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**Jerod Santo:** Same exact response. I want to go back to this Google thing for a minute... I thought maybe this is a better way of casting it, which might be enjoyable to think about... So 10 years - cultural significance. So we can talk revenues, and we can talk monopolies, and stuff... But today, and it has been fo... |
**Steve Yegge:** Well, I mean, the pundits have been saying the search bar is dead, right? |
**Jerod Santo:** Yeah. |
**Steve Yegge:** And it ain't dead yet, but I guess it's mortally wounded at this point... So I expect that Google will look very different in 5-10 years. You'll still google things, but it will be a much friendlier experience. And by the way, I don't think they like -- it's funny... I mean, of course, it'll never chan... |
**Jerod Santo:** I know. But it's kind of like "Sorry, guys... I hate being the de facto standard that everybody refers to." |
**Steve Yegge:** Right? |
**Jerod Santo:** Right? It's like "Aww, here's the worlds smallest violin." |
**Steve Yegge:** Tied again. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, for this call I did not ChatGPT your name, I googled your name, and dug through links, because that's what I wanted. So contextually, I wanted a list of links. I did not want a dissertation of who Steve Yegge was. Because I'm sure they can be -- |
**Steve Yegge:** Sure. ChatGPT can give you that. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. And ChatGPT isn't gonna give me a bunch of -- I mean, it can maybe give me resources and cite some things, but I've never actually had it give me a link, that I'm aware of. I could be wrong. |
**Steve Yegge:** \[01:01:59.14\] Yeah. I mean, the thing to keep in mind here is the models don't know -- I mean, they don't know everything. They've looked at a lot of stuff, and they're very good at pattern detection, and completions, and all the other things, but they don't actually have perfect memory and recollect... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I'll tell you what - I know exactly how they win. If they're listening, they should do this. This is exactly how they remain relevant ten years from now. |
**Steve Yegge:** Oh, you should get a bonus for this. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Want me to tell you? Their cash cow is the ad monopoly. And the way you win there is with relevance, and quality. When I search, I ignore, because it's not relevant or quality. If they increase that relevance and quality, the way that Amazon has, the way that Instagram has, or even TikTok in some ca... |
**Steve Yegge:** Interesting. I bet they've never thought of that before. \[laughter\] |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I guarantee they haven't. You know why they haven't? Because it sucks already. Relevance and quality is not there, ad-wise. |
**Steve Yegge:** My hypothesis is that because there's a third dimension that they've decided to optimize for, which is money... |
**Jerod Santo:** Right... |
**Steve Yegge:** Which is another form of winning, I guess, but yeah, it would make for bad ads. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I would pay more as an advertiser if you let me deliver relevance and quality, that also equated to money for both of us. |
**Jerod Santo:** I think the advertisers all want to pay less, though. You're probably unique. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Maybe you actually pay less that way. You force relevance and quality. The people who want to be low-quality and low-relevance, who need to be there, literally need to pay to get views, or eyeballs, or whatever you call it... They'd probably pay a lot more than those who truly are relevant and truly... |
**Steve Yegge:** I'd say quality comes at the expense of privacy in ads. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** It does. Well, how does Instagram do it? How does Amazon do it? |
**Steve Yegge:** They trample your privacy like sociopaths. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay... |
**Jerod Santo:** Right. And there's the uncanny valley of quality, where when it gets too close to home, which is too good, specifically Instagram - now you start having people say, "I think they're listening to me. I think they know." |
**Steve Yegge:** They do. Yeah, 100%. You can talk about some random topic in front of Alexa, and you'll start seeing ads for it. |
**Jerod Santo:** So there you go. I mean, that's quality though, because it's exactly -- it's so relevant to your life. |
**Steve Yegge:** It is, because quality means intent, really. And relevance. They're all related. It's intent if you search for something. |
**Jerod Santo:** Right. |
**Steve Yegge:** Yeah, we all want relevance and quality. And of course, Google wants to give you, and all these advertisers want to give you the relevant, high-quality ads. |
**Jerod Santo:** But we don't want creepy. So there's this weird rub there, right? |
**Steve Yegge:** That's the problem. |
**Jerod Santo:** Exactly. |
**Steve Yegge:** That's exactly the rub, man... Is that they need to know a lot about you, potentially through mechanisms that you don't really want them to be using, in order to show you something that's relevant to you. And that there is the crux of the problem. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** How do we bake -- I mean, this is not a show on search relevance, but how do we bake-in opt-in relevance then? Because I would certainly opt into some relevance. Like, at my own discretion. Don't be sneaky about it... Give me a chance to tell you what relevant to me. And then I would happily take -- |
**Steve Yegge:** \[01:06:02.09\] I mean, opt-in relevance is called a click... Like, click the ad. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Click the ad, or search something... If I search something, or if I engage with something, that's kind of -- like, if I knew that as a user, like "Hey, when you engage on my platform with X, Y or Z, that's opt-in relevance, and I'm gonna give you more, because you're gonna want this. This is how the... |
**Steve Yegge:** I can't believe that you guys got me talking about ads. I hate ads. \[laughter\] I've done ads twice in my career I've said "No, never again", and then done it again. Maybe three times. |
**Jerod Santo:** Alright, here's a good transition off of ads then... So five years at Google -- or five years ago, sorry... 2017, you joined Sourcegraph. This was like -- did you come out of retirement to join Sourcegraph, or was that just a kind of a cool way of saying it? Were you actually retired? |
**Steve Yegge:** Yeah. |
**Jerod Santo:** You retired. So after Google, you're like "I'm done." |
**Steve Yegge:** Yeah, I was working on my house, mostly. |
**Jerod Santo:** Okay. Building a house... |
**Steve Yegge:** I built a really nice studio. I'm sitting here, I can see nine guitars from where I'm sitting. |
**Jerod Santo:** Nice... |
**Steve Yegge:** A piano, and an ukulele, and a mandolin and... |
**Jerod Santo:** Alright, so -- |
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