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The United States government just passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that allocates nearly $400 billion dollars to fund clean energy and climate efforts. A big chunk of that amount is earmarked for tax credits for consumers. So if you want to install solar panels, buy better windows, purchase a heat pump, or start driving an electric vehicle, there's a good chance you could get some money to offset the cost.
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED writers Aarian Marshall and Matt Simon join us to talk about the ins and outs of the Inflation Reduction Act and how you can score some of those sweet, sweet tax credits. They also tell us what some of the changes mean for the automobile and construction industries.
Read Matt’s story about how the Inflation Reduction Act could save you money. Read Aarian’s story about how it will lead to more electric delivery vehicles. Here’s their story about where people in cities will charge their EVs. Follow all of WIRED’s climate coverage here.
Aarian recommends going to a baseball game, preferably on the days when dogs are allowed. Matt recommends the novel Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Mike recommends playing Wordle, which is now (finally) in The New York Times’ mobile app. Lauren recommends NPR’s Life Kit podcast series about personal finance.
Aarian Marshall can be found on Twitter @aarianmarshall. Matt Simon is @mrmattsimon. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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Lauren Goode: Mike?
Michael Calore: Lauren.
Lauren Goode: Mike, are you planning to take advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act? Are you going to buy an EV, maybe?
Michael Calore: I can't really afford an EV, but can I get a tax credit for putting a windmill in the 100 square feet of concrete that I call my backyard?
Lauren Goode: OK, I've been to that backyard. Is there any wind? There typically isn't wind there.
Michael Calore: Oh yeah. There's tons of wind.
Lauren Goode: Really?
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Also, I don't know the answer to your question.
Michael Calore: We should talk about it.
Lauren Goode: We should, let's do it.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
Lauren Goode: Hi, everyone, welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: And I'm Michael Calore. I'm a senior editor at WIRED.
Lauren Goode: We're also joined this week by WIRED writers, Matt Simon, who joins us here in studio in San Francisco, and Aarian Marshall, who's joining us from a closet in Seattle. Hi, guys. Hello.
Matt Simon: Hello. Good to be back.
Lauren Goode: OK. So last week, President Joe Biden signed a huge bill into law. It's called the Inflation Reduction Act, and as its name implies, it's supposed to curb inflation here in the United States. But it also allocates nearly $400 billion toward building renewable energy sources and basically "retrofitting America," as Matt put it. That includes tax credits and rebates that we consumers can use on stuff like electric vehicles, heat pumps, and solar panels. So if you're wondering, "Well, how do I get in on that?" That's what we're here to talk about today. Matt and Aarian have been parsing through this 730-page bill and figuring out what it all means.
Lauren Goode: Matt, you wrote a story for WIRED.com about how this massive climate bill can save people money. So does that mean Mike can finally buy his cybertruck?
Matt Simon: No. I mean, if that's what Mike really wants.
Michael Calore: Sure.
Matt Simon: Go ahead, Mike. When's it available? 30 years? No, but, so this bill is sneaky, in a certain way, in that it is giving out a lot of money for homeowners to prepare their houses for climate change. That is through tax credits and rebates, which sounds like terrible tax code stuff. But it's actually very interesting.
Michael Calore: Can you tell us what the difference is between a tax credit and a tax deduction, and a tax rebate?
Matt Simon: Sure. A tax deduction is, so you make, what, $70,000 a year? A tax deduction would be, "OK, take $5,000 off of that. Then you get taxed on $65,000 a year." A tax credit is a bit different, in that it takes off a full $5,000. So if you get a tax credit for $5,000 on $70,000 of income, you owe however much tax on that. That's $5,000 straight off of that. That's just a lot more money. It's also just a lot more powerful for homeowners to get something like $1,200 for home insulation that's coming straight off that tax bill. That's not a deduction, which is more convoluted. And this is just supremely powerful, for many reasons, because Americans like money.
Michael Calore: Who doesn't?
Lauren Goode: And what about a rebate?
Matt Simon: Rebate is point of sale. So rebates are more focused toward lower income and middle income people who maybe can't wait to get a tax credit for the next year, or just don't have enough taxable income to actually make that worthwhile. With something like a heat pump, you can actually get $8,000 of a rebate straight off of it, at the point of sale, and with a tax credit, it's more like $2,000. But again, a tax rebate is meant for lower income folk who actually need more money to install these sorts of things.
Lauren Goode: That's interesting, because when I think of a rebate, I typically think of when I buy contact lenses or something, and they say, "If you buy them, you get a rebate, but you have to mail in this proof of purchase and this little slip of paper we've given you. And then, maybe you'll wait 60 days, then maybe you'll get it."
Matt Simon: It's annoying. This will probably be less annoying, though much more convoluted in the way that it's applied. Because you have to get a contractor, obviously, to do these sorts of things. But that also means that these contractors are going to be up on these sorts of things, because this is good for them as well. $8,000 off of what might be a $10,000 to $12,000 installation of a heat pump? That's nothing sneeze at.
Lauren Goode: So what are the key points for homeowners, that they need to know, if they're considering just taking advantage of any of these reductions or rebates?
Matt Simon: I think the key thing is that there are certain limits a year. So you get 30 percent off of certain home improvements for high efficiency improvements specifically. So, more insulation, better windows, better doors. You can take 30 percent off of each of those every year, going forward, for at least 10 years. That means that if you want to do windows one year, you can do that $1,200 maximum, up to 30 percent of that expense, but that's just applied year after year. And you can just, over time, retrofit your home in these really important ways to prepare for cold snaps and hotter heat waves, that sort of thing, but just generally being more comfortable and more energy efficient in your home.
Michael Calore: So if the idea is to get more Americans making their homes more energy efficient, what's the aggregate effect of that? What effect will that have on our climate goals in this country?
Matt Simon: It's really neat, actually. And it's pretty sneaky the way that they went about it. That sounds nefarious. It's a stealthy way to go about mass climate action, in this really interesting way. You or I retrofitting our home is going to do a little bit. It's going to make ourselves more comfortable, but if you do this across the American landscape, and you allocate billions upon billions of dollars for homeowners to do this in the aggregate, that's actually going to make a huge difference. In the United States, something like 30 percent of energy usage comes from residential homes. That's a lot, and, that has a lot to do with bad insulation. We just are not ready for this climate future of a hotter world. So the way that this bill is done is, again, this stealthy way to encourage individual action. But in the aggregate, that's huge for the country as a whole.
Michael Calore: So a lot of benefits for homeowners, but I rent. So what's in it for me?
Matt Simon: Right, you probably don't want to front $10,000 for a heat pump—
Michael Calore: No.
Matt Simon: —is what you're saying. That's on the landlord. Yes, so it's a little bit trickier with renters, because you're not doing these home improvements yourself, but what you can do is talk to your landlord about these improvements, being much more economical for them now, especially if they're able to get $8,000 off of a heat pump insulation. That's going to be good for them in the long term, just preparing their properties for this climate future.
Again, in the aggregate, if we get renters and homeowners all on board to think just fundamentally differently about how we live in the United States. We can't go on like this, just running our air conditioners like crazy or heaters like crazy, because we have poorly insulated homes. What this bill will do is hopefully retrofit vast swaths of this country, whether you're a renter and can enjoy the improvements that your landlord hopefully does, or if you're a homeowner who wants to do this yourself.
Lauren Goode: Of course, even if you're not a homeowner, you could invest some of your money into a new electric vehicle, but we're going to talk about that a little bit more in the second half of the show with Aarian, for those of you who are waiting with bated breath to hear from Aarian.
I'm curious. Let's say that you are a homeowner, and you can only afford the upfront cost of one of these clean energy or efficient items, new windows, solar panels, heat pumps. What's the one thing that you would say you can invest in for your home that would make the biggest difference?
Matt Simon: I apologize, this is going to sound really boring, but it's really important. It's insulation. Actually we have a huge insulation problem in the United States. Our homes are just not as efficient as they should be. You can do great insulation and take 50 percent off your energy bills immediately. Before we go around installing lots of solar panels and heat pumps, and things like that, we really need to think about this really boring idea of insulation. It's squirting foam into walls and things like that. It's going to be very important, going forward, especially as we have hotter heat waves. And that is, I think, where we need to focus the most effort. Then it just becomes an issue of labor, unfortunately. In the United States, we just don't have the people power to do all this retrofitting, but hopefully that changes, going forward.
Lauren Goode: Will that change at all, with this bill, with more money being put toward green jobs?
Matt Simon: There's actually a very interesting incentive here for contractors to work in lower income neighborhoods. They get money for doing so, which I think is going to be great for those, probably older, homes that are less efficient. That will be a much bigger conversation we have about labor going forward, that we need training programs. It takes years to train people to do heat pumps, which seems simple to slap one on houses: It's not, in any way, or to install insulation, or doors, or windows. We just need more humans to do this. They have training programs like this in Germany. We just don't have as many of them in the United States.
Lauren Goode: Matt, you've mentioned heat pumps a few times. Heat pumps are all the rage these days, and people are hearing a lot about them. I mean, one of our most popular stories on WIRED.com recently was one of your stories about heat pumps. What are they, and how do they work?
Matt Simon: So hot right now, heat pumps.
Lauren Goode: Pun intended.
Matt Simon: Climate nerds love heat pumps. They're so powerful in the climate fight. So what a heat pump does is, basically, it works like your refrigerator, in a strange way. So your refrigerator doesn't pump cold air into that space. It actually extracts heat from the indoor space of the fridge, to keep your food cold. And that's why the back of your refrigerator feels warm. That's the heat coming out of that air.
A heat pump works in the same way, in that it extracts heat from even cold outdoor air, and then pumps that inside. And then, in the summer, reverses to act like an air conditioner, really, basically like a refrigerator. So you get the best of both worlds there. The nice thing about it is that it is fully electric. It's not running on natural gas or anything. So the idea is to have these highly efficient heat pumps running in every American home powered by solar panels on the roof. You can get $7,500 in tax credits from this bill on new solar panels, for instance.
So if you fully electrify a home with these highly efficient heat pumps, we no longer need to rely on fossil fuels from utilities. The idea will be that in the future, American homes will be more active participants in the grid, and that we'll be generating our own energy, storing some of it in batteries, and then grid operators could then tap into that energy that we're storing. And then, when we need to run our heat pumps, we do so with our renewable power. That's the big dream. And actually, this bill is actually going to push us pretty far in that goal.
Lauren Goode: I look forward to the days of personal heat pumps, when we're all wearing vests.
Matt Simon: I like that.
Lauren Goode: That are just powered by their pumps.
Matt Simon: Yeah, I got a helmet that acts like a refrigerator. I'm all for it.
Lauren Goode: I look forward to the WIRED and Tired on that one. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to invite Aarian back into the conversation to talk about how this legislation will affect the EV market.
[Break]
Lauren Goode: Aarian, you've been writing about how the Inflation Reduction Act affects EVs, everything from the vehicles themselves, to batteries, to delivery services. This is one of the most interesting aspects of all of this, I think.
You wrote on WIRED.com that the new bill eliminates an old program that capped tax credits, but that it introduces some new conditions for the cars and that consumers won't get the full credit for an EV unless the vehicle meets those specific requirements. Tell us about this.
Aarian Marshall: Yeah, so they did some really interesting stuff with electric vehicles here, and a lot of it is doing something the US doesn't do often, which is industrial policy. And that means they're kind of creating these new supply chains, new industries out of whole cloth, which is really interesting and something you hear more about in Europe and China.
So the way it works here is, this new program gives a $7,500 credit to passenger vehicles, but you're only going to start qualifying for that credit in 2023, if the car you want to buy is assembled and manufactured in North America. Right now, there's only about 20 or so cars that will qualify: some Teslas, some Ford vehicles, vehicles from that startup Rivian, a few others. So there are some pretty heavy-duty constraints here.
And then it gets even more complicated in 2024 when these new requirements kick in that require that the materials in the electric car batteries are from the US, North America, or somewhere that we have a free trade agreement with. So that really cuts out China as a partner in building electric vehicles.
So much of our electric vehicle supply chain, and in particular, the materials that are mined and then refined to create these big, heavy, complicated, powerful electric vehicle batteries—a lot of that is from China. So a lot is going to have to change between now and 2024 for people to have access to that full $7,500 credit off their electric vehicles.
Michael Calore: We're talking about the car companies having to rebuild huge parts of their supply chains and having more manufacturing here in the US. And we're talking about battery manufacturers having to almost completely readjust their supply chains within just a couple of years. How is the industry going to manage that?
Aarian Marshall: Yeah, so you are right. It's going to be very complicated. There are a lot of big moving parts here, but actually, we're already seeing automakers begin to work on this. Earlier this year, we saw announcements from big automakers like Ford—they signed a deal to get more lithium in the US. And then, just this week, we saw Volkswagen and VW sign agreements to get some of their materials from Canada. So already they're clearly starting to think about the practical effects of this new legislation, and how they're going to work around it.
Lauren Goode: Now these credits, Aarian, they extend all the way to 2032. Does that mean that you could buy a car this year, but hold off on applying for any kind of rebate for the whole decade? Do you have to file for a rebate the same year you purchased the car? Also, we should know it's not retroactive. If you bought that shiny new Tesla in 2021, and of course, the Tesla does qualify, because it's made in the United States, you're out of luck, right?
Aarian Marshall: Yeah, that is unfortunately true. Right when the bill was announced, before it was officially signed, a bunch of automakers who still qualified for the old credit program, they sent out all these frantic emails to customers and said, "Hey, you need to have a binding agreement with us so you can qualify for the current tax credit program and get money off right now." But if you didn't do that, you're kind of out of luck.
Something I didn't mention before is that there are now income caps on these electric vehicle credits. So you could make too much money to qualify for these credits, but if you are lower income, middle income, thinking about an electric vehicle, I'd honestly wait a few months to figure out how the government is going to apply these new programs, because they are complicated. And there are a lot of people who are very confused.
Michael Calore: All right, so in a couple of years, there will be all of these new EVs out on the road, and that's a wonderful thing for the climate, but what about charging them? What about infrastructure? Is there anything built into the bill that is going to guarantee that the infrastructure is going to improve to serve this new market?
Aarian Marshall: Yeah, so that is also in the bill. First off, in the infrastructure bill that passed last year, there is $5 billion to build out this big sprawling interstate charging network along highways. So that is already in production, and states are already trying to put those in along the highways. What this bill also does is, you get tax credits now for building charging infrastructure.
For an individual, that could be in your house. You get 30 percent off of the price up to, I think, it's $300,000, and you can also do that if you're a business. That's a really big deal, and I think something people haven't really been thinking about enough, because 27 percent of our transportation emissions—which is already a quarter of what we emit in terms of greenhouse gas every year—comes from heavy- and medium-duty trucks. And also, they release particulate matter. Trucks are gross.
Lauren Goode: Do you mean trucks like passenger trucks, like SUVs, or big freights?
Aarian Marshall: No, I mean those big old medium- and heavy-duty trucks that you see on the highway carrying all your Amazon Prime goodies from place to place, and ...
Lauren Goode: And food.
Aarian Marshall: And food.
Lauren Goode: I was wondering how guilty I should feel about my very old Jeep.
Aarian Marshall: No, no. We're talking specifically about big trucks here.
Lauren Goode: OK.
Aarian Marshall: People can get money off for those, as well. And also, businesses can get money off building the charging infrastructure for those. Now, experts that I've talked to this week still caution that there's a lot to do on the utility side, making sure that we're getting the electricity to where it needs to go. There's a lot to build. It's going to be really complicated. But policymakers are certainly aware that we're going to need to have a lot more charging infrastructure, and they're working on it.
Michael Calore: So a year ago, there was a very different version of this bill bopping around Washington. It was colloquially known as the Build Back Better Act, right? In that version of the bill, there was a tax credit for ebikes. And now that's gone in this version, which is a pretty big bummer. But I do want to note that that 30 percent tax credit you're talking about for businesses can also be claimed if they install certain kinds of micro mobility charging equipment. So if you want to make your business more ebike friendly and you don't have to install something that's going to charge an EV, you can install something that would also charge an ebike, isn't that right?
Aarian Marshall: Yes, that sounds right to me. I would also agree that it’s a huge bummer that the ebike part of this didn’t make it into the bill. There are so, so many cool ebikes these days that’re coming down in price but still really expensive. And I think the biggest opportunity for ebikes is replacing people’s or households’ second car.
So if a family can get around with one car, and an ebike that they can use to get their kids to school, maybe even pick up groceries sometimes with a cargo bike, that would go really, really far in combating emissions from transportation.
There are some cities that are working on this, it's good news in some states that have or are working on programs for ebikes. But it's not coming from the federal level, and that sucks.
Matt Simon: To bring this back, I think, to the intersection between our two beats, I think it would be great to talk about the holistic home of the future, where we think that electric vehicles are separate, they're out on roads. But in fact they're going to be a big component of decarbonized homes going forward. I was wondering, Aarian, if you had thoughts as to how EVs actually play into our homes, not just the roads.
Aarian Marshall: That's a really interesting question, and we should probably write a story on this.
Matt Simon: We should.
Lauren Goode: No one steal our idea.
Aarian Marshall: Yeah, no one steal our idea. I think there's going to be a lot of charging going on in single-family homes. There are a lot of places that are working now on getting charging up in multifamily dwellings, like apartment buildings, and on streets. And I think it's really going to change the way that people think about using their vehicles and moving around cities and towns. But I'm not exactly sure. I think that's a great question. I'd love to hear if you have thoughts, Matt.
Matt Simon: Yeah, I always come back to homes becoming more active participants in the grid, as opposed to just using energy. I think there's a future in which distributed electric vehicles across the grid, sitting in garages—a utility can tap into those when there's a shortage of renewable energy on the grid. Because we have to think about, well, the sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow. If we're not using fossil fuels to fill those gaps in the future, those gaps could be filled by electric vehicles just sitting there idle. That's what I keep coming back to. That also just requires the price to come down for EVs, to get them into more garages, and to decarbonize as rapidly as possible.
Lauren Goode: It also requires buy-in from landlords. To Mike's earlier point, he's a renter, I'm a renter, I think a lot of us here are. Whenever I think about exchanging my aforementioned old Jeep for an electric vehicle, I think about, "Well, if I had to move from place to place, will there be the infrastructure there to charge it?" And could that vehicle then be used, to your point, as an energy source for the unit in some way?
Matt Simon: Yeah. Aarian and I, a couple months ago now, I think, wrote on what city dwellers do about charging their electric vehicles if you don't have a garage to do so. And there's, I think, going to be interesting things happening in lower income neighborhoods, in particular. We need to get more electric vehicles there, because air quality tends to be worse. It's an equity issue, as well. But yeah, the charging question is going to be going to be interesting. Do we convert gasoline fuel stations into EV fast charging stations, that sort of thing?
Lauren Goode: Well, I hope all the policy wonks and legislators out there are listening to our Gadget Lab podcast. So when the inevitable revision of the bill comes, or future revisions, some of these things are factored in. And more credits for ebikes, right, Mike?
Michael Calore: Please, yeah.
Lauren Goode: Yeah.
Michael Calore: Yes, that would have been nice to have, but in the meantime, we'll just keep on pushing.
Lauren Goode: That's right. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is from Bike Calore himself. All right. Let's take a quick break, and we'll come back with our weekly recommendations.
[Break]
Lauren Goode: Aarian, let's start with you. What's your recommendation this week?
Aarian Marshall: OK, my recommendation is an experience. Yesterday, I went to a baseball game. It was so nice. They're not that expensive. I mean, they're kind of expensive, especially if you get a beer, but if you don't get a beer, and you buy cheap tickets, it doesn't have to be expensive. And it was just so delightful.
And yesterday, at the Mariners game, which is the game I went to, you could bring your dog. So we brought our dog, and it was the greatest. And then we walked around the field with our dog afterward.
Honestly, it was just the most delightful thing that's happened to me for a long time. So go out there and celebrate America's pastime, with your dog, without your dog. It's lovely.
Michael Calore: Did you get on the big screen?
Aarian Marshall: We didn't get on the big screen, no, tragically. There are a lot of other cute dogs there, unfortunately, and I guess they thought they were more photogenic. I'm not offended.
Lauren Goode: What's your dog's name again?
Aarian Marshall: My dog's name is Cosmo.
Lauren Goode: Cosmo? All right. Well, you'll have to go back to more games so Cosmo can get his chance.
Aarian Marshall: That's true.
Lauren Goode: And did the Mariners win?
Aarian Marshall: The Mariners won.
Lauren Goode: Who did they beat?
Aarian Marshall: They beat the Nats.
Lauren Goode: Nice.
Michael Calore: Oh, nice.
Lauren Goode: So that's your old home?
Aarian Marshall: Right. It was, yeah, so ...
Lauren Goode: Your new home beating your old home.
Aarian Marshall: It's controversial.
Lauren Goode: Is your partner a Nats fan?
Aarian Marshall: Oh, we've switched our loyalty to the Mariners a little bit. I don't know if people are baseball fans out there. The Nats have mismanaged this season and we are not rewarding them with our loyalty.
Michael Calore: Right.
Lauren Goode: OK.
Michael Calore: Also, the American league is better. We can all agree on that.
Aarian Marshall: I'm actually a Dodgers fan, but sure. Sure, Mike.
Lauren Goode: I was going to say, I grew up a Mets fan, so that's a great recommendation. Thanks, Aarian. I haven't been to a baseball game in so long, but we'll have to add it to the list. We should do a Gadget Lab podcast from one of those suites. Do you think we can get Condé Nast to pay for that?
Michael Calore: Absolutely. I'm sure there's nothing that our bosses would rather spend thousands of dollars on.
Lauren Goode: Oh, Matt, we'll invite you. What's your recommendation?
Matt Simon: Not baseball. I don't have a single understanding of all the words you just said about baseball. But anyway, neither here nor there. I would recommend a book called Children of Time, which I just finished. It's science fiction, it is fantastic. Broadly speaking, it is about humans engineering a virus to supercharge evolution in apes.
They're like, "Hey, we'll just fire it down onto this planet, supercharge the apes' evolution, and they'll become humanlike in just a few generations." Things go slightly awry, and it infects spiders instead. So the book is an absolutely fascinating and entertaining tale of what happens when you supercharge the evolution of spiders, and they take over a planet. Amazing.
Michael Calore: Wow.
Lauren Goode: What happens, without spoiling too much?
Matt Simon: I would spoil ... It's all twisty and turny. I wouldn't even dare give you any more information, other than, "Whoops, we infected the wrong species with a supercharged virus."
Lauren Goode: Do the spiders maintain a spiderlike size, or are they like Hulk spiders?
Matt Simon: Good question. I think they're described as about the size of your arm.
Lauren Goode: Oh my God.
Matt Simon: So, sizable, but they're hyperintelligent. They invent all sorts of crazy stuff. I won't spoil, but it gets pretty wild, highly recommend.
Michael Calore: I look forward to the Hollywood adaptation starring Rick Moranis.
Matt Simon: Perfect. Bring him back.
Lauren Goode: Who would direct it?
Michael Calore: Sam Raimi, of course.
Lauren Goode: I thought you were going to say Michael Bay, or something.
Michael Calore: No, the best director of spiders of any sort is Sam Raimi, I think.
Matt Simon: Was that because he did Spider-Man?
Michael Calore: Yeah, sure.
Matt Simon: Yeah.
Michael Calore: Who was that ...
Matt Simon: Makes sense to me.
Michael Calore: Yeah, slightly larger than these spiders, in the sense they're the size of his arm. He's bigger than that.
Lauren Goode: Mike, I already know what your recommendation is. Because earlier in the newsroom, you were sitting there at your desk just a few feet away from me, and you went, "Oh my God."
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: And I said, "Oh no, what's happening? What terrible news now had just crossed your desk?"
Michael Calore: No, it was great news.
Lauren Goode: All right. Tell us about it.
Michael Calore: I got the Wordle answer today with a guess, which never happens to me. It's usually a long protracted process to get the Wordle answer. But my recommendation is Wordle, because it is now in the New York Times app.
So if you're a person who consumes The New York Times, and you're a person who also consumes The New York Times on your phone, through the app, on iOS or Android, there are always games at the bottom. For a very long time, we have not had Wordle. Even though The New York Times purchased Wordle last year, it's now in the app. It just showed up last week, I think.
So now it's easier than ever to play. And that's it, a very simple recommendation. Get into it. It's a lot of fun. If you're not familiar with a Wordle, first of all, who are you? Second of all, it's a game where you have to guess a five-letter word through a process of elimination, using all of the words in the English alphabet. And yeah, you get five tries, six tries. I don't know, I never need any more than three today. I'm just kidding. It is a lot of fun, and now is native, so do it. Wordle it up.
Lauren Goode: Wordle. And since, by the time people hear this podcast, it'll be tomorrow's Wordle. You can tell us what the word was today.
Michael Calore: Yeah, it's "needy." It was ...
Lauren Goode: N-E-E-D-Y.
Michael Calore: So, it was a process of elimination ...
Lauren Goode: OK.
Michael Calore: For me, because I guessed two very common words. I usually start with "crate," or "irate," depending on the day.
Lauren Goode: So you're using up an A, a T, an E?
Michael Calore: Yeah, all the common letters.
Lauren Goode: Yeah.
Michael Calore: And I got, all I got was an E, and it was in the wrong place. Then I guess some other word, and it was an E at the opposite end. And there were also, none of the letters, other than the E, were used.
So I was like, "All right, well, what letters do I have left, and what word can I make with them?" I typed "needy," and that was the answer. And I was like, "Are you kidding me?"
Lauren Goode: That's when you exclaimed, "Oh my God."
Michael Calore: Yeah, I really did.
Lauren Goode: Just in the news room. You were the only one.
Michael Calore: Lauren did the psychoanalysis, and she said, "Well, maybe that was from your subconscious. And you're actually feeling really needy for that today," yeah.
Lauren Goode: Well, it's true. Well, not you, but you said earlier this morning, "My God, I'm getting 80 text messages and DMs right now from all these people."
I was thinking, you were thinking that maybe the people around you were needy, like your writers.
Michael Calore: Yeah. I am needy, because I need to know what your recommendation is.
Lauren Goode: Well played. So I finally finished the Anna Wintour book. Listeners of this podcast will know I've been talking about this for the past few weeks, I finally finished it. It was very good. That it is not my primary recommendation this week, though. Can I tell my Anna Wintour email story?
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Anna Wintour, she is our boss's boss's boss here at Condé Nast, most people know who she is. Occasionally, she might show up on one of our zooms, and very occasionally we get an email from her address to the company in our inbox.
One time last year, I actually got a direct email from Anna Wintour. Two years ago, we had another podcast at WIRED called Get WIRED, some of you might remember it. It only lasted for about six months in 2020, and it eventually won a Webby award.
After it won a Webby award, I got an email from Anna Wintour, addressed directly to me, saying, "Congratulations," and just another sentence or so, just wishing me well, "and you should be so proud." And there were, like, exclamation points in the e-mail.
Michael Calore: A note of huzzahs.
Lauren Goode: Yes. I was like, "Oh my God, I got an email from—Anna Wintour emails me, me, my goodness." The following week I was hanging out with some friends in New York City, and two of these friends in particular had worked very closely with Anna.
They asked how work was going, and I told them a little bit about this podcast, and, "Oh, by the way, it won a Webby ward. And oh, by the way, I actually got an email from Anna Wintour." I mean, you could tell, I was pretty blown away by this.
Michael Calore: Yeah, yeah.
Lauren Goode: They said, "Well, what did it say?" And I described the email to them and they said, "Oh, there were exclamation points? Yeah, her assistant wrote that."
Michael Calore: Bravo noises.
Lauren Goode: Anyway, that was my email from Anna Wintour. That's my story.
Matt Simon: She at least directed the assistant.
Lauren Goode: Absolutely, absolutely.
Michael Calore: She had all kudos for you.
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Matt Simon: Even if they weren't at her fingertips.
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Michael Calore: She spoke your name.
Lauren Goode: Yes, that is going on my LinkedIn profile. Thank you, Matt.
Aarian Marshall: Also, when she sends company wide emails, it always says No Subject, and it's terrifying. Because you're like, "This is it. This is it for me."
Lauren Goode: Yes, and that's what happened. It was directly to me with no subject, so I assumed it was a companywide email. And then I opened it, lo and behold, it was addressed to Lauren.
Michael Calore: Wow, that's very special.
Aarian Marshall: It just never has a subject.
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Aarian Marshall: We should all aspire ...
Matt Simon: How, Matt ...
Lauren Goode: We should all aspire ...
Michael Calore: Yeah, who needs one?
Lauren Goode: To send our emails without subjects?
Matt Simon: Straight to the point.
Michael Calore: It's an unnecessary field.
Lauren Goode: Yes, yeah, straight to the point. But the book was actually fascinating. So I guess that is a recommendation of mine, but it's not my primary one this week.
Michael Calore: Oh, that's nice.
Lauren Goode: Sorry.
Michael Calore: So Lauren, what is your recommendation?
Lauren Goode: OK, OK. You're so needy, Mike. My recommendation this week is on point with the rest of this conversation, which is the NPR Life Kit series focused on money.
So NPR Life Kit is a really wonderful podcast, and it's very popular, but they have since branched out and now there are these sub-Life Kit podcasts. There's one for health, and anyway, I've been listening to the one for money.
And it's great, because it's really on point. Many of the episodes over the past six months or so have been focused on inflation, and how to save money if you're really feeling the pinch from inflation. But sometimes they bring in outside guests that just are—maybe they'll bring in an auto expert who tells you, "here are the three things that you need to get your car checked for on a regular basis" so that you don't end up spending thousands and thousands of dollars in repairs down the road.
That was actually really inspiring to me, because it made me think, "Oh, I haven't had my tires checked in a really long time." And I called the tire shop, and it turned out I hadn't had them looked at since 2016.
Then I was like, "Got to add that to the list of things to do this year." And they talk a little bit about how not to spend emotionally, because a lot of times our finances are tied into our emotions, and yeah, just how to save money.
So I have really enjoyed listening to NPR Life Kit "Money." And I highly recommend it.
Michael Calore: Nice.
Matt Simon: I wonder what my deep existential despair causes, as far as my spending habits are concerned.
Lauren Goode: It could be a lot of things. You could do a little retail therapy, and not realize that you're doing it. You could be ordering more takeout, and justifying it in some way because you're busy or stressed. And you're not really realizing how much you're spending on takeout. Yeah, could be a lot of things.
Michael Calore: You don't need those 10-mg gummies.
Matt Simon: You're going to need 15-mg gummies.
Lauren Goode: Hey, you did it, right?
Michael Calore: You need the 15 ones.
Lauren Goode: Oh, spoken like true Californians.
Matt Simon: Yes.
Lauren Goode: All right.
Matt Simon: Obey the law.
Lauren Goode: Yes. So when you're done reading the book about the pre-2008 Condé Nest era and the wild expenses, listen to NPRs Life Kit on money and how to save money.
Matt Simon: Solid.
Lauren Goode: All right. That's our show for this week. Thank you so much, Matt and Aarian, for joining us. That was great.
Matt Simon: Thank you.
Aarian Marshall: Thanks.
Lauren Goode: Thanks. And thanks Mike, as always, for being a great cohost.
Michael Calore: Of course.
Lauren Goode: And not too needy. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter. Just check the show notes. Our producer is the excellent Boone Ashworth. We'll be back next week. Bye for now.
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