Let's bring him into the TVP Ultradome. He's at the New York Times. Mike, how you doing?
So, wait. So, what's up? Yeah. So, so four-day work week. Are they living in the future? Yeah. Is this Universal Basic Vacation Days?
It's cool, it's incredible in that I got to sleep in till like 9:00 a.m. today, which was great. But I made up for it because like literally every day this week, I've gotten up at 5:00 in the morning to get my cold ass down to the Oakland courthouse and stand outside for two hours. So, I don't know. But it's fun. It's fun.
How does it work? Who gets priority? Is it first come, first serve? Like if some random person shows up before you, they can just get it and you're just out? Or do you get to show some sort of press pass? Like how does it work?
Yeah, I wish I was cool enough to cut. Well, here's the thing.
You should get an artist pass. VIP pass, right?
No, not VIP. Artist pass is a level above.
So, there are 20 reserved seats in the front row for press. But the issue is only one person per outlet gets it. And we are doing like live blogging for like the big moments, like opening statements and for Elon. Yeah. And so myself and my colleague Cade came on the first week. And so we've had a trade-off. He's gotten the press skip-the-line thing and I've been with the other folks in the 30 unreserved seats in the back.
That are watching YouTube videos.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. Or literally one dude fell asleep. I was actually impressed.
It seemed pretty entertaining. You didn't seem like you were falling asleep. I was keeping up on the live blog.
You're reading my nightmarish Twitter, too. It's been fun, honestly. Have you guys ever done like court case things, or have you ever been sued or been in court?
Never been in court. I went to mock court in high school where everyone picks a role. I think I was... Yeah, we literally LARPed in high school. But other than that, I never... The whole time it seems insane, like with the recent NASA moon mission. I was like, this should be a live stream plus a pay-per-view for the key moments for this trial. It's like we have huge budget deficits and we have these incredible media products. Why are we not doing pay-per-views, right?
That's the funny thing. Oh, I was just going to say that's the funny thing about like federal courthouse stuff. Like there's a lot of different rules around filming and electronics. I covered some cases in DC and I can't even bring a laptop or phone in those courthouses. So like this is actually a very permissive judge just because she believes in press access and stuff. And we've had, there's way more access than you would normally get in federal court cases.
Okay. So you've been to these court cases before, but if I follow your Twitter, it feels like you're making a bunch of rookie mistakes. You only had egg bites at 5:30 a.m. Your bite energy is wearing off. You forgot your butt pillow. You forgot to fill your water bottle. Like, is this amateur hour or are you a professional? What's going on?
I think you guys might know me well enough that that is kind of how I operate most of my life. Like kind of chaotic, but it is.
Focus on the important stuff.
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I can file. I may be like bleeding and hungry, like limping across the finish line, but we're getting... I'm tweeting for you.
What are some like high-profile cases that stand out that you've covered in the past?
So, I got to do, let's see, my first one was insanely boring but important. The Apple versus Samsung thing back in the day and like them suing for Samsung copying like literally everything they do. Um, I did Dallas actually, Zuckerberg's like I think maybe one of his first testimonies on the stand when ZeniMax was suing Meta for the Oculus acquisition. Remember that? That was in Dallas. That was super fun. Uh, that I almost got kicked out of the courtroom for tweeting. Um, and then I did the DC FTC Meta one and I almost got kicked out of the courtroom again. Actually, I did get kicked out of the courtroom for wearing the Meta Ray-Bans. These are not it, but I wore the Meta... And then they started putting... I was super stupid for doing it. But then they started putting signs up saying, 'Do not wear these glasses in court.'
But you weren't... you were just using them as glasses or you were being sneaky and you were recording?
No, I was like, 'Look, I can't record. I won't record.' I was trying to play by the rules and like they are my prescription glasses. Yeah, but the bailiff was like, 'It's too much. It's too high risk for them because you could have like turned off the light or whatever.' Something like that.
Talk about the fans. Are there really Elon Musk fans in the courtroom? Like what motivates someone to go and watch that live? Is this their UFC front row ticket? Like why are they there?
So you guys would have fun. Like it actually is... a lot of court cases are boring to people who don't care about this stuff, right? Like you and I may be super into... like the FTC trial was super fun for me because it's like, oh my god, Mark Zuckerberg emailing Sheryl Sandberg and talking about Path, like this is incredible. And like the average person has no idea what we're talking about, but this is like a circus. There are people who genuinely love Elon or are genuinely worried about the end of the world happening. Um, and I think it's a really good thing that there's public access to these courts. Like I think like the average person can come in and show up. And that's what I think after the buzz of Twitter and like people seeing that this is an event, we got much longer lines and like folks who are local, like just like I know a PM in tech from Meta that came. I know like a guy from Box made it in. Uh, just if you get there early enough then you can get a seat and you can just hang out. It's like, and I think it's really great. I think it's great that people are there for it, you know? It shouldn't just be me.
Yeah. What about the jury? Does the jury seem excited and honored to have the opportunity to be a part of a case like this or are they nodding off? It'd be so funny to be like so out of... just like off the internet. You can't be... super bad. Not a clue like, 'Sam, this guy Sam and Greg and this guy who makes cars and I don't even know what they're talking about, a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo.' Like there's got to be one person on the jury that was just so not tapped in that they're just confused.
Yeah. I think jury selection was super interesting for that. I can't say too much about the jury right now because like there's all these rules about like some random person could go up to them if you identify them or try to alter it. Totally. But I will say like during jury selection on Monday, it is an incredible slice of life and you get like how familiar or unfamiliar people are with the tech industry despite being here, you know, like some folks are like, 'I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know what AI is. I don't know what AGI stands for.' So it really... jury selection is so important for cases like this. It just makes the dynamic of the facts don't necessarily always matter, but the vibe can really matter, which I think is a benefit for Elon, honestly.
Yeah. Were they trying to weed out people that are a little bit too excited about the case, right? You want the people that are like... in order to have a... But then talk... I didn't understand, why is the jury just giving like an advisory decision? What is the history of like why do you have a jury when the judge is ultimately going to make the final call? It feels like just kind of putting on a show because like theoretically the judge could just sit through a bunch of depositions and make a call.
Yeah. Sure. No, I think um, so I do think they more often than not want a jury of these CEOs' and companies' peers to be the deciding factor in what they feel like is good for a civil claim like that. I think is fairly standard. But to your point, um, the judge can throw out their verdict, which is like... and judges I don't think tend to want to do that because like they want to have reliance on this is the public, the public should have a say in what goes or whatever. But uh, the judge can do that. I will say also she is responsible for uh, if they are... if Elon or sorry, if OpenAI is found liable, judge decides on remedies, damages and things like that. So she still has an active role in that regard and in steering the case. But I really do think that uh, federal courts often prefer or often appreciate a jury of your peers making some of these decisions. So I don't think it's going to be like completely disregarded is what I would say.
Yeah. How has Judge Rogers done so far in your view? Just reading the live blog, she seemingly has like zingers, like pretty good one-liners. I'm just like kind of imagining what it's like in there because obviously I'm just reading text, but she's had like seemingly some pretty good comedic timing.
Yeah. Oh my god, she's so funny. She's like real like, as you might imagine, there's like a number of different types of judges and how they handle their court or whatever. And she just takes no BS from anyone, including the lawyers. And like when they try to like tap dance or break the rules or whatever, she's like, 'No, shut up.' Or like get back on track or no, no, no. Actually, the best part or the most insane part. So, one woman in the overflow room who was just a civilian going to attend and watch it, started recording, which is against the rules, if not the law, in a federal courthouse. So the judge brings her in and in front of a room of like a hundred people just like dresses her down, yells at her saying, 'Did you not see any of these signs? What are you doing? I will kick you out.' I would have like peed my pants and started crying if she had done that to me. It was deeply, deeply intense.
