Joe Weisenthal

I should have said in the intro that you're actually the author of numerous books on kind of, I would say, disparate subjects.

So I'm very curious why you decided to cover something like subsea cables.

I think the confusion comes with wireless, right, where you're holding your cell phone and it's like, well, my cell phone isn't actually attached to anything at the moment.

So it's hard for people to wrap their heads around.

Sorry, I realized we kind of skipped ahead.

But for people who who do like to malign Senator Stevens on his tubes comment, why is it that we can't just send data all through cellular means?

Why do we need fiber optic cables at all?

Okay, that makes sense.

So the other thing I really want to ask you is who actually makes these decisions about what gets laid and where and who's financing it?

I know you mentioned that big tech nowadays pays for most of it, but I imagine that must have changed throughout time, right?

If we're thinking back to that first transatlantic cable, maybe it was wealthy industrialists trying to do something nice for the world.

I don't know.

Maybe it was governments pressing forward with it.

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The role of who's funding and planning these things must have changed throughout time.

Wait, let me just say as a regular Amtrak commuter, I do wish there were multiple tracks.

One can dream.

Actually, this reminds me, the other thing I wanted to ask you is how much does geography play into these decisions?

Because again, going back to that chart, they very much resemble shipping lanes.

So getting from point A to point B, presumably as fast and efficiently as possible.