Musk and Altman go to court

Welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of CEO group chats. I'm your friend David Pierce. And here's a sentence I don't think I ever thought I would say again. I'm using the Rabbit R1. So if you remember, two years ago or so, this device was part of a huge run of these supposedly standalone AI devices, right? The Humane Pin was probably the biggest, most buzzy one. But this became like the darling of CES because its big idea was we're going to use AI to do things on your behalf. We're going to supplant the smartphone. This is going to be the future of everything. Um, it wasn't. All of these devices, including this one, were very bad and couldn't do anything. And we all kind of left them behind. But in the two years since then, two things have happened that I think are really interesting. One, the world has kind of come around to what this device, the R1, is trying to be. Way back when, Rabbit was talking about this idea of a large action model, which is essentially just agentic AI, teaching AI systems to go do things on your behalf. The tech across the board for all of that is still fairly primitive. And for the most part, you want to do it on your smartphone anyway. But Rabbit's big idea about how AI might work was actually pretty prescient and ahead of its time in that sense. The other thing is, genuinely kudos to the Rabbit team. They just kept working on this thing. They redesigned the interface. They built a bunch of new apps. But the one that has really made this thing useful for me again is the magic recorder. And basically all this thing does is record audio. There's a pretty good microphone on this thing, actually, so it's a decent recorder to like put on the table or carry around with you or whatever. And then it does some AI summarization and transcription and then sends you an email. And that's the sort of thing you can do on your phones, the sort of thing you could do on your laptop. There's a million different devices for it. And you really don't need a standalone device to do anything that the R1 does. But there's something about this form factor and being able to walk around and hold it like I'm an old-timey doctor dictating notes. I use it when I'm like walking around the kitchen to take notes on the stuff that I need to get at the grocery store. And then it emails me a grocery list. And there's just lots of little things like this that I don't want a dedicated device for everything, but having it for certain types of things, especially a voice device so I can use it to set timers. I can use it for simple reminders. Having this thing just sitting here on my desk that isn't my phone has actually been kind of great. Kudos to Rabbit. More on this to come. I think there is an interesting story in what has happened to Rabbit over the last few years. So we'll get back to that. But kudos to Rabbit. All right. Today on the show, we're going to do two things. First, we're going to talk to The Verge's Liz Lopato about the OpenAI Elon Musk trial that's going on right now. You're hearing this episode probably on Tuesday. The trial started with jury selection on Monday. Liz and I talked on Friday. There's a lot of stuff happening and a lot of moving parts right now. But it felt important to talk about this trial because there's big stuff happening. It involves huge names in the tech industry, and there are some really interesting things that might come out of it no matter who wins. So we're going to get into that with Liz. Then Sean Hollister is going to come on and break down all of the news from last week's Framework event. Framework is this company that's been around for a few years trying to make more upgradable, more repairable laptops. And in general, has done a really good job. And I think this year represents a bit of a turning point for what Framework is up to. So Sean's going to come on. We're going to get into it. We also have a hotline question about small laptops. So you know I'm excited about that. All of that is coming up in just a second. But first, I'm going to go do my grocery list. That was a real example. So time to take the rabbit out, see how it does. This is The Vergecast. We'll be right back. Employees filing for reimbursements is the latest in spend technology. Oh, wait, that was the script from 1986. In 2026, there's InjunX, the business card that centralizes your spend so you can simplify, save, and earn big with every swipe. InjunX, going up. Injun is a financial technology company, not a bank. The InjunX visa commercial card is issued by Fifth Third Bank N.A., member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Terms and conditions apply. All applications are subject to credit approval. Actual reward rates vary by reward tier and purchase category and may change. Points have no cash value and are redeemable for rewards through our program. Rewards are subject to terms and conditions. Employees filing for reimbursements is the latest in spend technology. Oh, wait, that was the script from 1986. In 2026, there's InjunX, the business card that centralizes your spend so you can simplify, save, and earn big with every swipe. InjunX, going up. Injun is a financial technology company, not a bank. The InjunX visa commercial card is issued by Fifth Third Bank N.A., member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Terms and conditions apply. All applications are subject to credit approval. Actual reward rates vary by reward tier and purchase category and may change. Points have no cash value and are redeemable for rewards through our program. Rewards are subject to terms and conditions. Adobe Acrobat. Get new foundations. Use PDF spaces to generate a presentation. Grab your docs, your permits, your moves. AI levels up your pitch. Get it in a groove. Choose a template with your timeless cool. Come on now, let's flex those tools. Craft, design, deliver, make it sing. AI builds the deck so you can build that thing. Do that, do that, do that with Acrobat. Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat. All right, we're back. Joining me now on The Verge is Liz Lopato. Hi, Liz. Hey, David. How's it going? It's been a minute. I feel like there, there has just been like undercurrents of constant Liz-related chaos. And, and finally, it has all sort of peaked up and, and there was a moment where it's like, well, we have to call Liz and talk about the shenanigans because it's shenanigan time. Well, you know, I mean, it's, I think we've talked about like my cycles of Elon theory where we have like periods of like peak Elon activity, and then it sort of drops off. And like, he's Eloning again. Like this is some peak Elon activity. We have this idiotic trial. And then after that, there's an IPO. Like I wouldn't have put those two things together personally, but I'm not Elon Musk. It's so true in so many ways, Liz. So I sort of want to start with, like, there's this big trial coming up, right? And you're, you're gonna be there covering this thing because I think it's, it's going to be interesting. But my sense is I can't figure out whether this trial is going to be interesting between Elon Musk and OpenAI because it's interesting and important and instructive for the future of AI, or if it's just going to be a mess of shenanigans, essentially, right? Like, is this actually a court case or is this just a show that it is somehow going to jury selection? What's your read right now? This is a shit show. This is a shit show for sure. So there is sort of like this outside possibility. I should, I should note, there's an outside possibility that OpenAI loses the case and has to disgorge a bunch of money, which that potentially does affect the entire AI ecosystem because, you know, OpenAI is tied to virtually every other AI company. They've made deals with basically everyone. So if OpenAI has to disgorge all this money, that's money they may not have to pay, let's say, Oracle, you know, on their obligations. So that, that is a possibility. But, you know, I, many of the lawyers I spoke to for this story were like, if I were taking this case on contingency, I would not take it. Like if I were, you know, if this were on contingency, I would not get paid. Like this is happening because Elon Musk has the money to pay someone to argue a losing case. And so I'm basically just expecting, like, mudslinging and gossip. And, you know, if we, if we get more chaos than that, like I'm, I'm not going to say no to it, but, you know, like it's, it's, to me, it's mostly like, it's meant to embarrass and maybe humiliate Sam Altman. And OpenAI's lawyers are sort of also notoriously nasty. So we'll see. Yeah. So, okay. I want to get into some of the mudslinging because we've already seen a lot of it and you've covered a lot of it. And I want to, I want to talk about kind of what we know and what we think we might learn, but give me like the, the flattest possible read of what this case is about. Like, no, take all, all the shenanigans about it, the most like generous down the middle read of what this, what this case is actually supposed to be about. So casting our minds That mostly doesn't happen, you know? Like, so the fact that it is, you know, a question of facts rather than a question of law is the reason we're in front of a jury. And it's just because the facts are so strongly lined up against, um, Musk that everybody's surprised that we're going forward because most lawyers would be like, this is a waste of my time. Yeah, you have a great quote in a story you wrote that was basically like, this ended up a trial because — let me see if I can find this. It's from Sam Brunson, who's at the Loyola University of Chicago, who says it only ended up at trial because Elon Musk can pay his attorneys to argue a losing case. Like, bleak. But here we are. Here we are. You mentioned all of the stuff that we've seen already. There's been a lot of information about this case that has come to light in one way or another in the run-up to it. What have we learned, do you think? What's kind of top of mind for you in terms of new things we've learned just because this case has come this far, which again I think is, in particular, Elon Musk's goal, is just to get — put a lot of damaging information about his opponents out there through legal filings. To some extent, it seems to be working already. What has happened so far? Well, my personal favorite, which I'm just going to start with, is from a legal filing. It's not going to make it into the case because in the filing, Musk's lawyers were arguing successfully, as it turns out, to get it excluded. But it's a line of questioning in his deposition from OpenAI's lawyers who are asking him, does he know what RhinoCat is? Does he know what RhinoCatamine is? Did he do RhinoCatamine at Burning Man in 2017? Okay, like, this is just... That is a series of very specific questions. It's, this is — you know? And, like, they actually they can ask about Burning Man, by the way, because that is a period of time that is relevant to this case. So we may hear some questions about Elon Musk's behavior at Burning Man. And if he answers them wrong, he does open himself up to then getting the questions about RhinoCat. So, like, I'm over here just like, fingers crossed, baby. But, you know, I think that that's sort of, like, emblematic of, like, you know, what we're getting here. Like, some of the things that we're getting are details that I think are interesting to people in the tech industry, like Ilya Sutskever being like, oh, we can't treat open-source AI as a sideshow. Like, this is potentially something that, you know, we need to take very seriously. And you have moments of, like, discovering that Musk was, like, as he stomped off, going to try to start recruiting people from OpenAI, like poaching them. So there are, you know, like, there's like some of this, like, inside baseball that I think is going to be really interesting to people who work in the tech industry. And obviously we'll be covering that. But for me, like, I'm here for them, like, insulting Jeff Bezos casually, like a bit of a tool, as I think, what Musk called him. So this is actually one line of this case that I'm particularly interested in, because when you have people as central to the tech industry as Sam Altman and Elon Musk in particular are, you have people who are talking to everybody all the time, Discovery is designed to get lots of information. I think you covered the SBF trial for us, Sam Bankman-Fried, through all the crypto stuff. And that was another case in which a lot of people caught a lot of strays in public. Yep. Is this likely to be the same thing where just every name you can think of in tech is probably going to surface in some embarrassing text message or email? Yes. I mean, they're already catching strays. Like Mark Zuckerberg's texts, again, have shown up in the docket. Wait, that was from the moderation thing? That was from this trial? That's this trial, yeah. Oh, that's funny. That's great. Well, you explain what that was for people who didn't know. So about a year ago, Mark Zuckerberg went on the Joe Rogan podcast and lied his face off about how, you know, Facebook doesn't respond to government pressure and like they don't want to censor because of the government and the mean old bad Biden administration called them occasionally and asked them to take stuff down. How dare they? This is also when he said Facebook needed more masculine energy. Right. And I called him bitch-made. Super cool times. So for those of you who remember. So, you know, it was like, I called him a liar at the time. And then this comes out and he's like, don't worry, Elon, we're gonna make sure that nobody reveals the identities of your Doge boys. And it's like, man, I knew you were lying, but I didn't think that you were lying that brazenly. Like, I didn't think that you were just like, I'm gonna put some shit that's incriminating in my texts. Like, that's incredible. After everything this guy has been through in court, he's like still putting incriminating nonsense in his fucking texts. Okay. So, you know, like, it's Zuckerberg's already caught strays. I'm sure there are more because he and Musk seem to be pals. Sam Altman knows everybody. Like that is sort of famously one of the things about him that makes him, you know, unique in the Bay is that he is just like really connected in part because of his sort of previous time at Y Combinator. And so I imagine we're going to hear things about leadership at Nvidia. I think we're probably going to hear things about, you know, OpenAI's assorted partners. Like, obviously, Microsoft's a part of the suit, so we're gonna hear from them. But, you know, anybody that they might have partnered with or that they had explored partnerships with, like, that's also potentially something that comes into the case. And so that's everybody. You know, like that's a number of these, like, companies like CoreWeave that are making deals with OpenAI for compute. That is places like Amazon and Microsoft that are, you know, big companies that were thinking about investments. That is potentially anybody who is thinking about an investment in OpenAI. So I'm like, all right, which VCs are gonna be catching strays here? Because, like, you know, those are also people who potentially can be very embarrassed by stuff that comes out just in the course of, like, having this discussion of, like, what happened on this timeline. Yeah. And it also seems like we've tracked a bunch of really interesting moments in the history of OpenAI, particularly Sam Altman getting fired. I mean, it's really interesting to me, the timing of this next to that big New Yorker story about Sam Altman, which raises a lot of questions, I think, about his fitness to lead the company and a lot of questions about the information being shared around him and potentially by people like Elon Musk who want to take him down. The like dossiers being created by APPO researchers. Like, I mean, it's literally like, in the way that Silicon Valley, the HBO show, is way too real about the tech industry, like, these are all just succession plots. Every single one of them is just a succession plot about other companies. And it just feels like the risk right now for Sam Altman reputationally is so high that you can sort of see why Elon Musk, like, smells blood in the water, right? That it's like, if I can just take him down, A, I will win in my heart in a deeply, like, blackhearted way. But also, I can in a very real way take down a competitor right before SpaceX goes public. Like, part of me thinks that you're right and this is going to be easy and OpenAI is gonna win the case pretty open and shut and just walk away and go about its business. But it also does feel like OpenAI is tenuous right now in a way that this could go sideways even if they win the case. I don't know, am I overthinking this? No, I don't think you are. Although I will say, I think that the New Yorker article came out when it did in part because of this case, right? Like, you know, my read of this, and this is just, like, as a person who also does reporting, is that when I got to the part about the dossier, I was like, oh, someone sent Ronan Farrow this dossier. And he was like, okay, how much of this can I substantiate? And the answer was, like, the most egregious claims were false. And, like, there's a point at which Altman actually thanks him for, like, looking into, you know, these allegations where he's like, at least somebody, like, looked into it and said, like, that's not real. It's really hard to prove a negative, but like, if anybody's going to find, you know, misconduct, like, Ronan Farrow is pretty good at it. Yeah. Yeah, he was on Decoder and basically was like, I wouldn't, I would never say never, but I have looked into it as hard as anyone has ever looked into it and I found nothing. I'm like, that's about all you can ask for at the moment. That's all you can ask for. So, you know, that is my understanding of the genesis of the story. Like, I... You would have to ask Ronan Farrow, like, to figure out if that's true. But just, like, SpaceX IPO is that Musk has been very clear about wanting to reserve some chunk of it for retail investors, which to me seems like, oh, you're going to dump on retail. That's horrible. But, you know, like the positive case, of course, is that, well, this is potentially going to be one of the most important companies of our time, so we should let the little guys get in on it too. Fine. But that those people are not maybe not already in business with Elon Musk. And so, like, if you are just thinking about this from an investment perspective, you're not bought in on his whole deal, you're not one of his fanboys, you're not an investor in Tesla, and you start to hear things from this trial, you might be like, I don't know about this. Like, I don't think that's a good place for me to, like, put my money or for me to put my fund's money or for me to put some of the, you know, the retirement accounts I'm managing. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. And I think it's this is very instructive because I feel like I can spend less of my time now wondering who's going to win the case and more just monitoring the chaos because that is the point of this is the chaos. It seems. Yeah. And that is that is what we're going to be doing, which is perfect for you because I feel like it's just like this just has Liz written all over it. I'm excited for you. It's going to be great. I was trying to explain to a friend, like what I do. And at one point he was just like, oh, you just write about the most cursed stories in technology. And I was like, yeah, that's right. That's about right. And sometimes those cursed stories end up in courtrooms and then you have to dress nicer to cover the cursed stories in technology. I'll be hanging out outside a courtroom in downtown Oakland waiting for this this all to start kicking off. It's going to be a messy one. You've stood in some wild lines for courtrooms. I suspect this one's going to be high on the list. I we'll see. But yes, I am expecting mess. I am expecting chaos. And I am very curious about who's going to get burned here. Yeah, indeed. All right. Thank you for helping with this. I feel good. You're going to be in the courtroom. You're going to be writing a ton. Make sure you're following Liz to get all of this stuff. And we'll have to have you back when some truly wild stuff happens. And we're just going to read texts to each other and then just sort of cackle about them on a podcast. I'm very excited. Sounds amazing. I look forward to our dramatic readings. Perfect. All right. We're going to take a break. We'll be back. Thanks, Liz. Support for this show comes from Shopify. Every thriving successful business has to start somewhere. A good place to start is a relatively simple question. What if, given the right tools, I really put my all into this? One tool that can help grow your sprouting business to new heights is Shopify. Millions of businesses around the world rely on Shopify for e-commerce. They offer a host of helpful tools you can take advantage of. From payment processing to analytics to website design. Their design studio includes hundreds of templates to help you create the exact website you've been envisioning for your business. If you're wondering, what if I need help? Then no worries, because you're never left to fend for yourself. 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Its updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language. Nearly 60% of hirers find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. And instead of getting buried in resumes, you get a focus shortlist that actually moves your hiring forward. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash track. Terms and conditions apply. All right, we're back. The Verge's Sean Hollister is here. Hi, Sean. Hi. So we have an opportunity to talk about a thing that I'm very excited about, which is that Framework, a company I think you and I both think is, like, cool and interesting and fascinating, and we should talk about the reasons for that, kind of finally made the computer we've been waiting for Framework to make. So let's just start there. There's a bunch of announcements from Framework this week. Super interesting stuff, but the Framework Laptop Pro was the star of the show. Tell me about this laptop. You were at the event. You saw it. Tell me about this laptop. I was excited just from the spec sheet because of jargon. Because of things like LP-CAM2 with two Ms. Because that is a new form of computer memory, which is wonderful, and I'll tell you about that later. But things like custom display, 30 to 120 hertz, variable refresh rate. Things like Core Ultra 3. But when I got there, the thing that actually impressed me was the thing I dismissed at first. It's that this has a chassis made of CNC-machined aluminum, actually carved out of extruded blocks of metal instead of being, like, printed and stamped and those things that cheap laptops do. And that Framework, which does not make cheap laptops, was still kind of doing up till now because they wanted to put their money other places. Right. Yeah, the rap on Framework, I feel like, since the very beginning has been, I love this company's ethos, which is that everything should be upgradable and repairable, and you should be able to swap in parts and you should be able to buy a computer and use it for a really long time. But you were always making some sacrifices in service of that ethos. Huge compromises. Huge compromises. And I feel like they've gotten less huge over time in Framework's defense. But I do think, I think the chassis is actually maybe the biggest one. Like, Framework has just never made a laptop that you pick up and you're like, God, this feels great. It's just never done that before. Never. And so I think, to me, just, like, even reading your story, it was like, the first impression you get is like, oh, they made a great one. Like, the MacBook Pro, I think, is a reasonable standard of, like, really excellent high-end laptops. Is it that nice a piece of hardware? It feels like it's in that category now. Like, you know, I don't want to go all the way to, like, if you take your, you know, M5 16-inch MacBook Pro with all the stuff and it's the best laptop that Apple has ever made because, of course, every year they make the best laptop they've ever made. Yada, yada. I don't know if it is that perfect of a, like, feel, which, and even there, Apple laptops, I don't like how, like, the, the deck, like, pulls, carves into my wrists when I'm trying to type on it. I don't love that. But when we, whenever we've said, wow, a Windows manufacturer finally got it. This is up there with the MacBook. Framework is finally there, too. Framework is finally in that place where this chassis feels like it can go toe to toe with anything else out there. And the touchpad may be better than the Windows laptops I've used. That's strong praise, and it's very preliminary. Very preliminary. Like, how long did I play with this thing? Not long enough to be like, I'm going to use this touchpad every day and love it. But my first impression was silky smooth. Nice. The haptic click feels like a proper haptic click, whereas most Windows manufacturers, like, kind of tried to copy the thing Apple did and maybe didn't quite get all the way there. Like they put some serious thought and effort and money into this. And yeah, Here and there, you can maybe have them make it slightly differently. You can reserve the best one instead of getting the leftovers. And then if you keep iterating on that long enough and you get big enough and successful enough, you get to start dictating the parts that you make, right? And that's when you become powerful and it's also when you get to start making the things that you want to make. And it seems to me that this is framework hitting that point. That now framework is in charge of its own destiny, like all the way down to the metal in a way that it never has before. And it seems like Nirav kind of alluded to that with you. That's what Nirav said to me. I mean, he said, after six years doing this, they get to design what they're making, really. They have the relationships. He said there is essentially no technology that's theoretically possible where we're not at a scale we can get it. That's what he said. And it's kind of a bold thing to say out loud. Very bold. He's been very bold this cycle. He also said that everybody, you know, nobody likes this Logitech keyboard. We'll get to that in a little bit. Yeah, we will. But to some degree, it's true. To some degree, yes, they made a custom display here. They've never been able to do this much before. To some other degree, though, like they are working with specific companies that do still control their destiny. This wouldn't be possible without working closely with Intel, not only on like the CPU, but on the motherboard and the RAM, putting all of that together in a package. He said, you know, they worked with Micron to secure access to the RAM and some other memory companies because you have to have a supply of these newfangled CAM2 memory modules. It's not just a standard part. Lenovo has them too. But, you know, now so does Framework. I don't know for sure that they're not like, hey, Lenovo, can you send some of your other memory modules over here? And I do know some companies, some very small companies that have kind of used like the leftover capacity at an Apple factory that's, you know, making metal shells for things. It could be that Framework is using some leftover capacity Apple doesn't need, but I don't know. They've been here six years. They feel like they're here to stay, right? Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think this company is kind of feeling itself? Like, even just in the run-up to the event, it was like, okay, I wonder what they're going to have to say about RAM prices and what they're going to have to say about supply. And they're going to have to give this squirrely, we don't know what this is going to cost and we don't know when it's going to be available. Here's a website. Sign up for more information. And instead, they kind of came out with bravado and confidence. Like, this company seems to be firing on all cylinders in a way I did not really expect. What's your read on how it has managed to find its way through the chaos we keep talking about on this show? Part of it is, I mean, part of it's investment. They've had investment that's unlocked the ability to invest in these supply chains, in these products that they did not have before. Part of it is that they have gained the respect and confidence, having done this thing with laptop number one. We were like, how is any of these parts going to be upgradable than laptop number two? Or is this a broken promise? With number two, we're like, this is better, but nobody's actually had a chance to replace laptop one yet. Let's see if they're going to do it in laptop three. Laptop three comes out. We're like, okay, it's two generations. They've done the thing nobody else has done. Then they did it again with the 16-inch. Okay, this company is really on to, they know this, and they are building an audience that trusts them. And they're being very transparent with this audience about everything from RAM prices and how much it costs them to the suppliers they use for the components. They don't just say, we've built this wonderful new, you know, Wi-Fi chip that's in this framework keyboard. They say, we are using this particular component from this one of our suppliers that the nerds in the audience will know and recognize and say, yeah, you used a really good component. We are nerds too and we get it. That is something that there's been far too little of in this industry. And so that kind of, I don't want to say radical transparency, but this transparency is a breath of fresh air. It makes this audience feel like they are being listened to, that they have a voice, that they are supporting a movement instead of just supporting a company. And so when they're playing to that audience, like they were in that event in San Francisco, you know, they brought in fans, not just journalists to cover that event too. And I don't, I don't mean like influencers. Like I did not see these fans roaming around with cameras for the YouTube channels like I see at Samsung. I saw like people who were like just walking around, asking questions, trying gadgets and occasionally coming up to me and saying, are you Sean Hollister with The Verge? You want to talk about this? That was fun. That was fun. I don't get recognized very often. Those are the good days. I like those days. And that's also when you know you're like, oh, this is, this is nerdy people. When people know who I am. These are, these are my people. Yes. Yes. So, okay. So this all sounds very good. You haven't tested the thing. We will, we will eventually get one of these to review. What are you worried about? What, what do you look at or what have you seen that you're like, this is a, this is a yellow flag. I'm, I'm marking this down to check later. Surprisingly few. I did skewer the idea that this is like a MacBook Pro to some degree in my story because although it has the build, we don't know the performance quite yet. And this screen that's on it. While it is a custom screen that has a lot of characteristics that I want. MacBook Pros are generally screens for creative professionals who need to work with accurate colors and things like that. And while they say all these are color calibrated out of the box to a per unit level, by the way, which is also amazing. They're talking about a hundred percent of the SRGB color gamut, which is the small one, not Adobe RGB, not DCI P3. So if you want, if you're a creative professional working on your next film, you're probably not going to do it on this screen. You're probably going to plug in an external monitor to it that has the specs you need for that. Okay. Yeah. I think, I think it was in your story that they said something to the effect of, we think this is a computer for developers. Yeah. Which, which strikes me as very smart in, at this moment in time. It's like when Apple says creative, it means like people who use video editing suites for a living. Right. Like you see the things in Apple's commercials. And it's like people who make creative arts in some way or shape or form. And that's like, I think that's who Apple wants you to think its customer is more than its actual customer base. Like that's, that's what Apple means by creative. I think it's actually, it's sort of instructive to hear them say this is for developers, which also I think maybe helps explain one of the other fascinating things about it, which is there is a, there is a dyed in the wool Linux version of this. Because Sean, this is the year of Linux on the desktop. I don't know if you've heard. It's news to me. No. This is Framework's first laptop that can actually come pre-installed with Linux and it is the default. You could get DIY systems and they would be like, yeah, this works great with Linux. We've worked on the drivers. We make sure it's a great experience. But this one is like, they'll ship you a box that works with Linux. Yeah. You will turn it on and it will be running Ubuntu Linux. It is certified with Ubuntu Linux and they have support for a whole lot of other distros too. So, you know, then if you want to put your Bazite on there and have this, the 12XE core version be your, you know, your, your portable 13.5 inch gaming machine, you can do that with Bazite. Not that you've thought about that at all. Certainly not. And not that that's your plan. I might be dual booting Bazite on my desktop soon, but Haven't really, mostly been putting out in handhelds right now. But yeah, they say, they say it's the MacBook Pro for Linux users. They say it's the ultimate developer laptop. Even choices like the type of screen that they're using here. Like it is an IPS screen with a matte anti-reflective coating that is very matte. Like this is what I want for text clarity. It's not what I want for beautiful graphics, watching movies, things like that. I'm sure I can do all those things. I'm sure they'll be fine, but this is like, oh yeah, I'm going to spend all day looking at text on a screen. This seems like a direction to go with that. Yeah. That's smart. I like, I, I don't, I don't know how sort of big and sexy that audience is, but I think it's smart for Framework to try and talk to that group of people directly. Um, walk me through the price really fast. And then, then I want to talk about the couch keyboard, but walk me through the price because even frankly, Not only is it going to do the USB-A dongle thing like Logitech, it's also going to have four different Bluetooth pairings. And you can plug it in with a wired cable, so you can get us nerds and developers. We can go into our BIOS and fix things, which you can't do with a wireless keyboard very easily. It's thinner. It's lighter. The typing feels better. I got like around 90 words per minute on my first try with it, and I barely practiced my normal typing speed up for some Vergecommerators test is around 120. So yeah, that's slower, but again, this was my first time ever touching this. Yeah, to just stand there and type on it. That's not bad. And so the hardware inside it is the framework laptop 12's keyboard and a touchpad that is a variant. Okay, which if memory serves is like, fine. As laptops keyboards go, it's fine. Antonio gave it a C on his report card. It's like, it's not the best thing ever, but compared to that Logitech, I tell you. Well, that's the thing. And so the thing I was thinking about is like, what would I pay for this? And the idea that I can pair it to other devices also, so I can have it as like a, you know, backup keyboard to my laptop and I can have it as a backup keyboard to my desktop, or just like have it as my only keyboard and it just sort of runs around with me for the things that I'm doing. Or I can just throw it on the couch and have it be my couch keyboard. It's like, I'm betting this thing is not $35. And I think I'm willing to pay more, but I don't think I'm willing to pay a lot more, which makes this challenging for framework. It is. I worry that framework will overestimate what this is worth to people because the audience is so underserved with a nice one. And they're going to be like, oh, we're the nice one. We're the nice alternative to the Logitech, so we can charge, you know, a hundred and no, you know, I will not buy it at a hundred. I'm hoping. Yeah, like I think it's $69.99. I'd pay that. $50, maybe $60. $50 I'd buy for sure. Yeah. $70 is starting to get to be $70 is where I'm like, I could, but I already have other things. Like not only do I have the Logitech, I do have some folding keyboards from companies you've never heard of lying around. So for me personally, $70 is a stretch, but maybe, maybe. Yeah. It's an interesting one. I also, I just think it's a, it's a neat way of thinking for framework to say, basically, we were building this modular set of things and rather than just have them all connect to each other, how can we sort of turn individual ones into other kinds of products? And I don't know how far that idea goes, right? Like keyboard is sort of uniquely well-suited to do something like that, but to just be like, well, we made a good keyboard. Let's find other uses for good keyboards is a cool way of product thinking that I think we don't see out of a lot of laptop manufacturers. I'm eager to see because they're going to release the, you know, the CAD for the, for the like the how to hold this keyboard and other things. And so we'll see people build it into fun things. Framework had a whole like gallery of here are things our fans built using our hardware. There was like a gaming handheld there that has framework motherboard inside all kinds of fun stuff like that. And so this keyboard will be added to that stable of, you can build it into things. The other bit, which I think you're going to love. I don't know if you saw it, if you read my story because I didn't have a picture of it in there, but it's in the video. They have built what I call the anti-dongle. No, I missed this. And so, you know, there's this USB-C-A like wireless receiver that comes with any of these keyboards, right? So what if you could stick that into one of framework's little expansion cards? So you stick that dongle into a bigger dongle, bear with me, but then that slides perfectly flush into the side of your laptop or your framework desktop because they are designed to hold expansion cards. So flush, no longer sticking out of your laptop or desktop. Only works if you're a frameowner of computer user, but still anti-dongle. I love it. Anti-dongle is pretty good, especially when it's sneakily actually two dongles. That's very good. That's very good. So it seems like framework, like in general, again, I think we have rooted for this company because I think this idea is a good one. And I want someone to make laptops like this and computers like this. And it feels like framework just continues to get the thing right, right? Like this all feels like good news coming from framework. If you're somebody who likes PCs made the right way, this feels like a win of a week. It really does. It feels like this company coming into its own. And I didn't think I would think that coming in. I thought of like, okay, they're doing another 13-inch. They've already done the 13-inch. And there's some really cool peripherals around the edges. We didn't even talk about like the eGPU stuff. That's delightfully nerdy. But yes, but it's a lot. And to see them playing at this level now, I'm not, I don't usually consider myself a fan of companies. I'm a fan of individual products because many companies, you know, their next product won't be anywhere as good as their last one. And then I don't want to be rooting for a product that wasn't well-designed. But framework, it's hard not to be a fan when you love tech like we do. Yeah, I think like, again, I root for framework because I like this idea and the thing that they're doing. And as always, we reserve our, we reserve the right to change our minds. But also you and I have both spent a long time rooting for lots of people to do this thing. And lots of people have done it poorly. And it's very exciting to see somebody continue to do it really well. It is. All right, we need to take a break. But Sean, do you have a few more minutes to stick around and do a hotline question with me? Sure. All right, we're gonna stick around. We'll be right back in a sec. Support for the show comes from Anthropic. Not every question has an easy answer. And the ones that are really worth asking usually come with a healthy mix of inspiration and backpedaling, aha moments and quiet meditation. When you're working through one of those problems, you want a partner to bounce ideas off of and figure out where the deeper issue lies. That's where Claude can help. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. 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Often when individuals are investing, there's a disconnect between when they sell something and when they pay the taxes on it. You might sell it in February and the IRS comes calling in April. What we wanted to do is make people aware of the consequences of their decisions before they made them. People might forget that short-term capital gains are taxed at a higher rate than long-term capital gains. We wanted to make that information salient and give it to them at the point in time so they can make more informed decisions before they go through with them. Learn more about tax impact preview and all the other helpful investment tools at Betterment.com. The tax impact preview tool provides an estimate of tax implications. Betterment does not provide tax advice. Investing involves risk. Performance not guaranteed. All right, we're back. Let's do a question from the Vergecast hotline. As always, the number is 866-Verge-11. The email is verge Finally, some chips that'll do the Windows thing on ARM pretty well. There's still some compatibility issues, but they do it too. And now NVIDIA is about to do this as well. There's an N1 and an N1X chip coming. The NVIDIA ARM revolution is about to happen. They're finally going to have their own processors in devices when the only thing I think that's been powered by an NVIDIA CPU that anybody would know about is the Nintendo Switch. And so now they're going to do that there too. A lot of other things happen along the way that help. I mean, it really helps AMD for those integrated graphics that they got the vote of approval from Sony and from Microsoft. They make it into the Xboxes for two generations running more if you count like the PS5 Pro and Xbox One X versus, you know, One S and all that. All the incentives are aligned. Apple's shown this pathway. Everybody's following the pathway. And it seems like it's all working great. All the chips are performing better than they have bigger leaps in not necessarily in performance, but in battery life than ever. And the performance is getting steadily better as well. Yeah, I am actually surprisingly hopeful for the idea that we are one or two chip generations away from something like the Surface Go actually being like a completely plausible computer. And that like, you look at what the iPad has been for a decade, which is vastly overpowered hardware desperately in search of like usable software for most work. And so it's natural to be like, well, what if this thing could just run Windows and thus run all my Windows apps? And like, it does feel like we're almost there. I feel like I have said that before and I feel like I've looked very stupid, but it feels like we're almost there. And I think our friend Kate might get what they want. It could happen this year. I don't know what the form factors will be. And of course, everything that is happening in the world with RAM and tariffs and fuel prices and so on, are kind of pointing companies away from let's bring out exciting consumer devices right now and instead focus on where they know the money is in AI, in enterprise. So I don't want to say that I expect it to happen soon, but with the trajectory that we've been on, I wouldn't be surprised if it's sooner than we expect. All right, Kate, hold out hope. It could happen. Sean, thank you as always. Good to see you. Yeah, you bet. All right, that's it for the show. Thank you to Liz and Sean for being here. And thank you as always for watching and listening. If you have thoughts, questions, feedback, if you have favorite things that you found in the discovery of the Elon Musk OpenAI trial and you want to share them with us, you can always call the hotline 866 Verge 11. Send us an email, Vergetcast at theverge.com. We absolutely love hearing from you. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. This show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, Travis Larchuk, and Andrew Marino. We will be back on Friday with more news. We're doing Verge in history this week, so go subscribe to that feed. We're making some really fun episodes right now as we speak. But we'll be back on Friday with Nilay talking through all of the news. We'll see you then. Rock on. Hi, I'm Emily, your friend and jeweler at Shane Company, where fine jewelry is always crafted with care no matter the price. Mother's Day, birthdays and graduations, weddings and anniversaries, the new job you got, and even the one you didn't. Give a rose gold necklace, a heart-shaped locket made in Italy, or high-quality diamond studs you can trade up every year. At Shane Company, we have something for everyone because a friend wants you to win the gifting game. Visit us in store or at ShaneCo.com. Shane Company, your friend and jeweler. 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