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Appearances
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
It was a very, very difficult experience for our entire office. as well as the Anderson family. I mean, this is really one of our own. We welcome students into this community, the Binghamton University family, and when something like this happens, it's just devastating.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
The university offered counseling for students and made services available to them.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
We had learned that he had family down in Nicaragua as well as here. He was a US citizen and had dual citizenship with Nicaragua.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
We got calls from media from all over the country.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
National manhunt launched for the former boyfriend of a nursing student found dead in upstate New York.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
Reporters who spoke to one student who said she was shocked when she heard the news.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
There was a warrant issued for him to be brought back.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
Our understanding was that he would actually stand trial in Broome County.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
It feels good to get a feeling that hopefully justice will be served. You know, right now it's kind of hard to look at the bright side of things.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
Once we had learned that he had been taken into custody down in Nicaragua, our office was very busy trying to meet with the State Department, contact Washington D.C. in a way to get him extradited back to Broome County, New York to stand trial. Great efforts were made by our local government, federal government to try and get this individual back.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
This was a very unique situation, something that I had never come across in my 25 years as a prosecutor. My understanding regarding the extradition treaties that are in place are that if he is a citizen of both countries that they have the option to have him tried in Nicaragua or be brought back to the United States to face trial.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
There came a point in time when the authorities in Nicaragua made it clear to our local government and our federal government that he was going to be tried down there, based on the fact that he was a citizen of Nicaragua.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
We don't have that law in New York State. We have murder in the second degree. That's what he was charged with in this case under New York law.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
We did everything that we could to help Haley's family through the process, but we were learning the process ourselves at the same time trying to explain it to them. But we were gonna do everything that we could to make sure that Haley's family got justice.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
We actually had our grand jury room outfitted as a courtroom with all the technology in order to connect with Nicaragua. Sometimes there were mechanical glitches or technical difficulties to hook up with them by satellite.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
We were dispatched to a female cell not breathing when I arrived.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
Laying on the bed. Estaba acostada en la cama. On her back.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
My friend app was showing that Hallie Anderson's cell phone was inside the apartment.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
We had to bring in witnesses from all over the country. They were actually questioned by the prosecutors. We did not question them. They were just put on the video and were interviewed by the prosecutors down in Nicaragua.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
They stated that Hallie had hooked up with Orlando Tercero a couple of times, but did not want anything serious with him.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
That he was obsessed with her. And that at one time he had slashed her vehicle's tires.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
In the United States, you have a jury trial where you have to convince 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt. Nicaragua used the judge having the authority to make the decision as to whether someone is guilty or not guilty. So we didn't know anything about this judge. We didn't know what the judge was going to do. It was a very stressful time for everyone involved.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
In November of 2019, Orlando was convicted of femicide. We knew that the sentence could be up to 30 years in prison, and we were somewhat relieved at that point, knowing that Haley's family would get justice.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
We're very pleased with the judge's decision and we believe it was the right decision.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
There's an outstanding warrant for him, and he's ready to be tried in New York State. The maximum sentence in New York State for murder in the second degree is 25 years to life. Now, would we bring him back to be tried a second time? Decisions would have to be made down the line. His defense attorney in New York State, as well as down in Nicaragua, would argue that double jeopardy attaches.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
Our position is that it doesn't attach. It's a separate country, and he could be tried here. But the... The decision obviously won't be made by me if he continues his 30-year sentence, but the family would be contacted and we would want their input onto whether you would bring this guy back to the United States.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 2: Haley Anderson
She's never coming home. And that is the saddest part. Haley's death is forever. I'm sorry. I need a tissue. Oh.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I definitely didn't want to stay in that house anymore. We were not technically detained, but in my opinion, detained. We got brought to a separate facility that LSU had. They took our phones and everything. We weren't allowed to talk to each other, and they took each of our statements.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We called all the fratmen, fraternity members in, and we're going to talk with each of y'all about what knowledge y'all have of the events that took place last night, this morning, regarding Max.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Law enforcement was smart enough to know we have to keep interviewing people, because this isn't just a normal case. People don't get that blood alcohol content in their blood at a normal college park.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Look, I don't know if anybody is a suspect. I don't know if everybody is a suspect. I don't know anything, and that's the only reason we're doing this right now.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
That was really the pinnacle of when all of us kind of realized, like, holy cow, the severity of this situation. Like, he's gone.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I'm trying to get a picture for this young man's family who are flying down from Georgia, which I'm sure I can't even imagine what's going through their mind.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Enough information is given to give the police an idea that there was a hazing event, a pledge event the night that Max passed away, that it did occur at the fraternity house.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And reports are that as the night went on, as the ritual went on, Max started being particularly targeted.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And that things looked like he was particularly targeted for this night of excessive drinking and hazing.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Actives told us to come to Bible study, that's what they call it.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We were told to get there at 4.10, don't be late.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We'd heard about Bible study, guys mentioning it casually, actives to each other and stuff like that. Our Bible was our Phi Chi manual, so that's your pledge manual, essentially a book they give to every new member pledge that gives you history of the fraternity, even things like etiquette and where you should put forks and knives when you're setting up a table.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
So everything that you need to know about the fraternity is supposed to be in that book. It's supposed to be your best friend read it throughout its entirety, probably 40 times that you know it all like the back of your hand. So we finally got the message like, hey, you know, be here tonight for Bible study. Bring your manual and all that stuff.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And so we were like, OK, like, let's see what this is about. We really had no kind of clue what we were going to step into. We just knew it was going to be some sort of hazing type of thing. You feel like what you're walking into, you're gonna walk out of and you're gonna be safe and fine, but hindsight, that's just not the reality of it.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We know that Max arrived at approximately 9.50 p.m.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
He was dropped off by two of his female friends that were not associated with the fraternity. And according to them, Max had not been drinking prior to the Bible study and had not done any illegal substances prior to the Bible study.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
In the small amount of time that Max was on this planet, he made us better people.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
There were probably 10 to 15, maybe upwards of 20 pledges there, but no more than 20 pledges for the Bible study.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
They'd only been pledges for a couple of weeks at this point.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Formal fraternity recruitment at LSU, which we all call RUSH, is very structured. Obviously, everyone's putting their best face forward. But just receiving a bid or an invitation to join does not mean you're gonna end up being an active brother or get initiated.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
During the pledge period, for lack of a better term, pledges are having to prove themselves to the active members.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Pledges are kind of expected to be on call 24-7, whether it's bringing a brother to a class or picking him up some lunch, going to clean his house or apartment, really anything and everything under the sun, you're probably gonna get asked to do. There's definitely some men who respect the lines that come with the pledges, but there's plenty, plenty that abuse those favors.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
A lot of the typical abusers of those pledge favors tend to take pride in the fact that they do that. And a lot of those guys tended to talk negatively towards you. They kind of made you feel like you were a separate group from this brotherhood you were trying to join and made you feel like you were lesser than and you had to really earn your spot here.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And it really kind of messes up your experience during that pledge process. A lot of the things that you get asked to do are hazing, but I was never scared to go grab someone's food or, you know, go clean their apartment or any of that stuff. But that looming invite of, you know, come here for this, come to the house now, everyone needs to be here.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
You always get a bit of anxiety when you're taking that ride over to the house or walking to the house, just not knowing what you're about to go through once you get inside the doors.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
They gave off the air that we wouldn't go through anything like this.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I was a student reporter at the time. And gosh, I don't even think we were a month into school yet before the breaking news came. and it was like all hell broke loose. No one knew what to do.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
News teams from everywhere, CNN, ABC, NBC, everyone coming on campus just to figure out what happened. All of a sudden, the university president, F. King Alexander, there's a big press conference.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
This evening, representatives of every fraternity and sorority on campus held a closed door meeting about the incident. Any comments on the meeting, guys? I don't have anything to say.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We learned that that night the actives were asking the pledges to get in a line downstairs. The actives we know are present at the Bible study are Matthew Nochan, a sophomore. Ryan Istow was also a sophomore. He was Matthew Nochan's roommate when Sean Paul got, who was a junior and he had a room in the house. They take their cell phones.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And the way that the Phi Delta Theta house is laid out, the common area is downstairs. And the entire upstairs is just one long hallway with bedrooms on either side. And Matthew Nockin tells all the Pledges to go upstairs.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
They had all the upstairs lights off. And they had a strobe light. and loud music.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And that's when the real like yelling, yelling started and we're all told like, all right, turn around and put your nose against the wall.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The pledges are turning, being asked esoteric questions about the fraternity and other things.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Founding fathers, notable alumni, founding history, founding dates. Any of the history that some of the actives knew and wanted to ask you, if you get it right, it goes to the next person. If you get it wrong, you take a pull of alcohol.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
They were just drinking it straight out of the bottle? Yes, sir.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
for as long as the member standing in front of him told him to drink.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Take a five-second pull. One of them told me to take a five-second, and I didn't want to. I was like, can I take a three-second? He was like, no, take a five-second. And I did.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And there was a mix of alcohol at the beginning, Captain Morgan, but it eventually became almost exclusively diesel. 190 proof alcohol.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Regular liquor is 80 proof. This has twice the potency.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Basically the strongest alcohol you can make.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
It smells like gasoline and tastes probably worse than I would expect gasoline to taste like. And I was not quite prepared for diesel or any of that kind of stuff to be used.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
They realized once they were asked to take the first drink of it, how potent it was.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And we were able to find some bottles that had been left behind at the house.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
As witnesses were coming forward and talking to law enforcement, Matthew Nachman's name kept coming up over and over again.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Were any of the actors more vocal and a little bit more out of the box, pushing the drinking than others? Absolutely. Who were the more aggressive ones?
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Most of the other actives just filtered in and out. Naquin was one of the only ones there, the entirety of it.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
It's a name that you probably heard over and over again, Matthew Naquin. Matthew Naquin. He was the most aggressive when it came to this stuff. Was he intense last night? Yes.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
He was screaming a lot. He was very upset whenever we didn't know the answers. He probably handed out the most alcohol to us.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
If Nakian ever gave it to me, it was, for me, pretty quick, chug, whatever. But every time, the couple of times that I noticed Max taking pulls, it was not a quick one, and it was also not his choice to not make it a quick one.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
He was identified by witnesses as the person leading the Bible study or one of the leaders, and also as a person who was particularly targeting Max that night.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
From the number one smash hit podcast. It was only a matter of time until Amanda's whole world came tumbling down. You're not going to believe this. Scamanda.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
New episodes Thursday nights on ABC and stream on Hulu.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
From what we understood, Matthew Naucan was the main one making Max drink that night. And that as the night progressed, Matthew Naucan honed in on Max.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And he was asked to take more pulls and longer pulls by far than any other pledge.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
According to the pledges, Max was so intoxicated that he had a trash bag placed around his neck because they were worried he would vomit. After he had the trash bag placed around his neck is when Matthew Naucan was honing in on him and making him drink the diesel, even though he knew he was intoxicated.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
So when it ended, what happened? They just turned the lights on. We walked downstairs.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Max sat back onto a couch and very hardly, like, hit his head on the window sill behind him. And I was like, oh. So instantly, the Pledge Brothers kind of go around him, you know, and, OK, like, are you good? Are you good? No, I'm just drunk. I'm just drunk. OK, OK.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We were going to bring him home, but, I mean, he could barely walk. So we decided the best bet was to just let him sleep it off at the house.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
All we knew about Max was that he was going to stay at the house so that an active could stay with him the rest of the night.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The next morning, I texted some of my pledge brothers. I'm like, hey, let's go check on Max. Let's go see how hungover he is, whatever. And we walk into the fraternity house, and Max is still on the couch. And I could instantly kind of tell something was wrong. He looked pale, and he was cold to the touch. His lips had started to discolor. At that point, I said, like, I cannot feel a pulse.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I cannot feel a pulse. So me and my couple of Pledge brothers carried, in my opinion, Max's lifeless body to a car and put him in the back seat so that he could get driven to the hospital. And that was all we knew.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
They found that his cause of death was alcohol intoxication with aspiration.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
That was probably the hardest thing is knowing that the last time you saw him, you could have, you felt like you could have done something. You noticed he was drunk and instead you went home and you weren't there for him when he really needed you. After that, my grades slipped. I dropped to about 100 pounds, and my parents made the decision with one of the LSU psychiatrists to pull me from LSU.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I got therapy three to four times a week for the entire rest of that semester with the goal to make it back to LSU in the spring. And then from there on, it's just the constant knowing that Max is never gonna be there. And that's a best friend that I'll never get to see again.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
As the interviews progressed, we learned a lot, not only through the police department, but also through the students or the student accountability office.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Student Advocacy and Accountability is an offshoot of the LSU Dean's Office, and they look into violations of the Student Code of Conduct and make investigations whenever there's a student death. So they are making an investigation parallel separate from LSU PD. They were able to get more details about the events in the weeks leading up to Max's death.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I would call him my best friend growing up. One reason I always looked up to Max is because he was so carefree. He would do something and say, hey, I don't care if you don't like it or if you do like it, I like it, so I'm gonna do it.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And what we were able to ascertain was from the day that Max was going to get a bid at Phi Delta Theta, Matthew Naukin did not want him in that fraternity. And he actively didn't want him in that fraternity up until his death.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
From what we learned, Matthew Nakhan did not like Max Gruver, did not think that he was an appropriate member for his fraternity. Made it really clear that he should not be a member. In fact, Gruver was given a bid. Matthew Nakhan tore up that bid and said he's not going to be part of this.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The next day, Max was given another bid. They wrote him another big card and was extended the invitation to pledge the fraternity.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
More telltale was the fraternity had a meeting, and they were discussing Matthew Nachan's behavior in the fraternity as a leader, and particularly as it kind of related to the pledges.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
As a part of the pledging responsibilities, Phi Delta Theta had their pledges stake out a tailgating spot the Friday night before the LSU football game. And Matthew Naucan came to that location with an airsoft gun and shot pledges.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I remember him shooting me in the back with an airsoft gun while we're trying to set up the tailgate for the brothers for the next day, and yet we're getting pelted by BBs. And I can tell you it stung a good bit. I had a nice little mark on the back of my leg when I got shot, and it was not fun.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
After that board meeting, they had an active meeting with all of the active members of Phi Delta Theta. At that active meeting, they gave an overall reprimand to all of the active members to be safe with the pledges, to not be sadistic with them.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Also, after the meeting, a vice president, the pledge educator, specifically singled out Matthew Naucann and told him he was worried about how he was interacting with pledges. And Matthew Naucann told him, I will do what I want.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The funeral was at St. Peter Chanel, which is the church we go to.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I was the first person in the viewing that wasn't family. And I just saw the top of his head out of the casket and collapsed. Alex's friends were behind me and caught me and had to walk me down to it.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
It was a pretty massive funeral. It felt like I didn't really look because I was in the front and I didn't want to look at everybody. But from what I heard from all my friends, they're like, dude, it was insanely packed. There was so many people like it was almost out the church. And I was like, wow, like, that's awesome.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
That just shows like the impact he had on the community and like people around him, like they all wanted to be there.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
At that point, we believed that there's going to be criminal liability and criminal action taken by the police department. The issue, though, for us is we're dealing with a hazing statue that has no teeth.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
At that point in time, in September of 2017, there was a hazing law in effect. Only one hazing law in effect in Louisiana that had been in effect since the early 1900s.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The law was really not designed at the time to encompass great bodily harm or death. It was just hazing some activity that students do. The law itself was like a paragraph long. The maximum punishment was $100 fine and 30 days in jail.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
There was a real concern that there would not be real accountability for the people who did this to Max.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Where the law on hazing isn't strong in a state like it wasn't in Louisiana when this happened to Max, it creates many additional hurdles for the prosecution.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And we had to look to see, are there other laws that have been violated that fit this situation?
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And the only law that applied was negligent homicide.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
On October 11, 2017, the LSU PD feels like they have enough information to make arrests of 10 young men.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I remember being a reporter, and we found out early in the morning. Ten people face charges in connection to Groover's death. All are charged with hazing, and Matthew Nakhan faces an additional charge of negligent homicide. Saturday will mark exactly one month since Max Groover has passed away.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
After the LSU PD arrests, our office took on the investigation and we decided it would be a good idea to confiscate the phones of those who were arrested so that we could see if there was anything that we could present to the grand jury to let them know the level of culpability involved as it relates to these young men.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
He literally loved every second of it and the girls, all the girls on the team, they all loved him.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And the only phone that we're not able to open after exhaustive efforts and after requesting a passcode is Matthew Naucan's phone. Ultimately, the judge ruled that he would have to give his passcode. And he was given a grace period to appeal that decision. And during that grace period, the FBI was able to open Matthew Nakian's phone. And approximately 700 files were deleted.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We looked at the time of this deletion. Matthew Nakian's attorney was contacted on November 8 at 3 o'clock about the warrant for his client's phone. He then called Matthew Notkan. And 40 minutes after the phone call with his attorney, Matthew Notkan is deleting 700 files.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
It's obvious that someone has something to hide. There was something on the phone that somebody didn't want us to see.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We did make efforts to restore those files, but weren't unable to recover the deleted files. When we did get into Matthew Naucan's phone, we were able to look at his search histories. And there was a specific search history a little over two weeks before Max's death for Everclear versus liquor to search what the relative potencies were. Everclear is 190 proof. Diesel is 190 proof.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
So Matthew Naucan was aware of the consequences and the risks of using this type of alcohol. This is the first time he's in the position to be able to direct pledges, and diesel 190 alcohol is the alcohol that he chooses to use that night.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
When more information started to come out, I mean, reading it, it was disgusting.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
When I went to college, I had some friends that would say, like, hazing, we don't do it that bad. And I'm like, well, the fact you're doing it at all is just messed up. You shouldn't do it at all.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And think about one of those boys. I mean, 10 people got arrested. If one of them would have stood up and said, we're not doing this, Max Groover could possibly still be alive today.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
So after the arrests, all of these cases were taken to grand jury. And in March of 2018, the first indictment was for Matthew Naucan, and he was indicted for negligent homicide. The second indictment was for Sean Paul Gott. He was indicted for misdemeanor hazing. And the third indictment was for Ryan Istow. He was indicted for misdemeanor hazing as well. No other people were indicted.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
If you're ever in a problem with anything in your life, he was going to be there right by your side to help you get through it. He was going to be there to make you laugh and just be a kind person to you the whole time.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Ryan Istow and Sean Paul Gott, once they pled, the ball was in their court to cooperate and then also to testify truthfully at the trial against Matthew Nakhan.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Rayanne and Steve were very nice to get me a plane ticket. I flew through a hurricane to get there. The trial had already started by the time I got there, but it was a very surreal experience.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Upwards of 40 witnesses were called, and of those witnesses, 19 witnesses were pledges that were there at the Bible study that night and 10 actives.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Having to relive that night over and over is extremely emotional. It's very difficult.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
You can just picture Max throughout that night and in the morning, and, you know, it just... It's visuals you don't want to have.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The theme throughout defense counsel's questioning and cross-examine of witnesses, he kept using the term free will. Mr. Gruver was his own free will, his own free will, his own free will. Morgan Johnson, who was the prosecutor who led this case, turned it around. And she said, let's talk about free will.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And Mr. Nochwin had free will when he decided to grab that diesel bottle and hand it to Max and tell him to drink again and again and again. So if we want to talk about free will, let's talk about whose free will here resulted in Mr. Gruver's death.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
A fellow pledge who was next to line and Max that night said, I believe from the bottom of my heart that if Matthew Naucan wasn't in that house that night, Max Groover would still be alive. No one asked him any more questions because he said what needed to be said.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
When they read the verdict, and I just remember everyone just being on the edge of their seats and we're waiting. and everyone is holding their breath. You can hear a pin drop.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
As college years approached, Max definitely wanted to be a sports writer. That's something he enjoyed doing on a lower scale in high school.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The jury came back in less than an hour with a guilty verdict.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
He had to serve two and a half years in Department of Correction. And then when he got out, he was subject to three years supervised probation. And if he didn't comply with supervised probation, he would go back to prison for another two and a half years. Based on what the judge heard at trial, he decided to sentence Ryan Istow and Sean Paul Gott.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
What the max was at that point in time, 30 days in parish prison and a $100 fine. Sean Paul Gott and Matthew Nakian were expelled by the school.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
There were some consequences for the organization as well. The fraternity was expelled from LSU's campus until 2033.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And we walk in, we sit down just to get something to eat, water, whatever. And in the restaurant, I Don't Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith came on, and that was Ray and Max's song. That's like the song she wanted to dance to with him at his wedding. She's singing to him like, oh, he was little and growing up, and that was kind of like his wink to us, knowing that it was going to be okay.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Less than a year after Max's death, the governor of Louisiana signed the Max Groover Act. that made fundamental changes to the hazing law in Louisiana.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
It creates reporting requirements for schools and fraternities if there's hazing incidents. It makes it a crime not to seek medical assistance for someone in situations like Max.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And one of the things that groovers are doing is try to advocate for and push through a federal law that would make hazing a federal crime with uniform standards across the country.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Then take me to the rooftop now and see if I can fly.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Then take me to the rooftop now and see if I can fly.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Louisiana State University, we bleed our purple and gold.
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Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
You hear Go Tigers all throughout the streets. Being a student at LSU is unlike any other.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
So many people come to LSU specifically just to join Greek life.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
When I originally came to LSU, I believe there were around 17 or 16 fraternities. These are long, historic, established fraternities that have been there for a while on LSU's campus.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Max and I first met during the formal recruitment process for LSU, what we like to call Rush. We kind of found that we clicked very quickly. We were both looking at some of the same fraternities. We both were going through this process really to find our group of friends that we were gonna, you know, stick with for the rest of our college time.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Kids aren't supposed to die in college. Kids aren't supposed to die at all.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I don't even think we were a month into school yet before the news came, breaking news.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Police at Louisiana State University investigating the death of 18-year-old freshman Max Groover.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
They came up to me and hugged me and told me right then and there. And we just sat there and we cried together like that's, I mean, I didn't know what to do. Nobody knows what to do in that situation, so.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
And it was like all hell broke loose. No one knew what to do.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Upon arrival at the hospital, Max Gruver's blood alcohol level was extremely high and was a deadly dose.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The hospital immediately contacted the coroner for an investigation because the circumstances surrounding this young man's death were suspicious.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The coroner's office called the LSU Police Department and notified them. At the same time, Max Gruver's family is being notified, and no one's really sure of exactly what happened.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
At the same time, law enforcement is notified by the director of Greek Life that Max had passed away. the Phi Delta Theta house, I mean, it's right there on campus. They shortly arrived two minutes after.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
I keep dripping Candle in the sun I've got nowhere to run and hide If I make it through
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
Everyone was kind of shocked and shaking their head that a young person who's a freshman is dead. And he's dead potentially as a result of a night of very serious, dangerous drinking.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
The pledge educator also sends a message out to the pledges to also come to the house.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 4: Max Gruver
We got a message saying everybody needed to come to the house right now. Everyone shows up to the house, and the next thing we know, the head of LSU's Greek life at the time comes through the door and just says, I don't know why you guys are talking. This is a murder investigation. And that was the first we knew that Max was dead. And it hit me pretty hard. I didn't really know what to do.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Here's our patio. There's the front entrance.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Yeah, let's get out of here. We tried. We tried, bro.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It's hard for the mind to comprehend everything we're seeing here. That large building behind me is engulfed with all of the houses down this street. Temesco on fire.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
But swirling around them, controversy about whether Los Angeles officials failed to supply enough water and deploy enough firefighters. Lots of talk about the water running out, that you were fighting a fire without all the resources necessary.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
As all these homes actually do burn down, and a lot of them have their own fire sprinkler systems, that those sprinkler systems become compromised as the house burns down and the water will free flow. As we see our gauges go down lower and lower, we knew we were getting low on water.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Tonight, ABC News has confirmed a nearby 117 million gallon reservoir that feeds Pacific Palisades has been taken offline for repairs well before the fires broke out.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
If you'd had all the resources and all the water, would it have made a difference here? I've been on the job for 36 years, and I've never seen weather like that. It was a hurricane-force wind with fire involved. It was indescribable.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
California burning. This is the week of living dangerously in L.A. The Palisades fire extremely hot and incredibly close. Are you just evacuating now? What's going on up there?
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
There are houses on fire up in the corner and all the way down that street. I've seen tons of fires. This is nothing. I'm scared for my life. It's terrifying.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Angelino's on the run, caught in gridlock traffic, abandoning vehicles to fate. In order for firefighters to actually get to the fires, they had to carve a path. And so a bulldozer literally shoved all of these cars to the side. You can see the bumpers ripped off, the scratches along the vehicles here.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
There's glass in the roadway and the terrified motorists here, they had to flee to safety on foot.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
20,000 acres of heartbreak fire so ferocious it calls for a new measurement burn rate five football fields per minute and you can feel the intensity of the heat now it's lighting up the trees here and this is how all of these new fires are being created here on Malibu Beach lifeguard stations ablaze with the ocean right there but not close enough to save homes and businesses along the Pacific Coast Highway
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It is like driving through hell itself down here. Literally through hell. This is madness down here.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Fire, flames, inferno. By day three, words and water fail. But the burning is without end. The sad cycle goes like this. Fire comes, people run, the fire finishes, and people like this couple we spotted in the ashes of an apartment building come back to count their losses. And a combination of fear and hope as Gail McGowan recovers a safe, a fireproof safe that remains to be seen.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It is. I wanted to get to it before the looters got to it.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
McGowan had lived here for 22 years since her husband died, and she was hoping that one particular ring had survived that heat.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
I mean, I got to save something. Look at everything else. This is my home right here.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
On her way out, she had grabbed her phone, nursing scrubs, but little else. So documents, passport, things like that?
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Yeah, everything, everything, everything, everything.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Minutes later, the fire still flickering. Her friend Mario heaving that safe off the building. He left to get a shopping cart and came back with cops on a patrol.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
You have your ID with you now? You bet.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
The officers were concerned about looters, made sure that Gail's ID matched the address of where they were. Then they cracked the safe. Oh, yeah, way to go. These your rings? Yeah. Thursday, authorities announced the arrest of 20 looters. We asked the LAPD about that.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Oh, it's huge. It's huge. You have million-dollar homes all intact, rows and rows of them. And there's really no way to police this area effectively right now.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Pacific Palisades right now could just be taken off the map. There is no Pacific Palisades.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
In short, David, impossible odds 100 foot walls of flame 80 mile per hour winds and yes, a shortage of staff and water and city officials are acknowledging that shutting off certain utilities did affect the water pressure here. One reason that Governor Gavin Newsom is demanding an independent investigation into these water issues, calling it deeply disturbing, David.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
As we see so many images of the thousands of homes damaged and destroyed, it's overwhelming to realize that every single one of them held a story.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
That is the living room. That's the front entrance. Beyond that, there was a bedroom. If I could only have found one thing, this was it.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It's the bell that we have at the front of the house, and it came from my husband's childhood home.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
In the Pacific Palisades, I met with a woman, Patricia, her home of more than 40 years destroyed.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
At our age, it's going to take years to come back for our village, for our beautiful town to come back. It's surreal.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
I'm numb. And while we spoke, she pulled out the only thing she could salvage from her home.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
This was from my daughter's bathroom. Her bathroom was blue and white, and the turtles went around the vanity, the tile. And I found it. It was the only thing I found. Thank you.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Roughly 180,000 people in Los Angeles, including myself, have been evacuated from their homes.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
We are utterly surrounded by fire.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Broken memories are everywhere. You're just right over there. Just last May, I interviewed Rikki Lake. We sat in her stunning dream home overlooking Malibu. Every day is like magic here for me. But just yesterday. This is what's happening right now. She posted news of her own evacuation on social media. Oh, my gosh. Writing about that dream home, it's all gone.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Cameron Matheson, star of General Hospital, says the grief of losing a home, which he documented on his social media, will impact his family for generations to come.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
My daughter in particular said that she wanted to raise her kids in that house. And she said that actually less than a week ago. Like, why would she say that now, right before it burns down?
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
I lived in the Pacific Palisades in a mobile home community. I loved living in the Pacific Palisades because I loved to surf. There were 176 units there, and they're all gone. It was completely leveled. I dug through some rubble. There was some ceramics that had survived, but really nothing. Everything was burned, melted, destroyed.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
When I moved in, the first thing I did was try and secure insurance. And it turns out that because my home was built in 1957, anything before 1976 is incredibly difficult to secure fire insurance for. Every time I tried to get insurance, it was just denied.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Normally, the lush mountains and deep arroyos of the City of Angels are a gorgeous backdrop for the region. But this week, a combination of extreme weather and climate forces created a devastating scenario. And all of this is a far cry from this same time last year when we saw historic flooding here in Los Angeles.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
But in the months following that devastation, LA has been experiencing a severe drought. Experts call it hydroclimate whiplash, rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Add to that those extreme winds with speeds up to 100 miles an hour, and the result is a catastrophic weather event, with embers able to ride those gusts for miles, igniting new fires virtually anywhere, anytime.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
And David, we've spoken to experts who tell us with the continued effects from climate change, increased winds, increased average temperature, increased severity of drought, unfortunately, situations like this will almost certainly be more common in the future. David?
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It all started with the tick tock, letting people know help was available, gaining over 35,000 views, a beacon of hope for those who need help, but also inspiring those who can give.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Guys, now as a team, let's load all this stuff up. One act of kindness inspired another and then another.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Yeah, the loss of our house, of everything hurts, but seeing everyone together and just knowing that everyone is here for us, you know, we're not alone.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
And David, take a look at this. We are now at the third location where this pop-up donation site has had to move. And take a look at this. There are now donations as far as the eye can see. Lines of shoes, piles of clothes, hot meals. If you lost your home in a fire, this is the place to come. So this is now in a huge parking lot in Arcadia. This is what SoCal Strong looks like. David?
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Let's keep it going. Thanks, Kevin.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Everything is catching fire here. Trash bins.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
LA Fire Department, total heroes, doing a great job.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It is just a sea of massive wall of embers that just get blown across the area here. And it's those embers that really are the big concern because it could get lodged in any of the homes next door. It also could start fires just, you know, more than a mile away.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It's overwhelming. I don't know how we're going to get through it, but we will. I know we will. It's just going to be a long process.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
You can hear the bangs going off.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It's just jumping from home to home right now. With this wind, there's nothing to stop it.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Right, right. The traffic was so bad, they figured their chances were better getting out on foot and running the rest of the way out of here.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It is. It is. You see... where the bulldozer had to come through and push the cars aside so we can get up here.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Yeah, the wind is just pushing this fire from home to home to home, and you'll see it. It's even running down canyon to the homes that are below these homes. So there's just no stopping it when the winds are this strong. Everything's going to burn.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Yeah, let's get out of here. We tried.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
There's nothing we can do now, bro.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
God, protect this house in the name of Jesus. Protect this neighborhood, God, in Jesus' name, I pray, amen.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
It's devastating. It's devastating. And I feel for those people. I've spoke to some of them. I hear it in their voices. It just it tears that off. my heartstrings too. But like I said, at the end of the day, they were alive. They knew they would rebuild and come back better. And I just gave them a hug and I said, you know, please reach out with anything you need.
20/20
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
Well, there's no question you've saved lives here. That was our goal. That's our number one priority.
20/20
Run, Run, Run
If they actually had contacted me or listened, then maybe I wouldn't have been at that point.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
This is the actual latent lift that Howard Speaks lifted in 1957.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
Those prints ultimately did not belong to that individual, and homicide was quickly notified once it was verified.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
How do you work with something like this? Well, we literally can't work with that. We work with a photograph that fortunately was taken of this.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
I pointed out that this was the least expensive one, at $29.95, then that's when he decided that's what he wanted.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
Yes. Back then, we were by far the largest gun dealer in this area. What exactly is this document that we're looking at? This is a record of firearms sold. This is G.D. Wilson is the name he gave me. This is your handwriting? That's correct.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
When Gerald Mason answered a knock on his front door early on the morning of January 29, 2003, it's clear from these police audio tapes that he never expected it would be his past finally catching up with him. We're investigating a crime that occurred back in 1957. Two police officers were murdered.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
For over 40 years, Jerry has been a loving husband, father, grandfather, and a friend of this community. This has to be a case of mistaken identity.
48 Hours
The Spirits of El Segundo
It's heartwarming that we were able to do a small part in that. I didn't think I'd ever live to see it.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
11 to 1 to convict. The judge was forced to declare a mistrial. It was here in Knox County, so it wasn't shocking to me.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
There was only one person who wanted to harm David. And at that point, it was David. He was acting suicidal.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
He's a great lawyer. He's super prepared. Fantastic lawyer. Fantastic. He's a bad actor.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Was David Lee in any way capable of any sort of voluntary movement after that bullet transected his brain?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
I just tried to focus on the evidence and where that was leading me. It was hard for me to determine.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
She was taking care of a sick husband who she loved. And for that to get twisted into what it did is upsetting. She's got hope that the justice system isn't so broken that it won't eventually realize the truth, which is that she's an innocent woman.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Where we were going with certain things and trying to piece those things together. Inside each line is an individual stain. But you're not making a decision just by yourself, you're making a decision as a group.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
I'll give it to you. It's unusual. But to say because of that it has to be a homicide, I just can't go that far. There is a phenomenon called cadaveric spasm where a person can actually Their hands can squeeze immediately upon death. What would you have ruled this? I would have ruled this undetermined.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
I'm glad that she reassessed and didn't try to make the same claims about toxicology at the third trial, but it's six years too late for my client.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Right. As a forensic pathologist, at least on the evidence that I've been privy to, there's no way on earth I think she's guilty.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
If anybody has any doubts as to whether David was murdered by Rinella, maybe they need to talk to Steve Walker.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
We're not saying we know exactly what happened, we're just saying we know there are multiple ways that all of this makes sense that don't have anything to do with the homicide. There was only one person who wanted to harm David, and at that point it was David. He was acting, with his physicians, suicidal.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
I'm a crouton on a real big salad here, and this is a big salad in this town.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
She had a towel around her hands, and she comes up with it and starts shooting.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
I'm defenseless. She said, I used to be a better shot than that, but I can hit you from here. And she aimed that gun, and I closed my eyes. She pulled the trigger. I knew I was gone. But the gun was out of bullets. There was no doubt in my mind. If she hadn't run out of bullets, I'd be dead.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Why would she plead guilty? It's the same thing I would have told her, is this is a plea that will get expunged. There is no jail time. Take this deal and walk away. Raynella Leith did walk away.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
If you can picture a cartoon of someone's jaw hitting the floor. Thank you. I really, really tried to pay attention and took notes, so I was really looking forward to deliberating.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
If Judge Summers was so convinced that he was right about the evidence, Why not let us deliberate it? And how do you explain that? I can't. Only Judge Summers can.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
when Joshua Hedrick was sitting on that bed and he was twirling that cylinder on that gun. It was a burden to my family. It was just so corny.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
It was fake. He was trying so hard. After that, I was like, all right, they're trying so hard that it's so obvious now.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
He stole that verdict from the family, from the prosecution, from the jury. It was a theft.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
I said to my mother I thought he'd hit the jackpot with this girl because she was so pretty and so interesting. I just thought, this is going to be a great fit.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Yes. The reports were an agricultural accident. But some folks in the community had a problem with that scenario. Ed grew up on a farm. For him to have been trampled by his own cattle, that just didn't make sense.
48 Hours
The Ivy League Murder
News of Kevin's murder spread among his loved ones and closest friends.
48 Hours
The Ivy League Murder
I was at home and I actually got a phone call from another soldier. And she was saying, I know you guys were close. And her voice cracked and she told me that he had passed away. And I was like, not comprehending what was going on. So I text him and I was like, answer your phone, please. And obviously he never answered me.
48 Hours
The Ivy League Murder
Are officers concerned that at some point, someone is going to get hurt?
48 Hours
The Ivy League Murder
Lieutenant Hubbard reached out to Captain Jamila Aye, and if sharing the news about Kevin wasn't tragic enough, someone posted the chilling video of his murder online, and his fellow soldiers now saw and heard Kevin's final moments alive.
48 Hours
The Ivy League Murder
To this day, I can still hear him screaming. I was like, why did I listen to that?
48 Hours
The Ivy League Murder
Detectives Zaweski and Cunningham were back at their desks in headquarters, struggling for answers and leads to pursue. Day two. You get a phone call.
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The call from a sergeant at nearby North Haven Police Department was urgent.
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Two incidents that happened in North Haven the night before and then earlier that morning.
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830 Saturday night, residents in the East Rock neighborhood heard the distinct sound of gunfire.
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It began with a 911 call from a local scrap metal yard around 9 p.m., less than a half hour after Kevin was killed.
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I'm the security guard at Simmons Metal Management. I just had somebody drive through my yard here. They didn't know where they were going, so I had been chasing them around the yard, and they just pulled way in the back. Off the property, took a black minivan, SUV type of thing.
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Police body cameras were rolling when Sergeant Jeffrey Mills and Officer Marcus Artaiz spotted that vehicle stuck on snow-covered railroad tracks, not far from the rear exit of the Sims scrap metal yard. They approached the driver.
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I just got here accidentally and I got stuck. Is there any way to get stuck here?
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His driver's license and criminal background were clean. During the encounter, Sergeant Mills noticed a yellow jacket on the passenger seat. He also saw a blue bag and a briefcase in the back seat, but not much else.
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He took a wrong turn. He got lost. And he thought the Jeep was probably chasing him, the security guy.
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Because Sergeant Mills hadn't heard about Kevin's murder, he wasn't particularly concerned.
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On February 6th at around 8.30 p.m., we get the report of a person shot at Lawrence and Nichols Street in New Haven. That person was later identified as Kevin Jong and was pronounced deceased on the scene. We located eight .45 caliber shell casings. There were a few 911 callers that saw a dark-colored SUV flee the area.
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I've been on the tracks I don't know how many times with vehicles that were, you know, called into suspicious or whatever, but kids go back there. People always come down there, according to the security guard, and they turn around in the front lot and they leave because they missed a highway or something. Did he look nervous? He wasn't nervous at all. He was perfectly calm.
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It was just like, oh, sorry, I got stuck on the tracks. Can you help me get off?
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The tow truck came. It took a little work, but it got it off the tracks. He gave Mr. Pan a ride back to Best Western, and I cleared the call, like any other call.
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But hours later, there was another call to 911. February 7th, around 11 a.m.
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Hello, I work at Arby's here in North Haven. We found a gun and probably like 10 boxes of bullets.
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An employee found a couple of bags on the grass at the north entrance here.
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When they brought them in, there were three bags. This one, that one, and this. Got it.
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Took a better look at the bags that it came in, and here's a blue retail bag with a Massachusetts logo on it and a small leather black briefcase, and it instantly hit me. These are the bags that were in Mr. Pond's car the night before.
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The Arby's was right next door to the Best Western where Penn was dropped off. And by then, Mills had heard about the murder in New Haven. What's going through your brain?
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At that point, knowing that New Haven had a homicide, they were looking for a dark-colored GMC SUV. Now we've got a firearm, and then Officer Bianchi shows me a yellow jacket that was in it, and the suspect was wearing a yellow jacket.
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And when we got here, I went in to the front desk and spoke with the attendant there and asked if Bucks on Pan had checked in, which they checked in and said, yes, he did. I mean, he hasn't checked out yet.
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That's when Mills alerted New Haven Homicide about Pan. Do you immediately think there might be a connection with the homicide?
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There's a very good chance. The vehicle matched. And the items that were left behind at the Arby's restaurant, it included a .45 caliber handgun. PowerPoint. And that matched the casings that were at the scene.
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Zawieski immediately sent detectives to meet Mills at the Best Western.
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So we got a key, went to room 276. We knocked on the door. We entered the room. The room was clean. Nothing in it. It didn't appear that anybody stayed in it for the night. At first, we were like, oh, we lost them.
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New Haven police sent investigators, including Detective Joe Galvin, to track down Pan. Galvin went to Malden, Massachusetts, where Pan lived with his parents and was a graduate student at MIT.
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right outside of Boston, very affluent homes. There was no one there when we knocked on the door. So the day after the homicide, we were unsure if maybe the family was on vacation, out of state, out of the country.
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Were they given the heinous act that occurred in New Haven the day before? Were they potentially kidnapped by their own son? Were they victims of another horrible crime?
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With Kenshin Pan and his parents missing from their home, Detective David Zaweski turned to his computer, searching for Pan.
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A sense of shock and sadness has settled on the Yale University community after the Saturday night shooting death of grad student Kevin Jiang.
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The first thing I want to know is who he is and if there's any connection between him and Kevin. I see that he has a Facebook page.
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There was not much activity at all. His last post was back in 2016, and he had a few photos with some other students, but that was it.
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Yes, that was the first time we got the connection between him and MIT. So I check his friends list to see if Kevin is in there.
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Now we have a connection. I got in contact with her. She explained that they had met at MIT back in 2019, and they were more associates than friends.
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No. She said that they never dated. They never had any romantic relationship. The last time she spoke with him was May of 2020. He reached out to her through Facebook Messenger to congratulate her on graduating. He asked to FaceTime with her, and she politely declined it.
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She must have been wondering, why are you asking me so many questions about this guy? What did you say to her?
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She was, and that's when I told her that he was a person of interest in this. And she was completely shocked. He was barely a part of her life and why he would have been involved with this in any way.
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The last things that she had posted were the engagement between her and Kevin.
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Are you starting to formulate a theory about the case that goes a little beyond possible road rage?
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Yes. It did seem like there was a secret obsession of Pan's going on behind the scenes that Kevin wasn't aware of and that Zion wasn't aware of.
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The next day, Zion Perry joined Kevin's mother, Linda Liu, and father, Ming-Shen Yang, and nearly 700 people on a virtual vigil for Kevin. Zion addressed the mourners.
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One day I will get to see Kevin again, yeah, in heaven and when everything is made right. I thank Ms. Liu and Mr. Zhang for raising such a fine young man and for, yeah, bringing him into the world.
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He gave me a lot of joy. He's a very thoughtful, warm-hearted boy, taking care of me, and I miss him. He's a nice boy. Everybody likes me. Thank you. Thank you, you all.
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You're such a cutie. He was just a very happy person, a very genuine soul.
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If this world falls apart, it will be all right because we have each other's hearts.
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A medical officer also trained to operate tanks, Kevin was buried with full military honors just two days before his 27th birthday on Valentine's Day. Meanwhile, Detective Galvin, a member of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut, along with Supervisor Matthew Duffy and Deputy Marshal Kevin Perrault, were utilizing their vast resources to urgently gather intelligence on Pan.
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The victim was a student at Yale's School of the Environment, originally from Chicago. He was an Army vet who posted on Facebook just a week ago his joy in getting engaged.
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The Marshalls discovered Pan had three active phones, and they noticed that in the months before Kevin was killed, Pan was using one of those phones to contact car dealerships.
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He would tell them all the same thing. He said he's going for a test drive. I believe he said he was going on a camping trip.
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Investigators were able to match the date of Pan's test drives with each of the .45 caliber shootings in New Haven, including Kevin's murder. It was all part of a plan, investigators say. They believe that Pan likely fired shots into those homes to ultimately mislead them, hoping they would think Kevin's murder was just another random shooting.
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Yeah, he did his best to mislead us. And now we knew that, yes, this wasn't a random incident out there, that he was targeted.
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They also discovered that not long after Kevin's murder, Pan called his parents, and they made a cash withdrawal of about $1,000.
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The marshals zeroed in on Pan's parents and picked up a ping on their phone at this North Carolina gas station.
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He was so in love with Zion. He was just like, oh, Zion this and Zion that. Like, everything was about Zion. He really loved her.
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Three days later, investigators caught up with Pan's parents driving near Atlanta, Georgia.
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Police told them they suspected their son had killed someone. Were they shocked?
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They weren't shocked that their son was being investigated and connected with a cold-blooded murder.
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They may have been, but they didn't lead on to us at all. They didn't lead on to us at all.
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The father said our son called, said he was in Connecticut and needed help. He asked us to bring cash. Then once we picked him up in Connecticut, he took the wheel, and then they take this very long drive down south.
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And he says he's quiet, acting weird, doesn't really say what's going on. They make it down to Georgia. He pulls over and he gets out of the car and walks away. He said no words to them, just walked away from the car. That was their story.
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Pan's parents agreed to be photographed. Pan's mother declined to answer any questions without an attorney, but she later volunteered that her son walked away from her and his father and likely killed himself. The Marshalls were skeptical.
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We knew after talking to the parents that they would go to jail for him. Knowing the degree that the parents were helping him and his resources, his intelligence, We had to take a different approach on it.
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We needed to focus in on the parents because they probably would lead us to him.
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And they would need plenty of it. Weeks went by without an arrest. They wondered if they missed something and if their murder suspect had outmaneuvered them.
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Five weeks pass without a solid lead on the MIT student wanted for Kevin Zhang's murder.
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Yeah, because this became so high profile so fast, it was just heightened.
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Then the manhunt for Pan suddenly heated up. Police said his mom told them she suspected her son killed himself, but they noticed his parents had a lot of banking activity.
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Kevin's body, he was laying on his right side. His feet were on the stop line here, and his head was towards the first line of the crosswalk. And then we see the casings. There's a shell casing by the bottom of the S and a few feet from the P. And then there were six more spread out by the first crosswalk line. We could see gunshot wounds to his upper body and to his head.
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We start to see large sums of cash being withdrawn. How much? At that time, it was about $5,000, $10,000.
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That's a large sum of money that someone could use to get out of the country. They still have family in China.
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And then Pan's parents rented a car. They start traveling south again. But the vehicle's GPS system the marshals were tracking went dark. Did they turn it off?
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By then, investigators said they knew that their son had disabled GPS systems in several cars he drove in the run-up to Kevin's murder.
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At one point, surveillance cameras at this Georgia mall recorded Pan's father purchasing a computer.
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Now, this is during COVID, so everybody has their masks on. We see the father walk in, and probably about 10 minutes later, we see an individual fitting the description of the son. So the story of the suicide out in the woods, that's not true. So from there, the parents end up traveling back north. Once they're in Connecticut, the GPS comes back on. We felt the clock was really ticking.
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And it ticked away for nearly two more months until May 4th, 2021, when Pan's parents drove off for a third time.
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Make it appear that it's a regular trip. No big deal. We're just going on a trip to meet some friends. We're not here to help our son.
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Pan's parents and their unwitting companions were eventually placed under surveillance at a North Carolina hotel, where marshals interviewed a clerk after the Pans checked out.
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At one point, Qinxin Pan's mother came to the clerk's desk late at night and asked to borrow his phone.
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Here is the picture of Pan's mother making the call that broke the case wide open.
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Were you able to find that number? Yes. The marshals tracked the phone to this boarding house near Alabama State University in Montgomery. So you guys are closing in.
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Yeah. They went out there with a small army, around 20 guys. They ended up finding his room, and they knocked on it, and he just came out and said, I'm who you're looking for.
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He had approximately $20,000 cash on him. He had his father's passport. Father's passport. And he had multiple communication devices on himself. Seven SIM cards. Seven SIM cards and a computer.
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Penn was arrested for the murder of Kevin Jong and brought back to Connecticut. He maintained his innocence, but a judge ordered him held on a $20 million bond.
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His case was delayed by the pandemic, but investigators had amassed a trove of evidence. Remember that license plate imprint on Kevin's car? Police say it matched the plate on the bumper of the SUV Pan was driving when Kevin was rear-ended. And forensic tests revealed that Pan's DNA was on the gun and ammo found outside Arby's. And Kevin's blood was also on Pan's hat.
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And the gear shift of the SUV Pan was driving the night Kevin was murdered. Was there anything missing? The murder weapon. Turns out the gun recovered at the Arby's was not the gun that was used to kill Kevin. Supervisory Assistant State's Attorney Stacey Miranda.
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But there was so much other evidence that Pan's lawyer, William Gerace, recommended he cut a deal.
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On February 29, 2024, three years after Kevin's killing, Pan pled guilty to his murder in exchange for serving 35 years in prison without parole.
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And had he not been stuck on the railroad tracks, this still might not be a solved case. We might not know who did this.
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At his sentencing in April, Pan sat silently as Kevin's loved ones and friends described their loss. By court order, the camera was fixed on him. Some of Kevin's mother's remarks were read by a family friend.
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Yes. We'll use Facebook as a tool to try and get a little background on an individual who they're friends with.
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I was dreaming that Kevin would have a few beautiful children after getting married. This beautiful and joyful dream is destroyed. I am left alone by myself. I will never see Kevin smile again.
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To charge the mother of Penn 35 years in prison is too short and too light.
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Pan never explained why he killed Kevin, but the only time he looked up was when Zion Perry rose to speak.
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I wanted to address Pan specifically. Although your sentence is far less than you deserve, there is also mercy. May God have mercy on you, and may he have mercy on all of us.
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And so you're going down the list of names. Nothing, nothing, nothing. And then you're like, whoa.
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Finally, Judge Harmon passed sentence and Pan was led away in handcuffs.
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We reached out to Pan's parents for comment, but did not hear back. Now Kevin's friends are left to wonder what Kevin, a man of deep faith, might have thought about his killer. Do you think Kevin would have forgiven Pan?
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Without a doubt. Yeah. The officers visited Kevin's grave after they spoke to 48 Hours. Lieutenant Hubbard recalled her first time there when she says she felt Kevin's presence.
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And did something happen? It's just like wind blew, you know? Did you feel like it was him? I felt like it was definitely different as it's like a peace kind of like, I want you to carry on, don't be sad that I'm gone. Just keep going.
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The Ivy League Murder
Join me Tuesday for Postmortem from 48 Hours, where we'll dive even deeper into today's episode and answer your questions about the case.
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It was a cold night in February 2021 when lead detective David Zoeski and his colleague Stephen Cunningham arrived at the crime scene.
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You start dealing with a series of shootings. It's a little out of the ordinary. Take me through that.
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The patrol officers had already been out there canvassing the area. They were knocking on doors looking for anyone that might have seen anything or heard anything. The crime scene detectives were starting to locate all the shell casings.
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26-year-old Yale graduate student Kevin Jong was lying in the street, shot eight times.
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What we could see were gunshot wounds to his upper body and to his head. And you could see stippling on the left side of his head.
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Stippling is a burn pattern caused by gunpowder exploding from a weapon fired at close range.
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About 100 feet down the street... There was a Prius just parked in the middle of the road with its hazards on.
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they quickly discovered the Prius belonged to Kevin. Crime scene detectives noticed a peculiar bit of damage that suggested it had been hit from behind.
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The first shooting occurs on December 11, 2020, at Huntington Street in New Haven. There's a report of five gunshots in the area. The residence was struck multiple times. The house was occupied, but nobody was hit. When police responded, they located multiple .45 caliber shell casings at the scene. There's a second shooting that occurs January 15th, 2021. The third shooting occurred February 5th.
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There was an impression that was left on the back bumper that looked like a license plate holder.
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One witness told detectives she heard the sound of an accident and went to the window to look.
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When they look out, they see a Prius come to a stop and put its hazards on. They see a dark-colored SUV pull up behind it and then reverse back towards the intersection. They see the operator of the Prius walk out. and approached the SUV, most likely to see how they were, exchange insurance information.
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When the operator gets to the black SUV, they hear a round of gunshots and they see the muzzle flash from the gun from the driver's side of the SUV.
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Another witness heard the first round of gunshots and went to her window.
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When she looks outside, she sees a subject wearing all black standing over another individual who's laying on the ground. She hears another round of gunshots, and she can see the muzzle flash from the gun as he's firing.
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She sees someone standing over another person, which means the victim is already down. And they're still shooting?
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There's a little bit more to it. It seems a little bit more personal when you have someone that's laying on the ground and not moving. What would cause someone to continue firing at them?
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The detectives were able to confirm these accounts when they got a look at video from a neighbor's security system.
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Because most of the frame is a reflection of the interior of the house, we've zoomed in to focus on what's happening on the street. A warning this may be difficult to listen to.
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We hear the collision between the two cars. And then that's when you see Kevin's Prius pull into frame and the SUV pulls up behind him and then reverses out of frame. You see Kevin exit his vehicle and then walk out of frame to approach the SUV. You then hear two gunshots, a scream, and then six more gunshots.
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Moments later, the video shows the SUV driving off into the night. Can you make out any details when it comes to the SUV?
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Unfortunately not. You could kind of get the idea of the potential make and model of it with the taillights, but you couldn't discern any identifying features.
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Investigators soon felt the dark SUV and the .45 caliber shells recovered at the scene pointed to a potential link to those earlier shootings around the area that police had been investigating. Four times over a two-month span, someone fired shots into family homes. The fourth incident occurred just one hour before Kevin Jong's murder.
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We had detectives in the bureau looking into each of the incidents to see if there's any more of a connection to link them.
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Nyree, a schoolteacher, headed upstairs to take a shower. Paul, an educator with degrees from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia University, was sitting downstairs.
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And then I heard bang, pop again. And I turned and I literally saw the frame of the door just splintered. And then she yells back at you.
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A fourth incident occurred on February 6th. It's another residence. It was occupied, but nobody was hurt inside. There were five rounds that were shot into. It was occupied. Fortunately, nobody was hit. The residents were struck multiple times by gunfire. Nobody was injured. Patrol officers located one .45 caliber located in multiple casings, .45 caliber.
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It was over in a matter of moments and no one was injured. Do you feel lucky? Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Detectives interviewed the Whites and the occupants of the other houses.
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And none of them, investigators say, had any connection to Kevin Jeong. But the shell casings from all the shootings would later tell a different story.
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When the casings are sent to the lab, they all came back as matches to the casings found at the homicide.
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The casings matched, but Kevin was the only person murdered, and detectives didn't know why.
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It could have been a road rage incident that turned a little too violent.
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The car accident, it was deliberate to get him out of the vehicle. Possibly seemed like it was planned.
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And if he was specifically targeted, what could have happened in his life to drive someone to do this?
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It was late when Detective Zaweski and Cunningham left the crime scene on February 6th. They went to Kevin Jiang's home, looking to find a family member to notify about what had happened. His mother, Linda Liu, came to the door.
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You want to be direct and upfront and make it clear, as horrific as it is for them. So we explained to her that he was shot and killed in the area of Lawrence and Nichols Street in New Haven.
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The detectives wanted to know everything about Kevin and why he may have been targeted that night. Linda began to tell them about her son.
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It was just the two of them, and he was actually supporting her. She told us that he was a grad student at Yonge University and was in the Army National Guard.
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Kevin was deeply religious. He and his mother were part of the congregation at Trinity Baptist Church. Pastor Gregory Hendrickson knew them both and says that Linda, a divorced single parent, got Kevin through a tough childhood where he was often bullied.
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Kevin bought this house in 2019, and Hendrickson says he invited his mother to come live with him.
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Police also learned that Kevin had recently gotten engaged to his girlfriend of a year, Zion Perry. She posted the proposal on Facebook. This was just one week before he was murdered.
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He was so in love with Zion. You could tell. He didn't even have to really say too much. Oh, my gosh. So I remember one time he was on the phone with her, and I was like, wow. Like, you could hear the genuineness and his love towards her. And I was like, wow, I hope I find someone like that.
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Zion Perry grew up in Pennsylvania, where she was an honors high school student. A couple met in January of 2020 when Zion was still an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT.
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Zaweski and Cunningham then interviewed an emotional Zion. She told them she and Kevin had spent the day together.
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The common denominator was the caliber of the gun that was used. It's 45 caliber casings that were located at all four of those scenes. And in the last two shootings, there was a description of a dark colored SUV.
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They had gone ice fishing and had dinner at her house, and then he left her house around 8.30 that night.
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Kevin didn't get far. His Prius was struck by the dark SUV just two blocks from Zion's house. close enough for Zion to hear the gunshots that followed.
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She remembers hearing the gunshots, but she thought there was a good five or ten minutes after he left to when she heard the gunshots. So she didn't think he was anywhere near the area and didn't think twice about him potentially being involved in any way.
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At that point, I don't know. Nothing that she told us that she could think of.
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After speaking with Zion, detectives were no closer to figuring out why Kevin would be a target.
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That night? Yes. We had a little bit, but there wasn't a lot to go on.
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But just 15 hours after the shooting... What are you doing back here? ...they got a huge break.
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I just got in here accidentally and I got stuck. And it was like, wow.
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The judge was forced to declare a mistrial. It was here in Knox County, so it wasn't shocking to me.
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Everything good about this woman was twisted. Everything good about this woman was turned around to be evil.
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The first cartridge fired would be this one. The second would be this one. And the third would be this one.
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Was David Leaf in any way capable of any sort of voluntary movement after that bullet transected his brain?
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There was only one person who wanted to harm David. And at that point, it was David. He was acting suicidal.
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She was taking care of a sick husband who she loved. And for that to get twisted into what it did is upsetting. She's got hope that the justice system isn't so broken that it won't eventually realize the truth, which is that she's an innocent woman.
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I'll give it to you. It's unusual. But to say because of that it has to be a homicide, I just can't go that far. There is a phenomenon called cadaveric spasm where a person can actually their hands can squeeze immediately upon death. What would you have ruled this? I would have ruled this undetermined.
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He's a great lawyer. He's super prepared. Fantastic lawyer. Fantastic. He's a bad actor.
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Didn't have toxicology, didn't have ballistics, didn't have medical records. It went from, can we figure out what happened, to can we prove this was a homicide?
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I'm glad that she reassessed and didn't try to make the same claims about toxicology at the third trial, but it's six years too late for my client.
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Right. As a forensic pathologist, at least on the evidence that I've been privy to, there's no way on earth I think she's guilty.
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If anybody has any doubts as to whether David was murdered by Rinella, maybe they need to talk to Steve Walker.
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We're not saying we know exactly what happened, we're just saying we know there are multiple ways that all of this makes sense that don't have anything to do with the homicide. There was only one person who wanted to harm David, and at that point it was David. He was acting, with his physicians, suicidal.
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...where we were going with certain things and trying to piece those things together. Inside each line is an individual stain.
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I'm a crouton on a real big salad here, and this is a big salad in this town.
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She had a towel around her hands, and she comes up with it and starts shooting.
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I'm defenseless. She said, I used to be a better shot than that, but I can hit you from here. And she aimed that gun, and I closed my eyes. She pulled the trigger. I knew I was gone. But the gun was out of bullets. There was no doubt in my mind. If she hadn't run out of bullets, I'd be dead.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Why would she plead guilty? It's the same thing I would have told her, is this is a plea that will get expunged. There is no jail time. Take this deal and walk away. Raynella Leith did walk away.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
something happens that no one sees coming. If you can picture like a cartoon, you know, of someone's jaw hitting the floor.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
If Judge Summers was so convinced that he was right about the evidence, Why not let us deliberate it? And how do you explain that? I can't. Only Judge Summers can.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
when Joshua Hedrick was sitting on that bed and he was twirling that cylinder on that gun. It was a burden to my family. It was just so corny.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
It was fake. He was trying so hard. After that, I was like, all right, they're trying so hard that it's so obvious now.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
He stole that verdict from the family, from the prosecution, from the jury. It was a theft.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
How are you doing, Raynella? You guys weren't worried about her before, so leave her alone now.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
I said to my mother I thought he'd hit the jackpot with this girl because she was so pretty and so interesting. I just thought, this is going to be a great fit.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Yes. The reports were an agricultural accident, but some folks in the community had a problem with that scenario. Ed grew up on a farm. For him to have been trampled by his own cattle, that just didn't make sense.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin, cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental. John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him, cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental. And you can find the show notes at atp.fm. And if you're into Mastodon, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
So that's K-C-L-I-S-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O- So I have some updates about the Rivian.
Accidental Tech Podcast
624: Do Less Math in Computers
Now the show is over. They didn't even mean to begin. Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental. John didn't do any research. Marco and Casey wouldn't let him. Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental. And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM. And if you're into mastodon, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Accidental Tech Podcast
624: Do Less Math in Computers
So that's K-C-L-I-S-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-Q-U-S-A. It's accidental. It's accidental. It's accidental.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin. Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental. John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him. Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental. And you can find the show notes at atp.fm. And if you're into Mastodon, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So that's K-C-L-I-S-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Now the show is over. They didn't even mean to begin. Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental. John didn't do any research. Marco and Casey wouldn't let him. Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental. Accidental.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And you can find the show notes at atp.fm And if you're into Mastodon You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M S-I-R-A-C U-S-A Syracuse It's Accidental It's Accidental It's Accidental
Accidental Tech Podcast
618: Type System Says No
Now the show is over. They didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental. Accidental. Oh, it was accidental.
Accidental Tech Podcast
618: Type System Says No
John didn't do any research. Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental. Accidental. Oh, it was accidental. Accidental. And you can find the show notes at atp.fm And if you're into Mastodon You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M S-I-R-A-C U-S-A Syracuse It's Accidental It's Accidental It's Accidental
Accidental Tech Podcast
618: Type System Says No
All right, John, you want to update us a little more specifically about your app?
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Now the show is over They didn't even mean to begin Cause it was accidental Oh it was accidental John didn't do any research Marco and Casey wouldn't let him Cause it was accidental Oh it was accidental And you can find the show notes at atp.fm And if you're into Mastodon, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
So that's K-C-L-I-S-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-
Accidental Tech Podcast
620: Mostly Cookies
Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin, cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental. John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him, cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental.
Accidental Tech Podcast
620: Mostly Cookies
and you can find the show notes at ATP.FM and if you're into Mastodon you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S so that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Hey, everyone. Welcome back. We're going to be diving into some pretty fascinating territory today. AI art. You guys sent in some really interesting questions about John Syracuse's blog post. I made this. And to be honest, it's got us thinking pretty hard over here, too.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Yeah, it really gets into some thorny territory fast.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It does. It does. So, I mean, everybody's sort of played around with those early AI art generators by now, right? But Syracuse is kind of digging deeper here. He's asking, like, who actually creates AI art?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's a great question, because on the one hand, you've got these AI systems that are basically like giant sponges just soaking up all this data, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Exactly. And they can pump out these crazy realistic images in seconds.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Which is mind-blowing in itself, basically.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Totally. But Syracuse is really wrestling with something more fundamental, I think. He's trying to figure out if we can even call it creation when it comes to AI.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Right. Like, are we just talking about fancy algorithms here or is there something more going on?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And that's where it gets interesting because he uses this analogy of emailing an artist and asking them to paint, you know, a polar bear wearing a cowboy hat riding a unicycle. The artist goes and paints it. Beautiful masterpiece. They own the copyright. No problem.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
But what if you swap out the artist with an AI?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Right. You just type that same request into a text box and boom, you've got your polar bear unicyclist.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Exactly. So then who's the creator in that scenario?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
No, you missed the middle part where you asked an artist to do it. Or is it the company that made the AI? That was the important part. Because it's their technology.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Before we can even begin to untangle the whole question of ownership, like who owns the copyright to AI art, we need to grapple with this more fundamental question of who or what is the creator in the first place?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Because if we don't know who the creator is, how can we say who owns it?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Precisely. And that's where things start to get really interesting and complicated.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I think that's what makes this such a big deal, right? It's not just some theoretical debate happening in a vacuum. This stuff has real world implications.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Absolutely. I mean, you think about all the different fields that could be impacted. Photography, graphic design, music, even things like writing and filmmaking. I mean, the potential here is huge. And it's already happening.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Right. Like it's not even a question of if AI will disrupt these industries. It's already starting to.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Exactly. And that raises a whole host of questions about jobs and livelihoods. And, you know, copyright law is scrambling to catch up with all of this.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Which is a whole other can of worms.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Oh, totally. But beyond even the economic and legal questions, Syracuse makes this really interesting point about the impact of all this on human creativity. Like what happens to us? What happens to art when suddenly anyone with an Internet connection can crank out something that looks like a masterpiece?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I don't think I made that point at all. If you don't have to hold your craft over years and years of practice, does that diminish the drive to create in the first place?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Right. Like you think about your own creative pursuits, whatever they might be. There's a certain satisfaction that comes from the process itself, from pushing through those frustrating moments, those creative blocks and coming out the other side with something you're proud of, something that's uniquely yours.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Absolutely. I mean, I was working on this song a while back and I hit this wall just totally stuck. Couldn't figure out where to go with it. Almost gave up. But then, I don't know, something clicked and I finally broke through it. And that feeling of having wrestled with it and finally found the solution, it's just incredible.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I can't imagine getting that same feeling from just typing a few words into a computer.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Yeah, it really makes you question what it is we value about art in the first place. Is it purely about the end result? Or is there something inherently valuable about the human element, the intention, the struggle, the imperfections even that go into the creative process?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Is it even possible for AI to replicate that experience? And if it is, do we want it to? I mean, it's a lot to unpack. So where do we even go from here? We've got this potential decline in human creativity, this legal minefield around ownership. What's the next step?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Well, Syracuse doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but he does offer this really intriguing what if he suggests that maybe trying to force AI art into our existing copyright law is kind of like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
The idea that creation has to be this single definable act by a single entity, right? Which has always been the basis of copyright law. You can pinpoint the creator and therefore you can determine ownership.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
But AI throws a wrench in that whole system because it's not always so clear cut. Is the creator the programmer who wrote the AI's code? Or is it the user who typed in the prompt? Or is it somehow the data that the AI was trained on all those millions of images and text snippets?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's like this weird blend of human and machine creativity where it's almost impossible to separate the two.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Right. And so Syracuse's point is that maybe instead of trying to cram AI art into this outdated framework, maybe we need to rethink the whole concept of creation and ownership for the digital age.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So instead of black and white, it's more like shades of gray.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Precisely. He's suggesting that maybe we need to embrace the ambiguity and complexity that AI brings to the table instead of trying to erase it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's like AI is making us rethink like centuries of assumptions about what art is and who gets to be called an artist.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Yeah. And, you know, that can be a little unsettling for some people. Like it's challenging these deftly held beliefs about human exceptionalism.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Deftly held beliefs? Totally. But for others, it's like this really exciting time, this explosion of possibilities, like we're on the verge of something totally new and uncharted.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Exactly. And I think Syracuse captures that tension really well. He doesn't shy away from the hard questions.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
No, he definitely doesn't. And speaking of hard questions, he leaves us with a pretty big one. He says, instead of just asking, you know, who made this when it comes to AI art, maybe we should be asking, how do we want to define made in a world where AI is becoming this powerful creative force?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I love that question because it shifts the focus away from trying to find the one true creator. And it puts the emphasis on what kind of future we're trying to create.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Exactly. Like it's not about assigning blame or credit anymore. It's about taking responsibility for the tools we're building and the impact they're having.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And it's about recognizing that AI isn't just this neutral technology. It's shaped by our values or biases, the choices we make as a society.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It makes you think about the ethical implications, all the unintended consequences that we might not even be able to foresee right now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Absolutely. It's like opening Pandora's box in a way. But instead of just fearing what might come out, maybe we can try to steer it in a direction that benefits humanity.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So it's not just a technological challenge anymore, right? It's a philosophical one, a social one, an ethical one.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Totally. It's about figuring out what it means to be human in an age of intelligent machines and what role creativity will play in all of this.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Yeah, and I don't think there are any easy answers here, but I do think Syracuse gives us a good place to start. But this is the end.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
We didn't get anywhere. It's about having those difficult conversations, being willing to challenge your own assumptions and being open to new perspectives.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I think that's something we've tried to do here today, to really grapple with the complexities of AI art. Are they going to do a Squarespace ad now? Absolutely.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I think it's a conversation that's only going to become more important, more urgent as AI continues to evolve.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So on that note, I want to thank you all for joining us for this deep dive into the world of AI art. It's been quite a journey.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It really has. It's just the beginning.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So until next time, keep those creative sparks flying, whether they're human or artificial. And we'll see you all in the next one.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Now the show is over. They didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental. Accidental. Oh, it was accidental. Accidental. John didn't do any research. Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental. It was accidental. And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM. And if you're into Mastodon, you can follow them.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
At C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M Auntie Marco Arman S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse It's accidental They didn't mean to Accidental Tech Podcast So long
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Right. Get ready to fire up those stoves. Because today we're diving into something seemingly simple, but surprisingly nuanced. John Syracuse's legendary basic pasta sauce. You wouldn't think a simple tomato sauce would require such a deep dive.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
But trust me, Syracuse approaches this recipe with almost philosophical reverence.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
What's fascinating is how he breaks it down into this soft trinity, emphasizing that the ingredients, the process, and the time all hold equal weight. He argues you can't just nail one of these elements. You have to treat them all with equal importance.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Okay, so it's like three-legged stool, neglect one leg, and the whole thing collapses. So let's start with the foundation ingredients. And seriously, that doesn't hold back on his thoughts about tomatoes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Oh, no, he goes deep, especially on the San Marzano tomatoes. He could have just said, use canned tomatoes. But no, he practically wrote a dissertation on finding the perfect San Marzano.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
For those of us who haven't quite reached that level of tomato enthusiasm, what is it about these San Marzanos? What makes them so special?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
They have this unique combination of low acidity, a natural sweetness, and a meaty texture, which makes them ideal for a well-balanced, flavorful sauce.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
However, Syracuse is also realistic. He knows finding truly authentic San Marzano's can be a challenge. He even links to this hilarious video where he's case testing different brands. Wow. I'm sorry, what?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Oh, man, I've got to see this video. Me too. Yeah, me too. I didn't know I made a video. Can they generate that for us?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
He does say a good San Marzano style tomato you enjoy is better than an authentic one you don't. Right. Exactly. And that actually ties into his whole philosophy. Is that two different people? Same voice? Understanding the ingredients. Ultimately trusting your own judgment.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
There's that trust element again, just like with the sauce trinity. You have to trust your gut, which leads us perfectly to the next part of the trinity. They're really adding a lot to this, because this is not that much text. And Syracuse gets real about the anxiety of burning the sauce.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
He does. I get real. People stop being polite. Start getting real about burning the sauce. Reference acknowledged.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
He says a burned sauce ruins the entire batch, which, let's be honest, is a fear we've all experienced in the kitchen. I hope you haven't all experienced it. But what's the science behind this low and slow approach?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Low heat allows the flavors to develop slowly and evenly without that harshness you get from high heat. And it prevents burning, which can ruin the flavor of the whole sauce. He's also a stickler for stirring, not just letting it simmer on its own.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So it's about being engaged in the process, not just letting it simmer. This is so. He doesn't want us to just go off and watch TV while the sauce simmers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
This is not a set it and forget it kind of sauce.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Speaking of being present and engaged, let's talk about Syracuse's very specific instructions on fresh herbs.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Oh, yes. The fresh factor, as I like to call it. He's very clear about wanting us to use only fresh parsley and basil chopped right before they go into the pot.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
He is. And I love how he emphasizes not refrigerating the basil, saying it dulls the flavor.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's like he wants to capture the essence of these herbs at their peak. And that little tip about storing parsley in a glass of water like a bouquet of flowers. So simple yet brilliant. So brilliant.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
He would argue, and I'd have to agree that it makes a world of difference, See, fresh herbs have these volatile oils that give them a vibrant, almost nuanced flavor, which you just don't get with dried herbs.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It instructs us to add a whole peeled onion to the sauce, but then we just discard it at the end. Spoiler alert.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's like a culinary magic trick. No, it's not. It infuses the sauce with this really subtle depth of flavor.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So it's like a secret ingredient that disappears, leaving behind its essence. It's not a secret.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's an ingredient. It's a classic technique to add another layer of complexity without overpowering the other flavors. Think of it like using a bay leaf. You don't eat it, but it subtly enhances the overall taste.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Mind blown. It's like sugar. Even when it comes to something as basic as an onion. Now, his actual cooking process seems pretty straightforward, wouldn't you say?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It is, but straightforward doesn't mean foolproof. This is longer than the recipe you wrote. Way longer. Yeah, it is. Time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Ah, yes, the simmer. He does have some specific guidelines about that, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
He does. He recommends simmering for one to two hours, which seems pretty standard for a good tomato sauce. But then he throws in this interesting curveball. He says he often finds less is more.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So it's not like baking where you absolutely need to follow the recipe to the letter. You're telling me he's cool with me eyeballing it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
The man could explain the nuances of drying herbs and make it sound like a suspense thriller. No. He emphasized the sauce as it simmers because overcooking can make it bland.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Wow. Wow. I'm blown. The more you cook it, the more flavorful it gets.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
That's what's so great about Syracuse's approach. He encourages you to trust your instincts, not just the clock. Your instincts. No, I definitely do not encourage that. And start adding those optional meat additions.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Right. We briefly touched on the meatballs and sausage before.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
How does simmering time come into play when you're adding those to the mix?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Well, now you're not just simmering for flavor. You're also making sure those meats are cooked through. And, of course, Syracuse has some very specific thoughts on this as well.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I bet he does. Does he have a size guideline for the meatballs?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
He does. He actually compares them to sports equipment. He says they should be bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a tennis ball with a billiard ball being the absolute maximum size.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Only Syracuse could use sports equipment as a meatball size guide. What's the reasoning behind this?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It all comes back to that final element of the sauce trinity, time. The larger the meatball, the longer it will take to cook through. You don't want to end up with undercooked meat in your sauce.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Safety first. So it's all about finding that balance between simmering long enough to develop those deep, rich flavors, but not so long that you end up with a bland or even worse undercooked sauce. It's a delicate dance, but clearly undercooked.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It really highlights how even a seemingly simple sauce requires a certain level of like attention and care.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It does, and that's what makes Syracuse's approach so fascinating. He doesn't just throw a recipe at you. He guides you through the process and encourages you to understand why.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's about trusting your sense of your instincts. You can tell they're not trained on our show. Yeah, exactly. Mind blown. What final thoughts would you leave our listeners with as they embark on their own pasta-making adventures?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I'd say use this recipe as a starting point, a foundation upon which to build your own culinary masterpiece. Don't be afraid to experiment with different tomatoes, maybe try a mix of herbs or even adjust the simmering time to suit your taste.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So just like he trusts us to find the perfect San Marzano, he's also giving us permission to make this recipe our own.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Precisely. It's about discovering what brings you joy in the kitchen. Cooking shouldn't feel like a chore. It should be a celebration of flavors and creativity.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And on that note, I think we've given our listeners plenty to chew on today.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Indeed. Chew on hot. The nuances of San Marzano tomatoes, the importance of low and slow cooking, the magic of a whole onion, and the empowering realization that even a basic pasta sauce can be a platform for culinary exploration.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Who knew there was so much to unpack in a simple tomato sauce? A huge thank you to our expert for guiding us through this delicious deep dive.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And to our listeners, we hope this episode inspires you to approach all your culinary endeavors with a newfound appreciation for the process, the details, and the joy of creating something truly delicious. Until next time, happy cooking. Happy cooking, John.
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All right. So I was up late last night. Late for me as a dad is like 11 p.m. But I'm sitting here at my computer in my dark basement, you know, pulling notes together. David, what music did I have on? You have one guess.
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I remember Facebook events. Like when you look at the page, it was a Bing map, not a Google map that always like felt emblematic of the partnership to me.
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Yep. Okay, so interestingly, here we are, 2007, Facebook is still saying, we don't need to be in control of the core revenue creator for us. Like, we think platform is the future. Microsoft, you're our preferred partner to handle making the money.
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The other thing that's happening here is Mark still kind of thought ads were gross at this point in history. So the things he cared about were product and engineering and design, and he kind of wanted to outsource everything else or at least have someone else at the company think about it. And having Microsoft take care of the ads was, I think in his mind, kind of a win-win.
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That way the commodity stuff can happen elsewhere and I can focus on the thing that really matters. And the company really did not have the insight yet. Oh, we can do ads different and better than anyone has ever done them before.
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No way! He always talks about the growth team. I never knew he was in charge of Beacon first. Yeah.
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into this i actually i don't buy it at all the obvious thing is show an image that people can click on and take them to a website it's display ads and like i don't understand why they needed to try to way overthink it and say our ad format has to be something that no one's ever thought of before like just offer advertisers to do the thing that they know how to buy
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These are actually two different things, I think. There was Beacon, which was JavaScript that an advertiser could embed on their website, on an e-commerce provider's website, that would do exactly what you're talking about, publish into the newsfeed purchases that people were making. And like...
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This was at the point where you wanted to publish all sorts of interesting different things on social media. I don't think we knew for sure that purchases wasn't going to be one of them. Like people still keep their Venmo history public. You don't know what people are going to do. The second thing that I think is in your description there a little bit is the idea of social ads.
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That brands could take interactions that happen on pages and boost them, but they couldn't just take out a regular old ad. So it was this weird thing where like you could only advertise as a brand to people where someone in their network had interacted with your brand page.
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Pretty convoluted. I get that it's like this super natively social thing. But again, it did feel like they started in this place where like, let's get way too clever for our own good first and then work backward to the most basic ad unit.
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Yep. Users don't want it. Users are confused why they're seeing. I mean, certainly there's instant blowback against their publishing my purchases. Someone, I think, had an engagement spoiled by a diamond ring getting broadcast online.
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Yeah, nuts. There are only 8 billion humans on Earth. So as I started to brainstorm what the closest competitors could be to serving half of the humans, I thought, surely I can find it in empires or governments from the past where there is some larger percentage. Yeah, makes sense. Nope. The Roman Empire, at its peak, was only 40% of humans, tops.
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Yep. And then, of course, advertisers are confused and people don't really understand what's an ad, what's not an ad. They just burned credibility everywhere by launching both of these things.
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Oh, the social ads was years and years, but the purchases, you're right, that was just, I think, a couple weeks.
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She had built the greatest digital advertising system in the world. And Mark was like, oh, I'm trying to build the greatest digital advertising system in the world. Who could I ever get to do that with me? And wouldn't it be great if that person was also a good manager and leader who could teach me how to manage and lead? Yes.
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Yeah, she definitely famously kind of led the exploration of what business are we actually in here?
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Yeah, so it's funny that I don't feel like in the public eye we really knew these things. But as you kind of dig into the company history, you're like, oh, there are these moments in time where growth really did stall out. And Chamath has said on stage since then, oh, I totally thought that growth was done. And there's a few things to note about the growth team.
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Yeah. Everyone who wants to get into growth now, I don't think really fully grasps that is a brand new discipline invented in 2008. And the way they sort of defined it at Facebook was there's marketing, there's product, but marketing and product both touch customers in different ways. And so the left hand needs to talk to the right hand.
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So for example, you should not have a marketing team that is sending out emails through an email marketing system and a product team that is sending out notifications to users through the product with no notion of how they're speaking to each other.
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you should A, unify those efforts through one team, and B, that team should live within product, or at least that team should be tightly coupled to product with the general belief or reason for being that your product is the best lever to grow.
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No amount of marketing you could ever throw at something that is not integrated into your product will be as effective as your product doing a good job with features hitting the right users with the right message and the right value at the right time in a native way to the core feature set of the product.
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And so you've got Shamath, you've got Alex Schultz, you've got Naomi Gleit, and Javier Olivan. And so you've got this core early team. It's four people, and then it expands to kind of six or seven folks that are formed...
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really on this agreement between Chamath and Mark of we are going to have this dedicated growth team and our mission is going to be to grow Facebook using Facebook itself, not through extrinsic measures.
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Yes. There's these interesting things that make it tick. The first of which is this has to be the most data-obsessed team in the company. Every team should be data-obsessed, blah, blah, blah. But the growth team is really the one who sort of discovers, oh, here are the obvious places where users are deriving value. Here are the obvious places where users are getting confused.
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Here are the obvious opportunities to find new users. Here are the obvious opportunities to reduce friction. Analytics is the answer for that.
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And I think that there's a lot of really interesting stories, especially around internationalization of the growth team and partnering with other product teams around the company to say, what is an engineering and product approach to something that traditionally has been done other ways? Like the way most people would translate their product is by hiring translation engineers
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firms or by hiring a dedicated person to go through string by string and edit. Well, we're Facebook. We have all these users. What if we just, you know, when we're launching in Spain, surface different words to Spanish speakers and say, okay, is this the right word for Spanish or not? Hey, can you translate this and crowdsource it and double check it with everyone?
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And that way you can not just translate five or 10 of the top languages in the using Facebook itself. Because, oh, by the way, when you translate the product, way more people can use it. And so translation itself, internationalization is a growth lever, and we have product ways to do the translation with our users.
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That's exactly right. And I think my point with all this is, A, growth is a pretty new discipline in our industry. Two, growth is not marketing. It's very tempting. You see, especially with incumbents, like big Fortune 500 companies who have someone whose title is growth, and then you ask them what they do, and you're like, oh, no, that's not growth. That's marketing.
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You don't actually modify the product at all. So that's a different thing. And it's important to realize, like, not only did Facebook kind of invent the discipline, they are perhaps still the best at it. They really eat, sleep, and breathe the idea that growth comes from product.
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Man, it really is crazy, the Facebook diaspora. We're going to keep seeing this as we go along. There's other names where people will be like, whoa, I didn't realize they were at Facebook. But many of the names that have come up so far, yeah, the diaspora is pretty talented.
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Dude, I just got lost in it. Did you know that that's what I was looking at right now? No. I was sanity checking. I was like, oh, is that person part of the original growth team? And I opened Facebook. The newsfeed distracted me. I scrolled down. There were stories at the top. I scrolled down one post. Below that first post was an ad. Below that is people you may know.
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And I am like three panels over in people you may know because I was like, oh my gosh, I'm not friends with them. We're doing a podcast together live. And I just had that experience.
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Oh, this is funny, by the way. I watched two different talks by people on the early growth team, and one of them cited 10 friends in 14 days. The other cited seven friends in 10 days of, you know, how do you create the magic moment? Alex Schultz, who's now the CMO, gives this great talk, gosh, a decade ago at startup school with Sam Altman.
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And he makes the point, look, it's kind of a linear thing. Yes, you want as many friends as possible in the least amount of time. It's not like, oh, magically at 10 friends in 14 days, it's like super different than nine friends in 14 days.
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But you just set a threshold somewhere and you set the threshold and then you're like, okay, if we can deliver this delightful experience where now people have a rich newsfeed and the people they care the most about in the world to interact with, they're going to retain.
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I'm so excited for – I guarantee you at least one of the people that I just friended is going to be listening to this podcast and realize what just happened because I haven't friended anyone on Facebook in years. And I just sent out like three or four friend requests.
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Yes. They just have to – new growth tactic, have people do podcasts about the company and then –
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Well, if you're on the web and this is the late 2000s, you ask them to authenticate their web-based mail service of choice and then find out who they've been emailing and then use that to figure out who their friends are. Magic. Magic. You know, there's other less nefarious ways, you know, see who has sent them links in the past, who are also logged in Facebook users.
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That's right. They went from 150 million users to 350 million. No, in like one year. Isn't that wild? Crazy. The other core piece of the stat whenever you're looking at growth is to look at engagement. Engagement in 2008 was also in the doldrums. 50% of monthly actives were daily actives. And
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From what I can tell, that basically was just an artifact of as the company got bigger, every marginal user they added was sort of less engaged than the early core users. You know, when they went from colleges to high schools to open registration, it just was going to have slightly less product market fit. But growth team is focused not just on growing new users, actually an even better lever.
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Every long-term goal is retaining your existing users and the best lever for retention is engagement. And so that was where a huge amount of their energy went. So this is really interesting. 50% of monthly actives were daily actives in 08. Since then, they have basically improved that metric every year. There's been a little bit of variance, but it is now almost 70% today.
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been a maniacal focus on how do we make as many monthly actives, daily actives as possible year over year over year over year.
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How did that work? Because friend feed would just federate stories from other social networks into one aggregated feed.
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Man, FriendFeed was so awesome. It's funny in this era where I'm now checking multiple feeds every day, Twitter, Threads, Instagram, all the messaging services to catch up on my messages, occasionally the Blue app. I kind of need FriendFeed again. That was like the most amazing product.
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But yeah, I mean, talk about another amazing part of the Facebook diaspora. Facebook would later acquire FriendFeed.
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And then famously, Brett becomes the co-president of Salesforce by way of acquisition. And then eventually board chair at Twitter when the whole X thing was going on. And now he's on the board at OpenAI. Yeah.
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Crazy. And he's got a new startup of his own. So I'm telling you, the talent that moved through that place.
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So he ended up at Facebook for a while then after, I forgot about Paul too. That's unbelievable. Unbelievable.
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Okay, so FriendFeed invents the like button. Facebook, I believe, was going to call it the awesome button. And then at some point right before launching, I think Mark personally made the call. It's just too weird. Let's go with like.
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On the flip side, the concern was that it would actually decrease meaningful engagement. There'd be less comments.
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And the like button then also got used for pages. It became this sort of form of capital among brands of how many Facebook likes does your company have. which for a while actually meant you could organically get messages out to them. Every time you posted, it was as if a company was a person and you just show up in the feed before Facebook ultimately was like, eh, those are advertisements.
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Which is probably one of the last few years that that would be the case. I'm sure if you went to this school today, it'd be 80% of the classes or 100% of the classes really into computers.
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Yep. And the like button ended up being the perfect Trojan horse to move Facebook platform off of Facebook. So there was a reason for third-party websites to embed Facebook's JavaScript in their pages. Because of course you'd want to be able to like an article or like a brand all up on their website. You know, how many Facebook likes do you have?
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If that's what matters, we want people clicking like on our website too, not just over on Facebook. And so suddenly now every company on earth has some Facebook and has a
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reason to embed some Facebook JavaScript right there on their page, which, my goodness, that's going to serve as a great signal back to the advertising algorithm where we can drop cookies and we can see who is moving around the web in what ways.
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So it's perfect for platform, but it's also perfect for feeding data into their advertising system now that they have something that brands and third-party websites are incentivized to drop right on their page.
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It's also time to start thinking about what is our biggest existential threat. It's so funny that we're talking about, and the existential threats are over. We've won. We have platform going well. We have this advertising business going well. We're getting data from the open web because we have like buttons everywhere. Everything is going our way. We finally have it dialed.
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And none of that matters in a mobile world. As people shift from spending time on the web to other apps, that open web data used as signal goes away. All of your ability to take payments. By the way, Facebook had launched payments. At some point, they started requiring apps to use their virtual currency.
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Facebook credits. That's right. All of these amazing pillars that they've built were for the open web and created the most incredible business known to man. And mobile is a completely different thing.
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And Facebook was born on the web. I mean, how crazy is it that they could build Facebook on entirely free technologies at the beginning? Yeah. and then get distribution just by people sharing URLs around. Browsers are interchangeable. Operating systems are interchangeable. It works on any device that anyone wants.
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Yeah, if you live on the web, you have infinite degrees of freedom and flexibility to control your own destiny.
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And that's primarily because of that thing around you can't launch an alternative app store.
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Not to mention, if you are paying for things on their phone, you have to use their payment system. So Facebook credits ain't going to work because you can't charge 30% on top of 30%.
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Right. You get told what your development environment is. This is the language. These are the frameworks. These are the APIs you're allowed to call.
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And in fact, there's like a cultural allergy to the idea of polluting the beautiful, pristine, organic news feed with an ad. We don't require a big cultural change.
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Which, let's be clear, comparing those growth rates, another way to simplify that and say it is, our user base is shifting to mobile from desktop.
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I think I listened on Sound Jam, but it's just because I had a Mac. Oh, yeah. Future seeds of iTunes. Yep, that's right. It got acquired by Apple, and then eventually they, I think, built off the same code base and turned it into iTunes. But everyone used Winamp. That was the aim of music players.
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And at this point in time, there was approximately a two-week delay between pushing an update and it being reviewed and accepted.
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Or your company could be in a fight with that company and they could decide, eh, I don't think you should push any updates for a while until we resolve our fight.
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Exactly. And the wisdom at the time was that mobile apps should be narrow in their functionality, and you did not expect a single app to bundle in a ton of different use cases.
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And you can see why Facebook adopted that sort of early 2010s constellation of apps strategy. For a while, they had Slingshot, Poke, Messenger, Paper, Rooms, Riff... Camera. The belief by a lot of companies for the direction mobile was going was... There's going to be specialized apps each for their own tiny little purpose.
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And that's not great if a lot of your value is we bundle a lot of stuff in to create the most user engagement to all feed into each other for people to use all these different components of our application.
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No. So they're going public right into this. For the first time since our business is founded, we face a real existential threat completely out of our control that is going to make the next few years look really bad. Let's go public.
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Yes. But first, it is time to talk about one of our favorite companies, Statsig. A phrase that many of you will know from Facebook's early days is move fast and break things. But despite instilling this in Facebook's engineering culture, Facebook didn't actually break very often. And it essentially never goes down now. How?
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wild. You might wish your team could build products like Facebook, right? Ship fast, make data-informed decisions, iterate rapidly, but you don't work at Facebook and you don't have those tools. So you're stuck, right?
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And they've also gotten some crazy traction over there at Statsig. Many of the world's leading tech companies rely on them, including OpenAI, Microsoft, Notion, Anthropic, Figma, plus thousands of early-stage startups. In fact, their scale has gotten so crazy that they process over a trillion events per day. For any engineers listening, they have a great blog post about how they do this.
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Thanks, Statsig. All right. So, David, here we are. We're going public despite everything you just listed that is wrong with the future of mobile and this company.
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Yes, it is a odd time to go public, given everything with mobile. And of course, they're being forced into it. There actually are a couple of kind of tailwinds that they have that are probably worth touching on here. The first of which is they had just beat Google+. That's right. Facebook treated this like a total existential threat. We laugh about Google+, now. It's a butt of jokes.
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But that's because Facebook was so effective in competing against it I'm not saying the product itself was amazing and it would have been fine without Facebook, but Google did not end up executing that well on that product.
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I mean, this is like the growth team plus Facebook's engineering culture at its finest in defeating this. Whether or not they executed the product well, Google was the big web tech company at the time, and they put a ton of resources and a lot of their best people on it. And they had Gmail. And they had Gmail, right.
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So it's interesting to look at this because Google basically is Facebook's biggest business model comp, right? They show ads on the web, and they monetize that really well. This theoretically could have been in their wheelhouse. This is just more real estate to show ads on the web. And they've already got all these people with user accounts. You can see why Facebook took this really seriously.
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We've talked a lot about Facebook's technical prowess. Well, here is an example of where it really kicks in when you need it to, to be a key competitive advantage. So they structured themselves in a way that encouraged flexibility of engineers. And they really broke from the tide of microservices in this era. They had one monolithic code base that everyone worked out of.
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And you might say, well, that's stupid. Why would they? That's not the way the world was going. But... What they basically did was they wanted to encourage portability of teams. If you're an engineer, you get hired into the company, not onto a team. You learn the company's code base, you learn the company's conventions, and you can easily sort of move around after that.
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You do have to deal with the trade-off then of you have this big monolithic code base with gigabytes of PHP code for thousands of engineers. What do you do about that? Well, then they just had their cake and eat it too. They would go and have the... infrastructure team figure out how to deal with that problem rather than saying, oh, everyone can just work in their little silos.
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And so that meant that engineers could kind of be quickly reorged. They could have this company-wide lockdown to fight Google+. And they did all sorts of things. They launched video calls to compete with Hangouts. They launched something to compete with Google Circles. But either way, they could really quickly reallocate resources and people who sort of knew how to work together
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to defeat what could have really been an existential threat from their biggest similar company.
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Yep. There is a second way in which things had settled down and now was a good time to go public, and that's around privacy. Facebook had just been, I mean, playing way too fast and loose with user privacy for years, and it had finally caught up with them by 2011. And just to jog your memories, I'm sure people may remember a lot of these.
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Some of these included, even though users could restrict the audience of their posts with a setting, this apparently didn't apply to apps, which could access these posts regardless of how you restricted the audience. And for a time, this even included when your friends installed an app too. You didn't even have to grant the permission yourselves.
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Similarly, they made friend lists public without user consent at one point. Facebook could decide without user consent to change private fields of your profile to be public, and this wasn't always messaged as clearly as it could have been to users. So to remedy this, they had just signed what is called a consent decree with the FTC, the U.S.
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Federal Trade Commission, in 2011, and they promised to make a bunch of changes regarding user privacy issues going forward. And so all this was behind them now. And interestingly, David, an FTC consent decree is the same thing that Microsoft signed.
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Yes, the FTC consent decree with Microsoft was the predecessor to the big DOJ suit. In this case, the FTC consent decree is the predecessors to what eventually would become the Cambridge Analytica settlement. So here in 2011, the way that they settle this is there's a bunch of provisions that with Facebook promising they'll be tighter on making sure user data is treated in a very particular way.
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They're subject to audit every year for two years, for the next 20 years. You know, there's all these things that they sort of agree to. But, you know, once you sign a consent decree, it's like, okay, we're through it. We don't have this thing hanging over our heads. We can go public and say, oh yeah, that's in the past. We've taken care of it. That's another reason to go public right now.
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Yep. You could almost look at it like a little bit of a win of everyone knows us as the company that is a little bit dodgy on privacy practices. At least the public perception is this, that they're constantly... Changing the terms of the game, shall we say. Yes, to the company's advantage when it was confusing or misleading to users.
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And now you can say, look, not only did we sign that, we have these five product initiatives in place where we're just buttoned up now. I actually think that's pretty true. I think they became a company that had rigorous privacy practices. because of some government regulation when they otherwise may not have.
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I mean, if you look at the early days of what you could do as a developer on platform, it was pretty wild west. And so I'm not saying it's fully because of the consent decree, but they could definitely tell a story around, look, we made some mistakes, we got some things wrong in privacy, and going forward, we're in good shape.
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You know, the data's a little bit hard to actually find from that period of time. But the British Empire, which we have a little bit better handle on, at its peak was only 23% of the global human population. So no government, tech company, utility, etc. has ever addressed so much of the world. It's just wild. There's no other way to put it.
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Well, not to mention Instagram had 27 million users. Facebook had 900 million users. This was potentially a problem for future Facebook, but this was not currently a problem.
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Not to mention, on top of it all, we're not going to go into it here because we had a whole episode on Facebook and Instagram, but this was done over two days, over the course of a weekend. Mark didn't do a whole lot of socializing this before pulling the trigger. He just knew it was the right thing to do and did it.
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Yeah, and I think Microsoft was one of them too. It was for like a million dollar acquisition offer or something like that. It wasn't, you know, crazy, but these are high school kids.
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Which both of those are mature companies that are going public under weird circumstances. Those are not comps. Totally. Yes.
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So you have to have nerds of steel to even just keep holding. I'm sure anybody who got back to even at 16 months was delighted.
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Yep. And so here is where founder control matters. This is... David, it's interesting you're explaining the mechanics of a death spiral. That would presume there's a board of directors who feels a strong desire to do whatever is best in the interest of the shareholder, and they might think that it's these short-term things. But... Yes. Yes. So, a little fun anecdote for everyone.
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David and I, among the 20 other people we talked to to prep for this episode, one of them was Sheryl Sandberg. And we were asking Sheryl, in particular, how did you start the monetization effort on mobile? They were in the third column. There's no third column on mobile. What did you do? And her comment to us was, oh, we just stopped caring about the right side ads on desktop.
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Right. He sort of always knew he had a great fallback plan. So it kind of let him be risk on.
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And we took every engineering resource we could off of that. And we put it on mobile. And we knew we were going to miss the current quarter. I think they missed a lot of quarters right after their IPO. But this was us trading the present for the future. And all we cared about was our future. And she said this great quote.
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She was sitting there with Mark late at night. And when they sort of arrived at this plan of we are going to forego a lot of desktop revenue to basically bet it all on figuring out mobile revenue, she said, well, Mark, nobody can fire you and only you can fire me. So if you're in, I'm in. And we buckled our seatbelt and we said, here we go. And it's amazing.
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I mean, that can only happen in a founder-controlled company. And it really did force them to figure out mobile advertising. If they really are saying, like, this is the new first-class product, this is where we're going to point all advertisers toward... If they're wrong on that, they're wrong across the whole board.
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Because if ads suck on mobile, since it's the only thing and it's filling up your whole screen, user engagement is also going to nosedive. And so it's basically a bet-it-all moment where the ads are front and center, so they must be good. It is essential for the mobile product and thus your company for them to be good.
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Users' attention will be pointed at these ads like no other ads you have ever run before. And actually, the flip side of this is it ended up being the best thing ever for the company. Because the ads are front and center, the value per ad is actually higher.
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So they ended up creating a much, much more valuable ad unit than they ever had on desktop purely because of this incredible attention on them when you're scrolling in feed on mobile. Necessity is the absolute mother of invention.
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Yep. Also, bummer if you are an employee selling six months after that IPO. Hopefully as many people held as they could to get through it.
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And it's an iterative process where you're going to hear a bunch of feedback from brands and you're going to say, ooh, we got to modify the ad products, which still continues to this day. They roll out and modify ad products. It's not like a, all right, we now have ads in the newsfeed. We're good.
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Totally. Do you remember those Mary Meeker decks that used to go around where they would show the mobile advertising, basically the shortcoming? Look at all this attention that has shifted to mobile, and yet the monetization just isn't there. And that was a story every year for like a decade.
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Have you seen this? His dad sort of filming his reaction, and he's pretty measured about it. It's very, yep, got into Harvard, and then kind of goes back to doing something else on his computer.
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This is the most interesting thing. At this point in history, Mark is putting pressure on Boz and Cheryl to show fewer ads. Yes. And Boz is the one with the contrarian view who comes to Mark and says, we're thinking about this all wrong. We actually need way more ads. not just a little more ads, huge amounts more ads because a great ad is on par with content.
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And if you have tons and tons of ads, then we can do way better targeting. Like you have this beautiful liquid marketplace of hundreds of thousands of advertisers, billions of users, and at any given time, somebody can see the optimal ad for them and get recommended an amazing product that perfectly fits their needs in that moment. with messaging that's perfectly tailored for them.
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Great advertising can be great, but you need a really, really liquid marketplace and you need fantastic algorithms, which you can only have if you train them on tons and tons of data. So like we actually need 10,000 times more ads than we have right now, not less. It's almost like the only way out is through. We're going down this path.
Acquired
Meta
And basically, like, that's what happened. I mean, flash forward 10 years, I opened Instagram to get great product recommendations.
Acquired
Meta
And probably not that early if... I guess that's right, because all the resources got pulled off of it.
Acquired
Meta
It's the best ad unit in history. It's an ad that completely fills the screen on your device and that users are okay with. So this is the most insanely captivating, engaging ad unit that you could possibly ask for. And it came out of necessity. It's wild. The fact that they thought their backs were against the wall, they were totally screwed.
Acquired
Meta
And instead, actually, it's the thing that monetizes better and is better for advertisers than any other advertising product they've ever had.
Acquired
Meta
Right. Right around this time, too, the other thing that's happening is, kind of glossed over this for time, but Facebook's initial attempt at a mobile app was to try to work around all the constraints of the mobile app ecosystem, and they thought, well... That's nice that the app stores are going to try and box us in, but we'll just ship our mobile web views inside of a thin little app wrapper.
Acquired
Meta
And that way we can deploy multiple times a day. You know, we're Facebook. This is what we do. It's part of our culture. HTML5, woo! Provided a horrible user experience. I mean, the engagement on the app was low. Time spent was low. It was a risk to start selling these ads. because people don't want to spend any time in the app, even without ads, let alone when you start layering these in.
Acquired
Meta
And so they're finally starting to sort of pull out of this tailspin. They basically spent a year completely rewriting all their mobile clients to be these rich, beautiful native experiences. This is a thing that Facebook has always been good at. Whenever they decide to do something, they go and recruit like the actual best talent in the world to do it.
Acquired
Meta
And this group of people that they pulled together from Joe Hewitt forward to write their original iOS app, it's just like, some of the best iOS developers and designers in the world. They hired Mike Mattis and the Pushpop Press team when they acquired them. That's right. That's right. That became, I think it was Creative Labs. Is that right? Facebook Creative Labs.
Acquired
Meta
But, you know, a huge amount of that talent worked on their mobile apps. And so while they had the wrong strategy at first, once they got religion around native, they really created something, probably one of the best apps ever on mobile. Yeah.
Acquired
Meta
Yeah, reading in between the lines, it seems like the thing that he was most excited about is, oh good, a challenging environment where I will encounter other really smart people like myself who are ambitious.
Acquired
Meta
I don't know that it was hope as a strategy. I think it was more like, if this can work, it's going to solve a lot of our problems. And I don't think they correctly estimated how wide the user experience chasm is between web apps and native apps.
Acquired
Meta
And I think they had to have an app in market where users were actually using it to realize, oh man, the state-of-the-art in native that the platform vendors have developed, iOS and Android, is really, really good.
Acquired
Meta
And they have brought very little of that to the web experiences, partially because of standards bodies, but also partially because it's not really in their interest to make web apps great when they can force everything through an app store that they have more control over. Yeah.
Acquired
Meta
And that in particular, I mean, everyone's going to laugh when we say this word, the legitimate synergy between going to an advertiser and saying, you can use this dashboard to get placements on Facebook and on Instagram is massive.
Acquired
Meta
Both of those products monetize better than they ever could without that single channel that the advertiser only has to go through and use one dashboard to place on both products. If you flash all the way forward to today, the lion's share of Meta's revenue comes from the ads that run on Facebook and Instagram. Their whole business today can just be summarized as that.
Acquired
Meta
The big brand advertisers may not move to this new type of ad format right away, but the people that are going to be really hungry to move to that ad format are a game developer who makes a mobile app and wants to market their mobile app to people who are A, on that platform, and B, in a leanback experience where they're open for some entertainment.
Acquired
Meta
And when you are scrolling through a feed of your friends and brands and you are open to, oh, Hey, look at this, a game where I could click one button and then boom, install a game and play it. Is there a better moment and channel to reach someone for an app? No. I mean, even if you're Apple, Apple doesn't have a better way to do this.
Acquired
Meta
People don't search the app store for apps that often, so you'd have to show them like a pop-up ad or something. Facebook just has this opportunity where you're in an experience where you're open to some new form of entertainment, and they have the ability to place a button there with rigorous targeting and incredible ad sales force.
Acquired
Meta
Totally. The Instagram team noticed over time that even before Snap started eating their lunch, that engagement would decrease the longer you stayed an Instagram user because you over time being done with these permanent posts and you sort of saved it for the big announcements in your life that there wasn't a natural way to just effortlessly share.
Acquired
Meta
Because when these platforms all started, everyone was in debt sharing with the town square the whole time and everyone was getting a little bit more clammy about that as time went on.
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Meta
And so every piece of data and metric that they had, you're right. They sort of realized, oh, the world is shifting from town square to living room is the way that Mark put it.
Acquired
Meta
Also, can I just say, how crazy is it that Adam D'Angelo would become Facebook's first CTO? They don't go to college together.
Acquired
Meta
Right. And by living room, he means small private groups of super close relationships.
Acquired
Meta
If you own an engagement platform and someone figures out a new mechanic to make them much more willing to freeform share and your platform seems to encourage them to stay back, be quiet, only post once in a while, maybe lurk, It's not good. Content creation on the platform going down is really, really bad if you are an engagement company.
Acquired
Meta
You know, Snap represents the idea that people are sharing way more if it's ephemeral, and WhatsApp represented the idea that people are shifting the places they communicate from more public to more private and from larger groups to smaller groups, both of which are concerning if you are a Facebook Blue app.
Acquired
Meta
In the over 20 years since its founding, Meta truly has connected humanity through its apps. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and now threads. So today, we're going to study how they did it. there's been a lot of ink spilled writing about Facebook over the years.
Acquired
Meta
Well, to have that, you would either need to have some kind of SDK that gets bundled into apps like an analytics provider, or you would need like a VPN where like the traffic was going through it so you could see the traffic.
Acquired
Meta
Yeah, I think they looked at it as we need some way to level the playing field if we're competing against Apple and Google in different ways, and they have this data because they own the platforms. We kind of need to be able to see those same trends. On the other hand, there is another way to view this. If you're looking for examples where Facebook...
Acquired
Meta
you know, may have considered their own interests over being forthright with users over how their data is used. Well, this could be another big example. Users who were using Onavo didn't download it with the intent of sharing, you know, their app usage data with Facebook.
Acquired
Meta
Because Harvard's is weird, right? It's like you can leave, and if you ever want to come back, it's like you never left.
Acquired
Meta
Yeah. So obviously they fought those two companies in very different ways. One thing they learned from fighting Twitter over the years is that there are these social mechanics. Or perhaps an interaction paradigm might be the right way to talk about it. A post or a like or a retweet or a disappearing photo message. And the thing that kind of matters is owning a valuable network.
Acquired
Meta
The idea that people are going to come and give you their attention and you own the place that they connect with other people that they authentically, verifiably know. That's the scarce commodity in order to kind of win the engagement game. And the mechanics are actually kind of fungible. And they're totally a means to an end.
Acquired
Meta
So if you discover some mechanic and you build this whole multi-hundred million user network platform, ad platform based on it, that's great as long as no one comes up with a better mechanic than you and then goes and rebuilds the network somewhere else. So one thing they learned with Twitter was, hmm... They seem to be growing really fast with this status update thing.
Acquired
Meta
We need to look a lot more like status updates. And that worked pretty well. There were a lot of people that basically never switched to Twitter because they thought, oh, I can just use Facebook for this.
Acquired
Meta
And it also has photos. So like Twitter is this weird esoteric text sharing thing. I'm not really all about that. I'm just going to keep using Facebook.
Acquired
Meta
So as they're looking around at Snap, hey, someone has discovered this new stories mechanic. My goodness, that is suddenly obvious that that is what the future is. It now feels old to do anything else. It's kind of like when you got a Retina iPhone for the first time and you're holding your non-Retina iPhone and you're like, this is instantly a piece of crap.
Acquired
Meta
I'm not ever going to touch this disgusting thing again. I think when someone invents a new interaction paradigm, it's one of these things where, like, you have to adopt it because otherwise people are just going to flee.
Acquired
Meta
And of course, your business depends on you adopting it because you can't let someone use this new discovered mechanic that's perfectly timed for this moment in history with these set of cultural acceptances and this new set of technologies to go rebuild the network somewhere else. And so I think the thing that they sort of discover is...
Acquired
Meta
either through buying or through copying a mechanic, we need to protect our network by bringing these interactions into our family of apps, either by, as Ben Thompson would put it, the audacity of copying well, or of course, by buying them.
Acquired
Meta
Copying well or buying well? Yes. So listeners, of course, we don't actually ever know what anybody's intent is or what they're thinking when they decide to buy a company or something like that. This is just sort of David and I guessing at strategy from the outside. We do have, thanks to a court case, an actual email from Mark Zuckerberg on February 28th.
Acquired
Meta
2012 to their then CFO talking about at the time they're sort of discussing the Instagram acquisition, but laying out the idea behind an acquisition strategy. The basic plan would be to buy these companies and leave their products running while over time incorporating the social dynamics they've invented into our core products.
Acquired
Meta
One thing that may make neutralizing a potential competitor more reasonable here is that there are network effects around social products and a finite number of different social mechanics to invent. Once someone wins at a specific mechanic, it's difficult for others to supplant them without doing something different.
Acquired
Meta
It's possible someone beats Instagram by building something that is better to the point where they get network migration, but this is harder as long as Instagram keeps running as a product.
Acquired
Meta
pause which is pretty interesting that is the argument of why to keep instagram separate and running as its own product is because instagram's already discovered this fascinating new mechanic around publishing one image at a time with these beautiful filters if anybody else tries to come after them they're already ahead so actually the best thing to do is own instagram and let it keeps doing its thing anyway
Acquired
Meta
Resuming, integrating their products with ours to improve the service is also a factor, but in reality, we already know these companies' social mechanics, and we will integrate them over the next 12 to 24 months anyway. The integration plan involves building their mechanics into our products rather than directly integrating their products, if that makes sense.
Acquired
Meta
By a combination of these two things, neutralizing a potential competitor, integrating their products with ours to improve the service, one way of looking at this is that what we're really buying is time. Even if some new competitor springs up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc., now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again.
Acquired
Meta
Within that time, if we incorporate the social mechanics they are using, those new products won't get much traction because we will already have their mechanics deployed at scale. It is goddamn brilliant, David. Here's my commentary based on all this. It is so smart to basically say, well, if we buy them, we basically get two strategies that we get to execute at the same time.
Acquired
Meta
One, we just leave them alone and let it keep succeeding. It's actually not a current potential threat. We don't know if it will turn into a potential threat. Hell, Instagram wasn't making any money yet. WhatsApp didn't have a feed. It was just a way people connected. It's not like just because they had a network, they were going to turn it into a feed.
Acquired
Meta
So there's this idea that it's not a competitor now. By buying it, we basically get this option on if it becomes a competitor, if we completely leave them alone and let them decide what to do. But then there's also, look, we will integrate those mechanics into our core product, Facebook, the blue app that already has well-built out network effects.
Acquired
Meta
And by owning this thing that could become a competitor, there isn't white space in the middle. Anyone just like us is also going to take time And they're not going to do it as good as the original, and they don't have our network. Therefore, whether the winner turns out to be the original product or us incorporating the mechanic into the Blue app, we've won either way.
Acquired
Meta
And probably what's going to happen is both. Yes. So brilliant. And that is what happened with Instagram. WhatsApp is actually kind of different. It never really turned into a competitor. It just serves a completely different use case and is also owned by Meta. And then with Snap, they tried to buy Snap over and over again, and it didn't work.
Acquired
Meta
And so they basically figured out how to bring those mechanics into Facebook's core products with Stories in a way that Snap kept doing their thing, but there was really no reason to leave being an Instagram user because you already had that functionality with your own network anyway.
Acquired
Meta
Right. That's interesting. Basically, even if you copy the feature wholesale, it's actually even better, not just because you have the network, but because your algorithm tech is very advanced. You can make sure it's the most possible engaging version of that particular interaction design.
Acquired
Meta
In the mid-20-teens here, there's a bunch of other stuff that we got to get to, but TikTok is particularly interesting because it kind of blindsided Facebook. Yes.
Acquired
Meta
If you believe that the asset that matters is the authenticated, real-name network of people you actually know or people you care about following, you kind of think, oh, I always have a lead as long as I can incorporate someone's mechanic, right? What if engagement is possible on an app that has nothing to do with your social network?
Acquired
Meta
That's terrifying because this big asset that you've built, this durable competitive advantage of we already have all the people, so why would you want to go anywhere where your friends aren't? The magic of TikTok was AI suddenly, in the late 20-teens, became sufficiently advanced that it could show you the optimal thing created by anyone in the world.
Acquired
Meta
Most of the time, you don't actually know that person. So suddenly, the only competitive advantage that Facebook, the company, has is people have a habit of tapping on their apps when they're bored. But that's a pretty thin competitive advantage. That's really easy to break.
Acquired
Meta
Totally. And so if someone is a great competitor like TikTok, who is incredibly well-funded, very good at strategically buying ads, has created their own growth function that is, they're just a very different animal and they're a very well-executing machine. And they obey a completely different set of laws, rules, regulation, norms, being a Chinese company.
Acquired
Meta
that created a competitor for Facebook that is more significant than anything they've ever faced. This wasn't like, oh, there might be an existential threat from this in the future. This was like, oh, crap. As soon as people form a habit around, oh, I just opened this black app with the white little music note on it, we have no more competitive advantages to throw at that problem.
Acquired
Meta
So we must as fast as possible make something like Reels just to stem the bleeding. And then we can figure out what to do from there and hopefully get to a market stalemate with them.