Lauren Goode: And I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t like to lose.
Steven Levy: Of course not.
Lauren Goode: I don’t know him well, but that’s my speculation.
Steven Levy: No, he doesn’t like to lose. And if you’re an employee there, and you get the message, “If you’re not doing this, go somewhere else,” if you’re an unloved employee, you’re going somewhere else.
Lauren Goode: Right. Steven, this is interesting. It was a real privilege to be able to record a podcast about Meta with the person who wrote the book on Meta, even though it was then called Facebook.
Steven Levy: Right. Right.
Lauren Goode: Right.
Steven Levy: They tried to destroy my book. They changed the name of the company, didn’t they?
Lauren Goode: That’s actually why Mark Zuckerberg changed the company name.
Steven Levy: Great. But I also wrote a story about virtual reality for Rolling Stone in 1990.
Lauren Goode: What?
Steven Levy: That’s the next big thing.
Lauren Goode: What headset are you using?
Steven Levy: I used the Gyrolinear headset and then I went to NASA. They have something set up there, with… They call it the Sword of Damocles, because the rope comes from the ceiling.
Lauren Goode: And at the time, what kind of prediction, what timeline did people make when that was going to be the next big thing?
Steven Levy: Less than 30 years.
Lauren Goode: And you said it was in the 90s?
Steven Levy: 1990.
Lauren Goode: Oh, okay. Well, we got over that.
Steven Levy: Yeah yeah yeah. No no. It was fascinating, because everyone thought it was the next big thing. However, I chose not to write a book about it. I think that’s a good thing. Instead, I wrote a book called Artificial Life, didn’t I? It hasn’t happened yet, but it can.
Lauren Goode: Also, you wrote a book about cryptocurrencies.
Steven Levy: Yes, I did. YES.
Lauren Goode: YES. I guess that happened, but-
Steven Levy: That happened.
Lauren Goode: That happened.
Steven Levy: The stuff I wrote in that book, it’s there, isn’t it?
Lauren Goode: Great. The market is a bit volatile, but here it is. Okay, so this basically just becomes a podcast where we talk about Steven Levy’s books.
Steven Levy: I like it.
Lauren Goode: Thank you so much for joining us. We’ll take a little break, and when we come back, we’ll give our recommendations for other Steven Levy books you haven’t read yet. We will be right back.
[Break]
Lauren Goode: Steven, what is your recommendation for this week?
Steven Levy: I will recommend a play.
Lauren Goode: Oh okay.
