inaudible] male speaker:that's a great idea. that's a great idea.
alexis ohanian: take it, please. someone do it. male speaker: butlet me just say, i think it's sort of funny. i mean, in siliconvalley, we work at google, you read reddit. you forget thatoutside of this bubble, the internet actually has avery different reputation, if you will.
male speaker: and ijust wanted to ask you, so much to the pressabout the internet is dominated by thebad guys, whether it's malware people, or revenge porn. it's like every media cyclefinds some tiny corner of the internet to say thatthis is what the internet is. and of course,reddit, you probably have more than a fair amount ofexperience with this problem. so i'm sort of curious,what are your thoughts?
is this a pr problem? is this a real problem? what, if anything, shouldthe internet do about it, or not do about it? alexis ohanian: ok. well, so the internet--in this instance, when i describethe internet, i'm talking about this technology. the internet is a reflection,like any other tool,
of the people whouse it, whether it's a hammer, whetherit's a printing press, whether it's a thing-- andwhether it was the 5 o'clock news 30 years ago,leads and leads, we have a tendency totalk about this stuff, because mundane thingsnever make headlines. joe is a reasonableperson one day. jane is a reasonableperson the next day. that doesn't get attention ina way that the extremes do.
that's not to sayit's not a problem. it is just that like all things,the stuff that is basically the statistical minority, butthat is doing offensive, awful, whatever stuff, is the thingthat gets the spotlight. that gets the attention. male speaker: unfortunately,then i worry, then it gets the laws. what leads the news becomes thething the member of congress wants to introduce a law about.
i was just reading ablog by a law professor in santa clara, ericgoldman, who's great. and he had a greatline this morning. he said, "i have neverseen any law passed by any state aboutthe internet that has been anythingother than terrible." and so i wonder, as longas that's the mechanism, you see these extremestories, and then that's what yieldspolicymaker attention,
we have this kindof-- i wonder if this is going to be the next thingthe cat signal gets used for. and i guess that'smy next question. where do you thinkthe next internet cat signal worthy threat to theopen internet comes from? i mean, verizon's at it againwith that neutrality stuff. or at least thwarting it. there's tpp, and idon't think any of us have a clue what'sgoing on there,
because it's all closed doors. world leaders nottelling us jack. male speaker: that's treaty thatwill include some copyright law provisions that will involve anumber of different countries that are negotiatingit in secret. alexis ohanian:totally in secret. copyright reform seemslike it's on the table. that could be great. i'm hoping it's great.
male speaker: well, i willsay this about copyright form. that committee ofcongress, they have not forgotten pipa and sopa. they are still payingclose attention. alexis ohanian: excellent. male speaker: so that's prettygood, all things considered. alexis ohanian: i mean, thehope there is we can actually roll back copyright to stopprotecting mickey mouse and actually starthelping people
innovate and be creative. it's scary. and i was able to dig up someold stuff from-- because i went uva, of course, ilove quoting tj. and i found someold letters of his where he even debatedputting an explicit limit in the constitution forpersonal monopolies. for copyrights, trademarks. because there is ashort-term reason,
and a great reasonto have copyright. but the way it has beenabused has taken it so far from its intendedpurpose that it's actually stifling innovationwhen it's supposed to encourage it and enable it. that's probablythe next one, where there's going to be somemeeting, something coming up, and it's going to be on usto rally as many artists, as many musicians,as many authors,
as many creatives,copyright makers, as possible to say,no, no, no, hold on. actually, the reasonmy buddy-- oh my gosh, i can only think of"dinosaur comics" right now. the reason that ryan north,who creates "dinosaur comics," was able to remix"hamlet" into a choose your own adventureversion of "hamlet" and raise $600,000on kickstarter was because it's inthe public domain.
i don't think the estate ofshakespeare loses anything-- male speaker: becausedisney has not yet made their animated"hamlet" version. alexis ohanian: i know. and it's like, weare so much better off because it is inthe public domain. the saddest one is the factthat dr. king's speech still requires some kind of financialtransaction to be viewed. and it's like, that isitself an amazing remix
of so many amazing works. and yes, sadlyenough, here is one of the most important publicspeeches of the 20th century, and someone needs to be paidif you want to watch it. male speaker: one ofmy favorite stories is the song "happy birthday." the lyrics. male speaker: yeah. currently in litigationwith f music claiming they
own the copyright to that. now it was just a story about anonline stream of a live event, where they startedsinging "happy birthday," and the audio got shut down,because it was like, sorry, that's a match. worst birthday ever. male speaker: anyhow,i want to leave time for questions from thisgreat audience as well. so if folks have questions, ithink there's a mike somewhere,
so that the video canhear what you had to say. audience: thanks so much. i loved what you said abouty combinator and the culture of like startup foundershelping startup founders. and that's one ofthe things that i see so often on the internet. when we look at why thesopa and pipa stuff failed was because there wasjust a unified message and a unified front amongstthe internet citizenry.
how do we continue to take someof the biting commentary that comes out of people online, whenwe forget that other people are people buying keyboards? how do we do that? how do we foster that spirit? alexis ohanian: i wish-- male speaker: you mean to saythat unifying youtube and g+ comments won't solve it? alexis ohanian: no, it will not.
male speaker: inside joke. inside joke. alexis ohanian: that'sthe reality, right? i mean, facebook'sthe closest thing we have to therealist of identities. real name, real photo. and people still behavelike awful human beings to people theyknow in real life. i mean, despicable stuff.
so the reality is, ithink no matter what, some extent of awful people willfeel comfortable saying things behind the device thanthey would in person. you could make it sotheir parents have to live-stream watchevery comment they type. like, there's some subset thatare going to always do that. so on the one hand,there's the glib answer of like, finding a wayto like, electrocute them whenever-- i mean,you guys, you,
could maybe plug thatin android somehow. unfortunately, it there isa certain societal thing we can do for etiquettein terms of trying to encourage thatbetter behavior. at some extent, nothingwill be fool-proof. the gift and the curse to anopen communication platform is people are open. whether they're open to saythings-- because remember, that same abilityto say something
that you would notfeel comfortable saying to someone'sface helps someone. it helps someone say something. if they live ina community where they would be persecutedfor their sexuality, it gives them theconfidence to say stuff that they couldn't say withtheir real name attached. because they mightbe persecuted. that is a great gift.
but the curse of it is, again,it lets some asshole abuse it. and i-- only sithdeal in absolutes. so i can't say-- you have totake the good with the bad. and we need to do as much aswe can to curtail the bad. and i think a lotof that's just going to come from us as a society. i mean, so much ofthis has come up. and i think specificallyof cyberbullying. and i think of louis ck'srecent observation, which
was so spot-on,in which she said, the reason i don't let mydaughter's have cell phones, or really use theinternet much is because i needthem to understand that when they arebullies, it hurts people. if you bully someoneto their face, it is a learning opportunity. and as a kid, usually,you feel empathy. you can't really help, unlessyou're a total sociopath,
but feel empathy. but when these kids comeup-- these whippersnappers-- when these kids comeup and can do it all from the safety of a phone,they never feel that empathy. and here's louis ck on"the late night show." and i'm like, damn, louis. you've nailed it. i don't have a solutionyet, but it is very clear that this is a risk that we run.
look, you guys are googleyou can figure it out probably faster than i can. but it's a real issue. because we don't know. this is all new territory. the best thing we have goingfor us right now is this is all a new frontier. and in a lot of ways we,especially the people here at google,have an opportunity
to sort of guide thatin some way, shape, or form, whether through thetechnology that we build, or the things we do. but to some extent, we alsohave to accept the fact that we can'ttotally control it. audience: yeah. i have a question towardsyour history major. you mentioned jefferson. audience: any other figures, ormaybe even trends historically,
or time periods, orthings like that, that really influencedyour career? alexis ohanian: woah. male speaker: oh. alexis ohanian: woah, deep. oh, man. i do not get askedthis question. i need to make myhistory professors proud. uh, man.
one of the things that hasreally and tru-- well, ok. when i think of thefuture of media, i am so-- well actually,let's back this up. tim wu wrote amazing bookcalled "the master switch." and it's a greatpairing with my book, because this is realtalk from professor wu. he's just like, listen,all the same shit alexis is saying about the internetthey were saying about radio, about film, about tv, aboutall these other communication
platforms. and it was going to be sodemocratizing, and so amazing, and so wonderful. and every single one of them,every single one of them, whether it's through bigbusiness, big government, or some combinationof the two, have been what they are today, whichis anything but democratic. so i am very, very cognizant. i keep that book like,floating in my head.
as optimistic as i am,there is a very real chance that this ends up goingthe same way of all those other platforms. and humans are resourceful. there's going to be someother iteration of it. but i don't even wantto go down that road. because right now, wehave such an opportunity. it is the world'slargest library, and the world'slargest stage in one.
and it's accessible to anyonewith an internet connection. which is part of thereason why i love you guys doing this ballooninternet thing. awesome. like, access is stilla huge part of it. and there's some authorwho wrote a book that's saying google wasmaking us stupid. can't remember who it was. very link bait-y title.
yes, i don't mindas a history major not really rememberingthat the civil war was from 1861 to 1865,even though it was, and having to google that later. because yes, that is a cost. maybe i'm a little dumberbecause i don't remember that particularfact, because i know i can google it, or bing it. [laughter]
but again, that's the curse. the gift is anyone withan internet connection can now get the world'sknowledge about the civil war at their fingertips for nothing. my trade-off? that's totally worth. i will gladly be a littleworse at trivia night if it means the world can getaccess to knowledge that's historically been onlyaccessible to those who
had the power, the money, or theconnections, or the whatever. and again, it's alwaysa gift and a curse. there's always, i thinkgenerally speaking, with any of thesenew technologies, it's always there. but that is the thing. and this one feels likeit's going to be different. i know a lot ofpeople in tech have gotten in trouble saying that.
but i really hope so, becausein just the last five years, it feels like we are onthe cusp of really doing something special. and hopefully,not following suit and following in the path ofall those other technologies before it. because that would suck. that would really, really suck. so let's not screwthis up, people, ok?
ok audience: hey. so you said that yourtime at y combinator had a huge influenceon your success, and you think that it's a greatopportunity for young people to get involved inthe startup industry. if you look statisticallyat the type of people that are in ycombinator, it tends to be overwhelmingly male,overwhelmingly white,
overwhelmingly middleto upper middle class. how do suggest bringingthat kind of opportunity to join the startup industryto people that have generally been disadvantaged,like minorities, women, that kind of people? alexis ohanian: well,so the only asterisk i put on that is weactually-- i don't have the numbers in front of me. but typically, southeastasians also do well at yc.
but yes, definitelymajority male, and still. . and this is an issuefor y combinator. this is an issue for tech. and where does it begin? i mean, the shortanswer is, it is largely a reflection of the applicantpool to y combinator. so, all right. how do we broadenthat applicant pool? i hope visiting 75 universitiesbrings more people,
like a dose of what is possible. and at the end ofthe day, i don't care if they applyto y combinator. i just want them to getinterested in building tech. but this is such a big problem. because the biasfor tech investors is to invest in founders whoaren't themselves technical. and so you are lookingat fixing and correcting what has been a problemfor a very long time.
and so part of it is attackingit at the early stages, where it's like, the reason i'm on theadvisor board of [inaudible], and i'm actually fund-raisingfor every stem classroom in brooklyn right now, isbecause it's getting access to technology in classroomsfor kids at a very young age. it is increasing the numberof women and people of color who are doing stem who areinterested in computer science. they are amazingorganizations that i support, like black girls who code, thatare doing a great job better.
that have single-minded focuson bringing women of color into technology andteaching them how to code. there are so manyelements to it. and i mean, from the techcommunity's standpoint, there is also kindof a responsibility that we all have to create anenvironment and a place that is just welcoming. and i don't know whether itis conduct at hackathons, whether it is thekinds of events we run,
whether it's the peoplewe have on stage. i mean, it's all of this stuff. it's a ton of stuff. and i'm sure there's morethat i could be doing. but the low-hangingfruit that i've been able to find myself mosteffective with sort of breaks down to like, again,whether supporting classroom [inaudible], whether it'shelping organizations that are specificallygeared towards-- girls
who code is another great one. geared towards actually gettingthese valuable, valuable skills in the hands of thepeople who need it most, as well as just sort ofgenerally trying to be an ally. but it's notsomething that's going to unfortunatelychange overnight. but i can alreadysee an improvement versus eight years ago whenwe were starting in tech. so it's not a reasonto get complacent,
but it's a reason tofeel good about it. i mean, i was so pleased. the last google sciencefair thing you guys do with all the highschools, i don't think there was asingle dude finalist. and that's like, awesome. sorry, guys. but like, it's things likethat, and stories and examples like that that i think willhope to show and work on this.
but like, it's farfrom overnight. audience: so, it waskind of interesting. there was another talkjust before yours. and it's an editorfrom "the economist" who's writing a book. the book is called "thewriting on the wall," saying that thisversion of new media is actually kind ofold media as well. and how in the past,romans especially, they
used to share information,and transmission was relativelycheap, because you had people that could transcribeit, and copy it, and send it around. and so, he was actuallylike, arguing the fact that the establishment asit was before the internet is kind of the fad. and that this thing aboutbeing able to share information more freely is the way thingswere done before the barriers
to entry became so largethat people couldn't do it. so i guess there's kind oflike, some hope for-- like, you're saying to beoptimistic about, that is where things are going. and i actually bumped intohim in portland, actually. and i was able to get asigned copy of his book. so i'm a chapter in,and i know exactly what you're talking aboutabout ancient rome. what's so cool is, yes--and it's really easy
to gush about howgreat the internet is. all of those things thathave been so successful really are just better scaledversions of things humans have always done. whether it's social media. i mean, crowdfunding, right? as soon as we had currency,actually people were bartering. they were probablylike, hey, let's all pitch in to gocreate this thing.
some of the bestideas are the ones that are just highlyscaled versions of things human beings havealways done, instead of having to teachus a new skill. male speaker: and on that samenote, i'd encourage any of you, the next time you're going tocomplain about reddit trolls or the quality ofyoutube comments, there's a great article online--i'm sure you can find it using your favorite search engine--about the graffiti in like
vesuvius-- awful stuff on those walls. it really is. people are the same. it's scaled, but thepeople are still the same as they were then. alexis ohanian: let me,because it's again, always very helpful. one of the things that makesme so much happier is, so yes,
people always been the same. and we can get alldeep about like, the duality of man and humansand the range of stuff. but look, i thinkhistorically, we've always had forces thathave always tried to, for whatever reasons, whetherthey were businesses trying to sell us more toothpaste,whether they were governments trying to make a scared,whatever, we've always been pushed toward sortof fearing our neighbor
and being more afraidand being worried. i really do believe most peopleare actually pretty decent. they're just decent people. and the fact that these stories,these sort of benign stories, can now scale alot further, when you can read the storyof some cute kids in la children's hospitalputting up a sign that says "send pizza," and that cango around the world, and all of a sudden, a bunchof random strangers
are just buying pizza for abunch of kids in a chemo ward. and that story now doesn'tjust stay within the family. i'm sure at some point inthe history of hospitals, , someone did some random kindgesture like buy some pizza for some sick kids. but now that story scales. and now that story getsseen by more people, and more people actuallygo, oh, you know what? that's kind of nice.
like, that's cool. and we can actually finallystart scaling those subtle, kind gestures of humanity thatnever would have made headlines before. that never wouldhave gone beyond our initial social circle. again, i am optimistic. but i really hope we get alittle closer to all realizing we're all justcarbon-based lifeforms
trying to get by ona little blue dot. at least until the singularly. and i saw kurzweil earlier. that's going to be amazing. but until then, we got to trynot to fuck this thing up. male speaker: as they saidin "star trek," "ugly bag of mostly water." audience: with allthe revelations of what the nsa has been doingto spy on a bunch of people,
i was kind of wondering-- sorry. alexis ohanian: i waslike, is that god? audience: i waskind of wondering what your thoughts on that were? i know a lot of politicians seemto be ok and in support of it. i can kind of guesswhat your thoughts are. but two, also, how do you feelthat the internet may change in response to this information? and also three, ifthere's anything
you think we could do toprevent any bad outcomes that might come of it? for example, you hearabout brazil and china talking aboutdecentralizing the internet. alexis ohanian: oh, man. well, nsa. what is creepy, likethere's a brief dystopian section of the bookwhere i'm like, here's what's going tohappen if we fuck this up.
and. i joke abouteverything the nsa has been doing for the last fewyears, which was awkward. because i didn't wantthat to be prophetic. that is incrediblyupsetting to me. and i think moreand more americans are realizing that-- maybethis is again wishful thinking. but we have a fourthamendment that protects our right toprivacy in [? meet ?] space.
our mail. our home. if you want to see it,great, it's due process. let's get a warrant. that should also applyto our digital email, or our digital mail,and our digital space. and i hope we can connectthose dots for politicians, so that they realize that one,that boundary needs to exist. absolutely.
full stop. and then we can actually have anhonest, open, public discussion about how much it's all atrade-off between security and privacy. and last i checked, this isostensibly still a democracy. we should havediscussions about this. we should be ableto publicly make decisions about justhow much privacy we're willing to give upin the name of security.
and so far, not only, we haven'thad those discussions at all. it's been a total cluster. it's violated all ofour rights to privacy. and we are coming up on the 12year anniversary of the patriot act in a few weeks. and as a nation, we werereally worried, really scared, and made somedecisions that i think now 12 years later, now thatwe can all catch our breath and look at, were not in thebest interests of our rights
as citizens. and i hope we can lookback at those things now. i mean, that was a republicanpresident, george w. bush that signed thatinto law, and then a democrat who has upheld them. and so, everyoneof us, regardless of our politicalstripes, i believe, is really starting tolook critically at this. and i hope we getthat line drawn.
because we need it. because we shouldn'thave ceos having to deal with theserequests when they're not actually in the spiritof the constitution. so i am encouraged by thefact that humans are always resourceful. like, every now and then, i seethe darknet thread bubble up, where people arelike, it's cool, we're going to makeour an internet again.
long-term, i knowhumans are resourceful. it doesn't matter. right now, how much timeand money and energy does the chinesegovernment spend trying to keep peoplefrom looking at photos of the tenement square massacre? and yet still, everyday, people thanks to tor and other pieces of software,look at those things. we are very resourceful.
and that in theend gives me hope. i just don't want it tohave to come to that. and so in the meantime,again, it comes back to us being active citizens, andactually using this government that in theory represents usto not be stupid, and actually have technologists in the room. audience: thanks for coming. i've really enjoyed seeingyour work on "the verge" with-- alexis ohanian: "small empires."
audience: --"small empires." it's awesome. so i want to knowhow that's going on, and where you'regoing with that? alexis ohanian:so "small empires" is a show that ido on "the verge" to basically highlightnew york tech. and not just showoff the founders, because everyonegets to see founders.
show off people who work there. more interestingly to me,people who use these platforms. in my way, it's likestartup propaganda. i want people to watch itand be entertained and think, holy shit. not only can i startone of these things, i could work there. and i can even use this thing. i'm a poet, and i can use rapgenius to annotate my art.
that's an actual example. and also, of course, showoff the new york tech scene. so we have parttwo of season one that just launched on tuesday. it's going to continue through--we've got six episodes up now. the okcupid onemight be my favorite. it just went up. the couple on that episode willmake you feel so unromantic. every one of youis going to feel
like you need tostep up your romance game after seeing that episode. mark my words. but what do i hope? i hope it scales. i hope we can get it on,i don't know, netflix, so we get it somewhere werea bunch more people can even see it. and a lot of people havesaid, hey, come to victoria
and do a "small empires" here. come to orlando and doa "small empires" here. and you know what i said? i love traveling, but icannot possibly do all that. i'm on a bus for thenext five months. so one of the thingswe're trying to do, and i don't thinkit's been done before, is i'd like to opensource the show, or license out theshow to some extent.
kind of like how ted does tedx. i want someone to belike, hey, listen. i want to run the show invictoria, british columbia. because we've got anamazing startup community. we're building "small empires." i want to show it off. and i'll be like, cool. here's what you need. go forth and make awesome stuff.
and like, some basicbranding guidelines. here's how youshoot the episode. this isn't rocket science. it's three cameras. . four really talented peopledo all the real work. and i just sit thereand talk to people. like, it can be runfor pretty cheap. and i would love to see"small empires" sprout all over the world.
because i want theseideas to spread. i could spend a lotof time on planes and go to a bunch ofdifferent communities all over the country. but like, i want to see "smallempires, nairobi" from someone who actually loves nairobias much as i love new york. because like, ican love nairobi, but not in the sameway i love new york. and like, let's let localsshow off their communities
that they're proud off. because to hellwith what i think. male speaker:solutions that scale. we at google care alittle bit about that. alexis ohanian: isgoogle going to help me with "small empires?" audience: i'm fromorlando, so sign me up. male speaker: there you go. alexis ohanian: that wasnot a hypothetical either.
stay tuned, man. "smallempires, orlando." and i was shocked too. i was like, really? orlando? and he was like, yeah, man. we're doing shit. it's not just disney. audience: yeah, i was kind ofinterested on what technologies you think are going to continuehelp the growth of kind
of like, an open internet? i saw the post byshriner yesterday about aaron swartz'software finally shipped for a secure dropbox. and i used to workfor ifixit, and all of their commentarywith press now, like the press isactually requiring that they use pgp onlike, all of their emails, which is pretty intense.
i mean, they're tech reportersbut i figure that can spread. so i'm kind of curious. pgp's old, securedrop's new. and i'm kind of curious like, inthe next five years, what kind of technology do we needto keep in open internet? i mean, there'sthe darknet stuff. male speaker: saythe word tor again. alexis ohanian:tor, tor, tor, tor. wow.
here's what i love. the nature ofinnovation is i actually don't have a fucking clue. it seems to me that, yes, securefile storage, secure mail, this whole lavabit fiasco,there is clearly even from a businessstandpoint, i think there's going to bean increased demand in an actual securemessaging system. there's going tobe increased demand
for an actuallysecure storage system. and it sounds like we'reworking towards getting that. i would hate to see a sort ofbalkanization that comes out of the internet because of this. just even thestandpoint of like, there are going to bepeople who are going to look twice atusing a service. let's say it's anamerican company who's servers are here in the states.
male speaker: let's say. alexis ohanian: that'sterrifying to me. if i'm putting onmy businessman hat, i'm like, that's terrifying. we lead the world, essentially,in the internet economy. like, the world is using google. i generalizing here. but like, there arenot a lot of industries left where the united statesis sort of king of the roost.
and that is not guaranteed. it is not guaranteedin any industry, but especially one thatis as competitive and fast to grow as theinternet, as online. and i worry that if wearen't building these things ourselves, someone else will. and before long, thenext big thing pops up, and it's in rakovic, or it'sin berlin, or go down the list, where the laws are there thatuphold the kind of privacy
rights that i wishwe had in the states. well, that we ostensiblydo have in the states, but aren't actuallybeing enforced. so, yeah. there are businessopportunities here. and you guys arelots of smart people. i say, i hope my bookdoes not necessarily inspire you to go leavegoogle and start a company. because you guys havebeen such wonderful hosts.
male speaker: i waslooking in here. i seem to remember a line inhere about the only people to go to google are-- alexis ohanian: are waitinguntil they get the right idea to go start a startup. that's what they are. male speaker: sure. audience: i have togive a little background for this question, so i'll trynot to take up too much time.
early last year,i was in college. i just graduated frombrown university. and someone i new named suniltripathi had disappeared. and no one knew if hehad committed suicide. no one knew if he was kidnapped. no one really had knownwhat happened to him. so take a step like,a couple months to april, when the bostonmarathon bombings happened. so no one had found thismissing student at brown.
and reddit led this massivemanhunt to try-- well, there was a massivemanhunt around the country to find the bostonmarathon bomber. there was chaos everywhere,and reddit had kind of formed this mob mentality, wherethey thought that this missing student from brown was one ofthe boston marathon bombers. and i was at thecollege at the time, so i saw like the real,direct harm it was causing. his family was shattered.
i wasn't particularly close withhim, but i knew his girlfriend. and she was just, i don't know. she was just completelystunned by the whole ordeal. but this is the backgroundfor my question. various forms of media havealways had checks and balances for free speech, likeprint media, like libel. you can't printlibelous information. so i guess, how doyou mitigate the power of the open, freeinternet with its ability
to do harm to people? alexis ohanian:traditional media has gotten it wrong in the past. i mean, even after thenavy yard shooting, cbs and nbcmisidentified someone who was involved in the attack. this is to say, humans arethemselves the problem, whether they are trainedprofessional journalists or not.
there is no goodanswer for this. because yes, there wasa particular subreddit which had maybe 1,000people using it that was responding to an fbirequest to help track the boston bombers. and they misidentified someone. "the new york times" did avery thorough investigation in the sunday magazineabout what happened. and it turned outthat a journalist
had tweeted that reddit post. a journalist, a professionaljournalist, had tweeted it out. and then, it got re-tweeted. even perez hilton joined in. and that spun it out of control. so there are lots of humansresponsible for this. and at the end ofthe day, there just is not an easy answer for this. if one journalist drawsattention to a random reddit
thread, and it gets picked up,and "the new york post" decides to put it on their frontpage, how after the fact can we actually say, what--and this goes back to being the gift and thecurse of the open platform. male speaker: [inaudible]. alexis ohanian: it's an awful,awful thing that happened. and unfortunately,there's no easy solution for the next time. i mean, every one ofthose trained journalists,
even the one who re-tweetedthat reddit thread may make mistakes. and now we've given anopportunity for anyone with a connectionto have a soapbox. and they're goingto make mistakes. and so in response,reddit has sort of to the best of itsability now sort of said, no more of thesekinds of witch hunts. you can't create a subreddit totry to identify the navy yard
shooter, or any other personwho the fbi or someone wants to track down. but the reality is, they'lljust do it on twitter. that's what happened duringthe navy yard shooting. they just do it all on twitter. and people are unfortunately,as they have always been, capable ofbeing, even when they have the best ofintentions, being wrong. and it is a challengethat will always
exist as long as we have people. and once we havesentient robots, they'll just enslave us. so like, i don't know. there's no easy answer. i'm happy withresponse reddit took. but i just know that in a worldwith social media, whether it's a journalist orjoe six-pack, it's probably going to happen again.
male speaker: ok. well, i wanted to say thanks. thanks a bunch for coming. and once again, plug the book. go read it. it's available right over there. and thank you, alexis,for joining us.
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