Deep Questions with Cal Newport · 2026-10-22 · 14 min · 2,639 words

Why Did Big Tech Stop Building Useful Products?

Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Timestamps stay in sync with the live audio

Here's something about the technology industry that I've been thinking about recently. How did we go from this? An iPod. A phone. and an internet communicator.

These are not Three separate devices. This is one device. To this. Now for those who are just listening, the first clip was of Steve Jobs

Introducing the iPhone. And the second clip was from a recent Tesla product demo where they showed a Tesla Roadster, and I don't know how else to describe this, but to say doing a rocket powered kick flip over a parked vehicle. So if in the first clip we have jobs trying to convince the audience that this new product is going to immediately make their lives much better, that second clip can best be described as A circus act.

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